Washington, D.C.- U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Monday regarding legislation to keep the government operational until November 18 without the deficit spending requested by Senate Democrats:
“After tonight’s vote, I think the best path forward is clear: the quickest and surest way to get FEMA all the disaster funds it needs, and put an end to any talk of a government shutdown, is for the Senate to take up and pass the House-passed CR right away.
“Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle will not agree to that.
“However, earlier today, as we all know, FEMA indicated it already has the funds it needs for the duration of the current CR — without the billions more in emergency funds Democrats have been calling for.
“Quite frankly, I think this is a vindication of what Republicans have been saying all along: before we spend the taxpayers’ money, we should have a real accounting of what’s actually needed.
“We also believe that in these days of huge deficits, we need to prioritize our spending around here.
“That said, I think the Majority Leader has found a path forward: one that will continue to fund the government, and which gives FEMA the funds it needs without any added emergency spending for the rest of the current fiscal year — emergency funds that FEMA itself now says it doesn’t need.
“So tonight we will have two votes: one to reject deficit-financed disaster spending without necessary spending cuts elsewhere, and one to keep the government operational and to provide a responsible disaster funding into November.
“The CR, should it pass, will be within the top line we agreed to last summer.
“It will provide FEMA $2.65 billion in funding next fiscal year to continue the recovery efforts.
“It will not contain any emergency spending for this current fiscal year, so it will drop both the emergency spending and the provisions paying for that spending from the House-passed bill.
“Again, my preferred path forward is to pass the House bill. But since Democrats have rejected that approach, I believe that this compromise is a reasonable way to keep the government operational.
“So now that we’ve demonstrated that there aren’t enough votes to support more un-offset spending, I intend to vote in favor of a clean CR.
“In my view, this entire fire-drill was completely unnecessary.
“But I’m glad a resolution now appears to be at hand.”