[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 150 (Wednesday, September 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Appropriations

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the appropriations process demands that 
Republicans and Democrats work together. If one party decides to go it 
alone, it can wreck the spirit of bipartisanship necessary to 
responsibly fund the government. Unfortunately, Republicans elected to 
depart from a bipartisan path early in the appropriations process this 
year.
  We had a bipartisan deal on the budget caps--the 302(a), the defense-
nondefense side. We were working on allocations to the 12 subcommittees 
when the Republicans decided, without consulting any Democrat, to 
divert funds from medical research, opioid treatment, and our military 
and their families so they could appease the President's wish to spend 
up to $12 billion extra for a border wall--a wall, by the way, that the 
President promised Mexico would pay for.
  Leader McConnell and Chairman Shelby knew it would not fly with 
Democrats, and this ruse--this stunt, as the Republican leader is fond 
of calling things that can't pass--puts the entire appropriations 
process in jeopardy.
  Somehow, in the wake of all of this, the Republican leader has been 
accusing Democrats of threatening to block military funding. That is an 
absurd statement, if there ever was one. We are simply trying to stop 
Republicans from stealing the money from our military and putting it 
into the wall, which he said Mexico would pay for.
  The outcome of the upcoming vote to proceed to defense approps is not 
in doubt. Leader McConnell knows that Democrats, as well as several 
Republicans, oppose moving funds to the President's border wall that 
have been duly allocated by Congress for other important purposes, all 
military. The fact that Leader McConnell has scheduled this vote, 
knowing it would fail, makes it nothing more than a partisan stunt. My 
friend the leader reminds us all the time that the Senate is the place 
to make laws, not engage in political theater. With the vote, Leader 
McConnell will shatter his own rule.
  At the same time, Republicans are considering having a vote tomorrow 
to instruct the NDAA conferees to backfill some of the money they want 
to divert for the President's wall. The House already voted this down. 
Democrats--myself, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Lowey, and Ranking Member 
Leahy--have been crystal clear. We are not going to bless the 
President's stealing money from the military by backfilling it later. 
This would render Congress toothless and the appropriations process 
meaningless. If the President is allowed to take money from where 
Congress allocates it and puts it wherever he wants and we just give it 
back to him, what is the point? Democrats won't vote for that 
ridiculous precedent.
  Let's remember what this is all about. The President pledged to build 
a border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. He then broke that 
promise and demanded Congress appropriate taxpayer dollars for the wall 
instead. When Congress declined to do that, the President declared a 
legally dubious national emergency to divert already allocated military 
funds to his wall. Now he is trying yet again to appropriate taxpayer 
money for the wall, which is the same strategy that failed when he 
tried it a year ago and then threw a temper tantrum and promised the 
famous Trump shutdown.
  I know my Republican friends want to wiggle out of this, but there is 
only one way to return the money to our troops, where it belongs: 
Republicans and Democrats join together in voting to terminate the 
President's emergency declaration.