Appropriations

Floor Speech

APPROPRIATIONS -- (Senate - December 11, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object--and I will object to this request--let me say at the outset that what the Senator has asked for is to return to a bill which was considered by the Senate on November 16, 2007. There was a failure of a cloture vote, which is a vote requiring 60 Senators to vote affirmatively before the bill goes forward. The final vote was 45 to 53. In fact, three Republican colleagues of the Senator from Texas joined in opposing that cloture vote. This is a Senate appropriations bill. As the Senator from Texas knows, the Constitution requires that spending bills originate in the House. So the House would either object or ignore this bill or blue slip the bill in a way that would mean that whatever we would do here would not achieve the result asked for by the Senator from Texas.

As of today, we have lost 3,888 American lives in Iraq. The amount of money which we have provided, according to the administration, would allow them to continue the war at least to the end of March and perhaps beyond. So the troops are not without the resources they need. What the Senator from Texas has proposed is an approach which is on its face unconstitutional and has been rejected by the Senate on November 16, including three Republican Senators. For that reason, I object.

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