[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S28-S29]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, yesterday the four congressional leaders 
had a positive and productive meeting with Budget Director Mulvaney and 
representatives from the White House, including Mr. Short. It was a 
good first step, but there is a lot of work to do. Ultimately, the 
budget agreement must lift the spending caps with parity between 
defense and urgent domestic priorities, it must include disaster aid, a 
healthcare package, and an agreement to enshrine DACA protections 
alongside additional border security.
  Like our Republican colleagues, Democrats want to make sure our men 
and women in uniform have the resources they need to do their jobs. 
There is not an argument about that, but we also want to make sure 
there are crucial investments in economic development and job creation 
here at home--programs that support the middle class and help it grow.
  That includes a number of things, including funding needed for the 
opioid crisis. Life expectancy has gone down in America for the first 
time in years because of deaths from the opioid abuse by young people 
and middle-aged people. Are we just going to shrug our shoulders at 
that? There is a lot more to do. It affects rural areas, urban areas, 
and suburban areas. There have been 63,000 Americans who have died from 
drug overdoses. Those are deaths on the battlefield, in a sense, as 
well--often the flower of our youth, the prime of America, so many in 
rural areas. These are kids who were full of potential. Many were 
veterans dealing with the wounds of war. They served our country and 
didn't get what they needed when they came home.
  I had a father cry in my arms. His son had been grappling with 
opioids. Finally, they had persuaded the son to sign up for a treatment 
program, but the treatment program didn't have the funding it needed so 
there was a long waiting list, and the son died of an overdose while 
waiting on that list. We can't have that anymore.
  What about veterans' healthcare? These are people who risked their 
lives for us. We need to do it.
  What about millions of hard-working Americans who need pensions? One 
of the issues Americans are most worried about is pensions and 
retirement. For years, they paid into these plans. They were told: You 
know, when you retire, you are not going to be rich, you are not going 
to be able to buy luxuries, but at least you will have a life of 
dignity. Now those pensions have been robbed from so many people 
throughout the country. Are we going to shrug our shoulders?
  I hear the majority leader say he is not for parity. ``Parity'' is 
not just a word, it is veterans, people who need opioid relief, and 
middle-class folks and working people who need pensions. Are our 
Republican colleagues going to do what they just did in the tax bill 
and abandon the middle class? Are our Republican colleagues going to do 
what they tried to do in the healthcare bill and take away healthcare 
from millions of working people, people in the middle class? ``Parity'' 
is the term we use around here. I would rather call it defending 
middle-class America. Just as it is important to defend America from 
foreign enemies, which our military does so bravely and proudly, we 
have to defend America here.
  I plead with Leader McConnell not to abandon the middle class in this 
bill. Funding the military is a worthy goal and so is helping the 
middle class. For the past year, unfortunately, our Republican 
colleagues have been doing what the very wealthy people want and 
ignoring the middle class and working people. That is one of the 
reasons right now so many Americans say they would rather have a 
Democratic Senate than a Republican Senate. I would rather have a 
Senate that helps the middle class, whatever the political outcome, but 
our colleagues don't seem to be going for that.
  I say to Leader McConnell, my friend, you cannot let the hard right 
dictate what you want because the hard right and their wealthy 
benefactors are not where America is. It is not even where the 
Republican Party has always been.
  Now, in addition to parity helping the middle class, we need to do 
other things. We should pass a disaster package that treats all States 
and territories fairly given the necessity of relief in Texas, 
California, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin 
Islands. By the way, we need to make sure we straighten out things in 
the West so the Forest Service isn't robbed of the funding they need to 
prevent future forest fires as they take the money out to handle 
present forest fires. We need to do that.
  I know a lot of Congressmen from the House want aid. Even though many 
of them opposed aid when New York and New Jersey had a crisis, we are 
not going to play tit for tat, but we want a fair bill, and we want our 
priorities recognized as well.
  Finally, there are the Dreamers. This must be done now. Leader 
McConnell seems to think there is no urgency. We disagree strongly--
respectfully but strongly. There is an urgent need. We have hundreds of 
thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans who want America to be their 
country--who were

[[Page S29]]

brought here through no fault of their own, who are working in our 
factories and offices, who are going to our schools, and who are 
serving in our military. Right now, every morning they wake up with a 
pit of fear in their heart that they will be deported and separated 
from their families. There is a very strong urgency there, and we have 
to get the Dreamers taken care of as well as these other needs.
  So our language, our proposal on this budget deal is to take care of 
the middle class in terms of pensions and opioids and veterans, take 
care of disaster relief, take care of the healthcare problems we face--
we all know about CHIP, community health centers, and healthcare 
extenders--and take care of both the border and the Dreamers. We can do 
it all. We should do it all.
  It is no secret that in each of these areas right now there are 
sticking points, but there are potential points of agreement. All five 
parties continue to have discussion groups on these four circles of 
areas--and to do them concurrently and come up with solutions quickly 
so we can meet that January 19 deadline because nobody wants 
sequestration to go into effect for the military or nonmilitary side of 
the budget. Our goal should be a global agreement on all these issues 
by January 19. That is the best way to resolve the issues we face.
  I see my dear friend from Georgia waiting, and I yield the floor to 
him.

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