Making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1384, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, today, we are gathered once again to kick the can down the road. We are gathered to continue spending money, not individually in appropriations bills and not with any real accountability for the money that is being spent but just to keep spending. But at the rate we are spending the money, we have accumulated a $34 trillion debt. We are accumulating debt at about $1 trillion every 3 months.

If you look at how we spend the money, about two-thirds of the money is spent on mandatory programs, and there are no votes on mandatory programs. They are on autopilot, growing at about 5 to 6 percent a year, but they consume two-thirds of the spending. So when we come before you and they say, ``We are going to vote on a budget; we are going to vote on spending,'' we are actually voting on only about 28 percent of the budget. That is called discretionary spending. About half of that is military, and half of it is nonmilitary.

Amongst that, they have this great agreement they came to. In the military, they decided we are going to increase the military by 3 percent. So this big chunk over here that is mandatory--we are not going to vote on it--is going up about 5 or 6 percent. Then we are going to vote on discretionary, but half of that is going up at 3 percent.

So, really, we are looking at about 14 percent of the budget and saying: Oh, we are going to try to do something.

You can eliminate the 14 percent of the budget, and it doesn't do anything to the debt. In fact, the debt equals the entire discretionary spending.

So when we vote on whether it is $1.5 trillion or $1.6 trillion or $1.7 trillion, it is all borrowed. The taxes that you pay essentially pay only for the entitlement programs. Everything else is borrowed. Why is that a big deal? Why does it make a big difference to the average American? Because that is why your grocery prices go up. That is why your gas goes up. It is why people can't afford houses and why interest rates are high. Why? Because the Federal Reserve buys your debt, prints money, and your dollars become worth less and less. That is what inflation is.

We are just days into the new year, and the Treasury Department has announced that the debt has surpassed $34 trillion. The situation is only getting worse. We are spending money and borrowing at about $1 trillion every 90 days. You know, I can remember before, you know, back in the eighties, when we were in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Now we are adding $1 trillion in 90 days. If that pace continues, that will amount to a mind-boggling $4 trillion added to the debt every single year. We are spending ourselves into oblivion.

Since last fall, the United States has been borrowing over $5 billion every day, over $220 million an hour, nearly $4 million every minute, and over $62,000 a second. This is literally out of control. We are destroying the dollar. We are creating inflation in borrowing $62,000 a second. Your family's share of the cost of that borrowing amounts to about $15,000 a year.

Our Nation's greatest threat comes not from abroad but from the Halls of Congress, which at every opportunity look for ways to ignore our spending problem and expedite our economic decline. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion a year in debt every year for the next decade. That is another $20 trillion in debt. Do you see the debt climbing? Thirty-three? Thirty-four? We are going to be up in the fifties in 10 years. Within a decade, we are going to go from $34 trillion to $50-some-odd trillion. It is literally out of control.

The real-world consequences are that home prices are doubling, interest rates are rising, grocery prices are rising, and gas prices are rising. It is not a mystery. Prices don't rise; the value of the dollar declines. The value of the dollar declines because the Federal Reserve prints up the money to buy the debt.

This isn't rocket science, but you will often watch the evening news, and they will go ``Oh my goodness, the mystery of inflation'' or ``It is going to be transitory.'' Nobody is addressing the root cause. The root cause is Congress. Congress creates the inflation by running massive deficits.

This reckless level of borrowing and spending is unsustainable. The ever-increasing heights of our debt mean a weak economy, high inflation, and confiscatory tax rates. In other words, today's spending threatens tomorrow's prosperity.

It should come as no surprise that our financial institutions are beginning to sound the alarm. JPMorgan described our $34 trillion debt as a ``boiling frog'' phenomenon for the economy and expects a debt- related recession in the next year or two. Moody's recently slashed its rating outlook on the United States' sovereign debt. There will come a time when other countries will refuse to buy our debt. There will come a time when the Federal Reserve buys all of the debt, and the destruction of the currency will become pervasive.

It seems that the whole world can see this coming, the warning signs. Everyone can see it except for those Members of Congress who are so deluded by always giving everybody everything they want--free money for all. It is only a matter of time before the world wakes up and refuses to buy our debt.

We are approaching the most predictable economic crisis the United States has ever faced. That is why I am back on the floor today and drawing attention to our out-of-control spending. Americans are starved for a voice of fiscal sanity. Americans understand better than our Nation's elite that time is running out. Americans will pay dearly for Congress's inability to say no to every cause, every line item, and every pinstriped lobbyist. We will pay more to Uncle Sam in the form of taxes. We will pay more for our groceries. We will pay more for our homes. We will suffer higher interest rates. And we will find a generation of kids who won't be able to leave their parents' homes because businesses can't afford to hire them.

But it doesn't have to be this way. America can once again be a rising nation. We can take that first step to a bright future today. I filed an amendment to this bill that would make across-the-board spending reductions, not just rightwing spending reductions or leftwing spending reductions--everything.

You know, if we were to spend money at about 95 percent of what we spent last year, we could balance the budget within 5 years. It would still take 5 years. You would tell people at home that that is what we ought to do--just spend 95 percent of what we spent before. Even if it is for good causes, we just can't do it forever. Most people would say: Well, yes, that sounds reasonable. We are not going to eliminate government; we are just going to spend 95 percent of what we spent last year.

My amendment would cut spending. My amendment would put us on the right course toward balancing our budget.

Some critics will say: But where could we cut? Where could we possibly cut spending?

Well, every year, we celebrate Festivus in our office. We have an airing of grievances, and we talk about waste. Last year, right before Christmas, we presented $900 billion worth of waste, and I will give you a couple of the highlights.

This is from USAID. This is State Department spending, foreign aid spending. We spent $6 million to boost tourism in Egypt. Does anybody think we don't have enough problems here at home that we should spend $6 million in Egypt in promoting their tourism?

I am sure a lot of people will think this one is really worthwhile. The Defense Department spent $8,000 in acquiring a lobster tank. I guess some general needed a lobster tank for his office. I have no idea why they would be spending $8,000 on a lobster tank.

During COVID, we passed out money like there was no tomorrow. They couldn't print it fast enough for the government to send it out during COVID. There was $200 billion that was found to have been sent to the wrong people or to have been illegally gained through the COVID money.

One of our favorites was a guy showing up, printing out his ID, and the ID was actually a Barbie doll face. He took a picture of a toy, put it on an ID, digitalized it, sent it in for his money, and he got some.

One of the other ones that really, I think, gets my gall, gets me up, is we gave money to a thousand dead people. We gave $1 billion to a thousand dead people. When I came to the floor to complain about it, there was opposition. We wanted to unanimously pass a bill allowing the COVID money-givers to look at the Social Security death notices, to cross-match with Social Security death notices to make sure we didn't send checks to dead people. There was an objection. A Senator hurried to the floor, and his objection was that it would violate the privacy of the dead people.

I kind of think the dead people's privacy is pretty much over at that point. I also think it is a terrible government policy and makes government look ludicrous at all levels to send a thousand dead people $1 billion.

I tried to get it fixed in legislation. There was opposition. Nancy Pelosi pulled it out of a bill that passed that I had it in. They finally did pass something. They said: Well, we can't go backward. We can't get the money back from the dead people. But we will try to do better in the future, not giving money to dead people. And what did we discover in the last year? There was still $38 million--not quite a billion, but there was still $38 million handed out to dead people.

Throughout all of this COVID waste, both parties got going. They were giving money to everybody. Every restaurant, every arena, every movie theater was getting money. The money would run out so fast that sometimes they would put up like $45 billion, and in 2 days the money would be gone: Oh, no, it is gone. We want to extend it. We need to give them another $45 billion.

Guess what. If you give people free money, they will take it. Even people who say they are conservative and say the government is having problems, free money will be accepted.

But it is not free. The free money that was given out--the supposedly free money--caused the inflation. It is still causing the inflation. Nothing in life is really free. The Fed bought it; the Fed created money to do it; and that is where your inflation comes from. And it is not over because we bought so much stuff. We gave away trillions of dollars.

Throughout my time in the Senate, I have tried, time and again, to offer budget plans that would stem the tide, that would balance our budget. This amendment won't get a vote today, but we will have a vote on whether to continue things, whether or not to kick the can down the road and just keep spending money. But realize for those who vote to keep spending money at this level, they are voting for about a $1.5 to $1.6 trillion debt, which may well be approaching $2 trillion as this goes on. It is unsustainable, and those who vote to continue government spending at this level are responsible for the consequences, responsible for the inflation, responsible for the high home prices, and responsible for the high interest rates.

I will, today, offer an amendment to have more scrutiny on foreign aid.

Earlier this week, there was a vote to have scrutiny on the aid given to one of our allies, and I voted for that because I believe friend or foe, whoever is getting American money, there always should be conditions; there always should be catches. We should always ask: What are you doing with our money? We should ask that it is being used honestly.

I have harangued for over 2 years now that the money sent to Ukraine ought to have an inspector general looking just at that money.

In Afghanistan, we had a special inspector general. I have tried several times on the floor, and we haven't been able to get a special inspector general for Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

It is often said, though, that American foreign aid is to project American power and values. Unfortunately, year after year, decade after decade, the only thing consistent about American foreign aid is that the money continues to flow regardless of the behavior of the recipients.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. Government took over $43 billion of American tax money and gave it away, sent it as welfare to other nations. Did the government send that money to our friends? Sometimes. But sometimes your tax dollars go to countries better described as frenemies. And often, U.S. foreign aid actually goes to countries best described as authoritarian dictatorships.

The idea that we are actually looking to see if our values are being embedded or allowed or exemplified or made to show up in the countries that receive this just doesn't exist.

In 2022, the United States sent $1\1/2\ billion to Egypt, but Egypt is a tyrannical nightmare. The State Department acknowledges that President Elsisi--and I use the word ``President'' loosely because he took over in a military coup--that he effectively has turned the country into a prison where security forces routinely engage in extrajudicial killings, torture, as well as harsh crackdowns on anyone who wishes to practice the right to freedom of speech.

This is a regime that detains journalists for the crime of reporting, has tortured 14-year-olds for the crime of participating in public demonstration. Is this what America stands for? Are these the American values that we are pushing out on the world by sending over $1 billion to Egypt?

Over the last 30 years, I think we have sent close to $60 billion to Egypt. It is just a coincidence maybe, but the Mubarak family who ran Egypt for more than 15 years ended up being worth personally somewhere between $15 and $20 billion. That is called the big skim. Your tax dollars are sent to foreign countries. They are sent to dictatorships. And guess what, the tin-pot dictator takes their skim off the top. It always happens--I could give you a thousand examples--and we never change.

People freak out and say: Are you going to put conditions on foreign aid? They would have to behave or have elections or not persecute their people or not hoist up a 14-year-old by his arms and electrocute him.

That is the kind of stuff that is happening in Egypt. Yet our money goes on and on. If I propose that there are conditions--oh, we can't have conditions. America just must be generous. We don't care what they do with the money. And if we don't do it, somebody else will. The Russians will or the Chinese will. We have to give away our money or somebody else will give them money.

Our values be damned. We don't care. We look the other way, and the majority here--not me but the majority here--votes to continue foreign aid everywhere all the time without conditions.

Today, I offer an amendment where there will be conditions. Today's amendment will have conditions on aid to the Palestinians.

You would think with the massacre and everything else, why would we be giving any money to the Palestinians? But it will be interesting because I think probably the vast majority here will invoke today to continue to give

money to the Palestinians. But really shouldn't they have to do something to earn the money? Shouldn't they have to at least say we believe Israel has a right to exist or that the massacre on October 7 was a bad thing? If they can't say that, should they get any of our money?

We need to know what America stands for. Why should we reward governments that have terrible human rights records?

If foreign aid is to project American values, then we should write those values into the law. Let's say you only get the foreign aid if you actually are exemplifying American values.

We have made such attempts in the past. For example, we have laws on the books named after Senator Patrick Leahy that prohibit U.S. assistance to countries where there is credible information that gross violations of human rights have been committed.

But if our government strictly adhered to the Leahy law, it would insist that recipients abandon their despotic ways before they can receive American money. If our government actually enforced the Leahy law, which is well-intended and I support, foreign aid to Egypt would have ended years ago.

There is always a loophole. There is always a Presidential waiver, and they always use it. The only thing for certain that never changes is your money will be sent to these foreign countries; there will be no accountability; the deficit will rise; but, by golly, the money gets shoveled out the door every year. There doesn't seem to be a concern for what it is doing to Americans, what it is doing to our dollar and to our economy.

Unfortunately, the government always has a way around the rules. They are incredibly effective at circumventing the Leahy laws, and so your money still flows around the globe regardless of the behavior of the recipients.

It may surprise many Americans to learn that we have provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority over the years. In 2023 alone, we spent over $280 million in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1993, the United States has provided more than $7.6 billion in assistance to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I say not one penny more--not one penny more--of foreign aid to countries unwilling to renounce violence.

All American aid should be conditioned on recipients' practice of protecting basic human rights. I voted this way recently for one of our best allies, Israel. Their aid should be conditioned as well, not because I dislike Israel but because all foreign aid should be conditioned on how it is spent. It is our money. It should be conditioned on human rights.

It should not be too much to ask that the recipients of American aid renounce terrorism and cease trying to destroy Israel. Is that too much to ask? Are you willing to keep giving money to the Palestinian Authority that will not and has not renounced and condemned the massacre of October 7?

After these attacks, this principle is even more relevant. The atrocities committed just over 100 days ago resulted in the killing of over 1,200 innocent men, women, and children, 250 people taken hostage. At least 33 Americans were killed, and at least 6 remain unaccounted for and are presumed taken captive by Hamas. That kind of barbarism cannot and should not be rewarded with American dollars.

How can we continue to allow the flow of money to groups that call for the destruction of Israel? How can we continue to allow taxpayer dollars to go to the very entities that lob rockets toward civilians in Israel? How can we reward the slaughter of innocent people?

The old ways of doing business have not brought peace to the region. We have not bought peace. We don't buy off and somehow create peace, and there is, all of a sudden, peace because of the $7.6 billion we have given to the Palestinians.

They won't recognize Israel. They won't condemn the violence. They won't even condemn the massacre where 1,200 were killed October 7.

The time has come for the United States to mean what it says in the defense of human rights. This is why I offer an amendment to the spending bill today. That should be something every Senator can support.

The amendment would end American aid to governing entities in Gaza and the West Bank unless they, among other things, recognize Israel's right to exist, pledge to renounce terrorism and the October 7 massacre, terminate funding to anti-American and anti-Israeli enticement, as well as release all of the hostages abducted on October 7.

Additionally, my amendment requires that the Secretary of State report on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority's compliance with U.S. foreign assistance laws and any use of funds received from the United States that could have been involved with committing these atrocities.

American resources should always promote American security interests and values, and any recipient of our tax dollars should be more than willing to adopt the principles that recognize the liberty and dignity of the individual. But we cannot expect the recipient of aid to change their behavior if America does not demand it.

We speak of human rights but reward those who violate them. We can no longer afford empty rhetoric. It makes no sense to borrow money from China and turn around and give that money away to foreign countries. It is fiscally irresponsible, and it is weakening our national security.

America must demand a change, a change in behavior from those who do not accept Israel's right to exist, from those who actively seek the destruction of the State of Israel and murder innocent Israelis. To that end, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on my amendment that will end aid to Palestinian Authority.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate Religious Freedom Day, recognized by Presidential proclamation since 1993. The day is timed to honor the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786. This statute became the basis of the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom for all Americans.

I was inspired to offer these thoughts by the moving address on anti- Semitism delivered in this Chamber by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer a few weeks ago. His powerful comments addressed the fears felt today by so many Jewish Americans, the connection between those fears and the tragic global history of anti-Semitism, and how Americans can come together to reject religious bigotry against Jews.

As a person who takes my own Catholic faith seriously, it is important to listen to those who feel discriminated against due to their religion. During our history, Catholics have often been targeted by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. I am fortunate to say that I have never faced anti-Catholic bigotry, but those who haven't faced religious discrimination need to be sensitive to the real fears of those who face it every day. All of us are God's children--brothers and sisters meant to dwell together in unity.

The final part of Senator Schumer's address regarding what we can do as Americans to reject anti-Semitism or any discrimination based on religious beliefs reminded me of the principles imbedded in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and I am convinced that part of the solution to the rise in anti-Semitism is to go back to first principles and remind ourselves of the values that we have long proclaimed as Americans.

The Virginia statute was first drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777. Its purpose was simple and powerful--to declare that a person could freely choose whether and how to worship and would neither be preferred nor punished for that choice. This was at stark odds with prevailing English practice, in which the Church of England was the state- sponsored church, and other Christian sects and non-Christian religions were discouraged, punished, or outlawed. Official discrimination against Jews in English law persisted well into the 19th century, and life in the American Colonies of England before the Revolutionary War showed the continuation of this preferential treatment for certain religious practices over others.

The operative clause of the Virginia statute is as follows:

[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any

religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall

be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body

or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his

religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free

to protest, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in

matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise

diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

We complain that things move slowly in the U.S. Senate. This is not a new complaint about legislative bodies. It took 9 years for the Virginia General Assembly to take up and pass Jefferson's statute, and the State legislative leader who finally gained passage of the measure was Madison. Madison witnessed discrimination against Baptist ministers in Virginia by those associated with the Church of England, and he believed deeply that religious liberty needed protection.

The Virginia General Assembly passed the statute on January 16, 1786, in a building at the corner of 14th and East Cary Streets in downtown Richmond, a few blocks from where I live. Today, that site is a small museum, the First Freedom Center, highlighting the idea of religious freedom and how it became a bedrock principle of American law.

Madison was soon charged with drafting the Bill of Rights to the American Constitution. He used the Virginia statute as the basis for the religious protections of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The statute also informed article VI, clause 3 of the Constitution:

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a

Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United

States.

These provisions demonstrate a powerful intent to form an America where all can worship as they please without fear. The meaning of these clauses was well understood at the time.

Early in his first term as President, George Washington corresponded with the Jewish community of Newport, RI. In his beautiful letter from August 1790--he had been President a little bit over a year--he described an America that was not merely tolerant of religious pluralism but where all could equally claim the blessings of citizenship. Here is what he wrote:

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of

citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of,

as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that

another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural

rights. For happily, the Government of the United States,

which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no

assistance, requires only that they who live under its

protection should demean themselves as good citizens.

He concluded with a wish specifically directed at American Jews:

May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this

land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of other

inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his

own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him

afraid.

``[A]nd there shall be none to make him afraid.'' This is our birthright as Americans. Those of us who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States have pledged to act in way to make these words real. We have to guard, protect, and celebrate--not merely tolerate--a society where people of different religious faiths can live in the same neighborhoods, attend the same schools, work side by side, and do so as friends.

When we live up to this promise, it is not only for the benefit of those living here. There are many places in the world where this protection of religious freedom is nonexistent, barely possible to even imagine. Yet, if people around the world can see America as a place where people of different faiths live together in respect, equality, and friendship, they can at least believe in that as a possibility for their own societies.

We need a recommittal to the first freedom--religious liberty.

While comprehensive statistics on religiously motivated harassment are not complete, there is a disturbing spike in anti-Semitism as well as harassment directed at Muslims or people of Arab descent, who are targeted either for religious or ethnic reasons. We have seen Jewish students harassed on campuses in recent months, following upon horrific violence directed against Jews in Charlottesville in 2017 and Pittsburgh in 2018. We have seen the bigotry-fueled murder of a 6-year- old Muslim boy in Illinois and the heartless shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington--Mr. President, the State you represent--just within the last few months.

One troubling form of discrimination is targeting Americans for events occurring elsewhere in the world. In Williamsburg, VA, just a few weeks ago, a Jewish group was denied the ability to display a menorah at a local festival because organizers claimed that they didn't ``want to make it seem like we're choosing a side'' in the ongoing war in Gaza. American Jews celebrating Hanukkah here should not be blocked from a celebration of the season because of a war thousands of miles away. Arab and Muslim Americans have long faced fear and discrimination because of the ignorant assumption that the horrific actions of extremists in the Middle East, operating on the margins of society, somehow reflect the views of an entire faith or community.

That we have strong and diverse views about events happening around the world is natural. Events in the Middle East have long caused heartbreak, and the current war in Israel-Gaza is tragic. But events elsewhere give no cause for bigotry or violence against fellow Americans.

Organizations monitoring hate crimes have seen significant spikes in attacks on American Jews and American Muslims and Arabs since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. At the very time when we should be showing the world that there is a different way, that religious pluralism can actually work, we are seeing tears in the social fabric we have worked so hard for so long to stitch together.

While religious bigotry can affect any group, recent statistics indicate that the most frequent targets in America today are Jews. Jews make up only 2.4 percent of the American population, but statistics in recent years have shown that the overwhelming majority of hate crimes committed out of religious animus--nearly 60 percent--are driven by anti-Semitism. Instances of anti-Semitism between October 7 and January 7 increased by 360 percent over the same period a year ago. We also see rising anti-Semitism around the world. And increasing anti-Semitism is often an early warning sign of the fragility of a democracy.

My conversations in recent months with Jewish friends and acquaintances have been saddening. Some are worried about their own safety and, even more painfully, the safety of their children and grandchildren. Some even wonder whether they might need to leave this country one day, just as Jews have been forced out of many other countries over time due to bigotry.

One expressed to me the powerful feeling of wanting to belong to the American family, to be truly welcomed and safe after a history of global anti-Semitism but now feeling pushed aside. He recounted standing up for so many excluded groups over the course of his life but sadly wondered why more are not standing up for Jews now.

Another friend recounted growing up in a mixed household with a Jewish father who would often say, ``The world has always hated Jews, and you think you are accepted here? You'll learn different one day.'' She told me that she and her siblings would roll their eyes at their dad when he would say this when they were kids. Now she says, ``For the first time in my life, I begin to understand what he meant.''

A third friend told me something that really shocked me. Some family members are deciding to remove the mezuzahs placed on the doors of their homes. A mezuzah is a small cylinder with a sacred Hebrew text inside, placed on the door of a home and sometimes on interior doors as well, to provide a blessing and protection to those within. My friend told me that it is an obvious--perhaps too obvious--sign that it is a Jewish household. So while this tradition dates back centuries, people are tempted to avoid it just out of fear that the presence of a mezuzah may lead them to be targeted for discrimination.

I researched this a bit and found that my friend's fear was well- founded. There are many examples of people facing harassment or having their homes vandalized merely because of their mezuzah. In 2022, for example, Jewish students at the University of Indiana found that their mezuzahs were being stolen or defaced. This instance followed others on or near the campus in which swastikas and other anti-Semitic phrases appeared.

Senator Schumer laid out the prevalence of anti-Semitism throughout global history. We have never been immune to it here even as we profess the freedom of each person to worship as they choose. So how should we deal with this blight on our values and recommit to respecting the religious beliefs of each person?

First, let's take pride in our tradition of religious freedom and celebrate it today and every day. It has made our society rich in faith traditions. By being authentically who we are, we can educate each other about religious beliefs and grow deeper in our own spiritual understanding.

I am a better Christian because of things that I have learned from friends who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and from those who have deep ethical and spiritual grounding, though not expressed as religious faith at all. And I hope that living my own Christianity may have a positive influence on others' spiritual beliefs as well.

Second, let's get better at tracking hate crimes and other forms of discrimination committed on the basis of religion. We passed the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act. Heather Heyer was the very, very remarkable young woman who was killed by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017. I was proud to cosponsor that bill. We passed it in 2021 to provide training and implementation grants to

help law enforcement agencies report and respond to hate crimes.

This will solve gaps in reporting. Eighty percent of law enforcement agencies participating in national crime databases reported no hate crimes between 1996 and 2020. This is likely a serious underreporting problem rather than an indication that hate crimes don't happen. Better measurement alone will not solve the problem, but the failure to accurately measure religious discrimination renders improvement very difficult.

Third, let's commit to increasing education about religious discrimination throughout our history and the reasons why America embraced the guarantee of religious freedom as our Nation was founded. I am gratified, for example, that Virginia has made education about the Holocaust an important part of our social studies curriculum. In a recent hearing on anti-Semitism before the HELP Committee, a key fact that emerged was just how poorly informed many are about this topic. And the plethora of misinformation spread by irresponsible social media platforms makes the need for better education even more urgent.

If we just count on the criminal justice system to deal with this topic, we will never be successful. We need to inculcate a curiosity about spirituality and a love for religious pluralism in our young people. This is not about indoctrination; it is about respect.

Fourth, let's embrace a whole-of-government response to anti-Semitism by working to implement the recommendations contained in the ``U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism'' announced by the Biden administration in June 2023. This comprehensive approach is built around four key pillars: education, safety, fighting the normalization of anti-Semitic words and actions, and building solidarity. It can be a model for similar work at the State and local levels. We can do more in Congress and in communities across America to make this strategy visible and meaningful.

Finally, there are acts that we can each take as individuals to show we respect the religious beliefs of all. There have been powerful examples throughout history of actions of solidarity against anti- Semitism.

I am pleased to partner with my Republican colleague Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee to recognize forgotten heroes of the Holocaust with the Congressional Gold Medal. These were diplomats from over two dozen countries who took grave personal risks to help Jews escape Nazi- occupied Europe. Their actions show us the power of an individual to be a light in the darkness, to say: I am not Jewish, but I see what is happening to Jews, and I will do what I can to help.

When students at the University of Indiana confronted anti-Semitism on campus in 2022, they came up with a novel solution. Noting that the desecration of mezuzahs made Jewish students afraid to display them, a campus organization produced and then distributed mezuzahs across the campus to Jewish students and non-Jewish students alike. They reasoned that a massive display of mezuzahs on the community's doors would send a message of solidarity and render it less likely that a Jewish student would fear being targeted for bigotry.

I will follow the creative idea of the Indiana students by installing a mezuzah at the entrance to my home. I want to send a message to Jews and all people that they will always be welcome. I won't put Hebrew Scripture inside of the mezuzah because I don't feel that, as a Catholic, I should appropriate that particular religious tradition, but I will put these words on a small message inside: ``None shall be afraid''--echoing the letter George Washington wrote more 230 years ago. That message applies not just to American Jews but to all who seek to live in harmony with others of diverse spiritual views.

I encourage others to follow the inspiration of these young people. Find a mezuzah at a local synagogue or Judaica shop and install it on the door of your home. Place within it a message of hope and acceptance--Washington's words or the First Amendment or another message meaningful to you. Or take other steps to demonstrate that you celebrate our religious freedom and offer welcome to all. Stand together with those of all spiritual traditions against forces that would divide or harm us. By doing so, let's move closer to the ideal that America professed at our founding.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I do rise in opposition to the legislation that was just sent to the United States House of Representatives from the United States Senate.

I just spent a good deal of time going around the country, traveling to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Madam Speaker, you might imagine why.

I spoke to thousands of Americans. Not one American said: Please, Congressman Roy, add more money to the debt. Please, Congressman Roy, keep spending money we don't have. Keep deficit spending every year, bankrupting our kids and grandkids.

Nonetheless, that is precisely what we are doing yet again, kicking the can down the road. That is what we do. It is what we do best in this Chamber. It is what we do best in Congress. It is why the American people are so frustrated with this town and with the swamp because it is a swamp that is entirely not drained.

We are sitting here doing the same thing again. It is Groundhog Day in the House Chamber all the time, every day, yet again spending money we don't have.

Last year, an agreement was reached with spending levels and caps. Now, I didn't particularly love those levels

and caps. A number of us didn't. There were supposedly some side deals.

Madam Speaker, does that sound swampy? Side deals. What was written into the law? What was written into the law was a level that was somewhere around a 1 percent reduction over last year's enormously bloated omnibus spending level, a 1 percent cut.

Can this body possibly adhere to those caps? No. We can't do that.

Last year, we tried to fix this place. We tried to do appropriations bills. We passed 10 appropriations bills out of the committee and 7 appropriations bills off the floor. We tried to restore regular order. We had about 1,100 amendments. We tried to process those so the American people could see their Chamber working again.

Nevertheless, what happened? Everything reverts back to the mean in this town, the same old story because a side deal is cut. We have to spend at a higher level, you see, Madam Speaker, and that is what is going on back and forth between the Senate and the House.

The American people need to understand what is happening. This continuing resolution will fund their government at the same level as last year's massive omnibus spending bill that all of my Republican colleagues, all of them with the exception of two in this Chamber, were adamantly opposed to, voted against, spoke out against, put press releases out against, and campaigned against, and they are going to vote for it.

Right now, they are going to vote to continue to spend at that level. Not only that, they are going to vote to continue to fund the radical progressive policies embedded in it, continue to fund the bureaucracy that is at war with the American people, continue to fund open borders, and continue to fund Alejandro Mayorkas even as we attempt to impeach him in the Homeland Security Committee.

We are going to fund him. We are going to fund those open borders. We are going to fund the United Nations. We are going to fund the World Health Organization. We are going to fund UNRWA to give money to the Palestinians to give to Hamas.

We are going to campaign against those things, but we are going to fund them.

My Democratic colleagues want to hide behind side deals rather than adhere to the agreed-upon caps that would at least modestly reduce spending by 1 percent.

That is what is happening in this Chamber, and we are going to do this CR in order to buy time to cut a deal that will increase spending, that will increase spending past the caps in order to honor side deals and to actually increase the funding for a Federal Government that is at war with the people whom I represent.

That is shameful. Under no circumstances should we vote for that. Under no circumstances is this something that we should be supporting. We should stay here and do our work, but, instead, people said: Why can't you give the time back, Congressman Roy, so we can go catch our planes before the snowstorm gets in?

I am sorry. I think maybe we should stay here and do our job and actually find a way to cut spending like we campaign on over and over again.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Crane).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for his comments.

I would note that, in this bill, we will be voting to fund, as I said, a Department of Homeland Security responsible for the border crisis with wide-open borders and continued funding for the CBP One app being used to use parole abusively to flood the zone into Texas where Texas is having to spend $12.5 billion doing the job of the Federal Government.

We will fund the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, which lost track of 85,000 migrant children, and the Environmental Protection Agency's electric vehicle mandate to make two-thirds of new cars EVs by 2032, destroying our economy and piling up EVs on the lots of car dealerships around the country. We will fund the EPA's natural gas and methane rule, destroying access to reliable energy. We will fund the EPA's power plant rules aimed at knocking off coal and natural gas power plants, making us wholly dependent on wind and sun for energy, the unreliable energy that it is.

We will fund the IRS doling out billions in IRA tax credits to corporations, many of them billion-dollar corporations.

We will fund the World Health Organization undermining our own sovereignty and cozying up to the CCP.

We will fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, which supports Hamas over our ally Israel. Even as we go out and give lip service to supporting Israel, we will be voting to fund their enemies right now, today, on the floor of the House.

We will fund the pro-China, anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council.

We will fund a weaponized Department of Justice and FBI going after parents like Scott Smith and Mark Houck.

I have more.

That is what we are doing. We are voting to fund a Federal bureaucracy that is at war with the American people while we indebt our children for generations.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, there are other things that we are funding that we shouldn't: The ATF rule banning up to 40 million pistol braces; the ATF rule massively expanding background checks without the consent of Congress; the Department of Education's student debt cancellation schemes, despite the Supreme Court ruling against them; public health agencies like the CDC, the NIH, and FSA held unaccountable for COVID tyranny, enforcing masks and vaccines upon our children; the Department of Veterans Affairs vaccine mandate, which I have introduced legislation to get rid of; the chief diversity officers at the Department of Defense and throughout government, indoctrinating people, pushing out a radical, leftist agenda with critical race theory and DEI; the Pentagon's abortion travel fund; the FDA's rule allowing abortion drugs to be shipped by mail; taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries at the Department of Defense.

We are funding all of that with taxpayer money and borrowed money. We are indebting our kids and our grandkids to fund the bureaucrats that are undermining the freedom of the American people, preventing them from being able to prosper, according to the rights given to them by the Almighty because this government is failing to do its job, and worse, is interfering with their God-given rights to do what they want to do for their families.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The American people are tired of getting a complete lack of representation from their Representatives. Nobody in this country looks at Congress and says: Wow. Heck of a job, guys and gals. Well done.

Who would do that? Would we do that?

By the way, it does not matter who is sitting in the Speaker's seat or who has got the majority. We keep doing the same stupid stuff.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no problem with wide-open borders endangering the people that I represent. None. My constituents are the ones left holding the bag, and the people of Texas are the ones left spending $12.5 billion. My people are the ones who have had six kids die from fentanyl poisoning in the school district that I represent.

It is not fun to smirk at that, is it? We are talking about dead children from fentanyl poisoning because of wide-open borders because of the policies of my Democrat colleagues who refuse to do anything about it. My colleagues won't do anything about the

wide-open borders. I will continue to speak to my colleagues.

Madam Speaker, I am addressing my comments to the Chair. I am addressing the Chair on behalf of the people that I represent who are dying in Texas because of Democrats, directly because of Democrat policies. They can shake their heads all they want, but the blood of the people in Texas is on their hands.

My colleagues flippantly dismiss the fact that people in Texas are dying because of their policies, and the migrants that they pretend to care about are dying because of their policies. Then they lie and say that Texas is responsible for migrants who die in the Rio Grande River when their own Department of Justice offers the truth, which is, those migrants died in the river and were pulled out by Mexican authorities before Border Patrol was ever contacted.

The Democrats have no problem lying to the American people just like Alejandro Mayorkas lied to the American people about Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian migrants.

It is something that happens over and over and over again, but the question for my colleagues on this side of the aisle is: What are we going to do about it? Are we going to keep writing them a blank check? Are we going to keep saying: Here is more money, Secretary Mayorkas? Leave us exposed. Leave people dying. Leave children dying from fentanyl. Migrants are dying in the Rio Grande, so we can go out and campaign on border security.

Why don't we do something about it?

Here we are, again. Catch your flights. Get on out of Washington, D.C., before the snowstorm comes in, but give them all the money in the world they need to endanger the people that we represent.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, everybody in this country expects us to do our job, and yet, we continually fail to do it.

We continue to spend money we don't have, undermining our own national security, and our own well-being, funding a bureaucracy that is at war with the people that we represent.

At some point, we ought to actually do what we campaign on. At some point, on both sides of the aisle, we should actually recognize that the American people expected a republic for the Representatives that they send to the United States House of Representatives to actually represent them.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I want to speak a few minutes on the business before the Senate here. Apparently, S. Res. 504 will be taken up in about an hour or so. And this resolution basically requires the Secretary of State to submit a report to the Foreign Relations Committees of the House and Senate regarding human rights practices and violations against the State of Israel regarding their operations in Gaza.

I can only imagine how this is playing in the Middle East. I can only imagine the joy that terrorist groups throughout the world have that we are even talking about such a proposal.

The question, I think, for this body--certainly, for me--is, what was October 7? Was it just a continuation of a tit for tat between Israel and Hamas, or was it an effort by Hamas--a terrorist organization under United States law--an effort to kill innocent civilians in Israel at a rate we haven't seen since the Holocaust?

I just got back. I would urge everybody in the body to go over there and take some time to visit the kibbutz--the kibbutzes in question, where Hamas came en masse, took over kibbutzes, cut the heads of children off, slaughtered people in front of their parents and their children, committed atrocities on par with the Nazis, if not beyond, and recorded them for posterity. So the response is, the U.S. Senate is going to ask for a report about how Israel is conducting military operations. Wow.

Again, to the terrorists who are emboldened, maybe, by this discussion--this is going to go down in flames. The Senate is going to reject this big time. And here's why: I think most people--at least on my side--see October 7 as Pearl Harbor on steroids.

What would happen after Pearl Harbor if some Senator or Congressman did something like this to America?

Did anybody in America believe that the response after Pearl Harbor was anything but total war?

The Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany were in league with Mussolini in Italy to destroy the world as we know it. A surprise attack against our forces on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, awakened this country, and we embarked on ``a noble crusade,'' I think as General Eisenhower-- eventually President Eisenhower--described, in destroying the Nazi regime and Imperial Japan. Nobody during those times would have suggested anything like this, because the only way you could

destroy those regimes was to destroy the infrastructure around the regimes.

The problem I have with this--not only does it empower the terrorists, it is the most tone-deaf thing maybe in the history of the Senate--is that it ignores the fact that Hamas has tunnels under hospitals, under schools. They use civilians as human shields. They routinely violate the law of war--and there is nothing in here about that. So all I can say is that the Senate will reject this idea.

And to the left, what are you thinking? To the people who go in and try to interrupt cancer treatments in New York at a cancer hospital, what are you thinking?

A ceasefire with Hamas only allows Hamas to regroup. Do you not see Hamas for who it is? It is a terrorist organization. They are religious Nazis.

They are not taking up the cause of the Palestinian people. They are abusing the Palestinian people probably greater than anybody. A Hamas spokesperson said a few weeks ago that there will be another October 7, another October 7, and another October 7.

Probably the biggest mistake Israel made was withdrawing from Gaza, because when they did, the Palestinians took over.

To the Palestinians who want to live in peace with Israel, Hamas throws them off the roofs of buildings in Gaza.

So we are dealing with the most barbaric organizations in the history of the world who are bent on destroying the Jewish people, are calling for attacks on the United States, and we have a resolution in front of us asking the Secretary of State to investigate the Government of Israel for war crimes.

You talk about upside down and backwards.

Just having been back from Israel, I can assure you the IDF is spending more time trying to protect innocent Palestinians than Hamas. What is odd about this whole thing is that Hamas is doing everything they can to expose civilians to military action, and Israel is trying-- I think in a reasonable way--to lessen the exposure.

What do you call a group of people that build tunnels under hospitals and have command infrastructure under a hospital? You call them bloodthirsty terrorists who are trying to prey on the rules that exist in the law of war. By being under the hospital and the schoolhouse and firing rockets from apartment buildings, they have militarized these locations.

So here's what I would tell our friends in Israel: This effort to have you investigated will fail in the U.S. Senate. Keep doing what you need to do to make sure there is no more October 7s. Make sure that Hamas, as we know it, is destroyed. Do the best you can to protect civilians who are in harm's way.

A little bit about Gaza: From the time you are born, you are taught to kill the Jews. The most radicalized nation on the planet, I would say, is Gaza, and a close second would be the West Bank.

When Germany and Japan were destroyed by military force, it took a generation to change the culture. So the Prime Minister of Israel says his goal is to demilitarize and deradicalize. Well, the way you demilitarize is you destroy Hamas as a military power. They have, I think, about 24 brigades.

If we end this conflict with their military capability still standing, we will have made a huge mistake.

The idea of anything but unconditional surrender in World War II was laughable. We used two nuclear bombs, and that is what was required to get Japan to surrender. So when you look back in history, the invasion of Japan that was being planned could have resulted in up to 1 million casualties of American forces. We brought that war to conclusion by using two atomic bombs that eventually allowed unconditional surrender. Anything less than unconditional surrender in World War II would have been a mistake.

Anything short of destroying Hamas militarily would be a mistake for the ages. If Hamas is still standing militarily after this attack of October 7, we will all pay a heavy price.

The world is watching.

To the world: If you see Israel as the bad guy here, you are missing a lot. There is no moral equivalency in play. Hamas goes out of its way to make sure civilians are killed in large numbers. That is part of their strategy, to require Israel to use military force in a way to heighten the likelihood of death by integrating their military infrastructure with civilian infrastructure.

So we will have a vote here soon. This resolution will fail. But the idea behind this resolution is scary to me.

You need to go to Israel and get briefed about what happened on October 7--what happened to the women, what happened to the children, and what is happening to the hostages. If you go and have that briefing and you believe that the only response--and if you believe anything less than total war to destroy Hamas is required, I would be surprised.

What would we do if this happened to us? What would we do to any terrorist group or government that brought about such atrocities against the American people?

We would hunt them down. We would make sure they could never do this to us again. That is exactly what Israel has to do.

It will be a long time before the populations of Gaza and the West Bank are going to be capable, I believe, of living in true peace with Israel, because if you have been taught from the time you were born and all through your life to hate somebody and to learn math by the following: ``If you had 10 Jews and you killed 6, how many would you have left?'' it is going to be a tall order to change that population.

But here is the good news: We have seen from Germany and Japan that it can change, but it is going to take a lot of effort. I am willing to help the people in the West Bank and Gaza once Hamas has been destroyed. I am hopeful we can do a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel in normalizing and effectively putting an end to the Arab- Israeli conflict.

I believe Iran is the root of all evil here and that this attack was partly due to stopping the normalization efforts between Saudi Arabia and Israel. I have been supporting the efforts of the Biden administration, and I want to publicly thank them for continuing to push. I will do all I can as a Republican to help President Biden bring about the normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would isolate Iran, and it would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the benefits of that deal would be to give the Palestinian people a better future.

This resolution is not only off base; it is dangerous. It is doing harm. It sends absolutely the wrong signal at the wrong time.

So, to the people who believe this is a good idea for the United States to launch an investigation of Israel as a potential war criminal after October 7, you have learned very little from history. The proper response by Israel is to destroy Hamas. The problem Israel has in that task is that Hamas is trying to make sure Israel kills as many innocent people as possible. Therein lies their dilemma. So this is a horribly bad idea.

To the American people, put yourselves in the shoes of Israel: an attack, barbaric in nature, that is designed to destroy you. Hamas's goal is not to liberate the Palestinian people; it is to kill the Jews. Hamas's goal is not to bring about a better life for the Palestinian people but to destroy the lives of the Jewish people.

They are religious Nazis. If you don't believe me, listen to them. They will not hide their agenda. They celebrate it. The SS tried to hide their war crimes. They tried to rebury bodies and destroy the concentration camps, but they were unable to hide their crimes. Hamas filmed their crimes. They want you to see what they were willing to do to babies and to women.

The question for the world is, What is the right response?

The right response, ladies and gentlemen, is, when you see evil, confront it. When you deal with people who are willing to destroy children or to rape daughters in front of the mother and father, you need to destroy them.

So, not only will this resolution fail, I believe the U.S. Senate will ensure that Israel has the latitude it needs to destroy not only an enemy of the Israeli people--Hamas--but the enemy of mankind itself.

I look forward to voting this resolution down, and I will be coming up with one of my own to try to correct the record.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I and Senator Brown, the Senator from Ohio, be allowed to finish our remarks before the planned recess.

Mr. President, for the third time--third time--since late September, Congress is rushing to avert a government shutdown.

We have an annual appropriations process for the fiscal year, which ends at the end of September each year. But, for some reason, we find ourselves in a position where, frankly, we reflect embarrassingly the dysfunction here in Washington, DC, because of the way we deal with keeping the lights on and keeping the government up and running.

The Senate and the House both have failed to send a single regular appropriations bill to the President's desk. Just before the start of this fiscal year, we passed a stopgap bill to fund the government through mid-November. When that deadline rolled around, we punted again and set two separate deadlines. The first is this Friday, and the second is just 2 weeks after that.

Today, Congress is on track to kick the can down the road once again. The Senate is preparing to vote on a continuing resolution that will push these deadlines even further. The first will arrive on March 1, and the second will come on March 8. We can only wonder what is going to happen between now and March 1 and March 8 that will prevent us from another can kicked down the road.

None of this is inevitable. This is a result of planned dysfunction. It is embarrassing to find ourselves in this situation once again. This is not complicated. It is not physics. We are talking about the most basic duty of funding the government for a full year. This is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress, but obviously it is not a priority for the majority leader, whose job it is to schedule votes in the Senate. In other words, none of us--not the Presiding Officer, not me, none of the 99 Senators--other than the majority leader can actually schedule something for a vote on the floor.

I know I must sound a little bit like a broken record, but it is important for everybody to remember that this roller coaster of last- minute stopgap funding bills is not inevitable. Congress has all year to plan and prepare for the end of the fiscal year. It is not a deadline that comes out of nowhere; it arrives like clockwork on September 30.

Despite the long runway, the Senate has failed to pass a single funding bill before the deadline. That wasn't because the individual bills were not available, it wasn't because they were divisive or ultrapartisan, and it certainly wasn't because of lack of time. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed all 12 regular appropriations bills in June and July--last June and last July. Each bill passed the committee with strong bipartisan support, and more than half of them passed unanimously. I think that would shock a lot of people who think Congress is polarized and irretrievably broken, that actually the Appropriations Committee could pass bipartisan appropriations bills and more than half of them unanimously.

So what is the deal? Well, the deal is the majority leader could have put the bills on the floor immediately. We could have been voting on funding bills last June. Instead, days, weeks, and months crept by without even an inch of progress. It was mid-September before Senator Schumer even attempted to put the first appropriations bill on the floor. We are now 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, and none of the 12 appropriations bills have been signed into law--not one.

Congress has developed a dangerous, dangerous habit of circumventing the normal processes for funding the government, and it is not without cost or consequences. It has been common to blow through the deadlines and rely on short-term funding bills to keep the lights on. I know of no business, large

or small, in the United States that could operate like this because you can't plan. All of your time is absorbed and energy absorbed in these efforts to keep the government from shutting down, and all of it is avoidable.

Now, there is no doubt that stopgap bills are better than government shutdowns, but it is not a good solution, especially for critical missions like national defense.

Here is the price the Nation pays for the failure to do our business on time. Short-term funding bills do avoid the most immediate consequences of a shutdown. They ensure that our troops are paid on time and that short-term operations can continue. But they have a decidedly negative impact on a full range of long-term projects, from recruitment to modernization.

During a continuing resolution, the Department of Defense can't even start some of the programs we authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act, which we passed in December. Our Nation's top military leaders have repeatedly emphasized the importance of full-year government funding bills. They have told us over and over again that reliable funding is a key to planning and preparing for the future.

I remember maybe about a year ago now having lunch--a bipartisan group of Senators--in the Senate Dining Room with Secretary Bob Gates.

Secretary Gates, a former Secretary of Defense, served, I want to say, under eight Presidents, and he is wise in the ways of Washington, DC, although he hadn't been back to Capitol Hill for some time before we had lunch.

I asked him for his suggestions and recommendations for how we can ensure the safety and security of the United States by making sure that our military was second to none and making sure that we maintain maximum deterrence so that wars wouldn't break out because people experienced or sensed a lack of will or preparation. He said the single most important thing--piece of advice he could give us is no more continuing resolutions. No more continuing resolutions--the single most important thing. What we have been doing time and time and time again is continuing resolutions--exactly the wrong thing when it comes to our national security and our standing in the world and our ability to deter aggressors in a very, very dangerous environment.

In short, timely, full-year appropriations support our long-term goals. You can't plan for a few weeks at a time. Long, full-year appropriations bills support our troops, boost our military readiness, restore credible deterrence, and maintain our ability to compete with our most formidable adversaries.

By continuing to move from one stopgap bill to another, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We are weakening our own defense as China's military strength continues to grow and as we see more and more aggression on the part of Iran in the Middle East through various proxies like Hamas. We see Kim Jong Un in North Korea say he wants nothing to do with South Korea and has basically declared a state of war against South Korea. In Asia proper, China continues to threaten to attack Taiwan, creating a potentially catastrophic set of circumstances.

We need credible deterrence, and that credible deterrence comes with a first-class military, second to none, and an understanding that America is absolutely committed first and foremost to our national security.

Given the threats we face in the world today, from the Middle East to Europe and the Indo-Pacific, it is absolutely critical that Congress take defense funding seriously. It cannot be the last item on our to-do list; it should be priority No. 1. There are a lot of things Congress does that are not priorities, but national defense is our No. 1 priority--should be. Reliable funding for our defense is vital to our security. It should come before votes on nominees and virtually every other task on the Senate's agenda.

Well, watching this play out once again is like watching another bad movie. The characters miss the obvious warning signs, make bad decisions, and repeatedly stumble into danger. Throughout this movie, you can't help but think that no one is foolish enough to land in this situation or certainly to do so voluntarily, but, sadly, that is how I feel, looking at the majority leader's decisionmaking when it comes to funding the government and particularly national security.

At the end of September, Congress kicked the can to November. In November, we punted to January and February. Now Congress is on track to push the deadline once again, teeing us up for another fiscal cliff--actually, not just one but two of them--in March.

With each stopgap bill, we are sending the message that we are really not serious about our national security because we are weakening our defense, crippling our readiness, and hurting our long-term security.

Here in the Senate, the stakes are much higher than in this bad movie. We don't have the freedom to make poor decisions just to put on a show. So the bottom line is this: Congress has a duty to pass full- year, on-time appropriations bills. This is the absolute bare minimum when it comes to governing. It is time to get serious about debating, amending, and passing those regular appropriations bills.

I don't know what it is going to take to convince the majority leader that this is important, which is the reason I keep coming to the floor and talking about it. Hopefully somebody, somewhere, will be paying attention.

Congress failed to get the job done before the first deadline. We failed to get it done before the second deadline. We failed to get it done before the third deadline. We simply cannot, in good conscience, delay this process any further. There is far too much at stake.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.