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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, here we go again. Three days ago, Democrats voted against a stopgap spending bill that would keep the government open for the benefit of 320 million American citizens. But because they voted against it, we are now in a government shutdown-- something that should be a profound embarrassment to them, as it is to the rest of us who believe we were sent here to govern, not to shut down the government and deny our own constituents access to the services that government necessarily provides in some cases.

If you listen to the media--not all of the media, but some of the media, particularly the sympathetic, leftwing media--you might think otherwise. But make no mistake about it. The blame for this government shutdown lies squarely on the Senate Democrats' shoulders.

Three Democrats voted to reopen the government the last time we voted, and other Democrats--we need five more--will have a chance to vote here in just a few minutes to reopen the government and to stop this charade.

But the facts of the matter are pretty straightforward. The reason we are in a government shutdown is because Senate Democrats refuse to vote for what is known around here as a clean continuing resolution, a clean CR.

As I mentioned, this is a stopgap procedure so we can then finish the work of the appropriations bills by November and, hopefully, pass bipartisan funding bills that will last for the remainder of the fiscal year, while we are doing other important work as well--hopefully, a National Defense Authorization bill; hopefully, other important legislation.

So why hold 320 million Americans hostage by denying them the benefits that their government is providing by shutting down the government? Why in the world would you do that?

I think, primarily, that this is because our friends on the other side of the aisle are afraid of their base supporters. We know that last time, the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, agreed to a short-term CR, which we did 13 previous times because it is a stopgap spending bill. The last time he agreed to a continuing resolution, he was pummeled by his Democratic base, and he is worried that if he does that again, without shutting down the government, without showing some fight, he will be ousted out of his position as a Democratic leader and maybe even defeated in his next primary election by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC.

But let's consider the consequences of this shutdown for some of the most vulnerable Americans, our seniors who rely on the Medicare hospital-at-home program and telehealth. Because of the government shutdown, CMS no longer has the authority to reimburse certain telehealth services.

Most of us were not particularly acquainted with telehealth before COVID, but Congress decided to reimburse healthcare providers for providing virtual visits with your doctors. In some cases, that is all people needed access to. So it is an important adjunct or supplement to our healthcare system. But that is no longer available because of the shutdown.

This will have a particularly severe impact on patients without access to reliable transportation, who will not be able to see their doctor unless they can get access to telehealth.

Additionally, providers who participated in the Medicare hospital-at home program no longer have the authority to deliver inpatient-level care in patients' homes. I know we are all concerned about the costs of healthcare, but if you can treat people in their homes, that is obviously a better place for the patient, and it is less costly healthcare. But that authority expired with the shutdown of the Federal Government. This means some of our most vulnerable Americans, sick and bedridden seniors, have been left without care or were unexpectedly forced to be transported to overcrowded hospitals when it may not be in their best interest to actually engage in that transport.

These are just examples of the real-life consequences of the unnecessary shutdown imposed on the American people by Senate Democrats, holding the American people hostage for their partisan political demands, which I will get to in a moment.

Democrats want Americans to believe that this is just about healthcare. They know that the particular healthcare benefit that they are most concerned about is a COVID-era plus-up of the Affordable Care Act's subsidies that were started back during the Biden administration. So even if these plussed-up benefits were to expire, people would not be denied the access to the Affordable Care Act if they happened to have a policy using that particular program.

So there is no imminent threat to these people or anyone else if we don't address it in the context of this shutdown. So it is a made-up crisis. We know that these provisions expire at the end of this calendar year, and there will be time--and we will take the time--to deal with those, as we should. But based on many of the stories of waste, fraud, and abuse associated with these plussed-up, COVID-era Biden subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, there is an important reason why we should take our time and look at these and reform them where necessary, and that is what we intend to do.

If Senate Democrats really cared about ensuring that the most vulnerable patients in America got access to healthcare, they would never have shut down the government. This shutdown is obviously not about healthcare if they are actually making healthcare worse by shutting down the government. It is simply a way for the Democratic leader to posture at length for his far-left progressive base.

It is unconscionable, if you think about it, that Democrats are holding the American people hostage and some of the very people they claim to be helping get access to healthcare. Yet they are framing it as though, somehow, Republicans are forcing partisan demands.

But the House has already passed a continuing resolution. The only thing stopping this from making its way to President Trump's desk is a vote in the Senate. And we need 60 votes in the Senate, under Senate rules, and, right now, three Democrats have joined with virtually all Republicans to vote for this continuing resolution, which only will take us to November 20, to give us time to do the other appropriations bills that I mentioned a moment ago.

But the reason why I call the Democrats' demand a partisan wish list is because they are asking for the Sun and the Moon.

First of all, starting with their proposal, anybody listening is reminded of the fact that we just recently passed the One Big Beautiful Bill--since rebranded to the ``Working Families Tax Cut Act.'' But the proposal made by the Democrats in their alternative continuing resolution says they want to repeal it. They want to repeal the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut taxes for every American, doubled the child tax credit, and provided innumerable benefits to the American people primarily by avoiding about a $3,000 tax increase per family. They want to repeal it.

One of the provisions we made in that bill was to limit illegal aliens' access to Medicaid because some States were gaming the Medicaid Program. Not to get bogged down in the details too much, but this is a State-Federal program, and under the Affordable Care Act, the Federal Government pays 90 percent of the Medicaid.

Now, Democrats say: Well, it is illegal to provide free healthcare to illegal aliens under existing law, and it is. But what Democrats were doing in places like California, they were using that 10 percent State share to fund healthcare services for illegal aliens. And the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut Act, put an end to that. So Democrats want to repeal that bill.

They also want to repeal the $50 billion rural healthcare stabilization fund. Texas is a big State. We have urban areas; we have suburbs; and we have rural areas. We need to make sure that people living in rural areas--or, certainly, outside of urban and suburban areas--get access to healthcare. One of the things we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill is provide a $50 billion stabilization fund to make sure they could get access to healthcare. But Democrats want to give that away. They want to repeal that bill in its entirety.

I have heard Democrats on TV and on social media say: We don't want to provide free healthcare to illegal aliens. But again, this is the provision that they want to change. They want to repeal this provision, ``Alien Medicaid Eligibility,'' which limited the ability to game the Medicaid Program, the State contribution to a State-Federal shared program to fund healthcare for illegal aliens.

Now, we know that there are a lot of reasons why people come to the country--our country--illegally. Many are drawn because they want to work. We understand they want a better life. We understand that. But the right way to do that is through legal channels, not through illegal channels. But one of the magnets that draws people to come to the country is access to taxpayer-provided free benefits, like free healthcare.

But the States like California that game the Medicaid system are the worst offenders when it comes to providing free access to healthcare using this Medicaid Program. But this is the provision that Democrats now want to repeal, the prohibition we passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut Act.

What is more, Democrats are asking us to spend billions of dollars in new spending because they won't vote for a stopgap spending measure. So we know that the Affordable Care Act subsidies--in other words, ObamaCare--are enormously expensive.

I won't spend much time here talking about the false promises upon which ObamaCare was sold: If you like your policy, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; and actually the claim that it lowered healthcare expenditures. None of that was true. And Democrats want to put those subsidies on steroids through the Biden- era, COVID, supercharged subsidy program. And they want to do it not just temporarily; they want to do it for the next 10 years, which will result in hundreds of billions--even a trillion-dollar-plus--of new spending.

Now, one of the things that we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill was we passed $400 billion in deficit reduction. Why is that important? Because our country now owes roughly $37 trillion. We are $37 trillion in debt. And if we don't do something about that, we are going to be in deep trouble in the not-too-distant future. Right now, we pay more money on interest on the national debt than we do on defense, in a very dangerous world. That is unsustainable, and that is dangerous.

But the Democrats want to forget all that and spend hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on a short-term, 9-week stopgap spending measure. And they say: If you won't agree with us, we are going to shut down the government.

The kind of spending Democrats have asked for would effectively erase all the savings we achieved through the commonsense spending reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is unconscionable that Senate Democrats are hurting the American people because they want more spending for their pet programs. Yet they are framing it as though Republicans are the ones forcing partisan demands.

That is false. All we are asking them to do is to keep the government open and pass the short-term continuing resolution that has already been passed by the House of Representatives.

The Democratic leader said, 2 days ago, on the floor:

Republicans have tried to stick us with a partisan CR that fails to protect Americans' healthcare.

Three days ago, the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee said:

Instead of talking with us about addressing healthcare . . . Republicans decided to pass a partisan continuing resolution.

Again, that is false. They said they don't want to fund illegal aliens. They say it is a partisan continuing resolution we insist on. Both of those are false. The continuing resolution proposed by Republicans has already passed the House of Representatives. It does not include partisan demands.

If Democrats do not want to pass a clean continuing resolution, what are they proposing? Well, a partisan continuing resolution. And I have talked about some of the provisions. The alternative continuing resolution that Democrats are proposing would not only repeal the One Big Beautiful Bill, effectively, but they make other partisan demands on top of that. The Democrat CR would eliminate provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that are critical to putting our fiscal condition back on track, as I mentioned a moment ago.

In the Medicaid Program, we tightened eligibility. We added work requirements for able-bodied adults. We required stricter eligibility reporting and ensured that illegal immigrants do not get free healthcare benefits. The One Big Beautiful Bill was a critical step toward ensuring that Medicaid is there for the people who truly need it: the elderly, children, the disabled, not able-bodied adults.

Democrats have claimed over and over again they are not attempting to fund healthcare for illegal aliens, but as I have demonstrated, that is not true. Their proposed continuing resolution repeals the exact provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that prevented illegal aliens from receiving those benefits.

Just for those who want to read it for themselves, this is section 2141 of the Democrats' proposed continuing resolution. It strikes section 71109 of the One Big Beautiful Bill. This is a provision that limits eligibility requirements and Federal payments to States that allow medical assistance for illegal aliens.

Medicaid has always been intended to be a lifeline to the most vulnerable Americans when it comes to their health insurance, but over the last decades it has become bloated with waste, fraud, and abuse. We cannot continue to serve the most vulnerable Americans for whom Medicaid was originally designed if we are going to be subsidizing other people, like able-bodied adults, who should be capable of contributing themselves. Further, extending these subsidies without reform would continue contributing to the ballooning costs of healthcare, now roughly 18 percent of our entire economy.

This is the same problem we have had with ballooning costs in higher education. The more the government subsidizes, the more bloated that industry becomes; and, consequently, the providers raise prices, and those services become less affordable to ordinary middle-class Americans who would not otherwise rely on government benefits.

The Republican reforms to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill put the most vulnerable Americans first, but Democrats have refused to vote for a clean continuing resolution and, instead, demanded that Republicans repeal these monumental reforms before allowing the lights to stay on.

Democrats are also demanding to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are really Obamacare on steroids, which don't even expire until the end of this year. We will get to that, believe me, before the end of the year, but to hold this short-term stopgap spending bill hostage is really unconscionable.

To anyone who says that Republicans are proposing a partisan continuing resolution while Democrats are doing everything they can to keep the government open, I hope I have made it clear that the reality is just the opposite. Republicans do not want a shutdown.

Shutdowns don't benefit anybody, and the same problem that caused the government to shut down is there staring you in the face when government is reopened. I think we have learned that from hard experience.

A poison pill-packed continuing resolution is simply not the solution. So I hope we can get five more Democrats to join three other Democrats who have already voted to keep the government open to vote this afternoon in just a few minutes and reopen the government for the benefit of all Americans.

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