Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3811

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I do want to thank my colleague from Florida for doing the right thing for our partners in Ukraine by bringing up this supplemental appropriation for its own vote--its own vote.

But this isn't something that he should have had to do. It is something that should have been demanded by every Member of this Chamber. Vladimir Putin is waging a war, an all-out war on Ukraine. He has reduced maternity hospitals, orphanages, schools, and private homes to piles of rubble. He has boobytrapped humanitarian corridors. He is using weapons so horrific that to possess them constitutes a war crime. And he is preparing to terrorize civilians with the same proxy fighters that have brutalized innocents in Mali and in Syria.

And here we stand as our Democrat colleagues try to use an aid bill for Ukraine to link onto its back a $1.5 trillion spending spree.

At last count, there are more than 4,000 earmarks in this omnibus spending bill.

You and I have been through the issue of earmarks when we each were Members in the House. Earmarks, 4,000 of them, this bill is divisive, controversial, and requires actual deliberation and debate. It should not be used as a vehicle to hold this emergency funding for Ukraine hostage.

The fact that we even have to have this discussion is just disrespectful of the process. And it does not help the Ukrainian people. It slows down the aid to them. It is time to stop this manipulation in its tracks.

We need to give the people of Ukraine airpower. We need to give them humanitarian aid. And it needs to be done now. We need to give them the funding and the support that they need to survive, and it should be done now. And we need to separate this supplemental from this $1.5 trillion spending spree, and it ought to be done now.

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