September 30, 2023
Dear Friends,
We are less than 24 hours from a Republican shutdown of our federal government. Due to months of GOP infighting and incompetence, we stand at the precipice of an unconscionable and wholly avoidable outcome that would inflict real harm on millions of Americans.
A shutdown would force hundreds of thousands of federal employees — including our active duty servicemembers — to work without pay, while severely limiting access to a wide array of critical federal services. But instead of upholding their responsibility to the American people and working across the aisle to keep our government functioning, House Republicans are wasting precious hours attempting to advance bills to promote their extreme agenda that have no chance of becoming law, all but ensuring a government shutdown that would bring significant pain for families across our nation.
In May, President Biden met with House Republicans to negotiate the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a bipartisan budget agreement that avoided a breach of the debt ceiling through a common-sense compromise on future federal spending levels. But now Speaker McCarthy is walking back on that deal, instead pushing for catastrophic cuts to vital federal programs and new restrictions on abortion and health care, all to appease a handful of the most far-right members of the Republican caucus. These measures don’t just violate the terms of the bipartisan agreement; they would also have a devastating impact on American families and on our national security.
Among many other consequences, the proposals being pushed by House Republicans would:
- Limit women’s access to abortion care, including by preventing military personnel from traveling to seek reproductive health care;
- Give a “license to discriminate” against LGBTQ+ individuals by allowing people and organizations — including those receiving taxpayer funds — to deny services under the guise of religious liberty;
- Harm our military readiness by failing to invest in critical programs to increase the resiliency of our bases to climate change, all while eliminating vital civilian jobs at the Department of Defense;
- Weaken our national security by slashing over $200 million from investments in cybersecurity and infrastructure security, opening the U.S. up to increased cyberattacks and influence operations by foreign adversaries; and
- Hamper our response to the global climate crisis by eliminating support for international efforts to expand clean energy infrastructure and help communities adapt to climate change worldwide.
House Republicans are on an island by themselves with their extreme demands. Democrats in both chambers of Congress, as well as Senate Republicans, are ready to work together to pass a budget consistent with the terms of the bipartisan agreement made earlier this year. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has denounced the House GOP’s actions, calling their shutdown “an actively harmful proposition” that would “take the important progress being made on a number of key issues and drag it backward.”
Speaker McCarthy and his allies know that their radical plans are dead on arrival in the Senate and have no chance of becoming law. They know a shutdown will cause economic pain, and they know that pain will be borne by working Americans. But even with mere hours left to keep our government up and running, the House majority continues to waste the American people’s time pushing cruel, misguided proposals. They have multiple avenues to avoid inflicting the pain of a shutdown on American families, either by passing the Senate’s bipartisan Continuing Resolution that keeps the government open and funded through mid-November or by working with Democrats to pass a bipartisan full-year budget. These lifelines are within reach, yet House Republicans are refusing to take any of them.
House Republicans have abandoned their responsibilities to their constituents and to the American people, but my Democratic colleagues and I remain ready to uphold ours. If Republicans do force a shutdown, I’ll be working every day in Washington to bring them to the table to negotiate a common-sense agreement that keeps our government open and delivers the resources American families rely upon. In the meantime, my office will remain open and ready to serve the people of our Capital Region.
As always, thank you for reading.
Your friend,
DID YOU KNOW?
My office and I are working to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates and recommendations from federal agencies. With that in mind, here is some information that may be of interest to you:
- The Congressional App Challenge, a nationwide app competition for middle and high school students, is now open!
- Middle and high school students from New York’s 20th Congressional District can register and submit their applications at CongressionalAppChallenge.us until 12:00 PM on November 1st, 2023.
- The Challenge accepts apps written in any programming language, for any platform, and the competition is open to all students who meet the eligibility requirements, regardless of previous coding experience.
- The winning individual or team for New York’s 20th Congressional District will be chosen by a panel of local expert judges.
- For more information on the Congressional App Challenge in NY-20, including eligibility requirements and judging criteria, click HERE.
- For additional general information about the competition, click HERE.
