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I am deeply troubled both by the President’s request and the allocation for this bill, which is $10 billion below the total enacted level in FY 2017. I appreciate the Chair’s work to sustain unwavering support and robust funding for our close ally and partner Israel, as well as for Jordan, and to maintain our commitment to prioritizing development in the poorest countries.

The 2018 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill would repeal Dodd-Frank consumer financial protections, undermine the Affordable Care Act, restrict women’s access to legal health services, meddle in the District of Columbia’s internal affairs, and diminish federal assistance to states to ensure secure elections, even in the wake of confirmed meddling by foreign actors in the 2016 election.

The 2018 CJS Appropriations bill fails to fund priorities critical to communities, including the COPS hiring program, economic development investments, legal representation for low-income Americans, and climate research, while including divisive riders relating to firearms and U.S. policy toward Cuba.

The biggest economic challenge of our time is that too many people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on. The programs in this bill provide opportunities for hardworking Americans to improve themselves and for our economy to grow—it provides for our children to thrive through education, for job seekers to get the skills they need through job training, for workers to be protected from unjust labor practices.

This bill is the inadequate result of the false choice the Appropriations Committee has confronted all year. Its commendable elements come at the expense of national priorities that are on the chopping block purely because House Republican Leadership continues to dither and avoid coming to the table to find a suitable spending agreement.

With all of these procedural roadblocks hindering our path forward, one might think the majority would produce bills that could possibly gain support from Democrats by, for example, funding critical investments to keep our air and water clean. Or they might refrain from adding poison pill riders.

With all of these procedural roadblocks hindering our path forward, one might think the majority would produce bills that could possibly gain support from Democrats, by for example, not funding a wasteful and useless border wall or a deportation force separating children from their families. Yet that has not happened.