[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 142 (Thursday, September 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6010-S6011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is no secret that the Senate has a long 
to-do list this month. The National Defense Authorization bill, the 
farm bill, and all 12 appropriations bills should be signed into law 
before the end of this month, but with 9 working days left on the 
schedule, we all know that is likely not to happen. But these deadlines 
are not a surprise. We have known about them for a long, long time, and 
many of them, like government funding, come up every year as well as 
the NDAA, which we have done for 60-plus years in a row.
  Despite that, we find ourselves staring down the barrel at the end of 
the fiscal year without a clear direction from Leader Schumer on how he 
intends to see that the government is funded. It is astounding that the 
monumental task of funding the government has lingered in purgatory on 
the Senate calendar as the Democratic leader chooses to spend this 
Chamber's time, limited time, on political show votes on a number of 
partisan nominees.
  I would also like to remind this Chamber of what the Democratic 
leader has wasted the Senate's time voting on this year. We have voted 
on things like protecting access to contraception--not in dispute; IVF, 
in vitro fertilization--not in dispute; and neither of which is under 
any kind of threat, but we had to have show votes to try to gain 
political advantage in the run-up to the November 5 election even if 
the narrative supporting the vote outcome is a false narrative.
  We also voted on sweeping tax policy and a bill that never went 
through a single committee in the Senate and received zero input on the 
Republican side. We voted again on a border bill that didn't address 
major contributors to the massive illegal immigration we have seen 
during this administration. The majority leader has scheduled these 
show votes to give his vulnerable incumbents a political lifeline, 
putting politics over doing the most basic things that the Senate 
should be doing.
  We spent weeks voting on the Biden-Harris administration's 
controversial nominees, many of whom are unqualified to fill the jobs 
that they have been nominated to. This partisan gamesmanship, when so 
much important

[[Page S6011]]

work remains to be done, is a waste of time, and it is an opportunity 
lost.
  So let me just put this in greater context. It is not for the lack of 
effort on behalf of Senate committees. Both the Senate Appropriations 
Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee have done their work 
in a bipartisan manner. On appropriations, Chair Murray and Vice Chair 
Collins have made serious progress on the appropriations bills. 
Virtually all of them have passed out of the Appropriations Committee 
with either unanimous support or strong bipartisan support.
  The majority leader could have put those bills on the floor last 
July, not 9 days before a government shutdown, but he chose not to do 
it. So he points the finger of blame at our colleagues in the House of 
Representatives, who are trying to figure this out, but this is a 
wholly man-made disaster in the making, and it could have been avoided. 
We could have been voting on funding bills months ago instead of days, 
weeks, and months creeping by without even an inch of progress. These 
are bills like the National Defense Authorization bill, for example, 
that pay our servicemembers and ensure that government operations, big 
and small, continue day-to-day.
  I would say that the work done by our Senate committees on a 
bipartisan basis is not necessarily easy work. It takes a lot of time 
and consideration by our colleagues on the Appropriations and Armed 
Services Committees. But the majority leader has sabotaged this 
productive bipartisan work by imposing a part-time work schedule on the 
Senate. It doesn't give us much room to maneuver or much time to 
actually debate, vote on, and pass legislation. Of course, when the 
Senate is in recess, which we have just come off of for about 6 weeks, 
committees can't meet, and it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to 
solve the biggest problems facing our country, of which there are many.
  There is also this newfound phenomenon under the majority leader's 
schedule called recess Mondays. This means the Senate doesn't even come 
back to Washington until Tuesday, and then we are gone Thursday 
afternoon. It is hard to get real work done working part time. How on 
Earth are members of the various committees and subcommittees supposed 
to debate, amend, and advance 12 funding bills when the Senate is only 
working 2\1/2\ days a week? With this type of schedule, there just 
simply are not enough hours for our colleagues to complete the mountain 
of work ahead of them.
  Our current posture shows the folly of this approach. Including 
today, we are only scheduled to be in session 9 days before adjourning 
for October, the entire month of October, just after coming off of a 6-
week break.
  Again, Chairman Murray and Vice Chair Collins have both said 
repeatedly that they want us to return to the normal appropriations 
process, not this contrived narrative of an imminent government 
shutdown, with all that that would entail.
  I want to say, I appreciate the good work that has been done by our 
colleagues on the Armed Services Committee and on the Appropriations 
Committee. Again, this is not easy. These are huge, important, and 
challenging issues that they have debated and voted on and produced 
bills that now await the majority leader scheduling them on the Senate 
floor. But because of the leader's inability or, rather, unwillingness 
to plan, we may end up kicking the can down the road in the form of a 
continuing resolution.
  For those listening, a continuing resolution just means the status 
quo. It means just moving the deadline further down the road. We will 
still have to deal with these issues again--perhaps in December, 
perhaps in March, depending on how long the continuing resolution is.
  But it is somewhat embarrassing to be a Member of the world's 
greatest deliberative body and to find ourselves in this situation once 
again. Again, this isn't a surprise. This isn't something that just 
popped up. We know what the deadline is, and we know we should have 
been doing our work a lot earlier.
  There is no question that stopgap bills are better than a shutdown 
but just barely. It isn't a perfect solution, especially for critical 
missions like national defense.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, during continuing resolutions, the 
Pentagon can't engage in any new starts, and basically they can't plan 
beyond the timeframe of the continuing resolution. Yet we know that 
there are wars raging in Ukraine, in the Middle East, and threats in 
the Indo-Pacific and in places like North Korea.
  This is the most dangerous environment that our country has seen 
since World War II. Don't you think we would want to be able to fund 
the government on a timely basis so that the Pentagon can plan, so they 
don't have to worry about government shutdowns? Don't you think we 
would take up the National Defense Authorization bill that, again, 
passed out of committee months ago and has been available for floor 
action? This is the most basic function of the Senate when it comes to 
national defense, is passing the National Defense Authorization bill, 
but we are not going to do it because there simply isn't time.
  I appreciate our colleagues in the House trying to figure out how to 
handle this under difficult circumstances--again, completely 
unnecessary--but I think we all understand that government shutdowns 
are not in anybody's best interest. We know that the problem that 
caused the shutdown is still going to be there staring us in the face 
when the government reopens, and the truth is, it is a whole lot more 
expensive and a whole lot more disruptive than it needs to be.
  The bottom line is this: We have a duty and responsibility to pass 
full-year, on-time appropriations bills. That is the bare minimum of 
governing. Short-term funding bills don't allow for long-term planning 
or stability when it comes to important functions like national defense 
or any other aspect of the Federal Government.
  It is unfortunate that we are in this situation because the majority 
leader, who is the only person who can schedule action on the floor, 
has given us so few session days in which to consider these critical 
bills.
  Strengthening defense, funding the government, and safeguarding our 
supply of food and fiber--these are essential to the welfare of our 
Nation.
  The way the Senate has been run under the current management is no 
way to treat its most basic responsibilities. I can only hope that come 
November, there will be a new management elected by the American people 
because they don't have to put up with the status quo; they can change 
it. That is one of the great things about democracy. Democracies are 
capable of course correction. When they don't like the direction you 
are heading in, they can change it, and they could do that at the 
ballot box starting on November 5.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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