Nelson, Lee, Leahy- Correction

Motion to Discharge the rescissions package (H.R. 3)

Senator Nelson: (11:15 a.m.)

  • Spoke on U.S. immigration policy.
    • " And one of its components, the Office of Refugee Resettlement of which these children separated from their families are handled by that office, despite all of that, the deputy secretary of the department of H.H.S. refused to allow me to enter this facility and said that it was his policy, it was the department's policy that you have to fill out a form, which we had, but you have to wait two weeks before they would allow me to enter the facility, of which the question is why do they not want the senator from Florida to get into this detention facility where there are children that have been separated from their parents?"


Senator Lee: (11:24 a.m.)

  • Spoke on the rescissions package.
    • "With interest rates set to increase, the payments on the debt will also likely double over the next ten years as a percentage of total economic output. Consider for a moment the fact that we're paying a little more than $300 billion a year to service our debt. It's not that much more than we were paying a couple of decades ago when our national debt was roughly one-fifth, one-sixth of its current size. The only reason that our debt service payments are as low as they are today is because our interest rates are at all-time risk lows. Our treasury yield rates are artificially, historically, aberrationally severely low. The situation gets a lot worse if our artificially, historically low interest rates increase or start to return to their historical averages at a pace quicker than has been projected, as is easily possible."


Senator Leahy: (11:34 a.m.)

  • Spoke on the rescissions package.
    • "Well, guess what happened? We passed it out of the committee unanimously. I don't recall that happening in nearly a decade. If we go forward with this rescission package, it's going to derail the process. The rescission bill undermines the bipartisan budget deal that Republicans and Democrats struck just four months ago. To say, okay, we all agreed on this four months ago. But, gosh, that's four months ago. We've got to have something to break that agreement. Because we if go forward with this package, another will follow, and another and another and another, even further undermining the agreement. And, Madam President, I remind everybody, if they haven't gotten around to read the Constitution, it does grant Congress the power of the purse, not the executive branch."