Congressional Record, Volume 165 Issue 15 (Thursday, January 24, 2019)

[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 15 (Thursday, January 24, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H1183-H1188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

(Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Hoyer), my friend and the majority leader of the House, for the purpose
of inquiring as to the schedule for next week.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr.
Scalise) for yielding the time.
Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour
debate. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the

[[Page H1184]]

House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for
legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for
legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.
We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The
complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business
tomorrow.
Members are advised that additional legislative items are possible,
including additional legislation related to fiscal year 2019
appropriations.
I want to make it clear to Members that when we leave today or
tomorrow, we will leave with the notice to Members that they are
subject to being asked to come back Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning,
or any day thereafter, if there is a possibility of opening up the
Government of the United States, so that it can serve the American
people.
Mr. SCALISE. As we, Mr. Speaker, work to reopen the government and to
secure the border, clearly, there has been a divide on the other side.
We were trying to get some kind of agreement on how much the majority
is willing to work with us on, to put an offer on the table.
If you look, Mr. Speaker, last week on Saturday, the President of the
United States addressed the Nation and laid out a new proposal. And,
Mr. Speaker, what the President laid out was not only a proposal that
reopens the government and secures the border, but also offered the
suggestion that DACA could be a part of this negotiation, at least to
start working on some kind of solution on DACA.
In the past, Mr. Speaker, we were just talking about the request from
the Department of Homeland Security, the $5.7 billion that was
requested by the people who risk their lives to keep our country safe.
Their request, Mr. Speaker, was that is how much it was going to cost
to secure the border.
So far, we have not seen a single counteroffer from the majority. In
fact, when the President spoke to the Nation at 4:07 p.m., before the
President even walked to the microphone at 4:07 p.m., at 4 p.m., the
Speaker of the House had already put out a statement opposing the plan
that hadn't even been presented.
Mr. Speaker, what I would like to ask the majority leader is, if we
are trying to get a resolution and if the President continues to try to
lay out alternatives, if the President's latest alternative wasn't even
offered until 4:07 p.m., why did the Speaker of the House already
reject it before it was even presented? Is there an actual desire to
work together to solve the problem, or is the answer going to continue
to be no alternative, no alternative?
At some point, we have to get an agreement on how to solve this
problem.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, let me make very clear that which ought to be very
clear: We believe the President of the United States, with the aiding
and abetting of the majority leader of the United States Senate, has
taken the Government of the United States hostage, and the President of
the United States is asking for ransom, and that ransom is to accept
his policy or go home and stay shut down.
I will tell the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in this body
for a long time. I am in my fourth decade. I have never supported
shutting down the Government of the United States.
Now, the gentleman may point out that I have voted from time to time
against bills that would have opened it up because of things that were
in the bills and these bills passed the House of Representatives when
you were in charge. They did not pass the Senate, of course.

{time} 1100

I believe that shutting down the people's government is an
unacceptable--unacceptable--tactic in a democracy when one is
discussing differences that need to be resolved. Unacceptable.
Furthermore, as I said on the floor the other day, Mr. Speaker, I can
find no free government in the world that shuts itself down, other than
the United States of America. Now, we have a relatively unique system
of government.
But I will tell my friend that we are for border security. We have
supported bills that affected border security. During our tenure, there
was more border security fencing, I will tell the gentleman,
constructed than when they had been in charge over the last 8 years.
Look at the record.
But the issue is, we are not going to negotiate at the point of a
gun, which is shutting down the Government of the United States,
affecting 800,000 of our employees.
Some of you say: I run a business. I am a businessman.
Well, if you are a car company, or you are a real estate company, or
you are a contractor, or whatever you may do, can you tell your
employees: I am going to have you work, but by the way, I am not going
to pay you.
Mr. Speaker, we want to negotiate. We want to get this resolved, but
we are not going to pretend this is business as usual. This is the
longest shutdown in history, and the other side has consistently voted
against every bill that we have offered to open up government.
Now, the other side offered a bill where they want to pay employees
while they don't work. I voted against that. I think the taxpayer
deserves to have his employees or her employees working, and, yes, he
should pay them and she should pay them for working, not some stopgap
measure to pretend that somehow we are lessening the consequences of a
shutdown, in light of a consistent, overwhelming vote on the other side
of the aisle to keep government shut down.
I tell my friend, he voted against Boehner, when he was the Speaker
of the House, requesting to open up the government. Maybe he believes,
Mr. Speaker, that shutting down the government is good policy, good
practice, the way to treat your employees. I emphatically reject such a
premise.
When the gentleman asked me if will we negotiate, I am pretty proud
of my reputation, having negotiated with George H.W. Bush a major piece
of legislation that was very controversial, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, negotiating in league with Roy Blunt, one of the
gentleman's predecessors on his side of the aisle; and Jay Rockefeller
and Senator Kit Bond from Missouri to get FISA, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was a very controversial issue,
resolved, with Democratic and Republican support, and President George
W. Bush signed that bill.
So anybody who knows my reputation knows that I am prepared to sit
down and come to agreement, because that is what you need to do in a
democracy. I won't get everything I want; you won't get everything you
want.
But the fact of the matter is, as long as government is shut down, we
are not going to have business as usual.
I remind the gentleman that his side was in charge last year and went
11 months and 20 days and didn't bring a Homeland Security bill to the
floor of this House--11 months and 20 days. It was in the waning 10
days of the year when his majority brought a bill to the floor that
they knew wouldn't pass the Senate.
We have passed Senate bills that would open up the government. We
have sent simple CRs with no controversy to them that would have opened
up the government. We have sent 10 different bills, 11 different bills.
The 12th lost on suspension, because their side voted against it.
So I tell my friend, I am prepared to negotiate. I am prepared to
negotiate in good faith. I will tell the gentleman, the Speaker of this
House is prepared to do the same, and our Members are prepared to do
the same.
There are significant, strong differences. We differ on whether the
wall is an effective way to keep the border secure. But we agree on a
number of other things.
When the gentleman and I were down at the White House, for instance,
the magnetic resonance of trucks and vehicles that are carrying
contraband, drugs, guns, and other material that we don't want to come
into the United States, we can agree on that. We can agree on much, I
think, of border security.
That was a long answer to the gentleman's question, but until we open
up government, it is not going to be business as usual, until we open
up government and put those 800,000 people back to work. I represent
62,000 of them.

[[Page H1185]]

Now, not all of them are laid off, because we funded some portions of
government. But a significant number of them are, and they are hurting.
A TSA agent comes in at $28,000 per year. We make substantially more
than that, and they are living paycheck to paycheck. Tomorrow, they are
not going to get a paycheck. But they have been told by their
government they have to work, and because they are conscientious,
patriotic Americans, they are working. But you can't expect them to
work much longer. We can't expect people to work when they are not
getting paid, when they are not getting respected, when they are not
getting treated as we would want to be treated ourselves.
So I say to the gentleman, in answer to his question, we are prepared
to discuss and negotiate and compromise, but not in the face of this
shutdown.
I would hope that it would end. It is the wrong policy. It is a cruel
policy. It is hurting America. It is hurting our economy. It is hurting
our reputation around the world. And it is hurting our people who work
for us.
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman uses terms like ``hostages.''
The gentleman uses terms like ``ransom.'' I was in those meetings in
the White House with the gentleman from Maryland and the Speaker of the
House. In fact, in our third meeting--by the way, in all three
meetings, not one time did the Speaker of the House put any alternative
on the table.

President Trump isn't the one who said: I need $5.7 billion to secure
the border.
Our experts, our experts at the Department of Homeland Security, who
risk their lives to keep our country safe, said it is going to take
$5.7 billion to secure the border.
We can all talk about border security, Mr. Speaker. At some point,
you have to be willing to put the dollars behind the rhetoric. So when
the Department, Mr. Speaker, says we need $5.7 billion, if your side
thinks that there is some lesser amount that it is going to take to
keep our country safe, then put the amount of money on the table. So
far, the only offer that has been put on the table by the Speaker of
the House, she said a dollar, and she laughed about it, a dollar. That
is the only offer that has been put on the table. It is not a joking
matter, by the way. And a dollar is not going to secure America's
border. So what amount will the other side agree to?
The President of the United States looked at the Speaker and said:
Okay, I will tell you what, we disagree on a lot of this, but I will
agree to keep the government open, even with the things I disagree
with, for the next 30 days, if, at the end of that 30 days, you are
willing to negotiate with me on the wall and the border security.
The Speaker of the House said no. She said no to that offer from the
President. She wants to keep everybody hostage. She wants to keep the
pay of workers hostage.
In fact, now the Speaker of the House wants to keep the State of the
Union hostage. How ludicrous is that? George Washington, in 1790,
addressed a joint session of Congress. They were meeting in New York
back then. George Washington addressed a joint session of Congress.
This is a constitutional requirement of the President. Historically,
for generations now, every single year, for generations--Republican
Speaker, Democrat Speaker, Republican President, Democrat President--
the Speaker of the House has invited the President to give a State of
the Union.
In fact, that agreement and that offer went out on January 3. The
Speaker sent a letter to the President, inviting him to come here in
this Chamber and address the State of the Union next Tuesday, and the
President accepted that offer. And the Speaker of the House this time,
for the first time in the history of our country, rescinded the offer,
took it back. She doesn't want the people in this country to hear what
the President has to say about the security of this country.
Maybe, Mr. Speaker, the Speaker of the House doesn't want the country
to hear the President's message, but do you know what? The people of
this country want to hear the President's message and deserve that
opportunity. So who is holding whom hostage?
Look at some of the votes. We had a vote today on the House floor to
pay everybody, to pay everybody who has worked or who has been
furloughed. Those people who are securing our border today without pay,
they ought to get paid. We had a vote on the House floor, and we almost
got there: 200-214. Mr. Speaker, every Republican voted yes; 13
Democrats voted yes. Last week, only six Democrats voted yes.
The good news is, Mr. Speaker, a growing number of Democrats are
recognizing they have to be willing to work to solve this problem and
pay people who have worked. So we have had those votes on the House
floor.
The gentleman talks about opening government. The gentleman talks
about bills they have brought to the House floor that we voted against.
The gentleman talks about the Senate bills that were passed. At the
beginning, the first week of this new majority, when they brought a
bill to the floor to fund what was so-called, or presented as, the
Senate bills, some of those bills had passed the Senate, Mr. Speaker,
but not all of them. In fact, one of those bills would not have passed
the Senate because it would have allowed taxpayer funding to go to
foreign government entities that provide abortion.
So let's get this right, Mr. Speaker, and let the Record reflect that
the other side was willing to bring a bill to the floor a few weeks ago
that allows taxpayer money to go to fund abortion in foreign countries,
but they wouldn't put a dime of money in that bill to secure America's
border. There was not a dime of money from the President's request to
secure America's border, but taxpayer money went to fund abortions in
foreign countries. That was in that bill.
Sure, I voted no on that, because those are not the values of this
country. Let's be serious about this.
Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about what it will take to resolve
it, I think the gentleman from Maryland and I could come to an
agreement. So far, for whatever reason, the Speaker has been unwilling
to put a counteroffer on the table.
When you have a negotiation, when two sides are apart--frankly, I
don't know why we are apart on this. It is not the President's number.
The $5.7 billion request is from the people who are risking their lives
to keep our country safe. If they say that is what they need, we ought
to take them at their word.
And if we disagree with them, if we disagree, Mr. Speaker, then at
least show what their offer is, what their amount of money is, and put
that on the table and back it up with something.
If they say the wall is the issue, maybe it is personal, maybe it is
because President Trump wanted it. Back in 2006, Chuck Schumer voted
for the Secure Fence Act, which would have authorized $50-plus billion
to build fencing, which, in essence, is a lot of what the Department is
asking for today. If he was authorizing $50 billion--by the way, they
didn't put any money behind it.
Again, it is always good to give the Fourth of July speech and say
you are for something. Unless you are willing to put the money behind
it, you are not there.
So he said $50 billion was okay for fencing, but, today, he is not
willing to put a dollar behind, in essence, fencing, or whatever you
want to call it.
The President said he is willing to negotiate and let you ban a
cement wall. The President said he is willing to do that. Right now,
the experts are saying steel slats are the best approach.

The majority leader himself, just a few days ago, said, ``Physical
barriers are part of the solution.'' I think we are making headway. The
majority leader agrees that physical barriers are part of the solution,
maybe because the Speaker is saying that walls are immoral. In some
strange way, people who build a house, you could build the strongest
door in the world--and I agree, the gentleman from Maryland and I agree
on enhancing port security, the points of entry.
We have points of entry all around our country. If you want to come
here and seek asylum, if you want to come here and just be a part of
the American Dream, like more than a million people a year who we let
in, we have that. And we need to bulk that up. There is a lot more we
can do with technology there.
But you don't put a door in your house and then leave the windows

[[Page H1186]]

open. Who would do that? Who would call that security of your house?
What the President is saying is, we have more than 500 miles of area
in our country that is not secure. So you have a big door, and we are
going to strengthen the door. But if you are going to leave 500 miles
wide open, you are going to wonder why people are coming in illegally.
If we are for border security, it is going to take something to
actually back that up. I would ask the gentleman: What amount is the
majority willing to put on the table for real border security, which
includes a physical barrier? And I quote the gentleman again:
``Physical barriers are part of the solution.''

{time} 1115

And I agree with the gentleman from Maryland on that. But I guess
maybe the question I have is: The experts have told us it is going to
cost $5.7 billion to build that physical barrier. How much of that $5.7
billion is the gentleman willing to support?
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
The gentleman, of course, just voted against funding the Department
of Homeland Security, as did his colleagues.
The gentleman proudly said that all of his colleagues--and not all of
his colleagues voted against it--but he voted against opening up the
Department of Homeland Security. He voted against paying the personnel
in Department of Homeland Security. Yet, he cites them as experts who
have given us advice, and why don't we follow that advice.
But, Mr. Speaker, the minority party doesn't have enough respect for
them to open up the government, open up the Department of Homeland
Security, pay the people who are protecting our border, pay the people
who are processing paperwork for those border security guards, pay the
people who are answering the phones, pay the people whom we ask to
protect our borders, and then laments that somehow we are not coming up
with a number.
Open up this government, Mr. Speaker.
And, yes, I used the word, ``hostage''; and, yes, I used the word,
``ransom.'' And, yes, I believe there are two people, and a lot of
complicit people, with this government being shut down and with the
pain and suffering that we are imposing on our employees. Anybody who
thinks Democrats are responsible for that doesn't know what is
happening.
I am very concerned about the President being able to communicate
with the American people. The historic, greatest tweeter of all time.
You can't get away from hearing what the President has to say, every
morning, every afternoon, and every evening. He has plenty of time.
And, by the way, the President said: Yes, I am not going to give the
State of the Union until the government is open. He just said that,
just a few hours ago.
Open up this government.
And for anybody who watches the votes on this floor, watched that we
voted unanimously to open up DHS; we voted unanimously to open up the
other departments of government; we voted unanimously to make sure that
the people are being served by their government agencies.
And, Mr. Speaker, again, I understand Mr. Scalise and I have a
difference. When the Speaker of the House John Boehner brought a bill
to the floor when the government was shut down to open it up, Mr.
Scalise voted ``no''; and the other person who voted ``no'' is Mr.
Mulvaney, who is now the chief of staff.
I get that. They think shutting down the government is not a bad
option to try to force the other side to agree with them or to pay
their ransom.
Yes, I use those words. And, actually, if either one of us adopts
that as an acceptable alternative in the negotiation process, this
country is in real trouble--real trouble.
And so we ought to open up the government, and then, yes, we can sit
down, and, yes, we will resolve this.
But my friend's great angst--he did not mention why it took them 11-
2/3 months while they were in charge last year. They didn't offer a
bill until they were about to walk out the door and be the minority.
Mr. Speaker, 11 months and 20 days, no Homeland Security bill was
brought to this floor. I don't know why. My supposition is they didn't
have the votes, but I wasn't counting on their side.
Mr. Speaker, I have been to probably 37 or 38 States of the Union.
Never was the government shut down. This shutdown is not only of
historic length, it is of historic irresponsibility and historic danger
to our country, to our people, to our national security, and to our
economy.
Let's vote to open up this government, and then let's resolve the
differences that we have in the way democracies resolve differences: by
discussion, by debate, and by votes.
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let's reflect on why we
are here.
We are here because the President said we have a difference of
agreement on parts of government. We negotiated over the course of
months to fund 75 percent of our government.
The good news, Mr. Speaker, is that the vast majority of our
government has been funded, including our troops. Our military are
being paid. We were able to come to an agreement there.
The bad news is, Mr. Speaker, we were not able to come to an
agreement over the remaining 25 percent. And people around the country,
I am sure, wonder: Why can't they work it out?
And I think, Mr. Speaker, you just saw a display of why this can't be
worked out. Because, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States
got a request from his Homeland Security officials, people who risk
their lives to keep our country safe. They said, Mr. Speaker: It is
going to take $5.7 billion to give us the tools we need to secure our
border.
And I asked the gentleman just a moment ago, Mr. Speaker, once again,
how much are you willing to support if you won't support the $5.7
billion? The entire time, not once did the gentleman from Maryland give
a number--not once.
If the gentleman would give a number, I would yield, but there are a
lot of other things that he said that need to be corrected that I want
to also address.
Is the gentleman willing to give a number over $1, which is the
Speaker's number? $5.7 billion, $1. Is he willing to give some number
more than $1 that would secure the border?
Mr. Speaker, I yield if the gentleman would give that answer.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, these CRs carry forward the spending in 2018,
the CRs the gentleman voted against. They have $1.6 billion in them. He
voted ``no.''

And would the gentleman tell me why he didn't bring a bill to the
floor for 11 months and 20 days that would have done what he says is
such important work to be done? Can he tell me why he waited 11 months
and 20 days to bring a bill to the floor?
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to tell the gentleman.
I think the gentleman knows, one of the dilemmas we have been facing
with negotiations is that the Senate has a 60-vote requirement. The
Senate had that 60-vote requirement back when you all were in the
majority last time. When we were in the majority, they had that 60-vote
requirement as well.
When we were negotiating all of those bills, all the bills that fund
our government, we were able to get an agreement on 75 percent of
government funding. We had that negotiation with the Senate. We can't
just negotiate with ourselves.
As you see, you can pass bills in the House and they go nowhere in
the Senate. We brought a bill in December--and, by the way, the
gentleman from Maryland said we didn't have the votes, that is why we
didn't do it. The Speaker of the House went into the Oval Office and
told the President: Your side can't deliver the votes for the $5.7
billion. She said that.
Well, guess what, Mr. Speaker. We did deliver the votes for the $5.7
billion, and we were able to do that all along, but the Senate wasn't
there. And why wasn't the Senate there? The Senate Republicans were
willing to support that, but Senate Democrats weren't. It is the same
dilemma we are in today. The Senate Democrats and House Democrats have
refused to negotiate with the President.
I think the gentleman from Maryland knows the legislative process. He
has

[[Page H1187]]

been here enough to know you can't just pass a bill out of the House,
and you can't just pass a bill out of the Senate. You have to reconcile
the two bills. And even then, you need a bill that the President will
sign.
So the legislative process has to play out. It played out for 75
percent of the government, and it is funded. We never got that
agreement on the remaining amounts.
We proved to the Speaker and to the President we could deliver the
votes to pass the bill to fund the $5.7 billion. The problem has been
that this majority, the Democratic majority in the House and the
Democratic minority in the Senate have refused to negotiate. They have
refused to put a dollar amount.
If the gentleman is willing to start at $1.3 billion--by the way,
that $1.3 billion had strings attached, important strings that limited
our ability to actually secure the border. In those strings, Mr.
Speaker, they actually told the President where he can and can't build
wall.
So our security experts are saying, for example, we need to build
wall around the Rio Grande. That is where a lot of people are bringing
drugs and human trafficking across our country. And yet law says you
can't build it there. How ridiculous is that?
So, in our legislation that we passed, we removed that limitation.
Why should we be micromanaging the experts who risk their lives and
telling them they can't do the things it takes to support the border?
That was in our bill.
Current law also prohibits what kind of security, what kind of
physical barriers--to use the gentleman's term--can or can't be used.
And so our experts say there are some physical barriers that don't
work.
Why would you want to spend $1.3 billion of taxpayer money to build
things that won't actually work when you can spend the money to build
things that actually do work? And again, these aren't the President's
designs. These are the experts who risk their lives, who said: This is
what we need.
So, yes, Mr. Speaker, we weren't able to get an agreement with the
Senate over that 25 percent. We proved we could put the votes together
in the House to do it. The Senate couldn't pass the bill. So,
ultimately, there was nothing that got to the President's desk on those
remaining items, so the President convened us.
The President got all the principals together, Mr. Speaker, and in
three different meetings in the White House, not one time--not one
time--was a single dollar amount put on the table by the Democrats in
the room--not once. So then you can look at other votes, you can look
at other plans.
So the President said: Well, if the Speaker of the House won't
negotiate, maybe I will bring in other Democrats.
And, by the way, it is a growing list of Democrats who are starting
to say we need to address this problem.
I will read from the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Mr.
Collin Peterson, Democrat from Minnesota: ``Give Trump the money. . . .
I'd give him the whole thing . . . and put strings on it so you make
sure he puts the wall where it needs to be. Why are we fighting over
this? We're going to build that wall anyway, at some time.''

Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee: ``The wall is not in itself a bad idea, it's just--it's been
done.''
Representative Cheri Bustos from Illinois: ``If we have a partial
wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our
borders safe, all of that is fine . . . .''
So we see a growing list of rank-and-file Democrats, and even
committee chairmen, who are saying let's just do this, and yet the
Speaker refuses to do it.
So the President invited some members of the Democratic majority in
the House to the White House. The first meeting, Mr. Speaker, some of
them didn't even show up. And we want to talk about civility?
We are in a shutdown, and the President of the United States says: I
want to bring some Democrats in to see if we can resolve this. Then
they don't even show up. And maybe they were told not to go.
So a few days later, the President invites a different group, and in
that group we actually did have some Members that went.
The gentleman from Maryland, that day, was on a TV show, and he
said--when they were asked do those Democrats who are going to the
White House have the authority to negotiate, the majority leader of the
House said they do not have the authority to strike a deal.
So now the Democratic majority is telling other Democrats who want to
solve the problem and are going to the White House to try to solve the
problem, he is telling them they don't have the authority to solve the
problem.
So if the gentleman from Maryland is telling other Democrats they
don't have the authority to strike a deal, I would ask the gentleman:
Who does have the authority to strike a deal?
He is saying that physical borders are part of the solution. The
Speaker of the House doesn't necessarily share that view, from the
comments I have heard from her.
But if the gentleman from Maryland thinks physical borders are part
of the solution, other Democrats want to negotiate a solution, who is
authorized? Who does have the authority to strike a deal?
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

{time} 1130

Mr. HOYER. Let me first say that Mr. Scalise and his party over the
last 8 years that they were in charge passed bill after bill after bill
after bill that they knew without any doubt they had no chance in the
United States Senate--none, zero, zip. They passed them for message.
They knew that, we knew that, and America knew that. So that is not the
reason they didn't bring the bill that they talk now so passionately
about to the floor for 11 months and 20 days. They only brought it as
they were going out the door.
Let me tell you what they rejected, Mr. Speaker. They rejected a bill
from the United States Senate which would have opened up government and
paid all 800,000 of the people who are now either furloughed or asked
to work without pay. They rejected that bill that passed overwhelmingly
and unanimously on voice vote from the United States Senate that the
President of the United States was said, by the Vice President of the
United States, to support.
But something happened during those 24 hours as it came from the
Senate to the House. A bill that passed the Senate, they rejected that
bill, the Republicans in this House, and then they, and only then, did
they bring a bill which they knew would not pass the Senate. Talk about
negotiation and compromise, and you have done that over and over and
over, Mr. Speaker--not you but the Republican majority.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you who sent it over here: Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the United States
Senate.
Let me quote Senator McConnell in a CNN report:

In his strongest words to date, Senate GOP leader Mitch
McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, tried to quash talk that
he would allow another government shutdown if he becomes
Senate majority leader next year.

What was his response? `` `Of course not. Remember me? I am the guy
that gets us out of shutdowns,' McConnell told CNN in an exclusive
interview Wednesday.
Then he went on to say: `` `It's a failed policy,' he said of
shutdowns.''
Now, sadly, in league with the Republican minority here in the House
of Representatives and the President of the United States, he has done
exactly the opposite of what he said he would do. He hasn't opened up,
he has shut down government.
The minority whip is correct, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to
pretend that this is business as usual as long as we have 800,000 of
our employees--some working, some not--not being paid and not being
treated with respect because it is a tactic that they have adopted. And
I tell my friend again: it must be a tactic he believes in because he
voted against his own Republican Speaker and the majority leader who is
now the Republican leader who voted and urged Members: vote to open up
this government.
Now, he was not alone in that vote. There were 143 other Republicans.
Only 87 voted to open up the government. So apparently he believes this
is a tactic

[[Page H1188]]

that is acceptable in a democratic government. We reject that
emphatically and proudly.
We have passed bill after bill after bill after bill that would open
up this government, and Mr. Scalise, Mr. Speaker, and his colleagues
have almost to a person--not always unanimously--rejected that effort.
So I tell my friend: open up the government and we will talk, but we
are not going to talk while you hold hostage the employees of this
government--not all of them, but 800,000 of them--who are worried about
whether they can put food on the table.
There are food lines. Our people at food lines--public employees--do
we have no shame?
Do we have no moral commitment to those whom we ask to work to
protect this country and to serve these people?
What is it that the President and his party refuse to open up the
government?
This is historic. Never in the history--he talked about going back to
George Washington in 1799--has this ever happened before that we kept
the government shut down. The longest before that, of course, was the
Republican shutdown of 2013.
It is not a tactic I tell my friend that we accept. We reject it
emphatically, and we are not going to subject ourselves tomorrow to the
same kind of blackmail or the day after to the same kind of blackmail
or the day after that to the same kind of blackmail.
I will tell my friend: we will have a Democratic President at some
point in time. And he ought to reject this tactic as well because it is
bad for the government. Much more importantly, it is bad for the people
of this country, the economy of our country, and the national security
of our country.
Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else to say.
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, once again, we are in a government
shutdown. I could clearly argue that the gentleman from Maryland voted
to shut the government down in December before we had hit an expiration
of funding. Before there was a shutdown, we had a bill to fund
government and secure the border. My friend can say it was dead on
arrival in the Senate. The reason it was dead on arrival in the Senate
is because Senate Democrats refused to negotiate over securing the
border.
So here we are. We could talk about 2013. We are in 2019, and we are
in the middle of a government shutdown that could end tomorrow. The
majority just voted to adjourn again. Literally--and here is the quote
my friend just said--the gentleman from Maryland said: ``We are not
going to talk until the government is open.''
So during the shutdown, the gentleman is not going to negotiate how
to get out of a shutdown.
The gentleman wonders why people look and say: why can't you figure
it out?
The President has offered idea after idea, and eventually you are
negotiating against yourself when the other side says: we are not going
to talk until we get everything we want.
Well, do you know what, Mr. Speaker? In divided government, Mr.
Speaker, nobody gets everything they want, but you have to start
talking today. The 800,000 people who are working or not working and
not getting paychecks--which, by the way, we voted again today to pay
all of them, we had a vote on the House floor to pay all of them, and
we got 13 Democrats to vote for that. Last week it was only six. A
growing number of Democrats are recognizing stop all this foolishness
of saying: we are not going to talk to you when the President is trying
to talk. We are going to reject your offer before you put it on the
table. At 4 o'clock Saturday the Speaker rejected an offer that wasn't
even proposed until 4:07.

So to say: we are not going to talk while we are in the shutdown, how
do we get out of the shutdown unless people are talking?
I think the gentleman from Maryland and I could solve this problem.
He quoted: Physical barriers are part of the solution.
I agree with the gentleman from Maryland on that. Unfortunately, the
Speaker of the House doesn't agree with that. So rank-and-file
Democrats who want to solve this problem are invited to the White
House, but told by the Democrat leadership: you are not authorized to
negotiate.
So I ask the gentleman from Maryland: Who is authorized to negotiate?
And the gentleman from Maryland says: we are not going to talk until
the government is back open.
But the government is not open because we are at an impasse, and the
way you solve an impasse is to talk. You can't say: ``We are not going
to talk'' and expect it just to solve itself and expect the President
just to keep offering and offering and offering and the Speaker of the
House say: we are not even going to let you come talk to the country;
we are not going to let you have a State of the Union; my way or the
highway.
That is not how you solve this problem. You have to talk to solve
this problem. The country expects you to talk to solve this problem.
It is divided government. Sure, we are not going to agree on
everything. Our experts--it is not the Republican Party saying $5.7
billion is what it would cost to secure our border--it is the experts
who secure our border who say it is going to cost $5.7 billion.
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman disagrees with that number, if he
doesn't like the color of the wall or the style of the slats and the
steel, if he wants to make it out of bamboo, I don't know what the
gentleman's offer is because he has never put an offer on the table.
But at some point the gentleman has to. He has to put a counteroffer on
the table if we are going to get out of this.
I want to get out of this. I voted multiple times to get out of it
and to pay people. The gentleman from Maryland can show votes, and I
can show votes. Ultimately we need to talk to get an agreement.
So I continue to stand ready, the President stands ready; our
minority here in the House and our majority in the Senate stands ready.
But if only one side is saying: ``We are going to talk,'' and the other
side says: ``We are not going to talk'', that is not going to resolve
itself.
We have to talk if it is going to resolve itself, and, hopefully, Mr.
Speaker, we do.
I stand ready, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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