National Security Act, 2024

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. I echo and endorse the wise comments just uttered by my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Missouri. What we are witnessing here is the destruction of the legislative process in the Senate.

The Senate is here today preparing to vote on one of the most significant pieces of legislation this entire Congress--that is, a bill to send nearly $100 billion overseas--and Senators are unable even to offer an amendment to that bill.

By filling the amendment tree this afternoon, the majority leader has prevented every single Member of this body from offering amendments to the legislation, any efforts to improve it. If we want to have any amendment considered, we have to beg the majority leader to let it come before the full Senate for a vote.

You may remember that just a couple of months ago, we were in a very similar position on a very, very similar bill.

Senator Schumer promised a ``fair and open'' amendment process on the national security supplemental in February of this year, but not one amendment--not a single amendment--was considered on the Senate floor.

Republicans filed over 150 proposed amendments to improve the bill, but not one vote on a single one of those amendments or any other was allowed. Why? Why?

Well, Senator Schumer blocked every amendment from even being considered by filling the amendment tree. That blocked all of the other 99 Senators from participating meaningfully in that process.

Now, why wouldn't he want amendments? That is, after all, the hallmark characteristic of what defines us as a body. It is why we call ourselves the world's greatest deliberative legislative body. So why wouldn't he want those?

Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that an amendment might point to some of the weaknesses in the bill, some of the defects of the bill. It might prompt Members to--I don't know--slow down and ask whether this is a prudent idea--to send a lot of humanitarian aid to Gaza, up to $9 billion, $9.5 billion that could go there with minimal guardrails, where Hamas will, with certainty, seize it to wage war against Israel; or if the U.S. taxpayer should be footing the bill for ``gender advisors'' in Ukraine's military. Should they really vote for a bill that does this? That is what an amendment forces all of us to ask ourselves and decide on one particular question or another.

But leadership in the Senate wants to avoid these thorny questions that might rock the boat. Leadership wants to ram this bill through the Senate with minimal debate and perhaps no amendments because they know that aspects of it, especially the $60 billion for Ukraine, are massively controversial with the American people, those who elected us, those who pay taxes to fund these efforts.

Now, my colleagues and I are working in good faith to reach a unanimous consent agreement to bring forward a handful of amendments and set up a stand-alone vote in exchange for expediting the passage of the bill.

We nearly had that agreement locked in late Friday night--an agreement to vote on just two amendments and one stand-alone bill--but a couple of Senators on the other side of the aisle panicked and started objecting to any and all agreements.

They panicked because they knew that one of those items set up as part of a UC--the stand-alone legislation to redesignate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, as has been offered by my friend and colleague the Senator from Texas--might actually pass. Remember, this is the same entity that has been firing on U.S. forces in the region and those of our allies, and yet they couldn't let that happen. Democrats will agree only to amendments that they find politically palatable or know will not pass.

Now, it has not always been this way in the Senate. When I first joined this body in 2011 as a new Member, individual Members could call up our amendments freely and then make them pending, and the Senate would then have to dispose of them as it does with pending amendments, either by voting them in; voting them out, up or down; or by a motion to table or reject them.

But Members had to vote. They had to take ownership for their opinions in public. They had to let their constituents know where they stood.

Today, the majority leader hides the ball from the public by filling the amendment tree, ensuring that the amendments that he and his party dislike will never see the light of day.

This is a circus. It is a madhouse. Filling the amendment tree isn't about creating an orderly process. It is about limiting real debate.

When we had an open process, when Members could call up their amendments and make them pending on most bills, it actually sped up consideration of a bill. Members knew that they would have a fair shot in the debate and debate eventually. So they would be more cooperative, would be more willing to collapse time, and wait until the next bill to offer their amendment or take a motion to table as a proxy for their amendment vote.

But in today's Senate, we do nothing on the floor for hours while Members and the staff hide in the cloakroom and argue about what we can and cannot vote for. They twist arms, pressure Members in private, and make assurances they can't and don't intend to keep, saying: Oh, you will get the amendment in the base text of the next bill or you will get it as a free-standing measure another time.

And then they shrug their shoulders when it just doesn't work out.

Why not have these debates in public? Why not allow our Senators and their constituents to know what is going on? Well, it is because the majority leader doesn't want to give up control.

Sadly, while the Democrats pioneered this change in the amendment process, Republican leadership chose to tolerate the practice and even continue it while we were in the majority by filling the amendment tree so that no one could offer an amendment without the leadership's blessing. For both sides, it is about control. It is about protecting Members from voting, the very thing we all came to this body to do.

On the Republican side of the aisle, our aspiring leaders need to ask if they want to perpetuate this awful trend. Will they tolerate blocking out Members, including Members of their own party from offering amendments? Will they continue to lock down the floor? Will they continue to disenfranchise Members and, more importantly, those they represent, by preemptively blocking them from exercising their procedural rights? Or will they finally stop this barbaric practice of filling the amendment tree? Will they let Members make their amendments pending so that Senators must actually debate and vote?

Republicans need to ask these questions of anyone desiring to lead our conference.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, we just heard the astounding claim that it would be a waste of time to allow individual Senators to come here and do what they were elected to do, which is to offer improvements to pending legislation.

We are not a rubberstamp for the House. We are not a rubberstamp for either party's leadership in either Chamber. We are U.S. Senators, and we should be able to vote as such.

And so I am asking for the support of my colleagues in tabling the amendment tree so we can have the ``fair and open'' process that Senator Schumer promised the last time we addressed the national security supplemental.

If we table the tree, Members can actually, finally, be able to call up their amendments on the floor, instead of begging Senator Schumer to give his blessing for their consideration.

If you support a fair and open amendment process, if you want to improve the bill, you should support my motion to table.

This will not create the post-apocalyptic hellscape that those in leadership would have us believe will ensue.

There will not be dogs and cats living together in the streets, nothing out of the Book of Revelations. We will just find ourselves in the position of being able to do our job.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it wasn't too long ago when Republicans made a promise to ourselves and to the American people that before we sent another dollar, another dime, another nickel, another penny to Ukraine, we would ensure that our own house was in order, that our own country was secure, that our own border was secure, that we would pass a real border security measure. And yet here we are, months later, preparing to dispatch nearly $100 billion. If you say it slowly, you sound a little bit like Dr. Evil in the original Austin Powers movie--$100 billion to foreign countries while the security of our own homeland languishes.

House Republicans have broken their promise and at least a critical mass of them, under the direction of House Republican leadership, have betrayed the American people because they have gone back completely on what they--what we--promised.

Tonight, we are seeing the same movie played out on the Senate floor. This occurs at a time when about 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and yet Congress continues to add to a national debt that is about to blow past the $35 trillion mark. How can we justify this to the American people as a Congress?

Are we really more concerned with the borders of a foreign country-- Ukraine--and with foreign wars around the world than we are with the safety and the security of the United States and its citizens?

This bill tells the American people that the answer to that question is an unambiguous resounding ``yes.'' Congress cares more about sending billions to wage endless war in foreign countries, cares more about this than saving our own country, especially at a time when we are being invaded. We have seen an invasion of between 8 and 13 million people over the last few years alone. That is a big deal.

We are forgetting the wise caution left to us by our first President, the Father of our Country, George Washington, who warned against entangling our peace and our prosperity with the affairs of other nations. He said:

Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It seems no price is too high, no weapon system is off limits. Our only strategy appears to be ``spend, spend, spend, and then spend some more,'' with little to no thought given to the consequences. It is the continuation of a lackluster approach to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, devoid of coherent strategy, while allocating the vast majority of its funding to Europe and the Middle East, neglecting, of course, the looming threats from China and the warnings from great national policy experts, like Elbridge Colby, who warn us, time and time again, that the same weapons that we are depleting, sending to other parts of the world, sending to Ukraine, are those that are in such dire need in Taiwan and elsewhere.

The $13 billion in military aid to Israel is juxtaposed with the up to $9.1 billion in civilian aid going to Hamas. Now, some would say: You mean Gaza. And I say: No, I mean Hamas.

You cannot send this aid. Even if it is labeled as humanitarian or for some other noble-sounding purpose, if you send it to Gaza, it is aid to Hamas--Hamas terrorists. These are the same terrorists who massacred, who butchered, who savagely mutilated innocent men, women, and children in Israel just a few months ago in October. The architects of this bill undermine their own goal to secure stability and peace in the region.

So I have come to the floor in an attempt to soften the blow to the American people. To that end, I would like to call up Lee amendment No. 1902 for consideration. My amendment would require Ukraine to repay the money loaned to it and that the funds repaid be used to secure our border. If Congress is so determined to send taxpayer money abroad, then the repayment of this loan should not be waivable and must be used to secure our border.

It is sad that shoring up our border and protecting our own citizens has to come at the mercy of our debtors. But that is what this administration thinks of everyday Americans--that they don't deserve protection.

We should be voting on H.R. 2, and we should be doing that today. We should be addressing the crisis at the border. Instead, we are focused on sending money to secure Ukraine's border, not our own.

1902.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. If the objection is that my proposal is somehow not germane, then I will offer up another amendment. I want to bring up Lee amendment No. 1857 for consideration. It would ensure that the repayment of the loan Congress seems so determined to give Ukraine is exclusively used to pay down the U.S. national debt.

This bill demands the American people dig deeper into their pockets, funding the salaries and pensions of Ukrainian officials as humanitarian efforts under the guise of a loan. The unsettling truth is that this loan can and almost certainly will be waived, possibly leaving Americans without any reimbursement. I think that is part of the plan, in fact. It makes it easier to swallow. It makes it look like something less than what it is.

My amendment addresses this concern by prohibiting any cancellation of a debt owed by Ukraine and making sure repayments go directly to the U.S. national debt.

By presenting this amendment, I aim to offer the American people the financial security and oversight this bill currently lacks, deliberately so, effectively serving as an insurance policy against irresponsible fiscal gambles half a world away.

1857.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Next, I am going to call up, in a moment, Lee amendment No. 1882 for consideration. If we are genuinely concerned about security, let's just start by securing our own citizens' personal information, securing it from foreign adversaries. My amendment would prohibit the sale, transfer, or sharing of American personal data to governments like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran without explicit consent from the individual.

For weeks, proponents of the House-passed bill to force the sale of TikTok--legislation included in the package we are debating--have told us this legislation is vital to protecting the security of Americans' data.

The reality, however, is far more complicated. Indeed, forcing the sale of TikTok through that legislation won't, itself, secure the data of users. Instead, it will simply allow another company to purchase TikTok and do with their users' data what they may.

Only by changing the underlying law and preventing companies from handing over Americans' information to our adversaries can Congress secure the personal information of every American. My amendment aims to do just that rather than engage in a regulatory game of Whac-A-Mole, whereby we allow ourselves to be distracted by whatever company happens to be making headlines at the moment. My amendment would implement a comprehensive prohibition on any individual or company operating in the United States from selling, transferring, or sharing the data of an American citizen to the government of a foreign adversary without that individual's express consent.

This is a serious solution to a serious problem. No company should profit by exposing the personal information of an American citizen to a hostile foreign power, whether that company is owned by a foreign national or by an American citizen.

1882.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. This really is too bad. These are some really good amendments. Apparently, we are not allowed to have those. We are just allowed to sing off of whatever hymnal they happen to hand us that has been preblessed by the law firm of Schumer, McConnell, Johnson, and Jeffries. That is unfortunate.

Next, I want to call up Lee amendment No. 1860 for consideration, which proposes to strike all emergency spending designations from the bill. We cannot continue to spend under the guise of an emergency, especially when an actual emergency--a real-life, present-tense, presently located emergency--involving the security of our own Nation's national border is not even being addressed in this bill. It is not just that it is not being resolved. It is not even being addressed at all.

This irresponsible practice has led to a ballooning national debt now nearing $35 trillion. It will soon blow past that. If this spending is necessary, it should be subject to the same budgetary constraints as all other government expenditures. This bill spends almost $100 billion--$100 billion we don't have--on top of the more than $100 billion Congress has already appropriated for the war in Ukraine over the last 2 years--in excess of $113 billion, if I am not mistaken. It will spend more money on interest payments on our national debt this year than on all base defense spending. And, within a year, I believe, we are likely to be spending well over $1 trillion a year just in interest on the debt.

If Congress believes it is worth spending $100 billion we don't have, Congress should be making sure that sum of money will be fully offset or subject to appropriate budgetary enforcement.

My amendment would strike the emergency designations of this bill to subject this additional spending to the annual caps Congress agreed to last year, while simultaneously predicting the bill's budgetary effects from escaping proper enforcement.

1860.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is profoundly distressing--disappointing, to say the least--that these commonsense amendments have been so cavalierly objected to and have been met only with one-word objections.

Although my amendment to strike the emergency designations--all of them drew an objection--pursuant to section 314(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I intend to raise a point of order against these same emergency designations for international disaster assistance and migration and refugee assistance for Gaza.

We are, in the end, going to have to acknowledge that we are at a critical juncture, compelled to reevaluate our priorities as a nation and our responsibilities to the American people. Every decision we make must be weighed against the best interests of those we are sworn to serve, not those people abroad but those who are right here at home.

Waving the flag of another nation in Congress as you vote to send them tens of billions of dollars doesn't inspire confidence; it creates distrust.

As legislators, we fail in our duty if we don't heed the call to prioritize the American people first.

So to all out there who find this distressing--the distressed Americans, the distressed carpenters, the distressed plumbers, the distressed poets--I am sorry that we weren't able and willing to secure the border. We should have been able to do that. We made a promise, and we as Republicans shouldn't have deviated from that promise--certainly not with the critical mass necessary to facilitate passage of this in the House and then, before the night is finished, likely the Senate; certainly not under the leadership of our own elected Republican leaders, who themselves have repeated this promise not too many weeks ago--a promise that is now apparently a thing of the past that we are supposed to forget.

This $95 billion aid package to foreign countries is a stark testament of the misguided priorities of our current congressional leadership and a clear indication that we have let ourselves and, perhaps more critically, the American people down. The situation demands a wake-up call.

To every Member of this body, by failing to address the fundamental needs of our own people, the American people, in favor of international interests, we risk not only the prosperity but also the security of our Nation.

And make no mistake, this isn't free, although it can feel free to those of us who work in this hallowed Chamber. It can feel free to us. It can feel as if we draw from an endless, unlimited well, but we don't.

As we have seen to an acute degree over the last few years, every time we spend more money than we have, that comes at a cost. Sure, we borrow the money, and sure, the credit of the United States is still just good enough that it can feel like we have the capacity to just print our own money, which is essentially what we are doing. But every time we do that, every dollar earned by every hard-working American-- every mom and dad, married or single, in this country, just trying to put food on their table for their kid, suffers, as they are having to shell out an additional $1,000 a month every single month just to live, just to put a roof over their head and keep food on the table.

I agree with the assessment of Nobel laureate and famed economist Milton Friedman, who said that in any given moment, the true level of taxation in America can best be measured not by the top marginal tax rate or even the average effective tax rate but, instead, by the overall level of government spending.

This, he explained--perhaps referring to an odd combination of credit rating, the way our deficit spending works--in effect, every year when we look at overall government spending, especially Federal spending, that is the true cost of the Federal Government because what we don't collect in taxes, we effectively print and thereby devalue every dollar that is earned by every American by degrees. Unlike other expenses that people have--the monthly bills they receive or the annual tax return they file--there is no billing moment attached to this, there is no pricetag. You don't ever see the overall amount that you are spending on this, as you do at least once a year when you file your Federal income tax return. No. It is very different with inflation. Each dollar is diminished bit by bit.

The Federal Government is costly, and when it sends money abroad that we don't have to fund somebody else in fighting a war against somebody else, that costs money.

Another thing we learn about these proxy wars is that in the United States of America, which has assembled the greatest military force the world has ever known--certainly the strongest military force that exists today--proxy wars carry on for going on 2-plus years now. We are in our third year of this effort. They don't remain proxy wars forever.

It becomes especially startling when the proxy war is being fought against a nuclear-armed adversary. That is not to say we can never push back against any nuclear-armed adversary, but it does mean we should be darn careful when we do that. We should know exactly what our objective is, what it is going to take to secure the peace so that we don't have to fight that war.

We don't avoid the profound risk to our own national security simply by funneling money through a proxy, whether that proxy is a great steward of the funds, weapons, and resources that we send or not. Whether that country happens to be one that has proven impervious to fraud, corruption, money laundering, and grift or not, we should be concerned about what happens to that money because it is ours and because how it is spent is going to have a very direct, very real potential outcome on the American people.

We cannot pretend anymore that we have the money to do this, that the economic cost is free, or that the military risk is free. None of them are.

Shame on us if we don't turn this around. Shame on us if we pass this tonight. Shame on us if we do this without taking any steps to secure the integrity of our own border.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the pending measure, the House message to accompany H.R. 815, contains an emergency designation: on page 12, lines 3 through 6, and another emergency designation on page 12, lines 12 through 15. I, therefore, raise a point of order pursuant to section 314(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 against both of these designations.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source