Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, for his compelling remarks. In fact, for the last several hours, we have heard compelling remarks from a number of our colleagues. I thank Senator Kaine from Virginia for helping to organize this effort and all of those who have come to the floor to talk about the lasting and negative effects of this senseless shutdown--a shutdown that is all about President Trump yielding to Rush Limbaugh and the rightwing commentators who told them he wasn't being tough enough.

Senators Casey and Markey reminded us how we got here, that we had an agreement we thought the President had committed to sign. His Vice President, his Acting Chief of Staff, told us he was going to sign it. It passed the Senate on a voice vote.

What is so ironic, as Senator Markey said, is that what is happening now is actually making us less safe. The idea that we have all of these people on our southern border, all of these TSA agents, people who are working, 800,000 employees, 400,000 who are furloughed, 380,000 who are working without pay--that is actually making us less safe.

As Senator Durbin pointed out, a wall across our southern border wouldn't do anything to interdict the fentanyl that is coming across from China. That is the biggest killer of people in New Hampshire from overdoses; it is the fentanyl. As Senator Jones pointed out, the Coast Guard's role in interdiction is what is significant. It is not a wall that is going to keep out those vehicles that are going to come through our ports of entry.

Senator Stabenow reminded us that there are 38 million people who depend on food assistance, and a quarter of the people in New Mexico, as Senator Heinrich told us, depend on food assistance. He quoted his constituent Kathy, who pointed out that the President is holding us hostage. She said: Federal employees are being held hostage. We are now being held hostage in the Senate because the majority is unwilling to act on the legislation that has passed the House and previously passed the Senate.

Senator Bennet talked about China landing on the dark side of the Moon last week. It is a reminder that we have to compete in this world, that we can't assume that America is going to be No. 1 in everything again. Yet, while China was landing on the dark side of the Moon, our government was shut down. Thousands of researchers weren't doing their jobs at NASA, the Department of Agriculture, and so many other places because we were shut down.

The cost to the economy as a whole, as Senator Hassan pointed out-- there are craft breweries in New Hampshire, small businesses that can't get their businesses started because government is shut down.

Senator Klobuchar pointed out that the cost to the economy, according to the President's own advisers, is $10 billion a week. At a time when the stock market is going up and down, when we have people losing billions of dollars because of fluctuations in the stock market, $10 billion a week contributes to that uncertainty.

Then, of course, Senator Van Hollen and Senator Merkley and virtually everybody here talked about the impact on ordinary Americans from this government shutdown. We are going to hear from President Trump in about 5 minutes. He is going to speak to the country. I will bet he doesn't talk about the impact on ordinary Americans of this government shutdown. I will bet he doesn't talk about the cost to the economy or what he promised to sign when this Congress passed funding bills. I will bet he doesn't talk about the future of America and what is going to happen if we don't continue to invest in research and if we don't continue to invest in our people and instead get involved in these partisan fights. No. I think what he is going to do is tell Americans a made-up story about the emergency at our southern border--an emergency that we saw from Senator Durbin and Senator Merkley is not real. We have gone from 1.6 million people coming across our southern border and being arrested down to about 200,000 in the last year.

This is not a crisis that is affecting America. We need to address border security. Everybody here believes that. All of the people who spoke tonight said we need to address border security. We need to do it in a way that is thoughtful and that spends taxpayer dollars wisely.

It is time for us to act in the Senate. It is time for Congress to fund this government, to get it back open. I very much appreciate Senator Kaine's work here tonight as we talk about the impacts on this country of this government shutdown.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield to my colleague from Virginia.

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