Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Avoiding A Costly And Unnecessary Government Shutdown

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on Speaker Johnson’s proposed continuing resolution and the importance of avoiding a costly, unnecessary government shutdown. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

We have until Friday to avert another costly, unnecessary, and avoidable government shutdown.

Time is a luxury that neither side has. If we are going to keep the lights on beyond this Friday, our Republican colleagues will have to work with Democrats in a bipartisan way to pass a clean extension without hard-right cuts and without poison pills.

So far, I am heartened – cautiously so – that Speaker Johnson is moving forward with a CR that omits precisely the sort of hard-right cuts that would have been nonstarters for Democrats. I certainly don’t agree with everything the Speaker is proposing, and I can’t imagine too many Senators would have taken the Speaker’s approach in drafting this bill.

But the proposal before the House does two things Democrats have pushed for: it will avert a shutdown, and it will do so without making any terrible hard-right cuts that the MAGA right-wing demands. It also eliminates the poison pills that so many MAGA congressmembers put in the bills.  

We will see over the course of today how the House moves forward. Over the past few days, a significant portion of the Speaker’s hard-right flank has torched his proposal precisely because it doesn’t make cuts.

I hope the Speaker does not yield to the demands of the hard right as we try to keep the government open. Instead, I hope the Speaker continues to recognize he will need Democratic votes in order to avoid a shutdown.

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