See below for statements by Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner on the funding deal to reopen government: a) Kaine explains why he supports it; b) Warner explains why he opposes it.
P.S. The bottom line is that (a narrow majority of) voters should never have given extreme MAGA Republicans control over all three branches of government. Absolutely disastrous; and now we’re all suffering the consequences for the idiocy…
STATEMENT OF U.S. SEN. MARK R. WARNER
~ On the continuing resolution ~
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released the following statement:
“Every day this shutdown drags on, Virginians feel it, from federal workers struggling to pay their bills to families unsure how they will put food on the table because this administration is cruelly and deliberately withholding the assistance they need. I want nothing more than to reopen the government, get folks back to work, and end the needless hardship this Republican shutdown is causing.
“I appreciate that this proposal includes important language preventing further mass layoffs of federal employees. That’s a critical step in protecting our public servants from this administration’s campaign of retribution, and something I’ve long pushed for.
“But I cannot support a deal that still leaves millions of Americans wondering how they are going to pay for their health care or whether they will be able to afford to get sick. We owe the American people more than a short-term fix that leaves working families staring down a health care crisis, and simply kicking the can down the road is not good enough. Families are already struggling with rising prices on everything from groceries to housing. I will keep working in the Senate to bring costs down and relieve the pressure on working families who are already paying more because of President Trump’s policies that are driving prices up instead of lowering them.”
Sen. Mark Warner: “I voted no on the deal last night, and I want to tell you why. Virginia has been particularly hard hit by this now record government shutdown. Federal workers, contractors – many of the folks for example who clean the federal buildings are contractors they’re never going to get back pay even after the government reopens. And I was glad to see that there were additional protections put in to make sure there won’t be additional RIFs during the shutdown.”
“But we have seen this administration use cruelty to an unprecedented level. The idea that the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court to try to stop SNAP benefits from going out, one out of right Americans, 800,000+ Virginians, they’re not going to eat without those benefits going forward.”
“So, I couldn’t vote for something that didn’t address the health care crisis that is imminent. Virginians are already seeing their rates double and triple who buy through the marketplace. I’ve heard too many stories about the untenable personal crisis people are going through at this point. So, I was not only a no, but I was a strong no. We’ve got to continue this fight on health care. We’ve got to continue the ability to try to make Virginians’ and Americans’ lives more affordable.”
“This president has delivered nothing, and it’s downright galling to see him trying to say, ‘Oh, prices are going down.’ Well, he obviously hasn’t been to a grocery store. So, this fight continues. We will resolve the issue on health care. We’ve got to make sure people don’t face this unnecessary cliff. So many of my Republican friends have said, ‘You know, trust us, we’ll work with you.’ Well, they’ll have that chance going forward. The health care crisis continues. We’ve got to get it resolved.”
“Hey everybody, I’m the cleanup hitter because I joined this group the last, I joined it 48 hours ago. Not for lack of interest. And I’ve got to applaud Jeanne Shaheen and this group, because they have been having open meetings that anybody could participate in on negotiation. But I had my hands full, focused on the Virginia elections, until Wednesday morning. And as soon as that was over, I have now engaged and engaged with a particular purpose in mind. I knew the Democratic appropriators led by Patty Murray were going to do the very best job they could to get these three approps queued up and moving forward. A bill for example that has very robust SNAP funding, very robust funding for the V.A. I had confidence in that and I had confidence in these guys that they were going to get the best possible deal they could get from Republicans on the ACA. We were in a situation where SNAP recipients were suffering, and there was no guarantee we would ever get to an ACA solution. Now we’ve got robust SNAP funding and a guaranteed vote. Not a guaranteed outcome, but a guaranteed vote on ACA tax credits. But I engaged on the issue that I’ve been talking about for a month…anybody who had listened to me on the Republican side, I’ve said what I need in Virginia with 320,000 federal employees who live in households that probably encompass nearly 650,000 or 700,000 residents, and I said I need a moratorium on mischief. My Virginians have been suffering under this administration. The shutdown started on January 20. I need a moratorium on the punishing of the federal workforce. That’s what I need. And so I joined this group to make sure that we could get important protections for federal employees. And what we have in this bill is the restoration of all the furloughed employees and a guarantee of their backpay. The restoration of all RIF’ed employees who got RIF’ed after October 1, with all of their backpay. And a guarantee of no RIFs…going forward. Two million federal workers, not just my 300,000, two million federal workers who are not uniform military now have a guarantee of no RIFs going forward. So they don’t have to go into the holiday season with anxiety about what’s going to show up on their email one morning at 5:30 a.m. That’s a big win for 2 million federal employees. And added together with these other ingredients of robust appropriations bills and a guaranteed path forward to vote on fixing the ACA, that made me sign on and say yes, we can do it. I had a number of Republicans on the floor tonight said we were we were amazed that you got that no RIF guarantee in there. And I’m glad that we did and we all worked so hard on it together. And I have huge respect for my colleagues who made this happen.”
