I rise to talk about an aspect of the tea party government shutdown that has not gotten the attention it deserves. Sadly, the effects of this tea party shutdown do not stop at our water's edge. The shutdown is putting our national security…

I just want to make this point: The junior Senator from Texas has said it is President Obama and the Democrats who are shutting the government down. My modification, which he just objected to, would open the entire government. We put it on…

Reserving the right to object, and I will be brief---- The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

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?

My good friend, whom I saw in the gym this morning, sometimes stretches credulity. Who shut down the government? Was it Harry Reid? No. He kept passing messages to keep the government going. Was it Barack Obama? No. We all know who it was…

I know my colleague from Pennsylvania has gone. Let's clarify a few things because obfuscation is the rule of the day when you are not holding many cards. First, the Senator from Pennsylvania said they have asked to open the…

the latest Republican proposal is a cynical one that pits important priorities against each other. People should not have to choose between health for our veterans and cancer research. We should not have to choose between keeping our…

I sort of feel sorry for Speaker Boehner. He has this hard-right tea party group that is adamant about shutting the government down. Many of them talked about shutting the government down in their 2010 campaigns. There are clips where they…

I just ask the leader, the government is shut down. There is nothing we can do to keep it open. The only way to keep the government open would be for the House to pass the resolution we have already sent them; is that correct?

We are in, as has been said by Leader Reid and my good friend from New Jersey, an unfortunate moment. There are millions of people who are innocent. They wake up in the morning, work hard, and hope to get a paycheck to help feed and clothe…

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…

Thank you, Madam President. I thank my colleague from Illinois for his courtesy and I thank the Senator from Arizona for his outstanding remarks, as usual. For 21 hours, we have heard the Senator from Texas hold forth. What has he…

With many types of insurance, there are things the insured can do to reduce the risk of loss.

a point of information. I am in order after the Senator from Arizona? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. The Senator from Arizona. Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I won't take a lot of time here on the floor. The floor has been well used…

not 15 minutes of our time, 15 minutes of their time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority does not have 15 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Arizona be given 15 minutes and that I have 5 minutes after him. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

As a New Yorker, the rebuilding of downtown in the years following 9/11 has been nothing short of a miracle.

The idea that, well, 5 years after 9/11, we could forget about terrorism, everyone knows that is not true.

The sooner we do this, the better, and we are reminded by events near and far--the Boston Marathon bombings, brutal attacks at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi--the threat of terrorism is ever with us.

I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Tuesday, September 24, 2013, at 10 a.m., to consider the Omnibus Budget for Senate Committees. For further information regarding this meeting, please contact…

I rise in support of the substitute amendment to H.R. 527, the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act, which would reauthorize the Federal Helium Reserve and extend its operation for commercial sales. This bill prevents a…

We do not have an affordability study, and yet we are making people pay unaffordable rates.

Shame on us if we take more than $10 billion in national taxpayer dollars and then do as you said--spread the dollars here, there and everywhere and then have to come back to the taxpayers to rebuild the infrastructure after the next storm.

Thirty thousand dollars roughly, particularly in this region, is not enough.