In remarks on the Senate floor Friday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) spoke about avoiding a government shutdown.
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NewsTranscript
00:00My time here on the floor, I just want to acknowledge kind of the place that we are at here today on the 14th of March, a day that we have seen coming, not just on the calendar, but we here in the Congress have known that this is the day that our continuing resolution was going to run out, the clock runs, and we had a choice, we have a choice that we've got to make.
00:28And that choice is, does the government shut down at 1159 tonight, or do we keep it open?
00:36And I think most of us would say a shutdown is never, ever a good idea, but you want to be able to have an option that is tenable.
00:48And I stood here earlier this week and I described what a Morton's Fork is, it is a phrase that basically refers to a choice between two equally untenable positions, and that's exactly where we are, we have two equally untenable positions in my view.
01:05We have a shutdown, which we cannot do, and we have a long-term CR in front of us, meaning a continuing resolution that continues the operations of the government until the 30th of September.
01:19People would say that is good, but it doesn't allow for the good work that those of us that have tried to shepherd the appropriations bills through this process, it doesn't allow for that direction from the Congress.
01:34It basically continues FY24 levels, but without the parameters that the Congress, that we have directed, not just those of us on the Appropriations Committee, but along with all of our colleagues.
01:49And so, I don't like, I do not like a long-term continuing resolution. If we had the ability, if we had had the ability to move our appropriations bills through the floors as we should have, as we set ourselves up to do, but as we were not allowed to do, we were not able to bring those completed appropriations bills,
02:16even though the vast majority of them were not only bipartisan, but overwhelmingly supported through the committee. And the Democratic leader didn't bring them to the floor, didn't happen, and so we didn't have the chance to finish our work.
02:33We need to be able to make sure that the work that we do here is concluded. Why? Because that's the responsibility that we have as members of Congress. This is our job. This is our job under the Constitution. It's not the executives. It's not the presidents. It's our job.
02:57And so, if we had had the ability to have a short-term CR to just give us a little more room to finish these up, that could have given us a better option. It could have given us a third option that would have been tenable.
03:17But my colleague and the chairman now of the Appropriations Committee, working with her ranking member, tried to get us to that place. Multiple offers extended. We didn't get there. And that's a shame. And it's a shame because it puts us, again, in a place where we have two untenable, equally untenable choices in front of us.
03:44So, Mr. President, I am reluctant. I am very reluctant to support a long-term CR. I do not like the fact that it gives the executive branch the authority that we own as members of Congress when it comes to defining spending priorities.
04:09But I also cannot be part of anything that ultimately shuts this government down.
04:21I've been in the Senate for a long while now. I have never, never voted to go into a government shutdown. In fact, I have been, along with my colleague, engaged in many of those ventures where, once the shutdown happened, we were scurrying to try to find ways to avoid extending it.
04:44Because the danger to our governmental functions and our operations, the harm that it brings to good individuals, is simply not worth it.
04:57So, we're in a bad place. We are in a bad place. And it's a place that I regret. But I can tell you, for one, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I want us to be able to do our work, and I want to be able to see our work completed, voted on, and then signed into law as the American people expect us to do.