Schatz To House Republicans On Third Week Of Vacation: Get Back To Work

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today spoke on the Senate floor and called on Republicans to work with Democrats to reopen the government and stop health care costs from rising for millions of people. Schatz also called on House Republicans to return to work from their current weeks-long vacation after more than a month off in August.

“Get back to work,” Senator Schatz said after detailing House Republicans’ lengthy vacation. “We are facing a health care crisis. For 22 million Americans the price of health care is about to go up 114 percent. Help us help you, Republicans. You created this mess. We're simply saying we can open the government tomorrow morning if Donald Trump and Republicans realize that they’re hurting their own people.”

A transcript of Senator Schatz’s remarks is below. Video is available here.

It is day eight of the government shutdown, but it is day 19 of the House being on vacation. How is it possible that the party in charge of the government is sitting at home while the government is shut down?

Well, let's take a look. So this is the House schedule. These yellow blocks are work days. It's already a pretty nice schedule. Most people, if they are fortunate, get either seven days or ten days of vacation. Some people get less, some people get more, but nobody gets this amount of time off. Now we call that a district work period or a home work period. And that's true. We need to be home to interact with our constituents. But that's what August is for.

So here's what happened. They left early on the 25th, specifically to avoid a vote on the Epstein files. And they had this week off, this week off, this week off this week off this week off…

Get back to work. Get back to work.

We are facing a health care crisis. And we didn't pull this out of some Democratic strategist lab. And the presiding officer knows this in his home state. Prices are about to spike disproportionately among people who voted for Donald Trump, disproportionately in rural communities, disproportionately among farmers. And they're not going to spike a little. This is not like a normally 4 percent increase is now 7 percent.

For 22 million Americans the price of health care is about to go up 114 percent. You can find some people who are only paying like a 40 or 50 percent increase, and you still can't afford that. Most people can't afford a 40 or 50 percent increase in the cost of almost anything. But health care is a big chunk of the cost of living.

And so here we are as Democrats saying, help us help you, Republicans. You created this mess that is causing your signature legislative achievement to be a drag on your electoral chances. And if we were a little bit more cynical, we would just let you stew in it. But we want those 22 million people to have relief.

We're simply saying we can open the government tomorrow morning if Donald John Trump realizes that he's hurting his own people.

###