Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to request the presence of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, would my friend agree that we have just learned that the President said he would solve this in the next hour. Would my friend be willing to wait until 4 o'clock today and renew his request at that time if it has not been done?

Mr. REID. I think on this issue it would be the best way to proceed; that we can do something together, and hopefully the White House will be in on what we are trying to do. So I ask my friend to renew this at 4 o'clock.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks the Senate will be in a period of morning business for debate only until 12:30 today. During that period of time Senators will be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Senate will then recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. to allow for our weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are now entering the second week of a Republican government shutdown. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is still sitting on the one bill that can reopen the government. Speaker Boehner insists the Senate-passed bill to end the shutdown can't pass the House. Well, I am not the first to issue this challenge--it has been issued all weekend and yesterday--and that is, prove it. Bring it up for a vote. If the Speaker really believes the bill will not pass, he shouldn't be worried about bringing it up. The House, though, if we look at what has happened, has wasted weeks voting--and I have really lost track of the number of times, but I think it is 44 times--the House alone has acted to repeal ObamaCare 44 times. What is the result every time they vote? The same. Truly what Einstein said: The real definition of ``insanity'' is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If, in fact, Einstein is right, then that is insanity, what is going on over there--to vote more than 40 times on the same thing and lose every time. So let's talk about wasting time. Has that been a waste of time? Maybe after 5 or 6 times they should have maybe gotten the message, but how about 44 times? Talk about wasting time. Could it be that the Speaker is really worried that reasonable Republicans will join Democrats to pass legislation to open the government? Sensible Republicans have grown increasingly fed up with the shutdown, and they are looking for a way out. Just yesterday Peter King of New York, a Republican, said: Republicans should not have started this. Closing the government down was the wrong thing to do. Republican Congressman King called Speaker Boehner's unreasonable strategy to shut down the government unless Democrats agree to defund or end ObamaCare--a law that will help 25 million uninsured Americans gain access to affordable care--doomed to failure. That is what Peter King said. Again quoting Congressman King: If we want to defund something, we should repeal it, and do it the same way the President got it signed--elect Republicans to both Houses of Congress, repeal it, and have a Republican President sign it. Mr. President, it is pretty obvious what is going on. I have known it all the time. We have all known it all the time. When I say ``all the time,'' at least in these last many months. But it was made very clear to the world on Sunday in a front-page story in the New York Times. They worked a while on that story, but basically what the story said is that very rich people in America who don't believe in government have used ObamaCare as a conduit to shut down the government. That is what they wanted to do. That is what they have done, with huge amounts of money. We know this has been led by, according to the news article, a former Attorney General of the United States, Ed Meese, and the Koch brothers, who have been raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get us where we are right now. But what Peter King suggested is that we follow the democratic process. That has been turned on its head. I know Republicans don't like ObamaCare, but the Affordable Care Act has been the law of the land for 4 years, been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, and millions of Americans--multimillions of Americans--are already benefiting from this law. There are rumors floating around. One of my rich friends from Nevada called me on Friday. He said: Harry, I am down here in southern California getting a little cosmetic surgery. My anesthesiologist told me one of his friends, who is a general surgeon, took somebody's gallbladder out. Do you know how much money he got back for that? I don't know if it was a he or a she. I said: No, I don't know. He said: Fifty-eight dollars. That is what ObamaCare is all about. I said: That is not possible because ObamaCare, that aspect of it, doesn't kick in until January 1. He said: Are you sure you are right? I said: Yes. All this signing up for exchanges and all that will take 3 months. These are the rumors floating around out there about ObamaCare. If Republicans want to propose a legislative way to make the law work better or more efficiently, Peter King is right. We are willing to do that and do it the way our democratic process provides. (Mr. MARKEY assumed the Chair.) I see the Senator from Massachusetts has taken the Chair, and he served many years with Peter King. I personally have watched his voting record. I don't like most of it, but at least he is speaking out, and I admire the man for doing that. By shutting down the government--and that is what has happened--we are satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering. ObamaCare is not going to disappear. It is here. The senior Senator from Arizona gave a speech here within the last week or so, and he said: I don't like ObamaCare. I campaigned against ObamaCare when I ran for President. I campaigned against it when Obama ran the next time. But, he said, we lost. It passed. He is President. Elections have consequences. That is what the senior Senator from Arizona said, and he is right. ObamaCare is not going to magically disappear. Tom Friedman, a renowned journalist--his bipartisanship has been legendary. He is a brilliant writer. He was chief correspondent for the New York Times for many years in the Middle East. He has covered all parts of the world. He has won three Pulitzer prizes--maybe four--and he has had five or six best-selling books. But even Tom Friedman has given up trying to be bipartisan. He wrote in the New York Times, where he writes a column 3 days a week, that ObamaCare is not really at stake in this shutdown, it is democracy that is at stake. Here is exactly what he said: When extremists feel that insulated from playing by the traditional rules of our system, if we do not defend those rules--namely majority rule and the fact that if you don't like a policy passed by Congress, signed by the president and affirmed by the Supreme Court, then you have to go out and win an election to overturn it; you can't just put a fiscal gun to the country's head--then our democracy is imperiled. He went on to say more: President Obama is not defending health care. He's defending the health of our democracy. Every American who cherishes that should stand with him. Mr. President, that is as true as anything could be. We stand with our President. We stand with a President who is President of everyone in America. We believe deeply that ObamaCare is already saving lives and will save many more in the future, but we are willing to work with Republicans to change it if they think they can make it better. We want to do that. I wrote a letter 1 week ago today to the Speaker of the House of Representatives--and he knows this--where I said: You know, we are in this position because you asked me to put you in this position to do this. He said, going back as far as July and confirmed in the early part of September, I--the Speaker of the House of Representatives--want to have a clean CR, and the way we can do that is you agree to our number. He said this in July and early September. I said: I hate your number. It is unfair. We passed a budget here-- $70 billion more than that. He said: But we have to avoid problems here. We can't have a government shutdown. Work with me, take that number, and we will have a clean CR and go on to other things. I did that. It was hard. Senator Mikulski, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, hated it, and Senator Murray, chairman of the Budget Committee, hated it, but then they said: OK, we will go ahead and do it. We will work with you to help talk to the caucus. We did that based on the assurances of the Speaker of the House of Representatives that we would get this out of the way in order to fund the government for 1 year. Well, he didn't live up to what he committed to doing. In our business that is not good. In addition to that I said in the letter: OK, you have sent us a little piece of legislation over here saying you want to have a conference. We agree. We will talk to you about anything you want to talk about. You want to talk about discretionary spending, you want to talk about the farm bill, you want to talk about postal reform, you want to talk about health care, we will talk, but open the government and extend the debt ceiling. He read the letter. I called him 45 minutes later. He said: No, can't do that. He can't take yes for an answer on the number in the CR or what he wants to talk about. I don't know what else is left to talk about. All we are asking is that government be reopened. Stop threatening a catastrophic default on the Nation's bills. We have to pay our bills. What kind of a country do we want? As I do every 2 weeks, I met yesterday with someone who briefs me on what is going on around the world with our intelligence services. This person told me his counterpart from a relatively small European country is making fun of our country because of what is going on here. In today's press China is complaining. They are doing pretty well economically. They buy our securities and they need a place to invest their money that is secure. China is now complaining about the fiscal integrity of the United States of America because we are arriving at a point in a few days where we are not going to pay our bills. This is America. We are not asking the Speaker to do something that is unreasonable. We want him to pass a bill that has his number in it, not ours. Ours is $70 billion higher than that. We are also not asking him to do anything unreasonable. He asked us to go to conference. We say let's do it. All we want is the government open first, and we will agree to conference.

Mr. REID. I would be happy to yield to my friend, the distinguished President pro tempore.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, through the Chair to my friend, the senior Senator from Vermont: We have a law in place. The Presiding Officer voted for it when he was a Member of the House of Representatives. We voted for it. There is a law that set spending levels for multiyear. We did that. It was part of a deal. It was a law that was passed. But in spite of us having passed a law that set the standards for 2 years, the Republicans kept coming to the floor many times saying Democrats need to pass a budget. We didn't need to pass a budget. We already had those numbers in place. But after this haranguing that went on for so long, we said, OK, we want to get along. We don't want any problems. So Senator Murray, the chairman of the Budget Committee, worked very hard to pass a budget, and we did that. Lo and behold, after the Republicans kept talking about regular order, we wanted to go to regular order, and they said: No, thanks. And she has been waiting 6 months. So the President pro tempore's description is absolutely true. Let me close by saying all we ask is for the Speaker to be reasonable. If he brings his bill, his resolution, to the floor, it will pass. And then everyone has my commitment: Open the government, raise the debt ceiling, and we will talk about anything you want to talk about. We are not afraid to go to conference. We are happy to go to conference. That is what we used to do here all the time. But we have a little problem: The Republicans won't let us go to conference. Maybe they will in this instance because that is what he said he wants. So open the government and get back to the so-called conversation, as he talks about it. We will get back to the negotiating table and work out our budget disagreements. We can even start talking about ways to make the Affordable Care Act better--not worse, but better. We can get back to the business of legislating. That is what our job has always been and should be. I would ask the Chair to announce the business of the day.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move that the Sergeant at Arms be directed to request the presence of all absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. REID. As soon as I finish my remarks, we will enter into an agreement on how the speakers will go forward. The shutdown of the Federal Government is now affecting some families more than others. It is affecting families who are the most vulnerable, denying them the benefits to help with the funeral expenses of loved ones killed while serving our country. This part of my presentation is not something I got from my staff; this is in the press right now: The families of five U.S. servicemembers who were killed over the weekend in Afghanistan have been notified that they won't be receiving their benefit, normally wired to relatives within 36 hours of the death. The death gratuity is extended to help cover funeral costs and help with immediate living expenses until survivor benefits typically begin. The money also helps cover costs to fly families to Dover Air Force Base to witness a return of their loved ones in a flag-draped coffin. ``Washington may be shut down, but it's still asking people to go to war,'' says the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, Gayle Lemmon. ``When people realize that they can serve and fight for their country, but that their families will get an I.O.U. until the shutdown is over, I think they're just shocked.'' I know I am. For example, LCpl Jeremiah Collins, 19 years old, was a marine who died Saturday while supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. He was one of the five killed, including four troop members who died Sunday by an improvised explosive device. A law passed last week to continue paying civilian members of the military during the shutdown, but does not allow for payouts of the death benefit to the families of the fallen, officials told Andrea Mitchell of NBC. One senior official said he was disgusted by the predicament. That is where we are. I have asked each Senator to come to the floor today because it is important that we have an opportunity to talk about the crisis facing this great Nation. This government shutdown is an embarrassment to our Nation--not only to the people of America but around the world. An economic conference in the Far East that President Obama was to attend--he couldn't because of the government shutdown. So who is there pontificating about how bad things are in America? The President of China. And that is what he is talking about--America can't pay its bills. The families who lost five loved ones--it is an unbearable loss, but now they are being denied death benefits because of this senseless shutdown. It is shameful and embarrassing. There are no words to describe this situation that at least I am capable of expressing, that America could fail the families of our fallen heroes. Appalling, frightening--everyone can come up with their own description. It is time for us, Members of this august body, to stand before the American people and publicly discuss the path forward. Democrats stand unified, asking the Speaker to reopen the government--the whole government, not bits and pieces of the government. It is bad enough with all of the sequestration that has cut, for example, the National Institutes of Health this year by $1.6 billion, and add to that the government shutdown, add to that the second year of sequestration, which will be another $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health. This premier search we have in America for cures for disease, there has never been anything like it in the world; the Library of Congress, there has never been anyplace like it in the world. The great library in Egypt didn't compare to the Library of Congress. But there has been nothing ever in the history of the world like the National Institutes of Health. We are mindlessly going forward and cutting these scientists by billions of dollars. We need to reopen the whole government--not in some piecemeal fashion that further demonstrates to the world that we are unable to find real solutions. Open the whole government so we can get back to work. Allow the government to do its duty by our military families and by every American family. Quickly--I have said it before--in July of this year the Speaker of the House of Representatives and I sat down in his office. I was there, my chief of staff was there, and his chief of staff was there--the four of us. The Speaker wanted to figure out a way to go forward. We talked about a number of things. The one thing he was firm in, he said, it has to be at 2013 levels. I said: I can't do that; it is $70 billion less than the budget we passed just a short time ago. So the conversation continued. In September we talked and talked. I spoke to Chairman Murray and to Chairman Mikulski. It was really hard. They had worked so hard to get regular order back in the Senate. But, like the good soldiers they are, we decided to try to talk to the rest of the caucus and swallow really hard because we had the assurance--I had the assurance that we would have a clean CR now, in September. That didn't work. The Speaker didn't deliver on what he said he would deliver. So the government closes and we have one thing after another coming over here and we send it right back. The last thing they sent over a week ago was to say let's go to conference. So last Tuesday I sent him a letter, and in the first letter I talked about a very decisive time in my life when I voted for the Iraq war. Within weeks of that I felt I had been misled. But regardless of that, that is how I felt. So I became an opponent of that war, and I did everything I could to focus on that war, which was having our military subjected to violence, and that is an understatement. Thousands were being killed, tens of thousands wounded. The number of Iraqis who were being killed is really hard to demonstrate adequately. There was a time that came in my life when we had an opportunity, under my direction, to shut the government down. How? By not funding the war. I made a decision--and that is in my letter to the Speaker-- not to do that. (Ms. BALDWIN assumed the Chair.) I, frankly, received a lot of help from around the country. But that is what I did. And I do not look back at all. So I was trying to tell the Speaker: Do not do this. However, I said: You have done it, and you have asked for a conference. We will go to conference on anything you want to go to conference on. We don't care. But first you have to open the government and allow us to pay our bills. That is in the letter of last Tuesday. Forty-five minutes after he got the letter, I called him. He said: No, I can't do that. So for someone to suggest we have not negotiated is just absolutely wrong. Madam President, $70 billion--it is the biggest compromise I have ever made in my career as a Member of Congress--some 31 years. It may not sound like much to some people, but it was really big. My caucus remembers what I asked them to do. So for someone to suggest to any of my Senators that we have not negotiated is simply unfair, and to say that we will not negotiate is unfair. I put it in writing. We are happy to go to conference. But you have to open the government. This is unfair--just like these five soldiers killed. So open the government, let us pay our bills, and we will negotiate on anything you want to negotiate. I have spoken to the President. I am certainly not name-dropping. I have told my caucus this several times over the last 2 days. He cannot, as President of the United States, negotiate on paying the bills of the country, the debt ceiling. I think there are Senators over here who he has sat down with and talked to individually and as groups to talk about a budget deal. There were many conversations in the Oval Office that I attended to talk about a budget deal. He has put in writing things that he would be willing to do that, quite frankly, our base is not excited about. But he put it in writing. He is still waiting for the first sentence from the people he invited to dinner and met with-- the first sentence--as to what they were willing to do. As said late last week by Haley Barbour and Ed Gillespie, former chairs of the national Republican Party, Republicans--now, they said this, not me--there is a time now when Republicans have to start being for something, not against everything. So I do not come here to argue and badger people. I am happy to talk about anything. Senator Murray will deliver a presentation in just a little bit. We know how hard she has worked. She has the respect of both Democrats and Republicans. But I repeat, when the Speaker said he wanted to go to conference last week, we said: Good. We will do that. I am not a one-man show over here. I clear everything with my caucus, with rare exception, before I go marching off into the blue. So I repeat, we are ready to go to conference as soon as the Speaker reopens the government and removes the threat of default. He has to take yes for an answer. You folks have to take yes for an answer. We are just as willing to sit down and talk today as we were in the spring and as we were this summer. In the meantime, let's open the government and live up to our obligations as a country. To that end, I will introduce a bill to allow the United States to pay it bills with no preconditions or strings attached. I will do that later today and start the so-called rule XIV process. We may have our differences, Democrats and Republicans, but we should not hold the full faith and credit of this great country hostage while we resolve it. At a later time Senator Baucus will talk, and I hope he repeats here on this Senate floor what he told us in our caucus that we just completed: Great nations are not guaranteed greatness. There have been books written about it, and he will talk about one author, a famous author, who recently wrote a book about how great nations have to meet expectations. We are great today. That does not mean we will be forever. How is this country going to look to the world community if we no longer have the full faith and credit of the United States meaning anything? I hope we can get Republican cooperation to move this bill quickly; that is, the debt ceiling bill. If not, the process could take us right up to the deadline--one day before. I am optimistic, however, that my Republican colleagues here in the Senate will not filibuster this bill. I am cynical by nature. That way I am not disappointed as much as those who are optimistic. My friend, Senator Schumer, and I have ongoing issues. He is optimistic about everything. I am cynical about everything. But I am optimistic, even though that is against my nature, that Republicans are not going to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage. I hope I am right. We need to reopen the Federal Government now--not 10 minutes before the debt ceiling is gone. We need to get back to the business of protecting American families, back to the job of legislating. We are not doing anything in this body anymore. It is our job to legislate. That has always been our job; it always will be our job. Open the government, pay our bills, and let's negotiate. It is my understanding that this consent request has been cleared. We will hear from the Republican leader. Then we will hear at that time from Senator McCain for 15 minutes, followed by Senators Durbin, Schumer, and Murray. I ask unanimous consent that be the case.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that Senator McConnell be recognized, which we really do not need consent for him. He has time under his leader time. Following his statement I ask unanimous consent that Senator McCain be recognized for 15 minutes, then Senator Durbin for 10, Senator Schumer for 10, Senator Murray for 10.

Mr. REID. Well, after we get this out of the way, you mean?

Mr. REID. Madam President, I say to my friend from Texas----

Mr. REID. I say, Madam President, through the Chair to my friend: three Democrats, two Republicans. It does not sound too outrageous to me. So would the Senator object to that?

Mr. REID. OK. So following Senator McConnell, I will call upon Senator Durbin.

Mr. REID. Madam President, the order now before the Senate is Senators be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each. I ask unanimous consent that Senator McCain be recognized for 15 minutes. Everyone else will continue on the other order of 10 minutes.

Mr. REID. That is fine. That is our plan.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those on the Democratic side be in this order: Schumer, Murray, Baucus, Mikulski, Warner, Cardin, Klobuchar, Whitehouse, Stabenow.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Texas has stated again what has already been talked about here a lot, and that is a piecemeal approach to funding our government. As do most Americans, we Democrats support the purpose of this bill to fund the Veterans' Administration. But there is no reason for us to have to choose between this important government function and disease control, NIH, highway safety, FBI, poor children, workplace safety, or protecting the environment. We could do all these things if the House Republican leadership would just allow the House to vote on the Senate-passed measure to end the shutdown. Everyone knows the votes are there. Our position is simple: Open the government, pay our bills, and then we will be happy to negotiate about anything. We need to end this government shutdown. First of all, my friend talks about these five families who are in bereavement, and that is an understatement. Five sons, husbands, friends were killed over the weekend. Providing the funding that my friend requests would not enable DOD to pay a death gratuity to the families of 17 servicemembers--five over the weekend. We have had others die who have given their lives to protect the Nation since the shutdown began on October 1. Seventeen. This is but one example of how the efforts of the Senator from Texas to fund the government on a piecemeal basis does not work. If the Speaker would allow the House to pass the Senate continuing resolution, the Department of Defense would have the authority it needs to bring families to Dover, DE, to receive the remains of their family members and to pay the death gratuity benefits. The junior Senator from Texas expresses concern for America's veterans. But his consent request addresses only some of the ways in which the American people, through their government, have committed to help our veterans. Let me quote from the remarks of the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy. He gave these remarks on October 3. Here is exactly what he said: I would note also that I believe the resolution the Senator is offering and suggested be passed provides only partial funding for the VA. There is no funding here to operate the national cemeteries. There is no funding for the Board of Veterans' Appeals. There is no funding for constructing VA hospitals and their clinics. There is no funding, actually, to operate the IT system that the entire VA needs in order to continue going forward. So there could not be a better example of: Why we are involved in this? Why could not we just open the government? Let our former colleague, the former Senator from Georgia, Max Cleland, a decorated, disabled American veteran who runs the cemeteries, do his job. He cannot do that. Let's get it all over with. Let's have the NIH go forward, the Centers for Disease Control, the Park Service. We cannot have this piecemeal approach, because you wind up with the same situation in which we now find ourselves. We want to do something for the veterans, but it does not take care of much of what the veterans need. So I ask unanimous consent that my friend's request be modified as follows: That an amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. This amendment is the text that passed the Senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government--everything; veterans, there are cemeteries, there are benefits, everything--and it is something that is already over in the House and reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives. So I would ask my friend to really surprise the world, surprise the country, and say: I agree. Modify it. Let's fund the government. And then, as we have said, as I have said--and everyone listen: We are happy, when the government is open, when we can pay our bills, to sit down and talk about anything they want to talk about. It does not matter. No restrictions.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am happy to sit down and talk to the Senator--his office or my office. The point we have right here today is that we need the government open. With all due respect to my friend, the junior Senator from Texas--I want to say this in a most respectful way--he and I, with the dialog here on the Senate floor, we are not going to work this out. I have asked that the government be open so that everyone can have benefits. The veterans measure he proposes leaves many veterans out in the cold--out in the cold--including the families of 17 of our servicemen who were killed since this came into effect, this shutdown. So we will go as we have. I object to his proposal. I assume he will object to mine. And then we will go through the 10 minutes per person and see what happens later today. But I do--I am happy to sit down and talk to the Senator in my office, his office, any place he suggests, privately or publicly.

Mr. REID. Yes.

Mr. REID. Regular order.

Mr. REID. Regular order.

Mr. REID. Regular order.