Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (La.) delivered remarks to the press on Thursday at the U.S. Capitol, where he addressed the second day of the “Democrat Shutdown,” which has ground many federal operations to a broad halt.
“Welcome to day two of the Democrat Shutdown,” Speaker Johnson said. “…Real pain is being inflicted upon the American people.”
He explained that Republicans in the House had passed what he described as a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) to the U.S. Senate, where Democrats rejected it, thus causing the massive government shutdown following the end of the fiscal year – September 30.
“We sent over a very simple continuing resolution that every single Democrat has voted for in the past just to keep the government open for the people,” Speaker Johnson explained.
Why did the Democrats change their tune on voting for a CR?
“They would rather give taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens than to keep the doors open for American citizens,” Speaker Johnson said.
He explained that the Democrats had sent a “counter proposal” to the House, which is currently posted publicly on the Speaker’s website, under the press releases tab. This counteroffer, Johnson said, is a “wild list of partisan priorities” that aim to strip away many key components of this year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” legislation that was signed into law on July 4.
Per Johnson, some of the Democrats’ demands include:
- Returning funding to public broadcasting, which was stripped in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” earlier this year,
- Remove rural hospital funding, which Johnson said was about $50 billion, and provides healthcare mainly to patients in “red” states,
- Repeal the health provisions of the OBBB, which eliminated “all of the taxpayer-funded benefits going to illegals,” including the “California Loophole,” which allowed for illegals to get Medicare benefits anyway,
- This also includes foisting higher prices on emergency healthcare for American citizens while maintaining lower prices for illegal aliens.
Speaker Johnson said that the Democrats’ counter proposal would “reverse all those common sense reforms” in the OBBB “and more.”
It would cost the American taxpayer $200 billion, and those benefits would go “straight to illegal aliens – those are the simple facts,” the speaker noted.
