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

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for such time as I may consume.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we now find ourselves, amazingly, in day 14 of a government shutdown--a shutdown that was brought to us by the Republicans in the House. They are sitting on a bill we sent them to open the government and they refuse to take it up.

My colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, served over there and I served over there, and we always had an opportunity to use the rules in some way to get a vote on a bill that was passed by the Senate. But the House, not wanting to have such a vote, has made it pretty much impossible for our colleagues over there, Democrats and moderate Republicans, to actually vote to keep this government open.

I listened very carefully to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, and I have hopes, as I expressed them yesterday, that we will be able to reach an agreement both on the shutdown and on the debt ceiling. But the fact we are struggling, the fact that people all over the world are looking at us as if we are some kind of dysfunctional country, the fact that we have about 1 million Federal employees not getting their checks, not knowing where the next meal is going to come from, the fact we have more than 2 million workers who work for private-sector contractors who don't know when or how they are going to get paid, is something we should all take note of, and we should listen to those who say this is ridiculous. This is self-inflicted.

You know, it reminds me of getting up and walking out of your house on a beautiful day. You are walking down the street, and, yes, you have a few problems on your mind--life isn't perfect--but you are pretty optimistic; things are pretty good. Suddenly, you pick up a stone from the ground and bash yourself in the head. Honest to God, that is what they have done, these Republicans. They have bashed in the heads of the American public on a beautiful day as we are coming out of a recession, when we know we have our problems, but we also know we can solve them. It doesn't make sense.

Then, as if that isn't enough, they have another stone in their hand called default. So maybe as you are beginning to see the light of day, you hit yourself again and say to the world: America could actually default on its debts, and the full faith and credit of the United States is in question.

Robert C. Byrd, one of the great Senators and historians, always tells us to read the Constitution. In my desk I have a couple of copies, and every once in a while I will look at it. I am not quoting verbatim, but it says the debts of the United States shall not be questioned. Nobody has the right to play with that. Yet we are doing it again because the Republicans are angry. Why are they angry? I believe it is because they lost the Presidential election. I believe it is because they didn't take back the Senate. This is a direct quote from John Boehner. He said the American people don't want to shut down the government, but they also don't want ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act. That was his opinion. That is not the truth. The American people don't want to see us shut down the government and threaten default because of a bill that passed almost 4 years ago, a bill that was upheld by the Supreme Court and a law that was heavily debated in the Presidential election. The person who said this--Mitt Romney: On day one, I will repeal ObamaCare--lost the election.

I have been around here a while. I have served with five Presidents, three of whom were Republicans. Lord knows I didn't agree with everything the Republican Presidents wanted, and I didn't even agree with everything the Democratic Presidents wanted. I fought hard and I got annoyed and I worked in elections. I never saw Republicans or Democrats, until today, to be willing to default. Newt Gingrich did lead us to a government shutdown in the 1990s, but we haven't had one since then because it was so painful and awful. I know the grownups are now trying to resolve this. I know our leaders are going to the White House, and hopefully, they will come to an agreement. But the fact that it would take us this long, 3 days before a default and the 14th day of a shutdown, is unbelievable.

A teacher knows the rules when they get a job. They know school starts at 9 a.m., and they dismiss the kids at 3:00. If a teacher says, I don't like the start time and I am coming 2 hours later, they can't have this job because they know they have to show up. The equivalent of that is keeping the doors of government open to the people we represent, not slamming them shut in their face. That is what we have to do when we show up here; that is to keep the government going. Do we have disagreements across and even within parties? Of course we do. But we have a procedure to deal with that. It is called legislating. That is what we do when we have disagreements. It is something called debate--debate the issues, battle them out, have a vote, and pass a bill. The other Chamber does the same. Then the House and the Senate go to a conference committee and argue out the differences. You send that bill to the President--whoever he or she may be--and the President either signs the bill or vetoes it. And if they sign it, it is a law. If they veto it, we have an override. I have been involved in those. But once the bill becomes a law, it is the law, and you carry it out. You don't decide what laws you want to enforce and what laws you don't. That is not the right way. Our founders said: We are a government of laws, not men. Carry out the law. If you don't like the law, try to change it.

Now, the Republicans didn't like the Affordable Care Act--which, by the way, is signing up thousands of people a day as we stand here. In my home State, it has signed up by now tens of thousands, and we have had about 750,000 at least unique visitors to our site. In Kentucky, they are signing up 1,000 a day. Unbelievable, never expected. This is the law that caused the government shutdown. The Republicans stamp their feet. They didn't like it. They didn't care that there was an election about it--none of that. They didn't like it, so they are going to shut down the government.

Now we don't even hear them talking about it. Now they are talking about wanting to cut Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare. That is the new thing they want to do. Paul Ryan: Let's just forget this one. I guess we can't do anything about it. But let's now cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We have a process to get to conference with the House. On the Budget Committee we have a strong chairman, Patty Murray. She has asked now 21 times to take our budget to conference. Ted Cruz and his friends have objected, and then they have the nerve to say we won't negotiate. We want to negotiate in a conference committee. That is why there is a conference committee. They have stopped it.

The House has decided now. It is too late. We can't do anything about the Affordable Care Act. Then why don't they open up the government? They shut it down. They now admit they can't do anything about it. It has a steady stream of funding, it is beginning to work, and people are going to think: Why do you want to take away the rights I have now, having a preexisting condition, to get health care? Why do you want to stop my child who can now stay on my health care until he is 26 and take away benefits like free trips to the doctor to get immunizations and birth control and health care? They tried to stop women's health care. They gave that up. They tried to stop us from getting cancer screenings, and we said forget it. So they are all over the place.

I have lived long enough to know when I see people who are joyless, unhappy, and angry. That doesn't make for an optimistic country. They have the privilege of being here, even if they are only controlling one branch of the three, the House. It is the White House; the Senate, Democrats; the House, Republicans. They have a privilege, and they have a lot of leverage, but the way they are behaving is unacceptable. As I said, it is a self-inflicted wound.

I never questioned the fact that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents love this country. I never question it. But I have to say, when you start acting like you are committing domestic abuse you have a problem. I love you, dear, but I am shutting down your entire government. I love you, dear, but I am going to default, and you are going to be weak. Something is dreadfully wrong.

I see my colleague from Maryland here. I know Maryland is suffering mightily from this shutdown. He and I both have a lot of Federal employees, but the size of our States are different. As a percentage of the workforce, Maryland and Virginia are really suffering. In California we have tens of thousands of workers furloughed, not getting their pay, and a lot of contractors.

I say to my friend from Maryland, I was trying to figure out how many contractor employees are also impacted. Even taking away military contractors, because some of them are getting paid and some of them aren't. If you take that all out of the equation, there are still more than 2 million workers in the private sector who are working for Federal contractors.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from the Baltimore Sun.

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I am glad my friend is on the floor, because this was written today:

In a city where government contracts make up a multi-billion dollar industry, it is surprising that with the exception of a couple of articles that receive moderate attention, the mainstream media has largely ignored the impact of the shutdown on federal contractors.

I really wanted to bring this to the attention of my colleague. Would my friend like me to yield to him?

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Mrs. BOXER. I so appreciate my friend, through the Chair, interjecting his thoughts. I have listened to him and to Senator Mikulski throughout this ordeal. The Senator is right. I have been on the floor quite a lot. The reason is clear. We need to make a record so that this never, ever happens again.

There is a reason we had not had a shutdown since the last one when Newt Gingrich and Republicans brought it to us in the 1990s--because it was horrible. They got hurt by it.

We begged them not to go down this road. They went down the road. Why? Because they didn't like the fact that there is an Affordable Care Act. They didn't like it, so they stamped their foot and said: We are shutting down the government because we don't like it. We begged them. We said: That is not going to help your cause. This Affordable Care Act--85 percent of the funds do not come from appropriated funds; they come from a separate stream of funding, and the bill and the law are going forward. They would not listen. Now they have changed their tune and decided it is about cutting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. That is their new thing.

My friend is right. It would be so easy to end this. Open the Government, pay our bills, get to the budget negotiations, where we will have Senator Murray, Senator Sessions, Paul Ryan, and his counterpart begin regular order.

I want to continue about this contractor employee. What he said is so moving--actually, I think it is a she.

She says:

As a technical writer and communications specialist for a small company ..... my fate was sealed long before early media reports warned of many more impending furloughs. When you are sent home from work for over a week, you begin to notice certain things around you that could cause you to lose heart. In my own neighborhood--

I say to Senator Cardin, she is talking about your city of Baltimore.

This contractor writes:

in my own neighborhood, I have noticed several cars parked in their driveways--cars that never leave in the morning for work and never leave in the evening for a night on the town. The Metro parking garages are empty.

The Senator alluded to that.

People's morale is diminishing as cabin fever sets in on all sides. And as rumors of the shutdown continuing until the 17th spread like wildfire in a windstorm, my colleagues and I seem to have exhausted every resource.

She says:

Unfortunately, like everyone else, there are many of us who owe student loans and are expected to pay rent. We have to pay for utilities, credit card bills, dog food and other necessities like food and clothing. To make matters worse, my husband and I--

And this is interesting--

had set aside money ..... for a vacation. ..... That money is now going toward bills. ..... What does all this mean? An article in The Washington Post recently reported that the shutdown could amount to a loss of $200 million a day for local businesses throughout the city.

Mr. President, $200 million a day for local businesses throughout your city of Baltimore.

She says:

Contractors, especially those contractors who work for small businesses, have been hit hard by this shutdown.

She explains how they may never be made whole.

Day 14 of a shutdown----

Mr. CARDIN. Could I ask my colleague to yield?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I am happy to yield.

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Mrs. BOXER. Through the Chair, I thank my friend. This contractor issue is a sleeper issue in a way, as this woman writes in the Baltimore Sun, because if you look at the numbers, you may see more contractor employees affected than Federal employees because even if you take--there are millions of them. Even if you take away, if you look at the statistics, the millions who work for the military and assume they are getting paid, there are still more than 2 million who are contractors to other arms of the government, such as homeland security or border patrol--you name it. It is a sleeper issue.

This woman who is so articulate, Clarissa Olivarez--I hope she knows we are taking her words to heart and putting her words in the Record. She is explaining what it feels like to be scared. For what? For nothing. Because they did not like the Affordable Care Act--which they are not going to change. They tried to repeal it 43 times.

Open the government. They are so afraid they will lose the vote, they are not even allowing a vote over there.

They are coming back--my friends in the House--shortly. By the way, imagine, Speaker Boehner said go home over the weekend while all this is pending. They were not even in session. Outrageous.

I am going to conclude in about 5 minutes by talking about some of the other impacts of the shutdown.

Mr. President, 93 percent of the employees at the EPA have been furloughed. What do they do? They make sure the air we breathe is safe, the water we drink is safe, and the rivers we swim in are safe. They make sure Superfund sites are being cleaned up, those toxic brews in there, including things such as benzene and arsenic and every other bad thing you can imagine. In my State there is not one single EPA inspector on the ground. I have established that. That is the same in many others. Mr. President, 505 Superfund sites were being cleaned up. Cleanup is suspended. Many children live near those sites. There are many schools near those sites. There are many homes near those sites. They are toxic waste dumps. No cleanup.

Now we find out that 92 percent of workers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been furloughed. What is their job? It was created ``to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials.''

I say to every Senator who has a nuclear powerplant in their State, make a little prayer. If something bad happens, we will have to somehow nab all those workers and get them back on the job in time. Earth to my Republican friends: Have you ever heard the word ``Fukushima''? Do you know what I am talking about? Wake up. What are you doing to the American people? You don't like a bill, so you shut down the government. You take all of the watchdogs off the job so people could start dumping waste into the waterways, into the air?

We even have a circumstance in California where pesticides are being imported from other countries. The EPA has to inspect those at the site and make sure they are safe. There are no inspectors. I just told you that. So they are sitting in a warehouse, and our farmers are starting to say: Where are these pesticides? We need them.

This shutdown is mindless. The Army Corps of Engineers manages 12 million acres of public lands, recreation areas that host 370 million visits annually. These recreation areas support local businesses such as resorts, marinas, outfitters, grocery stores, gas stations, hotels--shut down. Last week the Corps closed Lake Mendocino, which is located north of San Francisco. Lake Mendocino hosts half a million visitors annually and visitors spend $12 million at businesses within 30 miles of the lake, supporting 106 jobs and $2.8 million in income. Those small businesses cannot go on like this. They cannot go on like this.

Mr. President, 561 national wildlife refuges are closed because of the shutdown. I say to my friend, Senator Cardin and I--we are very close friends because we work together daily on these issues. He is the chairman of the committee that oversees water quality, these wildlife refuges.

In many parts of the country, hunting season is in full swing. I say to my friend from Oregon--I just found out, but he probably knows this--that on the California-Oregon border, hunters and tourists usually head to Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge for the opening of hunting season. But they have been denied access, which means local businesses are losing much needed revenues. The impact of this is felt with a direct hit to Federal employees, contractor employees, and local businesses. Everyone is suffering. That is why we had a letter that I put in the Record yesterday, or the day before, signed by the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and the nonprofit sector. It is so rare, I say to my friends, that we see those three groups coming together.

They are demanding that we open the government. They are demanding a clean debt ceiling so we can pay our bills. They are demanding it, and they represent the broadest base sector of America.

Who is benefiting from this other than people who have a very dark side? That is all I can say. You would have to have a really dark side.

I will give a couple of examples of what is happening. The NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board--we had a horrible crash in July with Asiana Airlines, flight 214. We don't know exactly why it happened, and the NTSB has been forced to postpone their hearings. These investigations help us to find out how to avoid disasters in the future.

Three weeks ago in Santa Monica, at a little airport, there was a crash that killed four people. Investigation materials were shoved into a vault, and we don't know why it happened. If we knew why it happened, we could save lives.

I remember when I first came to Congress a very long time ago, and I served in the House, there was a terrible crash. They found out it was a very small bolt or a screw that was responsible for the problems, and they grounded every aircraft that had that faulty part and fixed it. That is why these investigations are critical. These investigations are critical so we are able to not only tell the loved ones what happened but to make improvements. It is all shut down.

Another example has to do with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Last week in San Diego a 2-year-old Annette Estrada was killed when she was crushed by a falling TV. Normally the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates this heartbreaking incident, find out the problem, and demand it be fixed. Who knows who the next child will be. That is why we have a government--a government of, by, and for the people--to make life better for the American people.

The government is shut down. Open it. Let the people in. It is easy to do. Speaker Boehner has a bill. Let them vote over there. Open the government now. People are in danger. There are no winners in a shutdown. It is devastating for workers. It is devastating for small businesses. It is devastating for contractors. It is devastating to our economy, which is just coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. What are they thinking over there?

Then they send these little mini-bills. Oh, open this little agency, and open that little agency. I call that government by press release. The heat is on them, so they pass a little mini-bill. Since when does one political party decide which of our communities survive, which ones thrive, which ones die, which people live, which people die, which child is healthy, and which child is not healthy?

There is a community in California where kids are suffering nosebleeds, and they are sick. It turns out that they are very close to an industrial site. I called the EPA. They were going to rush over there and figure it out and stop the pain. They can't go. I don't see a bill over there to open the EPA. They will never send us that.

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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for allowing this interlude. I do want to say to my friend, I think it has been very helpful that he and I have been in this conversation because we share the view that these two self-inflicted wounds are outrageous, and we want to make sure that the Congressional Record is very clear and shows the pain, the suffering, the concern, and the insecurities that this dual wound, the potential of a default and an actual government shutdown, are causing. I pray that we are never facing this again.

I am very mindful of the words I use here on the floor so I am not going to say what I think about this exactly the way I would say it if I were talking to my family. There is no reason for it. It makes no sense to do this to a country they say they love. Why hurt the country they say they love?

Why make the country they say they love look like a laughingstock? Why make a President who was going to go to Asia to pitch our economy and investments in our Nation--why make him cancel a trip and have China stand there and say: Well, you can see America just doesn't have it together. If they loved their country, they wouldn't do that.

Some of the comments over there are unbelievable. One of the Republican House Members said: I have never seen us so happy. She is happy? She is happy that millions of people don't know where their next check is coming from? She is happy? She is happy that plane crashes can't be investigated? She is happy that Superfund sites can't be cleaned? She is happy that veterans are scared? She is happy that 65-year-olds and 62-year-olds who are new to Social Security can't get their checks on time? She is happy? She needs to look into her heart. That whole party has to look into its heart. Every once in a while you can see into someone's soul, and you know it when it has happened to you.

I got into a conversation with one colleague, who shall remain nameless. I was so excited. I came home from California, and I saw tens of thousands of my people who were signing up for health insurance that never had it before. I could tell so many beautiful stories. There were people with preexisting conditions, people who had lifetime caps, people who were scared, and little kids whose parents finally were able to save their lives.

There was one incredible woman who wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post about this. And you know what my colleague, who shall remain nameless, said? I told him I went to a signup place, and it was exciting. There were so many people who were signing up. We were at a Hispanic community, and everybody had a smile on their face. He said: I was happy to read in one of your papers that two people had their premiums doubled. I stopped and said: You were happy? That made you happy? Look into your soul.

Why are people happy over there? How do they say they love their country, but they don't care if their country defaults on its obligations?

I want to show my colleagues what President Ronald Reagan said about defaulting--not paying our bills--President Ronald Reagan, the beloved President of the Republicans, and many Democrats. He came from my State. He is one of the most popular Presidents in the history of our country. We have airports named after him. We have buildings named after him. Why don't we see what President Reagan said about default? And just know, when he was President, Republicans and Democrats raised the debt ceiling no less than 18 times, I say to my colleagues. Eighteen times we raised the debt ceiling because, yes, we had debt from prior bills and Ronald Reagan said, Send me a debt ceiling increase. Here is what he says:

The full consequences of a default--or even the serious prospect of a default--by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar.

Ronald Reagan, 1983. That is when our economy was much smaller than it is today.

So how does the party of Ronald Reagan now get us to this place where in 3 days we are about to default? I didn't hear one word out of them when they decided to put two wars on the credit card and a huge tax break for billionaires on the credit card and a big medical prescription drug benefit on the credit card--not one word out of them. Oh, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.

What happened? We had a surplus under Bill Clinton. We had a huge increase in the deficits under George W. Bush. And, by the way, President Obama got handed an enormous deficit which he has cut in half.

So all of this talk about how the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility bears scrutiny. There wasn't one Republican who voted for the budget, I say to my colleagues, that Bill Clinton wanted us to vote for. We did it all with Democratic votes. Then we got not only a balanced budget, but a surplus, and tens of millions of new jobs. George Bush came in, put two wars on the credit card, prescription drug benefit on the credit card, tax breaks to billionaires on the credit card, and the debt was off and running. But not one Republican said: Don't pass a debt ceiling. Not one Republican said: Don't default. What changed? Could it be they don't like this President? Do my colleagues think that has something to do with it? I will let people decide that.

We now know what Ronald Reagan said. He said, in other words, we need to pay our bills. We need to avoid default. There isn't one respected economist who doesn't agree with what Ronald Reagan said in 1983. The cost to taxpayers of default is enormous--billions upon billions of dollars--even the thought of it. We are still paying off what it cost us the last time.

Experts warn us against default. Warren Buffett: ``It ought to be banned as a weapon.'' It, meaning a default, ought to be banned as a weapon. ``It should be like nuclear bombs, basically too horrible to use.''

Warren Buffett knows a thing or two about this economy.

Mark Zandi, who advised John McCain in his Presidential run: ``Breaching the limit would be an economic disaster.''

What would happen to average folks? Mortgage rates could go sky high. Small business, big business couldn't expand. We would go into a recession. And they are happy over there about the prospect. They need to look into their souls.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Kim: ``Please consider politics beyond the Beltway, politics beyond your districts ..... This is not a theoretical impact. It's very real.''

Again, Mark Zandi: ``The dark scenario is so dark I can't imagine it.'' That is what he said.

So we pray now, as our leadership goes to the White House--and they are probably there right now meeting with the President--that they come out of that meeting with a plan--a plan to pay our bills, a plan to reopen government, and a plan to negotiate on anything Republicans and Democrats want to negotiate on. I pray so that this works out. But until it does, I am going to be here every day making the record for future Senators and for the history books that shutting down the government and threatening default, those kinds of weapons should be banned.

It is our job to pay the bills. It is our job to keep the government open, just as it is a pilot's job to fly the plane. He has to show up and fly it. We have to show up, pay the bills, keep the government open, and then negotiate our differences.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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