José E. Serrano: “I thank my colleague from New York for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise--and you should listen to this very closely--in…”

“I thank my colleague from New York for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise--and you should listen to this very closely--in support of this bill. I do it because both sides understood the importance of coming together and trying to work on a solution to this situation. I have to say that the Republicans came to the table understanding that they had the majority of the votes, but that they also had the majority of the responsibility to make sure it was a unified decision that was made. For my hometown of New York, there is money to reimburse the protection of Trump Tower, where the President has spent a lot of time and where the police department has to be picking up the bill. The Legal Services Corporation, one of our greatest programs, was scheduled to disappear. This bill does not allow that. Hispanic-serving institutions at the National Science Foundation are still alive and doing well. This bill allows for so many different issues in NOAA and in NASA to continue to grow. But most of all what this bill does, in my opinion, is prove something that perhaps--and I'm not being naive here--we can carry forward. When we set our minds to coming together and when we set our minds to working as one group of people on behalf of our country, we can do it. This bill we will vote on today, I will vote proudly because I know that we could have made this into another fight. I know for the next budget we will have differences.…”