Speaker X (00:00):
[inaudible 00:00:17].
Mike Johnson (00:27):
Well good morning, everyone. We're out now on day 27 of the Democrat shutdown and we want to review with you a few pertinent facts and explain a little bit about some of the really painful things that are going on around the country. We're delighted to be joined by our dear friend, Kelly Loeffler, former US senator and now the leader of the US Small Business Administration. And she can speak specifically to some of the great hardships that are being felt by the people who provide jobs now around this country.
(00:57)
Day 27 means it's almost been a full month since the Democrats shut down the government. And as we near the end of this month, the pain being felt by so many hardworking people around this country is very real and it gets worse with each passing day. Here's some of the stats. Last week, 1.4 million federal workers missed a full paycheck. Now, many of them are furloughed and many more are deemed essential workers, those who are essential, for example, to keep the country safe. TSA agents we've discussed and air traffic controllers and Border Patrol and, of course, our troops, but so many of them now are going without pay. The families of military service members and the air traffic controllers and so many of these others are now at very real risk of missing the paycheck at the end of this month. The Trump administration has done everything possible to bend over backwards to try to find sources of funding within the federal government to be able to cover the bases, but it is getting more and more challenging with each day.
(01:56)
Now, every Republican in Congress wants to stop this madness desperately. And we have voted many times, over a dozen times, collectively 13 times, to reopen the government, to keep it open and reopen it once the Democrats closed it. But here's the very simple and important fact that no one should forget. We have no ability, Republicans do not have the ability to do this on our own. It's a simple math problem. We need Democrats to help. You need 60 votes in the Senate, we only have 53 Republicans. The Democrats are the ones voting repeatedly to shut down the government. But they're not opening it back up. They spent most of their time trying to distract the American people from the very simple truth.
(02:38)
So, I brought you a little visual aid here to just remind everybody what the simple facts are. Four simple facts here. The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government, we aren't, not in the Senate. 60 votes control the Senate, not a bear majority. And so, point number one, Democrat votes are required to open the government. Point number two, they refuse to do it. They have now voted 12 times to keep the government closed. And they'll have another chance, today or tomorrow, maybe multiple times this week, and we'll see what they do.
(03:14)
Now, the third point is very important because they've been trying to confuse the American people. They've tried to say, "This is a fight about healthcare," or this or that or any other thing. And it's very simple. They put this on paper. They made this their demand in writing in the record of the Senate and it has not changed. These are just four sub-points there under fact number three, but there's many more. But among the things they're demanding, this is what the Democrats in the Senate are demanding to reopen the government, they want to give $200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens and non-citizens paid for by US taxpayers. That is in their proposal. They want billions in wasteful programs to be returned to foreign countries.
(03:54)
So, we stopped these things. They want to turn it all back on. They're demanding that we do all that to get the government open for hardworking Americans again. They want to give a half a billion to left-leaning news organizations and they want to cut $50 billion from rural hospitals. We cannot, we will not do those things and they know that very well.
(04:16)
Which leads us to point number four. The Democrats have now openly admitted, and you all had to cover it last week, that they're using the pain of the American people as their leverage. That was the number two ranked Democrat in the House. The Democrat, the minority whip who said that, acknowledged it in an interview, that this is leverage. And Chuck Schumer himself boasted that, "Every day of the shutdown gets better for us." That's his now infamous quote that he wishes he had not said out loud. But you know what they're doing and why.
(04:45)
Why are they demanding these things? Why is point number three so essential to them? Why would they do this? Because it's unprecedented, as we've noticed. And reminded you all, they voted for CRs every time it was possible in their lives, as recently as March of this year. But they're doing it to appease their far left Marxist base, that's the headline. That's why. That's why we're all in this mess. That's why the American people are suffering pain because the Democrats are more afraid of the Marxists in their base than they are of hardworking Americans.
(05:14)
See, they've made an evaluation that they have to appease the Marxist base. That they're so concerned that they'll lose their jobs if they don't appease the far left in their party, and they sat in a back room and they made the calculation that they would rather shut the government down and impose all this pain on the American people, because they believe the Marxists, the far left in the base, are more active than hardworking Americans, people who go vote. And so, they made the calculation that it's worth it to them. "Every day gets better for us. We'll use the pain as leverage." For what? To prove to the far left base that they won't give in, that they'll fight Trump and fight their Republicans.
(05:50)
What are they fighting? It's a clean CR. It's the same level of funding that they have voted for as recently as earlier this year. They are Biden-level policies and spending. This is not some Republican wishlist. We don't have any of our priorities in this at all. It's the Democrat's own product, but they have decided to flip the script this time because they were getting too much heat from the far left. The facts are so simple. And I'll give you exhibit B as to why this is so true. On Friday, there was a little bit of a seismic shift in politics. All of you noticed it over the weekend. We saw our clearest sign yet that this radical insurgent movement in the Democrat Party is succeeding. And they are ending what has always been known as the Democrat Party in America.
(06:39)
After a month's long pressure campaign from the far left, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, finally relented. He gave in and he gave his endorsement to the socialist running to be mayor of New York City. The House Democrats have chosen a side, they were forced to by that far left, that they're so terrified of, and they've shown the world what they really believe. There is no longer a place for centrist and moderates in their party. The candidate that they have endorsed, Mamdani, is somebody who we've talked about a lot from this podium. He's sympathized with Hamas and openly embraced anti-Semitic language. He has called to quote, "seize the means of production," because he is a Marxist. He's called to abolish our borders, to abolish and end immigration enforcement, to defund the police and to legalize prostitution, among a long list of hits that I could share with you. Zohran Mamdani is expected to take the helm of one of the most important cities in the world and the largest city in America, and he now has the full blessing of the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives. It is shocking. And that leader and all the other Democrats are going to co-own the consequences of what they do to America's largest city. Every reporter in this room should be asking every House Democrat individually whether they too agree with Hakeem's endorsement of the Marxist agenda. It's an extraordinary moment in the history of American politics, this is not the kind of history that we need to be making. What we're witnessing is truly the end of the Democratic Party as we've known it and even some Democrats are now saying that out loud. You can see it in their interviews, I watched one last night.
(08:18)
All this is directly related to the Democrat's shutdown show. Why? Because just like they decided to save their own skin, that they had to endorse the Marxist Mamdani in an unprecedented move, they have also decided they had to shut down the government in an unprecedented move, no matter the pain it inflicts upon hard work in American people. They were simply more afraid of the Marxists in their party than they are of voters. For the sake of our country we pray that their calculation is wrong. We believe it is dead wrong. And as much as they try to obscure it, as much as they try to distract you, as much as they try to say that it's about any other issue under the sun, all those issues were always scheduled to be decided.
(09:01)
Healthcare, the expiring Obamacare subsidies, the NDAA, the appropriations, all these other things, it was always on the calendar for Republicans and Democrats to hash it out in October, November and December. This is not a surprise to Republicans, it's not a surprise to Democrats, and they all know it. That is the only thing they could grasp onto to try to give some sort of argument, to try to give cover for the fact that they're running from the far left base of their party.
(09:27)
Facts are facts. And the ball is fully in the court of the Senate Democrats now. Who are they going to respond to? I think hardworking American families need to be a little more vocal. I think they need to call some of these Senate offices and tell them to stop the games. They need to know. They should fear the American people worse than the Marxists who are trying to take over their party. And my friends, that is exactly what is going on right here.
(09:51)
Now, I want to zoom in because we have a special guest and just focus on a group of men and women who are seeing the impact of this shutdown in their bottom line every single day. And that is of America's small business owners. See, small businesses are the largest employers in our country, but unlike Washington Democrats, they don't have the luxury to wait out this shutdown. For many of them, federal contracts have been frozen, SBA loans and support have dried up and business has dropped off due to uncertainty in the markets. A survey of small business owners across the country found that for the one in five small business owners who rely on government contracts, this shutdown is forcing them to pull back on their investments, and what are those investments? It's new hires, new jobs, it's supplies and services. They have to pull back on those things, so that they can make payroll work, so they can keep their employees employed.
(10:45)
One business in Raleigh, North Carolina that relies on federal environmental approval said this, "The backlog that is generated by the shutdown will last long beyond today." Another business in Georgia, Ms. Loeffler's home state,
Mike Johnson (11:00):
… specializes in home repairs added, "When livelihoods are affected in such a manner, home repairs and projects get delayed, if not canceled. Our government shutdown is a threat to us all." For American businesses that rely on loans from the SBA each day means crucial dollars lost, and that affects every American, at the end of the day. Small businesses across the country are being forced to go without roughly 170 million in SBA backed loans each day, and that adds up to $4.5 billion in blocked loans just over the course of this shutdown so far.
(11:36)
So while Chuck Schumer says that every day gets better for his party, every day is getting much, much harder for the people who are keeping the lights on around the country. To share more about what small businesses are experiencing firsthand, we are really delighted to enjoy and welcoming this morning, the administrator of the US Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler. Kelly, thanks for being here.
Kelly Loeffler (11:58):
Thank you, Speaker. Thank you so much. Good morning. Thanks for being here. Well, thank you Speaker Johnson and the leadership gathered here. I want to start out by thanking you all on behalf of America's 36 million small businesses for passing a clean funding bill to keep the government open and for passing the largest working family tax cut in American history, saving taxpayers a $4 trillion tax hike that Senate Democrats voted for, congressional Democrats supported.
(12:36)
Now, that tax cut is a big reason why we've seen a historic comeback for our nation's economy under the leadership of President Trump and congressional Republicans. Prior to the Democrat shutdown, the data was very clear, small business optimism was at seven year highs. Wage growth was outpacing inflation for the first time in four years. GDP growth was 3. 8%. Deregulation, energy, dominance, and fair trade were finally back.
(13:06)
For the first time in years, America's small businesses felt the wind in their sales. They were taking on new capital to hire, expand, and invest. Now, that confidence manifested itself at the SBA through a historic demand for capital exceeding $100 billion for the first time in the agency's 72-year history under President Trump's leadership. That includes $45 billion, a record 45 billion in SBA loans to 85,000 small businesses in fiscal 2025, the most ever approved by this agency, thanks to confidence in the Trump economy.
(13:48)
But today, 27 days later, as the Speaker said, Senate Democrats have intentionally put that momentum at risk. The SBA's loan guarantee programs have been halted and Main Street's capital has been choked off because Senate Democrats are playing politics with lives and livelihoods. They're demanding $1.5 trillion in taxpayer money to fund healthcare for illegal aliens and other liberal causes.
(14:14)
Their spin is fact free. They want to subsidize their broken, fraudulent, and unaffordable healthcare system where premiums have increased by 80% since 2014. And those are the enormous costs that are borne on the shoulders of small businesses. But the pain is the point. Every single day of the shutdown has stopped 320 local businesses every single day from accessing $170 million in SBA loans for hiring and for expansion.
(14:46)
Now, in Chuck Schumer's own state, that is $40 million every single week. In my home state of Georgia, Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock shutting down $35 million in Main Street capital every single week. So on day 27, all of that adds up to 6,000 small business loans that have been prevented from receiving upwards of $4 billion in Main Street lending. And it's not just the flow of capital that cut off, it's been cut off as the speaker said. It's small businesses that rely on federal contracts. Thousands of them across the country have received stop work orders.
(15:26)
Thousands more who rely on federal workers as their customers are seeing their revenue dry up. Here in Washington, of course, but around our military communities, around main streets, across America, it's our storefronts that are cutting back hours, manufacturers that are shelving expansion plans and generational businesses that are closing their doors for good. It's business that they will never get back. Thousands of painful stories like these are playing out, and that's what Democrats are talking about when they say they now have leverage.
(15:59)
Now, America's small businesses make up 99% of all of our nation's businesses. They create two out of every three new jobs and they make up about half of our GDP. So when the CEA estimates that every week of the Democrat shutdown, it shrinks the US economy by $15 billion, that cost is borne by Main Street. When they estimate that Senate Democrat shutdown will cost our economy 43,000 jobs, those jobs are at local businesses, all because Senator Schumer and his caucus are willing to sacrifice Main Street so that they can derail President Trump's historic economic agenda, and appease the socialist radicals who are now in charge of the Democrat Party.
(16:48)
It's why I'm so proud to stand here with Speaker Johnson, Chairman Williams and the entire house leadership team, because we are united behind Main Street, our military and those who rely on critical federal services. It's time for Chuck Schumer to end the political stunt, pass a clean funding bill, open the government, stop putting illegal aliens and the Marxist socialist demands of your radical base over small businesses back home. We must bring the same common sense that prevails on Main Street back to Washington. I'll now turn it over to my good friend and chairman of the Small Business Committee, Roger Williams from the great state of Texas.
Roger Williams (17:35):
Thank you, Senator. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I appreciate Administrator Loeffler and she's quoted you a lot of numbers, which are all true. But let me just tell you this. I chair the Small Business Committee. I'm a small business owner. I didn't like sell my business 10 years ago or anyway. We still have our family business. Been in business almost since 1939. I've been in it 57 years. I know what's happening on Main Street when it's good and when it's bad.
(18:03)
And let me tell you, Main Street is very fearful, the Schumer shutdown. He is totally holding Main Street America, small business owners, small business employees at bay because of his future that he's concerned about. It has nothing to do with it. Main Street is 99% of the businesses are small businesses. 75% of the payroll, 75% of the workforce is small business. It's every small business in your hometown, in Schumer's hometown, in my hometown.
(18:28)
I go over, and I'm not necessarily as much a congressman when I get home as much as a small business owner, and I can tell you what's happening out there. I'm worried about the 99%. I'm worried about the 75% of payroll, 75% of workforce. I'm worried about the fact that they cannot meet the payrolls as Administrator Loeffler said with the SBA like it is right and is ready to go. I mean, we are ready to go. We've had more activity in the SBA since November 5th than we've had in years because people want to start a business. So they see the Trump economy works, they want to start a business. They want to stay in business. I'm worried about that group of people. I'm worried about the fact that they can't meet payroll. I'm worried about the fact that they can't buy inventory. If you can't buy inventory, you can't sell anything. And the truth of the matter is, if you want to go deeper into it, if you don't have inventory, inflation will rise because you're not discounting your inventory. That's how capitalism works. That's how the private sector works. That's how we compete.
(19:20)
So the other thing we did before the shutdown, Administrator, thanks to you, is the fact that we raised the loan limits from 5 to 10 million on manufacturing, ready to go, ready to expand, ready to grow your business. And I will tell you, if we're lucky enough to have some more rate cuts, this economy, the Trump economy along with small business is going to lead the way and explode. But we can't do it with Chuck Schumer hanging an anchor around everybody's neck because he's personally concerned about his political future. So as a small business owner, I'm just saying to all of you, the greatest asset America has is its people, it's Americans, and it's Main Street America.
(19:56)
Risk and reward built this country. Right now, there's no risk and reward, we're just playing defense. That will not work. This shutdown must end immediately to save small business, to save consumers, to save Main Street America. I'm honored to chair the committee. I'm honored to work with Senator Leffler. We can get this done. Everybody's ready. It relies on one man, Chuck Schumer.
(20:17)
Take a look at the small businesses in your district or in New York, Senator Schumer. Tell them that you don't care about them. Tell them you don't care if they meet their payroll. Tell them you don't care if they hire workers and see how that goes. America is the greatest country in the world with the greatest workforce in the world. I'm proud to have a small part in supporting them and getting their country back on track. May God bless all of them. May God bless America. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Well, thank you Chairman Williams for all you do to support small businesses to really epitomize the backbone of our economy. And Administrator Loeffler, thank you for coming and for what you're doing to help small businesses grow in every corner of this country.
(21:02)
Unfortunately, as Administrator Loeffler pointed out, those small businesses are struggling like millions of families all across America. Why? So that the Democrats can get leverage. Who knows who they want leverage over? They can't articulate it. They've laid out a trillion and a half dollar wish list of crazy items like giving taxpayer funded healthcare to illegals in their bill to give that taxpayer funding to illegals. They actually gut rural healthcare.
(21:35)
Democrats got $50 billion out of rural healthcare. They want to talk about healthcare? They're the ones making it harder. And, of course, they don't want anybody to remember facts. Facts like when we moved the work and family's tax cut through this Congress, unfortunately, not a single Democrat wanted to support that because it involved preventing a tax increase. The party that's
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It's now gone all the way over, full bore into socialism. As the speaker talked about, Hakeem Jeffries is now all in for the socialist agenda of Mamdani. He is the head of their party now. When he gets elected mayor of New York, he's giving the marching orders to the rest of the Democrats. And they want to raise taxes on everybody. They call you rich. Anybody who works for a living is going to be rich and they're going to raise your taxes to get government-run grocery stores and the lunacy that comes with that. That's the Democrat agenda. It's not about improving healthcare, because again, in their own alternative bill, they want to gut rural healthcare. You know what else they work to do? In the Working Family Tax Cut, we had a provision that would've lowered premiums by 11%. According to CBO, it was scored to lower premiums on families.
(22:55)
It's called CSR. You can go look it up. It's something that has been out there as an idea for a long time. We actually put it into bill language, and text, and passed it through the house. But Democrats went and used a parliamentary maneuver under the Byrd rule to get that removed because they don't care about families. They don't care that that provision would've absolutely lowered premiums by double digits for families who are paying too much for healthcare. And then not only did they get it removed, Democrats in the Senate bragged still to this day on their website, bragged that they removed it. They want to tell you it's about healthcare. It's not. They really told you what it's about. It's about getting leverage, showing off to their radical Marxist socialist base that they're fighting Donald Trump, because they're still angry about the results of the November election.
(23:48)
And in the meantime, real families are struggling. Every day, the number grows higher. Yesterday, Senator Gallego went on to meet the press and he was asked when Democrats would reopen the government. And he said, "I'm not looking at a timetable. I'm looking at everyone's personal pocketbooks." Now, Senator Gallego, you ought to be looking at the pocketbooks of those single moms who right now are facing losing their WIC payments, facing losing their SNAP payments. And if Senator Gallego's not sure how many people that is, we've been told by the administration how many people will stand to lose real benefits, SNAP benefits, food stamps for kids. 42 million people will lose those benefits in just a few days. Senator Gallego, look at their pocketbooks. WIC, Women, Infants, and Children Program helps feed 7 million low-income moms and infants, Senator. Go look at those pocketbooks.
(25:03)
And who knows what your real motivation is, but I'll tell you what their motivation is. Their motivation is just to put food on their table for their kids. And every Republican and Democrat, every Republican in the House and Senate voted yes to put that food on the table and Democrats keep voting no. They keep voting to shut the government down, and it's having an impact on millions of people. Head Start, which is a program that funds education and nutrition services for 800,000 kids under the age of six. You hear this theme over and over again now. Who the Democrats are using for leverage and hurting is kids and nutrition programs. That's who they've chosen to target. And it's real harm and real pain that they're causing, but then it gets even bigger.
(25:58)
Just today, the American Federation of Government Employees, large union, came out and said, "It's time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown to today. No half measures and no gamesmanship." And the union went on to say today, "Because when the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren't looking for partisan spin. They're looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they're being cheated out of it is a national disgrace." And they're right. It's a national disgrace. What Democrats are doing to good, hardworking people, to women, infants, and children who are just looking to this town and saying, "What are these Democrats doing? What happened to your father's Democrat party?" It's a mirage of what it used to be because the socialists have taken over.
(27:11)
This is what Marxism and socialism looks like, government workers standing in food bank lines, children going without food, and Head Start nutrition programs, so that Democrats can use you as leverage. It's a national disgrace and it needs to end now. We stand ready to get that job done. We voted to get that job done. It's time they stop playing this game that's harming millions of people. Our whip, Tom Emmer.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We're now on day 27 of the Democrat shutdown, and the consequences are getting more severe every single day. Over the weekend, we saw federal workers lined up at food banks, as our majority leader was just saying, as they are being forced to figure out how to feed their families. We saw control towers at major airports, such as Dallas, Fort Worth, Newark, and Phoenix, facing significant staffing shortages. And if the Democrats fail to pass our clean CR and reopen the government this week, more Americans will miss their hard-earned paychecks. Some states will be forced to cut off SNAP benefits, including my home state of Minnesota. Thankfully, the Trump administration and private sector companies have stepped up where Democrats have refused. President Trump has found creative solutions to help pay our troops and fund WIC benefits for moms and young children for just a little bit longer.
(28:46)
DoorDash announced yesterday that they will help support Americans by delivering free meals to food banks, and waiving delivery and service fees on grocery orders for SNAP recipients. But these are Band-Aid solutions to the Democrat's self-inflicted shutdown problem. Remember, it doesn't have to be this way. There is a nonpartisan government funding bill sitting in the Senate ready to be sent to President Trump's desk immediately. We just need five Senate Democrats to come to their senses, do the right and reasonable thing, and support our clean CR. Contrary to what House Minority Whip Katherine Clark believes, the American people are not leverage in the Democrats' shutdown charade. And we refuse to negotiate under hostage conditions, nor will we pay a ransom.
(29:42)
So, our message today is the same as every other day. And we're glad to see, as the majority leader mentioned, that the American Federation of Government Employees, by the way, the largest government employee union, 820,000 federal employees, have joined us in saying enough with the political games, support our clean CR, and reopen the government like your constituents' livelihoods depend on it, because they do. With that, Mr. Speaker.
Mike Johnson (30:12):
Thank you. Yeah, Manu, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
It's now been more than five weeks since the House has last met and last voted. But even during government shutdown, House committees could still meet the facility markups. There could still be oversight hearings. Those could still come to the floor. So, why not do that rather than have members back home in their districts? Why not bring them back here and do the work that they were elected to do?
Mike Johnson (30:39):
Yeah. So, we're evaluating this day-by-day. The House did its work. I've said it over, and over, and over. And the most of important thing is to get the government open. It's the number one priority and number one responsibility of Congress and the Senate Democrats have chosen not to do it. We think that is paramount and of paramount importance to everything else. There is plenty of time in the remainder of the calendar year to do all the things that are the must-pass pieces of legislation and all the negotiations that I referenced earlier today. And we are anxious to get everybody back to regular legislative session. But there cannot be a regular legislative session so long as the government is closed and Americans are feeling so much pain. We won't do that.
(31:13)
Now, in the meantime, Republicans, I don't know what the Democrats are doing, other than publicity stunts. But I can tell you, the House Republicans are doing some of the most meaningful work of their careers. They're in their districts working around the clock with their constituents, helping them not only to negotiate the crisis that's been created by this Democrat shutdown, but all the other matters that they need to attend to. And I'm hearing from them individually. They are having some of the most meaningful interactions at a time of great crisis with their constituents that they've ever had. And that's really, really important. So, I don't want to pull them away from that work right now when their insight, and their counsel, and their assistants, and those of their staff, who by the way aren't getting paid soon, that is most essentially needed right now back home.
(31:57)
So, we have work to do here. We'll get back on the floor as soon as we can. And in the meantime, as soon as the Democrats allow us. And in the meantime, the committees, the chairs of all the committees and the active members of those committees are still churning the work out. They're not doing a markup right now in a formal meeting, for example, but they are still doing very meaningful work. Oversight. The oversight responsibility of the House continues to work. You might've noticed the oversight committee dumped its third batch of files from the Epstein matter just a number of days ago.
(32:29)
43,000 pages of documents are out there, including Epstein's own personal flight logs, his financial ledgers, his daily calendar and diaries. All those things are out now in the public. And so, all these essential functions of the House of Representatives continue in earnest. Hakeem Jeffries has said they're on vacation. Well, he might've sent the Democrats on vacation, but House Republicans are doing very important, very essential work around the clock. Yes. Yes. Go ahead, Alley.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
SNAP benefits going to run out this
(32:59)
And the USDA Senator
Mike Johnson (32:59):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
The USDA said they're not going to tap into a contingency fund or ensure those benefits get paid. Do you think the administration should tap into those funds or find other sources in order to ensure that millions Americans do get paid?
Mike Johnson (33:12):
Well, look, I can tell you the administration has worked, as you all know, very creatively and very hard to limit the pain on the Americans because of the Democrats shutdown, and the SNAP benefits is a unique situation. I got a summary of the whole legal analysis, and it certainly looks legitimate to me. The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now. The reason is because it's a finite source of funds. It was appropriated by Congress and if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school meals and infant formula, so it's a trade-off. There has to be a pre-existing appropriation for the contingency fund to be used, and Democrats blocked that appropriation when they rejected the clean continuing resolution. The way to make this stop immediately is we just need a handful. We need five more Democrats in the Senate to do the right thing. Wake up and say, "I'm going to say no to the Marxist far-left pressure and I'm going to do what's right by the people, the 42 million Americans in this country who rely upon this essential nutrition assistance." Am I going to starve my constituents or am I going to appease the Marxists? That is their actual calculation. Whether they say all of that out loud or not, everybody in this room knows exactly what's going on and it's so infuriating to us. The best way for SNAP benefits to be paid on time is for the Democrats to end their shutdown and that could happen right now if they would show some spine. Yes.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The military they yet again have a paycheck waffle into this week and in the past project found the money to pay the military including [inaudible 00:34:44] million dollars. Do you or any of your staff know who that donor was? Also, do you believe that military will miss that paycheck or did your understanding that that money will be found again?
Mike Johnson (35:03):
The questions about military pay, we did get the president as you know tapped in research and development on obligated funds and paid the military and the middle of October. Their next cheque is due the end of this week, and we're not 100% sure. Now, I do know the administration and everybody is bending over backwards to try to figure that out, but I don't know the final analysis yet. With regard to who gave the $130 million, very generous donation to help pay troops. By the way, that's just a small fraction of what is needed to pay the troops, as you know, but a very generous donation. I have not asked the president for the identity of that person because they want to remain anonymous, and I respect that. I've heard rumors, but I'm not 100% certain because again, I haven't asked to verify that myself. Yes.
Speaker 7 (35:49):
Mr. Speaker, this AFGE, Leader Scalise and with them are both mentioned this new statement from the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, they represent 800,000 federal employees. They're obviously calling for a clean CR of pass, which is what you guys pass. Do you see this statement from AFGE as a turning point in the shutdown? Do you see this as something that could move Senator Schumer?
Mike Johnson (36:14):
Certainly, I hope so. It's a union and they represent such a large amount. There's 1.4 million federal employees. They're representing 800,000 of them, and they said to your point, "Pass the CR and open the government." It couldn't be more clear, and because they understand the reality of this, these are federal employees, many of them watch carefully what happens here in the Halls of Congress. They know that this whole thing by the Democrats, the entire shutdown is a charade because they know and anybody who pays attention knows we always were going to arm wrestle over the remaining issues on the table this year, and they're tired of the distraction and it's hurting their families, and people are in suffering real hardships. They really are going to the food pantries out now to feed their families. It's shameful.
(36:57)
We're the greatest nation in the history of the world. We've got to be able to operate and we can't allow a rise of Marxist and far-left activists in one party to shut down the entire operation of the federal government, and that is exactly what they're allowing them to do. The Democrats have got to come their senses. You can endorse communists all you want, but at least keep the government operating for us. That's our plea. It's pretty simple. Yes, sir.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
Is there any work being done, a Republican solution to the healthcare cliff? There's been talk in the past about HSAs, about a short term plans, but any work being done, you said it could be done at the end of the year, but certainly there must be some preliminary work?
Mike Johnson (37:33):
Yeah. I've been carrying this visual aid around waiting for this question for a while. Okay. When I say that the Republicans have been working on a fix for healthcare, we've been doing this for years, and many of you who've been on this beat for a while know, this is two publications. When I was chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of Republicans in Congress, we published volumes of ideas on healthcare. This was volume one, a framework for personalized affordable care. We had an entire body of the smartest minds in Congress, the smartest Republican minds who worked around the clock, the Doctors Caucus.
(38:06)
They talked to stakeholders from around the country and in all the areas related to healthcare, and they came up with a formula on how to reduce the cost of healthcare dramatically, how to make Obamacare affordable and workable in some way for the American people, to increase the access to care and the quality of care, and these ideas have been on paper for a long time. There's volumes of this stuff, volumes of it. What we're doing right now, what we have been doing, what we were already doing because we knew we were coming up to the end of the year, and we know that healthcare is a major burden for the American people. We've been working on it since day one of this Congress. We worked on it in the years prior, and we've already demonstrated, this is not talking points for us.
(38:47)
When we say the Republican Party is the only party that has any chance at fixing healthcare for the American people, we've demonstrated it. We put it into the one big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut. As you know, we strengthened the Medicaid program. We started there because it was the lowest hanging fruit. Why? Because the fraud is so glaring and we cut out, we eliminated the fraud. We got ineligible recipients off of Medicaid. We preserved it for the people who rely upon it and need it the most. Young pregnant women, the elderly disabled, for example. We got able-bodied young men without dependents off the program, and what we did was we strengthened it.
(39:21)
Don't take our word for it, the CBO, who normally is not on my team, they're the ones that came out and said, "Yeah. It's going to save $185 billion," and they got 2.3 million ineligible recipients off of it already. That's an important first start, and so the next thing is to fix all the other components of healthcare. That's what we have plans to do. That's what we're working on. The expiring Obamacare subsidy at the end of the year is a serious problem, because if you look at it objectively, you know that it is subsidizing bad policy. We're throwing good money at a bad broken system, and so it needs real reforms.
(39:59)
The reason it was never appropriate or never possible to be resolved on a simple CR and stop get funding measure, is because it's very complicated to fix, but Republicans have a long list of ideas. Leader Scalise has been working with the chairman of our three committees of jurisdiction, putting all of that, formulating all that, grabbing the best ideas that we've had for years to put it on paper and make it work, but we know we're going to have to arm wrestle with Democrats over that. Why? Because many of them are avowed to get us to a single payer system. They do love socialism. My friends, they love Mamdani. He wants government to take over everything. They're on board with that program. They think the government can do a better job by taking over healthcare.
(40:39)
We believe in the private sector and the free market and individual providers, their acumen, and we say that if you take the government off their backs and allow for real competition again in healthcare, you will improve its quality and you'll bring down its cost. All of these are important components of that, and we have a lot of work to do, but it is not a simple thing, and I am not going to go in a back room with Chuck Schumer like he keeps demanding with four people and make this decision. I will not do it. It's not appropriate. It's not right. It's too complicated for that.
(41:07)
We need all the members to have buy-in. We need to have these healthy debates and discussions, but we can't do it while they're shutting the government down to appease the Marxist. That's it. That should be your headline. I want to thank Chairman Williams and Administrator Loeffler for being here, and highlighting the trials of small businesses, and we'll see you here again tomorrow. God bless.