Thune: Democrats Threaten to Shut Down the Government … Again

“The rescissions bill this week deals with discretionary spending … hopeful that we’ll have the opportunity to get on that bill and to do something meaningful when it comes to reducing the size and scope of the federal government, and particularly in areas of our government where we know there is waste, fraud, and abuse.”

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:

Thune’s remarks below (as delivered):

“This week, as you know … the rescissions bill is the legislation that’s going to be on the floor – at least we hope it’s going to be on the floor – later today.

“We’re going to have a couple of procedural votes and we’ll see how those come out.

“But one thing I can tell you, in the Trump administration, is that there has been a renewed commitment to reducing spending.

“It’s actually become in favor to try and find ways to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

“And I think that was part of his mandate coming out of this election.

“It’s something that he and his administration have committed to do.

“We have partnered with him [on] the One Big, Beautiful Bill; we had the biggest spending reduction in history on the mandatory side of the equation.

“The rescissions bill this week deals with discretionary spending, the other part of the federal budget, and I’m hopeful that we’ll have the opportunity to get on that bill and to do something meaningful when it comes to reducing the size and scope of the federal government, and particularly in areas of our government where we know there is waste, fraud, and abuse.

“Now, the Democrats have suggested that they would shut the government down over us taking up rescission, that somehow that’s going to step on the normal appropriations process.

“And I guess what I would point out is that rescissions have been a part of the process around here for a long time, not only in the annual appropriations process, but both [Democrat and Republican] administrations have in the past submitted rescissions packages to the Congress.

“And I would also remind people that we’re talking about here is one-tenth of 1 percent of all federal spending.

“One-tenth of 1 percent of all federal spending.

“That’s one-thousandth of the federal budget that’s included in this rescission package.

“And so I hope we have the votes to get on this bill later today, and to have an opportunity for people to offer amendments.

“If they see things that they want to, they think they can fix or modify in the legislation, that’s always an opportunity that people have when the bill comes to the floor.

“But clearly this is something that all of us believe is a priority.

“When you’ve got a $36 trillion debt, we have to do something to get spending under control.

“Couple that with policies like we had in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that create growth in the economy, expand the economy, create those better-paying jobs, and generate more government revenue – couple that with spending restraint, both on the mandatory side and the discretionary side, and we can start to get this thing back into balance, which is where it needs to be if we’re going to do anything meaningful to ensure that we have a better and brighter future for future generations of Americans.

“So that’s the subject for today, and obviously we’ll have an opportunity to see where the votes are tonight.”