Republicans 'want to cut spending, but they're unwilling to cut their own pay,' Senator says
April 5, 2011
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), today in a speech on the Senate floor called on House Republicans to pass a stand-alone bill equivalent to the Boxer-Casey Bill, passed by the Senate last month, which says if there’s a shutdown, Members of Congress and the President don’t get paid.
House Republicans voted against the Boxer-Casey Bill twice last Friday. Instead, they attached a weaker provision to a bill they knew would never become law.
“They want to cut spending, but they’re unwilling to cut their own pay,”
Senator Mikulski said. “If there is a government shutdown, I don’t think members of Congress should be paid. If there is a government shutdown and we tell dedicated federal employees that they’re not going to get paid, that they’re nonessential, well the fact that we couldn’t stop a shutdown shows we’re nonessential.”
Audio of the Senator’s floor statement is available at
http://demradio.senate.gov/actualities/mikulski/040511_MIKULSKI.mp3
The full text of Senator Mikulski’s floor statement follows:
Mr. President, my colleague has talked about one disease in Washington, but I’m going to talk about another disease that seems to be running rampant over in the House Republican caucus and that is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. And the reason I say that is that they say one thing and they mean another. They say one thing and they deceive the American public.
The reason I call it “hypocrisy” is this: What they say they want to do, which is reduce government spending, is not what they are doing. Sure, I’m for a government that’s more frugal. I’m for cuts. But I’m not for their cuts. What they propose is reckless and radical. And when they don’t get their own way, they say, ‘Cut it or shut it.’
However, if there is a government shutdown, I don’t think members of Congress should be paid. If there is a government shutdown and we tell dedicated federal employees that they’re not going to get paid, that they’re nonessential, well the fact that we couldn’t stop a shutdown shows we’re nonessential. And I believe if there is a shutdown, members of Congress should not get paid.
I not only want to express that as a sentiment. I did that backing Senator Barbara Boxer’s bill, which passed the Senate, that said if there is a shutdown, members of Congress don’t get paid. Now, what did the House Republicans do? They passed a bill that allows Members of Congress and the President to receive retroactive payment. Now, the Senate bill doesn’t do that. So they would be the only ones in shutdown that can come back and pick up their paycheck. You talk about hypocrisy. That’s called bait-and-switch.
Even the title of their bill is wrong. Their bill says, ‘The Government Shutdown Prevention Act.’ Well, their bill doesn’t stop a shutdown. It doesn’t even help with the sitdown. What is a sitdown? Where we would come to the table and, as grownup Americans, we would try to arrive at how to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government that recognizes not only debt, but that there are certain aspects of the government program we need to be able to fund.
My constituents were outraged when Wall Street executives got hundreds of millions of dollars of bonuses. Well, they should be outraged when, as members of Congress, we’re going to get paid when they don’t. Here’s what I don’t get: In my home state of Maryland, we have the National Institutes of Health. Right now thousands of people are working as a team to find the cure for Alzheimer’s, for AIDS, for autism, for cancer and for other terrible diseases. They are racing for the cure. But Congress is going to tell those researchers that they’re nonessential.
I represent the headquarters for the Social Security Administration. Right now there are thousands of federal employees processing Social Security claims to make sure someone who’s disabled qualifies for their benefit.
They’re going to be told they’re nonessential.
Let me tell you this. On any given day, if somebody would go to their Social Security office and find it shuttered. It they found they cannot apply for a benefit they believe they’re eligible for, I believe they would rather shut Congress down than shut down their Social Security office. And if you ask anybody in the United States of America, who do you think is more essential, members of Congress or the researchers working on a cure for cancer or people working to defend our borders? They would not say members of Congress.
It’s very clear that people know they depend on the functioning of a federal government. They depend on civil servants who are honest and have integrity. And they count on Congress to make sure we keep government doors open.
I’m ready to come to the table. I believe all Democrats are ready to come to the table. But we will not come to the table to engage in meaningless discussions and pursuing a reckless path.
Senate Democrats passed a bill that said if there is a shutdown, we don’t get paid. No way, no day, and no back pay. The House does the sham scam that says, ‘We’ll pretend that we’re not getting paid, but we’re going to pick up a back payment.’
You know, I just don’t get these guys. They want to take away Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, but they sure are happy picking up their government health care. They love to get federally subsidized health care. They want to take away other people’s pension, but they sure like getting their federal employee pensions.
I want to put an end to the hypocrisy and I want to put an end to the C.R. dangling. I think we need to come to the table. I think we need to pass a responsible budget that recognizes we are in a frugal era, but we want to make sure that people know that we are on their side.
And at the same time, the American people need to know that many of us are willing to say if a shutdown comes and federal employees get no pay, if contractors get no pay, we get no pay and no back pay. I’ll have more to say on this as this week unfolds. But before I sit down, I would say, please, let’s sit down rather than have a shutdown.
