Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Illinois for his comments on this issue. I will comment as well, but I also want to thank the chair of the Budget Committee for asking one more time and saying: Let's negotiate this.

I think it is important to note, as the Senator from Illinois mentioned, some of the folks who say this is not just about the 800,000 Federal workers who are going on without pay, it is about national security. Seventy-two percent of the folks who work in the intelligence community, who are civilians, are furloughed today. It means our troops in harm's way are in greater danger. Our embassies are in greater danger, and our country is in greater danger.

I also have heard some remarkable comments from some of our colleagues on the other side about the free enterprise system. I have to say I have spent longer in the free enterprise system than I have in elective office. I can never imagine two businesses that were negotiating saying: We are going to shut down our business rather than negotiate. I mean this really has entered into a new realm of the theater of the absurd.

We think about why so many of those Congressmen from Virginia have stepped up, and it is because this is not just about the Federal workforce. I point out that today, at NASA Langley, one of our premier research institutions in America, where there are normally 3,500 employees, there are only six working today. But this doesn't just affect NASA Langley. It affects the gas station nearby, where the folks who go to work at NASA Langley buy gas. It affects the shops and restaurants around there, where people go to eat.

I wonder what the folks who talk about the free enterprise system will say to that motel owner along Skyline Drive in Virginia or outside Yosemite who has a cancellation this weekend. That is not a government worker. That is part of the free enterprise system. No business leader in America, regardless of political stripe, thinks shutting down the Federal Government makes good business sense.

Earlier today, along with my colleagues from Maryland--Senator King couldn't be there, but he was very supportive--we brought in some--not faceless budgets but real folks who were directly affected by this shutdown. We had a woman who had worked for the National Science Foundation for close to 40 years, saying she had gone through a $2,500 hit from furloughs already and was unsure. She hadn't bought a car last week because this was hanging over her head. She felt she was going to be fine in some way, but she wondered what young scientist would come work in public service today. Again, in a free enterprise system--this is a competitive world--the rest of the world is not going to stop their science, their innovation, their creativity because America can't get its act together and keep its government operating.

I have been occasionally called by some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle too reflexively bipartisan. There is always both sides of an argument. But on this argument, with these facts, there is no lack of clarity in my mind that holding not just our Federal workforce but the economy of America hostage, and saying that until we get our way we are not going to reopen the largest enterprise in the world--the Federal Government of the United States--is more irresponsible than anything I have seen, not only in my political life but in my business life.

I have had some of the same conversations my colleagues have had, and I know there is a great deal of uneasiness on the other side. I actually don't believe this is Democrats versus Republicans. We have our bill over on the House side, and I believe, candidly, we will see the majority of the House Republicans join in reopening the government. Then let's have this kind of very real debate about health care, about tax reform, about getting our country's balance sheet right.

The notion that we are basically going to affect the lives of 800,000 folks who are furloughed, and countless millions of others who depend on those services, or countless millions others in the free enterprise system who depend upon our workforce as their customers, is stunningly irresponsible. All of us here say we want our economy to recover. Well, let's get our balance sheet right. But in the meantime, let's open the government. Let these folks get back to their job, and let's have this conference that has been called for 18 different times.

I will close, and I know other folks have mentioned this. No matter what happens going forward, we are going to ask our Federal workforce to do more with less resources. Again, I have spent more time in the private sector than in the public sector. I have built companies. The last thing you do to your workforce, when you are asking them to do more with less, is disrespect them continuously the way we have done to the Federal workforce over the last 3 years--3 years without a pay increase, furloughs, being told that somehow they are riding in the wagon not driving the wagon.

Let me say, as somebody who got here because of a good public school, because of a student loan program, because I had a free enterprise system that allowed me to fail, but then succeed because there was a support system put forward by a Federal Government, I think those folks are pulling that wagon every bit as much as every other American.

I hope we will be able to get not only those folks in the House but others to be willing to say it is time to get this government bill, it is time to have a long overdue conversation about our balance sheet. I appeal to all of my colleagues, let's get this behind us. Please, don't bring somebody down here and say that under the free enterprise system somehow it is rational, logical, or makes good business sense to keep this government shuttered.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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