00:00Thank you, Madam President. 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.
00:13The right way is on time. The right way is here in public. And the right way is with bipartisan support.
00:21Now, that may seem routine. It would be expected to be routine. But here in the United States Senate, that hadn't been routine for a long time.
00:28Because for years, the appropriations process has been broken.
00:34Now, we just heard the minority leader, Senator Schumer, come to the floor and say that this process has become more partisan, as he said, only in the recent weeks.
00:45Let me remind the minority leader of his own actions to undermine the appropriations process.
00:52Last year, 11 of 12 funding bills passed the Senate Appropriations Committee.
00:59They were passed through regular order in the committee. They had strong bipartisan support.
01:05Many actually were unanimous.
01:08Yet not a single one of the appropriations bills, that were overwhelmingly agreed upon, reached this floor of the United States Senate.
01:19Not a seven, not a one.
01:21Why?
01:22Because the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, blocked each and every one of them from coming to this floor.
01:29He let these 11 bipartisan appropriations bills die at that desk right there.
01:38As a majority leader at the time, Senator Schumer had the power to bring each and every one of these bills to the floor of the United States Senate, and he refused.
01:50Day after day, 100 days, over 200 days, absolutely refused.
01:57He unilaterally shut down the appropriations process, and now he and other Democrats are threatening to shut down the government of the country.
02:11Both Republicans and Democrats are fully aware of how broken the appropriations process has become.
02:17The Senate is meant to be, has been described, as the greatest deliberative body in the world.
02:25Over the last four years, the Senate has become a graveyard for consensus during the Biden administration and with Chuck Schumer as majority leader.
02:36Senate Republicans are now here to correct that.
02:40Republicans believe in a Senate that debates and amends and then votes.
02:44We believe in regular order, not top-down control.
02:50That's why today Republicans are bringing our first appropriations bill to the floor.
02:56The bill funds veterans' health care.
02:58It strengthens military readiness.
03:01It improves housing for service members as well as for their family.
03:06The bill went through the committee process.
03:08It passed 26 to 3.
03:11That is overwhelmingly bipartisan.
03:13This is one of several funding bills that earned nearly unanimous support in the Appropriations Committee.
03:20Now it deserves bipartisan support on the floor of the United States Senate.
03:26This bill to fund veterans' health care and military readiness and housing should unite us.
03:33It shouldn't divide us.
03:34This is an opportunity to return to real governing after years of Democrat-imposed dysfunction.
03:42This is how we restore the trust in this institution and the faith in the work that we do here.
03:48When the Senate does its job, the American people are better off.
03:52The appropriations process is how Congress fulfills our basic, everyday legislative duty.
04:00The duty of controlling the power of the purse.
04:03It forces accountability.
04:05It forces transparency that had been blocked in the past by the minority leader.
04:12It requires Congress to look closely at every taxpayer dollar being spent.
04:19And we should.
04:20We have an opportunity and an obligation to do that.
04:23This process helps Congress fund what really matters to the American people.
04:29It means securing the border.
04:31It means strengthening our national security.
04:34And it means protecting the most vulnerable among us.
04:37It is the best tool that Congress has to rein in reckless, runaway Washington spending.
04:43That's what Republicans are doing.
04:47Accountability, transparency, openness, letting people see the truth.
04:53If Democrats walk away from this process again, and it sounds like Chuck Schumer is trying to decide
04:58if he's going to allow his members to even vote on some of these things,
05:02if they want to do it simply to protect wasteful Washington spending,
05:06they will be the ones sabotaging the Senate and shutting down the government.
05:13It won't be the first time there will be another Schumer shutdown.
05:20A Schumer shutdown would punish hardworking families.
05:23A Schumer shutdown certainly hurts seniors who rely on Social Security.
05:27A Schumer shutdown hurts our military and the families who live paycheck to paycheck.
05:32And a Schumer shutdown forces border patrol agents to work without pay.
05:38The American people should not be forced to pay the price for the games of the Democrat Party.
05:48To my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee who worked in good faith this last year,
05:53only to see their hard work buried by petty politics,
05:57this is an opportunity for us to do better.
05:59Republicans are committed to restoring regular order, transparency, and trust.
06:07We're doing the work of the American people here, Madam President,
06:10and the question is, will Senate Democrats join us?
06:13Or will they once again drag this country into another Schumer shutdown?
