the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous

consent notwithstanding rule 22 at 10:30 p.m. this evening the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892 with a further amendment, if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be vealed -- be yielded back. the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object. i think it is important the american people know why we are here. the reason we are here is washington is completely broken. this bill will have a $1 trillion deficit as bad or worse than any of president obama's. what i ask my republican colleagues -- the presiding officer: regular order. mr. paul: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 at 11:00 p.m. this evening the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the

motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892 with a further amendment. if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: reserving the right to object. i think it's interesting how much energy we're expending when we could have a vote on this. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, at 11:30 p.m. this evening, the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892, with a further amendment. further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object, it seems like a lot of

work for a trillion-dollar deficit, doesn't it? i object. the presiding officer: regular order is called for. is there objection? mr. paul: i object. mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, at 12:00 p.m. this evening, the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892, with a further amendment. further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object, a trillion-dollar republican deficit. a trillion-dollar republican deficit, the hypocrisy is astounding. every one of these republicans complained about president obama's deficits, and yet now we have them out there bragging and pushing and doing everything they can to get their trillion-dollar deficit through. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard.

mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, at 12:30 a.m., the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892, with a further amendment. further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object, realize this charade is republicans want a -- mr. cornyn: regular order. mr. paul: i object. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, at 1:0n the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the house amendment to senate amendment to h.r. 1892, with a further amendment. further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the senate vote

on the motion to concur. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: reserving the right to object. we're talking about a trillion-dollar discussion. we ought to have more discussion about a trillion-dollar deficit. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i have asked unanimous consent that the senate be allowed to vote on the pending matter, and there has been multiple objections, of course, by the senator from kentucky. i don't know why we are basically burning time here while the senator from kentucky and others are sitting in the cloakroom wasting everybody's time and inconveniencing the staff. we could easily move this matter forward and have a vote. the outcome will be exactly the same, and it's not inconsequential that the current continuing resolution, i believe, expires at midnight tonight.

so the senator from kentucky, by objecting to the unanimous consent request, will effectively shut down the federal government for no real reason. i know he wants to make a point. he has that right. i agree with many of his concerns about deficits and debt, but we are in an emergency situation. we have our military that's not ready to fight and win our nation's wars the way it should be. we have military members who have died in accidents as a result of the lack of training and being stretched too thin because of -- because of budget cuts, and we need to fix that. general mattis has pointed out that more american military members have died in training accidents and in regular operations than they have in combat. that's a tragedy that i would hope that all of us would want to address. and then, of course, there is

the disaster relief that helps people who were victimized by hurricane harvey, hurricane maria, the wildfires out west, hurricane irma, and that's an emergency matter as well. so i don't understand why -- why the senator from kentucky wants to insist on shutting down the federal government when, after the time expires under the regular order, the outcome will be exactly the same. i recognize he has that right, and he's objected to all of my unanimous consent requests to move the vote up earlier, but it makes no sense to me, it will not accomplish anything, and i just ask him to reconsider what he is doing in shutting down the entire federal government when the outcome to this vote will not be any different after the regular time expires than it would be if we had that vote starting at 10:30 tonight.

mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i think it is interesting the debate we're having, and an important debate, and it is important to call attention to how we spend money in washington and how the system is irrevocably broken. and we can cast blame where we want to cast blame, but i think for the record, it's important to know that i have been offering all day to vote. i would like nothing more than to vote. but it's the other side. it's the leadership that has refused to allow any amendments. so we have what's called a closed debate. there will be no amendments. there will be no questioning of the authority. and the deal was made in secret, and the deal will not be debated on the floor, and there will be no amendments. so what i'm advocating for is one that we should reform the process. i don't advocate for shutting the government down, but neither do i advocate for keeping it open and borrowing a million

dollars a minute. in fact, the statistics this year are now closer to $2 million a minute. this is a government that is horribly broken. this is a system that is horribly broken. and senator after senator will come up quietly, and they will say oh, this is the last time i'm voting for a continuing resolution. this is terrible. this is a terrible way to run a government. this is a rot especially way to run the government. and yet, they keep voting for it. they're in charge. why have we been doing this for 40 years? four times in 40 years have we actually done our job where we voted on each individual appropriation bill. earlier today, i went through some of the waste. it's amazing the waste that's being going on. william prostate proxmire was ft pointing out this waste in 1968. one of the examples he pointed to was that money was being spent studying why men fall in love with women. you may be curious as to that, and if you are, ask your friends to get a crowdsourcing, and you

can go study why men fall in love with women, but that's not a function of government. but that waste goes on decade after decade after decade, and nothing is ever fixed. so what we have is a 700-page bill that will not have been read by anything. i was just reading some of the things that are stuck in there that nobody has any idea how they got in there. 700 pages. all of the spending glommed together in one bill with no oversight. this is a terrible, rotten, no-good way to run your government, and it's been going on decade after decade, and everyone admits it's a terrible, rotten, no-good way to run your government, yet nobody stands up and says enough's enough. they say it's a binary choice, young man, take it or leave it. well, i'll leave it. i don't want to shut down government, but somebody ought to insist that we have an open amendment process. someone should insist that we root out waste in government.

we have had a partial audit of the pentagon, and we found out that $800 million was misplaced. or lost. what's been done so far on the audit showed over $100 billion has been wasted in the pentagon, and so what do we do? we reward them with more money. we have been trying to get a complete audit of this pentagon for 17 years, and do you know what they argued? they say well, we're too big to be audited. how galg is that when your -- galling is that when your government tells you that we are too big to be audited. this goes on decade after decade after decade. everybody in washington explains about it. all the constituents complain about it. all of america complains about it. and yet we do it time after time. and then people say well, look, this is a bipartisan deal. kumbaya. republicans and democrats will hold hands to spend more money. it's the opposite of what you

want. you want compromise in washington, but we should be compromising to spend less money, not more. every one of the republicans, count them, you can look it up on the internet, every one of the republicans said that barack obama, president obama, was a spendthrift and he had trillion-dollar deficits, and we railed day in, day out, year in, year out against it. rightfully so. it was too much debt and too much spending. we were against that. that's what i ran for office on. but i'm not about to turn my head the other way and say oh, it's fine because my party's doing it. that's what this is about. it's pure, empty partisan politics where people are saying oh, it's okay for republicans to have debts, but it was bad for democrats to have debts. now it's time we stood up and said it's a rotten system, and it should end. how will it end? it's never going to end by people always passing the buck and saying oh, i'm voting, this is my last continuing resolution. i hate continuing resolutions. they're terrible.

this is my last one, but i'm going to vote for one more. maybe next year or actually in a month because we'll be doing this again in a month. you realize we're on our fourth continuing resolution. this has nothing to do with the budget. the media kind of confuses this. they say we have a budget deal. no, we have a continuing resolution deal. this is not a budget. this isn't some sort of plan. this hasn't gone through a committee. there's no appropriation bills that are going through committee. there's no oversight happening to your government. and so when i tell you that $356,000 was spent last year studying why japanese -- or what happens to japanese quail when they are on cocaine, are they more sexually promiscuous on cocaine, this is what your government is spending money on. but it doesn't get any better because we never root out the waste. in fact, the agency that has been doing this research ends up getting more every year. they are like oh, we like science. well, if you like science, you'll like this one.

they took $700,000 from autism research and they spent it studying what neil armstrong said when he was on the moon. did he say one small step for man or did he say one small step for a man. we spent $700,000 studying whether the preposition a was in neil armstrong's statement, $700,000 that should have been spent on autism. so this really isn't just about fiscal conservatism, although it is, it's also about how best to spend money for legitimate expenses. every time you spend money in a wasted way, you're taking it away from something that presumably was less wasteful. so this is a big deal. do i want to shut down government? no. but do i want to keep it open and not reform it? hell no. that's what's going on. trillion-dollar deficit this year. it's going to be bigger, probably, but we were approaching a trillion dollars before they added $300 billion in new spending to this. so this is a problem.

this is a big deal. and what i have said all day long, i will vote all day long to start the process, open the doors. we could have had 40 amendments today. we have been at this all day, with the other side blocking amendments, trying to have no debate and trying to close the door so a secret deal, a deal done in secret could be forced on everyone else. so yes, we should have debate, yes, we should have a vote. let's have a vote tonight on amendments. let's have amendments. let's determine whether the american people or the senate are really in favor of busting the caps. i have one amendment. i'm not asking for a dozen amendments. i'm not asking for a hundred amendments. i'm not asking for a thousand amendments. i'm asking for one. it takes 15 minutes. so realize these people all day that want to paint a picture -- one, they are embarrassed and i understand that. they are embarrassed by this situation because they know that hypocrisy is thicker than pea

soup. they know the hypocrisy is out there. they know they railed and they railed and they railed against president obama's debt. trillion-dollar destles. every one of them railed against it. now they are going to have to vote tonight for a trillion-dollar deficit. so that is the problem here. and so there is a certain embarrassment to bring this up. and so the embarrassment causes them to say we don't want any amendments. we're not going to have any amendments because we don't want to discuss this. it really ought to be discussed. and so much more should be discussed. it isn't just that we're blocking amendments or debate on spending or that we're not doing our job on appropriations bills. we're also not doing our constitutional duty on the declaration of war. you know, this was something that the founding fathers were explicit on. the power to declare war was given to congress. section 1, article 1, section 8, given to congress. in fact, there is discussion of this. there was extensive discussion of this. almost every founding father

weighed in on the fact that war should be declared by the legislature. madison put it this way. he said that the executive branch is most prone to war. therefore, with studied care, that power was vested in the legislature. whfertion the last -- when was the last time we declared war? we came to congress -- george bush came to congress when we went to afghanistan the first time and when we went to iraq the first time and there were votes, but these votes were long ago, nearly a generation ago and they don't apply to anything we're doing now. there is a certain intellectual dishonesty for those who say that the vote to go into afghanistan has anything to do with what we're doing there now. there is no military solution there and that also ties into our budgetary problems. we do not have enough money to build nations around the world and think that we can build our

nation here hat home. so when people talk about nation building, i say, yeah, you're right, but we need to do some nation building here. the president has talked about a trillion dollar infrastructure plan, but there's no money for it. so we're borrowing $1 trillion before we get started on people be a indicating for a trillion dollar plan. there is no money. as people come to my office and they say, we want money for x, we want money for y, we want money for z, i listen carefully an sympathetically. i say, we're a rich country, we ought to be able to do what you're asking me yet we have a trillion dollar deficit and everything has to be reflected that we are out of money and who horribly spending a great excess of what comes in. but nobody's making these difficult choices because we keep adding on to the tab. we basically borrow more money.

when president obama was president, you know, we were -- under george w. bush we went $5 trillion to $so trillion and -- to $10 trillion, with president obama we went higher. we may be escalating the curb. that enormous debt we criticized and said it was a bad thing for the government and there was a debt commission and a lot of discussion and handwringing. i was one of those. i was concerned and still am concerned. we have a debt that continues to escalate yet what do republicans do when they are in charge? you remember the stories, if you were asked to help republicans, they said, we took over the house but we control one half of one-third of government so we can't get everything we want, didn't happen. they took over the senate and they said we have to have the presidency. and lo and behold, we won the

president and we have all of the branches of government and yet we are putting together at spending bill that will be the equivalent of a interested deaf -- of a interested deficit. is it wrong to do our job it that we ought to go into an appropriation process. the house did it. people say we can't do it. the house of representatives passed all 12 appropriation bills. it can be done. it is not what i would hope in the sense that there it is too much money -- there is too much money spending in the appropriation process. we should do the appropriation bills. 12 departments of government, let's pass them one at a time. we should keep in mind that when we vote to spend money that the constitution limits very much what the congress can do. there are enumerated powers given to congress under article 1, section eight.

this was a big deal to the founding fathers. of of they were specific that those rights not listed were not to be disparaged. the list of the bill of rights is a partial listing. they said that the powers granted to the federal government were a complete list an anything not listed in the powers granted were pertained by the people in the states. and that's part of our problem is we decided we wanted a government that was everything to everyone and you ask yourself is one party better than the other? maybe at times, but really if you're looking for responsibility, you know, they want to cast blame, all of a sudden, i, myself am responsible for the whole problem here. i made them angry and they are very upset with me because i made it difficult and we're going to have to be up late tonight and they are angry that i'm pointing out that hypocrisy and that is a big threm and -- that is a big problem.

nobody likes to have that pointed out. if we don't and continue on this course, there is a great danger to this nation. there is a day of reckoning coming and our debt could get the better of us and could threaten the underpinnings of our country. for some time we have manipulated interest rates through the federal reserve and kept them below market rate and this led to a housing bubble and housing correct. we don't have a housing bubble but many of you may have noticed a huge stock market bubble. many have questioned whether that is fed by fed policy and whether or not to make it cheap to borrow money if that will have a boom that will lead to a bust. the stock market has been jittery and i think some of that

has to do -- it's funny how people interpret it. some on the left say the stock market is jittery because the government might shut down for two hours. that is the dumbest thing i have ever heard in my life. perhaps it is jittery because we are a government that is profligated in our spending and perpetually spending more and having such a great imbalance and maybe a third of what we do is financed. they say it is one thing to actually finance a white house or -- finance a house or something like that, if you are financing your rent or groceries each month, that is a problem. we have a problem paying the day to day expenses. i believe in a strong national defense. i believe our national defense is actually the most important thing that the federal government does. it is one of the things that the state government can't do.

so, yes, i want a strong national defense. you have to ask yourself whether a $20 trillion debt makes us stronger or weaker. i think it was admiral mi lligan said that the biggest threat was our debt. as we look through this, i think it would be wise that we would look at the spending bill and say, had is not -- and say, this is not the way we should run our government. we, as republicans, if we are conservative, we should look towards balance instead of going the opposite way. i will ask the senate to really take a look at themselves, look in the mirror and say, is this really what we stand for? is this what we've been running for all these years, to control government and be no different than our counterparnts across the -- counterparts across the aisle. this is hopefully a day of

reflection and hopefully also a day where some will say enough is enough. i'm not going to do it anymore. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, we find ourselves in another position like we found ourselves in before. we find ourselves in a position in which the government spending authority is set to expire in just a few hours. we've known this was coming for weeks, just like we did with the last continuing resolution and the one before that and the one before that. as it was once observed we are living in a number of necessities. every time we approach this as if it were somehow going to be different this time, we quibble from time to time about this or that policy, we quibble from

time to time about the price tag. sometimes we're so focused on the policy and the pricing that we forget about the process. and it's primarily to this subject, the process, that i'd like to turn my attention for the next few minutes. you see, the process is important around here. we come from different backgrounds. we come from different states representing i -- diverse intert across the country. we are not going to agree on everything. there are areas where we strongly disagree. that's why we have processes. the constitution itself is all about the process. the constitution is agnostic as to the substantive policy outcome. it is all about connecting the american people to their government that's there to serve them. it's all about making sure that there is responsiveness and accountability from the

government to the people to make sure that the government serves the people and not the other way around. and so it is for this reason it is very important that each member who holds an election certificate in this body or the body down the hall from us in the house of representatives is allowed to express his or her opinions and have them matter. nowhere is this more important, mr. president, than when it comes to spending bills. it's spending bills where we have the opportunity to exercise oversight over the federal government, a government that requires the american people to spend many months out of ever year working to pay their tax bills, a federal government that imposes $2 trillion every year in regulatory compliance cost on the regular people, a government that has the power to destroy a business or livelihood or sometimes lives. it is important to have this

oversight and there can be no meaningful oversight without a process. the federal government cannot fulfill its role. the american people are no longer in charge of their government when this happens. for this reason it's a little disturbing that a government that spence nearly -- spends nearly $4 trillion every year makes it spending decision in one fell swoop as it does. when we pass a continuing resolution, what we are doing as a congress is pressing a reset button. it keeps current spending levels in tact, unchanged as if there were no reviewing body, as if there were no elections, as if the american people didn't matter at all to the process by which they are governed. this is an abdication of our role. it disconnects the american

people. we wonder why this is an institution, congress, that enjoys an approval rating between 9% and 14%, making us slightly less popular than fidel castro and the influence of iris which is rapidly gaining on us. it is for this reason because we disconnected the american people from their own government. one of the ways in which we do that is when we pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels without any additional changes and when these things are offered, often within just hours of the expiration of a spending deadline. so we've got a bill before us that is quite lengthy that we've had access to for only about 24 hours, a little bit less than that, and we're asked to make a

buy ordinary -- a choice to that legislation, yes or no. vote for it and in this case there are some things that you get. you gets dz 90 billion in -- 9$0 billion in emergency spending, increase of spending caps of $300 billion over two years, you get in excess of $1 trillion in new debt. some have estimated it could be more like $1.5 trillion. but we'll be talking about a $22 trillion debt by the second quarter of 2019 as a result of this bill. and we are told when we receive this bill, you've got two options. you can vote yes and accept all of those things or you can vote

no and there's no opportunity for anything in between there. no opportunity to amend it, no opportunity to improve it. and if you think about it, mr. president, there's not really meaningful opportunity for debate if you don't have a meaningful opportunity to amend a legislative provision once it is introduced. so members are told over and over and over again, you've either got to vote for this and accept the changes or you will be blamed for a shutdown. why is this okay? now, one of the things we hear from the american people, quite understandably, quite justifiably, why can't you get into a room and come to an agreement? this is that room. there are two such rooms in the capitol, one in the senate, one in the house of representatives. this is the room where that's supposed to take place. there are mechanisms by which that is supposed to occur through the amendment process,

people offer up legislation, they offer to improve legislation. if they have concerns with it, they can offer up amendments. when members are denied that opportunity, the american people are disconnected yet again from that process. who benefits from this? it certainly isn't the american people. who find that their government gets bigger and more expensive. it does so at their expense, at the american people's expense. every time we undertake this process again, we pass another continuing resolution. we suggest that it's somehow okay to fund the government this way. with one decision affecting every aspect of government in one vote, put forward under sort of exploitive circumstances in which members are told you've either got to do this or the government's going to shut down, and you will be blamed for that

if you vote against it. this isn't right. why couldn't we bring legislation to the floor, not ours but weeks or even months before the deadline? why couldn't we allow that to occur, to allow the debate, the discussion to occur under the light of day rather than having this legislation negotiated under a cover of darkness behind closed doors where the american people are left out. i've thought about this on many occasions and how there are very few circumstances in our day-to-day lives that are like the way congress spends money. it's occurred to me that if you moved into a new area, a very remote area, and you had access to only one grocery store for many, many miles, for many, many hours, and you were on your way home from work, your spouse

called you and said stop at the store, pick up bread, milk, and eggs. you go to the grocery store, go to the bread aisle, put bread in your cart, milk, and eggs. you get to the checkout counter and put your things out. the cashier rings those things up and says i'm sorry, you may not purchase bread, milk, and eggs unless you also purchase a half ton of iron ore and a book about poetry and a barry manilow album. this is a special kind of store where you have to buy all of those things. you have to buy every item in this entire store in order to buy any of these things including the bread, milk, and eggs. that would approximate what it feels like to spend money in congress. we're told you can't fund any part of government unless you're willing to fund all of government, subject to such changes as the few people who write the continuing resolution

might insuper. and you, by the way, having been duly elected by the citizens of your state will be left out of the process other than the exercise, the binary choice of yes or no. and so, mr. president, we have seen that this is how we get to be $20 trillion in debt, soon to be $22 trillion in debt. we don't get to be $20 trillion, soon to be $22 trillion in debt without a whole lot of agreement on the part of a whole lot of people to do that. it's a bipartisan exercise, to be sure. bipartisanship is necessary, but the fact that it's bipartisan doesn't always make it holily. -- holy. you don't get to be $20 trillion in debt without a whole lot of republicans agreeing with a whole lot of democrats that we're going to do precisely that. it might inure to the benefit of a few people who stand to benefit every time the government gets bigger or more expensive, every time we do things this way, but it hurts everyone else.

the process matters. the fact is we will not always come to an agreement as to how much we opt to spend. we will not always come to an agreement as to those things on which we will be spending the requisite amount of money. but i think we should be able to agree that the american people deserve a process, one that allows them to be heard through the people's own elected representatives. if not us, who? if not now, when? at what point are we going to start appropriating funds through this government, through a process that's open, that's transparent, that can be observed by the american people, and through which the american people can be heard?

at the end of the day, we must remember we are great as a country, not because of who we are but because of what we do. to the extent that we have recognized as a nation that the dignity of the human soul matters, that the rights of the individual have to be taken into account and that the government works for the people, we have prospered and will prosper in the future, but we have to be willing to respect the american people, and we should not be surprised when we ignore them over and over again, when we shut them out of a process that directly and materially impacts their lives. we should not be shocked when they respond with horror. we shouldn't be surprised when wave election after wave

election signals dissatisfaction with this very body, with this very entity that serves as the legislative branch of our federal government. so each time we're presented with one of these continuing resolutions, or with a one-size-fits-all spending package where we're told you have got to either vote for it and all of it with no opportunity to improve it or you've got to vote against it, i have concerns with that. i've got significant concerns with this particular legislation, and i will vote no. thank you, mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: mr. president, i came in the hall just in the middle of a couple of these statements that have been made, and i was confused because i thought we were talking about the tax bill. the bill that went through the senate in december with no hearings, no amendments. it didn't even have a fig leaf of bipartisanship. and i'm puzzled as to my two colleagues who seem so worried about the deficit, both of whom, i believe, voted for that bill, which according to the congressional budget office is going to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit. so the two issues, one is process and one is results. i myself am concerned about results. i'm concerned about the deficit, and i think it's a legitimate question, but it ill bewho was one -- ill behooves one who less

than six weeks ago voted for a massive unfunded tax cut that will increase our deficit by well over a trillion dollars. so it's okay as a matter of deficit politics to be for that bill and against a bill that funds community health centers in my state, that funds opioid treatment, which is desperately needed across this country, that funds our military in a way that they can operate and actually meet the needs of the national security of this country. that's what the bill before us does. so we can argue about those things, but it's touching, frankly, to hear these very ligubrius comments about process. when the process on the tax bill was one of the worst processes in the history of this body.

when tax reform was passed in 1986, there were some 33 hearings before the finance committee. it took 14 months. and the vote in the senate was something like 90-10. that was a process. the process on the tax bill in december was atrocious. it was an embarrassment. the city council in bangor, maine, would not have amended the leash law using that process. and now tonight people are coming and complaining about process, the people who voted for that bill. i'm sorry. i'm not very persuaded by that. at least now there has been some process in the sense that it's been bipartisan, that our leaders have been able to negotiate. there have been input from the appropriations committee, from members of the rank and file on both sides in both houses. i admit, it's not a great process, but it seems to me

those who are raising that issue tonight forfeited the right to raise that issue when they voted for the tax bill, as far as i know, without a peep about process. or about deficits. so, mr. president, i agree. we ought to get back to regular order. we ought to get back to working together. we ought to get back to committee hearings. but let's not have this amnesia from six weeks ago when we made one of the most significant decisions, a once-in-a-generation decision about permanent tax policy that's going to affect the budget and the deficit of this country for a whole generation. and here tonight we're getting all of this strong emotional plea about process, about what amounts to a two-year budget, which, by the way, is the way we should do it.

not according to this process, but we ought to be talking about two-year budgets. so, mr. president, i am sympathetic on both the deficit issue and the process issue, but the lawyer in me says you're estopped from raising that argument if you voted for the tax bill. you can't have it both ways. i listened to my esteemed colleague from utah, and i understand his concerns, i share his concerns. if only he had said that in december, but instead he says it tonight when we're talking about funding our military, funding opioid treatment, funding children's health care. mr. president, i think you have got to work it both ways. you can't just take one side of the debate and say it's okay to do a tax cut with no process, but it's not okay to take a

bipartisan, negotiated arrangement on the budget because all of a sudden we're concerned about process. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. lee: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: i appreciate the keen insights of my friend and distinguished colleague, the senator from maine. i would point out here there was process on the tax bill. it may not have been perfect. in fact, it wasn't. but there was a process. we had amendments. we were allowed to offer them, to have them considered. we did, in fact, take votes. there is no process on this. now, i have been told by some members of this body, some from my party, some from the other party that there is a process because members of the appropriations committee have had input on this. that isn't a process that

belongs to the senate. that's for one committee. it's not a substitute for floor consideration. there is a provision of the united states constitution that makes certain kinds of amendments to the constitution pat eptly unconstitutional -- patently unconstitutional. that provision says you can't do anything to alter the equal representation of the states within the united states senate. consistent with the spirit of that provision, we have got to make sure that we don't make changes to senate procedure in a way that creates a super class of senators. we don't want to get to a point, to paraphrase george orwell, where we say all senators are equal, but some are more equal than others. process within the appropriations committee is not senate process. we did, in fact, have a process

on the tax bill. it was not perfect, but it was a process. here there isn't. here there's not an opportunity for amendments. there's not an opportunity for a single amendment. that is a material distinction, and it's one worth noting here. it's also worth noting here that we have done this over and over and over again. what is this? the fifth continuing resolution of this fiscal year alone. this is happening over and over and over again, so much so that many members of this body have never seen it operate any differently. that's a sad state of affairs and one that ought to be troubling to members of both political parties and to members of this body from every part of this great country. thank you, mr. president.

mr. tillis: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of house con. res. 102, which was received from the house. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: house on current resolution 102, authorizing the use of emancipation hall to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of frederick douglass. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding? without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. tillis: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no

intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess until 12:0001:00 a.m., on -- 12:0001:00 a.m. on friday february 9. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess