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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, there are a couple of topics that I would like to talk about. The first is the government shutdown.

I don't know what my friends on the other side expect. We will talk about the Affordable Care Act at the right time, starting with the idea that it is not affordable. You created a law without any Republican votes. You had the subsidies, and they expire. That was your choice. Most of us believe that the ObamaCare Program you created is very expensive, and we are not going to extend it. We would look at trying to make it better. The President has a brilliant idea of how better to use the money to help consumers.

Senator Marshall just left. So, whether you open the government up or not, I am not going to change my vote. I am not going to vote to authorize these subsidies as they are. I am not going to vote to repeal the good work we did under the Big Beautiful Bill. So let's open up the government and talk. If you don't want to do that, then a lot of people are going to have their lives turned upside down for no good reason.

I do not feel like we should be held hostage here to get a legislative outcome to open up the government. We tried that as Republicans: You have got to build a wall or we won't open the government. It was probably not a good idea for us. It didn't work out well for us. If nothing else, learn from what we did.

So I am hoping the government will open soon. It is a dangerous time to have the Federal Government not functioning in the security space, and it is a danger for air travel, but if you haven't noticed, the world is a pretty dangerous place.

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