Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I will be brief. I want to thank the Senator from Louisiana while she is here, not just for her words and for reminding us this isn't about who can scream the loudest on cable television, it is about the work that actually needs to get done in the Senate on behalf of the American people, but I also want to thank her for all the work she has done over the years with FEMA. It has made a big difference in my State already. They are working well with our local and State officials. We have a long way to go, and the last thing we need to worry about is whether the government is going to shut down.

Fortunately, because of the work the Senator and others did around here, the emergency part of this is going to continue to carry through, even if there is a shutdown. But there is a lot of uncertainty that is related to that. So while Senator Landrieu was here, I wanted to thank her for that.

I am sorry the Senator from Delaware has left the floor for a moment, because he has been holding it down and I wanted to ask him a question about his previous work. He was a county executive in Delaware before he was here. I was a superintendent of schools. I worked for the mayor. Senator Klobuchar, who is here from Minnesota, was a district attorney. I think every one of us is completely perplexed by the hostage taking that is going on around this place.

I ask the Senator from Delaware, he was the county executive of a county in Delaware?

Mr. COONS. I was.

Mr. BENNET. I say through the Chair, does the Senator think that any county executive or mayor or local official in the Senator's State wouldn't be run out of town if they threatened the credit rating of their community for politics?

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. BENNET. That is my point. I think we are dealing with something that is so far outside of the mainstream of what political actors, at least in my State who are elected who are Republicans or Democrats, would support. I think it is important for us to call attention to that because that is what we are dealing with.

I see the Senator from Minnesota is here, so my last observation. If one of us represented a State government that opened and closed its doors or threatened to open and close its doors every single year, I can assure you that businesses would look to do business in some other State, not in the State in which we work.

That is what we are doing to the United States of America right now. We have so much going for us. The innovators are out in the economy innovating. Natural gas is cheaper than it has ever been. We could build this economy if only a few actors in Washington would get out of the way.

I yield the floor.

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