-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are just hours away from the deadline to fund the Federal Government. This task of funding our government is one of the most important responsibilities vested in Congress.
This is not my first rodeo. I have been through shutdowns before. The last one and one of the longest was in President Trump's first term. So here in the second term comes another government shutdown just 9 months into his Presidency.
Accomplishing this funding of our government requires bipartisan compromise. Do the math. To pass anything of substance in the U.S. Senate, you need 60 votes. There are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. You need at least seven Democratic votes to join all the Republicans if you want to have a bipartisan rollcall that passes. So that would suggest to any President and any Member of the majority party that it is a good idea to sit down with the Senators from the other side of the aisle before you reach the shutdown phase of this conversation.
If we fail to fund this government, farmers won't receive their payments and loans they need to stay afloat facing President Trump's tariffs, medical breakthroughs and research will be put on hold, and American servicemembers and thousands of Federal employees across the country will be forced to work without pay. But unfortunately, we have seen little interest on the other side to sit down and talk about it and to reach a compromise. The Republicans control the White House, they control the Senate, they control the House of Representatives, and they have decided the best approach is: Don't negotiate with the Democrats. Give them a ``take it or leave it'' and let's see what happens.
Despite knowing since March that government funding was going to run out tonight, President Donald Trump waited until yesterday--yesterday-- to meet with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. What was he waiting for? He understands the President bears major responsibility if a shutdown takes place.
Think about it. He waited until the day before the government funding deadline to finally sit down and talk to both political parties.
Republican Majority Leader Thune said he is committed to passing appropriations bills through regular order. I agree. I am on the Appropriations Committee. I think we are doing a pretty good job, and we can do better.
We also want to pass government spending bills, but we refuse to rubberstamp President Trump's harmful cuts and reckless actions. Yet, instead of being here to do the work of funding our government, the Republicans in the House are gone. They left Washington last week and don't plan to return until next week. That doesn't help at all.
The House must stop playing political games and come to work so we can actually avoid this shutdown. Republicans must take responsibility for the government they control--the government they control.
White House Republicans are on vacation. Their refusal to prevent a shutdown will ruin millions of Americans' travel plans.
During a shutdown, air traffic controllers and TSA employees work without pay. That is not reassuring. This means delays and longer wait times for travelers at airports across the country, just like the last time President Donald Trump shut down the government in 2018 for 35 long days. It took pressure from the air traffic controllers to finally end that Trump shutdown.
Our aviation system will continue to bear the effects because a shutdown would pause hiring and training programs for air traffic controllers at a time when we should be improving safety.
Does it make you feel more confident to take a flight and realize that that air traffic controller is working without pay or that the testing and training of the air traffic controllers have been delayed because of a shutdown?
So the next time you are sitting in an airport and you see your flight delayed, you can thank those who didn't want to sit down and talk before the shutdown faced us.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration is preparing to weaponize the shutdown and continue their attacks on the Federal workforce. Without any rhyme or reason, they have been chopping off thousands and thousands of Federal employees. Sometimes employees are doing essential work, and they beg them to come back to work. Some do; some don't.
Last week, the Director of the OMB, Russell Vought, sent out a memo stating that any government employee who seeks funding for their role lapse because of a shutdown would be fired if their work does not align with the President's objectives.
They are promising a big shutdown of the Federal workforce. These firings jeopardize progress in Federal Agencies--Agencies already indiscriminately gutted by the Trump administration. The Trump administration has begged fired employees to return to work at Agencies like the National Weather Service and the Department of Energy.
Even Republican Senators--some--agree that government employees are not pawns to be played with during the debate on government funding. These employees and their families deserve a better boss. But the Trump administration apparently doesn't care. They are content to cause continual chaos across the government to score cheap points.
The American people know who is making the government work and who is trying to destroy it. For months, Democrats have been ready and willing to work with Republicans to avoid the awful effects of a shutdown.
Why should the average American care about a shutdown? What import does it have to you and your life and your family? It is basic. It is healthcare. That is what this is about on the Democratic side. We think this is a battle worth fighting.
We face a prospect of some 24 million Americans either losing their health insurance in the next several weeks or seeing dramatic increases in their premium payments. Some will have to get a different insurance policy with higher deductibles. Some won't be able to afford health insurance at all.
Take a look at what the cutback in Medicaid is going to do to hospitals across our country. Illinois is a great State--very diverse, with the beautiful, big city of Chicago and a lot of smaller, rural area towns as well. These rural areas count on hospitals like no other place in our State. They are literally the lifeline. If these hospitals start to close, it not only presents a hardship when it comes to medical care, it hurts the economy of the region. Imagine trying to keep or attract a company to bring their business to your town when you have just lost your hospital.
This cutback in the big, beautiful budget bill of the Trump administration of paying into Medicaid is exactly the wrong thing to do for my home State of Illinois and for most other States. We want to make sure that doesn't happen. We want to stop this cutback in healthcare quality and availability across this country. That is what we are holding out for. It isn't some big, beautiful border wall; it is what American families have to pay for health insurance each month.
You ought to see the numbers if we don't do anything. The so-called ACA tax credits means there is a helping hand for families in income situations where they are eligible to pay for health insurance. The Republicans eliminated this helping hand, and now that the premiums are going to go up, we have already received notice in Illinois of several insurance companies that have gone out of business. It is a problem--a really serious problem--in terms of the cost of premiums for families. So that is what this is about.
Bringing down the government is not a good policy by and large, but neither is cutting the healthcare for 25 million Americans. So that is what we are bringing this issue together on.
Can we have a sitdown with Democrats and Republicans and reach an agreement? Yes, we can. We can start tonight. There is no reason why we shouldn't.
So I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will understand that uninsured Americans and Americans with health insurance that they can't afford is a serious hardship for working families. I hope my Republican colleagues will join us in a bipartisan conversation. It is long overdue.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source