Trump Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this weekend, the Republican leader, Mr. McCarthy, went on ``Face the Nation'' and said the following: ``It is unacceptable that 800,000 U.S. employees are not being paid.'' He didn't add, but he should have, that 440,000 of them are being made to work while they are not paid.

But I agree that it is unacceptable that 800,000 U.S. folks are shut out. It is unacceptable that Republicans and Donald Trump would shut down the government and deny paychecks to 800,000 Americans because they couldn't get congressional approval for an expensive and ineffective border wall, even when they controlled all levers of government.

Let me repeat that. They didn't get it done when they controlled all levers of government.

The Republican leader went on to say: ``You know what we're arguing over? One-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget.''

He is dead wrong on that. This isn't about a wall, or healthcare, or the debt limit, or spending levels. It is about whether it is appropriate policy for a President to threaten shutdowns and take the country hostage to get what he wants.

It is malfeasant and malevolent to hold 800,000 Americans and, indeed, the millions they serve hostage to the demands of a President who, days before he shut down the government, told us that is exactly what he intended to do.

That is why House Democrats, joined by several Republicans, passed six of the seven remaining appropriations bills for fiscal year 2019, all of which had bipartisan support in the Senate, and a continuing resolution to reopen the Department of Homeland Security on the first day of the new Congress.

It is also why, last week, House Democrats passed, on an individual basis, four of those same appropriations bills to reopen portions of government that the Senate approved by a vote of 92-6, over 90 percent, almost 95 percent of the Senators.

Our colleague from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) was concerned that these were not products of the House. He is right. So vote to open up a government with a CR, which you will have an opportunity to do three times, my Republican colleagues. Let's conclude the appropriations process by passing bills agreed upon by the House and the Senate.

What we have been saying all along is: Reopen the people's government. Shutting it down is an illegitimate, immoral act.

I disagree with the Republican leader's characterization of Democrats' position as taking a stand for a certain level of funding.

Just give us X amount of money for a wall, Republicans and the President say, and the shutdown will end.

This is not about a wall. It is about trying to gain an end by threat, rather than by democratic debate. One side cannot, must not, continue to threaten shutdowns to get its way in a democracy.

Our research does not show us another democracy in the world that shuts itself down. That is not how the system should work.

If Donald Trump is permitted to bully the American people and their representatives into giving him whatever he wants, does anyone think, for a second, we won't be right back here in a few weeks, or a few months, with yet another shutdown over the next item on the President's wish list?

Give me more tax cuts for the wealthy, or I will shut down the government, he will say. Cut Medicare and Social Security, or I will default on the debt.

This is about more than money to build a wall on our border. It is about whether to firm up the wall around our democracy.

We need to end this shutdown now, reopen the government first, and discuss, rationally, how best to secure our borders, an objective many of us have voted to do over the years, with substantial increases in our investment in security at all of our borders.

The only beneficiaries, very frankly, of this shutdown are Russia, China, Iran, and our other enemies and those who would like to see us fail. If this shutdown continues, it will further weaken us on trade, on national security, on protecting our interests around the world, and in serving our people here at home. And it will continue harming our economy, which has already lost nearly as much in GDP as the President wants for his wall.

Mr. Speaker, if Leader McCarthy truly finds it unacceptable for this shutdown to continue, I ask him and all my Republican colleagues to join us in urging Senator McConnell, who has called shutdowns ``failed policy,'' and President Trump to end it by taking up the bills the House has already passed to do so.

Mr. President, open our government for the people.

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