Leader Schumer Floor Remarks: Every Day Republicans Refuse To Negotiate & Drag Out The Shutdown, The Harm To Americans Grows And So Does Democrats’ Fight To Lower Healthcare Costs
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to slam Republicans for refusing to negotiate to end the shutdown, address the healthcare crisis and reopen the government while Americans’ cost of healthcare is spiking and cost of living continues to rise. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
The federal government has been shut down now for more than a week, but Donald Trump, Speaker Johnson, and Republicans in Congress are nowhere to be found.
Instead of playing with people’s lives, Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress need to sit down with Democrats and have a serious negotiation to fix healthcare and reopen the government at once.
Workers are starting to miss out on paychecks. Seniors are worried about delays at the Social Security Administration. Small businesses with government contracts are in the dark.
We need to end this shutdown as soon as possible. Every day that Republicans refuse to negotiate to end this shutdown the worse it gets for Americans, and the clearer it becomes who’s fighting for them.
Each day, our case to fix healthcare and end the shutdown gets better and better, stronger and stronger, because families are opening their letters showing how high their premiums will climb if Republicans get their way. They’re seeing why this fight matters– it’s about protecting their healthcare, their bank accounts, their futures.
But Republicans are absent. The House is literally on vacation. And Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to play with people’s lives and threaten mass layoffs for federal workers.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Republican leaders in Congress have been urging the administration not to follow through with their threats of mass layoffs and no backpay for furloughed federal workers. The Journal wrote that “far-reaching government cuts and firings could backfire with the public,” and aides have been, “warning that such moves could cause voters to blame Republicans for the shutdown.” That’s the Wall Street Journal.
Well, this is spot-on. If Donald Trump thinks that punishing federal workers and treating the American public as pawns is going to help him politically, he’s making a terrible mistake. Because the American people are smart. They see what Trump and the Republicans are doing. They know Republicans are the ones in charge – they have the presidency, the House, the Senate, not Democrats.
We Democrats want to end this shutdown as quickly as we can. But Donald Trump and Republicans need to negotiate with us in a serious way to fix the healthcare premiums crisis. We can and should do both – it’s not either-or like Republicans think.
President Trump, meanwhile, is simply not taking this shutdown seriously. Because as we speak, the Trump administration continues to negotiate a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, to prop up a MAGA ally. Apparently, Donald Trump thinks $20 billion for a MAGA-friendly government in Argentina is fine, but fixing healthcare premiums here at home is not.
Meanwhile, thanks to President Trump’s bungled trade war with China, American soybean farmers have been shut out of foreign markets and are facing mass bankruptcies. With American farmers cut out, farmers in countries like Argentina are taking advantage, selling record numbers of soybeans to China.
But instead of helping American farms, now—in the middle of a shutdown—Donald Trump wants to send $20 billion to Argentina to help them compete against American farmers. All while hungry Americans face higher grocery prices and the largest cuts ever to nutrition aid, thanks to Trump and Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Bill.”
It’s all utter lunacy. Whose side is Donald Trump on?
And the situation is no better here in Congress. In the middle of a shutdown crisis, Speaker Johnson has shut the lights off to the halls of Congress.
We Democrats have made clear that Republicans need to engage us in serious negotiations to end this destructive shutdown and fix healthcare premiums as soon as we can.
But Speaker Johnson has sent the House on vacation. He has sent members home now for three weeks. And it sounds like he’ll keep them away for at least another week more.
The House of Representatives has not held a vote since September 19th, twenty days ago. In fact, would you care to guess how many days the House has been in town since the end of July? Twelve days. That’s it. Since the summer, the House of Representatives has held votes for only twelve days.
If you’re someone who works two jobs, or works weekends or overtime to make ends meet, what on Earth are you supposed to think when House Republicans can’t even be bothered to show up to reopen the government?
House Republicans are getting paid and not working, and they're asking federal workers to work and not get paid.
If your electricity prices are skyrocketing, if your premiums are going up by thousands of dollars, if you’re getting charged more for a cup of coffee or for your groceries, and you see Republicans on vacation for three weeks straight, that’s basically a middle finger to hardworking Americans.
And let’s be clear, the Speaker’s dig-in-at-all-costs approach is not sitting well with some of his members.
Yesterday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said the following: “The House has so much work to do, why aren't we coming back in session? We could be doing appropriations, passing important bills, and more.”
Representative Massie of Kentucky tweeted something similar: “The government is shutdown, but the House refuses to go back in session. Why are we in recess?” said Republican Massie. “Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.”
Representative Kevin Kiley of California, a Republican, meanwhile, posted this: “The Speaker shouldn't even think about cancelling session for a third straight week."
So, the cracks are showing on the Republican side because they know Speaker Johnson’s position of not budging on healthcare fixes is untenable.
In fact, I would have thought that of all people interested in fixing ACA premiums, it would have been a Representative from the state of Louisiana.
Yesterday, I read a sobering report from the Times-Picayune saying that “Louisiana stands to lose the most” if the ACA premium tax credits expire. According to that report, eighty-five thousand Louisiana residents will lose health insurance. And many will see their premiums skyrocket.
The average sixty-year-old Louisiana couple making $85,000 a year would see insurance costs rise from an average of $600 a month to $2,000 a month.
Hear that, Mr. Speaker? That’s your constituents. Good Ameircans in your own state will suffer the most if these ACA premiums expire.
People will go bankrupt. People will get sick and die. All because the Speaker chose to keep the House on vacation, rather than come to work, negotiate with Democrats to fix this healthcare crisis, and end their Trump shutdown. Shameful.
We urge Republicans to back away from their corner and have the serious negotiation the American people deserve and expect before people get sick and go bankrupt.
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