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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I appreciate that my colleagues from Wisconsin and Michigan are striving to find a path to make sure that folks are paid. Folks who are working should be paid, and folks who are furloughed should be paid. But here is the problem with the proposal from my colleague from Wisconsin, and that is, we have a President right now who is violating the Constitution.

Every time you hear the President of the United States say ``Hey, I am ending that program because it is not in alignment with my priorities'' or a Cabinet member say ``We are going to kill those grants because they are not in alignment with the President's priorities,'' what you are hearing is an authoritarian statement in violation of the Constitution.

So, in recognition, we have an out-of-control tyrant in the Oval Office who is violating the Constitution. We have a responsibility right here to defend the Constitution, and that is exactly why my colleague from Michigan put those protections into the bill. If you have a President who chooses what programs are funded and not, that is an authoritarian country, and that is what we have right now.

The whole vision of our Nation was founded on these Senators and these House Members coming from different districts and different States, with different life experiences and different geographic interests, and bringing them to forge a consensus or forge a vision of how to address the challenges in every part of our Nation, not to have one person down Pennsylvania Avenue who knows a little bit about New York and a little bit about Florida and who has a certain one point of view be a tyrant.

Martial law would be empowered by the proposal from Wisconsin, and that is why my colleague from Michigan was absolutely right to ensure we here in the Senate defend the Constitution. Recognition of the Minority Leader

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, all across our country, in every congressional district, in every corner of every State, families are suffering. They are taking a look at what it is going to cost to buy healthcare for this coming year. And they are going: Wow. I won't be able to afford that. I guess I will go without.

And we know what happens when people go without healthcare. And this is clearly not something that is a blue issue or a red issue; it is an issue for every family, affordable, quality healthcare.

And I know that is not just a concern held by Democratic Senators; it is a concern held by Republican Senators. So we have a common desire, Democrats and Republicans together, to address this concern. I think about some of the folks who have written in from my home State, and I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are getting the same letters, the same phone calls. Erik in Corvallis got a letter that his insurance premium is exploding from $183 to--get this--$1,588. Wow. That is roughly a sevenfold increase.

I heard from Leah in Eugene whose monthly payment is going from $462 to $1,438, a threefold increase.

And Stacey in Lincoln City is seeing an increase from $1,300 to about $3,200, almost a $2,000 increase.

So those stories are everywhere in our country. And there is so much work we can do on healthcare together. The President has said: Let's negotiate on those complex issues after the government is opened.

And those complex issues, they may be things like the cost-sharing reduction program, they may be things like how do we lower the cost of drugs so we don't pay more for drugs than the folks in Canada across the border to the north pay for their drugs or the folks in England or Australia or Japan.

We can work together on strategies to see where there is waste in the system or are there scams and scandals in the system? Let's shine the light on them, and let's fix them after the government reopens.

Well, let's just do this one piece, extend one particular tax provision that is in law now for this coming year, so there is immediate relief for folks who are getting on the internet at this very moment and going: Oh, my goodness. I can't afford that--the Eriks, the Leahs, the Staceys that exist in every corner of every State.

I have been hearing from small businesses, and they have been saying that Main Street is ``Pain Street.'' Why? Because so many of the small businesses in my State, and I am sure in every State, go to the ACA exchange in order to buy insurance. And so they are reeling from that impact. They are reeling from other economic fluctuations in the country, and they are saying: Can't you figure this out? Can't you figure this out?

So I have been hearing from colleagues on both sides of the aisle: We want to fix these tax credits, these enhanced tax credits for people to buy insurance.

Well, let's do it. We can open the government today. We can do it today. Today, we can address the issue my colleague from Wisconsin was speaking to just an hour or so ago. He was saying people who are working should get a paycheck. That will happen if we pass this today. He was saying folks who are furloughed should get a paycheck. We can do that by putting them back to work by opening the government today.

And then we can negotiate on those complex issues to make this system work a whole lot better because all of us know that our system is overly complicated, overly bureaucratic, inefficient, and we know that there can be improvements. So let's work on those things together.

The proposal that the minority leader has put forward says: Let's form a special committee to work on those issues and find some proposals to take us to a better place.

That is the type of partnership that we need to give encouragement to the American people that we are willing to work together to solve the challenges they see every day in their lives at their kitchen tables.

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