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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor, the minority leader has just spoken on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and I would like to begin today's comments by quoting the Senator from New York.

Here is a quote, Senator Schumer says:

Shutting down the government over a policy difference is self-defeating.

He went on to say:

It accomplishes nothing but pain and suffering for the country and incurs an enormous political cost to the party shutting it down.

When did he say those things? Well, he said them in 2019. Well, they are as true today as they were then. Apparently, he has forgotten those things. He has forgotten the enormous suffering to the country that is caused and the political cost to the party shutting it down.

So who would be the party shutting down the government if we shut down at midnight tomorrow night? Well, according to this morning's--and as the Presiding Officer knows, I come to the floor often with a newspaper article. Today's Washington Post: ``Democrats Prepare to Reject a Bill to Avert a Shutdown.''

It is the Democrats who would be shutting down the government. Now, that is the Washington Post, clearly someone that so often sides with the Democrats.

What about the liberal New York Times, what are they saying this morning?

``Specter of Shutdown is Growing As Democrats Resist Funding Bill.''

They resist funding the government. It is the Democrats who are doing this.

And then there is a picture of Senator Schumer in today's Wall Street Journal. So we see the Washington Post, the New York Times, and now the Wall Street Journal: ``Schumer Signals Block of Funding Bill.''

Let me go back, ``It accomplishes nothing,'' he said in 2019, ``but pain and suffering for the country.''

That is what the Democrats want: the American people to suffer now, pain and suffering, because they don't want to fund the government. They want to shut it down.

As he said, it ``incurs enormous political cost to the party shutting it down.'' And that cost should be imposed to the party shutting it down, and the party shutting it down are the Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

In less than 48 hours, government funding expires, and Senator Schumer and his party are on the verge of shutting down the Government of the United States. The deadline is looming. The Democrats now face a crucial choice: Pass the bill that has already passed the House of Representatives, fund the government, or shut it down. There is no magical third option for the Democrats or for the country.

We are on the brink of, once again, a Democrat shutdown of government. Why? Because they refuse to accept that President Trump and the Republicans won the election. They hate the fact.

Heard a lot of talk about how we got here. Let me set the record straight, because this shutdown has been driven and directed by the Democrats. The Presiding Officer remembers last year when the Democrats were in the majority. Senator Schumer was the majority leader, Joe Biden was in the White House, President. And last year, the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by a Democrat, passed 11 of 12 appropriations bills.

Like, I am so grateful for the work of Senator Susan Collins of Maine, vice chairman of that committee, worked hard, and led Republican efforts to get each of those bills done on time, through the committee, and they produced results.

Each of the bills passed the committee, bipartisan appropriations bills, strong bipartisan support, some unanimous; and these bills were all passed last summer. Last summer.

From the time they passed the final one of those bills--and let me just point out, I have the list of them: July 11, they passed Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, food, legislative branch, unanimous, unanimous, unanimous, 27 to 0 in each of those, passed the committee.

On July 25, Commerce-Science, Justice and Science passed, Interior passed, oh, 28 to 1. State and Foreign Ops passed, and Transportation. And then on August 1, Energy and Water Development, 28 to 0. Defense, 28 to 0. Labor-Health and Human Services, Education, Financial Services, all of them passed the Appropriations Committee. Done, passed.

Senator Schumer had 224 days to bring up any one of those bills on the Senate floor. He absolutely categorically refused to bring a single appropriations bill to the floor of the U.S. Senate when he was the majority leader, even though the bills came out unanimously, and one of his own Members was chairman of that committee. He ignored her. She said: Take them to the floor. He refused. Refused to put a single one of those 11 appropriations bills that came out of the committee to the floor. He refused to govern, and now he wants to shut down the government.

His burn-the-house attitude is what we are dealing with--rule-or-ruin approach. It is irresponsible, it is reckless, and he is trying to lead the entire Democrats in the Senate over the cliff and hurt the American public in the process.

But the right thing to do is to keep the government open. It costs money to shut down the government. It costs taxpayer dollars, and it costs even more to reopen the government.

The government shutdown denies the American people services that they need, that they want, that they wait for. It forces our military and our border patrol to work without pay.

It is time to move on from the Democrats' failures. It is time to get this done. Time to govern. That is what the American people elected the Republicans to do.

The business of the Senate will not stop because of Democrats' made- for-TV and made-for-their-liberal-base temper tantrums. Senate Democrats want to grandstand, we are going to continue to move deliberately and decisively and continue to work to confirm more of President Trump's well-qualified nominees.

So it is the choice of the Democrats on the other side: govern or grandstand. The American people are watching.

You know, they watched a week or so ago when the President of the United States addressed this joint session of Congress. The American people watched. What they saw was immature antics by the Democrats sitting there in the House Chamber waving their little paddles, refusing to applaud a young man with brain cancer, refusing to applaud families that have gone through great tragedy.

It was juvenile; it was wrong. That is what the American people saw. People that were watching that presentation by the President of the United States saw a strong leader and saw a Democrat Party in disarray, acting as juveniles. And now it appears the Senate wants to do exactly the same thing by shutting down the government.

The American people that watched the President address a week ago are watching today, and they know that if there is a government shutdown, like it looks like we are heading to tomorrow night, it is going to be at the deliberate direction of the Democrat Party.

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