Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, as I said before--and I said certainly as I came to this floor last week--governing by crisis is no way to run a government. We simply have to get our act together and work together to get the government funded again, to not lose the forest for the trees in terms of addressing the fiscal challenges our country faces, to come up with a fiscally responsible plan that puts our Nation first and puts us on a path to economic security. And, frankly, we have wasted too much time and energy on political brinkmanship and self-inflicted fiscal crises that also keep us from focusing on the real challenges we face, including our $17 trillion in debt, an economy that could be much stronger than it is right now to create the best climate for jobs in this country.

As I came to this floor last week, I reiterated my strongly held opposition to ObamaCare because I have seen the impact, hearing from businesses and individuals in New Hampshire concerned about rising health care costs. In New Hampshire, we only have one insurer that will be on the exchange, and 10 of our 26 hospitals will be excluded from the exchange.

But I also said last week that shutting down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare was not a winning strategy for success. Why? We have already seen exhibit A why it was not a winning strategy for success--because the government shut down yesterday and the ObamaCare exchanges opened and continued anyway. Why is that? We knew in advance that the Congressional Research Service had told us that the mandatory funding piece that was put in ObamaCare would continue even if the government were to shut down. We have seen that happen.

While I continue to believe this law is wrong for America because it is causing rising health care costs, because of the notion--in fact, I think it was well said recently by the chairman of the board of trustees of the Frisbie Memorial Hospital, who originally supported the Affordable Care Act but recently came to say: I supported it because we were told we could keep our doctor, and that has turned out to be a lie.

I certainly want to work with my colleagues to do whatever I can to come up with ways that we can repeal ObamaCare, replace it with reforms that are actually going to drive down health care costs, allow people to keep their physicians, and foster more competition in the insurance sector to give people more choice, but we need to end where we are right now. We need to come to a resolution to keep this government funded in a fiscally responsible way.

I am glad congressional leaders are going to speak to the President tonight. We do not need another photo op. What we need is results. We need both sides of the aisle working together to negotiate, to come up with a plan to fund the government, to move forward, to find common ground.

I know there is some common ground in areas of ObamaCare that both sides of the aisle are concerned about--for example, the medical device tax. When we had the budget votes earlier this year, the vote was 79 to 20 to repeal the medical device tax. Members on both sides of the aisle decided that tax was not good for innovation, for jobs, and that it drives up health care costs. That is an area where we have had some common ground in how we can affect this health care law--a health care law I still deeply oppose, but it is time for us to make sure we can get the government funded again.

Why? In my home State of New Hampshire right now, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard--one of our Nation's four public shipyards--the skilled workers there are being put in jeopardy. They have a very important function to defend our Nation, to maintain our Virginia-class submarines. Yet, due to the government shutdown, more than 1,700 workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard are being furloughed. Instead of maintaining our submarine fleet and defending our Nation, they are worried about their paychecks. It is wrong.

For our National Guard, more than 330 of our New Hampshire National Guard military technicians are being furloughed. These individuals lost 25 to 30 percent of their pay this summer when they were furloughed because of sequestration. This is no way to treat Americans who are helping defend our country. They play a critical role in the operations of our Guard. Yet we are also being told that the New Hampshire Air National Guard--if they do not receive more furlough exceptions, they may have to shut down their air-refueling and air-bridge operations to Europe and the Middle East. This is about the defense of our Nation. Many of them canceled their civilian job days at work to come to their drill weekend this weekend, which is now being canceled, so they are losing those days of pay as well.

Yesterday I was answering my phones. I had a constituent call me saying that his family had saved for years for a vacation, that it was going to cost them $25,000 to $30,000, and they were at the Grand Canyon. They said: Senator Ayotte, what is going on? We took our kids out of school for 2 weeks, we saved for years for this vacation, and we cannot go down into the canyon.

We must get this resolved, and we must look for common ground on both sides of the aisle to negotiate this, to get a responsible fiscal plan for the Nation.

By the way, we are fighting about 6 weeks of a continuing resolution right now. Give me a break. We should be looking at long-term funding for this Nation, not 6 weeks. To have this kind of impasse over 6 weeks? I can understand why the American people are frustrated and angry.

All I can say is that tonight, as congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle meet with the President of the United States, we do not need any more posturing. Let's give up the blame game on both sides. No more photo ops. You have all seen enough photo ops at this point. Come out of that meeting with results. Yes, results means that both sides are going to have to negotiate. Both sides are not going to get everything they want, but that is what people do in their daily lives. That is what I know people in New Hampshire do to resolve their differences. That is what the American people expect of us.

I hope this ends soon so we can move forward on behalf of this great Nation.

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