National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, after the Senate concludes its work on the
Defense authorization bill tomorrow--a very important part of our
responsibility--we will then move to consider the Defense
Appropriations Act. This actually is the legislation that will pay the
bills for the Department of Defense and make sure our men and women in
uniform get the resources they need in order to do their job, not to
mention their pay, which is why it is so disturbing to see the
leadership of our minority in the Senate announce in the papers here in
Washington that they are going to begin what they call a filibuster
summer. In other words, they are going to use the power they have as
the minority to block important funding bills, beginning with the bill
that pays for our national security, in what can only be called a cheap
political stunt.

Why they have decided to do that on this important Defense
appropriations bill is, frankly, beyond me. I think I understand what
their general point is, which is they don't think the Federal
Government spends enough money, and so they want to spend more money,
and they have no concern whatsoever for the fact that under this
administration, we have raised the national debt by trillions of
dollars, making sure that my generation will not end up having to pay
that money back, but the next generation will unless we meet our
responsibilities.

So for them to pull this kind of political stunt and say ``You know
what, we are not spending enough money, we are not incurring enough
debt, and so we are going to force a filibuster on the Defense
appropriations bill'' in order to extort more spending, more debt, more
irresponsibility--the bill our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle are pledging to filibuster is not controversial in itself because
it would, as I said, provide for our military and would help our troops
maintain their status as the greatest military in the world. It also
includes simple initiatives that make a lot of sense and serve our
troops well, such as giving the men and women who wear the uniform a
modest pay raise. Yet the Democratic leader still plans to block this
legislation and stymie this Chamber's efforts to fund our troops.

We saw a little glimpse of this last week when Senate Democrats, with
the exception of seven, blocked us moving an amendment to deal with
cyber security. We saw that their timing could not have been worse
because, of course, then it was announced that millions of records at
the Office of Personnel Management had been hacked by the Chinese
Government and some of the most sensitive security clearance background
records were now in their hands--a dramatic act of counterintelligence
and espionage.

Then, when we offered an amendment to the Defense authorization bill
that would deal with cyber security, would allow more information
sharing, would allow lawsuit protection for those who shared
information in order to protect the privacy and the information of
American citizens, it was blocked by all but seven Democrats on the
other side.

So while I have been by and large encouraged by this new Congress and
what we have been able to accomplish together in a bipartisan way, I
think there are some very troubling signs on the horizon, starting with
this ill-considered idea of filibuster summer, throwing a temper
tantrum until you can get more money that we don't have to spend on
your pet projects. But I think their decision to hold Defense
appropriations bill hostage is just inexcusable. This is the essential
funding for our military, for national security.

I should point out, as my colleagues across the aisle use this bill
as leverage to spend more taxpayer dollars on things like the IRS, not
long ago they vocally opposed the obstructionist tactics they are now
employing. Here are the words of the Democratic leader, Senator Harry
Reid, in 2013. He said: ``It's time to get back to setting fiscal
policy through the regular order . . . rather than through hostage
taking.'' I agreed with his comments then, and I wish he would act
consistently with those words today.

The American people aren't served well by these kinds of manufactured
crises and threats to cut off funding for our troops. And that is why
the new Republican Senate, under Majority Leader McConnell, has
prioritized and restored the kind of regular order that Senator Reid
talked about in 2013. Finally, the Congress and the Senate are actually
getting back to work on a bipartisan basis.

As I have said, we have had some signs of progress. I know Majority
Leader McConnell likes to quote Woody Hayes from Ohio State when he
talks about the nature of the progress we have made. He said: ``Three
yards and a cloud of dust.'' I like to think of it more as a baseball
analogy of singles and an occasional double. But you get the basic
point. We are actually beginning to make some progress, and that is why
I find so troubling these signs of filibuster summer and this
announcement by our Democratic friends.

We have done our best after this last election, after the American
people entrusted us with the majority of the House and the Senate, to
deliver on our promises. We have held more rollcall votes on amendments
in the past 5 months than the minority leader, as the Democratic
leader, allowed in the entire year when they were under control--more
rollcall votes on amendments in the last 5 months than Democrats
allowed in an entire year when they were in control.

The truth is that our Democratic colleagues, I think, like it better,
too, because not only was the minority--Republicans--shut out when
Senator Reid was majority leader, he shut out Members of his own party,
the majority party. Now, how you explain that back home, I am not too
clear.

But it is not only Senator Reid who has made this commitment to
restoring regular order and eschewing this idea of hostage taking,
which now they are talking about doing.

Here are the comments of one other member of their Senate leadership,
the Senator from Washington, Ms. Murray. In 2013, she said the American
people had no patience for ``politicians holding the economy and the
Federal Government hostage to extract concessions or score political
points.''

I agree with her, and I agreed with Senator Reid in 2013, but these
are the exact same Democratic leaders who are now today threatening the
same sort of hostage taking they condemned in 2013.

Well, I like to point out that the legislation we are considering,
the Defense appropriations bill, is not a partisan bill. In fact, it
was voted out of committee last week by a vote of 27 to 3. This is not
a partisan bill, so why they should decide to hold this hostage is
beyond me.

All but three Democrats supported the defense spending measure in
committee last week. But, unfortunately--and defying logic--some
Democrats have publicly admitted to supporting the text of the bill
while vowing to do everything they could to keep it from advancing on
the floor of the Senate.

Just one example is the junior Senator from Connecticut, who hailed
the bill's passage--this is the Defense appropriations bill in
committee--through the committee as a ``victory for Connecticut''--I am
sure there was a press release to go along with that back home--only to
go on and say he would go along with the ill-fated strategy to vote no
to actually block the bill from being considered on the floor.

The American people are very smart, and they can identify hypocrisy
when they see it. When a Senator says, ``I am going to vote for the
bill in committee, but I am going to vote against it on the floor
because that is what my leadership tells me I have to do in order to
extract more spending and impose more debt on the American people in
future generations,'' the American people get it once it is pointed out
to them.

So this is all about gamesmanship. This is not about responsible
legislating, and it is not why the American people sent us here.

I can only hope, being the optimist that I am, that our colleagues on
the other side will reconsider this stated strategy of filibuster
summer. What a mistake that is. What an unsustainable position when
they have to go home over the Fourth of July and tell the veterans,
tell the Active-Duty military in their State: Yes, I voted to kill the
bill that would pay your salary and provide you the tools you need in
order to succeed in your commitment to keeping America safe.

I just don't know how you sustain that position.

So I would encourage our colleagues from across the aisle to remember
that filibuster summer is a bad idea and that it is not good for the
American people. It irresponsibly signals to our troops that some
Members of the Senate are not fully behind them.

So let's continue to working productively. We have done it on hard
pieces of legislation, most recently on the trade legislation we passed
out of the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote. Let's continue to work
together productively in a way that serves the American people and not
resort to the sort of political maneuvers that I don't think reflect
well on us and on the Senate as an institution but, more fundamentally,
undermine the men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military.

I yield the floor.

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