Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Calling On House Republicans To Work In A Bipartisan Way To Avoid A Harmful Government Shutdown
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor encouraging the House to embrace bipartisanship to avoid a harmful MAGA government shutdown. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Every day we get closer to September 30th, one truth becomes clearer and clearer: there is no scenario for avoiding a government shutdown without bipartisanship.
A government shutdown would be a terrible and unnecessary outcome for our country. Millions of Americans who count on government services would have their lives disrupted. It could impact the pay of our service members who so bravely serve us. Air traffic controllers and TSA employees would have to work without pay. FEMA’s disaster relief fund, needed by so many, could dry up.
A shutdown would be disastrous. A shutdown would be unnecessary. And make no mistake, a shutdown is certainly avoidable.
And yet, with each passing day, House Republicans seem less interested in avoiding a shutdown, and more interested in catering to the hard, hard, unreasonable, adamant, and stubborn hard right.
A few days ago, House Republicans released what they claimed was a deal for a CR – a slapdash, reckless, and cruel bill that everyone knew had no chance, no chance, of passing in the Senate.
It would have cut 8% to virtually all nondefense spending. It would have cut investments to the Social Security Administration. It would have meant cuts to law enforcement, to NIH funding for cancer research, to nutrition protection, to protection for clean water, for small business loans, even for people protecting the border. And still it wasn’t extreme enough for the hard right.
House Republicans rejected their own extremist bill, and by rejecting it, that’s a dead giveaway they’re not serious about avoiding a shutdown. They seem more interested in just finding the lowest common denominator – finding something, anything, that can appease the hard right, no matter how extreme, no matter how unrealistic, no matter how cruel, and no matter how unseriously this would be taken by the country, and by this body. This is not a serious way to solve the crisis.
Look, I sympathize with the Speaker. I know his task isn’t easy. He’s got a lot of very, very difficult members to deal with.
But we all have, including the Speaker, we have a responsibility to the American people. Real lives would be disrupted in a shutdown. And the answer for avoiding a shutdown is right in front of Speaker McCarthy, and he knows it: bipartisanship.
Speaker McCarthy says he wants to avoid a shutdown, he says nobody wins in a shutdown. Well, then he should reach across the aisle to find an agreement that actually has the votes to pass both chambers. That’s the only way – the only way – this crisis gets resolved.
When members of your own side operate in bad faith, when has appeasement ever worked? If he gives into them now, they’ll want something more tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Some of them have stated baldly that they want a shutdown. The Speaker has an obligation not to let those people who want a shutdown have their way. Chasing the lowest common denominator won’t ever solve the Speaker’s problem. The hard right will just keep demanding more extreme things. It’s the pattern we have seen play out all year long.
And that approach will only lead to one outcome: a MAGA government shutdown.
This has been the problem with MAGA extremism from the start: it’s not serious about governing. It hates governing. Chaos is the only word in their playbook. We have members of the hard right who openly say, bragging, they want a shutdown.
Well, it doesn’t have to be this way and it shouldn’t be this way. Those few who want a shutdown should not control the House. Speaker McCarthy doesn’t have to pretend like a MAGA bill is the only option. Again, there are real people who will be hurt if government is shut down. They’d like to see us work together so their lives don’t get disrupted.
Now, today is September 20th. House Republicans have less than ten days to figure this out. If Republican leadership chooses to work with Democrats, we can avoid a shutdown very quickly.
But if they continue trying to appease the hard MAGA right, we all know exactly how this is going to end.
###
