Default Prevention Act of 2013-- Motion to Proceed--

Floor Speech

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Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I wish to thank my colleagues for what I think was a very vivid way in which they laid out the severe damage that is occurring because of the shutdown and the potential that one of the most important economic powers, if not the most important economic power in the world, is fooling around with the notion that we not pay our bills on time.

I wish to compliment various newspapers around the country that are doing their best to point out to people that this isn't some kind of exercise that is just about all of us here in Washington. This isn't about the politics or the posturing. This is about real people and the pain they are feeling.

This morning in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the headline was ``Shutdown is casting a wide net of grief.'' In that article, it went through a number of different people's lives and how they were hurting because of the shutdown--people such as Nancy Jones.

Nancy retired from the Army 4 months ago, and she was at a food pantry this weekend because her retirement check had not processed through yet, and now it is not clear when she is going to get her retirement check. She moved back to St. Louis to help with her four grandchildren, and now she is putting her head on her pillow tonight not knowing when her pension, which she has earned, will actually come through because of the shutdown. As a result, she is going to a food pantry at a local church to get two bags of groceries.

Then there is Rasheedah Whitfield. She went to the Social Security office in St. Louis to do something very simple, and that was to replace her lost Social Security card. She knocked and no one was home. The Social Security Administration has furloughed people who do things such as getting a replacement for people's lost Social Security card. Why is that so important? Well, because Ms. Whitfield needs her Social Security card in order to fill out her Section 8 application, and time is running short for her to find housing for herself and her small child. She is unsure what she is going to do if she can't get that replacement card.

Then there are the people who have been furloughed who clean one of the Federal office buildings in St. Louis. They work for $11 an hour cleaning the Goodfellow Federal Center in north St. Louis. It is an $11-an-hour job. These people aren't sitting on a big cushion. These people are trying to figure out now, without that $11-an-hour job, if they can either pay the rent or make the car payment, but probably not both.

Then there is Jill Ketchum who works and who is fortunate that her child, her 5-year-old daughter, goes to the Head Start school. She is not sure what she is going to do because she has been told by the Grace Hill Settlement House that the Head Start program cannot last through the month if the shutdown continues. That mother, who is working and uses that important Head Start program to make it work for her family, will have no place to take her daughter. What does she do? Does she have to quit her job? What about all the other single mothers out there with young children who have the rug pulled out from under them because Head Start can no longer operate?

Jill and Rasheedah and Nancy don't deserve this. They are playing by the rules. They are doing everything they should be doing in this great country. They are not asking us to do them a favor. They are just asking us to do our job.

Here is what I am so frustrated about. This pain is being inflicted on millions of Americans, and this

pain grows every day. Somebody likened it the other day to when the power goes out at our home. In the first couple of hours, we are getting candles out and getting out the board games, and we think, Oh, this is kind of fun. I got the feeling around here the first couple of hours that we didn't understand the gravity of what this meant to so many people throughout this country and to so many people in my State. But after the electricity has been off a few hours, all of a sudden it is not funny anymore. We start to lose our food in the refrigerator, and we wonder how we are going to replace it. We wonder about what is going to happen with our jobs. We wonder about keeping warm. That is what we are getting to now. We are getting to the point where these families across America cannot believe this is going on day after day.

Here is the weird part. What are we doing? It is not even clear to me what the other side wants. It started out with a goal that was not only irrational, but unreasonable--that somehow the election last November didn't matter; that somehow a faction of one party in one House in one branch of this great government could say: If you don't give us our way, we are going to turn out the lights, and we are going to cut the power. So it was about blowing up ObamaCare.

Now it is not about that anymore. I listened with interest this morning as the Republicans in the House of Representatives spoke about what this is about, and it is not clear to me at this point what it is about. What is it that is the problem? Because it is not ObamaCare anymore. Is it entitlement reform? Is it a grand bargain? Speaker Boehner walked away from one of those not too long ago.

Is it about how much we are spending? We have been asking for a conference on our budget. For years, we were getting political criticism over the fact that the Senate had not passed a budget. So we stayed up all night, took dozens and dozens and dozens of votes, and passed a budget. Then we asked to go to conference. For month after month after month, the junior Senator from Texas and others blocked our ability to go to conference and talk about the budget.

So I don't even understand at this moment what this is about. It is not about ObamaCare anymore. Is it about reforming Medicare and Social Security? That is not clear. Is it about how much money we are spending? That is not even clear.

It feels as though we are boxing shadows.

I am really hopeful about my colleagues across the aisle in the Senate, many of whom I have worked with on many different issues and a lot of whom I have worked with on bringing down spending. My colleague from Alaska said we cut our deficit in half last year. It is a good thing we are spending less money. Most of us here think we should continue in a thoughtful way to spend less money. It is my hope that my colleagues who rejected--the majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected the effort of the junior Senator from Texas to say, ``Us too,'' to the goal that was irrational and unreasonable, shutting down ObamaCare. Those Senators who knew this was not a game that should be played, I am hopeful they will help us reach a resolution that will not only allow the government to reopen but allow us to quit playing the very dangerous game of saying to the rest of the world that we are not the United States of America; that we are not the grandest and most glorious democracy ever created; that we are dysfunctional deadbeats. If it gets to be Thursday and we have not gotten this wrapped up, the rest of the country is going to see this democracy as dysfunctional--a democracy that so many other countries have tried to copy and emulate because we have always managed to work it out. To me that is the saddest part of this whole thing, that we are actually playing around with the essence of what makes our country great, and that is our democracy, our ability to compromise, our ability to negotiate, our ability to not throw tantrums and say we either get our way or we shut the place down.

And the phoniest argument of all that is being made, the most disingenuous, misdirected reason we have gotten is this notion that somehow this is all about if we would just stop the congressional exemption under ObamaCare. Members of Congress and their staffs are the only people in America who are required to shop on the exchange. Let me say it again. Members of Congress and their staffs are the only people who are required to shop on the exchange. The only issue here is whether or not we get an employer contribution. That is the only issue.

Every Republican in my State who works for the State government gets an employer contribution. Every Republican who serves in Congress from my State gets an employer contribution. They do it right now; they get that employer contribution. If it is so immoral, if it is so bad to get an employer contribution, give it up. Step up, set the example. Set the example, Say, ``No more employer contribution. It is evil.'' Until they step up and give up their employer contribution, I think it is beyond offensive that they would threaten the young lady who answers my phone with her employer contribution or the young man just out of school with a heavy debt load who thought he was going to get an employer contribution when he came to work for the Senate, who lives in Columbia, MO, and doesn't make a huge amount of money.

You do not come to work for the government if you want to get rich. You come to work for the government if you want to serve. The notion that for political purposes we are threatening the employer contribution of the people who work in our offices is, frankly, about as low as it gets. So I do not want to hear it anymore unless somebody is giving up their employer contribution. They all can. The minute I hear the Republicans who are advocating this position have given up their employer contribution--right now--then we can have a discussion that has misled the American people into thinking somehow--somehow--this is some special deal for Congress.

Real people are getting hurt. We are not even sure what the other side wants. We are threatening the essence of what makes America great, which is our democracy, and we are misleading the American people in ways that are tremendously unfair to the great people who work for all of us across this city and, importantly, across all of our home States.

So I will continue to talk to my friends across the aisle. Even today, on Sunday, all of us are having these conversations. It is my understanding our friends down the hall in the House of Representatives went home. We are having conversations. One week ago I do not think the Speaker could utter a sentence without saying the word ``conversation.'' We are having conversations today. I hope they will continue into the night and that tomorrow will be a better day for this democracy that we all like to brag about but we are threatening to blow up.

Thank you.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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