[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 23, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H1012-H1022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 648, CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS 
    ACT, 2019; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.J. RES. 31, FURTHER 
 CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, 2019; 
   PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES; AND 
   WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO 
  CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE COMMITTEE ON 
                                 RULES

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 61 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                               H. Res. 61

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 648) making 
     appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, 
     and for other purposes. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill are waived. Clause 2(e) of rule XXI shall not apply 
     during consideration of the bill. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: 
     (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations or their respective designees; and (2) one 
     motion to recommit.
       Sec. 2.  Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in 
     order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. 
     Res. 31) making further continuing appropriations for the 
     Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2019, and for 
     other purposes. All points of order against consideration of 
     the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall 
     be considered as read. All points of order against provisions 
     in the joint resolution are waived. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution and on 
     any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees; 
     and (2) one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 3.  It shall be in order at any time through the 
     legislative day of February 1, 2019, for the Speaker to 
     entertain motions that the House suspend the rules as though 
     under clause 1 of rule XV. The Speaker or her designee shall 
     consult with the Minority Leader or his designee on the 
     designation of

[[Page H1013]]

     any matter for consideration pursuant to this section.
       Sec. 4.  The requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII for a 
     two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on 
     Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is waived 
     with respect to any resolution reported through the 
     legislative day of January 30, 2019, relating to a measure 
     making or continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 
     ending September 30, 2019.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Huffman). The gentleman from 
Massachusetts is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), 
pending which time I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and 
reported a rule, House Resolution 61, providing for consideration of 
H.R. 648, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2019, under a closed 
rule.
  The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by 
the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. It 
also provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 31, which makes further 
continuing appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for 
fiscal year 2019 under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of 
debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member 
of the Appropriations Committee.
  Additionally, it extends same-day authority for appropriations 
measures through January 30 and suspension authority through February 
1.
  Mr. Speaker, we are on day 33 of the Trump shutdown, the longest 
government shutdown in American history. Hundreds of thousands of 
Federal workers will miss a paycheck for the second time since the 
President plunged us into this mess.
  The very people who keep our Nation safe are struggling to put food 
on the table, people like men and women in the Coast Guard, FBI agents, 
Border Patrol officers, and TSA agents.
  Makeshift food banks are being opened across the country to help 
these workers and their families get by. Right outside our Nation's 
Capital, in Northern Virginia, some Federal workers waited more than an 
hour recently at a local food bank. Demand was so high that a tenth of 
the food was gone in the first 5 minutes.
  Because of the President's shutdown, 15 million households could see 
a gap in their monthly SNAP benefits that lasts more than 40 days. Four 
million low-income households could see a gap that lasts more than 50 
days.
  This program is their lifeline, Mr. Speaker. These families don't 
have a plan B.
  I have given weekly end-hunger-now speeches on this floor since 
February of 2013, and I have made it clear time and time again that 
hunger is not only unacceptable in this country, the richest country in 
the history of the world, but it is a political condition.
  We have the resources. We have what it takes. What we need to muster 
is the political will to do something about it. But here we are, and as 
I said, it is embarrassing enough that the wealthiest nation on the 
planet has an ongoing hunger crisis, but I never, ever imagined that a 
President of the United States would exacerbate it like this.
  This is disgusting. This is unacceptable. This is unconscionable.
  Let us be clear: It is the President's bruised ego that keeps a 
quarter of our government closed today.
  Now, his latest so-called compromise proposal isn't really a 
compromise at all. In fact, it brings new meaning to the word 
``cruel.''

                              {time}  1230

  Not only does it fail to provide a permanent solution for the 
Dreamers or TPS recipients, it only covers a fraction of eligible 
Dreamers, it excludes TPS holders from Asia and Africa, and it rewrites 
the law for future DACA recipients, TPS holders, and asylum seekers 
that will make it all but impossible for anyone to qualify.
  These are the same old, tired, and extremist ideas the President and 
his advisers floated last year. They were rejected by both the 
Republican-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate. This 
is not a compromise. This is called backwards.
  Now, if this administration wants to target refugees, people fleeing 
persecution, people fleeing for their life, if that is what he wants to 
do, then at least he should have the guts to do it in an open hearing 
for the world to see.
  Now, President Trump is treating this like some reality show. He 
doesn't want to look bad in the right-wing press despite the fact that 
Members of both parties are refusing to fund his ineffective wall. If 
the President really wants to reach a real compromise, then he should 
log off Twitter and actually sit down with us and be willing to 
actually negotiate; no more storming out of the Situation Room and no 
more of his my-way-or-the-highway approach. Work with us for a change.
  For whatever reason, Mr. Speaker, he has been unwilling to do that. 
President Trump may not have the fortitude to get us out of this mess 
that he created, but this majority does. So instead of following the 
President who got us into this mess, we have an opportunity to lead. 
Passing these bipartisan, bicameral bills is what leadership looks 
like.
  Now, many of my Republican friends have asked to consider a plan that 
doesn't cede the House's will by considering a Senate bill. Well, today 
is their day because we are considering a bipartisan, bicameral 
compromise. This six-bill package is the result of real negotiations 
between the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate. It is a 
true compromise that would reopen the entire government apart from the 
Department of Homeland Security. In fact, these negotiated bills are 
exactly what my good friends on the other side of the aisle have been 
asking us over the past week to take up. Again, this is all last year's 
work in the last session.
  I recognize that we don't have a similar agreement on the Homeland 
Security measure included here, but this short-term CR will get our TSA 
agents paid while all other parties get back to the negotiating table.
  The minibus includes $328 million in new dollars for border security 
that we know will actually work. The funding will increase 
infrastructure investments at our ports of entry; install new 
technology that will scan for drugs, weapons, and contraband; put in 
place technology to detect unauthorized crossings; and fund more 
immigration judges. This is what smart security looks like in the 21st 
century, Mr. Speaker, not some medieval wall.
  Now, these details have already been agreed to by Democrats and 
Republicans on both sides of the Capitol. The majority is standing by 
our word. I urge my Republican friends: Take yes for an answer.
  The President may be proud to have shut down this government, but 
this is nothing to be proud of.
  How can anybody be proud that 800,000 Federal workers are about to 
miss a second paycheck, that our TSA workers are calling in sick so 
they can work another job that actually helps them pay the bills, or 
the economy is losing growth at twice the speed originally estimated?
  I could go on and on and on and on, Mr. Speaker, but I know each of 
us has heard from people in our districts. Our offices are getting 
these calls every day, in fact, every hour and every minute now. We are 
all hearing from struggling constituents. Their message is the same: 
End this shutdown. End this shutdown.
  This doesn't seem, unfortunately, to be a priority for President 
Trump. He is out there tweeting about which player should be in the 
Baseball Hall of Fame. Give me a break. Maybe he doesn't know what it 
is like in the real world. After all, the President got his start 
through what he has called a small loan from his dad that reports now 
estimate could have totaled more than $60 million. That is the world he 
lives in.
  But families are struggling and left to wonder how they are going to 
afford to put food on the table or how they are going to pay for 
medicine without a paycheck.
  Enough of the games. Congress has the power to end this shutdown.

[[Page H1014]]

  Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this rule 
and give the underlying legislation the strong veto-proof vote it 
deserves. Let's finally turn the lights back on. Listen to your 
constituents, I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle. 
Listen to what they are saying. Turn the lights back on.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Massachusetts for 
yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I appreciated the first 60 
seconds of his comments where he went through that kind of policy work 
and that kind of procedural work, the work that we do.
  We are on opposite sides of this issue. The Rules Committee is the 
single most partisan committee on Capitol Hill, and, yet, we always 
find a way to come together and share the debate to move forward. But 
after that first 60 seconds of process, we went into 4 minutes of the 
President and accusations, one after another after another.
  Now, I have only been in this institution for five terms, Mr. 
Speaker, but that is long enough to understand that there is only one 
way to turn a bill into a law, and that is if Congress proposes it, 
Congress passes it, and the President signs it. Now, my good friend 
from Massachusetts knows as well as I do the President has not vetoed 
one single spending bill that the Congress has sent to him. The 
government is not shut down because the President is rejecting bills 
that Congress has passed. The government is shut down because Congress 
hasn't passed a bill.

  Mr. Speaker, if you would just listen to that opening statement, your 
blood pressure probably gets as high as mine does: failure after 
failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment after 
disappointment, embarrassing event after embarrassing event. I will 
remind my colleagues that we are where we are because we came together 
and passed more spending bills on time before the end of the fiscal 
year than any other Congress in 22 years.
  Now, we could have gotten them all done. My Democratic friends in the 
Senate didn't want to move those along. They had perfectly legitimate 
policy reasons for doing that. I am not going to question their 
motives; I will question their wisdom.
  We have got more done together than we ever have before, and we could 
build on that, I tell my friend. We could build on that or we could go 
into our corners, we could put on our jerseys, and we can throw 
accusations out as fast as we can invent them in our head. That is 
where we are.
  It is the month of January, Mr. Speaker, the very first month of this 
new Congress. We have new leadership. It has been more than a decade 
since I have seen a face like yours in the Speaker's chair. We have 
spent 338 hours in this Chamber--338 hours in this Chamber--this month 
working on appropriations bills. Not one has gone to the President's 
desk for his consideration.
  My friend from Massachusetts is right when he talks about pain in 
American families. My friend from Massachusetts is right when he talks 
about the expectations folks have of Congress and how we should do 
better. My friend from Massachusetts is right when he says that this is 
not what any one of us was sent here to do. We were sent here to solve 
problems.
  I promise you, unless your family is different from mine, Mr. 
Speaker, unless your relationships are different from mine, I have 
never solved a problem in my family by telling my loved ones how much 
it is their fault, how much they need to change, how much they are on 
the wrong side of an issue and we are not going to do anything until 
they come around to my way of thinking. It hasn't been a particularly 
successful method for me.
  Now, I look back over these last 33 days. The President sent the Vice 
President to Capitol Hill. He came with the OMB director, Mick 
Mulvaney.
  He said: I told you what I needed to pass the bill. I told you what I 
needed and what I thought was important for America and for national 
security. But I will tell you what; I don't have to have exactly that. 
I can come off that. I can negotiate down from that. I can move away 
from that. Let's talk about what the other options may be.
  No response.
  The President this past weekend: I want to break this impasse; I want 
to find a way we can move forward; it is not about who wins. We all 
need to win as Americans. We all want to do better as Americans. I am 
going to offer to do something that no President has been able to do. I 
am going to offer to put into statute protection for the young men and 
women in the DACA program. I am going to offer to put into statute 
protections for those men and women in temporary protected status that 
has since expired. I am going to put that into statute for the first 
time.
  As the press release is dated, Mr. Speaker, Speaker of the House 
Nancy Pelosi rejected that offer 7 minutes before it was made.
  I am not saying that that is the right answer. I am not saying that 
that is the best we can do. I am not saying that is where the 
conversation ends. I am asking my friends: When does the conversation 
begin?
  More than 300 hours we have spent talking amongst ourselves and 
produced nothing to go to the President's desk. Sadly, I know that this 
issue has elevated beyond where my friend from Massachusetts, even as 
chairman of the powerful Rules Committee--and it is the powerful Rules 
Committee, it can move absolutely any measure through this House, and 
the Rules Committee has been incredibly successful. The House is moving 
appropriations bills like nobody's business, Mr. Speaker, because when 
you are in the majority you can do that. You can do my way or the 
highway.
  That is the way my friend described President Trump's attitude. I 
will just remind my friend that is actually what we have today in this 
bill. My ranking member asked if we could consider some amendments to 
this bill, and he was told no. My friend didn't say: Let's just come 
down here and have amendments willy-nilly. We will have a preprinting 
requirement, we will do what we call a modified open rule, just so some 
of our new Members can have their voices heard, their constituents' 
voices heard in some way.
  The answer was no; straight party-line vote. All the Democrats said: 
no, we are not going to allow any other voices to be heard; and all the 
Republicans said: yes.
  I don't fault my friend for that. That is not a personal slight of 
any kind, Mr. Speaker. The Rules Committee is the Speaker's committee. 
It does the work of the Speaker. As powerful and talented as my friend 
from Massachusetts is, it is his job to implement the Speaker's will. 
Now, to his credit, he has been very bold in terms of trying to open 
that committee up. He has been very bold in trying to make sure more 
voices have been heard. But we find ourselves trapped in this 
appropriations cycle. We haven't actually gotten to where my friend is 
going to be able to do his very best work. We are still trapped in 
trying to do the business of last year.
  But my friend's pointing out that the President's my way or the 
highway--which is inaccurate--is not helpful. My pointing out that this 
bill is Speaker Pelosi's way or the highway may be accurate, but it 
still isn't helpful. We have got to have a conversation with one 
another. I can go down the list of the ways that the President has said 
he is willing to come to the table, but he is sitting at the table 
alone.
  I am a vote counter, Mr. Speaker. I know how to count votes in this 
Chamber. I have no doubt that the rule that my friend from 
Massachusetts is proposing is going to pass this floor today. I have no 
doubt that the underlying appropriations bill is going to pass this 
floor. This rule includes something called martial law, Mr. Speaker, 
which means they can bring up anything they want to any time they want 
to, no preprinting, and no opportunity to review it, none of those 
activities that we would say bring out the very best in transparency 
here. If any of those bills come up, they are going to pass.
  There is no confusion in this Chamber about who has the votes to win. 
The confusion in this Chamber is how it is we get from where we are to 
where our constituents want us to be and doing the same thing over and 
over and over again isn't going to get it done.
  It is my first time carrying a rule in the minority, Mr. Speaker. I 
knew when I walked down here this morning my job was to lose. I don't 
mind losing.

[[Page H1015]]

But I do mind when the American people lose, and the American people 
are losing right now. There are no winners right now.
  I know the men and women of this Chamber. There are some talented 
orators here. We can absolutely trade insults and accusations until the 
sun goes down. But there are some talented policymakers here, too. 
There are some talented negotiators here, too. As long as the President 
is sitting at that negotiating table alone, we are not going to get to 
a solution. But he doesn't have to be there alone. I appreciate his 
making the invitation, and I hope, as my friend from Massachusetts 
said, we will learn to take yes for an answer.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me just remind my colleague that the bills that we are taking up 
here today were the result of a robust amendment process and robust 
debate in the last Congress. This is all last year's work.
  I also remind the gentleman he is right about one thing, that we 
haven't sent the President a bill from both Chambers, but we almost 
did. If he remembers correctly, in December, when the Republicans 
controlled the House and the Republicans controlled the Senate and 
they, obviously, controlled the White House, we actually came together 
and the Senate passed a bill that would keep the government running and 
open, unanimously.
  I even supported the gentleman's martial law rule to be able to bring 
up that legislation expeditiously so we could do our work and so that 
nobody would have to be anxious over the holidays as to whether or not 
they were going to get paid.
  We were about to vote on it, and it was agreed on by Democrats and 
Republicans. There was no controversy. And then the President turned on 
rightwing TV or was listening to rightwing radio, and Ann Coulter and 
some of these other rightwing extremists said: No, you can't do that.
  And he changed his mind, and everything came to a standstill. So all 
this bipartisan work was for naught.
  What we are bringing up here today is all the bipartisan work that 
many of my Republican colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, 
Democrats and Republicans, worked hard on to come up with a compromise 
that is good. It is good. Yet my friends say: Well, no. Let's start all 
over again.
  The bottom line is the other side left us with a mess. When they 
controlled everything, they weren't able to get the job done.
  Let me just say, here are some facts:
  This is the longest shutdown in history, but it is historic for 
another reason. This is the first time in history that a Congress has 
ended in a government shutdown. Never before has a Congress left it to 
the next Congress to reopen the government. With all due respect to my 
friends, that is what my friends left us with.
  On top of that, Republicans had control of the White House, the 
Senate, and the House last year, and they couldn't keep the lights on. 
Then Republicans went home for Christmas and New Year's and every day 
in between. I know because I was on the floor multiple times begging to 
be recognized to offer solutions, and I was denied even the ability to 
offer a solution.
  Since we took charge, we have nonstop offered options. Now some 
Members want to complain about how we are cleaning up the mess that was 
left to us.
  Imagine this. Imagine if someone dumped a bunch of garbage on your 
lawn and then started complaining about how you weren't cleaning it up. 
That is what is happening here.
  I would suggest that my friends kind of save their criticisms for a 
time when we aren't cleaning up after all of them.
  I just want to make one other point. The gentleman said that we have 
martial law, same-day authority in this rule to bring up anything we 
want. No, that is not the case.
  When my friends were in charge, they did. They had martial law to 
bring up anything they wanted to, and they were trying to bring up a 
cheese bill, if I remember correctly, instead of a bill to keep the 
government open in the last days of December.
  No. We limit it to appropriations matters, and we want to be able to, 
if we can come to a deal, if we come to some sort of solution, to be 
able to bring something up immediately to be able to get everybody the 
paychecks to which they are entitled.
  I know the gentleman was home over the holiday weekend, and I was, 
too. My constituents asked me the question over and over: I get it that 
there is a disagreement over the President's border wall, but why do 
you have to shut the entire government down over that issue? Why can't 
you just continue in negotiation? Why do you have to deny TSA workers a 
paycheck? Why is that okay? Why is that acceptable? Why are they pawns 
in this? Or men and women who serve in our Coast Guard, why is that 
okay to say: You don't get paid because the President is having a 
temper tantrum and he is not getting his way? All of a sudden, we have 
to deny them a paycheck?
  People don't understand why my Republican friends think this is 
acceptable. The gentleman from Georgia knows that the reason why a bill 
is not on the President's desk is because the Senate majority leader, 
Mr. McConnell, is basically doing the President's bidding. He said: I 
am not going to bring anything to the floor that the President doesn't 
want to sign.
  We have another option here, too: We can actually pass bipartisan 
bills that should win overwhelming support. We should pass them with 
veto-proof margins and basically say to the President: We don't believe 
in government by blackmail. That is not the way we do things around 
here. That is not the way this government is supposed to work.
  We ought to reopen the government, and we ought to engage in serious 
discussions about how we improve our border security. We have some 
great ideas on how to do that. We have some ideas that I mentioned in 
my opening speech on ways we can improve our border security.
  We think a border wall is a ridiculous idea. But if you want to talk 
about a wall, fine, but don't--don't--hold hundreds of thousands of 
workers hostage.
  We have an opportunity now to set these hostages that the President 
has taken free. Let's do it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I appreciate that admonition from the Chair.
  I was looking aggressively at all the words my friend had to say for 
what that thing was that was going to break this logjam, what that 
thing was that was going to bring people together, what that olive 
branch was that he was extending to succeed where others had failed.
  I heard that if we only come together and do it his way, that we 
could all just get along, and I have no doubt that that is true. That 
is not what a negotiation is. That is not the way this Chamber works.
  We have got to send a bill to the President's desk. When the 
President starts vetoing bills, then start accusing the President of 
being the grit in the cog in this legislative wheel. We don't have 
agreement amongst ourselves.
  We were up in the Rules Committee last night, Mr. Speaker, and one of 
my appropriator friends was celebrating the bills that were coming to 
the floor today and celebrating how pleased she was that so many of the 
pro-life provisions had been stripped out, celebrating that so many of 
the dollars that we would be sending overseas would no longer be 
encumbered by pro-life provisions, that folks would be able to use them 
in any way that they wanted.
  Well, I have no doubt that she was pleased by those things, but we 
are not all pleased by those things, Mr. Speaker. This doesn't 
represent the compromise solution that everybody is on board with, as 
my friend would have you believe.
  The financial services language in this bill, that never made it 
through conference. We couldn't agree, not amongst ourselves in the 
House and the Senate, not in a bicameral way.
  My friend who is the ranking member of the Financial Services and 
General

[[Page H1016]]

Government Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Speaker, shared last night 
that there were 20 different pieces of bipartisan legislation that were 
in the original bill, 6 pieces of bipartisan legislation that had been 
signed off on by the then-ranking member and, now, chairwoman of the 
Financial Services Committee that we could have moved forward, that we 
could have made a difference--again, stripped out for reasons beyond my 
understanding.
  This isn't complicated if folks are sincere about coming together 
around the table. It is impossible if folks would rather trade insults 
than solutions.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Mitchell), a friend who has been dedicated entirely to solutions in his 
short time in the House.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Speaker, we have three crises in our country right 
now: We have a humanitarian crisis at the southern border. We could 
talk about the dynamics of that, but let's be honest about it--we truly 
do. We need to secure our Nation's borders, and we need to reopen our 
government and pay our Federal workers, something I have been committed 
to since I joined Congress.
  So far, we have wasted more than 338 hours working on dead-end bills 
that will not pass the Senate, the President won't sign, because my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, or their leadership, won't 
get in a room and negotiate with the President, with Mitch McConnell, 
with the majority leader, with the minority leader--all in the same 
room--and negotiate on the package that the President has put forward.
  I spoke on that package last week. I held up this letter, which was a 
January 6 letter from the President, from the administration, to the 
chair of the Appropriations Committee and all the members. The other 
side of the aisle was astonished. They didn't know what this letter 
was.
  That is a little bit demoralizing, if you think about it, why the 
letter wasn't shared with all Members on the other side of the aisle.
  You see, compromise means you don't get 100 percent of what you want, 
but you move the ball forward. You move the ball down the road, and you 
keep making progress.
  Those same people who are calling it a border wall or a barrier or 
whatever you want to call it--I do stress to my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle, call it about anything you want, short of a moat. If 
you make progress, we move forward.
  These same people who are now calling it immoral voted for border 
security, border barriers, when there was a different President. Now 
that it has President Trump's name on it, suddenly it has become evil.
  Since January 3, President Trump has made two detailed proposals to 
Congress on how to solve this problem--it shows that the President is 
prepared to negotiate on it--a package of things that include border 
security, technology at the border, strengthening our points of entry, 
humanitarian aid, additional immigration judges, and, let me stress 
this, providing assistance for people to apply for asylum from their 
home countries rather than take that dangerous and treacherous journey 
to the Mexican border.
  Doctors Without Borders says that 31 percent of the women who make 
that journey are sexually assaulted. The President wants to address 
that. Neither of those proposals have even gotten a moment of 
discussion from the other side of the aisle.
  Anyone who spent 35 years in business, or even a few years in 
business, as I have, would know that compromise means you deal with the 
entirety of the problem. You negotiate the problem, and you get an 
answer that moves it forward rather than say: Some things are out of 
bounds; we are not going to talk about that.
  The part I like now, lately, is: We will talk about it later; we 
promise we will.
  There is a song about that. It is called, ``Tomorrow, Tomorrow.''
  Sorry. Now is the time to deal with it. Now is the time. And I agree: 
Having people not paid--my dad was an autoworker. He was laid off 
multiple times. Missing two paychecks is brutal. There is an answer to 
that. It is called negotiate.
  It is important that Members of the House and Senate and the 
leadership take seriously the President's proposals, go to a room, 
close the door, and negotiate rather than say, as has been said by the 
current Speaker: zero dollars for the wall, maybe a dollar.

  I don't care if you call it a wall. I don't care if you call it a 
steel slat. I don't care if you call it a barrier. But we need security 
at the southern border. Why is it we can't have that now?
  Further, we have to end this and pay our Federal workers. We must end 
this crisis and pay the workers. There is a route there.
  Rather than spend 338 hours on the floor--in this whole posturing, 
this whole profiling--sit in a room and spend 10 percent of that time, 
33 hours, in one room. My guess is you would come to an answer on the 
problem.
  Why are we not doing that? Why are we not doing that? Our Democrats 
on the other side of the aisle obstruct people being paid.
  Last week, we proposed an amendment that would have, in fact, 
retroactively opened the government to pay Federal employees. Six 
Democrats joined us in that--only six--and it was defeated.
  Again, if you want to pay the employees, pay them; don't use them as 
hostages, as you have.
  A couple summaries I wish to make: First, these are not the same 
bills that you claim were bipartisan bills that passed appropriations. 
As my colleague has noted, significant items have been pulled out of 
that--life protections. I will go through a list. So they are not the 
same bills.
  Let's be honest on the floor and at least call them what they are. 
They are Democratic versions of the previous bills that they put 
through.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Michigan an 
additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. MITCHELL. One of the questions I posed for my colleagues: Why is 
it okay to begin running reelection campaigns now for an election to go 
2 years from now? Why is it okay for the Presidential campaigns to 
start on the backs of these workers and the southern border?
  Someone answer that question for me, because that is what is 
happening. That is what is happening all over the country. That is what 
is happening on TV.

                              {time}  1300

  This is now the cause for which people are going to run campaigns. 
And, frankly, as a result, yeah, we have government by blackmail, but 
the blackmail is going on by the other side of the aisle that insists 
they will only talk about certain components of this, but not all of 
it, because they have now decided it is not politically expedient as 
they are getting ready to run for office--some getting ready, 
apparently, to run for President--and they want to use this as 
leverage.
  We can solve this problem in 1 day. I encourage my colleagues to do 
so. Get the Speaker of the House, the minority leader, majority leader 
of the Senate, the minority leader of the Senate, and the President in 
a room, close the door, and don't come out until you have an answer 
that they all agree to. How hard is it to understand that concept?
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me say, I think we have agreement here. We all want to open the 
government. We all want to reopen the government. I think the 
difference here is that we have no preconditions on reopening the 
government. My Republican friends do have preconditions, and it is 
whatever the President decides he wants to tack on at the last minute.
  So there is a difference here. We have no preconditions. Open the 
government up, start paying all of our Federal workers, let's get our 
country back to normal here in terms of the Federal workforce, but my 
Republican friends have all these strings that they want to attach to 
it.
  The gentleman from Michigan said, you know, he refers to one of the 
``gotcha'' amendments that the Republicans offered on backpay for 
Federal workers. I should remind him that we actually passed a law 
here, S. 24, which created an entitlement to backpay for

[[Page H1017]]

Federal workers who aren't getting paid during the shutdown. So we 
actually dealt with that here. We actually passed a law, and, that, he 
may not have known that.
  I should also say to my Republican friends, understand that the 
American people are not on your side on this. There is a recent ``CBS 
News'' poll--7 in 10 Americans do not think the issue of a border wall 
is worth a government shutdown--7 in 10.
  Now, I know there is this--you know, the President is worried about 
that 25, 30 percent of his base, but the vast majority of the people in 
this country aren't with him on this. They are not with you on this by 
not stepping up and saying we ought to reopen our government.
  You want to have a negotiation on border security, we have lots of 
ideas to enhance border security, and that is based on conversations 
with people on the border who talk about increased technology, who talk 
about better infrastructure, who talk about more personnel, you know, 
more asylum judges. I can go on and on and on. We are all for that. 
Let's continue that conversation.
  But why in the world does this President insist on shutting the 
government down until he gets his way on this border wall? This is not 
the way you do a negotiation. And, again, if you want to reopen the 
government, and we do, we have no conditions. Reopen the government. It 
is that simple.
  And the bills--the gentleman from Michigan talked about bills that 
the Senate would pass. Some of the bills that we are sending over to 
the Senate passed unanimously. Boy, I mean, if that is not a signal 
that they overwhelmingly agree with the substance of these bills, I 
don't know what is, but they did. They voted unanimously, in some 
cases, for some of these bills we are sending over here.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from ``The Washington 
Post'' titled: ``Unacceptable: Coast Guard's top officer criticizes 
lack of payment in government shutdown.''

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019]

`Unacceptable': Coast Guard's Top Officer Criticizes Lack of Payment in 
                          Government Shutdown

                            (By Dan Lamothe)

       The Coast Guard's top admiral said Tuesday that members of 
     the armed forces should not be expected to shoulder the 
     burden of the partial government shutdown, citing the 
     ``anxiety and stress'' it is causing military families as 
     their pay is withheld.
       Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard commandant, said he is 
     heartened by the outpouring of support Coast Guard personnel 
     have received across the country but expects more.
       ``Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men 
     and women have to rely on food pantries and donations to get 
     through day-to-day life as service members,'' he said, 
     speaking on a video posted to his Twitter account.
       The comments marked the admiral's most forceful remarks 
     about the shutdown since it began 32 days ago amid a dispute 
     over President Trump's demands for funding for a southern 
     border wall. While the majority of the U.S. military is part 
     of the Defense Department and has funding, the Department of 
     Homeland Security and is agencies, including the Coast Guard, 
     are affected by the shutdown.
       About 41,000 active-duty service members and 2,100 
     civilians who are considered ``essential personnel'' are 
     working without a paycheck under the promise they will get 
     back pay when the shutdown is resolved, said Lt. Cmdr. Scott 
     McBride, a service spokesman. That situation grew more urgent 
     Jan. 15, when service members missed a paycheck. An 
     additional 6,000 civilians working for the service are 
     furloughed.
       Overall, about 800,000 federal workers are not receiving 
     paychecks amid the shutdown, with nearly half furloughed.
       Schultz, appearing alongside the service's top enlisted 
     man, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Jason M. 
     Vanderhaden, noted that civilian employees will miss another 
     paycheck Friday and called it a 'sobering'' situation.
       Senior Coast Guard officials and the American public, he 
     said, ``stand in awe'' of the affected service members' 
     'continued dedication to duty and resilience'' and that of 
     their families.
       The admiral, in keeping with the military's tradition of 
     not commenting directly on politics, did not blame anyone 
     specific for the shutdown. He and Homeland Security Secretary 
     Kirstjen Nielsen are making their case for the service on 
     Capitol Hill, Schultz said.
       The Coast Guard has continued to carry out operations 
     across the globe during the shutdown.
       On Sunday, the Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf departed from 
     Alameda, Calif., with about 170 people aboard for a 
     deployment to the Pacific that will last up to six months. 
     The Defense Department will reimburse the service for the 
     deployment, but Coast Guard personnel still will not be paid 
     until the shutdown is resolved.
       ``The crew, like all other [Coast Guard] members, are 
     affected by the lapse of appropriations, and are not being 
     paid,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Steve Brickey, a service spokesman. 
     ``It is always difficult to deploy for months and leave 
     behind family and loved ones. That stress is of course 
     magnified when you add on the uncertainly of the shutdown.''

  Mr. McGOVERN. Admiral Schultz, the Coast Guard's commandant said: 
``Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men and women 
have to rely on food pantries and donations to get through day-to-day 
life as servicemembers.''
  In total, 41,000 Active Duty servicemembers and 2,100 civilians are 
essential personnel and working without pay and have been for 33 days 
now. An additional 6,000 are furloughed. As of this Friday, these brave 
men and women will have missed two paychecks. That is unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled: ``America's 
veterans said to be disproportionately affected by government 
shutdown.''

                     [From ABC News, Jan. 9, 2019]

America's Veterans Said To Be Disproportionately Affected by Government 
                                Shutdown

                       (By Elizabeth McLaughlin)

       As the partial government shutdown continues for a third 
     week, veterans groups are sounding the alarm because of what 
     they say is the disproportionate impact on America's veterans 
     and a growing fear that financial uncertainty could lead to 
     self-harm.
       An estimated one-third of the federal workforce is made up 
     of veterans, according to the Office of Personnel Management, 
     meaning that more than 250,000 veterans are not currently 
     receiving paychecks.
       ``This shutdown has consequences that go beyond loss of 
     pay,'' the Union Veterans Council said in a statement this 
     week. ``Financial instability is one of the main cause of 
     suicides among the veterans' community. These hard-working 
     men and women who sacrificed so much for their country should 
     not have their families held hostage by lawmakers that cannot 
     relate to living paycheck to paycheck.''
       Edward M. Canales is a local union president with the 
     American Federation of Government Employees and a veteran 
     liaison officer who serves as a resource to veterans working 
     in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons west of the Mississippi River.
       He told ABC News that he's received numerous calls from 
     veterans who aren't able to support their families during the 
     shutdown and express ``no positive outlook on the future.''
       ``If this shutdown does not stop, we are going to have 
     fatalities. We're going to have suicides,'' he said.
       Canales, a U.S. Army veteran himself who deployed to Iraq 
     during Operation Desert Storm, said he is referring calls to 
     the Department of Veterans Affairs hotline out of concern 
     that a veteran will self-harm.
       He called the shutdown ``shameful,'' saying its ``slapping 
     every veteran in the face who has served their country.''
       As a special investigative service technician who worked in 
     the federal prison system for 26 years, Canales is currently 
     not receiving his retirement pay.
       Toby Hauck, a six-year Air Force veteran, is an air traffic 
     controller in Aurora, Illinois, who has gone without a 
     paycheck since Dec. 31. He told ABC News that his father and 
     grandfather served in the U.S. military and now his son and 
     daughter-in-law are deploying overseas at the end of the 
     month.
       Hauck and his wife, a neonatal intensive care unit nurse, 
     will be looking after their two-and-a-half-year-old 
     granddaughter during the ten-month deployment, and the 
     continued lack of pay causes added stress to their already 
     hectic jobs, he said.
       ``We are hardworking, proud American employees doing a job 
     for the American public that is essential as an air traffic 
     controller,'' said Hauck, who is also a representative for 
     the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. ``It's not 
     acceptable as a veteran, as a federal employee, as an air 
     traffic controller to use my profession and my livelihood as 
     a political football.''
       ``[Veterans] are very proud of our heritage and what we've 
     done for the country. And those of us who continue to serve 
     the federal government as a federal employee continue that 
     pride throughout their careers,'' he added.

  Mr. McGOVERN. The Union Veterans Council said in a statement this 
week, ``Financial instability is one of the main causes of suicide 
among the veterans' community. These hardworking men and women who 
sacrificed so much for their country should not have their families 
held hostage by lawmakers that cannot relate to living paycheck to 
paycheck.''
  According to the Office of Personnel Management, one-third of the 
Federal workforce is made up of veterans. That means 250,000 veterans 
are not receiving paychecks right now during this

[[Page H1018]]

Trump shutdown. That is an absolute disgrace.
  Mr. Speaker, as the Trump shutdown continues, hundreds of Internal 
Revenue Service employees have received permission to skip work due to 
financial hardships, and absences are only expected to grow.
  I would like to share a story about Marissa Scott, an IRS employee 
who is gravely affected by this Trump shutdown. Ms. Scott lives outside 
of Kansas City, Missouri. She drives 98 miles roundtrip to work each 
day. Right now, she cannot afford to fill her gas tank and has stopped 
going to work.
  She shared that she typically helps 50 people a day with their tax 
returns and fears that this shutdown may cause delays in tax refunds 
for months as more employees like her are unable to continue working 
without a paycheck. These are tax refunds that Americans rely on and 
are eagerly waiting to be processed.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from ``The Washington 
Post'' titled: ``Hundreds of IRS employees are skipping work. That 
could delay tax refunds.'' It also details Ms. Scott's story.

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019]

   Hundreds of IRS Employees Are Skipping Work. That Could Delay Tax 
                                Refunds

    (By Danielle Paquette, Lisa Rein, Jeff Stein and Kimberly Kindy)

       Hundreds of Internal Revenue Service employees have 
     received permission to skip work during the partial 
     government shutdown due to financial hardship, and union 
     leaders said Tuesday that they expected absences to surge as 
     part of a coordinated protest that could hamper the 
     government's ability to process taxpayer refunds on time.
       The Trump administration last week ordered at least 30,000 
     IRS workers back to their offices, where they have been 
     working to process refunds without pay. It was one of the 
     biggest steps the government has taken to mitigate the 
     shutdown's impact on Americans' lives.
       But IRS employees across the country--some in coordinated 
     protest, others out of financial necessity--won't be clocking 
     in, according to Tony Reardon, president of the National 
     Treasury Employees Union, and several local union officials. 
     The work action is widespread and includes employees from a 
     processing center in Ogden, Utah, to the Brookhaven campus on 
     New York's Long Island.
       The move is the leading edge of pushback from within the 
     IRS, and it signals the potential for civil servants to take 
     actions that could slow or cripple government functions as 
     the shutdown's political stalemate continues in Washington. 
     U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors have begun to 
     call in sick, Transportation Security Administration sickouts 
     at airports have been rising, and federal law enforcement 
     agencies say the shutdown is increasing stress among agents 
     and affecting investigations.
       ``They are definitely angry that they're not getting paid, 
     and maybe some of them are angry enough to express their 
     anger this way,'' said Reardon, whose union represents 
     150,000 employees at 33 federal agencies and departments. 
     ``But these employees live paycheck to paycheck, and they 
     can't scrape up the dollars to get to work or pay for child 
     care.''
       Not receiving pay for more than a month has taken a toll on 
     employees across the government, but especially on those who 
     are not in high-salary jobs. The employees summoned back from 
     furlough to process tax refunds are paid between $25,800 and 
     $51,000 a year, depending on their seniority. IRS employees 
     will miss a second paycheck Monday if the government does not 
     reopen this week.
       ``I'm at the point where I cannot afford to go to work,'' 
     said Marissa Scott, 31, an IRS customer service 
     representative who is out on hardship leave. Scott lives 
     outside Kansas City, Mo., and drives 98 miles round trip to 
     work each day. ``I cannot afford to fill my gas tank.''
       Scott, who has worked at the IRS for four years, says she 
     typically helps as many as 50 people a day with their returns 
     during tax season, including U.S. troops stationed overseas. 
     She said the shutdown could delay refunds for months, and 
     without employees like her on the job, ``it's going to be a 
     disaster all around.''
       Many of the IRS employees who are choosing not to come to 
     work despite getting called back are taking advantage of a 
     provision in the union contract that allows them to miss work 
     if they suffer a ``hardship'' during a shutdown, according to 
     the labor groups.
       That could mean a blown car tire, an empty gas tank or a 
     child-care bill.
       ``I have fielded no less than 30 to 40 calls, emails or 
     text messages about hardship requests from employees daily 
     since Thursday,'' said Shannon Ellis, president of the NTEU's 
     Chapter 66 in Kansas City.
       In Andover, Mass., more than 100 customer service 
     representatives, electronic filing workers and other IRS 
     employees plan to use the hardship exemption and won't report 
     to work, said Gary Karibian, chapter president of a local 
     union.
       ``I would say a majority of employees are calling out under 
     hardship,'' Karibian said. ``I'm getting reports whole teams 
     are requesting out. One person told me, `I'm the only one on 
     my team here.' ''
       The union lacks an official head count of absent workers--
     the IRS declined to share data on hardship exemptions--but 
     staffers in Fresno, Calif.; Austin; Andover; Kansas City and 
     Atlanta, among other locations, say they won't be showing up 
     for work, Reardon said.
       Duncan Giles, who has worked for 24 years at an IRS call 
     center in Indianapolis, said more workers are requesting 
     hardship leave as they learn it exists.
       ``The more this goes on and the tougher it is to get to 
     work--they simply cannot afford it,'' said Giles, president 
     of NTEU Chapter 49, noting that about 30 of the 170 employees 
     who have been called back to work in Indianapolis have 
     requested the exemption. ``Every single person wants to be at 
     work. They want to help the American taxpayer. But we have to 
     pay for gas and child care.''
       The hardship exemption allows IRS employees not to have to 
     use sick days to be absent from work, and managers must 
     approve the exemptions.
       Lawmakers also have heard reports of IRS staffers intending 
     to miss work and are planning to ask Treasury, Secretary 
     Steven Mnuchin for details when he testifies on Capitol Hill 
     this Thursday, a House aide said.
       The IRS declined to say how many workers are on hardship 
     leave, and spokesman Matt Leas said the IRS is continuing its 
     work to prepare for the beginning of filing season next week.
       ``We are continuing our recall operations, and we continue 
     to assess the situation at this time,'' Leas said.
       The IRS employees' moves come amid broad uncertainty about 
     the Trump administration's attempts to minimize the impact of 
     the shutdown. On Sunday, the number of TSA agents who failed 
     to show up for work hit a record 10 percent, resulting in 
     long wait times. Guards at federal prisons also are calling 
     out at high rates, with union officials at 10 prisons 
     contacted by The Washington Post this month saying the number 
     of employees skipping work has doubled.
       As a result, officers who report for duty often are working 
     16-hour shifts, and prison secretaries and janitors are being 
     forced to patrol the halls and yards.
       ``All I have is pepper spray and a radio to call for 
     help,'' said 52-year-old Opal Brown, who works as a secretary 
     at Hazelton Federal Correctional Institution in West 
     Virginia.
       The FBI Agents Association said in a report Tuesday that 
     the shutdown is hampering the ability of agents to perform 
     their ``duties and fund necessary operations and 
     investigations.''
       USDA meat inspectors also have begun calling in sick--in 
     numbers large enough to trigger an agency crackdown. The 
     inspectors were told Jan. 11 to bring in a doctor's note, 
     even if they were ill for a single day, records show.
       Six days later, after protests from union leaders, agency 
     officials reverted to existing policy, which calls for a 
     doctor's note after three days.
       Some front-line managers at the IRS have threatened their 
     employees and said they could lose their jobs if they put in 
     for the exemption, but Reardon, the union leader, said most 
     have been instructed by senior management to approve the 
     requests.
       IRS employees are some of the most impactful federal 
     workers caught in the middle of the shutdown, as the tax 
     filing season begins and millions of Americans are expected 
     to seek tax refunds in February. Last year, more than $140 
     billion in tax refunds was paid out through early March, 
     according to IRS data.
       Trump has expressed an interest in making sure that tax 
     refunds are paid out next month, believing that if they are 
     delayed he could face major public backlash. His budget 
     office took the unprecedented step this month of ordering 
     thousands of unpaid IRS workers back to the office, saying 
     that processing refunds was an ``essential'' government 
     function even if the workers weren't paid.
       As much as 75 percent of the roughly 4,000 furloughed IRS 
     employees in Kansas City could qualify for hardship leave, 
     said Christina Bennett, executive vice president of the local 
     National Treasury Employees Union chapter.``Right now, 
     they're being lenient,'' Bennett said.
       Employees who process tax refunds, she said, are among the 
     lowest-paid IRS workers. Some are worried about losing their 
     cars.
       Bennett, 63, who has worked nearly four decades at the IRS, 
     most recently as an accountant, said she, too, can no longer 
     afford her commute. She plans to request hardship leave if 
     the government calls her back to work.
       ``I just don't have it,'' she said. ``I'd have to walk a 
     half-hour to get to a bus stop. And it's so cold. We've got 
     rain, snow, rain, snow.''
       Sakeya Cooks, 24, another IRS worker who guides taxpayers 
     through the refund process, said she might never report back 
     to work. She already has applied for a new job at a Kansas 
     City bank.
       ``How am I supposed to live like this?'' she said. ``I'm 
     worried about losing my apartment.''
       John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner, said federal 
     employees are dedicated to the agency's mission but might be 
     reaching their breaking point.
       ``As you put more and more pressure on the system, you 
     increase the risk of a significant glitch,'' Koskinen said. 
     ``If I were the

[[Page H1019]]

     administration, I'd be troubled. The pressure is going to 
     mount.''

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I wasn't kidding when I said I was looking for the olive 
branch in what my friend had to say. I genuinely believe, if you lock 
me and the gentleman from Massachusetts in a room together for 24, 48, 
maybe 72 or 96 hours, we could come to a solution and get us out of 
this box. But it does take sitting down with people that you trust to 
get a hard negotiation done.
  I shared in the Rules Committee the other night, Mr. Speaker, and I 
will share with you today, the story of one of my constituents. His 
name is Doug Jenkins, and this is his story:
  Jeanette Jenkins, age 76, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, passed away on 
Saturday, April 28, 2018. Jeanette was a member of Hebron Baptist 
Church for over 25 years and currently a member of First Baptist Church 
of Atlanta. Jeanette had a passion for serving in many capacities of 
the ministry, as a Sunday school teacher and volunteering in various 
activities. She was an avid reader and enjoyed sewing. She is survived 
by her loving husband of 57 years, Doug.
  Jeanette didn't die of natural causes on April 28, Mr. Speaker. She 
was just running out to pick up some drugs at the drugstore. Her 
husband stayed at home. She was leaving the subdivision, waited for the 
light to turn green, and pulled out, when a van full of gentlemen who 
should not have been in this country, who were not in this country 
legally, ran that red light and killed her. She never recovered 
consciousness; died in the hospital later on that evening.
  We can describe the President of the United States and his commitment 
to border security as a temper tantrum, but it is not true. We can 
describe the President of the United States and his commitment to 
border security as some sort of political fixation, but it is not true.
  The stories that my friends tell about Federal employees missing 
paychecks, those are painful, those are hard, and we can do better. But 
the stories that each and every one of us have about members in our 
community who have lost loved ones, not for a week, not for 2 weeks, 
but forever, because we didn't do our job protecting American borders--
I want to do better.
  I was pleased to see the President talk about agricultural visas and 
how he wanted to expand those programs. It is important to us in 
Georgia. I am excited about EB visas, trying to get more investment in 
this country. We need more. I come from a community of immigrants. 
America's history is founded in immigration, and our future is founded 
there, too.
  But nobody else could have protected Jeanette Jenkins. Nobody. My 
local law enforcement can't do it. My governor can't do it. That 
responsibility falls to the national government and the national 
government alone. The President campaigned on it; the President was 
elected on it; and we have an opportunity to come together and do it.
  I don't want to kick the can down the road for another year. I don't 
want to kick the can down the road for another decade. I don't want to 
have another Jenkins family come into my office and say: Rob, where 
were you? What did you do when you had an opportunity to make a 
difference?
  I regret that we are in the box that we are in. It is a box of our 
own making. But we can get out of it, and we can make America better as 
a result of it. It doesn't have to be a lose-lose. It can be a win-win.
  Nobody is winning today. Nobody has benefited by the shutdown today. 
I cannot negotiate by myself. The President cannot negotiate by 
himself. We need folks to say ``yes'' to the invitation. Take the 
gentleman from Michigan's advice: Ask your leadership, as we have asked 
ours, to lock yourself in that room together and don't come out until 
you have an answer.
  My friend from Massachusetts says he has no preexisting stipulations 
about what the package has to look like. I hope that is true. It has 
not been my experience--stripping out all the pro-life provisions, for 
example. That was something that your conference wanted. Not working on 
the CFPB provisions that the Financial Services Committee had done, not 
including those 20 bipartisan bills, there are conditions that folks 
have, as they should, because they were elected to this House, and they 
are obligated to serve their constituents.
  We can get this done, Mr. Speaker, but I commit to you, we are not 
going to get it done by pointing the finger of blame at 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue. We are going to get it done by coming together 
right here and doing our job, the task the Constitution assigns to us, 
and, that is, agreeing on a provision amongst ourselves and sending it 
to the President for him to accept or to reject.

  I believe in what we can do together, Mr. Speaker, and I hope my 
colleagues will again take ``yes'' to an invitation to the negotiating 
table as an answer.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me just say, at the outset here, that if we all agree that the 
government should be reopened, then what is there to negotiate about? 
We should just open up the government.
  We have no preconditions about opening up the government. We have 
none. The gentleman from Georgia apparently has a precondition: 
whatever the President's whim is on a particular day. Yeah, the 
President did campaign on building a wall, but he didn't get up there 
and say: We want to build a wall and you pay for it, American 
taxpayers. What he campaigned on was saying: I want to build a wall, 
and Mexico is going to pay for it.
  Well, he has had 2 years, and, obviously, he can't get Mexico to pay 
for it, so he wants to saddle the American taxpayers with that bill.
  So, look, the bottom line is, we believe that border security is an 
important issue, and we, on this side, have been more than willing to 
invest in border security, and we are going to continue to do that.
  As I mentioned before to the gentleman, President Trump's shutdown 
has put a strain on local and Federal law enforcement, undermining 
cooperation between them that helps keep our communities safe. While he 
is having his temper tantrum, you know, our local law enforcement 
officials are feeling the strain. That is why local law enforcement 
leaders across the country, including those serving in border States, 
are calling for an end to the shutdown.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter to President Trump and 
Members of Congress.

    [From the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, Jan. 22, 2019]

          Law Enforcement Leaders Call for an End to Shutdown

       Dear President Trump and Members of Congress: As law 
     enforcement leaders who support commonsense immigration 
     reforms consistent with public safety, we write to express 
     our deep concern with the partial shutdown of the federal 
     government.
       State and local law enforcement work constructively with 
     federal law enforcement to combat drug trafficking, gangs, 
     organized crime, and other threats. In addition, the federal 
     government provides needed training, equipment, and funding 
     to state and local law enforcement agencies--support that is 
     now threatened by the ongoing shutdown. A prolonged shutdown 
     threatens this cooperation and strains local resources. It 
     also negatively impacts our colleagues in federal law 
     enforcement, forcing essential law enforcement personnel to 
     work without pay. These circumstances threaten public safety 
     and cannot continue.
       Instead, we call on Congress and the Trump administration 
     to reopen the federal government without delay and work 
     together on bipartisan solutions to improve our immigration 
     system. We believe there is room for compromise.
       While there are partisan disagreements over the need for a 
     border wall across our entire southern border, there is 
     widespread agreement over commonsense steps that can improve 
     border security. A bipartisan deal can build on these areas 
     of agreement, improving border security by focusing on ports 
     of entry, strategically deploying and using technology and 
     ensuring that CBP has clear sight lines all along the Rio 
     Grande. With nearly 700 miles of physical barriers already in 
     place along the southern border, these targeted investments 
     in border security can contribute to improving public safety 
     and reassuring the American people that the border is a 
     priority.
       Similarly, bipartisan immigration reform will benefit the 
     United States as a whole. We believe that immigrants should 
     feel safe in their communities and comfortable calling upon 
     law enforcement to report crimes, serving as witnesses, and 
     calling for help in

[[Page H1020]]

     emergencies. By reforming our immigration system to bring 
     undocumented immigrants into the legal immigration system, 
     immigrants are incentivized to become constructive partners 
     with local police in public safety initiatives. Bipartisan 
     immigration reform can provide undocumented immigrants with 
     an opportunity to earn citizenship, requiring them to pay a 
     fine and back taxes and pass a background check, encouraging 
     further civic responsibility. This would improve community 
     policing and safety for everyone.
       The current impasse is an opportunity for Congress and the 
     Trump administration to strike a bipartisan agreement to end 
     the shutdown and fix our immigration system. The shutdown 
     prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from having 
     access to needed federal resources, strains federal law 
     enforcement personnel, and undermines cooperation between 
     state, federal, and local law enforcement.
       We urge Congress and the Trump administration to break this 
     deadlock and improve public safety by reopening the 
     government without delay and working to reach a bipartisan 
     compromise that includes commonsense border security as part 
     of a comprehensive reform of the immigration system.
       Thank you,
       Chief Art Acevedo, LEITF Co-Chair, Houston, TX; Chief J. 
     Thomas Manger, LEITF Co-Chair, Montgomery County, MD; 
     Executive Director Dwayne Crawford, National Organization of 
     Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE); Executive Director 
     Chuck Wexler, Police Executive Research Forum (PERF); Chief 
     Ramon Batista, Mesa, AZ; Chief Roy Bermudez, Nogales, AZ; 
     Sheriff Tony Estrada, Santa Cruz County, AZ; Chief Chris 
     Magnus, Tucson, AZ; Chief Steve Stahl, Maricopa, AZ; Chief 
     Roberto Villasenor, Retired, Tucson, AZ; Chief David 
     Valentin, Santa Ana, CA; Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, Pitkin County, 
     CO; Chief Dwight Henninger, Vail, CO; Chief Peter Newsham, 
     Washington, DC; Chief Orlando Rolon, Orlando, FL; Sheriff 
     Paul H. Fitzgerald, Story County, IA; Chief Wayne Jerman, 
     Cedar Rapids, IA; Director of Public Safety Mark Prosser, 
     Storm Lake, IA; Chief Mike Tupper, Marshalltown, IA; Sheriff 
     John Idleburg, Lake County, IL.
       Chief Michael Diekhoff, Bloomington, IN; Chief Scott 
     Ruszkowski, South Bend, IN; Chief Ron Teachman, Retired, 
     South Bend, IN; Chief James Hawkins, Retired, Garden City, 
     KS; Commissioner William Gross, Boston, MA; Chief Brian Kyes, 
     Chelsea, MA; Sheriff Kevin Joyce, Cumberland County, ME; 
     Sheriff Jerry Clayton, Washtenaw County, MI; Chief Ron 
     Haddad, Dearborn, MI; Chief Todd Axtell, Saint Paul, MN; 
     Sheriff Mike Haley, Retired, Washoe County, NV; Chief Cel 
     Rivera, Lorain, OH; Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare, 
     Providence, RI; Chief Fred Fletcher, Retired, Chattanooga, 
     TN; Chief Frank Dixon, Denton, TX; Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, 
     Harris County, TX; Chief Andy Harvey, Palestine, TX; Sheriff 
     Sally Hernandez, Travis County, TX; Chief Mike Markle, Corpus 
     Christi, TX; Sheriff Lupe Valdez, Retired, Dallas County, TX.
       Chief Mike Brown, Salt Lake City, UT; Chief Chris Burbank, 
     Retired/FBI National Executive Institute Associates 
     President, Salt Lake City, UT; Sheriff Dana Lawhorne, 
     Alexandria, VA; Chief Carmen Best, Seattle, WA; Sheriff Mitzi 
     Johanknecht, King County, WA; Sheriff David J. Mahoney, Dane 
     County, WI.

  Mr. McGOVERN. ``The New York Times'' reported yesterday that the 
Trump shutdown has also impacted the FBI's efforts to crack down on 
child trafficking, violent crime, and terrorism, needlessly putting our 
communities and constituents at risk. I say to my friends: Look at what 
you are doing here. Look what is happening. This has to end.
  For example, a long-term MS-13 investigation that has resulted in 23 
gang indictments has been constrained because of the inability--get 
this--the inability to pay for interpreters needed to communicate with 
informants. That is insane, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, I include that article from The New York Times in the 
Record.

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 22, 2019]

   Report Says Shutdown Is Impeding F.B.I.'s Law Enforcement Efforts

                           (By Katie Benner)

       Washington.--As the partial government shutdown enters its 
     fifth week, the funding freeze has impeded F.B.I. efforts to 
     crack down on child trafficking, violent crime and terrorism, 
     according to a report issued Tuesday by the group that 
     represents the bureau's 13,000 special agents.
       ``The resources available to support the work of F.B.I. 
     agents are currently stretched to the breaking point and are 
     dwindling day by day,'' said Thomas O'Connor, the president 
     of the group, the F.B.I. Agents Association.
       The report reflected the scope and seriousness of the 
     shutdown's effects, and came as President Trump and the 
     leaders of the two parties on Capitol Hill maneuvered to find 
     a path out of the impasse. The Senate scheduled procedural 
     votes for Thursday on competing Republican and Democratic 
     proposals, although neither appears likely to win sufficient 
     support to pass.
       The Justice Department, which oversees the F.B.I., is one 
     of the government agencies affected by the partial shutdown, 
     along with the State Department, Transportation Department, 
     Agriculture Department, Interior Department and others.
       Mr. O'Connor said that national security was directly 
     related to the bureau's financial security. ``It is critical 
     to fund the F.B.I. immediately,'' he said.
       Because of the shutdown, the F.B.I. has been unable to 
     issue grand jury subpoenas and indictments in several cases 
     cited in the report.
       An agent working on an MS-13 investigation that has gone on 
     for more than three years and resulted in 23 gang indictments 
     for racketeering, murder and money laundering has been 
     hamstrung by his inability to pay for an interpreter who can 
     communicate with his Spanish-speaking informants, the report 
     said.
       The bureau has also not been able to pay its informants, an 
     important source of intelligence in terrorism, narcotics, 
     gang, illegal firearm and other national security cases. The 
     F.B.I. could lose those informants.
       ``It is not a switch that we can turn on and off,'' the 
     report said.
       The 72-page report described how field offices in some 
     cases have run out of basic supplies like tires for vehicles, 
     copy paper and forensic supplies like DNA swab kits, and do 
     not have the funds to buy replacements.
       The F.B.I. is not the only part of the Justice Department 
     struggling during the funding lapse. The department has had 
     to ask the federal courts to postpone some major civil 
     litigation, including a lawsuit over the lawfulness of the 
     Affordable Care Act, which the department no longer defends 
     in court.
       The federal courts that hear Justice Department cases are 
     also running out of money. The nation's legal system could 
     soon be hobbled if Congress and the Trump administration 
     cannot come to an agreement to reopen the portions of 
     government that have been closed since last month. The 
     federal courts will run out of money by around Feb. 1, 
     requiring them to cut back to essential services at that 
     point and furlough some workers.
       The F.B.I. Agents Association has been warning of the 
     negative effects of the shutdown for nearly two weeks.
       On Jan. 10, the association and representatives from all of 
     the F.B.I. field offices signed a petition that said the 
     shutdown could create financial issues for agents that would 
     make it hard for them to pass the routine financial 
     background checks necessary for them to obtain certain 
     security clearances. They also said the pay freeze would make 
     it hard to retain and attract agents.
       The latest report from the association, which is based on 
     the accounts of scores of agents, outlines more dire 
     consequences. The group allowed the agents to speak 
     anonymously to protect them from retaliation and other 
     negative repercussions.
       Correction: Jan. 22, 2019--An earlier version of this 
     article incorrectly described the F.B.I. Agents Association. 
     It is a professional association, not a union.

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, 40 million Americans struggle with hunger 
and food insecurity, and the Trump shutdown has needlessly made this 
terrible problem worse. Without funding for USDA in place, access to 
SNAP benefits for hungry families is threatened. Millions and millions 
of people will be affected.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a report from the Center on 
Budget and Policy Priorities titled ``Many SNAP Households Will 
Experience Long Gap Between Monthly Benefits Even If Shutdown Ends.''

    [From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jan. 22, 2019]

Many SNAP Households Will Experience Long Gap Between Monthly Benefits 
                         Even if Shutdown Ends

                         (By Dorothy Rosenbaum)

       The Administration and states' efforts to issue February 
     Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food 
     stamp) benefits early to avoid deep benefit cuts in that 
     month that might otherwise have occurred as a result of the 
     partial government shutdown have created a new problem: a 
     lengthy delay between February benefits (which most 
     beneficiaries received by January 20) and March benefits.
       In turn, this will place additional strain on the emergency 
     food network and other community resources, which already are 
     stretched.


Most Households Receiving February SNAP Benefits in January; March SNAP 
                 Benefits Remain Uncertain and at Risk

       The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on January 8 
     that it would work with states to pay the vast majority of 
     February SNAP benefits early, by January 20, to ensure that 
     SNAP has the funding to stay open through February 2019. 
     Despite the operational challenges of this approach, it 
     appears that every state was able to issue benefits early, 
     and in combination with SNAP's contingency reserve, there 
     will be sufficient federal funding to cover all February SNAP 
     benefits as a result.
       These recent actions that USDA and states have taken 
     protect millions of low-income households--including millions 
     of poor children, parents, elderly people, and people with

[[Page H1021]]

     disabilities--from having their basic food assistance cut 
     back substantially in February. With a continuing shutdown, 
     USDA would have to issue additional guidance to states 
     explaining whether it has other options available to cover 
     all of March benefits, or if not, how deep a benefit cut will 
     be required in March and how states should implement it.
       Ending the shutdown, and funding and reopening the 
     Agriculture Department and other parts of the government that 
     now are shuttered, would be the best way to avoid cutting 
     millions of households' SNAP food assistance. For the 
     remainder of this paper, we assume that SNAP will receive 
     funding so that full SNAP benefits can continue in March and 
     subsequent months--an assumption that is far from assured.


Many Households Will Have a Long SNAP Benefit Gap Even if the Shutdown 
                                  Ends

       Some states may be able to adjust their March issuance 
     schedules to partly address this issue, but if all states 
     paid February SNAP benefits on January 20 and don't make 
     changes to their March issuance schedules, we estimate that 
     about 90 percent of SNAP households that receive ongoing SNAP 
     benefits--about 15 million low-income households--will 
     experience a more than 40-day gap between issuances. Almost 
     60 percent will experience a gap of more than 45 days, and 25 
     percent will experience more than a 50-day gap.
       States have long had the option to pay SNAP benefits to 
     different SNAP households on different days of the month. 
     Spreading payments across multiple days evens state workloads 
     across the month and helps to ensure that retailers that 
     participate in SNAP do not face a severe increase in demand 
     for food and staffing on the day that SNAP benefits become 
     available. Any given household, however, must receive its 
     SNAP benefits on or about the same day of the month, usually 
     resulting in only 28 to 31 days between SNAP issuance dates. 
     Only seven states issue SNAP to all households in the state 
     on the first day of the month. Most others spread issuance 
     out, often over ten or 20 days, and usually based on 
     households' Social Security or case numbers or the first 
     letter of the head of household's last name.
       In fact, SNAP law requires that ``no household experience 
     an interval between issuances of more than 40 days. It is not 
     clear whether USDA will waive this requirement in response to 
     the unusual circumstances resulting from the shutdown--as 
     seems likely--or whether the agency will require states to 
     develop an alternative issuance schedule to avoid gaps of 
     longer than 40 days One possibility would be for states to 
     change March issuance to occur on March 1, and to stagger the 
     adjustment back to households' normal issuance cycle over 
     several months, as needed to stay within the 40-day maximum 
     interval between issuances.


   Households in Almost All States Will See Gaps Longer Than 40 Days

       The length of the gaps between February and March issuances 
     will vary by state, but the vast majority will be longer than 
     40 days.
       States where all households will have 40 days between SNAP 
     issuances: Seven states, accounting for about 2 percent of 
     SNAP issuances nationally, issue SNAP benefits to all 
     households on the first day of the month. In these states, 
     the gap for ongoing SNAP households that received the early 
     February issuance on January 20 would be exactly 40 days, as 
     households would receive their March benefits on March 1. 
     Those states are: Alaska, Guam, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode 
     Island, Vermont, and Virgin Islands.
       States where households will have 40-49 days between SNAP 
     issuances: Another 21 states issue all (or almost all) of 
     their ongoing SNAP benefits within the first ten days of the 
     month. In these states, SNAP households will experience a 40- 
     to 49-day gap in benefits. Those states are: California, 
     Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, 
     Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New 
     Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, 
     Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
       States where some households will have 50 days or more 
     between SNAP issuances: About half the states have some 
     households that will have more than 50 days between SNAP 
     issuances if the states do not change their issuance 
     schedules. In states that issue some SNAP benefits for 
     ongoing SNAP households after the 10th day of the month, 
     those households will have at least a 50-day gap; households 
     that typically receive their benefits after the 15th day of 
     the month will have a gap of 55 days or more. These 
     households account for much of these states' ongoing SNAP 
     benefits: in 17 states, 50 percent or more of benefits will 
     be issued with at least a 50-day gap.


 Long Period Between SNAP Issuances Will Cause Hardship for Some SNAP 
                               Households

       Assuming SNAP has full funding to continue in March, SNAP 
     households should have available the same total amount of 
     SNAP benefits over the three-month period (January through 
     March) that they otherwise would have. However, the change in 
     the timing of February's issuance and the long interval 
     between January 20 and a March SNAP issuance is likely to 
     cause hardship for some households and, as a result, increase 
     the demands for emergency food assistance and other community 
     services.
       It's well documented that SNAP benefits normally run out 
     for most households before the end of the month. Within a 
     week of receiving SNAP, households redeem over half of their 
     SNAP allotments. By the end of the second week, SNAP 
     households have redeemed over three-quarters of their 
     benefits, and by the end of the third week they have redeemed 
     90 percent.
       SNAP benefits are not intended to cover the entire month 
     for most households. The SNAP benefit formula assumes that 
     families will spend 30 percent of their available cash income 
     for food. Many households spend their SNAP benefits quickly 
     because they can only be spent on food. Cash income from 
     other sources is needed to pay for other expenses, such as 
     rent or mortgage, utilities, essential non-food items, 
     clothing, gasoline, and car repairs. As a result, families 
     use their SNAP benefits first to make food purchases, saving 
     cash for other needed expenses.
       Moreover, SNAP benefits are low. SNAP is intended to 
     provide additional benefits to meet the cost of the Thrifty 
     Food Plan (TFP), the Agriculture Department's estimate of a 
     bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet. But substantial 
     research has found that the TFP, which currently provides at 
     most $1.85 per person per meal for a family of three (the 
     average benefit is about $1.40 per person per meal), is not 
     sufficient to meet the needs of most low-income households.
       Because SNAP benefits often fall short of meeting basic 
     monthly food needs, and because struggling households have to 
     use available cash to meet non-food expenses, families can 
     find themselves at the end of their 30-day SNAP benefit 
     payment cycle without enough food or the resources available 
     to buy more food. Research has found that food spending, food 
     consumption, and diet quality fall and that food insecurity, 
     hospital admissions, and school disciplinary problems rise 
     after households have exhausted their monthly SNAP benefits. 
     SNAP families often have to turn to social networks, food 
     pantries, and others to get through the month.
       Given the experience of the strain on low-income 
     households' budgets and community resources under normal SNAP 
     issuance patterns--when the gap between SNAP issuances is no 
     more than 31 days--stretching that gap to 40 to 50 days or 
     longer could create substantial hardship and hunger and 
     sharply increase demand for local emergency food providers 
     and other community social services providers.
       Many SNAP households may find ways to weather this 
     disruption. In general, households that participate in SNAP 
     demonstrate a capacity to manage limited budgets. But 
     extending the time between monthly benefit payments for the 
     vast majority of SNAP households will certainly cause 
     difficulty for some substantial number of poor families. Many 
     families may not be able to budget the advance food-
     assistance benefit over an extended period of time for 
     several reasons, including:
       Lack of information. USDA, state officials, retailers, and 
     state and local nonprofit groups and charities are working to 
     educate SNAP households about the early issuance of February 
     benefits and the fact that those households will not receive 
     another issuance in February. States are urging households to 
     factor the early payment and the delay until a March payment 
     into their February food budget. But USDA did not require 
     states to send SNAP households individual notices about the 
     change in February benefits. Instead, states are trying to 
     use newspaper stories, posts on their websites, fliers in 
     local welfare offices, and their partners' networks to spread 
     the news about the changes in the timing of SNAP benefit 
     delivery. Many households likely won't understand that the 
     benefits they received around January 20 are an early 
     issuance of their February benefit and that a lengthy gap 
     will ensue before they receive their next benefit insurance.
       Confusion and misinformation. Reports are emerging that 
     there is considerable confusion about why households are 
     receiving early SNAP benefits for February and what to expect 
     in the future, especially given the uncertainty resulting 
     from the government shutdown. The confusion may result in 
     some SNAP households spending their SNAP benefits relatively 
     quickly, exacerbating their food shortages in the latter part 
     of February and the first part of March.
       Household income fluctuations or unexpected expenses. 
     Households living with very low incomes experience shocks to 
     their monthly income on a routine basis. Workers can see 
     their hours and pay reduced with little warning. Individuals 
     with monthly income below the poverty line rarely have 
     savings to manage unexpected expenses. If their income drops 
     or expenses spike unexpectedly during this timeframe, perhaps 
     because of a high winter heating bill, households generally 
     will use available cash to manage their non-food needs, 
     leaving less money to buy food at the end of the SNAP payment 
     cycle.
       Differing abilities among SNAP participants. Even with 
     advance warning and robust information, some SNAP households 
     can struggle to manage a significant shift in their budget, 
     particularly those with cognitive limitations. Managing a 
     major monthly budget shift like this could be difficult for 
     some individuals with mental impairments who do not receive 
     assistance to manage their benefits.


                               Conclusion

       Even if the government shutdown is resolved quickly, the 
     disruption in the timing

[[Page H1022]]

     of February SNAP benefits is likely to make it hard for many 
     SNAP households to meet their basic food needs as they wait 
     for their March SNAP benefit payment. Some 30 million people 
     in about 15 million households--the vast majority of SNAP 
     households--will not get their March benefit until at least 
     40 days after they received their February payment. Of these, 
     8 million people in more than 4 million households will need 
     to wait more than 50 days. This benefit disruption will 
     likely cause hardship for a substantial number of these 
     households. We expect more households to try to turn to 
     emergency food networks and other social services for help as 
     they seek to stretch their benefits across more days.

  Mr. McGOVERN. The crisis already has started. Access to food for SNAP 
beneficiaries also is being threatened by the shutdown, as reports 
indicate that 2,500 retailers around the country are unable to take any 
form of SNAP EBT payments.
  As PBS reported over the weekend, the licenses for these retailers 
are on hold due to the shutdown.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the transcript of the PBS story.

  PBS News Hour: Why Many Stores Can't Accept Food Stamps During the 
                                Shutdown

                             (Jan 17, 2019)

       While so far there have been no major lapses in benefits 
     for the nearly 39 million people who depend on food stamps 
     amid the partial government shutdown, 2,500 retailers around 
     the country are unable to take any form of SNAP EBT payments.

     Judy Woodruff:
       With the government shutdown now in its 27th day, many 
     federal programs have been affected, including food stamps.
       So far, there is no major lapse in benefits used by nearly 
     39 million people each month. That's because of the U.S. 
     Department of Agriculture. It found a way to pay SNAP 
     benefits, as they are called, earlier than normal.
       February benefits, awarded through a debit-style card used 
     at stores, are being paid out this week. Several states, 
     including California and Florida, are warning users to be 
     careful and make sure they manage to make the money last 
     longer.
       For 2,500 retailers, the problem is already here. That's 
     because those stores needed to renew a license for the 
     Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT debit card program, and 
     they failed to meet a deadline before the shutdown. Those 
     renewals, required every five years, are on hold.
       Sarah Jackson is an employee at one store in Northern 
     Arkansas.

     Sarah Jackson:
       We have been completely unable to take any form of SNAP EBT 
     payments. Grocery stores need a license to process EBT 
     payments, and ours expired and was unable to be renewed on 
     schedule because of the government shutdown.
       Because of an argument about a wall, I have to look people 
     in the eyes every day and tell them they can't pay for their 
     food, for their children's food.

     Judy Woodruff:
       Sarah Jackson in Arkansas.
       We reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a 
     response. A spokesperson wrote back--quote--``Over 99 percent 
     of SNAP retailers are able to accept benefits as usual. There 
     is a small percentage of stores that failed to complete a 
     required reauthorization process that was due on December 21. 
     These stores can take steps to update their status once 
     funding is restored''--end quote.

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on about the 
impacts here. If we all agree we should end the shutdown, let's just 
end the shutdown.
  Maybe my Republican friends should be calling Senate Majority Leader 
Mitch McConnell to say, you know, let's come together and pass a bill 
to reopen the government without any conditions. That is what the 
American people overwhelmingly want.
  Mr. Speaker, I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle 
rushing to congratulate the President for his so-called compromise plan 
over the weekend. Let me repeat: This is no compromise at all. Just 
read the fine print.
  The Washington Post said simply: ``The proposal on the Dreamers was 
whittled down to the point where it only undoes the disaster Trump 
himself is orchestrating.''
  That would be like an arsonist offering you a fire extinguisher to 
put out the wildfire that they created. That is a compromise? Are you 
kidding me?
  I have an idea. Mr. President, stop causing disasters. Congress 
should be more than a cleanup crew for your messes and failed policies.
  Let me close with this, Mr. Speaker. When I think of the best of the 
United States, I think of the Statue of Liberty. It wasn't built from 
within our borders. It was gifted to us by friends from abroad, the 
French, to represent the freedom that we stand for, to welcome all 
those immigrants who come to this country, not to transport drugs or 
crime, as the President portrays, but to live a better life that they 
can find only here in the United States.
  When President Trump thinks of the best of America, he dreams about a 
concrete wall, something to prevent immigrants from coming here, 
something that offends our allies, that would make our country, a 
global leader, turn away from the rest of the world at a time when 
American leadership is badly needed.
  On top of all of that, a wall will not work. It would be ineffective. 
If we built a 50-foot wall, someone would build a 51-foot ladder.
  As I said, it is a medieval idea when we have better solutions here 
in the 21st century: cameras, sensors, radar, and drones. If anyone 
doubts that they work, go visit the border, as I have.
  Democrats are for border security. The minibus includes $328 million 
in new funding to help secure the border. This is what professionals 
are asking us for. A concrete wall is being discussed as a viable 
option only at the President's rallies and in the right-wing media.
  Here in the real world, hundreds of thousands of people are 
struggling. They need us to reopen the government today, right now, not 
years from now, as the President has suggested.
  These bipartisan, bicameral bills will get us there. This continuing 
resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security will get us 
there. Let's end this shutdown and reopen this government.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this rule and the underlying 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.


 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  January 23, 2019, on page H1022, the following appeared: Mr. 
Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The 
question is on ordering the previous question.
  
  The online version has been corrected to read: Mr. Speaker, I 
yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous 
question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered. The 
SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 

  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________