Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me start off by acknowledging an article which appeared in today's New York Times attributed to the Senate Chaplain, Dr. Barry Black, who led us in prayer to open the Senate's session. It is entitled ``Give Us This Day, Our Daily Senate Scolding,'' and it goes on to talk about the prayers which Dr. Black, our Senate Chaplain, has offered during the course of the last week during the government shutdown. They say in the article the morning invocation has turned into a daily conscience check for the 100 men and women of the Senate.

The article points out that in the course of one of his prayers Dr. Black said:

Remove from them that stubborn pride which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism. Forgive them the blunders they have committed.

I can't match his baritone voice and delivery when it comes to these prayers, but I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this article as a tribute to our Senate Chaplain who has been given the awesome responsibility to prove the power of prayer during the midst of a government shutdown.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I picked up the newspaper, at least went online to look at the newspapers from Illinois this morning, and two stories jumped right off the page. One was in the Bloomington Pantagraph. What a great story it is and makes me so proud to be from the Midwest and to represent people who are, by their very nature, pretty darned extraordinary. It is a story that comes out of Lexington, IL, about an event that happened yesterday, and I will quote just a bit of it.

More than 60 area farmers, truckers and their families gathered north of Lexington on Sunday morning to pay back a friend who had helped them out at one time or another during his 71-year lifetime. Some 16 combines harvested more than 300 acres of corn as friends of Dave Thomas brought in Thomas' last harvest. Thomas died of a heart attack on July 22 and his wife Sharon and four sons, decided to end the family's farm operations.

The article went on to say how it broke the family's heart to give up this family farm, but these neighbors pitched in. They wanted to harvest David Thomas' land and to make sure that last crop was brought in for his family. It is the kind of compassion and caring and family and community which we see in many States, but I see over and over in my home State of Illinois.

This is not unique. It happens often, and every time it does it is worthy of note because it is such a special comment on the people of this great Nation and their caring for their neighbors.

The area farmers in Chenoa, not too far from Lexington, are planning a similar harvest operation for another neighbor, David Harrison, this morning. Dave passed away last week.

Time and again these farm families put aside their own physical comfort, their own daily schedules, their own lives to help one another. It is such a wonderful comment on this great Nation that we call home and the area I am so proud to represent.

The second article that jumped off the page after I read this came out of Kansas--Wichita, KS--and it quotes Tim Peterson. He is a wheat farmer. I am not as familiar with wheat as I am corn and soybeans, but he started talking about the problems he is running into. His problems are created by us because Tim doesn't have access to vital agricultural reports. They are casualties of the Federal Government shutdown. We stopped publishing this information, and farmers such as Tim Peterson and others are forced to make some very important family decisions, some important financial decisions without the necessary information.

These reports can alert them to shortfalls in overseas markets or if there is a wide swing in acres planted, both of which might prompt U.S. growers to plant extra crops to meet demand or hang on to a harvest a little longer to get a better price.

Here are these farmers across the Midwest who have worked hard to reach this point in the harvest where they can make enough money to live and to plant another year, to sustain their families and communities around them, and they have a problem. The problem is the politicians in Washington who want to shut down the government.

What a contrast: farmers who rallied in Lexington, IL, for the family of a fallen farmer, to show they would stand by him through thick and thin and help him out--at least his family out through this adversity--and then this article and story in Kansas, where the Congressmen and Senators sent to Washington to do their job and to provide the basic information for these farmers have failed and in failing have made it much more difficult for these farmers.

Two articles in the morning papers from the central part of the United States of America, which brings home to me the graphic human side of this government shutdown. Something else brought it home personally. When Harry Reid, our majority leader, announced we weren't going to have votes on Saturday or Sunday, I took the opportunity to get out of town and I raced off to be with my grandkids.

I have two twin grandchildren, 22 months old, and I just love them to pieces. I thought getting away with them is exactly what I need, to get out of this town and to get my mind straight after a tough political week. We had a ball. We did the normal things one would expect: going to the park and reading ``Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?'' and all the things that are fun for a grandfather.

There were a couple moments, though--you see, they are almost 2 years old, and there were a couple moments during the weekend where one of them would lose it for just a little while and start crying and screaming uncontrollably and saying the word ``no'' over and over again and unable to express themselves because they just don't have the vocabulary to tell us what is on their minds. In those moments I felt as though I was back in Washington again.

The terrible twos temper tantrums sounded like Congress--people shouting no, screaming uncontrollably, and unable to express what they are doing and why they are doing it, and that is where we find ourselves today.

On the morning talk shows yesterday, on Sunday, a number of leaders came to speak, and of course everybody was focused on Speaker Boehner because he is the captain of the ship when it comes to the government shutdown, but it was interesting to me that what guided this government shutdown last week--ObamaCare, the health care reform bill--they were not talking about so much anymore. It has been launched, and 9 million people across America have visited the Web site because they are interested in finding health insurance maybe for the first time in their lives or health insurance they can afford--9 million.

Because so many have come to these Web sites, the Republican leader is right, we have had trouble getting them moving forward. It will take a few days to adjust to this volume of people coming on board to find out whether this insurance exchange can help them, their family or the business. The good news for my colleague Senator McConnell, from Kentucky, is that his State has been a real success story, with 8,000 people having already signed up in Kentucky for health insurance on the insurance exchange of ObamaCare.

I hope Senator McConnell and Senator Rand Paul take some pride in the fact that now 8,000--at least 8,000--Kentuckians have health insurance they can afford and they can trust, some of them for the first time in their lives. When I hear this news, I wonder how these Senators from Kentucky and some other States can say we want to repeal this, we want to get rid of this.

What are they going to tell those 8,000 families who finally have health insurance for the first time? Big mistake. Sorry. Go back to the marketplace where you have no health insurance protection. That is hardly the response Americans want to hear in Kentucky, Illinois, in Maine or any other State.

What we are trying to do with ObamaCare, the health care reform act, is to open up an opportunity for 40 to 50 million Americans to have health insurance they can afford for the first time in their lives. What we have heard from the other side of the aisle is: Repeal it. Defund it. Delay it. Do anything you can to stop it. Stop it.

You know why they want to stop it? Because they understand that once people's appetites are whetted for health care insurance they can afford and insurance where they can protect their families, there is no turning back. We are at a point in history, much as we were with the creation of Social Security and Medicare, where we are offering to families across America something they could not do by themselves and something they will value very much as part of their families and their future, and that is what is driving this fear on the other side of the aisle. That is what is driving the government shutdown.

What is worse is October 17, the next deadline, and it is not that far away. In another 9 or 10 days we are going to face a debt ceiling expiration. The debt ceiling is basically America's mortgage. We have to extend our mortgage. We borrow money to manage our government, to fight wars, to pay our military, to do the most basic things. When we borrow that money, we have to have authorization from the government. That is the debt ceiling.

Many of the same Senators and Congressmen who voted for this spending now will not vote to pay the bill. That is akin to eating the big meal at the restaurant and, when the waiter brings the check, saying: I ain't paying. How long would that last? That is what many are suggesting when they say we are not going to extend the debt ceiling. They have eaten the meal. They just don't want to pay the bill.

It would be the first time in the history of the United States we would default on our national debt. The first time we would basically violate the full faith and credit of the United States of America. It has its consequences. The last time the tea party did this, America's credit rating suffered. What happens when our credit rating suffers? The interest rates we pay go up. Taxpayers are paying more to China and countries that loan us money than they are paying to educate children, to build roads or do medical research.

Here we go again. Another threat by the Speaker that we are going to default on our national debt again. They threatened it 2 years ago, and they have come back again--the tea party. This is totally irresponsible.

I read the newspapers from different countries and they look at the United States and shake their head and they wonder how this country, which many say--and I can certainly see the reason for it--is one of the leaders in the world, can find itself in this manufactured political crisis again and again and again. It is like the temper tantrums of the terrible twos when we hear this. We think it is totally unnecessary. We have to help these kids grow up and get through it. America has to grow up and stand and say to Congress: It is time for you to grow up and stand and do the right thing for the future of this country.

I hope we can do this, and I hope we can do it together in a bipartisan fashion. This shutdown of the Federal Government should end today. The Speaker has before him a continuing resolution which he could pass, could pass in a heartbeat, and the government would be extended. The farmer out in Kansas would have the information he needs, the medical researcher would be back to work at the National Institutes of Health, and all of the agencies of the government would be functioning for the good of the American people. That is what we were sent to do. There are no excuses and no political reasons not to.

I yield the floor.

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