[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 185 (Wednesday, November 8, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S5415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 Government Funding and Border Security

  Mr. RICKETTS. Madam President, our Nation is facing many challenges 
at this point. Yet, this week, the majority leader doesn't have us 
addressing them. Look around this room. There is nobody here.
  We should be voting Monday through Friday until we get our work done. 
We have a national debt that is almost $34 trillion. That is $256,000 
per household. That is about equal to a second mortgage for homeowners 
in Nebraska.
  We also have a humanitarian and security crisis at our southern 
border. I was just down there for the fourth time. What I saw was a 
humanitarian disgrace. Record numbers of illegal immigrants are 
crossing the border. Children are being trafficked. People are dying. 
Cartels are profiting. The Biden administration is directly responsible 
for this humanitarian crisis. They should be ashamed of themselves.
  The Biden administration's policies are also creating a major 
security crisis. A record number of encounters with individuals on the 
Terror Watchlist has gone on when that number used to be in the single 
digits just in the past few years.
  Washington has an important role in dealing with these challenges. 
The ideal time to address them is through the appropriations process. 
As we all know, Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills every year, 
and this would avoid a government shutdown. This year, for the first 
time in 5 years, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed out all 12 
of those appropriations bills. The first 2 came out on June 22, and the 
other 10 came in July.
  For months, the majority leader has refused to bring those bills to 
the floor for votes. We could have been amending those bills, debating 
those bills, and then voting on those bills. Instead, he has played 
games with the Senate's calendar to try and force a false choice 
between a shutdown and more Big Government spending.
  As a result, we have missed the deadline for regular order. The 
short-term bill that we passed, which funds the government, runs out on 
November 17. That is just a little over a week from today. Once again, 
we are on the brink of another government shutdown, and the majority 
leader is still playing the same games.
  We should be debating. We should be amending. We should be voting on 
legislation to fund the government and secure our border right now. 
Instead, we have spent the entire week voting on nominations for a few 
blue State judges and the employment for someone to the National 
Institutes of Health.
  If that weren't bad enough, once again, the majority leader will be 
sending us home on Thursday afternoon for the weekend. The majority 
leader should have kept us in session Monday through Friday every week 
until all appropriations bills had passed. Instead, he chose to recess 
early or start voting late, week after week after week. He could have 
canceled our October State work period, like the House did. Many of my 
colleagues joined me in asking him to do so. He did not. The September 
shutdown face-off proved that there is no time to waste.
  Most Americans work Monday through Friday. In Nebraska, many of my 
constituents work longer hours than that. The U.S. Senate should work 
Monday through Friday. I know it is a crazy idea, but we could be here 
all week like normal Americans. We could work 8 a.m. until 5 or 6 p.m. 
like most Americans do. We should remain in DC until we complete our 
work of funding the government and securing the border. It is not a 
radical idea to suggest that we should have an open government and a 
closed border.
  So I will close with this: Let's vote. Let's do what it takes to get 
the job done for our constituents. I am committed to working with my 
colleagues to deliver meaningful results. Nebraskans and Americans 
across the country deserve no less.