TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last night, with an overwhelming vote, the Senate ended debate that will conclude the postcloture period, which will run until midnight tonight. Tomorrow morning the Senate will pass a continuing resolution appropriations bill that will keep the lights on and keep the Federal Government running.
I have told my constituents that the irony of this is that we only appropriate funds for about 30 percent of the government, and half of that 30 percent, roughly, is for defense spending; 70 percent, as the Presiding Officer knows well since he is an expert in this area, is on autopilot.
Since 2011, since the Budget Control Act, we have actually done a remarkably decent job of freezing the growth of discretionary spending. It is roughly at the 2007 appropriations level. But the problem is that without bipartisan cooperation, we are unable to touch the 70 percent of government spending that has been growing by leaps and bounds, and that simply can't continue.
This year, for the first time since I believe 2009, under the new majority, the 114th Congress actually passed a budget, and that was a notable achievement. I am almost a little sheepish about mentioning that as an achievement because most people across America would think that is not something to be particularly proud of and that that should happen routinely, so why give anybody a pat on the back for doing something they ought to have done in the first place? But our budgets have been missing under this administration, and literally the last budget that was passed was 2009.
One of the benefits of having a budget is there is a regular appropriations process. That may sound like getting in the weeds for most people, but this is the money we should be appropriating subject to spending caps to keep the government running. It is for items such as military construction and veterans' benefits, paying our men and women in uniform through the Defense appropriations bill. Those are essential items on which I know we would all agree.
The only reason we had to deal with the drama of this so-called continuing resolution is because notwithstanding the fact that we actually passed a budget and notwithstanding the fact that the various appropriations subcommittees had passed a budget and indeed the whole Appropriations Committee had voted them out and they were available for action on the floor, our friends across the aisle decided they were going to block those appropriations bills. Given the fact that under Senate rules it takes 60 votes to close off debate, our only alternative was to pass a continuing resolution, which I believe will fly out of here tomorrow morning with overwhelming support. It is a terrible way to do business, and it creates needless uncertainty for the people we ought to be caring a lot about--people such as our veterans and our military serv ice mem bers.
Even though we had the opportunity to move the appropriations process under what we call regular order around here and not resort to this continuing resolution process, our Democratic colleagues decided instead to turn their misguided filibuster summer into an equally misguided filibuster fall.
Many of these bills, of course, came out with strong support. Here is an example of some of the oddity of this process: Some of the bills they blocked were the very same pieces of legislation they supported in the Appropriations Committee. For example, many of my colleagues from across the aisle praised elements of the Defense appropriations bill, only to then buckle under the Democratic leadership's pressure and twice block the bill from going forward.
In some cases, our Democratic colleagues were quick to send out press releases to their constituents back home celebrating their accomplishments under these very same bills and claiming a victory that would benefit their home State. That was true in particular of both of our colleagues representing the State of New Jersey. When the bill was overwhelmingly voted out of committee, our colleagues from New Jersey applauded funding for a bill for F-16 fighters based in their State. The junior Senator said: ``The inclusion of this funding is a deserving victory for our U.S. Air National Guard.'' Similarly, the senior Senator said: ``Securing this funding in the Department of Defense Appropriation bill is a win, win, win.'' But these same Senators filibustered that bill on the Senate floor. How do you explain that one back home? And they did that twice, along with virtually all of our Democratic colleagues.
Unfortunately, the other 11 appropriations bills haven't made it to the Senate floor because the majority leader recognizes that it is probably a futile effort to do so--bills that many of our colleagues celebrated, only to then refuse to take action that would move them forward, at the behest of Democratic leadership.
We didn't have to resort to this drama, and believe me, our Democratic colleagues have been beating the drum, saying: There is going to be a shutdown. There is going to be a shutdown.
Well, they are the ones who created this crisis in the first place that necessitated the passage of a continuing resolution by filibustering the very same appropriations bills many of them voted for in committee and sent out press releases saying: Look at me. Look at what I have done for my constituents.
I don't know how to put a better word on it, but I think it reeks of hypocrisy at the very least.
But I also believe we have a responsibility--those of us who choose to operate in a responsible fashion--to try to govern the best we can even in the face of such arbitrary hypocrisy by some of our opponents. They blocked the very same bills on the floor that they voted for in the Appropriations Committee, thus creating this ``crisis.'' I put quotes around that. There was never really a crisis because we knew we were going to do our job and make sure we kept the lights on, paid the money to our veterans for the benefits they earned, and that our military--many of whom are in harm's way defending our freedoms and those of our allies--was going to be taken care of. But the idea that you would vote for bills in committee and then come to the floor and block them is hard to explain, and, in fact, I can't explain it other than using the word ``hypocrisy.''
Another element of this discussion has been whether we would use this continuing resolution to cut off money to Planned Parenthood. As we know, Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. Well over 300,000 abortions are done at Planned Parenthood facilities each year.
I want to assure our Democratic colleagues, even though they have filibustered our efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and to make sure that not one penny of tax dollars goes to support the No. 1 abortion provider in America, this fight is not over, based on their filibustering of the defund Planned Parenthood legislation that we voted on or their refusal to even consider the pain-capable abortion ban.
We have said it before, but it bears repeating. I think most people would be shocked to find out that the United States is only one of seven nations in the world that allows late-term abortions after a baby in utero is a viable human being. We are right there alongside the great defenders of human rights such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam. While many States such as my State have imposed limitations at the State level, I think it is appropriate for us to recognize that medical technology has now allowed us to save preterm babies that we could not in the past. In fact, the distinguished Presiding Officer, I believe, has shown me a picture on his iPhone of a child that was born that weighed, I believe, somewhere around 1 pound at 20 weeks or so.
So we ought to be having this debate because I think what it reflects is who we are as a nation and whether we want to continue to subsidize the sort of horrific practices we have seen depicted in some of these videos, and most of them involve late-term abortions because that is where the money is. That is where Planned Parenthood harvests tissue from these late-term babies and then sells them. The only question is whether they do it with the appropriate legal informed consent and whether they do it for profit, as some of these videos would suggest, both of which, by the way, are banned by current law--selling it for profit and doing it without informed consent. Both of those are current provisions of the law. We are conducting investigations in four different committees in the Congress to make sure Planned Parenthood is not in violation of current law, in addition to the steps we have begun to both make sure no tax dollars go to Planned Parenthood to subsidize their abortion practice--the largest abortion provider in the United States--and then to redirect that money to provide for women's health at community health centers and other places.
I was surprised this morning when I caught a glimpse of the hearing that is occurring over in the House of Representatives where Cecile Richards, the chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood, is testifying. Somebody asked her about her compensation. I was shocked that she said: Well, I get paid $520,000 a year--$520,000 a year. This money--the vast majority of the money that Planned Parenthood gets is Federal tax dollars, primarily through Medicaid. So, in effect, the taxpayers are subsidizing the chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood--the No. 1 abortion provider in the country--her salary of $520,000 a year.
I remember after the financial crisis in 2008, a number of our colleagues would come to the floor and say: We need to do something about these excessive salaries of people working in the financial services industry; this is an outrage. But I will tell my colleagues, I haven't heard one peep out of our colleagues across the aisle about the $520,000 that Cecile Richards is paid each year as CEO of Planned Parenthood, the No. 1 abortion provider in the country and an entity subsidized mainly or in large part, I should say, by U.S. tax dollars--about one-half billion dollars a year. Maybe that is a discussion we ought to have.
The last thing I want to say is I think it is important to stress, in the context of this debate, the value and the meaning of human life that the fight is not over with the votes we have had so far. It is important to stress how some of the advocates back home in Texas, for example--some of the strongest champions for the unborn in the country--have made clear how they hope their elected representatives will respond to these horrific videos and the current debate. Just yesterday, for example, the executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, Dr. Joe Pojman, said he applauded the strong efforts of Republican leadership in Congress to move forward with the strategy of shifting funds from Planned Parenthood to better providers of women's health services--providers that are not part of the abortion industry. Indeed, that is exactly what the Texas legislature has done, and it is something we need to do. In his statement, Dr. Pojman went on to say that instead of a government shutdown, better options exist for achieving success.
This is similar to the statement made by Carol Tobias earlier, the leader of the National Right to Life organization. In other words, at this pivotal moment in time, Congress has an opportunity to make progress with legislation that would further the cause for life and defend those who cannot defend themselves and to put on record all 100 Members of the Senate. I know many people would prefer to look the other way because of the gruesomeness of this practice, particularly as it regards late-term fetuses--children who, if born, even though they are not full term at 40 weeks, could literally live outside of the womb. In fact, neonatologists, as I mentioned a moment ago, have demonstrated incredible capability of keeping these children alive even if they are born preterm.
We will, I hope, have a vote on--Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska has introduced a bill that has actually passed the House of Representatives called ``the born alive'' bill. This bill simply would say, if a child is born alive as a result of a botched abortion, the health care provider must do everything in their power to save and preserve that life. I think it is important to get every Senator on record on that issue because this is a little bit different than the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood. I think we ought to do both. We ought to ban funding of tax dollars for Planned Parenthood, the No. 1 abortion provider in the country, but we ought to also focus on the desensitization of America and the world to some of these horrific practices, some of which we were shocked by when Kermit Gosnell, an abortion doctor in Pennsylvania, would literally deliver these babies alive and then kill them. I know people don't want to talk about it. They don't want to think about it. They would prefer to just look the other way, but we can't, in the name of our very humanity, look the other way. We have to deal with this and where better to have that debate and discussion and to put people on the record than right here in the U.S. Senate. That is what our plan is going forward.
With that, I yield the floor.
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