Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Well, Mr. President, Democratic leaders in Congress finally have their prize--a government shutdown that no one seems to want but them. House Republicans worked late into the night this weekend to keep the government open, and Senate Democrats dragged their feet literally for days. They refused to pass anything. News reports suggest the majority leader was even working behind the scenes to block any bipartisan negotiations from taking place.
Then, after doing essentially nothing all weekend but obstruct, with just hours left to go, Democrats voted again and again to reject reasonable legislation. Every piece of legislation the House sent over would have kept the government from shutting down--every single one of them. Each one represented more of a compromise than the last. And get this: Last night Senate Democrats went so far as to reject legislation that would have kept the government running under just two conditions--just two--that families get the same 1-year relief as employers and that Congress has to follow the same rules on the ObamaCare exchanges as their constituents. That is how extreme the Democratic position is. They won't even accept basic fairness as a principle under ObamaCare.

Today they have gone even further. They have now said they won't even agree to sit down and work out differences. They won't even talk about it. They literally just voted against working out a compromise. They seem completely opposed to negotiation or compromise on a law that is killing jobs, driving up premiums, and driving people out of the health care plans they already have and like, and they do not even want to talk about it.

So we know the Democrats who have shut down the government will yell and point fingers. They have already started that particular routine. They will say it was the mean old Republicans or the tea party or FOX News or maybe even George W. Bush. They shut down the government, and now they are praying the American people will think somebody else is responsible. They are doing this because they would rather see the government shut down than do anything to protect the American people from the consequences of ObamaCare despite the stories we see every single day about the pain this law is causing all of our constituents.

Now, I will say this: I appreciate yesterday's bipartisan action to ensure that servicemembers currently defending us are going to be paid on time. The brave men and women who defend our country deserve no less. But now we need to do the same for the rest of the American people.

The House legislation has been perfectly reasonable. It didn't have everything Republicans wanted. It didn't have everything Democrats wanted. But it represented compromise, and it reflected the will of the American people, who don't want a government shutdown and who want to tap the brakes on ObamaCare--good folks who just think the middle class deserves a bit of a break. Senate Democrats could have passed any one of those compromises and averted this mess. Instead, they chose to shut down the government.

Well, it is past time for Senate Democrats to listen to the American people. The House has already done its job to fund the government again and again and again.

I know the Democrats who run Washington want to extract as many political points as they can from this manufactured shutdown, but they owe our country more than that. They need to understand that ObamaCare is not ready for prime time--not ready for prime time. Their stubborn refusal to even discuss temporary relief for the middle class was a staggering act of political arrogance. So this morning I am calling on the Democrats who run the Senate to sit down with the House and negotiate, to come to a reasonable solution that cancels their shutdown and pass it because no one wants a shutdown, it seems, but our friends on the other side of the aisle.

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