Tim Kaine: “I rise, as colleagues of mine have earlier today, to talk about the President's emergency declaration. Before I do, I…”

“I rise, as colleagues of mine have earlier today, to talk about the President's emergency declaration. Before I do, I will just say that this declaration deals with budgetary matters at the end of the day, whether the President should be able to take $6.1 billion this year and possibly more in future years from the Pentagon's budget to deal with a nonbudgetary emergency. I want to acknowledge that today is the last day of my budget staffer, my right hand on all Federal budget matters for the last 6\1/ 2\ years, Ron Storhaug. I am going to miss him. I will start there. I will miss Ron. He has done such a good job. My only good feeling is that he is staying right here in the Senate and moving to work with the senior Senator from Maryland. I want to talk about the declaration and urge my colleagues to vote to reject what I believe is the President's unwise use of his power to raid the Pentagon's budget. Is there an emergency at the border? There is a serious issue at the border--a whole series of serious issues, negative but also positive. Trade happens across all the borders of the country. But all the testimony before the Armed Services Committee, where I sit, says there is no military emergency at the border. We heard testimony from General O'Shaughnessy, who is the commander of what we call NORTHCOM-- everything in the Americas north of Mexico's southern border.…”