Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, let me express my thanks in return to Chairman Daines for being such a fantastic guide and a fantastic partner on this subcommittee budget. I am excited to bring this to my colleagues this morning. I will note that he took over midstream from Senator Lankford, who began this process. I will also note that we didn't really get moving so quickly to a conference committee until Senator Daines took over. I give him great credit for adding so much and being such a great partner in all of this.

I really don't need to go through all of the important initiatives Senator Daines already did; maybe I will spend a minute doing so. I would note that we made progress on some issues that had been stalled in the Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee for a long time--such as intern pay or the requirement to file campaign finance reports online-- I think because we were able to do this budget on its own, with a real process, with a real committee debate, and with a real conference committee. When these budgets get tied up in giant omnibus negotiations, it tends to be that only the top four or five issues in the omnibus get the attention from the folks in the room. These budgets are very important, but maybe because they are a little bit smaller than the budget for HHS or the Department of Defense, they go untended to.

As we return to regular order, not only do I think that is a breath of fresh air for democracy, it is not good news for anybody when the decisions over a budget get decided behind closed doors amongst a very small set of people appointed by the Democratic leader and the Republican leader. It is also good government because when we do these budgets one by one, we get to flesh out some very important and sometimes controversial issues that we might not get to address when they are all lumped together in a massive package.

I hope this is now the way we do things. I congratulate Senator McConnell and Senator Shelby for setting the tone. I know there are a couple of conference committees tomorrow on some other packages. I hope they go as well as ours did.

In this budget, we did some very good things. We have a long list of deferred maintenance here on this campus. We have 16.5 million square feet of buildings. We have millions of visitors who come to experience the U.S. Capitol. We provide $734 million for the Architect of the Capitol to make those targeted investments.

Accountability and transparency were things Senator Daines focused on as chairman. We will have 50 additional auditors and investigators at the Government Accountability Office. That is the office which makes sure that we are doing our job, that we are spending taxpayer dollars wisely. When they issue reports, the taxpayers save money, and now they have the ability to do more of that great work.

It also provides full funding for the Capitol Police. I want to specifically thank Senator Daines for working with us to include in this budget an initiative that we started here in the Senate to improve protections and coordination for Members' security off campus, to recognize the new and emerging threats that exist in and around Washington, DC.

Finally--I have said it before, but I will say it again--there is a breakthrough, a small amount of money to help compensate interns. Lives change when they get to experience something like working for their Member of Congress, for their Senator. It opens their eyes to a set of experiences that would not be available to them otherwise.

Under prior practice where very few Senate offices paid for those internship experiences, you had to be a child of means in order to get here. Now, hopefully, with this small amount of money we are giving to our interns, we will have a much greater pool of applicants and a much greater pool of young men and women who will be able to be here and work in our offices. I think that is good for this place, and I think it is good for the kids who are going to get to experience government. Faith in government and belief in civic participation couldn't be lower today. Giving more kids from diverse backgrounds access to the Federal Government is a very positive development.

Again, it has been a joy to work with Senator Daines. It is great to be on a conference committee. I had heard rumors about conferences committees, and we got to sit on one and hammer out a budget with our House colleagues. I hope it sails through as we move to final debate and passage.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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