[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 4151]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              BUDGET RIDER

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, one final point on another matter. Today, 
the Democratic leadership of the Senate sent a letter to Leader 
McConnell and Chairman Cochran. We, of course, laid out our concerns 
about the budget and reiterated the guiding rules that helped us pass a 
budget for the first time in a while last year. We believe that we 
should stick to the spending levels that were agreed to in December, 
that we should maintain a parity between defense and nondefense, and 
that there should be no poison pill riders.
  It is rumored that one of those poison pill riders might be a 
supplemental added to the CR that would call for paying for President 
Trump's wall. That will not stand.
  The President wants a wall but has not answered so many questions 
about it. What about eminent domain and the procedures to acquire land 
from private landowners? What is the design of the wall? Where is it 
going to be located? How is it going to be paid for, and how much will 
it cost? Don't you think we ought to give the President some time to 
have Mexico pay for the wall? That is what he said throughout his 
campaign, that Mexico will pay for it.
  That is why both Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who 
represent the border States object to this wall. It will be 
inappropriate, in our judgment, to insist on the inclusion of such 
funding in a must-pass appropriations bill that is needed for the 
Republican majority in the control of Congress to avert a government 
shutdown. It is truly a poison pill. We would urge our colleagues not 
to allow the President to include this in a must-pass bill that avoids 
a shutdown of the government.
  I yield the floor.

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