Peter Schorsch
Congress has approved a bipartisan agreement to re-open the federal government after a three-day partial shutdown.
The House approved the bill, 266-150, hours after the Senate backed it, 81-18. President Donald Trump is expected to quickly sign the measure to fund government operations through Feb. 8.
Senate Democrats reluctantly voted in favor of the bill, relenting in return for Republican assurances that the Senate will soon take up the plight of young immigrant “dreamers” and other contentious issues. Democrats from states won by Trump in 2016 broke with progressives looking to satisfy liberals’ and immigrants’ demands.
Here is a compilation of Florida politicians’ reactions to the agreement:
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor:
“The failure of President Trump and Republicans in Congress to pass budgets and bipartisan bills is hurting America. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who many know from his time at U.S. Central Command at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, explained the damage of ‘continuing resolutions’: ‘…no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act, defense spending cuts and operating in nine of the last 10 years under continuing resolutions.’ Republicans are now on their fourth ‘CR’ since September and Congress is no closer to addressing pressing problems like disaster recovery for Florida and Puerto Rico, resources to fight the opioid epidemic, resources for community health centers and a path forward for DREAMers. It is irresponsible for the Congress and the President to kick the can down the road again and continue the chaos. I urge President Trump and Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats on a path forward that properly funds our troops’ vital missions and provides equity on the non-defense side of the ledger that my neighbors and indeed all Americans rely on.”
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist:
“It’s unfortunate it took a shutdown to get an agreement for a Senate vote to protect our DREAMers. Ultimately, the President must lead on this issue in order to get a fix signed into law. We are in this position because, after requesting and receiving a bipartisan compromise, he rejected it, using derogatory language to describe a number of countries in the process.
“The fact remains that in a Republican-controlled Washington, we still don’t have a budget four months into the new fiscal year, and action on critical issues like flood insurance and disaster relief remains elusive. This is no way to run a country – much less the most powerful one in the world. And we will lose that status if we can’t start solving problems; reaching compromise that’s focused on our nation’s future, rather than the next election.
“Given today’s bipartisan deal, I remain hopeful that a path forward exists for our DREAMers and the major issues we must address in the coming weeks.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch:
“It’s been four months since President Trump ended DACA, putting 800,000 DREAMers at risk; four months since Republican leadership allowed the historically-bipartisan CHIP program to expire, putting access to healthcare for nine million kids at risk; and four months since the last fiscal year ended without any plan for the year ahead.
“Since then, Republican leadership has repeatedly resorted to short-term spending bills, kicking the can down the road from one emergency spending bill to the next, while ignoring bipartisan demands for a budget that will help fund programs to combat opioid abuse, address the emergency funding for Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and California, and reauthorize CHIP and DACA.
“The simple fact is that Republicans – in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House – have failed to govern. You cannot govern by funding the government just weeks at a time. That is governing by chaos, and the lack of certainty puts at risk our military, our seniors, our veterans, important medical research, and vital infrastructure improvements.
“Governing by chaos is not governing. Using band-aids to move from one emergency to another is irresponsible and dangerous. Americans need to know that their government will be there for them. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership has failed them.
“We need a spending bill that will ensure certain, stable, and robust funding of both domestic and military spending for the remainder of the year. We need to instill confidence and ensure stability.
“We owe it to our military, our troops, our veterans, and our national security. We owe it to our seniors and low-income families, to Social Security beneficiaries and Medicare and Medicaid recipients. We owe it to the groundbreaking and life-saving federally-funded medical research, and to those still struggling to recover from the disastrous natural disasters.
“This bill offers no assurance for a long-term spending bill. It’s time to govern – responsibly and in a bipartisan way. The American people deserve better.”
U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn:
“I’m glad that Senate Democrats finally saw the light and voted to stop their filibuster and end this harmful shutdown. It was wrong for Democrats to hold hostage our troops and their families, the health care of nine million children, and indeed the entire government, over the issue of illegal immigration – when there was no deadline. Finally, we can get back to work on the critical issues that confront our nation.”
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast:
“I’m relieved to say that the government is going to be back open, but this was an entirely avoidable crisis. The bill passed today by the Senate is fundamentally the same as the one the House passed last week. The fact that a minority of Senators were able to hold the government hostage for 3 days—and make no real changes to the bill—shows just how broken the system really is. Sadly far too many people in Washington remain more interested in helping themselves than the people they represent.
“With this manufactured crisis behind us, we need to get back to work—fix the broken system, stop governing from crisis to crisis, get our country’s finances back on track, cut wasteful spending and do what we were sent here to do: put power back in the hands of the American people.”
U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney:
“The shutdown of our government was an artificial, manufactured crisis with an issue, DACA extension, which was completely extraneous to funding the government. It was both unnecessary and unacceptable. I am glad to see that Senator Schumer’s Democrats have ended their political maneuvering and hope that now they will begin to work constructively to enact meaningful and long-term funding legislation which eliminates these repeated Continuing Resolutions.
“Securing our borders, fixing our broken visa system, and eliminating the diversity lottery and “chain migration” are critical national imperatives which must accompany any extension of the unconstitutional program known as DACA. I hope that sincere negotiations will produce needed improvements in our immigration system, like these, and that government funding will not be used as leverage in the process.”
The votes set the stage for hundreds of thousands of federal workers to return Tuesday, cutting short what could have become a messy and costly impasse.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this post.
