[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 173 (Thursday, October 31, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6327-S6328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VOTE EXPLANATION

  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, today I voted against amendment No. 1141. I 
would like to take an opportunity to explain my position.
  In September 2019, the Treasury Department reported, in accordance 
with Federal laws, that the highway trust fund's mass transit account 
had an unfunded authorization of $27 billion but only estimated $26 
billion in revenue to be collected over the next 4 years. In other 
words, the account was expected to take on more than $1 billion in 
obligations than it would be able to collect in revenue.
  Instead of correcting the problem, the Jones amendment ignored it, 
preventing Treasury from implementing the law to bring the mass transit 
account back into balance.
  Since I joined this body in January, I have repeatedly noted my 
concern for our nearly $1 trillion annual budget deficit and our more 
than $22 trillion

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Federal debt. Washington is broken. We do not have the money to finance 
even the most basic functions of our government: infrastructure and our 
national defense.
  Today's vote was an example of the consequences we may face when 
Congress lets these serious financial issues languish. We cannot 
continue to ignore these problems. We cannot continue to pretend our 
fiscal problems are solved by waving away protections placed by prior 
Congresses.
  I believe that Congress must fix this problem and bring our trust 
funds into long-term solvency. When the Environment and Public Works 
Committee approved our highway bill in July, I ensured the bill 
contained language stating our intent to do just that.
  Today, Congress was lucky--we could push our spending problem off to 
another day. One day soon, we will not be so lucky.

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