Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today is a day of enormous promise and needless tragedy. The promise is the beginning, another step forward, in America's progress toward providing all America with affordable health care. It is a welcome day because Americans can now enroll in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. But it is a needlessly tragic day because, in the midst of a tragic economic recovery, millions of Americans are out of work now--an extremist faction having sworn to its followers the Affordable Care Act would never be allowed to stand have now shut down the government because they did not get their way.

I wish to begin by talking directly to the people of Connecticut. Today is an enormously frustrating one for me because in the years and decades of public service I have sought to provide to people in Connecticut, never have I been barred, as we are today, each of us in this Chamber, from serving those needs individually, from phoning them and proactively putting staff on issues that concern them.

Due to the shutdown of the Federal Government, our office operations in both Hartford and Bridgeport are severely reduced, as well as in Washington. If a constituent needs help, if there is an emergency, if there is an issue that is time sensitive, you can reach our office and we will provide help. We will endeavor to meet any issue that concerns the health and safety and lives of the people of Connecticut and in no way is our commitment to you diminished.

I regret that our staff will be handicapped by the legal constraints. Indeed, we are, in many instances, not permitted to work in the ways that we have. But I can assure you we are continuing to serve you.

Today, in Connecticut, enrollment in our health exchanges will ensure access to more affordable quality health care for millions of middle-class families. Access to affordable quality health coverage is a basic right. We cannot deny it and we cannot turn back the clock. We need to work together--Republicans and Democrats--to improve and strengthen it and to bring down the cost of health care. The task ahead is to reform health care delivery to bring down the rising--in fact, the astronomically increasing--cost of health care, and to build on the work that has already begun under the Affordable Care Act and before it.

There is a real difference between an America with affordable health care and one that lacks it. It is an America where being a woman is no longer a preexisting condition, where a family who is responsible and pays for health insurance knows when they arrive at the delivery room they will not be bankrupted by the bill, and where children are not denied care because they happen to get sick.

We are at an impasse in Washington because of a matter of principle. The kind of hostage-taking we see here cannot be allowed to take place. It has no legitimate role in a spending bill. The bill before us would enable government to continue the people's work, to continue to do business for the American people. That is our job, and the attempt has been to attach to that resolution a completely unrelated demand that the Affordable Care Act be defunded or delayed or destroyed. To tie health care repeal to a funding bill is akin to tying immigration reform to the National Defense Authorization Act. It is a dangerous precedent and it cannot be permitted. If we accept this take-or-leave-it approach that led to this shutdown, we will be forced to govern this way--or fail to govern this way--in the future.

In fact, the resolution before us already involves compromises--less money than is necessary, for example, to rebuild our roads and bridges, to engage in infrastructure, repair and rebuilding. Rather than nation-building abroad, more nation-building here at home has to be done and more investment is required. The compromises in this funding bill have been made in the amounts of money included in it.

The impacts of this shutdown will be felt throughout our economy, in all 50 States, and in thousands of jobs in Connecticut if the shutdown continues for weeks or months. There are millions of families nationally and thousands in Connecticut who will go without paychecks. There are 9,000 Federal employees in Connecticut who will be affected. Their work is important, but the ripple effect is equally important. The losses of income and diminished consumer demand will further inhibit economic growth. Defense contractors will lose their contracts or possibly fail to receive checks when they need them.

A shutdown does nothing to address our need to agree on a responsible budget and replace the slash-and-burn, across-the-board sequestration cuts that are continued in this resolution.

A shutdown undermines one of the key engines of economic growth in this country, research and innovation, such as the research done at the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center in New London, CT. What if the studies in that facility led to better ways to secure our borders, to rescue people lost at sea. Who knows what future innovations will be sacrificed at the National Institutes of Health across the country and in companies around Connecticut.

The lifeblood of our economy--job creation, research and innovation, investment in the future--is undercut and undermined by this shutdown. In fact, even as we go through this process in Washington, the Northeast region is seeking to recover from a shutdown in train service that occurred just days ago. That shutdown has been remedied to some extent--an inadequate degree--so that half or slightly more of the service has been restored. The failures in the feeder cable that led to this shutdown are directly due to a failure of investment in infrastructure, just as the derailment and collision that was caused months ago reflected a failure to invest in infrastructure. Right before our eyes, as we engage in this kind of conduct in Washington that led to a shutdown, are the consequences of investment failure in our roads and bridges and train system.

With displaced workers struggling to get back into the labor market and businesses in need of specific skills, it is shocking we should cut back first on job training through these unresolved sequester cuts that are projected to force Connecticut's job training services to assist 9,360 fewer job seekers than they otherwise would.

We need to come together now. The message to Speaker Boehner has to be: Let the House vote. There are reasonable minds on both sides of the aisle who say let's have a simple, straightforward spending bill without these unrelated demands, without the blackmail and hostage-taking tactics. Let us come together on that kind of simple, straightforward way of continuing the people's business and the government's work for the people.

Many of my colleagues and I listened with great interest to the Senator from Alaska and others on the other side of the aisle saying we should let common sense and compromise prevail and deal with the issues relating to the Affordable Care Act, for immigration, separately and distinctly. They are measures that deserve and need attention, and there are ways to strengthen and improve many of our laws. But let's deal with them on their merits, not as demands or conditions for continuing the people's work by their government.

I truly believe, as we look back on this day, it will be with pride in another step forward for health care reform in this country. A lot of work remains to be done. Bringing down the cost of health care is a task, an unmet challenge that needs to be addressed, as well as other ways to strengthen and improve our health care system and the law itself. Let the House vote on a measure that provides simple, straightforward funding to continue the work of government for its people and allows the economy to continue its recovery and growth, that allows job creators to do their work, and that allows our working families--middle-class families--to have the benefits of education and Social Security and the veterans' benefits they vitally need. These essential functions must continue.

Let the House vote. Let reason prevail, and we can return to the work that government should be doing for its people.

I yield the floor.

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