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Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this bill has a very nice-sounding name, but that is about the only good thing you can say about it because what it really does is hand over Congress's power of the purse to Donald Trump and Russ Vought.

If this bill passes, it won't just be Democrats' voice in funding that gets squashed; Republicans will be cutting themselves out of funding decisions because the bill extends government funding indefinitely so Donald Trump and Russ Vought never have to worry about Congress again.

If this bill were to pass, Trump could quite literally refuse to sign every funding bill--even a bipartisan bill--unless it met all of his demands. And Congress would then have to override his veto with a two- thirds vote in both Chambers if we ever wanted to get off the ``forever CR'' this bill would put in place. No way.

There is a very simple way to avert a shutdown. It starts with Republicans working with Democrats to hammer out a solution. It is time to do that.

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