[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 6, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I spoke yesterday about the deadline we 
have coming up in 2 days. The question is, Are we going to fund the 
Federal Government? Are we going to keep the lights on, the parks open, 
the military protecting us, the Border Patrol protecting our borders, 
or are we going to shut down the government again over an unrelated 
issue?
  I listened to my friend, the Senator from Illinois, talk at some 
length about DACA. I do want to respond to that, but there is no reason 
we have to do DACA first, because we are engaged in good-faith 
negotiations, and, indeed, the majority leader has promised that he 
would take up a bill on the floor of the Senate in our failing to reach 
an agreement.
  The fact is that our friends across the aisle have, basically, shut 
down the government and are now threatening to hold hostage a number of 
very important measures, which I will talk about momentarily, over this 
issue that is unrelated to the funding of the government or to these 
other matters.
  So what have we had to do?
  We have had to pass short-term continuing resolutions. We have had 
five of them since September alone. The impact of these continuing 
resolutions was brought home to me again yesterday.
  Usually, I would think about our military and General Mattis, who has 
pleaded with us to help provide the additional resources that are 
necessary to make sure that our military is ready, is trained, has the 
equipment it needs in order to fight and win wars but, hopefully, to 
maintain our strength so that we will never have to fight a war. That 
is how Ronald Reagan viewed it. I agree with General Mattis: Peace 
through strength is the right formula.
  Yet, when our adversaries look at us with our military--just a pale 
reflection of what it used to be in terms of readiness because of the 
lack of funding we have provided--that is a provocation or, at least, 
an invitation for others to step in and fill the void, and it leads to 
a more dangerous world.
  As I said, the harm caused by these continuing resolutions was 
brought home to me again yesterday when I had a number of people with 
the Texas Association of Community Health Centers come visit. These 
community health centers are a vital link and safety net for many 
Texans and many Americans who don't otherwise have a place they can go 
for their medical care. They treat people based on a sliding scale, 
based on the ability to pay, so they are accessible to virtually 
everyone.
  What my constituents with the Texas Association of Community Health 
Centers told me was because of the funding cliff with the continuing 
resolutions, they don't know how to plan. Their doctors, their medical 
assistants, and other support staff don't know if they are going to 
have a job after Thursday, February 8, when the current continuing 
resolution expires.
  They don't know whether the patients they treat will actually have a 
place to go to get that treatment. This is a miserable way for Congress 
to do business, and it should not continue. We need to provide more 
certainty and predictability.
  General Mattis himself said that this basically wastes money because 
we have to plan to shut down portions of our activities if, in fact, 
government does shut down. So then we have to restart it again--stop 
it, start it. It is a waste, it is inefficient, and it is unnecessary.
  Our friends across the aisle need to release another hostage, too, in 
addition to the spending caps agreement and the funding needed for our 
military and the funding needed for community health centers and all 
the other important functions that are served by the Federal 
Government. They need to release the hostage of disaster relief.
  In December, the House passed an $81 billion relief package, but so 
far our Democratic colleagues have refused to allow us to bring that 
disaster relief bill up. Again, why? Because of DACA, this unrelated 
immigration issue that they think is more important than all the people 
who were hurt by Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Harvey, and the wildfires 
out West.
  We do need to address DACA, and we will, but why hurt the victims of 
these natural disasters in the interim by holding this disaster relief 
hostage? It is time we stand up in a bipartisan fashion and show these 
folks in Texas, Florida, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and out West 
that we remember, and we are going to help them. Why should they have 
to wait any further? There is no good answer to that question, but I 
think it is important that somebody come out on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate and ask the question.

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