Pete Ricketts: “our Nation is facing many challenges at this point. Yet, this week, the majority leader doesn't have us addressing them.…”

“our Nation is facing many challenges at this point. Yet, this week, the majority leader doesn't have us addressing them. Look around this room. There is nobody here. We should be voting Monday through Friday until we get our work done. We have a national debt that is almost $34 trillion. That is $256,000 per household. That is about equal to a second mortgage for homeowners in Nebraska. We also have a humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. I was just down there for the fourth time. What I saw was a humanitarian disgrace. Record numbers of illegal immigrants are crossing the border. Children are being trafficked. People are dying. Cartels are profiting. The Biden administration is directly responsible for this humanitarian crisis. They should be ashamed of themselves. The Biden administration's policies are also creating a major security crisis. A record number of encounters with individuals on the Terror Watchlist has gone on when that number used to be in the single digits just in the past few years. Washington has an important role in dealing with these challenges. The ideal time to address them is through the appropriations process. As we all know, Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills every year, and this would avoid a government shutdown. This year, for the first time in 5 years, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed out all 12 of those appropriations bills. The first 2 came out on June 22, and the other 10 came in July.…”