[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 17, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5036-S5037]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise to speak of the world's most 
deliberative body. Maybe we were. Maybe we have been. Maybe we can be 
again. But right now we are not.
  This Chamber has spent exactly 0.0 minutes in the first 9\1/2\ months 
we have been here on appropriations bills--not a second. And, 
obviously, it leads to omnibuses; it leads to minibuses. This is a bus 
headed off a fiscal cliff, and we are at where we are at. But the 
Founders envisioned a place where two Senators from each State would 
come

[[Page S5037]]

here, and you would have elongated, deliberative debate. What we see 
happening right now is more like scripted Kabuki theater.
  You don't get to offer an amendment, unless we know exactly what the 
final outcome is going to be. For me, why not have open debate? Have 
people offer amendments. Debate these bills individually on their own 
merit.
  I think the American people think that is actually what happens here. 
It is not. And when I go back home to Missouri and talk to people about 
the process here, it is like from a foreign land. It doesn't make any 
sense. It is not how State legislatures do it. But this vaulted arena 
of our Republic has been diminished by the fact that we can't have 
debate on individual appropriations bills.
  We didn't have it, by the way, at the last deadline. We extended the 
deadline to November 17, which is exactly 30 days from now. And for 
anybody keeping score at home, that is 9 working days, according to the 
majority leader's calendar--9 working days.
  We are going to end up at the exact same place. On top of that, now 
there is a supplemental funding request coming related to foreign aid. 
And my message on that would be the same. These disparate issues--
Israel, Ukraine, border, Taiwan--should be debated on their own merits.
  There are different considerations. Israel has a lot of support right 
now. What is happening, the terrorism that has happened, been inflicted 
upon that country by Hamas and the people, the beheadings, people being 
burned alive, they have every right to defend themselves. We should 
consider that request when it comes. It is a very different dynamic 
when it comes to Ukraine.
  We are $112 billion in. No one can define what victory looks like. 
Seemingly, each round that we get to one of these deadlines, there is 
more money being asked. It could be $100 billion next year. We don't 
really know.
  These things being lumped together makes no sense. And when it comes 
to border security funding, color me skeptical of the Biden 
administration's desire to actually spend that money thwarting illegal 
immigration. This administration has been hostile to the whole idea. I 
speak from some experience. My previous job as attorney general of 
Missouri, we litigated with the Biden administration in court over the 
``Remain in Mexico'' policy, title 42, the money that had already been 
allocated to build a wall that he used for contractors to not build the 
wall.

  This administration is not only complicit, they have encouraged a 
flood across our southern border. So we ought to have a debate on that 
on its own as well. And any of the other issues we want to try to lump 
in or bootstrap an idea that is losing popularity or a proposal that is 
losing popularity with one that might be popular is something we ought 
to reject in this Chamber. This is supposed to be the shining example, 
a unique American institution, a Senate that debates things in long 
form.
  And I come back again. We have spent 0.0 minutes in this place 
debating the most important thing that we can do each and every year, 
which is to debate our priorities about funding--what we should 
increase, what we should decrease. And the result of that, quite 
frankly, are omnibuses that appear in the middle of the night, no time 
to read them, that add to our $33 trillion worth of debt. Take it or 
leave it. If you don't support it, you support a government shutdown.
  I think people have had enough. So this is our opportunity. Let us 
spend the time. Let us be here more than 2 days a week. Let us actually 
get the work of the people done, debate these bills individually--on 
their own merit--and restore what this place should be, which is a 
deliberative body.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). The majority leader.

                          ____________________