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Today, the United States Senate considered two procedural motions to allow debate on two proposals to provide emergency, off-budget funding for the Department of Defense. Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson opposed both provisions because neither provided full funding for the soldiers in the field.
Nelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine have offered a bipartisan proposal that would fully fund the troops and transition the mission in Iraq away from policing the civil war to focus on our national security priorities such as fighting Al Qaeda, protecting American assets and personnel and securing Iraq’s border integrity.
Nelson released the following statement after the votes this morning:
"As someone who works to find common ground on contentious issues, I voted against Senator McConnell's motion in order to send a message that the Congress and Administration should be working to find a bipartisan compromise rather than using procedural gamesmanship to grind everything to a halt. I usually support cloture to move things forward, but in this case supporting cloture would have actually worsened the logjam.
"I supported cloture on the Majority Leader’s motion in order to allow the defense funding proposal to get an up or down vote. However, I opposed this measure because it failed to fully fund our troops.
"What is clear is that the two sides need to reach an agreement that gets full funding for the troops and appropriately charts a future course of action in Iraq, without micromanaging the combat effort. My proposal to transition the mission would ensure our national security priorities are met and still fund the troops in the field.
"We are debating one of the most serious matters before this or any other Congress – the matter of war. We have troops in the field, fighting and dying, and what are we doing? Parlor tricks. Procedural gimmicks. Meaningless acts of partisanship designed to haze other Members of the Senate. It’s time for the parlor tricks and gamesmanship to stop. I sincerely hope that when we return from the Thanksgiving break – a break not afforded to our troops in Iraq – both sides can get down to serious consideration of a meaningful path forward in Iraq. We owe this to our soldiers, their families and the American people."
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