Continuing Appropriations
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. I know my colleague from Pennsylvania has gone. Let's clarify a few things because obfuscation is the rule of the day when you are not holding many cards.
First, the Senator from Pennsylvania said they have asked to open the government--they have asked, rather, to go to conference three times and open the government. Yes, they have--if ObamaCare is repealed, if ObamaCare is delayed for 1 year, and if the individual mandate is delayed for 1 year. That is not a request to go to conference. That is saying: Unless I get my way on ObamaCare--which has been voted on by these Chambers, which has been litigated in the election--I am going to shut the government down. Their position hasn't changed. The bottom line is very simple. The bottom line now is very simple. The bottom line now is, oh, let's go to conference. All of a sudden--sure. Let's go to conference while cancer treatments are being refused. The more we delay, the worse that is. Let's go to conference while veterans' benefits can't be processed, and the more we delay, the more veterans will be hurt. Let's go to conference before 800,000 people get their paychecks, which they need to feed their families. Let's go to conference while the Statue of Liberty is closed and my little sandwich shop nearby is not making any revenue.
Please, I say to my colleague, what the Senator wants to do is use a bludgeon since a small group of tea party fanatics, as they are called, has Speaker Boehner in the palm of their hand and they have the power not to fund the government. They say: Until you do what we want, we won't fund the government. So nothing has changed, and there is no concession or willingness to negotiate on a fair basis by the other side--no.
Let me repeat to my colleague from Pennsylvania, you have it backward. You are saying: Let's negotiate, and then we might open the government. The right way to do it is by the resolution offered by the chairwoman of the Budget Committee. Let's open the government, and then we will be happy to sit down and negotiate. That is the fundamental difference here.
On whose side are the American people? Ours--70 to 22. On whose side is every Democrat at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue? Ours, of course. If you look at the quotations in the House and Senate, a large number of votes from the other side of the aisle are on our side too. But because a small number of irresponsible members of the tea party have Speaker Boehner in their control right now, we can't succeed. So the tea party shutdown, the shutdown, originated, engineered, and put into place by the tea party with Speaker Boehner's fearful acquiescence, is still the law of the day.
It will not be for much longer. The pressure from the public, on the economy, and the pressure from Members on the other side of the aisle will increase, and I believe in a short while--in a short while--the other side will have to say: OK, we will fund the government; now let's sit down and talk. That is what Leader REID and Chairwoman MURRAY have simply asked for today. It will just take a few days more, but it will happen.
I wish the other side would acquiesce now because so many innocent millions are being held hostage and being hurt.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source