Budget Negotiations

Floor Speech

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise first to salute my colleague from Oregon for his eloquent words and his passion. I know he has dedicated his life to making the lives of people better. That is why he feels strongly about how badly a government shutdown would affect average folks.

I agree with him. Simply put, there is no reason for a government shutdown--absolutely no reason at all. A genuine bipartisan compromise with significant and responsible cuts in government spending is in hand, but it is being vetoed by an extreme minority of the Republican Party. The tail is wagging the dog. The most extreme, the people least likely to compromise, the people, in general, with less experience in government and at least from their statements little respect for views not their own are dominating the House of Representatives.

Speaker Boehner is somebody for whom we all have a great deal of affection and sympathy. But the hour is nigh and leadership is called for. To allow this small group--relatively small group when we look at the expanse of our government--to dominate everything that is happening and hurt millions of innocent people is not leadership.

When the Speaker says there is no agreement on the numbers or the cuts, he means he is not ready to say so publicly. It is true I have not been inside the negotiating room, but I have heard all the details from my friend and colleague Harry Reid. I have heard the details from those who have been negotiating.

The bottom line is, the number and what composes that number of cuts is virtually agreed to. The only reason there is not a handshake is Speaker Boehner and his representatives do not want it to appear the numbers are signed off on, for two reasons, in my opinion. One, they are afraid what these hard-right colleagues would say, and two, then it would focus everything on their true casus belli, which is the riders.

This is no longer about spending. The hard right in the House of Representatives wants to make this about ideology, injecting last minute ideological add-ons, such as limiting preventive health for women. We have a fiscal crisis in this country, not a social crisis.

Let's not gloss over what is going on. Republicans do not care about reducing the deficit; otherwise, they would not have paraded out a budget this week that ends Medicare for our seniors but protects trillions in tax breaks for corporations and millionaires. Care about deficit reduction, yes, you would want to cut Medicare, but you would also want to make millionaires pay their fair share of taxes because every dollar from the millionaire goes just as much to reducing the deficit as a dollar from Medicare cuts. When you do one and not the other, you do not care about deficit reduction. You may care about shrinking the government. You may wish there is no government at all. That is a perspective of some. But you do not care about deficit reduction.

One of the things that has not been made apparent is cutting government programs to many on the other side of the aisle is not in sync with reducing the deficit, and those two are too often confused.

Why are we here? Why are we on the eve of a shutdown of government which will hurt millions? It is because this hard right in the House of Representatives--some of them members of the tea party, others allies of the tea party--want to satisfy the agenda of the extreme rightwing. And if they do not get everything they want, they have made their desire clear. We do not have to make this up.

Here is Mike Pence, one of the leading Republicans in the House of Representatives, one of the leaders of the tea party caucus. What does he say? ``Shut it down.'' That is what he wants. Either he thinks he is going to get his way by shutting it down--I grew up on the streets in Brooklyn and there were people who thought that just by bullying they could get their way. Shut it down if you do not do it all my way. Bullying does not work, and we will not be bullied. We will not hurt millions of people. We will not abandon our principles because the other side believes we will do whatever they want--falsely believes we will do whatever they want--because otherwise they will shut the government down.

We do not want to shut the government down. I have not heard a single Democrat say what Mike Pence has said. But I have heard lots of Republicans--I heard Sarah Palin talk about the shutdown being a good thing. I heard Newt Gingrich talk about a shutdown being a good thing. I heard some of Mr. Pence's colleagues, probably a dozen or so in the House of Representatives, saying ``shut it down'' is a good thing.

Have you heard a single Democratic elected official say it? No. That alone should tell you who wants to shut the government down or who is willing to shut the government down and who is fighting strongly against it.

They want to shut the government down if they do not get their way. As I said, I have seen people do things like that growing up on the streets of Brooklyn. You know what you learn? If you keep giving in and giving in, they ask for more and more. The way to deal with someone who is attempting to bully you is to stand up to them. We have gone so far in their direction. President Obama said to Speaker Boehner, it is reported: You have gotten three-quarters of what you want. Why don't you declare victory and go home?

We know why Speaker Boehner cannot do that. It is very simple. Because then there would be a rebellion among a key part of his constituency--the hard right, many of them, but not all of them freshmen in the House of Representatives. Most of them have very little experience in government. I daresay most of them do not know the consequences of a government shutdown or the kinds of cuts they are suggesting. But they come in with an ideological narrowness.

When either party lets the extremes dominate, they lose. When Republicans let the hard right dominate, they lose. Frankly, we learned our lesson as Democrats. When we let the hard left dominate, we will lose too because most Americans are somewhere in the middle.

This idea of shutting the government down or of applauding, a standing ovation when the Speaker informs them to begin preparing to shut the government down, I guarantee you it will backfire on the perpetrators, just as it did on Newt Gingrich in 1995. But that is political consolation, small consolation for the damage that will be done to individual people who will lose jobs, to the economy.

Just one fact: FHA will not be able to issue any guarantees on new mortgages. FHA issues 80 percent--guarantees 80 percent--of our mortgages, including mortgages for the middle class, the bulk of mortgages. Middle-class people will not be able to take out mortgages. What does that do to our economy and the housing sector?

The Internal Revenue Service will not be able to mail out a good percentage of refunds. What does that do to the economy, when the money is stuck in Washington instead of going back to people who rightfully own it and who will spend it in the stores and shops and on vacation?

There are other irresponsibilities. We have American troops fighting abroad. We want to make sure they are fully funded. A government shutdown will not do that. Colleagues on the other side are coming up with an unbalanced, short-term extension that funds the troops. Well, I say to my colleagues, if you want to fund the troops--not for 1 week--don't shut the government down. That is the best way to support our troops.

It is time for Republicans to be responsible. It is time for the majority of Republicans--whom I don't agree with on so many issues, but whom I know are mainstream and don't like this government shutdown--to stand up to those on the hard right, to accept the compromise we are so close to working out and drop the ideological riders so we can move forward.

We are at a crucial time in this country. We have had a rough few years. We are beginning slowly to climb our way out of it. This is risky. A government shutdown is risky. The shame of it all is that it is so easily avoided. All we need, again, is a little bit of strength and courage from the Speaker to tell the hard right in his party, yes, he will try to accommodate some of their needs, but he will not shut the government down; tell them, yes, we do have to cut government spending. And we Democrats--the vast majority of us--agree with that. We don't believe in cutting things such as cancer research or loans that go to students who are going to college, but there is a lot of waste in the government, there is a lot of excess, and we can wring that out without hurting people and reduce our deficit. We agree.

The proposals we have made, including $73 billion below the President's proposal for this year, show we have put our money where our mouth is. But every time we come close to an agreement, Speaker Boehner--not on his own, in my judgment, but pulled by the tea party--pulls the goalposts back. He pulls them back on the numbers. Although we have gone so far, it is hard for him to do that any longer. But he also does it with these ideological riders.

We are at a sad moment. We are at a time when the continuation of this government--with the hard-working people who compose it--is right on the edge of closing, with untold damage to innocent people. I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and in the other body--I would plead with them--let's stop the political games, let's stop the ideological posturing, let's stop thinking it has to be only my way and no one else's. Let's come meet in the middle with a reasonable agreement, keep the government going and move forward to do the things the American people have asked us to do.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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