[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 23, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H1004-H1005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                         DAY 33 OF THE SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, so here we are together in the House of 
Representatives on day 33 of the government shutdown. We have all been 
back in our districts, and like me, I suspect have all heard from 
people who are really starting to suffer as a result of this government 
shutdown: TSA agents, other people essential to our security, other 
Federal workers, and people who receive food stamps who are wondering 
whether 2 weeks from now they will be able to feed their children.
  I don't know about you, but I come back to Washington thinking one 
thing, which is: We need to stop calling this a government shutdown. 
That sort of makes it sound like a machine isn't working somewhere. 
Let's call this what it is. The President's decision to sign no budget 
until he gets his wall is not a government shutdown.
  It is taking the happiness, the prosperity, and the opportunity of 
millions of Americans hostage until he gets his wall. It is not too 
strong to say that this is torturing millions of Americans with anxiety 
until the President gets his wall.
  It is saying to Americans that you will work for weeks, and maybe 
months, but we won't pay you because he needs his wall. If you are one 
of the millions of Americans who rely on SNAP benefits so that you can 
look at your child and know that that child has had nourishment that 
day, you may not get those benefits because he needs his wall.
  If you are a contractor, you are not getting any back pay, and I am 
sorry, because he needs his wall.
  I have got the stories from my district that everybody else does in 
this Chamber. The worst one was when I talked to a woman named Debbie. 
Debbie is fighting stage IV melanoma. Her husband is a Department of 
Transportation executive who was called back to D.C. to work without 
pay, leaving Debbie to raise three children and battle cancer without 
pay, with the insecurity of whether she will be able to pay her copays 
to keep herself alive.
  Why? Apparently, holding hostage the American people is okay because 
the President's wall is that important. Well, if that is so important, 
why, when the Republicans controlled the House, and the Senate, and 
Presidency until a few weeks ago, why did we not hear about the wall 
then? Why are we torturing the American people now?
  I have been here for 10 years. We haven't ever had a debate or an 
argument about a wall, but now it is okay for the President to torture 
the American people, to keep them without money, to keep them in 
insecurity, to keep them in anxiety, because right now the wall is 
absolutely essential.
  Let's talk for a second about where this came from and what kind of a 
tool

[[Page H1005]]

this hostage taking is. Remember, during the campaign the President 
said, we will build a wall from sea to shining sea, a big beautiful 
wall that will be paid for by Mexico.
  What we are doing right now is not delivering on the campaign promise 
of the President of the United States. We are cleaning up around the 
fact that he could not deliver on a campaign promise to have Mexico pay 
for the wall. Instead, security workers and the American people are 
being asked not just to pay for his wall, but to suffer for his wall.
  This is a dealmaker. The art of the deal. I was in the majority once 
when we had the Senate, and Presidency, and the House. There was lots 
of stuff we wanted but we couldn't get done. A public option in the 
Affordable Care Act, we couldn't get that done. The American Clean 
Energy and Security Act, we couldn't get that done. Something to 
address climate change, we couldn't get that done. But we never dreamed 
that the tool that we had in our pocket was to say we will torture the 
American people unless we get what we want.
  I would remind my Republican colleagues that there will be a 
Democratic President someday, and they are setting this precedent. Set 
this precedent because it is an awesome tool. Maybe we will decide not 
to pay the military until we can get truly universal health coverage. 
Maybe we will decide not to man the borders or to decriminalize 
marijuana because that is what we want, and we won't pay people until 
we get what we want. It is a terrible precedent, and my Republican 
friends know that.
  So what do we do now? There are two things that can happen. The 
President can maybe turn off ``FOX News'' long enough to see that this 
is hurting his politics very badly. He could maybe experience some 
empathy; something that I am not holding my breath for. Or maybe, 
Congress could act like Congress and say we are a coequal branch and we 
stand for the people who we are currently torturing.
  The Senate majority leader said, I will not move a bill that the 
President will not sign. Think about that. The United States Senate, 
the greatest deliberative body on the planet is, by design now, a 
rubber stamp to the President.
  It is not hard to override a veto. It just requires us to do what we 
are paid to do and stand for the American people who are suffering 
right now.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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