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Greetings!
I wanted to take a moment to share with you a recap of what happened last week in Texas' 22nd District and the United States House of Representatives.
Today marks Day 24 of the Democrat Government Shutdown. This is now the second-longest government shutdown in United States history. Senate Democrats have now voted twelve times to keep the government closed, blocking paychecks for our air traffic controllers, loan access for small business owners, and hardworking federal employees, all while boasting about how “beneficial” the shutdown is for their political leverage.
Yesterday, the Radical Left Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would pay for federal workers who are on duty throughout the shutdown, including air traffic controllers, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, park rangers, federal law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, and Border Patrol agents. It failed to pass by a vote of 54-45. It needed 60 votes to advance. Today, more than 500,000 civilian federal employees didn’t receive their full paycheck.
Right now, 13,000 air traffic controllers are working without pay. These are the men and women keeping our skies safe, and Democrats have turned them into pawns in their political game.
- Many are working six days a week without a paycheck. Some have been forced to take second jobs, driving Uber or delivering DoorDash.
- Flight disruptions are surging. Before the shutdown, staffing issues accounted for 5% of delays nationwide. Now, it’s 53%.
- The stress is crushing morale. “I can’t guarantee you that your flight’s going to be on time,” warned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “I can’t guarantee you that your flight’s not going to be cancelled.”
- Even worse, the uncertainty is pushing away the next generation of air traffic controllers. Candidates at the FAA Academy are backing out, saying they don’t want to work in a system where they can’t count on being paid.
Just this week, the Federal Aviation Administration had to issue ground stops at both George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport. All of this, every delay, every missed paycheck, every canceled flight, is happening because the Democrats refuse to pass the clean funding bill they have voted for thirteen times before under the Biden Administration.
The Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA), the Allied Pilots Association (APA), the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), and the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots —the four major pilots’ associations —publicly urged Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution to fund the government and reopen it. As Chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, I joined Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Sam Graves in applauding the four pilots’ unions and calling on the Democrats who are playing political games with the American people’s safety to put aside their egos and do the right thing by voting to pass the clean, continuing resolution the House passed on September 19th. You can read more about that here.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) flagship loan programs that support small business expansion are currently halted. These crucial loan programs fund 320 small businesses every single day. Each day of the shutdown prevents approximately $170 million in funding from reaching entrepreneurs, impacting hundreds of businesses that could have expanded or hired new employees. In Texas, a month-long shutdown could delay around $307 million in funding for small businesses. Federal contracts will also be affected; while non-cost contracts will continue, funding for cost contracts will stop. This could lead to a $2 billion reduction in federal contract spending in Texas. Unpaid federal employees will contribute to an estimated $3.1 billion drop in consumer spending each month during the shutdown.
Democrat leadership has openly admitted that the pain of this shutdown is intentional. Here are a few examples:
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House Majority Whip Katherine Clark: "I mean, shutdowns are terrible and, of course, there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have,"
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Sen. Chuck Schumer: “Every day gets better for us.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders: “[If] you reopen the government and we lose our leverage…”
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Sen. Martin Heinrich: “That just gives the President more leverage” if we vote to pay troops, TSA agents, or law enforcement.
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Unnamed Democrat Senator: “People are going to get hammered” if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government.
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Unnamed Democrat Senator: “We would have enough votes if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine.”
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Senior Democrat Aide: “The party will not concede short of ‘planes falling out of the sky.’”
Families suffering. Veterans unpaid. Air traffic controllers are working without pay to keep you safe. Small businesses are struggling, and Democrats call that “leverage.”
They’re using your livelihood, your travel safety, and your paycheck as political weapons to demand:
- $193 billion in taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens.
- $1.1 billion for radical media programs.
- $5 billion for Woke Programs and climate Initiatives.
Democrats can’t deny the facts: their proposal puts healthcare for illegal aliens ahead of American citizens.
Over a month ago, my House Republican colleagues and I did our job. We passed a clean continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open. We voted to pay our troops, air traffic controllers, and federal workers, and we continue to push for relief for small businesses and veterans across the country.
But Democrats are standing in the way, holding the American people hostage for radical demands.
Enough is enough.
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