“I am asking the House to take up this temporary government funding bill right now.”

“Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1438, I call up the bill (H.R. 9770) making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2027, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. The Clerk read the title of the bill.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It temporarily funds the government through December 4 to prevent a shutdown. The House worked hard to prepare the full yearly budget bills, but Senate Democrats have stalled the process. This short-term bill keeps the government open while we finish the rest of the budget.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 9770, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027. This Congress has a constitutional duty to fund the government. If Article I teaches us anything, it is that governing means doing the work, not waiting for a crisis. It is a responsibility I have never viewed as optional and one I have remained committed to honoring through regular order. Over the last year, Mr. Speaker, the House Committee on Appropriations has acted to fulfill our fiscal year 2027 responsibilities. Previous partisan shutdowns and political headwinds never deterred us from doing our work. In fact, we refused to let political dysfunction become an excuse for inaction. So, line by line, bill by bill, we delivered all 12 regular appropriations bills out of committee. This was accomplished before the end of June, the earliest date on record since fiscal year 2020. We have also passed three of these bills across this very floor with bipartisan support. I am deeply proud of the engagement, discipline, and focus of our cardinals and appropriators and the support of our colleagues in this Chamber. While I wish I could say the same momentum and determination is being exercised on the other side of the Capitol, it is not. Senate Democrats won’t even allow markups to progress. It is impossible to negotiate full-year funding when circumstances make clear that one side is willing to bring the process to a standstill before it can even leave committee. The hard reality before us is straightforward. The fiscal year deadline is outpacing the work that remains. Our Conference refuses to let the obstruction and inaction of Senate Democrats trigger another manufactured shutdown at the end of September. That is why we are acting before a funding lapse crisis, not in response to it. This clean, short-term continuing resolution simply keeps the government open, protects the progress we have made, and preserves the path to full-year appropriations. For anyone questioning this legislation, the facts are simple: It extends the government funding deadline to December 4, denying any party the opportunity to manufacture leverage before elections. It contains no poison pills or partisan riders. It prevents harmful disruptions to our national security and the vital programs our constituents rely on. And it preserves the House’s progress toward completing full-year fiscal 2027 appropriations. You see, it is never too early to do the right thing. In fact, after Senate Democrats forced the two longest government shutdowns in American history and abandoned previously negotiated funding agreements more than once, we have every reason to act early and every responsibility to do so. The House will make clear to the Nation where we stand, and it is on the side of stability, certainty, and the American people. Additionally, supporting this bill does not limit, hinder, or halt any work on the full-year appropriations for any of the 12 bills. The choice is clear: Either Members will vote to keep the government working or they will vote to risk another unnecessary shutdown. I know which option my constituents expect. I know which option gives families relying on nutrition assistance or disaster relief the certainty they need. I know which options our troops, veterans, TSA agents, and government employees deserve. I know which option I will choose. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this responsible measure, and I look forward to continuing the fiscal year 2027 appropriations process in the coming months. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.”

“I am giving Representative Womack five minutes to speak.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), my very good friend, and chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the full Appropriations Committee.”

“I want the House to pass this temporary funding bill. It keeps the government open until December 4 while we finish the full budget. I do not like temporary bills, but shutting the government down hurts people and costs too much money.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Cole, for giving me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 9770, the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2027, in hopes that it is not necessary. If we were to complete our work as the Framers had intended and outlined for us, we wouldn’t be standing here today. This is an insurance policy. This ensures that, assuming we don’t finish our work by the end of September, by the end of this fiscal year, our government will be held harmless. Who could argue an insurance policy that holds a government harmless when we begin a new fiscal year? Under the leadership of Mr. Cole, the House Appropriations Committee, as you just heard, has advanced all 12 bills out of committee. We have done our job well before the end of the fiscal year. Three of these full-year funding bills have already cleared the floor and are ready for action in the Senate. That is sizeable progress toward our goal of restoring regular order in this appropriations process. I am exceedingly proud of the work my colleagues and I have done in crafting responsible bills that rightsize the discretionary side of our budget, but I am also pragmatic. I am aware of the political realities that lie before us right now, and the very fact is that we have a job to do, and time is running out on us. Too often, Mr. Speaker, we wait until the eleventh hour to create some kind of a process by which we can avoid a real catastrophe, gambling with the functions of government that people depend on. H.R. 9770 is a clean solution to extend government funding until December 4, ensuring zero disruptions to the operations of programs like SNAP, like WIC, the National Flood Insurance Program, disaster relief fund, and scores of other programs. It is no secret that I am not a fan of CRs. No self-respecting appropriator would ever embrace a CR. My preference has always been to fulfill our Article I responsibility before the deadline, following through on the job that the American people sent us to Washington to do. Passing this CR is a much better alternative than to threaten the government shutdown at the expense of the American people. This CR does not prevent us from continuing our work on full-year fiscal year 2027 appropriations. Instead, it provides a runway to work with our Senate counterparts and iron out a final agreement, all while preventing the abyss of uncertainty created by a lapse in appropriations. Mr. Speaker, for 43 days, a stalemate in Congress caused an unnecessary and costly government shutdown as political games took priority over our constitutional responsibility. The shutdown impacted many services and programs that our constituents count on. It crippled biomedical research, upended infrastructure projects, and risked our national security. As chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I can speak directly to the impact it had on agencies within our jurisdiction. Prior to the shutdown, the FAA was already falling short of its controller staffing targets. The shutdown exacerbated that problem. Without the promise of a paycheck, many of these air traffic controllers opted to take other employment opportunities instead of doing the job that the American people needed them to do. The results were canceled or delayed flights and ground stops at airports across the Nation. By the end of the shutdown, Mr. Speaker, 6 million people had been affected, not to mention the estimated costs incurred by the U.S. travel sector of $150 million a day. This is just one of many examples of the catastrophic consequences of a government shutdown. What we are doing today is offering this insurance policy to see that that doesn’t happen again. We have a binary choice later today on this bill. You are either going to vote for continuing the appropriations that fund the discretionary side of government till December 4, or you will be in the column voting to shut the government down. I think it is a pretty simple, no-brainer kind of vote. I encourage my colleagues--including my friend, the ranking member, Ms. DeLauro from Connecticut--to vote ``yes’’ on this bill.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It keeps the government open until December 4 so we do not have a shutdown right before the election. House Democrats have worked with us in good faith, but Senate Democrats have caused shutdowns before by making extra demands. This bill adds nothing new. It just buys us time to negotiate after the election.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to begin by complimenting my good friend, the ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee. She has bargained with us throughout this process in good faith, and it has been a pleasure to work with her. I have often been quoted, and I will say it here on the House floor, you can trust Rosa DeLauro. When she gives you her word, she keeps her word. We have no complaint at all with our friends on the other side of the aisle in the House and certainly not with our distinguished ranking member. I will tell you, we have not seen that same sort of good faith from the Senate of the United States, particularly the Senate Democrats. Quite frankly, they came to a bill agreement last year when we were trying to get the first three bills out--which we succeeded working together in doing--that, gosh, let’s just keep working. What we want is a clean continuing resolution and a short date. We gave them both those things. Instead, they then added new demands unrelated to the subject at hand, demands that, frankly, we did not agree with, did not accept. What did we get? We got a 79-day full shutdown, as my friend pointed out. We don’t think that is acceptable. We want to continue the process. Second, we negotiated again earlier this year. Again, we thought we had an agreement. We made concessions to our friends on the other side, concessions which we thought really weren’t concessions. They were helpful suggestions from the Democrats. Let’s add more training for our men and women in ICE, you know, Department of Homeland Security. Let’s have some additional training. Let’s have some additional funding. Those were all things we agreed to, and then once again we got another shutdown. Frankly, we just want to make assurance. I have no doubt we can negotiate differences, including some of the concerns my friend raised today, in the time we have between now and September 30. What we don’t want is a government shutdown used and perverted for political purposes 5 weeks before an election. We think that is a risk that we are running in dealing with the Senate. While we have worked productively, we have gotten bills out on both a partisan and a bipartisan basis, we haven’t seen that in the Senate. Honestly, they haven’t passed a single appropriations bill yet. They have refused to sit down and negotiate in good faith in the Senate. I would say our friends in the House have negotiated in good faith. We actually did backflips last year to give our friends in the House the measures that needed to get passed in the form that they asked to pass them. They kept their word. We passed all those bills. In the Senate, frankly, we did not get that kind of response. We gave them those things. Instead, we got a shutdown; a shutdown that, frankly, was inexplicable. We want to avoid that. We have presented here today a bill that should be noncontroversial. It simply extends funding through December 4. It does not have any poison pills in it. There is nothing in the bill that my friends object to. If they want to put additional things in the bill, fine, we can talk about that, but let’s just assure that funding is going to go on no matter what. That is all this clean continuing resolution does. Look, I have been around here long enough to know that tensions rise as you move toward an election. I have been around here long enough to see Members on both sides of the aisle try to leverage a shutdown to extract additional concessions. We want to avoid that. We want to continue to both move bills across this floor. Obviously, we have moved ours out of committee. We want to give the Senate time to do the same thing. Count me as skeptical that they are going to do much before the election. We want to make sure between when we leave here on September 30 and that election, and sometime beyond that, December 4, that the government continues to function, and we are available to negotiate at any time. We, as my friends on the House side have done, have kept our word in those negotiations. They have been in good faith. All this does is make sure that we do not have a shutdown come September 30, nor do we have a wild effort by either individual Members or either party to demand things in exchange for keeping the government open. The government will be open until the election is over. I actually think that is a concession and a favor to everybody. It is a favor to the American people to make sure that they are not inconvenienced and endangered by a government shutdown. If we have to wait until after the election until our friends in the Senate want to sit down and work, then we will wait until after the election. We don’t have to wait through a shutdown. We don’t have to create the temptation for individual Members to exploit an artificial deadline of the end of the fiscal year. We just need to keep working, as we have, productively. That is all this bill does. There are no poison pills in it. There is no increase in funding. There is no other extraneous legislation attached to it. It is a clean, simple CR to avoid a shutdown before a scheduled election and to give us enough time after that election to sit down, either resolve our differences--which is what I hope we can do--or if we need additional time, we will look at that then. If there are other matters along the way, we are happy to sit down and talk about those. We just want to take the possibility of a government shutdown off the table. Some people may think that is being cautious. Those people would probably not be aware that we went through the longest full government shutdown in American history triggered by our friends in the United States Senate, the Democrats in the United States Senate. Some people might think that, you know, again, we run the risk of our borders. We had to resort to extraordinary measures to continue to fund the Border Patrol. Why anybody is mad at the Border Patrol, I will never know. All they have done is their job. We have had no known illegal entries in the United States in over a year. That is something to be proud of. Why the Border Patrol is mixed up in this, I will never know, but I am happy to talk to my friends about it on the other side. Let’s do the prudent thing, as my friend, Mr. Womack, said. Let’s take out an insurance policy. Let’s remove the option of a government shutdown, and let’s continue to work in good faith. We have done that in this House. That is why all 12 bills are out of committee. I commend my friends on the other side. They made their points. They made their arguments. They supported a couple of those bills, others they might not. The point is, they worked in good faith. That has not happened in the United States Senate. We have had two shutdowns triggered by people that historically condemn any shutdown. Their argument has always in the past been: Let’s keep the government open while we negotiate. That is all this CR does. It ensures no artificial deadline, and it ensures we will get the election in the rearview mirror without shutting down the government as we move into an election. We think this is a prudent thing to do. I hope some of my friends on the other side will accept that view and vote accordingly. If not, we will try to do this on our own, but we would prefer to do it in cooperation with our friends. Again, that is all we are trying to do. I would urge, Mr. Speaker, that my colleagues support this bill, that we make sure there is no government shutdown come the end of the fiscal year, and that we make sure we can conduct our elections in November without the threat of a shutdown leading into those elections. Then we would prudently try to resolve our differences on the other side of the election. It is pretty simple stuff. Again, we are willing to talk about other matters that our friends want to bring up. We just want to take the option of a shutdown off the table. It is that simple. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moran). All time for debate has expired. Pursuant to House Resolution 1438, the previous question is ordered on the bill. The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill. The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.”