Hoyer Discusses How Republicans Continue to Punt on Responsibly Funding Government on Fox News’ “Your World With Neil Cavuto”
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Press Release
For Immediate Release:
December 19, 2018
Contact Info:
Mariel Saez 202-225-3130
WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” to discuss how Republicans continue to punt on responsibly funding government. Below are excerpts from the interview and a link to the video:
“[Republicans] are just punting the ball down the road a little bit. Nothing is solved. We're just delaying the decision. The fact is, Neil, as you know, we have agreement on 95, 96% of the seven remaining appropriations bills. We ought to pass that agreement and just leave for later, if necessary, the big disagreement we have over the wall. I think [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] knows that he's not going to pass the wall [funding] through the Senate, and he's certainly not going to pass the wall [funding] through the House next year. [Democrats are] for border security. We want to strengthen border security. We've done that in the Homeland Security [appropriations] bill, but it's not the wall from the President's standpoint. So we're just kicking the ball down the road, and we’re just going to have a fight or disagreement over this and more doubt about whether the government will operate in an effective, efficient manner in February. That's unfortunate from my standpoint..."
"Delaying [discussions on border wall funding] six weeks is not going to have the problem go away. I think it's unfortunate that we didn't do what we've overwhelmingly agreed to do over the last year in terms of agreement on the seven bills that are outstanding, except for the wall. We ought to leave that if we can't decide that. That's what compromise is about. You figure out what can we agree on. Well, we’ve agreed upon 95, 96%. We ought to pass that. And that which we can't agree on, we’ll have to argue about and see if we can reach agreement later on. But what we've done is simply kick the whole can down the road without a solution, and we're just delaying the fight until February and the doubt, I might say, until February. That's unfortunate."
“[Republicans] are just punting the ball down the road a little bit. Nothing is solved. We're just delaying the decision. The fact is, Neil, as you know, we have agreement on 95, 96% of the seven remaining appropriations bills. We ought to pass that agreement and just leave for later, if necessary, the big disagreement we have over the wall. I think [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] knows that he's not going to pass the wall [funding] through the Senate, and he's certainly not going to pass the wall [funding] through the House next year. [Democrats are] for border security. We want to strengthen border security. We've done that in the Homeland Security [appropriations] bill, but it's not the wall from the President's standpoint. So we're just kicking the ball down the road, and we’re just going to have a fight or disagreement over this and more doubt about whether the government will operate in an effective, efficient manner in February. That's unfortunate from my standpoint..."
"Delaying [discussions on border wall funding] six weeks is not going to have the problem go away. I think it's unfortunate that we didn't do what we've overwhelmingly agreed to do over the last year in terms of agreement on the seven bills that are outstanding, except for the wall. We ought to leave that if we can't decide that. That's what compromise is about. You figure out what can we agree on. Well, we’ve agreed upon 95, 96%. We ought to pass that. And that which we can't agree on, we’ll have to argue about and see if we can reach agreement later on. But what we've done is simply kick the whole can down the road without a solution, and we're just delaying the fight until February and the doubt, I might say, until February. That's unfortunate."