Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Delaware who spoke about the fact that we are now 53 days since passing the Senate budget. We are pushing very hard as Democrats to keep this process moving and get our budget to a conference committee. I appreciate his coming out and explaining why that is so important. I agree with him.

We believe with all the urgent challenges we face today, there is every reason to get to work right away on a bipartisan budget deal. There is no reason to delay this until the next crisis. But we have come out here now seven times and asked for consent to go to conference to work on the budget with the House, and seven times the Senate Republicans have stood and said, no, we do not want to go to work on the budget.

Given how much Senate Republicans have talked about regular order over the last several years, we are rather surprised on this side that they are now resisting this very important next step in this bipartisan negotiation. By the way, it is not just Democrats who are saying they want to go to conference. There are quite a few Senate Republicans who are surprised, as we are, that they are not allowing us to go.

My colleague Senator McCain said blocking conference is ``incomprehensible'' and ``insane.'' Senator Corker said that to ``keep from appointing conferees is not consistent.'' Senator Flake said he ``would like to see a conference now.''

I sincerely hope the Republican leaders in the Senate will listen to the Members of their own party, because we have a lot of problems to solve and we have to get started. Our children today, young adults, need a world-class education to succeed in the global economy they are entering. Many of them are graduating in the next several weeks. Too many Americans are out of work yet or still underemployed. Our national infrastructure is quickly becoming an obstacle rather than an asset to our competitiveness.

We need to do more to responsibly tackle our long-term deficit and debt challenges and make our Tax Code work better for our middle class. The debate about all of those challenges couldn't be more important. We should start working toward a bipartisan budget deal that works for our families, our economy. We should do it as soon as possible and engage the American people in a thorough and responsible debate.

That is why I, frankly, was very disappointed to see that today, instead of meeting to discuss moving toward a bipartisan conference between the House and Senate, House Republicans are meeting to discuss what they will ask for in exchange for not tanking the economy a couple of months from now.

Instead of moving with us toward the middle and joining us at the table ready to compromise, they spent their afternoon debating what to write on a ransom note and saying if they don't get what they want, they are going to allow the United States to default. That is an unprecedented event that would devastate our entire economy.

I think a lot of families across our country are very concerned that House Republicans haven't learned any lessons at all from the past 2 years, and that we are looking at more brinkmanship, more governing by crisis, and more harm for our American families and our businesses.

House Republicans are even telling us they are willing to put foreign creditors before our seniors, our veterans, and our businesses and claiming that somehow this plan will protect the economy.

That is absurd. A default is a default. If the Federal Government pays its foreign creditors--but defaults on its obligations to our families and our communities--the results are going to be catastrophic. Rating agencies would rightly see that as a serious abdication of our responsibility. Our fragile economy would be seriously threatened, and people across the country would lose their faith again in our government's ability to function.

Fortunately, I hope and think it will not come to all of that. Republicans have been saying default would be a ``financial disaster'' for the global economy and ``you can't not raise the debt ceiling.'' A few months ago, Republicans acknowledged how dangerous it would be to play games with the debt limit and how politically damaging it would be to play politics with the potential economic calamity and dropped their demands.

What has changed since then? Why are Republicans once again issuing this empty threat that does nothing more than rattle the markets and increase uncertainty across our country. Maybe the House Republicans think since we won't hit the debt ceiling until later than we originally expected, there could be less pressure to get a deal and more opportunity for them to extract some kind of political concession.

That is exactly the wrong way to look at this because even if we know they are going to reverse course eventually, the Republican strategy of holding our economy hostage and creating this uncertainty again and trying to push us toward another crisis has terrible consequences. All of us remember the summer of 2011 when extreme elements in the Republican Party demanded economically damaging policies, leading to a downgrade of our Nation's credit.

Economic growth and job creation slowed to a halt, consumer confidence plummeted, and out of that summer came sequestration. That was a policy that was meant to serve only as a trigger and, in fact, was only implemented because Republicans were focused on protecting the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations from paying even a penny more in taxes rather than working with us on a deal to prevent sequester.

Now what do we have? Sequestration. It is forcing families and communities across the country to cope with layoffs and cuts to services they count on, things such as childcare and public safety. Yesterday, we learned that DOD civilian employees, many of whom are veterans, by the way, are going to be furloughed.

We have to replace sequestration. We need to do it with a balanced and responsible deficit reduction plan, but we also have to stop lurching from crisis to crisis that allows those kinds of policies to be enacted. There is absolutely no reason to double down on an approach that has those kinds of effects on the families and communities we serve and on those who bravely served our country.

Contrary to what we are now, unfortunately, hearing from the House, I believe with more time to reach a fair and bipartisan agreement we have all the more reason for us to move to a conference quickly and get a budget agreement. Let's get to work. Our country's challenges--rather than a looming artificial deadline or crisis--should guide this debate, and it shouldn't be controversial. There are responsible Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle who agree.

I hope Senate Republicans will listen to members of their own party who are calling for a conference and bring us one step closer to negotiating a bipartisan budget deal in a responsible way instead of insisting that we run down the clock.

I know there are factions in our government that believe compromise is a dirty word and that getting a deal will not be easy, but I continue to believe it can and needs to be done because alongside those who refuse to compromise there are responsible leaders who came here to show Americans that their government works. It would be deeply irresponsible for the House to continue delaying a conference and for Senate Republicans to continue to cover for them, especially if they are doing it for political reasons or to keep the negotiations out of the public eye or to, what I have heard, avoid taking a few tough votes.

I urge Republican colleagues to reconsider their approach. Join us in a budget conference ready to compromise and work with us toward a bipartisan deal the American people deserve.

I yield the floor.

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