Mr. President, I would like to start by reading a letter I received this week. So many of us in the Senate are operating with furloughed staff, and we are doing our best to read and respond to the letters we are getting from home, the calls that are coming into our offices. This one touched me in particular. It began:
My name is MSgt Corey P DiLuzio. I am an Air Reserve Technician at Dover AFB. I have served this great nation for 12 years without question or reservation. Every time I have been called upon, I have answered the call, left my family behind, and served proudly as maintainer for the C-17 aircraft. I know you understand the reach and the mission requirements for such an aircraft. I tell you this not for a thank you or any type of acknowledgement. I tell you this–
Master Sergeant DiLuzio writes–
because I am also a husband to a woman who has stood by my side in support for every deployment. I tell you this because I am the father of a three-year-old boy who doesn’t even question the answer Daddy’s at work. I understand a man in your position has made ….. sacrifices as well, however, today I had to tell my family I am unable to work. Not because of anything I have control of, but because of decisions made by individuals who will not miss a paycheck; individuals who will always know when the next check is coming. I write this understanding that it will fall on deaf ears, and I am usually one that remains quiet and follows the orders for those appointed above me, however, enough is enough. Please do your part in resolving this issue so I can get back to serving my country and my family.
Sincerely yours, MSgt Corey DiLuzio.
It pains me that the master sergeant thought his letter would fall on deaf ears, that no one here–that neither I nor any of my colleagues–would hear or care about the concerns of a man–his wife, his family–who has served this country and who stands ready to continue serving this country but whose family is being harmed by the mindless, purposeless shutdown of the government that is now in day 9–this first government shutdown in 17 years, and by all indications one that will continue into another week.
I start by saying to Master Sergeant DiLuzio: I am sorry. I am sorry for the needless pain and difficulty this shutdown is imposing on your family and so many other families across this country. Roughly 800,000 Federal employees have been furloughed at different times in the last 9 days, and while some may be returning to Active service, they will be getting IOUs rather than regular paychecks. All over this country, private contractors, as we have heard from other colleagues today, are also laying off people because they cannot get the permits or work permission or the site access they need to move forward.
This shutdown is continuing to harm our country, our reputation, our economy, our families. It is a needless, manufactured, self-imposed wound.
I wrestle with this because we are facing twin manufactured crises, as Senator Reed of Rhode Island just finished saying: hobbled government due to this shutdown on the one hand and the steadily increasing risk of default on the other–these twin manufactured crises seeking some purpose that is unclear from day-to-day. When this government shutdown started, it seemed to be aimed at what, repealing the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare, and then 1 day later it seemed to be aimed at delaying the Affordable Care Act, and then when that clearly was unsuccessful, it seemed to be aimed at seeking some partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act and now it is an ongoing crisis in search of a purpose. The menu of potential demands is growing, and the impact on our families and our communities is growing as well.
The House has been wasting its time on mini microappropriations bills in an attempt to give reporters and folks back home the sense that they are actually doing something, when it is just misdirection. They think all the activity will keep the American people from noticing that Speaker Boehner is not bringing up the one bill that could reopen this government in a matter of minutes–a so-called clean continuing resolution, a simple extension of current spending levels.
I know to all who watch–Master Sergeant DiLuzio and many others–we sometimes speak in language that is opaque, that is difficult to understand. We talk about sequester and continuing resolutions and so forth. So I am going to try and work through these issues in a way that is accessible and direct.
Let’s be clear. This government is shut down right now because the House would not pass a 6-week extension–an extension to November 15–of what is required to keep us open. Today that would be just over 4 weeks. We are literally fighting over a 4-week funding bill. How absurd is it that all of this is over a measure that would have only funded the government in the first case for another 4 weeks from now. There is, frankly, nothing about this situation that is not absurd.
Every day the House Republicans show up with a new strategy, a new press conference, a new message, and, as I said, all the while not explaining exactly why the government is shut down. Initially, it was shut down to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but that is moving forward, as it was always going to be because it is an enacted program.
So what is the current message from the House? They say they are the only ones ready to negotiate, that they are alone at the table, sitting there with jackets off, in their bright, starched, white shirts, waiting for Senate Democrats to meet them at the table and negotiate. Another farce, another fantasy.
I am, frankly, tired and frustrated with the games that seem to be played here. I would like to highlight, if I could, a few of our real efforts to work collaboratively, to answer the question, why won’t you negotiate, by saying we have been negotiating.
Once the House votes to keep the lights on and to pay our bills, we will continue to negotiate. I have a simple question. Does the House want us to continue to be a closed-door nation, a nation where we have locked out hundreds of thousands of Federal workers? Does the House want to threaten that we will become a deadbeat nation, a nation that fails to meet its obligations built up over many administrations and many Congresses, Republican and Democratic, or are we going to reopen the government, become an open-door nation, and are we going to pay our bills and become a responsible nation, as we have been in the past?
How did we get here? As a member of the Budget Committee, let me first start, if I could, with the budget resolution. That is how our rules work. We are supposed to begin with a budget resolution that sets a framework for what we are going to spend in the next fiscal year.
For the last 3 years I have been serving here as a Senator, over and over on this floor the call was: Why won’t the Senate pass a budget? Well, this year this Senate passed a budget resolution with significant Republican input. Between this floor, where we ultimately passed it, and the committee on which I serve, the Senate adopted more than 40 amendments offered by my Republican colleagues.
We compromised. We worked toward a shared goal. Week after week, as I said, Republicans had asked in past years: When is the Senate going to pass a budget? Yet we did, more than 6 months ago–200 days ago, to be precise, we passed a budget in this Senate.
Our chair, Senator Murray of Washington, has tried to take our budget to conference with the House to do as the rules provide, to reconcile and to responsibly negotiate over our fiscal differences–18 times. She has tried over and over and over to take us to conference and responsibly open formal talks with the House to resolve our fiscal differences. Every time that motion has been blocked, denied, barred, all by a very small group of tea party Republicans in this Chamber who have refused to let us go ahead and negotiate as the rules say we should.
I also serve on the Appropriations Committee. Once the budget is framed, once the budget is resolved, we are then supposed to move to appropriations and set our spending levels. As a member of that committee, I have been a part of the process in which we have, in fact, passed 11 spending bills out of committee, 8 of them with bipartisan support.
In order to try to move that process forward, months after the budget was passed, we brought the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill to this floor. It passed out of committee by a vote of 22 to 8, with 6 Republican votes, a strong bipartisan bill to be passed out here on the floor.
What happened? It was blocked. Again, a small number of the other party came and objected and blocked the passage of that bill, a bill that would put Americans to work and strengthen our infrastructure and help support the housing recovery, a bill that would have moved us forward.
Despite every attempt to fund this government through what we call regular order, the budget process and the appropriations process, we, even after that, came to the table, ready to compromise on this continuing resolution.
The Senate budget calls for a top-line spending number of $1.058 trillion, a balanced approach that reduces Federal spending in some areas, raises revenue in others, and makes progress by replacing the sequester. That is the budget we passed in the Senate. It would call for spending $1.058 trillion. The House budget instead called for $988 billion. As you have heard our leader Senator Harry Reid say on the floor this week, he compromised. He agreed to a short-term funding bill at $988 billion, a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year, a major and painful concession for Democrats, particularly those of us on the Budget Committee who had not voted for a $988 billion number.
We have already slashed spending. People are already suffering through the sequester, another thing that was enacted due to comparable tactics the last time there was a near default in 2011. The sequester has resulted in across-the-board spending cuts. It has been dangerous and painful and which I have spoken about on this floor repeatedly, reading letters from Delawareans, such as the master sergeant, commenting on how it is not the smart way to make cuts, it is an across-the-board way, an irresponsible way to make cuts.
That same Air Force base, Dover Air Force Base, suffered furloughs for hundreds of airmen and their families because of the sequester cuts. We had worked out a budget that would have replaced it and would have avoided those sequester cuts in a balanced and responsible way. But instead, in order to compromise, our majority leader agreed to a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year. It was tough for a lot of Democrats to swallow. So, frankly, when I see House Republican leaders go on TV and say Democrats will not negotiate, Democrats will not compromise, I have to say: That is not the case. That is not the facts I have before me. We have compromised. We have negotiated. In fact, we have tried for months on this floor, more than 6 months, to get the compromise, to get the negotiation to move this forward. Instead, we find when we give an inch, they take a yard.
Today there are some, some in the other party, suggesting that if they are not granted a great big wish list, they will force us to default on our country’s sovereign debt. We keep hearing from the other side about the need to compromise and negotiate. I could not agree more. The whole way this body is supposed to work is by following the rules, following the process, going to conference, negotiating and achieving a responsible result.
We have repeatedly solicited Republican input, accepted Republican amendments, and made painful compromises. Now my message is simple: We should be following the rules. We should be following the process of this body. We should turn on the lights. We should pay our bills. I would be happy, honored to continue working with Republican colleagues to find real solutions to our fiscal problems, the way we are supposed to, in a conference negotiating over the budget that was passed here more than 6 months ago.
To the colleagues with whom I share this Chamber but with whom we have some differences over why this government is shut down today, I hope you will listen to Master Sergeant DiLuzio and his family and to the thousands and thousands of other Americans who are writing in and calling our offices. They deserve better. This country deserves better. We need to show we can be the model of democracy that achieves responsible principled compromise.
To my colleagues and my friends in the other party: Stop blocking progress. Let’s go to conference on the budget. Let’s negotiate. But, first, let’s get our folks back to work. Let’s get the government open. Let’s move forward in a way that honors the best of our traditions and our rules.
I yield the floor.