[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 140 (Monday, September 28, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S6961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, a new Senate majority came to office 
this year with a new outlook on government funding from the previous 
majority. First, we passed a budget. Then we worked across the aisle to 
pass through the committee the dozen bills necessary to fund the 
government. That is the first time either of these things has happened 
in 6 long years.
  Our commonsense approach represented real hope that with the 
necessary cooperation from across the aisle, a new and better way of 
funding the government was actually possible. Democrats initially gave 
Americans reason to believe they might be ready to offer that 
bipartisan cooperation. Democrats gave bipartisan committee backing to 
nearly all of the dozen government funding bills, and a majority of 
these bills attracted support from at least 70 percent of Democratic 
Appropriations Committee members. Democrats even bragged about 
supporting these funding bills in press releases to their constituents.
  But this was before Democrats hatched their filibuster summer plan--
in other words, block all of the government funding bills in the hopes 
of provoking a crisis Democrats might exploit to grow the IRS and the 
DC bureaucracy. As a result, you actually saw Democratic leaders 
declare that they would use procedural moves to prevent the full Senate 
from even debating the same funding legislation members of their party 
had already praised in their press releases to the media.
  Democrats even voted repeatedly to block the bill that funds our 
military. Think about that--funds for our military. It would have been 
cynical enough for our colleagues to block a bipartisan defense 
spending bill Democrats had hailed as a ``win, win, win'' and a 
``victory'' for their States in their press releases, but we are all 
living in a time of unparalleled international crises. Threats seem to 
mount less by the day than by the hour. Yet last week Democrats voted 
again to block the bipartisan bill that funds pay raises and medical 
care for our troops. It was very extreme.
  I wish I could say it was the only extreme position our Democratic 
friends took last week. On Thursday Senators were given a choice 
between funding women's health or funding a scandal-wracked 
organization called Planned Parenthood. Republicans stood up for 
women's health; Democrats stood up for their political friends.
  I think Democrats will come to regret their continued prioritization 
of the needs of the far left over women, over our military, and over 
seemingly everything else. The question before us now is how to keep 
the government open in the short term, given the realities we face.
  This is what the president of National Right to Life had to say on 
the matter:

       There are two different roads that we can take. One is to 
     insist that no more money go to Planned Parenthood and cause 
     a government shutdown (which [interestingly enough] won't 
     result in actually defunding Planned Parenthood). The other 
     is to take a slightly longer-term approach, taking advantage 
     of the fact that we have the attention of the country as 
     probably never before. . . .

  Had Democrats not prevented the Senate from passing the same 
appropriations bills they voted for and praised, we wouldn't be having 
this discussion right now. But they did. They pursued a deliberate 
strategy to force our country into another of these unnecessary crises. 
This leaves the funding legislation before us as the only viable way 
forward in the short-term. It doesn't represent my 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 
23rd choice when it comes to funding the government, but it will keep 
the government open through the fall and funded at the bipartisan level 
already agreed to by both parties as we work on the way forward.

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