[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 11 (Thursday, January 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S280-S281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, the Senate and the House right now are 
struggling to pass yet another short-term continuing resolution to 
avoid a Federal shutdown at midnight on Friday. For nine consecutive 
years now, since I have gotten to the Senate, we have begun the fiscal 
year without regular appropriations bills being enacted into law. If we 
pass another continuing resolution this week, it will be the fourth 
continuing resolution for fiscal year 2018. There were three CRs, or 
continuing resolutions, for fiscal year 2017. This ``government by CR'' 
is chaotic and it is disruptive. It is inflicting real damage on our 
Armed Forces, as well as on critical domestic programs that benefit 
people across this country.
  I live in a very small town in New Hampshire called Madbury, and if 
our board of selectmen in Madbury committed this kind of budgetary 
malpractice, we would get rid of them.
  The fact is that the frantic scramble to pass a new CR by midnight on 
Friday is yet another manufactured crisis here in Washington. It is a 
crisis that is completely unnecessary. The Appropriations Committees in 
both Houses of Congress have completed their work in a thoughtful, 
timely manner. In this Congress, the House passed all 12 of its 
appropriations bills out of committee. In the Senate, the 
Appropriations Committee passed 8 of our 12 bills, and we did that with 
overwhelming bipartisan support. The only reason we didn't report the 
other four bills out of committee is because the leadership directed us 
to stop.
  So let's be very clear. This is not about appropriators not being 
able to get our work done and not being able to agree on what we want 
to do. This is about the leadership in Congress--the Republican 
majority--which has refused to allow us to go forward with a regular 
order budget process. The House, the Senate, and the White House are 
all controlled by Republicans, and if they wanted to complete the 
appropriations process in a timely manner, we could have done so, and 
we could have done it with bipartisan support.
  Now, I am especially concerned about the damage that government by CR 
is inflicting on our Armed Forces and national security. Those of us 
who serve on the Armed Services Committee were disturbed by testimony 
from the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM John Richardson, in September 
of 2016. He said: ``Our ability to achieve true effectiveness and 
efficiency has been undermined by budget instability, workforce 
limitations, and eight--now likely nine''--and it was nine--``straight 
years of budget uncertainty and continuing resolutions.''
  I remember when Admiral Richardson came and spoke to the Navy caucus, 
and we were asking him what his concerns were. He said: Well, you know, 
my biggest concern is budget certainty, and what we tell everybody in 
the Navy now to figure on is to figure that they can't do anything in 
the first quarter of a fiscal year because they are going to be 
operating under a continuing resolution.
  He pointed out: ``This compromises our mission, and drives 
inefficiency and waste into all that we do.''
  In a similar vein, the Army Chief of Staff, GEN Mark Milley, has 
repeatedly warned us of the damaging impacts that budget uncertainty 
has on the Army's combat readiness. Training cycles are disrupted, and 
sometimes they are discontinued. All non-mission-critical maintenance 
is postponed for the length of a CR.
  Now, I share the views of many in this Congress that we need to 
increase support for our military. We live in an uncertain world, where 
we are facing security threats from ISIS to Russia and North Korea, and 
we could go down a long list. We must be prepared to respond, but we 
can't increase military spending at the expense of funding our domestic 
needs.
  When it comes to funding domestic needs, no challenge is more urgent 
and frightening than the nationwide opioid epidemic. In my State of New 
Hampshire, nearly everyone has a heartbreaking story of a family 
member, a friend, or a colleague whose life has been destroyed by 
opioids. We can just look at these headlines and see what the challenge 
is. This is on August 16, 2017, from our State newspaper, the Concord 
Monitor, in the capital: ``N.H. drug overdose deaths--mostly from 
fentanyl--continue at a high rate.''
  The CDC recently said that New Hampshire has the highest overdose 
death rate from fentanyl, the third highest in the country. Nationwide, 
in 2016, more than 63,000 Americans died from overdoses--more than 
63,000 people. If we were losing that many Americans to a disease 
outbreak, to a war in the Middle East or elsewhere, there would be an 
outcry in Congress and we would pass legislation to address the crisis 
in a matter of days. Well, this current funding crisis is an 
opportunity for us to address the opioid epidemic.
  In recent weeks, along with my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator 
Hassan, I have urged the Senate to make an immediate emergency $25 
billion Federal investment in treatment and prevention--a down payment 
on a sustained, reliable funding stream to support efforts by States 
and communities. At long last, we could provide a response that is 
commensurate with the magnitude of this public health crisis.
  There is bipartisan support in this body and throughout Congress to 
address the opioid epidemic. President Trump promised when he was 
campaigning, and since he became President, that he was going to work 
to end this epidemic. Yet we are still waiting to see the resources 
that States and communities need.
  Now, last week many of us watched with great anticipation when 
President Trump invited bipartisan representatives from both the House 
and Senate, and the television cameras, to talk about how we were going 
to address the funding situation that we are in, and how we were going 
to address DACA--those young people who were brought to this country 
through no fault of their own and are now in a situation where they 
don't have citizenship and they don't have a way forward.
  Senators Graham and Durbin spent four months negotiating an 
excellent, bipartisan agreement to strengthen border security and to 
give Dreamers the path to citizenship that they deserve. The President, 
in that meeting that we all watched said: Bring me a solution, and I 
will sign it.
  Well, they reached an agreement that would likely pass in the Senate 
with at least 60 votes. Last week, President Trump applauded the deal. 
He invited Senators Graham and Durbin to the White House to finalize 
it. And when they got there, they were shocked to find that the 
President had completely reversed himself.
  This morning, Senator Graham was stating the obvious when he said: 
``We do not have a reliable partner in the White House.''
  Well, we do have reliable partners in this body. Give us that bill. 
Let us vote on it. Let's send it to the President, and let the 
President veto it if he doesn't like it.
  Yesterday, Majority Leader McConnell said: ``As soon as the President 
figures out what he is for, then I will be convinced that we are not 
just spinning our wheels but actually dealing with a bill that can 
become law.''
  Well, again, we have a bipartisan deal on DACA. Let's vote on it.
  There are very real consequences to the constant chaos, turmoil, and 
policy reversals that have become the new normal under this President. 
We must commit ourselves on a bipartisan basis to restoring order to 
the appropriations process. It is time to fulfill our constitutional 
responsibility to pass full-year appropriations bills that address the 
needs of the American people.
  As we work to resolve this current fiscal impasse, any agreement 
should include a number of basic provisions.

[[Page S281]]

We should fund government for the remainder of this year--no more 
short-term continuing resolutions--enough. It is enough. We need to 
stop that. The majority of Members in this Chamber and throughout 
Congress understand that we can't keep doing this. Any deal should 
increase support for our military, and it should provide parity for our 
domestic needs: to address the opioid epidemic; for our veterans; for 
the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers; 
for those Medicaid payments that are so critical to our rural 
hospitals; for disaster relief in Florida, Texas, California, Puerto 
Rico, and the Virgin Islands; and for pension relief for people who 
have worked their whole lives and who are facing old age without the 
pensions they paid into.
  We can get this done. There are enough people of goodwill on both 
sides of the aisle in this body and in the other body so that we can do 
this if we are allowed to work together. So Democrats and Republicans, 
let's get this done. Let's keep the government funded, and let's show 
the American people that we can work together in the interests of this 
country.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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