[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 153 (Thursday, September 18, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6705-S6706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last night, we found the answer to the 
question of how serious Democrats are about funding the government, and 
the answer is not at all.
  For years, the Democrat leader talked about the importance of passing 
clean continuing resolutions. In fact, we did 13 of them while the 
Democrats had the majority the past 4 years with a Democrat in the 
White House.
  The Democrats' CR proposal this time is the exact opposite. It is not 
clean; it is filthy. It is packed full of partisan policies and 
measures designed to appeal to Democrats' leftist base: funding 
healthcare for able-bodied adults who refuse to work; ensuring that 
noncitizens go back on the Medicaid rolls; removing Republican-passed 
measures to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid and free up 
resources for the people who need Medicaid the most.
  Even while Democrats are ensuring that noncitizens and able-bodied 
adults who refuse to work are getting government-funded healthcare, 
they are attempting to eliminate a historic investment in home- and 
community-based services for Americans with disabilities. Where exactly 
do their priorities lie?

[[Page S6706]]

  They are also trying to ax Republicans' transformational, once-in-a-
generation investment in rural healthcare designed to improve the way 
that we deliver care to those who need it.
  Republicans have advanced a clean, nonpartisan CR to keep the 
government funded while we continue bipartisan work on regular annual 
appropriations funding bills.
  Democrats--well, Democrats are threatening to shut down the 
government if Republicans don't agree to last night's laundry list of 
partisan demands. I think that tells you all you need to know.
  I expect the House to advance a clean CR tomorrow, and I hope--I 
really hope--that Democrats will come to their senses and join us in 
passing it. The ball is in their court.