Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the unanimous consent request made by the Senator from the State of Washington is eminently sensible. It basically says: Why hold 800,000 Federal employees hostage while we go about the negotiation of our future budget? The majority leader has made this offer. He has said we are going to go forward. He has offered to Speaker BOEHNER the opportunity--the opportunity--for us to open the government and then get into meaningful negotiations on all of the major issues.

So what do we hear from the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator TOOMEY? His objection. He wants to continue to keep the government shut down while we are supposed to initiate negotiations. Who pays the price for that? Well, it wouldn't be any Senator. The people who pay a price for it are those 800,000 furloughed employees and all of the people in America who count on their services every single day.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating. Two hundred people were turned away from the National Institutes of Health this week who wanted to enter clinical trials because of a serious life-threatening illness, including 30 children--cancer patients coming to the NIH with their parents for one last hopeful move to save their lives. So the Senator from Pennsylvania says: Sorry, we can't take care of those children. We can't take care of those seriously ill Americans. We have to sit down and negotiate.

It is easy for him, and perhaps easy for others to say it is all about us, but it isn't. It is all about America. It is all about the people we were sent here to represent. It is all about the reputation of this Nation.

What it will take to get beyond this current crisis is very obvious. We have unity on the Democratic side to open the government. We have sent a continuing resolution to the House to do the same. What has to happen now is for moderate Republicans to step forward.

It is interesting to me in the last 48 hours how few have come to the Senate Floor to talk about this issue. Privately they tell me they are torn and worried over what this is doing to our country and what it is doing to their party. But some moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives have spoken. I would like to, if I can, at this point, recount what has been said by some of those who have spoken.

Representative PAT MEEHAN, Republican of Pennsylvania, said:

At this point, I believe it's time for the House to vote for a clean, short-term funding bill to bring the Senate to the table and negotiate a responsible compromise.

A clean short-term funding bill. That has already passed the Senate. It is sitting in the House waiting for the Speaker to call it up.

Representative MIKE FITZPATRICK, another Republican from Pennsylvania. A Fitzpatrick aide tells the Philadelphia Inquirer the Congressman would support a clean funding bill if it came up for a vote.

Representative LOU BARLETTA, Republican of Pennsylvania. Barletta said he would ``absolutely'' vote for a clean bill in order to avert a shutdown of the government.

Representative CHARLIE DENT, Republican of Pennsylvania said: ``I'm prepared to vote for a clean continuing resolution,'' he told the Huffington Post.

In addition to that, Representative JIM GERLACH, another Republican from Pennsylvania, issued a statement saying he would ``vote in favor of a so-called clean budget bill.''

The list goes on--and I have mentioned a few on this list: Representative PAT MEEHAN, Republican of Pennsylvania; Representative SCOTT RIGELL--I am sorry if I mispronounced that--Republican of Virginia; Representative JON RUNYAN, Republican of New Jersey; Representative MIKE FITZPATRICK, Republican of Pennsylvania; Representative LOU BARLETTA, Republican of Pennsylvania; Representative PETER KING, Republican of New York; Representative DEVIN NUNES, Republican of California; Representative CHARLIE DENT, Republican of Pennsylvania; Representative FRANK WOLF, Republican of Virginia; Representative MICHAEL GRIMM, Republican of New York; Representative ERIK PAULSEN, Republican of Minnesota; Representative ROB WITTMAN, Republican of Virginia; Representative FRANK LOBIONDO, Republican of New Jersey; Representative RANDY FORBES, Republican of Virginia; Representative JIM GERLACH, Republican of Pennsylvania; Representative LEONARD LANCE, Republican of New Jersey, and Representative MIKE SIMPSON, Republican of Idaho.

Seventeen. Why is that number significant? It takes only two or three more Republican Congressmen--Republican Congressmen--to step up and say they will vote for the CR we sent over from the Senate to reopen the government of the United States of America.

There are six Republican Congressmen in my State of Illinois. I challenge all of them to join this group of their fellow colleagues and Democrats in the House who don't want to punish America and 800,000 Federal workers.

What is at stake here? It isn't just bragging rights about how this crisis ends. What is at stake is much more. It even goes beyond the life-and-death situation faced by hundreds at the National Institutes of Health. I am still stunned by what I was told yesterday by Senator FEINSTEIN. It is public knowledge. She announced it on the floor. Seventy-two percent--72 percent--of the civilian workforce in America's intelligence agencies have been furloughed. What do they do? Well, I will tell you what they do. They listen closely to places and people all around the world to see a threat coming against the United States. They are sent to work each day with the most serious mission of almost anyone working for our government. They are sent there with the mission to avoid the next 9/11, to spare innocent people across America the possibility of a terrorist attack.

I am not over-dramatizing it. That is what the intelligence agencies are all about every day. Today, almost three out of four of the professional men and women on the civilian side of intelligence are home. They are not listening. They are not watching. They have been sent home by this tea party Republican shutdown. It will only take about 3 more Republican Congressmen to step forward and say: This has to come to an end for the good of our Nation, for the safety of our Nation, and for the future of our economy. That is what we are up against.

What we are trying to do is get the conversation underway to resolve some major issues. I hope we are successful. But in the meantime, let us protect America. Let us serve the people who sent us here. Let us reopen this government as quickly as possible. It has gone on now for a day and a half. It should end this afternoon.

Speaker JOHN BOEHNER has it within his power to end this government shutdown in a matter of minutes--minutes--and then we can start a conversation about the important issues facing us. I think the

President is right. We have to do this in a responsible manner and to say once and for all we are not going to hold the American people, the American taxpayers or America's security, hostage to a political temper tantrum. We have to face our responsibilities honestly and directly.

I yield the floor.

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