Providing for Consideration of H.R. Continuing Appropriations and Border Security Enhancement Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, my good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I will just take a moment first to recognize the loss of our dear colleague and historic trailblazer, Dianne Feinstein. The longest serving woman in the United States Senate, Senator Feinstein was a political giant.
She fought hard for her constituents in California, passionately defended American civil liberties, and was a strong voice for national security as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
She broke more glass ceilings in her career than most thought was possible, and she will be missed. She left behind an incredible legacy. May she rest in peace.
Now, Madam Speaker, I have the unfortunate task of turning to the business before us, a CR that the Republicans have brought forward.
Again, I mentioned legacy with regard to Senator Feinstein. I ask my friends, is this their legacy? Is this what they want people to remember their service by? This bill, that was just dropped on us a few hours ago, really is a piece of garbage, and that is putting it nicely.
Madam Speaker, the clock is ticking; less than 40 hours from a total MAGA Republican government shutdown. Less than 40 hours, and today we are here to consider the Republicans' latest continuing resolution that has absolutely no chance of becoming law. This version of the CR we are considering won't pass the Senate. It just won't. We all know that. Hell, I don't even think it is going to pass the House, it is so bad; and it will not be signed into law by President Biden. We all know that.
We got this text late last night, and thanks to the quick work of Democratic Rules and Appropriations staff, we have some preliminary analysis about what this CR means for the American people. Let me tell you, the cuts in this bill are even worse than what was proposed before. They are going in the wrong direction.
House Republicans' earliest CR slashed essential programs by 8 percent, an 8 percent across-the-board mindless cut. This new version now has across-the-board cuts by 30 percent or more; by 30 percent or more. It is effectively a partial shutdown bill.
They slash investments in cancer research. They eliminate public education by cutting funding for Head Start. They fail to support communities recovering from natural disasters. It cuts money for wildfire suppression by 50 percent. Haven't they been paying attention? The wildfires in Maui and in the western part of the Country. I mean, communities are desperate for help, and my friends propose a bill that would cut money for wildfire suppression by 57 percent. What planet are my friends living on?
They cut loans and grants for farmers in rural communities. They defund law enforcement. Republicans want to talk about fentanyl? They cut money from the DEA.
What are they thinking? You can't make this stuff up, Madam Speaker.
We estimate that if Republicans get their way, if this thing were ever to become law, up to 1 million seniors will be kicked off of Meals on Wheels.
My friend from Pennsylvania talks about, oh, we are upholding our obligation to protect our national security. I will remind the gentleman and my friends on the other side of the aisle that national security means more than the number of bombs we have in our arsenal. It means the quality of life for our people. It means whether or not our senior citizens have security in their retirement years. It means whether they have access to food. It means whether or not people have jobs and whether or not people can have a decent living in this country. That has to be part of the discussion on national security, and this bill just blows all that up.
We expect WIC to get at least a 30 percent cut. Women, infants, and children will go hungry because of Republicans' misplaced priorities. Talk about cruelty.
In the Rules Committee just not too long ago this morning, I asked my friends, who claim that they were well-versed in all the details of this bill, is the 30 percent cut in WIC accurate? Is that correct? There was silence. How many women, infants, and children will be cut off from the benefit if this were to pass? There was silence. No one knows.
We do know, thanks to the work of the staff, that there is a 30 percent cut and a 74 percent cut in LIHEAP, a program that keeps Americans warm during the winter. I come from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We have cold winters. The gentleman comes from Pennsylvania. It gets cold in Pennsylvania, too. Winter is coming. Everybody represents constituencies that rely on this program to heat their homes, and my friends cut it by 74 percent.
What are my friends thinking? Give me a goddamn break. This is wrong.
What are you doing? When it comes to keeping seniors warm or providing pregnant mothers and their babies food, Republicans have a problem, but the sky is the limit if it is a defense contract--cost overruns be dammed. They have no problem with tax cuts for corporations or for millionaires or billionaires, no problem with heaping more subsidy giveaways to the fossil fuel industry.
Let me just say, we do not share the same values, and this is proof of that, Madam Speaker. This is proof of that.
This majority is a failure. The day Speaker McCarthy handed his gavel over to the MAGA/QAnon fringe, this was the inevitable outcome. The government will shut down tomorrow. Let me repeat that: The government will shut down tomorrow.
Let me say to my Republican friends: You own this. You did this, and this is just plain stupid. Stop wasting time and work with us to get this done in a bipartisan way.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in defeating this rule. I mean, we are wasting time today. This is a total waste of time. Let's defeat this rule and force the Rules Committee to go back up and come up with a rule that will allow a bipartisan bill to come before the floor. Let's end this clown show once and for all.
The American people are watching. They are frustrated by all of this, and I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle, my moderate friends on the other side of the aisle, will join us in defeating this rule. We appreciate the statements that have been made, calling out the incompetence of the Republican leadership, but now I think it is time to put your votes where your quotes are.
We have to stop this. Now is the time to send that message, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's commentary and his critique of Republican leadership, but what I didn't hear is how he was going to vote on this rule or how he is going to vote on the underlying bill.
The bottom line is, quotes are fine, but votes are better. Votes are more important here.
By the way, this bill that we are talking about guts things like LIHEAP, cuts it by 74 percent, which will impact people in New York, which will impact people in Pennsylvania and all over this country.
The bottom line, Madam Speaker, is that if we want to get rid of the nonsense and get to the business of funding government in a bipartisan way, then we need to stop this now. We need to sit in a room in a bipartisan way and figure this out.
That is what the United States Senate is doing. My Republican friends have never once talked to the Democratic leadership here about trying to come up with a compromise. Republicans never once talked to our ranking members about how we come to a middle ground. It has always been their way or the highway.
By the way, it is not just their way. It is their far-rightwing way, going way, way in the wrong direction.
Madam Speaker, the CR we are considering in this rule is not just shameful. It is a partisan measure. It is also, as I have said, a complete waste of time, time we do not have.
Tomorrow, the government shuts down. This will not keep the government open. It will not keep it functioning for the American people. It does the opposite. It ensures a shutdown will occur, and if anybody is opposed to a shutdown, then stand with us right now and say no to this nonsense.
Madam Speaker, I am urging that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule for swift consideration of the Senate's bipartisan continuing resolution to fund the government after they send it to the House.
Once we receive the Senate CR, the chair and/or ranking member of the Appropriations Committee can call it up as a privileged question without further action from the Rules Committee.
There will be 1 hour of debate, and the House will have an up or down vote on keeping the government running while full-year funding is being negotiated. We can send the bill straight to the President's desk.
During the 2013 shutdown, a Senate CR was privileged under the House rules until the Republican majority turned that off.
We aren't even at the procedural stage yet because House Republicans have failed to advance any real plan to fund the government.
They would rather fight with one another than negotiate with the Senate.
Some have even openly called for a government shutdown, and we have been through those quotes of Republican after Republican saying they relish a government shutdown.
We can fix this right now. If anything deserves to be privileged for consideration on this floor, it is a bill to keep the government open. That is so vitally important, Madam Speaker.
Clearly, it is time for the adults in the room to step up to the plate. We need to give Congress more time.
Again, I ask my moderate friends on the other side of the aisle not to follow the fringe of their party down this path. It is my hope that some reasonable Republicans who are interested in governing will join with us in this effort.
So reject this insanity of cheering on a government shutdown and abandon the sinking ship that is MAGA extremism. Moderates have a chance to say enough is enough. A bipartisan CR would be temporary, but it is better than nothing. We need the time to work all this stuff out.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), to discuss our proposal.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the DCCC writes the gentleman's speeches because what the gentleman from Colorado quoted was his words in a speech. Talk is cheap around here. Votes are the currency of the realm in this place.
The choice is clear, and the gentleman has made clear where he stands.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I would just say to the gentlewoman, we are not here to support Republicans. We are here to support our constituents.
Madam Speaker, if the President were presented with H.R. 5525, he would veto it, so this is a complete waste of time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez).
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, this extreme Republican bill reveals their mean-spirited values more than any words they utter. Those values are to kick 275,000 young, 4-year-old children out of Head Start.
Republicans hypocritically talk about fentanyl but then defund the law enforcement officers who seize this deadly drug. This bill deprives that brother, sister, daughter, a friend of yours that you might have who is battling mental health or addiction, of the funds they use.
Don't talk about fentanyl. Don't talk about addiction if you are not going to fund the law enforcement and the health resources we need to truly tackle that.
Madam Speaker, then they slash BAA funding by 30 percent, including slashing the Tribal law enforcement officers who are out there also interdicting and protecting us from criminal activity.
The CR really reveals who extreme Republicans are--``sin verguenza,'' ``without shame'' about hurting those most vulnerable, cutting programs for our world communities by 30 percent.
I stand for rural America--this bill does not, and it puts down our ranchers and farmers.
If they don't get their way, what will they do? They will shut the government down.
Let's remind everybody, every time we have a government shutdown of any note, it is because Republicans did it under their leadership, and they hurt everybody in the process. And why? To protect the rich and the wealthy.
To protect the rich and the wealthy, the extreme Republicans will cut Social Security. They have said it. We have the words. They will do it. They will slash public school funding horribly--horribly--for those schools that most need it. They will criminalize abortion. Over and over again they have told us what they intend to do in their appropriation bills. They are going to make it hard for women to get access to the healthcare they need and they deserve everywhere.
I say that this bill is ``sin verguenza,'' ``without shame.''
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I remind the gentleman from Michigan that if the Republicans' shutdown moves forward, he has 5,607 people in his district who are Federal employees who will lose their paycheck.
In the Rules Committee today, Madam Speaker, Democrats offered an amendment saying, yeah, we are happy to talk about how to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, but we want to guarantee that we are not going to cut people's benefits, and the Republicans rejected that.
We know what this is about. This is about going after Social Security and trying to make it solvent by cutting people's benefits, and Democrats are against that unequivocally.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, the people of America are suffering. We have repeatedly told them that they are our priority, but the people of America are suffering while my colleagues insist on a government shutdown, which is what they are doing.
Blatantly they have violated the very agreement that Speaker McCarthy and the President of the United States--two people holding the greatest trust--agreed to to be able to go forward on a funding scheme that would save the American people.
Yet, we stand here today where my very constituents in Houston, Texas, are going to have the soldiers that served in our Nation's military not paid. It is going to have $2 billion in loans to small businesses not given. It is going to stop nearly 800,000 children from getting nutrition. It is going to stop 456 million people from getting housing, and yet, we are standing here stating that we are patriots?
I don't want a government shutdown. Food safety will be, in essence, in jeopardy. Law enforcement will not be paid. These are the people who say we are pro-law enforcement, but, yet, they will not be paid.
What goes on with the Senate? It is a bipartisan resolution that if we vote on it today as it comes across, the government will stay open.
I support the previous question because the people of America are suffering, and I don't expect this draconian cutting of everything, losing salaries for the military, cutting out food benefits, cutting Social Security payments, cutting Medicare payments, Medicaid payments, to be our definition of individuals who are standing here working for the American people and fellow Houstonians.
My commitment is to be here to insist that the government not close. I don't know why a commonsense continuing resolution cannot be passed.
I do want to say that as this has been offered into the Record, the President's statement, how can we run government if a deal that Speaker McCarthy made with the President of the United States on behalf of the people of this Nation cannot be kept?
As I stand here today, I want to say that people are suffering. Let us stop their suffering and keep the government open.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will point out to the gentleman who just spoke that the Senate can't even take up the Homeland Security appropriations bill because the way the Republicans wrote the rule was that they are not going to send it over until the Senate passes H.R. 2 without changing a comma and the President signs it into law.
Lots of luck with that.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute joke that we are here today dealing with this, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, piece of garbage. That is what it is. This is not a serious attempt at legislating. This is a MAGA Republican press release at best, and it is a lousy press release.
All the priorities that are in this bill represent deep cuts to things that matter to Democrats. When we talk about national security, we don't only talk about the size of our military and the number of bombs we have. We talk about whether or not people in this country have access to jobs, whether they have food, whether or not we have good schools, whether or not people have access to healthcare and retirement security. We talk about things like the purity of our environment.
My Republican friends talk about bombs and about tax cuts for the rich and for big corporations. They don't care about the people who are at the heart and soul of our concerns on the Democratic side. If they did, they wouldn't cut and slash programs like WIC, the women, infants, and children program, providing basic nutrition for low-income, pregnant moms and newborn babies. They wouldn't cut LIHEAP, a program that provides vulnerable people with help to be able to heat their homes in winter. They wouldn't cut it by 74 percent.
Who does that? Who thinks like that? Who would come to the floor and defend that kind of garbage?
The bottom line is, we don't share the same values. It is that simple.
I want to tell you, we are going to fight as hard as we can against all the things that you claim you value in this book because this is not what America is about. Basically, this is about turning our back on people. This is essentially a government shutdown in and of itself.
Let me just close with a couple of comments to our moderate friends who go on MSNBC and give all these quotes about how they want a balance and how they want this. They criticize their leadership, and then they come to the floor and vote with the majority. Enough of that. It is votes, not quotes, that matter. It is votes, not quotes.
If you really want to avoid a government shutdown, to the so-called moderates on the other side of the aisle, vote with us. Vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can guarantee that the Senate-passed bill will have a vote here in the House. Vote ``no'' on the rule so we don't have to waste all this time today arguing over this nonsense, this hardline, rightwing garbage that guts the heart and soul of our social safety net. We can do so much better.
At the end of the day, we have to come together, Democrats and Republicans, and come up with a bill. My friends keep on going in the wrong direction. They keep on going further and further to the right. That is a road to nowhere.
The Senate, to their credit, Democrats and Republicans, are talking. You guys can't even talk with yourselves. You are fighting amongst yourselves.
This is a radical idea: Maybe sit down and try to negotiate a bipartisan solution here because you control one-half of one branch of government--and barely. You would never know it when you see this kind of stuff come to the floor.
Enough of the nonsense. People send us here, at a minimum, to keep the lights on. You have to do that. Work with us. Stop this nonsense.
Again, vote ``no'' on the previous question, vote ``no'' on this garbage.
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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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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
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