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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to compliment the majority leader, the Senator from South Dakota, for his continued efforts to have the Senate return to the days in which we were the greatest deliberative legislative body, assuming that was ever true. It is hard to find evidence that it is true today. And, certainly, a basic function of the Congress is to do appropriations bills.

I have heard a number of my colleagues, particularly Democratic colleagues, complain about the appropriations efforts by the White House, by the administration. They remind us that the Constitution puts in the prerogative, it is the Congress that appropriates. Here we are trying to appropriate, to do our constitutional duties, and the vast majority of Democrats stand in the way on one of the most important appropriations bills that we could consider, the Defense appropriations bills.

Our adversaries, our allies, again, wait and watch for signals that the United States of America is the country it needs to be to defend freedom and liberty around the world. As of today, we are incapable of funding our Department of Defense.

I highlighted yesterday in remarks that those who had come to the floor and worried and complained about the military men and women during the shutdown who are not receiving compensation for their service to our Nation, the most straightforward way to make certain that those who serve are compensated is to pass the Defense appropriations bills authorizing and appropriating the money to make those payments. Yet, today, there are those who stood in the path to prevent that from happening.

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