Transcripts For CSPAN Capitol Hill Hearings 20131004

Consequences on profits and jobs. There are thousands of Small Businesses that are Government Contractors or whose businesses depend on Government Contractors. Many Small Business contractors have already had to cut back due to seek estrogen sequestration. To make matters worse, Small Business owners are suffering from the fact that Small Business Administration Loan processing is grinding to a halt. Why is the Government Shutdown right now . It is because a narrow band of ideologues are hellbent on relitigating a Health Care Law that has been passed by congress, signed by the president , upheld by the some green Court Supreme court and went into effect. Small businesses are not interested in ideology. We are interested in creating products, taking care of customers and making payroll. We need our government to recognize and support this. We launched a National Sign on campaign at www. S toptheshutdown. Com, asking Small Business representatives to let their government no that the shutdown would at earthly adversely affect their bottom lines. Hundreds of Small Business owners have already signed. We need more. Congress needs to get back to the business of governing instead of playing politics. Doing otherwise puts countless Small Businesses and our economy in jeopardy. Thank you and now it is my pleasure to introduce lynn ozer the president of sba lending and also the chair of the National Association of government guaranteed lenders. I want to thank chairman landrieu senator shaheen for allowing me to be here. Thank you to john for the introduction. My name is lynn ozer and i am the president of Susquehanna Bank Government Guaranteed Lending Department where i manage the sba lending and all other government guaranteed lending. Over 233 branches. This bank has served the community for over a century. The loans are centrally administered and our we participate in virtually all of the sba programs under the seven aon grella. For the last 25 years 7a umbrella. For the last 25 years, i have been on a trade association for banks and nonbanks that participate. I am presently the chair of the board of that trade association. Chairwoman landrieu spoke of over 2000 banks that art is a great in Small Business lending. 750 of the most active participants are members of our trade association. I wish to thank the Small Business majority for having me in attendance and i wish it was under better circumstances that we could brag about what the sba and its programs do. I still want to teach share with you the traumatic effect of the shutting down of the government and what it has done to our customers. At sba would provide Small Business access to longterm capital. They obtain the most vital funding through the program of the sba. They use them most often to start up and expand their existing businesses. The most heavily utilized products, Small Businesses rely on these loans to create jobs and propel our economy forward. The Government Shutdown with this Government Shutdown although additional sba loans have been vetted and approved and submitted to the agency after monday at midnight, we were proud to approve over 2. 9 billion of sba loans just in the month of september alone. The shutdown of the government has ground to a halt many of the loans and they are now put in a queue waiting for funding when the federal budget is passed. The Government Shutdown should not be impacting borrowers. They are the innocent bystanders who are being impacted by this shutdown. I ask you, please do not hurt these borrowers. With no alternative access to capital, Small Businesses across our community will suffer crippling effect to growth especially if the shutdown lasts for an extended. Operiod of time. Cutting opportunities for businesses to expand will only create additional Economic Uncertainty as the banks and lenders are no longer able to fill the fundamental need. The sba allows banks to approve loans that they were unable to approve under normal banking regulations and policies and procedures. Just yesterday, i learned of a customer that has applied for a loan at Susquehanna Bank. Tl technology owned in part by a veteran operates a manufacturer and the next order in pennsylvania an exporter in pennsylvania. They are about to receive a new government contract that would begin on october 20. They are buying a new piece of equipment and hiring two new employees who are about to begin. As of now, the bank has approved the loan but we cannot get funding through the sba because the deadline hit before his application got to the sba. This is causing a very difficult time for him and he is only an example of one of the many. We have a young couple who finally secured a lease and a sought after location in the city of philadelphia to open their french restaurant. Their legal permanent residents but we cannot get their sba loan approved without verifying their immigration status which we are unable to do because the government is shutdown. Through this difficult time, we would like to applaud sbas outstanding commitment to ensure access to capital and meet demand from lenders and Small Businesses that need access to capital to start or grow their companies. To meet the demand, the sba approves 740 million in gross approvals just last week. The ability the inability of lawmakers to successfully avoid a federal government shut down is distressing as a lender who relies on the sbas government guaranteed offering to be able to meet the needs of my Small Business customers. In the coming days and weeks, i urge them to Work Together as quickly as possible to agree upon a budget and restore access to muchneeded capital for the hardworking smallBusiness Owners across the country. The one thing that i find to be most distressing is Consumer Confidence creeping back up to be hit with another blow as devastating and lasting as this. The need to resolve this is greater than ever. Thank you very much. Good morning. I am very honored to be here today especially to share this podium with so many esteemed speakers. My name is lajuanna russell. I am the owner and president of Business Management associate. We are a Management Consulting firm here in washington dc we are 90 federal contractors so most of our employees are working either on site or performing some other type of federal work. I came here today and i have this whole little list of comments that i want to provide and hit the point home about how difficult this is but i think the most interesting thing that you will hear today is my story. We have been hit hard by the shenanigans on capitol hill. I think it is important that you put a face to what is going on. I think it is important that you hear that this isnt just some decision this is a decision that impacts people every day. It impacts their ability to buy groceries. It impacts their ability to get gas to go to work if they can. It impacts people every single day. So, starting out and understanding sequestration, you know that smallBusiness Owners, we hear a lot about what goes on on the hill and some of it, that could never happen, they would never let that happen. Sequestration happened. Again, as a Small Business owner youre like, oh my god, the be happening. This cant be happening. Those who were sent to help us would not let this happen. Well yes, that small faction of irrational individuals let it happen. We are being held hostage. It happens. I had to layoff probably 10 people when sequestration hit. If the goal is to increase the number of jobs we have out there, to decrease unemployment, to ensure our economy is booming, why layoff 10 people because of sequestration . I dont want to make another phone call to some dad who is trying to figure out what he is going to do for his kid for Health Insurance to say, i am sorry. That contract was cut. I am sorry, the funding is gone. I am not quite sure what you and your family are going to do for Health Insurance but then, i had a ray of hope. We had the Affordable Care act coming. I knew then as an employer who cares, at least those families would have that insurance coming. Now, you want to put that insurance on the chopping block as part of some chess game . When you see the millions of people that that actually impact daytoday, you see the millions of people who flooded the internet trying to get that care. I said no, shutdown can happen. Cant happen. Here we are again, held hostage. I had to contracts that were supposed to start on october 1. They didnt start. Do i have another call to make . I hope not. I dont want to make any more calls. I dont want to call one more dad or one more mom who is just trying to get by and tell them i am so sorry, that funding was cut. We have some folks in congress who dont understand real life, who dont understand what it is to go paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. They dont understand what it is to need Health Insurance. I am proud that i can offer my employees Health Insurance. But if i have to terminate them because of lack of funding on a contract, that throws them into a different area. While you guys are playing chess and figuring out how youre going to cut some corners on things that real people actually need daytoday, consider the impact you are having on the millions and millions of Small Business owners like me. We dont want you to play chess anymore. We want you to think about what we wait we need and to follow suit. This isnt a game. This isnt about winning and saying yes, i got it. In the end, we lose. Thank you. [applause] thank you for going off your script. That was excellent. Can we open it up to any questions . [inaudible] first of all, it shouldnt be about whether democrats like myself will crack or not. It should be about whether these businesses can sustain their shenanigans. The answer is, they cannot. This group of republicans is playing with fire. It is hard to describe their actions of shutting the government down, why they seem to be giddy about that, how could they possibly be happy about hearing these stories . That is what shutting the government does do Small Businesses all over the america. The answer is, they need to open the government now bypassing the resolution that was passed by republicans and democrats in the senate, that would pass them open the government, and then decide to go to a conference on the Budget Committee which they have resisted for six months. Step one, open the government. Step two, go to budget conference. I want to remind everyone here the senate has voted 18 times to go to a budget conference, to have a debate about what senator shaheen and senator heitkamp said about the issues that are affecting us. Our 10 year outlook, our debt burden that we are carrying, the challenge to the economy. The first step is for the tea party to stop their tea party and open the government. Step two is to go to a budget conference. That is what we are here to say. This is not a game. In their effort to hurt the government, which they have said is their point, they do want to hurt the government, but they are very confused about what the government is. Small businesses and private Sector Companies are partners with the government. In their attempt to hurt the government, they are hurting millions and millions of Small Businesses. As one of the speakers said, even when the government comes back to work, which one day i am assuming we will since we are the greatest in the world, not perfect but the greatest in the world, while the Government Employees may get their paychecks, these businesses might not be there. If they miss payroll or default they are gone. It gets more dangerous every day that this goes on. What could happen when the market sees that this group of irresponsible individuals is not only holding the government of the United States hostage all businesses that are partners with the government which are millions then, they seem willing in their comments to hold the economy of the United States hostage. That will cause havoc on every business in america, every family in america. Their Credit Ratings will go down and it is hard to even contemplate. Heidi, i dont know if you want to add to that. Just the point that as bad as what this is, if we cant figure out how to solve and increase the debt limit, that is going to have catastrophic results. We need to Start Talking about those catastrophic results. Far too many people in the American Public think this is about increasing the ability to spend money. Instead of the responsibility that we have to pay our debt. Treasuries are held on Balance Sheets because they have always been backed by the full credit of the United States of america. What happens when we violate that trust . It happens to that . For all of business, for the entire economic structure, this is not a game. That is the point we are trying to get across. This has incredible impact on a fragile and hopefully growing economy that we cannot let this continue. We have got to solve this problem. The quickest way is not picking winners and losers but funding the government for the time he word period, getting to work on the tough issues. Stop playing games with the american economy. And more important, with the lives of American People. [inaudible] that is leader reids decision. The key is for the house to pass the resolution to open the government. This cannot be done by a piecemeal and should not be done by piecemeal. What part is more important than the next . Many of us argue while those might be important issues, what is more important than the millions of Small Businesses who undergird the entire economy of the unit is dates . The tea party has to understand that they cannot hold government and private partners which are many, from Big Companies like boeing and lockheed, two small companies, hostage over their inability to get a law that they dont like amended. This has hardly ever been done before in the history of the united dates. It cannot be done. They have to open the government. When the government is open, we can get back to work and get to the negotiating table over those issues about how much we should spend on our troops, how much we should spend on domestic, how much we should spend on intelligence, etc. Those games, those gimmicks are not going to work. The only thing that the house can do is open the government, pass the resolution their budget numbers, say yes to their own budget number, get the Government Back open again and then we can all get to a negotiating table and put everything on the table. We can put everything on the table. That is what we need to do. [inaudible] i dont think that all the republicans are going along with this. Many of them are being quiet until they hear from their constituents. Every day that this goes on, they are hearing from their constituents and it is my hope, my hope that many brave men and women in the Republican Party will stand up and close this tea party down. It is not a party. In the real part tea party, they threw tea overboard. In the real historic one. Today, they are throwing Small Businesses overboard. By the boatload. They are throwing people overboard. They are throwing their own neighbors overboard. They are throwing their communities overboard. This hostage taking of the government and our private sector partners is unparalleled action, unprecedented. It has got to stop. [inaudible] i am not surprised but i remain hopeful because i know many of these men and women personally. I have the deepest respect for many of them. I think hopefully in the next day or two, you will hear more voices joining senator mccain, senator graham, senator corker, representative king, who have tried to speak the truth. They have been quieted by their party for now but hopefully they will continue to provide really good leadership. [inaudible] i dont think negotiating with that kind is a good thing to do. Their own people should never be held hostage. We have to get back to the work of government. Open government, let the private sector get back to work, get to the negotiating table. That is what were going to do. Thank you. Republican senator rand paul asked his colleagues to meet on the steps of the capitol for a show of bipartisanship. He and the one democrat who attended, tom corker discussed how to tone down the bickering in congress. Here is some of that. They had everybody together for lunch. It doesnt mean it still does help. [inaudible] i have been trying to convince we just need that. There is overwhelming bipartisan support here. Especially among freshmen. That is great. Like the other thing, Neither Party is doing very well. It would be neat once a month to have everybody have a formal debate over one thing, more like the house. You get two to three minutes. Go back and forth and maybe we only have five or six speakers. We have a full debate and talk about an issue of import. We would get more respect from people if we were having a formal debate. I would suggest the first time we do it we can put that at a news briefing, Senate Majority leader harry reid called on House Speaker john boehner to end the Government Shutdown by bringing up the Senate Spending bill for a vote. He looks ahead to raise the federal debt ceiling. This is a halfhour. We have a very simple message today for Speaker Boehner. Let the house stop it irresponsible respect this games. He is singlehandedly keeping the government shut. Recent stories have suggested that the speaker is keeping the Government Shutdown because i hurt his feelings. That is true i am sorry i hurt your feelings. We shouldnt take it out on hundreds of thousands of americans who are out of work. They are really suffering. I can only imagine what leaders around the world must think. I met yesterday for he briefly i had to go to the white house to spend time with the greek prime minister. I talked to him on the phone before. I was kind of embarrassed. The greek government is having a lot of problems and going on about our problems . We shouldnt be a dysfunctional government. There is no reason to be other than one man and that is Speaker Boehner. We cant perform the most basic functions of government because he doesnt have the courage to stand up to that small band of anarchists. That is not the path that he prefers. I know that because we met the first week we came back in september and he told me what he wanted is a clean cr. We said this before, we didnt like the 988 number. But we negotiated. That was our compromise. The exact bill that he now that was our negotiation. I didnt twist his arm. He twisted mine a little bit. It is not a number that patty murray liked. It wasnt her budget number. That was our compromise. He refused to let his own party vote because he is afraid to stand up to something he originally agreed to. Who is stopping him from having this book . Every small band of people. What do they want. We are not going to be disrespected. I said on the floor this morning that i disrespected marlon, i am sorry. I am not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. This is where the speaker is. I dont know what that even is. That is what we are dealing with. All they have to do is let the house work its will. Clean cr would pass the house. There is no doubt about that. If this will help, i want to join with the majority leader in apologizing for anything i said that may have disrespected congressman marlin. I havent met him but if i said anything, i want to apologize and i hope that we he will take it to heart and reopen the government. Maybe he should consider apologizing to 800,000 furloughed federal workers. A fourth of them are disabled. They are out of work. They wont call on the floor of the house of representatives, a continuing resolution that would put the government in business. Talk about disrespect. That to me is inexcusable. It is one thing to show your coverage by making personal sacrifice. It takes no courage to take it out on an innocent person, in this case, 800,000 people. One of my colleagues is going to make an announcement today that some major defense contractor in his state has announced the layoff because of the Government Shutdown. 4000 employees because of the Government Shutdown. It will affect two major states. Talk about the impact of this on innocent people. This is totally unnecessary and totally unforgivable. It is not about the dollar amount as senator reid has said. We took their dollar amount. That is what senator murray and the rest of us agreed to. We have agreed to compromise. 988 billion for the extension of cr. We are prepared to negotiate. As senator reid put it, we are ready to put down sit down and put the major issues facing this country on the table between democrats and republicans as it should be. What is it really all about . It appears is really all about the Health Care Reform act. You ought to consider what the senator said yesterday when she came to the floor. It was a very telling comment. She is no fan of obamacare, the Health Care Reform act. She pointed out the absurdity of the house and senator cruzs strategy, though she didnt use those names, i did. She said this, we have already seen exhibit a of why it wasnt a winning strategy. The government shut down yesterday and the Obamacare Exchange is opened. It continued anyway. Clear, isnt it . If the object of this whole exercise was to stop obamacare it didnt work. 5 Million People across the United States have already been in contact with these extremes Insurance Exchanges. The only complaints are that they cant get in fast enough. In my state, 230,000 people out of 1. 8 million uninsured people have already made contact with the Insurance Exchange in illinois. I am pretty proud of that. The state that should take the most pride per capita and what they have achieved when it comes to the Insurance Exchange is the commonwealth of kentucky. Listen to the numbers reported in kentucky this morning. They were reported by audrey haynes, secretary of the cabinet for health. She was on cspan this morning. Listen to what happened in kentucky. 117,000 unique visits to the kentucky Insurance Exchange. 109,000 prescreened to determine qualifications. 13,000 have already applied for health coverage. 8000 are complete. How about that . Todays in kentucky. 8000 already successfully have made their applications and completed on the Insurance Exchange. I hope the senators from kentucky will take great pride in the response in their state to these Insurance Exchanges. In all seriousness, how are they going to go home and tell these 8000 people that they are not going to have Health Insurance . How can they explain to people in their state or any state why a limiting obamacare is in the best interest of working families anywhere . It is not. Thank you very i want to thank my colleagues. Today yesterday we saw in the house, today in the senate, an attempt to move some piecemeal bills, fund this, fund that. They say, why dont we do that . We like nih, we like veterans, we like the z d. C. We do. But to fund these piecemeal bills would give ted cruz a veto power over what is funded and what isnt. He came up with a strategy. Shut down the whole government and then we will take the few pieces and let you fund them. Ted cruz is not the entire u. S. Government. Ted cruz should not be able to determine that if he doesnt like Student Loans for middle class families or food stamps for people who are hungry, that the government wont fund those but will fund other things that he likes. We are not going along with it. How could we . That charade is pretty much over. The house spent two days trying to pass those bills. We disposed of them in a half hour. Now, the spotlight turns to Speaker Boehner. The entire spotlight over whether the government stays open sorry, the entire spotlight over whether the government stays closed or is opened is up to speaker banner. We are working with the white house. How can speaker banner stop the republican shutdown . Just vote. Everybody knows if he put the bill on the floor of the house, it would pass. It would absolutely pass. My guess, it would pass by more votes than anyone imagines. We are hearing many more congressmen are upset with the strategy of shutting them the government. It is no longer a small band. It is growing every minute. The number of congressmen this morning back in their home districts were talking about how the shutdown is a bad thing. Every day, it gets worse. Dick mentioned the shutdown of a major industry in a major state. That is being repeated over and over again. It is all up to speaker banner. Boehner. I heard Mitch Mcconnell and speaker banner say they dont want to shut down. No one wants a shutdown they said. Not so. The tea party does want a shutdown. Let me give you a couple of quotes. The Government Shutdown, that is i what i wanted to hear. The people in the audience applauded. You can get the tape. And, senator leahy said the government lee said a Government Shutdown was necessary. The list of Tea Party Representatives who say they want to shut down his long but they can accomplish it on their own. They are aided and abetted by speaker banner. If Speaker Boehner is to say, you cannot have your way, the opens right back government opens right back. If he continues to aid the tea party, the government stays shut down. The real focus is not on the tea party. They want to shut down the government. The real focus is on Speaker Boehner. If he will finally resist the tea party, the government could open in about an hour. Are you going to apologize . Oh, to marlin, my sincere apologies if i have offended you. I dont know you but i dont want to offend you from afar or from close up. [laughter] he is not the first person you have offended. If it takes a group, i am in too. What we heard yesterday from the representative sums up the house position perfectly. We are not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. I dont know what that even is. They have no idea what they want anymore. But they are making our country pay the price for that. They seem to think if they do the right thing, the obvious thing, a vote to end the Government Shutdown while the continue to negotiate, it will be clear that House Republicans were duped. They had no idea what they were getting into. They had no plans for getting themselves out. Senator cruz spent the summer traveling around the country promising the tea party the sun the moon and the end of obamacare. He spent 21 hours on the senate floor pretending to filibuster a motion he then voted for and then he tossed the problem that he created over to the house. To quote my good friend, he pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away. On tuesday, to the shock of tea party years around the country who had been told a Government Shutdown would and obamacare the new marketplaces came online. Millions of families and Small Business owners signed onto healthcare. Gov, and there is still no creepy sign of uncle sam popping up in womens exam rooms. I am not surprised House Republicans feel disrespected. They were goaded into taking their own constituents hostage and they have to know by now they are going to have to release them. As upset as they are about their own situation, families and communities across the country have real reasons to feel disrespected and the pressure is going to build. Every single day in every single newspaper and local newscast across the country, people are hearing about the impact of the shutdown. Many of them are already feeling of themselves. Hundreds of thousands of workers are for load including intelligence workers. Nih researchers working on cures for cancer. Small businesses feeling the pain. Head start students being turned away. National parks closed. The list goes on. I say to House Republicans, this isnt about you. It is not about your feelings. It is about the people you represent. More and more republicans are coming out in support of a clean cr that will end this crisis. 20 in the house so far. Speaker boehner, we say let the senate bill, up on the floor. Give it a vote and end the Government Shutdown. Give it a vote and end the shutdown. When he does, we are waiting at the table ready to negotiate on the longterm budget deal and an end to the crisis. Does the congressman have a point . He said we will be not disrespected. But you have an air of sarcasm. Do you think that in a negotiation, they do have to give something . How about the 988 billion we dont like . That was my concession to get this done cleanly. He said, you have to do that. I talked to my friends and said, we have to sell this thing. We did. Senator murray is an example. I kept trying to say, patty, lets end this thing. After 5 00 in the morning, we had over 100 amendments. Talk about a concession. That is what legislation is all about. I did that. I trusted john boehner. He had some problems of his own. Then, they start doing all of this. He try to live up to that. He tried to give them something to vote on. They said, we can see right through that. You made some kind of a deal. Youre going to have this, which we hated. He couldnt live up to that. He has been doing gymnastics with himself ever since then. Yesterday, i said this on the senate floor. I really believe this. I thought we had something he couldnt refuse. Opened government and we will negotiate on anything you want. I outlined anything they wanted to talk about. The farm bill, we will talk about that. Discretionary spending, health care, anything you want to talk about. That includes obamacare. We will talk about anything, but open the government and get the debt ceiling out of here. I respectfully say to you that i think we are really come from ice a lot. We compromised a lot. A Bipartisan Group of house members came forward and proposed a sixmonth cr with a medical device tax repeal and said this is a very compromised decision. Can you take that . We said we will negotiate. That includes anything to do with health care. But the government has to be open. We have to get the debt ceiling out of the way. The device tax, i am not going to get into this. All the in and outs of that. It is something i have spoken to senators about. We are willing to talk about that and anything else. This proposal is an act of desperation. You cant do something you cant do it. It involves tens of billions of dollars. If we were to give in to a demand, what do you think happens on the debt ceiling . What do you think happens when the cr has to be renewed . The hard right says, see . We got something we wanted. We will up the ante this time. It is not this specific proposal. The device tax is not that much of obamacare. It is the message. We would threaten and shut the government down until you agree with us. You cant fall for that legislative blackmail or it will get worse and worse. If they open up the government we talk about it. The president was very clear last night about this. He believes that the debt ceiling is not a place where there should be hostagetaking. My republican friends say, that has been done before. When barack obama becomes professor obama, it is pretty good. He laid out this over the generations of time. This has never happened before. That is absolutely true. Why were you able to agree to that standalone bill would you objected to the standalone bill today . By that time, we hadnt had all the silliness back and forth. We thought that would and it. Talk about what senators are doing to reduce debt. You have new visual aids today. People can get into parks or federal office buildings. What are you doing . s i expect to be here. We dont have to be here this weekend. All they have to do is have a vote. I have closed my nevada offices which is so hard i have people here who are on furlough a lot of people on furlough. One person, they just had their third baby within the past few months. This is hard. Another senator has a lot of caseworkers who may 20 7,000 a year. 27,000 a year. They are on furlough. I have reduced my staff a lot more than makes it easy for me. I have a list of people on my desk. I really feel sad about this. Senator reid, you seem to have changed the demands here. Are you going to pass a clean debt ceiling bill . Right now, right now, the debt ceiling is facing us. They are right on top of us. We will act on a clean debt ceiling. The president has said he will not negotiate on the debt ceiling. It never happened in the history of the country. There has never been a negotiation like this. In the past, you have a bill we are trying to get through. I think it was called what was it . So, it has never happened before. We cant do this. My friend Warren Buffett today said we are always trying to be nice. He said, it wont be so bad. He knows how horrible it is. The debt ceiling is cataclysmic. A question for senator durbin. Would you mind elaborating on the contractor . I will let the senator who told me announce it on the floor. In 2011, to keep the government of them, you agreed to 38 billion in cuts. You agree to a policy preventing public money there were negotiations on the debt limit. Looking back, was it a mistake to negotiate on keeping the government open in 2011 . We are where we are now. Not where we were then. A number of them have spoken about it. Would it have to be a clean cr or is there room for anything else . We have made it so clear. The president was very articulate last night and saying, i am doing this not for barack obama. I am doing this for the country. We cant every time we have to raise the debt ceiling, which has been done numerous times. You cant have a president that is held hostage to situations like they are trying. The president will not do that. He understands what america is all about. The Tea Party Folks either dont or dont care. Republicans and democrats it doesnt he might there has been any progress. I feel positive that if john boehner who is basically a nice guy cannot let this go on. He cant have his speakership more important than the country. Last question. If john boehner does allow to just vote on this clean continuing resolution, who would likely be the next speaker of the house . The safety, security of this nation and economic welfare of this country is not john boehner. John boehner is going to let his speakership be more important 72 of our Intelligence Community is out of work. They cant do their job. You have people who cant get care. Sick babies, sick everybody they cant get the help they need. I cant say it is well i am never good with words. I will close with this. House republicans continue the lifeboat strategy. Deciding which government auctions functions are worth saving. Here are some of the functions not in the lifeboat. Market regulation, Chemical Spill investigations, antitrust enforcement, immigration checks, Workplace Safety inspections. Nutrition for 9 million children and pregnant women. Housing and rental assistance for the poor. If john boehner thinks his speakership is more important than these people, i feel sorry for john boehner. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] House Minority leader nancy pelosi joined senator reid on calling for a vote on a temporary spending bill to fund the whole government. This is 20 minutes. Today marks the third day of the republican Government Shutdown. It could be over in hours if republicans would take yes for an answer. Yesterday, over 100 members of congress and others who backed what we were doing met on the steps of the capitol and spoke to Speaker Boehner telling him to allow a vote a vote to keep the government open. On two separate occasions, we proposed motions to keep the government open by accepting the senate bill. I remind you that what the senate bill contains is the number 986 that the House Republicans proposed on both occasions, every democrat voted to keep government open, swallowing the 986 even though it is a figure that we have mostly opposed. Last night following leader reid and i proposed to the speaker to accept his number of 986 and ask them to bring up a vote. Some republican members say theyre willing to reopen the government by voting for this number. Enough of them have spoken that if the speaker brought the bill to the floor, it would pass with enough republican votes to be sent to the president. The government would be open in a matter of hours. Instead, they are taking the piecemeal approach. It is nothing more than a gimmick. We are not buying their gimmick. They cannot cherry pick their way out of their own manufactured crisis. These games have to stop. This is not just about this particular you cant cherry pick because the legislation on the labor bill for example we caught laminae lamb. There is nothing that you would cut in order to pay for Something Else. If you pick out one piece of it and say, this is what we are going to support, you are upsetting the balance in the bill. This is an irresponsible approach. I am concerned that the republicans are trying to buy time in order to tie the shut down the government of government to defaulting. That would be cataclysmic. It would be gauger us to our economy. I was so proud of the president last night because he was very clear about not negotiating on the credit of the United States of america. What i suggested last night was two things. One, lets just take it off the table. Democratic president , republican congress, democratic congress, republican president , lets take it off the table. Surely, people have talked in the context of fiscal responsibility about suggestions they may have. We have never defaulted on the full facing credit full faith and credit of the United States of america. Lets take that off the table. This is all about the Affordable Care act. They want to overturn, the fund, defund, prolonged, whatever it is. They have no connection to each other and they should not be connected. In addition, to say, lets take the full faith and credit of the United States off the table as a threat or is leverage or anything else, lets also remind them that any bill that is Testing Congress can be revisited. Another bill can pass. It can be amended or whatever. If we all thought that every bill that wasevery bill you can always improve. You could always have a debate. You shouldnt, you must not do it as a rat threat as to whether you will keep government open or not. I can only think they must not have confidence in their ideas that they would have to go to these extremes to have anyone listen to them. In addition to the cataclysmic affect this will have, its always important to know what it means to the Kitchen Table discussion of americas families. It will raise interest rates. It will raise mortgages, Student Loans, you name it. It would also have a negative impact on 401 k s. Dont just take that from me. The Treasury Department issued a report. It warned that credit markets could freeze. The value of the dollar could plummet. Interest rates could skyrocket, making it hard for families to get loans and for businesses to invest, in addition to what i said earlier. In 2001 2011 americans saw the impact. That was just the discussion of it. In 2013 this was a it wound we should avoid. Five years ago today president bush signed the tarp legislation. This was an extraordinarily difficult vote. We saw it as a meltdown, the failed policies of the bush administration. The secretary came to us. We amended it, but we didnt like it, yet it was the democrats who save the day and supported president bush on this. What are we here for . We have our differences. We have our discussions, but this is about the United States of america. The least a republican can do is keep it open. We are ready to reach across the aisle. This is a big concession for us. You heard him rail against it, yet in order to keep government open we would extend the hand of friendship to our colleagues and say we will except your number, and lets go to the table for discussion. This is awful in terms of the government being closed, but now we are in the third day of implementation of the Affordable Care act, a dream come true for many people in our country that they can fully realize liberty to pursue happiness. It is interesting. Dont count california. Dont count new york. Dont count leases with state run exchanges. Places with state run exchanges. 7 Million People will have health care. More than 295,000 people called the hotline and 167,000 tests requested on healthcare. Gov. This is in todays. Two days. The overwhelming response has been clear that no matter how hard some people try to stop it, Affordable Health care is up and running, and americans will keep gaining access to health care, and we will take pride in adding a pillar to our society. We are very proud. That was intentional. Republicans wanted to dim the light on the Affordable Care act. With that, i would be pleased to take any questions. Back in the mid1990s, resident clinton was able to do things to fund during the shutdown. That was a different story. We were doing appropriations. We have the labor and Human Services bill. We had the veterans bill, which we passed in june with billions of dollars in the bill. Now theyre taking a piece of it. This is irresponsible and harmful. We had passed d a good deal of it already. This is a different approach. Its not going to get us to the table. Its keeping Government Shutdown. Doesnt it make it more difficult to explain to the public it is getting worse if you keep standing fast . Know, and if republicans want to think that, let them think that. We have to do the right wing. The right wing is to open government and have any discussion you want. If you want to cut Veterans Benefits as they did the other day, then lets have that discussion, and lets amend the appropriations bill to do that. I dont think thats what the American People want. They dont want to go to the table because they dont want people to see the totality. They are cherry picking, and we dont support that. I salute harry reid for holding his caucus together like we have held hours. Ours. Yesterday you circulated a letter calling for a clean cr. I wonder if you were giving that to republicans. They are welcome to sign on. The republicans said no to their own number. Every democrat voted no. Most of them are coming forward saying they want a clean cr. They havent abandoned their leadership by voting on the floor, but i think they would like to support the bill. You always get a turn. I will come back to you. You were at that meeting for almost an hour and a half and apparently made almost no progress. How is that even possible . I dont know how you. Rise the meeting, but i did not see it as a meeting that did not make progress. Progress is made when you dont waste your time on skirting the issue. I am always proud of the president , as you know, but he was very clear about our constitution, the role of congress, and how we have to respect each persons responsibility. We believe it is a responsibility of congress to pay bills and to pass bills that would keep it open. We had that clarity. I made the point, lets take full faith and credit off the table. Im not saying republicans agree with that. If you want to debate the Affordable Care act, debated in congress, but not to say, we are shutting down government unless you delay it for a year or overturned it or whatever else. I always find meetings are productive when the air is clear, when people make clear what they are willing to do. I dont want them thinking there is not a possibility. Maybe i am overly optimistic. We all have to do what we can to try to find common ground. If i told you a week ago we would help republicans pass the bill, i would be doing it with fewer democrats. We have worked through this to say we must except the number because so many people are out of work. They are cutting billions of dollars in the amendment a had they had on the floor. There are almost 600,000 veterans at work in the federal government. Many of them in intelligence and defense. And really across the board. More than a quarter of the people who are now without work and pay our veterans. I would support them and their families and where they are now so i think when you ask are they getting nervous, they are not getting nervous about something that cuts from veterans affairs. They are just trying to get the message out. I am counting on you to do that. I think we can stipulate on certain facts, and we have goodwill among us, and that is always useful. I am very proud of the president. I think it was a useful meeting. How long was it . Theres a group working on a proposal that would include a repeal of the medical device tax. Do you think i changing it it wouldnt violate some of the principles you laid out . You left out one important agreement. It is for six months. Thats a significant part of their proposal. I think its important to put it on the table. Thats what we came here to do. Thats very wholesome. If you want to have a discussion about the medical device tax fine, but dont tie it to the government. I respect people trying to find common ground. You learn from them, and they advance the cause. I dont want to unravel the Affordable Care act, but telling them its not going to shut down government is not going to happen. This is devastating to our country. It was for six weeks, not for six months. I think its good people are working together. I had the highest regard for my colleagues engaged in that. Even though these are two distinct issues, they are getting blended together. From an inside standpoint, doesnt it solve those problems . Its intentional to bring two things together. Why do you think we are doing ridiculous exercises in futility on the floor of the house that keep going nowhere . Because they are stalling for time against the debt ceiling. I hope they prove me wrong but it gives every appearance of getting dangerously close to the conversation on the debt ceiling. By the way, we are in the conversation on the debt ceiling. You have an element of truth in what you said about wouldnt it be helpful. My point is lets open government, have it open for six weeks, and go to the table and have the Budget Discussion immediately, because that could solve some of the debt ceiling angst. One of the things that is problematic in terms of our Credit Rating, it is not just the Credit Rating which is vital. Its also uncertainty about having a budget. If we show them we are having discussions on the budget as we should have done six months ago it could take us to a place where there is more comfort level. With that, i am going to go back to work. I am very proud of them. They are full of ideas and imagination and integrity. Thats what sad about this, the opportunity cost for people working together and the entrepreneurial spirit and engaging talent from members on both sides of the aisle to think in fresh ways about how we can get the job done for the American People. They queue. I. Thank you. Next, we will be joined by writers from National Review magazine to discuss the publication and the latest on the shutdown beginning with the publisher. The and the washington editor discusses what the shutdown might mean for negotiation of the debt ceiling. After that we talk about the Health Care Law and its role in the budget debate that led to the shutdown. Then jonathan strong discusses how the shutdown is being viewed by lawmakers in both chambers of congress. All that plus your calls, e mails, and tweets, live on c span. She was the powerbroker behind her husbands administration. When news of corruption began to emerge, she preserved he burned his letters. Watch florence harding, and monday, our series continues. This is where calvin and grace met for the first time. She was a teacher living in the dormitory, and he was a tenant. This window is where grace looked out and would see calvin at the next hoping. Building. She would put a candle to signify the parlor below was available. They would be able to sit up and have some time together. Despite him being in his 30s and her in her 20s, they needed to meet somewhere where they were chaperoned while on campus. Meet first lady race school age, month grace coolidge. Monday night. The committee met to consider several spending bills. These include headstart and retroactive pay for furloughed workers. This is an hour and a half. This committee will come to order. I want to take a moment to honor the bravery of the police and those who helped in the detention of the woman threatening the white house federal officers as well as on capitol hill. These men and women often go unnoticed. They are here to protect citizens as well as this institution and members. We should take time to reflect on their sacrifice. They spoke for a brief moment about this on the floor. I know that each of us give thanks on the after hours as we know the men and women are here to protect us. We give them our thanks. We are here tonight to consider 11 Appropriations Bills to keep key parts of the federal government running. I believe that this is the responsible thing to do, and my colleagues do, and we believe that weve got to do this until the senate decides to come to the table and negotiate with us to help in the Government Shutdown. Tonight we will begin to move forward on two bills to give relief, the measures before us tonight find a number of government functions from food safety, border security, and House Republicans continue to listen to the American People, and we are taking steps again tonight to keep the critical parts of the government running. I am delighted this evening to welcome back the gentleman, the subCommittee Chairman as always i would allow the gentlewoman to thank you. I wanted to join in what you said about Capitol Police. I have been talking with them the last three days. The tragedy is, they are not being paid. I have been talking to them about that the last couple of days, and told them i was on the bill to try to get them paid retroactively. But they are not paid that much money. They should be paid right now. I know you have left them out, and i think that is going to be a bad one, because Everybody Knows they are not being paid. I had an occasion today to speak to the state department. They are operating on fumes. Why in the world would we say to the government, those people who are working, they are there working, they are just not getting paid for it. This is the most appalling thing, its almost hard to believe and hard to act serious about it, when all we have to do is bring the cd up and get it voted for. I understand from the press, nobody has told me directly, that 21 on the other side, good colleagues of ours, would like to vote for a clean resolution. We have passed up three trances to do it. Everybody said no. Were going to give you another one tonight. Because with your 21 there and all of us, that is the majority. If the majority in the house wants to do that, by george, i think we ought to do it. If mr. Boehner wants to bring it up, that is fine with me. I dont care who does it. But we are going through a charade here. It doesnt make any sense to anybody. That tragedy today, and we dont know all the details of it yet but that brought home again that people are actually out there working. Their families are worried to death about them, in the police department, not knowing dayto day what they are going to run into, and they are not being paid for it. We ought to be so ashamed of ourselves we cannot even look at each other. We did not have time to get a statement of the administrations policy. Let me say this for all three of us, we dont know what they think about it, but we are going to say that we recommend a veto. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the general one for her statement, and i will tell you, i would be embarrassed if what you said about Police Officers was true, but in fact in fact, we have an Expert Witness today from the Republican Leadership who has been through partial briefing on this. I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from north carolina. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I have heard this all day today and i think its time that we responded to it. The gentlewoman from new york is entitled to her own opinion, but she is not entitled to create a fiction. The Capitol Police are considered essential personnel. They are being paid. They were paid on monday, and and they are not due to be paid again until the 16th. They are being paid, because they are essential personnel. I have utmost respect for the Capitol Police, and i believe they all know that. I am extraordinarily deferential to them, every single one of them. They are considered essential personnel, and they are being paid. They will be paid on the next payday. Not unless the shutdown is over. If the gentlewoman would allow me the simple fact is if i could maybe help us out a little bit, i believe that we will have to take action to ensure on the 16th they would be paid, but i believe it is fair to say that they are considered, as the gentlewoman said, essential service. They are and were presently being paid to i have a question about that, then. I believe further action by this committee, by the house, to ensure that they would be paid next. Our essential step people are not being paid. The people at the state apartments are not being paid till after the shutdown is over. We have federal employees working every day in some dangerous circumstances, trying to keep us safe and alive. The food safety worries me half to death, because i know too much about it. It is time to stop it. There is no in game insight here. There is no purpose for it. It just simply does not make any sense, unless the purpose is to piece together and together in some quilt, lets fund this over here and maybe that over there and let that go. The government is much too important for that. I stick with what i said, the police are telling me they are not being paid. Without taking advantage of anybody, i would like to say probably it is not unlikely that we may not know all the rules that are in place, but it is my understanding they got a check, and they are being paid right now, and as a matter fact, one of your favorite witnesses one of the two of them, i dont know which one is your favorite, from virginia. I know you like them all. I said favorite, i didnt say second favorite. My point is that you are going to hear tonight how, just as yesterday, we said were going to pay in ih workers and get them back to work. Were going to do the same now. I thank the general woman for her comments. As a matter fact, it helps keep us on point of how much work we have yet to do and why we are here. I would like to welcome the subCommittee Chairman of labor hhs and related agencies, as well as two other distinguished members from virginia. One, mr. Moran who had been up here early in the week or last week and got a chance to see his smiling face. The subcommittee chair, the Ranking Member for i guess its interior, thats what it is. Im learning these words, and related agencies. Also my dear friend, the gentleman, mr. Wolf. Each of you are here for a great reason, representing appropriations chair and Ranking Member. The gentleman from georgia is recognized. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, madam Ranking Member. Mr. Wolf the first panel. I am here today because we seek to get an appropriate rule on 10 different funding bills that will reopen critical sections of the Government Programs while congress and hopefully a Conference Committee irons out the differences between the two bodies. This rule will allow for prompt him a straightforward consideration of this and it will relieve the burden of some of the unnecessary aspects of the shutdown. The bills before you provide funding for the programs at the current annual rate, and the bills are nutrition assistance for low income women and children, Nuclear Weapon security and nonproliferation, 77, the food and drug safety act, 78, the preserving our intelligent capabilities ask and 79, the border safety and security act, 80, the American Indian and Alaska Native Health education and safety act, 82 the National Weather monitoring act, 83, the impact aid for local schools act, 84, the headstart for low income children act, 85, the National Emergency and Disaster Recovery act. The funding for these bills will last until december 15, or until congress in ask a fullyear appropriation bill. While i believe that the entire government needs to move as quickly as possible to get reopened, these will put a number of high place priorities, programs funded so that while the Conference Committee goes on and the negotiations with the white house continue, these areas will be off the table. As we all would agree, funding on individual programs on a piecemeal basis is not standard or is not the preferred way of operating, but lets hope it would bring us closer to a final solution. Having chaired and served on a anumber of Conference Committees during my time in washington, i know that often we start by getting the smaller, less controversial, more consensus type programs done, and while they may not have the heavy lift that some of the issues do getting a little momentum going is important for us right now. I believe that as we showed last saturday night at the military pay bill, that it is possible in this environment to get a little momentum going between the parties and start filling in that gap. These 10 bills here tonight serve that purpose, mr. Chairman. I yield back. If you will please make sure that is turned on. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We have a truly Bipartisan Group of 156 members at last count. They have joined mr. Wolf and i in supporting legislation that would ensure that all federal employees received pay for the duration of the federal government shut down, regardless of their furlough status. There are 800,000 who have been sent home, but nobody, as you know, can really get paid until money is made available and we have resolved this continuing resolution issue. So this does not solve our funding problems. But it does provide these federal employees some peace of mind that they will get paid and the language actually says that they should be compensated at their standard rate of compensation for the period of such labs and appropriations as soon as practicable after such lapse in appropriations ends. Fairness is the most compelling reason for doing this. These folks didnt bring this about. They are trying to do their job. They want to do their job. They want to come into work every day, and they have bills to meet. Im sure that all of you have heard from federal employees that perhaps frank and i hear from a disproportionate number because we represent so many but i think it is fair to say that every member of congress represents some, and even if we didnt, they really work for us. We passed the legislation they are responsible for implementing it. Today, i had a woman from the irs come in. She said they are never going to exempt you people you people are never going to exempt the irs, but i have to pay my mortgage, and i dont know how going to pay my mortgage. I have children. Im scared. And she broke down crying. There are a lot of folks that just live from paycheck to paycheck. They get their paycheck, they know exactly where it goes. It meets their obligations. They are determined to stay on top of their debts, but boy, they have this kind of disruption in their lives and it causes enormous stress. I think it is unfair, the anxiety they are having to deal with right now. This would at least give them some peace of mind that they are going to be compensated, so i would hope that we could get this to the floor and that we could have a strong vote in favor of it. I have talked to leadership and i think i trust that leadership on both sides would agree this is the right thing to do. Whatever we do, and how strongly we argue on other issues, we ought to at least agree that these folks are suffering through no fault of their own, and we ought to stop that suffering if we can. Frank, it is good to see you. The gentleman is recognized. Thank you for the opportunity. I will summarize very quickly. I also want to thank chairman rogers in the leadership for moving this bill. This is always been done in every previous administration. I want to thank congressman moran for introducing the legislation everywhere working in a bipartisan way to ensure that constituents are taken care of and people all over the country. Day in and day out, federal employees work to make the nation a better and safer place. At bia agents, the head of the fbi was by today to talk about some of the concerns they have. Dea agents, u. S. Marshals, customs and border, prison guards, air traffic controllers, doctors and nurses at the va hospital, dod civilians, the 12 individuals who were killed at the navy yard two weeks ago, they worked with the fleet. Every officer that spoke talked about that they were an important part of the fleet. Crash investigators, fda food safety inspectors, nih doctors researchers working on cancer, parkinsons and alzheimers, hurricane watch was posted today, apple that are watching for that hurricane and are dealing with it are federal employees. Assuring that all federal employees received a until the government reopens as always being done am including in the reagan and clinton administrations. I thank the german very much. The rules committee met earlier today to consider the debate rules for 11 additional funding bills. They will consider they will debate two of those tomorrow. The house is noon in a name for legislative work and we will have live coverage here on c span. We will hear tomorrow morning the house schedule for the the food and drug safety act preserving our intelligence capability act. The daunting facts are essential. The border safety and security act. The American Indian and alaskan natives education and safety act. Critical to the people who are not only our colleagues but to men and women, the National Weather monitoring act. I didnt even today i did not even know that until today there was a hurricane heading to our country. The funding for these bills will last until december 15, or until congress in ask a fullyear appropriation bill. While i believe that the entire government needs to move as quickly as possible to get reopened, these will put a number of high place priorities, programs funded so that while the Conference Committee goes on and the negotiations with the white house continue, these areas will be off the table. As we all would agree, funding on individual programs on a piecemeal basis is not standard or is not the preferred way of operating, but lets hope it would bring us closer to a final solution. I dont really have any questions i want to ask but i want to thank our colleagues for the work they have done. The gentlewoman from new york is recognized. We tried to make that point. From what i am hearing some of them are not too happy about it. We can pretend we are doing something and congratulate ourselves for caring about these agencies. We know it is not going to become the law. We have to get it done as quickly as possible. You cannot do it apiece at the time. I bet we have an exodus of federal workers. If the unemployment situation was better i know scientists are leaving. Lets put the cr on the floor. I wish we could do that tonight. Nobody knows why because there is no good reason for it. I thank you for coming. As you mentioned, this was done in the last two shutdowns. Do you know of when this was not a common occurrence . Nobody can think about the consequence of this. I think all of your cosponsors are very intelligent people. I want to state two quick things to our friends on the other side. Ms. Slaughter, you got mentioned in the column. I think i should take you for it. Thank you for it. I am sure he is so taken with you. I also want to tip my hat to mr. Mcgovern. You said, what about cancer drug trials . That got taken care of. Then you said, what about others who got cut off . I think we should hire you to give the next speech. What you said on the floor happened. I congratulate oath of you. With that, i think the gentleman on the bill, i thank the gentleman on the bill. At some point we will realize this cannot be settled by forcing someone to bullying. There has to be an agreement on a path for negotiations to take lace. We are coming up with some solutions. All of those have to be part and parcel. This would be a good time for congress to agree, and i think there are major changes. I appreciate that direction. I yield that. I want to thank the gentleman from utah for paying me that high compliment. If people are doing what we want them to do, tomorrow we will get this done. Let me thank you for being here. You are raising awareness to the fact there are lives impacted negatively by this. You never know, especially in this congress, what the hell is going to happen, so i appreciate what you are trying to do here. Mr. Kingston, i look at all these wonderful titles, and i dont know what to say. He takes my breath away. It takes my breath away. This is a little bit of history making, but i want to say something. This is why we need to solve the whole problem and not just go after the flavor of the day. This is extremely important. It is underfunded. I said this the other day. I am willing to support a cr even though i think it under funds a lot of things i care deeply about, but its important to keep the government going. As hopefully your side and my side discuss a longterm spending bill, and lets hope we dont get to a crisis on the debt ceiling. The reason this approach is so problematic even if the senate were to go along with this we are not fixing anything. We know that. For poor people this isnt the only program that is needed. A lot of people rely on food banks. There is a whole bunch of support systems in place so people who are very vulnerable and very poor dont fall through the cracks. Up until recently there has been by to there has been bipartisan support for strengthening those programs. When you pick one and you dont pick the other, it just doesnt work. We really do need a holistic solution. I cant wrap my mind around why we cant pass a shortterm resolution as you negotiate a longterm spending bill so we can keep this government going for the next year. Im very nervous we are approaching this debt ceiling vote or this deadline, and there are some people playing a dangerous game here, where they are expecting somebody to blink and we may go off a cliff. If we go off the cliff, our conversations will be different. The Credit Rating will go down. Youre going to see the world look at us as a country that is not stable, that cannot we trusted that is not an economic leader. If this were a serious effort the problem with it is it is not holistic. Its not just good enough to say, and by the way, on the head start stuff, even before the Government Shutdown, you are making some calls that headstart was going to shut down because of sequester. Even before all this. People were already being adversely impact did impacted by all this. I dont know what this is. This is an excuse to stay in. I will say it one more time. Supporting the cr is a huge compromise for someone like me. Its huge. I hate those numbers, but im willing to vote for that to keep the government going. Im compromising, but im being told its not enough, to keep the government going. Its really frustrating to be here. I dont need any answers. Thats the end of my venting. I yield back my time. The gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. I want to thank my colleagues for being here and genuinely trying to make that effort to help us get through a difficult time, the time when we are awfully divided. I share the frustration with my friends on the other side of the aisle, and i think we ought to be negotiating right now. We ought to sit down and specify conditions. Hopefully it will be sorted out in the next few days. I want to thank my friend mr. Morans and mr. Wolf, because it is important we see an example of bipartisanship and a bipartisan commitment to make sure the people are out of work through absolutely new fall no fault of their own. I hope sooner rather than later they are going to be made whole. It has been pointed out, if you are living paycheck to paycheck it helps to be living whole, but it is a challenging time in the interim, and we have to address these bigger problems if we can. The manner you have gone about trying to offer reassurance i think says a lot about both of you, but its its an example for the rest of us. I want to thank my friends for creating a crack in the stalemate that perhaps we can get some things done. The gentleman yield back. A i am thinking my call thanking my colleagues, and my good friend from oklahoma i especially want to they. Thank. Big thanks to your want to thank. In the meantime, people are assured if we pass this and it he comes law, they will be paid. It becomes law, they will be paid. The number they put forward is 800,000 federal employees furloughed at this time. Some people when they are furloughed begin looking for other employment. Some people dont understand all the dynamics we are doing inside the beltway. Some of them go get drunk and get in accidents. Some may commit suicide. It is not uncommon at all for people thrust into uncertainty to find themselves in that situation. Some of them may commit violent anywhere around the country. Furloughs cause arguments inside families about money. When i was a state court judge i asked what was the leading cause of the vote, and people allowed money was number one way ahead of sex and children most people thought was the primary reason. I might add that is 800,000 federal employees, but there are other businesses and we hear every day they are furloughing employees. Why are they doing that . They are doing that for the purpose of the bottom line. What they say is they have to furlough people because there is not as much demand. They are furloughing a significant number of people. That adds to the furloughing. I learned today friday 104 call centers will be closed. We can pass this measure, and i will vote against it, this so called headstart for low income children act, not because i have not spent it in much the entirety of my career advocating for our children ages three and up to have Early Childhood school experiences. Many come from homes where they dont have the types of resources most of us have to provide the future we need. They may not be able to compete with competitors. Of the 104, 215 people will be furloughed for headstart in the state of florida. Assume maybe i have touched on more than a million and probably as much as 2 Million People around the country without work at the moment. How does that impact to donalds . Mcdonalds . The person who is a federal employee around the corner from the flower shop, where they may take flowers home to their loved ones or what have you, those people are losing business every time you bring this on society. When i bring up that ms. Slaughter and i grew up with a tremendous Radio Program for children. It was called, lets pretend. So that already passed the senate. And we know there are enough republicans and democrats to vote in the house of representatives for the same thing. So i want everybody to understand this. There are enough republicans and democrats in the house of representatives today that if the speaker of the house john boehner simply let the bill get on the floor for an up or down vote, every congressman could vote their conscious, the shutdown would end today. The only thing that is keeping the government shut down, the only thing preventing people from going back to work and basic Research Starting back up and farmers and Small Business owners getting their loans, the only thing preventing all that from happening, right now, today, in the next five minutes is that Speaker John Boehner wont even let the bill get a yes or no vote because he doesnt want to anger the extremists in his party. Thats all. Thats what this whole thing is about. And we have heard a lot from Congressional Republicans the past couple of days saying they dont want this shutdown. Well, there is a simple way to prove it. Send the bill to the floor, let everybody vote, it will pass. Send me the bill. I will sign it. The shutdown will be over and we can get back to the business of governing and helping the American People. [ applause ] it could happen in the next half hour. National parks, monuments, offices would reopen immediately. Benefits and services would resume again. Hundreds of thousands of dedicated Public Servants who are worrying about whether they are going to pay the mortgage or pay the car note, they would start going back to work right away. So my simple message today is, call a vote. Call a vote. Put it on the floor and let every individual member of Congress Make up their own minds and they can show the American People are you for a shutdown or not. If you are not for a shutdown you will vote for the bill. If you are for the shutdown you wont vote for a bill. We dont have to twist anybodys arms. That way the American People will be clear about who is responsible for the shutdown. Or alternatively, more hopefully, they would be clear that this is something that doesnt make sense and we should go ahead and make sure that we are looking out for the American People. It should be that simple. But as i said, the problem we have got is that there is one faction of one party in one half of one branch of government that so far has refused to allow that yes or no vote unless they get some massive partisan concessions in exchange for doing what they are supposed to be doing anyway. In exchange for doing what everybody else agrees is necessary and they wont agree to end the shutdown until they get their way. And you may think im exaggerating but just the other day one Tea Party Republican called the idea of a shutdown wonderful. Another said that a shutdown is exactly what we wanted. Well, they got exactly what they wanted and now they are trying to figure out how to get out of it. Just yesterday one House Republican said im quoting here because i want to make sure people understand i didnt make this up. One House Republican said we are not going to be disrespected, we have to get something out of this and i dont know what that even is. That was a quote we are not going to be disrespected. We got to get something out of this and i dont know what that even is. Think about that. You have already gotten the opportunity to serve the American People. There is no higher honor than that. [ applause ] you have already gotten the opportunity to help businesses like this one. Workers like these. So the American People arent in the mood to give you a goodie bag to go with it. What you get is our intelligence professionals being back on the job. What you get is our medical researchers back on the job. What you get are little kids back in the head starts. What you get are the National Parks and monuments open again. What is you get is the economy not stalling but continuing to grow. What you get are workers continuing to be hired. That is what you get. That is what you should be asking for. Take a vote. Stop this farce and end this shutdown right now. [ applause ] if you are being disrespected it is because of that attitude you got that you deserve to get something for doing your job. Everybody here just does their job, right . You dont if you are working here and in the middle of the day you just stopped and said you know what, i want to get something but i dont know exactly what im going to get, but i am just going to stop working until i get something. Im going to shut down the whole plant until i get something. You would get fired. You would get fired right . [ applause ] because the deal is you have already gotten hired. You have got a job. You are getting a paycheck. And so you also are getting the pride of doing a good job and contributing to a business and looking out for your fellow workers. That is what you are getting. It shouldnt be any different for a member of congress. Now, unlike past shutdowns, i want to make sure everybody understands this, because again sometimes the tendency is to say well, both sides are at fault. This one has nothing to do with deficits or spending or budgets. Our deficits are falling at the fastest pace in 60 years. We have cut the deficit in half since i took office. And some of the things that the republicans are asking for right now would actually add to our deficits. Seriously. So this is not about spending. This is not about fiscal responsibility. This whole thing is about one thing the republican obsession with dismantling the Affordable Care act and denying affordable Health Insurance to millions of americans. That is all that has become about. That seems to be the only thing that unites the Republican Party these days. Through this whole fight they said the American People dont want obama care so we should shut down the government to repeal it or delay it. But, here is the problem. The government is now shut down. But the Affordable Care act is still open for business. So they are not even accomplishing what they say they want to accomplish. And by the way, in the first two days, since the new marketplaces, basically the big group plans that we set up, the first two days that they opened, websites where you can compare and purchase new affordable insurance plans and maybe get tax credits to reduce your costs, millions of americans have made it clear they do want Health Insurance. More than six Million People visited the website healthcare. Gov the day it opened. Nearly 2,000 people picked up the phone and called the call center. In kentucky alone, a state where i didnt win in kentucky so i know they werent doing it for me. In kentucky, nearly 11,000 people applied for new insurance plans in the first two days. Just in one state, kentucky. And Many Americans are finding out when they go on the website that they will save a lot of money or get Health Insurance for the first time. So, my i would think that if, in fact, this was going to be such a disaster that the republicans say it is going to be, that it was going to be so unpopular. They wouldnt have to shut down the government. Wait, nobody would show any interest, there would be two people on the website and then everybody would vote for candidates who want to repeal it. It is not as if republicans havent had a chance to debate the healthcare law. It passed the house of representatives. It passed the senate. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. Last november the voters rejected the president ial candidate that ran on a platform to repeal it. [ applause ] so the Affordable Care act has gone through every single democratic process. All three branches of government. It is the law of the land. It is here to stay. I have said to republicans if there are specific things you think can improve the law to make it even better for people as opposed to just gutting it and leaving 25 Million People without Health Insurance, im happy to talk to you about that. But, a republican shutdown wont change the fact that millions of people need Health Insurance and that the Affordable Care act is being implemented. The shutdown does not change that. All the shutdown is doing is making it harder for ordinary americans to get by and harder for businesses to create jobs at a time when our economy is just starting to gain traction again. You have heard republicans say that obama care will hurt the economy. But the economy has been growing and creating jobs. The single greatest threat to our economy and to our businesses like this one is not the Affordable Care act. It is the unwillingness of republicans in congress to stop refighting a settled election or making the demands that have nothing to do with the budget. They need to move on to the actual business of governing. That is what will help the economy. That is what will grow the economy. That is what will put people back to work. And more than that, House Republicans need to stop careening from one crisis to another in everything they do. Have you noticed that . Since they have taken over the house of representatives we have one of these crises every three months. Have you noticed . And you keep on thinking this is going to be the last one, they are not going to do this again. And then they do it again. I know you are tired of it. Im tired of it. It doesnt mean that they are wrong on every single issue. I said im happy to negotiate with you on anything. I dont think any one party has a monopoly on wisdom. But you dont negotiate by putting a gun to the other persons head. Or worse yet, by putting a gun to the American Peoples head by threatening a shutdown. By the way, even after congress reopens your government it is going to have to turn around quickly and do Something Else and that is pay americas bills. I want to spend a little time on this. It is something called raising the debt ceiling and it has a lousy name. So people end up thinking i dont think we should raise our debt ceiling because it sounds like we are raising our debt. That is not what this is about. It doesnt cost taxpayers a single dime. It doesnt grow the deficits by a single dime. It doesnt allow anybody to spend any new money whatsoever. It is not something that raises our debt. What it does is allow the u. S. Treasury, the u. S. Government, to pay the bills that congress has already racked up. I want you to think about this. If you go to a restaurant, you order a meal, you eat it, maybe you have some wine. Maybe you have two glasses of wine. Great meal. And then you look at the tab it is pretty expensive and you decide im not going to pay the bill. Well, you are not saving money. You are not being frugal. You are just a deadbeat, right . If you buy a house and you decide this month i would rather go on vacation somewhere so im not going to pay my mortgage. You didnt just save yourself some money. You are just going to get foreclosed on. So you dont save money by not paying your bills. You dont reduce your debt by not paying your bills. All you are doing is making yourself unreliable and hurting your Credit Rating. And you will start getting those phone calls and those notices in the mail and next time you try to borrow somebody is going to say you dont pay your bills, you are a deadbeat. Well, the same is true for countries. The only thing that the debt ceiling does is to let the u. S. Treasury pay for what congress has already bought. That is why it is something that has been routine. Traditionally it is not a big deal. Congress has raised it 45 times since Ronald Reagan took office. Just kind of a routine part of keeping the government running. The last time the House Republicans flirted with not raising the debt ceiling back in 2011, some of you remember this, our economy took a bad hit. Our countrys Credit Rating was downgraded for the first time. Just like you would be downgraded if you didnt pay your mortgage. This time, they are threatening to actually force the United States to default on its obligations for the very first time in history. Now you will hear john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell and the other republicans say we dont want to default. But Everybody Knows, it is written about in all of the papers that their basic theory is, okay, if the shutdown doesnt work then we are going to try to get some extra concessions out of the president. We will put a long laundry list, all the things that we want that we cant get passed on our own and if we dont get it, we will tell him we wont vote to pay the countrys bills, we will let the country default. Im not just making this up. It is common knowledge. Every reporter here knows it. I want you to understand the consequences of this. As reckless as a Government Shutdown is, as many people are being hurt by a Government Shutdown, an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse. In a Government Shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time. In an economic shutdown, if we dont raise the debt ceiling, they dont go out on time. In a Government Shutdown disability benefits still arrive on time. In an economic shutdown, they dont. In a Government Shutdown millions of americans, not just federal workers, everybody faces real economic hardship. In an economic shutdown, falling pensions and home values and Rising Interest Rates on things like mortgages and Student Loans, all those things risk putting us back into a bad recession, which will affect this company and those workers and all of you. And that is not that is not my analysis. That is every economist out there is saying the same thing. We have never done it before. And you know, the United States is the center of the world economy. So if we screw up, everybody gets screwed up. The whole world will have problems. Which is why generally nobody has ever thought to actually threaten not to pay our bills. It would be the height of irresponsibility. That is why i said this before. Im going repeat it. There will be no negotiations over this. The American People are not pawns in some political game. You dont get to demand some ransom in exchange for keeping the government running. You dont get to demand ransom in exchange for keeping the economy running. You dont get to demand ransome for doing your most basic job. The sooner that the republicans in congress heed the warnings not just of me or democrats like chris and john, heed the warnings of the chamber of commerce. And c. E. O. s and economists and a whole lot of republicans outside of congress. They are all saying do this. They are all saying to congress do your job. And the sooner you do your job the less damage you will do to our economy and the businesses like this one. Pass a budget. End the Government Shutdown. Pay our bills. Prevent an economic shutdown. Just vote and end the shutdown and you should do it today so we can get back to growing this economy, creating jobs and strengthening our middle class. [ applause ] let me close just by sharing a story i heard as i was getting ready to come here today. Maybe you already know it. Two years ago, a mulch factory next to m. Luis main equipment Storage Facility caught fire and most of the companys equipment was destroyed, causing millions of dollars in damage. Even while the fire was still burning, dozens of employees rushed over to the facility and tried to save as much as they could. Some of you were probably there. And when they finished cutting firelines and spraying down the perimeter of their own property, they went over to help their neighbors. And afterwards even though all of the employees here at m. Luis are on salary, even though the company had just taken a big financial hit, they paid everyone overtime and along with each check included a personalized note saying how much they appreciated the efforts of the workers. Sadalia said everybody says the biggest asset to a business is employees. Some people mean it. Some people dont. We actually do. So this company right here is full of folks who do right by each other. They dont try to see if they can work every angle. They dont lie about each other. They dont try to undermine each other. They understand they are supposed to be on the same team. You pitch in and look out for one another. When somebody gets knocked down you help them back up. You dont ask what can you get out of this . Because you know that success doesnt depend on one of you it deends on all of you working together. America is no different. I see that same spirit in some cities and towns that i visit all across the country. It is alive and well all across the country. It is alive and well in this community where restaurants and businesses are rallying around the regulars. And they are looking out for all of the dedicated Public Servants furloughed. Saying you know what, while you are on furlough, come on, we will give you a burger, we will give you a meal, we will help you out. That is the american ideal. We are working together. Looking out for one another. Meeting our responsibilities. Doing our jobs. Thinking about future generations. And that is why i believe ultimately reason and common sense will prevail. That spirit at some point will infiltrate washington as well. Because i think the American People are so good and so decent they are going to get better behavior from their government than this. And we will once again make sure this is a country where you can make it if you try. Thank you, everybody. God bless you. And god bless the United States of america. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] Senate Democrats also addressed the shutdowns effect on Small Businesses at a capitol hill news conference. We will hear from Business Owners affected by the shutdown. Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Mary Landrieu kicks leads off this 35minute briefing. Good morning to all of you on day three of the tea Party Shutdown of the United States government, and all of our many private sector partners that are hardhit and significantly hurt by their irresponsible and reckless and radical behavior. A few days ago, because of their actions to deny a vote on the floor of the house, with a Bipartisan Senate resolution that would keep the government operating in keep our Small Businesses working, they have sent moms and dads, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends home without a paycheck, without any idea of what is going to happen. It is a sad and shameful time in washington dc, and a heart wrenching time around our nation. They are now taking their anarchy and extortion from capitol hill to main street. Main streets in their own districts, where the real pain is beginning to be felt. Small businesses that derive their livelihood from businesses surrounding many of our parks and monuments, Small Businesses that thousands surround our medical institutions, our military institutions, let alone buildings that are all over the country that have federal employees that used to be in them are no longer, and many of these businesses support that activity, whether it is parking lots, restaurants, dentist offices, starbucks, etc. There are many stories in louisiana and here around, but one story was about a waitress at fort polk. I am sure she doesnt make much more than the minimum wage and maybe on a good day she gets tips. She was on the news last night saying that after we had all led a successful effort to keep fort polk on the thirdlargest Training Facility in the nation, open, after the threat of sequester and the threat of the defense contract constricting that is going on, after we survive that, she doesnt think shes going to be able to survive the tea party recklessness, because no one is coming to the restaurant where she works. So she is already feeling her tipped wage go down, and she said last night thomas she think she may lose her job. This is the result of republican minority tea party that think this is a way to run a government, run a nation. They are wrong, and their actions are hurtful. That me give you just a couple of facts about Small Businesses around the country, and then im going to call on my two extraordinary colleagues who have been strong voices in their states, in their region, and nationally for Small Business. Senator shaheen and senator hi cam, thanks for being with us this morning. The federal government, which is one of the largest employers in the world, spends 400 billion a year with the private sector. I want you to write this number down. That is a billion dollars a day, with private companies, some of whom are represented here. Those contracts have been put at risk by tea party shenanigans. Last year, the sba, Small Business administration, through its main programs, through a very difficult time, might i add, this has not been the recession has been very hard, but nonetheless, the sba, has used its little muscles that it has and pushed out 53,000 loans when a lot of banks were saying no to people walking in their front door, we have no money to lend you. The sba made it possible supported 5 1,000 jobs last year. Those jobs are at risk every day. Please write this in the press. There are 150 loans that are not going to Small Business every day. 93 million, shutdown. So we are on day three, you can do the math. In louisiana, that equals 500,000 of capital not flowing to louisianas businesses because of the tea Party Shutdown. Gulf coast bank, one of the largest lenders in our region, they report as of yesterday morning, 1. 8 million and Small Business loans are on hold due to the tea Party Shutdown. That is one bank. There are 7000 in america. We have 2000 that belong to this program. So this math is looking worse and worse every day. When i turn it over to jeanne shaheen, who is a former governor and the chief economic officer of the state as governor, and now as a senator on the Small Business committee, i would like her to shed some light on how difficult this is going to be for many Small Businesses in your state, and then will have comments from some of the Small Business owners here. Thank you very much for calling attention to the very real challenges that are being faced by Small Business, and thank you to all the Small Businesses who are represented here today, for joining us. The fact is, the consequences of the shutdown on the Small Businesses of our country are very real. We are seeing this in New Hampshire where we have most people in New Hampshire work for Small Businesses, where we know that about two out of three jobs that are being created him as we continue to get out of this recession am are going to be created by Small Businesses. They cannot afford the consequences of this government shut down. We are hearing from some of those individual businesses in my office from New Hampshire. One of those is a small, Innovative Company that makes carbon nanotubes. It is really revolutionary technology. He told me that once the contracts were shut down, and i want to just quote from him, when i talk to their ceo, he said our income will drop to essentially zero. We would burn are very thin cash reserves, and when that money is burned and is not able to be replaced, so our basic financial liability can be irrevocably damaged, even after the crisis passes this is the thing, this doesnt end for Small Businesses after we get the government up and running again. This is a business like so many others in New Hampshire that have already been infected by sequestration by those cuts, and now they are getting a double whammy because of the government shut down. Another New Hampshire Business Owner called me to express his deep frustration with what is going on here, for failing to pass a continuing resolution. Their Satellite Phone technologies help federal agencies meet critical needs and with the shutdown, as we have said, everything is up in the air. They are not certain what this means for their government contracts, and as a result their cash flows are in certain. Their line of credit with the bank is uncertain, and their future is uncertain. We heard from a small Mortgage Lending Company in hooksett, New Hampshire. Right now, they can close some of their new loans, because they cannot get the necessary Tax Information to verify their borrowers income. So not only is the mortgage lenders business being held up by this uncertainty, but so our home sales. Weve got a Housing Market that just is beginning to recover. Senator landrieu talked about the sba lending impact from the shutdown. Well, in New Hampshire, sba loans lester helped 630 Small Businesses get access to over 130 million in loans. So this is having a real impact across the board or our businesses, for their families. Its bad for the economy, and its bad for the country. It doesnt need to be this way. What we need is for the house to come to the table and be willing to put the bill on the floor that would run the government and to get a clean vote. The votes are there to pass it. It is time now to bring the bill up and pass it, to get this government open again. Im very pleased to be joined this morning by a new member of the senate who is a great advocate for Small Businesses. She has a lot of them in her home state of north dakota. Thank you so much. During the time that i was an elected official i served on something called the industrial commission. We ran the bank of north dakota. What we did at the bank of north dakota is we participated on a regular basis with the Small Business administration to provide Economic Opportunity to entrepreneurs, and it pays off huge dividends for our country. It tells our country, look this is the bedrock of our economic activity. And now we have a situation in washington dc where if the federal government applied for an sba loan, they wouldnt qualify. Think about that. We would not qualify for an sba loan. Number one, we havent demonstrated any amount of stability here. Instead, we keep manufacturing crises, going from point to point to point and not getting things done. The same things we expecting all the Small Businesses to do and running in an effective manner, do the right thing by their employees, but yet we dont do that here in washington dc. It is the worlds worst example of how to run a government, and here we are. The great challenge we have today is, anytime you hear a concern or complaint, it seems like there is another resolution over in the house to address the concern thats gotten headlines. But whos going to stand for the Small Business folks . Who is going to stand up for that bedrock of the american economy, in a time when we are relying on them to bolster and build our fragile economy back . Who stands for them e there is not a resolution over there that opens up sba. There is not a resolution over there that helps them. Theres not a resolution over there that deals with head start, and any of these emerging businesses. Many of these businesses rely on head start, to have that opportunity to get your kids a great education while they are trying to build the future of their state in their country and their businesses. Lets stop the nonsense. Lets stop behaving inappropriately p relet start finding government the right way, and lets start moving toward solving our longterm problems. If you think about the situation we have today, we are having a debate about a resolution that would Fund Government for six weeks. Coming on five weeks now. That is what the debate is about. Instead of the longterm systemic reforms that we all know we need to have, and we have so polarized opinions and points of view that we need to figure out a way to bring it back together. But it cannot be by piecemealing a budget resolution. Its got to be by recognizing we are all in this together. There are reasons why we have programs like sba. If you jeopardize those and dont recognize the value of those, we will be affecting the bedrock of the american economy. So im very proud to join with chairwoman landrieu and my great friend, governor shaheen and with these wonderful Small Business people who are building our economy and building a future for our people and for our employees. We hope that efforts like this and your speaking out will make a huge difference in terms of our results here. I want to introduce john, who is the ceo of a Small Business majority, and he will speak on the impact of economic security. Thank you for your tremendous leadership on Small Business issues, and thank you to all the Small Business owners who are here, who represent a tiny fraction, a microcosm of the 28 million Small Business owners across this country. I am a longtime entrepreneur and ceo and founder of Small Business majority. We are and Advocacy Organization with offices in seven states plus washington dc, and working with our 85 Strategic Partners across the country, we have a network of over 300,000 Small Businesses. We also conduct Scientific Research into key issues affecting Small Business owners. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the Government Shutdown from of Small Business perspective. The reallife consequences get lost in the political theater. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this Government Shutdown from a Small Business perspective. There has been a lot said about the political gamesmanship around the shutdown. This is not a game. It is a not not a game for our nations Small Business owners. They are generally frightened for what can happen as a result of this shutdown. The shutdown creates tremendous uncertainty which diminishes Consumer Confidence. We know from our recent polling that the number one concern of Small Businesses is continued Consumer Confidence as we continue to pull out of the recession. There are people, companies there to buy their products and services. Anything that scares consumers wreaks havoc on Small Businesss model lines. This is now happening with a disproportionate effect on many retail establishments. Slackening sales have serious consequences on profits and jobs. There are thousands of Small Businesses that are Government Contractors or whose businesses depend on Government Contractors. Many Small Business contractors have already had to cut back due to sequestration. To make matters worse, Small Business owners are suffering from the fact that Small Business Administration Loan processing is grinding to a halt. Why is the Government Shutdown right now . It is because a narrow band of ideologues are hellbent on relitigating a Health Care Law that has been passed by congress, signed by the president , upheld by the Supreme Court, and went into effect. Small businesses are not interested in ideology. We are interested in creating products, taking care of customers and making payroll. We need our government to recognize and support this. We launched a National Sign on campaign at www. Stoptheshutdown. Com, asking Small Business representatives to let their government no that the shutdown would adversely affect their bottom lines. Hundreds of Small Business owners have already signed. We need more. Congress needs to get back to the business of governing instead of playing politics. Doing otherwise puts countless Small Businesses and our economy in jeopardy. Thank you and now it is my pleasure to introduce lynn ozer, the president of sba lending and also the chair of the National Association of government guaranteed lenders. I want to thank chairman landrieu, senator shaheen for allowing me to be here. Thank you to john for the introduction. My name is lynn ozer and i am the president of Susquehanna Bank Government Guaranteed Lending Department where i manage the sba lending and all other government guaranteed lending. Over 233 branches. This bank has served the community for over a century. The loans are centrally administered and our we participate in virtually all of the sba programs under the 7a umbrella. For the last 25 years, i have been on a trade association for banks and nonbanks that participate. I am presently the chair of the board of that trade association. Chairwoman landrieu spoke of over 2000 banks that art is a great in Small Business lending. 750 of the most active participants are members of our trade association. I wish to thank the Small Business majority for having me in attendance and i wish it was under better circumstances that we could brag about what the sba and its programs do. I still want to share with you the traumatic effect of the shutting down of the government and what it has done to our customers. At sba, would provide Small Business access to longterm capital. They obtain the most vital funding through the program of the sba. They use them most often to start up and expand their existing businesses. The most heavily utilized products, Small Businesses rely on these loans to create jobs and propel our economy forward. With this Government Shutdown, although additional sba loans have been vetted and approved and submitted to the agency after monday at midnight, we were proud to approve over 2. 9 billion of sba loans just in the month of september alone. The shutdown of the government has ground to a halt many of the loans and they are now put in a queue waiting for funding when the federal budget is passed. The Government Shutdown should not be impacting borrowers. They are the innocent bystanders who are being impacted by this shutdown. I ask you, please do not hurt these borrowers. With no alternative access to capital, Small Businesses across our community will suffer crippling effect to growth, especially if the shutdown lasts for an extended period of time. Cutting opportunities for businesses to expand will only create additional Economic Uncertainty as the banks and lenders are no longer able to fill the fundamental need. The sba allows banks to approve loans that they were unable to approve under normal banking regulations and policies and procedures. Just yesterday, i learned of a customer that has applied for a loan at Susquehanna Bank. Tl technology owned in part by a veteran operates a manufacturer and an exporter in pennsylvania. They are about to receive a new government contract that would begin on october 20. They are buying a new piece of equipment and hiring two new employees who are about to begin. As of now, the bank has approved the loan but we cannot get funding through the sba because the deadline hit before his application got to the sba. This is causing a very difficult time for him and he is only an example of one of the many. We have a young couple who finally secured a lease and a sought after location in the city of philadelphia to open their french restaurant. Their legal permanent residents, but we cannot get their sba loan approved without verifying their immigration status which we are unable to do because the government is shutdown. Through this difficult time, we would like to applaud sbas outstanding commitment to ensure access to capital and meet demand from lenders and Small Businesses that need access to capital to start or grow their companies. To meet the demand, the sba approves 740 million in gross approvals just last week. The inability of lawmakers to successfully avoid a federal government shut down is distressing as a lender who relies on the sbas government guaranteed offering to be able to meet the needs of my Small Business customers. In the coming days and weeks, i urge them to Work Together as quickly as possible to agree upon a budget and restore access to muchneeded capital for the hardworking smallBusiness Owners across the country. The one thing that i find to be most distressing is Consumer Confidence creeping back up to be hit with another blow as devastating and lasting as this. The need to resolve this is greater than ever. Thank you very much. Good morning. I am very honored to be here today especially to share this podium with so many esteemed speakers. My name is lajuanna russell. I am the owner and president of Business Management associate. We are a Management Consulting firm here in washington dc we are 90 federal contractors so most of our employees are working either on site or performing some other type of federal work. I came here today and i have this whole little list of comments that i want to provide and hit the point home about how difficult this is but i think the most interesting thing that you will hear today is my story. We have been hit hard by the shenanigans on capitol hill. I think it is important that you put a face to what is going on. I think it is important that you hear that this isnt just some decision this is a decision that impacts people every day. It impacts their ability to buy groceries. It impacts their ability to get gas to go to work if they can. It impacts people every single day. So, starting out and understanding sequestration, you know that smallBusiness Owners, we hear a lot about what goes on on the hill and some of it, that could never happen, they would never let that happen. Sequestration happened. Again, as a Small Business owner youre like, oh my god this cant be happening. Those who were sent to help us would not let this happen. Well yes, that small faction of irrational individuals let it happen. We are being held hostage. It happens. I had to layoff probably 10 people when sequestration hit. If the goal is to increase the number of jobs we have out there, to decrease unemployment, to ensure our economy is booming, why layoff 10 people because of sequestration . I dont want to make another phone call to some dad who is trying to figure out what he is going to do for his kid for Health Insurance to say, i am sorry. That contract was cut. I am sorry, the funding is gone. I am not quite sure what you and your family are going to do for Health Insurance but then, i had a ray of hope. We had the Affordable Care act coming. I knew then as an employer who cares, at least those families would have that insurance coming. Now, you want to put that insurance on the chopping block as part of some chess game . When you see the millions of people that that actually impact daytoday, you see the millions of people who flooded the internet trying to get that care. I said no, shutdown cant happen. Here we are again, held hostage. I had to contracts that were supposed to start on october 1. They didnt start. Do i have another call to make . I hope not. I dont want to make any more calls. I dont want to call one more dad or one more mom who is just trying to get by and tell them i am so sorry, that funding was cut. We have some folks in congress who dont understand real life who dont understand what it is to go paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. They dont understand what it is to need Health Insurance. I am proud that i can offer my employees Health Insurance. But if i have to terminate them because of lack of funding on a contract, that throws them into a different area. While you guys are playing chess and figuring out how youre going to cut some corners on things that real people actually need daytoday, consider the impact you are having on the millions and millions of Small Business owners like me. We dont want you to play chess anymore. We want you to think about what we need and to follow suit. This isnt a game. This isnt about winning and saying yes, i got it. In the end, we lose. Thank you. [applause] thank you for going off your script. That was excellent. Can we open it up to any questions . [inaudible] first of all, it shouldnt be about whether democrats like myself will crack or not. It should be about whether these businesses can sustain their shenanigans. The answer is, they cannot. This group of republicans is playing with fire. It is hard to describe their actions of shutting the government down, why they seem to be giddy about that, how could they possibly be happy about hearing these stories . That is what shutting the government does do Small Businesses all over the america. The answer is, they need to open the government now bypassing the resolution that was passed by republicans and democrats in the senate, that would pass them open the government, and then decide to go to a conference on the Budget Committee which they have resisted for six months. Step one, open the government. Step two, go to budget conference. I want to remind everyone here the senate has voted 18 times to go to a budget conference to have a debate about what senator shaheen and senator heitkamp said about the issues that are affecting us. Our 10 year outlook, our debt burden that we are carrying, the challenge to the economy. The first step is for the tea party to stop their tea party and open the government. Step two is to go to a budget conference. That is what we are here to say. This is not a game. In their effort to hurt the government, which they have said is their point, they do want to hurt the government, but they are very confused about what the government is. Small businesses and private Sector Companies are partners with the government. In their attempt to hurt the government, they are hurting millions and millions of Small Businesses. As one of the speakers said, even when the government comes back to work, which one day i am assuming we will since we are the greatest in the world, not perfect but the greatest in the world, while the Government Employees may get their paychecks, these businesses might not be there. If they miss payroll or default, they are gone. Market sees that this group of irresponsible individuals is not only holding the government of the United States hostage, all businesses that are partners with the government which are of all sizes and shapes, but then they seem willing in their comments to hold the economy of the United States hostage. That will cause havoc on every business in america, every family in america. Their Credit Ratings will go down and it is hard to even contemplate. Heidi, i dont know if you want to add to that