Senator Murray Speaks on Senate Floor Ahead of Government Funding Votes

11.10.25

***WATCH : Senator Murray's remarks***

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate floor about President Trump and Republicans' refusal to prevent Americans' health care costs from spiking-and about the bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) and three-bill appropriations package that was released on Sunday and is expected to be voted on by the full Senate shortly.

A timeline detailing how Senator Murray has been fighting for years to extend the ACA tax credits and calling on Republicans to come to the table and negotiate is available HERE.

Senator Murray's full remarks, as delivered, are below:

[REPUBLICANS LOCK IN EXPLODING HEALTH CARE COSTS]

"Mr. President, like so many people in this country, I am outraged by the fact Republicans have refused to lift a finger to save so many families from the skyrocketing health care premiums all year long.

"And I voted no on last night's vote because I believe we do need to address health care costs before we move forward. There is simply no time left to kick the can down the road when it comes to saving the ACA tax credits.

"We are already ten days into enrollment. Yet we have Republicans saying, 'why should we stop premiums from skyrocketing when we never really wanted to lower premiums in the first place?'

"We have Republicans talking about going back to the good ole days of high-risk pools, which meant that people with cancer couldn't get health insurance.

"We have Speaker Johnson bragging that Republicans strengthened health care by making the biggest cut to Medicaid in history! That's like saying you strengthened a ship-by throwing the passengers overboard!

"And when Democrats offered a clean one-year extension of the tax credits-which is truly the most straightforward and common-sense thing we can do for people facing gigantic premium hikes this year-Republicans said 'never, ever, ever, ever.' They called it 'political terrorism.'

"And to really put a fine point on it: they fired up the old bad ideas machine to try and find a new way to repeal the ACA.

"Republicans have gone from saying nothing about health care costs all year long, to saying 'later, later, later,' even after we are over a week into open enrollment and wasting every bit of time we had for real negotiations. Then-incredibly-Republicans started saying: 'let's scrap the Affordable Care Act altogether, let's end protections for pre-existing conditions.'

"By refusing to work with Democrats on a solution before open enrollment started, Republicans have already pushed millions of Americans off the health care cliff.

"The only question was-and is-could we throw them a rope back up? Could Congress get something done and stem some of the bleeding Republicans have already caused?

"Yes! By passing a clean, one-year extension of the ACA tax credits. But right away, Republicans said they wouldn't even consider it.

"I believe that we should keep pressing on that fight, as time is of the essence and the clock has nearly run out.

"The reality is, there is a point where it will be too late to make a meaningful difference on the health care premiums. And I don't believe there is some magical date set in stone, but Mr. President, that's coming up pretty fast. It's pretty much now or never-and Republicans are essentially saying 'never' to stopping the worst of the MAGA health care hike.

"Now here's the important thing: This fight is far from over-because I, and many of us, have no intention of letting Republicans off the hook. No one should doubt for a single second who is to blame for skyrocketing health care costs: Republicans and Republicans alone.

"When families across America are paying the price that they will see for Republican inaction every month, I'll make sure every single one of them remembers: the same Republicans who did everything in their power to make tax breaks for billionaires permanent, refused to even negotiate one year of health care tax credits for our working families, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

"Unfortunately, here we are, and it seems clear Republicans are feeling no urgency to act on health care before it's too late-even a quick, simple extension to help families.

[APPROPRIATIONS PACKAGE AND BIPARTISAN CR]

"But Mr. President, I want to be clear. While I cannot vote for this overall deal today, not when we still need to address health care, I do absolutely support the appropriations bills and CR that we will move forward-which take meaningful steps to reject drastic cuts and extreme policies pushed by both Trump and House Republicans and make sure that Congress-not Trump-is in charge of federal spending.

"It is important that Democrats were at the table on the CR and our first three funding bills, and used our spot at that table to fight for hardworking families in America.

"The difference is clear in the sharp contrast between the bills we released yesterday and the bills written by the House Republicans and the budget put forward by President Trump.

"In our bills, Democrats were able to secure real wins for folks back home, and fight off [painful], senseless cuts, and extreme policy.

"On the CR, we made sure to protect federal workers, both by ensuring that they receive backpay they are owed-something that has been debated extensively-and by reversing the punitive RIFs done by this administration and blocking them from doing more this year.

"In the Agriculture appropriations bill, while Trump and House Republicans fought to make steep cuts to WIC that would have seriously cut benefits for millions of women and kids, we successfully fought together to keep WIC fully funded.

"This bill ensures that seven million moms and babies will get the full nutrition benefits they rely on.

"We also sustained key investments in our rural communities. Because we rejected a Trump funding takeover, we protected housing support in rural communities and vital agriculture research happening across the country, including in my home state of Washington at WSU.

"We stopped Trump from blowing a truly massive hole in FDA's budget-which would have slowed drug approvals and seriously endangered our food supply.

"None of this is inconsequential-all of this matters.

"And I want to thank Chair Hoeven and Ranking Member Shaheen for all of their good work on that vital bill for our communities.

"In the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs bill we were able to secure funding to ensure that we are taking care of our veterans and our servicemembers.

"And ensure that this administration keep its promises to our veterans by ensuring staffing of critical services such as the crisis hotline centers. I want to thank Chair Boozman and Ranking Member Ossoff for all their good work on this critical bill for our veterans and servicemembers.

"And lastly, on the Legislative Branch bill, while it is smallest bill, it covers the important needs of this institution. From protecting GAO, and CBO, the Architect of the Capitol, our Capitol police and other agencies that actually make this place work.

"To make sure our offices have what they need to take care of our constituents and keep our campus safe. We should all appreciate the hard work that went into completing that bill. And I want to thank Chair Mullin and Ranking Member Heinrich for all their work on that important bill and the critical matters within it to every senator in this chamber.

"Now, obviously those are not the bills I would've written on my own. I have concerns we were not able to address in these bills, and Republicans were not open to some of them.

"But I still want to do more, Mr. President, when it comes to delivering critical investments for our communities in our country. And I will-as always-keep pushing my colleagues every day.

"But we did secure real wins for folks back home when Democrats and Republicans were able to sit down at the table together on funding. And they are immeasurably better than Trump and Vought holding the pen-which is what the slush fund CR that we have been operating on this year has allowed.

"I am proud of what we have been able to negotiate to protect key programs families and communities rely on, and protect our authority as lawmakers who are here to be a voice for our constituents.

"I want to emphasize that I really appreciate the work of my counterpart, the senior Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, who has done incredible work on all these bills. I want to thank our subcommittee chairs and ranking members, and all of our staff who worked hard to put these bills together.

"And I want to make clear I deeply appreciate the partnership of my colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee who've all worked in good faith during these very difficult times and these very difficult negotiations.

"No matter what, these bills need to get done-and our staff put in late nights, and our Chairs and Ranking Members held countless conversations to compromise and work towards solutions.

"I hope to continue building on that progress, and showing what it does look like when we come together and put families before politics.

"I look forward to getting our next minibus up on the floor to move multiple needs bills along that we have marked up in the Committee and get those to conference. And I hope we can be on that package as soon as possible.

"And I look forward to the Senator from Maine and working to get those final bills completed so they too can be conferenced with the House as soon as possible. And I want to thank all of our Committee members and our staffs for their incredible work on these critical bills. We have a lot of work ahead and I know we can get there.

"Passing full-year funding bills ensures that Congress-not Trump or Russ Vought-decides how taxpayer dollars are spent. We should not turn the keys over to Trump and his cabinet secretaries, allowing them to make unilateral cuts and to shift funding around however they please.

"Every day, they prove in some new way how critical it is that Congress assert its authority, and rein in their chaos-and I will continue working to do that on the Appropriations Committee.

"But I will, Mr. President, need to continue fighting to stop the MAGA health care hike for as long as there is still time left on this clock to fix this.

"The reality is, there is a point where it will be too late to make a meaningful difference.

"But until we reach that point of no return-we do have to fight tooth and nail to force Republicans to actually work with us on that issue.

"And because, in this package, Republicans have refused to address the health care crisis families are facing right now-a crisis that gets worse, and harder to fix every single day-I will be voting no."

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