Dick Durbin: “I rise in opposition to the amendment proposed by the senior Senator from Arizona. What it comes down to is that…”

“I rise in opposition to the amendment proposed by the senior Senator from Arizona. What it comes down to is that Republicans and Democrats have fundamentally different approaches to providing for our troops, our national security agencies, and our government. Democrats are committed providing the funds necessary to protect our Nation, grow our economy, invest in research, and shelter the most vulnerable. Republicans have a different approach. They accept massive cuts to almost every agency and only provide defense funding through an accounting trick which the Defense Department's own leadership has rejected as inadequate. This is a debate about how best to protect our national security. And my Republican colleagues are on the wrong side of it. Senate Democrats are committed to defeating ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria, dismantling its terror network, and protecting our homeland. The only way we can do that is by supporting budget relief for all of our national security agencies, including Homeland Security, the FBI, and many others. Republicans haven't been willing to do that so we must figure out how to allocate funding with the existing budget agreement. The amendment offered by the chairman of the Armed Services Committee is a return to gridlock. Last year's attempt to provide only the Defense Department with additional OCO funds resulted in a stalemate and a 3-month long continuing resolution. Do we have to repeat this failed strategy again?…”