Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Need To Pass Bipartisan Appropriations Legislation To Avoid A Government Shutdown And Preserve Critical Investments In The American People

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the importance of passing bipartisan appropriations bills and avoiding a government shutdown on Friday. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

With just a few days to go before Friday’s funding deadline to keep the government open, both chambers must continue working quickly, decisively, and with bipartisan cooperation to avoid a shutdown.

The House will vote today on the six appropriations bills we reached a bipartisan agreement on, where I expect they will pass with strong bipartisan support.

As soon as the House passes these appropriations bills and sends them to the Senate, I will put the bills on the floor so we can pass them and fund these six departments with time to spare before Friday’s deadline.

It took a lot of bipartisan cooperation to reach this agreement on these six appropriations bills. Now, it will take more bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.

The appropriations process hasn’t been easy in divided government, but after a lot of hard work, late nights, and persistence, we now have six strong appropriations bills that include aggressive investments in American families, moms and kids, veterans, workers, and more. And we prevented any devastating cuts or poison pills pushed by the hard-right.

We’ll fully fund WIC, meaning no mom or kid will be denied vital nutrition assistance. We’ll protect funding to help Americans – especially rural Americans – afford their rent and keep a roof over their head. We’ll increase funding for programs and services that support our veterans. And in this year’s appropriations, we prevented the worst of the devastating cuts and poison pills pushed by the hard-right.

Passing these bills will give us much-needed momentum to finish the next package of spending bills by the March 22 deadline. But as I’ve said repeatedly, it will take bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.

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