Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, it comes as no surprise to anyone watching the Senate that the Republican leader and I disagree on many things, but I was very glad to hear the Republican leader say last week that he believes any government funding bill must be clean and that using the appropriations process as a vehicle to attack women's health is, as he said, ``an exercise in futility.''

I am sure not everyone on his side of the aisle agrees with him, but there is no doubt it is the right thing to do. I agree that any budget deal must be clean; that is, no riders--nothing with Planned Parenthood, nothing with repealing what the Environmental Protection Agency has done, no repealing what the Dodd-Frank bill put into effect to stop us from having another Wall Street meltdown, no riders dealing with immigration--just a clean continuing resolution for a short period of time to allow us to do a more full and more complete deal in the very near future.

I agree any budget bill must be clean. I say that again. I am glad to see the Republican leader coming around to that. Democrats will not support a continuing resolution that has all these riders on it and especially a Planned Parenthood rider that was talked about so much in the House.

I read in the paper today that there are 32 Republicans in the House who have signed a letter to the Speaker saying they are not going to vote for anything unless it defunds Planned Parenthood. That is a nonstarter and the Republican leader rightly has acknowledged that. I am glad the Republican leader wants a clean continuing resolution instead of one that attacks women's health.

I am disappointed by his refusal at this stage to negotiate with the White House or any Democrats in the House or in the Senate dealing with the budget. We have a looming government shutdown. It is right before our eyes. The Republican leader has already wasted far too much time dithering and doing nothing on that. We know from experience 2 years ago that the Republicans actually did shut down the government for almost 3 weeks. For months, we have overheard them calling for bipartisan budget negotiations. We have 9 session days left before the government shuts down. Now is the time to sit down--Democrats, Republicans, getting the White House involved--and negotiate a bipartisan funding measure for the rest of the year, but by the look of this week's schedule, the Republican leader doesn't seem to be in any hurry to avoid a shutdown. That is truly unfortunate.

The Republican leader has not scheduled any budget votes today. Instead, the Senate will waste precious time on another failed vote. And then what comes next? What is the Republican leader's plan for the rest of the week? Political show votes on abortion that have nothing to do with keeping the Federal Government open. There is no reason why we can't pass a bipartisan funding measure as soon as possible--this week, even. But that depends on the Republican leader's willingness to sit down and negotiate, and sooner rather than later. Then, Congress can move on to our next budget priority: reversing sequestration and its harmful cuts.

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