[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 146 (Thursday, September 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Appropriations

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, there are two possible paths when it 
comes to the appropriations process in Congress. There is a bipartisan 
path, where both parties work together in good faith to pass all 12 
appropriations bills. Then there is the partisan path, where one party 
breaks faith with the other, and we end up traveling down a road of 
brinksmanship. Continuing resolutions become the order of the day, and 
the risk of a government shutdown increases.
  We all know the bipartisan path is far preferable. It both avoids the 
possibility of another damaging government shutdown, and when we 
legislate the appropriations bills, we can intelligently allocate our 
resources for the future. Continuing resolutions, on the other hand, 
are blunt objects that simply recycle last year's priorities. It hurts 
our military; it hurts the middle class; and it hurts the American 
people.
  We are at an important crossroads between those two passes right now. 
After successfully negotiating the broad outlines of a budget deal 
earlier this year, we must now agree on the allocations to the 12 
appropriations subcommittees. These are known as the 302(b) 
allocations. This process was completely bipartisan in 2018; these 
allocations passed the Appropriations Committee unanimously 31 to 0.
  This year, the Republican majority, without consulting with 
Democrats, has proposed taking away $12 billion from urgent domestic 
priorities and from urgent military priorities and wasting it--wasting 
it on President Trump's ineffective and expensive border wall. This is 
the very wall President Trump promised over and over again that Mexico 
would pay for when he ran for office and garnered support for it from 
his constituency.
  No Republican--certainly not the Republican leader who knows this 
place well--could seriously believe Democrats would agree to that: $12 
billion for the wall, stolen from healthcare programs to fight opioid 
addiction and encourage cancer research, stolen from military families? 
No Republican could expect Democrats to support that, nor should they. 
It is terrible policy.
  This morning, in the appropriations markup, every single Republican 
on the committee, including Leader McConnell, voted to move forward on 
this idea. Republican Senators who oppose the President's emergency 
declaration voted for it; Republican Senators whose States would lose 
tens of millions of dollars in military funding voted for it. This is 
the clearest indication yet that Republicans may well be abandoning a 
bipartisan appropriations process. They would do so at their peril, as 
well as the peril of the Nation.
  Republicans have started off here on the wrong foot, repeating the 
exact same mistakes they made at the end of 2018, which resulted in the 
longest government shutdown in American history--a shutdown that 
President Trump and Republicans rightly shouldered the blame for.
  There is only one bit of good news in this maneuver. There is still 
time for Republicans to reverse course. The Republican majority should 
sit down with Democrats on the committee and start over on the 302(b) 
allocations, figure out an order to bring each bill to the floor, and 
get a bipartisan process back on track. That is how we Democrats want 
to do it. That is how we have always gotten appropriations bills done. 
No one wants to resort to a continuing resolution or, God forbid, 
another Republican, Donald Trump-inspired government shutdown, but it 
takes two to tango.
  My Republican colleagues must know that what happens in the next few 
days and weeks will determine whether we can proceed with a bipartisan 
appropriations process this fall or not.
  I urge Leader McConnell and every single Republican to reverse 
course--it is certainly not too late--and work with us and get it done. 
I spoke to Leader McConnell yesterday right here in the well and 
suggested just that. He seemed open to it. Let's hope our request is 
heeded.