On this vote the A's are 366, the Nays 34,
one member voting present, 2/3 being in the affirmative.
The rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without
objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
Music.
Governing by continuing resolution, Mr.
Speaker, is never ideal, but Congress has a responsibility to
keep the government open and operating for the American people.
The alternative, a government shutdown, would be devastating to our
National Defense and for our constituents and would be a
grave mistake.
Today's bill, Mr.
Speaker, avoid such a self-inflicted error.
In this bill, we provide badly needed aid to Americans
that are suffering in a disaster.
I know my friends favor doing that.
I hope they vote accordingly.
Tonight, we must deliver results to show the American people
that we are serious about the correcting the course of
our nation, and this bill is the first step in
that direction.
We are on the cusp of an agreement to move
this country forward.
But two days ago, a multi billionaire with apparently no
working knowledge of our government or of appropriations, someone who
was a self appointed President of the United States, Elon
Musk, issued a marching order for House Republicans to go
against their own elected leadership.
Give the gentleman another 30 seconds.
These are the types of things that have been taken
out of this bill.
Healthcare protections, consumer protections, environmental protections, safety protections.
These are the types of things that have been taken
out of this bill because some billionaire richest man on
earth decided that he didn't want those things.
This has now become a bill that has taken out
anything that is important essentially for consumer or Health Protection
or for relief to lower costs for the American people.
Look, I think that the bottom line is that this
would have been a very unfortunate time to add the
debt limit to any agreement NEC and I'm very glad
we didn't.
This was a compromise.
We got some major things we wanted in the bill,
particularly the the what?
No, the disaster relief, which was bigger.
President asked for 117, we got, 100 we got.
So we kept the government open and we didn't get
the debt ceiling.
So there were three major victories.
We didn't get everything we wanted, but I think if
you look at the vote in the House, people felt
pretty good.
It was virtually unanimous.
We are really grateful that tonight, in bipartisan fashion, with
overwhelming majority of votes, we passed the American Relief Act
of 2025.
This is a very important piece of legislation.
It funds the government.
Of course, until March of 2025, that was a big
priority for us.
This is America First legislation because it allows us to
be set up to deliver for the American people.
In January, we will make a sea change in Washington.
President Trump will return to to to DC and to
the White House, and we will have Republican control of
the Senate and the House.
Things are going to be very different around here.
This was a necessary step to bridge the gap to
put us into that that moment where we can put
our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending for 2025.
We also in this bill, as you know, took care
of Americans who desperately need it and deserve the assistance.
We had a a record hurricane season.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton in particular did dramatic damage across
at least six states, the Carolinas and Virginia from Florida,
Tennessee, all the way through.
And they have been waiting for the federal government to
assist.
We did that tonight in this bill.
We are excited about this outcome tonight.
We're grateful that everyone stood together to do the right
thing.
And having gotten this done, now is the last order
of business for the year.
We are set up for a big and important new
start in January.
We can't wait to get to that point.
We encourage swift passage in the Senate.
Now they need to do their job as the House
just did.
I was in constant contact with with President Trump throughout
this process.
Spoke with him most recently about 45 minutes ago.
He, he knew exactly what we were doing and why.
And, and this is a good outcome for the country.
I, I think he certainly is happy about this outcome
as well.
Elon Musk and I talked to within about an hour
ago and, and we talked about the extraordinary challenges of
this job.
And I said, hey, you want to be speaker of
the House?
I don't know.
He said, this may be the hardest job in the
world.
I think it is.
But we're going to get through this.
We are going to unify this country and we are
going to bring the America First agenda to the people.
Beginning in January, House Democrats have successfully funded the government
at levels requested by President Biden in order to meet
the needs of the American people in terms of their
health, safety, and economic well-being.
House Democrats have successfully fought for families, farmers, first responders,
and the future of working class Americans.
House Democrats have successfully fought for $100 billion in disaster
assistance.
House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting
down the government, crashing the economy, and hurting working class
Americans all across the land.
House Democrats have successfully stopped the Billionaire Boys Club, which
wanted a $4 trillion blank check, by suspending the debt
ceiling in order to enable them to cut Social Security,
cut Medicare and cut nutritional assistance while providing massive tax
breaks for the wealthy, the well off and the well
connected.
This is a victory for the American people.
We have successfully advanced the needs of everyday Americans, but
there are still things to be worked on, and we
look forward to that fight in the new year.