Appropriations

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, today the Senate will have an opportunity to take the first procedural step toward keeping the Federal Government funded and open.

At the end of July, the White House and the Speaker of the House reached an agreement to guide the appropriations process. Both parties, both Chambers, and both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue agreed to the terms. We laid out top-line funding targets for defense and nondefense; we swore off poison pill policy riders; and, unlike the past several budget deals, which took a full year to negotiate while appropriations languished, we finished this year's deal much earlier to ensure we had enough time to move the appropriations bills.

In other words, congressional leaders and the President laid the ground for a sensible, bipartisan funding process, but instead, over the past week and a half, we have seen our Democratic colleagues suggest that they may try to shoehorn their longstanding disagreements with President Trump into this appropriations process. Even though we all agreed not to insist on poison pills or change existing Presidential authorities, Democrats are threatening to filibuster Chairman Shelby's clean Defense bill over their disagreements with the President on immigration policy.

I sure hope that doesn't happen. I hope our Democratic friends will allow the process to move forward when we vote later today. The stakes are high. We are talking about critical resources for the missions of the Department of Defense. Our military commanders have told us that this funding is vital to keeping peace with Putin's Russia, China, and all their efforts to harm America's interests. Just days ago, Saudi Arabian energy facilities literally went up in flames after what appears to be a massive, coordinated attack by Iran.

In a world this dangerous, uncertain funding and continuing resolutions will not cut it for our national defense. Our men and women in uniform do not deserve to have the funding for their tools, their training, and their own pay raise, by the way--pay raise--used as leverage by Senate Democrats to try to extract concessions from the White House.

So, look, I would urge each of our colleagues to join me today in taking the first step toward fulfilling our obligation to keep this country safe and secure.

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