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Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. I appreciate all his efforts.

I have worked on a number of bills with the Senator from Wisconsin. We would like to continue to work on this bill as well as we go forward. But, unfortunately, I still have some concerns about the way that the bill has been drafted so far. Those are things that I think we can work out and want to work out. We have been going back and forth with our staff.

I am concerned that Senator Johnson's bill still leaves too much discretion up to President Trump. There is too much wiggle room for the administration to basically pick and choose which Federal employees are paid and when.

I am also deeply concerned that this would allow the administration to actually transfer this money to other purposes that are unintended by Congress, which, unfortunately, we have seen happen repeatedly in this administration.

I believe there are ways that we can put in guardrails. There are ways we can get to that, but we are just not there yet. I certainly ask indulgence from my colleague from Wisconsin. We sent another proposal over to his staff. We can work on this quickly and try to figure out how we get there.

In the meantime, I have also introduced a bill that would pay Federal employees just for this shutdown, without the additional powers sent to the administration. It is basically a clean bill--no additional language, no complications, no wondering, what does this actually mean? It is very straightforward.

My Military and Federal Employee Protection Act would ensure that all Federal employees receive the pay they certainly deserve, allowing them to pay their bills on time this month.

I have asked Senator Johnson to support my very simple proposal, which I think accomplishes most everything he wants to do, with the exception of things about giving the administration more power. I think we can agree on that. We can pay our troops and our Federal employees, period. That would be my goal.

I will continue to work to this end and to work to end this government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis, but in the meantime, we must protect our hard-working Federal employees.

My bill is very straightforward. We could agree to that right now, and it is done. Federal employees are going to get paid without all the other extraneous language in the Senator's bill.

Therefore, I ask that the Senator modify his request so that, instead, the Appropriations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3043 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. PETERS. Madam President, to the Senator from Wisconsin, I know he and I have worked on a lot of issues. That is not in question here. We do have questions with some of the language in this bill just to make sure that we have guardrails.

I want to pay Federal employees. That is why I have the bill that is on the floor right now that I am trying to move. It will pay Federal employees. It will pay contractors as well. The Senator's is not doing that, I understand. But everybody who is being shorted right now should be paid, and that is what my legislation does. So we could do that.

You know, I am happy if the Senator wants to take my legislation and put his name on it. I will support it, and we will pass it right now and send it there, and people are going to get paid. So if the Senator really wants to do that, we could do that today.

Does the Senator want me just to put his name on this bill and then we will pass it? It would be fine to do that.

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Mr. PETERS. Excuse me.

In reclaiming my time, we can make that happen, and if the Senator puts it on the floor later, we will go through the process. I would hope that he and I, during that process, can work on language to perhaps address some of the concerns that I have. It is not that we pay people. That is not my concern. I wouldn't be offering this legislation here today if I were concerned about that. I want to pay them. Labor unions support my bill too--no surprise. They are getting paid. And that is why I have introduced this.

This is not a political game. I hope we get this shutdown open. I hope we are able to find common ground and say that we want to lower the cost so Americans have affordable healthcare, and we don't want to see their premiums go up and people lose insurance. I hope we can do that. It is not a game. I don't see this as leverage.

Now, a President who refuses to release SNAP funds to feed people-- now, that is what is irresponsible and reprehensible leverage. Money is available to feed people right now, and this President is saying no. The court has ordered him to put that money into food, and he says: I am going to appeal it.

That is absolutely despicable, that the President of the United States wants to starve children in order to get his way.

We have to move beyond that. We have to find common ground. I hope we can find common ground in this bill. My bill is just plain, simple, clean, no games, no other language. We know we have to have guardrails when we have a lawless President. We had better put some guardrails in. He walks over Congress all the time. My colleagues on the Republican side just let him walk over Congress all the time.

I don't know why you ran for office if you just want to be run over by a President. We are a coequal branch of government. We are here to represent the people of our States. So let's work together and be thoughtful about this and understand that if Congress puts this law forward, it actually goes the way we want, and we don't have a President who basically thumbs his nose at Members of the Senate and the House and does what he wants, and he knows the Republicans will say: Oh, well. That is fine. We are just here to rubberstamp. That is what we are here for.

So let's hope we can work together to get this right and pay employees. They should be. They have a right to that. I think we can do this, and we can get together and get beyond the rhetoric and games from the leader, that I heard. It is also on this side as well.

So let's work together. Let's open up this government. Let's end this shutdown. Let's make sure people have affordable healthcare in this country. Let's make sure our own employees get paid. Let's do all of that this weekend. I am on board for all of that. Hopefully, we can get that done.

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Mr. PETERS. Madam President, Republicans have repeatedly said that they will not negotiate reforms to the healthcare law credits until the government reopens.

I will tell you right now that all my colleagues on this side of the aisle definitely want to open government, and we want to do it as soon as possible. We are also willing to respect Leader Thune's desire to negotiate after the shutdown.

So Democrats are offering today a very simple, straightforward compromise, and if Republicans accept this, we could open the government today. Wouldn't that be fabulous--show that we can come together with a commonsense, bipartisan compromise and open government.

All we have to do is have a 1-year extension of the existing law dealing with tax credits; and over the next year, we can figure out a long-term solution to the healthcare challenge that we are facing as a country.

This proposal opens the government and ensures that families who are shopping right now for their healthcare can get immediate financial relief at a time when costs are driving families to make incredibly difficult financial decisions.

And we believe that, while we are trying to figure out a long-term solution to the healthcare crisis, people should not be penalized, people should not be suffering. Give the relief that they need now, and over the next year we will work together to find a more comprehensive solution.

We know that right now our Nation has experienced a healthcare crisis where costs are skyrocketing and too many Americans are risking losing their coverage. Too many Americans are struggling to choose between food or gas or healthcare. And it is not just Americans in blue States; let's be clear. Families in every State across the country are paying these prices. Every one of us has families that are experiencing this now in our States. But we can take action today to give our constituents some immediate financial relief and prevent them from being priced out of the insurance market.

We all want to end the shutdown. We want to ensure that government services can continue, and we want to ensure our hard-working Federal employees get the pay that they have earned. But Democrats have made clear since day one that in order to get the votes that Republicans need, we must address the healthcare crisis--because the American people have made it clear they want Congress to take action on this issue. It is literally life or death for far too many American families.

I know many of my Republican colleagues want to work on this issue too. I have had conversations with so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who want to try to figure out how we fix this. But they have said repeatedly, ``We won't negotiate until government reopens.'' Leader Thune has said:

[G]ive us the votes to open up the government. Then we will have a conversation about some of these issues that you want to discuss. And I think health care is certainly something that we are anxious to talk about.

And perhaps, most importantly, even President Trump has said he would be happy to work with Democrats on healthcare policies but only once the government is reopened.

Well, I agree with my Republican colleagues: It is not realistic to reform a major policy, major healthcare policy, in just a few days. It is not going to happen. And I respect Leader Thune and President Trump's desire to work on this when the government has reopened. I am willing to compromise on that. My colleagues are willing to compromise on this. It is something that can be done today if we need to. But our Republican colleagues have to be willing to compromise too. Compromise is a two-way street.

We want them to show us that these are not just empty words, that they really are willing to compromise and they do want to take action. So that is why we put forward this very simple proposal: Extend the tax credits for 1 year. We are not asking to make any major changes to the current law; just extend that and protect people who are suffering right now and are hurting. We are just asking to keep the credits in place for 1 year so that families can see some immediate financial relief from the costs that are going through the roof, so that they can make important decisions about buying their healthcare right now--right now--during open enrollment.

This is live. People are dealing with this situation as we speak. We can fix this. If we care about making sure families can afford their healthcare, we should all agree on that. We should get 100 votes here for people to say: We are going to do everything we can to protect healthcare for Americans. And we can do that right now, and we can open up government right now. We can pay employees. We can move this country forward if we do that. All we need is a very simple extension of a law that has already existed for some time.

We know from the start that any deal will ultimately have to be a compromise. It doesn't have to be unanimous. There will be likely folks on both sides that may feel uncomfortable with this, and I get that. That is the way this place works.

But our proposal would try to work in a bipartisan way by creating a bipartisan committee that will continue negotiations on reforms ahead of next year's enrollment process so we are not pulling the rug out from underneath families. We are going to do it ahead of time so folks know exactly what to expect going forward.

I am telling the Presiding Officer now, if we vote for this compromise today, we could open up government. This could all be behind us. Families could get some certainty for their future, for the next year, while we look at long-term solutions; the government can open. But it takes all of us just to say: We are willing to compromise for the good of the country.

My colleagues are standing here saying: We are willing to compromise for the good of the country.

I just hope my Republican colleagues agree.

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Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me first say that there is something we all agree on, Democrats and Republicans, here in this Chamber. We want Federal employees to be paid. It is simply unacceptable that they have to work and come to work every day, do their job, and not get paid. That is why we have to end this shutdown as quickly as possible, and we are focused on doing that.

But that is not really exactly the total story behind the Johnson bill. I have legislation to pay Federal employees. We could vote on that now. I offered it in a UC request to my colleague from Wisconsin that said we have a bill to pay all Federal employees right now, no strings attached, no language that gives the President more power, more flexibility to do things that we should not want him to do.

But my Republican colleagues don't want to have that bill.

Senator Van Hollen, another colleague of mine, has a bill to pay them that has complete support of Democrats. Let's pay them. We have two bills that if we put them on the floor right now, we could pass. If my Republican friends want to do it, we could pass with 100 votes.

It is my bill, but any of you can sign it. I offer it to my colleague from Wisconsin. It could be your bill. Do it. I don't need any authorship of it. But it is a bill that does exactly what my colleagues across the aisle are saying: just pay Federal employees. That is what it would do, but it was rejected.

Why?

There is a little bit more in this bill. The Johnson bill before us actually creates an unlimited and permanent slush fund for President Trump to use. You are not going to get support here from us to transfer what should be congressional power to be able to determine when we want money spent, and it actually gets spent the way it should be.

It is not about passing a slush fund to the President. The President could justify the transfer of this money elsewhere. This is something, clearly, the administration wants because it will give the White House more power. The bill adds Presidential authority by omitting--it omits the regular safeguards that we include in normal funding bills to ensure that money actually goes where Congress intends.

We have been seeing a lot of that. The President, basically, is just thumbing his nose at Congress every day. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues say that is OK. If the President doesn't want to listen to the Congress, that is OK with them.

We are a coequal branch of government. We are elected by the people back home to represent our people as Senators. We are not here just to rubberstamp a President.

A lot of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, I am surprised at, because there are a lot of really great people that I have a lot of respect for. And yet we see the President constantly run over Congress, and it is crickets on the other side. There is no pushback from my Republican colleagues, either here in the Senate or in the House.

There is actually, in this bill, there is no explicit guarantee or requirement to actually pay out this money. The administration could sit on this appropriation. We are just a blank-check appropriation for employees, but the administration could just sit on it for some particular programs they don't like.

That is why, in a normal appropriations bill, we put in language to prevent that. Granted, the President has been ignoring Congress, but at least we put it in saying these are the rules.

Congress has the power of the purse. It is article I of the Constitution, and yet a lot of my colleagues don't seem to take that to heart.

Most approps bills, including the House's continuing resolution proposal, actually include restrictions on how funding should be used. The Johnson bill includes no restrictions--no restrictions.

We know that Trump has shown that he will abuse the budget process in very novel ways. He has said that he will refuse to pay backpay to workers even when Congress has explicitly set it. This bill, hopefully, does address that. He has transferred money illegally to pay for his political priorities, and he impounds money whenever he finds any kind of wiggle room to do that.

In a sense, this bill is a Trojan horse. It says that we are going to help Federal employees, but it is really continued power for the President.

I have heard my colleagues say that Federal employees are being used as pawns. That is what this bill does. It is using Federal employees as pawns to give the OMB and the President a whole lot more power to use a slush fund of money in any way he chooses.

We know OMB Director Russ Vought likes this bill. We know what Russ Vought is about. In fact, I think there was a leaked speech that Russ Vought had, and we mentioned this in the committee.

I appreciate my colleagues saying how wonderful Federal workers are, but this is what the OMB Director said, who says this is a really good bill, that the Johnson bill is a really good bill. He said that he wants the bureaucrats to be affected by trauma.

When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. . . . We want to put them in trauma.

I hope my Republican colleagues called out Mr. Vought when he said that because you care so much about our employees. I appreciate that.

But when folks in the administration say things like this, please say that is wrong; that we really do care about you--not when you are trying to put a bill forward that is going to give the President an unlimited slush fund.

Let's be real. If you want to pay employees, which I hope you do, and if you want to move forward, then take a bill that we know has the kind of guardrails that our appropriations bills normally do to make sure the money is actually spent as we intend in Congress, which is the way it is supposed to work under article I of the Constitution.

I still believe in the Constitution. I still believe that we are a coequal branch of government, that we are not simply a rubberstamp for the President. If we don't change that way, that is how you lose the checks and balances that our Founders cared so deeply about.

You know, as our Founders were debating the Constitution, they didn't trust any of us. They knew; they were politicians too. They knew you couldn't trust anybody. So they figured: We are going to have three branches. We are going to have the judiciary check the Congress and the President. The Congress will check the Presidential power.

Article I is the Congress. They thought the Congress was the most important one. But they kind of assumed that the Congress would actually exercise its power and check Presidential power, not just hand more to him with a smile and then use a false pretext in order to give that money. So that is what this bill is about.

You know, I have tried to work with Senator Johnson, and I will always want to work with him. We have worked on a number of bills together. We have language.

Again, of the bills we have that I have introduced, which is the Military and Federal Employee Protection Act--a straight, clean bill. They talk about union support. Every union has supported my legislation. Every union has supported Senator Van Hollen's.

We are now getting unions. Unions are starting to read the fine print on this bill right now. We have AFSCME that has now come out against it. We have the SEIU that has just come out against it. We have the AFL-CIO that has just come out against it. We have the IFPTE that is just coming out. I guess our union friends are going to read the language of this bill and are going to be like: Oh, we should have read the fine print.

Like, yes, it is really important to read the fine print.

So we can't support this bill. We can support a bill that pays all of our employees, but it has got to be one that has the types of protections we have in every other appropriations bill we try to pass out of this body.

So I am going to oppose this, but hopefully we can find a way to work together. We have two bills ready to go that we could pass today, but with this bill, we are going to object.

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