Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, today is the 20th day of the Trump shutdown. Tomorrow, it will tie the record for the longest shutdown in American history, and 800,000 Federal workers will miss a paycheck--TSA agents and Border Patrol, air traffic controllers and food safety inspectors, veterans, and FEMA aides, and more. Many Federal employees--particularly, GS-3s and GS-4s and GS-5s--live paycheck to paycheck. Who is going to make the next mortgage payment for them? Who is going to put food on the table? And what on Earth do these employees and their agencies have to do with disagreements here over security down on our southern border?

The President is treating these hard-working Americans as nothing short of leverage--pawns in his political gambit to extract $5 billion from American taxpayers to fund a border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. This is ridiculous and cruel, and it needs to end now-- right now.

The Democratic position is very simple. Let's separate our disagreements over border security from the government shutdown, reopen all the government agencies unrelated to border security, and let's continue to work to resolve our differences. Do not hold all of these workers as hostages, as pawns, as leverage.

That is why Democrats have passed the House legislation to reopen government that was drafted and supported by Senate Republicans. We Democrats are not trying to push down the throats of Republicans something they don't support or they can't swallow. Four of the bills in this package passed the Senate 92 to 6. The other two came through committee. They didn't get to the floor. They passed 31 to 0 and 30 to 1. There is nothing--I repeat, nothing--contained in the legislation that Senate Republicans oppose.

So why aren't we voting on it? Because Leader McConnell is hiding behind President Trump, saying he will not bring to the floor a bill to reopen the government unless the President says OK.

Now, for the past 3 weeks, we have tried to get the President to ``yes.'' We have gone around and around and around with the White House and made little progress. Congressional leaders have now been to the White House three separate times for negotiations. Each time, the President has been intransigent and uncompromising. He refuses to back down from his position that the price to reopen the government is $5 billion of taxpayer money for a wall that he promised Mexico would pay for.

On multiple occasions, he has refused our request to reopen unrelated parts of the government and continue negotiations on border security, revealing that he is holding the American people hostage as leverage, and he seems to be--in his words--``proud'' of it. After only a short time into yesterday's meeting, the President got up, said ``bye-bye,'' and left. Does that sound like someone who is working to solve this impasse?

Allies of the President pointed out that he passed out candy to start the meeting. With all due respect, President Trump, we don't need candy. Federal workers need their paychecks.

The Congress--the Senate in particular--can no longer wait for this President to see the light of reason. We gave it a good-faith effort. Staffers worked over the weekend. Speaker Pelosi and I have gone over to the White House whenever we have been asked, but the President is simply not budging.

A few weeks back, we all thought that the President, realizing he doesn't control the House, would come around and support a true compromise before hundreds of thousands of Federal workers would miss their paychecks. Clearly, that was wrong.

We need intervention, and Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans have a responsibility not simply to wait for the President but to intervene. Leader McConnell has voted for every single one of the six appropriation bills Democrats passed through the House. He voted for all six of them in committee, and he voted for four of them again on the floor, because two didn't get to the floor. There is nothing that he or his party truly opposes in this legislation.

They are refusing to vote on it because the President has bullied them into his hostage-taking gambit. I know that is not where most of my friends on the other side want to be. I don't even believe it is where my friend Leader McConnell wants to be. Just listen to Leader McConnell from last year:

Well I'm in favor of border security. There are some places along the border where [a wall is] probably not the best way to secure the border.

Here is Leader McConnell in 2014:

Remember me? I am the guy that gets us out of shutdowns . . . it's a failed policy.

Fast-forward to today, and Leader McConnell--``the guy that gets us out of shutdowns''--is aiding and abetting the blockade against reopening the government over a policy he doesn't fully support.

In a moment, my friends Senators Cardin and Van Hollen will give the Senate a chance to do the right thing by asking this Chamber to vote on the six appropriations bills already supported by Senate Republicans and a short-term continuing resolution for Homeland Security.

Frankly, even if President Trump doesn't support this legislation, his intransigence has forced our hand and hurt America. We need to move forward, and Leader McConnell should allow the vote to happen.

I yield to the Senator from Maryland.

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