A bill that prevents a
government shutdown and funds S-CHIP for up to 6 years should be a
simple choice for every Senator in this Chamber, and until very
recently, our Democratic colleagues agreed. ``No-brainer'' was the
exact phrase my colleague, the senior Senator from California, recently
used on the Senate floor when discussing S-CHIP renewal. The newest Member of this body, the junior Senator from Alabama,
campaigned on this very issue. As Senator-elect, he insisted that his
future colleagues should ``stop playing political football with the
health care of our children.'' He called it ``absolutely unacceptable
for partisan fighting to delay renewing funding for CHIP.''
I hope my friends, the Democratic leaders, are listening to their own
Members because recently some have intimated that Democrats will
filibuster any funding bill whatsoever over the issue of illegal
immigration. I find it difficult to believe that my Democratic
colleagues would want to shut down the government for American citizens
and vote down a 6-year reauthorization of health insurance for American
children all over illegal immigration. Bipartisan negotiations over the DACA issue and other issues in
immigration policy are certainly important, and they are ongoing. Our
responsibility is to continue those discussions, not to jeopardize them
by ginning up a manufactured crisis over an artificial deadline. We
have until March, at least, to complete our ongoing negotiations on
immigration. We have until Friday to fund the government. I would urge my Democratic friends to honor their stated commitments
to join in a bipartisan effort to keep the government funded and
reauthorize S-CHIP for struggling families across our country.
Keywords matched
illegal immigration immigration illegal
immigration DACA