Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Just this afternoon.

Mr. NELSON. Since the Senator so eloquently posed this question, since this Senator has the privilege of being the chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, and since the Senator from California has just pointed out that seniors are at risk, I wish to remind the Senate that on October 23, there is a bill due to be paid of $12 billion to Social Security recipients--October 23. Shortly thereafter, on November 1, there is another bill due: $67 billion for Social Security recipients, for Medicare recipients, and for SSI, which is Social Security for low-income seniors. In addition to the default the Senator from California has spoken about--defaulting on interest payments on U.S. Treasury bills--we are talking about default to real people with real needs. This is just a drop in the bucket of the total amount that is coming due. I thank the Senator for letting me share that information in this discussion. I might say that the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from Massachusetts--or now the senior Senator from Massachusetts--is one of the most active and prominent members of the Special Committee on Aging, and our committee has pointed out statistics such as these over and over.

Mr. NELSON. If the Senator will yield on that point.

Mr. NELSON. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. NELSON

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, you know when you are driving along and your children keep asking you, are we there yet? Are we there yet? That is an appropriate question. I would have thought we were there--until now. We heard about the agreement that was hammered out between the two leaders in the Senate and now all kinds of changes wanting to be made in the House of Representatives. The countdown clock is ticking. The ominous sounds of default are being heard. The stock market, the New York Exchange, has reacted accordingly. Up on Friday, up again a little bit yesterday on the hopes, but today with the new news, down--not a huge amount but a significant amount. It is reflective of this emotional roller coaster of what is at stake, which is the financial integrity of this country. Enough is enough. The ridiculousness ought to stop. Let's go back and look where we have been over the course of the last 2 weeks. All of this started with a shutdown of the Federal Government, of which there are untold stories of hardship and deprivation that are going on. That ought to be enough to spur people to action to stop the shutdown. What did the shutdown start with? It started because a small group in the House, maybe folks who would affiliate with the tea party, decided they want to take away the funding for the health care reform act, the Affordable Care Act. As a result, they forced this shutdown. In the course of the last 2 weeks, about 1 week goes by and that crowd sees this is not working and so they shift then their attacks to one of overall spending. But still today, with the two leaders in the Senate having basically come to an agreement, the House of Representatives is going back to the Affordable Care Act and wanting to extract additional things. And all the time the clock is ticking toward not only not being able to bring government back so it can function--stopping the shutdown--but also the potential default that is looming. I really believe and I understand what the people in my State of Florida feel. They are fed up with this. It is so ridiculous. Yet that is what our politics has come to. The small group in the House of Representatives better start understanding that. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I see the great junior Senator from Virginia waiting to speak. I would like to make a quick statement. I again want to remind the Senate and anybody who is listening what brought about the shutdown. It has been going on now for a week and a half, and we do not see any relief in sight. What started the whole thing on the shutdown is this: Shut down the government unless you agree to reverse a law that was passed and declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. By reversing that law, by taking the funding away from the Affordable Care Act--that is what started this a week and a half ago. I have just come from the commerce committee, where Senator Rockefeller had a hearing on everything from consumer finance and the consumer federation on how consumers are not being protected; everything from the National Transportation Safety Board and how all of these accidents that have occurred within the last week and a half of the shutdown cannot be investigated because all of their staff is on furlough; to the aerospace industry--they cannot deliver airplanes that are ready for delivery because they have to have their final FAA certificate; to, of course, the space program in NASA, and 97 percent furloughed; to over 60 percent of NOAA furloughed and all of the weather satellites we are trying to get going. Then you take all these government employees who are furloughed, and what about all the contractors to the government who are now laying off all the contractors? We had an Alaskan captain talking about how he needs the government certificates so he can go to sea on the Alaskan crab catch. He cannot get that. Guess who is lurking out there. Russian captains, to come in and start supplying the world market, including the domestic U.S. market, with crab. You can go through the whole thing. Then, of course, the other side says, in the midst of the shutdown, with the default of the credit rating of the government facing us, you are not negotiating. That reminds me of a story. Two people are talking. One says: Can I burn your House down? No. Can I burn your second floor down? No. Garage? No. How about your utility room? No. Oh, you won't compromise. You cannot compromise over something that is hurting so many people's lives and is threatening the security and safety of people's lives. You cannot compromise on that. You cannot compromise on this Nation going into financial default. Come on. Let's use a little common sense and get back into government functioning again and stop the nonsense about threatening a default of this country. Then let's do what the very sincere Senator from Indiana said. Let's continue those discussions about what we can do for the long-term financial integrity of this country. I yield. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his indulgence.

Mr. NELSON. The Senator from Indiana is very sincere as he has worked diligently and in a bipartisan way to tackle this budget problem. It is this Senator's hope we can continue those kinds of discussions we had a couple of years ago. Would the Senator agree that the shutdown situation we find ourselves in, however--which started for a different reason than the budget questions. It started for the reason of people wanting to defund ObamaCare--that the shutdown creates a crisis atmosphere in which it is very difficult to have those budgetary discussions the Senator yearns to have, as does his colleague from Florida?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am not going to wait to speak, but if I might ask the distinguished Senator from Indiana a question, and then certainly agree to however much time he wants.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, mindful of the hour and that the Senate is about to recess, I want to say to my colleague from Florida, who is my friend, that I have optimism and I have faith in our country as well. I think it is interesting that the stock market, the Dow Jones, has surged 243 points--I just checked it a couple of minutes ago--on just the rumors that the debt ceiling will be lifted and we will not go through this crisis. But I am told at the other end of the Capitol, the House of Representatives is going to have difficulty in getting any agreement to stop the shutdown of the government and pass a continuing appropriations bill. So here we are, back in the soup again. If we do just a short-term debt extension, lifting the debt ceiling, then for however long it is--5, 6 weeks--come Thanksgiving we are going to be back in the soup again. There has got to be a change in attitude, and the attitude has got to be I respect the other fellow's point of view, I respect his difference of opinion, now let's work it out together. And it is only then we are going to solve this problem. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to add my remarks now for the third time about this shutdown. I want to say this is not the way we ought to be running our government, and enough ought to be enough. For example, as you know, the Secretary of Defense has figured out a way he can bring back most of the furloughed civilian employees--there may be a quarter of them who are still on furlough but most of them--by a law that passed here that saw most unintended consequences. But there was a little part of the law where he was able to bring them back for the national security and defense of this country. But there are still gaping holes. For example, although the active- duty National Guard is not furloughed, a lot of the civilian force and the Reserve force of the Guard is furloughed. I just talked to an F-22 pilot of the Virginia National Guard. He is a long-time fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, flew F-15s, now F-22s. He has transitioned to the National Guard, went to a unit that has the F-22s, which is the Virginia National Guard. All of those Reserve National Guard pilots are still coming in and flying, because we still have to protect the air defense of this country. They are flying, but they are not getting paid. Some of their technicians are there, still supporting the maintenance of the aircraft. Some of them are not getting paid. All of the ancillary support staff is on furlough. In this example of the protection of the national security, in this particular case providing for our air defense through an Air National Guard unit, is this the way an air guard unit ought to be run? Instead, it is not being run according to how it should be because of a political tantrum by certain people trying to get their way, instead of allowing the government to be functioning through its appropriations. There is now a salmonella outbreak, 278 cases in 18 States, including my State of Florida. The Centers for Disease Control, which monitors at one time 30 different diseases operating in this country--now 68 percent of the Centers for Disease Control employees have been furloughed. So because of the salmonella outbreak that has occurred--it may be in the Presiding Officer's State as well. I will look it up afterwards and tell the Presiding Officer. It is in my State. I know it started in California, where most of the cases are. But had the CDC been there in full force, instead of 68 percent of them being laid off, maybe we would not have had this outbreak, or they may have been able to spot it and stem it quickly before it spread to 17 other States. I will give you another example: NASA. This little agency is the one that has the most people furloughed as a percentage of the workforce. Now 97 percent of NASA employees are furloughed. Since most of NASA's work is done by contractors, without the NASA supervisors there now, the contractors are being laid off. You take a place such as the Presiding Officer's State of Ohio, the NASA Glenn Research Center, look at the impact to the people in that community. You take a major space center elsewhere, such as the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Kennedy Space Center in my State, look at what it is doing to the lives of people. But remember that we have a mission that is going to Mars that has a unique, one-time-in-2-years launch window, starting the middle of November into the first part of December. If that narrow 3-week launch window is missed because of the lack of preparation of this spacecraft to launch, there is not another launch window for 2 years. Because of that, we were able to get NASA to recall that team. They are there continuing to prepare the spacecraft. They are not getting paid. But at least we are not going to cause all of the additional delay of 2 years and all of the additional expense of keeping that team of scientists together, along with the staging of the spacecraft for another 2 years. There are three examples: the National Guard, and the defense of this country; the salmonella outbreak, because of the layoffs of the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control; and NASA. This should not be. Enough is enough. The political tantrum ought to stop. Let us get back to the business of governing. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period for morning business be extended until 7 p.m., and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Correct.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON. He found a hook in there so he could then extend that to most of the civilian workforce, including some of the National Guard, but we didn't know that. In my State of Florida, 156 employees were getting the notices just in the National Guard on Friday. There were already 1,000 military technicians that had been furloughed in the National Guard, and we had an inbound storm. What about the programs in our State to help veterans find jobs? If we are not done with this shutdown at the end of October, that is gone. What about the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a part of the State government. Ten percent of their funds are Federal funds. What about the Florida Department of Agriculture? Over 6 percent of their workforce is federally funded. What about--and we have heard this in the Senate--Women, Infants, and Children? A society is supposed to take care of its very old and its very young. This is why we have programs for Women, Infants, and Children. Yet the supplemental nutrition program for women, for nursing mothers, for children up to the age of 5, for breast-feeding support, for nutrition education, and for health checkups is gone. I could go on and on. Others have said it more articulately than I. This is ridiculous. This shouldn't go on. As the drumbeat of the crescendo continues, it will grow louder as we march toward October 17, when the debt ceiling has to be raised so we don't go into default. It is a sad day. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, before the Chair is yielded, I wish to say it is almost like deja vu all over again. The great Senator from Maine was sitting in the chair only a few days ago when this Senator had a chance to make comments. Here we are again. I wish to say to the Senator from Texas, as he is leaving the Chamber, that I think the Senator is a good Senator who believes strongly in what he is saying, but if there is a will, there is a way. Reasonable people can come together and work through to a reasonable conclusion. I was going to say, with the Senator from Texas on the floor, the Senator had a chance to express his opinion. Indeed, the Senator did with his vote when we passed the appropriations bill, now called the continuing resolution, because we have not brought each of the appropriations bills to the floor. We accepted it at the House number. The senior Senator from Texas expressed his opinion by means of his ``no'' vote, but ``yes'' votes won, and we sent it to the other body to keep the government open. Indeed, the government is not open. I go back to 2 days ago when the Senator from Maine was the Presiding Officer and here we are again. If we would remember the Golden Rule put in the old English: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you or put into modern street language: Treat others as you want to be treated--in other words, recognize that the other fellow has a point of view and you have to respect his point of view--even though his point of view may be different from yours--the genius of American democracy is hammering out those differences and building consensus in a civil way and achieving a workable solution. What we have here is brinkmanship. We hammered it out, we passed appropriations, a continuing resolution. We sent it to the House of Representatives, and they will not put it up for a vote because they are only--and this is operative-- going to pass this with Republican votes. What does that do? This takes an outsized minority of the Republican caucus being the tail that is wagging the Republican dog in the House of Representatives. If they only pass it with Republican votes instead of the will of the whole House then, in fact, we will have what we have now, a small out-of-the-mainstream political philosophy extremist group dictating what they want and only what they want. It is their way or no way. That is not treating others as they wish to be treated. This is an attitude of saying: I know better than you and my way is going to be the only way. That is not how we govern this country. That is not how we honor and respect other people's points of view that may be different from ours. I do not wish to hold up the Senator from Maine, but I wanted to follow up on the conversation I had through the Chair 2 days ago. All of these high-minded, highfalutin ideas of all of us getting together and treating each other as we wish to be treated and hammering out this policy--lo and behold, maybe everything I am saying doesn't have a thing to do with this by virtue of an investigative piece having been done by the New York Times over the weekend. I wish to read the first three paragraphs of this investigative piece. It is entitled: ``A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning'' by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mike McIntire. Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama's health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan. Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed ``blueprint to defunding Obamacare,'' signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups. It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that has long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans--including their cautious leaders--into cutting off financing for the entire federal government. This is only the first three paragraphs. If that is true, then all of these high-minded ideas of the Golden Rule and treating each other with respect and working out your differences is all out the window. If that is true--and it looks as if it is by virtue of what we see going on down in the other end of this Capitol Building, a small group of people are not going to do anything to open the government unless they get their way to defund the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform act--I would suggest that if that is the case, then the people who are suffering should sit up and take notice of what is happening to their government. We have heard examples over and over. Senator Brown and I were just talking about the 97 percent of people who are laid off in NASA. Then what do we do with all of the civilian workforce in NASA? Think of what this is doing to all of the contractors who work for NASA. We have heard also the statistic out here that over 70 percent of the intelligence community has been furloughed. We have heard that Head Start, the federally funded program to get children ready to start the public schools, kindergarten and first grade, is shutting down. We know last week, when we were in the middle of this shutdown, there was a storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. Thank the good Lord it fizzled out, but at one point it was expected to turn into a Category 1 hurricane hitting the gulf coast. Had that happened, FEMA had been laid off--although they reached back and started the National Guard, et cetera. Thank you to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel for finding an unintended consequence in the law that was passed to pay the U.S. military while the government is shut down because he found a little hook in there.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. NELSON. What the Senator said about NASA is so true. Would the Senator believe that 97 percent of the workforce at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is on furlough? A few of us had to intercede. The Mars mission that is supposed to go in a narrow window between mid-November and early December--if they miss that window, it would be another 2 years before they could launch that Mars mission and, therefore, you would have all the expense of keeping the scientists on, and so forth. We finally got them to bring them back so they could continue processing the mission so it can launch in that narrow 3-week window. But the rest of the people are gone. Does that sound very intelligent to the Senator from Ohio?

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental affairs

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2013 at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Social Security Disability Benefits: Did a Group of Judges, Doctors and Lawyers Abuse Programs for the Country's Most Vulnerable?''

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2013, at 5:50 p.m.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Would the Senator yield for a quick comment?

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, since our leader is a former Capitol policeman, might it be noted that all of the Capitol Police Force that is protecting us and protected us the other day with the incident that occurred here--they are still here protecting us, and they are not being paid?

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Hawaii for her comments and say that on the basis of what this Senator just discovered, having gone down to the other end of the Capitol, it is going to take a lot of loud voices to get the Speaker to hear us because they have shut down. They have gone home. They are not even coming back until next Monday. I was just wandering through this deserted Capitol. I encountered Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of the great leaders of the Congress, who is the minority whip now and used to be majority leader in the House of Representatives. He just gave me this report. Those chambers down there at the other end are darkened. Here we are, on the basis of a small group of people in the House of Representatives who insist on having it their way or no way, we have all of these people and all of these specific events that all of these Senators have chronicled of the deprivation of the lack of security. I mean you can go on and on as a result of the shutdown. This Senator is going to enumerate a few examples of that while the two Senators from Hawaii and the Senator from Wisconsin are here, and the great presiding officer, one of the bright lights of the new class that just came into the Senate. If you really examine what is the problem--the problem--it actually goes back to the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Hebrew Scriptures, to two commandments that then were reiterated by Jesus in the new Scriptures. The first commandment: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is likened to it: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is a practical ``how to'' for what we know as the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. That is a practical application of the second great commandment of: Love your neighbor as yourself. It is part of the root of the problem we see. It is not only gripping the capital city of the United States, where people are so ingrown and insular and unwilling to respect the other fellow's point of view and work out their differences--the very underpinnings of the greatness of our democracy that has lasted over 2\1/4\ centuries is on that basic principle of: Treat others as you would want to be treated. In other words, in the political context, do what Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan used to do: Have your fights, but at the end of the day, respect each other so when it is time to do the deal, you can come together and resolve your differences. Another great model for this Senator when he was a young Congressman were the two leaders in the House of Representatives: Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker, and Bob Michel, the Republican leader. It is the same kind of relationship that Tip had with the President. They would fight like the dickens during the day, but they kept that personal respect through a personal friendship, so that even though they vigorously disagreed about an issue, they realized that they were not the only ones in this country, that there were other people who thought differently than they did, and in the grand tradition of American democracy, when it was time to build a consensus to achieve a workable solution, then they could come together and work it out. But what we see is a small--very, I would dare say--totally inward- looking group that thinks that they know it all and that their opinion is the only opinion, and that they have the political leverage since the Speaker of the House has said that he will only pass something with Republican votes. By the way, it did not used to be that way. They now call that the Hastert rule, named after Speaker Hastert. Before that, it did not used to be that way. We used to pass legislation in the House of Representatives with Republican and Democratic votes. I give you that great example. I want to give you one of the finest examples of government being able to work during a time of economic emergency. It was in 1983. We were within 6 months of shutting down Social Security because Social Security was starting to run out of money, where it could not make its full payments. It would have made partial payments. Those two Irishmen, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, said: We are going to fix it. The first thing we are going to do is to take this iron rail of American politics, and we are going to take it off the table to be used as a hammer to beat your opponent over the head with in the next election. Then we are going to appoint a blue-ribbon panel. They are going to bring back their recommendation to the Congress, and we are going to pass it. All of that occurred. It passed overwhelmingly and made Social Security actuarially sound for the next half century, into the 2030s, all the way from 1983. That is an example of the finest traditions of governing under the American constitutional method in our democratic system. So when you get at loggerheads in a time such as this, where is that respect--that genuine respect and not that superficial respect, that respect that fortunately we show to each other out here on the floor of the Senate. But where is that genuine respect, and where is that recognition? Those words over the presiding officer are scrolled in the marble: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. We gain our unity from many peoples, many ideas, but we all think of ourselves unum, as one, as Americans. That is what we are missing. You boil all of this down, and that is what is going on in American politics today. We do not talk to each other. We are shouting past each other. Turn on your cable TV. Look at the shouting match there. Turn on one cable network and you get only one perspective. Turn on another cable network and you get another perspective. We are not talking to each other. We are not. Also, as the good book says, as Lyndon Johnson as President often reminded us: Come, let us reason together. That is what is happening. I see other Senators that want to speak here. I have got a whole bunch of things that I wanted to enumerate that are happening in the State of Florida, where the shutdown of the Federal Government is affecting the State government. I am not going to list those so that my colleagues can go on and speak. I have got a bunch of issues to talk about related to national security, where we are genuinely harmed today with the shutdown of the government. I want to point out that one of our military commanders--it happens to be a tanker unit, the big KC-135 tankers. They fly and refuel all of our aircraft. They refuel in the air. He said, ``We are effectively shut down.'' Another commander of another active duty wing, Colonel DeThomas says that when you take the furloughs, these furloughs on top of the 6 days that they lost unpaid in the sequester in the last fiscal year, which ended September 30, he says: You do that, and it creates a double whammy. That is what is happening. That is just one little snippet of our national security. I am so glad that these colleagues are here to speak. I will share all of the details that I intended to share at a later time. I thank the Senators for their attention. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. As I understand what the majority leader has just done, the Senate has appointed conferees on the farm bill. That is an example that when there is a political will, we can get together and get things accomplished. The National Institutes of Health, NASA, and all of the intelligence agencies--72 percent of all the civilians in the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, are furloughed. We are in a war with those people who are trying to do harm to us. We are having these people furloughed all because of a small group, the tea party, in one House of one branch of government who are intent on their agenda. It is irresponsible and reckless. The truth is, if the Speaker would just bring up what we call the continuing resolution, which is all of the appropriations bills put together up to a date certain, November 15, it would pass overwhelmingly with Democrats and Republicans both voting for it, not the extremist small group down there, but the Speaker doesn't bring it up. What I see happening--if this lasts for more than a day or two--is that the American people will be so irritated and upset that their lives are disrupted because they can't get government services they are going to insist that their government open once again. I have an example. The fine work the people I have the privilege of working with and what they do for the people of my State never ceases to amaze me. It is not unusual when I am going into a meeting or airport or walking down the street when I am in the State of Florida, it is commonplace for people to come up and say to me: I want you to know that I appreciate so much what you did to help me or my mother or my son or my brother who is a veteran. When they say those things, they are talking about all of these dedicated people whom I have the great privilege of working with to help the people of our State on the day-to-day necessities of their daily lives, such as an emergency situation, they realize their passport has expired or they lost their passport or didn't get their veterans payment or need help getting their brother into a veterans hospital or something happened to their Social Security payment or they need information about this particular piece of legislation or they are concerned about somebody they saw whom they thought was doing things and they need them to be referenced to the correct agency on a security matter. It goes on and on. These wonderful people we have working with us--some young, some old--many of the ones who have been with me for years are so dedicated and work day and night. They work their fingers to the bone. They know exactly whom to call or to e-mail to get things done for people back home in need. We know what is going to happen. When they call any one of our offices in Florida, they are going to get a recording of my voice, telling them what has happened and how all of these folks have been furloughed and giving them an emergency contact as the one lifeline we can provide. What happens next? If reasonable people were doing this, we would have never shut down in the first place--people who are bipartisan, who have some common sense, who recognize we can't have it our way all the time but in the best of American tradition respect the other fellow's point of view and then work out differences to achieve a consensus in order to gain a workable solution. If those kinds of reasonable folks had been operating, then we would never have shut down in the first place. We have heard about this over and over in the speeches today: I voted for, in the Budget Committee, a budget. It came out of committee and came to the floor. We had over 100 amendments. It took hours and hours. We finally passed a budget which was the outline for the appropriations for the next fiscal year. We passed that in the Senate 6 months ago. The House did the same. They passed out a budget. But when we asked to go to a conference committee to get agreement for working out the differences between the two, that small group would not let the conference not only not convene but even be appointed. I think the majority leader of the Senate will tell us we are ready to meet right now, but they have to open the government again. We have to put back to work these people who are trying to serve the American people and to protect the American people. Hopefully, if the American people hear these messages, they will get sufficiently agitated and insist that, once again, the crowd that has shut us down instead should open the government. Mr. President, I yield the floor.