WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today regarding completing work on funding for Zika, veterans and continuing government operations:

“I’d like to bring a little perspective to today’s vote on the Clean CR/Zika package.

“This is a 10-week funding bill.

“Its contents command broad support.

“It contains zero controversial riders from either party.

“Can it really be that Democratic leaders have embraced dysfunction so thoroughly that they’d tank a noncontroversial, 10-week funding bill over — well, what exactly?

“Does anyone know?

“Do they even know?

“The rationale seems to change by the hour.

“We know it has almost nothing to do with what’s actually in the bill.

“They’ve agreed to its spending levels — can’t be that.

“They’ve agreed to its compromise Zika package — can’t be that.

“They’ve agreed with us to help veterans and those hurt by floods and the heroin and prescription opioids crisis too — so can’t be that either.

“We also know that the Senate has already voted to pass assistance for families affected by lead poisoning in Flint — in its proper vehicle, the Water Resources Development Act, with Chairman Inhofe pledging to continue to pursue resources for Flint once the bill goes to conference — so Flint can’t really be the issue either. And the White House said yesterday that the WRDA bill is an appropriate vehicle for the Flint funding.
“It’s almost as if a few Democratic leaders decided long ago that bringing our country to the brink would make for good election-year politics, and then they've just made up the rationale as they go.

“But that couldn’t really be true…could it?

“That would mean Democrats have been playing politics with the lives of expectant mothers and babies suffering from Zika…after demanding immediate action.
“That would mean Democrats have been playing politics with the lives of those struggling from the heroin and prescription opioid crisis…after promising they’d help.

“That would mean Democrats have been playing politics with the lives of flood victims…after saying they cared.

“I know our Democratic friends wouldn’t want the American people to think that.

“I hope every one of our Democratic friends will show us today that they were actually serious about supporting veterans and tackling Zika, and flood relief, and the heroin and prescription opioid crisis, and we all know the way to do that: by supporting the legislation before us that actually does those things.

“This 10-week funding bill need not be, as some Democratic leaders seem to wish, some titanic struggle for the ages.

“It’s a 10-week funding bill.

“It’s hard to believe Democrats would really be willing to hold up this commonsense package and its critical resources to address Zika, the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic, and floods.

“The Clean CR/Zika package before us is fair. It’s the result of weeks of bipartisan negotiations. It does the very things members of both parties, and more importantly our constituents, have been calling for.
“We cannot afford to delay any longer.

“Passing this Clean CR/Zika package should be one of the easiest votes we take.”