WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) lamented the Democratic Majority Leader’s delay in bringing appropriations bills to the Senate floor for a vote ahead of the government funding deadline next week. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“The end of the fiscal year is just 12 days away, and the Senate has not yet voted on a single one of the 12 appropriations bills that have passed on a bipartisan basis out of the Appropriations Committee.”

“We could have followed the regular order and debated, amended, and passed all 12 bills ahead of the September 30 deadline.”

“It didn’t have to be this way.”

“If it’s not possible to move forward on all three of those bills contained in the minibus, which currently is not possible, we need to move forward with the military construction-VA funding bill.” 

“We are wasting valuable time by not processing that appropriations bill.”

“Senator Schumer could have put the first appropriation bill on the floor in June, July, August, but here we are on September 18 trying to map out the process for the first funding bill.”

“One bill is better than nothing, which seems to be Senator Schumer’s preferred outcome.”