Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in

support of a clean, short-term continuing resolution--or, as we say, a

CR--to temporarily fund the government without controversial policy

riders. After the vote we just had, I hope we can move to such a

measure. Even some Republican leaders have acknowledged that this

previous vote was a show vote designed to appease, but to fail. It is

part of a troubling pattern that has been emerging over many months of

avoiding meaningful, bipartisan talks to fix the budget and waiting

until the last moment to deal with issues everyone knows must be

addressed.

  We have an obligation to the American people to keep their government

working. It is one of the most basic responsibilities we have as

Members of Congress. A clean CR at this juncture fulfills this

obligation, keeping the government open for a few more weeks while we

work on a plan to eliminate the sequester-level budget caps for defense

and nondefense programs. I wish we could have begun work on an overall

agreement earlier in the year, as Vice Chairwoman Mikulski and others

strongly urged months ago, but at this late hour we should pass this

short-term measure and move on to serious negotiations on budget caps

for this year and beyond.

  Shutting the government down now will not serve any useful purpose.

What a shutdown will do is waste taxpayers' money and hurt the economy.

Indeed, the 2-week Republican government shutdown in 2013 cost our

economy billions of dollars. Based on that experience, here is some of

what we can expect if there is another forced government shutdown this

year:

  The Department of Housing and Urban Development will have to furlough

more than 95 percent of its workforce, impacting services to more than

60 field and regional offices nationwide. Payments will be delayed to

the roughly 3,000 local public housing authorities that manage the

country's publicly assisted housing programs. In fact, this shifts the

burden onto them, causing them to turn to local municipalities that are

equally stressed in terms of their budgets. So there is no avoiding

this pain--in fact, it will be multiplied if we shut down the

government.

  Thousands of home sales and mortgage-refinancing packages backed by

the Federal Housing Administration, the FHA, will be put on standby.

People who are ready to close, people who are ready to make a

commitment to a home, people who are ready to keep this economy moving

will be told: Stand back; wait and see.

  Cities, counties, and States will not be able to move forward with

new community development block grant projects, preventing important

local economic investment. This is a program which affects every

community in this country, and it is something which is a very

positive, constructive way to give local leaders the resources to fund

the local initiatives the community desperately wants and needs. This

is not Big Washington; this is local America getting a chance to see

their projects put in place.

  The Federal Aviation Administration will not be able to certify new

aircraft, interrupting billions of dollars in sales.

  The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will be

forced to stop investigations and emergency response training.

  Classrooms will be shuttered for 700 midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant

Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY. These are young men and women who

are committing themselves to serve the Nation either directly in the

armed services of the United States or as members of our merchant

fleet. They will basically be told to go home.

  Financial support will stop for the Maritime Security Program, the

MSP. This is an important public-private partnership that is critical

to sustaining our troops serving overseas.

  These are just a few examples from two of the Departments under my

purview as the ranking member of the Transportation, Housing and Urban

Development Appropriations Subcommittee. There are many other examples

throughout the Federal Government that my colleagues are talking about

today.

  Knowing the results that shutdowns and these hardball tactics have

brought before, it is hard to believe some still are willing to resort

to budget brinksmanship again.

  I know many of my colleagues on the other side share my concern. I

particularly wish to commend Senator Collins, who has been an excellent

leader in chairing the THUD subcommittee, for her support for a clean

CR. She has done extraordinary work under very difficult and

challenging circumstances. Her support for a clean CR so that we can

negotiate a longer term budget solution is indicative of the kind of

forthright, thoughtful, and in some cases very courageous service she

has rendered to Maine and to the country.

  While we focus on the immediate showdown threat, let's remember the

bigger threats we face in 2016. We are here because of the Budget

Control Act and its attendant sequester-level caps on discretionary

spending. Let's remember that these sequester-level caps were never

intended to be implemented. At the time BCA was enacted, the cuts were

considered to be extreme--in fact, so extreme that Congress would not

ever let them happen, that they would embrace defense and nondefense,

and that they would be an action-forcing mechanism--not an actuality of

law but an action-forcing mechanism to cause us on a bipartisan basis

to come up with long-term budget solutions. Unfortunately, that

solution did not materialize.

  Over time, we had the very good work of Senator Murray and

Congressman Paul Ryan to come up with a 2-year suspension, but we are

right back where we were, and these sequester caps are staring us right

in the face. But today, rather than working together to tackle the

sequester, we are on the verge of orchestrating another fiscal crisis.

And it is not a crisis that will help the American people; rather, it

will hinder the American people. And, indeed, it is ironic because

Members on both sides recognize the BCA cap should be raised for both

defense and nondefense appropriations.

  Indeed, both the Defense authorization and the Defense appropriations

bills carry bipartisan sense-of-the-Senate language that says:

``Sequestration relief must be accomplished for fiscal years 2016 and

2017.'' And, ``Sequestration relief should include equal defense and

nondefense relief.'' So you have a bipartisan consensus on these two

committees that represent a significant number of our colleagues who

are essentially saying: We have to end this. And they are saying it

because they believe, as I do, that our national security rests not

just upon adequate elements of the Department of Defense but adequate

investment for all our Federal programs.

  So beyond committing a clean, short-term funding bill, we must focus

on eliminating these draconian spending caps imposed on us by the BCA.

We know these caps will cause real harm to programs across the Federal

Government that our States and constituents rely on.

  These are not academic issues that could be dismissed as being some

programs that are ineffective and less limiting. These are across-the-

board cuts that hit all our constituents and hit them hard.

  Indeed, months ago Chairman McCain and I together wrote to urge the

Committee on the Budget to include a higher baseline funding amount for

the Department of Defense in the budget resolution. We were essentially

asking them to ignore the BCA caps and produce a budget that

realistically recognizes the base needs of the Department of Defense--

not the one-time spending of OCO contingency but routine spending that

would be projected forth.

  Senator McCain in particular worked in extraordinarily good faith to

try to get such a provision included in the budget resolution, but he

did not succeed. And, in response, the use of OCO contingency funds was

incorporated to skirt the budget caps. Essentially, what the committee

has done--the defense authorization committee--is it has taken the

President's budget numbers, but moved money out of the base budget into

OCO, beyond the President's request. And what you are doing is creating

this OCO funding mechanism--in a sense, a gimmick, really--to cover the

real cost--the ongoing cost, the routine continuing cost--of the

Department of Defense. That is not good budgeting, and it is not good

for Defense either.

  Because of this I was unable to support legislation on the floor for

the Defense authorization bill that in many other respects--virtually

every other respect--was extremely well done and extremely thought out.

Again, I commend the chairman for all his efforts and those of my

colleagues.

  I clearly disagree that using this OCO funding arrangement--gimmick,

sleight of hand, whatever you want to call it--is the way to proceed

forward. Relying on it essentially preempts defense from the Budget

Control Act and leaves everything else under those onerous caps. As I

said, that not only does not adequately and realistically fund defense,

but it seriously erodes national security because national security is

something more than simply what the Department of Defense does. It is

the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and it is

a myriad of other functions that will not see funding. In fact, they

will see their funding begin to shrink dramatically.

  If we use this approach this year, with the argument that it is just

a bridge to the day we finally get ourselves together, I think we are

deluding ourselves. It would be much easier next year to put even more

money into OCO, to take programs that are traditionally funded through

the base budget of the Department of Defense and say: Well, we just

don't have room. Let's put it in OCO. It becomes the gift that keeps on

giving, and it will not provide the real resources and the certainty

the Department of Defense needs over many years to plan for their

operations.

  To stick things in 1-year funding is not to tell the Department of

Defense: You can be confident that 2 or 3 years from now, when you are

developing that new weapons system platform, the money will be there.

It may, but again, it may not. We can't give them that insecurity. We

have to give them a sense of certainty.

Now, this is a view that is shared not just by myself and some

colleagues here on both sides of the aisle but by senior Defense

Department officials. They have testified repeatedly before our

committee that OCO funding does not provide long-term budget certainty.

They need that. And the troops--the men and women they lead--need that.

  In fact, it really just allows DOD to plan for 1 year. And there are

very few programs in the Department of Defense that are 1-year

programs. A major weapons system is a multiyear development and then

there is the production process. The strategy is not year by year. It

is over several years at least. So this is not an efficient and

effective way to run the organization. Proper budgeting and planning in

the Department of Defense requires at least 5 years. That is the

standard. The standard measure is a 5-year program forecast, budget

forecast, and we are telling them: Well, this year you can have a

bonanza of OCO funds. Next year could be more, could be less, could be

much less.

  This is not the way to efficiently allocate resources for national

security and to efficiently develop a strategy to counteract an

increasing array of threats around the globe in many different

dimensions in many different regions. If we go down this path, it will

lead to instability for our troops, their families, and for our defense

industrial base. They deserve certainty, not a year-to-year, perhaps-

maybe, maybe-perhaps approach.

  We also need to recognize, as I have repeated before, that national

security is not just the Department of Defense. Other agencies are

critical--the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security,

Department of Justice, and Department of Treasury, which does all the

terrorist financing sanctions. They have to trace funds flowing around

the world to ensure they do not aid and assist terrorist activities or

other maligning activities. They need resources too.

  Taking this approach as it stands now, using this OCO approach for

defense and then letting everything else stay under BCA, will not give

these agencies the resources they need.

  I was struck a few days ago when General Petraeus was here testifying

that one of the critical areas of effort against ISIL is information

warfare. They have proven to be extraordinarily adept at using social

media, at communicating through the Internet. One of the questions from

my colleague--which was very thoughtful and fundamental--was this: Is

the State Department doing enough to counteract--as one of our major

foreign policy organizations--this information campaign by ISIL? The

General sort of chuckled a bit, and then he said: Let me tell you that

when I was commanding, on active service, the State Department had to

come to me and essentially borrow $1 million from CENTCOM funds so they

could get in the ball game--to just get in the game in terms of

information warfare: counteracting measures, public campaigns of

information in countries throughout the globe, particularly in the

Middle East.

  That will be much worse if we proceed down this path, and we will not

be enhancing our national security. If the ISIL message is unanswered,

if they are able to attract adherents from around the globe because all

they can really hear is this grotesque discussion of ISIL and what they

propose, and there are no counterarguments, there is no countervailing

points, we lose that information war. And that is not just a DOD

function.

  Now, we have to make investments in both defense and nondefense. But

as I said before, if we stick with these BCA caps, our non-DOD programs

will suffer. In addition to that, the needs of the American people will

suffer.

  We will not be able to invest in adequate transportation and water

infrastructure. We won't be able to do things that provide adequate and

decent housing for our citizens. Under the budget caps we will lose

jobs too. When the resources diminish, the need for workers diminishes,

and that will happen.

  Now, we have a situation, particularly where some of our most

vulnerable Americans would suffer grievously. Here are a few examples.

The elderly housing program has been cut in half since 2010, even when

we know the United States population today is aging faster.

  Every Member of this Senate has numerous elderly housing programs in

their State. Their low-income seniors rely on them. I would suspect

they take some pride in the fact there is adequate housing--in some

cases not enough, but at least some adequate housing. They will suffer.

  There are 7.7 million very low income renters in the United States.

That means they pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent or

live in substandard housing or both. If these budget caps go into

effect, then the THUD bill will not include meaningful funding for the

affordable housing production program available to local governments.

  When we turn to Public Housing Authorities, they are facing more than

$3 billion in capital needs just to keep them repaired, just to make

them places that are decent to live in, where people can have

appropriate hallway lighting, they can have elevators that work, they

can have plumbing systems that are adequate--the basics.

  We are not talking about building whirlpools, spas, and Jacuzzis.

This is just meeting basic requirements in maintenance and capital

repairs. The level of funding PHA's are faced with is the same level we

provided in the late 1980s. That is going back about 30 years. Thirty

years ago, relatively speaking, we would be spending as much as we are

now on simply maintaining public housing. These are real-world

consequences.

  Again, BCA comes into play in terms of the impact on domestic

programs. Funding for public transit continues to fall even while

transit ridership goes up.

  One of the success stories over the past few years is our public

transit systems. Our buses, our subway systems, our light rail systems

are enjoying increased ridership. That is good for people to get to

work, and it is good for our environment because of reduces the use of

individual automobiles. But if our ridership goes up and the resources

go down, we are going to see a system that gets less and less

dependable, reliable, and effective, and we will lose not only a number

of those riders but have incidents--as we have seen across the

country--where there are significant safety concerns and significant

disruptions.

  It has not been uncommon over the last several months here in

Washington to hear on the radio that a whole subway line has gone down

because of a maintenance problem or something else, and that day's

workforce doesn't get to the office for 3 or 4 or 5 hours. Guess what.

That costs a lot of private employers a great deal of money because the

people aren't doing the work, and they probably would be paid. So

essentially this impacts our economy, and it is multiplied. And it will

be exponentially multiplied if we start cutting away the money, as

suggested in the Budget Control Act.

  It is now time to work together and to enact first a clean CR, which

will give us the time to systematically and comprehensively address the

issues that are staring us straight in the face because of the BCA--the

budget caps on Defense and nondefense. It is time to be able to move--

as I believe the vast majority of my colleagues want to--the excess OCO

funding back into the regular budget of the Department of Defense as we

raise the budget cap, and as we raise the budget cap for the Department

of Defense, to recognize we have to raise the cap not only for other

national security agencies to protect our country, but also for other

agencies in order to invest in our economy, keep us productive, keep

people employed, and also keep faith with the thousands and thousands

of Americans who have worked and now may need help. There are seniors

in need of rental assistance. They need the support of a good transit

system to get to work or, if they are a senior citizen, to get to a

doctor's appointment. They are counting on us.

  So I hope all my colleagues can come together, forge an agreement,

avoid a shutdown, and then do something more than just keep the lights

on--invest across the board in our people and watch those investments

multiply to a productive, successful economy and a more secure America.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.