I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, today, I come to the floor to tell the body that, for the first time in years, the Senate is going to begin the appropriations process in the right…
I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, today, I come to the floor to tell the body that, for the first time in years, the Senate is going to begin the appropriations process in the right way. The right way is on time. The right way is here in public. And the right way is with bipartisan support.
Now, that may seem routine, and it would be expected to be routine. But here in the U.S. Senate, that hasn't been routine for a long time because, for years, the appropriations process has been broken.
We just heard the minority leader, Senator Schumer, come to the floor and say this process has become more partisan, as he said, only in the recent weeks. Let me remind the minority leader of his own actions to undermine the appropriations process.
Last year, 11 of 12 funding bills passed the Senate Appropriations Committee. They were passed through regular order in the committee. They had strong bipartisan support. Many actually were unanimous. Yet not a single one of the appropriations bills that were overwhelmingly agreed upon reached this floor of the U.S. Senate--not a one. Why? Because the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, blocked each and every one of them from coming to this floor. He let these 11 bipartisan appropriation bills die at that desk right there.
As the majority leader at the time, Senator Schumer had the power to bring each and every one of these bills to the floor of the U.S. Senate, and he refused. Day after day--for 100 days, over 200 days--he absolutely refused. He unilaterally shut down the appropriations process, and now he and other Democrats are threatening to shut down the government of the country.
Both Republicans and Democrats are fully aware of how broken the appropriations process has become. The Senate is meant to be, as has been described, the greatest deliberative body in the world. Yet over the last 4 years, the Senate had become a graveyard for consensus during the Biden administration and with Chuck Schumer as majority leader. The Senate Republicans are now here to correct that.
The Republicans believe in a Senate that debates and amends and then votes. We believe in regular order, not top-down control. That is why, today, Republicans are bringing our first appropriations bill to the floor. The bill funds veterans' healthcare. It strengthens military readiness. It improves housing for servicemembers as well as for their families. The bill went through the committee process. It passed 26 to 3. That is overwhelmingly bipartisan. This is one of several funding bills that earned nearly unanimous support in the Appropriations Committee. Now it deserves bipartisan support on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
This bill to fund veterans' healthcare and military readiness and housing should unite us. It shouldn't divide us. This is an opportunity to return to real governing after years of Democrat-imposed dysfunction. This is how we restore the trust in this institution and the faith in the work that we do here. When the Senate does its job, the American people are better off. The appropriations process is how Congress fulfills our basic everyday legislative duty--the duty of controlling the power of the purse. It forces accountability, and it forces transparency that had been blocked in the past by the minority leader. It requires Congress to look closely at every taxpayer dollar being spent, and we should. We have an opportunity and an obligation to do that.
This process helps Congress fund what really matters to the American people. It means securing the border; it means strengthening our national security; and it means protecting the most vulnerable among us. It is the best tool that Congress has to rein in reckless, runaway Washington spending. That is what Republicans are doing-- accountability, transparency, openness, letting people see the truth.
If Democrats walk away from this process again--and it sounds like Chuck Schumer is trying to decide if he is going to allow his Members to even vote on some of these things--and if they want to do it simply to protect wasteful Washington spending, they will be the ones sabotaging the Senate and shutting down the government.
It won't be the first time. It will be another Schumer shutdown. A Schumer shutdown would punish hard-working families. A Schumer shutdown certainly hurts seniors who rely on Social Security. A Schumer shutdown hurts our military and the families who live paycheck to paycheck. And a Schumer shutdown forces Border Patrol agents to work without pay. The American people should not be forced to pay the price for the games of the Democrat Party.
To my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee who worked in good faith this last year only to see their hard work buried by petty politics, this is an opportunity for us to do better.
Republicans are committed to restoring regular order, transparency, and trust. We are doing the work of the American people here, and the question is: Will Senate Democrats join us, or will they once again drag this country into another Schumer shutdown?
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.