Tonight i want to talk about our responsibility here in the United States senate to reopen the government, to get back to work solving real problems and fixing the system so we arent tempted to play political games with government shutdowns in the future. Were now in the second day of what i think is a senseless shutdown. Its not helping anybody. A lot of disruption, dislocation, dysfunction for no reason. The situation was perhaps best described by democratic leader shuck schumer in 2013 when he said Chuck Schumer in 2013 when he said and i quote, look, i believe in immigration reform. What i persuaded my caucus that im going to shut the government down and im not going to pay our bills unless i get my way. Its a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis. End quote. I think Chuck Schumer was right. By the way, i think the lesson of 2013 and that shutdown is that they dont work. I think they are a bad idea. They are unnecessary disruptions. They hurt ow economy. They hurt our families and our troops. Ultimately they also cost the taxpayers more money, not less. Thats been the history. Thats why for six years now, ive been fighting to passion legislation called end government shutdowns. Its a very simple piece of legislation. By the way, my efforts in that have spanned president s of both parties and of majorities here in the senate of both parties. Its not a political issue. We should end government shutdowns. More on that in a minute. But lets take a look at the real world impact of a shutdown. In my home state of ohio nearly 50,000 federal workers are seeing their paychecks halted through no fault of their own. This includes rangers at parks across the state, like Cuyahoga Valley National park. This includes employees at nasa glenn, ,000 of them. It includes thousands of civilian employees at Wright Patterson air force base and thousands of other federal employees around the Buckeye State are going to be hurt, hurt why . Because of partisan politics here in washington, d. C. By the way, federal contractors im told are being told they cant go to work and yet theyre going to get paid after the fact. How does that help taxpayers . How did we get here . Spending goes through congress. Congress alone has the power of the purt. Every time appropriated of spending has to go through this place. Unfortunately, since the Fiscal Year Ended on september 30, democrats and republicans in congress have been unable to agree on an overall budget plan that allows us to fund what are 12 annual spending bills. Since then we have passed three of these socalled continuing resolutions that are also called c. R. s. They provide shortterm funding for the government, basically a continuation of the spending of last year, just to keep the government from shutting down. Thats what c. R. s do, but they dont include new policies typically, the new spending levels for the fiscal year but its just to keep things going and keep government operating. Nobody likes them. I dont like continuing resolutions. Who would . But the alternative is either come to an agreement on these 12 annual spending bills we talked about or have the government shut down. That was considered unthinkable the last four months when the continuing resolutions were were passed by big partisan majorities of the house and senate. By the way, eight of these 12 annual spending bills i was talking about, they actually passed out of committee with big bipartisan votes. So eight of the 12 actually have been passed. Their he ready to come to the senate floor but they havent come to the senate floor because they require 60 votes out of a hundred to be brought up. And democrats not having a solution to what the overall spending levels will be have not cooperated to bring those individual spending bills to the floor. Thats obviously the best way to do this is to have these 12 spending bills come to the floor, have the debate, put the best policies in place, have the right level of spending for this fiscal year. That hasnt happened. So you have these shortterm continuing resolutions. You might ask, how can the continuing resolutions pass because they dont seem to, you know, be very popular. But theyre better than a shutdown. By the way, they also require 60 votes. But again, its the one thing weve been able to pass over the past four months to avoid shutdowns while we negotiate our differences over the level of spending, over the policies that are going to be in place between now and the rest of the fiscal year. And theyve always passed, again, in a broad bipartisan basis. Some democrats have voted with us to keep our government open in the past because, as the democratic leader has said, shutting down the government just doesnt make any sense. In order to pass a c. R. , a continuing resolution, only 39 senators can vote no. Because again you have to get 40. On friday night, 44 democrats chose to vote down the latest c. R. Even though almost nothing of substance has changed in the continuing resolution since the last continuing resolution that was voted on again by big majorities. The only thing thats changed is that there was added a very popular and urgent extension of a Health Care Program called the chip program, Childrens HealthInsurance Program. Absolutely critical that we pass that because in the next couple weeks were told, some states will begin to run out of money. Chip expired actually back in september and its had shortterm fixes since then. In this continuing resolution, same as the last continuing resolutions basically, nobody really objects to whats in the continuing resolution, but the addition has been this really important program, chip is reauthorized. By the way, its reauthorized for its longest reauthorization ever in the history of the program, a sixyear reauthorization which i strongly support and i think my colleagues do across the board. If we dont deal with chip, again, this is urgent enough that some states are actually going to run out of money. So some are choosing to shut down the government, even though they cant point to anything in the shortterm continuing resolution that they disagree with and even though it endangers the health care of children and families around the country. Thats where we are. The main reason weve heard from democrats who oppose an otherwise acceptable continuing resolution is what we just heard tonight from some of my colleagues on the other side, including colleagues i work a lot on other issues and i respect them, but they have said this is about something else, not the spending bill but its about how we deal with daca and broader immigration reform. I want to resolve daca, too. And i believe most of the members of this body sincerely want to resolve daca. It was an Administrative Program that was appropriate to be legislated. The president gave us until march to deal with it. We must and should do deal with it and theres an ongoing goodfaith effort to resolve the daca issue as well as broader immigration issues, like boarder security. And to do all that before daca expires on march 5, which is six weeks away. Theres been a lot of finger pointing and theres always plenty of room for that around here. Lets face it. But the situation is clear. We are in day two of a shutdown because my democratic colleagues are holding hostage the entire federal government and children in need of health care through chip for a nonspending issue thats being worked on and we all know expires on march 5 and we need to deal with. Without a spending bill or a continuing resolution to keep the government open short term while we come to an agreement on larger issues, there are a bunch of federal workers who are going to wake up tomorrow morning and find themselves furloughed. Many wont be able to go to work because their offices are closed. Some will, im told, have to report to work but theyre not going to get paid, at least until the government reopens. And again the taxpayer always ends up getting the short end of the stick on this. I just think its crazy that were allowing this to happen. It doesnt make any sense. I dont get it. Yes, there are some larger issues weve got to come together on and solve in a bipartisan way but we should agree to a shortterm funding deal to just get the government up and running and then move on to solving those problems because were not working on them now, i can tell you, because everybody is distracted by this issue, a government shutdown. My understanding is were going to vote on a new proposal tonight to reopen the government. Its shorter term. Why . Because a number of democrats have said that they think that the previous continuing resolution, which was for four weeks was too long. So this one will be just two and a half weeks til february 8. Until february 8. Thats fine with me. I think that gives us enough time to resolve these issues and yet enough time to actually put the changes into legislation, two and a half weeks. That would be pretty fast by congressional time. I understand the new c. R. Proposal will also be coupled with these important chip funding proposals. In other words, the longterm extension of the Childrens HealthInsurance Program which is important. And a commitment to continue the negotiations to address all the outstanding issues, including daca, including defense spending, including disaster relief. Lets support it. Lets get this behind us. Lets be sure people dont wake up on monday morning to find that theyre furloughed and then lets get back to these hard issues that we were hired to resolve. I know its a lot harder dealing with the substantive issues than dealing with these political issues. Its easy to shut down government. That doesnt take any ingenuity or imagination. Thats easy. Its harder to deal with these tough issues but thats what weve got to do. Shutdown is not the answer. The situation tonight is a reminder that we should end government shutdowns for good. Again, thats why ive introduced Bipartisan Legislation i mentioned earlier called the end government shutdowns act to avoid these types of unnecessary disruptions that are unproductive and unfair to our constituents. The bill would simply continue spending from the Previous Year for 120 days if any appropriations bill or any c. R. Is not agreed to by the established deadline. And then it would gradually decline that funding by 1 and then 1 to give lawmakers the incentive thats needed around here to actually come together on a funding agreement. I think its sensible. I think its common sense. Its always been bipartisan in the past. Hopefully we can get it done. I first introduced this bill in 2012 with my democratic colleague jon tester from montana. When a democratic president , president obama was in the white house and democrats controlled the senate. So this is a commonsense solution that benefits the country, not one Political Party or another. Its whats best for our country. If this bill were law, we wouldnt be in this situation. Instead wed be talking about the substantive issues, how we resolve daca, how rewe solve defense spending. Weve had 18 shutdowns in our countrys history and none of them would have happened if this was law. There would be no lastminute political brinkmanship on issues unrelated to funding our government. Our constituents, including federal employees, would not have their lives disrupted. Taxpayers wouldnt get fleeced by shutdowns and the backpay that happens and the inefficiencies. Our legislation is bipartisan but, frankly, we need a lot more members to support it. And help us put in place a longterm solution to make sure these shutdowns dont continue to happen. So i urge my colleagues tonight and any staff that might be watching, please sign up on this legislation. We need your help. Its common sense. Its a time at which i hope we all realize these shutdowns dont make sense. And we have an alternative. A shutdown isnt helping anyone. It isnt helping americans who need access to vital government services. It isnt helping federal employees who should instead be working, not be furloughed. And it sure isnt helping the nine million children who are in need of basic Health Care Services under chip. There are bipartisan discussions going on right now. Ive talked to colleagues on both sides of the aisle this afternoon and this evening. I think those discussions have been productive. Lets hope theyre successful. Lets hope we can resolve this thing tonight. Lets hope we can have a vote to give the American People the certainty and predictability theyre looking for. Lets reopen government and lets get back to work. I hope all my colleagues will join me in doing that tonight. I yield back my call. Mr. Thune i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Thune i ask that later this evening that we have a vote that allows us to open the Government Back up and recommence the negotiations on immigration and a whole range of other issues that are currently of concern to members here and i think of concern, fairly, to the American People. So i hope that we will have the 60 votes that are necessary to do that when we have that vote later today. In fact, w