Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, we are now considering the MILCON-VA appropriations bill. Obviously, anything we do for our veterans is something that is laudable to all of us, but earlier a very interesting vote took place in the U.S. Senate, when the Department of Defense appropriations bill which funds the appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and for other purposes, et cetera--in other words, the Defense appropriations bill which provides for the training, the equipment, the pay, the medical care, all of those vital necessities for the men and women who are serving in the military--a sufficient number of my colleagues, I believe all but one on the other side of the aisle, decided to vote against moving to that legislation.

I want the record to be clear, all but one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as I understand it, voted against moving to the legislation which provides the funding for the defense of this Nation and the men and women who serve it--items that are vitally important to the men and women who are serving, items such as military personnel. The committee recommends $3 billion for pay allowances and other personnel costs for Active Reserve and Guard troops activated for duty in Afghanistan and other contingencies, counter-terrorism partnership funds, a money provision that recommends $300 million for the Ukrainians who are now being dismantled by Vladimir Putin.

The committee, as I mentioned, recommends money for pay allowances and other personnel costs for Active, Reserve, and Guard troops activated for duty in Afghanistan and other contingency operations. The recommendation includes funding for subsistence, permanent change of station, travel, and special pays, including imminent danger pay, family separation allowance, and hardship duty pay.

I will have some other selections, but I think the American people ought to know what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle just voted against. They voted against paying allowances and personnel costs for the Active, Reserve, and Guard troops activated for duty in Afghanistan, including funding for subsistence, permanent change of station, travel, and special pays, including imminent danger pay. We won't fund the men and women serving in imminent danger. We decided not to fund them. That is amazing--truly amazing.

One of the programs in here is the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund. There is item after item listed here. These appropriations are for the men and women in the armed services. These appropriations include their pay, their benefits, their weapons, and their means to carry out their duties in dangerous times.

Other programs in here include countering violent extremism online, the European Reassurance Initiative, and, as I mentioned, Ukraine and counter-terrorism. All of these provisions are contained in probably what is the most important obligation that we have. I don't know of a greater obligation that we have to the American people and the security of the Nation. If there is any doubt about what is going on in the world, one might just want to look back at what happened in the last couple of days--the loss of a Russian airliner under very suspicious circumstances, the continued pouring of weapons and capabilities into Syria by the Russians and Iranians, and the continued gains made by ISIS in many parts of the world, including even as far away as parts of Africa and Afghanistan.

Do any of my colleagues know of the strategy that the United States has to address these issues? They can't because there is none. But here we are doing our duty--our constitutional obligation--to provide for the men and women who are serving and defending this Nation. And for obscure reasons--perhaps the Democrats, my colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle, will come to the floor and explain why they would not go to a piece of legislation that protects this Nation and the men and women who serve it.

I am sure that in about 6 days--I believe it is--on November 11, Veterans Day, every one of my colleagues, like me, will go and be part of the celebration of the men and women who served and sacrificed.

What do you have to say about the men and women who are now serving? What you just did was to vote to not fund, train, equip, and defend these men and women, and without this, their lives are in greater danger. So don't go back and say that you are doing everything you can to defend this Nation. You are not.

Right now we have a very turbulent political situation in America. We have people who are now leading in the polls and perhaps have never held public office. The approval rating of Congress is at 12 percent or lower, and sometimes I hear some of my colleagues wonder why we are held in such low esteem. If we can't even fund the men and women in the military and take care of their needs, who in the world will we take care of?

I believe the Republican leader voted in a way so that we can reconsider the vote. We need to reconsider the vote. We need to vote, and we need to be on record that we have done our barest of duties--our fundamental duty as elected officials, which is to ensure the security of this Nation.

Right now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who voted not to move forward with this legislation have a lot of explaining to do on Veterans Day--a lot of explaining to do as to why they wouldn't take up the legislation that takes care of their change of station, their pay, their benefits, and takes care of their health care. It is all in this legislation, and yet my colleagues, for reasons which I do not understand, did not vote to take up this legislation.

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Where are your priorities? Where are they? Is it somehow to gridlock this legislation because you want a certain piece of legislation brought up instead of this one? Is it for some other obscure reason or is it because you don't give a damn?

This is an embarrassing time for me in this body, when we have enough Senators to prevent us from taking up what are our barest minimal requirements of our obligations, which are to provide for the defense of this Nation and the men and women who serve it. It is foolish, cynical, and dangerous to hold defense legislation hostage until every one of their political demands is met simply because of that.

Veterans Day is 1 week away. I urge my Democratic colleagues to stop treating our national defense as a tool for extracting political leverage. Let's return to the bipartisan tradition of providing for the common defense. That is what the men and women serving in the military deserve and require from us, it is what Americans expect from us, and it is what the Constitution demands of us.

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