Lankford Challenges Colleagues to “Reset Priorities” Ahead of Government Funding Deadline  

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s floor speech on YouTube.

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WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) delivered remarks on the Senate Floor calling on his colleagues to “reset priorities” and prevent a government shutdown.

The Prevent Government Shutdowns Act would require Members of Congress to stay in Washington, DC until spending bills are completed if appropriations work is not done on time. This would prevent a government-wide shutdown, continue critical services and operations for Americans, and hold federal workers harmless while Congress completes appropriations. 

Excerpts

Lankford Pushes Senate Colleagues to Reset Priorities: My simple challenge is, it’s the middle of September, why aren’t we working on budget? Why aren’t we working on the national defense authorization? Why aren’t we working on energy and the cost of energy and permitting for energy? Why aren’t we working on lower priced prescription drugs? Why aren’t we working on farm bill? All of those have wide bipartisan support coming out of committee, all of them, but none of them have been brought up here on this floor. Maybe it’s so everything can just get crammed into the end of the year and get past the election. But maybe we need to reset our priorities and let’s get the things done that the American people expect us to work on. The hard things. The things that are important, whether it’s health care, energy, ag policy, the budget, national defense, let’s address the things that should be addressed. And let’s get started. I’d be okay with starting today, but let’s at least address them next week. But for my understanding of next week’s schedule, they’re not coming up then either.

Lankford Calls to End Government Shutdowns for Good: Once again, the nation’s whispering about, ‘Will we have another government shutdown’ based on the fact that Congress has not finished its work. And quite frankly, even during this September, we’ve not even brought up appropriation bills for a vote on the floor at all. I’ve come to this floor multiple times to say this is not the way that it should run, and quite frankly, 100 of us would all nod our heads and say, ‘It’s not the way it should run.’ I continue to be able to bring to this body a very simple idea that Maggie Hassan and I, my colleague from New Hampshire, that she and I have had together for years now, that if it ever came to the floor, would pass. We have plenty of support on both the Republican and Democrat side of the aisle to be able to deal with ending government shutdowns. It’s a simple idea that she and I have. That is, if we get to a moment like this that we’ve not finished our work, the government doesn’t have a shutdown, we have actually a shut in—where all of us have to stay here, continue our work, federal employees and the nation is held harmless, but we have to actually finish the work.

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