[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 178 (Thursday, November 7, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Appropriations

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, Senate Democrats had hoped to work with 
our Republican colleagues this year on a fully bipartisan process. It 
got off to a great start when the four congressional leaders reached a 
budget deal over the summer, but it quickly went awry.
  Senate Republicans departed from the bipartisan process by 
unilaterally proposing their own allocations to the various agencies. 
This was not part of the agreement. This was not in the spirit or 
concept of the agreement. It was always, when we agreed, that we would 
work out the 302(b) allocations. Instead, the Republicans went ahead, 
unilaterally, and they proposed moving $12 billion--$12 billion--from 
critical health programs and military families to pay for the 
President's border wall, and that was way out of bounds.
  The Republican leader has accused Democrats, myself included, of 
breaking our budget deal by not going along with these very partisan 
bills. He knows--and every Member of this Chamber, Democrat and 
Republican, knows well--that Democrats are not going to support a 
unilateral move by the Republicans to take $12 billion away from 
military families, education, opioids, and NIH and put it into the 
President's vanity, partisan wall. So, until Republicans get serious 
about negotiating a bipartisan way forward, the partisan appropriation 
bills are all we have and they cannot move forward.
  Now, in the last few days, after conversations that I had with Leader 
McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader McCarthy, we are seeing some 
positive signs that we can get the process back on track. This month, 
Democrats and Republicans worked through a package of bipartisan 
appropriation bills on the floor with few issues. Now, as we speak, 
both parties, both sides--Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate 
appropriators--have started talking again about restarting the good-
faith negotiations on the remaining bills.
  We hope this moves forward in a bipartisan way. Each side has to 
agree. I will repeat my view. If President Trump stays out of it, we 
will come to an agreement. If President Trump messes in, if the 
Republican leader feels so in obeisance to Donald Trump, who doesn't 
have any concept of how to get things done around here, then we will 
not get it done, and we may have a second Trump shutdown with the 
leader going along, which will not succeed. It will not succeed in 
getting them what they want.
  So I hope that with a little effort and compromise, we in Congress 
can find a way forward on appropriations by working together.