[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 171 (Thursday, October 16, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7150-S7151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



             Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to address the moment that we 
are in here in the U.S. Senate. We are about to proceed to a vote on a 
motion that the majority leader has laid on the floor.
  I am the senior Democrat on the subcommittee of Appropriations that 
writes the bill that funds our national defense. I have worked well and 
closely with Senator McConnell in this undertaking this year. I am 
about to vote no on proceeding to take up the House Defense bill, which 
may surprise some of my colleagues from both parties or my constituents 
or folks who are wondering: What the heck is going on here? So I wanted 
to take a few minutes and speak to this moment, my vote, and hopefully 
our path forward.
  Americans care deeply about security--about the security that comes 
from knowing that you and your family won't suddenly be bankrupted by 
unexpected healthcare costs, the loss of health insurance, and the 
security that comes from knowing that millions of highly skilled, 
trained, and dedicated American men and women are on the line around 
the world, shoulder to shoulder with our allies, defending America's 
security and that of the world, and we need a path towards addressing 
both.
  The Federal Government is currently shut down. It is shut down 
because we can't come to an agreement here in the Senate, with the 
President, and with the House to deal with the expiring Affordable Care 
Act tax credits that make it affordable.
  Letters are about to go out in my home State of Delaware that will 
tell folks who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care 
Act that their rates are going to go up dramatically--in many cases, 
more than 100 percent--because of expiring tax credits.
  Well, what has that got to do with national defense? Bluntly, the 
process here in this Senate, the process with our President, and the 
process of spending or not spending appropriated funds has destroyed a 
lot of the trust that is essential for the Senate as a body to work, 
for the Congress to legislate, and for our Federal Government to 
reopen.
  In the last Congress, I was the chair of the subcommittee that wrote 
the appropriations bill. Roughly, $32 billion went to USAID--an Agency 
that no longer exists. Some of you may remember DOGE--an Elon Musk-led 
effort to get into and tear up and, in the case of USAID, to tear apart 
our longstanding, decades-old, U.S. foreign assistance program. It did 
a lot more damage than just that.
  In many ways, the actions that began in January and picked up speed 
in the spring caused alarm and concern by many of us in the Senate that 
we have an OMB Director and an administration willing to violate 
bipartisan agreements from the last Congress, commitments to spend 
money, and contracts and agreements with partners and allies around the 
world and across many different areas.
  In fact, just yesterday, a Federal district court judge in California 
ruled that the reductions in force--the layoffs, the RIFs--announced by 
the administration during this current shutdown were illegal because 
they were targeted and partisan.

[[Page S7151]]

  So many things have happened this year that it is tough to keep 
track, but the combination of them has led to a reduction in trust 
between our two caucuses--trust that is essential to having an 
understanding and an agreement to move forward.
  Let me be clear about this year's appropriations process. It was 
positive from when we started in March-April to when we concluded on 
the committee in July and voted out eight strong, bipartisan bills. The 
Senate appropriations process for at least eight of the bills--the 
biggest bills--was constructive and bipartisan. In fact, the bill that 
I worked on closely with Senator McConnell was voted out of the 
committee by 26 to 3. So, too, were other key bills that deal with 
housing, that deal with education, and that deal with healthcare. They 
came out of the committee 26 to 3 and are ready for action on the floor 
of the Senate. Yet we are not proceeding to them today.
  There are four bills remaining in committee that are unaddressed, and 
the committee should focus on them, take them up, and work them 
through. There are three bills that have already passed the Senate and 
are all but done being conferenced with the House.
  What I have heard from my Republican colleagues is that Leader Thune 
is trying to move ahead with a process that would put the Defense bill, 
the Health and Education bill, the Housing and Transportation bill, 
which we call Labor-HHS, and T-HUD--very compelling names, I know--he 
wants to put together a package of many of these bills. Well, if that 
is the intention, we need communication between our leaders and our 
caucuses.
  We have had a positive and productive process in Senate 
appropriations this year, but the leader's motion to go to the House 
Defense bill was not expected, was not discussed, and was not clear to 
my caucus as to what happens next. So it is with some real regret that 
I will vote no today but will continue to talk with my colleagues about 
how do we move forward.
  I want to take a moment and just speak to the Defense bill that we 
have worked so hard on and that came out of the committee with such 
strong bipartisan support. It would provide a better quality of life to 
the men and women of the American military and their families. It would 
invest, in total, $852 billion in our national defense--expanding 
shipyards, expanding munition production, creating stockpiles of 
critical weapons that we know we need for the future, investing in 
cutting-edge technologies--and would reject some of the Trump budget 
cuts in aid to Ukraine, to Taiwan, and to our Baltic allies, who are 
making positive progress in key areas.
  Our work together on this bill has generally been a positive 
experience between Senators and our staffs. Our challenge was the 
Department, and it was the Secretary and his budgeteers, who often 
appeared at hearings and meetings without their homework done, without 
the details ready, without a budget ready to go.
  Some of you may have forgotten this, but a principal focus of the 
administration and the majority here during this same time was the so-
called Big Beautiful Bill and trying to put $160 billion onto the 
Defense Department not through regular order and not through the usual 
budget processes but through this one-time infusion of cash.
  Senator McConnell and I historically haven't agreed on much, but we 
certainly have agreed on this in hearings and in speeches: If we are 
trying to invest in the future of our Armed Forces, whether it be new 
planes, new ships, new systems, or new technology, doing it with 1-year 
money is unwise and unsound.
  We need to get back to regular order. We need to get back to a 
reliable and predictable appropriations process. In order to do that, 
we need bipartisan agreement that rejects severe cuts; that restores 
funding for programs like the NIH and the CDC, which is done in the 
bipartisan Labor-H bill; and that rejects cuts to WIC and rural 
housing, which is done in the Ag bill. We need to move these bills 
forward.
  The way we move these bills forward is by linking arms and making it 
clear: We reject rescissions. We want to appropriate beyond just 
defense. We want a broader package and to have clarity from our 
President, the House, and the Senate about how we address the imminent 
health security crisis that confronts millions of Americans and, for 
today and tomorrow, keeps our government shut down.
  Americans care about security. We care about security for our 
families from healthcare costs, and we care about security for our 
Nation from the threats that are greater than at any time in my adult 
life.
  Let's find a path toward working together to address them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I came in at the tail end of the 
comments from my colleague and my friend from Delaware. He has 
underscored some points that I think are important to remind us here in 
the Senate but also people who are watching as we are in day 16 of the 
government shutdown.
  There is no great secret as to how we get the government fully 
functioning again. It is going to come about through cooperation. It is 
going to come about through good-faith efforts by good folks who are 
intentioned to address the matters in front of us.
  We deal with politics. This is a political world. But I can tell you 
that so many of the people who I am talking to don't really care about 
the politics of our situation. They don't care if the Democrats are 
winning or the Republicans are winning. They feel like, as Americans, 
they are the ones who are being caught in this backwash. They don't 
understand why their flight was delayed or canceled this morning. They 
don't understand why the individual that they are trying to get through 
to at an Agency is not picking up the phone or they get a message 
saying that this office is going to be closed until the government is 
reopened. What they care about is that we figure it out--that we figure 
it out. That requires communication. It requires talking with one 
another.
  That is why I appreciate much of what my colleague has shared today, 
because as we are positioning as two sides that are seemingly dug in on 
this 16th day of a shutdown, real people are wondering: Is their 
government going to be there for them?