DeLauro Statement to House Rules Committee Opposing Republican’s Partisan Funding Bill

WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) delivered the following remarks at the House Rules Committee in opposition to House Republicans’ partisan continuing resolution:

Thank you very much, Chairwoman Foxx, and Ranking Member McGovern, members of the committee. Delighted to be with you this afternoon. It is a pleasure to be on this panel with the distinguished Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Congressman Tom Cole. You have heard me say this before, but in addition to being a colleague, he is a friend. 

I oppose this partisan continuing resolution that shortchanges the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children by $600 million. That is below what President Trump requested. It fails to address the health care crisis. And it fails to protect Congress’ power of the purse and to safeguard the investments promised to our communities that are set to expire because of Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought’s lawlessness. 

Republicans have once again chosen the partisan route, deciding they would rather take us to the brink of a shutdown instead of lowering costs for millions of Americans and preventing people from getting kicked off their health care. 

While the Appropriations Committee discussions had made some progress, Republican leadership has refused to meet with our Democratic Leaders. Republicans would rather shut down the government than sit down to talk about health care.

But this is exactly how House Republicans kicked off the appropriations process. From the beginning, they came to the table with funding bills that are filled with extreme, reckless cuts and harmful policies that have been rejected on a bipartisan basis. 

We are now nine months into this Administration—and weeks away from the end of the fiscal year—and the cost-of-living crisis has only gotten worse under President Trump. Americans are struggling with rising costs for everyday necessities. They are living paycheck to paycheck. But the President and House Republicans are not laser-focused on the cost-of-living crisis. 

Instead of lowering prices, Republicans passed a bill to cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which will strip health care coverage from more than 15 million people. Over $500 billion in cuts to Medicare will be triggered by this law, harming America’s seniors. In their signature law, Republicans slashed nutrition benefits for poor families, which will cause an additional 1 million kids to go hungry. 

They did all of this in order to pass trillions of dollars in tax cuts for big corporations and for billionaires – adding four trillion dollars to the national debt over the next ten years.

House Republicans continue to double down on their attacks on the working class, the middle class, and vulnerable Americans. Their full year funding bills are an assault on public health, slash medical research, eliminate funding for reproductive health, and eviscerate education and job training. 

They used their 2026 full year bills not to right the wrongs of their Big Ugly Law, but to make health care even more expensive and slash research into lifesaving cures. They cut funding for the National Institutes of Health, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They slashed funding for State and local health departments, substance use prevention and treatment, and mental health services, and eliminated funding for tobacco prevention and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

To top it all off, House Republicans continued their full-scale attempt to eliminate public education, decimating support for children in K-12 elementary schools and threatening the future of an entire generation. 

These bills are all cut from the same cloth: they help major companies and billionaires grow their power, raise prices on the backs of the working class. Hardworking Americans suffer while Republicans protect and line the pockets of billionaires and big corporations. 

President Trump, guided by Project 2025 author and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, is also unlawfully stealing funds that we, Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate, passed into law. Funds that meet the needs of the American people. 

Russ Vought continues to withhold more than $410 billion, $410 billion, from families, from farmers, from children, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country. 

I won’t go into it, but this is a tracker of the $410 billion. $6.6 billion in Agriculture; $51.7 billion in Commerce, Justice, Science; $3.3 billion in Defense; Energy and Water $76.7 billion; Financial Services and General Government $387 million; Homeland Security $102.4 billion; Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies $31.8 billion; Labor, Health Human Services, Education $32.1 billion; Military Construction, Veterans Affairs $19.5 billion; State, Foreign Ops, and Related Programs $43.5 billion; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development $44.3 billion. That affects every part of this country. 

Some of these funds are set to expire soon. As much as $5 billion for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will lapse soon. Money promised to help farmers and ranchers drive advancements in agriculture is at risk. Over $1 billion in Nonprofit Security Grants and Homeland Security Grants that keep our communities safe are at risk of expiring. Grants to help Americans put a roof over their head would disappear. 

As the courts have repeatedly concluded, this administration’s disregard for our nation’s spending laws has harmed every corner of our country. Children in elementary schools have been denied resources they need to succeed, farmers and rural communities have been left to fend for themselves, and communities have been robbed of resources to keep people safe. Russ Vought has stripped hope away from cancer patients and made the cost-of-living crisis even worse for working families. 

Make no mistake: Russ Vought wants a shutdown—he wants the country to continue spiraling into chaos so he can keep stealing from our communities. 

In addition to appropriations, Congress needs to act to address the health care crisis, which will get even worse if tax credits that help working families are allowed to expire. Republicans broke our health care system and plunged us into this crisis. They have an obligation to work with us to fix it.

But instead, they have not done a single thing in this bill to restore the damage they have caused. In fact, with this bill, they are charging full steam ahead towards the largest premium increases in American history.

Democrats will not go along with a bill that adds even more fuel to this health care crisis, pushing lifesaving care out of reach for kids, families, and seniors.

Democrats want to lower the cost of living and deliver critical services and investments to all Americans. That can be achieved through bipartisan cooperation to pass annual funding bills—signed into law by President Trump. It cannot be achieved through a Republican shutdown or another full year continuing resolution that puts billionaires, big corporations, and unelected bureaucrats over the American people. 

And the majority is failing to live up to their own promises to the American people, that they can do the hard work of governing. They have unequivocally demonstrated they cannot.

This bill is an admission that a House Republican majority cannot govern. They would rather gamble on a partisan continuing resolution than work with Democrats to lower the cost of living and address the health care crisis.

Let us hope the majority does not drive us straight to a Republican shutdown.

But if they do shut down the government, I have no doubt the American people will know who is to blame.

Vote no on this Continuing Resolution. Abandon this partisan game. Join Democrats at the table. It is past time to govern. Thank you.

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