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Mr. COATS. As did my colleague from Indiana, Senator Donnelly, I also wish to take a moment before I deliver my remarks here to thank the Capitol Police, all of law enforcement, and first responders who have put themselves on the line to protect others.
I know I speak for every Republican, every Democrat, and all of our staffs that we deeply appreciate their work and their sacrifice. These brave men and women are here every day whether they are paid or not. We appreciate that.
If there is one thing we are united on, and I wish there were more, it is our respect for those who serve to protect, those serving us here at home as well as those serving us in harm's way abroad. We owe them our support and we owe them our thanks.
I am hearing from a number of Hoosiers, as my colleague from Indiana has, that they are tired of political gamesmanship, they are tired of paying taxes to a government that isn't listening or delivering for them, and now we are in a situation where they are tired of our careening toward these cliffs and shutdown. But when the Republican-controlled House sent over legislation to the Senate, calling for House and Senate leaders to conference together, to sit down in a room, talk through this problem and come to a solution, this good-faith effort was rejected out of hand by the Senate majority leader, Senator Reid of Nevada.
We wanted to sit down and debate this issue. Once again, yet another good-faith effort sent over by Republicans to help fund the essential functions of this government was dead on arrival in the Senate. The Senate majority leader, parroting the words of the President, said: We will not negotiate. This was refusing to allow Republicans and Democrats to try to find a way forward to resolve this issue and get our government functioning.
In the past when these things happened, Presidents, realizing that they were elected to lead--we are elected to serve here, we are elected to serve the President, we are elected to serve the people we represent, but the President is elected to serve this country. When the President in the past has come up in a stalemate situation, there has been a reach out to the other side whenever we have a divided government.
After 2008, when the Democrats won control of the House, the Senate, and the executive branch, they had total control. They pushed through a number of measures without any single Republican or opposition support. Those programs now we are dealing with, and ObamaCare is the primary one that has brought us to this particular point. The lesson learned here is when one party has total control without support from the opposition party, we end up with legislation that is dysfunctional, that doesn't work, that reflects the ideology of one party and doesn't have any balance to it. We are now in a position where we have a divided government. What we would like is to have some say on how this goes forward, to point out those things of this bill that are not working, to point out the disaster this is turning out to be, the dysfunction of this particular legislation.
The point I am trying to make here is whatever the issue, whenever we come to a stalemate, historically throughout the history of this country it is the Commander in Chief, the President, who has stepped forward and taken the initiative and said: We need to work together to solve this. We can't impose our will on the body that the American people has divided, giving control of one House to one party and control of another House to another party.
Ronald Reagan reached out to Tip O'Neill, and some very significant measures, stalemates, were resolved because the President reached out and was willing to negotiate.
The Democratic President, Bill Clinton, reached out to a then-Republican Speaker of the House in the 1990s, and we addressed a major issue with welfare reform, much-needed welfare reform. It couldn't have happened without the President reaching out.
I could give other examples, but we are in another stalemate situation. Yet what do we hear? No matter what Republicans send over, no matter what the offer is, if the offer is to let us sit down and conference this, the reaction from the Senate majority leader is: We refuse to negotiate. The reaction from the White House and this President over and over and over again is: I will not negotiate.
Even though the American public sent you control of one House of Congress, even though the Constitution establishes the role of the Congress vis-a-vis the President, and calls for an agreement between the two before we can move forward, this President, for whatever motive, says: I will not negotiate.
We can do something right now to help Americans. We can come together to help fund important programs and departments that should not have been jeopardized because of this impasse. We can at least do that. If we can't get the President to negotiate, can we not at least take some steps forward for those essential functions of government?
Republicans have sent over nine such propositions and proposals. Each one of them has been rejected, dead on arrival, not even allowed to debate, and procedurally stopped by the majority leader.
Let me suggest four that are waiting in the wings and surely, for reasons of health and safety of Americans, surely we can agree to support these four and perhaps more. Some others have been suggested. Surely we have to conclude that this is an essential function. How it was that they were declared nonessential is beyond me.
Let me mention the four: Honoring our veterans and the commitments that we have made to them, providing for our national security, and protecting Americans' health.
I spoke earlier this week on the Honoring Our Promise to America's Veterans Act, a bill providing funding for disability payments, the GI bill education training, and VA home loans under the same conditions that were in place last year.
The House passed this, but the Senate majority leader has blocked it here.
The House also passed the Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act. This bill provides funding for the pay and allowances of military personnel in the Reserve component and National Guard component who are scheduled to report for duty as early as this weekend. Denying support for those who wear the uniform and stand ready and are engaged when called on, and have been trained to do so, is a great disservice to the men and women who have dedicated so much and put themselves at great risk to wear the uniform of the United States.
Secondly, funding the Department of Homeland Security. There are a number of ways our homeland security is impacted under the shutdown. One of the impacts on FEMA--the Federal Emergency Management Agency--is the need to be funded so they are prepared to respond to natural disasters. We are only a breaking-news headline away from another natural disaster or from some other need for FEMA to engage. Yet their employees are furloughed and not in place to be ready to respond.
We have a tropical storm in the gulf right now that may turn into something dangerous. Our emergency response efforts to provide for our homeland support is inadequately funded. Can we at least do that?
How about funding for our intelligence community? The House will send us Preserving Our Intelligence Capabilities Act, which will provide immediate funding for personnel compensation and contracts for those individuals who have been determined by the Director of National Intelligence as necessary to support critical intelligence activities and counterterrorism efforts.
Under the current shutdown, 70 percent of our civilian employees in our intelligence community have been sent home on furlough. Director of National Intelligence Clapper said this lapse in funding our intelligence agency is a ``dreamland'' for our foreign intelligence adversaries.
Can we not at least, if we have a delay in resolving our issues here--and we have that delay, as I said, because the Senate majority leader has not allowed us to sit down and work-- Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for an additional 3 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COATS. I thank the Chair.
Can we not at least fund those agencies that are looking to protect us from terrorist acts, that are in place to keep the American people safe? How can we reject that?
Finally, let me mention a fourth--and there are others, but let me mention this one. Fund Food and Drug Safety Programs, safety programs for those who are in need of approvals for new drugs and new devices and who are experiencing significant delays because the Federal employees at FDA who review these functions cannot report to work.
Madam President, frankly, I am perplexed why the majority leader continues to oppose even consideration and debate for individual funding bills when they just agreed a couple of days ago to funding for our troops, and I applaud that and support that. But if we did that because of the essential nature of their function, shouldn't we also include these other items? Shouldn't we agree we need to fulfill our commitments to guard and reserve and our intelligence community at this critical time?
The House has already sent over nine proposals to the Senate for consideration--nine--and nine times the Senate has had the opportunity to pass legislation to reopen our government and fund essential programs, but the Senate majority leader chose not to do so and the President refuses to even engage.
A government shutdown is a pox on all our houses. We need to do what the people of this great country elected us to do, and that is to work to find a solution to this government shutdown. How can we do that if the Democratic chair at the negotiating table is empty? What we are looking at here is a Clint Eastwood moment. We are looking at an empty chair. Mr. President, where are you?
With that, I yield the floor.
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