Continuing Appropriations
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, someone wisely declared: After all is said and done, much more is said than done. A lot has been said in the well of this Chamber this week. Unfortunately, not much has been done. On the other hand, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the Members of the House of Representatives, including Members of both political parties, have done much to end the shutdown and to protect the American people. The House has passed bills that would fund veterans' benefits and fund the National Institutes of Health. The House has also approved measures to make sure our National Guard gets paid and to keep our national parks open. The House funded WIC, the program that provides health care and nutrition for low-income women and their children. The House has funded FEMA. Moreover, all of these bills have been passed with significant bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.
At the risk of overstating it, I am still frankly stunned at what we are hearing from some of my colleagues. It is difficult for me to understand their objections to passing these bills in the Senate.
First, none of these bills is controversial--not one of them. The bills provide funding for noncontroversial things such as veterans' disability payments, the GI bill, and cancer research. These bills keep our national parks open and make sure our National Guard personnel get paid. There are many things on which Republicans and Democrats disagree, but whether to take care of our veterans should not be one of them, and the last I checked it was not one of them.
Second, the President himself asked Congress to do this. Republicans in the House took the President at his word and acted immediately to draft bills that would make sure his priorities and the Nation's priorities would receive funding. In response, Senate Democrats said that this plan to fund veterans, national parks, and other priorities was unserious. They said Republicans were playing games.
The biggest head-scratcher of them all: the President issued a veto threat for bills that fund the very things he said he wanted funded. Why will the President and why will Senate Democrats not take yes for an answer? Why are they demanding that we fund everything? They tell us: You have to fund everything or we will allow you to fund nothing.
Third, all of these bills received significant bipartisan support in the House. In the middle of a government shutdown, surrounded by all this divisive rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats came together in the House overwhelmingly to approve these bills. I think we owe it to the country to show we can do the same in the Senate.
Fourth, this approach, the approach that has been advocated by the House of Representatives, represents a path forward that was first introduced by none other than the distinguished Senate majority leader himself. On Monday afternoon Senator Harry Reid asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that ensured that our Active-Duty military personnel would be paid in the event of a government shutdown, and in a matter of minutes it was passed. I ask my friends across the aisle: Was Senator Reid playing games? Was that unserious? Of course not. So why is it unserious when we try to fund veterans' disability payments or cancer research or the National Guard or national parks? Why is it all of a sudden playing games to keep our national parks open? What exactly has changed since Monday? Why can we come together to pass a bill funding military pay but not to fund veterans' disability payments?
Finally, none of these bills have any connection to the implementation of ObamaCare. I understand my friends across the aisle support that law despite its numerous and harmful failings. I understand they want to protect it. But none of the bills we are considering relate in any way to the implementation of ObamaCare.
I am concerned that my friends across the aisle cannot see this law for what it is and what it is already doing to American families all across the country. Now the government is shut down because Democrats have refused to work with us to do anything to protect the American people from the harmful, potentially devastating effects of ObamaCare. They will not even consider passing bills to fund veterans' benefits, cancer research, or national parks unless ObamaCare is fully funded and fully implemented. We have an obligation to address the negative effects of this law, but the Democrats refuse to negotiate.
The President has issued a veto threat on funding for things that he himself asked Congress to fund because the bills do not include ObamaCare funding, even though the programs funded in these bills have nothing to do with ObamaCare. I fear that the Democrats are now simply the ObamaCare party. It is the only thing that matters to them even though it is hurting people throughout the country already and threatens to do so far more in the coming months.
A recent report included a story of a man named Tom, Tom from Seattle, who signed up with the exchanges only to find out that his health care costs were going to skyrocket under ObamaCare. I will quote from the story.
Tom of Seattle, who is self-employed, said, ``My premiums would increase approximately 61 percent. I went from $891 a month to $1,437 a month. And also my deductibles all doubled.''
The letter from his insurer said his current deductible for his family of five would double from $4,000 a year to $8,000.
Even though that is for the Bronze Plan, the least expensive option under ObamaCare, he says his additional payment of $550 a month will give him a plan that is no better than what he already has.
What's more, it also carries a benefit his family does not need: maternity and newborn care.
``My wife is 58 years old and our youngest child is soon to be 18,'' says Tom. ``We'll be having no more children. That is not a benefit that we would ever purchase nor need or be able to use.''
These are the kinds of people we are trying to protect from this law. This is just one story among many stories.
I ask my friends: Join us in ending the shutdown. Join us in protecting the country from ObamaCare, and let's do the right thing for the American people. Leadership is not about what is said; leadership is about what is done. So I invite my colleagues to join House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the other House Members who are leading. They are leading by doing. We can and must lead. We can end the shutdown and simultaneously protect the American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare. We can do this. We must do this. If we stand together in support of the American people, we will do this.
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Mr. LEE. In response to the question posed by my distinguished colleague, my friend from Rhode Island, yes, I will acknowledge that we have taken votes--some votes in response to many of the pieces of legislation enacted within the House of Representatives.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And that the House never reciprocated by taking up a Senate-passed bill?
Mr. LEE. The House has not voted on all the things passed by the Senate just as the Senate has not voted on all the things passed in the House.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. My question was not whether the House voted on some, not all. I think the fact is that the House voted on nothing the Senate passed; they have done nothing but tee up political votes to send over to us.
Mr. LEE. That is not accurate. The House of Representatives has voted on things, sent them back in the form of messages, with some of those messages carrying two amendments that we considered. I see the Senator's point. It is a valid one in that we have had action taken in both Houses. We have had votes cast in both Houses.
It is important, however, to recognize that Republicans have offered significant elements of compromise in all of this. Republicans started from the standpoint that what they would like is repeal of the law. Understanding that is not possible under the current circumstances, they sought first to defund ObamaCare indefinitely. They sought that first. That was stripped out. That went back to them. They responded with a significant compromise offer in the next go-around to defund it for a period of 1 year. That was send back, that was rejected.
There have been other elements since then that have been passed to fund parts of government. Recognizing there are a lot of areas in government spending as to which there is broad bipartisan, basically unanimous consent in both Houses, in both political parties, that we ought to be continuing to fund those things at those levels, they have acted in those areas, and the Senate has so far refused to go along with those. So, in the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if we act on those. In the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if the Senate would act on those aspects of legislation as to which there is broad-based bipartisan support.
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