[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13101-13102]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Constitution is very clear. It says the 
Government cannot spend a penny without an appropriations law--a law 
dealing with appropriations.
  I am so fortunate, when I came to the Senate, I became a member of 
the Appropriations Committee. I loved working on the Appropriations 
Committee. Under John Stennis from Mississippi, Robert Byrd from West 
Virginia, and Dan Inouye from Hawaii, it was a wonderful process.
  I have this job. I got off the committee, which was very hard for me 
to do because I loved that committee. We worked very hard every year to 
fund every one of those 12 appropriations bills. We did it because we 
were legislators. We compromised. We worked together to fund this 
government, but all of that is gone.
  Republicans do not work with us on appropriations bills. We don't do 
them anymore. This season of Republicanism is more than I can hardly 
understand. I certainly don't appreciate it. No job is more important 
in the Constitution than exercising the power of the purse. That is our 
responsibility, but that has been taken away from us by convoluted 
methods.
  I know my Republican colleagues will get up and say we have to do 
something about this terrible debt. Seated next to me in this august 
Chamber of the Senate is a man who is the senior Senator from Illinois. 
I have said this before, and I will say it again. The reason I mention 
his name is because I knew we needed to do something about the debt. I 
arranged a long trip--my first job as leader--to Central and South 
America, and I took Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, who is 
an expert on the finances of this government, and a Democratic 
counterpart, Kent Conrad, who is just as good. They worked on that 
airplane side by side for 14 hours and worked up a plan. What they came 
up with was so brilliant. They said: What we are going to do is have a 
plan just like the base closings.
  The base closing commissions that were set up--we did two rounds of 
them--got rid of military bases in the country that we were trying to 
get rid of prior to World War II. We were able to do that, and as a 
result, we saved the country billions and billions of dollars.
  They introduced legislation that said that we are going to have a 
commission appointed. There will be legislators, and there will be 
people the President appoints and people from the outside. They will 
report to us, and there will be no filibusters, no amendments, and we 
will have an up-or-down vote. It was a great piece of legislation.
  When I brought that legislation to the floor, seven Republican 
Senators who cosponsored the legislation refused to vote for it, and we 
weren't able to move forward on it. Now I get to my friend from 
Illinois. I had the ability to appoint three Members of my caucus to be 
on the Bowles-Simpson Commission. The President did that because what 
Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad tried to do failed. To his credit, he did 
that. I needed a liberal. My friend and I are not afraid to use that 
term--a progressive, if that makes people feel better. He didn't want 
to do that. He did it because it was the best thing for this 
institution. He sat through days and days of hearings and became a 
believer that we had to do something about the debt. He voted for 
something that Republicans didn't vote for--to do something about the 
debt.
  I say to the Presiding Officer and to everybody within the sound of 
my voice: We have done something since then. We have reduced the debt 
of this country by $4 trillion. That doesn't mean we don't have a lot 
more to do. But what virtually all economists tell us is that we are at 
a point now where we have to start spending some money.
  My friend from California has worked hard on this highway bill. It 
was hard for her to do that because the Republicans weren't allowing 
her to come up with any new revenue.
  Anyway, my point is this: The Republicans are failing their most 
important job, and that is helping us come up with some spending 
programs. We called on the Republicans to get serious about budgeting. 
They have refused. We have pleaded with them to sit down and negotiate 
a long-term bipartisan plan to avoid another shutdown. From the start, 
it has been clear that Republicans are not serious about governing.
  A party that is serious about governing does not do the things they 
have done. For example, in the wake of mass shootings by individuals--
it is in every newspaper in the country, and it has been for weeks. 
There were new deaths in Tennessee and Colorado. It doesn't matter. I 
am sorry to say that we have lost track of where they all are.
  Even after these mass shootings, Republicans still want to cut our 
funding for mental health services. Gee-whiz--how could they do that? 
The Republican bill cuts funding for substance abuse and mental health 
services. They blocked research for funding for the Centers for Disease 
Control to study the cause and effect of gun violence. They are cutting 
funding for counseling programs in elementary and secondary schools. 
That is only on one subject. A party that is serious about governing 
doesn't cut critical funding to our Nation's security. They have cut 
funding for the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms, they cut 
funding to vital cyber-security upgrades and financial agencies. They 
cut funding for U.S. marshals, the brave men and women who helped to 
catch those two murderers who escaped from the prison in New York.
  A party that is serious about governing doesn't wage war against our 
Nation's infrastructure. They have cut funding for the Nation's 
electric grid

[[Page 13102]]

by 40 percent, leaving our utilities susceptible to cyber attacks. 
Senate Republicans have cut transit projects all across this country. 
They have cut funding of the air traffic control system. The list is 
endless. There are cuts to education, women's health, agriculture, 
energy, and job training.
  If the Republican leader and the Speaker wanted to get serious about 
governing, they would sit down with us and craft a bipartisan 
compromise to prevent another government shutdown.
  On the bill before us, the Speaker of the House of Representatives 
has referred to that bill by using a very derogatory word which starts 
with the letter ``s.'' If the Republican leader and the Speaker want to 
get serious about governing, then they need to sit down with us so we 
can craft a bipartisan compromise to prevent another government 
shutdown. Instead they have already given up. Both the Speaker and the 
Republican leader have said that what we are going to do is abandon the 
appropriations process in favor of a continuing resolution, which is a 
buzzword for failure. Failure is another word for a government 
shutdown. It is another way to close our government.
  By relying on a continuing resolution, it leaves in place sequester 
cuts and underfunds critical priorities for working American families. 
Republicans are neglecting their responsibilities. They are not showing 
up for work. It doesn't have to be this way. We have time to come up 
with a balanced solution to keep our government funded. We have 2 
months to come together, but a CR will not work. Sequestration will 
kick in, and it will harm every agency in the government. It will 
especially hurt the middle class of our country. If they are serious 
about governing, they will work together with us on appropriations 
bills rather than ignore us.
  Republicans need to sit down and get to work on their most important 
job, as is dictated by the Constitution.
  I apologize to everyone for taking more time than I normally do, but 
it was brought about by my friend the Republican leader.
  I ask the Chair to announce the business of the day.

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