d 'upr

aye. mr. romney, aye.

the clerk: mr. mullin, aye. the clerk: mr. schatz, aye. mr. mr. hoeven, aye.

the clerk: mr. warnock, aye. the clerk: mr. cardin, aye.aines,

no. e clerk: mrs. gillibrand aye. mr. hawley, no.

the clerk: ms. butler, aye.

the clerk: mr. murphy, aye. mr. cramer,

aye. vote:

the clerk: mr. wyden, aye. e clerk: ms. klobuchar, aye.

the clerk: mr. casey, aye. mrs. hyde-smith, aye. mr. warner, aye. mr. mr. moran, aye.

mr. whitehouse, aye. mr. reed, aye. mr. van hollen, aye. mr. marshall, no. cotton, aye. the clerk: mrs. britt, aye.

the clerk: ms. baldwin, aye.

the clerk: mr. tuberville, no. schumer,

aye. the clerk: mr. risch, no.r. bennet,

aye. mr. booker, aye.

the clerk: mr. schmitt, no. mr. boozman, aye. mr. markey, aye.

the clerk: ms. cantwell, aye.

the clerk: mr. cruz, no.

the clerk: mr. sullivan, aye. mr. thune, aye. ms. cortez masto, aye. the clerk: mr. ricketts, aye.

mr. paul, no. . the clerk: mr. brown, aye. the clerk: ms. hirono, aye. ms. rosen, aye.

mr. coons, aye. xy mrs. fischer, aye.

the clerk: ms. lummis, aye.

the clerk: mr. barrasso, aye. mr. blumenthal, aye. mr. manchin, aye.

the clerk: mr. rubio, no. zéy

minibus. vote:

the clerk: mr. padilla, aye. mr. sanders, no.

the presiding officer: the yeas are 78, the nays are

the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a message from the house. the clerk: resolve is that the house agreed to the amendment of the senate to the bill h.r. h.r. 2882, entitled an act to reauthorize the morris k. udall and steward udall -- with a house amendment and senate the house concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby bring to a close debate on the motion to house amendment to the senate amendment h.r. h.r. 2882, an an act to reauthorize the morris k. udall steward udall trust fund. mr. schumer: i ask that reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: io concur on

the house with an amendment 1790. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: p the clerk: the senator from new york mr. schumer,es to concur on the house amendment to h.r. ask that the reading be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to concur withhe amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i amhave an amendment to amendment 191709. the clerk will report the new york proposes amendment 1791 to amendment 1790. to refer the house amendment with an amendment 1792. the pr the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york moves to refer the house message to accompany

h.r. ations with instruction to report back forth with an amendment numbered 1792. mr. schumer: i ask that further reading be waivedjection. mr. schumer: i ask ask for the yeas and nays on my motion. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have an amendment to the instructions which is at theg officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york mr. schumer, proposes amendment 1793 to the instructions to the motion to refer. mr. schumer: i reading be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have an amendment to amendment number 1793 at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the ent number 1793. mr. schumer: i ask that further waived. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. schumer: i yield the floor. mrs. murray: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank yo president. we are nearing the end of what has been a long winding and tough process, and i just want to start by thanking everyone who has worked with me to get here and that starts of course

with my vice chair, senator been a really great partner throughout this process, and i so appreciate it. i also want to thank counterparts in the ushouse, chair granger and ranking member delauro, and i want to thank all of my staff andorked tirelessly on these bills. all are incredible subcommittee chairs senators testeran hollen murphy baldwin, reed and crew senators hagerty, britt, capito graham leaders schumer and mcconnell and all of their staffs and so many others. as i've said before this is not the package i would have written all on my own, but by working together we were finally able to hammer out an agreement on fund bills that protect even strengthen critical families in our families in our economy and inur national security. make no mistake weeks had to work under very difficult top

line numbers and fight off literally hundreds of the house. not to mention some unthinkable cuts. but at the end of the day, this is a bill t keep our country and our families moving forward. so i want to talk about what is in this package before o. and i want to start with something that is a top priority for families and for me child care which is far out many people right now. i will seize every opportunity i can to help families get affordable child care and in this funding bill i'm pleased to say we increased federal funding for child care and pre-k by a is not even countrying steps i secured to -- counting the steps i secured to help young kids in college, or the pre-k program we have for our servicemembers. ultimated to pass my

child care for working families act to fix this clois and make affordable child care a for every family. until we get there, i will push for every inch and progress to alleviate the stress families are fng child care. can we take steps to help our military families get child care? what about moms looking to get a college degree? what about a -- what bit of progress can we make to help folks? these are the questions that motivate my thinking on this issue aothers like people's health and well-being. this package boosts research funding for cancer for maternal mortality, and more. it funds community health centers, local efforts to fight the opioid epidemic a mental health crisis and the new federal office of pandemic preparedness that i created with former senator burr. in the face of house republican republicans' push to end ivf, we

protected those vital efforts and we protected family planning not just from the house republican efforts to defund title 10 entirely, but also from countless far-right proposals to restrict women's reproductive freedom. the american people should that democrats stood firm to reject every single one of those, and we also stood together to make critical investments in education,ng increases we made to the maximum pell award, education initiatives and workforce training programs and rejected house republicans' unthinkable cut for funding for have reduced funding for nearly 90% of school districts. this package does fundur staffs and capitol police our election security and other essential basic functions of government. then there are the crucial

investments for our national security. madam president, at a time when putin is on the march in ukraine, the chinese government is growing its influence in an aggressive posture and the israel-hamas war is still raging. be more essential. that's why it remains imperative the speaker finally put that national secur supplemental bill we passed overwhelmingly up for a vote and thi bill promotes global stability to keep our country safe to deter conflict and ensure our military remainstrd. that means investments in diplomacy, maintaining strong ties with our allies upholding our commitments,2+ partnerships providing more humanitarian aid and promoting stability and global health. means investments in defense, not just for equipment, that is

important, but investments for the men and women in uniform who are the true front lines of defense. the bill provides our servicemembers a pay raise, ior their kids like i mentioned earlier, it invests in food security and strengthens our efforts to address suicide and address harassment in the forces as well. and this bill secured additional brave afghans who worked alongside our servicemembers during the war in afghanistan. this package providesional funding for the department of homeland security. it is not a perfect outcome, but let's not forget that democrats were at the ready to pass a bipartisan border policy deal until donald trump told republicans to kill that deal. but, madam president, in spite the funding in this bill shows we can at least agree to some extent that we must not shortchange crucial work reaching our communities, stopping dangerous human trafficking,

cracking down on drug cartels, and ensuring our borders are operating safely, eefficiently and humanely. i hope mys will work with me to close the book on f.y. 24 to avoid a shutdown and get this bill passed asap. and then let's make learn from the hard lessons of the past few months about how we do get things done in a divided government because what we have seen at this process is when we do work together when we put our heads down and focus on solutions and listen to constituents we can find common ground. we can craft bipartisan bills. but whense stopped everything to renegotiate the deal they struck with the president, when they insisted on partisan poison bills, when they listened to the loudest voices on the far right who let's be real were never going to vote for any bipartisan funding bill that get

nowhere. it wasted months of precious time far better spent crafting bills that grow our economy and protect our country and make things better for folks back home. after all of that delay, how different ultimately was the outcome. think about that. and yet now we are here six months into the fiscal year, and agencies will just have six months left to leverage these full-year spending bills. madam president, i believe that we negotiated strong bipartisan bills that willican people and this outcome is so much better than a shutdown or a full-year c.r. which would have had devastating cuts. but it should never have taken us this long to get here. we should not teeter on the verge of a shutdown and lurch from one c.r. to another. agencies should not be dedicating so many resources to preparing for again and again a possib we all agree that the pentagon and nih have better

ways to be spending their time and their tax dollars? the far-right elements who forced to care a lot about fiscal responsibility but the constant chaos that they create is the opposite of fiscal responsibility. the truth is these appropriation bills are written over the course of months after dozens of hearings with the input from nearly every member and they reflect the priorities of every state in america. on solutions, solving problems for people back home that is the responsible way to get things done. and it isor the mw we conducted ourselves here in the senate. vice chair collins and i held bipartisan hearings. we gave every an opportunity to weigh in on these bills. and we crafted 12 bills that passed out of our committee many unanimously. and i think we need more of that as we begin our work now on f.y.

25 if we're gng t so madam president, as we finally pass this bill i urge all of my colleagues to really take the lessons the past year to heart. congress can still work but only when we come to the ne good faith and leave politics at the door. before i turn it over i want to submit into the record a list reizcogn dedicated staff, the people who truly keep the trains on track, and who poured so many long days and nights of har work into these bills. i ask unanimous consent to include that in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. and i again want to thank my colleae who has worked with me side by side through ups and downs and challenges for well over a year now to get us to where we are bill passed and move on because we believe that by working together we make america better. thank you, madam president. yield the floor. ms. collins: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president, i

rise today in the final six government funding bills before us. these bipartisan bicamer results of many months of hard work by the appropriations committees in both theenate and the house. let me start by thanking chair murray for herremendous leadership and hard work throughout the entire appropriations process. made a difference. since chair murray and i took the helm of the committee over a year ago, we have been committed to an appropriations process that provided senators voice in funding decisions through robust committee proceedings. toward that held more than 50 public hearings and

briefings. we televised our committee markups for the first time ever. and the senate aprarked up and advanced all 12 bills individually for the first time in five years. and we did so with overwhelming bipartisan support. every single bill each and every one of them was subject to robust debate and amendments. many of them unanimously, i'm pleased to say. others with only one dissenting vote. the senate floor today includes the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills for the department of defense, state and foreign operations

financial services aal government labor, health and human services and education, the legislative branch and homeland security. madam president, we are not hunting through yet continuing resolution. nor is this an omnibus. rather it is a package of six individual bills that fund critical programs important agencies and essential departments through the end of this fiscal year. m would have preferred that more of these bills had been brought across the senate but no one can say that they were not available for scrutiny since we them from committee way back in july.

i want to in addition to thanks of course to chair murray to thank the ranking republican members on each of the subcommittees reflected in the package today. senators graham hagerty, capito fish their outstanding efforts in assembling this package, and i also want to acknowledge the contriatic chairs. madam president, this legislation is truly a national security bill. 70% of the funding in this package is for our national defense, including investments that strengthen our military readiness base provide pay and benefit increases for our brave servicemembers and support our

closest allies. this legislation also supports america's working familiesu while providing funding to better secure our borders and combat the tnational cri organizations that are flooding our communities with fentanyl. as part of the effort to ass the crisis at the border and it is a crisis this package includes funding forional detention beds and more border patrol agents and port of entry officers. th long-standing republican priorities priorities that are shared by many democrats as well. as the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee on defense, i want to take a few mos highlight the bill in this package on which chair

tester and i worked extremely the bill avoids a devastating year-long c.r. that every single service chief told us would be a disaster for the department of defense. it meets the complex threats that are facing our country. madam president, to changed since the fiscal year 2024 budget request was first presented last would be a drastic understatement. putin refuses to end his in ukraine. hamas conducted its heinous, brutal attack on israel on october 7. iran continues to fan the flame of violence and middle east

including against american forces. and china's budget and armed forces continue to grow unabated. but you don't have to take my wordit. in the past few weeks, the commander of u.s. central command, general croella has described this as the most dangerous security environment in 50 years. on the other side of the world, the commander of the u.s.acific command told chairman tester and me earlier this week that this is the mostime that he has seen in his 40-year career citing cooperation between russia and china as a key and growing

concern. in addition just last week the commandant of the marine corps and the chief of naval operations wrote to the majority and describing the harm to the readiness of our navy and marine corps unless we quickly pass a full-year defense appropriations bill. this needs to be done before a large part about two-thirds of our government would otherwise shut downtonight. we must not let that occur. to meet these challenges our includes nearly $8.24 billion for the u military. it fully funds the 5.2% pay raise for servicemembers the largest pay raise in more than 20 years. and it includes a critical bonuses

for our new recruits and junior enlisted soldiers. also doubles the number of children who will have access to full-daypre-kindergarten in dod schools, an important priority for senator murray and for me. i salute the work that senator -- that representative ken calvert did in whole area of improving benefits and pay for our junior enlisted soldiers. madam president, as the chinese navy rapidly expands to more than 400 ships over the n years, our legislation includes $33.7 billion for navy

shipbuilding and downpayments for boast additional gd-51 destroyer and an amphibious ship largest shipbuilding budget ever provided. indeed our legislationy fleet that is six ships larger than the president's woefullynadequate request. the defense bill also includes more than $2.2 billion for our unifor military leaders' highest priorities that were not included in the administration's madam president, we get a list of unfunded priorities from our service includes $273 million for lo radar and sensors to close the awareness gaps identified by general van commander

of northern command. it includes $50 million for the indopacom commander to accelerate his top priority targeting capability and $200 million to accelerate the development of the e- radar aircraft that was a top priority for the air force. to strengthen china, our legislation keeps the modernization of the nuclear try ad on track. transition from just-in-time to a just-in-case stockpile of munitions by authorin and funding for the first time ever six multiyear pro-carnality contract -- procurement contractsor munitions and missiles. surely that has been one of the lessons that we have learned from ukraine, how important it is that we have modernized an

adequate stockpile. $6.5 billion is included to maximize this year's production of patriot air defense missiles, long-range antiship missiles and six the other long-range precision-strike missile programs. finally, in the area of defense, this bill also includes $500 million for iron and david's sling and arrow, the cooperative missile defense programs that arewith the 10-year memorandum of understanding signed between the united states and our close ally this will provide much-needed assistance to israel in its figherrorism. madam president in addition to having a strong national defense,ority of mine is biomedical research and

this bill will continue the making in increasing funding for the 0national institutes of health. it increases funding for nih by $300 million, including $120 million national cancer institute and $100 million more for and related dementia research. i would note that it also increases health, which is so important an area that has been neglected somewhat in the past. another cause of mine is the cochair with jeanne shaheen of the diabetes caucus has been to increase the funding for diabetes research and we have done so in this bill.

we also pay attention to the problems with opioids and have included an increase in the funding for the help to end addiction long-term initiative known as heal initiative. palliative care research also receives an increase. that is so important, as our population ages. and that is an area -- long-term care -- still need to do an awful lot of work on in this country. i hope that this will start us on ournd. again, madam president, there has been so much work done on this package of bills, and i want to thank my republican and cratic colleagues on the

appropriations committee, the leaders in the house a the appropriations subcommittees and full committee and i also want to thank our senate sides of the aisle and our house leaders for their extensive work on these bills. members throughout the senate have contributed to prioritizing funding and i funding should be prioritized. and i want to note for my republican colleagues that the legacy riders that we have traditionally included such as the hyde amendment, are finally, i want to thank our extraordinaryave worked nonstop throughout this past year but particularly this month,

without getting sleep, without seeing their families just working night and day. i urge my colleague voting for this final fy 2024 appropriations package amplete our fundamental job of funding our government. thank you, madam president. mr. paul: madam senator from kentucky. mr. paul: congress is poised to do what no american family would ever doment congress isnd a third more dollars than they receive. this is essentially equivalent to a family at homemaking $45,000 but spending $60,000. no american family can do that. that's what's happening here. the spending that has been brought forward for our spending plans this year will lead to a $1.5 trillion deficit. so we in about $4.5 trillion and we're going to spend $ trillion. it's -- $6 trillion.

's reckless. it leads to inflation. it is a direct vote to steal your paycheck because what happens, as we borrow more money, the federal reserve just money, and they'll pay for all the debt that's created today. but that devalues your dollar. so when you go to the grocery store and your 20%, you can thank the people today that are all for you and they're going to give you everything you want every program under the s that grandmother and mother and apple pie wants they're going to give you. but they're going to borrow the money. this is a witch. it's like what do you want america? is here -- it'sive you stuff with prod money, they create inflation. this has been going on for a while. but it is accelerati it is at an alarming pace now. with the covid lockdowns, we were borrowing $3 trillion. then with the biden years, we were borrowing over atill borrowing at $1.5 trillion. why?

because their spending proposals take most of the spending of oured spending is entitlements -- social security, medicare medicaid food stamps. that's two-thirds of the spending. that eals all of the money you pay in taxes. they've taken that off the limit. they've stuck their head in the sand and said we will not ever touch entitlements. well if you you're not a serious person. if you don't you're part of the problem. entitlements is two-thirds of the spending. do i want to do s do i take joy in knowing that we have to reform these? no. but if you don't reform them, they are hasn'tan anchor around the neck of america and they're spending money we don't have. so two-thirds of the spending they're not going to address. now, if the remaining third of spending we vote on -- military and nonmilitary spending. they call this d spending. of that remaining third, they take that off the table. entitlements is going up to6%. the remaining third is military

and nonmilitary. they say, well we have to the continue to expand the military. it's going to go up to3%. so what are we left with? we're left with one half of one-third. one-sixth of government about say, oh we're going to really try to rein in spending there. and there what they do is they almost slow it down to2%. this bill spends a third more than comes in. and what it is going to lead to and has been leading to is the erosion of your paycheck the explosion of your gas prices and the explosion of your grocery bills. nothing is changing. and you ask yourself where are republicans? we have a republican majority in the house and ostensibly republicans are for reducing the debt. we have a the senate and ostensibly senate republicans are for taking control of the debt. and yet what happens? nothing happens. the spending goes on apace. the deficit grows by day.

so when did we spending bill? they have months and months to do this. when did we get it? at 2:30 2:00 a.m. on tuesday. now it is rush rush rush. we have to shovel the money out the door a third of which we don't have. we have to shove it out the door because the government is is going to shut down on friday at midnight? why are we up against the deadline? because they didn't give us the 1,000-page bill until in the morning on thursday. you think we ought to read it? you think we ought to know what's in it? and democrat leadership gave this to us at 2:30 in the morning. 1, 1,012-page bill. spends over $1 trillion. no one will be able to know what's in it until after it is passed. but it is rush rush. borrow more money. spend the money. then try to deceive you into thinking we gave you, we brought you man in a from heaven heaven. you are a g.e.ing to get a lot

of -- you're going to get a lot of free stuff. but they won't that it's borrowed leads to inflation, and it's the biggest threat to our country. we are not threatened bid other countries invading our country. we are a strong and mighty country, to which i do not believe we have an external threat. but we have a internally and most of it resides in this body most of it resides in this body and in the house with profligate spenders who are not adequately concerned with spending what comes in. they're just jolly while borrowing it. they'reolly while borrowing it and sending it abroad. my simple pa thinks are with -- my sympathies are with ukraine. but my first obligation is to my country. once the war is finally over the whole country is destroyed with bombs on both asked to pay for it. that's going to be you uncle sam, uncle sucker will be asked to pay for it. this bill that we're looking at

has 138 pages and over 1,400 earmarks billion. what's an earmark? it's pork. it's not acknowledged by the constitution. the constitution tax and spend money for the general welfare. we are allowed to spend money up here according to the constitution only if it's for everyone. a bike path in rhode island is for people who live it in one city in rhode island. they should tax the people of rhode island. you don't tax everybody for a bike path in rhode island. that is against the principle and the spirit of the constitution. now, these 1,400 earmarks are on top of the 6,000 earmarks we had last week for so total -- between the two bills in the last three weeks, we have over,000 earmarks for $ -- over 7,000 earmarks for $ 13 billion. democrats and republicans want

thiso pass quickly to take sure no one has time to read or scrutinize the bill. likely no one will have the too rethe $2 billion of earmarks before this bill is passed. earmarks and pork barrel spend something not something brand-new. it has been going on a long time. there is a conservingive democrat by the name of william proxmire -- this was a long time ago, when the conservative democrats who cared about the debt. one of the programs that he talked about was -- and he gave out a golden fleece award to point out waste. but he said it was one of his favorites. he said the government in their infinite which is dumb decided to discover whether or not, if you gin to a sunfish versus tequila, which would make the sunfish more aggressive? these problems. think about it. $100,000 to give tequila to sunfish and gin and see which one made them more aggressive. you'd think that's so crazy. certainly it was one-off and we discovered this kind of waste and we made it better.

he talked about this for 15 years. and throughout the 15 years that he talked about the research money going to crazy research like this that nould be spent on increased. in fact fast-forward to last year, we're now like 30-some odd years after william proxmire was talking about this -- last year the main organization that's probably the most wasteful scientific cumulation of manhattans up here is the -- grants of here is the national science foundation. what did this body do? they voted to double the budget national science foundation. what else do they do at the national consigns foundation? let's see. nearly a million dollars spent studying whether or not japanese quail, if you give them cocaine, whether or not they're more sexually pro miss -- sexuallypromiscuous.

nearly $1 million to study japanese quail to see if they are more sexuallyake cocaine. another one was ostensibly autism. $750,000 went to some egghead, the nicestdnk of to study what did neil armstrong say when he landed on the moon. was it one small step for small step for a man? $p 50,000 was -- 750,000 was spent studying what he actually said. they listened to the crackly audio from the moon landing. in the end, $750,000 later, they couldn't decide. was it one step for man or one step for a man? this is the craziness that goes on and yet it goes on and on and on. here's what you. even when it's something justified. let's say i have family members

who have alzheimer's. my mother-in-law died not too long ago with it so i have sympathy for it. we could spend some money on alzheir's but at the same time we can't bankrupt our country. let say we spent $100 million last year on alzheimer's sease, cruel person to say we don't have enough money, we should spend $95 million this year? that never happens. nothing gets smaller around here.er. everybody that wants something gets it. put it on uncle sam's tab. and we have a 34 g $35 trillion debt. the biggest payment now in our budget within about a year is going to be the interest on that. couple of the new earmarks that are in this bill. $2 million for the construction of a kelp andin maine. you might say kelp might taste really good and i like kelp. good. there's already a $15 billion private market for kelp.

there are companies, including in maine, that are growing kelp for farm. i say wonderful. sure if giving it to the government or to government universities is going to help these businesses or compete with them. but i don't think it's ae federal government to be involved in these parochial concerns. another earmark that we discovered in this bill is $1.5 million to encourage video gaming in new york. now, you know i've got nothing against people who play games. sure. but $1.5 million to encourage people? i've seen kids i don't think they need any might be better off spending $1.5 million to discourage kids from playing games. but i see no reason when we're in thehole $1.5 trillion that we do this. this is an add on. these add ones are earmarked. they are in the name of probably the senators from new york.ided they want this video gaming thing in there. and maybe they know somebody in that industry. i don't know. maybe a friend of theirs.

that's why don't earmark things. that's why things are supposed to be for the general welfare. you don't say here is something i'm specific proposal ial interest in my neighborhood or stayed. third, $388,000 for columbia i'm sure the people who put this earmark in would be saying i just love education and i'm just for education. so am i. product of public school education, private school education, lots of education. i'm all for it. columbia university is a $13.6 billion endowment. they make $388,000 in 20 days of interest. you think maybe they could spend their own money? if you want to take a summer program to get into columbia, which i think this money may be related to it costs $12,500 for a three-week course at columbia. we are talking about extraordinarily wealthy people paying this and going to this school but there's no reason for the taxpayers to be giving a rich university that has $13 billion any money.

the next earmark we found was $249,000 for the baltimore symphony. people say, gosh i love the symphony and i love music. so do i. but the the way government is supposed to work is if you think that there's a general need for symphony money, you would pass a general mphony bive money to all the symphonies and make them part of government. one, we don't have the money to do that. instead we do something even worse. shouldn't be in the symphony business in the federal government. we don't have any money. it's not part of the general welfare. but what happens here is the people on the appropriations committee that have seniority, that means you've been here 50 between 50 to 100 years most of the tiexaggeration. let's just say 50 years. they have been here 50 years, they rise to the top and they get money for their symphony and their city. but that's not government is supposed to work. there might even be less complaints if we had a surplus.

the $250 grand we're going to send to the baltimore symphony is going to be borrowed from china. everybody is up in arms from china. we're borrowing the we're becoming weaker than china because we keep spending money we don't have. the next earmark was $1 million for cambridge, massachusetts, community center to install solar panels. i like solar panels as well as anybody. i think it's kind of cool to get some of your energy from solar panels. but this is a rich community. this is where harvard is. this is where some of the largest, most successful boston. you think they can't pay for solar panels? solar panels aren't the general are. our founding fathers said all spending and taxation had to be for the general welfare and they went one step further. article section 8 they laid out all the things we are allowed to do. not listed in those is to buy solar panels f,/ one time. you think all the welfare for

m.i.t. and harvard, they would be able to buy their own. it has no place in a budget that is $1.5 trillion in the hole and makes us weaker. the next earmark is $1 million for vineyard hospital one of the richest zip code in the united states. i've been to martha's vineyard it's beautiful, but i could only. if you live there, that's wonderful. i'm all for wealthy people. i love they have all these beautiful homes. i think president obama may have a place there. but the thing is pay for your own hospital. i've got little tiny hospitals with 40 beds in a really community that because of all the rules and regulations are barely breaking even in kentucky and i don't see see sending millions of dollars to martha's vineyard. again, why did it go to martha's vineyard? because somebody has been here for 50 years, they're on the appropriations committee. they an earmark and said i want the pork to go to martha's vineyard. nobody says it needs it more

than kentucky. they put an earmark in and they get it because they have been here a long time. that's abterrible way to legislate but a terrible way toe in the context of this enormous debt we're amassing. this bill is teaming with about $2 billion worth of earmarks at a tonal debt. just days into the new year the treasury department announced the u.s. debt surpassed trillion. hard to fathom. the chairman of the federal reserve came out and said it's an urgent problem. jamie dimon with j.p. morg and said it was an urgent problem. and in the heels of people saying it's an urgent problem, what happens? congress rises to the occasion androws more money. talk about tone-deaf, completely tone-deaf. we're just going to borrow another $1.5 trillion on the heels of $34 trillion. we're spending at such a trait that right now we are averaging $1 trillion to the debt 90 days. if that pace continues instead of $1.5 trillion it could be up

to $4 trillion in the next year. since this year the is borrowing money $7 billion a day. think about that. we're borrowing money at over $300 million per hour. $3 million per minute is being borrowed. we're borrowing money at $# 5,000 a second. this is -- spinning literally out of control. if you look at the debt clock online, you can see the numbers. just if we're to judge the back room negotiations between the uni party leap in congress and the white house by its results we can only conclude they do not take our spending problem seriously. even republicans who talk such a goodame government spending and respect for taxpayer dollars when they are at home cannot be depended upon to fight for fiscal sanity when push comes to shove. greatest threat comes not from abroad but from within the halls of congress. which at every opportunity ignore our spending

problem and expedite our economic decline. the nonpartisanal budget office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion to our debt every year for the next decade. but there is a breaking point. there's a point a print so much money, that you can have a catastrophic loss of the value. this is what's happened in south america for decades. america. and we don't want it at least i don't want it happening in our country. the cbo also estimates that net inteayments will outgrow defense spending this year and will become the largest item over $800 billion interest. this reckless level of borrowing and spending is unsustainable. the ever-increasing heights of our debt mean a weak inflation, and confiscatory tax rates. in other words, today's spending threatens tomorrow's prosperity.we're approaching a predictable economic crisis in the u.s. in my time in the senate i have proposed spendin balanced budgets, spending cuts

designed to get our nation back on path. today, though instead of a balanced budget i merely ask this -- that this bill be sent back to the appropriations committee and that they report to the full senate about how to responsibly cut 5% from thoated monstrosity. we wouldn't eliminate anything but everything you're going to spend money on -- motherhood apple pie is going to get 5% less. that's what it would take to start balancing our budget. it wouldn't do it on this bill show that somebody is serious about the spending. my instructions even least appropriations committee open to determine where to reduce