Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

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

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, I just want to say I so strongly support my colleague from Connecticut. I so oppose what is going on here with the Republicans. Time and time again they have had a chance to open this government, and they say no. We have the votes in the House. The Senate passed it. We sent it over there. Let's make sure we do what is right for the people. That means opening this government. We show up to work. We have two things to do to earn our pay; one is keep the government open. Just because people are going to get health insurance and it bothers some Republicans, sorry you lost that battle 3\1/2\ years ago and then in the election. So we have to keep the government running, and we have to pay the bills that we all incurred. They are threatening chaos. I am so appreciative the Senator from Connecticut came down and gave another chance to our Republican friends to let them join us and do our job.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I won't be long, I say to my colleagues. I wish to thank our Leader Reid for bringing back a sense of history, for putting this fight over the new health care law into context. I did some research on what Republicans said about Social Security when it came up before in the Senate and the House: This is the end of the world. It was socialism. It was going to destroy mankind. I have the quotes. They are in the Record. No, Social Security proved to be the most successful antipoverty program in America. People love it. But they keep trying to take it away. Under George W. Bush they tried to privatize it and we Democrats stopped it. Then you go look to the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson talked about Medicare and the fact that our grandmas and grandpas at that time were being supported by their children because there was no health insurance available. This was the end of the world. Even Bob Dole in the 1990s said, I was there fighting against Medicare. Bob Dole, a wonderful man, a Republican: I was fighting against socialism. And now even tea party members put signs up: Don't touch my Medicare. So now we have the next reform, the Affordable Care Act. Republicans have called it ObamaCare. The President embraces it. In California today people are so excited. Millions of Californians who are uninsured will have the chance to get affordable health care. And, I might say, you go to coveredca.com, and you see the platinum plans that are the more expensive plans, you see the bronze plans, the least expensive, the silver plan. Who is going up there? Not people who already have insurance--it is about 80 percent--but those who don't. And in my State, the working poor will have a chance to get a Medicaid card. Thank God we have a Governor and a legislature with compassion, unlike other States where the Governors are saying, No, we don't care; we think it is going to cost too much. Well, the fact is we know, and the reason the Affordable Care Act ObamaCare saves a lot of money over time is because people get the health care they need and they get it early. We have a horrible day here today. I have 169,000 Federal employees, and about 80,000 of them are going to get furloughed. These are hard- working, good people who work for the Border Patrol, who work for the FBI, who work for NASA, who work for the National Park Service, who keep our Federal buildings clean and open, scientists, caseworkers who do important Social Security cases, Medicare cases, food inspectors, small business loan officers so important to the small business community--they are going to pack up and go home. To my Republican friends who brought this Republican shutdown, these are hard-working people. I don't have one Republican on my bill who would take away our pay in a shutdown. Not one Republican. But they are ready to take away everybody else's pay. As a matter of fact, yesterday--to a person--they voted to take away the employer contribution from their own staff for the health care. I couldn't believe it. By the way, they don't need a law to do it. Senator Vitter's bill: Take away your health care--you don't need to take that employer's share. Give it back to the government. Call in your staff if you think they deserve this treatment and tell them you are going to reduce their salaries, and send the check back to the government. You don't need legislation to do it. That is how mean-spirited it is around here. So we face a nonsensical shutdown. I want to talk about exactly where we are. The House sent us a 6-week bill that keeps the government going at certain levels of spending. Then the Republicans say, well, the Democrats won't compromise. I have news for the Republicans. We don't like those numbers in that continuing resolution. We think they are way too low. We think they are hurting the economic recovery. We see the deficit's down by 50 percent. We don't have to bring about this austerity. We think it is hurting jobs and the economy, but that is not enough for them. They have a victory on the number, but they want to add other things to the budget that have nothing to do with the budget and have everything to do with their obsession with repealing health care reform, just like the Republican Party has had an obsession for years. I forgot to say, remember Newt Gingrich's famous line on Medicare, ``It is going to wither on the vine'' and Paul Ryan's budget, which destroyed Medicare as we know it. It is our main responsibility to keep the government going, to pay our bills. Instead of sending us a clean bill, they send us a bill with lower numbers than we want, we accept the numbers, and then they tack on these mean-spirited amendments to hurt people--with the exception of the repeal of the medical device tax, which would blow a $30 billion hole in our deficit. They repeal it. They have no way of making up for that money that would be lost to the Treasury. I could not believe it. Yesterday, their first take was to take away women's health care. Three of us went up to the gallery and we said: You continue your war on women. They actually, in the House, repealed an existing law that gives women cancer screening, gestational diabetes screening, and making sure they have the correct supplies and the counseling to breast-feed their children, and birth control. They actually took that out, repealed it. We went up to the gallery. They left that little thing alone. They gave up on that. But what are they doing now? Now they are saying their own employees have no right to an employer contribution. This is mean-spirited. This is hurtful. Send us a clean CR for 6 weeks and then vote to go to the budget conference, as Senator Murray has asked. But Senator Cruz keeps appearing on the scene and objecting to appointing conferees to deal with the yearly budget because he says he doesn't want to have them discuss the debt. Who is he to say what you can discuss or not discuss? The last time I checked, there is free speech in this country, including in a conference committee. That leads me to think they are going to play even worse games with the debt ceiling, about which Ronald Reagan--who asked for it and got, 18 times, an increase in the debt ceiling--said even thinking about defaulting is a horrible and dangerous thing. No President has had this kind of difficulty. They are obsessed with the health care law and they are obsessed with hurting this President. Let's face facts. I have served with five Presidents; three of them were Republicans. Did I agree with everything Ronald Reagan believed in? The Presiding Officer and I served in those years together. Remember those days of the nuclear weapons proliferation? We had our battles and, yes, we made a symbolic vote once in a while not to raise the debt ceiling. That is fine. But we never purposely brought down the government, ever--ever. The last time Newt Gingrich and the Republicans did it, it was a disaster and they have done it again. I listened to the majority leader. The majority leader said the Republican leader's tale and his spin is similar to the book ``1984.'' Let me just say, it is ``Alice in Wonderland.'' It is not accurate. Let's pass the bill we sent over, the clean CR for 6 weeks. Let's go to a budget conference. Let's resolve our problems. This is too great a country to have us suffer like this, a self-inflicted wound that does not have to be done. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I wish to say to both of my friends, coming from a State that has experienced too many moments like the one you are going through, I have never seen anything quite like this in terms of flooding. But we have the most devastating fires, droughts, floods, mudslides, and earthquakes and the rest. I wanted to be supportive of what you are doing. We all need to come together and help each other here. So I will do whatever I can to make sure that happens. I ask unanimous consent that when my friend Senator Bennet completes his time I be recognized.

Mrs. BOXER. My question to my friend is: Is it not critical that we avert a government shutdown? Because if we go into a shutdown phase, people who want to apply for help--businesses and all the rest--are going to be experiencing far more pain. This is just a terrible time to even consider a government shutdown. We have so much we have to do. I wonder if my friend had thought about that when he voted to keep the government open?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Let me say to my friend from Colorado he is right about a picture being so powerful. Having shown my share of those types of photos, I think the Senator underscores why it is important to have a national government. He and his colleague from Colorado makes the point, as did the Senators from New Jersey, New York, and California-- regardless of party--that many times these natural disasters are just too much for any one State, and that is why we need a national government that works well, not one that teeters on the brink of shutdown because political parties get into these partisan disputes and seem to lose their way. As one who feels we have a very clear path ahead, there is no reason for us to add to the uncertainty the people in Colorado face right now because we don't have that particular funding laid out clearly at this point. We don't need to add a layer of fear that this government is not going to function. So I wish to thank my friend. But I will say that we did vote 54 to 44 in the Senate to keep the government open and to make sure we don't get involved in clashes about other matters and add it to the resolution that keeps this government going. Listen, there is no shortage of arguments we could have. Even within our own parties there are different views on many issues: how best to bring this economy back, how best to reform education, how best to have a very strong, lean military--we have arguments about all these things--how to deliver health care. All these things are worthy of debate, but they should remain separate and apart from our basic functions, one of which is to keep the government running and doing the things government does, and the second is to pay our bills, which requires us to make sure the debt limit is raised. When we see games being played in these areas, we know we are in deep trouble. I see our leader Senator Reid is on the floor. With his leadership we passed a bill to keep the government open. All John Boehner has to do, as Speaker of the House--and I know the House well. I served there for 10 years--is to put our bill on the floor and let the Members vote. That is democracy. We don't have to have every Republican support it. We don't have to have every Democrat support it. Just put the bill on the floor. When I served in the House I served with many different Speakers. I have to say, in my time, Tip O'Neill was the greatest. Why was Tip O'Neill great and why can John Boehner learn from Tip O'Neill? Because Tip O'Neill knew what his function was. It was to keep this country going. It was to give a sense of certainty and calm to the people that even though we could debate all kinds of things, including whether to go to war or how to deal with many problems, we would keep the government going. We would pay our debts. When Tip O'Neill was Speaker, Republican Ronald Reagan asked Tip O'Neill to increase the debt ceiling many times. Over the period Reagan was President, he asked to raise the debt ceiling 18 times. Did all of us agree the debt ceiling should be lifted? No. A few voted no, and that was fine. No one played games. Ronald Reagan was very clear on the debt ceiling. He said even any talk about not raising it was a problem for this economy, and he said it way more eloquently than I, being the great communicator. He said even the thought of a default was dangerous for our economy. Yet here we have Republicans, in the House in particular, marching down that path and also marching down the path right now to shut down this government. We are just a few short days away. I don't know about the Chair, but I know I did have a meeting with my staff to explain what could happen. People act as if a government shutdown doesn't mean pain. It is a dangerous game and it has devastating consequences for our families and not only for the people who rely on their work for their country--whether they are serving on the military or civilian side of the Defense establishment or in the Social Security Administration or the Medicare administration or the FBI or the food inspectors or the highway inspectors. I have to say, Republicans keep saying: We don't want to shut down the government. Believe me, we don't want to shut down the government. We just want to stop the Affordable Care Act. You tried 42 times. You had an election over it. Give it up. This is a democracy. Run candidates who want to repeal it. That is fine. That is fine. We had that in the last election and President Obama won. I know people aren't happy about it. I understand that. I wasn't happy when Republicans beat my Democratic candidates for President. I wasn't happy, but I didn't shut down the government. I didn't demand their signature accomplishments be repealed. I lived with it, and I am not the only one. We all did. We all accepted it. That is democracy. You have an election. There are winners and losers. Suck it up. Stop complaining. Go register your friends. Tell them to vote against Barbara Boxer. Go tell them to vote against the Democrats. Go do it. That is fine. That is what elections are for. But once the election is over--and in this last case it was a central issue--work with us to make it better. Senator Cardin and I were on the floor the other day pointing out we voted against the prescription drug benefit for Medicare for basically two reasons; one, we thought it was going to cost too much money for the government because in there it said Medicare could not negotiate for lower drug prices. So it was a giveaway to the drug companies. They couldn't negotiate for lower drug prices. Also, there was a great big doughnut hole so after you got a certain amount of drugs, you got no benefit at all, and seniors were risking their lives to get through that period of time. We didn't try to repeal the prescription drug benefit; we tried to fix it. Here is the great news. In the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, we fixed the doughnut hole. We are closing it. Now senior citizens are not going to have to cut their pills in little pieces while they wait for that doughnut hole period of time to pass. So there are a lot of pathways forward for the Republicans in the House. Follow history and tradition, which says we have two basic things we must do: keep this government open and pay the bills that we incur. Simple. It is not complicated. If anyone tells you it is complicated, laugh, because it isn't. If you are a family and you incur bills, you pay them or you are a deadbeat. In the old days, people used to go to jail. We stopped that. Now we have bankruptcy filings. Pay your bills, Republicans. Pay your bills. Keep the government going--a very simple path. Take the bill we just passed. It is neutral. It has no policy in it. It keeps the spending going. We haven't added any of our wonderful things we would like to see and do. We kept it clean. Put that bill on the floor--it passed 54 to 44 here--and vote on it. People who want to shut down the government will vote no. That is their right. People who want to keep the government open will vote yes. There will be Republicans on either side. There will be Democrats on either side. What we hear happening is they are going to bring it back and they are going to put more of their favorite things in it. Who knows what they will pick. They have a lot. They want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency. They want to stop us from cleaning up the air and the water. They want to stop us from addressing the issue of coal ash piling up all over the country. That is what they want to do, from what I read in the paper. Then they want to delay this health care bill, just as it is about ready to kick in. We have been down this road before. We know what happens when the government shuts down. I asked my staff to go back, to go to the press and look at the stories. I am not speaking make believe. I am speaking history. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans shut down the government in the 1990s, we all know what happened. It hurt our country. It hurt our economy. It hurt our seniors, our veterans, our businesses. It hurt anyone who even had 100 shares of stock in the stock market. It hurt the American people. Mark Zandi, an economist who advised Republican Members of the Senate, predicts a shutdown lasting just a few days would reduce our gross domestic product by two-tenths of a point. How does that help us when our economic growth is curtailed by a shutdown? How does it help our economy when more than 169,000 Federal employees in my State and many more nationwide are furloughed without pay? It will be more than 1 million Federal employees and 169,000 in California. These are real people, with real families, with real bills to pay who get up and go to work for their Nation. How does that help our economy? We know the last shutdown cost the Federal Government $1.4 billion. If we factor in inflation, that is $2 billion, and that was for 2 weeks. A 2-week shutdown cost $2 billion. Great, just what we need to do--throw money out the window. Because we can afford it, right? No. Agencies are making their shutdown plans. Federal employees are preparing to be furloughed. You know what happens when you get scared you will not get a paycheck? You pull in. You don't go out to the movies and you don't go out for dinner because you are worried. That has a trickle-down effect on small businesses. How does it help our seniors when the Social Security Administration, during a shutdown, cannot process benefits for retirees? What happens if someone is widowed and she needs the help from Social Security to get those burial benefits she is entitled to? Is that making the Republicans excited over there, to hurt our seniors with Medicare, with Social Security? Medicare can't take any new patients because they won't be able to. In the last shutdown, 10,000 people a day were turned away. People who were waiting to turn 65 so they could get their Medicare card called up Medicare, and no one is there. Sorry. Oh, that is a lovely thing to do to your mothers and dads, I say to my colleagues over there. Lovely. How does it help our veterans and their families when a new disability claim or GI bill claim cannot be processed? I can tell you, it hurts them. There is already a huge backlog. This is just what we don't need, a shutdown, where the backlog of claims gets worse and worse. We all say we love our veterans, and I believe it when we say that. Don't shut down the government and hurt our veterans. Republicans say they care about small businesses more than Democrats. How does it help our small businesses when they can't bid on government contracts or get small business loans through the SBA? I tell you, it hurts them. How is it going to help the more than 14,000 government contractors in California who may not get paid for their work on time? They will be hurt badly. They have bills to pay, they have employees to pay, and they won't be able to pay them. If you ask the average working person how close they are to seriously being homeless, not being able to pay the rent, it is only a few weeks for a lot of our people. I would ask, how does it help our health in this country when the EPA cannot clean up toxic superfund sites? Those sites harm our families, they harm our children, and they will be shut down. How does it help our fight against cancer and Alzheimer's when the NIH cannot enroll patients in drug trials? If you ask people who the real enemies are, a lot of times they will say we worry about someone in the family getting a heart attack, getting a stroke, getting Alzheimer's. How does it help our families when the NIH can't enroll patients in drug trials and the CDC can no longer monitor new avian flu cases? And tell me, Republicans who want to shut down this government, how does it help our businesses like our restaurateurs and people who run hotels when tourist visas cannot be processed and people who are waiting to come to America to stay in our hotels are turned away? That is bad for this economy. How does it help a family buy a house when the FHA can't process a loan for the American dream of owning a home? But that is what is going to happen. And tell me, how does it help a single mom when she can't get help from HHS in collecting child support to feed her family? How does it help the families in Colorado, their homes and roads and bridges destroyed, when the National Guard--we just learned from Senator Udall--cannot start their work until the government reopens? It is downright dangerous. How does it help our schoolkids who come to Washington to learn about our great Nation, they go to the Mall, and they can't get in any museums? And do we want to hear the ultimate outrage? These Senate and House Members who want to shut down the government will get paid during a government shutdown that they caused. These Senate and House Members who want to shut down the government--they personally will still get paid. Their families will have a paycheck during a government shutdown. In March of 2011, the Senate passed S. 388, the Boxer-Casey bill, to prevent Members of Congress from getting paid in the event of a government shutdown or a default. It is a very simple bill: Members of Congress and the President shall not receive basic pay for any period in which there is more than a 24- hour lapse in appropriations for any Federal agency or department as a result of a failure to enact a regular appropriations bill or a continuing resolution; or if the Federal Government is unable to make payments or meet obligations because the debt limit has been reached. Our bill, I am proud to say, passed the Senate. Senator Casey and I wrote a letter--signed by 14 of our colleagues--to Speaker Boehner and the Republicans, asking that they bring up and pass our bill. In that letter we said: Members who want to shut down the government should not continue to receive a paycheck while the rest of the Nation suffers the consequences. Members of Congress and the President should be treated no differently than every other Federal employee. We too should have to face the consequences of our actions. Speaker Boehner had time to put lots of other things on the docket, but not our bill. So we introduced a new one. I am here to say we have a bill that is called S. 55. It says the same thing, we are not going to get paid if we don't do the two basic functions we have to do: keep this government running, and raise the debt ceiling. I want to ask: How is it that Republicans, who are urging a shutdown of the government by virtue of their votes--and we have them in the Senate--why are they not cosponsors of our bill? They don't care if the government is shut down. Get on my bill. I invite Senator Cruz and Senator Lee. They spoke for 21 hours. That took a lot of strength. Maybe they have strength left to pick up the phone and call me and go on my bill so they won't get paid, because as of now they will. They want to protect their pay. They want to protect their families. Some of them even suggest taking away the employer contribution from our staff, that is treated like almost every other employee with a big employer, an employer contribution to health care. They want to take it away, but they want to get paid during a shutdown. So pick up the phone, Senator Cruz, and call me. I will be delighted to hear from you, and let me put you on my bill because that would be helpful. Then we can e-mail all of your friends and tell them to get everybody else on the bill. And maybe, just maybe, we can make a little sacrifice if things go wrong. By the way, there is no reason for things to go wrong. We just passed a good bill, a clean bill. We know we are going to have arguments over health care, we are going to have arguments over Social Security, we are going to have arguments over the best way to move forward with sequester. That is fine. There is a time and a place. You don't put those issues on a continuing resolution to fund the government. You don't put those issues on a debt ceiling and, as Ronald Reagan said, put our economy in a very dangerous and precarious situation. If you listened to the speeches of my colleagues, the 21-hour speech, and if you take away the time that was devoted to Dr. Seuss, most of it was about the Affordable Care Act. So I think we ought to take a look at the Affordable Care Act. This is the terrible piece of legislation that certain colleagues of the Republican side say is so terrible they are willing to shut the government down: Right now, because of the Affordable Care Act, 3 million young adults are on their parents' plan. Isn't that terrible? Three million of them can stay on their parents' plan. I want to know why they would shut down the government and kick those youngsters off their parents' plan, because that is what they will do. They don't tell you that, but we won't be able to enforce this law. We won't have the funds. They would kick these kids off their parents' plan because, frankly, the law would in effect be suspended. And if an insurance company said, We are not going to do this anymore, those youngsters are out of luck. So that is the first question I ask them: Why do you want to kick 3 million youngsters off their parents' plan? Now 71 million Americans are getting free preventive care, such as checkups, birth control, and immunizations. Now when you don't fund this bill, delay it, or fool around with it, forget this. So now 71 million people who could have gotten immunized don't get immunized, a good bunch of them, because they can't afford it--under the Affordable Care Act it is free--then they get sick and then others catch what they get. Tell me how that makes America a better place. I am waiting to hear. No one has told me how it makes America a better place when we kick children off their parents' plan or we take away immunization or birth control or checkups from our people. I mentioned this before. Senator King was talking about how when he was a youngster he worked here and he had health insurance, and the health insurance allowed him to get a free medical checkup. He got a free checkup, and he found out that he had a melanoma, a mole that had gone cancerous. It was very serious. He was a youngster. This is a long time ago for him. As a result of that, he is with us today, living and well and here to fight for health care. That is a story we should think about. Because he went to the doctor, the doctor looked at him and found this mole, he got that mole removed, and he is alive. Tell me why Republicans want to take away free preventive care from 71 million Americans. That is what the Affordable Care Act does. They call it ObamaCare because they polled it, and when they say ObamaCare, it is less popular. So I will call it ObamaCare. I thought the President was funny when he said that after this law is out there a few years and people like it, the Republicans will stop calling it ObamaCare, a moment of levity that had a lot of truth to it. This is another benefit the Republicans would delay, stop, and put in jeopardy. They will even shut the government down. They don't like the fact that 17 million children with preexisting conditions such as asthma and diabetes can no longer be denied coverage. So I have to ask them, What is it you have against kids? I have met the parents. If a child had diabetes, if a child had asthma, the insurance company said, Sorry, you are out of luck. Because of the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, children can no longer be denied coverage. I have met these little kids who have benefited, who have gotten the care, who are doing well because the moms and dads don't have to wait until they are gasping for air or have an absolute breakdown and then they have to rush them to the emergency room where they are patched up and don't get the kind of care they need. Here is another thing. I don't understand why the Republicans feel it is a good thing for insurance companies to be able to cancel your health insurance when you get sick. That is what used to happen before ObamaCare, before the Affordable Care Act. Remember, this law has been in effect for 3 years, so all these benefits have gone into play. No more lifetime limits. I remember once looking at our insurance policy many years ago that my husband got through his employer, and we thought it was a great plan. Then we looked at the little print that said when you reach a cap of $250,000, no more health insurance. Anyone who has the misfortune to get a serious condition, a disease, can bump up against that cap fast and you have no more insurance until, you pray to God, you are 65 and you can get Medicare. We immediately said we have to look for a different policy that has no caps--and of course it costs more. Under ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act, no more lifetime limits, no more annual limits. The Republicans are so distraught at these reforms they are even willing to shut down the government. They are willing to delay ObamaCare. They are willing to defund ObamaCare. They are willing to repeal ObamaCare. Let me tell you, this is a pattern. I am going to tell you the pattern. I am going to show you what happened when a Democratic President in the 1960s came up with the idea for Medicare. I am going to tell you what the Republicans said then. This is not something that just happened to the Republican Party. They have been fighting these kinds of benefits, I think, for decades. They fought Social Security in the 1930s. But I will go to Medicare. Dick Armey said in 1995--he was Republican House majority leader. He had Eric Cantor's job. He said Medicare is ``a program I would have no part of in a free world.'' Earth to senior citizens: Wake up. The Republican leader of the House in 1995 said Medicare is ``a program I would have no part of in a free world.'' That same year, after leading an effort to raise premiums and costs for senior citizens, Newt Gingrich predicted that Medicare was ``going to wither on the vine.'' So when you hear these Republicans rail against ObamaCare, they railed against Medicare. They railed against Social Security. This is history. This is why there is a difference in the parties. Listen to this. In 1965, this is what Senator Bob Dole said on the floor. Remember he bragged about this in 1996 during the Medicare fight. He said ``I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare, because we knew it wouldn't work in 1965.'' Really? The Republicans knew that Medicare wouldn't work in 1965. Here it is, 2013, and people are saying: Don't you mess with my Medicare. Don't you touch it. Whether they are tea partiers or rightwing Republicans, moderate Republicans, liberal Republicans, Democrats--from left to right, they all say don't mess with my Medicare. Look at where the Republicans were. Don't forget, Paul Ryan's budget destroys Medicare. It would never look the same if he had his way. I will even go back further in history and show you some of the things that the Republicans said about Medicare when it was brought to us by the Democrats. Sixty percent of the Republicans in the Senate voted against it, and one Representative, Durwood Hall of Missouri said: We cannot stand idly by now, as the nation is urged to embark on an ill-conceived adventure in government medicine --that's what he called Medicare-- the end of which no one can see, and from which the patient is certain to be the ultimate sufferer. This man had it wrong. People love their Medicare. People tell me they are down on their hands and knees, praying to get the Medicare card, hoping they can hold out. Republicans have had it wrong. Why should we trust them and believe them when they say the Affordable Care Act is no good when we already see how many people it is helping? Then there was Senator Milward Simpson, way back when, in the 1960s. He said: I am disturbed about the effect this legislation would have upon our economy and upon our private insurance system. He didn't have to be concerned. Medicare has worked beautifully. In the Affordable Care Act we make it better. We fix the prescription drug benefit. We make sure that our people on Medicare can have free checkups and immunizations. We strengthened it. Let's look at Medicare's success. Before Medicare became law, the majority of seniors had no health insurance. Today nearly all seniors, 50 million, are receiving guaranteed health care through Medicare, and 80 percent of folks on Medicare believe the program is working. If you look over history, over the years Medicare has been more successful than private insurers at holding down health care costs. Let me sum up. What we saw here today is some good news. Working with our Republicans, we managed to bring up a bill and modify it and make it clean, strip it of any kind of debate, and fund the government until the middle of November. That will give Senator Murray time to sit down with her counterparts and try to get a long-term solution. If you want a long-term solution to our deficit and debt, you have to have a budget. Yet Republicans over here have stopped us from going to conference. Once this is done we can have a conference move forward, a debate go forward. Let's keep these arguments where they belong, which is separate and apart from keeping the government going. Let's keep these separate and apart from paying the bills we have already incurred. I also want to say this. If you listen to Republicans, you would think this deficit has gone up under President Obama. President Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit. It is now down. It has been cut in half. But if you listen to them, you think: Oh my God, everything is awful. I took a look at the charts. I took a look at deficits under Democratic and Republican Presidents. Oh my God, I am so proud to be a Democrat. Under Democratic Presidents we have had surpluses. Under Bill Clinton we had surpluses. As soon as the Republicans took over, President George W. Bush said, I am going to have a party. I am going to put 2 wars on the credit card. I am going to give the biggest tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires. Do know what happened? We had a crisis. Not only the worst recession since the Great Depression, but the deficit skyrocketed. All those supply-side economists were proven wrong. Give tax cuts to the mightiest among us and the deficit will go down. That is voodoo economics, as it was once called by a really good Republican President. That is voodoo economics. You are going to hear all kinds of things today in these speeches. But history is history. Bill Clinton had the surplus. George Bush turned it into the worst deficit in history. Barack Obama cut that in half. He rescued us with the Democrats and some brave Republicans who voted for economic stimulus--thank the Lord. And we are getting out of this mess. Now we have Republicans, on the far right in the House, who are holding our country hostage because they do not like the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. They voted 42 times to repeal it. They are ignoring the fact that we had an election about it, and they are ignoring the fact that they do not run the Senate or the White House. They run one-third of the government. Fine. God bless them. But they have to work with us, not against us. We need to work together. I served 10 proud years over there. I have never seen a situation where you are stopped from making any progress because 20 people belong to the tea party and are threatening the Speaker. The Speaker has to act like the Speaker of the House. He is not the Speaker of the Republicans, he is the Speaker of the House. Take our bill that just passed and put it on the floor. Some will vote aye, some will vote nay. Let's see what happens. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people who are very worried today. They are worried that this government is going to shut down. They are worried that when they call about their Social Security check, if they have a problem, no one will be there. They are worried, if they have a problem, and they want to sign up for Medicare--no one will be there. They are concerned that their FBI agents are furloughed. They are concerned. Maybe this concern may not sound like a big deal, but they saved for 2 years to take their kids to the Capitol, and they want to take them to all the great museums and the national parks and they are closed. Why is this happening? Self-inflicted wound, self- inflicted wound. Do your job. For God's sake, don't get paid if you can't keep the government open. Sign on in this body to S. 55 and say I won't get paid if the government shuts down. Tell Speaker Boehner to do that. They did it over there for the budget. They said if we didn't pass a budget we should not get paid. We did pass a budget. Now they won't let us go to conference and finish the work. What a mess we are in--self-inflicted--because people are in denial around here that there was an election. It was about health care. It was about being moderate. It was about working together. It was about compromise. It was not about who is the Presidential candidate who could lead us into the darkness and despair of complete warfare. Let's end that warfare. We showed we could do it today. I thank my Republican colleagues who voted to allow us to offer our amendment. I appreciate it so much. I know they are getting yelled at. They should be praised. But it shows, right here in this Senate, that we can come together. We may not like our options or our choices. Believe me, I do not like the amount of money we are spending to run the government. It is really hurting my people back home. But I am not going to shut down the government about it. Madam President, you are such a great new addition to the Senate. I am disappointed that you are not able to unleash your legislative prowess and move us forward, but we will get past this if we can work together. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I listened to colleagues predicting doom and gloom, and it brings back what I have read about what happened when Medicare was brought to this country by the Democrats and what happened when Social Security was brought to this body and to the House after the Great Depression. I am going to go into that in a little bit, but somebody said this earlier and it reminded me that one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. The Republicans in the House have voted 42 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act or to defund it. Health care reform has taken years and years to do, and we finally got it done. Millions of Americans are on the cusp of getting health insurance for the first time. Republicans are desperately trying to block this from happening. Senator Reid couldn't be more clear: We are not going to delay health care for the people of this great Nation. We are not going to go back to the days when people with a preexisting condition were left to die without health care. We are not going back there. Yet it continues. The Republicans are so adamant about it that a very large group of them are threatening to shut down the government of this great country. Again, it is not like they didn't do this before. The Republicans did this before. It was a disaster for the people. People got hurt. They didn't get paid. Business was disrupted, Social Security and Medicare were disrupted, veterans' benefits were disrupted, and parks were shut down. People were hurt as a result of that, and it cost a fortune for the taxpayers. But somehow Republicans feel they can play games, and I think it is a shame. My colleague Senator Cruz spoke for a very long time and said he would speak until he dropped. He said that over and over: I will speak until I drop. If he were to drop and suffered some kind of health episode, which he apparently was willing to risk, he would have had health care because he is insured. If he had to be lifted off the floor of the Senate and driven to a nearby hospital, Senator Cruz would have had great health care. Why does he want to stop that for millions and millions of hard-working Americans? Only he can answer that. I could only say that as I listened to some of his interviews, it sounds like what he is feeling in his heart is if this goes into effect, the people might like it and then woe is us. Because there is an ideological split here in the Senate where we have Senators and House Members who don't think there is any role for the Federal Government to play in making people's lives better. Some say military spending, fine; highway spending, fine. But when it comes to lifting people up and giving them a quality of life and helping to do that, oh, no. So Senator Ted Cruz is fortunate. If he talked until he dropped on the floor, he would have had the best health care, he would have been on his feet and super fine. There are a lot of people out there who are dropping because they put off going to the doctor because they have a condition and they have no insurance, and when they drop they have to go to an emergency room where they can be patched up--and by the way, taxpayers pay for that. So here is the thing. We have the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans call ObamaCare, so that is fine--ObamaCare, Affordable Care Act, whatever we want to call it. It is based on a Republican-suggested model of health care where we use private insurance, we go to an exchange, and there is a lot of competition. I am excited about it, frankly, because in my home State of California, we are on board: coveredca.com. People type in coveredca.com, and they find out how they can get health care. Some people will apply and get a Medicaid card, the working poor. The middle class will be able to move forward and go to the exchanges, and many will get a subsidy to help them if they are in the middle class. Here is the thing that really shocks me. Republicans act as if this health care bill, this Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, just came down off the ceiling and dropped on the floor and became law. It took a long time. Senator Baucus worked and worked and worked. We took many Republican amendments. We passed the bill. It became the law of the land 3 years ago. They took it to the Supreme Court and said it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court said it was constitutional. And now that it is about to go into play, Republicans are willing to shut the government down to stop it. It was the centerpiece of the 2012 election. We all know that. Mitt Romney said: If I am President, I am getting rid of that law. The people of the country said: OK. What are you going to put in its place? Well, let's see. We will allow insurance to go across State lines. Well, what does that do for me if I have a preexisting condition? They wanted to replace it with nothing. The American people are smart. It doesn't mean this law is perfect and we can't make it better, but let me tell my colleagues, many of us served under many Presidents. I am looking at my colleague from Maryland who served a long time in the House. I served with five Presidents, a couple of whom I didn't agree with, and I did everything I could to fight against the legislation they liked that I felt was bad. But once it passed, I didn't try to shut down the government. I tried to work with everybody, and I am not an exception. That is what we used to do around here, all of us. Suddenly, it is: My way or the highway. I am taking my Teddy bear, my blankie, and I am going home because I don't like the health reform act. It doesn't suit me. Some of them are so angry about it, they are trying to take away the employer contribution from their own staff. What an outrage--hard- working people who love their country, who work here. Now, let me tell my colleagues, Earth to the Republicans: A, you lost the election not only for President but in the Senate, where colleagues who supported the Affordable Care Act got elected; B, President Obama was reelected, Mitt Romney lost. Health care reform was a major issue on the campaign trail. So wake up, smell the roses, put a smile on your face, and know you tried, but don't shut down the government. Enough already. I wish to spend some time showing my colleagues how the Affordable Care Act is already working, so I have some charts to go over quickly. In my State over 1 million Californians are already newly insured. This includes in my State 400,000 young adults who are now on their parents' policies. If the Republicans have their way and they defund or repeal ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act, what is going to happen to those young adults? They will be kicked off of their parents' policies. Is this why Senator Cruz stood on the floor for hours and hours until he would drop--to hurt young adults, 3 million of them nationwide? Seventy-one million Americans are getting free preventive care, such as checkups and birth control and immunizations. I don't know how many of us heard Senator King from Maine today talk about his own experience when he worked here as a young man and had insurance, so he got a preventive care checkup, which came with his insurance. They found a melanoma. Had he not gone to the doctor and had they not seen that mole that turned cancerous, he said he would not be here anymore. Health insurance saved his life. So I wish to rhetorically ask Senator Cruz and the Republicans supporting him in this body and in the House, why would you take away free preventive care and immunizations from 71 million Americans and consign them to a status where they are absolutely sitting there without any protection because they have no health insurance? Let's see what else we have already achieved that the Republicans want to repeal. They want to repeal 17 million kids with preexisting conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, who can now no longer be denied coverage. If my colleagues ever saw those pictures of a child gasping for air, my colleagues know those kids need coverage, they need help, and they need to be able to get that help and get the medication when they need it. Insurers can't cancel health insurance because someone gets sick. How many stories did we hear as Congresspeople and as Senators where people went to get insurance and they said: Sorry, 25 years ago you had a suspicious mole, and therefore we are not going to insure you--or you have high blood pressure or 10 years ago you had cancer. No more. And how many times have you heard the stories where people were kicked out of their insurance because they hit a lifetime cap? That is no more. Republicans want to repeal all these benefits, and Senator Cruz was willing to talk until he dropped so these benefits could be taken away from our constituents. I heard my friend from Wyoming, Senator Barrasso, say that health costs are rising and they are rising like never before. I guess he missed it when President Clinton told the country that health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in over 50 years--50 years. And that is because more people are getting covered and we don't have to treat people at the end game or in an emergency room because we are already seeing people get more health coverage. Insurance companies now have to justify a premium hike. Before, they could double premiums, but now they have to justify it and make sure 80 percent of the premiums they get are spent on the policyholders. So in 2014--and we are around the corner from that--unless Senator Cruz and his Republican friends have their way, there will be no more extra charges for preexisting conditions. Right now it is just children who have that benefit, but in 2014 everybody gets it. In 2014, no longer can insurance companies charge women more than men for their coverage. This is a huge issue. There was gender discrimination. Being a woman was considered a preexisting condition. A woman who was abused by her spouse or by her boyfriend, and she walked in and the insurance company found out, that was considered a preexisting condition because she might get beat up again. So she was told: Take a hike. That can't happen anymore. They cannot impose dollar limits on the amount of health care spent on you in a single year. Right now, if you have a serious illness, they can say: Sorry, you reached your annual cap. So where are we now? ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, is already in effect. Republicans want to stop it because in 2014, when those exchanges open, they know people are going to like what they see. I am telling my colleagues, when I go home and I go to community health care centers, people are so excited. And not enough of them know about it, but when they find out how easy it is--if they qualify for Medicaid, they just get their card and they are covered, and they no longer have to sneak into the emergency room when a problem gets so drastic. And all the others will have options. They will be able to choose from a platinum plan, a silver plan, or a bronze plan. We are very excited about this law. Senator Cruz says he will stand on his feet until he drops to stop my people and your people from getting health insurance? He has met his match in us because we can stand until we drop. But we don't have to do that because we have the votes, and the reason we have the votes is this is what the last election was about. In closing my presentation, I wish to share with my colleagues a very brief history of what happened when Social Security was proposed. It is so interesting. In 1935, after the Great Depression and our great-grandparents were lying in the street and had nothing and people were jumping out of windows because they had nothing--they had lost their homes, they had lost their jobs, they had lost their savings, and there was no safety net. This is what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said when he signed the act in 1935: We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and the vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built, but it is by no means complete. Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke about the safety net in 1935. Just think about that. Let's see what happened in the debate. Let's look at what happened in the debate. Representative William Ditter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, took to the floor and said: . . . security for the individual, whether worker or aged, will be a mockery and a sham if in the attainment thereof we . . . allot to our people the role of puppets of a socialistic state . . . Where have we heard that before? He called Social Security part of a socialistic state. We cannot provide a sense of security by programs for the destruction of wealth. . . . We cannot assure to the people a sense of security by measures threatening their investments of life savings. Could this guy have been more wrong? He calls Social Security socialism and said it was going to destroy wealth when, in fact, it preserved our people in their old age. Now, here is another--Representative Jenkins of Ohio, a Republican. He talks about Social Security this way: This is compulsion of the rankest kind. Do not be misled by the title. The title says ``Old-Age Benefits''. Shame on you for putting such a misleading and unfair title on such a nefarious bill. Old-age benefits? Think of it! Oh, what a travesty!. . . . Mr. Chairman, what is the hurry? Nobody is going to get a dime out of this until 1942. . . . what is the hurry about crowding an unconstitutional proposition like this through the House today? Honestly--honestly--this is what we hear them say about affordable health care: Socialism, unconstitutional. It is a sham. We have plenty of time. We should delay it. History is repeating itself right in front of our eyes. Now it did not stop then. In 2005, Republicans continued to attack Social Security. President George W. Bush and Congressman Paul Ryan wanted to do away with Social Security as we know it. We all remember that. They proposed abolishing Social Security and replacing it with private accounts in the stock market. We all know how safe that is. I am a former stockbroker. You do not buy stocks when you are ready to retire. That is their plan. Had this become law, seniors retiring in 2008 would have lost up to $26,000. But we stopped them and we did not allow it to happen. Lastly, let's look at Social Security's success. Before Social Security became the law in 1935, half of America's seniors lived in poverty in the midst of the Great Depression--half. Today, 57 million Americans receive Social Security, and it lifts 14 million elderly Americans out of poverty. It is the most successful and the most popular antipoverty program. The Republicans said it was unconstitutional. They said it was socialism. They said it was a sham, a disaster. They are back here saying the same thing, just as we are on the cusp of delivering a benefit to so many--probably 50 million Americans. This is my last discussion about Medicare. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare Act, he said: No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts. This was President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. Some of us actually were around in the 1960s. We remember it. And this is what the Republicans said about Medicare. Listen carefully. This is a history moment here. We are looking at what the Republicans said every time we were about to get a new benefit for the people of this Nation. Sixty percent of Republicans in the Senate and 50 percent of House Republicans voted against Medicare. Representative Durward Hall of Missouri, a Republican, said: . . . we cannot stand idly by now, as the Nation is urged to embark on an ill-conceived adventure in government medicine, the end of which no one can see, and from which the patient is certain to be the ultimate sufferer. This is what the Republicans said. And Senator Milward Simpson of Wyoming, a Republican, said: I am disturbed about the effect this legislation would have upon our economy and upon our private insurance system. . . . Well, of course, what we found out is this turns out to be one of the most successful programs. Medicare is a success. Before Medicare became law, a majority of seniors had no health insurance. Today, nearly all seniors are receiving guaranteed health care benefits. Mr. President, 8 out of 10 seniors age 65 and older feel the program is working. With few exceptions throughout history, Medicare has been more successful than private insurers at holding down costs. And we still have to fight for Medicare. We still have to fight. In 1995, Dick Armey, the Republican House majority leader, said, Medicare is ``a program I would have no part of in a free world.'' A bit of an overstatement--Dick Armey. That same year, after leading an effort to raise premiums and costs for seniors, Newt Gingrich predicted that Medicare was ``going to wither on the vine.'' Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole bragged in 1996, ``I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare. . . . because we knew it wouldn't work in 1965.'' And Paul Ryan's budget ends Medicare as we know it today. So all this brings us to the moment we are in. Now Republicans are trying to defund the new health reform law. Speaker John Boehner said: Passage of health reform is ``Armageddon'' because the law will ``ruin our country.'' They said it about Social Security, they said it about Medicare, and now they are saying it about the Affordable Care Act. The Republican Party Platform, in 2012, said: [ObamaCare] was the high-water mark of an outdated liberalism, the latest attempt to impose upon Americans a euro-style bureaucracy to manage all aspects of their lives. So I felt it was important to put into the Record the historical context of the battle we face today. I try to tell my kids and my grandkids, when we fight these battles, we sometimes forget the context, that it is not that much different than what went before us. We look different certainly. The women here were not around here then. But the fact of the matter is, they are the same battles. It is about what is the role of the national government of the greatest country in the world. I certainly, for one, believe making life better for our people and doing it in a smart way, in a fiscally responsible way, is the way to go. We will have to make our changes to the Affordable Care Act if we see we can make it better. And we invite our Republican friends to work with us. I was one who did not vote for the drug benefit because I did not like that big, fat doughnut hole that came in there, which put people on the spot. They had to stop taking their medicine. They could not recover money. But we worked with our friends, and we ended that. And, by the way, we did it in this bill, the Affordable Care Act. So, yes. Working together, yes. But standing up until we drop in order to stop important benefits from going to America's families? That is wrong. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Right.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right.

Mrs. BOXER. Right.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. A parliamentary inquiry.

Mrs. BOXER. Just to make sure, because Senator Roberts--I had a question. He has gotten some time from Senator Cruz; is that correct? Senator Heitkamp wanted to make comments for a couple of minutes following Senator Stabenow. So this is what I would ask: After Senator Heitkamp is recognized, I would be recognized. If Senator Cruz comes, I will stop at that time and yield the time to Senator Cruz and then continue after he has finished. That would be a consent.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, if I could just say that I am happy to allow that to go forward, but there needs to be a definite time. How much time will all three Senators--my understanding was that Senator Cruz--for how many minutes?

Mrs. BOXER. So if the Senator is asking that he take Senator Cruz's 15 minutes, I have no objection.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, if the Senator is asking that he take part of the Senator's 15 minutes and count against Senator Cruz's time, I have no problem with that whatsoever. So I would revise that to say that Senator Heitkamp would be going for 3 minutes, Senator Roberts would be going for 5 minutes, and then I would be recognized.

Mrs. BOXER. When Senator Cruz arrives to take the additional 15 minutes, that is fine. So in other words, the Senator takes 5 minutes, Senator Cruz comes, and I would yield to him for the rest of the 15 minutes. He is not here.

Mrs. BOXER. I object and I would like to explain why, if that would be appropriate for the next 2 minutes--if I could?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am proud be a longtime member of the Foreign Relations Committee for many years. When this Benghazi tragedy occurred, the Foreign Relations Committee held hours of hearings. I sat through those hearings. I want to say to my friends, I share their dismay that we have not caught the perpetrators. But I want to remind them that the President who caught Osama bin Laden--who killed so many of our people--was President Obama, and when he says he is going to do something he will not rest until he does it. Secretary Clinton immediately called for an Accountability Review Board. That Accountability Review Board was not partisan. What my colleague wants to do is set up some kind of committee filled with politicians--of which I happen to be proud that I am one--but I put more faith, frankly, in the professionalism and the nonpartisanship of the Accountability Review Board. Who headed that Accountability Review Board? Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who was first picked for public service by George H.W. Bush; and Admiral Michael Mullen, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are many other reasons why I oppose this. Secretary Kerry has addressed this and continues to address it. We had two classified briefings. The Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing to release a bipartisan report on the events that occurred in Benghazi and, last December, the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a bipartisan report on the security deficiencies, and the good news is: Of course as a result of this tragedy, changes have been made all over the world. I sense there is politics here. I sense there is politics here. I do not think it is right to inject politics into such a tragedy. Therefore, I object.

Mrs. BOXER. Objection.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we have had a carefully constructed list of who would speak. I wonder how long the Senator wishes to speak.

Mrs. BOXER. How much time does my friend need to talk about his first subject?

Mrs. BOXER. What was supposed to happen was that I was going to speak next. I will give up my place so Senator Murray can speak, followed by Senator Coons, followed by Senator Inhofe for 9\1/2\ minutes. I don't know how many minutes my friend needs--5 minutes.