Schumer Floor Remarks On The Trump Shutdown’s Devastating Impact on the U.S. Economy
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer today spoke on the Senate floor urging
President Trump to expedite the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of federal
workers and avoid another partial government shutdown, after a report from the
Congressional Budget Office concluded the Trump Shutdown cost our economy
billions of dollars. Below are his remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Mr. President, as
the dust settles from the longest shutdown in American history, we have work to
do to get our country back on track.
Hundreds of
thousands of federal workers who endured a month without compensation need to get
their paychecks and back pay as soon as possible. So I’ve written a letter to
President Trump urging him to expedite the delivery of those paychecks.
At the same time,
we must be mindful of the hardships that persist for federal contractors, who
may not receive the back pay they’ve missed and who may have lost health
insurance during the shutdown. We need to find a solution as well for those
contractors. Senator Smith from Minnesota is working on that and I hope we can
do something to help them – it’s no fault of their own that they lost pay.
But there are
some costs to the Trump Shutdown that cannot be recouped. The CBO today
released a report about the lasting damage the Trump Shutdown has done to the
American economy.
According to CBO,
the five-week shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion overall, including $3
billion in economic activity that can never be recovered. Let me repeat that:
the Trump Shutdown cost the U.S. economy 11 billion dollars. What a devastating
and pointless exercise this has been. If President Trump didn’t appreciate the
error of his ways already, the CBO ought to set him straight: no more
shutdowns. They accomplish nothing; they only inflict pain and suffering on the
country: our citizens, our economy, and our national security.
That’s a lesson
we must all keep in mind. The continuing resolution we passed on Friday only
runs until February 15th. In three weeks, we must pass additional
appropriations to avoid another shutdown. Let the CBO report be a dire warning
to President Trump and my Republican colleagues in the Senate against shutting
down the government again.
Now, in these
next three weeks, House and Senate appropriators named to the conference
committee on Department of Homeland Security will endeavor to strike a
bipartisan deal on border security. The good news is, we begin this process
with plenty of common ground. Democrats and Republicans alike agree on the need
for stronger border security. Though Democrats sharply disagree with the president
on the need for an expensive and ineffective border wall, we agree on the need
to strengthen our ports of entry, as well as the need to provide more drug
inspection technology and humanitarian assistance. Since so many of the drugs
come through the ports of entry, a wall will do no good at all. But
strengthening those ports of entry is vital.
And because we’ve
set this up as a conference, Democratic and Republican leadership, House and
Senate, will be involved, as well as the appropriators from those committees.
Everyone – everyone – has skin in the game.
So in the next
three weeks, the goal of the committee should be to find the areas where we
agree and work on them together. In the past, when the president has stayed out
of it, when the president has given Congress room, we’ve been repeatedly able
to forge bipartisan agreements, including two budget agreements, the Russia
sanctions. When the president injects maximalist, partisan demands into the
process, negotiations tend to fall apart. The president should allow the
conference committee to proceed with good faith negotiations. I genuinely hope
it will produce something that’s good for the country and acceptable to both
sides.
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