By my count, we only have 30 legislative days left in the first half of
the 115th Congress, yet we are faced with so many important issues we
need to move forward on. Nine million children face losing their health insurance because
Congress has not yet acted to reauthorize CHIP. Almost 1 million young,
aspiring Americans have no idea what their lives will look like 6
months from now because of the President's decision to end DACA and
Congress's continued inability to make it permanent law. The citizens
of Puerto Rico, American citizens, still have not been granted a
Federal aid package and are suffering from a lack of food, clean water,
healthcare supplies, and electricity, jeopardizing many of their lives
today. Yet here we are debating a bill without even allowing an amendment
process that we could have passed under suspension vote yesterday so we
could move on to CHIP, to Puerto Rico, to DACA today, rather than spend
one of our 30 remaining days of business this year avoiding the topics
that the American people want us to take on. Despite the important goals we have left to accomplish this year, it
is misleading to assume that regular order isn't feasible. We have all
seen how fast Congress can work when we are pushed right up to the
edge.