On the recordOctober 7, 2015
I am pleased to come to the floor today to express my support for the final conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act, what we need to do as a Congress to authorize the work that can be done to defend the country. I urge the President to sign this bill. For 54 straight years the Senate has done its job in authorizing the things that need to be done to defend the country. We have passed the bill. This fulfills part of that responsibility to defend the country. It is the first responsibility of the Federal Government to defend the country. This is something that can't be better done somewhere else. It is something that has to be done by us, and two things have to happen for that to be done. We have to authorize the spending in the way this bill does and then we have to appropriate the money once that spending has been authorized. The majority voted several weeks ago to debate the appropriating bill, but we couldn't get even six Democrats to join us to debate that bill. Well, now this bill has passed. So maybe the next move is to pass the bill that funds what has just been authorized. It has passed the House, it has passed the Senate, and the Commander in Chief of the United States is saying he would veto the National Defense Authorization Act? The President apparently believes the defense of the country is a legitimate bargaining chip in how we spend all other money.…
