Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I rise again in regret. The normal regular order of this body after both sides of the Capitol have agreed on a budget is to meet and that we have a proper process to instruct conferees to have a budget. A motion to appoint conferees to be bound by a requirement, no matter how worthy it is, is not the way the regular order functions in this body, and that is a fact.

For 4 years I sat here and beat up on the majority leader for his failure to bring a budget to the floor of this Senate. We brought a budget to the floor. We spent many hours on all kinds of amendments, and now we can't go to conference unless we agree not to raise the debt limit.

Does my colleague from Florida believe the House of Representatives, dominated by Republicans, is going to raise the debt limit? Does my colleague from Florida believe any conferees who are appointed, where we have to place certain restrictions on those conferees, that would apply to the other body as well? I don't think so.

I don't think that is the way this body is supposed to function. We are in a gridlock. Here we are, 4 years without a budget. We finally get a budget, we stay up all night, and because somebody doesn't want to raise the debt limit we are not going to go to conference. That is not how this body should function.

The American people deserve better. They deserve a budget. Every family in America has to live on a budget. Here we are objecting because there is a concern about raising the debt limit.

All I can say to my friend from Florida is that the American people don't like it, and I don't like it. Most of his colleagues and the Republicans in this Senate don't like it that we are blocking budget conferees from going forward and doing what conferees are supposed to do. I would imagine the majority leader will continue to raise this motion to move forward.

By the way, it is the regular order to have motions to instruct the conferees. A motion to instruct the conferees on the debt limit should be in order. A motion to instruct relative to taxes and revenue should be in order. That is the regular order to do it. It is not the regular order to demand certain conditions on the conferees. We instruct the conferees.

The conferees are appointed by both the majority and Republican leader, and we place our confidence in those conferees to reflect the will of the majority.

I have to say I am disappointed in the Senator from Florida, in his objection and his demand that we do something that is not in the regular order.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. McCAIN. I will yield to the Senator from Tennessee in just 1 second.

The Senator from Florida is saying, if he has an issue he feels strongly about, then that has to be included in any conference that is convened over any bill that is passed by the Senate, the House, and goes to conference. That is not a precedent I believe should be established in the Senate.

I think I share the concern of the Senator from Florida about the debt and the deficit. I will match my record against anybody's as far as trying to eliminate the debt and the deficit, including that of the Senator from Florida.

We are about to establish a precedent that if any conferees are appointed on bills that are passed by the House and the Senate, that we are free then to put certain restrictions on those conferees. If the Senator from Florida believes that is the right way this body should function, then I would suggest to him that most people would disagree with this kind of violation of the regular order.

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Mr. McCAIN. Isn't it a little bizarre, this whole exercise we are going through, when some of us are asking to go to conference with a body that is dominated by the Members of our own party? We don't have, apparently, enough confidence the majority of the conference appointed by the other side of the Capitol will be a majority of Republicans and not Democrats? Isn't that a little bizarre?

And really, what we are talking about here, I will be very honest with my colleague from Illinois, is a minority within a minority. Because the majority of my colleagues in the Senate on this side of the aisle, with motions to instruct the conferees, want to move forward and appoint these conferees and do what every American family has to do in America and that is to have a budget.

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Mr. McCAIN. I would ask my friend again, basically what we are saying here on this side of the aisle is that we don't trust our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol who are, in the majority, Republicans. I guess that is the lesson that can be learned here.

But far more importantly than that--far more importantly than that--in a recent poll I saw, 16 percent of the American people approve of Congress. When I go home and have townhall meetings and I say: You know what, my friends, we don't even have a budget. We can't even agree, Republicans and Democrats--Republicans and Republicans in this case--to have a budget, the same as every American family does. Does that contribute to the approval and the respect the people of this country have for us? The answer is obviously no.

So I urge my colleagues again, let's put some confidence in, if not the conferees appointed here, the conferees who will be appointed on the other side of the Capitol who are from our party, who are fiscal conservatives just as we are, instead of this blocking by what I assure my colleagues--all three of them here--is a minority of the minority of Republicans in the Senate who do not want to move forward with a budget that we spent so many hours and so much effort in achieving. Do not block it from going forward.

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