Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS of California. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the chance to hold this Special Order with some of my freshman colleagues.

I heard some discussion from yesterday, and even some tonight, and thought that it would be appropriate for some of the freshman who just got here and don't have some of the perspective that has pervaded some of the discussion, haven't been here for a lot of the most bitter battles, maybe have a little bit more of a problem-solving attitude, to give our perspective on some of these things and maybe have a constructive discussion of the government shutdown and also the debt ceiling, which I think is a very, very serious thing to discuss as part of a negotiation.

The news today in San Diego will be about the cancellation of the Miramar Air Show that was to take place this weekend. This is a great tradition for our community, an important fundraiser for military families, and really a sad casualty of the current shutdown.

I would like to start my comments by highlighting a more hidden and much more serious effect of the shutdown, just by sharing a couple of emails I received from constituents in the last 3 days. First:

I am an engineer that has supported the Navy and Marine Corps for 26 years and have always given 100 percent to ensure that our military has the best capabilities in the world. Most of the people I work with have gone above and beyond to give the Navy and USMC our very best, especially during the many years of wartime.

Due to sequestration and previous furloughs, I have already lost $10,000 of income this year and completely depleted my family's savings account. Now I am being furloughed again and this follows 3 years of frozen pay. I am worried for my wife and two young children because I cannot pay the bills if this shutdown continues.

I do not blame one party or the other. I am sure they both think they are doing the right thing. But I worry that they do not know the pain they are causing for the families of dedicated and hardworking civil servants.

A second one:

I am writing to you today concerning our government shutdown. I am an Active Duty spouse of 15 years with two children.

We recently moved to Coronado from Naples, Italy. I have made several sacrifices over the years to follow my husband's career. I have always felt that my husband's job as an officer in the United States Navy was worthy of my sacrifices. I have stood proud by his side.

We have moved 11 times within our 15 years of service, and as always we have budgeted our housing allowance, cost of living, and pay. Today, as I read all the negative comments on social media threads, I feel as though I have wasted 15 years of my life.

I almost fell off the treadmill on the base gym this morning when it hit me: all of the holidays my husband has missed--the birthdays and the anniversaries spent alone--for what reason? For 535 of you to shut us down? Thank God I did not fall off the treadmill this morning, as now our medical staff is on furlough and the area is severely understaffed.

Finally, I am a proud American and that is why I proudly work at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego as a nurse practitioner with the Department of Surgery. I have already endured one furlough. This resulted in a 20 percent pay reduction this summer. I was grateful it ended earlier than planned, but now I am furloughed with a 100 percent loss in pay. It has to stop.

As a San Diego resident, I know you are aware that your mortgages are higher than most. I am also a single mother of two wonderful girls. This makes the additional furlough that much harder to swallow.

Please work with your fellow Representatives to make this government shutdown end as soon as possible. It is hurting the average American much more than D.C. seems to understand.

If our elected officials were forced to take a 20 percent pay reduction and have that followed by a 100 percent pay loss, I am sure the budget would be fixed. I just want to continue to do my job and would appreciate being allowed to do just that. If this continues further, I will be forced to seek other employment.

My faith in our government is failing quickly. Again, please work together to end this situation.

There are stories like that from all these Federal workers. More than 800,000 Federal workers are out of work during the government shutdown. It is not just the D.C. metro area that is affected, as you've heard. From Hawaii to Georgia, workers in regions all over the country rely heavily on the Federal Government. San Diego is the seventh-ranked city with a high share of Federal employees. We have 151,000 workers--10.9 percent of our workforce is affected by this government shutdown.

Obviously, the same is true in Colorado Springs, which is number one; Virginia Beach; Honolulu; the D.C. region; Ogden-Clearfield, Utah; El Paso; Augusta, Georgia; San Diego; and Charleston. Every one of those places has thousands of stories, just like the ones I have told.

It is important for us in D.C. to remember the effect that we are having in the real world. That has often been the biggest surprise for me, that when I leave my district and I've heard these stories and I come here, and we hear that people are talking in these terms of blame and calling each other names and not really doing credit to this institution, and far from solving the problems that have gotten us here.

I have heard a lot of people say: We don't want to shut the government down. Well, we don't have to. I have heard a lot of finger-pointing about who caused it.

But the fact is that today the power to reopen this government rests solely within the House of Representatives. We know what we have to do. We don't have to wait for the Senate, and we don't have to wait for the President. We can pass a continuing resolution, which is the resolution that funds the government only for 6 weeks or 10 weeks that the Senate has passed. We don't have to have any amendments or anything. We can do that today--or we can at least do it tomorrow--and all these people will be back to work and we can end these stories of fear and pain that are affecting our families and the businesses that they work for.

There has been a lot of yelling about attaching conditions to the continuing resolution. We have been voting on these really literally for weeks now. I am not going to add my voice to those, but I will just say that it seems that those have run their course. None of them has gotten anywhere.

I myself supported some of these conditions. In fact, earlier this year, I voted to delay the individual mandate to match the business mandate. That wasn't something that was popular in my party. I voted for that. But in the context of this continuing resolution, I supported the repeal of the medical device tax. It happens also to be one of my major legislative priorities. I think that is a bad way to fund any part of the government. That got some Democratic votes, but didn't get any support in the Senate.

Today, we got an email from the majority leader who said that ``House Republicans believe it is critical we continue to engage and offer meaningful solutions for the American people,'' which is why he said, on a bipartisan basis with a total of 57 different Democrats voting with us, we have passed bills to reopen the NIH, ensure that the National Guard and Reservists are paid, fund veterans benefits, reopen our national parks, and allow the District of Columbia to expend their local funds.

I voted for all these too. Most of my party didn't. But I thought we had one chance to open these areas up to make sure that they go back to work. It is not the best budgeting thing. I voted for them. But the point is they went nowhere. The Senate will not approve them. If the Senate approved them, the President wouldn't sign them.

So it is time to recognize that we have reached the end of this road and this is not getting us anywhere. We know that these things won't sell, we know that they won't get support in the Senate, and it is time to move on to a basic continuing resolution without amendment.

Now, I have heard people say--some of my colleagues on the other side--say: Well, we need to get something. I just point out that if you look at the numbers--and we all talk extensively about the need in general to control spending and lower our debt--the Senate approved spending until November at the Republican level.

President Obama's budget proposal was for $1.2 trillion. The Senate's budget was for $1.06 trillion, or about $2 trillion less. And the Senate approved a spending level of the continuing resolution at an annual rate of $986 billion. That is a cut of $72 billion from the Senate budget--that is 7 percent less than the Senate had proposed--and $217 billion less than the President's proposed budget, 18 percent.

So to say that you needed to get something, I think certainly at this point the Republicans have won the war over discretionary spending. Now, that is not a war that people are going to give up on. But in the continuing resolution, which we are asking to vote on, have a chance to vote on in the House, the Republicans number was the number used.

At this time, I would like to yield to my colleague from the State of Washington, Derek Kilmer, who serves with me on the Armed Services Committee and also on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

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Mr. PETERS of California. I thank the gentleman.

You talked about how we define ``success.'' I know you and I have spoken, as have many Members, about how we can get away with what we call ``success'' here.

So what happens--and what has happened in this context, too--is that a number of things will be proposed, and they won't go anywhere. Then what will happen is a bunch of finger-pointing will come after: well, I proposed this, and I voted for it and I voted against it. Imagine if you were a CEO of a company that made a product and that you said, I created a great product, and I think you'll really like it.

It sounds great to the CEO, and the CEO says, Oh, that sounds terrific. How many did you sell?

I didn't sell any, but they really should buy it.

That's what Congress is doing. That's kind of how we define ``success'' around here: well, I stuck them with a good bill even though no one's going to vote for it. Of course, in business or in your family, you'd actually have to listen to what the other side wanted if you wanted to reach a result that was a success. That's what ``success'' would be, and I thank you for pointing that out.

I would also say, on No Budget, No Pay, which I also supported, it was the concept that, if Congress doesn't do its job, we shouldn't get a paycheck. We were proud that day when we worked together with our Republican colleagues, and we passed No Budget, No Pay. We forced the Senate, controlled by Democrats, to pass the first budget that they passed in 4 years. That's all well and good unless we actually talk together. I saw a picture this week of Mr. Cantor and some of his colleagues waiting at a table for people to come have a conference. We've been waiting for that all year on this budget, and we came in good faith and tried to pass No Budget, No Pay. Wouldn't it be good if we could use this time or if we could use the next few weeks to sit down and actually hammer out a budget through that process, and this is the time to do it.

Before I turn it over to another colleague, I'll just remind my colleagues of the report from The

Washington Post last December regarding President Obama's budget proposal back then, which said that, for the first time, he is formally proposing to trim Social Security benefits--a GOP demand that is anathema to many Democrats; that he is also offering to make meaningful reductions in Medicare benefits, including higher premiums for couples making more than $170,000 a year; and that he visited each of the caucuses earlier this year and told the House Democrats, by the way, you can't take $3 out of Medicare for every dollar you put in. He said that our corporate tax rates were too high for our companies to compete internationally.

This has been going on all year, ladies and gentlemen, with no effort to negotiate at all because it's the leadership of the Speaker here who won't appoint conferees because, apparently, they're concerned about getting it. So we waited until this moment of crisis to talk about something that you and I have been waiting for all year.

With that, I would like to yield some time to my colleague from New Hampshire (Ms. Kuster).

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Mr. PETERS of California. I thank the gentlelady from New Hampshire. Again, you're absolutely right. All we have to do to get this started again is to put the Senate resolution before this House. We could vote on that tomorrow, and the government would be open immediately thereafter. I think obviously that's what we would all like to do.

I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Murphy).

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Mr. PETERS of California. I thank the gentleman from Florida.

I guess it is cold comfort to Joshua to hear that the House has been voting on these piecemeal approaches. I'm not saying that they were ill-motivated. Many of us supported them, but they're not working. It is time for us to learn the lesson, I believe, and I agree with you. Put the Senate resolution on the floor and open this government back up, and we can do our work in Congress that we were sent to do and we were paid to do without stopping the government. I think those comments were very well put, and I thank the gentleman.

The other thing we heard about, in addition to we need to get something or we need to sit down and talk, is the idea that we have to repeal or do away with the health care law. I would just say this about being a freshman. We weren't here for these votes. None of us cast a vote either way on the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, but we heard a lot of questions about it and

we took those questions very seriously. Most of us said we should try to fix them, but we're also realistic.

We've seen that the health care law was passed by Congress a few years ago, signed by the President; it was okayed by the Supreme Court, and it survived a number of additional repeal votes here in the House of Representatives. It appears that it's here to be with us to stay. It's been rolling out with mixed reports this week, but I think in many places people are finding hope that they can get affordable health care. Clearly, we have more work to do, and I stand here willing to help fix the Affordable Care Act to the extent we need it.

I've expressed my own concern about the medical device tax. I think that's something that should be repealed. There are others, like the Cadillac tax. I think we should provide new incentives for wellness. I think we should get out of the way of technology and encourage technology as an approach to lower costs. I'm willing to get to work on that.

That law took a long time to pass. It was very contentious. Those problems won't be solved to the satisfaction of the Congress or to the completion of the task within the time we're talking about while shutting the government down, so let's get to work and not hold the government up for that.

My final observation about this shutdown is that I feel I'm reminded of when I practiced law and I tried cases. I liked having a case with a good lawyer on the other side, because a good lawyer knew where he or she was going, and you could tell kind of what the strategy was and where you were going to end up. I feel, in this case, like I'm trying a case against a lawyer who is inexperienced or doesn't know what he's doing in the sense that I can't figure out where he's going. I'm hoping that if there is some resolution that can happen, we would love to be a part of it. I think it starts with passing the continuing resolution that the Senate passed and getting this government open right now.

I would like to close with a few comments on the other issue that we haven't gotten to, but I think it concerns me greatly. That's the debt ceiling. It's one thing to argue over the continuing resolution--we've been talking about that--and shutting down the government. That's a bad thing. It's something I hope we'll end soon. As I said before, it's something that's entirely within our power to do without the help of the Senate or the President. We just vote for that resolution that the Senate passed, and the government would be open tomorrow.

I hear talk about the debt ceiling as though it's the same thing. It is not. The debt ceiling is a dangerous tactic for negotiation. It's bad business, it's bad economics, and it's bad government.

First, I'd start by talking about what it's like to do business in this way, and it occurs to me that my parents must be asking themselves about the people who would play with the debt ceiling, Who raised these people?

What we're doing here with the debt ceiling, talking about not paying our debts, it's like getting the credit card bill, opening it up and seeing how much you bought, and deciding at that point, Well, no, I've got to control spending. I don't want to pay this. That's too late to have the discussion.

I remember my parents--my father is a minister. My mom stayed home, worked part time to help us with college. I have vivid memories of them laying out the bills on the dining room table to make sure they could figure out their cash flow, how they were going to pay each bill, what day of the month each bill was due. They made every payment because they always taught me about making sure you kept good credit. We know now about credit scores and how important it is to be on time, and families all over the country understand that kind of approach. For us to take this approach that we're not going to pay the debts that we've incurred is just the wrong way to do business, and it's terrible economics.

The Treasury reported this week:

With the government likely to exhaust its cash reserves around October 17, the Treasury said being forced into nonpayment of any of its obligations--and in particular, its debt--would spark turmoil in the financial markets and possibly send the country back to recession as deep as that of 2008 and 2009.

We know we've been coming out of that, but very slowly. We don't want to go back there.

In the event that a debt limit impasse were to lead to a default, it could have a catastrophic effect not just on financial markets but also on job creation, consumer spending, and economic growth.

Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.

This is not some political statement. This is what we're hearing from The Wall Street Journal, from the banking community, from the financial sector. They're saying stay away from this. CNNMoney said:

Forget the current government shutdown. Economists say it's the upcoming debt ceiling impasse that could plunge the Nation into a recession.

About half of the 22 economists surveyed by CNNMoney say a recession will be unavoidable if Congress fails to raise the Nation's debt ceiling before the Treasury runs out of cash later this month.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's not get to that point.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot mess with the debt ceiling. The government shutdown is bad enough. We're kind of playing around the edges. I urge that we put the Senate resolution before the House so we can vote on it and open this government tomorrow. Let us not touch, let us not play with the notion, let us not suggest to anyone that America won't pay the debts it's incurred.

Finally, from an article called ``After the Shutdown'' posted by James Surowiecki, I just offer this--he is speaking in partisan terms, but anyone who thinks this I think it applies to:

This is why the Republican approach to the debt ceiling is not, as people like Zeke J. Miller of Time have argued, the kind of hostage-taking that's a ``standard way of doing business in Washington.'' This is really an attempt to remake the legislative process itself and to do so by threatening to do something--default--that no one, including the people making the threat, believes to be in the best interest of the United States. We can't be sure of exactly what would happen if the U.S. stopped paying its bills, but at the very least it would lead to havoc in the bond market and the financial system (which depends on U.S. treasuries as risk-free collateral), higher interest rates, and an immediate hit to economic growth. It's not a road that anyone should want to go down.

Mr. Speaker, in my view, it is not a road we should even be considering going down. As bad as the continuing resolution is and the fight over the shutdown, I know that just behind us is a much more dangerous prospect, and I want to warn of that.

Finally, I suggest to folks that I have offered two bills that would provide an alternative and would help us deal with the national debt. They would work very simply. When debt was declining as a percentage of the economy, which means we have it under control, the debt ceiling would adjust without a vote, payments would go out; and when debt started to increase as a percentage of the economy, which means we're not having it under control--we all understand that long-term debt can't continue to rise as a percentage of the economy without hurting our economic future. In that case, we need a mechanism to do something more than just yell at each other and call each other names, which I know the freshmen that were with me tonight are still amazed that that's what happens here, but that's what happens way too often.

We need a mechanism to force a discussion of really how to manage the debt. And our bill would provide that, if we are in the condition where debt's rising as a percentage of GDP and the President and the leaders of Congress didn't do anything about it, which is a condition we find ourselves in today, then individual Members, Mr. Speaker, would be able to propose their own measures without the blessing of leadership but with the sponsorship of only 50 of their colleagues to force a discussion on how to manage that debt and get it under control. Now that's just one idea. But at this point, I think it's the only idea on the table to actually avoid this in a constructive way.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to offer some thoughts on these issues with my colleagues. And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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