McConnell: Government Funding Deal Provides “The Major Step Forward That Our National Security Needs”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the following statement regarding government funding:
This bipartisan government funding agreement is the major step forward that our national security needs. This is a dangerous time for the United States and our partners. This compromise legislation will enable us to invest in military modernization to keep pace with Russia and China and urgently deliver the emergency aid that the brave people of Ukraine desperately need.
Republicans fought hard, over the objections of many Washington Democrats, to give our Armed Forces the resources they need. And we won. This agreement provides significantly more money than the Biden Administration requested for defense and significantly less money than the Administration requested for non-defense. At my insistence, it also provides much more money for Ukraine than Democrats had proposed, particularly for authorities and funding to deliver crucial military equipment to Ukraine quickly.
Our military commanders have made it crystal clear that an endless cycle of continuing resolutions would have had nightmare consequences for the rebuilding and modernization of our Armed Forces. This full-year funding bill will give our commanders the resources and the predictability they desperately need.
Months ago, I laid out three basic conditions for bipartisan government funding. Any deal would have to maintain parity between defense and nondefense spending; protect longstanding bipartisan riders such as the Hyde Amendment and the ban on politically-motivated targeting by the IRS; and be free of any new partisan poison pills. This agreement checks all three boxes. And in addition, as Republicans demanded, the new spending on COVID treatments, vaccines, and advanced research is offset by reprogramming money away from Democrats’ previous party-line spending spree that failed to fund core COVID needs.
This compromise is not the bill that Republicans would have written on our own. But I am proud of the major concessions we have extracted from this all-Democrat government. The bipartisan product contains major wins for our national defense, for our friends in Ukraine, for the conscience rights of the American people, and for many other key priorities, and it keeps new left-wing poison pills out. I’ll be encouraging my colleagues to support this bill.
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