BREAKING NEWS: Matt Gaetz Tells House Committee: 'I'm Not Going To Vote For A Continuing Resolution'

Forbes Breaking News

At today's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) stated that he will not vote for a continuing resolution.

Transcript

00:00 I'm going to ask my good friend, the Ranking Member,

00:01 for any questions he may have for the panel.

00:02 Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me welcome the panel.

00:05 Finally, a panel that includes people

00:06 who are in charge around here.

00:08 And, you know, Dr. Burgess just went through wistfully

00:14 all the things that used to be

00:17 and things that he wished were in place today.

00:20 You all have as well, but I'll remind you, you're in charge.

00:24 I mean, you can't blame Nancy Pelosi for this.

00:27 You can't blame Joe Biden for this.

00:29 You know, the Republicans control the House of Representatives.

00:33 You can have as many open or closed rules as you want.

00:37 I mean, not only has the appropriations process

00:40 been a complete mess, but the process in general has.

00:45 I mean, and this is not slight to my friend, Mr. Cole,

00:49 because I know he is on the side of more openness,

00:53 but there have been 37 completely closed rules this year.

00:55 That's more closed rules to date than the previous two Congresses.

01:00 On amendments, this Congress,

01:02 73 percent of amendments have been blocked.

01:05 Over 61 percent of Republican amendments have been blocked.

01:09 And so, you know, I just -- I point that out.

01:14 But what I'm trying to figure out here

01:18 is like where we are and where are we going.

01:20 So these appropriation bills are being brought up one by one,

01:26 which I think is the way they should be brought up.

01:28 But there are still a couple of --

01:30 I think it's two appropriation bills

01:32 that haven't been reported out of committee yet.

01:34 Okay? So we're not going to get to all 12,

01:36 no matter how fast we move next week.

01:38 So -- and if you were here earlier,

01:43 I mean, obviously there is disagreement

01:47 with the White House on the substance of some of these bills.

01:50 There's disagreement with Senate Democrats

01:52 on some of these bills.

01:52 There's disagreement with Senate Republicans

01:54 on some of these bills.

01:55 So there is going to have to be this kind of give and take.

01:58 And I don't think under any scenario

02:01 do we pass 12 appropriation bills next week.

02:04 The Senate does the same.

02:06 We reconcile the differences.

02:08 And, you know, we have our product.

02:11 The government shuts down a week from tomorrow

02:15 if we don't do anything.

02:17 And we've had a couple of attempts

02:21 at a continuing resolution

02:23 that have been brought before the Rules Committee.

02:25 Continuing resolutions that are --

02:26 that in my opinion don't reflect my values.

02:28 I couldn't vote for them because of the deep cuts.

02:31 But nonetheless, they were brought up here

02:33 and then they were pulled.

02:34 So I'm just trying to figure out,

02:36 given the realities that we're dealing with

02:39 and the moment of time we're in,

02:41 are all of you going to vote for a continuing resolution?

02:46 >> I'll tell you, if you don't mind dealing --

02:48 >> Yes, no, I -- yeah.

02:49 >> Yeah, Mr. McGovern, I'm not going to vote

02:50 for a continuing resolution. We got to break the fever.

02:53 We got to kick the habit.

02:55 We got to -- the reality we face is a $33 trillion debt

02:59 that both parties have contributed to,

03:01 that neither party has developed a process to constrain

03:05 since the mid-'90s.

03:06 But I would point to the fact that in the mid-'90s

03:08 when we had divided government,

03:10 when we had a President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich,

03:13 we were able to go through this process.

03:15 And I would observe that even if we had to endure

03:21 a small shutdown, a week,

03:23 that the work that we could do to get these individual bills

03:27 out and negotiated in divided government would be worth it.

03:31 And I don't favor a shutdown.

03:33 I want to move as fast as possible.

03:35 We may even have bipartisan agreement

03:37 to move faster than we have in the past.

03:40 There's no question that you're right,

03:42 that there is no one that we can blame

03:44 the lack of the production of these bills on but ourselves.

03:47 And I own that as a Republican,

03:49 but as I think Mr. Cole correctly observed,

03:52 we've been following a bipartisan tradition.

03:55 And I think that this system,

03:57 that this rule that the committee I hope passes,

04:01 and I hope the House passes,

04:03 gets us back on a track where we negotiate these things

04:06 in the way that Mr. Burgess reflected on,

04:09 not negotiating what feature of a continuing resolution

04:13 is or is not going to be part of that calculus.

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