[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
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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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