Providing for Consideration of H.R. Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, and Waiving A Requirement of Clause Reported From the Committee on Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 28, providing for consideration of H.R. 264, making appropriations for financial services and general government; H.R. 265, making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs; H.R. 266, making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies; and H.R. 267, making appropriations for the Department of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies, each for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019. The rule provides for consideration of each bill under a closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, we need to pass these bills, because we need to reopen government.

Let me just say to my colleagues, quite frankly, this is not the way I had hoped we would start the new Congress, essentially cleaning up the mess that my Republican friends left us from the last Congress, but we are where we are, and this is an emergency. It is time to reopen the government.

Mr. Speaker, what we saw last night from the President, in my opinion, was a disgrace. He used the Oval Office to fearmonger and smear immigrants. There was nothing new, no plan to get us out of this shutdown, no solutions, just more of the same offensive rhetoric we have heard time and time again from this President.

But this Democratic majority is moving quickly to end the Trump shutdown. On day one of this new Congress, we passed a complete funding package using bipartisan language to reopen government, and now, today, we are taking further action to help the American people while responsibly protecting our borders.

This rule will allow us to pass individual appropriations bills to reopen key government agencies. That includes the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, to prevent Americans' tax refunds from being withheld during the shutdown; the Department of Agriculture, to prevent hungry families from losing the lifeline of SNAP benefits and assure that our farmers get the services that they need; the Department of the Interior, to prevent our national parks and monuments from being further degraded and allow EPA to resume its work protecting public health and our environment; and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to help hardworking families in the process of realizing the dream of homeownership. These bills offer us a way out of the President's shutdown, an embarrassing spectacle that never should have happened in the first place.

Nineteen days ago, the President of the United States threw a temper tantrum. He went back on his word, breaking his promise to sign bipartisan appropriations bills that would have prevented a quarter of our government from shutting down.

He turned on FOX News or some rightwing radio show somewhere and changed his mind. Suddenly, the President demanded $5 billion in funding for his offensive border wall just to keep the lights on-- billions of dollars, by the way, that would just have been a downpayment on an unnecessary project that would cost tens of billions of dollars, and not at Mexico's expense like President Trump promised over and over and over and over again.

Now the costs have been shifted to the American taxpayer, when, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, only 25 percent of the public says they support Trump shutting down the government over the wall--25 percent. This is crazy, but this doesn't have to continue.

At his press conference the other day, the President boasted he could keep our government closed for years. Now, he may not know how to get us out of this mess, but this Democratic majority does, and there are many responsible Republicans on the other side of the aisle who are with us on reopening the government.

Last week, our funding package passed with bipartisan support. Seven Republicans voted with us, including Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district includes much of the U.S.-Mexico border.

In addition, a growing number of Senate Republicans have encouraged the majority leader to bring those bills to the floor, including Senator Collins of Maine and Senator Gardner of Colorado. Senator Gardner said, recently: ``The Senate has done it last Congress; we should do it again today,'' and I agree.

So let's send these bills to the Senate so they can once again pass Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Senate Majority Leader already supported these bills once. Why not support them again to finally reopen this government?

Because we can't wait for the President to publicly promise to sign these bills before we act--we already know his word isn't worth much; his broken promise is what got us here--it has fallen to Congress to get us out of this shutdown.

Congressman Hurd said after voting for the Democratic appropriations package last week: ``Ultimately, Congress is a coequal branch of government, and it should operate that way.'' He is absolutely right. And these bills are this majority's latest attempt to fulfill our responsibility.

There are 40 million Americans who rely on SNAP to put food on the table. Their benefits will lapse shortly if this shutdown is allowed to continue.

Mr. Speaker, why should Americans go hungry just because the President wants to appease someone like Rush Limbaugh? Why in the world would Congress sit idly by as thousands of people trying to buy a new home or refinance FHA-insured mortgages are left in limbo?

We are now in tax season. If we don't end this shutdown, more than 2 million Americans who every month turn to tax assistance centers will find them closed as they try to complete their annual returns.

This is madness, and it is completely unnecessary. Tax returns delayed, home purchases in limbo, food assistance in jeopardy for the hungry, trash piling up in our national parks, it is an embarrassment-- not to mention the 800,000 Federal workers who aren't getting paid, and countless more contractors.

It can be over in a heartbeat if we pass these bills and the Senate takes yes for an answer. These bills honor our responsibility to turn the lights back on. They don't waste even a dollar of taxpayer money on the President's immoral border wall, nor should they. People overwhelmingly object to building it.

I hope this President comes to his senses, that he stops holding our Nation hostage as he plays to the fringes of his base. But none of us can control that. We do have the ability, though, to do our jobs and to end the shutdown. That is what this Congress will do again today, and I urge all of my colleagues to join with us.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Oklahoma's comments. I just want to make a couple of quick points before yielding to my next speaker.

We, as Democrats, are struggling in support of border security, and we have supported initiative after initiative to basically make our borders more secure. We believe in investing in infrastructure and more personnel. We believe in providing more judges to be able to adjudicate asylum claims so we can process people more expeditiously. We believe in technology. It is 2019, yet the President insists on this medieval approach to border security, which most experts say is just ineffective.

On top of all of that, our objection is that it is going to cost tens of billions of dollars. The President said that Mexico is going to pay for it, but now he is saying that the American taxpayers are going to pay for it. I mean, give me a break.

As far as why we are doing the strategy of taking up these Senate- passed bills, let me remind my colleagues: They passed the Senate 92-6 back in August.

I would have liked a different process. My friends were in charge of everything up to a week ago. They controlled the House; they controlled the Senate; and they controlled the White House. Yet they sent people home during the holidays and just kicked the can down the road, and we have inherited this mess from the last Congress. So we are doing the best we can.

If the Senate would vote, like they did in August, again for these bills--92-6--we won't need the President. We could override his veto; we could reopen the government; and we could stop all of this nonsense right now. That is my hope.

Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my friend from Washington State, a former member of the Rules Committee. I should just tell him-- and I am a little bit surprised, since he was on the Rules Committee-- two of his amendments that he offered didn't even comply with the House rules, so that is why they wouldn't be made in order.

But let me just say to him, as I began my remarks, it is unfortunate that we had to start this Congress cleaning up after the last Congress, but that is where we are. That is what you have given us. And I am eager to return to regular order as soon as we reopen this government.

What we are witnessing is extraordinary. In fact, it is unprecedented. For the first time in history, we have begun a new Congress in the middle of a government shutdown.

I tried last month to bring up appropriations bills, bills that Mr. Hoyer offered on the floor to reopen this government, but you shut me down every single time, so here we are.

We meant it when we said that we would do everything we can to reopen this government, because this is a real emergency. 800,000 hardworking civil servants are either furloughed or working without pay. That is what an emergency looks like. This is an emergency.

I appreciate the kind of laid-back attitude of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle who are like: Well, let's start all over again. Let's reopen the process. Let's have endless debate from now until whenever.

But do you know what? It is not us who are not being paid; it is our constituents. So this is an emergency. It is time that all of us come together and end this ridiculous shutdown and then get on to the business of the future. That is what I am committed to.

I hope that the Rules Committee will be much more accommodating to my friends on the other side of the aisle than my friends were to us, by the way, overseeing the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America.

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