January 24, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 15 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages H1183-H1188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), my friend and the majority leader of the House, for the purpose 
of inquiring as to the schedule for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
Scalise) for yielding the time.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour 
debate. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the

[[Page H1184]]

House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for 
legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for 
legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business 
tomorrow.
  Members are advised that additional legislative items are possible, 
including additional legislation related to fiscal year 2019 
appropriations.
  I want to make it clear to Members that when we leave today or 
tomorrow, we will leave with the notice to Members that they are 
subject to being asked to come back Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, 
or any day thereafter, if there is a possibility of opening up the 
Government of the United States, so that it can serve the American 
people.
  Mr. SCALISE. As we, Mr. Speaker, work to reopen the government and to 
secure the border, clearly, there has been a divide on the other side. 
We were trying to get some kind of agreement on how much the majority 
is willing to work with us on, to put an offer on the table.
  If you look, Mr. Speaker, last week on Saturday, the President of the 
United States addressed the Nation and laid out a new proposal. And, 
Mr. Speaker, what the President laid out was not only a proposal that 
reopens the government and secures the border, but also offered the 
suggestion that DACA could be a part of this negotiation, at least to 
start working on some kind of solution on DACA.
  In the past, Mr. Speaker, we were just talking about the request from 
the Department of Homeland Security, the $5.7 billion that was 
requested by the people who risk their lives to keep our country safe. 
Their request, Mr. Speaker, was that is how much it was going to cost 
to secure the border.
  So far, we have not seen a single counteroffer from the majority. In 
fact, when the President spoke to the Nation at 4:07 p.m., before the 
President even walked to the microphone at 4:07 p.m., at 4 p.m., the 
Speaker of the House had already put out a statement opposing the plan 
that hadn't even been presented.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to ask the majority leader is, if we 
are trying to get a resolution and if the President continues to try to 
lay out alternatives, if the President's latest alternative wasn't even 
offered until 4:07 p.m., why did the Speaker of the House already 
reject it before it was even presented? Is there an actual desire to 
work together to solve the problem, or is the answer going to continue 
to be no alternative, no alternative?
  At some point, we have to get an agreement on how to solve this 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, let me make very clear that which ought to be very 
clear: We believe the President of the United States, with the aiding 
and abetting of the majority leader of the United States Senate, has 
taken the Government of the United States hostage, and the President of 
the United States is asking for ransom, and that ransom is to accept 
his policy or go home and stay shut down.
  I will tell the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in this body 
for a long time. I am in my fourth decade. I have never supported 
shutting down the Government of the United States.
  Now, the gentleman may point out that I have voted from time to time 
against bills that would have opened it up because of things that were 
in the bills and these bills passed the House of Representatives when 
you were in charge. They did not pass the Senate, of course.

                              {time}  1100

  I believe that shutting down the people's government is an 
unacceptable--unacceptable--tactic in a democracy when one is 
discussing differences that need to be resolved. Unacceptable.
  Furthermore, as I said on the floor the other day, Mr. Speaker, I can 
find no free government in the world that shuts itself down, other than 
the United States of America. Now, we have a relatively unique system 
of government.
  But I will tell my friend that we are for border security. We have 
supported bills that affected border security. During our tenure, there 
was more border security fencing, I will tell the gentleman, 
constructed than when they had been in charge over the last 8 years. 
Look at the record.
  But the issue is, we are not going to negotiate at the point of a 
gun, which is shutting down the Government of the United States, 
affecting 800,000 of our employees.
  Some of you say: I run a business. I am a businessman.
  Well, if you are a car company, or you are a real estate company, or 
you are a contractor, or whatever you may do, can you tell your 
employees: I am going to have you work, but by the way, I am not going 
to pay you.
  Mr. Speaker, we want to negotiate. We want to get this resolved, but 
we are not going to pretend this is business as usual. This is the 
longest shutdown in history, and the other side has consistently voted 
against every bill that we have offered to open up government.
  Now, the other side offered a bill where they want to pay employees 
while they don't work. I voted against that. I think the taxpayer 
deserves to have his employees or her employees working, and, yes, he 
should pay them and she should pay them for working, not some stopgap 
measure to pretend that somehow we are lessening the consequences of a 
shutdown, in light of a consistent, overwhelming vote on the other side 
of the aisle to keep government shut down.
  I tell my friend, he voted against Boehner, when he was the Speaker 
of the House, requesting to open up the government. Maybe he believes, 
Mr. Speaker, that shutting down the government is good policy, good 
practice, the way to treat your employees. I emphatically reject such a 
premise.
  When the gentleman asked me if will we negotiate, I am pretty proud 
of my reputation, having negotiated with George H.W. Bush a major piece 
of legislation that was very controversial, the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, negotiating in league with Roy Blunt, one of the 
gentleman's predecessors on his side of the aisle; and Jay Rockefeller 
and Senator Kit Bond from Missouri to get FISA, the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was a very controversial issue, 
resolved, with Democratic and Republican support, and President George 
W. Bush signed that bill.
  So anybody who knows my reputation knows that I am prepared to sit 
down and come to agreement, because that is what you need to do in a 
democracy. I won't get everything I want; you won't get everything you 
want.
  But the fact of the matter is, as long as government is shut down, we 
are not going to have business as usual.
  I remind the gentleman that his side was in charge last year and went 
11 months and 20 days and didn't bring a Homeland Security bill to the 
floor of this House--11 months and 20 days. It was in the waning 10 
days of the year when his majority brought a bill to the floor that 
they knew wouldn't pass the Senate.
  We have passed Senate bills that would open up the government. We 
have sent simple CRs with no controversy to them that would have opened 
up the government. We have sent 10 different bills, 11 different bills. 
The 12th lost on suspension, because their side voted against it.
  So I tell my friend, I am prepared to negotiate. I am prepared to 
negotiate in good faith. I will tell the gentleman, the Speaker of this 
House is prepared to do the same, and our Members are prepared to do 
the same.
  There are significant, strong differences. We differ on whether the 
wall is an effective way to keep the border secure. But we agree on a 
number of other things.
  When the gentleman and I were down at the White House, for instance, 
the magnetic resonance of trucks and vehicles that are carrying 
contraband, drugs, guns, and other material that we don't want to come 
into the United States, we can agree on that. We can agree on much, I 
think, of border security.
  That was a long answer to the gentleman's question, but until we open 
up government, it is not going to be business as usual, until we open 
up government and put those 800,000 people back to work. I represent 
62,000 of them.

[[Page H1185]]

Now, not all of them are laid off, because we funded some portions of 
government. But a significant number of them are, and they are hurting.
  A TSA agent comes in at $28,000 per year. We make substantially more 
than that, and they are living paycheck to paycheck. Tomorrow, they are 
not going to get a paycheck. But they have been told by their 
government they have to work, and because they are conscientious, 
patriotic Americans, they are working. But you can't expect them to 
work much longer. We can't expect people to work when they are not 
getting paid, when they are not getting respected, when they are not 
getting treated as we would want to be treated ourselves.
  So I say to the gentleman, in answer to his question, we are prepared 
to discuss and negotiate and compromise, but not in the face of this 
shutdown.
  I would hope that it would end. It is the wrong policy. It is a cruel 
policy. It is hurting America. It is hurting our economy. It is hurting 
our reputation around the world. And it is hurting our people who work 
for us.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman uses terms like ``hostages.'' 
The gentleman uses terms like ``ransom.'' I was in those meetings in 
the White House with the gentleman from Maryland and the Speaker of the 
House. In fact, in our third meeting--by the way, in all three 
meetings, not one time did the Speaker of the House put any alternative 
on the table.

  President Trump isn't the one who said: I need $5.7 billion to secure 
the border.
  Our experts, our experts at the Department of Homeland Security, who 
risk their lives to keep our country safe, said it is going to take 
$5.7 billion to secure the border.
  We can all talk about border security, Mr. Speaker. At some point, 
you have to be willing to put the dollars behind the rhetoric. So when 
the Department, Mr. Speaker, says we need $5.7 billion, if your side 
thinks that there is some lesser amount that it is going to take to 
keep our country safe, then put the amount of money on the table. So 
far, the only offer that has been put on the table by the Speaker of 
the House, she said a dollar, and she laughed about it, a dollar. That 
is the only offer that has been put on the table. It is not a joking 
matter, by the way. And a dollar is not going to secure America's 
border. So what amount will the other side agree to?
  The President of the United States looked at the Speaker and said: 
Okay, I will tell you what, we disagree on a lot of this, but I will 
agree to keep the government open, even with the things I disagree 
with, for the next 30 days, if, at the end of that 30 days, you are 
willing to negotiate with me on the wall and the border security.
  The Speaker of the House said no. She said no to that offer from the 
President. She wants to keep everybody hostage. She wants to keep the 
pay of workers hostage.
  In fact, now the Speaker of the House wants to keep the State of the 
Union hostage. How ludicrous is that? George Washington, in 1790, 
addressed a joint session of Congress. They were meeting in New York 
back then. George Washington addressed a joint session of Congress.
  This is a constitutional requirement of the President. Historically, 
for generations now, every single year, for generations--Republican 
Speaker, Democrat Speaker, Republican President, Democrat President--
the Speaker of the House has invited the President to give a State of 
the Union.
  In fact, that agreement and that offer went out on January 3. The 
Speaker sent a letter to the President, inviting him to come here in 
this Chamber and address the State of the Union next Tuesday, and the 
President accepted that offer. And the Speaker of the House this time, 
for the first time in the history of our country, rescinded the offer, 
took it back. She doesn't want the people in this country to hear what 
the President has to say about the security of this country.
  Maybe, Mr. Speaker, the Speaker of the House doesn't want the country 
to hear the President's message, but do you know what? The people of 
this country want to hear the President's message and deserve that 
opportunity. So who is holding whom hostage?
  Look at some of the votes. We had a vote today on the House floor to 
pay everybody, to pay everybody who has worked or who has been 
furloughed. Those people who are securing our border today without pay, 
they ought to get paid. We had a vote on the House floor, and we almost 
got there: 200-214. Mr. Speaker, every Republican voted yes; 13 
Democrats voted yes. Last week, only six Democrats voted yes.
  The good news is, Mr. Speaker, a growing number of Democrats are 
recognizing they have to be willing to work to solve this problem and 
pay people who have worked. So we have had those votes on the House 
floor.
  The gentleman talks about opening government. The gentleman talks 
about bills they have brought to the House floor that we voted against. 
The gentleman talks about the Senate bills that were passed. At the 
beginning, the first week of this new majority, when they brought a 
bill to the floor to fund what was so-called, or presented as, the 
Senate bills, some of those bills had passed the Senate, Mr. Speaker, 
but not all of them. In fact, one of those bills would not have passed 
the Senate because it would have allowed taxpayer funding to go to 
foreign government entities that provide abortion.
  So let's get this right, Mr. Speaker, and let the Record reflect that 
the other side was willing to bring a bill to the floor a few weeks ago 
that allows taxpayer money to go to fund abortion in foreign countries, 
but they wouldn't put a dime of money in that bill to secure America's 
border. There was not a dime of money from the President's request to 
secure America's border, but taxpayer money went to fund abortions in 
foreign countries. That was in that bill.
  Sure, I voted no on that, because those are not the values of this 
country. Let's be serious about this.
  Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about what it will take to resolve 
it, I think the gentleman from Maryland and I could come to an 
agreement. So far, for whatever reason, the Speaker has been unwilling 
to put a counteroffer on the table.
  When you have a negotiation, when two sides are apart--frankly, I 
don't know why we are apart on this. It is not the President's number. 
The $5.7 billion request is from the people who are risking their lives 
to keep our country safe. If they say that is what they need, we ought 
to take them at their word.
  And if we disagree with them, if we disagree, Mr. Speaker, then at 
least show what their offer is, what their amount of money is, and put 
that on the table and back it up with something.
  If they say the wall is the issue, maybe it is personal, maybe it is 
because President Trump wanted it. Back in 2006, Chuck Schumer voted 
for the Secure Fence Act, which would have authorized $50-plus billion 
to build fencing, which, in essence, is a lot of what the Department is 
asking for today. If he was authorizing $50 billion--by the way, they 
didn't put any money behind it.
  Again, it is always good to give the Fourth of July speech and say 
you are for something. Unless you are willing to put the money behind 
it, you are not there.
  So he said $50 billion was okay for fencing, but, today, he is not 
willing to put a dollar behind, in essence, fencing, or whatever you 
want to call it.
  The President said he is willing to negotiate and let you ban a 
cement wall. The President said he is willing to do that. Right now, 
the experts are saying steel slats are the best approach.

  The majority leader himself, just a few days ago, said, ``Physical 
barriers are part of the solution.'' I think we are making headway. The 
majority leader agrees that physical barriers are part of the solution, 
maybe because the Speaker is saying that walls are immoral. In some 
strange way, people who build a house, you could build the strongest 
door in the world--and I agree, the gentleman from Maryland and I agree 
on enhancing port security, the points of entry.
  We have points of entry all around our country. If you want to come 
here and seek asylum, if you want to come here and just be a part of 
the American Dream, like more than a million people a year who we let 
in, we have that. And we need to bulk that up. There is a lot more we 
can do with technology there.
  But you don't put a door in your house and then leave the windows

[[Page H1186]]

open. Who would do that? Who would call that security of your house?
  What the President is saying is, we have more than 500 miles of area 
in our country that is not secure. So you have a big door, and we are 
going to strengthen the door. But if you are going to leave 500 miles 
wide open, you are going to wonder why people are coming in illegally.
  If we are for border security, it is going to take something to 
actually back that up. I would ask the gentleman: What amount is the 
majority willing to put on the table for real border security, which 
includes a physical barrier? And I quote the gentleman again: 
``Physical barriers are part of the solution.''

                              {time}  1115

  And I agree with the gentleman from Maryland on that. But I guess 
maybe the question I have is: The experts have told us it is going to 
cost $5.7 billion to build that physical barrier. How much of that $5.7 
billion is the gentleman willing to support?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  The gentleman, of course, just voted against funding the Department 
of Homeland Security, as did his colleagues.
  The gentleman proudly said that all of his colleagues--and not all of 
his colleagues voted against it--but he voted against opening up the 
Department of Homeland Security. He voted against paying the personnel 
in Department of Homeland Security. Yet, he cites them as experts who 
have given us advice, and why don't we follow that advice.
  But, Mr. Speaker, the minority party doesn't have enough respect for 
them to open up the government, open up the Department of Homeland 
Security, pay the people who are protecting our border, pay the people 
who are processing paperwork for those border security guards, pay the 
people who are answering the phones, pay the people whom we ask to 
protect our borders, and then laments that somehow we are not coming up 
with a number.
  Open up this government, Mr. Speaker.
  And, yes, I used the word, ``hostage''; and, yes, I used the word, 
``ransom.'' And, yes, I believe there are two people, and a lot of 
complicit people, with this government being shut down and with the 
pain and suffering that we are imposing on our employees. Anybody who 
thinks Democrats are responsible for that doesn't know what is 
happening.
  I am very concerned about the President being able to communicate 
with the American people. The historic, greatest tweeter of all time. 
You can't get away from hearing what the President has to say, every 
morning, every afternoon, and every evening. He has plenty of time.
  And, by the way, the President said: Yes, I am not going to give the 
State of the Union until the government is open. He just said that, 
just a few hours ago.
  Open up this government.
  And for anybody who watches the votes on this floor, watched that we 
voted unanimously to open up DHS; we voted unanimously to open up the 
other departments of government; we voted unanimously to make sure that 
the people are being served by their government agencies.
  And, Mr. Speaker, again, I understand Mr. Scalise and I have a 
difference. When the Speaker of the House John Boehner brought a bill 
to the floor when the government was shut down to open it up, Mr. 
Scalise voted ``no''; and the other person who voted ``no'' is Mr. 
Mulvaney, who is now the chief of staff.
  I get that. They think shutting down the government is not a bad 
option to try to force the other side to agree with them or to pay 
their ransom.
  Yes, I use those words. And, actually, if either one of us adopts 
that as an acceptable alternative in the negotiation process, this 
country is in real trouble--real trouble.
  And so we ought to open up the government, and then, yes, we can sit 
down, and, yes, we will resolve this.
  But my friend's great angst--he did not mention why it took them 11-
2/3 months while they were in charge last year. They didn't offer a 
bill until they were about to walk out the door and be the minority. 
Mr. Speaker, 11 months and 20 days, no Homeland Security bill was 
brought to this floor. I don't know why. My supposition is they didn't 
have the votes, but I wasn't counting on their side.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been to probably 37 or 38 States of the Union. 
Never was the government shut down. This shutdown is not only of 
historic length, it is of historic irresponsibility and historic danger 
to our country, to our people, to our national security, and to our 
economy.
  Let's vote to open up this government, and then let's resolve the 
differences that we have in the way democracies resolve differences: by 
discussion, by debate, and by votes.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let's reflect on why we 
are here.
  We are here because the President said we have a difference of 
agreement on parts of government. We negotiated over the course of 
months to fund 75 percent of our government.
  The good news, Mr. Speaker, is that the vast majority of our 
government has been funded, including our troops. Our military are 
being paid. We were able to come to an agreement there.
  The bad news is, Mr. Speaker, we were not able to come to an 
agreement over the remaining 25 percent. And people around the country, 
I am sure, wonder: Why can't they work it out?
  And I think, Mr. Speaker, you just saw a display of why this can't be 
worked out. Because, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States 
got a request from his Homeland Security officials, people who risk 
their lives to keep our country safe. They said, Mr. Speaker: It is 
going to take $5.7 billion to give us the tools we need to secure our 
border.
  And I asked the gentleman just a moment ago, Mr. Speaker, once again, 
how much are you willing to support if you won't support the $5.7 
billion? The entire time, not once did the gentleman from Maryland give 
a number--not once.
  If the gentleman would give a number, I would yield, but there are a 
lot of other things that he said that need to be corrected that I want 
to also address.
  Is the gentleman willing to give a number over $1, which is the 
Speaker's number? $5.7 billion, $1. Is he willing to give some number 
more than $1 that would secure the border?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield if the gentleman would give that answer.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, these CRs carry forward the spending in 2018, 
the CRs the gentleman voted against. They have $1.6 billion in them. He 
voted ``no.''

  And would the gentleman tell me why he didn't bring a bill to the 
floor for 11 months and 20 days that would have done what he says is 
such important work to be done? Can he tell me why he waited 11 months 
and 20 days to bring a bill to the floor?
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to tell the gentleman.
  I think the gentleman knows, one of the dilemmas we have been facing 
with negotiations is that the Senate has a 60-vote requirement. The 
Senate had that 60-vote requirement back when you all were in the 
majority last time. When we were in the majority, they had that 60-vote 
requirement as well.
  When we were negotiating all of those bills, all the bills that fund 
our government, we were able to get an agreement on 75 percent of 
government funding. We had that negotiation with the Senate. We can't 
just negotiate with ourselves.
  As you see, you can pass bills in the House and they go nowhere in 
the Senate. We brought a bill in December--and, by the way, the 
gentleman from Maryland said we didn't have the votes, that is why we 
didn't do it. The Speaker of the House went into the Oval Office and 
told the President: Your side can't deliver the votes for the $5.7 
billion. She said that.
  Well, guess what, Mr. Speaker. We did deliver the votes for the $5.7 
billion, and we were able to do that all along, but the Senate wasn't 
there. And why wasn't the Senate there? The Senate Republicans were 
willing to support that, but Senate Democrats weren't. It is the same 
dilemma we are in today. The Senate Democrats and House Democrats have 
refused to negotiate with the President.
  I think the gentleman from Maryland knows the legislative process. He 
has

[[Page H1187]]

been here enough to know you can't just pass a bill out of the House, 
and you can't just pass a bill out of the Senate. You have to reconcile 
the two bills. And even then, you need a bill that the President will 
sign.
  So the legislative process has to play out. It played out for 75 
percent of the government, and it is funded. We never got that 
agreement on the remaining amounts.
  We proved to the Speaker and to the President we could deliver the 
votes to pass the bill to fund the $5.7 billion. The problem has been 
that this majority, the Democratic majority in the House and the 
Democratic minority in the Senate have refused to negotiate. They have 
refused to put a dollar amount.
  If the gentleman is willing to start at $1.3 billion--by the way, 
that $1.3 billion had strings attached, important strings that limited 
our ability to actually secure the border. In those strings, Mr. 
Speaker, they actually told the President where he can and can't build 
wall.
  So our security experts are saying, for example, we need to build 
wall around the Rio Grande. That is where a lot of people are bringing 
drugs and human trafficking across our country. And yet law says you 
can't build it there. How ridiculous is that?
  So, in our legislation that we passed, we removed that limitation. 
Why should we be micromanaging the experts who risk their lives and 
telling them they can't do the things it takes to support the border? 
That was in our bill.
  Current law also prohibits what kind of security, what kind of 
physical barriers--to use the gentleman's term--can or can't be used. 
And so our experts say there are some physical barriers that don't 
work.
  Why would you want to spend $1.3 billion of taxpayer money to build 
things that won't actually work when you can spend the money to build 
things that actually do work? And again, these aren't the President's 
designs. These are the experts who risk their lives, who said: This is 
what we need.
  So, yes, Mr. Speaker, we weren't able to get an agreement with the 
Senate over that 25 percent. We proved we could put the votes together 
in the House to do it. The Senate couldn't pass the bill. So, 
ultimately, there was nothing that got to the President's desk on those 
remaining items, so the President convened us.
  The President got all the principals together, Mr. Speaker, and in 
three different meetings in the White House, not one time--not one 
time--was a single dollar amount put on the table by the Democrats in 
the room--not once. So then you can look at other votes, you can look 
at other plans.
  So the President said: Well, if the Speaker of the House won't 
negotiate, maybe I will bring in other Democrats.
  And, by the way, it is a growing list of Democrats who are starting 
to say we need to address this problem.
  I will read from the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Mr. 
Collin Peterson, Democrat from Minnesota: ``Give Trump the money. . . . 
I'd give him the whole thing . . . and put strings on it so you make 
sure he puts the wall where it needs to be. Why are we fighting over 
this? We're going to build that wall anyway, at some time.''

  Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services 
Committee: ``The wall is not in itself a bad idea, it's just--it's been 
done.''
  Representative Cheri Bustos from Illinois: ``If we have a partial 
wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our 
borders safe, all of that is fine . . . .''
  So we see a growing list of rank-and-file Democrats, and even 
committee chairmen, who are saying let's just do this, and yet the 
Speaker refuses to do it.
  So the President invited some members of the Democratic majority in 
the House to the White House. The first meeting, Mr. Speaker, some of 
them didn't even show up. And we want to talk about civility?
  We are in a shutdown, and the President of the United States says: I 
want to bring some Democrats in to see if we can resolve this. Then 
they don't even show up. And maybe they were told not to go.
  So a few days later, the President invites a different group, and in 
that group we actually did have some Members that went.
  The gentleman from Maryland, that day, was on a TV show, and he 
said--when they were asked do those Democrats who are going to the 
White House have the authority to negotiate, the majority leader of the 
House said they do not have the authority to strike a deal.
  So now the Democratic majority is telling other Democrats who want to 
solve the problem and are going to the White House to try to solve the 
problem, he is telling them they don't have the authority to solve the 
problem.
  So if the gentleman from Maryland is telling other Democrats they 
don't have the authority to strike a deal, I would ask the gentleman: 
Who does have the authority to strike a deal?
  He is saying that physical borders are part of the solution. The 
Speaker of the House doesn't necessarily share that view, from the 
comments I have heard from her.
  But if the gentleman from Maryland thinks physical borders are part 
of the solution, other Democrats want to negotiate a solution, who is 
authorized? Who does have the authority to strike a deal?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. HOYER. Let me first say that Mr. Scalise and his party over the 
last 8 years that they were in charge passed bill after bill after bill 
after bill that they knew without any doubt they had no chance in the 
United States Senate--none, zero, zip. They passed them for message. 
They knew that, we knew that, and America knew that. So that is not the 
reason they didn't bring the bill that they talk now so passionately 
about to the floor for 11 months and 20 days. They only brought it as 
they were going out the door.
  Let me tell you what they rejected, Mr. Speaker. They rejected a bill 
from the United States Senate which would have opened up government and 
paid all 800,000 of the people who are now either furloughed or asked 
to work without pay. They rejected that bill that passed overwhelmingly 
and unanimously on voice vote from the United States Senate that the 
President of the United States was said, by the Vice President of the 
United States, to support.
  But something happened during those 24 hours as it came from the 
Senate to the House. A bill that passed the Senate, they rejected that 
bill, the Republicans in this House, and then they, and only then, did 
they bring a bill which they knew would not pass the Senate. Talk about 
negotiation and compromise, and you have done that over and over and 
over, Mr. Speaker--not you but the Republican majority.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you who sent it over here: Senator 
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the United States 
Senate.
  Let me quote Senator McConnell in a CNN report:

       In his strongest words to date, Senate GOP leader Mitch 
     McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, tried to quash talk that 
     he would allow another government shutdown if he becomes 
     Senate majority leader next year.

  What was his response? `` `Of course not. Remember me? I am the guy 
that gets us out of shutdowns,' McConnell told CNN in an exclusive 
interview Wednesday.
  Then he went on to say: `` `It's a failed policy,' he said of 
shutdowns.''
  Now, sadly, in league with the Republican minority here in the House 
of Representatives and the President of the United States, he has done 
exactly the opposite of what he said he would do. He hasn't opened up, 
he has shut down government.
  The minority whip is correct, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to 
pretend that this is business as usual as long as we have 800,000 of 
our employees--some working, some not--not being paid and not being 
treated with respect because it is a tactic that they have adopted. And 
I tell my friend again: it must be a tactic he believes in because he 
voted against his own Republican Speaker and the majority leader who is 
now the Republican leader who voted and urged Members: vote to open up 
this government.
  Now, he was not alone in that vote. There were 143 other Republicans. 
Only 87 voted to open up the government. So apparently he believes this 
is a tactic

[[Page H1188]]

that is acceptable in a democratic government. We reject that 
emphatically and proudly.
  We have passed bill after bill after bill after bill that would open 
up this government, and Mr. Scalise, Mr. Speaker, and his colleagues 
have almost to a person--not always unanimously--rejected that effort.
  So I tell my friend: open up the government and we will talk, but we 
are not going to talk while you hold hostage the employees of this 
government--not all of them, but 800,000 of them--who are worried about 
whether they can put food on the table.
  There are food lines. Our people at food lines--public employees--do 
we have no shame?
  Do we have no moral commitment to those whom we ask to work to 
protect this country and to serve these people?
  What is it that the President and his party refuse to open up the 
government?
  This is historic. Never in the history--he talked about going back to 
George Washington in 1799--has this ever happened before that we kept 
the government shut down. The longest before that, of course, was the 
Republican shutdown of 2013.
  It is not a tactic I tell my friend that we accept. We reject it 
emphatically, and we are not going to subject ourselves tomorrow to the 
same kind of blackmail or the day after to the same kind of blackmail 
or the day after that to the same kind of blackmail.
  I will tell my friend: we will have a Democratic President at some 
point in time. And he ought to reject this tactic as well because it is 
bad for the government. Much more importantly, it is bad for the people 
of this country, the economy of our country, and the national security 
of our country.
  Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else to say.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, once again, we are in a government 
shutdown. I could clearly argue that the gentleman from Maryland voted 
to shut the government down in December before we had hit an expiration 
of funding. Before there was a shutdown, we had a bill to fund 
government and secure the border. My friend can say it was dead on 
arrival in the Senate. The reason it was dead on arrival in the Senate 
is because Senate Democrats refused to negotiate over securing the 
border.
  So here we are. We could talk about 2013. We are in 2019, and we are 
in the middle of a government shutdown that could end tomorrow. The 
majority just voted to adjourn again. Literally--and here is the quote 
my friend just said--the gentleman from Maryland said: ``We are not 
going to talk until the government is open.''
  So during the shutdown, the gentleman is not going to negotiate how 
to get out of a shutdown.
  The gentleman wonders why people look and say: why can't you figure 
it out?
  The President has offered idea after idea, and eventually you are 
negotiating against yourself when the other side says: we are not going 
to talk until we get everything we want.
  Well, do you know what, Mr. Speaker? In divided government, Mr. 
Speaker, nobody gets everything they want, but you have to start 
talking today. The 800,000 people who are working or not working and 
not getting paychecks--which, by the way, we voted again today to pay 
all of them, we had a vote on the House floor to pay all of them, and 
we got 13 Democrats to vote for that. Last week it was only six. A 
growing number of Democrats are recognizing stop all this foolishness 
of saying: we are not going to talk to you when the President is trying 
to talk. We are going to reject your offer before you put it on the 
table. At 4 o'clock Saturday the Speaker rejected an offer that wasn't 
even proposed until 4:07.

  So to say: we are not going to talk while we are in the shutdown, how 
do we get out of the shutdown unless people are talking?
  I think the gentleman from Maryland and I could solve this problem. 
He quoted: Physical barriers are part of the solution.
  I agree with the gentleman from Maryland on that. Unfortunately, the 
Speaker of the House doesn't agree with that. So rank-and-file 
Democrats who want to solve this problem are invited to the White 
House, but told by the Democrat leadership: you are not authorized to 
negotiate.
  So I ask the gentleman from Maryland: Who is authorized to negotiate? 
And the gentleman from Maryland says: we are not going to talk until 
the government is back open.
  But the government is not open because we are at an impasse, and the 
way you solve an impasse is to talk. You can't say: ``We are not going 
to talk'' and expect it just to solve itself and expect the President 
just to keep offering and offering and offering and the Speaker of the 
House say: we are not even going to let you come talk to the country; 
we are not going to let you have a State of the Union; my way or the 
highway.
  That is not how you solve this problem. You have to talk to solve 
this problem. The country expects you to talk to solve this problem.
  It is divided government. Sure, we are not going to agree on 
everything. Our experts--it is not the Republican Party saying $5.7 
billion is what it would cost to secure our border--it is the experts 
who secure our border who say it is going to cost $5.7 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman disagrees with that number, if he 
doesn't like the color of the wall or the style of the slats and the 
steel, if he wants to make it out of bamboo, I don't know what the 
gentleman's offer is because he has never put an offer on the table. 
But at some point the gentleman has to. He has to put a counteroffer on 
the table if we are going to get out of this.
  I want to get out of this. I voted multiple times to get out of it 
and to pay people. The gentleman from Maryland can show votes, and I 
can show votes. Ultimately we need to talk to get an agreement.
  So I continue to stand ready, the President stands ready; our 
minority here in the House and our majority in the Senate stands ready. 
But if only one side is saying: ``We are going to talk,'' and the other 
side says: ``We are not going to talk'', that is not going to resolve 
itself.
  We have to talk if it is going to resolve itself, and, hopefully, Mr. 
Speaker, we do.
  I stand ready, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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