“I think we all understand how unsafe the hackers are”, said Sen. Critics say it’s a license to spy, whereas supporters say it will thwart the cyber-boogeymen. “We’re hearing echoes of that rhetoric again”. But they do that by padding a war-fighting account that’s not subject to the automatic spending caps that took effect a few budget cycles ago.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, accused Democrats of employing a “cynical political strategy to keep the Senate from working and to deny funding to our armed services while bulking up federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the I.R.S”.
“The Budget Control Act, which set in motion risky defense cuts, establishes caps on defense and nondefense discretionary spending”, Sen. His amendment was voted down along party lines on Tuesday afternoon.
President Barack Obama is threatening a veto, saying he also wants more funding for domestic programs.
The cybersecurity issue came up during a larger debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes the budget and expenditures of the Department of Defense.
But that tactic has put McConnell under siege from Democrats, some of whom are generally supportive of the cybersecurity legislation but question the merits and motives of the majority leader’s process.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee approved its Fiscal Year 2016 bill Tuesday morning, laying out $489.1 billion in base budget spending and $86.8 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding.
Blumenthal said overall there is strong bipartisan consensus for the bill, despite disagreements over OCO and specific weapons systems.
“We need a new budget deal”, Vice Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said.
Senators voted 56-40 in favor of cloture on the proposed amendment, intended to attach the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act to the NDAA, short of the necessary 60 votes.
Schumer usually lets Reid or Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) respond to McConnell’s floor comments.
The battle that will “define” the current Congress for the remainder of the year is getting under way, a top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Wednesday, as the GOP-led Congress and President Obama square off over spending on the military and national defense.
Democrats on Tuesday called for a “budget summit” involving leaders from the House and Senate and representatives from the White House.
“Putting it on the defense bill doesn’t really make any sense”, Feinstein said. “That’s why it’s so disgraceful and disappointing what they’re doing on an authorization bill”.
Out of options, McConnell was forced to allow a vote on the reform package known as the USA Freedom Act to go forward-and even then, his last-ditch attempt to score a victory with a handful of amendments was rejected.
With Democrats and Republicans embroiled in a new but deepening dispute over spending, Sen.
“He said that be believed the OCO aspect of this bill is troubling”. For several years now, a steady stream of military brass has trooped to Hill hearings and implored Congress to lift the caps. The OCO gimmick is opposed by President Obama, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey and Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan.
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