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Floor Speech

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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?

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.

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