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Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, well, the Senate has 3 weeks to complete some of the most important business of the year, and at this late hour, we will have to act on legislation that comes to us over from the House. But let's be absolutely clear: December drama is not the way to demonstrate we are serious about our most basic governing responsibilities.

With the exception of urgent supplemental assistance to States and communities hit hard by natural disasters in recent months, essential and predictable annual assignments like the NDAA and government funding are now well overdue.

Our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee completed their work on the NDAA back in June. They conducted extensive hearings, considered a wide array of amendments, and, thanks to the work of Ranking Member Wicker, secured an increase to top-line authorization, and they did it with bipartisan support. They handed the legislation off to the Democratic leader with months to spare.

Similarly, over in the Appropriations Committee, they worked diligently to present full-year funding bills ahead of the start of the fiscal year. I am particularly proud of the work of committee Republicans, under Vice Chair Collins' leadership, to secure higher top-line funding for national defense.

The most important power in the Senate is the power to set our agenda. Only the majority leader holds that power.

Last year, the majority leader said publicly that ``the United States is ready to compete vigorously with the PRC.'' The overwhelming consensus of U.S. national security experts contradicts that view.

But even if we were once ready to compete and deter aggression from the adversaries who are working together to threaten us, letting critical national security legislation collect dust for months while the Senate rubberstamps radical nominees is one heck of a way to sustain that elusive readiness or project American resolve.

The full Senate was denied a chance to work its will on the NDAA. As a result, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee was forced to negotiate against the House's much lower top line for defense spending from a much weaker position.

The same is true for Defense appropriations and Vice Chair Collins' efforts.

As Ranking Member Wicker has pointed out repeatedly, we have got a lot of work to do to repair America's military and rebuild our defense industrial base, and finishing urgent business in December certainly is no cause for celebration. It will be just the end of an utterly avoidable delay.

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