National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend the Republican leader threw around words such as ``cynicism'' and ``hypocrisy.'' This speech my friend gave--I would suggest he walk into his office, his little bathroom in there, and look into that mirror because over that mirror he should be able to see the words ``hypocrisy'' and ``cynicism'' because the speech he gave was fervent with hypocrisy and cynicism.

We have tried very hard since the first of the year to cooperate with the Republicans, and we have done it. On this bill which is before us now, the Defense authorization bill--it is a bill I will talk about a little later in more detail--this is a piece of legislation which the President said before it left the committee was going to be vetoed. He not only said it, he put it in writing. We cooperated. We allowed it to go on the floor without the normal filibuster and the motion to proceed that I had to approach when I led the Senate as the majority leader hundreds of times--hundreds of times. So we have cooperated. We haven't filibustered getting on the bill, as I mentioned, and we have allowed amendments to get pending and get votes. That is something the Republicans would not let us do when this bill came up the last 2 years. It is a major bill.

The Republican leader said a couple years ago, and I quote, ``The Defense authorization bill requires 4 or 5 weeks to debate.'' That is what he said.

So this work that he has done on this Defense authorization bill is just the height of hypocrisy and cynicism. He comes to the floor today and blames Barack Obama for the hacking that the Chinese did. He talks about what a great bill we have. He stuck on this bill the cyber security--for 5 years we tried to get up a cyber security bill. Every time we brought it up, it was stopped by the Republicans. Every time. I met in my office 5 years ago with five different committee chairs, and they moved forward to try to get a bill out. Every step of the way, my Republican friends blocked us. So talk about cynicism, hypocrisy.

On the Defense bill they talk about what a gift they gave to the President. They gave a gift to the President of $39 billion more deficit spending. That is more deficit spending on the overseas contingency fund. They refused to allow that on virtually everything else.

My friend the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in years past and, in fact, when this bill first came from the House, complained about this phony gimmick they were using, but now my friend, with whom I came to Congress 33 years ago, suddenly likes this bill. I don't know how he can do the backflip he did to come to this reasoning.

There is no better example of the dysfunction created by the Republican leader and his party than what we have seen not in the last 5 1/2 months, the last 24 hours. Think about what he has done. We are on the Defense authorization bill that the President said out loud and in writing he is going to veto. Everyone knows that. Every Republican knows that. But the Republican leader is hell-bent on moving forward with this cynical ploy to pass a bill that is destined to be vetoed.

Yesterday, he even went further and intimated that Republicans love the defense of this country through our military and we don't. At that time, I said, and I repeat, every one of my Democratic Senators is a patriot. They believe in this country, and they support the military. So supporting the military isn't a lock that the Republicans have.

To make matters worse, the Republican leader is now using this bill which should be focused on funding our troops to pull these diverting, deceitful ploys on cyber security. On cyber security, with the Republican leader's blessing, Senators Burr and McCain employed a rarely used device to get a cyber security amendment pending with no agreement, and then, before any action was taken, the Republican leader quickly filed cloture.

When the Senate considered the 2012 cyber security bill--and we tried so hard to get that out--Senator McConnell complained about cloture being filed too quickly, which I did because they wouldn't let us move at all on the bill.

In 2012, Senator McConnell said:

The few days the bill was on the floor, the majority limited its consideration to debate only and then ..... filed cloture. But, of course, that is kind of par for the course around here. ..... The notion that we should just roll over and wave through these bills without having a chance to improve them and that Democratic Senators would be willing to be rolled in such a way is ridiculous, especially on a bill of this significance.

Yet, here the Republican leader is doing just what he lambasted before. Now, that really is par for the course over these last 5 months.

For 6 years, in three different Congresses, virtually everything President Obama tried to do and we tried to do was filibustered. That is no secret. Hundreds of times--hundreds of times on motions to proceed, gobbling up 30 hours here, 2 days here. Hundreds of times.

So now what we find is something that to me is even more troubling. There have been press reports today that Republicans on the House side are involved in a vote-buying scheme on the trade bill by promising never to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. They are saying to these few Republicans: If you vote to allow us to go forward with this trade bill, we won't do anything on the Export-Import Bank. What a shame.

Let me get this straight. Republicans want to pass a trade bill that hurts American workers, and in order to buy votes to make that happen, they are going to kill 165,000 more jobs by letting Ex-Im Bank lapse. The number of Americans working today because of the Bank, as we speak today, is 165,000.

Another part of this cynical ploy unfolded here on the Senate floor. The Republican leader, who is intent on letting the Export-Import Bank lapse, allowed a token vote on the measure to try to appease the Bank's supporters. The Republican leader immediately walks out in the last 24 hours and files an amendment on Ex-Im Bank and within hours files a motion to table the amendment. Wow.

So we should not be easily fooled, and we are not. If the Bank expires, there is no telling how long it will take to renew it--if, in fact, it ever happens. None should be fooled by these sham votes. If we want to preserve the Bank, we should vote to extend it before it expires on June 30 this year--in a couple weeks.

I am amazed it is even an issue. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans believed that this Bank was good for America. Republican Presidents believed in it--Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

I remember when the Republican leader was in favor of the Bank. In 1997, the Senator from Kentucky cosponsored legislation reauthorizing the Bank's charter. With Senator McConnell's help, the Senate passed that bill unanimously. That is the way we used to do it because it was so good for America. Again, 4 years later, the Republican leader signed on to a letter encouraging George W. Bush to extend the Bank's charter, which, of course, he did. At that time, he and 29 other Republican Senators argued that allowing the Bank to lapse would be devastating to the economy and in particular our trade deficit. Now the senior Senator from Kentucky has turned a legislative backflip and today wants the Bank to disappear. Talk about hypocrisy. Talk about cynicism. Wow. As he continues to remind everyone, he sets the schedule around here. Yet, he cannot be bothered to schedule a vote on the Export-Import Bank before it lapses.

So what changed? Here is what changed. The Republican leader is not the only Republican performing a breathtaking about-face on this issue. The chairman of the banking committee supported the Export-Import Bank as recently as a year or two ago. In fact, the senior Senator from Alabama supported a 4-year renewal. If the Senator from Alabama had gotten his way, the Bank would still have a year left before the charter expired. But now the senior Senator from Alabama, speaking on the Bank's reauthorization, said, ``I believe at the end of the day if it expires, we won't miss it.'' Tell that to 165,000 people who will lose their jobs. Just last night, the banking committee chairman tried to table an amendment reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. That motion failed overwhelmingly and displayed that the Bank has a lot of support for reauthorization.

I don't mean to point a finger at just the Republican leader and the banking committee chairman. Many other Senate Republicans have flipped on this also and so quickly that I am sure their heads are spinning even as we speak.

To understand the Republican change of position, one need only look--where do we look? What do the Koch brothers want us to do? What do the Koch brothers want us to do? These Koch brothers are their billionaire benefactors. Charles and David Koch adamantly oppose the Export-Import Bank today but not yesterday. They were not always against the Bank.

Just like most other businesses in America, Koch Industries is always looking for new markets for its goods. They should. That means the Koch brothers are all for exports. How could they not be? After all, the Koch brothers got into business by selling services to Joseph Stalin. That is where they got started--Joseph Stalin and his brutal Communist Soviet Union.

More recently, Koch Industries and its subsidiaries have used the Export-Import Bank to find an international marketplace for their goods. The Hill newspaper reports that Koch companies Georgia-Pacific, John Zink, Molex, and Koch Heat Transfer, among others, received over $16 million in loans from the Bank. That is what the Bank is intended for. That $16 million is to help sustain American jobs.

But it is stunningly hypocritical that the same Koch brothers are using the Bank for loans they could literally write a check for and that they are attacking as a corporate giveaway. This reminds me of the time the Kochs attacked ObamaCare as collectivism. They probably know a little bit about it. That is where their business started. The Kochs attacked ObamaCare as collectivism, while collecting health subsidies through the Affordable Care Act. Talk about cynicism. Talk about hypocrisy.

Now, after benefiting from the Export-Import Bank, the Koch brothers figure we have it all. Why should we try to help anybody else? We are multibillionaires. That is an understatement. They are labeling it ``corporate welfare'' and ``a handout'' for big business. I wonder if Charles and David got whiplash from their extreme turnaround. The Kochs' main political arm, Americans for Prosperity, is now leading an all-out assault on the Bank. It is going to great lengths to pressure Republicans to let the Bank's charter lapse.

It is one thing for a couple of oil baron billionaires to oppose a program for their own financial purposes; it is an entirely different thing for governing Republicans in Congress to do their bidding. But obviously that is what is happening. Why else the turnaround? Republicans in Congress were for the Export-Import Bank until the Kochs were against it. Now Republicans are running for cover, waiting to find a way that they can try to rationalize not being for it, when they were for it before.

One conservative news outlet run by the Heritage Foundation went so far as to report that Republican Presidential hopefuls have to reject the Export-Import Bank if they want the Koch's endorsement and financial backing. You cannot make up stuff better than this. The Daily Signal, for example, reports, ``An endorsement would likely turn on a candidate's approach to one or more issues of importance to the Koch brothers, beginning with their opposition to the Federal Export-Import Bank.''

It would be tragic if the Export-Import Bank was not reauthorized because Republicans with White House ambitions or Senators who are afraid they are going to get a primary here in the Senate are more interested in auditioning for the Koch brothers, as Presidential candidates are and Republican leaders in Congress do. They go meet with them a couple times a year to make sure they bow when they are supposed to and don't crowd and make sure they are called upon when they are asked to.

The Republican leader and his colleagues have completely altered their position on a program that supports 165,000 American jobs, jobs here right in our country, many in their own States. Every State in the Union benefits. Republicans have changed their opinion on a bank that has returned $7 billion to the Treasury, our Treasury. It is a flip that would make a trapeze artist cringe.

I say to my Republican friends: Just because the Koch brothers tell you to jump, do you have to say: Well, how high do you want me to jump? We do not have much time. The Export-Import Bank charter expires at the end of this month. Last night's vote proves there is support in this Chamber to reauthorize this Bank. Sixty-five Senators voted in support of it last night. So I urge Senate Republicans to put aside their nonsensical backtracking on a program they themselves admitted was a job creator and understand where the real cynicism and hypocrisy lies in this Chamber.

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