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Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, well, just like a bad movie, Congress finds itself within days of a government shutdown threat. Of course, this isn't an accident. This is a choice made by the majority leader in particular because, rather than take up the appropriations bills, which is the most basic responsibility of the government--to try to keep the lights on and keep the functions of government operating--the majority leader has decided not to process bipartisan appropriations bills across the Senate floor.
And so here we are--portions of the Federal Government scheduled for a shutdown a week from tomorrow. This is not the first nor the second time we have found ourselves scrambling to avoid a shutdown in the past few months.
You know, I wonder what the American people, when they watch this, must be thinking. They must be thinking: These folks can't run a two- car funeral. This is the very picture of incompetence.
But the truth is, like I said, this is a choice. This marks the third time since the end of September that we have just been days away from the funding deadline without a plan in place. I personally find this embarrassing. And it is unnecessary drama because funding the government, as I said, is one of the most basic functions of the Congress. Congress has all year to prepare for the end of the fiscal year, which was the end of September. But here we are, 3\1/2\ months past the funding deadline, and not a single regular appropriations bill has been signed into law.
This is a sad state of affairs, but it is not a reflection on the work of our Senate Appropriations Committee. Under the leadership of Senator Murray and Senator Collins, the committee has passed all 12 bipartisan appropriations bills in June and July. That was last summer. Each bill received strong bipartisan support, and more than half of them passed unanimously.
Well, you might wonder, if the leading Democrat, the leading Republican, and the Appropriations Committee--composed of Republicans and Democrats--passed bipartisan bills last summer, why do we find ourselves days away from a potential government shutdown? The Appropriations Committee handed the majority leader, who manages the floor--he is the only one who can schedule bills for a vote--12 bipartisan funding bills on a silver platter. They put the Senate in the strongest possible position to return to regular order and pass, on time, bipartisan appropriations bills, but that is not what happened.
And you might wonder why--why in the world would the majority leader ignore the bipartisan work of the Appropriations Committee and put us in this posture? Well, there is an answer for that, and that is because this is about power. The majority leader wants the power to be able to shape these appropriations bills to deny rank-and-file Members an opportunity to participate in the process on the Appropriations Committee and on the floor and then present us with a fait accompli, saying: Vote for this; it is up or down. Either you shut down the government or you vote for this ominous appropriations bill--not an omnibus but an ominous appropriations bill.
Well, by the end of September, it was clear that there wasn't enough time to pass all 12 appropriations bills before the deadline. So we had to go to a stopgap bill. That set a new deadline of November 17. When that deadline came and went, Congress had to punt one more time, this time setting up two funding deadlines: one January 19, just about a week from today; and February 2, which is, perhaps ironically, Groundhog Day. That brings us to today, 8 days from the first deadline, and no closer to passing regular appropriations bills.
Well, more than 100 days have passed since the start of the new fiscal year, and the Senate has been in session 39 days. Let me say that again. Over 100 days have passed since the start of the current fiscal year, and, out of 100 days, the Senate has been in session 39 days. That amounts to working an average of 2\1/2\ days a week.
Again, the majority leader, Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, is the only one who can schedule the Senate. Rank-and-file Members have no power to do that.
But, frankly, I don't know any business in America where people can work roughly a third of the time and expect to receive a paycheck. And it is no surprise that, if you are only working a third of the time, you are not going to be able to get your work done.
How have we spent that time? Well, we know that the world is on fire, between Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, the border. The President has requested more than $100 billion in an emergency supplemental appropriation bill in order to fund those causes, those issues--it is very important--but the Senate hasn't even acted on that Presidential request, even though the House passed an Israel aid bill on November 2. It hasn't moved in the Senate. The majority leader hasn't made it a priority. As a matter of fact, he is waiting to bundle that, making our job a lot more complicated, to be honest. And so that remains undone.
We haven't passed a long-term reauthorization of a very important law called section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I think this is probably the most important law that nobody has heard of because it authorizes our intelligence community to collect necessary intelligence in order to keep our country safe.
We haven't reauthorized the Federal Aviation Administration. The news today is full of news of near misses and accidents occurring on airlines, and we haven't even taken up to debate or vote on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization.
And, as I said, we haven't taken action to address the border crisis, the fentanyl epidemic that killed 71,000 Americans last year alone, or other issues that are urgent issues.
Instead, the majority leader has focused almost all of the Senate's time, such as it is, on nominations. Well, to be clear, considering nominees is important work, but there is no world in which nominees should take priority over funding the government.
This entire saga could have been avoided if the majority leader had prioritized the appropriations process. It could have allowed this Chamber to start voting on individual funding bills over the summer as soon as they were approved by the Appropriations Committee. Instead, here we are, a week away from a partial government shutdown and 3 weeks away from a potential full government shutdown.
As he said, I can't imagine any line of work in any business, large or small, across America where you work 2\1/2\ days a week, you blow through your deadlines, and you ignore your most important work. This is insanity and no way to run a railroad, much less the U.S. Senate.
The majority leader had ample time and countless opportunities to move funding bills through regular order. Our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, gave him a long runway to land thoughtful and on-time appropriations. But, regrettably, he has prioritized virtually everything but that most basic responsibility, putting us in the embarrassing and unenviable position we find ourselves in today. I should say that I find this embarrassing, and I bet other colleagues do as well. I guess the majority leader doesn't find it embarrassing.
Again, this is purposeful because it maximizes his power to force through an end-of-the-year appropriations bill on an emergency basis that he basically gets to write. And, of course, it turns the rest of the Members of the Senate into virtual potted plants--spectators in the process rather than full participants.
Well, it looks like another continuing resolution is in the future. We have run out of time because of this intentional planning by the majority leader. And so we don't really have much alternative but a government shutdown, other than to pass another continuing resolution-- basically, kicking the can down the road.
Of course, the Senate is only half of the equation here. Our colleagues in the House are still weighing various options, and I am eager to see the route they choose.
The House has its own challenges, to be sure, but we ought to be leading by example. We ought to be passing bipartisan appropriations bills and sending them to the House. Then we can work out in a conference committee a compromise and send them to the President to keep the lights on, to keep the Border Patrol paid, to keep our commitments to our veterans, to pay our Active-Duty military and their families. That is what is at risk here, and it is completely avoidable.
Stopgap funding bills should not be the norm. They fail to provide government Agencies with the certainty they need to plan for the future. The Pentagon--the Defense Department--is the single largest discretionary appropriation that Congress passes every year. They can't plan for how to deal with the crisis in the Middle East or in the Indo- Pacific or in Ukraine or even at the border. If you are on a continuing resolution, they can't plan because they don't know what the future holds.
Well, the consequences of a continuing resolution or these stopgap, kick-the-can pieces of legislation are especially dire when it comes to our national defense and military readiness.
Despite the drawbacks of a stopgap funding bill, though, it is obviously better than a shutdown. I am not a fan of shutdowns. Nobody wins in a government shutdown because when you reopen the government, you are still staring in the face the same problems that caused you to shut down the government in the first place. Shutdowns penalize innocent people and hurt our economy. When the government shuts down, critical programs are paralyzed. Government services are put on hold, and millions of Federal workers are left without pay. Given the challenges we face, a shutdown would be a terrible mistake.
Mr. President, as is probably painfully obvious, I am extremely disappointed we find ourselves where we are today. Again, this is not an accident. This is not even negligent. This is intentional on the part of the majority leader. I think he bears responsibility for where we are today. I hope we can make some progress in the near future. But this is no way to run a railroad, much less the U.S. Congress or the business of the American people.
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