Senate Proceeding 03-03-09 on Mar 3rd, 2009 :: 0:12:50 to 0:22:35
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0:12:47 to 0:13:07( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: year's spending, let's freeze it, responsible. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. mr. presid the amendment that has just been offered by nevada. mr. president, i go home every weekend and i talk to families across my state.

0:12:50 to 0:22:35( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Patty Murray

0:13:08 to 0:13:28( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: there is no doubt that people are hurting. thousands of people have been laid off from their jobs. thounds more are worried that this week they're going to be the one to be laid off from their jobs. since we first as hard as i've ever seen to

0:13:29 to 0:13:50( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: address these challenges that are facing millions of americans today: losing their house, losing their home, losing their retirement. trying to get this economy back on track and instill some confidence in country so we can move forward. we passed a major economic recovery package just a few weeks ago. it is being implemented as we speak and will be lementd over

0:13:51 to 0:14:11( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: the coming weeks and -- implemented over the coming weeks and months. here we are today talking about a bill that basically is the responsibility of congress every single year found the government agencies that help make our country work. we should have had this bill passed three, four, five months ago. we didn'tment this bill was done done.

0:14:12 to 0:14:33( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: it was ready -- we didn't. this bill was done. it was ready to go by the end of just a moment all of the appropriations committees had finished their work. they had passed out of the appropriations committee, almost awful them oall ofthem with a unanimous vote, some of them with just a few negative votes in committee. but, mr. president, the

0:14:34 to 0:14:55( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: responsibility of the united states senate -- of the house, of the house, of congress, is to pass these bills every year. whether it's the foo food and drug administration which makes sure our food is safe. whether it's the air traffic controllers that manage our flights in and out of our airports, ether it's our

0:14:56 to 0:15:16( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: health care theagz do important work on research for our nation's help, whether it is government agencies that fund agriculture, or -- or any of the other agencies that we do. these are people who go to work every day whose function it is to make our economy and our country work so that general, average citizens don't have to sit at home and worry about whether the drug they purchase

0:15:17 to 0:15:38( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: is safe or whether the agriculture that they buy at the market is safe or whether their schools are funded o whether we provide the basic health care that americans know they need in order to keep their families secure. mr. president, too bad these bills didn't pass a few months ago. why didn't they? because when he an administration whose bottom line was to say.

0:15:39 to 0:16:00( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: no and the president at the time, president bush, said i will say no to these bills if they come to my desk. we here in the senate and in the house said, these bills are important but if this president is going to veto them, then we are going to wait a few months for the election. that happened. we have a brand-new president. and unfortunately, a few months late because we were working on an economic stimulus package, we

0:16:01 to 0:16:22( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: are now here to pass those bills. i wish they had been done a few months ago. i know all of us do. further. all of the people who worked with to us get these bills passed, everyone out in the country, whether it's a ymca that has a domestic violence

0:16:23 to 0:16:43( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: center that's waiting for $1,000 that we marked up and appropriated in committee last year for them, are waiting to move forward on that project. up in this bill, transit projects, the -- i mean, across the board, whether it's law enforcement, whethert's consumer product safety it's the numerous housing agencies that are funded in this have known for several months

0:16:44 to 0:17:06( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: what they're going to get. they are waiting for us to finish or work this week, by this back to a c.r. -- so we don't go back to a c.r. it is our responsibility to pass these mr. president, the senate had a very strong vote just a few hours ago to say we are not going to work off a continuing resolution, we are going to be

0:17:07 to 0:17:27( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: and do our responsible job of funding these agencies as w sit. now, the senator from nevada's amendment that now comes before us sends us into a tailspin. it says, we're going to send these bills back to the appropriations committee to cut some $20 billion out of them and come back at us. well, first of all, just from a process point of view, this is not going to happen by this friday.

0:17:28 to 0:17:50( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: and if went on get this bill passed by this friday, government shuts down. i can talk about the consequences of that. i've been in this body before when government shut down. it is not pretty and we don't want to be there for a million reasons that i'm happy to talk about for some time. but we'll leave that for snore day. the fact is that to send this bill back to the appropriations

0:17:51 to 0:18:12( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: committee and tell them to cut $20 billion out of it, mr. president, that will underfund critical, critical initiatives that this senate and this house believed are important. let me just talk for a minute about housing. now, we all know that one of the reasons that our economy is in such trouble today is because of

0:18:13 to 0:18:34( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: the housing crisis that has before us. in this bill, if we do not pass it as it is written and before the senate today, we have about $45,000 families will lose their jobs on top of the thousands that we have already seen. we cannot afford to put those families in jeopardy. yet that is essentially what

0:18:35 to 0:18:56( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: will happen if this -- if the senator from nevada's amendment is pass the. we are working hard to make sure that our families don't go into fiewrchlt the senator's amendment -- into foreclosure. the senator's amendment puts all of those families at risk. single family guaranteed housing loans are at risk under the senator's amendment. federal law enforcement efforts through the department of

0:18:57 to 0:19:19( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: justice are at risk through the senator's amendment. antiterrorist enforcement programs at the department of treasury are at risk under the senator's appointment. u.s. attorneys are at risk, food and medical product safety, right at a time when we're all worried about peanut butter, is at risk. consumer product safety. the list goes on.

0:19:20 to 0:19:40( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: all of these priorities that we worked through our committee on a bipartisan basis and said we need to move these issues forward, are at risk under the senator's amendment now, mr. president, i think we all have to go back to our responsibility. all of us wish this bill could have passed a few months ago. it didn't. is in frofnt us now, we need to pass this bill, get to the president's desk and then,

0:19:41 to 0:20:02( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: mr. president, we will have an opportunity to lk at a budget for 2010, our budget committee will look at that we will pass a budget out. it will have to pass in the senate and house. it will set the parameters for next year's appropriations bills and those then appropriations committees will in the next few

0:20:03 to 0:20:25( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: months begin to work on those bills. for anybody that has issues small or large, that is the appropriate place to begin the debate and the amendment process and hopefully in regular order to pass those bills and move forward. but we should not jeopardize this bill at that pint. to is not responsibility. -- that is not responsible. that is not what any of us should be doing at this point.

0:20:26 to 0:20:46( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: and finally, let about the debt issue that we've been hurt -- that we've been hearing so much about. mr. president, none of us wants to operate this country in -- in debt of all of us are fiscally responsible. i've heard every member of this senate come forward and talk about making sure we keye keep our house in order.

0:20:47 to 0:21:07( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: well, who got us to where we are snowed the republicans that came into power under george bush turned historic surpluses into historic deficits by not being honest about the costs in front of us, wheth it was the iraq war or whether it was other costs that were paid off-budget, emergencies across the country, not coming forward and being

0:21:08 to 0:21:29( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: honest about the fact that we do need fund things like health care research or education our our kids. why have these bills not passed before the election? because even republicans did want to cut #r education or to cut health care, which would have been what we had to do to meet the president's budget level. mr. pres

0:21:30 to 0:21:50( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: seat to no one when it comes to making sure that that our country moves forward a fiscally responsible way and deals with the debt that we have. but at the cost of laying off thousands of people because we aren't being responsible and upfront about the job we have to do is irresponsible. and i hope that our colleagues defeat the amendment from

0:21:51 to 0:22:11( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: senator ensign, move on, pass this bill this week and then we can have all the debails we want in the budget that will imrom this body shortly about the appropriations moving forward. mr. president lete remind all of us, what we're talking about here is extremely important. no one wants to get a pink slip. no one wants to see their job lost.

0:22:12 to 0:22:32( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: no one wants to see their health care at education at risk or, for that matter, within my appropriation bill, their flight into their airport at risk because we have not added air traffic controllers, which is bill. mr. president, there are many other issues within this bill that are at risk under the

0:22:33 to 0:22:35( Edit History Discussion )

Patty Murray: senator's proposal and i urge our colleagues to defeat this