Katie Britt joins Senator Collins and GOP Colleagues in calling for consideration of Defense and MilConVA appropriations bills ahead of funding deadline

September 19, 2024 – WASHINGTON -The federal fiscal year ends in just eleven days and again Senate leadership has not brought what should be routine appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate for amendments and an up or down vote. U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Alabama) on Wednesday delivered a speech on the Senate floor calling for the consideration of the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act and the FY25 Defense Appropriations Act.

Britt said that for as long as she is in the Senate she is going to continue to push for the Senate addressing appropriations bills.

Senator Britt joined a group of Senate Republicans, led by Appropriations Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), in calling for consideration of the two bills individually.

Both pieces of legislation were advanced unanimously out of the Appropriations Committee by August 1 but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has not brought the bills to the Senate floor for consideration, even as government funding expires on September 30.

"We have members of the Appropriations Committee, both Democrat and Republican, that sit and work together," Britt said. "We have a job to fund the government. We're supposed to do it by September 30. We have marked up 11 out of 12 of those bills in an extremely bipartisan fashion. But yet, those bills still sit on Chuck Schumer's desk. He hasn't brought one of them to the floor."

"Secretary Austin, obviously appointed by President Biden, confirmed by this body, has said that a CR (continuing resolution) will hurt our men and women in uniform," Britt added. "So what we should be doing is figuring out a path forward to fund defense and to fund our veterans. So today, you see members of the Republican Party standing up and saying 'let's get this chamber back to doing the critical work we were sent here to do.' It's long overdue."

Passing budgets through the appropriations process allows bipartisan committees to carefully consider line by line what the nation's priorities should be. Passing them on the floor allows every member of both bodies to state their concerns and amend those bills – if they have enough agreement from the other members. Passing budgets through CRs and omnibus bills at the last minute bypasses most members of Congress and concentrates power in the hands of a few members in the leadership whose staffs crafts the bills outside the view of other members and the public. Members often are forced to vote either for the CR or omnibus without even getting time to read the thousand plus page bills in order to avoid a partial government shutdown.

"The American people deserve better," said Britt. "And yet somehow, we can't get the media to cover this. We can't get them to cover the fact that Leader Schumer has refused to lead. . .But do you know what Chuck Schumer took his time doing yesterday? Creating a show vote for commercials for men and women on the other side of the aisle that are in vulnerable seats, instead of putting the American people first."

Katie Britt was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.

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