Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019
Floor Speech
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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to reopen the Federal Government and end this destructive Trump shutdown. For 25 days now, the Trump shutdown has inflicted financial pain and anxiety on families, businesses, and entire communities across the United States.
This week, I spoke with a room full of these victims. Aviation safety experts detailed for me how the Trump shutdown has eroded an air travel system that, for now, is safe, but they are growing worried and concerned.
I heard from Federal workers who told me that the changes to tax laws ushered in during the Republican tax scam have left citizens scrambling for answers, yet workers are not there who can shepherd them through those changes.
A local leader who represents domestic violence shelters warned me, if the Trump shutdown drags on, as many as a third of the Florida facilities that women count on for refuge when they are victims of domestic violence could find themselves cutting services.
Democrats in the House have done our job. We have passed half a dozen bills to reopen the government, yet Senate Republicans have decided to hide behind President Trump and his border boondoggle refusing to take ``yes'' for an answer that could end this irresponsible shutdown.
While they are busy bowing to the President, Senate Republicans recklessly ignore that public safety is at stake. They downplay, and even dismiss, that 800,000 families are now living without a paycheck today.
Businesses, farmers, veterans, restaurant workers, domestic violence victims, and many more are all feeling real pain from this unnecessary shutdown. We need to do our jobs. We need to work together and actually be the coequal branch of government that the Constitution describes.
So today, House Democrats will do just that and give Senate Republicans another option to get us out of this latest Trump trap and offer this bill that would reopen all closed Federal agencies through February 1. This bill would allow time for us to negotiate border security and immigration reform, but without inflicting further economic harm on our families and our businesses. It is the smart, reasonable, and compassionate thing to do.
I ask my colleagues to pass this bill into law without delay.
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