Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, on Friday, the Senate passed five of the remaining six appropriations bills: Defense appropriations; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; Financial Services and General Government; Labor-Health and Human Services; Education; and National Security and Department of State--in all, five appropriations bills that fund all of those various programs and Agencies.

It has been a long road to get here, with the process most notably interrupted by the Democrats' 43-day shutdown in the fall. But I am proud to be able to say that the Senate has passed 11 full-year appropriations bills.

When I became leader, I made it very clear that I wanted a return to regular order consideration of appropriations bills.

Too many times the Senate has resorted to long-term continuing resolutions in omnibus bills written behind closed doors. That is not how I wanted to do things, and I am proud that, despite some hiccups along the way, we have returned the lead to the committees and have now considered 11 of the 12 individual bills on the Senate floor.

The advantages of a Member-driven process are myriad. First and foremost, it empowers Senators of both parties to make their voices and the voices of their constituents heard, and it provides for genuinely serious consideration of spending priorities.

This year's appropriations bills together spend less than if we had simply extended current spending levels under a continuing resolution. We are saving taxpayer dollars by doing full-year appropriations bills.

We are also supporting our national defense. Endless continuing resolutions aren't good for any part of the government, but they are especially dangerous for our military readiness.

Under CRs--or continuing resolutions--the military can be prevented from starting essential new projects. Current projects can face delays and cost overruns, and the appropriate resources may not always be available for operations.

Funding the military through the yearly Defense appropriation bill instead of through CRs is essential, and I am very pleased that we passed the full-year bill on Friday.

Before I close, I want to extend my gratitude to Appropriations Committee Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray and all the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee for their tireless work this year.

Appropriations work is demanding, and I appreciate all they have done to make it possible for us to pass 11 of the 12 fiscal year 2026 bills.

Now, on that 12th bill, we had a bipartisan agreement on the Homeland Security appropriations bill that included funding for deescalation training for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as body cams for ICE officers.

Nevertheless, Republicans agreed to Democrats' request for additional time to allow for additional consideration of this bill before final passage, but any conversation--any conversation--has to include a discussion of how to make it safer for our Federal law enforcement agents to effectively carry out their duties.

We need to address not only issues like increased training for ICE officers but things like preventing the constant harassment--and worse--that officers have faced for simply trying to do their jobs.

The President's border czar Tom Homan recently traveled to Minneapolis at the President's request, and his efforts have gone a long way to restoring order in that city and ensuring immigration operations can be carried out safely.

One thing he is trying to accomplish is increased cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. That is another thing the Democrats should be willing to address in the coming days.

It is notable how much more peaceful things have been in cities where local law enforcement has been authorized to cooperate with ICE. It is time to bring an end to the dangerous practice of local jurisdictions refusing to cooperate with Federal law enforcement.

So I hope there will be a set of issues like those that Senate Democrats and the administration can find consensus around. But one thing is clear, if the Democrats' goal is simply to make it harder to detain and deport dangerous illegal aliens, then they will find no interest on this side of the aisle. I hope that is not the case because the stakes are high.

Republicans provided for ICE enforcement in the Working Families Tax Cuts, but the Homeland Security bill funds a number of other critical Agencies, including the TSA, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Agencies that we cannot leave behind. We need to give these Agencies the security of a full-year funding bill without delay.

I, once again, thank Senate appropriators for helping us to get to this point, and I look forward to finishing our 2026 appropriations work in the coming days.

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