[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 145 (Wednesday, September 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5415-S5416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on a different subject, I return this 
morning to the topic of appropriations.
  We have until the end of this work period to figure out a way to 
continue government funding, and there is good talk of a short-term 
continuing resolution so the government doesn't run out of money on 
September 30. Yet the larger question is how this Chamber is going to 
proceed or not proceed with the 12 appropriations bills that fund our 
government.
  Despite many disagreements between the majority and minority in this 
Chamber, the Senate has been able to produce several bipartisan budget 
deals even in the Trump era. The reason we have been able to do this is 
that both parties have been committed to working together throughout 
each stage of the appropriations process. Bipartisanship--
appropriations can only work with it and will not work without it.
  Earlier this summer, the Democrats and the Republicans negotiated the 
broad outlines of a budget deal in good faith. We allocated the 302(a)s 
and came up with a side agreement. After that, the very first step in 
the appropriations process is to agree, in a bipartisan way, with the 
allocations for the 12 subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee. 
That is what we did in 2018, and I believe it passed the committee 
unanimously--or maybe with one dissenting vote. It was passed 
unanimously on a bipartisan basis. The Appropriations Committee passed 
those 302(b) allocations 31 to 0. That is how we thought it was going 
to work now, but already we are running into trouble with those 
allocations this time around.
  The Republican majority on the Appropriations Committee has 
unilaterally proposed putting in an additional $12 billion for the 
President's border wall, taking away $5 billion of funding for Health 
and Human Services--desperately needed programs like healthcare and 
fighting opioid addiction and cancer research--and putting it into the 
wall. This is without our OK, without our acknowledgment, and without 
our acceptance. The Republican majority also reprogrammed funding from 
other sources and backfilled money the President proposes to pilfer for 
military construction, which has affected, I believe, 30 States.
  My Republican colleagues and my friend the Republican leader know 
very well this will not fly with Senate Democrats. We are not going to 
vote for a budget that is partisan and is attempting to be jammed down 
our throats. It puts an additional $12 billion into the wall? Forget 
that. So here

[[Page S5416]]

we are already--at step No. 1 in the appropriations process--and the 
spirit of bipartisanship that is necessary for this work might be 
melting away.
  I just warn my Republican colleagues that this is not a way to 
produce a budget. This is the same path they tried to go down last 
year. They shut down the government and then had to walk it back. We 
all know what a partisan process looks like. President Trump caused the 
longest government shutdown in American history by demanding funding 
for a border wall and then by shutting down the government when 
Congress didn't give it to him. Let's not go down that exact path again 
9 months later.
  There is still time to get the process back on track. The Republican 
majority should sit down with the Democrats on the committee and, in 
good faith, come up with the 302(b) allocations and come up with the 
order by which we bring bills to the floor. Then we can get this done. 
We don't have to go back to a CR. Certainly, our side wants to avoid a 
Republican shutdown, and we hope our Republican colleagues will have 
the good sense not to let President Trump lead them into that cul-de-
sac once again. So let's sit down and make this work. That is what we 
want to do, not unilaterally declare something and say, ``Take it or 
leave it,'' but work together so both sides have to give.

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