Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this short-term continuing resolution.

This CR simply keeps the government funded at the current fiscal year rate, which is, by the way, in line with the Ryan-Murray budget agreement that was passed by Congress last year under the steadfast leadership of Chairman Rogers, of our subcommittee chairmen and chairwomen, and of the ranking members.

The House is doing its work. The House has done its work. We have passed 11 of the 12 bills out of the full committee, and seven of those appropriations bills, under regular order and through immense debate, have actually passed the floor of the House. Yet the Senate has passed how many appropriations bills? Mr. Speaker, not even one. That is why we are here, once again, with this continuing resolution. Our record very clearly shows that, unlike the Senate, the House is committed to actually doing the hard work--to going line by line to fund the vital programs and looking at opportunities to eliminate waste and to reduce spending.

Again, we have done our work. Now we need a willing partner, Mr. Speaker, on the other side, in the Senate, to do their part so then we can go to conference and negotiate the differences, but that is not in our hands. That is in the hands of the American people.

We are now at the end of this fiscal year, as the chairman said--just a couple of weeks away. The key is to pass this continuing resolution to keep the government running. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the weeks ahead and continuing to go line by line, agency by agency, looking for waste, making sure that we are doing what has to be done. I also know that the House will do its job.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the chairman and the members of the Appropriations Committee. Let's get this done.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favor of the McKeon amendment to train and equip vetted Syrian opposition groups.

ISIL is a terrorist group, organization, that threatens our allies, savagely murders Americans and others. It threatens our national security interests, and it must be destroyed. It must be destroyed, including in Syria.

Now, however, Mr. Speaker, I have serious reservations about the President's plan. It is no lie that there is a trust gap with this President. Unfortunately, the President has consistently ignored what was clear to just about everyone else. The President must start listening to the advice and the guidance of our senior military commanders. Against the advice of his generals, the President prematurely withdrew from Iraq so he could claim a political victory. Unfortunately, the enemy continued to fight. There is a trust gap.

More recently, according to press reports, the President has already dismissed some of the preferred recommendations of his generals in favor of a more limited role for our Armed Forces. Mr. Speaker, there is a trust gap. We know that airstrikes and training and equipping and vetting the Syrian opposition groups are necessary, but as we have heard, it is not sufficient.

Will the President do what is sufficient, what is necessary? There is a trust gap.

What President are we supposed to believe and trust, the one who, in August, said that those Syrian opposition forces were, frankly, not a real thing, or the one who now says that they are the ones who are going to defeat ISIS? There is a trust gap.

Unfortunately, the President has refused to lead until the opinion polls kind of pushed him to it. So that is why I am so grateful, Mr. Chairman, for the language that you have to have robust oversight and increased transparency and that the administration must keep Congress up to speed on planning and logistics.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can stop repeating the mistakes of the past. It is time for the President to treat this threat like what it is--a national security threat to the United States--and that he listens to his generals.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source