[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 148 (Monday, September 23, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6323-S6324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, yesterday afternoon, we announced that 
congressional leaders reached a bipartisan agreement to avoid a 
government shutdown on September 30. This agreement will keep the 
government open at current funding levels until December 20. This 
agreement, thankfully, is free of any partisan poison pills and was 
negotiated in good faith.
  I thank the Speaker for working with my team to put this package 
together over the weekend. Our teams were up early and stayed late into 
the evening to get it done.
  I also wish to thank the House Democratic leader, the Senate 
Republican leader, and all the appropriators, particularly Senators 
Murray and Collins, for helping us get to this point.
  The matter is now straightforward. We now have less than a week to 
pass a funding bill through the House, through the Senate, and onto the 
President's desk. Both sides will have to act celeritously and with 
continued bipartisan good faith to meet the funding deadline. Any delay 
or last-minute poison pill can still push us into a shutdown. I hope 
and I trust that this will not happen.
  Of course, as we proceed, it is important to remember that 
negotiations didn't have to wait until the last minute. This agreement 
could have very easily been reached weeks ago, but Speaker Johnson and 
House Republicans chose to listen to Donald Trump's partisan demands 
instead of working with us from the start to reach a bicameral, 
bipartisan agreement.
  Remember, Donald Trump has spent the entire month urging House 
Republicans to shut the government down if his poison pills weren't 
passed. That is outlandishly cynical. Donald Trump knows perfectly well 
that a shutdown would mean chaos, pain, and needless heartache for the 
American people, but, as usual, he just doesn't seem to care.
  It is astounding that anyone seeking the Presidency would think a 
shutdown is a good thing, but that is who Donald Trump is at his core--
cynical and ill-intentioned. He should have learned his lesson years 
ago when he told Speaker Pelosi and I to shut down the government and 
said: ``I'll take the blame.'' Well, that didn't work out too well for 
him, did it?

[[Page S6324]]

  I am glad his efforts in this instance are on track to fail. We 
aren't out of the woods yet, but now that we have reached a bipartisan 
agreement, I hope we are on track to avoid a shutdown. I believe we 
will avoid that shutdown. With a few more days of bipartisanship and 
speed and good faith, we can get the job done--certainly before the 
deadline of a government shutdown.