Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Aderholt from Alabama has just said this is ``veto bait.'' What is veto bait? A proposition to open up the people's government. Veto bait?

What is the Republican position? Unless the coequal branch of government, the House of Representatives, says ``yes'' to the President of the United States, you will continue to support, ad infinitum, closing down the American Government.

Our Russian--I won't call them enemies, but adversaries, at least, are very happy, I am sure, that the American Government is shut down.

Our Chinese competitors are very happy that the American Government is shut down.

We look ridiculous on the national and international scene.

I ask one of my Republican colleagues to stand, and I will yield to them. Tell me which government of the world shuts themselves down.

You are correct. The answer is, I can't find any government in the free world that shuts themselves down.

Is that what you won't vote for, opening up your government, the people's government? Is that what this fight is about?

Or is this fight about, Mr. President, you tell us what to do?

Mr. McConnell says he won't put anything on the Senate floor that the President won't sign. My, my, my, what a coequal branch of government we are.

Article I says we make the policy. We decide what is rational to spend $5.7 billion on. Experts tell us this wall won't work. Senator Cornyn, Senator Graham, Senator Kennedy, other Senators have said this is not a good investment. By the way, somebody else who said that was Mick Mulvaney, some years ago. He is now Chief of Staff at the White House.

This is not a partisan issue, and this is not about the wall, nor was it about the ACA, nor was it about the level of education funding when Gingrich shut down the government or when Ted Cruz and the Freedom Caucus shut down the government.

Thank God for John Boehner, who had the courage to say shutting down the government does not make any sense. It is a stupid policy. Thank God for John Boehner, who came to the floor, notwithstanding the fact only 87 of his Republican colleagues would support it, but with all the support of the Democrats, we opened up the government after 26 days.

Now, we have exceeded it this time. What happens 2 weeks from now when the President says: Either you do it my way or no way, or I am going to shut down the government.

We are paying a high price, Mr. Speaker, for shutting down this government, not only the 800,000 hostages who have been taken by the President of the United States, with the complicity of his Republican supporters in the House and in the Senate. 800,000 people, 440,000 of them forced to work without getting paid, 360,000 of them sitting home and saying: How am I going to pay my mortgage? How am I going to pay my car payment?

They don't know. I talked to a veteran just 3 days ago who represents a lot of veterans organizations. He said to me: Do you know the highest reason for veteran suicide?

I said: No, what is that?

Fiscal uncertainty.

We have a lot of veterans in the Federal Government. We have a lot of veterans who are either laid off or working and not getting paid. We are creating financial instability and anxiety among our employees. What a stupid way to run a business.

Yesterday, we had a motion to recommit, and it was to strike opening up the government of the United States. That was apparently, as the chairwoman has expressed, a poison pill for my Republican colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I don't get it. We were sent here by our people to make their government run more efficiently and effectively for them and for our country, and what have we done? We have said: If the President won't agree to opening up the government, we won't either.

Yes, we have tried every kind of alternative: opening it up for 7 days, opening it up for 14 days where we can negotiate, and now we are saying to open it up for a month, put people back to work, give them a paycheck.

And what does the President's Council of Economic Advisers say just the other day? We are hurting the economy of the United States, which hurts everybody and the international community.

I don't get it. I can't think that the American people will get it, that their Congress sits supine and says we will only pass something if the President says it is okay.

Have we come to this state where the Article I branch of government, given the power by the people to make policy, says to the person in the Second Article, given the responsibility of executing policy, to tell us: You guys who make policy, don't do it unless I tell you you can?

How sad, how lacking in respect for our own responsibility and duties to sit idly by while not only 800,000 people are held hostage, but also millions and millions and millions of others who are served daily by those 800,000 people.

I plead with my colleagues: Stand up. Reject this policy of shutting down government whoever does it, whichever side does it.

And we don't do it. We don't believe in it. Mitch McConnell doesn't believe in it. He said just a few years ago it was a failed policy. And he, Senator McConnell, was the guy that opened up government. That is what he said. He has now abandoned that, unfortunately, to the detriment of our country--not just to the detriment of our Federal employees, to the detriment of the country.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope every American would call their Member and say: Look, you guys have differences. That is all right. But don't shut down my government; don't hurt my economy; don't hurt my neighbor; don't hurt my mom and dad; don't hurt my child; don't send people to the border to make us secure when you talk about border security and then don't pay them and have them worrying about when they are going to get their next paycheck.

We are better than this. The Congress ought to be better than this.

In a bipartisan way, we ought to say to the President of the United States: We are for you, against you on this, that, or the other policy, but we are united in the fact that we do not want to shut down the people's government.

Pass this bill. Send it to the Senate. Let's open this government. It is the right thing to do.

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