[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S825-S826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just heard Senator Schumer, the 
minority leader, say that Democrats don't want a government shutdown. 
Well, I would recommend that the minority leader actually read the 
newspaper. He is going to see that Democrats are threatening and 
actually calling for a shutdown of the U.S. Government.
  So here is USA Today, today, with a picture of Senator Schumer right 
there--a big picture in color, with his fist in the air--``Democrats 
open to shutting down the government.'' So the Senator who just was on 
the floor, saying, oh, no; they don't want it, is calling for it across 
the country in USA Today this morning.
  That is what we are seeing across this country: Democrats are so much 
in disarray after the fact that they lost the House, lost the Senate, 
lost the White House, that the Democrats now want to shut down the 
government.
  Here was the headline in The New York Times on Sunday: ``Democrats 
Hint at Government Shutdown to Stop Trump's Axing at Federal 
Agencies.''
  President Trump is doing what people elected him to do--to get the 
wasteful Washington spending to end. So that was in USA Today and The 
New York Times.
  What about The Washington Post?
  The Democrats say:

       They will not help avert a shutdown.

  The Democrats are calling for a shutdown--in USA Today, The New York

[[Page S826]]

Times, The Washington Post. The list goes on.
  What are Democrats saying on television?
  Well, on ``Meet the Press'' this Sunday, Senator  Andy Kim of New 
Jersey, said that Democrats in Congress would shut down the government, 
he says, ``if we have to'' in order to obstruct President Trump--not to 
help the country, not to provide services for the men and women in 
uniform, not to provide needs around the country. No--because they want 
to obstruct President Trump. That is why Chuck Schumer and the 
Democrats are calling for a government shutdown.
  It didn't end there.
  Cory Booker of New Jersey--a member of the leadership of the 
Democratic Party--was on CNN this weekend. What did he say? ``Democrats 
will use every tool possible'' to stop President Trump.
  The Democrats want to stop the President, who was elected with 312 
electoral votes and won every one of the battleground States. The 
Democrats just want to stop him, and the American people want the kind 
of action and the urgency that we are seeing right now out of President 
Trump.
  Jeff Merkley, a Senator from Oregon, is open to shutting down the 
government. He said: ``There's no [more] business as usual.'' Shut it 
down.
  President Trump is doing exactly what America voted for, but here are 
the headlines, and there are the pictures, and those are the Democrats 
in the U.S. Senate, saying: We don't care what the American people say. 
We are going to shut down the government.
  President Trump is shrinking the size of government. We know the 
government is too big. We know it spends too much. President Trump is 
accounting for every single penny, and we are not going to make pennies 
anymore as a result of the fact that it costs 3 cents to make a penny. 
That is why Democrats want to shut down the government. They don't like 
the success that America is having today. They don't like the optimism 
that is pervasive throughout our country.
  So, once again, if there is going to be a shutdown, we are talking 
about a ``Schumer shutdown'' of our country because they lost the 
election.