Appropriations and Continuing Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I am deeply concerned that we are headed toward a government shutdown on March 14. It is not about whether Democrats or Republicans would win politically. It is because we know the American people would lose.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you why I am deeply concerned that we are headed for a government shutdown on March 14. I am worried because the Speaker has not brought the 12 individual spending bills, which is the way we should fund the government. In fact, it is the promise that was made by my Republican colleagues on how we would fund the government.

Republicans have made the argument that the last election was about the status quo disappearing, that it can't exist and that people are fed up.

They created DOGE, which is going through the Federal Government and finding fraud, waste, and abuse, so they say and so they claim. If that is true, Mr. Speaker, if Elon Musk and DOGE have found all that fraud, waste, and abuse, the hundreds of billions of dollars as they claim, then, Mr. Speaker, we can't fund the government by CR anymore because the CR would refund all of that waste, fraud, and abuse that DOGE has found. That means the only way to fund the government is to fund it by individual spending bills, but we are running out of time, Mr. Speaker.

We have a month before the government shuts down. We have to get back to the process of individual spending bills. If we don't, then the Speaker will be the one who will have closed the government for the American people.

I am concerned, and I am here to work with the Speaker on the 12 individual spending bills. Democrats are at the table to do that, but we have to be honest. We can't tell the American people we are for reducing fraud, waste, and abuse, that we are for government efficiency and to look at all these things we have found, and then say that we are going to refund them all with a clean CR.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to say: I am here. I am willing to stay weekends. I am willing to work for the next month so that we can fund the government appropriately with the 12 individual spending bills, a promise that my Republican colleagues made.

The Speaker has to start getting that train moving. Otherwise, he will close the government.

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