Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to talk about hostages, seven hostages--seven spending bills that have come through this Republican-led Chamber, bills the House is ready to move forward on that have, ironically, been taken hostage by the Republican leadership of the Senate and the President of the United States.

Those seven hostages, those spending bills, the House has said: Well, Mr. President, we have a difference of opinion that has to be worked out, and that is Homeland Security. So let's continue that debate while setting the other six free--freedom for six bills passed by the Republican-led Senate so we can put America back to work.

It sounds like a pretty good idea, but good ideas and common sense seem to be victims--victims of this Presidential temper tantrum over a symbol on the southern border. So it shut down nine Cabinet Departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Housing, Interior, State, Transportation, and the Treasury--affecting all kinds of everyday functions for Americans.

The local schools keep functioning. They figure it out. The local city doesn't shut down. The county doesn't shut down. Has your State shut down? I don't think so. So why this childish behavior, why this incompetence, why this disregard for the quality of life for Americans?

There are 800,000 workers who are either instructed to work without pay or who are instructed to go on furlough. We are all affected. Every one of us is affected by these Departments being shut down, but those 800,000 workers don't get a paycheck.

What does that mean when they try to write the check that will pay for their mortgage or their rent, their student's tuition, or their utility bill? How do they keep the lights turned on? It is all fine for the President. His lights are staying on. He is not inconvenienced, but these 800,000 Americans are more than inconvenienced. They are put into a hard place over this hostage-taking by the President and the Republican leadership of this body.

Out in Oregon, the estimate--admittedly somewhat imprecise--is that 9,000 workers have been affected. It seems in the ballpark. Oregon's population is about 1 percent of the country, and 1 percent of 800,000 is 8,000. So 9,000 sounds in the ballpark. There are 9,000 Oregonians who are affected by this foolishness.

An air traffic controller wrote to me and said, we are ``tired of being a pawn in the partisan games that are being played in Washington. . . . These shutdowns have compromised aviation safety.''

He said they hinder the FAA's ability to hire and train new controllers and upgrade air traffic control systems. They break down morale and an already understaffed and frustrated workforce.

Then there is the constituent who wrote to me to say: ``It is unconscionable for Trump to deprive Federal employees of earned and necessary income, holding them hostage for his foolish wall.''

There are seven spending bills held hostage, along with 800,000 Americans and their families' finances.

There is the young man in Lane County whom I spoke with after one of my townhall meetings last week. He was supposed to be moving to California to begin working in the Sierra National Forest this past weekend. He was all set to go, giving up his current living arrangements because he was going to be moving into Forest Service housing. Then the shutdown happened. Now he has no job, has no key to undo the lock. He has no ability to move into that Forest Service housing. He is stranded. There are just all kinds of everyday stories of challenges to Americans.

To President Trump, I say: Listen. Listen to the voices of ordinary Americans who are having a hard time because of you and because of the leadership of this Senate--the Republican leadership of this Senate. Ordinary Americans are caught in the middle of this.

This is your shutdown, Mr. President. You said so. You said it on television. You said it from the Oval Office. You said you were proud to own this shutdown. You said:

I am not going to blame anybody else. This is my shutdown.

Yes, it is, Mr. Trump. Mr. President, it is your shutdown, and it is not a shutdown with a mission, a mission that is important, because the mission that is important, that you talk about, is border security.

Every Democrat, every Republican supports border security. All of us who were here in 2013 voted for huge sums. I have heard some describe that bill we passed in 2013 as $35 billion for border security. I heard in an earlier speech tonight that it was over $40 billion for border security, smart border security--smart border security.

Don't you want to spend the taxpayers' dollars smartly? Do you want to waste them? Do you want to shut down the government and create a hardship for 800,000 people because you want to waste their money?

Mr. President, and to my colleagues across the aisle, listen to the common sense of people in your home State who want border security, but they don't want a foolish shutdown.

The President said there is a crisis--crisis--at the border because so many people are coming. How many people are coming to the border? Let's take a look. This shows the number of folks who have been apprehended at the border from the year 2000--19 years ago now--to year-to-date in 2018. This is slightly out of date, so you can add a little bit more to that final bar, but you see the point. There were massive amounts in the year 2000, really high numbers in 2001 through 2007, and then the numbers dramatically decline through 2011 and beyond.

I just got the numbers before I came to the floor for the last month we had, which was October. About 60,000 people came to the border. In 1 month, in 2000, 200,000 people came to the border. That is quite a difference. That is now less than one-third than last month.

There is no crisis there, only the humanitarian crisis, Mr. Trump, that you are creating with your war on children--your war on migrant children--shoving them back into Mexico to put them at the mercy of the Mexican gangs; proceeding to let them into the United States and then ripping them out of the arms of their parents while you lock up their parents; deciding you are going to lock up the children with their parents behind barbed wire and internment camps; establishing a national system of child prisons that, last month, held 15,000 children, which is up from 7,000 in June; failing to provide medical evaluations for these children when they cross the border. Two have died--one after 6 days in the care of the American border guard.

You, Mr. President, have created a crisis, a humanitarian crisis. The arrivals on the border are not the crisis; it is your hardened heart, your dark and evil heart, your war on children; the deliberate strategy of inflicting trauma on children in order to send a message of deterrence, a political message of deterrence.

Who here believes it is right to deliberately injure children to send a message of deterrence? That is the strategy Jeff Sessions announced last May that started this intense assault on migrant children. Who would defend it today? Find me one caretaker of children who believes that inflicting trauma on children is acceptable. Find me one religious tradition, one moral code that says that is OK--because it is not OK. Every human civilization recognizes that.

Meanwhile, our farmers are wondering what happened to their Farm Service Agencies. They are closed down across the country, including 23 in Oregon. What happened to those payments that the President promised for those affected by tariffs? The payments can't be distributed because of the shutdown. How about our Federal firefighters who need to be in training right now for the fires we are going to see next summer because of climate chaos?

We are seeing the impacts in every conceivable way, as my colleagues have been pointing out, and it is time to end it. It is time to release the hostages. It is way past time to end it. It has 18 days--3 days from the longest shutdown in history. It is time to end it, put people back to work, return to common sense, and at the same time quit afflicting children and migrant adults as a political strategy.

Almost everybody--probably everyone in this room--came here as a descendant of immigrants, almost all Americans. Not many of us are directly descended from Native Americans. Most of us are descendants from immigrants. How did we want them to be treated? We wanted them to be treated with respect and decency as they waited for an asylum hearing, and that is what we have to return to.

So release the hostages, return to common sense, and treat the American people with respect.

Thank you.

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