National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, this morning I heard the distinguished majority leader say it was a time for bipartisan solutions. He said: ``What America needs right now is a season of serious bipartisan solutions.''

Democrats couldn't agree more. We have been asking for weeks for all parties to sit down and start talking about the budget--not at the eleventh hour, not when we are already at the edge of a cliff, but now.

From a substantive perspective, this only makes sense. Both parties hate the sequester. Both parties understand there is a smarter way to budget than senselessly acting as though we are hostage to these arbitrary, meat-cleaver cuts that were never intended to go into effect, whether on the defense side or on the nondefense side.

So, Mr. Majority Leader, let's sit down and start talking about some serious bipartisan solutions.

The majority leader makes it seem as though he has been negotiating and being fair. Every number in the Appropriations Committee had no consultation from the Democrats. They just chose the numbers. That is not bipartisan. They did not talk to the White House, which has veto power over every one of these. That is not bipartisan.

We all know that the only way we are going to get something done on the budget, on the spending bills is by sitting down together and talking. Why not sooner rather than later? Why not now rather than at the last minute?

There is a charade going on by my friends on the other side. They totally decide the appropriations numbers by themselves. They totally decide to use OCO for defense but they do nothing for the nondefense side. Then they say: Let's move forward with those bills.

That is not bipartisan. Have any Democrats been consulted? I ask the majority leader: Who has he consulted on the other side of the aisle about his numbers? Who has he consulted at the White House about his numbers? He knows he needs input from both to get anything done.

I think what the majority leader wants to do is play a game of chicken--wait until the end and then say: Do it our way. Well, that is not going to work.

Over the next month or two, the American people are going to see that we will not move forward on these proposals until--but certainly with great vigor when--there is a bipartisan discussion and agreement. We all know how this place works. The Senate and our system of government--both the executive and the Congress--are involved in doing the budget and doing the appropriations bills in particular. It works only when both parties come to agreement. When one party tries to shove things down the other party's throat, which, in all due respect, is what the majority leader is now doing, we end up with worries and sometimes the reality of a government shutdown. If the majority leader wants that, he should continue with this strategy, and any shutdown will be on his hands. We don't want that, the American people don't want that, and my guess is most of the Members on this side of the aisle don't want that. We want to come to an agreement.

All we want the majority leader to do is talk to us, not to decide in his office or maybe with the chair of the Appropriations Committee what all the numbers should be--how much to spend on defense, how much to spend on education, how much to spend on highways. Those are some of the most important decisions we make around here, and they will not be made without bipartisanship, sooner rather than later.

Mr. Majority Leader, like it or not, we have a Democratic President, and we have 46 Democratic votes in the Senate--enough to stop us from moving forward if we can't negotiate--like it or not, Mr. Majority Leader.

The path the majority leader is pursuing is a cul-de-sac that will either force us to sit down and negotiate later in the day or force a CR, which no one wants, or even if some of the people on that side of the aisle have their way, a government shutdown, as they did once before. None of those is a good solution. The best solution is for us to all sit down and talk. We should not keep kicking the can down the road. Yet, here we are.

In Roll Call this week: ``McConnell Cool to Budget Summit.''

When he was asked: Is it time to start talking about the budget, he replied: No, of course not. Why? What is his logic? His logic is Democrats should just accept everything Republicans want.

That is not why we have two parties. That is not how the Senate works. That is not how democracy works. There is nothing left for Democrats to conclude other than that there is a yawning chasm between the Republican leader's stated intentions and his actions to date, because the current posture by the majority has been this: my way or shut down the government. Well, we have seen that before, it didn't work, and it is not going to work this time.

We are saying, let's negotiate and let's start those negotiations soon, before it is too late. If the Republican leader truly wants a season of bipartisan solutions, well, the winds are blowing in one direction. Sit down with Democrats and let's start negotiating a sensible budget, and let's start doing it now. We are ready to sit down this afternoon. We are ready to sit down at any moment that he gives us a signal. Let's get in the room and start the real work of finding bipartisan agreement on the budget, plain and simple.

One other thing, when the American people ask why Washington so gridlocked, just look at how the majority leader is handling one of the most important parts of what the government does, where the dollars go. There is gridlock when one side insists that it has to get all of its way and not sit down with the other side. That is the path at the moment that the majority leader is on. We hope he gets off of it. It is untenable. It won't work. It will lead to a bad solution.

Once again, I repeat: We are willing to sit down and start talking about the budget, talking about how much to spend on defense and transportation and education and medical research today. We are waiting, Mr. Majority Leader, for you to give us that ability, that signal, so we can actually enact a budget without acrimony and that will work for this great country of ours.

I yield the floor.

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