Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Chair, I thank my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from the great State of Texas and the all-American city of Laredo for yielding and for his continued leadership.

I also have great respect for the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, the chair of the subcommittee, and of course the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee from Connecticut.

At the beginning of this Congress, House Democrats made it clear that we are willing, ready, and able to find common ground with the other side of the aisle, our Republican colleagues, whenever and wherever possible, to make progress for everyday Americans, to build a healthy economy, to address cost-of-living issues that consume the American people that we were sent to Washington to work on, that President Biden has made progress on with House and Senate Democrats, but of course, there is still more work to be done.

From the beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have made clear we are ready, willing, and able to find common ground with the other side of the aisle, to make progress for the American people, but we have also made it clear that we are going to fight extremism whenever necessary. We are headed toward an extreme MAGA Republican government shutdown in just a few days.

Now, we can avoid it, because there is a bipartisan bill that is working its way through the Senate right now that will continue to fund the government in a way that makes sense for the American people, that would provide funding at the fiscal year 2023 levels for 6 weeks beginning on October 1st, to give us time for the appropriations process to run its course, to find an agreement to fund the government in a bipartisan way.

It is a continuing resolution right now pending before the Senate, strongly bipartisan, that doesn't contain any of the extreme policy poison-pill riders that House Republicans have been trying to jam down the throats of the American people but have no part in any bipartisan agreement, particularly when we are faced with a possible government shutdown that will hurt the American people.

It is a continuing resolution that also meets the needs of everyday Americans by providing robust funding for Americans who have been adversely impacted by extreme weather events all across America in blue States and in red States, because extreme weather events aren't partisan in nature, and we should be there for the people of Florida and California and Hawaii and Vermont and the Northeast and the Midwest and the Deep South, those everyday Americans who have been impacted by extreme weather events.

That is what the bipartisan continuing resolution pending in the Senate will do, and it will allow the Ukrainian people to continue their brave, valiant, and courageous effort to push back against illegal Russian brutal, violent aggression.

We have a bipartisan continuing resolution working its way through the Senate that meets the needs of the American people. It has input from those of us in this Chamber and that will pass if it reaches the floor of this Chamber and would avoid an extreme MAGA Republican shutdown.

Just yesterday, a bipartisan group in the Senate voted, I believe, 77-19 to advance this bipartisan continuing resolution. It will reach the floor of the House in a few days.

The question is: What will the House Republican majority do? There are only two paths forward: Allow that bipartisan continuing resolution that meets the needs of the American people to receive an up or down vote, and it will pass and we will avoid a shutdown, or refuse to allow that bill to receive an up or down vote and stick the American people with an extreme MAGA Republican government shutdown that will hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt veterans, hurt everyday Americans, and hurt the economy.

If we find ourselves dealing with an extreme MAGA Republican shutdown, what will it all be for? Well, this week is very revealing, because we are considering bills, including the one that is before us right now, that have zero chance of becoming law--zero chance--and they are filled with extreme policy poison pills relating to things like cutting Social Security; criminalizing abortion care; slashing public school funding; taking food out of the mouths of women, infants, and children; hurting the ability of veterans and seniors to make ends meet.

That is why the government will shut down, because extreme MAGA Republicans have determined that it needs to try to jam rightwing ideology down the throats of the American people, and, if we don't pay that ransom note, you want to shut the government down.

We know this playbook because we have seen it over and over again. We saw it in the 1990s under Newt Gingrich when the House Republican majority at the time shut the government down twice, demanding that we slash and burn Medicaid. Well, that government shutdown ended with an unconditional surrender, because the American people were unwilling to pay that ransom note to slash and burn Medicaid.

The same thing happened in 2013 when the Tea Party forced a reluctant John Boehner to shut the government down for 14 days. What was the extreme ransom note demand at the time? That President Obama should repeal the Affordable Care Act, his signature legislative accomplishment. It ended the same way, an unconditional surrender, because the American people were unwilling to pay the extreme ransom note.

Then, again, in 2018 into 2019, another government shutdown, longest in American history, 35 days. What was the extreme ransom note demand at the time? That the American taxpayer be forced to pay billions and billions of dollars to fund a medieval, ineffective border wall that Donald Trump wanted to make happen. That government shutdown ended exactly the same way after 35 days--unconditional surrender, because the American people were unwilling to pay that extreme ransom note.

Why are we going through this exercise again when we know it is going to end the same way? Because the American people are not willing to pay a ransom note that will allow my extreme Republican colleagues to criminalize abortion care or to cut Social Security or to slash public school funding or to take food out of the mouths of women or infants or children. That is not a ransom note that will ever be paid.

You have a bipartisan vehicle coming out of the Senate that will be before the House in a few days, and there is only one responsible course of action. House Democrats are prepared to support that bipartisan agreement so we can avoid a government shutdown that will hurt the American people, and the only question is: Will our Republican colleagues join us?

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