[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 193 (Tuesday, November 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S7340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ISSUES BEFORE CONGRESS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have a long to-do list before the end 
of the year, and time is running short. We had hoped to make progress 
with the administration on these issues in a meeting this afternoon. 
Unfortunately, this morning, instead of leading, the President tweeted 
a blatantly inaccurate statement and then concluded: ``I don't see a 
deal.'' The President said: ``I don't see a deal'' three hours before 
our meeting, before he heard anything we had to say.
  Given that the President doesn't see a deal between Democrats and the 
White House, Leader Pelosi and I believe the best path forward is to 
continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress, 
instead. Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that 
will not result in an agreement from a President who doesn't see a 
deal, we have asked Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan to meet with us 
this afternoon.
  We don't have any time to waste addressing the issues that confront 
us. So we are going to negotiate with Republican leaders who may 
actually be interested in reaching a bipartisan agreement. If the 
President, who already earlier this year said that ``our country needs 
a good shutdown,'' isn't interested in addressing the difficult-year 
agenda and wants to make the government shut down, we will work with 
those Republicans who are interested in funding the government, as we 
did in April.
  We have so many things to do. We have to fund the government. We have 
DACA. We have the Children's Health Insurance Program. We must 
reinstate cost sharing for health premiums and out-of-pocket costs. We 
have to deal with disasters. We have to fund our defense and our 
nondefense sides of the government in a reasonable way. There is so 
much to do. We are eager to get that done in a bipartisan way. 
Obviously the President isn't, but hopefully Leader McConnell and 
Speaker Ryan are, and we look forward to sitting down with them to 
resolve this in an amicable way, as we did in April. When the President 
wasn't involved, we got it done.

                          ____________________