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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. 1437: Senator Lee for 5 minutes and Senator Scott for 1 minute.

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Mr. LEE. 1437, with amendment numbered 6541, as modified, with the changes at the desk.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, we find ourselves back in the same place. It is like deja vu all over again. We have been through this process year after year. I have been here 12 years, and it seems more often than not, we are in a very similar circumstance.

We are just a few days away from Christmas, and we are being asked to move the deadline for the expiration of government funding, potentially leading to a shutdown even closer to Christmas. Today, we are being asked to move it to the day before Christmas Eve.

Obviously, we need to keep the government funded. We don't want a shutdown. No one wants a shutdown. A shutdown would be particularly bad at this time of year. It would be horrible for our constituents, people who rely on the government for a paycheck or for this or that program. It would all be bad, and we all feel the weight of that.

We also feel the weight, as we approach Christmas, of wanting to be able to make good on our promises to our families to spend the holidays with them rather than here in Washington.

As a result of that, every year, knowing this, there seem to be people who want to make sure that all spending decisions are wrapped into one spending bill. Very often, those are wrapped together in one omnibus spending package and then held off until a day or two-- sometimes just hours--before the government is set to shut down.

That is when the magic happens. But it is not good magic; it is really bad magic. That is when these twin threats of sacrificing Christmas on the one hand or running into a government shutdown on the other hand--they operate like paired scissor blades to cut through what would otherwise be an insurmountable task. And that task involves convincing Senators to vote for a bill 3,000-plus pages long--likely this year containing 7,500 or so earmarks--a bill that they have never seen; a bill that does not, as we speak right now, exist without ever having seen it.

We all know that this is wrong. We all know that this is a corrupt way to run a government. This is a corrupt process that brings about all kinds of special interest giveaways. And in the absence of the light of day, they pass with the threat--the extorted threat--of a government shutdown or canceling Christmas--Members end up voting for that which they know they have no business supporting.

That is why my amendment is simple. My amendment simply gives us the flexibility to make these decisions not under duress, to make these decisions with clarity of mind and not influenced by this dual threat of a shutdown and cancellation of Christmas.

Now, look, whether you are for this omnibus bill that has yet to come into existence, that has yet to make a public appearance to see the light of day--whether you are for it or against it, you should support my amendment, because if you support my amendment, you are just giving us more flexibility.

The American people deserve nothing less than to allow us to make decisions consciously, knowingly, under the light of day, with clarity of mind, and not under duress. That is what my amendment affords them, extending this out to March 10.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, we will be voting in a moment on my amendment. Again, this amendment is something that everyone in this Chamber should be able to support, whether you like the omnibus or whether you hate the omnibus. The Senate should be in a position to be able to review the omnibus with a clear head without the pressure of an imminent threat at Christmastime of a shutdown. The American people deserve this, and so do we. This is the only way to make this right. I encourage all of you to vote for my amendment.
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