[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 209 (Thursday, December 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S8191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on year-end issues, we are staring down a 
litany of unresolved issues, and we are quickly running out of time to 
solve them. Not only do we need to pass an extension of government 
funding, but as I have said many times, we need to deal with budget 
caps, CHIP, community health centers, 702 FISA, a disaster 
supplemental, and of course the Dreamers.
  I believe we could have resolved all of these issues had my 
Republican colleagues, especially in the House, not put them on the 
back burner while jamming through their tax bill. It is unclear still 
what the House is going to send us to keep the government open and 
whether it will be acceptable to the Senate.
  At the same time, the House may move forward on an unacceptable 
disaster supplemental which still does not treat fairly California, 
Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It doesn't include, as best 
we know--they are still working on it--cost sharing for Puerto Rico and 
additional funding for Medicaid, mitigation resiliency, and drinking 
water infrastructure. While House Republicans included some tax 
provisions in the disaster supplemental, they failed to extend the ITC 
for Puerto Rico, extend the childcare tax credit consistent with other 
States, and the tax bill also includes a devastating new business tax 
that treats Puerto Rico as if it is a foreign country, which could 
encourage manufacturers to leave the island. This tax could cost 
thousands of jobs and decimate Puerto Rico's economy at exactly the 
time when Puerto Rico is hurting from the hurricanes and needs all the 
help it can get. Those issues must be fixed before a disaster 
supplemental can move forward. Because of these inadequacies, the 
disaster supplemental may have to slip to next year. I think we can 
work it out in a bipartisan way--I certainly do--but just jamming it 
through without consulting us and not being fair to so many other parts 
of the country doesn't make sense.
  Unfortunately, we still have not reached a deal yet on the Dreamers, 
who are very important not only to my caucus, not only to some on the 
Republican side but to the American people. They have overwhelming 
support. These kids were brought here very young, through no fault of 
their own. They learn in our schools, work at our companies, serve in 
our military, and pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in 
every single important way but one--their paperwork. This is an issue 
we have a moral imperative to solve here in Congress.

  Democrats want to make sure that we have equal bargaining, and we are 
not going to allow things like disaster relief go forward without 
discussing some of the other issues we care about that I have 
mentioned. We have to solve these issues together, even if that means 
passing a clean, short-term CR extension of government funding with 
some anomalies--we always understand there always have to be some 
anomalies but not those that change the structure--and continuing the 
negotiations into January.

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