WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran on Tuesday evening spoke on the Senate floor after the Senate failed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government at current levels until November 21 and avert a government shutdown. The final vote was 55 – 45 but required 60 votes for passage.
“We are coming to the end of the fiscal year, and not all of the appropriations bills have been approved, although almost all of them have been approved by the Senate Committee on Appropriations and several have been passed here in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Moran.
“Every city council or commission, every school board, every local government office in my state passes a budget and then lives within that budget every year,” continued Sen. Moran. “Every local unit of government at home can figure this out, and the U.S. Senate is failing one more time. A shutdown means uncertainty; a shutdown means dysfunction. The issue is the continuing resolution that would fund the federal government until November 21 and is designed to avoid that disfunction, avoid that uncertainty. All that’s required is that we pass the continuing resolution, 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, to keep government functioning, so that we can then pass the remaining appropriations bills.”
“We can’t pass a continuing resolution because there are those who want to bring other issues into the bill,” said Sen. Moran. “Seems to me that appropriating is one of the primary responsibilities and necessities of the United States Senate. This is simple and straightforward.”
The Senate Committee on Appropriations has passed 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills, and for the first time since 2019, the U.S. Senate passed three of the appropriations bills before the August state work period.