The Acting President pro tempore: The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Cornyn: Madam President, listening to the distinguished Senator from Utah, I could not help but agree with him that it is refreshing to go back to our States to talk to people whose priorities are different from those in Washington, DC, and to sort of decompress a little bit and get in touch with reality once again.
Washington, DC is a fascinating place, but it is kind of like coming to Disneyland in some ways. It is not real in many respects, although as we all know, important decisions are made here that affect the lives of all 300 million people in the United States and people all across the world.
It is one of those decisions, or should I say nondecisions, that I will rise to speak on briefly this morning. It is more in sorrow than in anger, but I am speaking specifically of the fact that it has been more than 60 days since the President sent up an emergency war spending bill to Congress. Now 60 days, more than 60 days, have passed, and the troops still do not have the money and the House of Representatives has yet to appoint conferees so we can move forward on getting that money to our troops. In fact, the House is in recess for an additional week. Our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, of course, do not have the liberty of taking a recess in the middle of the battle they have so nobly and valiantly committed themselves to fight. While they are living up to their responsibilities, I think it is important for Congress to live up to its responsibilities too. Of course, the message they are seeing is more than a little bit confusing, and I regret that, honestly, because while the Senate majority leader, Senator Reid, at one point has said we are not going to do anything to limit funding or to cut off funds--he made that comment on November 30, 2006--on April 2, 2007, he made the announcement that, in fact, he was going to cosponsor Senator Feingold's legislation that would do exactly what he said he wouldn't do a few short months before; that is, cut off funds to support the troops.
Notwithstanding that position, we did, in fact, pass the funding bill, but, unfortunately, it contained unnecessary spending and in effect a surrender date for our enemy to see. I cannot bring myself to understand how someone can say they support the troops with the surrender date or porkbarrel spending necessary to secure the votes to pass it, because it could not pass on its own merits.
I have, in fact, joined the rest of the Senate and House Republican leadership in sending a letter to Speaker Pelosi, urging her to call the House back into session immediately so Congress can finish its work on this important emergency spending bill.
Keep in mind, funding for these troops has been pending since February 5, and because of the unnecessary strictures on the President's authority as Commander in Chief, where Congress has, in effect, deemed to act like an armchair general, all 535 of us, to dictate the tactics of the battle 6,000 miles away, the President said he is likely to veto the bill unless it is changed substantially through a conference committee. The Senate, of course, appointed conferees on March 29, but the House never did, despite passing the bill a week earlier.
Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said he hoped the conference committee would begin on March 30, but, unfortunately, that hasn't happened, and again our troops still do not have the resources they need.
Lest there be any doubt, this is what the Army Chief of Staff, General Schoomaker, has said: Without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly Draconian measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our soldiers and their families.
Secretary of Defense Gates also emphasized the danger of delay. He said: This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families.
Some have suggested this is all a bluff, and that our military can wait until July to get the funding from this emergency supplemental. That is simply not correct. As a matter of fact, Secretary Gates listed the specific cuts the Army would be forced to consider in the upcoming months. He said: If the supplemental is not passed by April 15, the Army--which has the majority of all forces in Iraq--could have to curtail and suspend home station training for National Guard units, slow the training of units headed to the wars, stop paying for facilities upgrades at home bases, and stop repairing gear needed for predeployment training.
He said: If May 15 comes and goes without passage and seeing the funds go to the troops, even more devastating cuts would result, including a slowdown in depot repair work, slowing brigade combat team training, which would force the extension of units in theater--in other words, the troops could not rotate back on a timely basis as they and their families expect they will--and it would cause the implementation of a hiring freeze, among other moves.
I cannot understand how we can claim to support our troops and yet put them in increased jeopardy as a result of our failure to act. That is why I believe it is so important that we get these funds to the troops as soon as we can, stripped of these extraneous strictures on our troops, artificial deadlines sending a white flag of surrender, letting our enemy know when we are going to quit. It needs to be stripped of those provisions as well as the porkbarrel spending our troops ought not to have to bear, in addition to the other burden they and their families bear on our behalf.
Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The Acting President pro tempore: The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. Landrieu: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The Presiding Officer (Mr. Akaka): Without objection, it is so ordered.
