Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Unlocking Our Domestic Lng Potential Act of and Providing for Consideration of H.Res. Condemning the Actions of Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, for Subverting the Second Amendment to the Constitution and Depriving the Citizens of New Mexico of Their Right to Bear Arms

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Is this Groundhog Day, Madam Speaker? Back again once more to debate a rule for bills that were considered and failed to make it to the floor.

You can't make this stuff up.

So what changed? Not the bill text, not the fact that we have less than a week before the government shuts down. Maybe the minds of a few of our colleagues across the aisle? I guess we will see later today.

Look, none of my remarks are directed to the gentleman from Oklahoma. I respect him personally and professionally. I think the world of him. I don't envy the task he has of trying to defend these bills or this process, but what the hell is going on in his Conference?

The truth is that under Speaker McCarthy's weak leadership, this Republican majority is a total failure; an unmitigated disaster.

Those aren't even my words. That is what one of your own Members said on TV a few nights ago about the process playing out in this Chamber right now.

First, we have this absurd nonbinding resolution condemning the Governor of New Mexico for trying to keep her constituents safe from gun violence.

Just to explain to folks who may be watching, this resolution does nothing--not a thing.

It is a press release. It doesn't go to the Senate. It doesn't go to the President. It does nothing.

So we are doing that, and we are doing nothing right now to avert a government shutdown. This place is becoming a Chamber where we debate trivial issues passionately and important ones not at all.

Then we have a ridiculous bill about liquified natural gas. The House has already passed this bill not once, but twice. Of course, it makes sense to waste more time passing it again when a shutdown is looming and Republicans have no plan to keep the government running, right?

This rule will also bring to the floor the Republicans' Department of Defense appropriations bill. Yes, this bill has horrible, harmful policy riders that strip people's rights and push MAGA culture wars. It also reaffirms the Pentagon's bloated budget at a time when the far-right wing nuts are holding up all other appropriation bills because they feel they don't cut enough money for programs that help everyday Americans. We still don't have a plan to fund the government.

Madam Speaker, I know if some of my Republican colleagues had their way, we would pass their continuing resolution that contains mindless, across-the-board spending cuts.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to cut funding for cancer research, for our Head Start programs, for air traffic safety, for border security, and a 65-percent cut to heating assistance for families just as it is starting to get cold. Talk about cruel.

Now, these cuts aren't just cuts, they cost us. Do people realize what Head Start does? It invests in kids from low-income families so they can have more opportunity in life. The return on investment is almost $10 for every $1 spent.

Cancer research. Do Republicans realize that investing in cancer research saves us healthcare costs not just now but down the road, and it saves lives.

Their appropriation agenda cuts all this and more.

Madam Speaker, you know where Republicans refuse to cut from? This bill, the Pentagon, the biggest, most expensive bureaucracy in our Federal Government: the Department of Defense.

So for whatever reason, it is okay to cut programs like WIC that help feed pregnant moms, but they can't find a single weapon system where there is any waste? I am happy to provide numerous articles and reports from my colleagues about the cost overruns in so many of these wasteful missile systems.

The Defense spending bill, which is the most extravagant Defense spending bill ever, failed a rule vote on Tuesday because the Republican Conference is in absolute chaos. Best I can tell, no one on the other side of the aisle has any objection to the top-line number in the Pentagon bill, but yet they voted down the rule just the other day.

I know that whipping votes can be difficult, but the number of backroom secret deals and late-night seances Republicans have had to hold this year to revive bills from the dead is astounding, and I am afraid things will only get worse as we near September 30.

Republicans are acting like the end of the fiscal year just snuck up on them.

News flash: The deadline to fund the government isn't some big secret. They have had months to prevent a government shutdown. The reality is that not once--not once--have Republicans given us a bill that could keep the government open.

Republicans barely control one-half of one branch of government. Yet, they act like they are king of the hill, like it is their way or the highway, that nothing else matters.

The only way this slim House Republican majority can keep the lights on is if they get Senate Democrats and the President to agree, but they haven't even begun to reach across the aisle to negotiate because they are busy negotiating amongst themselves.

Hell, at this rate, they might not even be able to get Senate Republicans to agree given how extreme their Conference has become.

Madam Speaker, this majority is a failure. The clowns are running the circus. The day Speaker McCarthy handed his gavel over to the clown show, this was the inevitable outcome. There is a different path that we can choose right here and right now: Work with Democrats to prevent a shutdown; work with us to keep the government open; work with us to honor the deal you made earlier this year.

It is time for the ringmaster of this circus, Kevin McCarthy, to stand up to the clowns and say enough with the extremism and the blackmail. Stop wasting time and work with us to get this done in a bipartisan way.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Before I yield to my next speaker, I want to clarify for the record because I don't want to be misunderstood or mischaracterized because I have great respect for the gentleman. I never said the Defense appropriations bill was trivial. I said the Defense appropriations bill was bloated and filled with the kitchen sink of MAGA culture wars.

On the second bill, the LNG bill, I said it was repetitive because we have passed it twice already. It is going nowhere. We are going to pass it a third time, and that is going nowhere at a time when our government is about to shut down. To take up a bill that is repetitive and that is going nowhere seems like not a good use of our time.

I did say that the nonbinding resolution on guns was trivial because it doesn't do a damn thing. We are living in a country where we have massacres occur on a regular basis, and we can't get any legislation to the floor. The only bill we get to the floor on guns is a nonbinding resolution that does nothing and that doesn't even go anywhere. It doesn't go to the Senate. It doesn't go to the President.

I want to be clear on what I said because I think it is important. I do believe that this bill, this nonbinding resolution, is an example of how trivial issues get debated passionately here and important ones not at all.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Boyle), the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the concern we have over here on this side of the aisle is that there are Members on the Republican side who seem to be cheering on a shutdown.

The other day, in an interview with ``PBS NewsHour,'' a fellow colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Norman of South Carolina, was asked how likely a shutdown is, and his response was: It is 100 percent.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the twice-impeached, four-times-indicted former President is weighing in on the funding fights within his party, and ultimately he is endorsing actions that will shut down the government.

Now, I have a strange feeling my Republican counterparts will gladly comply at the expense of the American people because everybody on that side of the aisle is so frightened of him.

The gentleman from Oklahoma was talking about a shutdown in 2018. I don't disagree with my friend that there was a brief shutdown in early 2018 that a lot of people don't remember because it was so short. I should point out that Republicans were in charge of the House and in charge of the Senate at the time. I know some Democrats were pushing to help Dreamers as part of a funding deal, but that brief, symbolic shutdown lasted less than 72 hours, mostly over the weekend and, if I remember correctly, had no lasting impact.

Now, compare that to the 5-week Republican shutdown in 2018 which reduced economic output by $11 billion in the following 2 quarters, including $3 billion that the United States economy never regained. That was a partial shutdown. Then the 2013 full Republican shutdown reduced GDP growth by $20 billion, according to Moody's Analytics. $20 billion. I think it is a little more than unfair to play both sides of the card here, because it doesn't apply.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans claim that they are trying to save money but continually weaken the United States Government's creditworthiness at a cost to the United States taxpayers.

In August, Fitch cited a decline in governance as a key reason for the United States' downgrade due to repeated battles over the past two decades that have led to government shutdowns or even taken the government to the brink of a debt default. Republicans need to get serious about governing and protect the United States' creditworthiness.

government's debt has been downgraded. Here's what to know.''

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, there are consequences to these games that people on the right are playing, and the consequences are detrimental to our economy, which in turn are detrimental to the American people.

The gentleman from Oklahoma also talked about the Senate. I wish we were behaving more like the Senate than behaving like we are here in the House.

In the Senate, the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Murray, is actually working with the Republican Vice Chair, Senator Collins. There is a statement from Senator Murray saying: ``Vice Chair Collins and I have discussed how best to address these concerns, and we have agreed to make use of additional emergency appropriations--just as we do every year, and is fully allowed under the debt ceiling deal--to address in a bipartisan way some of the pressing challenges our Nation faces.

``In order to take these concerns regarding our defense and nondefense needs seriously, and to ensure we deliver the strongest bills possible with the broadest bipartisan support possible, Vice Chair Collins''--a Republican--``and I agreed to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency appropriations, including $8 billion for defense, and $5.7 billion for nondefense spread across four subcommittees, including the State/Foreign Ops bill we are considering today.''

This is in response to that.

The bottom line is what they are doing in the Senate is what we should be doing here. Even though Democrats control the Senate, they are sitting down with Republicans and they are having conversations. They are trying to come to deals. They are trying to not only get a short-term bill done to keep our government from shutting down, they are trying to figure out a long-term way forward.

The Senate has used the Fiscal Responsibility Act as a starting point for meaningful bipartisan dialogue and compromise. They reached an agreement to stay within the 1 percent of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and collaborated to report out 12 bills with near bipartisan unanimity.

Meanwhile, House Republicans haven't taken a single meaningful step to engage Democrats on necessary compromise. They failed to garner a single Democratic vote for their bills in committee and haven't been able to bring two of their bills to the full committee for consideration because the cuts were too deep.

Even moderates on your side don't want to vote for those things.

This is about the Senate following a bipartisan, collaborative process versus House Republicans turning their backs on that process and negotiating amongst themselves to make their bills more partisan.

There is a way to do this, but, unfortunately, you have a small group of the most extreme of the extreme calling all the shots. They are moving this place in the wrong direction. These are the people cheering for a government shutdown. These are the people who don't care how much they hurt the American people with across-the-board, mindless cuts in programs like Head Start and WIC and medical research and LIHEAP, cutting it by 65 percent.

I come from a State up north, Massachusetts. Tell my constituents, who depend on LIHEAP to heat their homes, the thinking behind gutting LIHEAP by 65 percent.

Talk about cruel. There are consequences to your actions. There are consequences to your words, the downgrading of our credit. If you succeed in getting some of these cuts, people are going to lose benefits that they not only rely on to do things like heat their homes, they need them to survive.

Enough of the nonsense. Let's come together and let's stop wasting time bringing another extreme CR to the House Rules Committee to bring on this floor that makes the crummy bill you brought the other night look like it is reasonable. Come on. We are running out of time.

I am not going to engage in the frivolous part of what this rule provides. I think Mr. Cole and I were having a serious debate about things that really matter here in terms of our economy and whether or not we can fund our government. I am not going to waste time talking about a nonbinding resolution that is nothing more than a press release.

Mr. Speaker, let's be honest with each other. We are only a few days away from a shutdown, and we are in chaos because the Republican Party is in the middle of a civil war. That is just a fact.

Speaker McCarthy cut a deal on spending levels back in May. That is what the Senate has acted on in a bipartisan way. The only people not holding up the bargain are House Republicans.

Speaker McCarthy is breaking his word, and I get it. I mean, he handed over the gavel to the most extreme in his party. He put the patients in charge of the hospital, and now he is getting blackmailed. Good luck to him getting out of the mess that he has made.

The American people deserve better, and they deserve to know that there is a difference here, a very clear difference. We may not always agree on every single issue, but Democrats come to this place every single day and we worry. We worry about making sure that people get better jobs. We worry because we want people to have better healthcare and we want people to have higher wages. We worry because we want to make sure that people have clean air and water and great schools where we know our kids will make it home from school that day, they will be safe, and we want to make sure that everybody has access to affordable housing.

Republicans worry, too, but it seems that this Republican majority worries mostly about their own power. They worry about fighting with each other, trying to shut down the government, impeach the President, and remove their own Speaker.

The Republican majority in this House is a joke. They wasted weeks talking about gas stoves, weeks arguing about book bans, weeks telling kids what soccer team they can play on, and now we are on the eve of a shutdown and they are doing nothing to stop it. In fact, they are moving in the wrong direction.

We have Members on the other side of the aisle who go on network news and say ``shut it down,'' telling people that it is 100 percent certain that there will be a government shutdown. Who cares, they say.

Really?

Earlier, I talked about a seance. After looking at what is happening on the other side of the aisle, I think what this place needs is an exorcism. The Republican Party has gone to war with itself, and it doesn't matter which side wins because either way, they are not worried about anybody but themselves.

This is a serious consequential moment for this Congress. There are real impacts if there is a government shutdown. There are impacts to our credit rating. There are impacts to job creation. There are impacts to a whole bunch of things. Most importantly, Mr. Speaker, there are negative impacts for the people of this country. We have seen this movie before. It doesn't have a good ending.

In these last few days that we have, rather than fighting amongst yourselves, why don't you try something radical, and that is sitting down in a bipartisan way and coming to a deal that will get a majority of votes in this House. It requires the Speaker of the House to stand up to the extremists. It requires him to demonstrate some leadership. That is what is needed.

The Speaker of the House must lead. It is the obligation of everybody in this Chamber to, at a minimum, keep the lights on. This is the moment where we need some leadership, where the Speaker needs to stand up and tell the extremists no.

I said before, it is like the clowns are running the circus, and there is no ringmaster. Enough of this. This is a bad movie.

By the way, it is not just Democrats who are expressing concern about what is going on, and it is not just independents as well that are expressing concern, but I hear it from Members of their own Conference who have been on TV basically sounding the alarm bells saying, this is dysfunction, this is an unmitigated disaster. These are the words of Republican Members who are warning your leadership to get their act together.

We will see how things work out this weekend, but if the reports that we are reading are true, we are going to see a CR come to the Rules Committee that is even more extreme than the extreme CR that we dealt with and that was pulled the other day.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I mean, at the end of the day, I think people need to know that, when you cut some of these programs, when you cut LIHEAP, that means there are people who will not be able to heat their homes in the wintertime.

When you cut Head Start, that means there are countless kids who will not have an opportunity to succeed in the future.

When you cut programs like WIC, it means that there are pregnant mothers and newborn babies that will not have access to good nutrition.

When you cut medical research, you are not only putting farther off the day where we find a cure to some of these dreaded diseases that kill people, but you are also making it certain that the costs of healthcare will continue to rise.

None of this makes any sense. I know that there are adults on the other side of the aisle that want to do the right thing. Again, I plead with my colleagues. We will go through this, whatever we are going to do, a bill that is nonbinding that means nothing, an LNG bill that we have done twice before that is going nowhere fast, and then we will do this Defense appropriations bill, again, that represents the kitchen sink of MAGA culture wars.

We will go through all of that, but, while we are doing that, I hope that people are sitting down and getting serious to avoid a government shutdown, and then let's get together and do what the American people elected us to do.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong ``no'' vote on this rule.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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