Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I understand there are four measures at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

Mr. CASEY. I now ask for a second reading en bloc, and I object to my own request en bloc.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, pending before the Senate is a unanimous consent request on H. Con. Res. 58, a bill to urge the Department of Defense to allow military chaplains to perform duties during the shutdown. Earlier today, I objected to this bill because I misunderstood its purpose, and I would like to withdraw that objection at this time. The bill will urge the Department of Defense to allow military chaplains, including contract personnel, to perform religious services during the shutdown and permit services to take place on property owned by the Department of Defense. Today, just as the Department of Defense and the administration solved the problem with military families and their death benefits upon the loss of one of their loved ones serving our country, I urge, and I know others will as well, the DOD to ensure that all active-duty members are able to exercise their First Amendment rights and participate in religious ceremonies while they are serving. So that is something I hope we can resolve. I also want to raise some issues that relate to the shutdown. I raised some earlier, but these are additional concerns I have with regard to the shutdown. The impact of this shutdown is being felt across the board, across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and, indeed, across the country. It is felt by small businesses, States and municipalities are feeling it already and anticipating much more of an impact as time goes by, and, of course, families are feeling it very acutely. Yesterday I sent a letter to Speaker Boehner emphasizing the detrimental impact the shutdown was having on my constituents in Pennsylvania. Just by way of a couple of examples that apply to Pennsylvania and to the Nation, domestic violence programs across the country have been impacted directly by the shutdown. The offices that oversee grants under the Violence Against Women Act have had to shut down and are not able to issue grants or provide reimbursements to local programs. I would say parenthetically that it took many months for the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization to go forward. There were a lot of problems along the way, a lot of objections. Fortunately, we have the program reauthorized, but now, because of the shutdown, we are having problems with women who are victims of violence getting the services they are entitled to. We are hearing as well from folks in our domestic violence shelters-- shelters that rely upon Federal funds and that have already been impacted by the sequester--the across-the-board indiscriminate cuts that have been in effect since March. These shelters may have to further reduce services to vulnerable victims of domestic violence. In the words of one State advocate: We are hanging on by our fingernails. Meaning they are hanging on in terms of just being able to provide services, with funding either limited or funding being jeopardized. Women trying to escape abusive relationships should not be hampered by the failures here in Washington to end this shutdown. In terms of Social Security, we know Social Security checks are going out, fortunately, but in Pennsylvania, on average, 2,900 new claims are processed each week. That is the typical weekly total for new claims. This means Pennsylvanians who have reached retirement age and have paid into the system their entire careers are now forced to wait for benefits. You have to ask yourself: Why should a domestic violence center, with people who work to help domestic violence victims, have to wait for a political dispute where one wing of one party engaged in an ideological exercise allows a government shutdown, and, therefore, that domestic violence center doesn't get the help it needs, and the women, mostly women who are impacted, don't get the help they need. The same could be said of someone who reaches retirement age and expects, and has a right to expect, their Social Security eligibility will be processed. Why should they have to wait for Washington? In Pennsylvania alone, when it comes to small businesses, 30 loans, on average, are made each week by the SBA, for a total of $13 million each and every week. The loss of these loans is hindering entrepreneurs from growing their businesses and from obtaining much-needed capital. Again, why should a business owner--a small businessperson who gets help from the SBA and has an expectation of getting that help--and, remember, we average 30 of those loans every week in Pennsylvania amounting to $13 million--why should that all be stopped because someone in Washington has an ideological point to make? It makes no sense, and it is an outrage. The shutdown is also impacting infrastructure in public lands across the country. Until the government is open, the maintenance of our Nation's basic infrastructure is impacted. In Pennsylvania, a lot of that basic infrastructure involves our waterways--the locks and dams. That whole system which is in place for Pennsylvania and many other States, the maintenance of those locks and dams, is deferred. We all know what happens when you defer maintenance on something as fundamental as infrastructure. I have been informed that repairs that were scheduled to take place on locks along the Lower Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania are suspended. If you have a problem with those, with a lock--and locks and dams generally, but in particular focusing on the Monongahela River-- you stop the flow of commerce or you slow it down substantially. When you slow down or stop the flow of commerce, that affects jobs and the economy of southwestern Pennsylvania. If just one of these locks were to fail, it could have a detrimental economic impact on the whole region. How about national parks? We have heard a lot about that topic this week and last week. The closure of national parks is negatively impacting Pennsylvania's economy. According to the National Park Service, the communities and businesses surrounding Pennsylvania's national parks and memorials are losing up to $5.7 million in spending by nonlocal visitors for each week the government remains closed. That is just national parks and just in Pennsylvania--almost $6 million--and that is just the beginning of what could be a much more substantial and detrimental impact to the State's economy. I would go back to the point I made several times--and all of us have made these arguments in different ways--and that is that we know for sure there is a very simple way out of this predicament for Washington but, more importantly, for the country, and that is for the Speaker to put on the floor a bill which both parties now agree will pass. It is a clean funding bill. All it does is fund the operations of the government, albeit at a much lower level--$70 billion less--than our side wanted. We compromised greatly at the beginning of this process, despite what some have said. So we have compromised to make sure we can fund the government. It is about time for the Speaker to put this bill on the floor. They can vote on it very quickly, and it would pass very quickly. It is only 16 pages long. And that is the key to resolving and ending this tea party shutdown. I urge the Speaker to do that. I have urged him, as we all have in various ways, and we respectfully suggest that could happen tomorrow. Thursday would be a good day to end all of this so we can get people back to work, we can have the functions of government operating to such an extent the economy can grow, and we can have a lot of debate and discussion about how to fund the government long term or what to do about our fiscal challenges--what to do about a whole range of issues. But it is time for the government to open, and it is time for the House to act to do that. It is also time to make sure we pay our bills. Thirdly, it is important we continue to negotiate, just as we negotiated a long time ago, many weeks ago, to reach the point where we can have a bill that would fund the operations of the government. Some people in the House chose to take a different path which led to the shutdown. It is about time we get them back on the right path, which is to open the government, pay our bills, and then have negotiations and discussions and compromises to move the country forward. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, there is no question when we look across the Senate or across the House, people of different political parties, people of different faiths all support any kind of religious service for members of the armed services. There is no question about that. Our budgets indicate that every year. That is a widely held point of view. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is a continuation of an effort to pick and choose what areas of our government should be funded. We should not have an exercise where we choose between our soldiers and our kids or between one priority versus the other. We should vote and work together to open the government. It is as simple as that. Open every service that is part of the Federal Government. Open the government, pay our bills, and continue negotiations which started a long time ago on the current budget. I come from a State which has well more than 1 million veterans. No State in the country has contributed more to the armed services of the United States than Pennsylvania. I will take a backseat to no one when it comes to supporting our troops and supporting their families. That is why we are all coming together to make sure the death benefit is paid for those who recently lost their lives, including Sergeant Hawkins from Pennsylvania. But this process we are going through today is just another attempt to not deal directly with the question of how we are going to operate the Federal Government. We should urge our colleagues in the House to have a vote today. It would take a matter of minutes for the House to vote on a bill that will open the government, allow us to make sure we are paying our bills, and do everything we can to continue to work together on a longer term budget agreement. So I would first offer a modification and ask unanimous consent as follows: that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, expressing the sense of the Congress that the House should vote on the Senate amendment to H.J. Res. 59, the continuing resolution passed by the Senate; that the concurrent resolution, as amended, be agreed to; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. CASEY. I object.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, thank you very much. I know our time is limited. I want to start on an issue that I think all of us are coming together on no matter what party we are in, and that is what has been happening to our military families. On Sunday, as noted by the Senator from Kansas a few moments ago, SGT Patrick Hawkins from Carlisle, PA, was killed in action in Afghanistan when his unit was hit with an IED, an improvised explosive device. Sergeant Hawkins was moving to the aid of a wounded Ranger when he was killed. Due to the shutdown, Sergeant Hawkins' family cannot receive the death benefit provided to soldiers to cover the funeral and burial expenses for that family. Today I am joining an effort with a number of Senators writing to urge Secretary Hagel to use whatever discretion he has to provide the death benefits to the Hawkins family as well as the other families so we can meet the promise we made to those families. I know the President is working on this issue, is working with the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department on a solution to this problem. Mr. President, I will move to the question of where we are now. This is a shutdown brought about by the tea party. We know that if Speaker Boehner would simply hold a vote on the bill that is before him, which would fund the government, this crisis would be over. So we should continue to take steps, No. 1, to open our government; No. 2, to pay our bills and make sure we do not miss a bill and default; and No. 3, to negotiate--or I would argue to continue to negotiate because we already negotiated a budget number which was much lower than our side of the aisle wanted. We agreed to $70 billion less from the other side. If that is not a compromise and a negotiation, I do not know what is. We know this sentiment and this position to make sure the government opens is a point of view that is shared by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents across the country. By way of example, nine Members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation--four Republicans and five Democrats--are supportive of a so-called clean bill that does not have attachments to it, to open the government, to make sure we can have a functioning government, to pay our bills, and then work together on longer term solutions. Just a couple of examples--and I know our time is limited. As this tea party shutdown moves into its second week, the Women, Infants and Children Program--we know it by the acronym WIC--will no longer be able to be funded in many States across the country. We know this program provides nutritional services to more than 8.9 million participants per month, including 4.7 million children and 2.1 million infants. A quarter of a million of my constituents in Pennsylvania depend upon this program. For now--for now--the State government is using carryover funds to keep the WIC Program running in Pennsylvania. If the government shutdown continues to stretch on, this may put the program in jeopardy. We know the impact this shutdown is having on older citizens across Pennsylvania and across the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is no longer able to provide health care provider oversight. While Medicare claims are still being paid, the shutdown has caused a reduction in the number of initial surveys and recertifications for Medicare and Medicaid providers. If providers are unable to be certified, then they cannot serve beneficiaries. Home- and community-based services are adversely impacted. We know that even though Social Security checks are going out, at the same time those who are hoping to be enrolled in Social Security do not have that opportunity. Let me read from a letter we got from a constituent in northeastern Pennsylvania talking about this individual's parents. Besides our personal difficulties due to the Budget Impasse, my elderly parents live with the worry of when and if they will receive their Social Security checks. At 85 and 83, they should not have this uncertainty. These should be their golden years. It breaks my heart to hear my Mother saying she can't sleep and has a stomach ache from the worry about where our country is heading. Middle and low income families cannot afford another economic downturn, we are just barely recovering from the last one. That entire passage came from one individual in northeastern Pennsylvania writing about her parents, and I think that is the best summation I have read about what this is doing to people. The worry and the anxiety, in addition to the harsh impact, are things we should not accept. Finally, I will conclude with some comments about national security. I support--and I know this is widely shared--the passage of the Pay Our Military Act and welcome the Defense Department's decision to bring the majority of furloughed staff back. We mentioned the death benefits for families. We are all together on that. But all the while--all the while--that the Speaker does not put a bill on the floor that will open the government, we see the impacts on our national security. Seventy percent of the intel community's workforce has been furloughed. These are people who work every day to keep us safe from terrorists, and they are not able to work. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control has a skeletal crew, and they are not able to do their work, which is part of our national security. So if we are doing the right thing, and if the Speaker and his party in the House are doing the right thing, they would vote today to open the government, to ensure that we pay our bills, and to continue to negotiate. It is very simple. What they have in front of them is a 16- page bill. I think they could pass it this afternoon and reopen our government and give that family in northeastern Pennsylvania some measure of peace of mind instead of the worry and the anxiety and the fear that are caused by both the government shutdown and efforts made to even contemplate defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States of America. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the provisions of S. Res. 267, as a further mark of respect for the memory of the late Senator Rod Grams of Minnesota.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. We certainly appreciate the hours of the Presiding Officer in presiding. I don't know whether the Presiding Officer's time is at the beginning or the end, but we are grateful for the time this weekend. I wish to start by commending the work of the Capitol Police. I didn't have a chance to do that yesterday in light of what happened in Washington the other day. It was a terrible incident and a terrible tragedy. As usual, the Capitol Police handled it with professionalism and with very effective policing and law enforcement and kept people safe. We should commend them every day, not only on days when there is a dangerous incident that takes place. We thank them for that. We gather here today to talk about our country and whether we are going to finally, after almost a full week now, have a government that is open, operating, and functioning. I think a lot of people in both parties, and maybe more so on the Republican side of the aisle, have a better chance this week to understand, appreciate, or have insights into what our government does every day, how it helps people, keeps our economy moving, and keeps us safe. I only hope those lessons are being learned. When I am in Pennsylvania or in Washington and getting communications from Pennsylvania, people ask, in light of this shutdown, some basic questions. A lot of the questions are the same: When will it end? How will it end? Is there a way out? They ask those kinds of questions. They don't know because there is often not a readily identifiable answer. But as complicated as this is, and as difficult as it has been, especially for people directly affected or even affected indirectly for folks around the whole country, there actually is a pretty simple answer, and maybe it has been overlooked this week. It comes down to one word--technically it is two words. The first word is ``just'' and the second word is ``vote.'' But in our social media age, often words are jammed together, so maybe we will say it is one word, ``justvote.'' People might say what does that mean? Congress should have votes all the time, and we understand the House and the Senate votes things all the time. What does ``just vote'' mean? Actually, it is rather simple. A week ago yesterday the Senate voted on a measure, a simple amendment, that was sent over to the House that was a clean resolution--in other words, a continuing resolution. It is another way of saying to keep the government operating. It didn't have anything attached to it, nothing about anything extraneous or additional. That is where the phrase a clean CR, continuing resolution, comes from. It is a way to keep the government open. The House, led by Speaker Boehner, decided not to consider that. Here it is. It is actually pretty simple. It is an amendment to H.J. Res. 59. It is amendment No. 1974. We can see the markings on it when it was being considered here. It is all of 16 pages. It doesn't even get to the end of page 16. It is a simple document, and it has been sitting over there for a week. I, of course, won't read it, but it is a very simple way out of this predicament. It has overwhelming support across the country. Even for people who disagree with me or disagree with Democrats about health care or about any other issue, there is overwhelming support for this. When someone says ``just vote,'' this is what they should just vote on in the House. The House passes this, and it is over. The government shutdown is over. The President will sign it and literally within--I don't know how long it will take them to consider it in the House, 20 minutes for a vote, or an hour for all the procedural mechanisms to play out--and then the President would sign it. I am sure there are people who would drive it to the White House to have him sign it. That is what this is. It is a 16-page bill that is simple. It even has growing support on the Republican side. When we say just vote, just vote on this 16-page document. It may not look like a key--it is 16 pages of legislative language--but this is the key to ending what I think is not a Republican-Democratic shutdown, but this is the key to ending the tea party shutdown. That is what this is. I think most people understand that now we are into a couple of days of government shutdown. It would be very easy for that vote to take place. It would transpire very quickly. The Speaker would only have to put the bill on floor. He wouldn't have to vote for it. Most Republicans wouldn't have to vote for it and likely would not. But the combination of getting Democrats voting for it, virtually every one, and a handful of Republicans, is not only possible but I think there are people waiting to do it. Maybe the number would even grow if it actually happened. This is what should happen. That could happen today or the next opportunity would be Monday. I would hope the Speaker would do that because I think a lot of people are asking a fundamental question about who is in charge, who runs one part of the House or the other. It is my judgment that the tea party is in charge now. I hope conservative Republicans, very conservative Republicans, and moderate Republicans can get control of their party. What I worry about--and I think what economists worry about even more than I because they know more than we do about the economy--the concern is if they don't get control of one wing of one political party, we are going to have an economy that gets out of control. No one wants that, I don't believe, in either party. The other point I wanted to make about where we are--and I know there are people who hear a lot of back and forth and they get a little tired of the debate. They would rather have everyone vote in the House and this would be over. I think it is important to talk about the words ``compromise'' and ``negotiation,'' because they have been used a lot by the Speaker and by Republican Members in the last couple of days. I think the record is pretty clear, even though some have forgotten it--and there were reminders this week--that the negotiation and the compromise on the resolution to keep the government operating already happened. It happened weeks if not months ago. Both sides agreed a resolution to continue funding the government would go forward with nothing attached to it. The hard part for Democrats is that we had to compromise in a very substantial way, and I think that is an understatement. The compromise we put on the table and we adhered to is the compromise of a $70 billion cut in fiscal year 2013 enacted levels. What does that mean? That means we agreed to a much lower number. Democrats on this side passed a budget resolution in the early hours of a Saturday morning. We voted all night. I don't know how many votes we had through several days and throughout the night, but we passed a budget resolution which had a higher number than the number we agreed to later. So we compromised substantially. I think you could even make the argument the compromising so far has been all on one side--the Democratic side--to agree to a much lower number. But one of the most important parts of that is we compromised on the core issue before us. This continuing resolution and funding the government, keeping the government operating, is not a health care debate. I realize people have made it into a health care debate, but the core issue is will the government remain open. We said yes. Will the government remain open at the Democratic number? We wanted that, but we said no in order to keep it functioning and moving forward. We agreed to a lower number. That is the core issue, what will the number be to fund the government. So the compromising and the negotiating was done a long time ago and we were the ones who compromised. The idea that we should have a drawn- out discussion, which they call negotiating, to open the government doesn't make a lot of sense. Once the government is open, we have a lot to debate and talk about and negotiate. One of the illustrations of what I am talking about in terms of what happened here and that transpired over many months, where Democrats compromised to keep the government functioning, was set forth in several news articles in the last couple of days, but I won't read them.

Mr. CASEY. Looking at the Thursday, October 3 edition of Politico, on page 19, here is the headline. I will hold it up, but it is probably too small to see so I will read it: ``How the Shutdown Fight Is Obscuring a Major Republican Victory.'' They are saying here that the compromise the Democrats made to cut $70 billion is the compromise that already happened and should keep the government open. That is the reality. The good news is there is a growing number of Republicans in the House and Senate who are saying just what I am saying: Let's just have the House vote and pass the continuing resolution as it is. I have a number of examples from Pennsylvania. These are examples of what middle-class families are facing. I have heard from several constituents who may not be able to make their mortgage payments this month due to furloughs and from others who can't close on homes because their federal loans are not being processed during a shutdown. I want to take the opportunity to highlight two letters from my constituents. This letter No. 1: Because of the government shutdown, my husband has been furloughed, and is now home without pay for nearly a week. Our mortgage payment is due next week and we are going to be short because of this. My family barely gets by as it is and we cannot afford to lose an entire week's salary because of government tantrums over a health care bill . . . I cannot even begin to express how disappointed I am in our government and your lack of consideration for middle class families who are struggling. This is letter No. 2: After searching for a house for over two years, we have finally found our home. We have gone through all the underwriting for our mortgage, and we only need the stamp from USDA. Unfortunately, since the government shutdown, USDA has closed. We were supposed to have settlement on October 11th, 2013. My husband . . . and I already put in our notices that we will be moving. This is absolutely unacceptable. Please help us in making our home, OUR HOME. Every day that Speaker Boehner refuses to hold a vote on the Senate passed bill that will reopen the government causes more uncertainty and difficulty for Pennsylvanians and citizens across the country. It's time for this shutdown to end and for the House to just vote on the clean continuing resolution that will reopen the government. Let me conclude with this. I think one of the best lines of the week about this piecemeal approach the House is taking day after day, instead of just voting on the measure before them to open the government, came from the commander in chief of the VFW--the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He said: We expect more from our elected leadership, and not a piecemeal approach that would use the military or disabled veterans as leverage in a political game. I think that is a pretty good estimation of why we shouldn't go in the direction of piecemealing. The House should, in a word, just vote so we don't have--and I say this respectfully to my Republican friends--a tea party shutdown evolve into a tea party default. It is bad enough we are in a shutdown, but it will be a lot worse if, for the first time since 1789, the U.S. Government defaulted and the full faith of credit of the United States was badly, badly damaged. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent to have 3 more minutes.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 2, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Continued Oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.''

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 2, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 2, 2013.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, first of all, I want to commend the words of my colleague from West Virginia about, first of all, the frustration that so many Americans feel that we share and also his words about trying to come to a resolution. I think it bears repeating. The main purpose of my remarks today will be focused, really, on one central theme; that is, in the House right now Speaker Boehner could put a bill on the floor that would open the government after a House vote. I am holding in my hand the bill that would do that. This is the bill that passed on Friday. It is amendment No. 1974 to H.J. Res. 59. This is the bill that, if the Speaker were to put it on the floor, would pass overwhelmingly. But you would get not just one side of the aisle, it would be a bipartisan vote to pass that bill, and upon passage, then, of course, getting the bill to the President for signature. So within however long it takes for the House to complete a vote--a rule and maybe two votes--and then getting it to the President, this could be over. And it should be over. We should open the government. This is the way to do it--a bill that does not have anything attached to it. It just funds the government. I would hope the Speaker at long last would put that bill on the floor. We are hearing voices that are bipartisan today asking for the Speaker to do just that. We have also heard a lot of talk about negotiation and compromise, and it is good that people are talking about that. But I hope some of our Republican friends talk about it with a degree of faithfulness to the facts or add adherence to the facts about what has happened over the last couple of months. In an effort to reach an agreement that would avoid the shutdown-- going back now a number of weeks and even months--Democrats here in the Senate and in the House as well accepted some of the very difficult so- called sequestration cuts. What do I mean by that? I mean the across- the-board indiscriminate cuts that went into effect in 2013 and were, unfortunately, a carryover from a battle and a fight in the summer of 2011. So we have accepted those difficult cuts in this budget negotiation in the so-called continuing resolution--meaning the bill that would keep the government operating, the one I just held up--as a compromise. This happened a while back. I mentioned that last Friday, September 27, the Senate passed the so- called clean continuing resolution, which is just a fancy way of saying a budget bill without add-ons--nothing about any other issue, just a bill to fund the government. That bill--the one I referred to earlier that passed the Senate on the 27th and is sitting over in the House-- would open the government and continue funding for the government until the middle of November so we get past this crisis, we do not have this as a problem in the next debate about paying our bills, and we can have a big debate in November about making sure we can pay for government operations. What we should do as well, as we are debating in November--I hope we can get there, but as we are debating that, we should figure out a way--this is a bipartisan concern--to shut off, to turn off at least for 2 years the across-the-board cuts with which I think both parties have real disagreement. But the key is passing this in the House, this measure that will end the crisis, open the government. When we passed it here in the Senate, we accepted those levels of spending, which are significantly less than Democrats would have hoped for, would have wanted. We accepted those despite the fact that we reversed the sequester in the budget we passed this spring. So we had a long budget debate here and, some might remember, last spring voted well into the early morning hours. I think our last vote was at 4 or 5 in the morning. That was a higher number than we have agreed to already. So Democrats have compromised substantially already on the spending level. That does not seem to get reported very often. The bill that passed the Senate last Friday is a $70 billion cut from the last fiscal year, 2013, the levels that were enacted spending levels--enacted fiscal year 2013 before the across-the-board cuts went into effect. To restate, this legislation which is in the House right now and they could pass with overwhelming bipartisan support, and it would open the government and end this crisis--they could do it this afternoon. They could do it this evening. They could do it without a lot of trouble if they put this bill on the floor. It does not mean all Republicans have to vote for it. The Speaker himself could vote against it. But putting it on the floor and having an up-or-down vote I think would be good for everyone. It would end this crisis, open the government, and then we could begin to work on what I think the American people want us working on. They expect us to keep the government open. That is fundamental. But I think they expect us as well to work on strategies to create jobs or at least put into effect strategies that will lead to job creation. I will say it again: This bill that is sitting in the House is not just a bill that will open the government, it will have overwhelming bipartisan support there. The bill is $70 billion less than what we wanted. To say that is a compromise is an understatement. On the main issue before us, how do you fund the government, how much in terms of dollars do you direct toward the operations of the government, we have already compromised a long time ago to reduce that number by $70 billion. So when our friends are saying Democrats are not negotiating or compromising, my goodness, we compromised on day 1. They prevailed in that debate. We decided it is better to compromise in that number and keep the government operating and move the process along in terms of the budget, rather than shutting the government down to get our way. Some Democrats may have said to us: You know what. You should have taken this part and not accepted those cuts, and maybe even take it as far as some Republicans want to take the debate on health care and shut the government down. We said: That does not make any sense. It is bad for the economy. It is bad for vulnerable people. It is bad for national security and a whole host of other reasons which I will mention in a minute, to shut down the government. So from the beginning, we were not only willing to compromise and negotiate, we have already done it in a very substantial way on the core issue, which is the budget and the number. For them to say: Well, we are not going to insist that the government stay open, and then they want to have some negotiation about that does not make a lot of sense, does it, when you consider the compromises we have already made? I think the fundamental thing the American people want us to do is open the government. The key to opening the government is not only sitting in the House, the key is already in the lock. All the Speaker has to do is turn it ever so slightly--turn that key. The turning of the key is this bill. If this bill goes on the floor of the House of Representatives today, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tonight, whenever, it will pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. I will come back to that in a moment. But I think the question of compromise is, frankly, weighted to our side. I think we have already made a substantial and significant compromise in the negotiation, and that was done a long time ago. I think at this point, when it comes to the question, some Members of the House have tried to do, to bring us to this point where there is a shutdown, I think their actions are, in a word, irresponsible. I think a lot of Americans expect they would act in a more responsible manner. By pushing an agenda that has now led to a government shutdown, in addition to being irresponsible or a dereliction of their duty, is also reckless. This is a reckless step to take just to make a point about health care, about anything else. There are a lot of us who would like to have our arguments litigated or debated in a way that gets a lot of attention paid to it. But to take it this far, where you are literally willing to take an action which leads, as this has done, to a government shutdown, is both irresponsible and reckless. I think we are just beginning now, in these hours--and now unfortunately we are into the second day--we are now just beginning to understand the impact this is having on Americans. But in the case of Pennsylvania, we are just beginning to hear the impact on individual Pennsylvanians. This morning I learned that Bushkill Outreach, a food pantry located in the Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area, is closed because it is on Federal land operated by the National Park Service. When you close a national park area or a national park itself, you are not just impacting what happens there and the opportunity for people to tour a national park or to recreate, you are actually having an adverse impact, in this case on a food pantry. This particular food pantry, Bushkill Outreach, feeds 30 families per day, amounting to 120 people per day and 1,200 people per month. Imagine that. You have a group of Members of Congress in Washington who believe their ideological point of view on one issue is so compelling and so important to the country that they are willing to shut the government down and deny those 30 families the opportunity to have the benefit of a food pantry in a still tough economy. We have had, fortunately, a lot of job growth over the last several years. We are happy about that. We are happy that the economy is moving in the right direction on job growth. But it is not moving fast enough for Pennsylvania. In this sense, we have hovered around half a million people for too long. It was well above 500,000 people. Fortunately, it came down below half a million. But it has begun to creep up again. Once again, Pennsylvania has an unemployment number which is just at about 501,000 people. In my home area, northeastern Pennsylvania, we saw data today-- unfortunately in my home county, Lackawanna County, and the county next door, Luzerne County, at least one, maybe two more, in that region of the State, including the region where Bushkill Outreach is--the unemployment rate in several of those counties is more than 9 percent. So there a food pantry is not just a place for people who are particularly vulnerable; those are people who have been vulnerable, because of job loss, because of the economy. The shutdown has two adverse impacts on those families. It has a direct impact on their ability to access food every day. That is horrific enough. Talk about direct and substantial pain, physical pain on an individual or family. But it also has another impact when they shut the government down, certainly over a long period of time for sure--and this is irrefutable--you injure the national economy. When you injure the national economy, you make it less likely that those people who have to access food banks can actually get a job in northeastern Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the country. This is about real life. This is not some Washington theoretical debate. There are thousands of reasons to open up the government. I say to the Speaker of the House: Get this bill on the floor, and the food pantry will no longer be adversely impacted. Our national security will no longer be adversely impacted if we can open the government up again. A lot of the folks who access this food bank are on fixed incomes, so it has a detrimental effect on them. How about national security? The shutdown is having a direct and substantial impact on national security. Our colleague Senator Feinstein was on the floor yesterday and spoke of the critical impact the shutdown is having on the intelligence community. As many Americans know, intelligence gathering is not just the CIA, it is a whole range of agencies that gather intelligence which arms us with information to protect ourselves and to be able to protect ourselves from terrorist threats. In the intelligence community, meaning all of the Federal agencies that gather intelligence to protect us, 72 percent of the civilian work force is furloughed. It is hard to comprehend the adverse impact of that. This means the bulk of Federal employees who gather critical intelligence and work with law enforcement agencies are not working during the shutdown. You have to ask yourself at this point--if you are a Member of the House or the Senate who believes that the point you want to make on health care or anything else that has led to this shutdown--do you really want to maintain that position, that your point is so important and so compelling that you are willing to allow a shutdown to take place and to continue and allow the number I read, 72 percent of the civilian workforce in the intelligence community, to be furloughed? It puts at risk our soldiers, the fighting men and women on battlefields around the world or in danger zones, it puts at risk our diplomatic personnel, and at some level at some point in time puts Americans at risk because you cannot stop terrorism. You cannot arm yourself against terrorist attacks unless you have information. You do not get the information unless you have the full means of intelligence gathering. So I hope folks would ask themselves: Is my ideological point of view on this or that issue important enough that we should have a government shutdown in place which injures our ability in gathering intelligence for national security? I hope people would ask themselves that question and see what the answer would be. I have also heard, when you tell people about the furloughs, I have heard some Republicans--not all, a few--make the argument that somehow the President is making the decision about furloughs that adversely impact national security and he is making a mistake when he does that, he or his administration, or that maybe Members of Congress are somehow part of the decision on furloughs that would adversely impact national security. Look, every Member of Congress is exposed to intelligence. Every Member of Congress has an opportunity to take action on national security and intelligence. Every Member of Congress has an opportunity to say things about decisions that impact national security. But I would say this to my Republican friends: If the charge is the President and his administration are making decisions about furloughs that somehow compromise our national security, if you are going to assert that--you are free to do it; it is a free country--but if you are going to assert that, you should have proof. If you are going to make a charge like that against any President, or, frankly, any Member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, you have got to have proof there. So I would hope the media--when someone makes that charge against the Commander in Chief, I would hope that Member of Congress would have in their hand the proof, a document, a statement, something they can put on the table and say that is the proof. Because if you are going make a charge which is that serious, in such a grave matter of national security, you have got to prove it. If you cannot prove it, you should keep your mouth shut and not make that charge. So I hope when people say somehow this furlough number--I have heard people say: That is support personnel in the intel community; you really do not need those folks. If you are going to contest the number and say our national security is okay during the furlough, during a shutdown, you have got to prove it. A lot of things people say in Washington are part of the political debate, but if one is going to accuse someone of taking an action that would undermine national security, one should have to prove it. Why do I say that? I spent 6\1/2\ years on the Foreign Relations Committee. I have traveled to the Middle East several times, to Pakistan three times, to Afghanistan three times, and to Iraq twice. In regions of the world where our national security interests are directly at stake, we have personnel--either uniformed or diplomatic personnel. I have seen directly how much people can be at risk at those postings in embassies, consulates, and how dependent they are on having marines or literally soldiers to protect the embassy or a consulate, but how dependent they are on good intelligence. There are a lot of reasons to open the government. There are a lot of reasons for the House to vote on this today and open the government, but there are few as compelling as national security and intelligence. I wish to go through a list of impacts that the shutdown is having. We know that the shutdown has an impact on small businesses. Why do we know that? Well, the SBA on a weekly basis provides help to many small businesses across the country. We know that more than 1,000 businesses a week could see their critical financial support deferred until the government opens again. It is bad for small business for the government to be shut down. A shutdown would end nutrition support for pregnant women and children, the Women, Infants and Children Program, WIC. WIC is the acronym we frequently hear. It is a great program. In the event of a shutdown such as we are living through now, WIC will only be able to continue serving participants for 1 week. We are in day 2 of the shutdown. After 1 week, they would have to stop serving participants. What are the numbers here? The basic numbers from fiscal year 2012 are that the average monthly participation totaled more than 8.9 million people. Of that 8.9 million, 4.7 million are children and 2.1 million are infants. This is another good reason to pass this bill in the House today with a quick vote. It would be overwhelmingly bipartisan. In addition to national security and intelligence, this would make sure that the WIC Program will serve people who need it. A government shutdown would compromise public health. Why do I say that? In the shutdown, 70 percent of NIH employees would be furloughed. This is the National Institutes of Health which does research on all kinds of diseases and ailments. It is the envy of the world. No other country in the world has anything equivalent to the National Institutes of Health, but a shutdown will lead to the furlough of 70 percent of their employees. That is another reason. As we heard on the news this morning, there is a lot of reporting about the Centers for Disease Control. It is also adversely affected in the shutdown. A shutdown also compromises school readiness for young children. A government shutdown delays funding for 22 Head Start providers across the country, jeopardizing early childhood education care for the 18,000 children and families those programs serve. We are speaking about 22 providers for Head Start not being able to provide services for 18,000 children and families. Finally, a shutdown endangers benefits owed to our veterans. The Veterans' Administration will run out of money to pay mandatory benefits for existing beneficiaries by the end of this month. I know we have heard people saying: Well, this check or that check will not be stopped. Ultimately, there is going to be a direct impact if the shutdown is continuous. I would say to our friends in the House they can take action right now to prevent this from happening. How may they do that? It is very simple. All they need to do is take the bill sitting there and put it on floor. A lot of people can vote against it, but the vote for it would be overwhelming. If Speaker Boehner puts that on the floor today, tonight or tomorrow--he should do it tonight--we can be beyond this. According to a new report in the National Review there are potentially more than 100 House Republicans who would be open to a so-called clean CR. When we hear that, this is a clean bill to fund the government. It doesn't have anything attached to it. It includes the $70 billion compromise Democrats have already agreed to by reducing the overall cost of the funding of the government. I hope we could end the shutdown today by having the House adopt this legislation. I urge the Speaker to put the bill on floor for a vote in the House today. I wish to conclude with some separate remarks related to the shutdown, but they are also related, unfortunately, to a lot of other budget items. I wanted to do this the other day and want to put it on the record. In addition to everything else I have spoken about, during the shutdown over 30,000 correctional officers in our Federal prisons report to work not knowing when they will receive their next paycheck. These are officers who put their lives at risk every day and deserve to know when they will be paid. During the last shutdown in the midnineties, some guards went well over a month without being paid. These men and women are literally putting their lives on the line every day. Yesterday, I was scheduled to be at an event with a number of families who have been directly impacted by the violence that is perpetrated against corrections officers, but I couldn't be there because it was at the same time as our 9:30 vote on the budget trying to reverse the shutdown. I was supposed to meet with Don and Jean Williams, the parents of Eric Williams, who lost his life as a corrections officer. Officer Williams lost his life performing his duties at a U.S. penitentiary in northeastern Pennsylvania, my home area. I was able to meet his parents briefly at his viewing. That is real life for the Williams family. Unfortunately, they were not the only family represented at the event yesterday. There were several other families who had lost loved ones in that way. I am not sure I had a full appreciation for this before I was elected to the Senate. We have corrections officers in Pennsylvania in our State system. I had some exposure to their work, but it wasn't until I spent a lot of time talking to corrections officers at the Federal level that I learned the gravity of this problem. It is a problem with multiple elements. One, of course, is an erosion of support for corrections officers over time, so that over time the ratio of one corrections officer to inmates has grown. To say they have grown to dangerous proportions is an understatement. One of the reasons Officer Williams lost his life is because often these officers are in situations where they are outnumbered, sometimes by hundreds of inmates. They, of course, can't carry a weapon. The tragedy officer Eric Williams suffered, and the tragedy others have suffered, serves as a stark reminder of the risks that corrections officers and staff face every day. Budget cuts over time, with across-the-board-cuts from sequestration, plus a shutdown leads to a very dangerous situation for corrections officers. We need to address their concerns and these issues as part of this overall debate about the budget. In conclusion, I reiterate that I hope the House will take up the bill that can end this crisis and open the government. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, we are here tonight in the Senate, hours away from a deadline which, if action is not taken on the House side, the other body, will lead to a government shutdown. Unfortunately, when I have been asked today by either constituents or reporters, and they ask: Is it less likely or more likely that there will be a shutdown, I have had to be honest and say: At least at this moment it seems more likely than less likely. I think we have to examine not just how to try to resolve this in a way that makes sense, but also to remind ourselves how we got here. This is not the typical battle in Washington. We have had a lot of those. We should all try to work in a bipartisan fashion. But this one is unique in the sense that you have, on the one side, Democrats in Congress and across the country who are united in an effort to continue the operations of the government and not have a government shutdown, even if we want to make a point, even if we want to make an argument about this or that policy. We see a growing number of Republicans here in the Senate and across the country, and maybe even a few in the House, even in the last 24 hours or so, who are saying: Let's just get the government funded so we can move forward. We might be able to have a debate in the middle of November or somewhere down the road. But let's not hold up the operations of government or default on our obligations for the first time since 1789 in order to make an ideological point or a political point. It is clear from the national data that Independents are on that side of the argument as well. So you have this consensus on one side, with Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, who say that we should not-- in order to make a point about an issue, whether it is health care or the economy or whatever it is--we should not act in a way that would shut down the government to do that. On the other side, you have the far right of the Republican party which not only believes that in order to make their point they are willing to allow the government to shut down, but they also have a determination to do that to the extent one wing of one party is really driving the train in that party. It happens to be the Republican Party. So this is unusual. It is not the typical Democrat versus Republican debate. It started months ago when politicians who work in this town would go home to their State or their districts and make the point that, no matter what, they were going to argue that this is the moment where they should stop the health care bill. No matter what was in their way, they were going to continue to drive in that direction. That is how we have gotten here. What happens if we go past the deadline and there is a shutdown of a few days or longer? Here is what some of the data show from some of the folks who are not in the Congress but who observe broader trends, especially economic trends. Mark Zandi is Moody's chief economist. He is widely respected. I think people in both parties respect his opinion. According to him--and I am not quoting, I am just summarizing what he said--a shutdown lasting a few days would cost the economy 0.2 percent of GDP, while a longer shutdown could cost as much as 1.4 percent. Sometimes it is difficult to say what 0.2 percent of GDP means. What it means for sure is the economy, which has been moving in the right direction--we have had tremendous job growth, over 9 quarters now, and many months of job growth. But we are not moving fast enough. We are not creating jobs at a fast enough pace. When I go home to Pennsylvania people do not say to me: Score every point you can for your point of view. They say to me: Work together with the other side to create jobs. Work together with the other side to put in place strategies that will lead to economic growth and to job growth. If you are going to go in the wrong direction when it comes to growth, and you lose 0.2 percent of growth, and then, if the shutdown goes longer you lose 0.4 or 0.5 or 0.6, over time you are going in the wrong direction. But we know when you lose even 0.2 percent of growth you are killing jobs. So first and foremost, any shutdown is a big job killer. A default on our obligations would be a much bigger job killer. A shutdown would not just slow growth, but it would spread anxiety. This is just human nature. It will spread anxiety among consumers. We know that in the summer of 2011 the almost default on our obligations caused consumer confidence to take a nosedive. We did not come out of that hole of consumer confidence until many months later. A government shutdown has a similar effect. How about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not usually on my side of a lot of debates or on the Democratic side? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has urged Congress to keep the government open and has said that a shutdown would be ``economically disruptive and create even more uncertainty in the U.S. economy.'' So this is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is often making arguments about uncertainty in other contexts. They are saying that a shutdown would create even more uncertainty. How about the economic recovery? I mentioned those 9 quarters of growth we have had. We have had job growth as well. Just in terms of how you measure it: 7.5 million private sector jobs--7.5 million added in the last 42 months. That will take a nosedive. So instead of growing at 160,000 jobs a month, roughly, which has been kind of the pace for a while now, which is not fast enough--we need to be at 200,000 or 230,000 or 240,000 if we really want to say that the economy has taken off. But instead of growing at 160,000, 170,000, or even higher, we will go backwards. Maybe the job growth for the next couple of months will be substantially less than that. A shutdown all but ensures that to happen. We don't know exactly how much slowing or how much damage would be done to the job growth, but there is going to be a job impact for sure, and I think that is pretty clear from the data. Both sides in a lot of debates in Washington say they stand for small businesses. We can debate which side does a better job for small business. We know when a small business person needs some help, a measure of help from the Federal Government, they usually turn to the Small Business Administration. We know the SBA, their approval of applications for business loans guarantees and direct loans to small business would cease. If we take the Small Business Administration off the playing field, they average about 1,000 loans or loan guarantees per week. That is national. What does that mean for Pennsylvania? From October 2012 through August of this year, 2013, the SBA supported over 1,400 loans for over $600 million for small businesses in Pennsylvania. On average, that is about 30 loans for over $13 million to entrepreneurs each week--every week, on average, based upon the recent data in Pennsylvania, 30 loans and $13 million helping small businesses in Pennsylvania. To shut that off would make our economic circumstance even worse. In Pennsylvania, we had many months in a row where the unemployment numbers were 500,000 people unemployed or more. Thankfully, it dipped below 500,000 for a couple of months. We just received the numbers from August because the State numbers are always behind. The State data for August unfortunately shows we are just above 500,000 people out of work. A shutdown will bring that 500,000-persons out-of-work number and send it higher and send it in the wrong direction. What about veterans? People say veterans' disability checks would go out, just as Social Security checks would go out, in the aftermath of a shutdown. That is only part of the story. If you are a veteran getting disability checks or a pension benefit--in our State we have 109,000 veterans who receive disability or pension help. They may get their check, but it is highly likely, if not a certainty, that those checks will be delayed. If you are a veteran and are entitled to this because of what you did for our country, because part of a political party wants to make an ideological point, you have to wait for your check. You have to wait for your disability check. That makes no sense. To say it is unfair to a veteran or to his or her family is an understatement. What about Social Security? People say: Well, the checks are going to go out so people will be just fine in a shutdown. That is only part of the story. Yes, current recipients will get their checks, but if you reach the age of 65 and you wish to have your application processed, you will not be able to do that or, at a minimum, that will be slowed substantially. In our State, every month more than 11,600 people are able to start the process for Social Security benefits. Those people will have to wait and wait in the advent of a government shutdown. What about national parks? We have a great blessing in our State where we have an abundance of national parks and historic sites which are wonderful for the country, wonderful for enrichment, learning, and history, but they also are a big economic driver in different communities. In southeastern Pennsylvania, when you add it all, one of the numbers I saw was over $200,000 of impact. Those, unlike a lot of others I spoke about, those parts of the government will stop completely. An economic engine in one part of our State that averages about $200,000 of economic impact will stop. Maybe we will lose $10,000 over the course of a shutdown. Maybe Pennsylvania will lose $20,000 or $30,000. We are going to lose for sure and a lot of other States will as well. The Flight 93 National Memorial is one of those from 9/11 and Gettysburg and Valley Forge/Independence Visitor Center in Philadelphia, there are many examples and many job impacts when it comes to all of those. The basic point is some people would say: Look, you are in the Senate or the House, and you wish to have a debate about something as significant and consequential to people's lives or to our economy such as health care, you ought to be able to debate that. I would agree with that. There is no question about it. We had big debates in 2009 leading up to a vote in the Senate. Then the debate continued in 2010. The bill was enacted in 2010. There was still debate about it after that. There were votes taken one after another to repeal it. Then the Supreme Court litigated it. That took months until the Supreme Court made a decision. The Supreme Court, which is dominated--or at least the majority are Republican-appointed Justices--said the Affordable Care Act was constitutional. Then there was a Presidential election, which was another kind of litigation or debate. One candidate said: I am going to keep the Affordable Care Act in place, and we are not going to repeal it. The other side said: We are going to repeal it. The side that said they were going to put it into effect won the election--that of President Obama. This has been debated and litigated several direct ways in several different branches of our government. That will continue and, frankly, it should continue. Some of the impacts are already in place. We know that. We know, for example, that since 2010, when the consumer protections went into effect, which had nothing to do initially with those who were uninsured, the tens of millions of uninsured, but we put in place the consumer protections for those with insurance, those who had coverage, were making payments--premium payments--yet their children were still not protected because of a preexisting condition. Up until 2010, it was the law--or it was the prevailing policy that if an insurance company wanted to say to those who were paying premiums, sorry, I know you are making your payments, but your child has a preexisting condition, and they are not covered, that was permitted when insurance companies had all of the power. I would argue they had all the power, an unfair advantage and bargaining advantage. Since 2010, we have had something on the order of 17 million children who could no longer be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition, solely and completely because of the Affordable Care Act. We have millions of young people who can stay on their parents' policies from the ages of 19 to 25. They can only stay on those policies solely because of the Affordable Care Act, because it was enacted into law. We have millions of seniors who are getting payments over time to help them fill the coverage gap of the so-called doughnut hole. They are getting those payments solely because of the Affordable Care Act. Tomorrow, we are going to see the beginning of the exchanges going up, where people can go into a marketplace and shop for the best possible health care insurance that they can afford. Most people-- probably as many as 150 million Americans--already have coverage and their employer provides it, so their status will not change that much, if at all. These changes are going into effect over time. I would hope the people who wish to keep debating it and making changes to it--and I voted for changes as well--would allow it to be, if not fully implemented, something close to fully over the next couple of months or maybe even over the next couple of years. Then at some point this debate about who is right or who is wrong about the impact will have been determined. We are all for debate on the budget, health care, and everything else, but we shouldn't bring the country to these cliffs--the cliff meaning this deadline tonight on the budget, where the House has our legislation, which is only about the budget. They could pass it. It will pass if the Speaker puts it on the floor tonight. It would pass, and we would be beyond this crisis. Then we would move to the next deadline, get beyond these deadlines, have a big debate, and have very strong arguments made about how we get a full year's worth of a budget starting in the middle of November. That is the appropriate time and the appropriate place to make arguments about the budget, the economy, jobs, health care or whatever else it is. Now is not the time. I would hope between now and midnight, the House would put up our bill, which is very simple--it keeps the government operating with no conditions and no add-ons--and pass that legislation. We would be done with this, and we could move on to issues people want us to work on. I will restate what I said before. People in Pennsylvania, when they say to me what they want me to do, they say work together to create jobs. If you had to put that in a sound bite, that is what it is. I am hoping between now and then this consensus of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents that prevailed throughout the country will have the appropriate influence on those who are trying to push this to the end and shut down the government. A government shutdown is bad for everybody, no matter what party you are in. We should keep working to make sure it doesn't happen. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize the 30th anniversary of Downtown Daily Bread, located in the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, PA. Downtown Daily Bread is an organization that believes in the equality of all human beings and strives to meet the needs of the poor and homeless. Hunger and food insecurity is an unfortunate, but preventable reality for many of our citizens, and healthy meals are essential to their wellbeing. Downtown Daily Bread serves hot, nutritious meals for many families in the city of Harrisburg. Understanding that people's needs extend beyond food, this organization also offers help with other essentials, such as access to showers, clothing, and mail services. Counselors are available to offer support focused on many important areas to provide people with the tools necessary to get back on their feet. It also has counselors to help with housing, legal, physical and mental health issues. Through its determined efforts toward collaboration, Downtown Daily Bread has established relationships with local organizations and governmental departments in order to best meet the needs of community members. The staff and local volunteers play an important role at Downtown Daily Bread and I am grateful for the effort they make to improve the quality of life for their friends and neighbors. I value the work that the Downtown Daily Bread has performed in Harrisburg since its founding in 1983. I am encouraged to know it will continue serve Pennsylvanians in need.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about an issue we don't talk about here, and I am joined by my colleague, the senior Senator from Florida, Senator Nelson. We appear on the floor today to talk about an issue which I would argue is a clear and present danger to young Americans. What is that? We could probably make a long list of things we are concerned about as it relates to young people, but we are here today to talk about bullying and harassment. According to the Department of Education, nearly one in three students ages 12 to 18 is affected by bullying and harassment. Another study estimates that 60,000 students in the United States of America do not attend school each day because they fear being bullied. With the advent of text messaging and social media, many children find they cannot escape the harassment when they go home at night. It follows them from the moment they wake until the moment they go to sleep. This problem was brought once again into the national consciousness in the last couple of days. I am reading a headline from the Tampa Bay Times, dated September 12, 2013: ``Lakeland Girl Commits Suicide After Being Bullied Online.'' Senator Nelson will be talking about that, as will I. Here is the other headline from the Washington Post about the same incident: ``Police: Florida Girl Who Committed Suicide Had Been Bullied for Months by as Many as 15 Girls.'' I am the father of four daughters and I remember times when my daughters were going through high school. We have one in high school, one in college, and two out of college. I remember when our daughter was going through high school and instant messaging was one way to communicate, kind of a back and forth between some of the girls in her high school class. She was about 15 or 16 at the time. It never rose to the level of any kind of serious harassment. It was something that a lot of families I am sure have experienced. But my wife and I were blessed that our daughters never were exposed to what this young girl was exposed to. I won't show her picture, but I am looking at a picture of her right now. Her name is Rebecca Ann Sedwick, 12 years old, of Lakewood, FL, a beautiful girl subjected to the most horrific kind of harassment and abuse. It is almost unimaginable that a group of human beings could do this to another person. Unfortunately, it happens all too often. Because my colleague from Florida knows the case and the news articles better than I, I ask him to highlight this. But I think we all have the same reaction, one of horror, and we are summoned by our conscience to do something about this. We can't just say, as some say, Well, every generation has faced some kind of harassment, some kind of bullying, so it is part of growing up. I have heard this argument. The argument is without validity, because no generation prior to this generation has had the technological burden. When I was growing up and someone was bullied at school, that was bad enough, but it ended when the schoolday ended. But today that is not possible if you have determined and vicious people who want to bully another student, because technology allows that person to be bullied when they leave school, all throughout the night, and then throughout the next day and day after day. I turn with respect to my colleague to talk a little bit more about this particular case.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I commend Senator Nelson for his leadership and for bringing this horrific example to the attention of the Senate, at least on the floor, even though many had seen the news coverage. I thank him for his leadership in trying to focus on this, even if a larger education bill does not pass. I will conclude by saying anyone who doubts this is a problem should read one or more of these articles about this case, but I am sure we could cite many others. I will make part of the Record both of these articles I referred to, the Tampa Bay Times of September 12 article and the Washington Post story of the next day, September 13, that I referred to. I want to read two lines from both stories. From the Tampa Bay story, the sheriff of Polk County, FL, Sheriff Brady Judd, says about Rebecca Ann Sedwick, she was ``absolutely terrorized on social media.'' That is the sheriff, a law enforcement official who made a determination about what happened to this girl. Then in the Washington Post story--this is actually the Washington Post but it is the Associated Press; I should correct that--but right in the middle of the story by the Associated Press: The case has illustrated once more the way that youngsters are using the Internet to torment others. In one they refer to being ``terrorized,'' in the other they refer to someone being ``tormented.'' This is a big problem. The legislation I have introduced may not have prevented this, but for sure we need legislation where schools at a minimum are required to have a code of conduct which includes bullying and harassment. By the way, they do not need to wait for a bill to be passed. There is no excuse for a school in the United States of America not to have a code of conduct that specifically prohibits bullying right now. Any school district that does not have that in place should be ashamed of themselves and they should get to work and get that done. They don't need to wait for a bill from Washington. That is No. 1, prohibit the conduct very specifically. No. 2, the States need to collect information and make that information available and report this information to the Department of Education. But one of the most important features of this, to get it right, is you have to specifically prohibit bullying that is done by way of electronic communication. Whether or not this bill is passed in the near term, there are things schools can do right now. They have no excuse to wait for a bill. That is the school's responsibility, and the community's, and the school district's. What about other areas of responsibility? Parents have a responsibility. So parents either of the tormenters, the perpetrators of this crime, but even parents who do not have children involved on either end--every parent has a responsibility. I know people do not like to hear that. They do not like public officials telling parents what they should do. Frankly, I am not too concerned about that today. Every parent has a responsibility to tell their children not to engage in this kind of conduct. If they do not do that, they are not doing their job. If their child is involved in this kind of bullying, they need to figure out a way to stop their children from doing that. If they do not do that, they are not doing their job. Parents who hear about another child who is being bullied have a responsibility to tell someone, and the students have a responsibility as well. We are all responsible here. We cannot say it is just the school district's problem or just the Federal Government's problem or just the State's problem or just the parents' problem. We are all responsible when this happens and we all have a responsibility to do something about it because this is unacceptable. This is a crime we should never ever tolerate. Unfortunately, we keep reading the stories, we keep hearing about this, and some people are willing to walk away. We need to do more than just talk about legislation. I have a very good bill. I thank Senator Kirk for making it a bipartisan priority. But we have to do more than just talk about legislation and pass bills. That is important, but we need to take ownership of this issue as parents, as citizens, and as Americans. We all have a responsibility. May it be said years from now, decades from now, that because of horrific and disturbing stories such as the story from Florida where Rebecca Ann Sedwick was pushed and tormented to the point where, according to the news article, she committed suicide--let it be said of us that we took the right steps to substantially reduce the likelihood that this kind of story ever plays out again. I ask unanimous consent the articles be printed in the Record.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to acknowledge the military service of a Pennsylvania constituent who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation during the Vietnam War. Tomorrow, September 20, is National POW/ MIA Recognition Day, so it is only fitting that I tell his story. After a 45-year absence, Maj. Louis Fulda Guillermin, U.S. Air Force, is finally returning home to Pennsylvania. Louis Guillermin, the only child of the late Wister and Myrtle Booker Guillermin, was born on January 6, 1943, in West Chester, PA. Louis joined the Air Force after college and completed his pilot training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. In addition, he received further training in radar and celestial navigation instruction at Connelly Air Force Base. Louis was commissioned as a second lieutenant and awarded his silver wings in April 1964. During his second tour in South East Asia, Major Guillermin flew counterinsurgency missions as a navigator in an A-26A Invader aircraft for the 609th Air Commando Squadron. On April 28, 1968, at the age of 25, Major Guillermin's aircraft went down over Savannakhet Province, Laos. Louis would remain missing for many years and would achieve the rank of major while on missing-in-action status. Many years later, his aircraft was located, and on May 28, 2013, the Department of Defense positively identified his remains thanks to the efforts of the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command. Despite having been missing for all these years, Maj. Louis F. Guillermin was never forgotten. The Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 436, of Chester County, PA, adopted his name for their chapter. Now, Louis will be laid to rest on October 5, and on behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Nation, I would like to welcome him home. I share the story of Major Guillermin not only because the formal recognition of his sacrifice is long overdue, but also as a reminder that there are many others that remain missing. An estimated 1,644 members of the Armed Forces remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. A total of 91 of those are from Pennsylvania. I would also like to mention that there are an estimated 83,000 total unaccounted for members of the Armed Forces since World War II. We as a nation have a responsibility to make every effort in accounting for the missing and providing this information to the loved ones and the communities who have experienced such a profound loss. May Major Guillermin, and all missing-in-action servicemembers who have passed on from this world, rest in eternal peace. You have more than earned your dignity and honor, as well as our reverence. You are not forgotten.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to talk about two overarching issues that are confronting the Senate and the House at the same time. Both, unfortunately in this circumstance, are directly related. Normally, we would talk about these two issues separate and apart. First of all, the Affordable Care Act and what that means for the country, what it means for families, the impact it is having now in a very positive way but also what it means for those families in the future and also the concerns I have about what a small group, but a very powerful group in the Congress, want to do that I would argue would adversely impact the economy. Let me talk first about the Affordable Care Act. I was a strong supporter, worked hard for its passage, and will continue to work hard on the implementation. We have seen in the last couple of years, since implementation began in 2010, continued in 2011, 2012, and 2013, the benefits the Affordable Care Act have brought to this country. We have also seen where we have had to make changes, where we have had to come together, often in a bipartisan manner, to make changes to the legislation to make it work. There will be plenty of other changes in the future, but the worst thing we could do right now is to pretend, as some in this body and in the other body do as well, that nothing has changed for the better for families. Let me give a couple of examples. I will use Pennsylvania examples, but of course in every one of these there is a national number that corresponds to the State-by-State numbers. Consider this: In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 222,703 Pennsylvania seniors saved money on prescription drugs directly as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Health care reform provides seniors who hit the so-called doughnut hole with more than a 50-percent discount on brand name drugs. Already, just in Pennsylvania, that many seniors have had some measure of support when they got into that doughnut hole. That is a very nice way of saying a coverage gap, where they have to come up with the dollars for prescription drugs. I mentioned the number of 222,000 seniors in Pennsylvania who have already saved $168 million on prescription drugs directly as a result of this legislation. So if you are for repealing this, you have to tell us how you are going to help those 222,703 Pennsylvanians with their prescription drug coverage if you want to take away that benefit. Two more examples. I will not go through all of these. There are 5,489,162 Pennsylvanians with preexisting conditions who will no longer have to worry about being denied coverage. That part of the legislation, as the Presiding Officer knows so well, is an enlargement of what we had before. What we had in the first couple years of implementation was a legal prohibition that a child who had a preexisting condition would not be denied coverage. Imagine where we were before this legislation. The Federal Government and the Nation were saying to those families: We know your child has coverage, we know you are paying the premium for that child, we know that technically your child has some kind of health insurance coverage, but if that child has a preexisting condition, he or she does not get covered. That was the prevailing policy before the Affordable Care Act was passed. What we said in the act was that is unacceptable. The United States is not going to say any longer to a family: If your child has a preexisting condition he or she will be denied coverage and treatment. We wiped that out by virtue of passage of the act and then implementation. Now we are saying, as implementation proceeds in 2014, that same kind of coverage for preexisting conditions will apply to adults as well. We couldn't afford to do it right away, but now we are able to move in that direction. Imagine what happens upon repeal, if we repeal the Affordable Care Act, if we go back to the old and, I would argue, very dark days, where children and adults with preexisting conditions don't get the coverage they need and surely deserve. What kind of a country are we if we say a child whose parents have health insurance and have been paying premiums should not be covered or treated because an insurance company says they are not entitled to coverage? If we repeal the bill, we are going back to those days. Whether it is a child or an adult, the least we can do is say we will have a health insurance system in the United States where if you are paying your premiums, you will be given the coverage you are paying for and that you are entitled to. We couldn't say that before the passage of this act. So repeal of the Affordable Care Act means preexisting conditions are no longer covered. I haven't heard a lot from the other side about how they would achieve that. Maybe they will. Maybe they will come up with a plan to do that. Finally, this is the third example. There are 91,000 young Pennsylvanians who have been able to find health care coverage. Under the act, young adults, ages 19 to 25, are able to stay on their parents' plan in order to maintain coverage. A lot of families out there had a lot of worry and, frankly, a lot of financial burden but especially the anxiety of knowing a young person who may have been in college for years--maybe they had a 2-year college or 4-year education, but somewhere in that time period of being in college, roughly that age and after college up through age 25--had no coverage. This has solved that problem. Imagine the numbers across the country. In both of these instances--young people having coverage on their parents' plans and children being covered for preexisting conditions-- we are talking in the tens of millions of Americans, children and young adults. Those are just three examples--seniors getting help with their prescription drug coverage, which they never got before at this level of protection and help; children with preexisting conditions, now adults; and then, thirdly, young people across the country. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a summary entitled ``The Affordable Care Act Is Providing Stability and Security for Middle-Class Pennsylvanians.''

Mr. CASEY. There is a lot more we could talk about, but we don't have time. I will not go into the national numbers because I know others have done that, but these are just some of the examples of what this legislation has meant. The act is not perfect. No act that has been passed by this Senate has ever been perfect, especially something as challenging as health care, and we will make changes to make it work. But the worst thing we could do is for the Senate to turn its back on children and say: You don't deserve to have coverage if you have a preexisting condition or turn our back on older citizens who fought our wars, worked in our factories, taught our children, gave us a middle class, and gave us and younger generations life and love and helped us in so many ways and say to them: You know what. You can be on your own when it comes to prescription drug coverage. That is the Affordable Care Act. But unfortunately this isn't just a debate about the act. Now we are getting into a debate about some people in Washington wanting to use the Affordable Care Act as a political weapon in other contexts. They say if they do not have a repeal of or a defunding of the Affordable Care Act, that somehow they think a government shutdown would be the right way to go or that we would default on our obligations. Of course, I and many others don't believe that is the right way to go; in essence, in the case of the debt limit, holding the debt limit hostage to a relitigation of the Affordable Care Act. That is dangerous for the economy, but I think it is also very bad for those families I just mentioned. This debt limit crisis that is ahead of us, just as the end of the fiscal year crisis is ahead of us, is manufactured. We don't need to have a crisis on the debt ceiling, but it is being manufactured to make a political point by some in Washington. Not all Republicans agree with this, certainly not around the country but even here in Washington. But some seem to believe this is the right way to go. This is the kind of edge-of-the-cliff brinkmanship we saw in 2011, which had a substantial--and I think this is irrefutable--adverse impact on the economy. The Dow dropped 2,000 points because of the last debt ceiling debate, a debate which resulted in us getting an agreement at the very last minute, not going over the deadline. But some apparently think it is a good idea to default on our obligations for the first time since 1789. What does that mean for most Americans? If we have the Dow drop 2,000 points or maybe lower, if we actually go over the deadline, it means a loss of savings for Americans. It may not affect people in the Senate who are wealthy or people in the Senate who have job security and health care security and everything else, but it will hurt a lot of Americans, and it will crater the savings of Americans if that happens. An adverse credit rating, another adverse consequence, means more expensive credit for everyone. It translates into higher costs for housing, education, and other critical household expenses. Local governments would also bear the burden of a lower credit rating--a drop in the credit rating of the United States--which makes every project that much more difficult and expensive. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled ``Uncertainty Is the Enemy of Recovery,'' dated April 28, 2013, and written by Bill McNabb, the CEO of Vanguard.

Mr. CASEY. I will not read the article, but I was certainly struck by it. Obviously, the author talks about this problem of uncertainty and what it causes. In support of his op-ed he mentioned the work done by two economists in measuring and calculating the cost of this uncertainty. Here is what they concluded just as it relates to the uncertainty that results from a debt ceiling battle: At Vanguard we estimate that the spike in policy uncertainty surrounding the debt-ceiling debate alone has resulted in a cumulative economic loss of $112 billion over the past two years. This is what Bill McNabb, who is someone who knows something about markets and related issues, said in April of this year. So there is a 2-year impact of $112 billion because of a politically motivated and manufactured crisis, because some people want to make a political statement about the debt ceiling, which puts the economy at risk. I hope that some folks come to their senses because we can have and should have debates about reducing spending in a bipartisan fashion, how to reduce spending the way a business does, how to reduce spending the way a family does. But does it make any sense to do this kind of high-wire act? This is very dangerous for the economy. This isn't theoretical. We had a dry run, unfortunately. We had a rehearsal of this in 2011. We didn't go over the line, we didn't default, but we came very close. We came within days of defaulting. Getting close to that alone had an adverse impact on the economy. So to say this is fiscally reckless is a vast understatement. I don't know how to express it beyond saying that. To say that it is dangerous for the economy, for jobs, for families, for the middle class, for companies all over the country; to say that to default on our obligations or coming close to that--playing with fire, in a sense--to say that is dangerous is an understatement. Here is what we should do: We should stop the games and the fiscal high-wire act, and we should focus on what middle-class families want. When I go home to Pennsylvania, they say to me in a couple of short words what they want me to do: Work together to create jobs. Work together to create the conditions for growth, whether that is tax credits or tax policy, whether it is efforts to jump-start the economy. One of the more depressing charts I have seen in 6 months or maybe even 6 years is a chart that was in the New York Times called ``A Shifting Economic Tide,'' dated July 25, 2013. It depicts the change in income from 1995. There is a long line going up and down with spikes and then the line going down. But the two most relevant numbers here are the comparison between the top 1 percent during the recession and then in the recovery. The top 1 percent got hit pretty hard, as a lot of people did. Even the very wealthy got hit. They lost a little more than 36 percent of their real income. But in the recovery, even though they lost 36 percent, they are up plus-11 in the recovery. So they went down by 36, but they are up plus-11. So they are still not back yet. But what happened to the bottom 90 percent--not the top 1 percent, but what happened to the bottom 90 percent in the recession and recovery? According to this chart, the bottom 90 percent lost 12 percent of their real income, but they are still at minus 1.5. They haven't even gotten to zero. They haven't even gotten to positive territory yet when you compare their real income in the recession and the hit they took and where they are today. So what does that mean for us? It means that both parties have a lot of work to do. It means that both parties should be working together to create more jobs and create more economic certainty instead of playing this game, which is dangerous, fiscally reckless for sure, and very damaging to the economy and even the morale of the country. They want us to work together. They don't want us to play a games like some want to play here. I appreciate the fact that we are having a debate about the Affordable Care Act. It is very important to have that debate and make sure we get the implementation right. But we should not be using the Affordable Care Act as a political weapon in these debates about our fiscal policy. I believe we can do that in a rational way as long as people are willing to set aside their political ideology for a short period of time so we can resolve some of these issues. I yield the floor.