Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the fact that we are here on a Sunday indicates to me something is different about what we are about and, to me, speaks to a sense of urgency that we ought to have to complete our work before the Christmas holiday, and there are few things more pressing than our agenda today.

Government funding, as we know, is scheduled to expire at 12 midnight tonight, and unless we take action in the next few hours, our country will be thrown into another government shutdown. I hope every Member of this body can understand why this is simply not an option. I have heard some people talk about, well, it is not a real shutdown if it happens for just a few hours or a couple of days over the weekend, but I think the appearance is horrible and speaks to our not living up to our responsibility to do this on a timely basis and without any lapse in government funding. This is not the time to furlough hard-working public servants or send our various governmental Departments and Agencies into chaos.

We need to pass a funding bill that will provide stability for the remainder of the fiscal year, through the end of September next year, and give our government the ability to operate with certainty. All you have to do is talk to the leaders at the Pentagon, and they will tell you how chaotic and inefficient it is when Congress passes short-term continuing resolutions, which speaks to the importance of providing some certainty and predictability to the funding stream, but we know government funding is only one of the things left to do on our list.

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