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Thank you, Chair Collins, Vice Chair Murray, members of the
committee. This is the first time I've been
on this side of the dais. I have to say the the altitude
difference is, is affecting me a little bit.
It really is an honor to be here to argue against this
rescissions package on behalf of all of you, on behalf of all of
you as appropriators. And now I want to be abundantly
clear, I like Eric Schmidt a lot, but this is a very
important point. And it's actually fatal to the
rescissions package. Every single program that
Senator Schmidt just mentioned has already been cancelled.
Every single program. And there's a longer list that
was on a Fox News Chiron and Senator Graham and I have kind
of gone over all of this. There are a bunch of different
examples of of terrible sounding things.
They are all done and they all belong in the previous federal
fiscal year. So now that it's Marco Rubio's
State Department and Marco Rubio's USAID agency, and now
that it is Donald Trump's White House, none of these things are
happening. This is a rescission of Trump's
CR in the current federal fiscal year.
And so if you have a problem with any of those programs, let
Lindsay and I write a bill that prohibits the use of funds for
any of those seemingly improper uses of funds.
That's the way to do this. Colleagues are being asked on
this committee to cut programs that I know each one of you have
personally prioritized because we get the letters, whether
you're a chair or the rancor of a subcommittee, you get a letter
from your colleagues saying could you please prioritize XYZ
program and many of the programs that at this, I mean, I'm
talking about right now in the same time period we are
receiving letters, please save this, please save that, please,
plus up that. That's what we're cutting right
now in this rescissions package. We do not have to spend foreign
assistance dollars in the same way that we always have been
spending foreign assistance dollars.
There's plenty of room for reform.
You're pushing on an open door and in fact, the administration
hasn't until the end of next year.
This is 2 year money. There's no rush on this.
This is 2 year money to align this funding with with its new
priorities, but we're being asked to rescind billions of
dollars without even knowing which programs are being
cancelled. Just so you understand how this
legislation works. It's big baskets of money.
So you have no idea whether the program that you are
prioritizing is going to be cut or not.
And they are not providing any clarity about that.
You would think that if you're asking the Congress to use this
extraordinary authority under statutory law that you would
have a line by line. Here's what we're cutting,
here's what we're keeping. Here's what we're cutting,
here's what we're keeping. The answer that we are going to
receive is let me take that under advisement or and get back
to you or I don't know. That's none of your business or,
or I'm not sure what it is. There is no reason not to have
specificity other than the math doesn't add up.
The things that you care about are being cut in here, and they
don't want to specify it. And that brings me to what it is
definitely in this package, $900 million in cuts from global
health programs, including PEPFAR and efforts to combat
diseases like malaria, TB and polio. $1.3 billion in cuts to
humanitarian assistance, which save lives, provide food and
shelter and water, and support victims of sexual assault.
And $4.6 billion in cuts to economic development assistance
to key partners, whether it's Jordan increasing in with
increasing regional tension, the Philippines as it counters
Chinese aggression, the Burmese opposition, or Ukraine.
And gone is a billion dollars in support for organizations like
UNICEF. Everybody that was opposed to
those things that were on that Fox chyron, everybody that found
some of the things that Senator Schmidt talked about as
objectionable also hastened to say, I don't want to cut UNICEF.
I don't want to cut cut PEPFAR. I don't want to cut the World
Food Program. Guess what is in this
rescissions package? All of those things are being
cut. And none of the things that you
object to, they've already been eliminated.
This is not just a question of policy.
This is also a question of what this committee is even for.
Being a Senate appropriator is an honor.
It means something. It means that the executive
branch proposes and the legislative branch disposes.
It means that we, as the Article 1 branch, hold the purse
strings, that that is subject to cloture.
So what's at stake here is more than the particular provisions
of the rescissions package. It is whether we're going to
willingly set up a situation where bipartisan negotiations
are ripped up whenever there is a trifecta.
If that's what you want, I think you should vote yes.
But if you want to preserve your prerogative for yourself, for
your home state, and for this institution, then this is not a
particularly close call. Why be an appropriator and just
turn around and surrender your authority?
Because it is S fobs today, but it's going to be T Hut it's
going to be AG, it's going to be labor H, it's going to be milk
on VA, it's going to be CJS tomorrow.
So I encourage all of my colleagues on a bipartisan basis
to think hard about the precedent that we would be
setting if we voted yes on this package.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
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