David Perdue

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I have been here for 5 years. I came from another world, one in which, to get anything done, you had to compromise. The problem we have today is that I can't find any partners with whom to compromise. This bill has been characterized as another bailout for large corporations. Really? That is the most amazing characterization I could hear today. When I look at this, what this bill is focused on is the American worker, who, in the time we have been debating this morning here, thousands have had phone calls given to them today by their employer to say: We are sorry, but because of the liquidity situation we have, there is no demand for our products or services. We need you to go home. That has been going on now for weeks, while we sit up here and talk and blame each other for things. The time for action is right now. This bill gives us an opportunity to bring over almost $2 trillion of liquidity to the American people who are in need. This is not about Big Business. As a matter of fact, I don't see any grants in here. What I see are liquidity opportunities so employers can keep their relationship with the employees. We have already heard the details today: direct payments of $300 billion directly to individuals, $250 billion for 3 months of unemployment insurance--unprecedented--$350 billion going directly to small businesses. Why? So that they can keep their employees employed, even if they are furloughed. There are $500 billion being made available for loans through our banking community. This is federally guaranteed loans. These are not grants. These are not moneys that are going to go to the boards and the executives and all that. This is money that is going for the purpose of getting directly to payroll. There are $517 billion of tax deferrals on withholding taxes on the corporate side. That is a 1-year deferral. That is not a guarantee; it is not a grant. There are $250 billion of other moneys, 180 of which is going to cities and municipalities and States. And I agree with the assistant leader of the Democratic Party that we might need to do more for our States, and let's get to it, if that is the biggest issue here, but that is not the biggest issue. There are so many of these other things that are being thrown in this bill because it is a big bill; it is unprecedented. But let me just say this: What we have done is try to make this a situation where we can avoid a liquidity crisis causing an insolvency crisis, and that is the most damaging thing we can do to the American worker. At the end of the day, the American worker has something that they all have in common. They have an employer. That employer is made up of investors, just like you and I, who invest in those companies who employ these people. This is not a government employing 150 million people in our workforce. This is about getting the American economy a bridge--and that is all this is, is a bridge to weather this medical crisis that we have. I yield the floor.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about what turns into a perennial topic, and that is how we fund our military. We are in a situation that in the last 45 years, we have only funded the Federal Government four times on time. Yet we see a situation where the world is more dangerous than at any time in my lifetime. We face five threats across five domains--this has increased over the last 15 or 20 years--and at the same time, we have been at work for 20 years against terrorism. That war has not abated. It has not gone away. It is still there. We now face five threats--primarily, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism--across five domains: air, land, sea, cyber, and now space. Yet, with that backdrop, the world being more dangerous than at any time in my lifetime--and I remember the Cold War. I remember the Cuban missile crisis. These are things that, in my childhood, really imprinted on my brain how dangerous the world can be. Yet, today, I say with some qualification, the world is more dangerous than at any time in my lifetime. Yet, three times in the last 50 years--the last three Democratic Presidents cut spending in our military by 25 percent. That was in the late 1970s, in the mid-1990s, and just in the last decade. This is devastating. We saw that in readiness in January of 2017. Two- thirds of our F/A-18s couldn't fly. We had only 3 Army brigades ready to fight out of 59. This was a devastating thing we did to the U.S. military, and it hasn't gone away today. Today--even today--under Republican leadership in this Senate, this is something that has been going on for decades; that is, we use something called continuing resolutions. Let me describe where we are today. The reason I am here speaking to the body is that we are beginning the authorization process for defense and other authorizing functions within committees, leading to the appropriations process, which was supposed to be completed by September 30 this year, the end of our fiscal year. Well, we are in the sixth fiscal month of this fiscal year, which ends September 30, and we are just now beginning this process--for a lot of reasons, impeachment being one. There are several other reasons contributing to the fact that we are late in this process. So we are staring down the barrel of another continuing resolution, which we now know costs the U.S. military $5 billion per quarter. For 12 of the last 13 years, the Congress has put a continuing resolution in place for the first quarter of each new fiscal year. Only in 2018, when this body stayed here in August and wrestled this issue to the ground, did we fund the military by the end of the fiscal year-- only one time in the last 13 years. As a matter of fact, in 2018 when we got 75 percent of the budget funded, that was the first time in 22 years we had gotten that much funded. This is ridiculous. It is broken. We have to fix it. The victim of that has been the U.S. military. This is devastating on their operation of rebuilding readiness and now on the recapitalization program we are beginning in earnest. Over the last 20 years, shipbuilding has been devastated. We have lost some 20,000 vendors across all of the DOD, most of those in shipbuilding. Almost 14,000 primary vendors have been lost in the supply chain. Now, even if we were to fund a recapitalization effort that would get us back to being on par with some of our peer competitors, I question whether we even have the supply chain today to do that. This is a major challenge for us right now. Technology is building, our lethality is building, the way we fight our fleet is building, but we have to be serious about maintaining continuity of funding across decades with regard to this capability we have. We are the 800-pound gorilla beneath the sea today, but today we are outgunned and outsticked by one of our ``near peer competitors,'' and that is China. We have a 2016 shipbuilding plan that was done prior to the 2017 national defense strategy, the NDS. In the shipbuilding plan of 2016, it called for 355 ships by 2034. These are submarines, amphibious ships, heavy combatant ships, aircraft carriers--over the next 15 years. Well, the NDS was done in 2017. We still don't know what that shipbuilding plan is to support the NDS. The new plan is on the desk of the Secretary of Defense. I understand he is taking his time to make sure he understands the requirements. He has a particular problem because of the budget. I get that. But I want to highlight today what we are up against. Today, China has 355 ships in their navy; we have 296. That is a 54-ship disadvantage that we already have today in 2020. That is devastating. Most people in America don't think that. They don't know that. Oh, by the way, they really have only one area of operations--the Indo-Pacific region, although that is changing. But we have multiple areas of operation around the world. So this is a huge disadvantage we already have today. If you look at the next 15 years to 2034, they are projected to go to 435 ships; we are hoping to get to 355 under the current plan of 2016. That may change when we see this new shipbuilding plan, which, by the way, was due when the budget was submitted to Congress. That is an 80- ship delta--80-ship disadvantage that we have to China. That doesn't count what Russia is investing in its new technology, submarine, and surface fleet. We also know what China is doing with the Belt and Road Initiative on the back of this incremental capability they have in the naval power that they have been developing for the last 30 years. That is the Belt and Road Initiative where they go into more than 30 ports in Africa, over 50 ports in Latin America--that is South America and Central America--where they make these proprietary loans. They have already foreclosed on two of those proprietary loans--one in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the other in Karachi, Pakistan, where they have actually taken possession and they are now building military naval bases in those ports. Add to that what we see them doing and have done in the South China Sea. I actually was blessed to be able to go with the Navy on a flyover--part of a Freedom of Navigation Operation in the South China Sea--to see exactly what China has done there. We saw Coast Guard ships 1,000 kilometers off the coast of China down in the South China Sea, patrolling the waters, as if they were within the 12-mile legal limit of China. We believe that we can compete. Today we are still the 800-pound gorilla. Our technology and our sailors and pilots in the Navy and our marines are the best in the world. We can stand up to the threat today. My question and caution today, as we are looking at this authorization for our defense and for the budgeting therein, we have to make sure that over the next 15 years that we do this shipbuilding plan, we maintain a more consistent and better funding for that plan so we can rebuild the supply chain in order to build this capability. Let me state one other thing. The number of ships is a function of the distribution of those ships--how many small ships, large ships, carriers, submarines, and so forth. I get that. But the other is also a function of how the Navy will fight that. There are new doctrines being put in place. The Advanced Battle Management System is going in, and we are increasing dramatically the lethality of the weapons and the munitions on these vessels. That is the encouraging part. The discouraging part is that China has the lead right now with regard to range and speed and a few other things in terms of their munitions. I am confident we will catch up with that. We have the first ever--thanks to President Trump, we have the first- ever audit of the DOD. It came to us 1 year ago. We have been looking at it. It identified $4 billion of obsolete programs they wanted to get rid of. Between that $4 billion and the $5 billion that is going to be wasted this year alone, if we end up with another CR in the October, November, December timeframe, that is $9 billion. That is almost 40 percent of 1 year's shipbuilding plan. That is serious money, and it is up to us to get that taken care of and to find that money and to rebuild this Navy. Let me close with this. The next 50 to 100 years will be determined in the next 3 to 5 years, in terms of our relationship not only with China but with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and the other threats we have around the world. We have to establish with our allies, particularly our NATO allies and also Japan--to make sure that they get their investments moving in the right direction so that, collectively, we can stand up to this growing threat around the world. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, in Federalist Papers No. 65, which we have heard referred to quite a bit in the last 2 weeks, Alexander Hamilton warned that the impeachment process should never be used as a partisan political weapon. He said that impeachment can ``connect itself with the pre-existing factions and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other . . . in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.'' Today, unfortunately, over two centuries later, Hamilton's fears have become reality. This current impeachment process has never been about the truth, justice, or the rule of law. For my colleagues across the aisle, this is only about overturning the 2016 election, impacting the 2020 election, and gaining the Senate majority. From the start, this House process has been totally illegitimate. The Articles of Impeachment that the House of Representatives presented to us last month were nothing more than the fruit of a poisonous tree. In America, we believe in the rule of law. In America, we believe in due process. In America, we believe anyone has the right to a fair trial. In America, we believe anyone is innocent until proven guilty. However, House Democrats violated each of these foundational precepts in using the impeachment process as a partisan political weapon. Throughout the course of the House impeachment investigation, Democrats repeatedly denied President Trump due process and the fundamental rights of the accused in America. Simply put, what they did was not fair. They denied him the right to have counsel, the right to have witnesses, the right to cross-examine their witnesses, the right to see the evidence, and, lastly, the right to face his accuser. Contrast that with the last two Presidents to face impeachment. The grand jury investigation of Clinton and the Watergate investigation of Nixon were conducted in a fair manner, with rights for the accused. No action was taken by the House of Representatives until the facts were clear and indisputable in both of those trials. When these investigations were complete and those two Presidents were found to have committed a crime, impeachment had bipartisan support, unlike this time. This investigation is entirely different. It was rushed and was totally partisan, with not one single House Republican voting for these two pitiful Articles of Impeachment. The impeachment trial in the Senate has been going on for the past 11 days. Unlike in the House, the Senate upheld its constitutional duty to conduct a fair trial. The Democratic House managers had the opportunity to present their case. Then, for the first time in this sad affair, the President and his team--his lawyers--had an opportunity to present their case, their defense. Neither article I, ``abuse of power,'' nor article II, ``obstruction of Congress,'' qualify as constitutional reasons for impeachment. It is pretty simple. I am not a lawyer, but if you look at the facts, it is very direct. The Constitution clearly lays out four explicit reasons for impeaching a President. Even corruption does not qualify under these definitions. It is very clear. They itemized treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors. And they explained to us in the hearings: Another translation in modern terms, using the Old English for misdemeanors, is crimes. It is another word for crime. The charges against President Trump don't come close to any of these specified requirements. It is as simple as that. The House really was beginning to make up new constitutional law. Each of the other three Presidents who has faced impeachment was charged with committing a crime. President Trump is the first President ever to face impeachment who was never accused of any crime in these proceedings, whatsoever. These two Articles of Impeachment simply do not qualify as reasons to impeach any President. Further, Democratic House managers did not prove their case for either of the two Articles of Impeachment. The entire case for abuse of power is centered around the June 25, 2019, phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine. The Democrats allege President Trump only asked for help in investigating the Burisma situation for political gain. It is clear now, after hearing all the testimony, that the primary motivation to ask Zelensky to look into the Biden-Burisma corruption issue was to root out corruption in the Ukraine. Ukraine has had a long history of corruption and this President was well within his rights to ask for help in rooting out this fairly obvious example of corruption. Democrats completely failed to prove the President's request was for political gain only. Regarding the obstruction of Congress article, every President has the right to exert executive privilege to protect our national interests and the separation of power. Honestly, this article should have never been received in the Senate in the first place. We should have dismissed this article out of hand. It simply is absurd. Arguing that President Trump obstructed Congress by claiming his rights is unacceptable and would fundamentally weaken this right for future Presidents. When President Trump exerted executive privilege-- his right under the Constitution--Democrats could simply have pursued the subpoenas. That is the way the Founders laid it out. They could have pursued the subpoenas in court. For some reason, the House Democrats chose not to do that. House Democrats were in such a rush that they sent the Senate an incomplete case. That is why I believe the Senate should not have accepted them in the first place, because the process was illegitimate, inappropriate, and incomplete. Bottom line: House Democrats simply did not do their job. In the Clinton investigation, the House investigated for over 400 days before they brought Articles of Impeachment. There was a conviction. In this case, it was barely 100. The Democratic House managers brought the Articles of Impeachment and claimed they had overwhelming proof. Immediately in their opening statement, they had overwhelming proof. However, right away, even with that, they immediately demanded the Senate call witnesses that the House had already chosen not to call, like John Bolton. They could have easily called him but chose not to, claiming it would take too long. Instead, they demanded that the Senate call additional witnesses who were not included in the House investigation. The Constitution requires that the House conduct the investigation, including calling witnesses, taking depositions, collecting evidence, and the Senate is charged to rule based on the evidence the House provides. This was designed this way for a very specific reason, a very practical reason. In the House, committees can investigate these charges while the rest of the House continues to do their legislative work. Unfortunately, in the Senate, when Articles of Impeachment are brought and sent to the Senate, the Senate, by constitutional law, must stop what it is doing, must open an impeachment hearing, and while in a formal impeachment hearing, the Senate cannot do anything else by law. It goes into legislative shutdown by law. In this case, if we were to call additional witnesses, then we would be setting a dangerous precedent for every future case. The House could theoretically make up any flimsy charge they wanted, with no investigation, no witnesses, no testimony, no evidence whatsoever, and then send the articles to the Senate and expect the Senate to do their job. That is not what the Founders wrote. That is not what they had in mind. It would open up a pandora's box, shut the Senate down indefinitely, and you can see why the Founders did not want to go down that road. That is now how they built this process. For the sake of our very system of government, we cannot yield to this unconstitutional effort. The House actually did call 17 witnesses. They sent over 193 videos and 28,000 pages of documents. Ultimately, a majority in this body concluded it was unnecessary to hear from any of those witnesses again. On top of that, the impeachment rules do not require the Senate to call witnesses. That is the House's job. It is just that simple. Let's be very clear. This entire impeachment process has been a purely partisan political stunt perpetrated by House Democrats. It truly is an embarrassment and exactly what Alexander Hamilton warned us all against. It is no secret--Democrats have been trying to obstruct this President from day one. On the day President Trump was inaugurated, the headline of the Washington Post--right here in town--claimed ``The Campaign to Impeach this President has Begun.'' House Democratic manager Adam Schiff, in his opening remarks, said you can't trust elections. That is why we have impeachments. Really? Really? That is absurd. The President has done nothing to warrant this impeachment process. He must be acquitted. If we let House Democrats get away with this today, we are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. Already, we are in an era of impeachment. In the first 180 years, we only had one impeachment case that came to the Senate and was investigated in the House. In the last 45 years, we have had three investigated by the House, and two have actually made it to the Senate. If we let Democrats improperly use the impeachment process as a partisan political weapon, then it will only get worse in the future. I call on my colleagues today--I plead with my colleagues today--to reject this unconstitutional effort and vote to acquit Donald J. Trump of these illegitimate and unconstitutional Articles of Impeachment.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. I send a question to the desk for the President's counsel on behalf of myself, Senator Ernst, and Senator Barrasso.

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. Chief Justice.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice. I send a question to the desk for both the counsel to the President and the House managers on behalf of Senator Cruz and me.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Wednesday, December 4; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of Executive Calendar No. 47 under the previous order.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, it is always a privilege to come before the U.S. Senate. I always feel humbled by that because I think of the people who have spoken on this floor since 1859. I am always measured in what I try to bring in terms of thought or whatever, but today there is a special sense of responsibility. Senator Coons and I have been chosen to lead our colleagues in honoring Johnny Isakson today. What we just heard was historic, I believe. It is not the first time we have had a speech on this floor that addressed that topic, nor will it be the last, I will predict. We just heard Johnny admonish us to judge with our conscience and our heart. With that, I feel somewhat unworthy to try to address what I feel, and what he also talked about is his heart. Today is truly a bittersweet occasion. It is bitter because my friend, my mentor, and partner in the U.S. Senate, Johnny Isakson, is stepping down at the end of this month. For those of us who know this man, it is tough to come to grips with that. I will dearly miss him on many levels. I will miss having him come here in the U.S. Senate alongside me. I will miss his words of wisdom. I will miss his patience. Most of all, I think I will miss his example. However, we can still find joy in this occasion, I believe. As Johnny and Dianne head into the next chapter of their lives with their family, all of us can take time to reflect on who Johnny is and what his public service has truly meant not only to us individually and not just to the constituents in our State but to America. Johnny has actually meant the world to me and for longer than I have been in the U.S. Senate. When I got involved in the political process, I had never been personally elected to anything--maybe in the 8th grade. You know how that goes. But this was a radically different experience than I personally had ever had. Johnny helped me personally with that transition. He gave me advice. He befriended me. He introduced me to our colleagues here in the Senate. He has been the best partner anyone could ever ask for. I remember the best advice he ever gave me. I just shared this with our colleagues at lunch: Dave, I only have one piece of advice for you. Keep your head down, your mouth shut, and don't ever vote against the farm bill. That was his advice, and it was sage, and I listened to that. Over the last 5 years--and, Johnny, it is hard to believe it has been 5 years. To Dianne, I am sure it feels like five lifetimes. In the last 5 years, Johnny's advice has stuck with me on many levels. A lot of people in this town know how to talk, stick around. Johnny has shown us how important it is to listen and learn from each other. He has shown us how to work together on behalf of, not just ourselves or our next reelection, but truly for the people who put us here. Johnny is a true public servant. I say that next to the word ``servant'' in the Webster dictionary is a picture of Johnny Isakson. He is devoted to getting results, not just for the people of Georgia, but for everybody in the United States. Most importantly, he does it in a way that really is worthy of this august body. I know this body has had controversy throughout the last 230 years. Part of what makes us great is that we have differing opinions, but somehow, in the last 230 years, we found a way to put those aside to find compromise. I made a living in business for 40 years finding ways to compromise with people who had different views than I did. One example of Johnny's statesmanship was with his longtime friendship with another great Georgian, Zell Miller, who happened to be a Democrat. Zell was a former Governor of Georgia and a U.S. Senator. Last year, he, sadly, passed away. What most people forget is that early in his career, Johnny actually ran for Governor against the same Zell Miller who ended up being, as Johnny calls him, the best friend he has ever had. When Zell Miller passed away, Johnny was asked to speak, and he spoke on this floor. In that speech, he said that Zell Miller was ``an individual I met through politics, became one of my best friends through politics, and probably had more influence on my life than anybody else I know in public service.'' That is a Democrat Johnny Isakson is talking about. Saxby Chambliss and I get a little upset about that occasionally, but, Johnny, that is a big deal. Thank you. It is almost hard to believe Johnny and Zell used to be political opponents. Despite their political differences, Johnny and Zell remained close friends up until Zell's death. In fact, Zell even appointed Johnny as chairman of the Georgia Board of Education 7 years after Zell had beaten him in that same Governor's race. We can have strong differences in rigorous debates, but we should always be civil and respectful to one another, Johnny says. And Johnny lives that out every day. I have said before that Johnny Isakson is the Howard Baker of our time. Why do I say that; what do I mean? Johnny doesn't talk a lot, but when Johnny talks, people listen. What we just witnessed was, I think, historic. The paper that was on the podium in front of Senator Isakson just now was not a speech. I want everybody to understand this. It was a list of the 50 Senators who have asked to come to this floor over the next few hours to honor this man as he goes into retirement. What we just saw was straight from the heart--better than anybody I have ever witnessed and in a way that I will always remember. Truly, when Johnny talks, people listen. It doesn't matter if you are a young child, a member of his staff, a colleague, or the President of the United States, not only do people listen to Johnny, but I will add one thing to what I have been saying for the last 5 years, when other people talk, Johnny Isakson listens. That is a rare commodity in this town; trust me. If you need help, Johnny Isakson is always there. We all know now that Johnny will no longer be with us in this body every day, but we know he will still be around to help us in any way he can. I am hoping he will still call me and give those pieces of advice that have been so valuable over the last 5 years. I know he will answer my call when I call him and ask for that same advice. But I want to leave the body with this thought today--and I think it echoes what he just said, and I prepared these remarks some time ago in thinking about today--in the new testament in the Bible, in Matthew 23, it says that the greatest among you will be the servant. And today, I want to remind everybody in this body that the greatest among us is Johnny Isakson. Johnny, it has been a true blessing. God bless you and Dianne and your family. America will always be in your debt. Thank you for everything. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you, Johnny. God bless you.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. I am reserving the right to object. Mr. President, just yesterday, Secretary Pompeo joined the foreign ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, including Foreign Minister Cavusoglu from Turkey. Secretary Pompeo had quite a lot to discuss with him, as this administration continues its engagement with Turkey's leadership on the heels of President Trump's meeting with President Erdogan last week. In light of these diplomatic efforts, I respectfully object to this resolution at this time. While the content of the legislation before us merits undivided consideration, its passage would undermine the administration's overcoming real challenges in our bilateral relationship with Turkey. I look forward to working with the administration and Senator Cruz and Senator Menendez in holding our NATO ally responsible for its commitment made when it joined the NATO community of like-minded nations founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. For those reasons, I object.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, the Chair lay before the Senate the House message to accompany H.R. 3055. I further ask unanimous consent that Senator Paul or his designee be recognized to offer a motion to concur with further amendment, the text of which is at the desk, and following 2 minutes of debate equally divided, Senator Shelby or his designee be recognized to make a motion to table the Paul motion. Further, I ask that following disposition of the Paul motion, the majority leader or his designee be recognized to make a motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment; finally, that notwithstanding rule XXII, if cloture is filed on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment that the vote on the cloture motion occur immediately and that if cloture is invoked, the postcloture time be yielded back and the Senate vote on the motion to concur with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Thursday, November 21; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and that the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Brouillette nomination.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, the world is more dangerous today than at any time in my lifetime. We face five threats across five domains: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism. The domains have gotten very complicated--air, land, sea. Now we have to deal with cyber and space. But in that background, three times over the last 50 years, this government, under the leadership of three different Presidents, has disinvested its military significantly--under President Carter, under President Clinton, and indeed under President Obama. They cut the military by 25 percent at least in each one of those administrations. The last one was extremely draconian. We saw the impact of that on our readiness, the fact that our modernization program had been killed, and we found ourselves falling behind what we ought to now call near- peer competitors. I would say they are peer competitors now. When you look at the money China is spending on their military, when adjusted for purchasing power parity, it is exactly the same as we are spending. And they don't have the regulatory overhang and they don't have the legacy costs we have here in the United States, so they can get things done quicker and cheaper. In the meantime, the world continues to become very dangerous. Yet here we are in the second month of our fiscal year under a continuing resolution. As we now are becoming educated about, this is devastating our military and has been. This is the 187th time since the 1974 Budget Act was put into place that we have executed a continuing resolution. It sounds really easy. Well, we can't get agreement on how much to spend for the next year, so we will just keep spending at the same level. Some businesses do that, but in this case with the U.S. military, it is devastating because it locks them into existing programs. For example, we did an audit last year. It was the first audit in the history of the United States of the Department of Defense--the third largest line item on our expense sheet. We did an audit. In that audit was found and identified by the Department of Defense $4 billion of obsolete programs that nobody really wanted to keep and continue spending on--$4 billion a year. So right now, under this continuing resolution, not only are we not able to give a 3.5-percent pay raise-- the largest in 10 years--to our military, not only are we not able to improve their housing, but right now we are obliged to keep spending $4 billion a year on obsolete programs that the Defense Department doesn't even want. This is ludicrous. Right now, I would say we are in gridlock. We had 88 votes here in this Senate where we voted to approve the National Defense Authorization Act several weeks ago--very bipartisan, negotiating in committee. I was on the Armed Services Committee, and we took this very seriously. We debated, and it was a definite fight, but we reached compromise. We reached bipartisan agreement to support and defend our military and to make sure they are able to do the things they want to do to make us competitive and defend our country. Yet here we are, 6 weeks into this fiscal year, and we still don't have this year funded. We are under a continuing resolution that devastates the military. For six decades--58 years--each year we have been able to do that. Yet, this year, we can't seem to come to an agreement because the House and the Senate can't get together in conference and agree on exactly what it is they want to do. That is all window dressing. It is no more complicated than this: The Democratic brethren in this body and in the House simply do not want to allow this President to spend another dime on building a wall around our southern border. Let's put this in perspective. First of all, we have seen on this floor just in the last 2 hours two different comments: Well, we all know that building a border wall doesn't really work. It doesn't change anything. Well, that is absolute propaganda. Barack Obama built 135 miles of wall. This body approved that. And wherever that wall was built, illegal crossings at the southern border went down 95 percent. That is not propaganda; that is fact. It is another example of the obstructionism we have been witnessing here since the day this President was sworn in. On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, the headline of the Washington Post was ``The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.'' Since day one, they have been obstructing this President. We saw that in the confirmation process here. For the first time in 230 years, we saw the minority party not waive the 30-hour debate rule and allow this President to get his nominees confirmed. It has been the slowest ever. So we sit here today not being able to build the space force that both sides have agreed on. Eighty-eight people in this body agreed that we need to go ahead and start spending money and doing that. We can't do that. We can't put in the building blocks for the Advanced Battle Management System, which is so important to deal with the modern fight. We can't rebuild our nuclear triad, which is in absolutely critical shape. We can't seem to get at our readiness right now because of the lock we have, under this continuing resolution, on the existing contracts out there. As was just mentioned a few minutes ago, we have to go in and renegotiate all these contracts. Last year was the first time we did not have a continuing resolution, and there was such a sigh of relief inside our military because it was the first time in a long time--over a decade--that they didn't have that for the first quarter of the year. This is devastating. It has become habit, and we have to stop it. It is absolutely insidious. It is killing our military and keeping us from doing the things that both sides want to do because of petty politics. We need to modernize our force, and we need to do it right now. This NDAA allows us to do that. We need to rationalize our expenditures to make sure that every time we are spending on our military, it is exactly what we should be spending it on. We have a Volunteer Force, and we can never take that for granted. We have to take care of our people in uniform wherever they are in the world. That means working on their mental health, their physical health, and their housing. I come from a State that has nine military installations. We take national defense very seriously in Georgia and always have. People are concerned that this gridlock is endangering our country. It is time that we get together, pass this NDAA, move on the appropriations bill, and get this done. People back home are watching, the people in our military are watching, and more importantly, our potential adversaries are watching. I yield the floor.

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the vote we are going to have in just a few minutes to appropriate our first appropriations bill for this fiscal year, which, by the way, we are already in the first month of our new fiscal year. We are under a continuing resolution, which we have talked about ad nauseam in this body and how damaging that is to our military and how expensive it is over the long run. I had breakfast with one of our Secretaries in the DOD today, and he told me that just in the Navy alone, a continuing resolution this year would cost the Navy almost $5 billion. That is $50 billion just in one service over the next decade. We can do better than this. I want to praise Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy, the ranking member and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. They have done their job. The subcommittee chairman and ranking members have done their jobs. We are ready to vote on these bills, and it comes down to just an obstructionist issue about funding the wall versus funding our military. Just last weekend, President Trump announced that Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, had been taken off the battlefield by his own hand, I might say. This is a win not just for our country but for the world in this fight against terrorism. As we now know, the world has gotten to be very dangerous--maybe the most dangerous in my lifetime--with five threats across five domains. We are worried now about places like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as well as the asymmetric threat of terrorism around the world in over five domains--air, land and sea, and now we have to worry about cyber and space as well. Let's just take a moment and realize that without a strong military, this Special Operations op over the weekend would not have been possible. Our intelligence community, our special operators, our military personnel, all the supply people, all the people involved in supporting these people at the tip of the sphere came to bear and brought us a victory this week over the No. 1 terrorist in the world. Everybody in America should be celebrating this incredible achievement by our military. Rather than celebrating, however, our friends across the aisle are trying to change the subject in many ways. One way is in the U.S. House with the hypocritical approach we are seeing right now of denying due process to our President and having a vote this week that is a real mockery of the process in itself. There is no guarantee of due process to the President in this resolution. I believe the Democrats just don't understand how President Trump got elected, and they hate it so much, they will not even let him have this win relative to taking a major terrorist off the battlefield. We must never forget how depraved this gentleman was and their ideology really is. These ISIS thugs have been a scourge on that part of the world, and they are not going away, by the way. Since 2014, ISIS has beheaded two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Let us never forget that these things occurred. They forced women into sex slavery, including 26-year-old Kayla Mueller, a humanitarian worker who went there to try to do good who was later killed. These are the people, under al-Baghdadi's leadership, who set fire to a Jordanian pilot--a captured pilot--violating the rules of war. They put him in a cage, poured gasoline on him, and lit him on fire alive. These are the people who lined up 21 Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya and beheaded them in front of a video. They crucified Christians across the Middle East for years. Al-Baghdadi inspired all of these atrocities. His death brings justice to these countless victims. The fight is not over yet. We have taken out the leadership. We denied them the territorial caliphate. We are now moving to protect the oil so these people will be denied resources so they cannot reconstitute again. These people will not go away. The ideology has not died. We have just taken their caliphate away. We have to continue to do that. The current strategy has not changed in Syria. The President has said this publicly. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it publicly. We are there to defeat ISIS. We are there to protect Iraq, deter Iran, and support our friends in Israel, but we need bipartisan support and consistent funding to achieve this bigger mission. That is just one of them in one domain. We have others across the world. With an ever-growing military capacity in China alone, we have to get serious about how we fund, consistently, our U.S. military effort. Yet, as I stand here today, we are under a continuing resolution, which we know handcuffs our own military and adds hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to the cost of funding our military. We have a CR right now that has us actually spending $4 billion that the Department of Defense has already identified that they don't want to spend. Yet because of continuing resolution rules, they have to keep spending against these obsolete programs and wasting that $4 billion. In addition, we are sitting here at the end of October, the first month of the fiscal year, and we have not even finalized the authorization for our defense because of not being able to work this out with the House. We have to do that and get to funding right away to fund our military. Our men and women in uniform are the best that we have in America, and we owe it to them to not drop the ball in this eleventh hour to show them that we have their backs. They can do the job, but only if we fund them. This is a travesty, and right now it is broken down into partisan politics, not over defending our country. It puts our national security at risk. I will give us just one little piece of data here to close this out. Over the last 50 years, we disinvested in our military by at least 25 percent three different times under three Democratic Presidents. That is just historical fact; that is not a partisan observation. We did it in 1976 to 1980; we did it in the 1990s; we did it in the last administration over 8 years. We disinvested in the military by at least 25 percent. We saw the travesty that the military had in terms of readiness in January 1, 2017. We saw how bad our readiness was when two-thirds of our elite Strike Fighters, FA-18s, in the Navy could not fly. Only 3 of our 58 Army brigades could go to war that night. It was a terrible position to be in. Under new leadership, we have gotten that readiness back, but now we have to rebuild the military that has been burned up over the last 20 years fighting terrorism. The challenge we have before us right now is to do our No. 1 job, and that is to fund and appropriate the Federal Government. Of that, discretionary spending is what this is all about. It is only $1.3 trillion of the $4.6 trillion the Federal Government will totally spend this year, but of that, the military, the VA, and all domestic discretionary programs make up $1.3 trillion. I am advocating today that we take our responsibility seriously to fund our military because of the growing threats around the world and the damage we see that it does to the efforts of freedom by our friends abroad. There is no bigger responsibility we can have than to support our men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line every day. The best testament of that is this example we just saw of a success in Syria, very close to the Turkish border, pulled off through places where Russians and Syrian Government and Syrian rebels and Turkish soldiers were all in the general vicinity. We pulled off a miraculous victory for freedom in the world. Now it is our job to fund defense and get on with that. I highly suggest that we take that very seriously. I yield the floor.

Mr. PERDUE

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, Nelson Mandela once said: ``Education is the best weapon with which to change the world.'' Today, this morning, 51 million students woke up and went to a public school in the United States. Each student carried a spark with which to light up the world in their futures. Unfortunately, today, given the realities that we have seen over the last few years, some of these students are at risk. Last week was designated as America's Safe Schools Week. It was meant as a time to reflect on the steps we are taking to protect our children every day. Upon reflection, however, one thing has become very clear: In many cases, considering the current realities, our public schools have not been designed physically to deal with the student safety issue. The consequences of this are heartbreaking. We have heard this story too many times: Parkland, FL, 17 lives; Newtown, CT, 27 lives; Columbine, CO, 13 lives. These were some of the darkest days in our country's history. None of us will ever forget the terror, the tears, and the devastation that these and other communities have felt. For the parents and the relatives of those affected, it is a nightmare from which many will never wake up. This can't be allowed to continue. There is an implicit agreement that when we drop our children off at a school, we know they are going to be kept safe. In many cases today, we are not fulfilling that agreement. There are a lot of steps we must take in order to face this crisis. I am confident that if we come together in a bipartisan fashion and focus on doing what actually works, we can make our schools safer. The U.S. Senate has a chance to get this started right now. Last month, in a bipartisan effort, Senators Doug Jones, Thom Tillis, and Shelley Moore Capito joined me in sponsoring the School Safety Clearinghouse Act. This bipartisan bill is a critical first step that will help to protect students and faculty in our public schools in America. The School Safety Clearinghouse Act will codify a recommendation from President Trump's Federal Commission on School Safety to create a Federal clearinghouse containing all of the best practices for designing safer schools. The techniques contained in the school safety clearinghouse will come from the brightest engineers, architects, researchers, and educators in the country. It will be like a library that schools can trust when making critical decisions and when talking about physical upgrades in their environment. It is imperative that schools have the best design information because design flaws in school buildings are placing our students and faculty at risk every day. When drafting this bill, our office met with Max Schachter, whose son, Alex, was tragically killed in the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, FL, not that long ago. On that awful day, the murderer fired through the window in Alex's classroom door and murdered Alex and two of his classmates. Senselessness. Had the glass been stronger or had the window been designed with an obstructed view, Alex might be alive today. Madam President, fixing design flaws like these are simple matters that we need to take a step toward today to make our schools safer. Most schools understand this, and they are doing everything they can to close the security lapse. In August, I saw this firsthand when I toured Mashburn Elementary School in Forsyth County--with Georgia's First Lady Marty Kemp--which has taken incredible steps with grants from the State, that the Governor made available, to enhance their safety measures. Using this grant money made available by Governor Brian Kemp, Mashburn has restructured all their entryways, reinforced the doors to every classroom, and launched new emergency readiness protocols. As a result, Mashburn is better able to prevent tragedy from occurring. And the best thing, it has in recent years actually developed a very close relationship with the local police force and sheriff's department. At Mashburn, they have a sheriff's deputy in school every day. Every school in the country wants to upgrade their safety. The problem is that many schools don't simply have the information they need to make the best choices. The School Safety Clearinghouse Act will close this information gap once and for all. This is not a top-down government program by the way. The School Safety Clearinghouse Act will never have an unfunded mandate or make any recommendations or force any school to take any action it doesn't want. Rather, the School Safety Clearinghouse Act will empower them to make the decisions for themselves. Here in America, it doesn't matter if you have big dreams or humble ones; this is the land of opportunity. Everyone has the right to pursue their own happiness. A good education, as we know, is the best way to start that. I learned that from my parents, both of whom were public school teachers. I see it happening today through my three grandkids. In this country, we promise all of our kids a good education. We now need to promise a safe education as well. The School Safety Clearinghouse Act is a step that we can take right now, right here in this body, to fulfill that responsibility. We have no time to waste. Every day, students across the country attend schools to learn, grow up, and build their lives. The longer we wait to secure our schools, the higher the chance that some of those students will not come home. This is not all we need to do; this is just a first start, Madam President. If this bill helps to make one school safer or saves one life, it will be worth it. Let's get it done. Thank you. I yield back.