Chuck Schumer

I just hope you will keep an open mind with the remaining $2 billion in terms of resiliency, using your authority to transfer so we can build better to avoid the next storm.

So, without being too confrontational to your dear friends at OMB, you are agreeing with me that the law does not require their approval.

I predict that this second year of Hurricane Sandy recovery will be a year when people see lots of rebuilding.

We want to avoid the scene of trailers being unused, which happened despite Mary Landrieu's great efforts in Louisiana.

We have learned from the mistakes that were made in Hurricane Katrina, and she was our guide as we went through this.

We were held up for too long a period of time by some, but getting that amount of money in programs that are really going to work was one of the accomplishments I think we can be proudest of in our legislative careers.

We do not want to pay when insurance has already paid.

Senator Schumer's comments about filling the D.C. Circuit up one way or another.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 10:08 p.m., adjourned until Wednesday, October 16, 2013, at 12 noon.

The most urgent threat to our economy is overall debt, not debt limit.

Isn't it true we have never had this experience before except for one day where there was a mishap somewhere?

Treasury Secretary Lew said prioritization is default by another name. I agree with that statement.

Middle-class incomes are declining in America. To me, that is a greater problem than our debt.

It is not an experiment we have run or should run.

It is mind-boggling we are even discussing this here, but here we are just 2 years after the last prolonged discussion about whether we would pay our debt.

Prioritization is default by another name.

The debt ceiling deniers need a dose of debt ceiling reality, and you have given them that today.

I think the real crisis is that default, the one that we are screaming toward because of our refusal to engage.

So would you agree that my analogy--blindfolded man walking toward a cliff, and we do not know exactly what date he will fall off...

We are like a blindfolded man walking toward a cliff.

We are walking toward a cliff with a blindfold on.

One way to avoid a potential cataclysm is to pass a clean debt ceiling increase now, not delay...

I simply wanted to follow up on what he said. If we were to go along with these individual UC requests----

Your request that we go to conference would be while the government is shut down. It doesn't matter in your request whether the government is shut down or not; is that correct?

Is it not true that until they vote for that resolution, the government will remain shut? They could send us 100 different little doodads, gizmos, and other things, but the ball is in their court, and we hope and wish that they would pass…