The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“GOVERNMENT FUNDING” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S78-S79 on Jan. 9, 2019.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, last night President Trump tried to convince Congress and the American people that there is a crisis at our southern border. It was little more than a rehash of spurious arguments and misleading statistics the President has been using for weeks. President Trump once again tried to claim there was a crisis at the border. The fact is, migrant border crossings have been declining for nearly two decades.
The President inveighed against drugs pouring over the border, but the vast majority of heroin enters the United States through legal ports of entry in trucks and on airplanes.
The President and his allies have been claiming that nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists have been stopped from entering the United States. They say that is a reason for the border wall. But nearly every single one of those apprehensions occurred in airports, not on our southern border.
In a recent report, Donald Trump's State Department concluded that there is no credible evidence that terrorist groups were trying to enter the United States through the southern border. In a report on the President's strategy to combat terrorist travel, sent to Congress by President Trump on December 21--the day the shutdown began--the National Security Council, appointed by President Trump, did not even mention a wall or a barrier to stop terrorists from entering the country.
The President continues to fearmonger, and he makes up the facts. This is a Presidency that is in crisis. It has so many problems, and it is the old trick--fearmonger, distort, try to scare people, and maybe they will not pay attention to the real problems in this administration.
In no way, however--the President is not getting his way. His fearmongering just isn't working. In no way did the President's speech last night make a persuasive or even a new case for an exorbitantly expensive border wall--a wall that the President guaranteed would be paid by Mexico. He said: I ran on this. Yes, he ran on it, saying Mexico would pay for it. At his rallies, he chanted: Who will pay for the wall? The people screamed back: Mexico.
The President's speech did nothing--nothing--to convince us here in Congress, and I believe it did nothing--nothing--to convince a skeptical public that this government shutdown is anything but a manufactured crisis of the President's own making. The President's speech, if anything, moved the American people even further away from his view that he should keep the government shut down until he gets his way. Reports say that the President didn't want to give this speech. Well, he was right. I don't think it helped his cause, and he probably hurt himself.
It is time for the President and our Republican colleagues to stop this fearmongering and to stop this diversion away from the problems that the President really has and end the shutdown. The shutdown is hurting millions of Americans, and it is going to get worse, all because of President Trump's temper tantrum. We should not--we should not--treat hundreds of thousands of Americans--millions of Americans--
as leverage to try and get something by pounding the table. That is not how our government works.
What is happening? Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers--innocent Federal workers who do their jobs, who work hard, and sometimes they get up on Monday morning with a 100- degree fever, but they go to work because they know their job is important--have been furloughed because of what Trump has done. Four hundred thousand continue to work without pay. TSA agents, food safety inspectors, border agents--those hard-working, dedicated public servants--are about to miss a paycheck.
Last night, many of my colleagues--including Senators Warner, Kaine, King, Cardin, Casey, Van Hollen, and others--held the floor to give voice to these Federal employees who live and work in their States, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck.
President Trump's government shutdown--his choosing, he is the only one who did it--is forcing a personal crisis on those public servants and their families. How unfair, how mean-spirited, and how wrong.
These families are owed a paycheck, but they are left to wonder how they are going to pay the mortgage or the rent and all of their other bills. They are wondering what will happen to the good credit they have worked so hard to maintain over the years. They are innocent victims of the Trump shutdown--a shutdown he said 25 times he would cause, a shutdown he said he would be proud to own.
President Trump, are you proud to own a shutdown that is hurting so many innocent people? Did you realize that when you caused this?
As government agencies remain shut down, American farmers and small businesses can't get the loans they desperately need. Tourism suffers as our national parks go neglected. Some families can't get a mortgage to buy a new home. The American people are suffering needlessly--
needlessly--because President Trump selfishly refuses to retreat from an intransigent, indefensible, and increasingly unpopular position.
The Democratic House has passed legislation that received support from many of my Republican colleagues to reopen the government. In no way does that legislation preclude us from having a debate and hashing out compromise solutions on border security. We have done that before.
We can continue to debate because, indeed, Democrats, Republicans, and the President all want stronger border security; we just sharply disagree about the best way of achieving it.
Why not open the government while we continue to hash out our differences? I have asked that of President Trump. I said: Give me one good reason why the shutdown should continue as we debate our differences on border security, which we all want. He could not give a single reason. We know the reason: He is leveraging--mercilessly leveraging--millions of Americans who are caught in his irresponsible action and who are hurt by it.
Let us open the government and continue to hash out our differences. That would be the responsible thing to do, and I believe Republican Senators, many of them, know that.
I urge my friend Leader McConnell to act now, convince the President to accept legislation to reopen the government, and let's pass it here on the floor of the Senate. The vast majority of the Republican caucus has already supported it. What are we waiting for?
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