FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS AND EXTENSIONS ACT, 2025

On 2025-03-14, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) delivered a floor speech titled "FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS AND EXTENSIONS ACT, 2025" in the Senate. The speech addressed the economy and also covered taxes, foreign policy. It referenced legislation including HR1968, S1768, S1772, among other bills.

FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS AND EXTENSIONS ACT, 2025

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 49 (Friday, March 14, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 49 (Friday, March 14, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S1768-S1772] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS AND EXTENSIONS ACT, 2025 The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will report the bill by title. The legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (H.R. 1968) making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader. Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before we finish today, I would like to say that soon, the Senate will vote on a bipartisan piece of legislation that will make an important DC funding fix. This legislation will make sure that we take care of the residents of the District; that we will support law enforcement and firefighters and teachers and city services. The legislation is very good news for the residents of the District of Columbia. I am happy we are passing the bill today. I thank my colleagues for working quickly to bring this bill to the floor. Once the Senate acts, we urge the House to act quickly. Government funding expires at midnight tonight, and the vote before us is a Hobson's choice. The CR bill is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe that allowing Donald Trump to take even more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option. A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, the State, and country, and that is a far worse alternative. I want to remind everyone that it was Republicans who pushed this false shutdown choice. Their inability to govern has led us to this precipice. Our caucus Members have two bad choices. Different Senators will come down on different sides of the question, but that does not mean that any Senate Democrat supports a shutdown. Whatever the outcome, our caucus will be united in our determination to continue the long-term fight to stop Donald Trump's dangerous war on our democracy and on America's working families. Now, I want to be clear about what this bill does and does not do. The full-year CR is a law that sets funding levels for the full year. The President and executive branch have a legal and constitutional duty to faithfully execute the CR. The CR does not change the underlying law making the Trump administration's impoundments and mass firings illegal. This is true as a matter of law. Nothing in the CR changes the Impoundment Control Act, the foundation of Congress's appropriations authority, and the authorization laws that require USAID and other Agencies to exist and to operate the programs as Congress has assigned to them. Nothing changes title 5, governing the civil service, the Administrative Procedure Act, and so on. One of the reasons I am voting for cloture is for the very reason that these actions are illegal and no new law is needed to declare that. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader. Cloture Motion Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion. The legislative clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 26, H.R. 1968, a bill making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. John Thune, Markwayne Mullin, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Pete Ricketts, Shelley Moore Capito, James E. Risch, Joni Ernst, Katie Britt, John Kennedy, Todd Young, Tim Sheehy, Kevin Cramer, Jon A. Husted, John Barrasso, Bernie Moreno. Waiving Quorum Call Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, for information of all Senators, there will be up to nine rollcall votes. I will ask unanimous consent that all votes following the first vote be 10 minutes in length, and that if Senators will stay in their seats, we should be able to get them done even more quickly than that. Everybody be here after this first vote. These are going to be 10-minute votes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. Cloture Motion The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The legislative clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 26, H.R. 1968, a bill making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes. John Thune, Markwayne Mullin, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Pete Ricketts, Shelley Moore Capito, James E. Risch, Joni Ernst, Katie Britt, John Kennedy, Todd Young, Tim Sheehy, Kevin Cramer, Jon A. Husted, John Barrasso, Bernie Moreno. The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on H.R. 1968, a bill making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close? The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 62, nays 38, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 128 Leg.] YEAS--62 Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton [[Page S1769]] Cramer Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Durbin Ernst Fetterman Fischer Gillibrand Graham Grassley Hagerty Hassan Hawley Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy King Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell McCormick Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Peters Ricketts Risch Rounds Schatz Schmitt Schumer Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Shaheen Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Wicker Young NAYS--38 Alsobrooks Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Duckworth Gallego Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Paul Reed Rosen Sanders Schiff Slotkin Smith Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 62, the nays are 38. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. The majority leader. Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we have already locked in 10-minute votes for the balance of the number of votes, but if people stay here in their seats, we can execute that a lot more quickly. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon. Amendment No. 1273 Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1273 and ask that it be reported by number. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment by number. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Oregon [Mr. Merkley] proposes an amendment numbered 1273. The amendment is as follows: (Purpose: To except the application of certain rescissions) On page 6, line 11, strike ``and 639'' and insert ``639, and 640''. On page 7, line 15, strike ``and''. On page 7, line 18, insert ``, and except section 530'' before the period at the end. The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will now be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided. Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, colleagues, let me keep this very simple. We provided a lot of funding in the Inflation Reduction Act so that those who have very sophisticated finances and very powerful advisers that try to avoid ever paying their taxes don't get away with it, because it is a fundamental fairness all across America. Ordinary working people have the money taken out of their paychecks every week. Just because people have enormous paychecks and fancy consultants, it shouldn't mean that they get a license to cheat. And all of that money went to make sure that those upper income folks knew that somebody might be taking a look at their finances. If this amendment fails, it will increase the deficit by $46 billion. So I hope all of you who are fiscally responsible and care about fundamental fairness to workers across America will vote for this amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho. Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, this isn't about spending $46 billion; it is about saving $20 billion. The Democrats' partisan supersized IRS funding is something we have been battling over for a couple of years now. It is a textbook example of the type of out-of-control spending that President Trump and Republicans have rightly opposed. Rather than working together to help the IRS solve its massive taxpayer service and IT shortcomings, the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act went to fund untargeted and heavily handed enforcement improvement. As I had mentioned at the time, the last thing hard-working Americans need is an IRS funding bloat that disproportionately hurts them. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment to provide the IRS nearly two times its entire annual budget in unaccountable enforcement dollars. Vote on Amendment No. 1273 The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment. Mr. MERKLEY. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk called the roll. The result was announced--yeas 4

Referenced legislation: HR1968, HR1968