Effects of the Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. SOTO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Maine for hosting this.

First, I want to start by reading a letter from one of my constituents, Douglas Lowe, who is a professional aviation safety specialist in my district.

``Dear Representative Darren Soto, I am writing you with a heavy heart and much stress as I live through this government shutdown. It has been the longest we have ever faced, and as the days continue, I am finding myself more and more weakened by the situation.

``I am the president for the Florida Chapter of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, PASS. We represent the men and women that make aviation across our Nation function in every aspect, from the aviation safety inspectors, to people like myself who maintain complex equipment that makes air traffic control possible, as well as a multitude of support staff that deals with logistics and contracts.

``The main reason I am writing you is to talk about the human factor. We need to find a resolution. There must be an end to this shutdown. Real people are suffering. Many coworkers of mine across the Nation, people I represent have come to me with hardships. I personally have dealt with two individuals already who have had to resign their positions and move on with life.

``We are going on day 34 now with no end in sight. Men and women like myself have still been at work. Each day makes that endeavor a little harder. We struggle with when and how do we keep coming to work and support the system when we can no longer afford gas. I personally have had to make some sacrifices already. Friday the 25th is my daughter's 18th birthday. I have asked my daughter to please forgive me, but we are not buying her anything right now because we need to budget and ensure we have money for bills and food.

``Also, I take care of my mother who has schizophrenia. I have been relying 100 percent this past month on her nurse to hold everything together because I cannot get over to see her. The amount of stress and anxiety surrounding these events is enormous. I cannot ask enough that every Member of Congress please think about those of us caught in the middle of this fight.

``Please consider our hardships and find some common ground; find a road forward. I still have faith in you, and we are carrying the country on our backs, but I do not know how much longer we can endure.

``I am a marine and a leader, so I show a smile and I keep moving forward, but I have already seen the heartache and turmoil others have displayed, people crying, not knowing how to make ends meet, professionals applying for food stamps and aid while still being required to put in a 40-hour workweek.''

``This list goes on and on, but I believe the most disturbing fact is that this is happening to people in the United States of America. People are being asked and forced to work for free, threatened to completely lose their livelihood if they do not show up. This is something that I would expect from'' a country that is developing. I won't use the exact words he used.

``My fear is someone is going to be so stressed that they miss a task. They are going to be so fatigued that they make a mistake, and, with the jobs that we do, that mistake could lead to the lives of thousands being lost. Aviation safety is on the line, and each day, each hour, each minute that we stay shut down, more risk is injected into our Nation's aviation system.

``Please, I beg you to reopen the government before something bad happens. I continue to come to work because I think of the children that may be flying into Orlando on a Make-A-Wish Foundation flight. That child may have cancer and be on their way to Disney for what may be the last days of their lives. I come to work each day without pay to make sure that those children land safely. But as the weeks turn into months for this shutdown, I am fearful that even I will have a breaking point.

``Sincerely, Douglas Lowe, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists.''

Now, I want to talk a little bit about compromise throughout American history. There have been some great American compromises that we have seen in this Nation.

Starting at the very founding of our Republic, in 1787, after we had to start working on the Constitution, Connecticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth drafted the Great Compromise, a plan for congressional representation. Without this, there likely never would have been a Constitution.

Many more compromises have followed in political history, but imagine what small States would face, and large States would face, if they didn't have representation in the Senate and in the House.

Then there was the Compromise of 1790 that was made famous by the now-popular ``Hamilton'' musical. It was the compromise by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson with James Madison, where Hamilton won the decision for the national government to take over, pay the debt, and create a banking system, while Jefferson Madison obtained a national capital, in the District of Columbia that we stand in right now, for the South. That was described as ``the room where it happens,'' and I feel like we need another room where it happens today.

But compromises aren't always great in American history. In the 19th century, in particular, we had many examples. It was a dark time, for trying to compromise on such moral crusades as slavery and the Civil War. But I will mention one of them.

In 1820, there was the Missouri Compromise, legislation that provided admission of the gentlewoman's State, Maine, a Free State, along with Missouri, that, unfortunately, came in as a slave State, thus maintaining the balance of power between the North and the South in the United States.

One of the things I struggle with right now is: What time are we in? Is this a time where we need to compromise, and it will turn out to be one of those terrible ones that America will look back on, like that one? Or will it be one of the ones that helped forge ahead the Republic stronger than ever?

In the 20th century, compromise faired far better in American politics. We saw, in 1917, the United States came together to enter World War I, even though we were still emerging as a world power ourselves. We saved our allies from destruction, turned the tide of the war, and eventually emerged as a major power.

Everything changed when we saw the New Deal happen. Mostly Democrats, with some Republicans, not enough of them, came together to help make sure that we would have major programs to help put Americans back to work after we had the stock market crash.

But it was on December 7, 1941, a day that would live in infamy when Pearl Harbor was bombed, that Democrats and Republicans came together to join in a fight against Nazi Germany and the Japanese empire, to literally rewrite the rules of the world order that we now live in today. We just, in fact, reaffirmed this with a vote the other day, affirming our support for NATO.

Compromise got even better as we got into the sixties. In 1964, one of the first civil rights bills, proposed by congressional Democrats in the North and opposed by Republican Senators, led to one of the longest filibusters in Senate history. Eventually, Majority Leader Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, I believe, reached out to his Republican counterpart, Senator Everett Dirksen, to put an end to the debate, and the bill passed 9 days later.

In 1977, we saw, finally, more regulations and more teeth in the law to protect folks who were going hungry with the Food Stamp Act. It was Republican Bob Dole at the time--can you imagine that later on?--along with Democratic Senator George McGovern who joined forces to support a bipartisan compromise back in 1987.

In 1986--we have heard so much about the eighties--President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill were able to get together to come up with major compromises. One was to save Social Security for a future generation, in 1983 to 1986. Another in 1986 was a tax reform bill that eventually came to a compromise.

This leads me to probably the most relevant one for what we have today, which is, in 2013, when a bipartisan immigration bill passed the Senate with 68 votes. It had comprehensive immigration reform and included robust border security.

So the big question that each Member will have to ask in the Congress, in the House, in the Senate, and the President as well, is: What are we willing to do to rise together? What sacrifices are we willing to make? What compromises are we willing to wage? What interests are we going to advance to come together to put an end to the longest shutdown in American history?

I can assure you, it is not going to be easy. But I know that, if we all work together, we can do it.

There is one thing in common with all these compromises: none of them required a government shutdown, not a single one. We had some filibusters in there, but not one of these major compromises in American history started by a shutdown.

I think the first thing that we need to do is reopen the government, not hold our Federal workers hostage over what needs to be a grand compromise on policy, on immigration, on border security.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Maine for allowing me to have a few moments to talk about how important it is, this moment in time, and how every Member needs to step up for the American people to end this shutdown now.

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