[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 143 (Monday, September 16, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S6042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, now on the CR, legislators now have 
roughly 2 weeks to reach an agreement to keep the government open 
beyond the September 30 deadline. It is not really much time at all. In 
order to avoid a shutdown, the worst thing our colleagues in the House 
can do right now is waste time on proposals that don't have broad, 
bipartisan support. But that is what the Speaker and his Republican 
colleagues have been doing all month long, and it is already September 
16.
  Mr. Speaker Johnson, you know as well as everyone else that your plan 
is a no-go as currently written. A 6-month CR with poison pills is not 
going to fly in a narrowly divided government.
  CRs are always meant to be a short-term extension funding to give 
appropriators more time to do their work. They are not meant to be a 
substitute for Congress doing its job.
  And if the hard right thinks that we will willingly give them 
leverage to ram Project 2025 down the American people's throats early 
next year by agreeing to a 6-month CR, they are dreaming. MAGA radicals 
are hoping they can use the threat of a shutdown next spring to pass 
the very worst of Project 2025. They want to cut the Department of 
Education. They want to eliminate Head Start. They want to privatize 
Fannie and Freddie, raising mortgage rates, making it harder to buy a 
home. They want to monitor women's pregnancies--monitor them--and 
potentially cut VA funding and more. We cannot--we will not--let that 
happen.
  But even before we get to all of that, pushing for a CR that lasts 6 
months, as the Speaker wants, would also mean that a slew of critical 
programs would still be shortchanged. It would be awful for our 
military. You simply cannot run the military with a 6-month stopgap--
little surprise that even many House Republicans recognize the 
Speaker's current approach is the wrong one.
  The answer to the Speaker's problem is not very complicated. The 
Speaker should drop his current proposal and work with both parties on 
an extension that prioritizes keeping the government open--open without 
pushing poison pills. We are happy to work with him.
  Now, despite all its flaws, there are some bits of good news in the 
Speaker's proposal that I hope we can build on. I am very heartened 
that the Speaker's current proposal preserves the essence of the 
Schumer-Johnson agreement from early this year, the one that set top-
line funding levels for fiscal year 2024.
  This is a good sign because, last September, Speaker McCarthy wasted 
precious time trying to pass a CR that curried favor with the hard 
right through very deep, brutal funding cuts. In the end, that approach 
didn't work, and Speaker McCarthy was removed from the speakership 
anyway because of the radicals on his right flank.
  For now, Speaker Johnson seems to be taking a different approach, and 
it is not pushing for across-the-board cuts as part of his CR. That is 
good news. It is a sign Speaker Johnson may be accepting the reality 
that any deal we reach will have to include the spending levels we 
agreed to earlier this year.
  To be clear, there are still far too many omissions in his current 
proposal, and a 6-month timeline is not acceptable, but I hope we have 
a foundation on which to build upon. Make no mistake about it--the 
clock is ticking. We have until September 30 before the government 
shuts down.
  If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer 
most. A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social Security 
could be thrown into chaos as the Social Security Administration limits 
certain services, like benefit verifications or fixing errors in 
payments. Our veterans could see regional VA offices shut down and 
support services put on halt. Some of our military servicemembers could 
be forced to work without pay. Families who benefit from WIC and other 
nutrition programs could see benefits halted. And a shutdown would 
shake the confidence of our economic recovery--something we can't 
possibly afford at a time like this.
  If a shutdown happens because of Republican poison pills, the 
American people are going to hold them responsible.
  We don't need to go down this road. We still have a little time to 
reach a bipartisan agreement. So I hope the Speaker drops his current 
plan.

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