WASHINGTON, D.C.— House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) sent the following letter to his Republican colleagues regarding the Democrats’ government shutdown stunt:
Dear Colleagues,
As I continue to recover in the hospital (and hopefully get released in the next few days), I wanted to let you know how proud I am of the work the House has done to do our job and take care of our business.
For weeks, Republicans have engaged in good-faith negotiations with our Democrat colleagues to responsibly fund our government. Republicans recognize – as Democrats have claimed for years – that shutting down the government is detrimental to our men and women in uniform. In addition, we know that it would be irresponsible to let the funding for the important CHIP program expire. That’s why on Thursday, our conference brought up and voted on a short-term funding solution that contained absolutely nothing Democrats have not supported in past so it could meet the filibuster threshold in the Senate.
Democrats have previously called for the necessity of funding our government; our four-week CR does that! Democrats have called for a long-term extension of CHIP; our bill funds the program for six years!
Yet, despite claiming support for everything in the package, Chuck Schumer made a shameless political decision to push Senate Democrats to vote no and hold our troops’ pay hostage for what the bill did NOT include—a not yet agreed upon deal, for an entirely separate political issue, that does not require action until well after the funding deadline, for which they have yet to provide any viable legislative text to address.
To summarize, Democrats have decided to hold our military and nearly 9 million vulnerable children hostage in favor of a nonexistent amnesty deal for a few hundred thousand people here illegally.
The American people aren’t buying it. Take a look at these headlines:
- CNN: CNN poll: DACA not worth a shutdown, except to Democrats
- CNN: Why Democrats may be making the wrong bet on the shutdown
- Associated Press: The Latest: Democrats derail bill to avert shutdown
- New York Times: Senate Democrats blocked passage of stopgap spending bill to keep government open
- Bloomberg: Senate Democrats block GOP funding plan as shutdown kicks in
56% of Americans believe it is more important to keep the government open over finding a solution to DACA. Only 34% think continuing DACA takes precedence.
We have a responsibility to the American people to not let our government be held hostage to these political antics by Democrats. This is not how we govern.
We work each day to fight for our military and children in this country. We are calling on Democrats to start doing the same.
Thanks for the prayers. Hope to see you soon.
Geaux,
Steve Scalise