Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was happy to yield to the Senator from Virginia because I know this issue of the government shutdown is particularly acute in Virginia and in the State of Maryland, but we feel it all across the United States of America.

Just a few minutes ago, I was on the phone with Dr. Scott Gottlieb of the Food and Drug Administration, and I asked him: What is the impact of the Trump shutdown on the Food and Drug Administration? Dr. Gottlieb was very explicit. He said that the area that was hardest hit was food safety.

Food safety is a responsibility that was assumed by the Federal Government over 100 years ago after publication of the novel ``The Jungle'' by Upton Sinclair. We decided to create a Federal Agency with the responsibility of inspecting food so that people across America would not suffer foodborne illness or worse.

We have a great Agency, and it does a great job when it is fully funded operationally, but the fact is, over 40 million Americans will end up with a food illness in any given year, and over 3,000 will die. The responsibility of this Agency is not some bureaucratic function; it is quite literally a life-and-death responsibility.

I asked Dr. Gottlieb: What does the government shutdown do to the Food and Drug Administration when it comes to food safety? He said: We have had to suspend operations at the highest risk food operations.

I asked him for an illustration, and he said: For example, the facilities that make baby food, high-risk food inspection responsibilities at the FDA. He said: We decided we had to call back 150 employees to make sure that we resume inspections at these high- risk facilities, such as those that make baby food.

Thank goodness.

He told me he has a problem. Here is the problem. The people he is going to call back are in the lower income categories of Federal employees. Many of them are making a decent wage, but only a decent wage, and, certainly, they are not wealthy by any stretch, nor do they have savings to turn to.

He said: I have to call back these folks who are literally out of work because of the government shutdown--some of whom have applied for unemployment compensation--and tell them they have to come to work. Commissioner Gottlieb said: When I declare them essential, that is the law. They have to return to work and come here for no pay.

We have an important responsibility of the government, food safety, which is now being ignored--or I should say diminished--because of the shutdown, and as they try to resume some part of it, Commissioner Gottlieb has the awful responsibility of trying to pick those employees who will be hurt the least if they are called back to work.

This is America. This is the U.S.A. This is a great country, perhaps one of the greatest in the history of the world, and this is where we stand when it comes to making certain that baby food is safe for American families across the United States. Now we have to pick and choose those who will be asked to come to work for nothing to perform that function.

That is not the only area that he mentioned. He went on to talk about areas that are not covered by user fees. You see, some of the pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies actually pay for inspections. As long as user fees are coming in, the inspections continue. But it doesn't apply to every aspect when it comes to medicine. For example, when it comes to compounding medicines, which is done at the State level, primarily, the Federal Government has a responsibility in some areas to make sure that those medicines are safe. Do you recall a few years ago, in the State of Massachusetts, when the compounding standards were lax and innocent people died because the injections they were given were not sterile? Those are exactly the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration. They are the responsibilities that are not being met as they are supposed to be met today because of this government shutdown.

If you think this is just about a lot of bureaucrats who are not showing up to work and are sitting by some swimming pool, you are dead wrong. These are people who are doing important things for America and keeping us safe in the process.

There is also one other thing I want to mention to you. If you are in the midst of a clinical trial to approve a new drug--an important drug for someone whose life depends on it--the clinical trials continue through the government shutdown. But if you completed your trials and you want to make an application to sell this drug in America, you are stopped cold by this government shutdown. Commissioner Gottlieb says we can't processes these. Those potential lifesaving drugs have to sit on the shelf because of the government shutdown, which this President has proudly declared he believes is in the best interest of America. Tell that to the families who are waiting for that drug. Tell that to the people who labored for years to get it ready for market--that they just have to wait until the President is ready to move.

I was there yesterday. I was at the meeting of the leaders with the President, Vice President, and members of his Cabinet. It was not a long meeting. I think it lasted 17 minutes. The President came in and distributed candy bars to the people who were in attendance, and then started his speech. It basically came down to this: Unless you are prepared to give me this wall, I will keep the government shut down. That is what he said. When we made it clear that the government shutdown should not be a bargaining chip in this process, the President stood up after 17 minutes, and said: This is a total waste, turned, and, in a fit of pique, left the room. To me, that was a sad moment in the history of this country, when the Chief Executive of the U.S. Government, a man who was elected to manage and lead our government, has voluntarily shut down important and critical functions of that government for a political purpose. He is not serving the American people as he was elected to serve.

The victims, of course, will not be the President and his family, nor many of the people who were in that room. It will be the 800,000 Federal employees who are victims of the shutdown. It will be half of them who are showing up for work today with no pay and will not receive a paycheck over the weekend.

Many of us will travel home over the weekend and go through an airport. We will go through the TSA inspection, as all passengers do, to make sure we travel safely on airplanes. It is tough to look those TSA agents in the eye because we know what is happening. Many of them, barely making enough money to get by--paycheck to paycheck--will not receive a paycheck this weekend. I called a group of them together at the O'Hare Airport on Tuesday. We held a press conference. I asked them to explain what this means to you. They talked about being unable to come up with the money to pay for gasoline to drive back and forth to work 39 miles each way. They talked about the difficulties the families are going to face when it comes to daycare for their children. What are they going to do with their kids if they are coming to work for no pay and they can't pay the daycare service? For those who have mortgage and rental payments, some real consequences can follow. If you fail to make that mortgage payment on a timely basis, you may face an increase on the interest rate on your mortgage, and you may even face a downgrade on your credit rating.

That is the real world for people who don't live in the White House. That is the real world for the victims of this prideful shutdown, which President Trump believes is in the best interest of this country. He is wrong. It is in the best interest of this country to open this government. It is in the best interest of Democrats and Republicans to sit down together and work out our differences when it comes to border security. We are all dedicated to border security. We just see it differently. We have to find middle ground to come to a conclusion on this important issue.

The last point I want to make is this. I am concerned that the majority leader--the Republican leader, Senator McConnell--has made it clear that he is waiting for a permission slip from President Trump to be the leader of the Senate. We are a separate and proud branch of government. We are given authority under this Constitution which the President does not have. We do not wait for a permission slip from him to exercise that constitutional authority. The votes to pass these appropriations bills, I believe, are on the floor of the Senate today, and that is what has led Senator McConnell to the conclusion that he wouldn't dare call the bill. I think there are enough Republican Senators who have spoken to me privately who are ready to step forward and say: End this mindless shutdown. They are ready to vote for the spending bills. Will it reach 67 to override a Presidential veto? It just might do that. But let's test it by being the Senate under the Constitution, not by waiting for a permission slip from President Trump to exercise the constitutional responsibilities which each of us swore to uphold when we became Members of this important body.

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