Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies

Floor Speech

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Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1182 and ask that it be reported by number.

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Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, Americans are hurting more than I think in any other time since I have been here for sure: high inflation--I calculate in the 5 years I have been here, we have added 15 trillion to our national debt--struggling to make ends meet and I think inflation, and all of this is DC's fault.

Starting in 2021, Congress kept passing huge spending bills. We have never gone off of it since then. We now borrow a trillion dollars every 6 months; it used to be annually. Massive spending packages sail through this place because they are packed with pet projects. We have even brought back earmarks. Earmarks give Representatives, give Senators, the incentive to be big spenders. We should cut every earmark out of this bill and ban them permanently and quit loading up our kids and grandkids with the debt to pay for all this.

Shameful, in my mind.

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Mr. BRAUN. First of all, I echo the comments of Senators Collins and Murray on the tragedy in Maine. We see it all too often.

When it comes to this place, we don't do budgets anymore. We haven't done them--that we have adhered to--in over 20 years.

We piled up--to give you a little taste of debt--$5 trillion in debt in 2000. We added another $6 trillion, I believe, or $5 trillion by 2008. We added another 8 from 2008 to 2016. Where is it going to end?

Yes, Congressional Directive Spending would be OK if it was in the context of actually doing budgets and not borrowing all this money from our kids and grandkids.

This is symbolic mostly, but going back to earmarks just says we are putting a rubber stamp on the dysfunction that drives this place in the first place.

I yield. Vote on Amendment No. 1182
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