Protecting Military Pay

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as the Republican leader noted, there are a number of Members here on the floor who have come en masse from a meeting we just held following the tabling of the latest House proposal that would keep the Federal Government operating and make sure all of our uniformed military would continue to get paid, together with the other operations of the Federal Government. It is clear that it was under the pressure of the knowledge that we were coming to the floor to ask for unanimous consent and the knowledge of how, frankly, untenable it would be to object to that that the majority leader has quite skillfully come to the floor to try to preempt this issue. The truth is that none of us should be under any illusion that the majority leader has done anything other than make it more likely that we will have a shutdown of the Federal Government tonight.

The House has sent over several reasonable proposals which would keep the Federal Government operating and which would also make sure our troops would be paid--not just uniformed military but other government personnel performing important jobs. Rather than calling us in yesterday after the House acted--we know that perhaps the majority leader and other Members enjoyed watching a little bit of professional football yesterday--they waited until this afternoon to cut the legs out from under the House proposal and make it much more likely that the government will shut down.

The House worked late into the night this weekend to draft a compromise proposal that would fund the government and avert a shutdown. The House Members sent the proposal over to the Senate, and the majority leader did nothing until today--no emergency session, no bipartisan negotiations.

There is a report in Politico that President Obama was suggesting calling the leadership in both of the Houses--Republicans and Democrats alike--to the White House to have a meeting to say: What can we do to solve this impasse? If the story is to be believed, it was Harry Reid who shut that down, just as he is going to be responsible for shutting down the Federal Government by the actions he took earlier today.

So the question is, Who is really being unreasonable? Who is really being stubborn? Who is really seeking to gain partisan advantage over the best interests of the country?

Of course, we know the President has been eager to negotiate with the President of Iran about a very serious issue: Iran's nuclear aspirations, but he will not talk to the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Republican leader of the Senate. He will not talk to them, but he will negotiate with the Iranian President.

He seems absolutely allergic to doing his job. He can give a heck of a speech. He is a skillful orator. But when it comes to actually doing his job, he is missing in action. He will not negotiate over a government shutdown, and he will not negotiate over raising the debt limit.

In the past, President Obama has urged Republicans to offer just a little bit of compromise when he likes to be the voice of reason. But now he himself refuses to engage in any sort of negotiation and refuses to offer any kind of compromise whatsoever.

Is it possible the President of the United States thinks his own health care law is perfect in every way? Seventy-nine Members of this body voted against the medical device tax. The House could pass that piece of legislation and send it over here and attach it to the continuing resolution. The President himself has repeatedly delayed different provisions of the health care law, including the employer mandate. What we would like to do is get the same break for the rest of the American people as he gave businesses.

The bill that was passed by the House of Representatives would have delayed ObamaCare for 1 year, and it would also have repealed the medical device tax, which is already killing jobs and hammering medical innovation.

Now we are being told that those sort of very same proposals, which mirror the same proposals the President has unilaterally taken or which are supported by a bipartisan majority of the Senate--they are called an act of extremism.

What is more extreme, trying to negotiate through an impasse to resolve this issue of the Federal Government functioning or to refuse to negotiate, to stonewall against any reasonable proposal by the House and to make it more likely that the Federal Government will shut down tonight? I ask who is being more unreasonable and more stubborn?

We know the clock is ticking. The American people are absolutely disgusted. I share their frustration. I can only hope cooler heads will prevail among our friends on the other side of the aisle.

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Texas who gave a very high-profile speech for about 21 hours the other night on the subject of ObamaCare. I know he feels passionately about it, and his efforts have captured the imagination of the American people and reminded them of the various failures of this piece of legislation, some of which we have talked about perhaps fixing in the course of this ping-ponging of the continuing resolution.

But I might ask him, through the Chair, there have been so many failures, so many promises that have been made about ObamaCare that are obviously not going to be kept--things such as, if you like what you have, you can keep it. I think that is one of the complaints the Senator from South Carolina mentioned earlier, that organized labor--Mr. Trumka, among others--went to the White House to get a special carve-out for. We were told the President said: The average family of four would see a reduction of $2,500 in the cost of their health care, and that had not proven to be true--so many promises that have not been kept, so many broken promises, so many reasons why we ought to be working together through the course of this to fix it.

So I would ask my colleague, through the Chair, perhaps he can list a few more reasons why he believes we need to be dealing with ObamaCare.

I know his preferred method was defunding ObamaCare. I know he has not given up on that. I am a cosponsor of his legislation that would accomplish that. But I would ask my colleague, through the Chair, if he might comment on that.

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Mr. CORNYN. The Senator has described accurately the back-and-forth between the absolutist position the majority leader has taken that says nothing can change ObamaCare because apparently he thinks it is absolutely perfect--we shouldn't change a letter, even though, as the Senator pointed out, a number of ObamaCare's biggest advocates are now coming back and saying it is a nightmare. I think the Senator quoted Jimmy Hoffa as one of them.

But is the Senator aware, reportedly, the House is going to be voting later on today and be changing once again the continuing resolution and sending it back over here? This time the report is that they will vote to delay the individual mandate to make it match--as the Senator points out, the employer mandate that has already been unilaterally delayed by the President, in an act of lawlessness. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated event.

Then the Vitter language, which will overturn the Office of Personnel Management interpretation, which basically carves out Congress and congressional staff from the law that would apply to everyone else, strikes me as another attempt by the House to enter into some negotiation.

Would the Senator care to venture a guess as to what sort of good-faith attempt by the House to keep negotiations open--what that will lead to? I would be interested in the Senator's observation about whether he believes, as I do, that Senator Reid is marching toward a government shutdown. Nothing the House does, nothing the House passes will deter him from shutting down the Federal Government at midnight tonight.

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