Press Conference with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader, and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)

Statement

Press Conference with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader, and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)

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SEN. COCHRAN: Well, thank you very much, Leader.

We are seriously concerned that the year is getting off to such a rocky start, and such a contentious test of wills, I guess, brinksmanship, political gimmickry -- there are all kinds of phrases that come to my mind, because we are 33 days into the new fiscal year, and not single appropriations bill has been sent to the president. Now that is inexcusable, totally unjustified, and the Democrats have no real good answer for why we are in this situation.

And to hold hostage one of the most important and the largest bills, a Labor-HHS appropriations bill, to a political brinksmanship caper is just inexcusable. The veterans bill is not controversial. It has widespread support not only within the Appropriations Committee, committees in the House and the Senate, but throughout the Congress. It should have been sent much earlier to the president.

We have construction funds in that bill that serve the interests of base realignment and closure activities. We are putting at risk and causing hardship for people being deployed back to the United States from the theater with inadequate housing and other facilities. We are in a situation where we're punishing our military forces for the purpose of partisan politics, and that's inexcusable.

So we're hopeful that we'll have a new turn of events now, and we'll get a greater degree of cooperation between the Congress and administration in this spending process. We're off to a very bad start, and we hope it improves soon.

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Q -- back on spending for a second. Do either of you think that a Labor-H bill at the president's number, 3.6 billion (dollars) cut below last year, could make it through the Congress or even the Senate? Or is there going to have to be some kind of negotiation?

SEN. COCHRAN: Well, the Labor-HHS bill, as reported by the committee, is $11.7 billion over the president's budget request.

And I think that's where the big problem comes. The president is interested in trying to keep the level of spending at the budget request level, and so that's the problem. That's the disagreement between the Democrats in Congress and the president.

We can work out those differences as we always do, but there's not any real encouraging sign that there is an effort under way to do that right now. It looks like the Democrats in Congress are trying to provoke a veto and then argue that the president is insensitive to the needs of those who are -- have problems they're interested in or benefit from that are funded in the Labor-HHS bill and try to make political points for the next election based on that kind of activity.

So that's what we're complaining about. Let's put partisan politics aside and try to reach a common ground, as we inevitably have to do, between the views of the Congress and the views of the administration.

Q (Off mike) -- White House?

SEN. COCHRAN: Well, I'm not aware of any such rebuff, but if you said he has, he probably thinks he has.

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Q I'd like to know if Senator Cochran thinks the president -- he said there was brinkmanship going on -- (off mike).

SEN. COCHRAN: Well, I have voted to support the governor -- I mean, the president. I think he is in a position of leadership that we have to respect. We have put more money in the Labor-HHS bill in other years than the president had requested, whether it was Republican or Democrat. But we've always managed to sort through the differences and resolve the matter short of a prolonged series of vetoes and inaction by Congress to reach agreements with the president. I'm hopeful that we'll get over this and start trying to work together and make legitimate compromises. I think there's room for compromise.

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. COCHRAN: Well, I'm not going to criticize the president's numbers being unrealistic.

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