[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S446-S447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



             DACA, CHIP, and Other Issues Before the Senate

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate passed a continuing 
resolution to reopen the government and provide for a 6-year 
reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program. The 
majority leader and I were also able to agree on a path forward for the 
DACA legislation. The continuing resolution extends government funding 
until February 8.
  If an agreement on DACA isn't reached by February 8, the Senate will 
immediately proceed to immigration under a neutral process that is fair 
to all sides. This is the first guarantee that the Republican majority 
will give the DACA bill a fair consideration and an up-or-down vote on 
the floor, and it means we can hopefully resolve the fate of the 
Dreamers much sooner than the March 5 deadline.
  The Republican majority now has 16 days to work with us to write a 
bill that can get 60 votes and prevent the Dreamers from being 
deported. The clock is ticking. Sixteen days--that is not much time. 
They have to get moving. Leader McConnell, his Republican colleagues, 
and all of us should hear the countdown clock ticking to protect the 
800,000 Dreamers from deportation. We can get it done. Every Democrat--
all 49 of us--supports DACA. Now the pressure is on Leader McConnell 
and the Republican moderate caucus to help find us a solution that 
protects the 800,000 Dreamers and can pass the Senate.
  Over the weekend, a bipartisan group of Senate moderates came 
together and helped renew the urgency of the immigration debate. After 
talking with Senator Durbin, it is my understanding that this 
bipartisan group, which includes several Republican moderates, 
expressed a sincere desire to protect the Dreamers in the upcoming 
legislation--more so than before the weekend. Leader McConnell's 
promise to consider DACA legislation was made just as much to this 
bipartisan group as it was made to me. If he does not honor our 
agreement, it will be a breach of trust with not only the Democratic 
Senators but with several Members of his own party as well.
  Democrats will continue to fight as hard as ever for the Dreamers, 
but I am more hopeful today than last week that we can assemble 60 
votes for a DACA bill in the Senate, and we now have a real pathway to 
get such a bill through the Senate.
  I am also very glad that a 6-year reauthorization of CHIP passed 
alongside yesterday's bill to reopen the government. It was a long time 
coming. Despite bipartisan majorities that support CHIP in both Houses, 
the Republican majority allowed CHIP to expire, leaving 9 million sick 
children in the lurch. That shameful wrong has been made right, but we 
should extend CHIP for an even longer period of time. The CBO projected 
that 10 years of CHIP or a permanent authorization would actually save 
the government $6 billion. How could that be? Because fewer children 
will go into the exchange and fewer will need subsidies because CHIP is 
an efficient, well-run, and successful program. So it is a no-brainer. 
We should make it happen.
  Still, the Senate has 3 weeks in which to conclude a lot of work. A 
consensus has not yet been found on the budget, on healthcare 
legislation, on disaster aid, and, as I mentioned, on immigration. On 
each of these issues, the President has been either impossible to pin 
down or completely absent. This hooey that President Trump was involved 
in the negotiations--he was pretty invisible to me. President Trump's 
inability to negotiate with Congress is what caused the 3-day 
government shutdown from which we have just emerged. If we are going to 
get all of these things done, the Senate--the Senate--will have to work 
its will.
  On the budget, we must lift the spending caps for defense and urgent

[[Page S447]]

domestic priorities. Just as our military needs the resources it 
requires to do the tough job we ask of them, we have critical issues 
here at home.
  It is equally crucial to us--not more, not less--that we deal with 
the opioid crisis, where so many men and women, young men and young 
women in the flower of their lives, are passing on because of 
addiction. There is not enough enforcement at the borders, particularly 
preventing the evil fentanyl from coming in, and not enough treatment, 
so that when a young person, whether it is a veteran or anybody else, 
has this horrible addiction, they get the treatment to overcome it.
  Veterans. They have to wait so long in line, many of them with PTSD, 
for opioid treatment and treatment for other ailments. They shouldn't 
have to. They weren't waiting in line when they were in Afghanistan or 
Iraq fighting for us.
  Pensions. The heartland of America for decades has been our 
industrial complexes, our industrial might in our States, our Central 
States. Every week, every month these men and women put money into 
their pension plans, and now, because of the vicissitudes of the stock 
market and management, that money ain't there. It is our job through 
the PBGC to give them the pensions they deserve. No one is going to get 
rich on a pension, but at least they can retire in a life with some 
dignity.
  On top of that, we must get a healthcare package done. The bill as 
proposed by Bill Nelson and Susan Collins on reinsurance, the bill as 
proposed by Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander on CSRs, as well as 
community health centers, the extenders that help so many of our rural 
hospitals, and other healthcare issues have to get done.
  We must pass a disaster relief package. Many of our States need help, 
just as New York needed help several years ago when we didn't get all 
the support we wanted from the very States that are now asking us for 
money.
  And, of course, we must finally pass a bill to protect the Dreamers.
  The American people are clamoring for our two parties to work 
together to get things done. After a year of partisanship and strife, 
during which the governing majority hardly attempted to compromise, we 
now must move forward in a bipartisan way if we are going to finish the 
task at hand on the budget, on healthcare, on disaster aid, and on 
DACA.
  I yield the floor.

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