Hire More Heroes Act of 2015 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, listening to the last two speakers, I am reminded what a privilege and honor it is to be able to serve in the Senate alongside great Americans--the President pro tempore, the Senator from Utah, and the Senator from Arizona, John McCain, who have served this country for decades--decades--with honor and distinction, and, as we saw in their remarks just a few minutes ago, with wisdom from experience and conviction.

We took two important votes today. One, as Senator McCain was talking about, was the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, very important pro-life legislation. I agree with what the Senator from Arizona said about that very important bill and commend the Presiding Officer for his leadership throughout the country.

We also voted on the Defense appropriations bill today, another important bill. I am not sure it is going to get a lot of press, but I wish to talk about what is going on there because it is actually very important for the American people to really have a sense of what is happening. We saw in the media, we see all over Washington and on TV this talk concerning a government shutdown. I think a lot of people have concerns about it. Let me talk about that in the context of the bill we voted on today, which, unfortunately, was filibustered by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

A lot of us who are new here in the Senate--the Presiding Officer, my colleague from North Carolina--ran on the issue of a dysfunctional Senate, where the most basic function of government was not happening. Let me give one critical example. We weren't passing a budget, we weren't funding government, and we weren't doing regular order in terms of appropriations bills. So many of us ran to say: Enough, we are going to change things here. With all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they neglected this function--no budget, no appropriations bills--for years. The most basic function of government was not happening in the Senate.

So many of us campaigned to change that--to work hard to change that--because we knew that is what the American people wanted. And we have done it. We are starting to do it. For example, we passed the budget resolution.

If we look at the 10 years out of our budget versus the 10 years out of the President's budget, we cut $5 to $7 trillion in terms of the President's wasteful spending. That is serious. We did that. We passed the budget resolution. We debated it here for a number of weeks, not days. The other side of the aisle hadn't done that for years.

When I went back home and said we did that, a lot of people in Alaska said: Well, big deal, my household passes a budget every year. My business passes a budget every year. The State of Alaska passes a budget every year.

But it is a big deal because we hadn't done it here. But now we are doing it because that is what we committed to do.

So that is one step: We passed a budget. Then the Members of this body, working hard, particularly through the Appropriations Committee, passed 12 appropriations bills--9 of which passed out of the committee with very, very strong bipartisan votes--to fund the government. So far so good--that is what we are supposed to be doing here. We are back to work, back to regular order.

One of these bills was the Defense appropriation bill. What does that mean? It is kind of a wonky term. That is the bill that funds our military, that funds our national defense, that funds the sergeant in the Marine Corps and the Army--a really important bill. It passed out of the committee with a very strong bipartisan vote of 27 to 3. We almost can't get any more bipartisan than that, 27 to 3. Virtually everybody, Democrats and Republicans, voted for that because they know how important it is.

So what happened today? We took the next step in the regular order process as we promised the American people to fund our government by bringing forward that bill. At 27 to 3, it should be no problem passing it in the Senate. Look at how many Democrats voted for that bill. So we wanted to move forward on that bill. We all know how critical that bill is--probably one of the most critical appropriations bills we have because it is funding the defense of our Nation and the brave men and women who serve our Nation.

So what happened in the vote today? Well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided: No, we are going to filibuster that. I know we voted 27 to 3 to move it out of committee, but now we are going to filibuster that.

In fact, according to the leader on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats are saying they are going to filibuster all 12 appropriations bills--all 12 of them.

Let me repeat. Here is what is happening. We passed the budget. We passed, for the most part, very bipartisan appropriations bills. Let me read a few of them: Agriculture, 28 to 2, out of committee; Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, 27 to 3; Defense, 27 to 3; Energy and Water, 26 to 4; State and Foreign Operations, 27 to 3.

This is a list of very bipartisan work by the Senate in the Appropriations Committee. I commend all the Members of this body who worked so hard on that. But now we hear that the other side is going to filibuster every single one of these. They did it today. That is actually the second time they did it with regard to the Defense appropriations bill. They are going to do it again and again and again.

It is my view that we should bring all 12 of these bills to the Senate floor, like we did today. We are trying to move forward and fund this government. We are trying to get back to regular order, the way the Senate used to work. It hadn't worked like that for years, but now we are trying to do that. If the other side of the aisle wants to continually filibuster the funding of our government, let them stand up to the American people and do that.

For example, I think we should bring up the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill that passed out of committee 21 to 9. It is very important for the country. Let's bring it up. Let's have a vote on it. If they want to filibuster that, I think they will have to explain why they are not supporting veterans.

This will make one thing clear, though. In all the talk we hear in the media every day about Republicans wanting to shut down the government, I think it is pretty clear when we look at what is happening here with the filibustering of all the appropriations bills that there is another side to this story. There is another side to this story. The defunding of the government--of our troops, as we saw today--is happening because of the filibuster.

It is my hope that our friends in the media, who love to talk about this story, are going to look a little bit more deeply--look at these votes today, look at the budget, look at what the Appropriations Committee has been doing--and tell the real story. There are people very focused on stopping the funding of the government. We saw it today. It is not the majority party in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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