Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor again today to talk about jobs, about manufacturing jobs, about the high-quality, high- skill wage jobs America needs for today and for the future. Today I have introduced a bill which shows that dealing with our ongoing challenges of supporting our manufacturing sector and growing jobs in our manufacturing sector can have bipartisan solutions. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois joined me in introducing the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, which has a simple but important objective: to require the creation of a national manufacturing strategy. Today more than 12 million Americans are directly employed in manufacturing. As I have said on the floor before as part of our Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative, manufacturing jobs are good jobs. They are high-skilled jobs, they are high-wage jobs, they are high-benefit jobs, and they have a terrific secondary benefit in terms of the other support and service sector jobs that come along with manufacturing jobs in a community. We need to know the direction we are heading as a country as we try to support the growth of manufacturing. We have grown more than half a million manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years. That is an encouraging sign. We are one of the most productive in the output of our manufacturing sector of all the countries in the world. What we have lacked is a very coordinated strategy between the Federal Government, State governments, and the private sector to align all of our investments--our investments in research and development, our investments in new skills, our investments in infrastructure--to make sure they are all heading in the right direction. Do our competitors have national manufacturing strategies? Absolutely. Germany, China, India, South Africa, and Russia all have thoroughly developed, deeply researched, and prominently successful strategies for how to accelerate and sustain manufacturing as a key part of their economies. This bill would amend the America COMPETES Act. It would require every 4 years that the Secretary of Commerce, advised by a board of 15 different folks, pull together and think through, research, and then deliver a national manufacturing strategy. This doesn't require new programs. It doesn't even necessarily require new funding or new Federal expenditures. It only requires that we coordinate all the different areas where the Federal Government is investing in supporting manufacturing and where State and local governments are working in partnership with the private sector. This may be a small but vital step toward giving the lift we need for our manufacturing sector to continue its sustained growth of the last few years. Why is a manufacturing strategy essential? Because we have a couple of areas where, frankly, we are falling short--in infrastructure, in access to capital, and in skills. Having a highly skilled manufacturing workforce is one of the things we need to do if we are going to win the fight to regain our international prominence as the leading global manufacturing country. The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, a global consulting firm, have both independently concluded that there are as many as 600,000 manufacturing jobs in America today that are unfilled because of a lack of a workforce with the relevant skills. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers estimates that number could increased to 3 million by 2015. So a focus through a national strategy and through some facilitating investments and legislation by this body and the House and by enactment by the President and investments across-the-board could deal with these important skill gaps. Why are there skill gaps in manufacturing? Many Americans have a misconception about what manufacturing is like today. They have a picture in their heads of manufacturing from 10, 20, or 30 years ago when it required simple labor, when it required repeated routine tasks such as simply putting on a bolt or affixing a particular piece onto a vehicle, where there wasn't any teamwork, there wasn't any continuous improvement required, and there weren't analytical skills required. That was the manufacturing line of the past, not of today and certainly not of the future. In fact, the skills required to be successful in modern advanced manufacturing are quite different from what they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Today one has to work as part of a team and be able to troubleshoot and problem-solve. There are fewer people working on manufacturing lines, but they are higher in productivity because the analytical skills they are bringing to the job are greater than they have ever been before. That is also why manufacturing can be a more satisfying career, a more rewarding place to work than it was in the past, because it engages the whole human being. It engages the whole worker. It allows them to have ownership of the quality of the finished product. One of the lessons American automobile manufacturing learned in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as it faced the threat of higher quality auto manufacturing elsewhere in the world was to not only retool the manufacturing line but to empower the individual worker to be engaged in quality control. Those of us here in the Senate who worked in the manufacturing industry know what it meant to have gone through a process where we had to certify. You had to go through a searching auditing process to be able to demonstrate, if you were a component supplier or if you were part of a supply chain, that you were meeting world-class standards. In fact, the ISO 9000 system--the International Organization for Standardization--and its 9000 series audits that swept through the country over 20 years and ended up resulting in a higher quality of manufacturing was just the first of a number of steps toward requiring those who were working in manufacturing facilities to have a higher level of skills. One of the ways in which we have an ongoing challenge is that manufacturers--medium and small manufacturers with whom I visited up and down the State of Delaware--don't know the level of skills and the quality of skills of young people they wish to hire who may have just finished high school or might have taken a certificate course with a community college. We don't have a transportable, translatable certificate for basic manufacturing skills. One of the innovations of the IT industry was a whole series of skills certifications that allow someone to know, when they are hiring a young person to do office support for IT or when they are hiring someone to be a network administrator, whether they have the practical skills they need to do that job and do it well. They can't guess that by where they went to high school or what courses they took at a college. We don't have a similar sort of reliable, transportable, translatable, manufacturing skill certification process. That may be a part of this national manufacturing strategy. We certainly have heard from manufacturers large and small--not only in Delaware but around the country--about what they need, what would put a floor beneath their growth and would allow them to be globally competitive. No. 1 would be a stronger, skilled workforce; No. 2 would be more access to capital; and No. 3 would be more and better access on a fair basis to a global market and a global economy. We have had a great first couple of weeks with the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative. More than 25 Senators have contributed more than 40 bills. Many of these are broad or bold or bipartisan bills that contain the ideas that I think can sustain and grow manufacturing in the United States going forward. It is a growing menu of bills--bills that are bipartisan and that I believe not only need but deserve a vote on the floor later in this Congress. I am grateful to Senator Kirk for partnering with me in introducing this bill today, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, and I am hopeful it will pick up more bipartisan sponsors in the days and weeks ahead. I also hope, working in partnership with the Manufacturing Caucus, ably led by Senator Stabenow and Senator Graham, we will begin to hammer out the bipartisan bills that will deserve a vote on this floor and that will ultimately reach enactment through the Congress and by signature of our President. With that, we might well be able to deliver on what we hear most often from our constituents: Help us grow high-quality jobs in this country.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor again today to talk about jobs, about manufacturing jobs, about the high-quality, high- skill wage jobs America needs for today and for the future. Today I have introduced a bill which shows that dealing with our ongoing challenges of supporting our manufacturing sector and growing jobs in our manufacturing sector can have bipartisan solutions. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois joined me in introducing the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, which has a simple but important objective: to require the creation of a national manufacturing strategy. Today more than 12 million Americans are directly employed in manufacturing. As I have said on the floor before as part of our Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative, manufacturing jobs are good jobs. They are high-skilled jobs, they are high-wage jobs, they are high-benefit jobs, and they have a terrific secondary benefit in terms of the other support and service sector jobs that come along with manufacturing jobs in a community. We need to know the direction we are heading as a country as we try to support the growth of manufacturing. We have grown more than half a million manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years. That is an encouraging sign. We are one of the most productive in the output of our manufacturing sector of all the countries in the world. What we have lacked is a very coordinated strategy between the Federal Government, State governments, and the private sector to align all of our investments--our investments in research and development, our investments in new skills, our investments in infrastructure--to make sure they are all heading in the right direction. Do our competitors have national manufacturing strategies? Absolutely. Germany, China, India, South Africa, and Russia all have thoroughly developed, deeply researched, and prominently successful strategies for how to accelerate and sustain manufacturing as a key part of their economies. This bill would amend the America COMPETES Act. It would require every 4 years that the Secretary of Commerce, advised by a board of 15 different folks, pull together and think through, research, and then deliver a national manufacturing strategy. This doesn't require new programs. It doesn't even necessarily require new funding or new Federal expenditures. It only requires that we coordinate all the different areas where the Federal Government is investing in supporting manufacturing and where State and local governments are working in partnership with the private sector. This may be a small but vital step toward giving the lift we need for our manufacturing sector to continue its sustained growth of the last few years. Why is a manufacturing strategy essential? Because we have a couple of areas where, frankly, we are falling short--in infrastructure, in access to capital, and in skills. Having a highly skilled manufacturing workforce is one of the things we need to do if we are going to win the fight to regain our international prominence as the leading global manufacturing country. The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, a global consulting firm, have both independently concluded that there are as many as 600,000 manufacturing jobs in America today that are unfilled because of a lack of a workforce with the relevant skills. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers estimates that number could increased to 3 million by 2015. So a focus through a national strategy and through some facilitating investments and legislation by this body and the House and by enactment by the President and investments across-the-board could deal with these important skill gaps. Why are there skill gaps in manufacturing? Many Americans have a misconception about what manufacturing is like today. They have a picture in their heads of manufacturing from 10, 20, or 30 years ago when it required simple labor, when it required repeated routine tasks such as simply putting on a bolt or affixing a particular piece onto a vehicle, where there wasn't any teamwork, there wasn't any continuous improvement required, and there weren't analytical skills required. That was the manufacturing line of the past, not of today and certainly not of the future. In fact, the skills required to be successful in modern advanced manufacturing are quite different from what they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Today one has to work as part of a team and be able to troubleshoot and problem-solve. There are fewer people working on manufacturing lines, but they are higher in productivity because the analytical skills they are bringing to the job are greater than they have ever been before. That is also why manufacturing can be a more satisfying career, a more rewarding place to work than it was in the past, because it engages the whole human being. It engages the whole worker. It allows them to have ownership of the quality of the finished product. One of the lessons American automobile manufacturing learned in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as it faced the threat of higher quality auto manufacturing elsewhere in the world was to not only retool the manufacturing line but to empower the individual worker to be engaged in quality control. Those of us here in the Senate who worked in the manufacturing industry know what it meant to have gone through a process where we had to certify. You had to go through a searching auditing process to be able to demonstrate, if you were a component supplier or if you were part of a supply chain, that you were meeting world-class standards. In fact, the ISO 9000 system--the International Organization for Standardization--and its 9000 series audits that swept through the country over 20 years and ended up resulting in a higher quality of manufacturing was just the first of a number of steps toward requiring those who were working in manufacturing facilities to have a higher level of skills. One of the ways in which we have an ongoing challenge is that manufacturers--medium and small manufacturers with whom I visited up and down the State of Delaware--don't know the level of skills and the quality of skills of young people they wish to hire who may have just finished high school or might have taken a certificate course with a community college. We don't have a transportable, translatable certificate for basic manufacturing skills. One of the innovations of the IT industry was a whole series of skills certifications that allow someone to know, when they are hiring a young person to do office support for IT or when they are hiring someone to be a network administrator, whether they have the practical skills they need to do that job and do it well. They can't guess that by where they went to high school or what courses they took at a college. We don't have a similar sort of reliable, transportable, translatable, manufacturing skill certification process. That may be a part of this national manufacturing strategy. We certainly have heard from manufacturers large and small--not only in Delaware but around the country--about what they need, what would put a floor beneath their growth and would allow them to be globally competitive. No. 1 would be a stronger, skilled workforce; No. 2 would be more access to capital; and No. 3 would be more and better access on a fair basis to a global market and a global economy. We have had a great first couple of weeks with the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative. More than 25 Senators have contributed more than 40 bills. Many of these are broad or bold or bipartisan bills that contain the ideas that I think can sustain and grow manufacturing in the United States going forward. It is a growing menu of bills--bills that are bipartisan and that I believe not only need but deserve a vote on the floor later in this Congress. I am grateful to Senator Kirk for partnering with me in introducing this bill today, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, and I am hopeful it will pick up more bipartisan sponsors in the days and weeks ahead. I also hope, working in partnership with the Manufacturing Caucus, ably led by Senator Stabenow and Senator Graham, we will begin to hammer out the bipartisan bills that will deserve a vote on this floor and that will ultimately reach enactment through the Congress and by signature of our President. With that, we might well be able to deliver on what we hear most often from our constituents: Help us grow high-quality jobs in this country.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor once again to talk about jobs and economic growth. We are continuing to see signs of a steadily improving economy, with more than 200,000 jobs created last month in the jobs report just released last Friday. Of those, 19,000 were new manufacturing jobs. We have had 43 straight months of private sector job growth, but the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high and sadly particularly for those who are long-term unemployed. Earlier today the Budget Conference Committee met, and we heard from Congressional Budget Office Director Dr. Elmendorf. He let us know that in his view, the uncertainty--the lack of clarity about the path forward for all of us here, for the solutions we need for the budget and for the deficit--is one of the greatest drags on job creation and on competitiveness for our country and our economy. In our Budget Conference Committee, we need to come together and reach a balanced budget deal that repeals sequester and allows the Appropriations Committee--ably led by Chairman Mikulski--to move forward with an Omnibus appropriations bill for this fiscal year. We cannot afford, in my view, another long-term continuing resolution at the current sequester levels. As we heard today from Dr. Elmendorf, and as we have heard from other sources, the sequester will have killed 750,000 jobs by the end of the year, and next year these ongoing, steady, grinding cuts could kill another 800,000. These are jobs. These are investments by the Federal Government that could be helping the private sector create jobs in repairing our crumbling infrastructure. In Delaware alone, we have 175 deficient bridges being neglected. These are jobs that help families to put food on the table. In Kent County, DE, where Dover Air Force base is, sequester has hurt those who serve our Nation who operate the base and serve our country valiantly. These are jobs that could be going to help research a cure for cancer. NIH supported more than 500 jobs in Delaware in 2011. Now cuts are costing those jobs and setting us back in the fight to find a cure for cancer and many other diseases. Sequester has been devastating to Delaware and the whole Nation. We need to replace it with a smarter, more balanced set of spending reforms that maintains investments that will allow our country to be competitive. In particular, if I might, we need to refocus on jobs by investing in infrastructure and focusing on manufacturing. In my view, the 19,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector that we just learned were created in the last month were a promising development but far from as many as we should be filling. Why? Because manufacturing jobs are high-quality jobs. They pay more in wages and benefits. They help create secondary local service jobs. They contribute more to the local economy. And manufacturers invest more in private R&D than any other sector in our economy. Mr. President, as you know, before I came here to the Senate and before my service in county government, I spent 8 years with a manufacturing company in Delaware. At one point I was part of a large site location team that went around the country to try to decide where to build a new state-of-the-art semiconductor chip packaging manufacturing plant. To make a long story short, in the end we decided on a location where there was a skilled and reliable workforce, a responsive government that invested in the local infrastructure, and certainly we considered other factors--tax rates and incentives offered by the State and local government--but really the skill of the workforce and the quality of the infrastructure were absolutely essential to the decision we made--a surprising decision in terms of where we ultimately located. We invested and were able to get up and running a state-of-the-art plant in record time and were able to contribute significantly to local employment and the tax base. This taught me a lot about the significance of infrastructure and workforce skills. If I could mention this, the World Economic Forum ranked the United States 25th overall in infrastructure, a key drag on our competitiveness. The American Society of Civil Engineers says we are falling behind by $250 billion a year in deferred maintenance, in investments not made by Federal, State, and local government. In my view, the case for infrastructure investment is a no-brainer. This is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing and that the sequester is preventing us from doing, making wise, timely, and needed investments in improving our infrastructure. Another critical foundation for growth, as we saw, is a skilled and adaptable workforce. We can be the world's manufacturing leader again but not without investing in workforce skills and in workforce training. There are many programs that can help make this possible. One I like to point to is the Federal, State, and local partnership called the Manufacturing Extension Partnership that helps make it possible for university-based researchers to partner with local manufacturers to deliver skills training that keeps them at the cutting edge, that makes them more productive. In today's modern manufacturing workplace, there are fewer people, but they are more productive because of their skills. Back in August I visited a new facility, the ILC Grayling plastics manufacturing plant in Seaford, DE, which is a great example of what it will take for America's manufacturing resurgence to continue and grow. This plant has already brought more than 100 jobs to Sussex, DE. These are not the manufacturing jobs of the past. The men and women working on this line need to be able to collaborate and communicate, to do advanced math and adequate quality control work and oversee high-tech machinery and have an intimate understanding of the products they are working with. In the end, this company looks forward to growing, to probably doubling the number of jobs in this facility in Sussex County. To me, in an even more exciting development, these are jobs that had left the United States to go south to a lower wage country and that have been brought back, brought back from Juarez, Mexico, to Seaford, DE, where there are now Delawareans employed in this newly expanded manufacturing facility. Let me conclude by simply saying that here in Congress we have the opportunity, if we work together across the aisle, to find a pathway toward making these investments in the skills of our workforce, in the infrastructure of our country, that will help grow our economy and help create good manufacturing jobs today and tomorrow. One of the core challenges we face in the budget conference committee is to find a path forward that will respond to the call that I hear up and down the State of Delaware, and I presume my colleagues hear from their home States, that we should make principled compromises that allow us to invest again, to replace the sequester with a more responsible and balanced package of revenue and cuts that allow us to return to investing in the skills and infrastructure necessary to grow our economy. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about jobs-- about manufacturing jobs. As we all know, manufacturing jobs are high- quality jobs. Manufacturing jobs come with higher pay and higher benefits. Manufacturing jobs help create other local service sector jobs, and manufacturing jobs contribute more to the local economy than jobs in any other sector. Beyond that, manufacturers invest the most of any industry sector in research and development, which is critical to America's continued growth and our security as a leading innovation economy. Last week 21 Senate colleagues and I joined in a new initiative called the Manufacturing Jobs for America to help create good manufacturing jobs here at home today and tomorrow. It has grown out of 25 Senators who have all contributed different policy ideas. This is not one big megabill with dozens of sponsors, but just one bill. Instead, it is a constellation of 40 different proposals. Some of them have already been introduced as bills, and half of those that have been introduced are bipartisan. These bills illustrate some of our best ideas about how we can work together across the aisle to provide badly needed support for our growing manufacturing sector here in the United States. There are 4 different areas these 40 different proposals fall into, and I wanted to talk about 1 of them today. Three of them are: How do we open markets abroad? How do we strengthen America's 21st century manufacturing workforce? How do we create a long-term environment for growth through a manufacturing strategy? The fourth is: How do we ensure access to capital? Of the four I just mentioned, I want to speak about access to capital. As any business owner knows, you cannot ensure the long-term growth and vitality of your business unless you have capital to invest--whether in research and development, new workers, new products, or new equipment to expand into new markets. Access to capital is absolutely essential to manufacturing jobs for America. The three bills I am going to talk about today, which are part of this constellation of 40 different proposals, would each expand access to capital for manufacturers in different ways. Let me start with the Startup Innovation Credit Act. This is an existing bipartisan bill I have introduced, along with Senators Enzi, Rubio, Blunt, and Moran, who are all Republicans, and Senators Schumer, Stabenow, and Kaine, all, like me, Democrats. Although we represent different parties, come from different parts of the country, and have different backgrounds, we have all come together to strengthen our economy and in particular to support innovation and entrepreneurship. One way we do that now is to support private sector innovation and manufacturing through the research and development tax credit. The R&D tax credit generates new products and industries, benefiting other sectors. But there is a critical gap in the existing and longstanding R&D tax credit. It is not available to startups because they are not yet profitable. This is a tax credit you can only take if you have a tax liability and are profitable. We worked together--Senator Enzi and I, and the other cosponsors--to fix this hole with a relatively simple tweak, and that is what the Startup Innovation Credit Act does. It allows companies to claim the R&D tax credit against their employment tax liability rather than in income tax liability--a corporate income tax liability. Supporting small innovative companies in their critical early stages of research and development could unleash further innovations and unleash greater growth that would spur good job creation for Americans in the long run. Between 1980 and 2005, all net new jobs created in the United States were created by firms 5 years old or less. In total, that was about 40 million jobs over those 25 years. This credit is specifically designed with those new young firms in mind--those early-stage firms that are the font of the greatest source of creativity and jobs. It is limited to those companies that are 5 years old or less, and it is limited to being an offset against their W-2 liability so we can provide some access for early-stage startups to this R&D credit that encourages them to hire more folks and grow more quickly--just a part of Manufacturing Jobs for America. The second bill I would like to talk about today is the Master Limited Partnership Parity Act. It levels the playing field as far as getting access credit. Instead of giving smaller, early-stage startup companies the same access to capital that larger, more mature firms have, this bill levels the playing field in the energy sector. It levels the playing field, in particular, for clean energy firms. This is bipartisan as well. I introduced it with Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow as my lead cosponsor and Republican Senators Jim Moran and Lisa Murkowski. I am grateful for their persistent and engaged leadership on this bill. I am thrilled that in the last couple of days Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu and Republican Senator Susan Collins signed on as cosponsors as well. The MLP Parity Act allows us to have an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. As I presided in my first 2 years--as I served on the Energy Committee--there are many Senators, Republican and Democrat, who think we should not pick winners and losers in technology and we should be promoting an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. This bill makes that possible in clean energy financing and in preserving a widely used tool for existing traditional energy financing. Oil and gas will play a significant role in our Nation's energy picture for the foreseeable future, but right now we don't have a level playing field between renewables and between oil and gas and pipelines. For nearly 30 years, traditional nonrenewable sources of energy have had access to master limited partnerships. MLPs give natural gas, oil, and coal companies access to private capital at a lower cost. That is something that capital-intensive projects, such as pipelines, badly need. I would argue that alternative energy products need that as well; in fact, in some ways more than ever. Last night I spoke to a group of board members at the National Academies of Science, and what we spoke about was how much technology has developed and sped up in the clean energy space, but how financial innovation has not kept pace. This has held back renewable energy and investments in energy efficiency even as technology has made energy production and distribution and energy efficiency cheaper to achieve. Expanding access through this broad bipartisan bill to low-cost, long-term capital would be an important step to letting new energy sources take off and letting them compete on a level playing field with all sources of energy. That is exactly what the MLP Parity Act intends to do. Last but not least, I was proud to be able to join a number of other Senators in cosponsoring the Small Brew Act. Senators Cardin and Begich, Senators Collins and Murkowski, Democrats and Republicans, have worked together to give small brewers a leg up by lowering the excise tax they face on the beer they produce. Small Brewers, such as Dogfish Head in my home State of Delaware, are big job creators in communities across the country. As Senator Cardin said on the floor earlier this year, ``While some people may think this is a bill about beer, it is really about jobs.'' And I would say jobs in manufacturing. Small and independent brewers today employ more than 100,000 Americans and pay more than $3 billion in wages and benefits. Sam Calagione, the owner of Dogfish Head Brewery in my home State of Delaware, now employs 180 workers at their facility in Milton. Of course, what they are manufacturing is not a new or innovative or recently invented product. People have been brewing beer for thousands of years. Sam has done a remarkable job of coming up with a very broad range of different brews, and, in fact, of bringing back brews that are centuries or millennia old by recovering recipes for fantastic and tasty beers. What I am focusing on today is about the expanse. This particular company has invested $50 million in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. When I recently visited, I was struck at how different it is from the beer bottling plant of the past, from what some may have seen on ``Laverne and Shirley'' or what they would imagine a traditional manufacturing plant to look like. Those folks who work on the manufacturing line at this particular facility have to be able to use programmable logic controls. They have to be able to do quality control and math, and to communicate as a team. They have to communicate in a way that puts them at the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing. This highlights some of the biggest challenges in manufacturing. It takes a lot of money to invest in a plant and machinery in order to make them capable of competing as a modern-day plant. It takes access to capital. We also need to change the public's perception of what manufacturing is. It is a very different place to work--a manufacturing line--than it was 20 or 50 years ago. They are safe, clean, and well lit. These are decent, high-paying jobs. If we are going to win in the global competition for manufacturing, we need to strengthen the skills and the perceptions of manufacturing across our country. Each of the three bills I have spoken about today will help create good manufacturing jobs here in America, and I believe are ready for consideration on a bipartisan basis by this Chamber. We need to take action together on a bipartisan basis to get our economy going again. I will remind everyone: Manufacturing jobs are not just decent jobs, not just good jobs, they are great jobs. They are the jobs of today and tomorrow. They are the jobs that sustain and build the backbone of the American middle class. We already have all the tools in this country to ensure its growth, but if we work together and put in place stronger and better Federal policies in partnership with the private sector, we can put jets on our manufacturing sector, and it can take off and grow again. With that, I yield the floor. Mr. President, every so often in between the crises and rancor and partisan fighting, we have an opportunity to make real progress in the Senate. This week we are considering the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It is a bill that will put in place basic workplace protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans. It has been a big year for equality nationally and in my home State of Delaware. The Delaware General Assembly legalized same-sex marriage in May, giving every Delawarean access to the full rights and responsibilities of marriage, no matter the orientation. A month later, Delaware's General Assembly built on its 3-year-old law by protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination, adding protections for transgender Delawareans as well. These two laws are about dignity, respect, and basic fairness for our neighbors. Of course, a month later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, giving all married couples across our country access to the Federal benefits they are due. This has truly been a historic year for civil rights and for our country. For all of our progress, much remains to be done. In 29 States it is still legal to fire someone just because they are gay, just because they are lesbian, or just because they are bisexual. That means that more than 4 million Americans across those States go to work day in and day out with no protection against being fired summarily because of who they love. In 33 States, which include 5 million people, it is legal to fire someone because of their gender identity. I thank my colleague, the Senator from Oregon, for his hard work and leading this fight here on the floor, and the Senator from Iowa for his long advocacy for this bill that should have passed years and years ago. More than 40 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans, and almost 80 percent of transgender Americans, say they have been mistreated in the workplace because of who they are or because of who they love. Clearly there is still work for us to do. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would provide basic protections against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a bill that is built on our Nation's historic civil rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. This is about basic fairness. The overwhelming majority of Americans--in fact, more than 80 percent--think it is already against the law to fire someone just because they are gay. Most Fortune 500 companies already have policies preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in place. Some of Delaware's biggest employers and companies, including DuPont, Dow, Bank of America, TD Bank, Christiana Care, and the University of Delaware have led the way with their own policies to protect the rights of LGBT Delawareans and their employees. There is real momentum behind these protections, and it is time for Congress to pass this law. Protecting Americans from discrimination is part of America's shared values, and it needs to be part of our laws as well. No one here thinks it is OK to fire someone simply because they are African American or because they are a woman or because they are an older American. It is not OK to fire someone because they are gay or transgender either. Equality is a fundamental part of our shared American values: Do unto others; treat people with the respect and dignity with which you want them to treat you. Majorities in every State support putting these protections in place. Majorities of Democrats and of Republicans and of Independents support putting these protections in place. Majorities in every Christian denomination support putting these protections in place. The majority of small business owners surveyed support putting these protections in place. Freedom from discrimination is a fundamental American value that we don't just share, we cherish. Why not put these protections in place now, today, to ensure that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans will be able to go to work, to earn a living, to provide for themselves and their families, without the fear of being fired just because of who they are. The opportunity in front of every one of us is an important one. Leadership on civil rights in this Chamber has traditionally been bipartisan, and this period of partisanship on civil rights is only fairly recent and need not be permanent. In fact, this bill is cosponsored by two of our Republican colleagues, Senator Collins of Maine and Senator Kirk of Illinois. When he came to the floor to speak on ENDA earlier this week, Senator Kirk noted the importance of a Senator from his home State of Illinois being in a position of leadership on this civil rights issue. This really is a historic opportunity. When the Senate votes on final passage on the Employment Non- Discrimination Act tomorrow, I hope we all will take advantage of this historic opportunity. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I wish to honor the service, dedication, and passion of an individual whose name is synonymous with law enforcement in Delaware, New Castle police chief Kevin P. McDerby. After more than 40 years of service to the people of Delaware, Chief McDerby embarked on a well-earned retirement at the end of last month. While known for his long and decorated career in law enforcement, Chief McDerby's tenure will be most remembered for his work with veterans and community groups, such as Delaware Concerns of Police Survivors, or C.O.P.S, and the Special Olympics Torch Run, as well as his efforts leading trips to the Nation's Capital to bring Delaware WWII and Korean veterans to visit national memorials and coordinating the establishment of the Delaware Law Enforcement Memorial on Legislative Mall in Dover. Chief McDerby began his public safety career in Delaware on January 12, 1971, when he joined the Delaware State Police as a trooper working in the Criminal Investigation and Tactical Support Units. He quickly climbed the ranks, rising to sergeant in January 1979, to lieutenant and commander of Troop 6 in January 1986, to captain in February 1987, and finally to major in May 1989, where he took on the role of operations major for New Castle County. Shortly after his retirement from the Delaware State Police in August 2000, McDerby was appointed chief of the New Castle Police Department, one of the oldest existing police departments in the Nation, established in 1672. As New Castle police chief, McDerby continued the department's proud legacy of dedication to duty and service with honor, established by a long line of distinguished officers who have served the department over five centuries. Chief McDerby's dedication to service was a hallmark of his law enforcement career. A strong advocate for law enforcement families, he was a founding member of Delaware C.O.P.S, an organization dedicated to providing resources to assist surviving families of officers killed in the line of duty. In his 40-plus years of law enforcement service to the people of New Castle and Delaware, Chief McDerby leaves behind not just a policing legacy but also an opportunity, a benchmark for his fellow officers to strive to reach. To follow Chief McDerby's example is to be more than just the best police officer you can be; it is to be a leader and a true ambassador for the law enforcement community in Delaware. On behalf of all Delawareans, I thank Chief McDerby for his tremendous service and wish him well in his retirement.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of Ms. Patricia Millett's nomination to the DC Circuit Court. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have the opportunity to closely examine each of the judicial candidates nominated by our President. I did so with Ms. Millett, attending her nomination hearing and speaking to a wide range of the practitioners and colleagues who have direct knowledge of her professionalism and experience. Without exception, at every stage of her career and with every personal and professional colleague with whom she has had work experience, Patty--Ms. Millett-- has distinguished herself as a person of integrity, intelligence, and dedication. She is a person whose capability and devotion to a family is an inspiration to those around her. She is unanimously recommended by former living Solicitors General, and received the ABA's highest rating. Some of my colleagues here have argued that President Obama is trying to ``pack the court'' by nominating Ms. Millett and two other nominees to fill three current vacancies on the DC Circuit Court. These charges of court packing strike me, frankly, as without foundation. Court packing is an historical term used to describe when politicians try to change the size of a court, expand a court, in order to control its expected outcome. That was the cause of the objection to President Roosevelt's plan to add up to six Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court back in 1937. In fact, a current legislative proposal to strip the President's ability to fill three vacant seats on the DC Circuit could better be called court stripping. In this particular case, making nominations to vacant judicial positions is not court packing, it is a President doing his job. Confirming highly qualified nominees to serve on this circuit in this vacancy would be this body doing its job. The charges of court packing are absurd on their face. They are even more absurd when put in context. Ms. Millett has been nominated to the ninth seat of the 11 authorized on this court. There are currently three vacancies on this vital circuit court. I held a hearing earlier this year on judicial staffing levels in my role as the chair of the Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts of the Judiciary Committee. I invited the chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Resources, Judge Tymkovich, to come testify. For those who ascribe significance to such things, Judge Tymkovich was nominated by President George W. Bush to sit on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Tymkovich testified--convincingly, in my opinion--that the Federal judiciary needs more judges, not fewer. Every other year, the Judicial Conference submits to Congress a report on recommendations on judgeships. That report did not conclude that any judgeships should be removed or remain unfilled on the DC Circuit. Judge Tymkovich also explained why the caseload statistics used by some of our colleagues to argue that the DC Circuit has a low caseload--and thus need not have its vacancies filled--are, in fact, unconvincing. The DC Circuit hears a unique caseload, with four times the number of complex administrative appeals than other circuit courts around the country. The DC Circuit is the circuit from which all the Federal agencies' actions are repealed. More than any other court in the country, its caseload is made up of very complex, very difficult cases with far- reaching consequences and that require a great deal of time. Simply looking at the raw number of cases filed, opened, and closed is not an accurate predictor of whether a vacant seat on the DC Circuit should, in fact, be filled. The DC Circuit's caseload has remained steady over the past 10 years, so the Judicial Conference has seen no reason to recommend any alteration in its staffing level. The court packing argument made by some is also at odds with history, especially when one considers that caseloads lower than they are now on the DC Circuit were sufficient when all Republican Members then in office voted to confirm then Judge Roberts to the 9th seat, Janice Rogers Brown to the 10th seat, Thomas Griffith to the 11th seat, and Brett Kavanaugh to the 10th seat when it became vacant. When Ms. Millett is confirmed, the DC Circuit will still have more pending appeals per active judge than after the confirmations of any of those four earlier Bush nominees I just referenced. The caseload on the DC Circuit would also remain above that of the current 6th Circuit and 10th Circuit, to which courts the Senate has confirmed Republican supported judicial nominees this year. A filibuster of Ms. Millett on caseload grounds would bring the Senate to an unprecedented and regrettable place. It would destroy comity and trust at a time when our Nation needs it most, when we need to demonstrate to the people of the United States that this Congress can function and that this Senate can fulfill its constitutional role. It would not only facilitate the administration of justice by our courts, but also allow us to tackle other issues if we could move past endless and needless filibusters on issues such as this. It would allow us to move forward to the broader issues of the day, tackling long-term debt and deficit challenges, the fight against global terrorism, reinvesting in our future, and working together to invest in manufacturing and grow our economy. There are so many other issues that call for the time of this body. With that, I wish to urge my colleagues to look at Ms. Millett's nomination on its merits and to not be distracted by what I think are groundless arguments that this is an instance of so-called court packing by this President. This President is doing his job. He is nominating supremely qualified candidates to serve in the highest courts of this land, and this body should do its job and confirm those qualified nominees. National Technological Innovation Day If I might, I simply wanted to comment to this body that something passed with little notice here yesterday. October 29, 2013, was National Technological Innovation Day. This was recognizing the role that technological innovation plays in the United States economy. We know that innovation is absolutely essential to developing new medicines, treatments, and cures to help us live longer and more healthy lives. Innovation is essential to strengthen the manufacturing sector of the American economy and make us more competitive. Innovation is essential to allow us to take advantage of new materials and new opportunities in the world and to access new export markets overseas. Innovation overall is what has brought all that is best about modern life and the modern world. Yesterday, in a bipartisan way, we recognized that on October 29, many years ago, was the very first day that DARPAnet was able to exchange communications from one computer to another. It was literally the dawning of the modern Internet age. This was made possible in part by Federal investment and innovation. I am grateful that Senator Moran, Senator Isakson, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Kirk joined me in recognizing the unique and important role that technological innovation has played in America's past, America's present, and America's future. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COONS. I thank Senator Blunt. I thank the Senator for his enthusiasm for manufacturing and for his enthusiasm for working together with me on the startup innovation credit bill, as the Senator referenced, and with Senator Brown on the national network of manufacturing innovation centers as he spoke about. Manufacturing is the center, the beating heart of the middle class of America. Manufacturing jobs are good jobs. We do need to get back to being a country where inventing, growing, and making things is an area of bipartisan, sustained, purposeful focus. I know for the folks who watch us at home and for the folks here in this Chamber, nothing could meet the demands and the needs of our communities and our States more than for us to come together in a bipartisan, balanced, and responsible way to advocate for a stronger manufacturing sector in the United States. I thank Senator Blunt very much. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. I thank Senator Blunt for his work on this bill with Senator Brown. There are other bills that I hope this body will take up and discuss and debate where I hope we can find ideas that are out there, with progress that is being made and policy innovation that is being made, and that we can take them up, debate them, and find bipartisan sponsors who will carry them forward. I absolutely agree with the Senator's point that we are seeing in manufacturing a revival in this country for a variety of reasons. One of them is less expensive energy. The shale gas revolution is reducing the feedstock costs for chemical manufacturing and reducing the energy costs broadly for manufacturing of all kinds. We are also seeing that lots of American companies fear the loss of their inventions, their innovations, if they move offshore. So some of the attractiveness of operating in other countries has dimmed a bit, as they have recognized that the United States is one that has a rule of law that protects their inventions and innovations. There is also less of a wage gap, frankly, as wages have come up in the developing world. In China, the wage gap is less. So that combination gives us a window, gives us a moment of opportunity. We lost millions of manufacturing jobs in the first years of this century, but in the last three we have been growing them and growing them steadily. If we can work in partnership across the aisle on manufacturing skills, on access to credit, on innovation, on a coordinated strategy, I cannot imagine a community in this country that would not rather have high-quality manufacturing jobs. As Senator Blunt was mentioning, for every manufacturing job that is created, there is 1.6 new support jobs created. For every $1 spent in manufacturing, there is $1.34 spent in the local economy that moves around. It is the sector that has the most positive secondary impact in our communities. I do think there is broadly in our country a sense that we have sort of lost our leading edge in manufacturing because of the large-scale layoffs and the large plant closings. But in my State, and I presume in the Senator's State and in the Presiding Officer's State of Indiana, and others, there are dozens and dozens of small and medium-sized manufacturers who have seized this moment, who are growing, and who simply want us to help facilitate their access to the market, their access to innovation and new research, their access to a skilled workforce. If we can pull together, I think we can do great things for the United States going forward. Also, before we close, I thank Senator Blunt for being a cosponsor with me of the startup innovation tax credit--something Senator Enzi and I and many others--Senator Rubio, Senator Schumer, Senator Stabenow, as well as Senator Moran--have cosponsored and introduced and discussed over time. It would help with access to capital for early stage startup manufacturers. There are lots of good ideas we can and should discuss on the floor, in hearings, and going forward. But for today I am grateful to Senator Blunt for his leadership with Senator Brown on this bill that would help strengthen the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation centers. The Senator is a strong leader for manufacturing in his home State of Missouri, and I am grateful for a chance to spend some time with him on the floor today discussing that good bill and his good ideas.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for his tireless and engaged leadership on manufacturing, on fighting for access to foreign markets on fair terms, for fighting for skills and increasing the skills of our manufacturing workforce, and in this instance, in this strong bipartisan bill, for working with our colleague from Missouri on a national network of manufacturing innovation centers. My own work of 8 years at a manufacturing company in Delaware in a materials-based science company that makes things helped make it clear to me how important research and development and continuous innovation are for manufacturers at all levels. I have seen this across the State of Delaware. Our Presiding Officer--long owner and leader of a manufacturing business in his home State of Indiana--knows this better than any of us: that if we don't innovate, if we don't invest in research and development, in improving the skills in the workforce and improving the productivity and the operating efficiency of any manufacturing company, we can't survive in the tough headwinds of the global marketplace today. One of the programs I championed here in the Senate that has bipartisan support is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It is a long-established program that takes the latest cutting-edge research and development work at universities and moves it to the shop floor. I have visited companies up and down Delaware, from FMC in Newark to Speakman in New Castle, where they have taken those innovations from the university to the shop floor. One of the things I am grateful to Senator Blunt for is his leadership in taking that insight that in order to have the most productive manufacturing workforce in the world, in order to continue to compete globally, we have to find ways to continue to invest in demonstrating the power of innovation and we have to find ways to do that in a bipartisan way. I thank the Senator for being willing to work with Senator Brown and others here. This is exactly the sort of stuff I hear from Delawareans they want us to be doing. There is lots that divides us. This is something that unites us: working together to strengthen our manufacturing sector, to make it more competitive, to bring jobs back to the United States, and to grow this sector. We have grown half a million jobs in the last 3 years in the manufacturing sector. These are good jobs, at high wages, high benefits, high skills. But we can and should do more, pulling together to sort of lift further this ongoing manufacturing revival. If Senator Blunt would share some more with us about this specific bill and about his experience in what else we can and should be doing together to strengthen manufacturing in Missouri, I would be grateful.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. In conclusion, I will briefly touch on our options. We have all heard on this floor Senators suggest that default is really not that big a deal, that we are not really going to default, that there are other ways around this, and that we need not be scared into making some hurried deal. At the end of the day, several Senators have accused the President of fearmongering and have accused my party of suggesting that default is a major threat to our country and our economy when, in fact, it is not. Let me briefly touch on the options that have been discussed by other Senators and, frankly, to my surprise. First, some have suggested we can pay our bills not when they are due but when we have the money-- sort of on a first-come, first-serve payment approach. Let's say we ran out of money, as I suggested, on the 20th of this month and could not pay our bills on the 21st. By the 23rd we would have enough money so we would pay the bills from the 21st, late, but go delinquent on the bills for the 22nd and 23rd, and so on. This is crazy. Payments would be delinquent and the United States would fall behind on its debt. This option would only make our situation worse. We would keep adding over $2 billion in debt every single day while going delinquent on our bills to Americans. The second way forward. Some have suggested we prioritize certain bills but ignore others. The Treasury Department would continue to make payments on our sovereign debt so the Chinese would get paid, but they would avoid or default on lots and lots of other obligations. Which payments would we choose in this body not to make? Social Security? Medicare? Military salaries? Payments for cancer research? Veterans' benefits? Food inspectors? Air traffic controllers? Who goes first and who would we possibly choose? These are the ludicrous choices that have been sent to us by the other Chamber as they have attempted to fund the government in piecemeal slices in the past week. The Treasury Department makes 100 million individual payments per month, making this option a logistical nightmare. If we prioritize our payments, it is not a question of if we go into recession, it would be a question of when. We would be taking $2.2 billion out of the economy a day--4 percent of our GDP out of our Nation's economy on an annualized basis. This would push us back into recession, we would still be defaulting on our obligations, and the markets and the credit rating agencies would know it. The other thing that has been suggested is to work around the debt ceiling. There are a whole lot of creative but legally questionable ideas: The minting of a $1 trillion coin, avoiding the 14th Amendment, a fire sale of U.S. assets, superpremium Treasurys. Each has pros and cons that I won't go into, but they would face legal scrutiny and would radically increase uncertainty in the market. There is no better option for us going forward than to reopen the government, pay our national debt on time, raise the debt ceiling, and honor our obligations as a country. That is the fourth and only good option: pay our bills, to prevent default, to put a floor under our economy, to stop these games, and to stop suggesting that there is any way out of this other than doing our jobs, preserving the AAA credit rating of this country, and making this country worthy of global respect again. In conclusion, I can't believe that Members in this Chamber, who had the chance to avoid default, on Saturday voted in a way that suggested they chose not to. Not only did it rattle me, it rattled the markets. The idea that a sovereign government would have the ability to pay its debts but actively chose not to is unprecedented. We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot allow this country to become a bad investment. We will not become a deadbeat nation. We need to pay our bills, do the right thing, and avoid default. We need to stop playing games and do right by the American people. With that, I yield the floor and look forward to the comments from the senior Senator from Maryland.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, in just 3 days, barring some action by Congress, the Treasury Department of the United States will run out of options for preventing default on this Nation's debts for the first time in our history, setting off a chain of economic events that will be felt around the world and by every family and business and State and community in our country. We have heard a great deal on this floor the last few days about how we arrived at this point and who is to blame. There is a lot of concern and consternation about exactly who owns this and how we got here. I am not going to spend time today on that. I am going to skip the politics and the drama for now and just talk about the facts and the policy. I just want to talk to Delawareans about what would happen if we actually go over this impending cliff, if we do default, and which of the options for addressing this are viable. First, let's be clear about what we are talking about. What is the debt ceiling? Defaulting on our debt by failing to raise the debt ceiling is not the same as cutting up America's credit cards. It is not the same as denying the President the right to sign more checks into the future. Raising the debt ceiling does not give Congress or the President a blank check to spend more money. It allows the United States to borrow more money, yes, but only to pay bills for goods and services already incurred, to meet pledges already made. We have had some kind of a national debt ceiling since 1917, when Congress allowed the Treasury Department to issue long-term Liberty bonds to pay for our engagement in the First World War. Over the course of the next two decades, caps were placed on other kinds of debt as well, and finally, in 1939, Congress decided to place a ceiling on the total amount of debt the country could have. The last time Congress raised the debt ceiling, it was up to $16.99 trillion. Technically, we reached that limit a few months ago--actually on May 19 of this year. The Treasury Department has since been using what it calls ``extraordinary measures'' to keep paying our bills, but, as Secretary Lew has communicated to this Congress over and over in letter and in testimony, in just a few days the Treasury Department will no longer have enough money to keep up. These extraordinary measures will have run out, and in a week or two later we will have come up to zero. What are the bills we need to raise the ceiling in order to pay? It is the salaries of all Federal employees, including our military; it is Social Security and Medicare payments; it is unemployment benefits, tax refunds, and interest on our sovereign debt. Raising the debt limit allows the Treasury to borrow the money it needs to pay these bills. That is it. If on any particular day more bills come due than we have cash in our accounts to cover, then the United States of America will default on some or all of its obligations. That day is coming and coming quickly. Frankly, we cannot let it happen. For decades investors have bought U.S. debt because it was seen as a sure thing, a safe investment. When people buy a Treasury bill, a T- bill, they do so because they know they are going to earn interest on one of the safest investments in the world. American debt is considered unimpeachable. That is what makes the dollar the reserve currency for much of the world, which is something that benefits every American company and community and family in ways that are hard to see but cumulatively powerful--the absolute certainty that we will repay our national debt. Who are these investors? Who are the folks who buy these T-bills? Some are everyday Americans. A large number of retirees invest in our government bonds because they are such a safe bet. Pension funds and mutual funds invest in government bonds for the same reason. Some investors are the governments of other nations that look at the United States as such a good investment that they tie their financial stability to ours. So when it starts to look as if Congress will not live up to that standard, will not take the steps necessary to pay all of our bills on time and might actually default on some of our debts and transform us into a deadbeat nation, it makes investors really nervous. Just the talk of defaulting on our debts sends a shockwave through our economy and through the markets. For proof we need only look back to August of 2001, when Congress last brought the Nation to the brink of default. Although we didn't cross the line, just the talk of it, the mere possibility that we might for the first time default had an array of consequences. First, it slowed job growth and led to an increase in part-time employment. Second, consumer confidence in our economy fell. The Consumer Confidence Index--the index of consumer confidence--is a reliable indicator of Americans' willingness to spend money and fuel our economic growth. We want consumers buying products at their local stores and keeping people employed, right? The index was already on the pessimistic side of the line when this last crisis began but has fallen substantially since the government shutdown. Instability and uncertainty reduces consumer confidence and takes money out of our economy. Third, the yield of our Treasury bills had to increase in order to prop up demand. As U.S. debt becomes perceived as a riskier investment, we have to incentivize investors by increasing what we will pay them. That means taxpayers will have to pay more over time in order to compensate. The debate in 2011 will cost American taxpayers an additional $19 billion over the next decade. Again, just the debate as we ran up to the possibility of default in 2011 added $19 billion in debt service costs to the bonds that were issued in the days and months after. Fourth, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's--one of the big three--lowered the credit rating of the United States, causing markets to drop more than 5 percent in a single day and 17 percent over the course of that crisis. It was one of the worst declines in the equities markets in history, and it was only because we talked about defaulting. Just threatening to default is terrible for our economy in all these four different ways. Financial analysts across the world have said Congress is already causing potentially lasting damage to the strength of the dollar just by repeatedly threatening to default. Said one: There is a negative confidence shock rippling through the economy, and foreign investors have taken fright at developments in Washington. Said another: A U.S. government default is not a zero-probability event now. Although it remains very unlikely, a low-probability high-impact event like this is naturally making investors cautious. So we simply cannot afford this talk. We cannot let our Nation default. What happens if we do? What would actually happen if we get to the end of this week and have not resolved this crisis? I am encouraged by rumors of some resolution. I am encouraged that there are negotiations and conversations going on. But I think we need to look in a clear-eyed way at what would happen if default should happen to occur. For starters, we don't really know. The situation has never been this bad before this, and the United States has never defaulted on its debt. Here is what the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said this weekend: If there is that degree of disruption, that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature, it would mean massive disruption the world over, and we would be at risk of tipping yet again into global recession. We simply cannot afford that. Let me share another quote from history, from President Ronald Reagan, who back in 1983 had this to say about the potential threat of default and its impact on our economy: The full consequences of a default--or even the serious prospect of a default--by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar. As it was true back in 1983, so it is true again today. The comments from the head of the IMF and from a whole array of economists and bankers this past week remind us of the simple and enduring truth that the modern era has been one where the dollar has been the reserve currency for the world, and the strength of the American market has been critical to the strength of the American nation, our communities, and our economy. Frankly, to put that at risk over short-term political differences is reckless indeed. What we know is we will wake up this coming Friday with about $30 billion in the Federal Government's account, according to Treasury Secretary Lew. What we don't know is how long it will last. The moment we can't pay one of our bills, we will default. That is what is known as X date. The government will still collect revenue, but it won't be enough to keep pace with our daily bills. Over the last year, the government collected $7.5 billion a day and spent an average of $9.7 billion a day. That means we come up about $2.2 billion short on our bills every day if we are not borrowing enough to make up the difference. Analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center suggest that we will run out of cash--hitting the X date--roughly on October 22. To be clear, part of why we don't know exactly what date this would occur is because money flows into the Federal Treasury at uneven rates, and it flows out at uneven rates. Let's look at a few of the bills that are about to come due in the next few weeks. On October 23, $12 billion in Social Security benefits are due; on October 28, $3 billion in Federal salaries would go unpaid. On October 30, $2 billion in Medicaid payments are due; on October 31, $6 billion in interest payments on our sovereign debt are due; on November 1, $58 billion in Medicare, Social Security, and SSI payments, as well as veterans' benefits and military pay. Those are just the major bills. There are thousands, even millions, of smaller payments that are due from every agency and entity of the Federal Government that go up and down day in and day out and where our failure to pay in a timely fashion, while technically not defaulting on our sovereign debt, would put into question our ability and willingness as a government to pay our bills when due. With what we have left, we will not be able to pay them all, and we will be in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that the debt of the United States of America shall not be questioned. If we have not raised the debt ceiling by this Thursday, we are likely to see disturbing losses in global markets. We have already started to see them as uncertainty takes over and volatility begins to spread. Investors are already pulling money out of our T-bills. If 2011 is an indication, stock prices will soon begin to drop in the absence of some progress toward a resolution. Deutsche Bank, one of the world's most prominent investment banks, predicted the S&P 500 index will fall by a staggering 45 percent if we default. We heard loudly and clearly when we met with the credit ratings agencies after the 2011 incident that they would almost certainly downgrade the credit rating of the United States, which would reduce demand for Treasurys, particularly among investment funds that are required to hold a large number of AAA-rated securities. With the Nation pressed against its debt ceiling and future interest payments uncertain, investors will be hesitant to buy more T-bills. The toxicity of U.S. debt may spread to Treasury notes and bonds, and investors will almost certainly demand higher yields, which will cost our country significantly more over time. This is exactly what happened in 2011 when we flirted with default. Right now, the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Instead of keeping their money in cash, other nations buy our debt in order to get interest without risk. America has been a great investment. A default would cause other nations to sell our debt and then sell our dollars, weakening our dollars against foreign currencies, and raising the costs on every single good imported into the United States. If Treasury interest rates go up just 1 percentage point, it would add over $1 trillion in the next decade to our debt service cost. Anything we saved because of sequestration would be gone, and there is no reason to think that default would cause interest rates to go up by one single point. It could add $2 trillion or $3 trillion to our debt over the next decade. This affects everyone in our community and our country from large to small, from companies to communities to families. When Treasury interest rates go up, your interest rates go up. Mortgage rates, auto loans, student loans, business loans--they all go up, and they would go up fast. Default would make it harder for all of us to use credit responsibly. As consumers buy less, business profits would fall, GDP would fall, and the Nation once again would enter a recession. Defaulting on our debt would be an unimaginable drag on the economic health of our country, our community, and families. We cannot let it happen. Mr. President, I see my colleague Senator Mikulski has joined me on the floor. If I might, with her forbearance, I will take a few minutes to review a few points here, and then I will yield to her.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 7 p.m be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators on the majority side limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have heard a number of speeches from my colleagues on the floor today, both while presiding and in the last few moments, that call on President Obama for Presidential leadership to help us reopen the government, address our serious long-term fiscal issues, and move us forward. I want to note for the folks who might be watching that the President is at this very moment sitting with the leadership of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. Tomorrow morning, I believe, he has invited the Republican Members of this body to the White House for conversation. I think we agree. One of the core challenges we face as this Federal shutdown goes into, I believe, its 10th day is discerning exactly why the Federal Government is still shut down. When initially taken over the cliff into the shutdown, it was to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That is what a number of Senators said on this floor was their purpose. Now, many days and many unintended and unexpected harmful consequences later, we are told what this was really all about was to force the President to negotiate. I serve on the Budget Committee. We passed, more than 200 days ago, more than 6 months ago, a budget on this floor, and we have tried to go to conference on that budget now 21 times. Yet each time it was blocked, objected to by a small number of Senators from the other party. Frankly, my expectation, my hope is that we will return to a rational rules-following process here, reopen the government, not default on our national debt, and begin those serious negotiations, those Budget Committee negotiations that are long overdue to deal with the very real challenges that are facing our country. I wanted to speak today about one of the consequences of shutting down our Federal Government. We see new ones every day, and we hear about them on the Senate floor. As the days drag on, we hear more and more about the impacts of the shutdown, sometimes with surprise, sometimes with regret, sometimes with outrage. There is a lot on the line, and we have heard a lot about what the shutdown means for the various functions of the executive branch and of the legislative branch. I have heard colleagues come and speak about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, about the FDA, about its impact on higher education, its impact on families, and its impact on small businesses. I have heard many folks come to this floor and comment on how the executive branch and its functions that affect communities and families all over this country are affected by the shutdown. We have heard from our constituents who are trying to reach Senators and are trying to seek our help with a variety of Federal services. They are frustrated that the legislative branch is largely shut down, but there is another branch to our three-branch coordinate government. Absent from this debate and discussion is how the shutdown is affecting the judicial branch of our government. When the Federal Government shut down 10 years ago, the Federal court system was initially seemingly largely unaffected because they had enough funds in reserve to remain open for 10 business days--a period that will come to an end early next week. On Tuesday the Federal judiciary of the United States will run out of the reserve funds it has been using to stay open. The big question is, What happens then? The chief judge of the bankruptcy court for the District of Delaware, my home State, told me: We are really in an uncertain situation, particularly when it comes to employees. I am fearful for them and how they are going to be able to pay for rent and mortgages, and provide food and day-care for their families. This is uncharted territory for our Federal judiciary. When the money runs out, Federal, circuit, and district courts will each be on their own, much like each Senator who has to choose which of his employees or her employees are essential, deemed vital, and need to stay, and which should be furloughed and stay home, uncertain whether they will be paid. Each district court and circuit court will figure out on its own how to keep the lights and which employees will keep working without a salary. As the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts, I have heard from a number of Federal judges this week who are frustrated by the amount of time they are spending trying to figure out what the shutdown means for their courts and their employees rather than doing the job for which they were confirmed, which is to judge cases. This is an enormous distraction, a profound waste of time. This is not advancing our core objective, which should be growing our economy, strengthening our country, confronting the fiscal challenges in front of us, and working together to achieve some principled compromises in the Congress of the United States. In my view, Federal judges should be deciding cases, not deciding how to keep their courthouses running during this Federal Government shutdown. This needs to end. It could end literally today in a matter of minutes if Speaker Boehner would bring to the floor and allow a vote on a bill sent over from this Senate more than 10 days ago that would allow the Federal Government to reopen. The judicial branch is not another Federal agency. It is not a program that can be suspended or a benefit that can be delayed. It is a branch. The Federal court system was created in our Constitution as the third pillar of our democracy. It is an independent branch of government whose fundamental mission is being undermined by folks, some of whom claim to love and to rigidly interpret the Constitution. Yet the consequences for our constitutional order of this senseless shutdown, I am afraid, will soon become clear in the days ahead. The subcommittee has heard from a number of Federal judges and clerks this week. I must warn you there are a lot of unanswered questions there. The path forward is murky. The central question in the courts-- as it was here in Congress and in the executive branch--is who is considered ``essential.'' Is it the people directly involved in the resolution of cases or are the staff who support that process also expected to work without pay? Here is the type of question our judiciary was dealing with today instead of resolving disputes or working on long-term cost-saving measures. Evidence in our Federal courts these days is typically presented electronically to jurors rather than handing out photocopies, which is great as long as the technology is working in the courtroom. Case files are processed electronically these days as well. But what if there is a problem? What if the technology doesn't work and a trial is disrupted? At what point does a technological glitch become a legitimate due process issue? If the courtroom technology can't get an upgrade to fix a bug, will it result in a costly mistrial? The Constitution and the Sixth Amendment guarantee criminal defendants a right to a speedy trial. What happens when our courts can't live up to that Sixth Amendment guarantee because of this ongoing Federal shutdown? The problem is equally severe in civil and bankruptcy matters. With the DOJ's Office of the U.S. Trustee in shutdown status, the number of trustee attorneys in Delaware has been cut from seven to two. This can dramatically slow the bankruptcy process and leave real jobs and real lives hanging in the balance as cases are unresolved and as resolutions don't move forward. This raises another fundamental question. At what point in this ongoing senseless shutdown does our civil justice system fail to live up to America's promise as a free market economy grounded in the rule of law? When an investor anywhere in the world looks to make a bet on a new company, a new idea, that investor will obtain certain rights in exchange. Those rights may include a share of equity or a priority right in the event of liquidation. What gives those rights meaning is ultimately a highly functioning, impartial, and reliable court system. That historically has been one of our great advantages competitively in the world economy. Our courts, even while plagued by persistent vacancies, lack of new authorized judgeships, and the sequester, continue to perform this vital function. Without these courts, these rights mean nothing. Without the reliable enforcement of these rights, there is no more new investment, no more new job creation, and no more new ideas successfully brought to market. We are not the only country in the world competing for investment capital and for ideas. When we undermine our civil courts, we are being hostile to those very investors who could help get our economy back on track. The Federal shutdown is already slowing the resolution of civil cases involving the Federal Government. Clerks at district courts around the country have confirmed to my subcommittee that the Department of Justice is requesting continuances broadly and across-the-board and trying to juggle the demands of their caseloads with the constraints of this reckless shutdown. Think about it. Social Security appeals, civil forfeiture cases, business disputes, consumer protection cases, Medicare fraud cases, incidents of employment discrimination--they are all being pushed to the background. This shutdown is bringing new meaning to Dr. King's famous words: ``Justice too long delayed is justice denied.'' Only this morning I heard from the head of Delaware's district court, chief judge Gregory Sleet. He said, in essence--no insult intended, but his observation was that Congress is letting our country down. The subcommittee also spoke with a district court clerk yesterday who said--and I thought this was particularly striking--he was glad he was nearing retirement so he could escape the dysfunction of the Federal Government and our ongoing, seemingly routine manufactured crises. This shutdown is exacerbating what is a more profound problem--a disregard for the upkeep of our Federal judiciary. More than 90 Federal judgeships are vacant. There are 39 vacancies that are deemed ``judicial emergencies.'' We need to do more to support and sustain the staffing, quality, and future investment that is required to make our Federal courts work as well as they possibly can. I wish to make a point or two in conclusion. First, one of the essential questions every district court and circuit court will face is which of its employees are essential. After all of the cuts of the sequester and all of the burdens and challenges facing our Federal Government, aren't all the employees of our Federal judicial system, this separate branch, essential? The chief judge for the Third Judicial Circuit of the United States believes so, and I agree with him. This morning he announced that nearly ``all functions, with few limited exceptions, are essential . . . .'' I join the chief judge of the Third Judicial Circuit and urge other circuits to follow suit and to recognize that this independent third branch of our constitutional order is essential. Last, this shutdown has dragged morale in our courts and our court system to a new low. We in Congress are blessed with a record number of attorneys who serve in Congress. It is my hope that this body recognizes the unique value of our Federal court system. Our democracy cannot afford to furlough justice. We cannot shut the doors to our courthouses. It is my hope that Speaker Boehner, following the conversation unfolding at the White House, will come back and put to the vote an action that will allow the courts and this country to get back to work. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I would like to start by reading a letter I received this week. So many of us in the Senate are operating with furloughed staff, and we are doing our best to read and respond to the letters we are getting from home, the calls that are coming into our offices. This one touched me in particular. It began: My name is MSgt Corey P DiLuzio. I am an Air Reserve Technician at Dover AFB. I have served this great nation for 12 years without question or reservation. Every time I have been called upon, I have answered the call, left my family behind, and served proudly as maintainer for the C-17 aircraft. I know you understand the reach and the mission requirements for such an aircraft. I tell you this not for a thank you or any type of acknowledgement. I tell you this-- Master Sergeant DiLuzio writes-- because I am also a husband to a woman who has stood by my side in support for every deployment. I tell you this because I am the father of a three-year-old boy who doesn't even question the answer Daddy's at work. I understand a man in your position has made . . . sacrifices as well, however, today I had to tell my family I am unable to work. Not because of anything I have control of, but because of decisions made by individuals who will not miss a paycheck; individuals who will always know when the next check is coming. I write this understanding that it will fall on deaf ears, and I am usually one that remains quiet and follows the orders for those appointed above me, however, enough is enough. Please do your part in resolving this issue so I can get back to serving my country and my family. Sincerely yours, MSgt Corey DiLuzio. It pains me that the master sergeant thought his letter would fall on deaf ears, that no one here--that neither I nor any of my colleagues-- would hear or care about the concerns of a man--his wife, his family-- who has served this country and who stands ready to continue serving this country but whose family is being harmed by the mindless, purposeless shutdown of the government that is now in day 9--this first government shutdown in 17 years, and by all indications one that will continue into another week. I start by saying to Master Sergeant DiLuzio: I am sorry. I am sorry for the needless pain and difficulty this shutdown is imposing on your family and so many other families across this country. Roughly 800,000 Federal employees have been furloughed at different times in the last 9 days, and while some may be returning to Active service, they will be getting IOUs rather than regular paychecks. All over this country, private contractors, as we have heard from other colleagues today, are also laying off people because they cannot get the permits or work permission or the site access they need to move forward. This shutdown is continuing to harm our country, our reputation, our economy, our families. It is a needless, manufactured, self-imposed wound. I wrestle with this because we are facing twin manufactured crises, as Senator Reed of Rhode Island just finished saying: hobbled government due to this shutdown on the one hand and the steadily increasing risk of default on the other--these twin manufactured crises seeking some purpose that is unclear from day-to-day. When this government shutdown started, it seemed to be aimed at what, repealing the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare, and then 1 day later it seemed to be aimed at delaying the Affordable Care Act, and then when that clearly was unsuccessful, it seemed to be aimed at seeking some partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act and now it is an ongoing crisis in search of a purpose. The menu of potential demands is growing, and the impact on our families and our communities is growing as well. The House has been wasting its time on mini microappropriations bills in an attempt to give reporters and folks back home the sense that they are actually doing something, when it is just misdirection. They think all the activity will keep the American people from noticing that Speaker Boehner is not bringing up the one bill that could reopen this government in a matter of minutes--a so-called clean continuing resolution, a simple extension of current spending levels. I know to all who watch--Master Sergeant DiLuzio and many others--we sometimes speak in language that is opaque, that is difficult to understand. We talk about sequester and continuing resolutions and so forth. So I am going to try and work through these issues in a way that is accessible and direct. Let's be clear. This government is shut down right now because the House would not pass a 6-week extension--an extension to November 15-- of what is required to keep us open. Today that would be just over 4 weeks. We are literally fighting over a 4-week funding bill. How absurd is it that all of this is over a measure that would have only funded the government in the first case for another 4 weeks from now. There is, frankly, nothing about this situation that is not absurd. Every day the House Republicans show up with a new strategy, a new press conference, a new message, and, as I said, all the while not explaining exactly why the government is shut down. Initially, it was shut down to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but that is moving forward, as it was always going to be because it is an enacted program. So what is the current message from the House? They say they are the only ones ready to negotiate, that they are alone at the table, sitting there with jackets off, in their bright, starched, white shirts, waiting for Senate Democrats to meet them at the table and negotiate. Another farce, another fantasy. I am, frankly, tired and frustrated with the games that seem to be played here. I would like to highlight, if I could, a few of our real efforts to work collaboratively, to answer the question, why won't you negotiate, by saying we have been negotiating. Once the House votes to keep the lights on and to pay our bills, we will continue to negotiate. I have a simple question. Does the House want us to continue to be a closed-door nation, a nation where we have locked out hundreds of thousands of Federal workers? Does the House want to threaten that we will become a deadbeat nation, a nation that fails to meet its obligations built up over many administrations and many Congresses, Republican and Democratic, or are we going to reopen the government, become an open-door nation, and are we going to pay our bills and become a responsible nation, as we have been in the past? How did we get here? As a member of the Budget Committee, let me first start, if I could, with the budget resolution. That is how our rules work. We are supposed to begin with a budget resolution that sets a framework for what we are going to spend in the next fiscal year. For the last 3 years I have been serving here as a Senator, over and over on this floor the call was: Why won't the Senate pass a budget? Well, this year this Senate passed a budget resolution with significant Republican input. Between this floor, where we ultimately passed it, and the committee on which I serve, the Senate adopted more than 40 amendments offered by my Republican colleagues. We compromised. We worked toward a shared goal. Week after week, as I said, Republicans had asked in past years: When is the Senate going to pass a budget? Yet we did, more than 6 months ago--200 days ago, to be precise, we passed a budget in this Senate. Our chair, Senator Murray of Washington, has tried to take our budget to conference with the House to do as the rules provide, to reconcile and to responsibly negotiate over our fiscal differences--18 times. She has tried over and over and over to take us to conference and responsibly open formal talks with the House to resolve our fiscal differences. Every time that motion has been blocked, denied, barred, all by a very small group of tea party Republicans in this Chamber who have refused to let us go ahead and negotiate as the rules say we should. I also serve on the Appropriations Committee. Once the budget is framed, once the budget is resolved, we are then supposed to move to appropriations and set our spending levels. As a member of that committee, I have been a part of the process in which we have, in fact, passed 11 spending bills out of committee, 8 of them with bipartisan support. In order to try to move that process forward, months after the budget was passed, we brought the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill to this floor. It passed out of committee by a vote of 22 to 8, with 6 Republican votes, a strong bipartisan bill to be passed out here on the floor. What happened? It was blocked. Again, a small number of the other party came and objected and blocked the passage of that bill, a bill that would put Americans to work and strengthen our infrastructure and help support the housing recovery, a bill that would have moved us forward. Despite every attempt to fund this government through what we call regular order, the budget process and the appropriations process, we, even after that, came to the table, ready to compromise on this continuing resolution. The Senate budget calls for a top-line spending number of $1.058 trillion, a balanced approach that reduces Federal spending in some areas, raises revenue in others, and makes progress by replacing the sequester. That is the budget we passed in the Senate. It would call for spending $1.058 trillion. The House budget instead called for $988 billion. As you have heard our leader Senator Harry Reid say on the floor this week, he compromised. He agreed to a short-term funding bill at $988 billion, a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year, a major and painful concession for Democrats, particularly those of us on the Budget Committee who had not voted for a $988 billion number. We have already slashed spending. People are already suffering through the sequester, another thing that was enacted due to comparable tactics the last time there was a near default in 2011. The sequester has resulted in across-the-board spending cuts. It has been dangerous and painful and which I have spoken about on this floor repeatedly, reading letters from Delawareans, such as the master sergeant, commenting on how it is not the smart way to make cuts, it is an across-the-board way, an irresponsible way to make cuts. That same Air Force base, Dover Air Force Base, suffered furloughs for hundreds of airmen and their families because of the sequester cuts. We had worked out a budget that would have replaced it and would have avoided those sequester cuts in a balanced and responsible way. But instead, in order to compromise, our majority leader agreed to a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year. It was tough for a lot of Democrats to swallow. So, frankly, when I see House Republican leaders go on TV and say Democrats will not negotiate, Democrats will not compromise, I have to say: That is not the case. That is not the facts I have before me. We have compromised. We have negotiated. In fact, we have tried for months on this floor, more than 6 months, to get the compromise, to get the negotiation to move this forward. Instead, we find when we give an inch, they take a yard. Today there are some, some in the other party, suggesting that if they are not granted a great big wish list, they will force us to default on our country's sovereign debt. We keep hearing from the other side about the need to compromise and negotiate. I could not agree more. The whole way this body is supposed to work is by following the rules, following the process, going to conference, negotiating and achieving a responsible result. We have repeatedly solicited Republican input, accepted Republican amendments, and made painful compromises. Now my message is simple: We should be following the rules. We should be following the process of this body. We should turn on the lights. We should pay our bills. I would be happy, honored to continue working with Republican colleagues to find real solutions to our fiscal problems, the way we are supposed to, in a conference negotiating over the budget that was passed here more than 6 months ago. To the colleagues with whom I share this Chamber but with whom we have some differences over why this government is shut down today, I hope you will listen to Master Sergeant DiLuzio and his family and to the thousands and thousands of other Americans who are writing in and calling our offices. They deserve better. This country deserves better. We need to show we can be the model of democracy that achieves responsible principled compromise. To my colleagues and my friends in the other party: Stop blocking progress. Let's go to conference on the budget. Let's negotiate. But, first, let's get our folks back to work. Let's get the government open. Let's move forward in a way that honors the best of our traditions and our rules. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to repeat a point that I think is worth repeating, which is that on this second day of the shutdown of our Federal Government, we need to focus more on manufacturing jobs than on manufacturing crises. I have been here as a Senator now just 3 years. As the Presiding Officer knows, and many of my other colleagues know, the folks from home are calling us in record numbers to say they want us to listen to each other, to work together, and to try to help to get America back to work. We all remember where we were 5 years ago at the depth of the fiscal crisis, our financial system in collapse and our economy on life support. Millions lost their jobs and millions more lost their savings. We have begun to recover and to heal. We have had 7\1/2\ million jobs created over the last 42 months, jobless claims are now at a 5-year low, and we have had 9 consecutive quarters of economic growth. I think we need to find ways to work together to continue to sustain that forward movement. The shutdown of this government does not help in any way. One thing I want to highlight is some good news we have had. We just learned the manufacturing sector grew last month at its fastest pace in more than 2 years. We need to invest in that success and invest in that growth. In the first decade of this century, we lost 6 million manufacturing jobs in this country, good-paying jobs, high-skilled jobs, jobs that come with benefits, jobs you can raise a family on. In the last 3 years, we have gained back half a million manufacturing jobs, but we are still way short of where we were in 2000. There are a few items we could focus on that would help us grow this sector: skills training, opening markets abroad, expanding access to capital, and creating a national manufacturing strategy. I hope to come back to the floor and speak to these in much more detail in the days ahead. Let me close by saying something that I think is simple. A shutdown is not the answer to this ongoing economic recovery. Defaulting on our debt is not the answer to what the folks from our home States are calling and asking us to do. The answer is for the Speaker of the House to allow the House to vote on a bill passed in this Chamber that, if adopted, would reopen the Federal Government and allow us to work together to revitalize our economy. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, today is October 1. Today is the day that has long been known as the day when the Affordable Care Act will first come into force and exchanges across the country will begin to be open to citizens of all different backgrounds and walks of life for them to seek affordable, accessible insurance on these exchanges, the next step in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. On one level, it is a good day, because tens of millions of Americans are today gaining access to quality affordable care. I am told that since midnight, nearly 3 million people visited healthcare.gov, 80,000 or more have called a hotline, and 60,000 have requested live chats for applications, and enrollment in these marketplaces is moving forward at a record pace. So, on some level, this is an important day, because millions of Americans across dozens of States are getting access to quality affordable health care. On the other hand, as the Presiding Officer well knows, this is an embarrassing, difficult, and disappointing day. The Federal Government of the United States is shut down. As of midnight last night, the President, the Office of Management and Budget, directed all the different executive agencies and offices to begin shutting down. As a result, 800,000 Federal employees are spending today at home--not helping small businesses with loans from the SBA; not helping move forward grants that invest in improving our infrastructure; not moving forward federally funded research that might find a cure for cancer or for MS or for autism; not helping applicants get college loans; not helping disabled veterans get access to the benefits they earned through their service to our country. We could go on and on about all the different ways these Federal employees--these public servants--are today not able to help our constituents, our fellow citizens. I have gotten a fair number of contacts today--phone calls to my office, e-mails to my office, folks connecting with me on Facebook or through Twitter, or directly or indirectly, to convey how frustrated and upset they are. I want to try to put all of this in some context for the folks who might be watching. What is it we are fighting over? As best I can understand, a few Members of this body and a few Members of the House of Representatives have shut this government down in an effort to try to stop the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That is what this is all about. They have refused to take up and pass a bill that would fund the continuation of the U.S. Federal Government. In so doing, they are doing about $10 billion a week in damage to our economy. They are doing all of that damage I referred to in terms of hundreds of thousands of Federal employees not able to help improve our communities or keep us safe or move our country forward. So why are we doing this? I think it has been said for many years that the definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, the House of Representatives has tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act I think 42 times now. As best I understand, this bill, which was passed by both Chambers and signed into law and then challenged at length in the Supreme Court and upheld and then was the central issue of the last Presidential election, which was not particularly close, this law of the land, which is moving forward in its implementation today, will not be stopped by shutting down the Federal Government. This is a strategy that never really had a serious chance of success. Despite very long, quasi-filibuster speeches on this floor, despite all sorts of public pronouncements, this strategy has no chance actually of working. So what is the point? Why is this Federal Government shut down? It seems to me that it is simply a demonstration of a temper tantrum, a fit by a small number of folks who promised people back home that they will not allow this government to go forward with the Affordable Care Act. I think what we should be doing instead is working together across the aisle to improve the Affordable Care Act. It is not perfect. Of course it has blemishes. There will be hiccups and there will be inconsistencies and issues that need to be worked out as this law is implemented. We ought to be working together across the aisle, the Senate and House together, to make sure it is done in an affordable, sustainable, and positive way rather than a small minority digging in their heels and imposing all of this wreckage for their own partisan goal. Let me share some of the thoughts I have gotten from folks at home who are not exactly happy about our having a Federal Government shutdown today. First, Ray White of Ellendale, DE, wrote: I am a veteran and a US government employee. The furlough and sequester we already went through back in August of this year cost me 20 percent of my paycheck for over a month, causing my bills to get out of control. I would like to know how to make ends meet when I have no money to pay my bills, and lawmakers in the Capitol want to put me out of work again. To Ray and your family, I am sorry. I am sorry for the fact that we have a few folks in the House of Representatives who will not take up a bill to keep our government open. As the Senator from Minnesota recently related, if the Speaker of the House would just let that bill get to the floor, it would pass. There are more than enough Democrats and Republicans in the House to pass that bill if the House would just take it up. I don't think there is any question who caused this shutdown and why. CWO2 Christopher Slicer of Newark wrote me to say: As a federal technician and Army National Guardsman, I find it ridiculous that those we have elected as our representatives cannot do their jobs. If I wasn't doing my job, I would be fired or reprimanded. There is no excuse. I don't care which party it is for not passing whatever it is that needs to be done to have a budget. For our government to shut down shows how incompetent our government is to the world and worse its own citizens. There are thousands of us federal employees who have had to endure furloughs already, and you are telling me that we may have more. Well, to CWO Christopher Slicer, I apologize that this Congress is unable to come together across this partisan divide and that we have another needless, manufactured crisis that just a few irresponsible Members insisted on to make a partisan point. I think CWO Christopher Slicer makes a particularly important point: that this government shutdown shows our weaknesses in our inability to get together across this partisan divide not just to our citizens but to the world. At a time of real instability and real threat to our national security around the world, I think this government shutdown is not just harmful to our communities, our families, and our economy, but to our country and its standing in the world. Last I will read, if I might, a note from Laurie Tonkay of Dover. Laurie wrote me to say: It seems like we just got through the government furloughs and now there is a good chance you're going to shut down the government. This came yesterday. My husband is employed with the Civil Service on Dover Air Force Base. This makes it difficult for ordinary families to make ends meet. I am getting discouraged with the way things are being done in Washington these days. America is in debt because we overspend, then you make your average hard-working employees pay the price for it repeatedly. She concludes: Morale is low, and frankly, I have lost confidence in the bureaucracy. I wonder if things would be different if this were an election year. Would you shut the government down? I think not. Show you care and get something done now. Well, to Laurie, I am sorry for the impact this shutdown has had on you and your family. But it is the result of a few irresponsible Members of the House of Representatives. If the Speaker would just put on the floor for a vote what has been passed here in the Senate, we would have a government reopened today and we could get back to the business of this country. We could get back to conference on the budget and make progress on investing in making our communities safer, our families stronger, our schools and our students better educated, and doing the investment in our infrastructure and research we need to move our economy forward. Let me conclude by sharing this. I have a number of wonderful folks on my staff who work in my offices in Delaware and in Washington whose real focus is constituent service. If folks call my office and they have a problem or an issue at home that we need to help with, they do an amazing job. One young man, Brendan Mackie, recently joined my staff. He is a two- tour veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He works tirelessly to make sure the veterans who contact my office get the help they need. A staff sergeant recently contacted us. He was wounded in Baghdad in 2007 by an IED. He lost the documentation for his Purple Heart. Well, Brendan dove right in and did all sorts of work--collected sworn statements and medical records, submitted everything to the relevant Army review board--and has managed to get his Purple Heart reissued. That is the kind of case work my folks do day in and day out, making sure that whether it is accessing veterans' benefits or disability benefits, Social Security, or medals earned in service to this Nation in combat, the men and women of Delaware who contact my office and rely on me and their services for great constituent support can get that help. Sadly, Brendan is home today and not able to serve the people of Delaware, not able to do his job. If I might, I would close by saying this: This is the latest in a series of manufactured crises, of completely senseless, self-inflicted wounds. It is up to the Speaker of the House and to the folks in the House of Representatives to take up and pass the bill we sent them days ago that would allow this government to reopen and allow the leaders of this Chamber and the other Chamber to move forward on dealing with the real issues facing our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Absolutely. I might say to my friend from Colorado, I had direct experience with this. In the State of Delaware, folks expect us to balance our budgets and pass them on time, to deliver good services, but also to defend our credit ratings. The city and county and State in which I lived and served all enjoyed triple-A credit ratings. The folks in my communities understood that meant we could borrow money for building sewers, building roads, and building schools less expensively and sustain the quality of our community. Our business leaders and civic leaders understood that to put that at risk was reckless and irresponsible. Yet for a manufactured crisis by a few Senators, we are facing the shutdown of this Federal Government a few days from now--and, I am afraid, just a few weeks later the possible default on the sovereign debt of the United States. No responsible elected official where I am from would do that.

Mr. COONS. I was.

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from Louisiana for her leadership of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. We just heard a detailed description of how the Senator has worked in a bipartisan, thoughtful, and in a detailed and decent way--in a way that crafted a bill where there was compromise, where there was give and take, and where ultimately the bill that has moved through that subcommittee and full committee and should be ready for action on this floor meets the real needs of our Nation, of our homeland. That bill provides resources and support whether for the State of Colorado, the State of Minnesota, the State of Delaware, or all over this country. And shutting the government down over a needless manufactured crisis between now and Monday is the height of irresponsibility. Madam President, if I might, I will now yield for the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. COONS. That is absolutely my understanding. My friend the Senator from Louisiana knows better than anyone that the role of the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees is to perform oversight, to weed through programs in the Federal Government, and to strengthen and support those that are effective and making a difference, but to narrow or shut down or trim those that aren't. If we continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, from short-term continuing resolution to continuing resolution, we will never get that good work done. Madam President, I welcome any further comments my colleague would like to make about what the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Appropriations Committee has made possible, and why that matters, what difference that makes to the people of Louisiana and of our country.

Mr. COONS. I wish to speak for a moment about manufacturing. As you know, I am passionate about manufacturing, about the good-quality jobs manufacturing brings to our communities. What I am also passionate about is that this body needs to stop manufacturing crisis. What we just heard in the last few minutes was an exchange between my friend, the Senator from Tennessee, and two of his colleagues, the Senators from Texas and Utah, that summarized that what has happened in this Chamber today is the extension of a manufactured crisis, a purely artificial extension that is continuing, as the Senator from Illinois said in great detail and with great insight, to put at risk our recovering economy, our men- and women-at-arms, and our Nation's standing in the world. This is a wholly manufactured crisis without purpose. It seems to me in the 3 years I have been here in the Senate--it feels an awful lot like Groundhog Day. I was sitting in that very chair presiding over this body as we were closing in on a government shutdown when I had only been here for a few months. I have never forgotten getting a message from a constituent at home. Her husband was at that very moment serving our Nation flying Medevac missions in Afghanistan. I got a simple note: Is it possible that because you all can't do your jobs that my husband and I won't be getting a paycheck next week while he does his job for our Nation overseas? We have, in the 3 years I have been here, seen needless fights, a near default on our Nation's debt, a near defunding of our Federal Government's operation. Today we see not a difference of meaning but a difference purely of substance and style--purely of superficial style. As the Senator from Tennessee pointed out, the objection to the majority leader's request that we proceed now to a vote was purely for the convenience of two Senators who have sent out a lot of press releases and who want more attention. We can't continue to play chicken with the American people, the American economy, and continuing the services of the Federal Government. I know my colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, who is one of the leaders from the Appropriations Committee, is here to offer some insight and comments about the value of appropriations, about the great work our chair Senator Mikulski has led us in this year. There are so many other ways that this manufactured crisis is just the latest in a series of disappointing failures to lead by a few of our colleagues. The chair has allowed us to go through subcommittee markups and full committee markups on 11 appropriations subcommittee bills. If those bills could be taken up and passed on this floor, we could fix a lot of the things that challenge our Nation. I yield the floor to the Senator from Louisiana so she might inform this body about some of the important work that she, in her subcommittee on the Appropriations Committee, on which I am honored to serve, has been able to do this year.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I honor CHILD, Inc., a private, non-profit organization which this month celebrates 50 years of continuous service to Delaware's children and families. Over the past 50 years, CHILD, Inc. has provided emergency shelter, foster care, domestic violence services, counseling programs, and parent education to families with at-risk children. In 2012, the agency reached just over 21,000 abused and neglected children and victims of domestic violence. As CHILD, Inc. celebrates this milestone anniversary, I want to offer my sincere gratitude to its board of directors, staff, and network of volunteers for their decades of hard work and continued commitment to serving Delaware families in crisis. CHILD, Inc. was founded by Henry E.I. duPont and Martha Verge duPont in 1963 as a group home for boys. Since then, the organization has expanded its programming to become one of Delaware's leading agencies serving youth, families, and victims of domestic violence. Today, CHILD, Inc. primarily works with children who may be troubled, neglected, or abused, as well as children and families who have been impacted by domestic violence. In addition to being the only children's shelter and runaway center in the State of Delaware, CHILD, Inc. provides a wide array of violence prevention and treatment programs tailored to the needs of children and families. Under the leadership of longtime director Joseph M. Dell'Olio, who led the organization from 1973 until his retirement in 2008, CHILD, Inc. has become a powerful force for advocacy, helping to push through key improvements to Delaware's child welfare system. The organization continues to expand that advocacy mission today. CHILD, Inc.'s dedication to Delaware children and families, as well as its determination to continuously grow and improve its services, has helped thousands of children grow up and thrive in a stronger, safer community. On behalf of all Delawareans, I thank CHILD, Inc. for 50 years of tremendous service and congratulate them on this significant milestone.