WASHINGTON — On Day Six of the Democrat government shutdown, Speaker Johnson held a solo press conference in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol to remind the American people that Democrats – and Democrats alone – hold the power to end their shutdown and reopen the government.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.
On Senate Democrats owning the government shutdown:
The ball is in the court of the Senate Democrats. There’s only a handful of people in the country who can solve this problem. There’s 46 Democrats, and one who caucuses as an Independent, I think, I lose track, but there’s about 47 of them that caucus together as Democrats. Here’s the problem. Remembering from civics, we don’t have enough Republican votes to fix this because it takes 60 votes in the Senate to break this impasse, to open the government. There’s only 53 Republicans in the Senate. We need some Democrats to be thoughtful and responsible and do the right thing. Because why? Because real people are being hurt by all these political games as Chuck Schumer is trying to cover himself […] that’s why this is happening.
On House Republicans taking this message to their districts:
‘Why aren’t you negotiating?’ There’s nothing for us to negotiate. The House has done its job. House Republicans right now are working hard in their districts all around the country. They’re meeting their constituents needs. They’re going and explaining and providing the answers, and they’re trying to help them navigate through this madness. Some of our Republican colleagues, we had a big conference call on Saturday. Many of them are working throughout, they’re making trips to all their rural hospitals in their district to help them navigate and access this fund that Chuck Schumer is trying to take away.
Republicans are on the job. We want to improve health care. We have ideas and plans to do that, to fix the COVID-level madness, and adjust Obamacare so that it works for more people, so you have higher access to care, and the costs are reduced. So, they’re doing that right now. But there’s nothing for us to negotiate or to debate right now because the House already did that. The House did its job. We passed our bill, we did the job to keep the government open, and now it’s on the Senate Democrats.
On Democrat attempts to repeal Republicans successful health care reforms:
Chuck Schumer files a counterproposal and says we want to reverse all that. Among the things that he would’ve reversed is putting illegal aliens back on the program. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the evidence over here at Exhibit B. This is the list of the actual provisions that would be reversed if Chuck Schumer’s language was voted on and passed. These are the provisions in the Working Families Tax Cut Act. These are the provisions of our bill that did each of these things. We ended Medicaid funding for most non-citizens. They would reverse that, and it would cost American taxpayers, hardworking Americans, an estimated $6.2 billion. And you see, you just go down the list. The California loophole, you know what they did in California? Gavin Newsom and the team out in California, they expanded Medicaid to cover all able-bodied, illegal alien adults. These men who could be working or whatever. I mean, they’re not even citizens, never intended by Congress. They put that on the tab of the taxpayer. And so, we reversed it. Chuck Schumer would repeal that. He would repeal those repairs. And this is what it would cost. You do the math.
I won’t go through each line, but it’s on the website, Speaker.gov. You can pull this up. It amounts to $192 billion, $192.8 billion. It’s almost $200 billion that Chuck Schumer wants to put back in. Also, by the way, while he’s repealing our health subtitle, he would also repeal the $50 billion that Republicans put into the bill to support our rural hospitals around the country. Why would Chuck Schumer do that? Because he’s desperate for political cover.
###