{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=417C41F3-7990-459F-A065-9159C4D09AFB", "Congress Should Fix the President\u2019s Broken Defense Budget Request", "2022-12-19", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding government funding:\n\n\u201cWhen the Biden Administration put out their budget proposal, Republicans knew it was wrong for the country.\n\n\u201cThe Administration wanted to cut funding for our Armed Forces after inflation while massively increasing spending on non-defense.\n\n\u201cRepublicans have taken the President\u2019s bizarre position and flipped it on its head.\n\n\u201cThe bipartisan government funding bill that Senators Shelby and Leahy have finished negotiating does exactly the opposite of what the Biden Administration first proposed.\n\n\u201cThis bill provides a substantial real-dollar increase to the defense baseline\u2026 and a substantial real-dollar cut to the non-defense, non-veterans baseline.\n\n\u201cLet me say that again.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden wanted to cut defense spending and grow liberal domestic spending in real dollars.\n\n\u201cBut Congress is rejecting the Biden Administration\u2019s vision and doing the exact opposite.\n\n\u201cThis bill will grow defense spending and cut non-defense, non-veterans spending after inflation.\n\n\u201cJust last week, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act on an overwhelming bipartisan basis. Senators on both sides acknowledged that President Biden and his Administration had failed to request the level of resources that our servicemembers and their commanders actually need.\n\n\u201cSo on a bipartisan basis, we ignored the Administration\u2019s request and authorized what our Armed Forces need.\n\n\u201cBut the landmark investments in upgrading and modernizing our Armed Forces that we just laid out in the NDAA will not happen unless Congress follows through and appropriates the money to pay the bills.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s what Senators Shelby and Leahy have given us the opportunity to do: Make good on our commitments in the NDAA by following through with actual funding.\n\n\u201cAmericans want our nation to remain the preeminent global superpower.\n\n\u201cWe want our country to remain the mightiest civilization the world has ever seen. We want to keep helping Ukraine, keep out-competing Russia, and keep pace with the huge investments that China is making in their own military and new technologies.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a strange position, to say the least, when Republicans in Congress have to poke and prod a Democratic Commander-in-Chief into sufficiently funding the men and women that he commands.\n\n\u201cBut as I said all along, funding our Armed Forces is a basic governing duty. Republicans were not going to let our Democratic colleagues demand extra left-wing goodies in exchange for doing their job and funding our troops. The President\u2019s own party does not get to take our national defense hostage and demand rewards.\n\n\u201cI am grateful that our Democratic colleagues backed down and accepted our position.\n\n\u201cThe bipartisan bill that our colleagues have negotiated equips our Armed Forces with the resources they need while cutting non-defense, non-veterans spending in real dollars.\n\n\u201cThis is a strong outcome for Republicans, and much more importantly, it\u2019s the outcome that our nation\u2019s security needs. I want to thank our distinguished colleague Senator Shelby for his hard work and I look forward to reviewing the full text soon.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=417C41F3-7990-459F-A065-9159C4D09AFB"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8055669497698545, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}