Mr. President, today is October 1. Today is the day that has long been known as the day when the Affordable Care Act will first come into force and exchanges across the country will begin to be open to citizens of all different backgrounds and walks of life for them to seek affordable, accessible insurance on these exchanges, the next step in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. On one level, it is a good day, because tens of millions of Americans are today gaining access to quality affordable care. I am told that since midnight, nearly 3 million people visited healthcare.gov, 80,000 or more have called a hotline, and 60,000 have requested live chats for applications, and enrollment in these marketplaces is moving forward at a record pace. So, on some level, this is an important day, because millions of Americans across dozens of States are getting access to quality affordable health care.
On the other hand, as the Presiding Officer well knows, this is an embarrassing, difficult, and disappointing day. The Federal Government of the United States is shut down. As of midnight last night, the President, the Office of Management and Budget, directed all the different executive agencies and offices to begin shutting down. As a result, 800,000 Federal employees are spending today at home–not helping small businesses with loans from the SBA; not helping move forward grants that invest in improving our infrastructure; not moving forward federally funded research that might find a cure for cancer or for MS or for autism; not helping applicants get college loans; not helping disabled veterans get access to the benefits they earned through their service to our country. We could go on and on about all the different ways these Federal employees–these public servants–are today not able to help our constituents, our fellow citizens.
I have gotten a fair number of contacts today–phone calls to my office, e-mails to my office, folks connecting with me on Facebook or through Twitter, or directly or indirectly, to convey how frustrated and upset they are.
I want to try to put all of this in some context for the folks who might be watching. What is it we are fighting over? As best I can understand, a few Members of this body and a few Members of the House of Representatives have shut this government down in an effort to try to stop the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That is what this is all about. They have refused to take up and pass a bill that would fund the continuation of the U.S. Federal Government. In so doing, they are doing about $10 billion a week in damage to our economy. They are doing all of that damage I referred to in terms of hundreds of thousands of Federal employees not able to help improve our communities or keep us safe or move our country forward.
So why are we doing this? I think it has been said for many years that the definition of ”insanity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, the House of Representatives has tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act I think 42 times now.
As best I understand, this bill, which was passed by both Chambers and signed into law and then challenged at length in the Supreme Court and upheld and then was the central issue of the last Presidential election, which was not particularly close, this law of the land, which is moving forward in its implementation today, will not be stopped by shutting down the Federal Government.
This is a strategy that never really had a serious chance of success. Despite very long, quasi-filibuster speeches on this floor, despite all sorts of public pronouncements, this strategy has no chance actually of working. So what is the point? Why is this Federal Government shut down? It seems to me that it is simply a demonstration of a temper tantrum, a fit by a small number of folks who promised people back home that they will not allow this government to go forward with the Affordable Care Act.
I think what we should be doing instead is working together across the aisle to improve the Affordable Care Act. It is not perfect. Of course it has blemishes. There will be hiccups and there will be inconsistencies and issues that need to be worked out as this law is implemented. We ought to be working together across the aisle, the Senate and House together, to make sure it is done in an affordable, sustainable, and positive way rather than a small minority digging in their heels and imposing all of this wreckage for their own partisan goal.
Let me share some of the thoughts I have gotten from folks at home who are not exactly happy about our having a Federal Government shutdown today.
First, Ray White of Ellendale, DE, wrote:
I am a veteran and a US government employee. The furlough and sequester we already went through back in August of this year cost me 20 percent of my paycheck for over a month, causing my bills to get out of control. I would like to know how to make ends meet when I have no money to pay my bills, and lawmakers in the Capitol want to put me out of work again.
To Ray and your family, I am sorry. I am sorry for the fact that we have a few folks in the House of Representatives who will not take up a bill to keep our government open. As the Senator from Minnesota recently related, if the Speaker of the House would just let that bill get to the floor, it would pass. There are more than enough Democrats and Republicans in the House to pass that bill if the House would just take it up. I don’t think there is any question who caused this shutdown and why.
CWO2 Christopher Slicer of Newark wrote me to say:
As a federal technician and Army National Guardsman, I find it ridiculous that those we have elected as our representatives cannot do their jobs. If I wasn’t doing my job, I would be fired or reprimanded. There is no excuse. I don’t care which party it is for not passing whatever it is that needs to be done to have a budget. For our government to shut down shows how incompetent our government is to the world and worse its own citizens. There are thousands of us federal employees who have had to endure furloughs already, and you are telling me that we may have more.
Well, to CWO Christopher Slicer, I apologize that this Congress is unable to come together across this partisan divide and that we have another needless, manufactured crisis that just a few irresponsible Members insisted on to make a partisan point.
I think CWO Christopher Slicer makes a particularly important point: that this government shutdown shows our weaknesses in our inability to get together across this partisan divide not just to our citizens but to the world. At a time of real instability and real threat to our national security around the world, I think this government shutdown is not just harmful to our communities, our families, and our economy, but to our country and its standing in the world.
Last I will read, if I might, a note from Laurie Tonkay of Dover. Laurie wrote me to say:
It seems like we just got through the government furloughs and now there is a good chance you’re going to shut down the government.
This came yesterday.
My husband is employed with the Civil Service on Dover Air Force Base. This makes it difficult for ordinary families to make ends meet. I am getting discouraged with the way things are being done in Washington these days. America is in debt because we overspend, then you make your average hard-working employees pay the price for it repeatedly.
She concludes:
Morale is low, and frankly, I have lost confidence in the bureaucracy. I wonder if things would be different if this were an election year. Would you shut the government down? I think not. Show you care and get something done now.
Well, to Laurie, I am sorry for the impact this shutdown has had on you and your family. But it is the result of a few irresponsible Members of the House of Representatives. If the Speaker would just put on the floor for a vote what has been passed here in the Senate, we would have a government reopened today and we could get back to the business of this country. We could get back to conference on the budget and make progress on investing in making our communities safer, our families stronger, our schools and our students better educated, and doing the investment in our infrastructure and research we need to move our economy forward.
Let me conclude by sharing this. I have a number of wonderful folks on my staff who work in my offices in Delaware and in Washington whose real focus is constituent service. If folks call my office and they have a problem or an issue at home that we need to help with, they do an amazing job.
One young man, Brendan Mackie, recently joined my staff. He is a two-tour veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He works tirelessly to make sure the veterans who contact my office get the help they need.
A staff sergeant recently contacted us. He was wounded in Baghdad in 2007 by an IED. He lost the documentation for his Purple Heart. Well, Brendan dove right in and did all sorts of work–collected sworn statements and medical records, submitted everything to the relevant Army review board–and has managed to get his Purple Heart reissued.
That is the kind of case work my folks do day in and day out, making sure that whether it is accessing veterans’ benefits or disability benefits, Social Security, or medals earned in service to this Nation in combat, the men and women of Delaware who contact my office and rely on me and their services for great constituent support can get that help. Sadly, Brendan is home today and not able to serve the people of Delaware, not able to do his job.
If I might, I would close by saying this: This is the latest in a series of manufactured crises, of completely senseless, self-inflicted wounds. It is up to the Speaker of the House and to the folks in the House of Representatives to take up and pass the bill we sent them days ago that would allow this government to reopen and allow the leaders of this Chamber and the other Chamber to move forward on dealing with the real issues facing our country.
I yield the floor.