Department of Homeland Security Funding
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we are running out of time until the Department of Homeland Security shuts down, and the majority doesn't seem to have any real plan to avoid it.
There are 17 days left--with a week of recess in between--until tens of thousands of DHS workers are furloughed, fire grants to local fire departments are no longer sent out, and training local first responders in handling terrorist attacks stops dead in its tracks. Yet each day comes with a new round of finger-pointing from Republicans eager to pass the buck to the other Chamber.
The distinguished majority leader, my friend, Senator McConnell, and my friend from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, and many other Republicans in this body have said it is time for the House majority to come up with a new plan. The House of course says it is the Senate majority that needs to act again. This morning Speaker Boehner, astoundingly, said the House would not pass another DHS bill. He is tied in such a knot he can't move, even though he knows his failure to move risks a government shutdown.
The House of course says it is the Senate majority that needs to act again, and yesterday the majority leader said the onus was now on the House to fund DHS. This morning the majority leader said the onus is now on the Senate. We have all kinds of Abbott and Costello behavior going on. The funny thing is the finger-pointing is not at the Democrats. They are pointing at each other as to who is to blame.
The American people are getting whiplash from listening to the Republican leadership on this issue. The Republicans need to sort out the divisions within their own caucus before they deflect any blame on Democrats, because while Democrats remain united in both Houses in support of a clean bill, the Republican majority is busy playing a game of hot potato with national security funding.
The disunity and delay has led a few Republicans to start talking about a continuing resolution that would guarantee another cliff and more brinkmanship and underfund DHS in the meantime. Delaying this same standoff by a few weeks or months isn't a very good plan B. It is hardly a plan at all.
Secretary Jeh Johnson described the CR for DHS this way: ``It's like going on a 300-mile trip with a five-gallon tank of gas.''
Let me give a few examples of why a Republican continuing resolution is a very poor plan B.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will my friend from New York yield for a question?
Mr. SCHUMER. I will yield for a question when I finish my remarks, just as he was nice enough to yield to me a few days ago.
First, without a bipartisan full-year bill, the Secret Service cannot move forward with the critical reforms recommended by an independent panel of experts made after the White House fence-jumping incident.
Second, we can't upgrade the biometric identification system that prevents terrorists from coming into the country. Republicans and Democrats negotiated an additional $25 million for DHS to upgrade the system that allows them to stop terrorists from coming through an airport or on a cargo ship and into the United States. A CR does not provide that funding.
Third, Secretary Johnson has said the Department will be constrained by a CR from improving security along our southwest border and maintaining the resources we added to deal with last summer's border crisis. Some say, Why does a CR constrain all of this? Because it is just ratifying last year's funding, and when new situations have emerged--new terrorist threats, new trouble on the border--we can't change the budget. It makes no sense. No company would simply pass last year's budget when they are experiencing new challenges; neither should our government.
In short, a CR just doesn't work. It is not how we should be funding the Department of Homeland Security.
So we implore our Republican colleagues: Don't shut down the Department of Homeland Security, don't set up another shutdown, and don't underfund the men and women who work 24/7 to keep us safe. Pass a clean appropriations bill and give the people on the frontlines of defending this country the tools they need to get the job done.
I will be happy to yield for a question to my good friend, the Senator from Texas.
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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my friend for the question. It is nice to see him standing on the Democratic side. I hope he tries it again. If he likes it, he might do it more often.
I would say this: We all know what Speaker Boehner did. The hard right in the House said we want to force the President to undo his Executive order. They know if they put it on the floor alone, the President might veto it, so they attached it to Homeland Security and they basically say to the President, the only way we will fund the Department of Homeland Security is if we include these unpalatable riders, which the President has said he would veto.
So there is a simple solution.
That would force a shutdown. What the House did is say if we don't do it our way, we are shutting down the government. That didn't work 2 years ago--and that effort was led by the junior Senator from Texas, not my friend, the senior Senator from Texas--and it is not going to work today. Everyone knows what our colleagues in the House did. They are playing hostage. They are holding a gun to the head of America and saying unless we do it their way, they are going to shut down the government. That is why they attached it.
Let me repeat to my dear friend from Texas: No one objects to debating what the President did on Executive orders. We welcome that debate. It is the act of tying it to funding the government--the same thing they did with ObamaCare a few years ago--that says we are going to shut down the government unless we get our way.
So the logical solution--and I will yield in a moment--is very simple: Pass the Department of Homeland Security bill. If they don't want to shut
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down the government, pass a clean Homeland Security bill and then the majority can put immigration on the floor and we can debate it.
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Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague from Texas for his good question. I agree with parts of what he said. First, I agree that we disagree on the President's Executive order.
Second, I agree we ought not debate it in a hostage-taking situation. Our colleagues in the House may not have used the word ``shutdown.'' It doesn't matter. Their actions speak louder than words. When they attach these proposals to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill and say we are not going to fund Homeland Security unless we get some of these proposals, that is saying we will shut down the government unless we get our way. Sure, they will not shut down the government if we vote for all of their extraneous immigration provisions, and then next time they will attach something else and then something else. But they are using the threat of a government shutdown to try and get their way. That has not worked in the past and it will not work today.
So we Democrats are not blocking any debate. We are happy to debate funding the Department of Homeland Security. We are happy to debate immigration. Challenge us. Pass Homeland Security, put immigration on the floor, and see if any Democrat tries to block that debate. We welcome that debate. We think we will win that debate. I know my good friend from Texas disagrees with that.
But that is not the issue. The issue is again that unless Democrats do it our way, we are shutting down the government. That is what the House did and so far that is what the Republican majority in the Senate is going along with. That is government shutdown. That is hostage-taking. That hasn't worked in the past and it will not work now.
It is unprecedented. The junior Senator from Texas came up with this kind of thinking, and unfortunately too many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle go along with him, either out of conviction or for some other reason.
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