[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 48 (Thursday, March 13, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1732-S1735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Government Funding
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, here we go again. In just a little over 24
hours, Federal funding will run out, and the government will shut down.
Let me state for the record that my Republican colleagues and I are
ready to get on with matters and ready to fund the government for the
rest of this year. We all know that the faster we move it over the
finish line, the faster our Federal Government can get to work on
behalf of the American people and implement the agenda that the
American people elected us to get done.
But after our Democratic friends had a nice long lunch on Capitol
Hill yesterday, Senator Schumer took the floor to announce that their
caucus would not support funding the government because, as he put it,
``Republicans chose a partisan path.'' But here is what Senator Schumer
is really saying: Democrats would rather shut down the government than
pass the funding bill just to shift blame to Republicans for our
current funding predicament. Democrats are going to shut down the
government to protect the government.
In the next 24 hours, even, Democrats are planning to use the very
same filibuster they have opposed and tried to abolish to shut down the
government. In the last administration, former Vice President Kamala
Harris said that Joe Biden and the Democrats are ``kinda done with
those archaic Senate rules.'' But here they are using those archaic
Senate rules to shut down the government.
There is nothing that could explain such a drastic change of heart
among my Democratic colleagues other than rank hypocrisy. Democrats are
quick to criticize Republican efforts to eliminate waste, fraud, and
abuse in our bureaucracies on behalf of hard-working American
taxpayers. Yet in the same breath, Democrats are fighting to withhold
the paychecks of air traffic controllers, our troops, Federal custodial
staff. They can't be serious. The level of hypocrisy displayed by the
minority leader and my Democratic colleagues is appalling to the office
they hold and the constituents they serve. A government shutdown, of
course, doesn't just affect the Federal workforce. For instance, food
inspectors will be forced to stop their work, interrupting our food
supply chains. It is as if the Democrats are trying to finish Joe
Biden's job of driving up prices in the grocery store.
Let me remind everyone of why we are on the verge of a government
shutdown. Just a few months ago, Senator Schumer and my Democratic
colleagues held the majority here. During that time, Republicans joined
with Democrats to vote 11 out of 12 government funding bills from
committee--11 out of 12. Six of them were unanimous. The other five
passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. That would seem to be a
great accomplishment in a too-often-divided Washington--11 out of 12
bills, 6 unanimous, 5 with overwhelming bipartisan support.
But even though we had all those spending bills ready to go last
summer on a bipartisan basis, then-Majority Leader Schumer failed to
bring a single bill to the floor from August to the end of last year.
Not a single bill. Even though--let me say it again--11 out of 12
passed out of committee; six were unanimous; and the other five were
overwhelmingly bipartisan. Not a single one.
Senator Schumer had 224 days to bring those bills to the floor for a
vote--224 days. What did we do, instead? He chose to prioritize
election-year stunts trying to distract voters from Joe Biden's
disastrous border crisis. He had a vote on mandating government-funded
fertility treatments for biological men--more important than funding
the government.
We also confirmed a whole host of unqualified Biden nominees you have
never heard of for jobs you didn't know existed, not to mention a whole
host of unqualified judges in States with two Democrat Senators who
couldn't have gotten confirmed for the first 4 years and were only
jammed through in a lameduck session, when we also could have been
passing those spending bills to fund the government so we wouldn't be
in this position.
Senator Schumer claims to care about the livelihoods of Federal
workers, but as leader, he seemed more preoccupied with putting on a
big political show. Yet here is Senator Schumer claiming that
Republican partisanship is the reason for shutting down the government.
Spare me.
It continued this year. Since Republicans took over, he blocked
negotiations that would have made this funding bill a bipartisan effort
from the start. Senator Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations
Committee and Tom Cole, chair of the House Appropriations Committee,
made multiple, multiple offers to their Democratic counterparts to
negotiate on a bipartisan basis government funding bills, just like we
did last summer. But, no. Senator Schumer blocked it time and time
again until just a few days ago.
Yet now, supposedly, the clock has run out. He wants another 30
days--another 30 days--when he had 224 days last year to do this, when
we had over 60 days this year to negotiate on a bipartisan basis.
The time for those negotiations has regrettably passed. It is time to
finish last year's business and move on to this year's business.
Democrats have one last chance to join Republicans and support a
simple
[[Page S1733]]
yearlong funding bill. Republicans encourage our Democratic colleagues
to join this effort to keep the government funded for the American
people we all serve.
Shutting our government down, as many of my Democratic colleagues are
apparently considering, is not just some political stunt. There are
real and consequential national security risks if they choose to go
through with this reckless scheme.
A government shutdown will disrupt military training and could force
us to cancel planned exercises with our allies and partners. These are
the very same alliances Democrats claim to care so much about
supporting and preserving. Furthermore, a shutdown would disrupt
ongoing work to modernize our nuclear forces, which is already behind
schedule. Any further delay would make this bad situation even worse.
And the potential Schumer shutdown will hurt military preparedness by
slowing recruiting, create uncertainty in our defense supply chains,
and impact our ability to produce badly needed munitions. This is not
the message of strength we want to send to the allies we stand beside
and the enemies we stand against.
To my Democratic colleagues who still believe that shutting down the
government is the principled choice that you need to--again, it is hard
for me to explain their position--shut down the government to protect
the government, let me ask you, simply: What does voting no accomplish?
Six months ago, Senator Schumer said:
If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans
who suffer most.
That was Senator Schumer. What has happened in the last 6 months?
Nothing, as far as I could tell, except who the American people elected
to lead the government.
So if this Schumer shutdown stunt is just a threat to get Republicans
to agree to a fake short-term extension that brings us right back to
where we are now, again, what is the point?
The Democrats' hypocritical arguments reveal, once again, they are
not serious about putting their duty to the American people above
partnership, pettiness and pride.
I invite them all to justify the Schumer shutdown to the parents who
must postpone a trip to a national park with their children after
months of saving and planning; or to explain your reasoning for the
Schumer shutdown to the veteran who has already taken a day off work to
sign up for healthcare at his regional benefits office only to find it
closed; or to defend the Schumer shutdown to the Federal employee who
puts all of her groceries on a credit card to make sure there is enough
money left at the end of the month to cover her rent.
My friends, we have two choices before us, and they are quite simple:
either keep the government open and working for the people or shut it
down. To do what exactly? I don't know. I think we can all agree that
the American people deserve better than a government that is a day late
and a couple billion dollars short. So I encourage my Democratic
colleagues to vote with us to simply fund the government. Let's not
have a Schumer shutdown.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as people all over this country
understand, we are a nation today that faces enormous crises. Sadly,
the continuing resolution passed Tuesday in the U.S. House and which
will come to this body very shortly not only does nothing to address
these crises but, in fact, it makes a bad situation much worse.
Today, at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality than
we have ever had in the history of this country, 60 percent of our
people are living paycheck to paycheck. What that means--I grew up in a
family living paycheck to paycheck. It means that people are worried
about how they are going to afford housing. What happens if their
landlord raises the rent? People go to the grocery store, and they see
the high prices of food and wonder how they are going to feed their
kids. People are looking at the outrageous cost of childcare, but you
need childcare if you are going to go to work. How can you afford
childcare? Our healthcare system is dysfunctional. People worry about
how they can afford healthcare if they are lucky enough to be able to
find a doctor.
That is the reality of what is going on in our country today: The
rich are getting richer; working people are struggling; and 800,000
Americans are sleeping out on the streets.
So, given that reality, what does this bill do--the bill written by
the rightwing extremists in the House of Representatives without any
bipartisan discussion at all? What does this bill do?
Well, let me count the ways. It makes the financial struggles of
working people even more difficult than they are today, and it does all
of that to lay the groundwork for massive tax breaks for Elon Musk and
the billionaire class.
For a start, some 22 percent of our seniors in this country are
trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less, which, to me, is really
quite incredible. I don't know how anybody, let alone a senior,
survives on $15,000 a year or less. Half of our seniors are trying to
survive on $30,000 a year or less. So what does the Trump-Musk
administration do to address the terrible economic pressures on seniors
all over America? Well, they have got a brilliant idea. They illegally
fire thousands of workers at the Social Security Administration, with
plans to cut that staff in half.
In America today, 30,000 people die each year while waiting to
receive their Social Security disability benefits because of a grossly
understaffed and underresourced Social Security Administration. My
office--and I expect the Presiding Officer's office and I expect every
other office--gets calls every day from seniors, saying: I am having a
problem with Social Security. I can't make contact with the Social
Security people. They are not getting back to me.
That is because, today, they are understaffed. If Musk and Trump get
their way and the Social Security Administration's staff is cut in
half, nobody can deny that that will be a death sentence for many
thousands of seniors who desperately need their benefits.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is worth a few hundred billion, may not understand
that there are millions of seniors in this country who have nothing in
the bank, who worry every day as to how they are going to heat their
homes or buy the food that they need, and if they can't get the
benefits that they need, some of them will, in fact, die.
Let me be clear: When you have Mr. Musk calling Social Security a
Ponzi scheme despite the fact that it has paid out every benefit owed
to every eligible American for the last 80-plus years, that ain't no
Ponzi scheme.
When you have the President of the United States coming before
Congress and lying--outrageously lying--about millions of people who
are 150 or 200 years of age receiving Social Security benefits--a total
lie--everybody should understand what is going on.
Trump and Musk are laying the groundwork for dismantling the most
successful Federal program in history--Social Security--a program that
keeps over 27 million Americans out of poverty. By the way, just to set
the record straight, over 99 percent of the more than 70 million Social
Security checks that go out each month are going to people who earned
those benefits--over 99 percent. People 150 or 500 years of age are not
getting Social Security checks.
But this continuing resolution that passed in the House is not just a
vicious attack on Social Security; it is an attack on the veterans of
our Nation--the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend
our country. While we made some progress under the Biden administration
in improving veterans' healthcare, the truth is that the VA has
remained significantly understaffed. In the fourth quarter of 2024,
there were 36,000 vacancies at the VA. We needed 2,400 more doctors,
6,300 more registered nurses, 3,400 more schedulers, 1,800 more social
workers, and 1,200 more custodians.
So what do the Trump administration and Mr. Musk do to address this
very serious workforce shortage? Their answer is that they are
threatening to dismantle the VA by firing 83,000 employees. In other
words, you have got a shortage today, and their solution to the
shortage is to fire 83,000 workers. Not only does this CR do nothing to
stop that, but it cuts more than $20 billion in funding needed to
provide care for veterans exposed to burn pits,
[[Page S1734]]
Agent Orange, and other toxic substances next year.
Pathetically, our Nation--the richest country on Earth--has the
highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on the
planet, and that is often reflected in the crises facing many public
schools today. Throughout America, children are coming into school
hungry; kids are coming into school with serious mental issues; kids
are coming into school from dysfunctional families and families often
dealing with drug abuse.
And what is the Trump-Musk administration doing about that crisis?
Well, their response was interesting. Just the other day, they fired
half of the staff at the Department of Education. That means that it
will be far harder to administer the title I program that helps 26
million low-income kids get the education they need and pays the
salaries of some 180,000 public school teachers throughout the country.
So how does a school in a working-class community survive if you
don't get the funds to pay for teachers?
Further, it means that it will be far harder to administer the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the IDEA, that provides
vital resources for 7\1/2\ million kids with disabilities. We have made
progress in a bipartisan way over the last number of years to say to
families: If your kid has a disability, that kid can still go to a
public school. There will be services available for that kid.
But when you cut the Department of Education staff here in Washington
in half, that is going to be extremely difficult to do, and it means
that it will be far harder for some 7 million low-income and working-
class students to get the Pell grants they need to get a higher
education. In fact, just hours after the Department of Education laid
off half of its staff, the website for the free application for Federal
Student Aid that working families use to apply for Pell grants and
other financial institutions crashed. They fired workers, and the
website crashed for the people who were applying for Pell grants. This
CR that we will be looking at perhaps tomorrow gives the Trump
administration the green light to make these horrific cuts to
education.
And it is not just education. We have a major healthcare crisis in
our country.
Despite spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people
of any other major country, 85 million Americans are uninsured or
underinsured. Over 500,000 of our people go bankrupt because of
medically related debt; over 60,000 people die each year because they
can't afford to get to a doctor on time; and our life expectancy is not
only lower than in almost any other major country, it is a system
wherein working-class and low-income Americans die 7 years younger than
wealthier Americans.
So you have got a crisis: People can't find a doctor. People are
going bankrupt because of healthcare bills. And what does this CR do?
Well, at a time when, in particular, our primary healthcare system is
completely broken, when we don't have enough doctors or nurses or
dentists or mental health counselors, this proposal cuts--cuts--
community health center funding by 3.2 percent; it cuts the National
Health Service Corps by over 5 percent; and it cuts funding for
teaching health centers--a program which helps train doctors in rural
and underserved areas--by almost 13 percent.
So, in the midst of a horrific primary healthcare crisis in Vermont
and all over rural America, this proposal will make it that much harder
for people to get the healthcare that they desperately need.
But it is not just healthcare. Everybody in this country, from
Vermont to Los Angeles, understands we have a major housing crisis. It
is not just all of the homelessness we are seeing. Over 20 million of
our people, incredibly, spend more than 50 percent of their limited
income on housing. How in God's name do you pay for anything else? How
do you buy food? How do you take care of healthcare if you are spending
50 percent or more for your housing?
So how does this CR address the housing crisis? Well, it does it by
cutting rental assistance for low-income families in America by $700
million, which could lead to more than 32,000 families in our country
being evicted from their homes. Well, that is a heck of a solution to
the housing crisis: You make it much worse.
But it is not just housing. I know that the President might disagree.
He thinks that climate change is a hoax. The whole scientific community
understands that it is an existential threat. They understand that the
last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather
disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all over the
world--from California to India, across Europe, to North Carolina.
So what does the CR do about the existential threat of climate
change? It does not even specify funding levels within the
Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the administration can
simply eliminate funding for climate change and environmental justice,
and that would be consistent with this CR.
And on top of all of this, the administration is already indicating
that they will simply ignore the provisions of the spending bill they
don't like. This week, it was reported that Vice President JD Vance
said to the Senate Republican caucus: I want everyone to vote yes. The
President, under section II, will ensure allocations from Congress are
not spent on things that harm the taxpayer. There is so much grift in
Washington. Let's move this CR, get to reconciliation, and for Congress
to pass appropriations.
In other words, what Vance is saying is: Don't worry about what is
actually in the bill. If the Trump administration doesn't like it, they
won't do it.
And let's be clear: The House CR that was passed in an extremely
partisan vote--I think they won by 3 or 4 votes. One Democrat out of--
whatever--215 voted for it. The House CR and the Trump administration
are doing everything they can to lay the groundwork for more tax breaks
for billionaires, paid for by massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition
assistance, housing, and education. So you are looking at a one-two
punch: a very bad CR and then a reconciliation bill coming down, which
will be the final kick in the teeth for the American people.
This legislation that the Republicans are working on--the
reconciliation bill--would cut taxes for billionaires in the top 1
percent by over $1.1 trillion over the next decade. According to a
recent study, if all of Trump's so-called ``America First'' policies
are enacted, the bottom 95 percent of Americans will see their taxes go
up, while the richest 5 percent will see their taxes go down--way down.
I should also mention that that reconciliation bill which Republicans
are working on right now would also cut Medicaid by $880 billion.
Tax breaks for billionaires; throwing low-income kids off of
healthcare; decimating nursing homes all over America, because nursing
homes receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid; making it
harder for community health centers to survive, which provide
healthcare to 32 million Americans, because 43 percent of their revenue
comes from Medicaid--cut Medicaid by $880 billion, and you will
significantly deteriorate the quality of healthcare all over America,
at a time when the system is already broken.
Further, the reconciliation bill proposes to cut at least $230
billion from nutrition. Today, nearly one out of five kids in America
rely on Federal nutrition programs to keep them from going hungry. I
find it rather remarkable that the richest person on Earth, somebody
worth hundreds of billions of dollars--that he and his other oligarch
friends are working night and day to cut programs for the working
people of this country and to actually deny food to hungry kids in
America. There is no world, no universe, no religion that would not
believe that that is grossly immoral and unacceptable. You don't give
tax breaks to the rich and take food away from hungry children.
The House CR bill that we will be soon voting on here is a piece of
legislation I cannot support. Instead, what the Senate must do is pass
a 30-day CR so that all Members of Congress, not just the House
Republican leadership, can come together and produce a good piece of
legislation that works for all Americans and not just the few.
We have an opportunity now to serve the American people. We have an
opportunity to write something that reflects what people in the
Congress feel, what the people in America feel.
[[Page S1735]]
I go around the country, and, just a couple of weeks ago, I held a
telephone townhall in Vermont. We are a small State. We only have about
650,000 people. Yet on that telephone townhall, there were 34,000
people listening in. It is a significant percentage of a small State.
I have been in many parts of the country recently. I have been in
Iowa. I have been in Wisconsin. I have been in Nebraska. I have been in
Michigan. And what I can tell you with absolute certainty is, whether
people are conservative, whether they are Republican, whether they are
progressive, whether they are moderate, whether they are Independent--
whatever they may be--there are very few people in this country who
think we should give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the rich and
cut back on Medicaid, education, and nutritional programs for hungry
children.
So, Mr. President, what I strongly propose is that we pass a 30-day
CR; that we do what has always been the case here in the Senate: have
both bodies, both parties work together to come up with a good piece of
legislation.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. MORENO. I ask that the previously scheduled rollcall vote begin
immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.