Extension of Continuing Appropriations and Other Matters Act, 2024

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition.

Madam Speaker, I am.

Madam Speaker, here we are again, kicking the can down the road and for other purposes, buying more time so that we can spend more money that we don't have at a time when we are going to eclipse more interest and more spending on interest than our national defense this year, and by 2026 we are going to be spending $1 trillion on interest. We are going to continue to spend moneys at the Nancy Pelosi-spending level of an omnibus bill that Republicans roundly oppose.

That is what is happening on the floor of the United States House right now.

We are going to continue funding this government at Nancy Pelosi's omnibus spending level. That is a level that will continue, by the way, to fund all of the priorities we oppose.

We are going to continue to fund the open borders that led to the death of Americans.

We are going to continue to fund the United Nations at $12.5 billion that is undermining our freedom and working against us to move people illegally into the United States. We are going to fund UNRWA which is funding Hamas, an enemy of Israel.

We are going to fund the IRS that is targeting Americans.

We are going to fund the Department of Justice that is targeting former President Trump.

We are going to do that today here on the floor of the House of Representatives rather than exercising the power of the purse that James Madison articulated in Federalist 58 that this body--this body-- is supposed to check an out-of-control executive branch.

That is what is happening today, and we should oppose it.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman, it is important to note, voted against the FRA last year because, specifically noted in the gentlewoman's press release, the side deals that are being put in place in this exercise that we are going to be putting forward next week in appropriations bills, those side deals were not in the law that the gentlewoman just referred to.

To be very clear, everyone is going to go around talking about following the deal that was cut last year under the FRA, that we are spending at a certain level. The fact is another $70 billion was added in side deals, and that is why the gentlewoman opposed the FRA last year. However, those side deals are a part of this agreement that is plussing up and funding the bureaucracy that is at war with the American people.

That is the truth. That is the truth no matter how much people want to gloss over it on either side of the aisle, particularly this side of the aisle, because this side of the aisle wants to be able to campaign on border security. Do you know what? The border is not secure, and we are going to be passing a continuing resolution that continues to fund a DHS that refuses to secure the border.

These Americans are dead. These Americans are dead because illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, were released into the United States by this administration.

Laken Riley, 1 week ago today, was alive and well, and now she is gone because somebody from Venezuela was released on mass parole in El Paso, went into the United States, went to New York, was released after assaulting somebody, moved to Athens, Georgia, and killed this young woman because of the policies of the radical progressive Democrats that my colleagues on this side of the aisle want to campaign against but refuse to use the power of the purse to stop.

James Madison gave us the power of the purse, and we should darn well use it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I note that the gentleman, for whom I have a great deal of respect, was just using a lot of the arguments that I have heard over and over again. It is something that we have come to understand in this town as what we call the glossary.

When you run out of the, sort of, what are we actually going to fight over substantively, we should bring out all the terms, right? We talk about, oh, we only have a slim majority.

Well, I will remind my colleagues on this side of the aisle that the Democrats had a slim majority when they jammed through numerous massive bills, whether it is ObamaCare, whether we are talking about the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet, here we sit, and we are walking away from the majority that we were given, to use that majority, to use the power of the purse to stop an executive branch that is out of control.

A continuing resolution will continue to fund Biden's war on our border, and it is not just Biden. It is the radical progressive Democrats as a whole. It is a war on our well-being, a war on our security and safety.

That young lady who was killed in Georgia last week, that is happening over and over again in Texas: a young cheerleader was found in a bathtub, killed by somebody here illegally; a 2-year-old right here in Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of D.C., was killed by someone here illegally and released; a young person was raped last week in Louisiana by somebody here illegally from Honduras and released.

When are we going to stop it? When is this side of the aisle going to use the

power of the purse to stop it? I can promise you the radical progressive Democrats want it. They want open borders.

We are continuing to fund a weaponized IRS, continuing to fund a weaponized Department of Justice, like the DOJ that went after Mark Houck, went after Scott Smith. We are funding an EV, electric vehicle, mandate.

I heard my colleague talk about energy and water. What are we going to do to preserve American energy while the American people suffer? Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are pursuing unicorn energy policy--EPA rules killing coal and natural gas plants, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, UNRWA, the ATF that is banning pistol braces and our Second Amendment rights, the Department of Education student loan scam that the President of the United States went to the microphone and applauded, ignoring the United States Supreme Court.

What are we going to do? Fund it. We are going to keep funding it.

What about the NIH and the FDA and COVID tyranny? What about the Department of Veterans Affairs, the chief diversity officers, the abortion travel fund, taxpayer-funded sex changes, transgender surgeries?

Your tax dollars are funding all of that, and we are going to continue it with a continuing resolution. To do what? To buy time to cut a deal that will do what? Spend even more money, rack up even more debt, continue these policies at war with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Boebert).

Mr. Speaker, respecting my friend from Texas, I would say, where were my Democratic colleagues when we were passing H.R. 2, which would actually do the job of securing the border?

It is hard for me to take seriously the claims of my Democratic colleagues, all radical progressives, that want to actually secure the border and don't have complete ownership of the fact that Laken Riley was killed by a Venezuelan let out by this administration under abuse of parole, which H.R. 2 would fix.

It would have fixed it, and my Democratic colleagues were nowhere to be found.

This body, this side of the aisle, did their job in passing a strong border security measure. We have legislation on the floor that did the job, but we had no support from our Democratic colleagues because it would have worked.

Then my colleagues on the other side of the building, in the Senate, passed legislation that would not do the job and now want to hide behind that. That is the actual truth.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Moore), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Burlison).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues on either side of the aisle, we have a fundamental responsibility under the Constitution of the United States to use the power of the purse to check an executive branch that is not following the law.

It is not enough to impeach, send to the Senate, sit back, grab the popcorn, and watch. We have a duty to actually defund tyranny and lawlessness. That is precisely what the Founders said. It is what the Founders wrote into the Federalist Papers. It is what they contemplated in Article I in the Constitution.

Do not go out and have talking points about dead Americans because of what this administration is doing by

letting people into this country to kill Americans like Laken Riley last week and then write the check that funds their broken policies.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I am really glad that we have cleared consensus that no one wants to see a government shutdown and that preventing one now will require a very short CR so we can continue making good progress on our full-year funding bills.

I have been at the table for a long time now pushing to make progress every single day, and we are genuinely close. And if bipartisan cooperation prevails, I am very confident we can, at long last--at long last--wrap up our fiscal year 2024 bills.

And, as my colleagues are aware, we plan to release the first six bills in the coming days to give everyone time to review them before a vote next week, while we continue to lock up the last six bills.

I am confident we can get all of our funding bills done in the next few weeks, as long as partisan poison pills are taken off the table.

We are working in a divided government. That means, to get anything done, we have to work together in good faith to reach reasonable outcomes. That has been true from day one of these negotiations, and we will only reach the last day of these negotiations if that happens.

Again, we are close. We are moving in the right direction. It is full speed ahead. And we will keep working hard with our colleagues to get this wrapped up and take a shutdown completely off the table by passing the strongest bipartisan spending bills we can and, hopefully, soon.

I urge all of our colleagues to vote yes on this CR so we have the time to get these done.

Mr. President, the House just voted overwhelmingly to send us this clean and very short CR to keep our government open while we work on passing final funding bills, which is exactly what we should all be focused on now.

But this particular motion wouldn't just prevent the Senate from averting a shutdown tomorrow; it would swap the clean, short-term CR for a full-year CR that means devastating across-the-board cuts and tie it to military aid for Israel to a yearlong CR.

We are not going to throw in the towel on our funding bills, and we are not going to do half of our job by sending aid to some of our allies while leaving others like Ukraine in the dust.

We have already on this floor passed a comprehensive national security package in an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Now the House just needs to pass that--and I am confident they will--as soon as the Speaker brings it up for a vote.

So, tonight, let's pass this CR, get our funding bills done, and keep working to get the comprehensive supplemental signed into law. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

I yield it back.

Mr. President, right now, our job is to avoid a government shutdown. The House has just sent us a very short, bipartisan CR to make sure that our Agencies and programs continue operating as we work together to pass the first six of our final funding bills next week. The House did its job. We need to do ours, and we need to keep pushing to complete our 2024 budget.

This motion would not prevent us from averting a shutdown. It would direct the Appropriations Committee to abandon weeks and weeks of very hard work and negotiations that reflect the input and interests of the Members of this body.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, the clock is ticking. We face a partial shutdown of the government tomorrow night. We cannot let the threat of that government shutdown be used as leverage to set aside the bipartisan agreement on the CR before us in order to jam through deeply partisan immigration policy. We are not going to throw in the towel on our very carefully negotiated funding bills we have worked on in favor of a full-year CR that would impose devastating across-the-board cuts to defense and nondefense programs.

Vote no.

Vote on Motion to Commit

Mr. President, I submit to the Senate a budget scorekeeping report. The report, which covers fiscal year 2024, was prepared and submitted as a letter by the Congressional Budget Office pursuant to section 308(b) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. This information assists the Senate Budget Committee in determining if budgetary points of order lie against pending legislation.

CBO's report shows the effect on spending and revenues of congressional action through April 15, 2024. Between CBO's last report on December 13, 2023, and April 15, 2024, Congress passed eight pieces of legislation with effects on direct spending or revenue. These include two appropriations bills passed in March, P.L. 118-42 and P.L. 118-47, that completed the fiscal year 2024 appropriations cycle in line with the bipartisan agreement enacted last summer.

CBO's report included three tables, tables 1, 2, and 3. Tables 1 and 2 show that current budgetary levels are within allowable amounts for budget authority and outlays. The allowable levels include an adjustment for the Senate-passed national security supplemental, P.L. 118-50, which had not yet

been enacted into law when the table was prepared. These tables also show that revenue is below the allowable amount, due to the rescissions of IRS mandatory funding in the last appropriation bill, P.L. 118-47, which reduces revenue and increases the deficit.

Table 3 shows the Senate's Pay-As-You-Go scorecard, which reflects $36.4 billion of net deficit increase, entirely due to IRS funding rescissions.

The Democratic staff of the Budget Committee prepared three addendum tables to supplement CBO's report, tables A, B, and C.

Table A compares the mandatory spending of each authorizing committee against the enforceable allocations under section 302 of the Congressional Budget Act. It shows that 11 of the 16 authorizing committees are compliant with their allocations, either because no legislation with significant budgetary costs was enacted, the legislation was deficit-neutral and qualified for an allocation adjustment that was subsequently filed, or the legislation reduced spending.

Table B updates CBO's table 1, the Senate current level report for spending and revenues, to reflect the enactment of P.L. 118-50, the national security supplemental, which was passed by the House and Senate and was signed into law by the President after CBO prepared its report.

Table C updates CBO's table 3, updating the Senate Pay-As-You-Go scorecard to reflect six bills that have passed by the House and Senate since the release of CBO's report, five of which have been signed into law by the President.

I ask unanimous consent that CBO's letter, accompanying tables, and the addendum be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased that Democrats have just reached an agreement with the Republicans to pass a temporary extension of government funding tonight. We will have up to five votes: four on amendments and then final passage. This agreement is an important step because we not only avoid a shutdown on Friday, we also clear the way for passing the first six appropriations bills next week.

We want to move quickly. So I ask Senators to stay in their seats or near the floor until we finish our work. We are going to try, starting on the second vote, to keep votes limited to 10 minutes. So please stay in your seats.

Now, Mr. President, this year, the good Lord gave us an extra day in February. So let's make sure we finish the job and don't drag this debate into March.

I yield the floor.

Excuse me. Just one more thing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all votes in this series after the first vote be 10 minutes in duration.

Has time expired for both sides?

Mr. President, we are going to enforce the 10-minute rule. We announced it earlier. So please stay in your seats. Let's get the next amendments done with expedition.

Vote on Motion to Commit

Mr. President, that one took 14 minutes. Let's beat it on this one. Please stay in your seats.

Vote on Motion to Commit

Mr. President, that one was 11 minutes. Let us get to 10.

Mr. President, I am happy to inform the American people there will be no government shutdown on Friday. When we pass this bill, we will have, thank God, avoided a shutdown, with all its harmful effects on the American people.

I thank my colleagues for working together. It is good we are not shutting down. Now let us finish the job of funding the government so we don't have to do this again.

As I have said repeatedly to the Speaker, the only way to get things done in divided government is bipartisanship. I am glad the Speaker heard our plea and worked with us to avoid a shutdown.

Next week, we hope to bring the first six funding bills to the floor and send them to the President's desk before March 8. The vote tonight is a strong indication that we can work in a bipartisan way to get those bills passed.

We hope to finish funding all of the government by March 22. That is the commitment the Speaker made to us yesterday, and we are counting on him to follow through.

What we have done today has overcome the opposition of the MAGA hard right and gives us a formula for completing the appropriations process in a way that does not shut down the government and capitulate to extremists.

I thank Leader McConnell, Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, Chair Murray, Vice Chair Collins, and all the appropriators who helped reach this agreement.

Vote on H.R. 7463

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I will give the American people an overview of the debate that is happening here today. Why are there three Members of Congress controlling time on the floor? I thought there were only two parties. No. When it comes to spending, there is the ``uniparty.'' There is only one party today, and that is because Republicans and Democrats have united to kick the can down the road. They wanted to control all time for debate today, but my colleague, Mr. Roy from Texas, came down here and used a parliamentary procedure to claim time in opposition for 20 minutes so that people who take their oath to the Constitution most seriously, the people who are most concerned about debt, the people who want to represent the good folks back home, have a voice here today.

And what are we doing here today? We are going to pass a CR. We are going to kick the can down the road. Is that going to solve any problems? No. It creates another crisis next week. That is what they want. They want another crisis. They want to threaten you with the shutdown so they can get

more spending. Is this a clean CR? We are told you can't add anything to it. No. It deals with student aid in this CR.

Are the American people concerned about student aid right now? Is that the most pressing issue to address in this spending bill? We have a crisis at the southern border. We could add one sentence to this bill that would help tremendously. Just say: None of the funds hereby appropriated may be used to disassemble border security erected by the States on our border. Put that one sentence in this continuing resolution. That would help tremendously.

I am worried that we are not going to prevail today, the third group who is debating here against the uniparty. If the other side prevails, what will happen? What will happen today, this evening after this passes? Will we stay here and work hard for another week to get the 12 bills done, the 12 separate appropriation bills? No. Guess what we are going do this evening? Everybody has already got their plane tickets. They are sending us home early. Congratulations. You moved the crisis down another week. Go home. Have a 4-day weekend.

We are going to let staff and a few Members in the Senate and a few Members in the House write this big bill, and then you can take it or leave it next week. Gone is any semblance of regular order from this process.

What we have is what the swamp always does, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this continuing resolution that does nothing but kick the can down the road.