Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, on this side of the aisle we agree it is good to negotiate, and we should. I would only hope the President of the United States would be a part of that negotiation in order to make it successful.

But I would ask my friend why the request is contingent on passage of the House continuing resolution. The Democrats have already rejected the House's request to go to conference on the CR, seemingly in contrast to what they are now asking for, which is a negotiation.

Hopefully, we will pass H.R. 3273, the Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act, which will create a bicameral, bipartisan group to address the CR and the debt limit situation.

But on the Republican side, again I would say to our friends that we have a longstanding request to make sure reconciliation instructions are not in order in a budget conference so that the debt limit can be increased on a strictly party-line vote.

We happen to think it is a problem if the debt ceiling is raised as the Democrats are requesting, that we would see the debt go up by 68 percent under this President--more than all other Presidents in American history who preceded him. We think that is a bad idea.

So I would ask the distinguished Senator from Washington whether she would consider an amended unanimous consent request, and we would ask that the Senate, by way of amendment to her request, proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25 be amended, be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate proceed to a vote on the motion to insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; with all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate; and I would further ask unanimous consent that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator from Washington so modify her request?

Mrs. MURRAY. Reserving the right to object, let me make one observation, which is that sometimes I think those who have been objecting now 21 times to our request to go to conference have forgotten whom I would be conferencing with, which is the Republican House majority. What they fight so adamantly and strongly for here in the Senate will be well and ably represented in a conference committee. That is the point of a conference committee. That is what our democracy was set up to do in a divided government, where we have the opportunity to do that.

Having a conference committee to work out our budget agreement is exactly what I have asked for, but I will object because what the Senator's request does is simply say: We are going to keep our government closed. We are not going to allow people to do the functions that are so desperately needed. We are going to stay closed, and we are going to hold that hostage.

As I said so clearly when I spoke before, we need to open the government, we need to pay our bills, and we need to negotiate. That is what our request does, that is what the Republican request does not do, and so I object.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source