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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise to speak of the world's most deliberative body. Maybe we were. Maybe we have been. Maybe we can be again. But right now we are not.
This Chamber has spent exactly 0.0 minutes in the first 9\1/2\ months we have been here on appropriations bills--not a second. And, obviously, it leads to omnibuses; it leads to minibuses. This is a bus headed off a fiscal cliff, and we are at where we are at. But the Founders envisioned a place where two Senators from each State would come here, and you would have elongated, deliberative debate. What we see happening right now is more like scripted Kabuki theater.
You don't get to offer an amendment, unless we know exactly what the final outcome is going to be. For me, why not have open debate? Have people offer amendments. Debate these bills individually on their own merit.
I think the American people think that is actually what happens here. It is not. And when I go back home to Missouri and talk to people about the process here, it is like from a foreign land. It doesn't make any sense. It is not how State legislatures do it. But this vaulted arena of our Republic has been diminished by the fact that we can't have debate on individual appropriations bills.
We didn't have it, by the way, at the last deadline. We extended the deadline to November 17, which is exactly 30 days from now. And for anybody keeping score at home, that is 9 working days, according to the majority leader's calendar--9 working days.
We are going to end up at the exact same place. On top of that, now there is a supplemental funding request coming related to foreign aid. And my message on that would be the same. These disparate issues-- Israel, Ukraine, border, Taiwan--should be debated on their own merits.
There are different considerations. Israel has a lot of support right now. What is happening, the terrorism that has happened, been inflicted upon that country by Hamas and the people, the beheadings, people being burned alive, they have every right to defend themselves. We should consider that request when it comes. It is a very different dynamic when it comes to Ukraine.
We are $112 billion in. No one can define what victory looks like. Seemingly, each round that we get to one of these deadlines, there is more money being asked. It could be $100 billion next year. We don't really know.
These things being lumped together makes no sense. And when it comes to border security funding, color me skeptical of the Biden administration's desire to actually spend that money thwarting illegal immigration. This administration has been hostile to the whole idea. I speak from some experience. My previous job as attorney general of Missouri, we litigated with the Biden administration in court over the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, title 42, the money that had already been allocated to build a wall that he used for contractors to not build the wall.
This administration is not only complicit, they have encouraged a flood across our southern border. So we ought to have a debate on that on its own as well. And any of the other issues we want to try to lump in or bootstrap an idea that is losing popularity or a proposal that is losing popularity with one that might be popular is something we ought to reject in this Chamber. This is supposed to be the shining example, a unique American institution, a Senate that debates things in long form.
And I come back again. We have spent 0.0 minutes in this place debating the most important thing that we can do each and every year, which is to debate our priorities about funding--what we should increase, what we should decrease. And the result of that, quite frankly, are omnibuses that appear in the middle of the night, no time to read them, that add to our $33 trillion worth of debt. Take it or leave it. If you don't support it, you support a government shutdown.
I think people have had enough. So this is our opportunity. Let us spend the time. Let us be here more than 2 days a week. Let us actually get the work of the people done, debate these bills individually--on their own merit--and restore what this place should be, which is a deliberative body.
I yield back.
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