UPDATE (March 14, 2025 5:52 p.m. E.T.): Friday afternoon, a bill to avoid a government shutdown cleared a key procedural hurdle on a 62-38 vote, with 10 members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus joining all but one Republican in voting in favor. Sixty votes were needed to overcome a filibuster.
On Tuesday, House Republicans voted to hand a blank check over to a White House that is already stealing from our families and communities to fund the largest possible tax cut for billionaires and the biggest corporations.
The continuing resolution passed by the House gives Elon Musk and President Donald Trump even more flexibility to steal from the middle class, from seniors, from veterans, from working people, from small businesses and from farmers, all to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.
The administration’s slash-and-burn approach has already left a trail of destruction in our communities. From our national parks to Social Security offices, VA medical centers to food banks, Americans are seeing the direct results of the administration’s illegitimate, ill-informed and illegal campaign to tear apart our institutions.
This CR takes away any remaining restraints and guardrails from the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle our government.
Article I of the Constitution clearly spells out Congress’s authority to determine spending. It reads, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” To carry out this authority, the House and Senate Appropriations committees engage in tough negotiations that result in bipartisan legislation to fund the government and all of the agencies, programs and services that are provided to the American people.
As recently as early March, we were on the cusp of such an agreement. The “four corners” of the Appropriations committees — Tom Cole and me in the House and Susan Collins and Patty Murray in the Senate — were inches away from securing a deal on the funding topline, which would have allowed us to begin the roughly monthlong process of writing full-year bills.
This process is critically important: It ensures that final funding bills are the results of broad compromise among the people’s elected representatives. Nobody ever gets everything they want, but instead, the interests of Americans from coast to coast are considered and accounted for.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, at the behest of Musk and President Trump, pulled the rug out from under us and set the House on a track to hand Congress’ authorities over government funding to Musk and Trump. Several of my House colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who by their own admission never vote in favor of government funding bills, enthusiastically voted for this CR, completely ending the appropriations process.
As Republicans are finding out when they go home to their districts, the American people are wise to their abandonment of duty.
Why? Because this CR takes away any remaining restraints and guardrails from the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle our government and destroy the services that help Americans get by, and because they believe the president will continue to unilaterally freeze and deny funding for programs and services that do not serve his interests.
House Republicans would rather let an unchecked billionaire and President Trump seize taxpayer funds intended for families and businesses.
But as Republicans are finding out when they go home to their districts, the American people are wise to their abandonment of duty and of responsibility. Their constituents are so furious that the party’s political consultants are telling lawmakers to stop holding town halls altogether and just hide.
President Trump was elected because the American people wanted help with the cost of living. But the cost of living is nowhere to be found among the president’s concerns since he took office. Rather, he has set off on an agenda of vengeance and destruction, threatening the stability of our economy and the legitimacy of our government. He declared a trade war on our neighbors and closest allies, raising costs on American households, businesses and farmers and weakening our international relationships.
And the Trump administration continues to steal from the American people to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Elon Musk, an unelected, unaccountable billionaire with immense conflicts of interest, and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have been allowed to illegally freeze payments, tear down our institutions, fire career civil servants who are loyal to the Constitution rather than to President Trump and rip apart hard-fought labor agreements that protect working-class Americans. They even have Social Security in their sights.
My phone has been ringing off the hook with constituents telling me how Musk’s and President Trump’s cuts have affected them, and I know the same is happening in my Republican colleagues’ offices.
Kris, a student at Common Ground High School in my district and an intern at Haven’s Harvest, a volunteer organization that reduces food waste, contacted me after 71 student workers across New Haven were laid off because of the funding freeze. Kris’ internship was part of the Green Jobs Corps, funded by a grant since canceled by the Environmental Protection Agency.
I’ve also heard from CitySeed, which connects dozens of farmers across Connecticut with residents who need access to fresh, local food, through farmers markets, culinary programs and entrepreneurship opportunities. The organization has had funding that helps cover its administrative costs frozen, as well.
And Monica, a senior citizen in my district with a low income who relies on Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP benefits, told me she is not just worried about paying her bills or filling the freezer — she is worried that she will not be able to survive if the Trump administration’s cuts go through.
Decisions about the investments we make cannot be entrusted in one single officeholder.
I was at Bradley Airport in Connecticut this week when two Transportation Security Administration officers found out they had been let go. One of them told me they began working for the TSA immediately after its creation in the wake of Sept. 11. I must have missed when the American people asked for fewer TSA agents and longer wait times at checkpoints.
This is wrong, cruel and completely unnecessary. The funding freeze must end, and these draconian cuts must be stopped. But instead of standing up for their constituents and for Congress’s constitutional powers, the CR that passed the House lets Musk and President Trump freeze, cancel and repurpose taxpayer dollars as they see fit.
If this CR becomes law, Musk and President Trump will be able to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration. That will result in office closures, longer wait times and unacceptable backlogs for Americans who are trying to access their earned benefits.
Under this bill, Army Corps of Engineers construction projects to manage our waterways and mitigate flood risks will be cut by $1.4 billion, or 44%. And President Trump, not Congress, would determine all project funding levels and who gets the funding.
Instead of helping our communities address sky-high housing costs, the CR cuts rent subsidies by more than $700 million, leaving landlords to foot the bill or evict more than 32,000 households. And there is not enough funding for disaster relief, abandoning American families who have had their lives turned upside down by extreme weather.
I voted against this CR, and several of my Republican colleagues voted in favor of a CR for the first time, for the same reason: We do not expect the president to actually follow the law.
Decisions about the investments we make cannot be entrusted in one single officeholder. This Congress must decide: Do we have the authority to control spending, as is laid out in Article I of the Constitution?
So long as House Republicans are unwilling to defend the powers of the offices they were elected to hold, all of our constituents will continue to pay the price.
Regrettably, the House has already offered to forfeit its authority to the White House. I implore our colleagues in the Senate to stand up for the American people and our Constitution, reject this CR and put a freeze on this blank check.
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