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Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are into the second day of a government shutdown after Democrats, once again, rejected a clean, nonpartisan funding bill to keep the government open while we continue bipartisan appropriations work. We are not going to be voting today, as we have Jewish colleagues who are currently observing Yom Kippur, but we will be voting tomorrow. And we are going to give my Democratic colleagues another opportunity to reopen the government by passing the clean, nonpartisan funding extension before us.

I realize that my Democrat colleagues are facing pressure from Members of their far-left base, but they are playing a losing game here. A robust majority of American voters are against a government shutdown. Even some Democrat Members are raising concerns, with a Democrat House Member noting yesterday:

This government shutdown is the result of hardball politics driven by the demands far-left groups are making for Democratic Party leaders to put on a show of their opposition to President Trump. The shutdown is hurting Americans and our economy . . . normal policy disagreements are no reason to subject our constituents to the continued harm of this shutdown.

That, from a Democrat House Member.

Organizations ranging from the National Fraternal Order of Police to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Teamsters have spoken out against shutting down the government. The Teamsters president said Tuesday:

A shutdown will hurt working people. Period. Senators should . . . pass the House-passed clean, short-term funding bill.

Senators should . . . pass the House-passed clean, short- term funding bill.

That, again, from the president of the Teamsters. ``Clean'' is what he said.

My Democrat colleagues have little to work with in this debate, with their own previous statements working against them, and so they have tried to portray the clean, nonpartisan funding bill before us as something other than what it is.

But the Teamsters president reminds us of the facts. We are not asking Democrats to swallow a list of new Republican policies or partisan demands--not in there. We are asking Democrats to do nothing more than pass a clean, nonpartisan bill to fund the government for a few more weeks so that we can get back to bipartisan appropriations work.

And I said ``bipartisan appropriations work''--the kind of bipartisan work that has seen the Senate pass three appropriations bills so far by robust bipartisan margins, the kind of work that we want to continue once Democrats have stopped holding government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands.

So far, three of our Democrat colleagues have joined Republicans to attempt to reopen the government. If we can just find a few more Democrats to join us, we can end this shutdown and get back to bipartisan appropriations work and the business of the American people.

Democrats voted for clean CRs like the one before us 13 times--13 times--during the Biden administration. I hope they will join us to pass this clean CR and reopen the government for hard-working Americans.

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