[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 10, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S4235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, listening to the distinguished Senator 
from Utah, I could not help but agree with him that it is refreshing to 
go back to our States to talk to people whose priorities are different 
from those in Washington, DC, and to sort of decompress a little bit 
and get in touch with reality once again.
  Washington, DC is a fascinating place, but it is kind of like coming 
to Disneyland in some ways. It is not real in many respects, although 
as we all know, important decisions are made here that affect the lives 
of all 300 million people in the United States and people all across 
the world.
  It is one of those decisions, or should I say nondecisions, that I 
will rise to speak on briefly this morning. It is more in sorrow than 
in anger, but I am speaking specifically of the fact that it has been 
more than 60 days since the President sent up an emergency war spending 
bill to Congress. Now 60 days, more than 60 days, have passed, and the 
troops still do not have the money and the House of Representatives has 
yet to appoint conferees so we can move forward on getting that money 
to our troops. In fact, the House is in recess for an additional week. 
Our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, of course, do not have the 
liberty of taking a recess in the middle of the battle they have so 
nobly and valiantly committed themselves to fight. While they are 
living up to their responsibilities, I think it is important for 
Congress to live up to its responsibilities too. Of course, the message 
they are seeing is more than a little bit confusing, and I regret that, 
honestly, because while the Senate majority leader, Senator Reid, at 
one point has said we are not going to do anything to limit funding or 
to cut off funds--he made that comment on November 30, 2006--on April 
2, 2007, he made the announcement that, in fact, he was going to 
cosponsor Senator Feingold's legislation that would do exactly what he 
said he wouldn't do a few short months before; that is, cut off funds 
to support the troops.

  Notwithstanding that position, we did, in fact, pass the funding 
bill, but, unfortunately, it contained unnecessary spending and in 
effect a surrender date for our enemy to see. I cannot bring myself to 
understand how someone can say they support the troops with the 
surrender date or porkbarrel spending necessary to secure the votes to 
pass it, because it could not pass on its own merits.
  I have, in fact, joined the rest of the Senate and House Republican 
leadership in sending a letter to Speaker Pelosi, urging her to call 
the House back into session immediately so Congress can finish its work 
on this important emergency spending bill.
  Keep in mind, funding for these troops has been pending since 
February 5, and because of the unnecessary strictures on the 
President's authority as Commander in Chief, where Congress has, in 
effect, deemed to act like an armchair general, all 535 of us, to 
dictate the tactics of the battle 6,000 miles away, the President said 
he is likely to veto the bill unless it is changed substantially 
through a conference committee. The Senate, of course, appointed 
conferees on March 29, but the House never did, despite passing the 
bill a week earlier.
  Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said he hoped the 
conference committee would begin on March 30, but, unfortunately, that 
hasn't happened, and again our troops still do not have the resources 
they need.
  Lest there be any doubt, this is what the Army Chief of Staff, 
General Schoomaker, has said: Without approval of the supplemental 
funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly Draconian 
measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our 
soldiers and their families.
  Secretary of Defense Gates also emphasized the danger of delay. He 
said: This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely 
adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for 
soldiers and their families.
  Some have suggested this is all a bluff, and that our military can 
wait until July to get the funding from this emergency supplemental. 
That is simply not correct. As a matter of fact, Secretary Gates listed 
the specific cuts the Army would be forced to consider in the upcoming 
months. He said: If the supplemental is not passed by April 15, the 
Army--which has the majority of all forces in Iraq--could have to 
curtail and suspend home station training for National Guard units, 
slow the training of units headed to the wars, stop paying for 
facilities upgrades at home bases, and stop repairing gear needed for 
predeployment training.
  He said: If May 15 comes and goes without passage and seeing the 
funds go to the troops, even more devastating cuts would result, 
including a slowdown in depot repair work, slowing brigade combat team 
training, which would force the extension of units in theater--in other 
words, the troops could not rotate back on a timely basis as they and 
their families expect they will--and it would cause the implementation 
of a hiring freeze, among other moves.
  I cannot understand how we can claim to support our troops and yet 
put them in increased jeopardy as a result of our failure to act. That 
is why I believe it is so important that we get these funds to the 
troops as soon as we can, stripped of these extraneous strictures on 
our troops, artificial deadlines sending a white flag of surrender, 
letting our enemy know when we are going to quit. It needs to be 
stripped of those provisions as well as the porkbarrel spending our 
troops ought not to have to bear, in addition to the other burden they 
and their families bear on our behalf.
  Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Akaka). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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