Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, we are in favor of every request that you asked for. These were modest agreements that were reached and rendered by both parties in an honest and public agreement.

The Speaker of the House broke his word. That is why we are here.

To the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford), who just spoke: I have been here for a long time. You have never won a government shutdown, and you won't win this one, either.

Your currency in this institution is your word. We reached an agreement. We came to modest achievements, and a tweet changed all of it?

Can you imagine what the next 2 years are going to be like if every time the Congress works its will and then there is a tweet from an individual, who has no official portfolio, threatening Members on the Republican side with a primary, and they succumb?

This institution has a separate responsibility based upon the separation of powers. Members of Congress don't serve under Presidents of the United States. It is called the national principle.

I am in favor of aid to North Carolina. I am in support of aid to the farmers in Missouri. We come to the aid of the American family at moments like this.

You walked away from your word. You walked away from an agreement. That is what we are bothered by: a simple suggestion from the President-elect that you ought to abandon that principle.

This is what this is about. This is about trying to raise the debt ceiling to disguise a big tax cut that they want to offer later on.

In December of 2017, the TCJA was rendered, and my friends, particularly the ones who have been here for a while, know what I am about to say is true. You borrowed the money, $2.3 trillion, for a tax cut for wealthy people. When you see the distribution tables, you know who got what.

We are trying to avert a government shutdown, but we are also trying to subscribe to the basic principle as outlined earlier. We reached an agreement. It was honorable. It came to the aid of everything you have asked for, and then you walk away from it?

What about your word going forward here? What about the currency that I noted a moment ago?

I tell you: You cannot win a government shutdown, and you won't win this one either.

We need to return to the original agreement and stick with it.

The last word here I am going to offer: The Speaker of the House needed to keep his word on this legislation and stick with it.

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