[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 48 (Thursday, March 13, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1725-S1726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor, the minority leader 
has just spoken on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and I would like to 
begin today's comments by quoting the Senator from New York.
  Here is a quote, Senator Schumer says:

       Shutting down the government over a policy difference is 
     self-defeating.

  He went on to say:

       It accomplishes nothing but pain and suffering for the 
     country and incurs an enormous political cost to the party 
     shutting it down.

  When did he say those things? Well, he said them in 2019. Well, they 
are as true today as they were then. Apparently, he has forgotten those 
things. He has forgotten the enormous suffering to the country that is 
caused and the political cost to the party shutting it down.
  So who would be the party shutting down the government if we shut 
down at midnight tomorrow night? Well, according to this morning's--and 
as the Presiding Officer knows, I come to the floor often with a 
newspaper article. Today's Washington Post: ``Democrats Prepare to 
Reject a Bill to Avert a Shutdown.''
  It is the Democrats who would be shutting down the government. Now, 
that is the Washington Post, clearly someone that so often sides with 
the Democrats.
  What about the liberal New York Times, what are they saying this 
morning?
  ``Specter of Shutdown is Growing As Democrats Resist Funding Bill.''
  They resist funding the government. It is the Democrats who are doing 
this.
  And then there is a picture of Senator Schumer in today's Wall Street 
Journal. So we see the Washington Post, the New York Times, and now the 
Wall Street Journal: ``Schumer Signals Block of Funding Bill.''
  Let me go back, ``It accomplishes nothing,'' he said in 2019, ``but 
pain and suffering for the country.''
  That is what the Democrats want: the American people to suffer now, 
pain and suffering, because they don't want to fund the government. 
They want to shut it down.
  As he said, it ``incurs enormous political cost to the party shutting 
it down.'' And that cost should be imposed to the party shutting it 
down, and the party shutting it down are the Democrats in the U.S. 
Senate.
  In less than 48 hours, government funding expires, and Senator 
Schumer and his party are on the verge of shutting down the Government 
of the United States. The deadline is looming. The Democrats now face a 
crucial choice: Pass the bill that has already passed the House of 
Representatives, fund the government, or shut it down. There is no 
magical third option for the Democrats or for the country.
  We are on the brink of, once again, a Democrat shutdown of 
government. Why? Because they refuse to accept that President Trump and 
the Republicans won the election. They hate the fact.
  Heard a lot of talk about how we got here. Let me set the record 
straight, because this shutdown has been driven and directed by the 
Democrats. The Presiding Officer remembers last year when the Democrats 
were in the majority. Senator Schumer was the majority leader, Joe 
Biden was in the White House, President. And last year, the Senate 
Appropriations Committee, chaired by a Democrat, passed 11 of 12 
appropriations bills.
  Like, I am so grateful for the work of Senator Susan Collins of 
Maine, vice chairman of that committee, worked hard, and led Republican 
efforts to get each of those bills done on time, through the committee, 
and they produced results.
  Each of the bills passed the committee, bipartisan appropriations 
bills, strong bipartisan support, some unanimous; and these bills were 
all passed last summer. Last summer.
  From the time they passed the final one of those bills--and let me 
just point out, I have the list of them: July 11, they passed Military 
Construction and Veterans Affairs, Agriculture,

[[Page S1726]]

food, legislative branch, unanimous, unanimous, unanimous, 27 to 0 in 
each of those, passed the committee.
  On July 25, Commerce-Science, Justice and Science passed, Interior 
passed, oh, 28 to 1. State and Foreign Ops passed, and Transportation. 
And then on August 1, Energy and Water Development, 28 to 0. Defense, 
28 to 0. Labor-Health and Human Services, Education, Financial 
Services, all of them passed the Appropriations Committee. Done, 
passed.
  Senator Schumer had 224 days to bring up any one of those bills on 
the Senate floor. He absolutely categorically refused to bring a single 
appropriations bill to the floor of the U.S. Senate when he was the 
majority leader, even though the bills came out unanimously, and one of 
his own Members was chairman of that committee. He ignored her. She 
said: Take them to the floor. He refused. Refused to put a single one 
of those 11 appropriations bills that came out of the committee to the 
floor. He refused to govern, and now he wants to shut down the 
government.

  His burn-the-house attitude is what we are dealing with--rule-or-ruin 
approach. It is irresponsible, it is reckless, and he is trying to lead 
the entire Democrats in the Senate over the cliff and hurt the American 
public in the process.
  But the right thing to do is to keep the government open. It costs 
money to shut down the government. It costs taxpayer dollars, and it 
costs even more to reopen the government.
  The government shutdown denies the American people services that they 
need, that they want, that they wait for. It forces our military and 
our border patrol to work without pay.
  It is time to move on from the Democrats' failures. It is time to get 
this done. Time to govern. That is what the American people elected the 
Republicans to do.
  The business of the Senate will not stop because of Democrats' made-
for-TV and made-for-their-liberal-base temper tantrums. Senate 
Democrats want to grandstand, we are going to continue to move 
deliberately and decisively and continue to work to confirm more of 
President Trump's well-qualified nominees.
  So it is the choice of the Democrats on the other side: govern or 
grandstand. The American people are watching.
  You know, they watched a week or so ago when the President of the 
United States addressed this joint session of Congress. The American 
people watched. What they saw was immature antics by the Democrats 
sitting there in the House Chamber waving their little paddles, 
refusing to applaud a young man with brain cancer, refusing to applaud 
families that have gone through great tragedy.
  It was juvenile; it was wrong. That is what the American people saw. 
People that were watching that presentation by the President of the 
United States saw a strong leader and saw a Democrat Party in disarray, 
acting as juveniles. And now it appears the Senate wants to do exactly 
the same thing by shutting down the government.
  The American people that watched the President address a week ago are 
watching today, and they know that if there is a government shutdown, 
like it looks like we are heading to tomorrow night, it is going to be 
at the deliberate direction of the Democrat Party.