Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to do something I rarely do. To start, I want to talk about a very special Georgian and a good friend of mine--a man by the name of Billy Payne. Billy is a husband, a father, a grandfather, a great Georgian, and, yes, a great American. Recently, he was one of five individuals to be inducted into the 2019 World Golf Hall of Fame. It is quite an honor. Billy Payne is a riveting storyteller, a creative thinker, and an effective leader.

Golf Magazine once wrote: ``Wherever he goes, Payne is the most interesting person in the room.''

Billy was born in Athens, GA, and he went on to play football for his hometown team, the Georgia Bulldogs. He earned a law degree from the University of Georgia and went on to open a small practice in Atlanta.

After helping to raise money for a new sanctuary at their church, Billy and Martha, his wife, were inspired and started looking for ways to make a difference in their community. The day after the new sanctuary was dedicated, Billy Payne came home from work and said to Martha: I've got it--we're going to bring the Olympics to Atlanta. Billy was undaunted by the magnitude of this decision.

He didn't have many connections at the time, but he called up city and State officials and formed a team to make a bid to host the 1996 Olympic Games. Billy spent the next 3\1/2\ years personally traveling to 110 countries to convince Olympic officials to bring the games to the city of Atlanta. On September 18, 1990, Atlanta won the bid for the 1996 Olympics all because of Billy Payne's leadership and his vision for the city.

The 1996 Olympics put Atlanta on the world map. It transformed the city and allowed us to build infrastructure that later helped Georgia to become the No. 1 State in the country in which to do business. To this very day, my alma mater, Georgia Tech, actually uses dormitories that were built to house the athletes in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

After serving as President and CEO of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, Billy was invited to join Augusta National. In a very short period of time--actually, in 2006--he was selected to be the club's chairman, which is a role he served in for 11 years. Billy oversaw the Masters Tournament and turned it into a global brand with worldwide reach. When Billy took over at Augusta National, the club's membership was all male. Under his leadership, Augusta National broke the gender barrier and allowed women to join the club for the very first time.

He also started two major amateur events--the Latin America Amateur and the Asia-Pacific Amateur. The winners of these tournaments are invited to play in the Masters each year. As a result, young people from all over the world now have a chance to actually compete in the Masters every year.

In 2014, Billy launched the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship--a junior golf competition that gives 7- to 15-year-olds the opportunity to develop their golf skills, to compete with their peers, and to earn the opportunity to actually play and compete at the Augusta National on the Sunday before the Masters. I have seen this. It is an exciting event to see these young people compete at the very home of the Masters.

Probably the greatest achievement, however, for amateur golf may have been this year's first Augusta National Women's Amateur tournament. When the final pair walked onto the 18th green arm in arm--one the winner, the other the runner-up, two women, arm in arm, cheering each other--it was a highlight in amateur sports. In my opinion, Bobby Jones, who is the hero of amateur sports in America, was in Heaven and probably stood up and cheered.

Finally, Billy had a hand in naming his alma mater's football field, Sanford Stadium, after his coach at the University of Georgia, Vince Dooley. Last month, the university's athletic board approved the name change, and now the field is officially known as Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium.

I would be remiss if I didn't say ``Go Dogs'' this morning.

Clearly, Billy Payne's impact on Georgia and the entire country is hard to measure, but I want to tell you a story that really tells the true heart of this leader from our State.

After he announced his retirement from being the chairman of Augusta National, he was at a private dinner and was asked by no less than Bret Baier what he was going to miss the most. Without hesitation, Billy said, ``The people.'' Well, those of us at the table thought he might have been talking about the members, but he wasn't. He was talking about the employees at Augusta National. Its employees have been there for their entire careers, and they adore this man because he loves them. He treated them right, and he built their careers there.

His tenacious spirit, his love for humankind, and his steadfast leadership serve as an inspiration to us all. I thank Billy Payne for his lifetime of service to the State of Georgia and to the United States, and I congratulate him, his wife, and their kids on this induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Border Security

Mr. President, on another topic, there is a growing crisis at our southern border, and we are told, next week, we are actually going to vote on an appropriations package for humanitarian aid at the southern border.

Recently, I and a colleague of mine, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, traveled down to the McAllen sector of the border in Texas. We went out on patrol overnight with the Customs and Border Patrol agents--we were out all night with them--and then went on patrol in the early morning hours just as dawn broke on the river. We saw firsthand that we don't have just an illegal immigration problem--we have a national security crisis right there at our southern border.

My biggest takeaway was that the drug trafficking down there has now risen to being a full-blown crisis. Between fiscal year 1997 and fiscal year 2018, the CBP saw a 22-percent increase in heroin, a 38-percent increase in meth, and a 73-percent increase in fentanyl seizures. In that year alone, fiscal year 2018, enough fentanyl was brought into the country illegally to kill every woman, man, and child in America. The Border Patrol agents we

spoke to estimated that they are only able to interdict between 7 and 10 percent, however, of the drugs that actually cross the border in the McAllen sector. That is a crisis. If for no other reason, we have a crisis.

In addition, the amount of human trafficking we are seeing at the border is unprecedented. Last month alone, 144,000 individuals were apprehended at our southern border. This is the highest number of apprehensions in over 13 years.

In just the first 8 months of the fiscal year, 411,000 unaccompanied children and family units were apprehended at our southern border, including 84,000 family units and 11,000 unaccompanied children, just last month--11,000 unaccompanied children. How does an unaccompanied child get all the way from Honduras or Guatemala to our border?

This is a conspiracy led by the cartels. I have seen it firsthand. We heard the gunfire across the river the night we were on patrol. It is real.

If this trend continues, 800,000 children and families could be apprehended at the southern border by the end of this fiscal year alone. To put that in perspective, we issue 1.1 million legal green cards a year that are a pathway to citizenship. This year alone, just the family units alone could be 800,000 people apprehended at the southern border. Clearly, our Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed.

When an unaccompanied child arrives at the border, they are cared for by Border Patrol agents until they can be placed in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services. However, the number of children arriving today greatly exceeds HHS's capacity to deal with them.

As of last week, 1,900 unaccompanied children were in CBP custody awaiting placement in HHS's care. But Health and Human Services had less than 700 beds in which to place them.

Now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol agents are spending more than half of their time caring for families and children, providing medical assistance, driving buses, and acting as food service workers instead of performing law enforcement duties.

Pulling Border Patrol agents away from their law enforcement duties only exacerbates the crisis at the border. We saw that firsthand on our overnight patrols.

The Acting Commissioner of CBP said recently: ``We are in a full- blown emergency, and I cannot say this any stronger: the system is broken.''

On May 1, the Trump administration requested $4.5 billion in funds to help address the growing crisis at the border. At the time, we were debating disaster relief for my home State of Georgia and a dozen other States across the country.

On May 23, President Trump broke the logjam and agreed to separate border humanitarian aid from the disaster relief question and it allowed us, then, within hours on this floor, to pass the disaster relief bill. Now we have to do the same thing for this humanitarian aid to the border.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis at the southern border has only continued to escalate, and we have to do something about it right now.

This week, Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to every Member of Congress. It said: ``Absent an emergency appropriation, we anticipate running out of funding as soon as later this month.''

The Department of Homeland Security has already started pulling resources away from critical missions in order to try and keep up with this surge of human traffic. Without additional funds by August, the Department of Homeland Security says they will have to redirect manpower and funding from TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard in order to address the crisis at the border.

The Acting Director of ICE just recently said: ``We are begging. We are asking Congress to please help us.''

This should not be a political issue. I am hoping that it will not be. This is about giving Federal agents the resources they need to care for children and families in their custody and respond to this crisis situation.

Even the New York Times editorial board said this: ``Congress, give Trump his border money.'' That is the New York Times, not a big fan of our President.

The Senate will vote on this emergency funding next week, and I hope it will receive bipartisan support. It absolutely should. Going forward, we have to address the underlying cause of this crisis, however.

Since 2014, the number of unaccompanied children and family units arriving at the southern border has skyrocketed because of loopholes in our asylum and immigration laws. Minors and family units can easily assert broad and unspecific asylum claims. Then, they are released into the United States while they await formal removal proceedings, which could be months or years down the road.

These loopholes, combined with programs like the DACA Program, have led to a staggering increase in the number of unaccompanied children and family units arriving at our border.

Oftentimes, these kids and families are exploited by cartels on their journey to the United States and are in dire need of human services by the time they get here. It is truly heartbreaking what some of these people go through. These cartels profit off the most vulnerable. They fuel the drug trade and endanger communities across our country-- indeed, the world, for that matter. We have to put the cartels out of business. We have to close these loopholes that encourage illegal immigration into our country.

Finally, we have to give the Border Patrol officers the tools they need to do their jobs and protect our country. This means more technology, more personnel, and more barriers.

In conclusion, I want to say thank you to the women and men who protect our border. Their job isn't easy, but I will say this today: The best--and I mean the very best--are in our military uniforms around the world and doing our business, they are our Border Patrol people, who are protecting our border every day and night on our southern border here in the United States. We appreciate what you all do. God bless you.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the national debt is what actually pulled me and you and others, to some degree, into this political process. I have come to this floor many times over the last 4\1/2\ years to talk about this. Today, again, it is very timely. It is why I ran for the U.S. Senate. Today, we have--I just checked--$22.3 trillion, and it is going up $100,000 a second, as we speak. I have a debt clock in the reception area of my office, in the Russell Senate Office Building, and that thing spins all day long, 24 hours a day.

Even more concerning, we have more than $130 trillion of future unfunded liabilities coming at us like a freight train over the next 30 years. That is $1 million for every household for every American.

What we have learned is that we can't cut our way out of it, we can't tax our way out of it, and we can't grow our way out of it alone. Any one of these three will fall short. It has to be a combination. We have to have a balanced approach over the long haul to solve this $22 trillion of debt problem.

I believe we will not solve this debt crisis unless and until we fix the way Congress funds the Federal Government. The current funding process is designed to fail. It really is. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked. It will never work.

Since the Budget Act of 1974 was put in place, Congress has only funded the Federal Government on time four times. That means that by the end of the fiscal year, Congress has only funded the Federal Government four times by the end of that fiscal year. Let me say that again. It has been four times in 45 years since the 1974 Budget Act was put in place. The last time it was actually done was in 1996, some 23 years ago, under President Clinton.

Congress is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills to fund the government. Over the last 45 years, we have averaged just 2\1/2\ per year. Because of that, Congress has used a little known tool up here called a continuing resolution. In the last 45 years, Congress has used a continuing resolution 186 times. It is a release valve that lets the government continue to operate and on the surface doesn't really sound that onerous. You just keep spending at the same level you did last year. The problem with that is that it is devastating to some Agencies and, particularly, the Department of Defense, with regard to long-term contracts, long-term training, purchases, and maintenance over the end of the fiscal year, and so forth. They are devastating to our military. They create inefficiencies and uncertainty that hurt the bottom line and increase our procurement costs by dramatic amounts. The end result of that is that it lowers our readiness, and it causes the ability to fight to be reduced.

In addition, Congress has shut down the government, over the last 45 years, 21 times because they couldn't get together and agree on how to fund the government that year--21 times.

This funding process, in my opinion, is an unmitigated disaster, based on the actual results that have led to $22 trillion of debt today, which, in my view, is indeed a crisis. Over the last 4\1/2\ years alone, we have looked at practices in States, other countries, and businesses to find best practices. No one else in the world funds their operation the way the U.S. Congress funds our government.

The problem is, we have a three-step process. We do a budget, an authorization, and then an appropriation. There simply are not enough days in the year to get all of those done. It is a 14-week budget process. We have 16 authorizing committees. If you did one a week, that is 16 weeks. And then you have 12 appropriating bills. Even if you did one a week, which is very hard to do, that is not enough time in the calendar year to do that.

Right now, Congress has yet to pass this year a single appropriations bill for the next year. This is not the appropriators' problem. They do their jobs. They proved that last year and the year before that. If given enough time and information, they can get their job done. The problem is that this year we have not even agreed with the House and with the White House on what the top-line spending should be.

As I stand here today, there are 17 working days until 31 July, when Congress leaves for a State work period called the August recess. When we get back, there are only 10 working days until the end of the fiscal year. That means we have 27 working days to reach a budget deal, pass 12 appropriations bills, and bring them to conference and get this government funded.

If we started today, we would need to pass an appropriations bill about every 2 days in order to pass all 12 bills by the end of the fiscal year. We are already behind, and I am afraid we are staring down the barrel of another CR unless we start taking these bills up immediately.

The minority leader and the majority leader in the Senate have been working diligently, along with the appropriations minority leader and chairman of the appropriations committee. They all have been working very well to get to a top-line number with the White House and the House of Representatives. I am told we are very close to a deal today. I hope we are.

Last year, when we paid attention to it, we got to 75 percent funding. But by 31 July, we had only done 12.5 percent of total government funding. Again, this is just for the discretionary part of our spending, which is only about 25 percent of the total spending that we have in the Federal Government, which includes mandatory expenses.

Last year, 16 of us wrote a letter to Leader McConnell, who agreed, and to his credit, kept us here in August, and we went from 12 percent to 75 percent funding by the end of August, including the Department of Defense and HHS, two of our biggest line items. By staying here in August, we did the people's work and did something that hadn't been done in 22 years.

I hope it doesn't come to that this year. It shouldn't. We have time to do what we need to do. I know the people in charge are doing everything they can to make that happen. That is not what this conversation is about today. I am hopeful that even this week we can get agreement on the topline number, move past the budget cap issue, and get to appropriating these bills so we can avoid any more CRs in our future this year.

The unfortunate reality is we have reached this same predicament almost every year since 1974. Einstein once said that ``insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.'' That is what this Congress has done continually over the last 45 years, with different Members and different colleagues. We keep doing the same thing.

I am convinced more than ever that we need a politically neutral platform to fund the government on time every year without all of this drama. It can be done. I think both sides want to do it. Both sides have talked about it when they were in the minority and majority at different times, but it is time to move on it.

Today 25 percent of our budget is discretionary. That is all. That is defense, the Veterans' Administration, and all domestic discretionary spending. That is 25 percent. That is what this is all about. This debate and drama is about 25 percent of the Federal Government.

What is the rest of it? We all know that is the mandatory expense side of our budget; 75 percent of what we spend in the Federal Government, over $3 trillion, is for things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pension and benefits for Federal employees, and the interest on the debt. The interest alone has gone up $450 billion over the last 2 years with nine Fed fund rate increases, and it is projected that by 2023 we will be spending more on the interest alone on this debt than we do on national defense.

If we borrow about 30 percent of what we spend, that means, by definition, every dime we spend on discretionary spending is borrowed money. What is discretionary again? Our defense. So every time we are spending on defense, it is technically borrowed money.

I believe it is time to fix this, and the way forward is pretty clear. The way I see it, there are three things we have to do to fix this funding process. No. 1,

we have to change the budget process and appropriations process to make it streamlined, as most States do.

Yesterday I introduced a bill called the Fix Funding First Act, which I hope will start a dialogue. It is not the end result, but I am hopeful it will start a dialogue here and that we will be able to work through the details, take individual items one at a time, pass some bills, and start moving toward a solution.

Second, we have to address mandatory spending. We need to save Social Security and Medicare.

Third, we need to adjust the current committee structure so that the same committees on both sides can both authorize and appropriate.

This is a chart of what we have today. This is reality. We have on the left 16 authorizing committees, and on the right we have 12 appropriating committees. You can see for one appropriating committee you may have five or six different authorizing committees that have to provide input, in theory, to the appropriating committee.

When I came to Congress I was asked to head the Subcommittee on State Department Oversight inside Foreign Relations. My responsibility was to provide oversight. Interacting with the person who was the chair of the subcommittee in appropriations--we never talked and there was very little input, but we found out that the State Department at that time had not been authorized in over 13 years. We changed that and got it authorized the very next year. But this is an archaic structure that will never work. It creates all of the confusion that we have right now and the time delays in trying to get this done.

The Fix Funding First Act I introduced yesterday does five simple things.

First, it changes the Federal Government fiscal year to match the calendar year. Why is that important? Well, in the first year of a new Congress we always start 3 months behind; we start in the fourth month.

Second, this bill establishes biennial budgeting. A lot of States do that. It is not the end-all solution, but it is a great place to start and will make things a lot easier here.

Third, this bill makes the budget a law. Simply put, today the budget is a resolution.

Fourth, it creates milestones with consequences to hold us accountable as a body when we don't do our jobs. There are 44 States, including my State of Georgia, that have a balanced budget law, and if they don't pass a budget by the end of their 44- or 45-day session, they don't go home. In most States that is a law. What we are proposing here is essentially the same thing. We have broken the appropriations process into four tranches and set deadlines before Congress's scheduled work break. If we don't make the deadline, we don't go home until we get that part done. It is just that simple.

Last, our proposal requires the Budget Committee to complete a 5-year strategic plan--something we have never done--just as people in the real world do. This gives us a chance to start talking about the long- term debt-to-GDP ratio that my colleague Senator Whitehouse has been talking about for the last several years, and I fully subscribe to what he is trying to do.

That is what the bill that was introduced this week will do, and I think it is the first step to fix the funding process.

Once we complete the first phase, we need to tackle mandatory spending, which is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and pensions and benefits. Right now, mandatory spending makes up about 75 percent of what Congress spends every year, but costs are expected to explode over the next 20 years.

The next chart shows the projection from the Congressional Budget Office, and these are generally agreed-upon numbers based upon the baby boomers maturing in age. What we have is the green line, total expenses of the Federal Government, going from just above $4 trillion today to almost $12 trillion in just 20 years. In 10 years, we are talking about it being over $8 trillion--almost double what it is today. These are in constant dollars, not inflated dollars. This is our crisis. What is causing that crisis in the green line are total expenses.

The blue line is discretionary expenses, which are what we spend most of our time arguing about here on the floor of the Senate and the House. But look at this. This is the mandatory chart. We go from a moderate one until we see cataclysmic geometric growth. We know that the Social Security trust fund goes to zero in 12 years. The Medicare trust fund goes to zero in 7 years.

We have to save these programs and turn these curves down. There is no way the world is going to allow us to borrow that much money. Until Congress works up the political courage to deal with the mandatory spending issue, we should make all expenditures discretionary, bring them under the budget process when they need to be subsidized, and that is going to happen within a few short years.

I believe the answer is very simple. Even if we pass this bill and the Appropriations Committee still has to write down its own defense authorization, defense bills and so forth, we have to streamline this process. Last year we did, and it almost worked. What we have now is totally dysfunctional.

I hope this proposal that we are putting on the board today will help start the dialogue about how we can fix this funding process.

America always does well in a crisis, but we are not always the first to decide that we are in a crisis. I personally believe we have been in a crisis for the last 15 years. Either we can wake up and face it now or I think we will regret it later.

There are Members on both sides of the aisle who recognize this crisis. I am encouraged by the conversations we are having together. This is not a partisan issue. This is one of those ways that people back home expect us to compromise and work together to solve this.

I am encouraged today. It is time we did this, and this is the time, this year. In the next few weeks, hopefully we will get past this impasse and make it happen this year.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, May is Military Appreciation Month. In light of that, I come to the Senate floor to remind us all just how important our military is to our way of life. One of the blessings of being a U.S. Senator and being on the Armed Services Committee and a past member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have had the privilege to travel, as you have, around the world, visiting with our men and women in uniform.

I have concluded that the best--and I mean the very best--of what we produce here in America is in uniform around the world, worn by our women and men, protecting our interests and defending freedom around the world. There are only six reasons in the Declaration of Independence why 13 Colonies got together in the first place, and one of those was to provide for the common defense.

Today, the world is more dangerous than any time in my lifetime. Today, the United States faces five threats across five domains. This is much more complicated than the world has ever seen. Today, we measure the threats in this manner: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and terrorism across five domains.

It used to be air, land, and sea. Unfortunately, today, it is air, land, sea, cyber, and now space. The tragedy, frankly, of our time is we have treated space as a scientific endeavor over the last 30 years, and others who we now consider potential threats have treated it as a military domain.

I grew up in a military town. My father served in Germany during World War II. When World War II was ended, he joined the Reserves and then was called up again in the Korean war. He spent a couple of years in Korea during the Korean war. I have his dog tags today in my office. They serve as a constant reminder of his commitment to defending our ideals and upholding our way of life here in America. It reminds me that every single woman and man in uniform in our services today do the same thing.

Today, I am humbled to represent our men and women in uniform in the United States Armed Services Committee. I take that very seriously, as I know every member does. One of my greatest honors as a member of this committee and a former member of the Foreign Relations Committee, as I said, is to travel overseas. The highlight in every one of those trips is not meeting with the head of state or the head of the military or the foreign minister; it was having dinner with people from my home State who were in uniform around the world.

When President Obama was in office, the No. 1 request I heard from heads of state around the world was: We need America to reengage.

At that time, America had withdrawn. We had created a vacuum. People weren't asking us to be the world's policeman. They were asking us to basically reengage and have a seat at the table and lead again. After a decade of withdrawal from the world stage under the prior administration, America is now leading again.

President Trump is reengaged with the rest of the world. He has made it clear that America's interest comes first. When we say America first, it doesn't mean America alone. Today, our allies trust us again, and our adversaries fear us again. President Trump has also taken action to rebuild

our military after it was gutted during the prior administration. Under President Obama, spending on the military was cut 25 percent, and we saw the resulting drop in our readiness.

In the last 2 years, we have updated defense spending by $80 billion a year. As a result, in addition, we have avoided the use of continuing resolutions in each of the last 2 years, thanks to people on both sides of the aisle--Senator Leahy and Senator Shelby, who are the ranking member and the chair of the Appropriations Committee--who worked diligently last year and made sure that we got defense funding done before the end of the fiscal year and without a continuing resolution.

Because of that, readiness is on the rise again in the military. Modernization efforts and rebuilding our military are underway, and our men and women in uniform are safer around the world, No. 1, and have the resources they need to carry out their mission.

I am proud of the progress that we have made in just a very short period of time. Just in the last 2 years, our readiness has dramatically improved. However, a continuing resolution of any length for fiscal year 2020 will erode and undo a lot of progress we have made just in readiness over the last couple of years.

I am really very concerned that this is a primary responsibility of ours here in the Senate and, indeed, in Congress, and it is one we have not stood up to in the past. We have got to do better than that this year.

I believe that Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, said it best when he described the impact of continuing resolutions. Since the 1974 Budget Act was put into place, Congress has used 187 continuing resolutions as a release valve to fund the government in a temporary manner.

Let me say that again, since 1974, 45 years, we have used 187 continuing resolutions. Each one of those continuing resolutions is devastating to our military in so many ways that I will get into in just a minute. Continuing resolutions are absolutely devastating to our military, both in readiness and the ability to rebuild our military. It is the most insidious thing Congress can do to our men and women in uniform. Many of us here don't even realize the damage that continuing resolutions do to our military.

I have questioned all three current service Secretaries and their chiefs of staff, both publicly and in private meetings, about the operational impacts of continuing resolutions and funding uncertainty.

Here are some of the responses:

A continuing resolution ``would be like a punch in the gut,'' according to ADM John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations.

A continuing resolution ``would stall our progress on readiness and modernization,'' said Gen. Bob Neller, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Heather Wilson, Secretary of the Air Force, said that the defense budget sequester ``did more damage to the United States Air Force and our ability to defend the nation than anything our adversaries have done in the last 10 years--and we did it to ourselves.''

Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said:

Fiscal uncertainty has done a great deal to erode our

readiness and hamper our ability to modernize. . . . If we do

not modernize the force right now, we risk losing a future

conflict against Russia or China. It's just that simple.

Finally, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said, and this is classic:

Continuing resolutions have cost the Department of the Navy

roughly $4 billion. . . . Since 2011, we have put $4 billion

in a trash can, put lighter fluid on top of it and burned it.

I don't know how to put it more clearly than that.

CRs have a direct and immediate impact across the entire Department of Defense--from training, to readiness, to maintenance, to personnel, and, yes, to contracting.

During a CR, training must be rescoped, scaled back, or discontinued entirely, which means our warfighters are less prepared for battle and don't have the resources to defend themselves properly when in the heat of battle.

Depot maintenance and weapons development are delayed, resulting in costly delays, less lethality, and higher costs.

Hiring and recruitment are put on pause, leaving critical gaps in workforce skill sets.

We have the development of cyber capability and space capabilities now. We are just ginning up those capabilities, and CRs absolutely devastate these young, developing capabilities.

Change-of-station moves for servicemembers and their families are halted, creating unnecessary turmoil for families. Can you imagine that you have kids, and you are going to be deployed overseas. The timing has to be right to get your kids in schools over there. Well, if a CR happens to occur--and guess what happens around September 30. The end of our fiscal year. If your family is moving around that period of time, it could be held up because of that CR. That is very disconcerting to families already stressed by increased deployments and rapid turnarounds.

The DOD cannot start new contracts or in many cases has to cancel existing ones. That devastates the supply chain. When we look at the supply chain in the military, after the devastating disinvestment of the last administration, one of the things that have to be rebuilt is the supply chain. The consistent funding of the supply chain is critical to the long-term defense of this country, and it is one we have taken for granted and have devastated over the last decade.

Additionally, the Department of Defense has outlined hundreds of critical projects that would be disrupted or even discontinued if a current CR is used this year. I can think of one right now. A very much in demand helicopter has been under development for the last few years. It is ready to go. It is ready to be sent to the troops in the field. Yet, if we have a CR come September 30, it will be delayed 1 full year.

We cannot allow this any longer. Clearly, CRs create inefficiencies and uncertainty that hurt the bottom line and our ability to fight. These funding disruptions weaken our strategic capability and shake the confidence and foundation of our Nation's industrial base.

Until 2018, the Department of Defense started 13 of the last 17 years under a continuing resolution. Thirteen of the last 17 years, they started their fiscal year under a continuing resolution. Fortunately, for the last 2 years, despite other funding failures of Congress, we did not have to use a CR to fund the military. That has been a major factor in boosting readiness and our reinvestment and recap efforts.

I hate to say it, but I believe we are staring down the barrel of a potential CR on September 30 this year. As we sit here tonight, there are only 25 working days between now and July 31. Why is that important? Because in the month of August, this body, along with the House, goes back to their States, and it is a work period in those States. That means we will not be able to pass appropriations bills here because we will not be here.

If we don't move this appropriations bill and get it passed by the end, I believe, of July, when we come back in September, there will be only 10 working days, legislative working days, and there is no way we are going to get it all funded in that time.

Last year, on July 31, we had only appropriated about 12\1/2\ percent of the Federal discretionary budget. We stayed here in August, to the credit of the leadership, Senator McConnell. I believe that because of that, we went from 12\1/2\ percent to 75 percent funding, including the Department of Defense, and therefore we were able to avoid a continuing resolution last year, as I have said.

Other people have said that the greatest threat to our national security is our own national debt--General Mattis, Admiral Mullen. There are various other people who have said that who are in a position where they should know. I would add one thing to that that is devastating to our ability to defend this country, and that is the use of continuing resolutions.

When we look at the domain threats and the natural threats that have evolved in the world right now--China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism--I don't think any of that damages the military, potentially, as much as our inability here to provide consistent funding for our military.

During Military Appreciation Month, I can think of no higher calling than for Congress to work diligently on passing a defense appropriations bill.

First, we have to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which we are working on this week. All the subcommittees are passing their markups this week. We hope to move on that immediately. I believe that will get passed here without much controversy.

I know that leadership right now is talking about moving in a very intense manner, with a critical sense of urgency, to get this Defense appropriations bill done. I applaud those efforts. I want to support it in any way I can.

I call on everybody in this body to be supportive of making sure that we can have, for the third year in a row--this is not a partisan issue; this is about our men and women in uniform. Given that this month is Military Appreciation Month, what better time to face up to this potential and make sure that we don't have a continuing resolution come September 30 of this year. That is the least we can do for our women and men in uniform. And we can fulfill the responsibility our Founders laid out in the Declaration of Independence when they outlined those six reasons why we were coming together, and the No. 1 reason we had at that time was to provide for the security of the United States of America.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

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

Mr. President, I want to make a few remarks tonight about something Senator Isakson and I have worked diligently on for the last 6 months. Yet, before we adjourn, I do want to echo what he has just brought to the Senate floor; that being a rounding statement of praise for a personal friend of his and mine, Woody Woodside.

I am a resident of Glynn County and so have gotten to know him as a personal friend over the last few years. I will have more to say about his retirement later this year. Suffice it to say, tonight, Woody Woodside is one of the greatest people to be able to get things done with whom I have ever worked, and when he disagrees with you, he does it in a way in which you actually like him for his disagreement. He is a bulldog when he gets on something, and I have the highest respect for what he has been able to accomplish in his career. I will have much more to say about that in the days to come.

Mr. President, as an outsider to this political process, it is easy to be frustrated with how slowly the Senate moves. It is easy to find fault with colleagues. As an outsider here, it is very easy to think we are not focused on getting results. I usually try to temper that with some rational thought about, well, this is the way things work, et cetera, et cetera, but I didn't see that tonight, and I am very frustrated with the vote. What we just witnessed on the floor of the U.S. Senate was nothing but pure partisan politics.

Our colleagues across the aisle blocked our disaster relief bill because they said it didn't include enough for Puerto Rico. That was one of several reasons. To date, $40 billion in Federal disaster relief aid has already been allocated for Puerto Rico, and it is eligible for another $50 billion-plus, potentially, which has already been allocated.

How much aid did the farmers in the Southeast receive after Hurricane Michael just 6 months ago? Not one dime. Now, why is that critical? You say: Well, OK. It takes time. Yes, it takes time. These farmers lost their livelihoods, and it hit them at the very time when their harvests were coming due last fall, October 10. It has been 6 months now. They have not received a dime from the Federal Government. The State has moved in with minor help, but these bridge loans these farmers have been using are running out; therefore, we were hoping this bill tonight would have given them some direct relief.

Let's put this in perspective.

Congress appropriated $136 billion for 2017's natural disasters across our country. That was for Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Harvey, and the California wildfires--in 2017, $136 billion. Before then, in 2013, $50.5 billion was appropriated for Hurricane Sandy, mostly for New Jersey.

In this bill from tonight, we were only talking about $13.45 billion for unprecedented hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires over the last year. Listen to the number of States we were talking about: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alaska, Hawaii, California, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas. That is right. This $13.45 billion included only $3 billion for farmers across five States in the Southeast.

President Trump visited that damage, and Vice President Pence visited that damage. I was personally privileged, as was Johnny Isakson, to travel with him that day to see this damage. You only have to see it to understand how ravaging this was to the businesses that have been built up over generations with regard to these family farmers.

President Trump has done his part. He has been very reasonable in this negotiation. He stepped up and did the right thing with regard to Puerto Rico. He agreed that because the nutrition benefits were running out under the prior allocations that we just mentioned, he stepped up and said, yes, he would support $600 million in further assistance for Puerto Rico nutrition so that those benefits would not run out and so that it would, hopefully, in the negotiations, break the logjam.

It did no such thing. This $600 million was exactly what Puerto Rico needed, and President Trump saw that. I give him high marks for stepping up and taking the political risk to go ahead and do that in addition to what had already been done for Puerto Rico over the last 2 years. In fact, Puerto Rico's own Representative in Congress, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, supports this disaster relief bill that Senator Isakson and I and others sponsored.

She said:

I urge for the swift Senate passage of $600 million for

nutrition assistance. Over 1.3 million of my constituents are

already experiencing cuts in their food benefits. Puerto Rico

needs this funding and needs it now.

When you listen to pleas like that, I can only think of one word for our colleagues across the aisle in this episode, and that is that it is very similar to what has happened on the border. It is hypocritical to me to think that they asked for that and then voted no against it. What we see here is pure partisan politics.

The American people are not stupid. It is clear that this had nothing to do with Puerto Rico and that it really hadn't had much to do with disaster relief. This vote was really pure partisan politics. It had everything to do with obstructing this President and preventing him from keeping his promise of helping the American people recover from the tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods that have ravaged our communities.

The Democrats ought to be ashamed. They are holding our farmers hostage right now for the political gain they foresee in their having taken this position. It is unacceptable. They are gambling with people's lives, and I don't overstate that. Some people will not recover from this. They will get out of farming. For those who stay in, it will take a decade to recover even with this government assistance, and many will have to get out of the crops they were growing to just survive in the next year.

We have farmers in Georgia whom I know personally who are on their second bridge loan. As an individual businessperson, I have done those in my career. I know how hard it is to go back after one bridge loan and ask for an extension or for another bridge loan to get to the point at which, hopefully, the Federal Government will step in and provide much needed assistance to back up these bank loans. These farmers are coming to the end of their ability to do that. I empathize with the bankers as well. They have a very difficult time giving bridge loans in addition to what they have already done until they get some degree of certainty about what it is we in Congress are going to do.

It is unacceptable that this intransigence in Washington continues to threaten the livelihoods the very people who sent us here to represent them. Because the Democrats chose to play politics today, farmers across the Southeast may, indeed, lose their businesses. Puerto Rican families will not have access to the food benefits they desperately need. California wildfire victims will not get any Federal assistance to help rebuild until we get this done. The list goes on.

I challenge each of the Senators in this body who voted against this disaster relief bill tonight to go down to Georgia, to Florida, or to South Carolina and look the farmers in the eye and tell them that, tonight, we chose politics over helping Americans in need. It is a shameful night in the American Senate.

I thank Senator Shelby, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and its ranking member, Senator Leahy. They have worked diligently to try to find a compromise in here, but it is hard to compromise when there is only one party playing.

In conclusion, I want farmers across the Southeast to understand that I, Senator Isakson, Senator Rubio, Senator Scott, and many others-- Senator Tillis, Senator Burr, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina, and even one of the Democrats, Senator Doug Jones--are all committed, along with Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, and are not giving up. This is not the end of this tale. I want the farmers and the bankers in these five States to understand we are going to continue this fight.

I thank Leader McConnell for continuing to give us this opportunity. It took a lot of time to get to this vote on the Senate floor tonight, and I thank him for that.

For the people of these States who were affected, don't lose heart. We will get this done eventually.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise tonight to talk about something we don't see very often in this body. We saw a bipartisan effort today to move to regular order, to actually put a bill on this floor, to debate its merits, to make amendments to it, and to try to find a compromise position to do the right thing for the people across many States in our country that have been devastated by untoward disasters just in this last year.

As many of us know all too well, our country suffered a series of unprecedented natural disasters over the last year. Actually, it is a trend that has gone on over the last couple of years. We have had a series of unprecedented disasters.

In July, August, and November 2018 alone, wildfires in California displaced hundreds and even thousands of people and destroyed thousands of homes in a very short period of time. These fires were the deadliest and most destructive in California history.

In August 2018, Hurricane Lane dropped 52 inches of rain over 5 days, causing heavy flooding and mudslides. It ranks as the second wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history, behind Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

In September of 2018, Hurricane Florence caused catastrophic damage in North and South Carolina. It flooded homes, schools, and businesses. A week after the hurricane, major highways were still underwater.

In November 2018, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Alaska and damaged highways and buildings and displaced hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.

Earlier this year, an EF-4 tornado flattened Lee County, AL, and took 23 lives, including 3 children, and injured hundreds of others.

Today, our friends in the Midwest are suffering from devastating flooding. Roads have been washed away, fields look like lakes, and many cattle have been drowned. As a matter of fact, this flood happened just at the wrong time--during calving--and we know that thousands of calves have been lost.

My home State of Georgia has not been immune and is indeed at this moment reeling from a natural disaster as well.

On October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael made landfall on the Florida Panhandle with a category 4 hurricane. It was one of the strongest storms to ever hit the United States. Over the next few hours, Hurricane Michael barreled through Florida, tore through southwest Georgia, and moved on to North Carolina and South Carolina, doing immense damage. In a matter of hours, homes were flattened, tracts of timber destroyed, crops were ruined, and people's lives were radically changed forever. This hurricane hit exactly at a time when most crops were ready to be harvested. Cotton, peanuts, pecans, timber--it was devastating. Nothing was spared.

Today, agriculture is Georgia's top industry and our No. 1 economic driver. Before the hurricane, farmers in my State were expecting a record harvest in many commodity categories. Instead, just at the time when harvesting was starting, Hurricane Michael hit, and crops were completely destroyed across most of our State.

Our farmers are resilient, however. They have weathered droughts before and low-yield harvests and poor farm economies. They suffered through several years of low commodity prices as well. But they never ever faced anything quite like this before. The strength and magnitude of this hurricane indeed was unprecedented.

Shortly after the hurricane hit, President Trump, Vice President Pence, and the Secretary of Agriculture all came down to Georgia with Senator Isakson and me to view the damage. Together, we toured the State, saw the devastation, and heard directly from farmers about the tough road to recovery. It was interesting that these farmers were not asking for anything; they were actually praying for their brethren in other parts of the country who were also being ravaged by these disasters.

The scene we saw that day is something I personally will never forget. We visited one of the largest pecan farms in the world-- certainly in Georgia--and saw the damage in their fields. At this one farm alone, these two brothers who started from nothing had 800 acres of beautiful pecan trees. These maturing pecan trees were completely uprooted at the very time when the heavy harvest was sitting right there on the trees. In fact, when I was there, you couldn't walk on the ground; it was just a solid carpet of pecans on the ground, literally ruined.

Crop insurance will help with this year's losses somewhat, but agriculture insurance only covers part of the loss. What it won't cover are the trees that were damaged, particularly in this 800-acre tract that we personally saw with the Vice President.

Here, there is no insurance. Today in the agriculture industry, there is no way to insure this machine called a pecan tree that produces pecans. You can insure part of the crop, but you can't insure the trees. It takes about 10 years--some varieties, a little less, but about 10 years to start getting a crop from those new trees. So you can see for them that this is truly a generational loss.

When they saw the devastation, the Trump administration told Georgia farmers and other farmers around the Southeast from this particular hurricane that they would have their backs, and they have moved to do just that.

President Trump said: ``Farmers really got hurt, especially in Georgia, but we're going to get it taken care of.'' Vice President Pence said: ``We will rebuild these crops and these communities. We will restore southwest Georgia. We will restore the Sunbelt region bigger and better than ever before.'' They have acted consistently since October of last year.

The State of Georgia immediately stepped up and offered tax credits, short-term financing, bridge loans, and other forms of direct assistance to those impacted. The Federal Government has been a little slower to act. It has been 5 months since Hurricane Michael ravaged the Southeast, and this Congress has done very little to help people who are barely hanging on right now. That is shameful. It is time to do something about it. This aid should have been funded as soon as we had an estimate of the damage, which was really a mere few weeks after the hurricane came through in October. Instead, disaster aid got caught up in a partisan spending battle here in the Senate, and in typical Washington fashion, Congress kicked the can down the road.

It is totally unacceptable that Washington's intransigence continues to threaten the livelihood of the very people who sent us here to represent them. If we don't help these people right now, they may lose their businesses, their farms, their livelihoods, and, in some cases, their families through no fault of their own. That is the reality we are facing here.

Every night, farmers in my State get on their knees and pray that help will soon come. They pray their lenders will show compassion when their bridge loans are maturing, as they are, literally, today. They pray they will not go bankrupt. They pray they will be able to provide for their families. And yes, they are praying for other people around the country who have been devastated just like they have.

Senator Johnny Isakson has been a workhorse in this entire effort. He and I, along with several other Senators from southeastern States, have introduced this stand-alone supplemental disaster relief bill that we just had a vote on merely an hour ago. This bill passed the motion to proceed 90 to 10. I am very proud to be a Member tonight of a body that has agreed to put this on the floor and to do what the Senate is supposed to do, and that is to debate a bill, amend it, and then vote on its passage.

This particular bill, among other things, for States like California and other parts of the country, includes $3 billion for agriculture. This is specifically disaster relief for our farmers and ranchers around the country. These funds are for States like Georgia, Florida, Alabama, the Carolinas--that is

North Carolina and South Carolina--Alaska, Hawaii, California, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas, which are all battling natural disasters right now and over the past year.

I would also add that our colleagues from the upper Midwest have really moved very quickly and have been very reasonable so that we can include in the language here flexibility to make sure their needs are met, as well.

I also want to take a moment to thank our colleagues here for being very reasonable about needs in other parts of our country.

I really think that what the President has done with Puerto Rico needs to be called out. The Trump administration has been resolute in their support of the people in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma hit the island. To date, $40 billion has already been allocated, and another 50 is potentially going their way--depending on how things happen in the next 5 years or so--to help Puerto Rico recover from recent hurricanes. That is a potential of over $90 billion.

To ensure Puerto Rico continues to have the resource it needs to recover, this disaster relief bill includes $600 million in additional nutritional assistance for the most vulnerable families in Puerto Rico since that relief, that aid, actually runs out this week.

Some Members of this body argue we should allocate more funding for Puerto Rico. I would remind them that this is the same level of funding that they have previously supported. In addition, Puerto Rico's own representative in Congress, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, supports our bill. She said this ``bill puts my constituents one step closer to receiving the assistance they need to continue the long path toward recovery, and I look forward to its swift passage.''

This bipartisan disaster relief package is a win for our farmers. It is a win for families and businesses who were devastated by historical hurricanes in the Southeast and wildfires in the West. It is a win for the people in Puerto Rico, whom the President has previously helped.

Every day we continue debating this issue is a day that people across the country face crippling uncertainty. Today, I call on each of us to put our individual political interests aside and do the right thing for these people who are depending on us right now. Time is of the essence. People back home are counting on us to get this done.

In conclusion, this discussion reminds us of a bigger issue. The funding we are debating here today is, by definition, borrowed money. Because of Washington's intransigence over the last 4 years and its inability to get its financial House in order over the last few decades, coupled with this debt crisis we have today, we are losing the ability to do the right thing, whether it is medical research, infrastructure, education, or responding to national disasters. Moving forward, we will not be able to continue dealing with these emergencies and crises if we don't have a functioning Federal Government that can pay its bills and keep its financial house in order. Today I ask each of my colleagues here for their individual support on this disaster relief package.

I also ask that going forward we have a serious debate about tackling this debt crisis and responsively funding the Federal Government on time every year so we can help the American people when they are counting on us the most.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res 68 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Armed Services Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res 72 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res 117 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I know of no further debate on the measure.

I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, March 27; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 268; finally, that all time during recess, adjournment, morning business, and leader remarks count postcloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 268.