| Speaker | Time | Text |
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Will They Vote?
00:09:34
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unidentified
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The Senate Aging Committee discusses loneliness among seniors and the importance of community support. | |
| These events also stream live on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| The House passed legislation extending government funding through September 30th to avert a government shutdown at the end of the week. | ||
| The measure now goes to the Senate. | ||
| The party line vote was 217 to 213, with only one Republican, Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky, voting against the bill. | ||
| One Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voted yes with Republicans. | ||
| Opponents of the bill argue it gives the President flexibility to continue to try to defund major pieces of the federal government. | ||
| Here's a look at the debate. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| I rise today in support of H.R. 1968, the full year continuing appropriations and extensions act 2025. | ||
| Today's bill comes about at a critical time for this institution and this nation. | ||
| As members are well aware, government funding all runs out at midnight on Friday. | ||
| That means that members are faced with a stark but clear choice. | ||
| Will they vote in favor of this bill and thereby keep the government open and operating? | ||
| Or will they vote no, thereby affirmatively choosing to shut down the government? | ||
| This choice is the choice we face today. | ||
| We are now nearly five and a half months into the fiscal year 2025. | ||
| Congress has previously passed two short-term continuing resolutions, both of which extended government funding and kept the status quo in place, ensuring the government can remain open. | ||
| Today's bill is really no different than the CR passed in December. | ||
| Other than the most essential and critical anomalies, it simply maintains current conditions through the end of the fiscal year. | ||
| For those who supported the CR in December, you should have no qualms about voting for the same way on today's bill. | ||
| There are no policy differences, no poison pills, and no reason to vote against keeping the government open and operating. | ||
| A year-long CR is not how I hoped that FY 2025 appropriations process would end. | ||
| The Appropriations Committee and the House did their work. | ||
| Indeed, the committee reported out all 12 appropriations bills by midsummer, and the House passed five of those bills, covering over 70 percent of discretionary spending across the floor by the end of July. | ||
| Sadly, despite our best efforts, we were unable to come to a final agreement on the full-year appropriations bills. | ||
| Although we were very close on a final dollar figure, my colleagues in the minority made additional demands that would restrict the legitimate authority of the executive in the appropriations process. | ||
| These are restrictions that the minority would never accept for a Democratic president, nor are they provisions that President Trump would or should sign into law. | ||
| It is deeply unfortunate and disappointing that the minority chose to make these unreasonable demands. | ||
| Republicans never left the negotiating table and indeed worked diligently with Democrats to reach a bicameral bipartisan deal. | ||
| Sadly, the minority allowed their opposition to the president to cloud their judgment, giving in to a political temper tantrum rather than voting to keep the government open. | ||
| That truly is the choice before us, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Today's bill is a simple, straightforward, continuing resolution, funding the government and keeping it open through September 30th. | ||
| It maintains the status quo, providing flat funding for the government and including only legitimate anomalies. | ||
| Importantly, this bill does not contain a single poison pill policy writer. | ||
| It's a clean CR, fully funding our government. | ||
| This includes our military and defense needs, and indeed we've accomplished this while also fully funding the Department of Defense, including the largest pay raise for junior enlisted personnel in over 40 years. | ||
| We're also maintaining funding for other critical functions of government, including border defense, roads, parks, child care, water infrastructure projects, biomedical research, job training, and countless others. | ||
| I know members have heard some fear-mongering about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. | ||
| This bill makes no changes to any of these programs, leaving them intact as is, and with the funding they need to operate through the end of the fiscal year. | ||
| Let me say that again. | ||
| There are no changes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, period. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the outcome of the fiscal year 2025 appropriations process is not what I wanted. | ||
| But at the end of the day, it is significantly better than the alternative, a government shutdown. | ||
| The choice is clear. | ||
| Either members will vote for this bill and for keeping the government open, or they will vote to shut the government down. | ||
| I know which option my constituents expect, and I know which I will choose. | ||
| I urge all my colleagues to do the same, vote for this bill, vote to keep the government open and operating. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Jim Neals. | ||
| And General Reserve. | ||
| The gentlelady from Connecticut, Ms. Lawrence recognized the debate bill. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| Ladies recognize. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I'm opposed to this one-year continuing resolution. | ||
| It is not a simple stopgap that keeps the lights on, the doors open. | ||
| This is Republican leadership handing over the keys of the government and a blank check to Elon Musk and to President Trump. | ||
| As the White House has said, this bill creates more flexibility for this administration to continue to undermine the Constitution and the countless spending laws by stealing promised investments from American families, children, and businesses, unlawfully dismantling agencies, arbitrarily firing civil servants, and canceling union contracts. | ||
| Read the Constitution. | ||
| Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7. | ||
| The power of the purse resides with the Congress and not with the executive. | ||
| And in fact, the President has no legitimate authority from meddling in the appropriations process. | ||
| Our colleagues across the aisle have gone to their districts. | ||
| They witnessed rage from their constituents at these actions. | ||
| They have been advised by their political consultants not to do town halls altogether. | ||
| Why bother listening to the American people? | ||
| It was President Lincoln who said, public sentiment is everything, and without it, you can do nothing. | ||
| They do not have public sentiment. | ||
| So now what we should do? | ||
| The answer should not be cutting non-defense programs by $15 billion and defense by $3 billion as compared to the Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement in 2025. | ||
| They are in violation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. | ||
| There is an agreement with Senator Schumer, Speaker Johnson. | ||
| We all voted for it here. | ||
| But this is a violation, cuts non-defense $15 billion and defense by $3 billion. | ||
| Why do they want to shortchange defense investments by $3 billion? | ||
| I ask them. | ||
| Not only is it bad for our military, there is a reason the Department of Defense has never operated for an entire year under a continuing resolution. | ||
| And above all, it transfers more power to the administration to shut off and repurpose funding as they see fit. | ||
| The will of the Congress and the people ignored. | ||
| Elon Musk and President Trump would be able to fire thousands of employees. | ||
| Yes, we do not oversee Social Security. | ||
| That's in the purview of the Ways and Means Committee. | ||
| However, we do have control over the administration of Social Security. | ||
| And the President and Elon Musk would be able to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration. | ||
| Just witness, they're talking about 7,000 positions gone. | ||
| What does that result in? | ||
| Office closures, longer wait times, unacceptable backlogs for Americans trying to access their earned benefits. | ||
| In effect, you remove the staff and the personnel, thereby crippling the agency to be able to do its job and, yes, to provide benefits. | ||
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Why $23 Billion Disappeared
00:03:33
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| And it's nice if you can individually negotiate with the administration on your own to keep your Social Security office open. | ||
| 47 are on the docket to get closed. | ||
| If one stays open, why not all 47? | ||
| The Army Corps of Engineers' construction projects would be cut by $1.4 billion, 44%. | ||
| And President Trump, not the Congress, would determine who gets the funding, what city, state, locality, and how much money that is there. | ||
| Instead of helping address housing costs, the bill cuts rent subsidies by over $700 million. | ||
| It leaves landlords to foot the bill or to evict. | ||
| We will evict more than 32,000 households. | ||
| This bill breaks promises to veterans. | ||
| House Republicans wisely proposed $23 billion in advance funding for the Toxic Exposures Fund to care for veterans that were exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, other toxic substances in their own bill. | ||
| Their bill last summer was in there. | ||
| We voted for the PACT Act on a bipartisan basis. | ||
| But that $23 billion in advance funding has now disappeared. | ||
| It is gone. | ||
| We do advance funding here. | ||
| We do it with veterans programs, others. | ||
| We do it with the Indian Health Service. | ||
| We do it for public broadcasting. | ||
| Why do we not want to do it for veterans' care and their health care and their treatment? | ||
| Why? | ||
| If I were a veteran and they said no to my advance program, and we do advance funding, so issues like veterans' medical care don't get caught up in the political whims of this organization, of this body. | ||
| Veterans today have to understand that that $23 billion for them is not there. | ||
| There is uncertainty about that. | ||
| And there's no emergency funding in this bill for disaster relief. | ||
| It abandons American families who have had their lives turned upside down by extreme weather. | ||
| You know, the funding for the disaster relief runs out in the spring. | ||
| What about Kentucky that just had a winter storm in February? | ||
| Families will not be able to get back on their feet and recover. | ||
| Neither will businesses who have been shut down because of a disaster, a natural disaster. | ||
| You know, the decisions about investments that we make cannot be entrusted in one single office holder. | ||
| This Congress must decide: do we have the authority to control spending as we were granted and is laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution? | ||
| Why? | ||
| Why would we want to relinquish this to give this administration, which is already doing massive harm, dismantling agencies, firing people, telling them today they're no longer needed the chaos and confusion that has been caused by Elon Musk and President Trump. | ||
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Fatal Attraction Politics
00:07:34
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| Why would we want to turn over our authority to appropriate bills? | ||
| I implore my colleagues, join me. | ||
| Stand up for our constituents against an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, who was stealing taxpayers' dollars from American families, children, and businesses. | ||
| Oppose this giveaway to the administration. | ||
| Pass a short-term CR, which I introduced yesterday, which would take us to April 11th to continue negotiations and pass regular bills. | ||
| Let us finish the regular bills that we agree on. | ||
| That would be such an improvement over a full-year continuing resolution. | ||
| And I would just say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a shutdown will be the result of the Republican majority walking away from negotiations. | ||
| We were that close. | ||
| They pulled the rug out from under us and said, stop negotiating, because Musk and Trump want to have the control with a full-year continuing resolution. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentlewoman reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield three minutes to my very good friend, distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Alford of Missouri. | ||
| Gentlemen, recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Chair. | ||
| And I just want to preface this by saying how much respect I have for the ranking member and her passionate arguments. | ||
| Although we don't agree, I do respect her highly. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, America broke up with the Progressive Democrats, but they just can't let it go. | ||
| And in the words of Glenn Close, they will not be ignored. | ||
| They're like the ex in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. | ||
| The ex who got dumped and is stuck in a deranged reality, refusing to move on. | ||
| They're causing chaos, spreading mistruths, and doing everything they can to disrupt what the American people voted for, all because they cannot accept that their big government, open border, America Last agenda is over. | ||
| We saw it just last week in this very chamber, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| We see it when we go back home to try to have conversations with our constituents. | ||
| It's quite simple. | ||
| House Republicans are here to govern. | ||
| We are passing a continuing resolution to keep America open for business, freeze wasteful spending, and secure our border. | ||
| This continuing resolution gives President Trump the time and power to continue draining the swamp and undoing the damage the radical left did to our country for the past four long years. | ||
| And what is the far left doing? | ||
| Throwing a tantrum. | ||
| A childish, petulant tantrum full of fear-mongering and gaslighting of the American people, rooting for a shutdown just so that they can point fingers. | ||
| Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| It's not going to work. | ||
| We're not falling for it. | ||
| We're not playing this game. | ||
| This will be a Schumer shutdown when it gets to the Senate if that happens. | ||
| The American people chose secure borders, a secure economy, secure neighborhoods, and an America-first agenda. | ||
| The progressive Democrats just can't accept it. | ||
| But guess what, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| This breakup is final. | ||
| Republicans are moving on. | ||
| We will pass this CR. | ||
| We will keep America running. | ||
| I urge progressive Democrats to join the rest of the nation. | ||
| It's that, or they can keep screaming into the void because America is not taking them back. | ||
| The breakup is over. | ||
| So leave the rabbit in the backyard alone. | ||
| With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Speaker, I yield one minute to the gentleman from New York, the distinguished Democratic leader, Mr. Jeffries. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| I thank the distinguished gentlelady for her tremendous leadership and for yielding. | ||
| I don't really understand the fatal attraction reference because if anyone is dealing with fatal attraction, it's between President Trump and House Republicans. | ||
| As soon as he says jump, your only answer is how high. | ||
| It doesn't matter whether you are hurting the American people. | ||
| That's why House Republicans are marching the country on a track toward the largest Medicaid cut in American history. | ||
| You hurt children, hurt families, hurt Americans with disabilities, hurt seniors, closed nursing homes, and closed hospitals. | ||
| When Donald Trump says jump, extreme mega-Republicans say how high. | ||
| That's the fatal attraction that's hurting the people of the United States of America. | ||
| And by the way, the core promise that you made last year was about lowering costs. | ||
| All you talked about was how you were going to lower the high cost of living. | ||
| Democrats believe that America is too expensive. | ||
| Housing costs are too high. | ||
| Grocery costs are too high. | ||
| Child care costs are too high. | ||
| Utility costs are too high. | ||
| And insurance costs are too high. | ||
| America is too expensive. | ||
| We believe that that, in fact, is the case. | ||
| But Republicans have done nothing to lower the high cost of living. | ||
| No bill, no executive order, no administrative action. | ||
| That's the broken promise. | ||
| We were told by President Trump that costs were going to go down on day one. | ||
| Grocery prices haven't gone down. | ||
| They've gone up. | ||
| Inflation is up. | ||
| You know what's going down? | ||
| The stock market. | ||
| Because President Trump and House Republicans are crashing the economy in real time and marching us to a possible Republican recession. | ||
| That's what's confronting the American people. | ||
| And so now we have this partisan, reckless spending bill that we're being asked to consider on the floor today. | ||
| Bipartisan negotiations were underway. | ||
| Rosa DeLaura was at the table working to reach an agreement consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was passed by Republicans and Democrats and then signed into law in 2023. | ||
| But when Donald Trump says jump, stream agro-Republicans say how high. | ||
| And he ordered the Republicans to leave the negotiating table to try to jam this far-right extremist bill down the throats of the American people. | ||
|
Attack On Veterans Health Care
00:07:35
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| There are so many challenges with this bill, too many to detail. | ||
| But let me just articulate a few. | ||
| The House Republican, highly partisan, shut down, threatening bill is an attack on veterans. | ||
| It's an attack on families. | ||
| It's an attack on seniors. | ||
| It cuts funding for veterans, including billions of dollars in funds that will be cut from veterans in desperate need of health care for people who serve this country, who are suffering from painful exposure to toxic substances, Agent Orange and burn pits. | ||
| And this bill before this House cuts billions of dollars in that health care that is desperately needed. | ||
| That's an attack on veterans. | ||
| It's an attack on children and families in America because this bill cuts funding for nutritional assistance that would otherwise be available for everyday Americans to put food on the table. | ||
| When people are already struggling because grocery prices aren't going down, they're going up under this administration. | ||
| And yet, this Republican bill will cut funding for nutritional assistance. | ||
| That's an attack on children and families here in America. | ||
| It's an attack on seniors, an attack on everyday Americans, an attack on housing, an attack on health care, which cuts funds from things like Alzheimer's research to help older Americans battle these challenges. | ||
| That's what this extreme Republican bill is all about. | ||
| It will hurt families, hurt seniors, and hurt veterans. | ||
| The second problem, equally troublesome, is that this bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. | ||
| We've been very clear as Democrats. | ||
| We look forward in this Congress to protecting these vitally important priorities for the American people. | ||
| Why is the bill silent on these priorities? | ||
| Because you are trying to set in motion a chainsaw to Social Security, a chainsaw to Medicare, and a chainsaw to Medicaid. | ||
| Your other boss yesterday confirmed that when he said that these entitlement programs, as he called them, they're not entitlement programs. | ||
| They are earned benefits. | ||
| When you start to use the language of entitlement programs, it's because you're trying to set in motion an assault on Social Security and an assault on Medicare. | ||
| It's saying the quiet part out loud. | ||
| We know you're going after Social Security and Medicare because you've been firing thousands of people from the Social Security Administration. | ||
| You want to collapse the system. | ||
| And this bill does nothing to stop that. | ||
| All it does is facilitate the collapsing of Social Security by dismantling the Social Security Administration. | ||
| And of course we know what's going on with your assault on Medicaid, $880 billion, assaulting the health care of the American people. | ||
| very clear. | ||
| We'll work together to protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid. | ||
| You have no interest in doing that because you want to take a chainsaw to these priorities. | ||
| And by the way, it has nothing to do with waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| As Democrats, we've been very clear. | ||
| We want to build a federal government, make sure that we have a federal government that's effective, that's efficient, and that's equitable, delivering services all across the country in a manner that spends taxpayer dollars wisely. | ||
| But that's not what this effort is all about. | ||
| This bill will unleash fury on the American people. | ||
| It will facilitate the ongoing effort that is currently underway. | ||
| The average Social Security recipient in this country receives $65 a day. | ||
| They have to survive on $65 a day. | ||
| But you want to take a chainsaw to Social Security. | ||
| When Elon Musk and his tens of billions of dollars of government contracts essentially makes at least $8 million a day from the taxpayers, if you want to uncover waste, fraud, or abuse, start there. | ||
| Don't start with the $65 a day that Social Security recipients receive from their earned benefits, from their hard work throughout their entire lives. | ||
| Start there. | ||
| Elon Musk is $8 billion a day feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer. | ||
| This has nothing to do this bill right here with waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| It's all part of a broader scheme to pass massive tax cuts for billionaire donors, the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected, and then to stick working-class Americans with the bill. | ||
| This entire scheme. | ||
| And as Democrats, we want no part of it because we're fighting hard to make life better for everyday Americans to make sure that when you work hard and play by the rules in the United States of America, you should be able to provide a comfortable living for yourself and for your family. | ||
| Educate your children, purchase a home, have access to health care. | ||
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Democrat Opposition to Shutdown Bill
00:15:42
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| Go on vacation every now and then. | ||
| One day retire with grace and with dignity. | ||
| That's the American dream. | ||
| As House Democrats, we're fighting to preserve. | ||
| This Republican shutdown bill does nothing to enhance the American dream. | ||
| It undermines it. | ||
| Which is why we are strongly opposed to this effort, part of a power grab from those who are unelected, unaccountable, unhinged, and then working at the direction of this administration, which again has done nothing, nothing to improve the economy, nothing to lower costs, nothing to make life better for everyday Americans. | ||
| And this reckless Republican bill will make things worse. | ||
| I was in Selma. | ||
| Over the weekend, we had an opportunity to once again cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. | ||
| Think about the fact that John Lewis and Amelia Boykin-Robinson and Hosea Williams and so many others, as they stood on that bridge, knew that there was trouble on the other side. | ||
| But even though there was trouble on the other side, they believed that their cause was righteous and it was. | ||
| It was a just one. | ||
| It was designed to make America the best version of herself. | ||
| And we stand here today standing on their shoulders, continuing that effort. | ||
| How do we make sure that the American dream is alive and well for everyone in every corner of America throughout every community? | ||
| And that's what House Democrats will continue to fight for. | ||
| That's why we oppose this bill, this effort to hurt families and veterans and seniors and children and everyday Americans. | ||
| And so we're going to continue to show up. | ||
| We're going to continue to stand up. | ||
| We're going to continue to speak up for what is right. | ||
| We oppose this bill. | ||
| We oppose this partisan effort to hurt the American people. | ||
| And we will continue to stand on the side of bringing the American dream to life for every single American. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman Yields. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oklahoma. | |
| Gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| I have great respect for the Democratic leader and certainly great respect and personal friendship for a distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| But I don't know what bill the leader read, but it certainly wasn't this bill. | ||
| We've heard a lot of time about Social Security. | ||
| There's nothing in this bill on Social Security, not a single thing. | ||
| We heard a lot about Medicare. | ||
| We don't deal with Medicare on the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| It's not in here. | ||
| We heard a lot about Medicaid. | ||
| It's not in here either. | ||
| It could be dealt with. | ||
| It'll be dealt with in a reconciliation bill, but not this bill. | ||
| This bill is about keeping the government open, something my friends pride themselves on and have often patted themselves in the back on. | ||
| You got the opportunity to do it today. | ||
| But that's all this bill does. | ||
| It does a couple of other interesting things. | ||
| It actually, my friend said, we cut funds for food support. | ||
| It doesn't do that. | ||
| It actually adds $500 million to WIC. | ||
| You said you cut support for housing. | ||
| It doesn't do that. | ||
| It actually adds money to the housing accounts. | ||
| If you actually go through the bill, the charges made simply don't have much to do with what's in this bill. | ||
| The simple reality is we're either going to keep the government open or we're going to shut it down. | ||
| If you want to keep the government open, keep working on these problems, you vote yes. | ||
| If you want to shut the government down, throw the country into chaos, you vote no. | ||
| It's certainly the privilege of my friends on the other side to vote how they care to vote, but don't say there are things in this bill which simply are not there. | ||
| That's just the fear-mongering of the worst sort. | ||
| Frankly, again, I would just urge my friends to keep the government open. | ||
| And by the way, just for the record, neither the President nor the Speaker ever asked me to leave the negotiating table, ever. | ||
| Quite the opposite. | ||
| The Speaker said, keep going, keep trying, keep at it. | ||
| We are four days away from a shutdown. | ||
| It was my friends that introduced a lot of things in the negotiations that aren't normally appropriations issues. | ||
| Chose to do that. | ||
| We couldn't come to a deal. | ||
| We're pretty close on the top-line number. | ||
| We were right there. | ||
| But we're not going to have a Republican Senate and a Republican House restrict a Republican president from the legitimate exercise of executive authority and then, oh, by the way, ask him to sign the bill. | ||
| How do you think that's going to work out? | ||
| That's not a very reasonable request. | ||
| We resisted it. | ||
| My friend Senator Collins, who was my negotiating partner from the Senate, resisted it. | ||
| And we'll continue to resist it. | ||
| And that's not going to happen. | ||
| But this bill is about none of those things. | ||
| This bill is about keeping the government open. | ||
| You choose to shut it down, then that's your prerogative. | ||
| You're allowed to do that. | ||
| But I don't intend to do that. | ||
| I don't think my colleagues on my side of the aisle intend to do that. | ||
| And I would urge Democrats who actually read the bill to reflect on it and avoid shutting down the government as well and working with us in that regard. | ||
| And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman reserves. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| The President has no legitimate authority by the Constitution to insert himself into the appropriations process. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, the distinguishing ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Mr. Hoyer. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| I thank the gentlelady for yielding. | ||
| And I adopt all of what the leader said, notwithstanding the rebuttal from the chairman of our committee. | ||
| This bill is about giving Trump more unfettered power. | ||
| That's what this bill is about. | ||
| This country is in crisis and chaos over the last 45 days plus days. | ||
| And this bill will continue that process. | ||
| The Congress, if it passes this bill, will have failed. | ||
| We should have passed all of our bills by September 30th of last year. | ||
| We didn't. | ||
| We then passed, as some of the Republicans have said, some appropriation bills. | ||
| All of them were partisan bills. | ||
| This is a partisan bill. | ||
| In a Congress that is that close, you would think that we would come together and work together. | ||
| But one of our members said, if Trump says, pat our heads and jump up and down, that's what we'll do. | ||
| Welcome to the pat our heads and jump up and down CR. | ||
| A CR is failure. | ||
| The majority puts forth its partisan CR that helps this administration dismantle vital services for the American people outlined by our leader, rejecting any guardrails on these illegal and unconstitutional actions by Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump. | ||
| that chainsaw that they want to take to federal employees and the federal government. | ||
| This bill requires the District of Columbia, for instance, to take a $1.1 billion cut, not out of federal funds, out of their own funds that they tax their people. | ||
| It defunds the police. | ||
| I wish I had more time to say how bad this bill is. | ||
| Vote no. | ||
| Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I do a honor to mention the distinguished Republican Majority Leader, my good friend Steve Scalees of Louisiana. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized from Louisiana. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my friend from Oklahoma, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. Cole, for his leadership at helping negotiate a really important bill to keep government funded. | ||
| As it has been duly noted along the way, over these past year, roughly six months, this House, the last majority in the last Congress, passed over 70 percent of the government funding bills, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| We passed them to the Senate. | ||
| And back then, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats were in charge, and they chose not to pass a single House Appropriations Bill. | ||
| Not one. | ||
| The House, under Republican majority, not always with help from the other side, but we still got it done on our own, passed over 70% of the government funding bills, and then eventually got to a point where we had to let the Senate try to get something done, which unfortunately they didn't. | ||
| And then we got to the verge of a shutdown and we said we are not going to let that happen. | ||
| And we had a short-term funding bill. | ||
| And here we are again. | ||
| We're on the eve of another potential shutdown. | ||
| And this Republican majority said, we're not going to let that happen. | ||
| In fact, this Republican president, Donald Trump, said we're not going to let that happen either. | ||
| It would be irresponsible to have a government shutdown. | ||
| And maybe it's because Donald Trump said he's for it that then the Democrat leadership decided they were going to be against it. | ||
| And when did they decide they were going to be against this bill? | ||
| Before the bill was even written. | ||
| Before it was filed, they came out against it and started saying things that were in the bill when it wasn't even written, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| You heard them talking about cuts to Medicare, cuts to veterans. | ||
| The bill wasn't even written, and they were already making up stories to try to figure out how to vote no and shut the government down. | ||
| That's sadly where this Democrat Party has gotten. | ||
| The Democrat Party of today is a leaderless, rudderless ship. | ||
| They don't have an agenda. | ||
| You saw it at the State of the Union, Mr. Speaker, when you saw President Trump not only laying out his agenda, that 77 million people, a majority of Americans, went to the polls to elect the mandate that President Trump got, not just with a majority of Americans and a majority of the Electoral College, but all seven, seven out of seven swing states, all voted for President Trump because they wanted that agenda implemented. | ||
| And what irates the Democrats the most, the fact that President Trump is following through on the promises that he made, actually doing the things he said he would do. | ||
| He's securing the border. | ||
| That was the number one issue all across this country. | ||
| No matter which state you went to, people wanted a secure border and he's following through on it. | ||
| And yet the Democrat Party is criticizing him for doing that part of his job. | ||
| Rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government, something that should be bipartisan. | ||
| In fact, it used to be bipartisan to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| But now because Donald Trump is doing it, the Democrat Party of today up here in Washington is so consumed with hatred that they oppose even rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| That has been not only highlighted up here, but people around the country are talking about getting rid of that waste once they've seen it. | ||
| A lot of this was a veil that was pulled down where people couldn't even find out what was going on because the payment systems were being hidden by the Biden administration. | ||
| We couldn't even find out about a lot of that spending that we were anecdotally hearing about. | ||
| But finally, you saw it on full display. | ||
| And it was so embarrassing that some of those employees have left. | ||
| Fortunately, a lot of that taxpayer money that was being wasted is now being saved. | ||
| And the money is being recouped so that we can shore up programs that work vitally for people. | ||
| The President talked about Social Security, a program that we help protect. | ||
| When you've got somebody that's listed as 300 years old in the Social Security system, that shows you the kind of fraud and abuse that's going on. | ||
| And the fact that President Trump is willing to confront that and take it on so that people actually paid into the program their whole lives can get the benefits they deserve. | ||
| That's what people elected President Trump and this majority on the Republican side to do. | ||
| But you would think Democrats would want to join in and help accomplish that. | ||
| And yet here they are on this floor talking about things that aren't even in the bill, trying to scare people, talking about cuts to veterans in the bill, and maybe because they just didn't read the bill, it's only 99 pages long, I would urge them to go read it. | ||
| They might actually vote for this bill in the next hour because they'll realize, in fact, the cuts that they're talking about are not true. | ||
| They're not in the bill. | ||
| There's an increase for veterans in this bill. | ||
| You know what else is in this bill, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| And I want to applaud, again, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and his members for negotiating something that's been needed for a long time, and that is the largest pay raise for our junior enlisted military personnel in over 40 years. | ||
| Now, if somebody doesn't think our men and women in uniform deserve that pay raise, maybe they'll vote no. | ||
| I'm proud to say I'm going to be voting yes to support our men and women in uniform who've been waiting for that raise and deserve it. | ||
| How can you justify a no vote on that, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| That's actually in the bill. | ||
| As they talk all day about what's not in the bill, because they were against it before it was even written, if they actually read this bill, again, only 99 pages, it's a pretty quick read, you would find out that pay raise for our troops is in the bill. | ||
| Stronger funding for our veterans is in the bill. | ||
| But why are they voting no, you would ask? | ||
| Just because the name of the president is Donald Trump. | ||
| I think the people of this country are fed up with that kind of hatred that consumes people here in Washington. | ||
| Again, when you watch the State of the Union address, and the President is not even talking about his agenda, he's introducing and paying tribute to a 13-year-old boy who just beat cancer. | ||
| And they couldn't even stand up and applaud that on their side because of the person who said it. | ||
| If the hatred is so consuming that you can't even support what's great about America, maybe you need to reevaluate what's important in doing these jobs. | ||
|
Working Across Aisles
00:04:47
|
||
| We are elected to represent the people. | ||
| And if the president, no matter who he is or she is, has a great idea, you support it. | ||
| There were a lot of things about Barack Obama's policies I disagreed with, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Yet when he said something that was good for America at a State of the Union, I stood up. | ||
| We actually worked with the President. | ||
| The chairman was part of that, Chairman Cole, in passing the 21st Century Cures Act, last bill that Barack Obama signed, to help put more funding in the NIH so we could cure major diseases. | ||
| We protect those gains in this bill. | ||
| But if they're advocating to vote no, they're advocating for a government shutdown. | ||
| It's a binary choice. | ||
| It's not like there's a plan B behind door number two, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| So if the plan is to vote no, what you're really saying is you want to shut down the government. | ||
| And I know a lot of Democrats, we all get to bring a guest to the State of the Union. | ||
| And they get to sit up in the balcony. | ||
| You've got the first lady and the president's guests up there. | ||
| Again, the 13-year-old boy who beat cancer. | ||
| The widow of a slain police officer who was in the balcony that they would not even applaud and pay tribute to. | ||
| But they were there too, but everybody else got to bring a guest. | ||
| Most Democrats bragged that they were bringing federal workers as their guests. | ||
| You saw a lot of them holding rallies out in front of federal offices with federal employees, some of who hadn't shown up for work in three years since COVID, but they found their way to the office, not to work, but to protest. | ||
| Democrats are about to vote to furlough all of those federal workers. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Not because of what's in the bill. | ||
| They've been telling you stories that aren't even true about what's in the bill. | ||
| They don't like it because of the name of the President of the United States. | ||
| Aren't we bigger than that? | ||
| Aren't we a better country than that, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| This is our responsibility to get this job done and then turn the page and go to work. | ||
| This is the business, frankly, of the Biden administration that we're cleaning up. | ||
| And we all ought to join together and finish that and then come together and start a real appropriations process where we move not just 70% of the bills in the House and zero in the Senate. | ||
| And Senator Thune, to his credit as the new majority leader, has vowed to actually work on a true appropriations process so we're not working at the midnight hour on CRs, but where we can actually have a full functioning appropriations process, something we haven't seen in this town in a long time. | ||
| We have to first take care of yesterday's business before we can start on tomorrow's appropriations process. | ||
| And so it's critical that we get this job done, not to vote to lay off and furlough all the federal workers, the TSA agents. | ||
| You won't even be able to go to the airport or your favorite federal park if they got their way. | ||
| Let's actually get our work done so we can start a 12-bill appropriations process that moves through the Senate to where you can actually have a negotiation between two sides of the aisle. | ||
| Again, something we haven't seen in a long time, but is long past due. | ||
| It's a new day in America. | ||
| And I applaud President Trump. | ||
| And we had Vice President JD Vance this morning come and talk about the importance of passing this bill too, because they want to fix the problems of this nation. | ||
| They want to fulfill the promises that were made during the campaign and follow through on the mandate that was given to President Trump, Vice President Vance, and this Republican majority in the House and Senate by 77 million people to turn this country around. | ||
| Let's get back to being the greatest country in the history of the world. | ||
| We can do it. | ||
| We can come together and solve big problems. | ||
| But we solve big problems by first taking care of the basics of government, and that's to keep the government open. | ||
| Let's pass the CR. | ||
| Let's see a big vote to do it too. | ||
| I welcome both sides of the aisle. | ||
| My friends on the other side, they can criticize a bill they've never read that wasn't even filed. | ||
| But once they look at this bill, I think you might even see some of them vote yes as well. | ||
| Let's get our work done and let's move on to the next challenges that the American people expect us to deliver on for them. | ||
| With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman yields. | |
| Gentlelady is recognized. | ||
| The President did make a promise to drive down the cost of living and said he's driven up prices. | ||
| With that, I want to recognize and yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts, the distinguished Democratic Whip, Ms. Clark. | ||
|
Efficient Government Promise
00:03:06
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|
unidentified
|
Gentlewoman is recognized. | |
| Thank you and I thank the gentlelady from Connecticut for yielding. | ||
| Republicans made a promise to the American people. | ||
| We're going to build a stronger economy, we're going to lower costs and we're going to have safer communities. | ||
| But for seven weeks, we have seen nothing but ideas and bills that break that promise. | ||
| We all want government to run more efficiently, to be better for people who depend on it. | ||
| But stealing money from the Veterans Administration, from schools, from law enforcement, from children's health care, and giving it to a tax cut to the wealthiest man on earth and his billionaire friends, that's not finding efficiencies. | ||
| That's not taking on waste and fraud in government. | ||
| It's destroying working families. | ||
| The GOP are crushing the American people under the weight of their own political ambition. | ||
| Rents are going up. | ||
| Housing is in a crisis. | ||
| This bill today, they propose to evict 32,000 families from their home. | ||
| 32,000. | ||
| Those are veterans. | ||
| Those are kids. | ||
| Those are seniors. | ||
| Those are domestic violence survivors. | ||
| Eggs at my grocery store on Sunday were $8.49 a dozen. | ||
| In this bill, you propose to take $27 million away from the inspectors who go out to our chicken farms who are fighting and trying to stop bird flu that is causing the spike in eggs. | ||
| What kind of insanity is that? | ||
| And then if we look at the budget overall, we've got health care spiking, and you want to cut Medicaid. | ||
| That's the answer. | ||
| Seniors' cost of living is out of control. | ||
| And you're saying, let's run up the cost of prescription drugs. | ||
| And as Elon told us directly this week, coming next, you want to eliminate Social Security. | ||
| Give me more time. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| If you feel this is the mandate that you have, you can do that on your own. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Time's expired. | |
| I apologize. | ||
| Gentleman's recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield three minutes to my very good friend and senior member of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Simpson. | ||
| Gentleman's recognized. | ||
| I thank the Chairman for yielding. | ||
| And first, let me say I appreciate the work the chairman has done over the last several months, trying to get our regular appropriation bills done and then trying to get this CR finished when it became apparent we weren't going to be able to negotiate a top line yet. | ||
|
Musk's Greed Machine
00:15:49
|
||
| Something that we will continue to work on. | ||
| But there's a lot of things that have been said on this floor that I have to say just aren't true. | ||
| Not a different interpretation of the facts. | ||
| They're just not true. | ||
| There's nothing in here that cuts Social Security. | ||
| There's nothing in here that cuts Medicare. | ||
| There's nothing in here that cuts Medicaid. | ||
| But yet I keep hearing that. | ||
| That's the talking points that were created before this bill was actually written. | ||
| It is difficult to write a year-long CR. | ||
| First time I can remember it being done. | ||
| It's almost harder writing that than it is writing the regular appropriation bills because we have to put anomalies in it. | ||
| Things that have to be done as we move on with the regular funding. | ||
| The reason I've been able to support this CR and will vote for it is because of the work that our chairman, Mr. Cole, has done with some of these anomalies that were absolutely necessary. | ||
| In the interior arena, there were four anomalies that really needed to be addressed to get this CR done. | ||
| One is it fully funds PILP payments, which is an estimated level of $600 million, $85 million above what was the current level. | ||
| In Indian country, the CR increases funding for Indian health services to expand availability and direct health care services, funding the Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIA, BIE programs are held at 2024 enacted levels. | ||
| The CR removes the 2024 earmarks with BIA and HIS, but the overall net effect on tribal programs is still a $25 million increase. | ||
| In addition, program increases, the CR also provides $999 million, an increase for tribal contract support costs and an additional $256 million for Section 105.1 leases in an effort to continue our commitment to upholding our trust and treaty responsibilities. | ||
| It also increases on a permanent basis the wildfire fighting fire pay. | ||
| That costs $147 million. | ||
| It actually saves us $27 million rather than just extending the one-term, one-year extension of the wildfire pay. | ||
| And I think when we've seen those great jobs that wildfires, wildfire fighters do for us, it's incredible what they do. | ||
| We don't pay them enough now. | ||
| And if you can make more flippin' burgers in California than you can fighting wildfires, then something's wrong. | ||
| So this permanently fixes that for us. | ||
| It's a very important bill. | ||
| Shutting down government is never good policy. | ||
| It's never good politics. | ||
| Why anyone, Republican or Democrat, would vote against this, I have no idea. | ||
| This is a good bill. | ||
| I hope we all vote for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Gentlewoman is recognized from Connecticut. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio, the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee, Ms. Capcha. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized for two minutes. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member DeLauro for allowing me this time. | ||
| This bill was drafted by Musk's greed machine and seeks to put its clause even deeper into the pockets of our people. | ||
| Why? | ||
| To extract the largest transfer of wealth from money they're taking from these bills from middle-class and working class people and put it in the pockets of the top 1% who already own half of this country, a handful of people, so very wealthy. | ||
| The top 1% of billionaires now own as much wealth as the bottom half of our population. | ||
| That's what's going wrong, and I rise in strong opposition to this bill. | ||
| Elon Musk and his Dogeboys don't need Medicaid, Social Security, veterans' benefits. | ||
| Our Constitution assigns our legislative branch the responsibility to direct federal spending, not unelected billionaires and the 1%. | ||
| In our subcommittee, area of energy and water development, this Musk bill would stifle American prosperity by cutting nearly half of the Army Corps' budget. | ||
| Musk and Trump don't know anything about public works and how essential the Army Corps is to our daily life in every district in this country and to economic growth. | ||
| The greed machine wants to steal assets from America's people and put them in the pockets of billionaires at places like Mula Lago. | ||
| Oh, did I say that right? | ||
| Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now, finally, the greed machine is cutting a total of nearly $600 million in support for local law enforcement. | ||
| That's nearly $600 million in cuts of local police, leaving the kitty dry. | ||
| The greed machine is underfunding our local police. | ||
| In opposing the bill, I stand with our people, not with the billionaires and their greed machine. | ||
| Think about it. | ||
| Why rob Main Street to dole out even bigger tax breaks and more contracts for the Moola Lago crowd and billionaires whose crew haven't got a clue what working life is like for American men and women. | ||
| It's overtime for them to pay their fair share. | ||
| Vote no on this horrendous bill, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Time's expired. | |
| Gentlemen's recognized from Oklahoma. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to my very good friend, distinguished gentleman from Florida and member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Rutherford. | ||
| Mr. Rutherford, recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I appreciate you yielding. | ||
| And, you know, I really appreciate all the hard work that got us here today. | ||
| You know, Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, as I sat here on this floor listening to the conversation, it reminded me of an old saying that my father had for many, many years I heard this, that a lie can travel around the world three times before the truth can get up and put its pants on. | ||
| Well, that was before the internet. | ||
| So now, after what I've heard today, I would say it's probably more like 100 times a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get up and put its pants on. | ||
| And I happen to know that House Republicans have been working diligently to fully fund the core federal government services so that President Trump and his administration can continue to identify the waste, fraud, and abuse of American tax dollars, protect our border, and support Americans, including our veterans, contrary to what you heard, our military families, first responders, | ||
| of which I'm a former, and our seniors. | ||
| Most importantly, by passing H.R. 1986, this continuing resolution, we are ensuring that a costly government shutdown does not fall upon the American public. | ||
| It's our constitutional obligation in Congress to fund the federal government, and House Republicans are acting on that duty. | ||
| Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not. | ||
| House Democrat leadership came out in opposition to this bill and spread egregious falsehoods about what this bill does and does not do before it was even printed. | ||
| You've heard that before. | ||
| Let's be clear, this bill will not hurt law enforcement by slashing cops grants, nor will it zero out the toxic exposure fund for veterans. | ||
| Instead, it's a clean bill that will extend funding and certainty for the American people. | ||
| This bill would maintain government operations while responsibly cutting spending. | ||
| On an additional 30 seconds, gentlemen is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Protect Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare recipients from unnecessary disruption and the confusion that comes along with a government shutdown, promote public safety, renew our commitment to supporting law enforcement officers, raise pay for our junior enlisted troops by the largest amount in 40 years, fund important nutritional assistance for mothers, infants, and children, and the list goes on. | ||
| White House Democrats seem dead set on shutting down the government over their disdain for the Commander-in-Chief, no matter the cost to their own communities. | ||
| And I am committed to passing this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota, the distinguished ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee, Ms. McCollum. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this full-year continuing resolution. | ||
| Let's call the CR what it is. | ||
| It's the Republican majority abdicating our constitutional responsibilities. | ||
| Republicans have turned over congressional power to direct funding to Elon Musk and President Trump. | ||
| The Republican appropriations process for fiscal year 2025 has been a disaster. | ||
| Republicans have had 18 months to write, pass, and negotiate these spending bills. | ||
| They failed. | ||
| The Republican leadership never wanted to negotiate with Democrats with their slim majority in the House, would have required. | ||
| So here we are, stuck with a full-year CR, something that's never happened in the history of this nation. | ||
| It's a complete failure to govern. | ||
| Making things worse, the CR cuts $13 billion from domestic priorities that Americans rely on. | ||
| I'll mention a few, like life-saving medical research at the NIH. | ||
| Rent assistance for low-income working families are cut. | ||
| Republicans failed to include $22 billion in advanced appropriation funding for the VA Toxics Exposure Fund. | ||
| This jeopardizes the health of our veterans exposed to burn pits and, yes, Agent Orange. | ||
| Community projects submitted by our constituents for police and first responders have also been eliminated by this bill. | ||
| The Defense Department, the bill reduces DOD medical research by about 50 percent. | ||
| It will obstruct the search for new cures for cancer and infectious diseases. | ||
| Republicans also underfunded military training exercises, which will mean the readiness for our troops will be put at risk. | ||
| They cut DOD technology research and development funding, which helps us keep our edge over our adversaries. | ||
| Simply put, this CR is a disaster and it did not have to be this way. | ||
| The American people deserve better, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on this Republican failure. | ||
| Gentlewoman from Connecticut Reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes to my very good friend and fellow member from Oklahoma, distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee, Ms. Weiss. | ||
| Gentleladies recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1968, a clean, continuing resolution which funds government through September 30, 2025. | ||
| I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are confused about what is in this bill and what is not. | ||
| They keep talking about impacts to mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. | ||
| That is not in this bill. | ||
| Just because you keep repeating the same dishonest talking points doesn't make it true. | ||
| This legislation continues funding and prevents a government shutdown, which would have a devastating impact on my home state of Oklahoma and communities across the country. | ||
| We must keep government open so we can continue the America First Agenda, which is focused on securing our border, unleashing American energy, safeguarding our nation, and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This legislation fully supports our vets and service members. | |
| It does not cut one cent from the toxic exposure funds or eliminate cops grants. | ||
| Continuing resolutions are not ideal, but we cannot allow for the distractions of a government shutdown, which is why I support this bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I urge my colleagues to vote yes, and with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield. | |
| Gentleman from Oklahoma Reserves, the General Lady from Connecticut is recognized. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida, the distinguished ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee, Ms. Washington Schultz. | ||
| Gentlelady is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise to oppose this cruel betrayal of America's veterans, seniors, and working families. | ||
| This one-year CR doesn't make rent or health care bills more affordable, which is what keeps my constituents up at night. | ||
| Instead, it actually cuts housing aid that could force 32,000 veterans, domestic violence survivors, seniors, and people with disabilities into homelessness. | ||
| And what does this spending patch do as we all now stare down the barrel of another Trump recession? | ||
| It hands an unelected billionaire free rein to keep stealing taxpayers' dollars and paves the way for billionaires and big corporations to luxuriate in more tax breaks. | ||
| This isn't a clean CR. | ||
| This CR stands for cut and run. | ||
| It lets Trump close hundreds of Social Security offices and fire thousands of workers who deliver our seniors' checks. | ||
| It allows Musk to keep hacking into your private tax data. | ||
| It puts critical Everglades restoration funds at risk. | ||
| Worst of all, it lets Trump and Musk keep up their brutal assault on veterans and the people who care for them. | ||
| It does it by eliminating $23 billion in guaranteed funding for health care for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. | ||
| We should debate bipartisan full-year funding bills that grow the economy and provide vital resources Americans need. | ||
| Instead, this Republican cut-and-run bill turns Congress into a missing kid on a milk carton and cedes massive power to Trump. | ||
| This is the same president who, in two short months, tanked your 401k and unleashed a job-killing trade war. | ||
| Yesterday, the stock market just recorded its worst day since 2020. | ||
| What really enrages me is that this cut-and-run bill sides with the most anti-veteran president in American history. | ||
| Trump has fired 6,000 veterans, inflicted mass VA layoffs, and killed hundreds of veteran services contracts. | ||
| Trump even plans to lay off another 83,000 VA workers, and on top of that, this cut-and-run bill makes even deeper cuts to the health care services for all those who bravely served our nation. | ||
| Democrats are more than willing to back bipartisan funding legislation, but we will never sell out our seniors, veterans, and children like this cut-and-run bill shamelessly does. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Vote no. | ||
| Gentlelady from Connecticut Reserves, gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
|
Congressional Funding Debate
00:15:31
|
||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to my good friend, distinguished member of the Rules Committee, and gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| I thank my friend from Oklahoma. | ||
| My, my, how times have changed. | ||
| How many times have we been sitting on the floor of the House listening to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying, a CR is the greatest thing since sliced bread? | ||
| We must have the CR. | ||
| Because when some of us were saying, wait a minute, Mr. President, wait a minute, President Biden, maybe we should actually secure the border of the United States instead of letting millions of people flood in and kill Americans and let fentanyl flow into our communities. | ||
| So when we wanted to secure the border and we dared to say that the funding should actually reflect that, and we threatened to, hey, maybe we should actually have a fight on spending, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, CR, we've got to have a CR, our precious CR. | ||
| Well, here we are. | ||
| And what are we doing? | ||
| Our colleagues oppose the CR. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because we would have spending frozen for six months, down about $7 billion, but importantly, allow Doge and allow our friends of the administration to continue to expose the absurdity of federal spending. | ||
| How about $1 million and a half dollars to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces? | ||
| $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland. | ||
| $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam. | ||
| $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. | ||
| $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. | ||
| This is what our Democratic colleagues are fighting for, to continue to fund absurd programs rather than do the common sense work of what we're trying to do to have more beds rise, secure the border of the United States, ensure that our defense is funded, ensure that we're able to hold spending in check so we can actually have a chance of saving this great country. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman Yields, gentlemen from Oklahoma Reserves, gentlelady from Connecticut is recognized. | ||
| The gentleman confirms what we've been saying all along, impoundment. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine, the distinguished ranking member of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee, Ms. Pingree. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you very much to the Ranking Member for yielding me this time. | |
| I oppose this full-year continuing resolution and urge my colleagues to reject it. | ||
| If we vote no and reject this CR, we can go back to work and negotiate a regular full-year spending bill. | ||
| This full-year continuing resolution is not a responsible way to govern. | ||
| The bill does not set funding levels for individual programs. | ||
| And because it doesn't, it creates another dangerous opportunity for President Trump and Elon Musk to defund congressional priorities. | ||
| And we all know what a disaster that has been for our country. | ||
| An illegal, unconstitutional disaster. | ||
| It is the duty of Congress to negotiate regular spending bills. | ||
| This means that we actively decide on every individual program's funding level, and we make adjustments where necessary. | ||
| For example, the Indian Health Service needs an additional $345 million just to maintain current direct health care services. | ||
| This continuing resolution fails to provide those funds, so tribal communities will experience a lower level of health care service. | ||
| A regular bill also gives very specific directions to agencies to carry out specific work. | ||
| For example, in prior years, the Interior Bill, in the Interior Bill, we have directed the EPA to conduct PFAS research that will help farmers, ranchers, and rural communities manage the disastrous impact PFAS has had in places like my home state of Maine. | ||
| Under this continuing resolution, without our direction, this administration may decide that work should stop. | ||
| As ranking member of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, I'm deeply concerned that the Republican majority is giving the administration a free pass to abandon programs that protect the public from pollution, that safeguard human health, and that address the climate crisis. | ||
| I urge a no, and I yield back my time. | ||
| Gentlewoman from Connecticut Reserves, the gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes to my very good friend, distinguished gentleman from New York, Mr. Lawler. | ||
| The gentleman from New York is recognized. | ||
| As the great George Costanza once said, it's not a lie if you believe it. | ||
| And that's what we've heard today from my Democratic colleagues. | ||
| A bunch of lies that maybe they sincerely believe. | ||
| The reality is this bill does not touch Social Security. | ||
| It does not touch Medicare. | ||
|
unidentified
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It does not touch Medicaid. | |
| Those programs are fully funded and protected. | ||
| Our veterans fully funded and protected. | ||
| Fiscal year 24 was a total of $1.665 trillion. | ||
| Fiscal year 25, of which we are voting to complete with this CR, is $1.658 trillion. | ||
| The reduction of $7 billion is because community project funding that has already been paid, already been approved as part of fiscal year 24, is not going to be double paid. | ||
| So we are saving $7 billion by removing it, as it should be. | ||
| Why would we pay for projects that have already been paid for? | ||
| The fact is that we have to keep the government funded and open. | ||
| Why anyone would vote to shut the government down is beyond me. | ||
| And when Joe Biden was president of the United States, I voted every time to keep the government funded and open. | ||
| And the idea that we're going to shut it down because the priorities changed, well, guess what? | ||
| The administration changed. | ||
| That's the reality of elections. | ||
| Donald Trump won in November. | ||
| Republicans won the House and the Senate. | ||
| And so, yes, budgets will change. | ||
| But the fact is that we have to keep the government open. | ||
| And I would remind my colleagues, the reason we're in this situation is because Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer passed exactly zero appropriations bills on the Senate floor. | ||
|
unidentified
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Zero. | |
| There was nothing to negotiate. | ||
| They couldn't pass a bill. | ||
| They refused to pass. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| They refused to pass a bill. | ||
| We passed appropriations bills on the floor last year. | ||
| We were ready to conference. | ||
| We were ready to negotiate. | ||
| Chuck Schumer failed in his responsibilities. | ||
| It's now incumbent on us to pass the CR through the House and for the Senate to do its job and keep the government open and funded. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from Oklahoma Reserve, gentleman from Connecticut. | ||
| We can pass a one-month CR and do that and do what we need to do to keep the government open. | ||
| There is an alternative. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, the distinguished ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee, Ms. Meng. | ||
| General Lady is recognized. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this partisan bill. | ||
| As ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on CJS, I cannot stand by as the GOP slashes funding for law enforcement, the courts, NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service. | ||
| This bill hurts our local police officers by taking away $247 million from their public safety technology and equipment. | ||
| Additionally, it cuts $350 million from projects that support community efforts to prevent crime, improve law enforcement, to provide precincts with equipment to prevent car theft, and provide victim services. | ||
| These are projects that Republicans and Democrats on our committee approved and agreed on. | ||
| Furthermore, the bill does nothing to prevent this administration from gutting NOAA. | ||
| As a result, the life-saving weather forecasts we all receive will be less accurate and timely. | ||
| Federal funding cuts in the GOP's continuing resolution are dangerous to communities like Queen's and so many others. | ||
| This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP benefit, which serve as a lifeline for millions of Americans. | ||
| Let's be clear, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not entitlements. | ||
| They are earned benefits that hardworking Americans pay into throughout their lifetime, so they have the opportunity to retire with dignity. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this bill allows the administration to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration and close offices nationwide, which will mean long wait times and delayed benefits for families. | ||
| For these reasons, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to the House Appropriations Committee. | ||
| If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. | ||
| My amendment would prevent any law or executive action from eliminating, restricting, or reducing access to these lawfully owed to beneficiaries across the nation. | ||
| I ask the United States consent to insert into the record the text of this amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
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I yield back. | |
| Gentlelady, without objection, gentlelady from Connecticut Reserves, gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to my very good friend, distinguished chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Calvert of California. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| I thank my good friend, the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Cole, who's done an excellent job of putting this continuing resolution together under difficult circumstances. | ||
| The appropriators tried to come to an accommodation, but we weren't able to get there. | ||
| So the best alternative we have today is this continuing resolution, which does good things for our country. | ||
| It obviously keeps the government shutdown from happening for the American people and fully funds our core government services. | ||
| But something that I'm interested in, and I think most members are interested in, is our national security. | ||
| This continues to fund our national security. | ||
| It makes sure that the young men and women who serve our military, especially our enlisted soldiers, who are going to get a historic pay raise, the highest pay raise they've had in 40 years. | ||
| A lot of these E1s that come in make $11 an hour, their pay is going to be put up significantly. | ||
| This is something that I think would need to happen, so I would hope my friends on the other side of the aisle would not vote to diminish these individuals' pay that they need very much. | ||
| This also supports important weapon systems, the Virginia-class submarine, the Columbia submarine, shipbuilding across the United States, our satellite construction, rebuilding the ordinance for the United States that we need desperately. | ||
| So a vote against that would stop all of that. | ||
| And so to me, Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important vote for our national security. | ||
| I would hope that everyone would vote for that, vote for the continuing our government, and to make sure that these weapon systems are delivered on time for the American public. | ||
| And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman yields to our gentleman from Oklahoma is reserves and the gentleman from Connecticut recognized. | ||
| Let's have the one-month CR that's been introduced as an alternative and due to the business of the House and pass appropriations bills. | ||
| I yield one minute to the gentlewoman from Florida, the distinguished ranking member of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Ms. Frankel. | ||
| The gentlelady is recognized. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Well, I'll tell you why I'm voting against this bill. | ||
| It doesn't lower any of my constituents' costs. | ||
| Instead, it gives the Trump administration free rein to continue its chaotic, lawless dismantling of U.S. influence in the world, cutting nearly all our humanitarian development, security, and global health programs, programs that constitute less than 1 percent of our federal budget. | ||
| And these are not serious cost-slaving measures. | ||
| Instead, they make us less safe, less prosperous, less healthy. | ||
| Counterterrorism programs halted. | ||
| Contracts with American farmers canceled that children are left wasting away. | ||
| Bird flu, Ebola, and HIV spreading. | ||
| Education programs ending, all done without any thought or any reason. | ||
| And the vacuums left for China, Russia, and extremists to fill. | ||
| We should not be handing this president a blank check to continue his harmful sledgehammer approach to how we spend taxpayer money. | ||
| I urge a resounding no vote on this bill. | ||
| Gentlelady from Connecticut Reserves, the gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| Gentleman, Reserves, Gentlelady, Connecticut is recognized. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Illinois and member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Quigley. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, there's a national shortage of more than 7 million units of affordable housing across America and more than 771,000 people experiencing homelessness. | ||
| The CR does nothing to lower the cost of housing. | ||
| That's what I was going to talk about for my two minutes, but after listening to this debate for so long, I think the significant correction has to be made. | ||
| Programs are not fully funded and protected if you gut the agencies that operate them. | ||
| Programs are not fully funded and protected if there's no one there to operate them. | ||
| Under President Trump, spending bills have become a farce. | ||
| He's not following the previous spending bills law that we passed. | ||
| Are we saying, well, this time we really mean it. | ||
| This time the president really promises he's going to follow the law. | ||
| And that we don't get to the point where Article 1 is optional. | ||
| Our constituents are asking us, however great you say this bill is, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice. | ||
| They're going to blame us because we believed you this time. | ||
| And we believed a president who, when he gets in the room with the truth, a fight breaks out. | ||
| As we have seen time again in the last month. | ||
| So don't, with all due respect, don't tell us what's in this bill, how great it is, how we need to read it when he doesn't have to follow it. | ||
| And you don't complain when he doesn't follow it, and you abdicate your responsibilities on Article 1 and as appropriators. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I yield back. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the United States President. | ||
| Gentlelady from Connecticut Reserves, gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
|
Democrats Fight For Health Care
00:07:20
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| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I continue to reserve my gentleman, reserves, gentlelady from Connecticut recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield one minute to the gentleman from New Jersey, the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Pallone. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| One of my colleagues on the Republican side earlier asked what Democrats are fighting for. | ||
| And I want to say I'm a proud Democrat fighting for America's health care. | ||
| And I want to stress that this partisan Republican bill cuts American health care. | ||
| This bill slashes funding for our community health centers, which provide care for millions of people, as well as our nation's teaching hospitals, which train the next generation of doctors. | ||
| It fails to reverse the Medicare physician pay cut, which endangers access for seniors, especially those in rural and underserved communities. | ||
| It also does nothing to stop Republicans' planned catastrophic cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| Rather than voting on this partisan bill, we should be working together to lower costs and expand access to health care like the bipartisan agreement we had in December. | ||
| That bill provided long-term certainty and funding increases for our community health centers, for our teaching health centers. | ||
| It lowered drug costs by taking on unfair PBM practices and addressed the Medicare cuts to physicians. | ||
| Unfortunately, Republicans walked away from this agreement because Elon Musk opposed. | ||
| The gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| Gentleladies, reserves, gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I continue to reserve. | ||
| Gentleman Reserves, gentleladies recognized. | ||
| Speaker, I yield one minute to the gentlewoman from New York, the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee, Ms. Velasquez. | ||
| Gentlelades recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And thank you for the gentlelady for yielding. | ||
| I rise today in strong opposition to this reckless Republican funding bill. | ||
| Republicans claim this is a clean CR, but the facts tell a different story. | ||
| This bill slashes $23 billion from veterans' benefits, turning its back on the brave men and women who serve our country. | ||
| It guts health care, leaving families, children, and seniors vulnerable. | ||
| And it slashes affordable housing, putting thousands, including veterans, domestic violence survivors, and people with disabilities at risk of losing their homes. | ||
| If these cuts weren't bad enough, the Vice President said this morning that this administration will continue to refuse to spend money on programs they don't like. | ||
| I will not vote for a CR that green lights this dangerous cuts. | ||
| Democrats are ready to fund the government, but we will not stand by while Republicans sell out the people we are sworn to serve. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentlelady Reserves, gentlemen. | ||
| Recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I continue to reserve. | ||
| Gentlemen Reserves, gentleladies, recognized. | ||
| I yield one minute to the gentleman from California, the distinguished ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, Mr. Tecani. | ||
| Gentlemen is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise in opposition to this partisan Republican spending bill because it guts the PACT Act and abandons veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. | ||
| House Republicans claim to support the PACT Act, but their actions tell a different story. | ||
| They're eliminating the funding for PACT Act recipients starting in October, cutting off critical health care and benefits for those who sacrifice for this country. | ||
| Last Congress, Democrats forced Republicans to fully fund this critical program. | ||
| Now Republicans are taking Elon's chainsaw to it, slashing $23 billion and breaking our nation's sacred promise to our veterans. | ||
| Where you invest your money shows what you truly value. | ||
| And by gutting this funding, Republicans have made their priorities clear. | ||
| I stand with our veterans. | ||
| I stand firm in our priorities and promises. | ||
| And I will not stand by while Republicans rip them apart. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to vote no on this partisan Republican spending bill. | ||
| Yields to Gentlelady Reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I continue to reserve. | ||
| The gentleman of Reserves, gentleladies, recognized. | ||
| I yield one minute to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton. | ||
| Running out of time. | ||
| Gentleladies, recognized. | ||
| This CR is an act of fiscal sabotage against the District of Columbia and abuse of Congress's power over disenfranchised DC. | ||
| This CR will result in an immediate cut of more than $1 billion from DC's $21 billion budget six months into DC's fiscal year. | ||
| For the last 20 years, D.C. has been able to operate under the local budget enacted by D.C. for the next fiscal year for the duration of every CR. | ||
| This CR does not allow DC to do so. | ||
| Instead, the CR effectively repeals the fiscal year 2025 local budget enacted by D.C., which DC has been operating under for six months, and restores the fiscal year 2024 local budget enacted by DC, which DC stopped operating under six months ago. | ||
| This cut to DC's local budget does not have the federal government any money because of DC's local budget, consists entirely of locally raised revenue. | ||
| I urge the voters to vote no. | ||
| Time has expired. | ||
| The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I continue to reserve. | ||
| The gentlewoman's time has expired. | ||
| In that case, may I inquire how much time I have, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| You have six minutes. | ||
| I won't use it all, but I give myself the balance of my time. | ||
| You know, been an interesting debate. | ||
| Been a lot of things said that are exaggerations. | ||
| A lot of things said, in my view, they're fabrications. | ||
| Let's talk about a few of those. | ||
| There's nothing in this bill about Social Security. | ||
| There's nothing in this bill about Medicare. | ||
| There's nothing in this bill about Medicaid. | ||
| There aren't cuts in nutrition for the poor. | ||
| There's a $500 million increase in WIC at the request of the President. | ||
| There's not cuts in housing. | ||
| There's an increase in housing to try and adjust for inflation. | ||
| We'd have been better off probably if we'd negotiated a deal, but that didn't happen. | ||
| So proactive thing. | ||
| There's more money in here to take care of junior enlisted personnel. | ||
| I don't think that's probably an article of much dispute. | ||
| It certainly shouldn't be. | ||
|
Voting Yes, Keeping Government Open
00:05:06
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| And I can go charge by charge. | ||
| Yes, on the toxic exposure fund, we're going to deal with that in the 26 bill. | ||
| It's for 26. | ||
| Everything's funded for 25. | ||
| That's what this bill covers. | ||
| It's an appropriations bill for FY25. | ||
| So that's what we're covering here. | ||
| We're going to deal with the 26 bill, and then we'll deal with that issue. | ||
| I voted for the PAC Act. | ||
| I believe that it. | ||
| I voted for additional funding for it. | ||
| I suspect we'll find common ground there. | ||
| So there's a lot of fireworks around this bill. | ||
| Let's just talk about what it does. | ||
| It's pretty simple, guys. | ||
| It's a CR. | ||
| It's a continuing resolution. | ||
| Your own leadership came out against it before they ever saw it. | ||
| Maybe that's why we have all these fabrications and hallucinations about what's in it. | ||
| It's pretty short. | ||
| It's 99 pages. | ||
| Read it. | ||
| Now, I'm sorry everybody didn't get their projects. | ||
| I really am sorry about that. | ||
| We don't do that in CRs. | ||
| So the big cuts here are mostly the elimination of congressional projects. | ||
| I think most of those are worthy. | ||
| I support them. | ||
| I actually support the reform some of my friend, the good friend, the ranking member, put in there. | ||
| I think she did a great job for that for this institution. | ||
| But we can't do them in a CR. | ||
| We just don't do them. | ||
| So people are upset about that. | ||
| I'm sorry about that. | ||
| But at the end of the day, there's only one important thing that matters here. | ||
| You can vote yes and keep the government open. | ||
| Whatever your problem is, whatever your concern is, it's going to be worse in a government shutdown, not better, worse. | ||
| So whatever you're worried about, shutting down the government is not the answer to your concern. | ||
| You're only going to make it worse. | ||
| Keeping the government open is the right thing to do. | ||
| I wish we could have gotten a deal, but we're not going to sit here and concede the executive authority of a Republican president because it upsets you. | ||
| Not going to happen. | ||
| We've made that crystal clear, and I think that was the biggest thing. | ||
| It wasn't a top-line number. | ||
| We basically got to a top-line number. | ||
| So we're here, and the government shutdown is four days away. | ||
| So if you want to vote no and shut down the government in four days, if you succeed, that's your choice. | ||
| I respect every member's vote. | ||
| I've never voted for a government shutdown. | ||
| I've always voted to reopen the government. | ||
| I don't like government shutdowns. | ||
| I don't think they work. | ||
| I think you will find if you succeed in shutting down the government that it won't work very well for you either. | ||
| It never works. | ||
| Well, I think you'd be better advised to vote yes than to have to defend a vote to shut down the government, personally. | ||
| But actually, this body will not have the final say. | ||
| It's going to go to the United States Senate, you know, and you have the power in the Senate to shut down a government if you choose because they have a filibuster over there. | ||
| They have 60 votes. | ||
| So if you're worried about it, just let it go over there. | ||
| You've got the power in that body to do it. | ||
| So if you, again, if you want to shut down the government, your choice. | ||
| But Mr. Speaker, I think the choice is crystal clear. | ||
| If we took a poll audit and the American people were asked, do you want to shut down the government? | ||
| The overwhelming answer would be no. | ||
| Do you think you should keep the government open and keep working on our problems? | ||
| That would be an overwhelming yes. | ||
| So I choose to do what the American people want to do, keep the government open. | ||
| That's what my constituents want. | ||
| Maybe yours want to shut it down. | ||
| Mine don't, and I suspect yours don't either. | ||
| So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would just suggest we set aside the rhetoric and the intense feelings and just do the right thing. | ||
| And the right thing is to vote yes and keep the government open. | ||
| So Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. | ||
| I urge them not to vote to shut down the government, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
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The House passed a six-month funding measure to try to avoid a government shutdown, 217 to 213. | |
| Kentucky Congressman Massey was the only Republican to vote no. | ||
| On the other side of the aisle, Representative Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to vote in favor of the spending package. | ||
| The bill now heads to the Senate. | ||
| Senate Republicans will need the support of several Democrats to avoid a filibuster and allow it to pass and get to the president's desk before the midnight Friday deadline. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country. | ||
|
Eastern Time Debate
00:00:57
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Coming up this morning, a look at the latest efforts by Congress to extend government funding past Friday's deadline with the Hills Al Weaver. | |
| Then, California Republican Congressman Tom McClintock, a member of the Budget Committee, will share details on the legislation and President Trump's priorities. | ||
| Also, Maryland Democratic Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith discusses this week's vote on the measure to fund the government through September 30th and her legislation to protect some federal workers from Doge layoffs. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, joining the conversation live at 7 Eastern this morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Live today on C-SPAN at 10 a.m. | ||
| Eastern, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee looks at housing affordability and the current roadblocks preventing access. | ||