Congressional Record, Volume 161 Issue 140 (Monday, September 28, 2015)

[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 140 (Monday, September 28, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6963-S6972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TSA OFFICE OF INSPECTION ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2015

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 719, which
the clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

House message to accompany H.R. 719, an act to require the
Transportation Security Administration to conform to existing
Federal law and regulations regarding criminal investigator
positions, and for other purposes.

Pending:

McConnell motion to concur in the amendment of the House to
the amendment of the Senate to the bill, with McConnell (for
Cochran) amendment No. 2689, making continuing appropriations
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016.
McConnell amendment No. 2690 (to amendment No. 2689), to
change the enactment date.
McConnell motion to refer the House message on the bill to
the Committee on Appropriations, with instructions, McConnell
amendment No. 2691, to change the enactment date.
McConnell amendment No. 2692 (to (the instructions)
amendment No. 2691), of a perfecting nature.
McConnell amendment No. 2693 (to amendment No. 2692), of a
perfecting nature.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until the
cloture vote on the motion to concur with an amendment in the House
amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 719 will be equally divided
between the two leaders or their designees.
The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, Wednesday night is the deadline. On
Wednesday night, the authority of the government of the United States
to do business ends. The funding for our government ends. It is a scary
time. We don't want that to happen--most of us--because we know it will
be catastrophic. There will be people who will suffer if we fail to do
our job.
Now, this isn't the first time we have been up against a deadline. We
have faced them before, and many times we have to buy a little extra
time to negotiate the budget. That is understandable. In this
circumstance, though, we actually have announced candidates for the
Presidency of the United States who are calling for a government
shutdown.
What happens when our government shuts down? Well, it is pretty
obvious. Agencies stop doing business as usual. What we find, though,
is that the impact goes far beyond just that simple statement.
I went back to Illinois this last weekend, and I went for a visit to
Scott Air Force Base. It is the largest single employer in the State of
Illinois and downstate.
In 2013--the last time we had a government shutdown--the junior
Senator from Texas, Senator Ted Cruz, wanted to shut down our
government to protest ObamaCare. So he successfully closed down the
government and found other Republicans who would join him in that
effort, and it went on for a long period of time.
In 2013, at Scott Air Force Base, one of the most important defense
facilities in our country, in Belleville, IL, we saw two-thirds of the
civilian workforce--that is about 3,400 people--sent home immediately
without pay. Those who were required to report for duty, including all
of the base's 5,000 military personnel, would have been given IOUs
rather than paychecks. Scott Air Force Base families were forced to
limit their spending and stretch their savings while the Senator from
Texas gave speeches on the floor about Dr. Seuss. I am not making this
up.
This had an impact on the entire region of Southwestern Illinois.
Scott Air Force Base has a $1.6 billion economic impact on the local
area, including supporting thousands of indirect jobs. Every part of
this regional economy felt the impact of this decision to shut down the
government 2 years ago--gas stations, restaurants, small businesses,
contractors, everybody.
Now, this brinksmanship goes far beyond flowery speeches on the floor
and press attention. The last shutdown hurt the gross domestic product
of the United States of America. Consumer confidence drops when the
government shuts down. We saw $2 billion in lost productivity from
furloughed employees.
Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen said:

We have a good recovery in place that's really making
progress and to see Congress take actions that would endanger
that progress, I think that would be more than unfortunate.
So to me that's Congress' job.

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a man named Jamie Dimon, speaking of the
last Republican government shutdown, said, ``Washington has really
slowed American down.'' I agree. And if that were the only thing that
was happening, it would be bad enough. But there is more.
Today I went to a neighborhood in Chicago, the All Saints Episcopal
Church in Ravenswood. They are doing a restoration on this beautiful
church built back in the 19th century. I met with the pastor there. We
were at the food pantry of this church. This Episcopal Church tries to
help neighborhood residents who are struggling to find enough to eat.
We had a little press conference with the local Congressman, Mike
Quigley and Jan Schakowsky, and people who represented the food
pantries of Chicago in that area. They are worried about a shutdown and
what a shutdown means to them. How would it affect the All Saints
Episcopal Church food pantry and the men and women who go in there on a
regular basis to pick up some canned goods to get by? Here is what it
means. Many of these people are on food stamps. We call it the SNAP
program now. The SNAP program, on average, gives a person food worth $7
a day, so the notion that people are going out for steak dinners on
food stamps is not quite accurate.
Sara--and I won't use her full name--who is 81 years old, came up to
talk about what life is like for her. She was a hard-working person,
stricken with cancer in 2002, which recurred in 2004, and she had to
quit working. She has a walker now and she gets around, but all she has
is her Social Security check and food stamps. That is how she survives
from week to week and month to month.
What happens when there is a government shutdown? They cut off food
stamps. Did that happen last time? No. The last time the Senator from
Texas shut down the government, it didn't happen because President
Obama had a surplus in his recovery fund and he took the surplus and
put it in the food stamps so there would be no interruption of service.
You see, most of the recipients of food stamps are children. Single
moms raising kids and not making enough money supplement their income
with food stamps and buy food for their kids. Food stamps are also used
by elderly people like Sara who are struggling on a fixed income.
This time is different. If these Presidential wannabes who are
determined to shut down the government this time are successful, we are
going to have problems right away. It turns out the only surplus left
in the food stamp or SNAP benefit fund is about $3 billion. That will
keep the program going for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, they cut off the
food stamps. What does that mean? Well, for a lot of people it means a
lot of suffering--primarily for the poorest people among us.
Did anyone notice last week what happened in Washington? The city was
transformed by the visit of Pope Francis. Congress was in awe of this
man who came and spoke to us in very human terms about what he thinks
would be our obligation, not just as elected officials but as human
beings. One of his highest priorities is that we have some caring and
sensitivity for those who struggle--the poor, the people on food
stamps.
So for all the applause and all of the posing for pictures that went
on last week with the Pope, here we are this week discussing a
government shutdown. Here we are this week discussing whether we are
going to cut off food stamps for poor people in America.
It is a sad reality to think of what a government shutdown would do
in human terms to those wonderful folks working at Scott Air Force Base
in Belleville, IL, or to Sara who will go into the All Saints Episcopal
Church food pantry and try to get by, as food stamps are cut off.
Why? Why would we do that? How can we possibly be serving this
Nation--this great Nation--by stalling our economy and hurting innocent
people and punishing those who are serving our country in uniform and
otherwise?
Some think it is a grand strategy--a great political strategy. It may
move

[[Page S6964]]

them up from the smaller debate to the big-time debate when it comes to
running for President. To me it is an indication we have lost our way.
In June, I joined with the other leaders on this side of the aisle in
sending a letter to the Republican leader saying: Please, don't wait
until the end of September to face this budget reality. Sit down now--
back in June--with the President, with the leaders on the Republican
side and the Democratic side. Let us compromise in good faith. Let us
meet our responsibilities.
Well, that is what we face. As Senator Reid said a few minutes
earlier, there is a suggestion that maybe as a parting gift to Speaker
Boehner we will extend the budget temporarily until December 11, 2
weeks before Christmas, just days before the Hanukkah season--that we
would extend the budget until then and then, once again, be up against
the deadline and the prospect of shutting down our government.
We can do better. We should do better. We need to make certain we
keep faith with the people who send us here. We need to make certain we
do our job--not just to send a continuing resolution to the President
but to resolve this issue. We should not be threatening a government
shutdown now or in December when we know how devastating that can be.
I hope Congress gets busy taking care of the work we were sent here
to do. I think it is time for those bipartisan budget negotiations. It
is beyond time. Now is the time for Congress to act responsibly to
develop a budget that allows America to thrive.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about an amendment I plan
to offer in a little while, once somebody comes from our side or the
other side because they would like to be here to talk about it with me,
as I understand it--maybe even to object to it, maybe to agree with it.
But I wish to speak about the amendment, if I could, for a moment.
Right now, we are debating the continuing resolution. This would be
to continue a level of spending from now until December 11. There are a
bunch of changes in that from last year's spending, but it is basically
a continuation of the previous year until we can work out our
differences. It is not the way to govern around here. What we should be
doing instead is having individual spending bills come up. There are 12
different appropriations bills.
The ideal way to handle this is the way it used to be done, which is
that the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees deal with these
individual spending bills. For instance, one is for Commerce, the State
Department, and the Justice Department. One is for the Department of
Health and Human Services, and one is for the Department of Defense.
When we do that, what happens is we have oversight hearings, and we
have Congress playing its rightful role of saying: Are these agencies
doing the right thing? Are these programs working or aren't they
working? We might increase spending with a program that is actually
working well, decrease spending from another program, and eliminate a
third program that is not working well at all. That is what Congress is
supposed to do. That is our job here.
Under the Constitution, Congress was given the power of the purse,
meaning that every dime has to be appropriated by the Congress. What
has happened over the years--particularly in the last several years--is
that Congress has not moved forward on these appropriations bills
because they have been blocked. In this case, this year we have been
trying to bring up appropriations bills and the other side, the
Democrats, have been blocking even considering an appropriations bill.
We have had this debate here on the floor. Many of us have heard it.
But the bottom line is the committees have actually done their work and
reported out 12 different appropriations bills. So 12 bills are ready
to come to the floor. By the way, most of these bills have been
reported out with huge bipartisan majorities. I saw one the other day.
It was 24 to 3, for instance. I know the Presiding Officer has been
involved in some of these issues over the years. It is typical,
actually, that appropriators do their jobs. Senator Mikulski, Senator
Cochran, and others work out the differences, but we simply can't get
them voted on on the floor.
People may say: Why can't you? Well, because it requires 60 votes. We
have to overcome a 60-vote hurdle in order to even proceed to the
legislation. So we haven't been able to vote on a single appropriations
bill before September 30, which is the fiscal year-end and which is
coming up this week. It is no way to run a railroad, much less a
government--by the way, the government that has the biggest budget of
any government in the world, the government of the greatest nation in
the world. We can't even bring these individual spending bills up here
for a debate and a vote. It is just wrong.
Again, when we don't do that, what we don't have is the oversight. I
would think both sides would want to have oversight over these agencies
and departments so we understand what is working and what is not
working and so that those tax dollars are spent wisely. That is the
kind of stewardship that we are responsible for. As taxpayers, as
representatives of taxpayers, we should want to be sure those dollars
are spent in a way that is most effective. Yet, without having these
appropriations bills, it is just impossible to do. Instead, we are
faced with this possibility of on September 30 not having any of what
is called discretionary spending, which is not all of the spending of
government, but it is the spending that Congress appropriates every
year, and having the possibility of parts of government actually not
being able to operate because September 30 is the fiscal year-end. It
is just the wrong way to do business.
So the amendment I am going to offer later this afternoon is an
amendment that simply says: Let's adopt a new bill, new legislation
that says: Let's end government shutdowns.
How would we do it? We would say that as of September 30, if there is
any bill that is not passed, any one of the 12--remember that this year
none of the 12 were passed--none of them. But on any year, if any one
of those were not passed, then we would simply continue the spending
from the previous year, but there would be a reduction in that spending
over time. After 120 days there would be a 1-percent reduction, giving
120 days to work with the Appropriations Committee to say: OK, we know
you don't want to see the spending cut, and we know you have priorities
you would like to fund, but it is going to be cut 1 percent after 120
days, then 1 percent after the next 90 days, 1 percent after the next
90 days, and 1 percent after the next 90 days. So we get to a point
where we have to see a reduction in spending every year, which is not
necessarily a bad thing because Congress spends more than it takes in
every year. But if appropriators and others here in Congress don't want
to see that, they would have to get their act together and actually
pass appropriations bills. Once an appropriations bill is passed, the
End Government Shutdowns Act would not apply.

This seems to me to be a really logical bipartisan commonsense
solution to the problem that we are facing here. Again, the problem is
Congress is not doing its work. We are not getting these appropriations
bills done. It is not for lack of work in the committees this year.
Again, all 12 bills were reported out of committee. I believe the same
is true in the House. Yet we cannot get here on the floor of the Senate
the 60 votes needed to come up with the ability to proceed to these
appropriations bills. It is called a filibuster. They are being
filibustered. We are not even debating them. This is just wrong. I
think, again, the way to get around that is to say: OK, if you want to
try to block these bills, what is going to happen is we are going to
have automatic spending from last year with no increases--in fact,
decreases--and decreasing more over time, until Congress gets its act
together and actually passes this legislation.
This idea is so commonsense that when we had a vote on it a couple of
years ago, when I was able to bring it

[[Page S6965]]

up for a vote--and we will see tonight whether I am permitted to do
that--we actually had 46 Senators support it. Now, not everybody
supported it on the Appropriations Committee. Some of them obviously
had concerns about it. Not every Republican supported it. There were a
few Republicans who didn't support it. By the way, one Republican who
didn't support it last time is now a cosponsor of the legislation
because she has looked at it, she has understood the system is not
working, and she has been persuaded it is the right way to go. It was
bipartisan last time. Senator Tester and I were the two cosponsors of
it.
So I hope I will have the opportunity to offer that amendment here
this afternoon because I think it makes all the sense in the world. As
we are debating a continuing resolution again, the so-called CR--which
is the wrong way to govern--let's also pass as part of that a new
discipline, a new idea, a new approach that says: Let's not do this
again. Let's not ever have the threat of a government shutdown hanging
over us. Instead, come September 30, if an appropriations bill isn't
done, fine, continue the spending from last year, with a slow
ratcheting down of that spending. I think that makes all the sense in
the world. It takes away this political football that is being thrown
back and forth. It takes away the specter for our economy, for our
businesses, and for our families of not knowing whether they are going
to have this government operation continue after September 30 in
whatever area is affecting our economy or those businesses or those
families. I think it makes a lot of sense, and I think it provides an
incentive for Congress to get its work done. And Congress should be
doing every year all 12 appropriations bills--doing the oversight that
goes into that, deciding what gets more money, what gets less money,
what gets thrown out altogether. It doesn't make any sense.
In the huge bureaucracy of the vast Federal Government, not every
program is perfect. Let's be honest; a lot of them need reform. If we
don't have this process of the power of the purse--the leverage of the
power of the purse to be able to say ``Prove this program is working,''
and when it doesn't, ``We are going to pull the funding away''--you
lose the ability for Congress to be an effective partner with the
executive branch and the judicial branch the way our Founders set it
up.
Again, Congress alone has the power of the purse. Every dime has to
be appropriated by this Congress, and Congress is not doing its job.
This amendment, if we put in place this new practice, would be a
tremendous help to get Congress back on track. It wasn't too long ago
that this happened. I have been here almost 5 years now or 4\1/2\
years. We haven't had a single year where all the appropriations bills
were done. In fact, very few appropriations bills have been voted on at
all. This year not a single appropriations bill--zero--has come to the
floor of the Senate because they have been blocked. They have all come
out of committee now, but not a single one is allowed to get voted on
here in the Senate.
I do hope that my own leadership on the Republican side will keep
bringing these bills up. At least then we have an opportunity to talk
about them--what is in the bills and why it is a good idea for us to
have the oversight. Again, the reforms to these programs--the spending
cuts, the spending increases for programs that are working well, the
elimination altogether of programs that aren't working--we should at
least have the opportunity to discuss them and talk about it.

I was hopeful we would see a colleague from the other side of the
aisle show up or a member of the Appropriations Committee. I was told I
could give this little talk at 5, and I had the opportunity to offer
this amendment. I will have to come back later and offer it again.
I don't know if my colleague from Iowa is planning to speak----
Mr. GRASSLEY. No.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, earlier I had the opportunity to talk a
little about the amendment I am about to offer. This is an amendment to
the underlying bill, which is a continuing resolution. The amendment
has to do with a piece of legislation called the End Government
Shutdowns Act.
Excuse me.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 5
minutes in order to finish the conversation that we started earlier
this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I talked about the fact that here we are,
once again, without the appropriations bills done and forced to do a
continuing resolution from now until December 11, and that is because
later this week, on September 30, when the fiscal year ends and comes
to a close, we will not have done the appropriations bills. It is not
that we haven't done one or two or three; we haven't done any of them,
and there are 12 of them.
I think it is time for us to take a new approach; that is, to have an
end government shutdowns discipline put before this Congress which
says: Any time you get to this point with any of the appropriations
bills--including now where we have all of them--that we instead have a
continuation of last year's spending but that it ratchets down over
time to provide an incentive for all of us in Congress--Democrats and
Republicans alike, the Appropriations Committee, and all of us--to get
our work done and to do our job under the Constitution. The power of
the purse is exclusively delegated to the Congress. It will help us to
get our job done if we had this by having the end government shutdowns
discipline in place.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending
amendment and call up my amendment No. 2702, the end government
shutdowns amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if I understand the Senator's suggestion
correctly, his amendment would create an automatic continuing
resolution to fund the Federal Government in the event an annual
appropriations bill is not enacted by the time the fiscal year expires.
That may sound harmless enough, but what we are saying is that not only
is the power of the Senate suspended and put on hold but the
obligations of the committee system are put under a threat--that unless
you complete action on legislation that is referred to the committee of
jurisdiction by a certain time, you are out of business, and whoever
wants to offer an amendment as a substitute gets to offer that and pass
it on a majority vote. We are already required to have three-fifths of
the Members vote to cut off debate in order to be sure that all
Senators--not just a bare majority--get to decide the decisions of the
Senate and get to actively participate in the process by offering
amendments.
My friend's amendment abolishes offering any other alternatives for a
full debate--unlimited debate--which is why the Senate is here, to cool
down the passions of the moment. A Senator might have a good idea and
want to change a law, repeal a resolution, deny access to Federal funds
for this, that or the other that goes to a State that is very
important, and their interests are just as important.
This is a terrible amendment, and it ought to be rejected. I hope the
Senator will withhold offering the amendment. We can have hearings on
this and see what other Senators may think about it, but at first
blush, this seems like this is an amendment whose time has not come. We
are not ready to dismantle the rules of the Senate piece by piece.
Well, we have the right of unlimited debate, and Senators can talk as
long as they wish to. We don't have to go through a rules committee to
get permission or get permission from any other Senator. These are
direct responsibilities of individual Senators selected by their States
to stand up for their interests, not to go to Washington and cave in on
something that might be a good-sounding amendment

[[Page S6966]]

or might have the passions of the moment behind it so that there
appears to be a wave of support, but until you have a chance to
seriously consider the individual issues involved, until three-fifths
of the Senate decides to cut off debate--I strongly object to this
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. COCHRAN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my friend
and my colleague, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I look
forward to talking to him more about this. As I said earlier, 46
Senators supported this in the past, including all but two or three
Republicans, by the way, and one of them is now a cosponsor of the
legislation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call
under rule XXII be waived with respect to today's cloture vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I wish to
have 1 minute in order to debate the matter that is before us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I stand with the Senator from Mississippi.
We may be from opposite political parties, but I certainly agree with
him that the suggestion by the Senator from Ohio does not serve the
best interests of this country.
Imagine if his proposal went through and we were faced with
inadequate funding for medical care for our veterans. I am sorry to say
the Senator from Ohio has suggested that we would have last year's
level of funding with potentially a 4-percent cut. It would be the same
for fighting fires and the National Institutes of Health. There would
be a 4-percent cut in medical research.
I think what we are doing, if we accept this approach, is giving up
our responsibility that the taxpayers sent us to carry out; that is, to
make careful choices when it comes to budgets.
I just want to be on the record supporting my colleague from
Mississippi.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I hadn't planned to have a debate on
this, but I am happy to have one. Let me just be very clear. This is
about putting the Appropriations Committee in business, not out of
business. This is not about cutting spending; it is about forcing
Congress to get its work done.
Here we sit about to pass a continuing resolution because none of the
12 appropriations bills has been voted on because each of them has been
blocked in the Senate. The committee has done its work. Yet we can't
get them to the floor. Yet we have the other side saying: Gosh, this
would somehow hurt the process.
How can the process be hurt any worse? We want the process to work,
and that is why 46 of us, on a bipartisan basis, have supported this
idea. What it says is, if at the end of the day, on September 30,
appropriations bills have not been passed, then we would simply
continue the spending from last year, and, yes, over time we would
ratchet it down, giving 120 days for the committee to get its act
together that it did not in the previous year when it was supposed to,
to get these bills done, to do the oversight, and to make the decisions
about NIH, as the Senator has said, and to make the decisions about our
veterans.
If we truly want to help our veterans, a CR is not the way to do it.
The way to do it is to let the VA bill come to the floor, have a
debate, and take the committee's good ideas--and, by the way, it came
out of committee with a large bipartisan vote. That is how we should be
legislating. That is our job. The power of the purse resides
exclusively with us. Yet once again this year we are not doing our job.
It is not that we are just doing a couple of appropriations bills; we
are not doing a single appropriations bill. I think it is time for us
to change course and that is what this legislation is about. I am
simply saying that in the process of passing the CR, which we now have
to do, set up a discipline for the future that provides an incentive
for us to get our work done so the good work being done by Senator
Cochran and others--including Senator Mikulski--in the Appropriations
Committee can come to the floor for a vote, and we can get back to
governing.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request to waive the
mandatory quorum?
Mr. DURBIN. No objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Cloture Motion

Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
719 with an amendment, No. 2689.
Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Orrin G. Hatch, Pat
Roberts, Johnny Isakson, Michael B. Enzi, Cory Gardner,
John Barrasso, Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander, Thad
Cochran, Chuck Grassley, Kelly Ayotte, Susan M.
Collins, Deb Fischer, Richard Burr.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
719 with amendment No. 2689, offered by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr.
McConnell, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Corker), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator
from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 77, nays 19, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 271 Leg.]

YEAS--77

Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Gardner
Gillibrand
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Hoeven
Isakson
Johnson
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rounds
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Udall
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden

NAYS--19

Boozman
Coats
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Heller
Inhofe
Lankford
Lee
Moran
Paul
Risch
Sasse
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Toomey
Vitter

NOT VOTING--4

Blunt
Corker
Graham
Rubio
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 77, the nays are
19.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Cloture having been invoked, the motion to refer falls.
The Senator from Texas.

Vote on Amendment No. 2690

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I move to table the McConnell amendment No.
2690 for the purpose of offering my own amendment No. 2701, and I ask
for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There does not appear to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

[[Page S6967]]

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, there is a reason the American people are
fed up with Washington. There is a reason the American people are
frustrated. The frustration is not simply mild or passing or ephemeral;
it is volcanic. Over and over again, the American people go to the
ballot box. Over and over again, the American people rise and say: The
direction we are going does not make sense; we want change. Over and
over again, the American people win elections--in 2010, a tidal wave
election; in 2014, a tidal wave election. Yet nothing changes in
Washington.
I would like to share with the Presiding Officer and the American
people the real story of what is happening in Washington, why it is
that our leaders cannot stop bankrupting this country, cannot stop the
assault on our constitutional rights, cannot stop America's retreat
from leadership in the world. It is a very simple dynamic when you have
two sides allegedly in a political battle, one side that is
relentlessly, unshakably committed to its principles and the other side
that reflectively surrenders at the outset. The outcome is
foreordained.
I will give President Obama and the Senate Democrats credit. They
believe in principles of Big Government. They believe in this
relentless assault on our constitutional rights. They are willing to
crawl over broken glass with a knife in between their teeth to fight
for those principles. Unfortunately, leadership on my side of the aisle
does not demonstrate the same commitment to principles.
How is it, you might wonder, that a preemptive surrender is put in
place? Well, it all begins with a relatively innocuous statement: There
shall be no shutdowns. That is a statement leadership in both Houses--
Republican leadership in both Houses has said: We are not going to shut
the government down.
You can understand--to folks in the private sector, folks at home,
that sounds pretty reasonable, except here is the reality in
Washington. In today's Washington, there are three kinds of votes. No.
1, there are show votes--votes that are brought up largely to placate
the voters, where the outcome is foreordained, where most Republicans
will vote one way and most Democrats will vote the other. Republicans
will lose, and the conservatives who elected Republican majorities in
both Houses are supposed to be thrilled that they have been patted on
the head and given their show vote that was destined to lose.
We had a vote like that in recent weeks on Planned Parenthood.
Leadership told us: You should be thrilled. We voted on it. What else
do you want?
We voted on it in a context where it would never happen. Indeed, it
did not.
The second kind of vote is a vote that simply grows government,
dramatically expands spending, and expands corporate welfare. Those
votes pass because you get a bipartisan coalition of Republican
leadership and Democrats, both of whom are convinced that career
politicians will get reelected if they keep growing and growing
government and in particular handing out corporate welfare to giant
corporations. Oh boy. If you have the lobbyists on K Street pushing for
something, you can get 60, 70, 80 in this Chamber because Republican
leadership loves it and Democrats are always willing to grow
government.
Then there is the third kind of vote--votes on must-pass legislation.
In an era when one side--the Democratic Party--is adamantly committed
to continuing down this path that is causing so many millions of
Americans to hurt, must-pass votes are the only votes that have real
consequence in this Chamber. They typically fall into one of three
categories: either a continuing resolution, an omnibus appropriations
bill, or a debt ceiling increase. All of those three are deemed must-
pass votes. If you actually want to change law, those are the only
hopes of doing so. But, as I mentioned before, you have one side who
has preemptively surrendered.

Republican leadership has said they will never ever shut down the
government, and suddenly President Obama understands the easy key to
winning every battle: He simply has to utter the word ``shutdown'' and
Republican leadership runs to the hills. So President Obama demands of
Congress: Fund every bit of ObamaCare--100 percent of it--and do
nothing, zero, for the millions of Americans who are hurting, millions
of Americans who have lost their jobs, who have lost their health care,
who have lost their doctors, who have been forced into part-time work,
the millions of young people who have seen their premiums skyrocket.
President Obama: You can do nothing for the people who are hurting.
Senate Democrats say: We don't care about the people who are hurting.
We will do nothing for them.
Here is the kicker. President Obama promises: If you try to do
anything on ObamaCare, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the
entire Federal Government and shut it down.
Republican leadership compliantly says: OK. Fine. We will fund
ObamaCare.
President Obama then understands he has got a pretty good trump card
here he can pull out at any time. So next he says: OK. Republicans,
fund my unconstitutional Executive amnesty. It is contrary to law. It
is flouting Federal immigration law. But you, Republicans, fund it
anyway or else, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the entire
Federal Government and shut it down.
Republican leadership says at the outset: OK. We will fund amnesty.
Now we turn to Planned Parenthood. Barack Obama--this will surprise
no one--says: Fund 100 percent of Planned Parenthood with taxpayer
money.
Mind you, Planned Parenthood is a private organization. It is not
even part of the government. But it happens to be politically favored
by President Obama and the Democrats.
Planned Parenthood is also the subject of multiple criminal
investigations for being caught on tape apparently carrying out a
pattern of ongoing felonies. In ordinary times, the proposition that we
should not be sending your or my Federal taxpayer money to fund a
private organization that is under multiple criminal investigations--
that ought to be a 100-to-0 vote. But, as I mentioned before, Barack
Obama is absolutely committed to his partisan objectives. He is like
the Terminator. He never stops. He never gives up. He moves forward and
forward and forward.
So what does he say? If you don't fund this one private organization
that is not part of the government, that is under multiple criminal
investigations, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the entire
Federal Government and shut it down.
What does Republican leadership say? Well, it will surprise no one.
Republican leadership says: We surrender. We will fund Planned
Parenthood.
You know, President Obama has negotiated a catastrophic nuclear deal
with Iran. Republican leadership goes on television all the time and
rightly says: This is a catastrophic deal. The consequences are that it
is the single greatest national security threat to America. Millions of
Americans could die.
I would suggest that if we actually believed the words that are
coming out of our mouths, then we would be willing to use any and all
constitutional authority given the Congress to stop a catastrophic deal
that sends over $100 billion to Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet President Obama
says he will veto the entire budget if we do, and, to the surprise of
nobody, Republican leadership surrenders.
You know, I will draw an analogy. It is as if at a football game, the
beginning of the football game the two team captains go out to flip the
coin. One team's coach walks out and says: We forfeit. They do it game
after game after game right at the coin flip.
Leadership says: We forfeit. We surrender. We, Republicans, will fund
every single Big Government liberal priority of the Democrats.
If an NFL team did that over 16 games, we know what their record
would be; it would be 0 and 16. You know, I am pretty sure the fans who
bought tickets and who went to the game would be pretty ticked off as
they watched their coach forfeit over and over again.
You want to understand the volcanic frustration with Washington? It
is that Republican leadership in both Houses will not fight for a
single priority we promised the voters we would fight for when we were
campaigning less than a year ago.
You know, this past week was a big news week in Washington. The
Speaker

[[Page S6968]]

of the House, John Boehner, announced he was going to resign, and there
was lots of speculation in the media as to why the Speaker of the House
resigned. I am going to tell you why he resigned. It is actually a
direct manifestation of this disconnect between the voters back home
and Republican leadership. Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell
promised there will be no shutdown. Therefore, they will fund every
single priority of Barack Obama.
We are right now voting on what is called a clean CR. I would note it
is clean only in the parlance of Washington, because what does it do?
It funds 100 percent of ObamaCare, 100 percent of Executive amnesty. It
funds all of Planned Parenthood, and it funds the Iranian nuclear deal.
It is essentially a blank check to Barack Obama. That is not very clean
to me. That actually sounds like a very dirty funding bill, funding
priorities that are doing enormous damage.
In the Senate the votes were always there for a dirty CR, a CR that
funded all of Barack Obama's priorities. The Democrats will all vote
for it--heck, of course they will. They have the other side funding
their priorities. Of course, every Democrat will vote for that over and
over and over and twice on Sunday. The simple reality on the Republican
side is when leadership joins with the Democrats, about half of the
Republican caucus is happy to move over to that side of the aisle. So
the votes were always preordained.
The motion I made just a moment ago was a motion to table the tree.
You remember filling the tree. It is something we heard a lot about in
the previous Congress. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, did it all
the time.
Senators on this side of the aisle stood over and over and said: It
is abuse of process. In fact, we even campaigned with our leadership
saying: We are going to have an open amendment process. Yet what has
happened here is that Majority Leader McConnell has taken a page out of
Leader Reid's playbook and filled the tree. I moved to table the tree,
and what you then saw was leadership denying a second.
What does ``denying a second'' mean? Denying a recorded vote. Why is
that important? When you are breaking the commitments you have made to
the men and women who have elected you, the most painful thing in the
world is accountability. When you are misleading the men and women who
showed up to vote for you, you don't want sunshine making clear that
you voted no. A recorded vote means each Senator's name is on it.
Now, why did I move to table the tree? Simply to add the amendment
that I had, which, No. 1, would have said that not one penny goes to
Planned Parenthood, and No. 2, not one penny goes to implementing this
catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal unless and until they comply with
Federal law--the administration complies with Federal law--and hands
over the full deal, including the side agreements with Iran. What you
saw was that Republican leadership desperately does not want a vote on
that.
Tomorrow I intend to make that motion again. And when I make that
motion again, I would encourage those watching to see which Senators
are here to give a second or not and to vote yea or nay.
I would note that when you deny a second, which is truly an
unprecedented procedural trick--it used to be that was a courtesy that
was afforded to all Senators. Indeed, in the opposing party routinely
over and over when a Democrat or Republican asked for a second,
everyone raised their hand. But leadership has discovered: We can do
this in the dark of the night.
But I would encourage those watching to see, No. 1, when this motion
is offered again, who shows up to offer a second and who either doesn't
raise his hand or just doesn't come to the floor.
One of the ways you avoid accountability is you are somehow somewhere
else doing something very important instead of actually showing up for
the battle that is waging right here and now.
But I would also encourage people to watch very carefully what
happens after that. After that you have a voice vote. A voice vote is
still a vote. Let's be clear. Standing on the floor, there were two
Senators--Senator Lee and I--who voted aye, who voted to table the tree
and take up the amendment barring funding for Planned Parenthood and
barring funding for this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.
The remaining Senators on the Republican side--Leader McConnell, Whip
Cornyn, Senator Alexander, and Senator Cotton--those four Senators
loudly voted no. It is still a vote, even though it is not a recorded
vote. It is a vote on the Senate floor.
So why did Speaker Boehner resign? Well, I mentioned to you that the
votes were always cooked here. The Democrats plus Republican leadership
and the votes they bring with them ensure plenty of votes for a dirty
CR, a CR that funds ObamaCare, that funds amnesty, that funds Planned
Parenthood, that funds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. But the
House was always the bulwark.
The Presiding Officer will remember in 2013 when we had a fight over
ObamaCare. The Presiding Officer was serving in the House at the time.
In that fight we never had the votes in the Senate. Actually, the
Senate was under control of the Democrats. They were going to do
everything they could to defend ObamaCare regardless of the millions of
people who were hurt.
But the House was the bulwark in that fight, and in particular there
was a core of 40 or 50 strong, principled conservatives who cared
deeply about honoring the commitments they made to the men and women
who elected them. That was always the strength we had in that fight.
You know, it has been interesting reading some of the press coverage,
speculating that there would be some magic parliamentary trick that
would somehow stop this corrupt deal. Well, in the Senate there are no
magic parliamentary tricks. When you have the Democrats plus Republican
leadership and a chunk of the Republicans, those votes can roll over
any parliamentary trick you might use. Even with the Blood Moon we just
had, there are no mystical powers that allow you to roll over them.
But in the House we still have those 30, 40, 50 strong conservatives.
So how is it that Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell could promise
there will never, ever be a shutdown? Because, I believe, Speaker
Boehner has decided to cut a deal with Leader Nancy Pelosi, the leader
of the Democrats, that this dirty CR is going to be passed out of the
Senate and is going to go to the House. The Speaker is going to take it
up on the floor and pass it with all the Democrats--just as Leader
McConnell did--and a handful of Republicans who will go with Republican
leadership. A very significant percentage of Republicans will vote no.
But here is the problem: Speaker Boehner has done that more than once.
In this instance, there were too many Republicans who were tired of
seeing their leadership lead the Democrats rather than lead the
Republican Party.
I believe if Speaker Boehner had done that--had passed a dirty CR
funding Planned Parenthood, funding this Iranian nuclear deal--he would
have lost his speakership. A Member of the House had introduced a
motion to vacate the Chair because House Republicans were fed up with
their leader not leading--at least not leading their party, leading the
Democratic Party.
So Speaker Boehner faced a conundrum. If he did what he and Leader
McConnell promised, which is to fund all of Barack Obama's priorities,
he would have lost his job. And so what did he do? He announced that he
is resigning as Speaker and resigning as a Member of Congress. That is
unsurprising, but it also telegraphs the deal that he has just cut. It
is a deal to surrender and join with the Democrats. Notice he said he
is going to stay a month. He is going to stay a month in order to join
with the Democrats and fund Barack Obama's priorities.
Now let's talk about some of the substantive issues that we ought to
be talking about. Let's start with Planned Parenthood. In the past
couple of months, a series of videos have come out about Planned
Parenthood. To some of the people watching this, you may never have
seen the videos. Why is that? Because the mainstream media has engaged
in a virtual media blackout on them: ABC, NBC, CBS, the last thing they
want to do is show these videos.
If you watch FOX News, you can see the videos. But the mainstream
media, in the great tradition of Pravda, wants

[[Page S6969]]

to make sure the citizenry doesn't see what is in these videos. I would
encourage every American--Republican or Democrat--regardless of where
you fall on the right to life, even--and, in fact, especially--if you
consider yourself pro-choice--to just watch these videos. Go online and
watch them and ask yourself: Are these my values? Is this what I
believe?
These videos show senior officials from Planned Parenthood laughing,
sipping chardonnay and callously harvesting and selling the body parts
of unborn children over and over and over. One senior official was
caught on video laughing and saying she hopes she sells enough body
parts of unborn children to buy herself a Lamborghini. Again, I would
suggest to just ask yourself: Are these my values?
In another video a lab tech describes a little baby boy--unborn,
aborted, about 2 pounds, his heart still beating. She was instructed to
insert scissors under his chin to cut open the face of this little boy
and harvest his brain because the brain was valuable. Planned
Parenthood could sell the brain.
This is something out of ``Brave New World.'' These are human beings.
That little boy had a heart that was still beating, had a brain that
was being harvested. He had a soul given to him by God Almighty. He was
made in the image of God.
We are now a nation that harvests the body parts of little baby boys
and girls. It is the very definition of inhumanity to treat children
like agriculture, to be grown and killed for their body parts, to be
sold for profit. There is a reason that the media and the Democrats
don't want these videos shown, because anyone watching these videos
will be horrified.
But they are not just horrific; they are also prima facie evidence of
criminal activity. There are multiple Federal statutes--criminal
statutes--that Planned Parenthood appears to be violating, perhaps on a
daily basis. The first and most direct is a prohibition on selling the
body parts of unborn children for a profit. Federal criminal law makes
that a felony with up to 10 years of jail time.
Now these videos show them very clearly selling body parts. They also
show them bartering a price. They will argue it wasn't for a profit.
But you watch these videos. You watch the undercover buyer saying: How
much will you give me for them? And you see the Planned Parenthood
official saying: Well, how much can I get? I don't want to bargain
against myself.
On its face, that is evidence of bargaining for a profit. If you want
the highest price you can get, it is not tied to your costs. It is tied
to whatever dollars, whatever revenue you can bring in. Planned
Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the country. As another
one of these videos reflects, it is a volume business--Planned
Parenthood--taking the lives of unborn children and then selling them--
apparently for profit. It is also a Federal criminal offense to alter
the means of an abortion for the purpose of harvesting the organs of
the unborn child. That is a separate criminal offense. On video after
video, you see Planned Parenthood officials saying: OK. What parts
would you like? We can perform a different abortion depending on what
parts you want us to harvest. On the videos they essentially admit to
this crime. They are filmed in the act.

There is the third criminal offense that provides that you cannot
harvest the organs of an unborn child without informed consent from the
mother. Yet again these videos seem to indicate that Planned Parenthood
treats informed consent as a technicality that is sometimes complied
with and sometimes ignored.
Now, I will say as an aside that ordinarily, when a national
organization is caught on film committing a pattern of felonies, the
next steps are predictable: The Department of Justice opens an
investigation; the FBI shows up and seizes their records. Everything on
those videos suggests those felonies are still occurring today.
What does it say about the Obama Justice Department that no one on
the face of the planet believes there is any chance the Justice
Department would even begin to investigate Planned Parenthood? What
does it say about the most lawless partisan Department of Justice that
there is this group that is a political ally of the President, so that
is apparently all that matters. If it is an ally of the President, it
doesn't matter that they are videotaped committing a felony. The
Department of Justice will not even look at it.
I am an alumnus of the U.S. Department of Justice. I was an Associate
Deputy Attorney General. I spent much of my adult life working in law
enforcement. The Department of Justice has a long, distinguished record
of remaining outside of partisan politics, of staying above the
partisan fray, of being blind to party or ideology and simply enforcing
the law and the Constitution. I am sorry to say that under Eric Holder
and Loretta Lynch, the Department of Justice has completely besmirched
that tradition.
No one remotely believes the Obama Justice Department will even begin
to investigate this pattern of felonies. You don't see Democrats
suggesting it. No one in the media suggests it. And by the way, if this
were a Republican administration and the entity that admitted to a
pattern of felonies was a private entity that supported Republicans,
you would see on CBS, NBC, and ABC an indictment clock every night. You
would see the anchors saying: When will this investigation be opened?
When will they be indicted? Instead, the media pretends these videos
don't exist.
In the face of what appears to be a national criminal enterprise, we
are faced here with a much simpler question: Will we continue to pay
for it? Will we continue to pay for it with your and my tax dollars?
Will we send $500 million a year to a private organization to use to
fund this ongoing criminal organization?
What is the position of the Democrats? Hear no evil, see no evil.
They do not care. What Democrat do you see calling for the enforcement
of criminal laws against Planned Parenthood? What Democrat do you hear
saying, at a minimum, let's not send taxpayer money to fund this? Not
one. Not a single Democrat stood up and said that.
Let me ask you, Mr. President, what happens if Planned Parenthood
gets indicted? Because even though the U.S. Department of Justice under
President Obama has become little more than a partisan arm of the
Democratic National Committee, there are State and local prosecutors
who are investigating Planned Parenthood right now. If Planned
Parenthood is indicted, will the Democrats maintain their wall of
silence and say: We are going to continue to fund them under
indictment. By all indications, that answer is yes. We haven't heard a
single Democrat say: Well, if they are indicted, then we will stop.
The response from our leadership is that we can't win this fight.
That is their response. They say: Well, we can't win the Planned
Parenthood fight. Why? Because we don't have 60 votes; because we don't
have 67 votes. If that is the standard, then the Republican leadership
standard is that we will do only what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
approve of. That is what it means.
You want to understand why the American people are frustrated? We
were told: If only we had a Republican House of Representatives, then
things would be different. In 2010, millions of us rose up in
incredible numbers and won an historic tidal wave election. The
Presiding Officer was a youth pastor, called to minister, yet he stood
up and said: My country is in crisis. I am going to step forward and
serve. The 2010 election was historic, yet very little changed.
Then we were told: OK. We have a House of Representatives, but the
problem is the Senate. As long as Harry Reid is majority leader, we
can't do anything. Over and over again Washington gray beards would go
on television, and in gravelly tones they would say: You cannot govern
with one-half of one-third of government. The House of Representatives
is not enough, but if we had the Senate, then things would be
different. The problem is Harry Reid.
The Presiding Officer will recall during the fight over ObamaCare a
number of Members of this body--Republicans--said: No, no, no, no. We
can't fight on ObamaCare. We have to wait until we have a Republican
Senate to fight. So the American people obliged. In 2014, millions of
us rose up for the second tidal wave election in a period of 4 years.
We won nine Senate seats.

[[Page S6970]]

We retired Harry Reid as majority leader. We won the largest majority
in the House of Representatives since the 1920s.
It has been now over 9 months since we have had Republican majorities
in both Houses, and I ask: What exactly have those Republican
majorities accomplished?
I have asked that question all over the country in townhalls. I have
never been at a townhall where the response, spontaneous, was not
absolutely nothing. That is true in every State I visit.
And sadly, my response over and over again is: You know, it's worse
than that. I wish the answer were absolutely nothing. It would have
been better if the Republican majorities had done absolutely nothing
because what, in fact, have they done? Well, the very first thing that
happened, right after that election in November, is we came back to
Washington, and Republican leadership joined up with Harry Reid and the
Democrats and passed a trillion dollar CR omnibus bill that was filled
with pork, corporate welfare, and grew government, grew the debt.
Then Republican leadership took the lead in funding ObamaCare. Then
Republican leadership took the lead in funding Executive amnesty. Then
Republican leadership took the lead in funding Planned Parenthood. And
then, astonishingly, Republican leadership took the lead in confirming
Loretta Lynch as Attorney General.
Now, I ask: Which one of those decisions is one iota different from
what would have happened with Harry Reid and the Democrats in charge of
this Chamber? Those decisions are identical.
And I would note, by the way, with Loretta Lynch, the Republican
majority could have defeated that nomination. The Senate majority
leader could have done so. She looked at the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and she looked at the Senate, and when asked how she would
differ from Eric Holder's Justice Department--the most lawless and
partisan Justice Department we would ever see--and she said: No way
whatsoever. When asked to point to a single instance in which she would
be willing to stand up to President Obama to stop his lawlessness, to
stop his abuse of power, she could not identify any circumstance in
which she would ever stand up to the President who appointed her.
Attorneys general from both parties have done that, for centuries.
Now, with Eric Holder, the Senate could be forgiven because his
lawlessness manifested primarily after he was confirmed. With Loretta
Lynch, she told us beforehand. She looked us in the eyes and said: Hey,
I am going to do exactly what my predecessor has done. And Republican
leadership confirmed her anyway.
Is it any wonder the American people are frustrated out of their
minds? We keep winning elections, and the people we put in office don't
do what they said they would do.
Now, some people across the country ask me: Is Republican leadership
just not very capable? Are they not that competent or are they
unwilling to fight? Mr. President, it is neither. They are actually
quite competent, and they are willing to fight. The question becomes
what they are fighting for.
There is a disconnect right now. If you or I go to our home State and
to any gathering of citizens and we put up a white board and we ask the
citizens in the room to give the top priorities they think Republican
majorities in Congress should be focusing on, and we wrote the 20
priorities that came from the citizens of Oklahoma or the citizens of
Texas or, for that matter, the citizens of any of the 50 States, those
top 20 priorities--at least 18 of them--would appear nowhere on the
leadership's priority list.
On the other hand, if you drive just down the street in Washington to
K Street--K Street is the street in Washington where the lobbyists
primarily reside, where their offices are--and you get a gathering of
corporate lobbyists that represent giant corporations and ask them
their top priorities, the list that comes out will not just bear
passing similarity but will be identical to the priorities of the
Republican leadership. That's the disconnect.
Do you know why we are not here fighting on this? Because not giving
taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood is not among the priorities of the
lobbyists on K Street, so leadership is not interested in doing it.
That is the disconnect.
Leadership does know how to fight. Just a couple of months ago, in
dealing with the Export-Import Bank, we saw leadership in both Chambers
go to extraordinary lengths with Herculean procedural steps to
reauthorize a classic example of corporate welfare--hundreds of
billions of dollars of taxpayer-guaranteed loans to giant corporations.
Now, for that, leadership is incentivized because those corporations
hire lobbyists and those lobbyists distribute checks, typically by the
wheelbarrow.
There is no incentive greater in this body than getting reelected,
and the view of leadership is that you get reelected by raking in the
cash. How do you think we have gotten an $18 trillion national debt?
Because the way you reach bipartisan compromise in this body today, in
the broken world of Washington, is you grow and grow and grow
government, and you sit around in a room and say: I will spend for your
priority, your priority, your priority--another trillion dollars and we
are done.
The only people to lose are your children and mine. The only people
to lose are the next generations who find themselves mired deeper and
deeper and deeper in debt. I think of my little girls Caroline and
Catherine. They are 7 and 4. If we don't stop what we are doing, your
children and my children will face a debt so crushing they will not be
able to spend in the future for the priorities of the future--for their
needs, for their wants, for whatever crises come up that the next
generation confronts. They will spend their whole lives simply working
to pay off the debts racked up by their deadbeat parents and
grandparents. No generation in history has ever done this to their
children and grandchildren. Our parents didn't do it to us. Their
parents didn't do it to them. The reason is the corruption of this
town, and it boils down to a simple proposition: The Democrats are
willing to do anything to push their priorities, and the Republicans,
the leadership, are not listening to the men and women who elected us.

But it is actually an even deeper problem than that. On the
Democratic side, the major donors that fund the Democratic Party, they
don't despise their base. The billionaires who write the giant checks
that fund President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrats on that
side of the aisle don't despise the radical gay rights movement or the
radical environmentalist movement or all the people who knock on doors
and get Democrats elected. The simple reality is a very large
percentage of the Republican donors actively despise our base--actively
despise the men and women who showed up and voted you and me into
office. I can tell you, when you sit down and talk with a New York
billionaire Republican donor--and I have talked with quite a few New
York billionaire Republican donors, California Republican donors--their
questions start out as follows. First of all, you have to come out for
gay marriage, you need to be pro-choice, and you need to support
amnesty. That is where the Republican donors are. You wonder why
Republicans will not fight on any of these issues? Because the people
writing the checks agree with the Democrats.
Now mind you, the people who show up at the polls who elected you and
me and who elected this Republican majority--far too many of the
Republican donors look down on those voters as a bunch of ignorant
hicks and rubes. It is why leadership likes show votes.
It wasn't too long ago when the Washington cartel was able to mask it
all with a show vote or two, and they told the rubes back home: See, we
voted on it; we just don't have the votes.
When I was first elected to this body, many times I heard more senior
Senators saying some variation of the following: Now, Ted, that is what
you tell folks back home. You don't actually do it.
Here is what has changed. The voters have gotten more informed. They
now understand the difference between show votes and a real vote. They
understand the vote we had 1 week ago on Planned Parenthood was
designed to lose, to placate those silly folks who think we shouldn't
be sending taxpayer funds to a criminal organization that is selling
the body parts of unborn children. But on the actual vote that could

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change policy, leadership has no interest in fighting whatsoever.
In the past couple of weeks, one of my colleagues sent me a letter
that really embodied the leadership message. This letter said:
``Explain to me how you get 67 votes to defund Planned Parenthood. If
you can't produce 67 votes, I won't support it.'' If that is our
standard, then we should all be honest with the men and women who
elected us: We do not have 67 Republican votes in this Chamber, and
there is no realistic prospect of our getting 67 votes any time in the
foreseeable future. If the standard is, unless we get 67 votes,
Republican leadership will support no policy issue, then each of us
when we run should tell the voters: If you vote for me, I will support
whatever policy agenda Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi decide because that
is my standard. If I don't have 67 votes--do you ever recall Harry Reid
and the Democrats saying: How can we get Republican votes? No. Their
side is absolutely committed to their principles. You don't see them
holding back at all.
If the standard is, how do we get 67 votes, name one thing that
leadership will fight for. Well, the answer I mentioned, the three
types of votes are they will fight for big government, they will fight
to grow government, and they will fight to expand corporate welfare.
Well, that can indeed get 67 votes. But I have never been to a townhall
once where citizens said to me: The problem is we don't have enough
corporate welfare. I need more subsidies for Big Business. If 100
percent of the agenda of Republican leadership is more subsidies for
Big Business, what the heck are we doing in the Senate in the first
place? That certainly wasn't why I ran, and I know it wasn't why you
ran either. You don't have to win every fight, you don't have to fight
every fight, but you do have to stand for something.
Let's look beyond Planned Parenthood for a minute. Let's look to
Iran. Of all the decisions the Obama administration has made, there may
be none more damaging than this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. If
this deal goes through, there will be three consequences: No. 1, the
Obama administration will become, quite literally, the world's leading
financier of radical Islamic terrorists. Now, when I said that a couple
months ago, President Obama got very, very upset. He said it was
ridiculous that I would say such a thing, but despite attacking me
directly, President Obama didn't actually endeavor to refute the
substance of what I said.
So let's review the facts: Fact No. 1, Iran is today the world's
leading state sponsor of terrorism. That fact is undisputed even by
this administration. Fact No. 2, if this deal goes through, over $100
billion will go directly to Iran to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Fact No. 3,
if that happens, billions of those dollars will go to Hamas, to
Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to radical Islamic terrorists across the
globe who will use those billions to murder Americans, to murder
Israelis, and to murder Europeans.
It is worth remembering, 14 years ago this month, the horrific
terrorist attack that was carried out on September 11. Osama bin Laden
hated America, but he never had billions of dollars. He never had $100
billion. The Ayatollah Khamenei hates America every bit as much as
Osama bin Laden did, and this administration is giving him control of
over $100 billion. Imagine what bin Laden could have done. Look at the
damage he did with 19 terrorists carrying box cutters. Now imagine that
same zealotry with billions of dollars behind it. The consequences of
this deal could easily be another terrorist attack that dwarfs
September 11 in scale, that kills far more than the roughly 3,000 lives
that were snuffed out. Who in their right mind would send over $100
billion to a theocratic zealot who chants ``Death to America''?
A second consequence of his catastrophic deal is that we are
abandoning four hostages--four American hostages--in Iranian jails:
Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen whose wife Naghmeh lives in
Idaho. I have visited with Naghmeh many times. Pastor Saeed has two
little kids who desperately want their daddy to come home. Pastor Saeed
was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the crime of preaching the
Gospel. Just last week was the 3-year anniversary of Pastor Saeed's
imprisonment. Reports are that he is being horribly mistreated, that
his health is failing, and yet President Obama cannot bring himself to
utter the words ``Pastor Saeed Abedini''--$100 billion to the Ayatollah
Khamenei, and Pastor Saeed Abedini remains in prison.
Also in prison is Amir Hekmati, an American marine the President has
abandoned. Also in prison is Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post
reporter--I note to the reporters in the Gallery, a colleague of
yours--abandoned by President Obama in an Iranian prison, thrown in
jail for doing his job, reporting on the news--and Robert Levinson,
whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Why is the President refusing to even utter their names?
The third consequence of this deal is this deal will only accelerate
Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
The administration claims the deal will prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons. Why? Because they promised not to do it. We have
learned from Iran, they break their promises over and over and over
again. And what we do know is that they will have an extra $100 billion
to develop nuclear weapons. Now, I will say the administration
laughingly suggested: Well, they will use that on infrastructure, to
rebuild their roads, to rebuild their energy industry. Right now they
are sending vast sums to Hamas and Hezbollah, funding terrorism across
the world, and they have those same infrastructure needs. With another
$100 billion, you don't think they are going to funnel an awful lot of
it to developing nuclear weapons?
I would point out, it is not by accident that the Ayatollah Khamenei
refers to Israel as the Little Satan and America as the Great Satan.
This is the one threat on the face of the Earth that poses a real
possibility of millions of Americans being murdered in the flash of an
eye.
Everything I am saying the Republican leadership has said over and
over again. Yet Republican leadership refuses to enforce the terms of
the Iran review legislation--Federal law that the administration is
defying by not handing over the entire deal. I have laid out a clear
path, a detailed path that leadership can follow to stop this deal, and
leadership refuses to do so. Instead, we had a show vote that was
designed to lose, and it did exactly what we expected. The Democrats,
by and large, put party loyalty above the national security of this
country, above standing with our friend and ally the nation of Israel,
above protecting the lives of millions of Americans.
If we truly believed what so many of us have said, that this poses
the risk of murdering millions of Americans, is there any higher
priority? The most powerful constitutional tool Congress has is the
power of the purse. If we had the ability to stop this deal--and we
don't--and millions of Americans die, how do we explain that to the men
and women who elected us?
I am not advocating that we fight willy-nilly. I am advocating that
we fight on things that matter. Don't give $500 million to Planned
Parenthood, a corrupt organization that is taking the lives of vast
numbers of unborn children and selling their body parts, in a criminal
conspiracy, directly contrary to Federal law. Don't give $100 billion
to the Ayatollah Khamenei, who seeks to murder millions. In both
instances, those are defending life. Yet Republican leadership is not
willing to lift a finger. If only all the people who might be murdered
by a nuclear weapon could create a PAC in Washington and hire some
lobbyists, maybe leadership would listen to them. But the truckdriver
at home, the waitress at home, the schoolteacher at home, the pastor,
the police officer, the working men and women--the Washington cartel
does not listen to them.

I will note where this deal is headed. In December, when this dirty
continuing resolution expires, leadership is already foreshadowing that
they plan to bust the budget caps. Why? We talked about it at the
beginning. Barack Obama has discovered that when he says the word
``shutdown,'' the Republican leadership screams, surrenders, and runs
to the hills. Obama, understanding that quite well, says: If you don't
bust the budget caps, I will shut the government down.
In this bizarre process, Republican leadership will blame whatever
Obama

[[Page S6972]]

does on other Republicans. You noticed how much energy leader McConnell
devotes to attacking conservatives? You notice how much energy Speaker
Boehner devotes to attacking conservatives? Just yesterday the Speaker
of the House went on national television, and on national television he
directed an obscene epithet at me personally. He is welcome to insult
whomever he likes. I don't intend to reciprocate. But when has
leadership ever shown that level of venom, that level of animosity to
President Obama and the Democrats who are bankrupting this country, who
are destroying the Constitution, who are endangering the future of our
children and grandchildren, who are retreating from leadership and the
world, and who have created an environment that has led to the rise of
radical Islamic terrorists?
One of the dynamics we have seen in fight after fight is that Harry
Reid and the Democrats sit back and laugh. Why? Because it is
Republican leadership that leads the onslaught, attacking
conservatives, saying: No, you can't, and we will not do anything to
stop ObamaCare. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop
amnesty. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop Planned
Parenthood. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop Iran
from acquiring nuclear weapons.
If Republican leadership really believes we can accomplish nothing,
then why does it matter if you have a Republican House or Senate? Every
2 years come October, November, we tell the voters it matters
intensely. To paraphrase the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, what
difference does it make if the standard for Republican leadership is,
anything that gets 67 votes we will support. That means Harry Reid and
Nancy Pelosi remain the de facto leaders of the Senate and the House.
I would note, by the way, if leadership goes through with their
suggestion to bust the budget caps, they will have done something
astonishing. Historically, the three legs of the conservative stool
have been fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and national
security conservatives. Between Planned Parenthood, Iran, and the
budget caps, leadership will have managed to abandon all three. No
wonder the American people are frustrated. No wonder the American
people do not understand why leadership isn't listening to them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's postcloture time has expired.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time be
extended.
The Democrats are objecting to my speaking further, and both the
Democrats and Republican leadership are objecting to the American
people speaking further.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.

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