Thune: Americans Pay the Price for Democrats’ Government Shutdown

Click here to watch the video.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:

Thune's remarks below (as delivered):

"Every day that the Democrats keep the government shut down is creating more, and worse, consequences for the American people.

"The White House estimates that it's costing our economy about $15 billion a week to continue to have the government shut down.

"But it's not just our economy.

"It's American families, the American people who are paying the price.

"The program funding for the WIC program - Women, Infants, and Children Program - was about set to expire.

"I think the White House is trying to figure out a way to move resources around to be able to keep that program up and funded.

"Telehealth, hospital-at-home, programs like that have expired - meaning that hospitals are losing and patients are losing their flexibility and making it harder to cover the people who need to be covered.

"And then, of course, this week, paychecks start being affected for federal workers, and that is going to have real consequences for them and their families as well.

"So this shutdown continues to create more and more problems, and the Democrats are going to get another chance.

"They've already voted five different times now to keep the government shut down and against opening up the government - which we have from our colleagues in the House a clean funding resolution, which is nonpartisan.

"Something that 13 previous occasions during the Democrats' majority here in the Senate and the Biden presidency, almost all Democrats voted for all 13 times.

"This is a fairly routine thing that … happens around here on a regular basis.

"So instead, what they've tried to do is hijack this to get $1.5 trillion in new spending.

"And … there's no universe in which that's going anywhere around here.

"This is a very simple and straightforward proposition.

"The Democrats want to have a conversation about the covid tax credit cliff that they created, and at some point we're happy to have that conversation, but not until the government opens up.

"Again, the consequences for the American people are very real, and this just has to stop - and it could stop today.

"We have the bill in front of us.

"It's in the Senate.

"[The] House has passed it and supported it.

"[The] president is ready to sign it into law.

"Could do it today.

"All we have to do is pick it up off the desk, as you all know.

"And if there are a handful of Democrats, a few more Democrats, who are willing to vote with us, we can get this government opened up again and limit the impact and the effect that it has, the consequences, the adverse consequences on the American people."

Permalink: https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/10/thune-americans-pay-the-price-for-democrats-government-shutdown