WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) lamented the Senate Democrat majority’s failure to adequately address multiple urgent priorities, including government funding, the National Defense Authorization Act, border security, and aid for Israel. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“The Majority Leader didn’t… attempt to put an appropriation bill on the Senate floor until mid-September, nearly three months after the first funding bill passed the Committee.”

“We had to pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until November. That November deadline came and went once again, and we had to kick the can down the road once more to January 19.” 

“The NDAA should have been signed into law by the end of September, but the Majority Leader decided to delay it until now.”

“The House passed a $14.3 billion supplemental appropriation to benefit Israel on November 2. Here we are six weeks later, and no action.”

“Then there’s the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, which was set to expire again at the end of September.”

“The Senate passed a short-term extension to provide for three more months to advance a longer-term reauthorization that addresses these and other issues. Unfortunately, that work hasn’t been done either.”

“We also failed to complete the work on the Farm Bill.”

“It’s a familiar theme where the majority fails to tee up these issues until the deadline, and then we can’t get it done and another extension has to be passed.”

“The first four months of next year will be spent working through the backlog of items that should have been completed this year. Given this lackluster performance, this is one report card that our Democratic colleagues should be embarrassed to take home to their constituents.”