Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, government funding, as we all know, is set to expire tomorrow night at midnight, and the Senate has the responsibility not just to keep the lights on but also to make critical investments in our country.

I could only wish that we had come to this point through a more rational and more deliberative sort of way; but, unfortunately, this seems to be more the norm than the exception where four people get into a room and they write a piece of legislation, then they bring it to the floor, and your only option is to vote yes or no on it. We don't have a practice of making sure that on each one of these bills, people get to actually offer amendments and shape that legislation. I guess that is a quaint and old-fashioned notion, but that is how I thought the legislative process was supposed to work. Maybe that is a topic for another day, but it is unfortunate that this is where we are.

Last night at 10 o'clock, the House voted on an almost 3,000-page bill, and then we are expected to vote on it the next day or the next 2 days. This is not a way to run a railroad.

We all know that democracy is under attack in the world, and that means we need to do everything we can to provide for our defense and to support our friends and allies around the world.

We know that there has been a tug-of-war between our Democratic colleagues and this side of the aisle when it comes to prioritizing national security spending, and that actually is one reason why we find ourselves here at this late date, voting on this multithousand-page bill, because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted to prioritize domestic spending, not national security spending.

Thank goodness that has been now negotiated where there is virtual parity. Thanks to the leadership of Ranking Member Shelby and our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, the bipartisan bill includes $42 billion more in defense spending. I can't think of any time in our recent history where we need those additional resources more for our security and the security of our friends and allies.

This $42 billion increase in defense spending will provide our military commanders with what they need to respond to the threats that we are facing today and to prepare for those threats we see on the horizon.

It is ironic I find myself speaking to the Senator from Maine, whom I serve with on the Intelligence Committee, because he knows a lot of this subject matter as well--certainly well, maybe better than I do. But we all know that Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine was what we thought was a relic of the past.

My dad was a B-17 pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II. He was shot down on his 26th bombing mission over Nazi Germany and captured as a prisoner of war, where he served for the last 4 months of that war. We thought--Europe thought, the world thought--that perhaps we had gotten beyond that sort existential threat to our way of life and that the autocrats of the world--people like Vladimir Putin, President Xi, the Ayatollah in Iran, Kim Jong Un in North Korea--that these individuals would be deterred from provoking a war like Vladimir Putin has provoked in Ukraine.

One thing Winston Churchill liked to say: If there is one thing for sure, it is that humankind is unteachable. We keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We keep thinking, well, we can cash the peace dividend because that is in the past, only to find ourselves, as Secretary Bob Gates said--he said, of all the military conflicts we found ourselves involved in, in the last several generations, we haven't planned for a single one of them. But we had to be ready, and we had to be able to defend our way of life and our values and our allies.

So Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine is a reminder of the threats that remain to our freedom and the freedom of other democracies around the world. So there could not be a more appropriate time to plus-up our national defense spending, while at the same time providing additional resources, humanitarian and otherwise, to our friends in Ukraine who are fighting for their very existence.

We know that Ukraine is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so we have no legal obligation to come to Ukraine's defense, but I do believe we have a moral obligation to provide that assistance, both military and humanitarian.

Russia has waged an unmistakable war on that democracy, violated the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people. It has even targeted civilians and brought immeasurable destruction to Ukraine. The only question is, After Putin has miscalculated the will of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves and the commitment of America and our NATO allies and other freedom-loving countries around the world to support Ukraine--now that they are bogged down, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, the question is, Well, is Putin going to give up? Is he going to try to come up with a face-saving device, or is he going to double down? I am afraid Putin is going to double down, which means we are going to see more attacks on innocent civilians. We are going to see more Ukrainian cities leveled to the ground, indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children. This is all that Putin knows. The question is, How does this end? That is a chilling question, but the answer is even more chilling.

As I said, I believe we have a moral duty to support Ukraine, and this legislation provides $13 billion in humanitarian, economic, and military assistance. We need to get this money out the door as soon as possible, while the United States and NATO needs to continue to supply the Javelins and other anti-aircraft, anti-tank weapons to help the Ukrainians defend themselves against this existential threat.

The good news is, this is a bipartisan effort. A lot of things we do around here we divide up along party lines--the shirts and the skins, I like to call them--but the fact is, we all support Ukraine, and we are all looking for ways we can help them during their time of need.

Another thing that this Omnibus appropriations bill does is it reauthorizes the Violence Against Women Act. This critical program has been defunct and moribund since 2019. For some reason, this was not a priority of this Chamber or of this Congress for the last 3 years, but thanks to the leadership of Senators Ernst and Murkowski--Senator Feinstein was an essential part of the negotiations--we were able to reach a bipartisan agreement to strengthen and modernize this law.

I am a proud cosponsor of the legislation, and I thank our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for prioritizing its inclusion in this legislation. This funding will make critical investments for our country, including critical investments in our own people.

One of the good things about this Omnibus appropriations bill is it does exclude poison pills that included things like taxpayer funding of abortions. Those are not included in this bill.

While it is far from perfect, there is no question that a bill drafted solely by Republicans would look a little different. But the world does not operate on the basis of ideals. The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. So despite its flaws, despite the crazy process by which we find ourselves here voting on this $1.5 trillion appropriations bill, notwithstanding all the reasons I could cite why maybe I should vote against it, I think there is enough good in this bill to support it.

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