Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before we finish today, I would like to say that soon, the Senate will vote on a bipartisan piece of legislation that will make an important DC funding fix.
This legislation will make sure that we take care of the residents of the District; that we will support law enforcement and firefighters and teachers and city services. The legislation is very good news for the residents of the District of Columbia. I am happy we are passing the bill today.
I thank my colleagues for working quickly to bring this bill to the floor. Once the Senate acts, we urge the House to act quickly.
Government funding expires at midnight tonight, and the vote before us is a Hobson's choice. The CR bill is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe that allowing Donald Trump to take even more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.
A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, the State, and country, and that is a far worse alternative.
I want to remind everyone that it was Republicans who pushed this false shutdown choice. Their inability to govern has led us to this precipice. Our caucus Members have two bad choices. Different Senators will come down on different sides of the question, but that does not mean that any Senate Democrat supports a shutdown.
Whatever the outcome, our caucus will be united in our determination to continue the long-term fight to stop Donald Trump's dangerous war on our democracy and on America's working families.
Now, I want to be clear about what this bill does and does not do. The full-year CR is a law that sets funding levels for the full year. The President and executive branch have a legal and constitutional duty to faithfully execute the CR. The CR does not change the underlying law making the Trump administration's impoundments and mass firings illegal. This is true as a matter of law.
Nothing in the CR changes the Impoundment Control Act, the foundation of Congress's appropriations authority, and the authorization laws that require USAID and other Agencies to exist and to operate the programs as Congress has assigned to them. Nothing changes title 5, governing the civil service, the Administrative Procedure Act, and so on.
One of the reasons I am voting for cloture is for the very reason that these actions are illegal and no new law is needed to declare that.
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