Default Prevention Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I received an email this morning from an old friend. He is the father of a disabled veteran. This veteran is a quadriplegic--a victim of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He has gone through multiple surgeries. At some point most people would have given up on him. In fact, they even talked about, at the age of 24, his being sent to a nursing home for the rest of his life. His father said: No, we are not going to let that happen to our son. He brought him to Chicago, where he received extraordinary treatment at the Rehabilitation Institute, and he started his slow, steady climb back to life. He is home now. He is a father, married, has two small children, and his mom and dad live with him to help out. The people in the community he lives in--it is not in Illinois, it is in North Carolina--have been so generous, building the perfect home for him and his wheelchair and giving him as many opportunities as he could possibly enjoy in his life.

This is a great story of a great family and a great American hero. But his father wrote me an email today and said: We are worried. We are worried about the November disability check. Senator, we need it. We need that check.

I wrote back to him and I said: I will move Heaven and Earth and do everything I can to make sure that payment is made.

And I believe it will be made. Somehow, it will be made. But I had to tell him that we are facing an unnecessary crisis in America created by politicians on Capitol Hill.

Shutting down the government of the United States of America? What does that say about our Nation? What does it say about us in the Senate and the House that we have reached this point, that we are deciding today on the four or five bills that just passed the House? The House has decided what little agency of government, what little spending program they will approve each day--each day. It is estimated it will take them almost 2 1/2 months to fully fund the government at this pace--2 1/2 months of uncertainty as they decide day by day what little program, what little agency they will reopen. Well, that is just plain wrong, and every time they have offered that, we have said to them: Open the government. It is essential.

There was a story 2 or 3 days ago about five American families who were notified that they had lost their sons and daughters, who were killed in Afghanistan. Traditionally, the U.S. Government comes through quickly after that tragic information is shared with the family and gives them a financial helping hand to arrange for them to come to Dover, DE, for the arrival and return of their fallen hero. But because of the government shutdown brought on by the Republicans, there was a question as to whether we could even make that payment.

Luckily, a charity stepped forward--Fisher House. This is an extraordinary charity that does so many great things for veterans who are disabled and need help. They said: We are going to step in and help these families until the government gets its act together, until the politicians reopen the government.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced yesterday this new development. Well, God bless the Fisher House charity, but it shouldn't have been necessary. If we had done our job, it wouldn't be necessary; the government would be open; this family whom I love, with this disabled veteran, wouldn't be worried about that next check if we simply did the responsible thing and opened the government.

Then there is a second issue which, although hard to believe, is even larger in scope. The Republicans refuse to give us a chance to extend the debt ceiling of America. What is the debt ceiling? This morning I listened as the minority leader said it is raising the credit card limit. No, it isn't. That is not an accurate statement. It is raising the authority of our government to borrow money to pay for what we have already spent. Many of the same politicians who voted for the spending bills now don't want to pay for them. They do not want to extend this debt ceiling--the credit of the United States. That is totally irresponsible. It is like ordering the biggest meal on the menu and then refusing to pay when the bill comes. That is where they stand. That is what they are arguing.

But it gets even worse. It will be the first time in the history of the United States of America that we will have defaulted on our national debt--the first time we have called into question the full faith and credit of the United States of America. How serious is that? Let me tell you how serious it is. Pick up the morning paper. ``World leaders fear a default by U.S.'' in the Washington Post. I read it, and it says:

That default scenario is bringing increasingly urgent pleas from foreign leaders, some who describe their grave concern, others who chide the United States about the risks of political brinkmanship, beg its leaders to act responsibly and wonder whether the world's superpower is showing some cracks.

Now, are you ready for this? Do you know who was preaching to us yesterday about responsibility in governing the United States of America? Are you ready for this? This is a quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin:

This is highly important for all of us. I am hopeful that all the political forces in the United States will be able to resolve this crisis as quickly as possible.

So now we are being preached to by President Putin about how to run a country. Well, that is embarrassing, and it is totally unnecessary. The failure to extend the debt limit of the United States is irresponsible and reckless.

It isn't only the Russians who are calling us to task but our closest ally, the United Kingdom. This is what an analyst in London's financial district had to say:

The outlook for the British economy is decent but still fairly fragile. Anything like a U.S. debt default with significant global repercussions would be bad news for the U.K.

That is a quote from Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight in London.

The Japanese, now emerging from a terrible economic circumstance, one of our greatest creditors, are worried about their debtor, the United States, paying its debts. Is anyone else embarrassed by this? We all should be. This is the creation of politicians in Washington.

The Republican shutdown, the Republican refusal to extend the debt ceiling is irresponsible and reckless. It will not only hurt these foreign nations, it will not only hurt the reputation of the United States as an economic leader in the world, it is going to hurt families and businesses all over the United States. But don't take the word of this Democratic Senator; go to the Business Roundtable, one of the strongest supporters of the Republicans in Congress. They sent us a letter last week and called the default on America's debt catastrophic, begging Republicans and Democrats not to do anything this senseless.

What impact will it have on families? Hold on tight. Watch what happens as we get up to this cliff or go over it when it comes to the debt ceiling. You can follow it every day. If you have a mutual fund, if you own a stock, if you have a savings account, or if you have a retirement account, you can watch it melt away as the politicians give their speeches on Capitol Hill.

It is totally irresponsible and reckless.

We need to open this government. We need to pay our bills. We can sit down and negotiate everything and anything--that is the offer that has been made--only after we have met our responsibilities.

Let me also add that Speaker Boehner said last week and some of us were relieved to hear it: There will never be a default on America's debt. He followed that up within 24 hours with a list of nonnegotiable conditions before he would agree to that. That is not responsible. It is reckless. It is reckless political conduct. How can we do this to the families, to businesses, to the farmers, and to our allies around the world?

It is time to say, as the Chaplain of the Senate did yesterday, enough is enough. It is time for grownups to stand up on the other side of the aisle and join grownups on this side of the aisle to do the right thing: Open the government, pay our bills, sit down, and honestly negotiate through these issues. We don't have much time. October 17 is the deadline. Today is October 10. We have 1 week before the bottom falls out of our economy and the economies around the world.

I listened to economists on the other side, the so-called really conservative economists, say: It really doesn't matter. We can default. We really don't need to extend our debt ceiling. These flat-earth economists are the same folks who are in denial when it comes to other scientific evidence in so many other areas, whether it is climate change or evolution--you pick it. They are entitled to their views, as fringe as they may be, as extreme as they may be. But to think that Members of Congress, Members of the Senate are buying this line of baloney is hard to understand and impossible to justify to the American people.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. DURBIN. I would ask a question through the Chair.

I say through the Chair, I think what we did here was the right thing to do, and I am sorry, I am painfully sorry that this government shutdown is hurting so many innocent people. It could come to an end with one decision by the Speaker to call one bill on the floor of the House. He refuses to do so. So we are trying to put out these little fires and spare the American people the pain and injustice that is coming about as a result of this shutdown. But I would say to the Senator from Texas that even the Veterans' Administration bill passed by the House fails to fund some critical areas for veterans. It does not fund the appeals process for veterans disability claims. Those have stopped. Secondly, it doesn't fund the cemetery rights of veterans who are seeking to be buried in national cemeteries. While we pay for funerals, the people who prepare the grave sites and such are not being paid. It doesn't have the Department of Labor program to hire unemployed veterans coming home. That is not funded. The HUD program for homeless veterans is not being funded. The notion that we are somehow taking care of veterans with the House action is far from true.

The last point I wish to make is that over 500,000 Federal employees are actually veterans. Many of them are furloughed today. One-fourth of all employee veterans are disabled. Many of them are furloughed today.

If we really care about veterans, opening the government to make sure all of these agencies are serving our veterans seems to me to be a reasonable approach. I ask if the Senator agrees.

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Mr. DURBIN. I would make several points.

First, I was with an Honor Flight group at the World War II Memorial last week, a great bunch of World War II veterans who came in from Illinois, and it didn't surprise me one bit--there was no barricade stopping these veterans. They were on their way to their memorial, and they went.

The reason why there was any question about this memorial and access was because of the decision by the Republicans to shut down the government.

I was going to remind the Senator of Texas, who is a learned attorney and a former Texas Supreme Court justice, of the story we were told in law school. It was an anecdotal story, an apocryphal story of someone who killed both his parents, went to the courtroom, and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.

In this situation we have our Republican friends lamenting the impact of a government shutdown on World War II veterans coming to Washington, and on these tragic stories of families who have lost someone they love in combat. But all of this is unnecessary. All of it could have been avoided if the Republican Speaker of the House would call one bill for a vote which he knows will pass. It would open the government. That is the simple and honest answer.

This notion we are going to have a series of small appropriations to fund our government--all of the appropriations bills that have been called so far and passed the House amount to about 18 percent of the discretionary domestic budget. At this pace, the House only has to pass 79 more bills to open our government. We think at this pace it will only take them about 2 1/2 months to do it. Is that any way to run a great Nation? It isn't.

We need to open our government, serve our people, spare them the injustice and pain which comes from this Republican shutdown.

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