Default Prevention Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. I know the hour is getting late. The passage of this bill is nigh, and so I will be brief, but I wish to make a few points.
First, this is hardly a day of exultation and happiness. The sad truth is that we have ended just where we started. When we began several weeks ago, our goal was simple: Open the government, pay our bills, and then let's negotiate. The proposal that will be before us shortly does just that and no more. We open the government. We pay our bills. Then we can sit down and negotiate. But along the way, many people have been hurt. Millions of people didn't get paychecks. The economy has been dented, and the civility in Washington--whatever was left of it--evaporated. So to say this is a good day because one party might be doing better than another--no. It is a day that is, in a certain sense, grim. We have finally achieved our goal--the same place where we started--but at a cost. It never should have been this way.
Second, I wish to salute two of our leaders. I salute our Democratic leader and my dear friend Harry Reid. From the beginning he was stalwart. He led with his strength. He said that we cannot govern in a way where any faction says: Unless we get our way, we will hurt the American people by closing down the government, by letting us default. He said: We cannot stand for that any longer. We have had enough of that in Washington, and we are not going to bend to that type of awful politics.
He stood firm. He stood strong. He didn't waiver. Tonight we are passing the bill that he sought and we sought 3 weeks ago.
I would also like to salute the Republican leader Senator McConnell. We all know he has a difficult political situation. We all know it would have been easier for him to duck. We all know that when it became clear the House of Representatives was so tied in a knot that it couldn't function, it couldn't pass any bill, Leader McConnell stepped up for the good of the Nation and showed courage. He deserves our thanks as well.
Finally, I will make one more point. If there is a silver lining that can come out of this gray cloud, it is that perhaps, moving forward, the politics of brinkmanship, of confrontation has reached its peak in this body and in this country.
We have seen that a small faction in either House, when it says ``my way or no way,'' when it says ``I am going to do such hurt to innocent people that you will have to succumb to me''--we saw they failed, hopefully with large bipartisan votes, certainly in this Chamber and perhaps in the other. And we have seen that many on both sides of the aisle have come together and said: We are not going to go along with this type of politics, from wherever it comes.
Perhaps when January 15 and February 7 come about, we will not see a repeat of what we have seen these last few weeks because it has been repudiated by the vast majority in this body and in the other body and certainly by the American people, a very small percentage of whom supported the politics of brinkmanship--the reckless, irresponsible politics of brinkmanship that some have exercised over the last few weeks.
So that would be the silver lining in this cloud, that we can go back to the old way of legislating where we sit down, we talk over our differences, we negotiate, and we come to a conclusion for the good of America, the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it. They did not envision what happened here in the last 3 weeks, and it was not America's finest moment. But out of this great darkness can come some light--the desire on both sides of the aisle, of the majority of both parties to say: Enough brinkmanship. Let's sit down, let's negotiate, and let's move forward so this great country will be led by its government instead of pulled down by its government. That is my fervent wish.
After these last 3 weeks we are ending where we started, unfortunately, and people have been hurt as that happened. But perhaps the lessons of the last 3 weeks will sink in amongst us all and we will not see a repeat of what has happened.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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