[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 160 (Tuesday, September 30, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S6883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, well, we are headed into a miserable
situation. It is a miserable situation for all of the Federal employees
around the globe who are going to be put into shutdown mode. It is a
miserable situation for our country, as the rest of the world looks at
us as the gang that can't get its act together and pass simple funding
bills for the government.
It is an extraordinarily frustrating moment to be here now. There are
very few people for whom this is not a miserable prospect, but there
are a few of them, and one of them is OMB Director Russell Vought, who
is a strange character who has spent his life in the care and feeding
of the fossil fuel industry and big polluters and who takes a perverse
joy from destroying American government from the inside.
So there will be misery ahead for most normal people, not counting
the weird ones who like inflicting pain and doing damage for the
benefit of a bunch of creepy, rightwing billionaires who have propped
them up their whole lives.
The reason we are here is really two-fold. One, as they have shown
during the Trump regime, Republicans really don't want to govern; they
want to rule. They don't want to talk to Democrats even where they need
our votes.
Here, they need our votes. Yet what have we been offered to get those
votes? Nothing--not even discussions. The President only met with the
Democratic leaders just yesterday, and he didn't seem to be aware of
what was at stake here for the Americans who are about to lose a huge
healthcare benefit.
They just go wildly forward. We have seen it over and over again here
on the Senate floor. How many times in just the few months that we have
been here in this administration have Republicans done the thing that
they were furious we even talked about doing to overrule the
Parliamentarian and change the rules to make things easier for
themselves rather than negotiate with us? My count is four already--
four--and we are only 9 months in.
They don't want to govern. They don't want to talk to us. They want
to rule. They want to dictate to us.
At the same time, the other reason we are here is that there is this
strange Republican fixation with taking healthcare away from people. I
do not understand it. There are lots of Republican constituents who
really depend on Medicaid, who really feel great that they are on
Medicare, who really have their family budgets made possible by the
credits from the Affordable Care Act. It is not like Democrats get the
benefit of this; everybody gets the benefit of this. Yet what have we
been put through just in these months? A trillion dollars in cuts to
Medicaid. A trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid. Already, hospitals
and nursing homes and doctors' practices are reeling at what those cuts
mean for their financial viability.
Medicare--Medicare--half a trillion dollars in cuts hidden in the
bill in a tricky way so that the cuts come through sequestration and
nobody has to own them. They can do a Pontius Pilate hand-wash of the
cuts.
Well, no. We saw what you did. You own it. It is a half-trillion-
dollar cut to Medicare. And why you want to do that, I cannot imagine,
but that is what you did.
Now we have these cuts to people receiving help paying for their
healthcare under the Affordable Care Act. It is going to be about
40,000 Rhode Islanders. These aren't people who have loads of money.
Their premiums are going to, on average, double or better. I mentioned
a retired mental health counselor yesterday. She is going to have $477
in added expenses every single month because of this. And it all starts
now. It all starts happening now.
So when we are told, why are we forcing the issue now? it is because
now is when the issue is upon us. When we are told, why don't we
negotiate later? my question is: Why aren't we negotiating now? Why
would we believe when we are told that you will negotiate later on this
when you won't negotiate now on this? Now when you need our votes, you
won't negotiate on something. You say you will negotiate later. Why
does that make any sense? Why is that even remotely credible?
The harm starts now; the negotiations should start now. Frankly, what
Democrats are asking for is something you ought to be doing anyway just
to help your own constituents. This shouldn't be hard at all. We should
not be here having this conversation. This should have been resolved
already--except that the Republican majority wants to rule, not govern,
and they have this strange fixation with taking away healthcare even
from their own constituents.
Over and over again, we have seen it. We have seen it with the
repeated overruling of the Parliamentarian. We have seen it with the
``Beautiful for Billionaires Bill'' that got rammed through with a
simple majority. We have seen it with the change in the rules to allow
100 nominees to go through at a time under advice and consent. We have
seen it with clean air standards that help everyone being repealed.
Over and over and over again, the Republicans take the path that allows
them to rule, not to govern; that allows them to ignore the minority
party even when they need our votes, even when what we are asking for
is in their constituents' interests, even when what we are asking for
is something that their constituents want. Even then, we are up against
this blockade.
So I hope Republicans come to their senses. I hope the President
realizes what he is doing and that we can put an end to this shutdown
as quickly as possible. But let me make this absolutely clear: This is
a shutdown that lands entirely at the feet of the Republican Party that
controls the Senate, that controls the House, that controls the
Presidency, that won't negotiate with Democrats even when it needs our
votes, and that has an unhealthy fixation with taking away healthcare
from their fellow Americans.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). The Senator from Delaware.
____________________