[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 182 (Thursday, November 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6579-S6580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, as my colleagues know, I have no 
qualms about spending floor time on the personnel business. Our 
Democratic colleagues have made it necessary by subjecting this 
President's nominees to unprecedented, systematic delays and 
obstruction. The majority has been willing to do things the hard way. 
We are giving the American people the government they voted for, as 
chosen by the President they elected.
  My Republican colleagues and I wish that we could also be spending 
floor time on productive, bipartisan legislation that the American 
people need to actually become law. We want to pass the USMCA and the 
176,000 new American jobs it would create, but Speaker Pelosi continues 
to block it. The far left objects to their passing anything--anything--
that the President likes.

[[Page S6580]]

  We want to pass a conference report for the NDAA, critical 
legislation for our national defense. Congress has passed a bipartisan 
NDAA every single year since 1961. Now it is another casualty of the 
impeachment obsession.
  House Democrats steamrolled Republicans in order to pass a wholly 
partisan bill. I believe this may be the first time ever that either 
Chamber has passed a purely partisan NDAA. Now they are stalling the 
conference committee and jeopardizing the whole process.
  We want to pass the defense funding bill that our Democratic 
colleagues have now filibustered twice so that our servicemembers and 
commanders get what they need. Back in the summer, the Republican and 
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate all agreed and all signed 
onto an agreement with President Trump--a bicameral, bipartisan 
agreement. Everybody signed it. We brokered this deal to make sure the 
appropriations process did not--did not--get bogged down with bickering 
over policy issues. We all agreed to keep poison pills out so that 
government funding could move forward.

  But just a few months later, our Democratic colleagues are now 
insisting on exactly the kinds of poison pills they foreswore when they 
signed onto the agreement this summer. They are holding up funding for 
our men and women in uniform because they disagree with the President's 
views on border security. They want to chip away at the exact 
Presidential authorities that they specifically agreed not to be 
touched. Let me say that again. They want to chip away at the exact 
Presidential authorities that they specifically agreed not to be 
touched. In short, my friends in Democratic leadership smelled an 
opportunity to pick a political fight.
  Our servicemembers need their funding. American workers and small 
businesses need their new trade deal. Our Armed Forces need the 
authorizing legislation that has been a bipartisan slam dunk every year 
for almost 60 years--60 years.
  We cannot cease all legislation just because Democrats would rather 
fight with the President. We will not neglect the business of the 
American people just because a House committee is holding some public 
hearing. If they are going to keep plowing ahead with their impeachment 
obsession, they cannot abdicate their basic government responsibilities 
at the very same time.

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