[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 14158]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it comes as no surprise to anyone watching 
the Senate that the Republican leader and I disagree on many things, 
but I was very glad to hear the Republican leader say last week that he 
believes any government funding bill must be clean and that using the 
appropriations process as a vehicle to attack women's health is, as he 
said, ``an exercise in futility.''
  I am sure not everyone on his side of the aisle agrees with him, but 
there is no doubt it is the right thing to do. I agree that any budget 
deal must be clean; that is, no riders--nothing with Planned 
Parenthood, nothing with repealing what the Environmental Protection 
Agency has done, no repealing what the Dodd-Frank bill put into effect 
to stop us from having another Wall Street meltdown, no riders dealing 
with immigration--just a clean continuing resolution for a short period 
of time to allow us to do a more full and more complete deal in the 
very near future.
  I agree any budget bill must be clean. I say that again. I am glad to 
see the Republican leader coming around to that. Democrats will not 
support a continuing resolution that has all these riders on it and 
especially a Planned Parenthood rider that was talked about so much in 
the House.
  I read in the paper today that there are 32 Republicans in the House 
who have signed a letter to the Speaker saying they are not going to 
vote for anything unless it defunds Planned Parenthood. That is a 
nonstarter and the Republican leader rightly has acknowledged that. I 
am glad the Republican leader wants a clean continuing resolution 
instead of one that attacks women's health.
  I am disappointed by his refusal at this stage to negotiate with the 
White House or any Democrats in the House or in the Senate dealing with 
the budget. We have a looming government shutdown. It is right before 
our eyes. The Republican leader has already wasted far too much time 
dithering and doing nothing on that. We know from experience 2 years 
ago that the Republicans actually did shut down the government for 
almost 3 weeks. For months, we have overheard them calling for 
bipartisan budget negotiations. We have 9 session days left before the 
government shuts down. Now is the time to sit down--Democrats, 
Republicans, getting the White House involved--and negotiate a 
bipartisan funding measure for the rest of the year, but by the look of 
this week's schedule, the Republican leader doesn't seem to be in any 
hurry to avoid a shutdown. That is truly unfortunate.
  The Republican leader has not scheduled any budget votes today. 
Instead, the Senate will waste precious time on another failed vote. 
And then what comes next? What is the Republican leader's plan for the 
rest of the week? Political show votes on abortion that have nothing to 
do with keeping the Federal Government open. There is no reason why we 
can't pass a bipartisan funding measure as soon as possible--this week, 
even. But that depends on the Republican leader's willingness to sit 
down and negotiate, and sooner rather than later. Then, Congress can 
move on to our next budget priority: reversing sequestration and its 
harmful cuts.

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