wasted that money still here, the budget is probably ten times bigger personal on this crazy stuff. so here's a good run from the same group of people that brought you neil armstrong and $700,000 these people, they want not. they decided they wanted to know our japanese quail more sexually promiscuous on cocaine. inquiring minds want to know. i think we could pull the audience. do you think japanese quail are were sexually active on cocaine. we spent $356 million study in

this you have a 700 page bill and nobody looks at it how are you find this? if we did an appropriation bill that included it would still be 500 pages long and you have to hunt long and hard. we don't look at the conditions. nobody reads them. we don't to individual bills. people come in and say out for legal aid and i think people should have a lawyer and poor people should get help. >> the senate has been in resource for over an hour at approximately 1:00 a.m. senators will hold a vote on moving forward with new government funding the to your budget agreement. a final vote could come read 2:00 a.m. live coverage, now on c-span2.

no one is like you. your way is perfect. your promises prove true. you rescue those who look to you for protection. great and mighty are your works. give wisdom to our lawmakers. remind them how brief their time on earth will be. help them to see that we are moving shadows who bring nothing into this world and will take nothing from it. remind us all that time is fleeting and our hearts, though stout and brave, continue to beat funeral marches to the grave. and so lord, where do we put our trust?

our hope is in you. we pray in your mighty name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., february 9, 2018. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable james lankford, a senator from the state of oklahoma, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: orrin g. hatch,

president pro tempore. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader of the senate. mr. mcconnell: i call for regular order. the clerk: house message to accompany h.r. 1892, an act to amend title 4, united states code, to provide for the flying of the flag at half staff in the event of a first responder in the line of duty.

the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: whraf -- what we've experienced today is a long debate about how we should spend our money. i said repeatedly it is a terrible, rotten way to spend your money, terrible way to budget your money, terrible

thing to lurch from deadline to deadline. basically congress lurches to deadline. so congress lurches basically from deadline to deadline. then congress waits until the last minute and then gloms the spending together in one enormous bill. when that bill comes forward, though, at the very last minute we're told we don't have enough time to debate and amend the bill so no one is allowed to participate in the process other than a few folks behind closed doors. the consequences of this have not been good, i think, for the country. all day long what we've been requesting and what i've been asking for is simply 15 minutes to have one amendment. and my amendment would have said that we should live within our means, we should live within the budgetary caps that we've set and try not to add too much debt. we were denied this amendment even though we've had plenty of time.

we probably had time for 40 or 50 amendments today had we actually allowed this to happen. but make no mistake, the result of this bill today is a bipartisan looting of the treasury. we are going to now have a bill that expands spending across the board and will lead to $1 trillion annual deficits. but it doesn't have to be that way. i think the senate, if it actually tried harder, could do the right thing. if you were passing individual appropriations bills, no one senator would ever stop anything, would ever be able to shut down anything. if we had done our job, the appropriations bills would have already been passed or be in the process of passing for the following year. i think it just takes will power to do it. everybody you talk to says, oh, yeah, we should do it that way and everybody sort of quietly says this is the last time i'm voting for a c.r. or for one of these enormous spending bills, and yet we're on our fourth one

this year. and even though i have great complaints about how much debt is going to be added with this, i think we also are finding that we're having another one of these in a month. so really, i think that's what's disconcerting to a lot of this, to a lot of us is that we don't go through the process of actually looking for waste in government, going through the committee process, spending the money more wisely. earlier today i went through a series of waste, series of wasteful projects that are out there. many of them are very similar to wasteful projects that william proxmire had started noticing in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and yet we still have many of that same waste goes on and on and on. only four times in the last 42 years has congress actually passed all the appropriations bills. but it's not impossible, even in our modern era. the house this year actually passed all 12 appropriations bill. and yet, we didn't have time somehow to take up any of that

or do any of our work on our side. but there is real consequences to what happens. and one of the consequences here is that we are accumulating new debt at about $1 million a minute. we have for some time. the new estimates actually are closer to $2 million a minute. it's going to be about $1 trillion a year. when you look at the debt that was accumulated for the last 17 years or so, george w. bush doubled the debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion. president obama doubled the debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. and now we're on course to exceed $30 trillion in the next seven years or so. so there really are signs that the budget process is broken in the sense that we're always doing these short continuing resolutions, but there's also evidence that we're not being very good stewards of the money in putting all the spending together in one bill at one time. i think the vote tonight is a

vote about many things. it's about whether or not you favor a government accumulating so much debt. it's about whether you can reckon that with your conscience when you, or for many of us complain for years and years about the $11 trillion annual deficits -- about the $1 trillion annual deficits of president obama. it is a litmus test of conservatism because some of us maintained we're fiscally conservative, go home to our states and say we're holding the line and yet it only appears we're conservative when we're in the minority. that's really a good question. are we to be conservative all the time or only when we're in the minority? some will say we must govern. my question about governing is does governing mean abandoning one's principles? does governing mean that we are going to be senseless and spend and throw money at every problem? some said this is a great deal because it's bipartisan. but really in some ways it's a

bipartisan compromise in the wrong direction. both sides have come together and said we'll spend more money on the sacred cow that each side wants, but in reality the person that gets shafted is the taxpayer, the next generation that's going to be burdened with this debt. there is some procedural ways we could try to avoid this. we could all just do the right thing. that hasn't seemed to work for decade after decade. there are ideas such as the government prevention, government shutdown prevention act. and what it would do is it would say if the appropriations committees don't do their job, if they have 12 months to actually come up with an appropriations bill and then the deadline comes and in 12 months they haven't done their job, what would happen is the government wouldn't shut down. the government would continue spending money. but it would be at 1% less than they had been spending money. and i think you have to have that hammer. you have to have some kind of punishment for not doing your job. and the punishment here would be

we'd slow down the rate of growth of government, 1% cut. if you had a 1% cut annually in the government you budget your balance in about five years. a 1 #% cut would be pretty dramatic and going in the right direction. for those who don't want to cut spending the 1% cut would be an incentive to do their job, to process the appropriations bill and have them come out. even if we only did 6 out of the 12 appropriations bills only one half of the government would cut down. every appropriations bill that is brought through committee and brought to the floor is one step in the right direction and makes it less likely that we would have a complete shutdown. so i think that drawing attention to how much debt we're accumulating is something that is important. some will sail that this was a mistake -- some will say this was a mistake to have this debate today. this debate could have been shortened and could have been finished by noon today had we been granted 15 minutes to have one amendment.

so i think part of the process is even if we were going to do the appropriations bill the way many of us would like, i think they should come to the floor and we should have a week or two of amendments. it's the most important thing we're supposed to be doing. why couldn't we have amendments? we do sort of opposite now. we wait until the last minute. we waited all week long to put this at the end of the week and let it expire toward the end as people get tired and everybody says you don't want to shut down the government, do you? and i really don't. my intention has never been to shut down government but my intention is also not to keep it open and borrowing $1 million a minute. my intervention is not to vote for bills -- my intention is not to vote for bills that spend so much money i think they endanger our security. there have been those who say the greatest threat to our national security is actually our debt. i think that's true. i think if we don't rectify this, if we don't fix our broken system, if we don't show the american public that we can function that -- in a way better

than lurching from deadline to deadline, i think the american people are going to catch on maybe we need new people. i will see no reason on the first day of our legislature that our leadership couldn't sit in the chair and say to everyone we're going to do all 12 appropriations bill individually. we'll spend three months in the committee on all of them, bring them to the floor and do a week or two on every bill. that would be the primary thing we did during the entire year. we would review all the spending to make sure we're not wasting the money, to make sure there's not programs in there that are wasteful. right now we're going through a pentagon audit. instead of actually enforcing things on the pentagon to spend better, we're actually just giving the pentagon a pile of more money. and so the recent audit had $800 million that was missing or lost. that's a large amount of money. the recent audit also says there's over $100 billion that was spent in a wasteful manner. i would think we would want to take something like that, go through the appropriations

process and try to fix the spending. you'll never get less waste if you give people more money. the bottom line is you have to give people less money. if you give people more money, they'll continue to waste it at the same rate. you can say we're rooting out waste but if you increase the amount of money you give people there will be more waste. there are some departments of government that should be eliminated. i think there's a lot that can be done but none of this is happening now. when we put all the spending together in one enormous bill, there is not enough time to read it. if there are no amendments there is no process to try to reform government. i think this has been a very useful debate. my hope is those who mutter and say gosh why are we having to do this so late at night will say why do we do it at all this year and why can't next year we do it in a better way or why can't we begin the do the process of sending bills through committee and debating them in a form

fashion. i for one thing this is an important debate and the future of our country hinges on how much debt we're accumulating. i hope those who look at this bill who believe debt is a problem will consider saying enough is enough and i'm not voting for more debt. thank you. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. a senator: south. the presiding officer: south dakota. you mr. rounds: i would ask we begin the cloture vote at this time. i believe we're two minutes away from the scheduled time. the presiding officer: is there objection?

without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 move to bring to a close debate on the house amendment to the senate amendment with further amendment to h.r. 1892 an act to amend title 4 united states code to provide for the flying of the flag at half staff and so forth signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is is it the sense of the senate that the debate on the stphaot should occur on the house amendment to the senate amendment on h.r. 1892 with amendment 1930 offered by the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell, shall be brought tpo a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

vote: the presiding officer: is there anyone in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 73, the nays 26. three fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn, the motion is agreed to. cloture having been invoked, motion to instruct falls. the majority leader. the presiding officer: the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. mcconnell: i know of no further debate. the presiding officer: is there further debate? seeing none, the question is on

amendment number 1931. mr. mcconnell: i withdraw the amendment. the presiding officer: the amendment is withdrawn, the motion is to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892 with further amendments, the yeas and nays were previously ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

, the presiding officer: if not, the yeas are 71. the nays are 28. the motion to kur in the house

amendment -- concur to h.r. 1892 with an amendment is agreed to. the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: calendar number number 302, h.r. 2579. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 302, h.r. 2579, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 and so forth. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk on the motion. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 302, h.r. 2579, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1986, and so forth signed by 17 senators. mr. mcconnell: i ask the reading of the names be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to immediate consideration of h. con. res. 104 which was received from the house. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h. con. res. 104 concurrent resolution providing for correction in the enrollment of h.r. 1892. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the amendment? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the resolution as amended be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 400 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 400, designating the week beginning february 11, 2018, as

national tribal colleges and universities week. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i further ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the senior senator from alaska, the junior senator from wyoming, the junior senator from north carolina, and the junior senator from south dakota be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions on friday, february 9, 2018. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 36, h.r. 1301. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 36, h.r. 1301, an act making appropriations for the department of defense and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is

there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. monday, february 12. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day and morning business be closed. following leader remarks the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 2579 and not withstanding the provisions of rule 22, the cloture vote on the motion to proceed occur at 5:30 monday. i further ask that if the house of representatives does not concur in the senate amendment to the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 1892 the senate adjourn until 11:00 a.m. today. finally that following the prayer and pledge, the morning

hour deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day, and the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned under the previous order.

february is. order. complicatcomplicate their role e region. held a hearing in washington, d.c. thursday examining fake news. during the session they heard from representatives of social media organizations including facebook, twitter and youtube. consequences for misuse and tracking fake accounts the event

was held at george washington university and was the first time a house broadcas broadcaste session outside of the uk. this portion of the event is about four hours.