the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. a senator: i vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired and the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any members wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the ayes are 50, the nays are 47. the namings is confirmed -- the nomination is confirmed. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. isakson: i ask that the senate vote on the stewart nomination and if confirmed, the senate be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the

nomination. the clerk: , nomination, department of defense, james m. stewart, of north carolina, to consistent secretary. the presiding officer: the question is on the nomination. all in favor say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of senate's actions. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: the senate is in morning business. mr. casey: thank you,

mr. president. mr. president, i rise today to speak to commemorate the horrific death of matthew shepard 20 years ago. on october 2, 1998, matthew shepherd, then an student at the university of wyoming, was kidnapped, brutally beaten and left tied to a fence outsideular my, wyoming. he passed away five days. matthew was attacked because of his sexual orientation. his murder was an act of pure evil, borne of hate. since his passing, matthew's family has shared his story in hope that no other family shares a similar tragedy.

his parents started the matthew shepherd foundation to honor the life and aspirations of their son. judy has made countless personal appearances around the country and around the world sharing matthew's story to shine a light on the importance of importance lgbt community and eradicating haivment she has relived the horror of -- hate. she has relived the horror of his death so that others may never know such pain. i had the opportunity in 2005 to meet judy shepard here in washington, and i was impressed and inspired by her strength. the foundation that the shepard family has organized has worked to end hate in all forms around the country, starting dialogues at schools, corporations, and communities to promote human

dight for all individuals. -- dignity for all individuals. they have also provided an online resource center for lgbt youth, help to provide a dialogue for hate crimes and help to advocate for legislation to end hate crimes. judy shepard's work has been successful, and i think that's an understatement. matthew shepard's story has resonated with people across the country and inspired change, including the 2009 passage of the matthew shepard and james byrd jr. hate crimes prevention act, which i cosponsored. this added gender, sexual orientation, gender eye dent eye or dis -- identity or disability as protected classes under existing federal hate crimes

laws. though we made a great deal of progress over the last 20 years, there's still so much work to do. in 20166, -- 2016, over 6,000 hate crimes were reported and 124 were based on gender-identity violence. in order to help to stop this violence, i'm the author of the disarm hate act. this legislation would prevent those convicted of a violent misdemeanor hate crime or those who have received a hate crime sentence enhancement from buying or possessing a gun. it's critical that we work to not only address hate crimes, but to stop the culture of violence and prejudice that often begins as bullying and harassment in our schools. koorgt a human -- according to a

human rights campaign report lgbt youth are twice as likely as non-lgbt youth to be physically attacked at school. similarly, a report by the gay, lesbian, straight education network found that four out of five lgbt students reported experiencing harassment frequently in school based on their appearance or perceived sexual orientation. that's why i've consistently introduced the safe schools improvement act which would provide -- which would prohibit in k through 12 schools bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. i'm also the cosponsor of the quality act, a landmark civil rights bill that would amend existing civil rights laws to

prohibit discrimination based on gender identification, on housing and federal jury service. matthew shepard's life and death has inspired great change across our nation over the last 20 years. and his life continues to inspire me and so many others, so many members of congress, and, indeed, so many americans to continue the fight against hate and violence in all its forms. we just read today, just hours ago, a story in "the washington post" which told us that matthew shepard's remains will be interred in the next couple of weeks inside the crypt at the national cathedral here in washington. may he rest in peace. i yield the floor.

mr. kennedy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i want to talk for just a few minutes about our efforts to get control of the health care costs dealing with insurance in america. with me today is one of my colleagues from my office, miss kate dwyer. the affordable care act has not

worked for the american people. i wish it had. i'm disappointed that it didn't. we were promised upon the passage of the affordable care act that our lives would be better. our lives are worse. we were promised upon passage of the affordable care act that health insurance would be cheaper and more accessible. it's been neither. as you know, mr. president, the united states senate has tried to come up with a health insurance reform effort to replace the affordable care act. we have not been able to do that. but we didn't quit, mr. president, as you well know. we have started through a number

of small but meaningful measures along with the trump administration to lower the cost of health insurance for the american people. and we've made substantial progress. it's been lost in the noise but it's real nonetheless. and i want to talk about two such efforts briefly. first, association health plans. as you know, mr. president, one option that has often been missing from our array of health insurance choices is the ability to get together as a group of people, sometimes across state lines, and buy health insurance.

and let me explain what i mean by that. let's suppose you have a chamber of commerce, as many cities and towns do. and those chambers of commerce in my state want to join with chambers of commerce in mississippi which would join with chambers of commerce in arkansas and pool all of their members and say to a health care provider, here are all these people that want to buy health insurance. give us the best deal you can. through the economy of scale, we could lower the cost of health insurance. it makes sense. but for ever and a day it hasn't been legal in the united states of america. it now is. in 2017, president trump issued an executive order directing

federal agencies to draft regulations to allow the american people to enjoy the fruits of association health plans. in january of this year, the department of labor proposed a rule expanding the scope of groups and individuals eligible for banding together as associations and purchasing coverage through an association health plan. and of course the rule was finalized on june 21 of this year. it became effective august 20 of 2018. i'm not suggesting, mr. president, that association health plans are going to solve all the problems of access to insurance and cost of health insurance in america, but they will help and they will help because the principle underlying association health plans is that they allow the free market to

work. so now if you're a member of a rotary club and you want to join with rotary clubs in other states even, other parts of your state, pool a large group of people together, growing to a health insurance provider and say i've got a lot of potential customers here. i want to buy major medical insurance. what kind of deal will you give me? that will be legal in our country. the second thing that we've done, mr. president, as you're well ware because i consider -- well aware because i consider you an expert in health care and in health care insurance, has to do with what we call short-term limited duration health plans what is a short-term limited duration plan? let's suppose i leave my job and

i have employer-provided insurance. and i'm not sure what i'm going to do next. i've got some ideas and got some prospects, but it will probably be six months before i'll take a new job with a new company that will provide health insurance. i've got a six-month gap where i and my family will not have health insurance. that's the purpose of short-term -- what we call short-term limited duration health plans. they are plans offered throughout our country where if i'm in between job, for example, and i don't have insurance and i don't want to pursue my prior health insurance through cobra, i can go buy one of these short-term limited duration health plans. it's sort of gap coverage, if you will. and short-term limited duration health plans have been around

for a long time. the problem is that for all practical purposes, the affordable care act made them illegal. now that's a bit of an overstatement. you could still purchase a short-term limited duration health plan but for a very, very, very short period of time so that they were rendered ineffective. now under changes made, these plans will allow families and individuals to purchase these short--term plans for up to ten months and in cases for up to 36 months and that's as a result of a new rule promulgated by the president trump administration which reverses the obama era policy that limited the short-term plans to only three months with no option to renew. why are short-term limited duration health plans important? why are they helping to

contribute to our efforts to lower the cost of health insurance? well, first, here's the problem we're trying to solve, mr. president, as you well know. these are the increases in premiums, the cost you pay to purchase health insurance through the affordable care act. the silver plan from 2017 to 2018. texas, price went up 41.3%. to buy a silver plan through the affordable care act. in my state of louisiana, 12.9%. oregon, 31.9%. wisconsin, 43.5%. pennsylvania, 30.6%. and i could go on and on and on. that's why i say the affordable

care act hasn't worked. no one can afford it. i wish it had worked. it gives me no pleasure to say that. but we were told health insurance premiums would go down. they've gone up. by making these short-term limited duration health plans available for a longer period of time, we're giving people the flexibility -- in giving people the flexibility to extend them, the trump administration in my judgment is making sure that american families have access to a reliable, affordable health care option. now, we had a vote yesterday. some of my friends on the democratic side of the aisle decided they wanted to end short-term limited duration health plans. and they promulgated a proposal to through the congressional review act to end them. fortunately we defeated that effort. what has been the effect?

well, -- in terms of price and availability? well, short-term limited duration health plans in many cases are 50 to 80% cheaper than plans purchased under the affordable care act. now, you say why is that? well, there's no free lunch and you're not going to get one now. if you purchase a short-term limited duration health plan, it oftentimes does not have the same coverage that you're required to offer if you're a health insurance company offering health insurance under the affordable care act. you're not. you don't get the same coverage. but that doesn't mean you get no coverage, and that doesn't mean that the short-term limited duration plan is junk insurance because it's not. it's considered major medical insurance. and issues like lifetime limits.

annual limit, coverage of preexisting conditions, there are a variety of plans out there offered. if you want to purchase a plan, still cheaper than you could buy under obamacare that covers preexisting conditions, you can. so this idea that short-term limited duration health plans are really no insurance at all are so-called junk insurance is simply a bunch of nonsense. i'll give you an example, mr. president. in the last quarter of 2016, our short-term limited duration health plan cost an individual about $124 a month. now that's a lot of money for a lot of americans. but it's much better when you consider if you compare it to an unsubsidized obamacare plan, it costs $393 a month.

so you could save 70% by buying a short-term limited duration health plan. again, the problem was that under the obamacare, you could only buy one of these short-term plans for three months. now you can buy them for much, much longer. now, the self-styled betters of washington, d.c., the culture cosmopolitan crowd up here who think they know better than everybody else in america, they think they're smarter than all americans would do away with short-term limited duration health plans if they could. because they think, well, the american people, they're not smart enough to understand what they're buying. so we're not going to give them the choice. we're smarter than they are. they need to look to us here in washington, d.c. to run their

lives. we saw that effort yesterday on the floor of the senate. fortunately we defeated did. the american people are plenty smart. they may not have time to read aristotle every day because they're too busy earning a living but they did it. they watched their health insurance premiums rise through the roof as a result of the affordable care act. and many of them have sought out this alternative of short-term limited duration plans and say, hey, we know it doesn't cover as much as some policies, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper and we'd like to buy it and try it for a while. and as americans they're entitled to do that. and i'm pleased that we could -- we could reserve the option for them, mr. president. it was a win for american families in my book. we're not giving up on replacing the affordable care act. again, it gives me no joy to say that we have to replace it, but it just hasn't worked.

and any fair minded person who is at all objective would have to look at a plan that promised us cheaper policies and more accessibility and ended up with more expensive policies and less accessibility and say it just didn't work. and we've got to replace it and we're going to keep working on it. but in the meantime, mr. president, i wanted to point out to my colleagues that we continue to chip away at the cost -- the rising cost of health insurance in america. thank you, mr. president. and with that i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: and the clerk shall call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. portman: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: today i rise to talk about the economy, what's going on out there in terms of jobs and wage growth. it's a positive story. i've seen it firsthand back home in ohio. every weekend we go back and i meet with small business owners.

they tell me the same thing which is things are good. their biggest concern is finding workers. they're growing, expanding, and you see this in the national numbers as well. these small businesses tell me it's primarily because of the tax reform and tax cuts legislation and because of the regulatory environment. it's easier for them to be able to create more jobs. i want to start by talking about the tax reform. remember before this legislation was passed going back really for several years, our economy had been relatively weak. we'd seen economic growth between one and a half and 2.5%. a lot of people were saying 2% growth is kind of the new normal. in fact, the congressional budget office which is the nonpartisan group up here that tells us what our growth numbers are likely to look like and tells us what they actually are, the congressional budget office said last year that they believed economic growth this year, calendar year 2018 would be 2%.

pretty discouraging really. with 2% growth you're not going to see the growth and wage increase we all want. that was before the tax legislation was passed. they also predicted that employment would increase by an average of 107,000 jobs per month. again, not bad but not something to write home about. now our economy is up and going and it's moving toward its full potential. shortly after tax reform passed, c.b.o. changed its estimate. they said, okay, with tax reform this is our new estimate. we'll see the growth instead of 2% this year is going to be 3.1%. that's over a 50% increase in growth. that's incredible. they were pretty optimistic about what would happen. and was attributable to tax reform that was a big part of this upward revision, as they called it. they also changed their projection on monthly unemployment. they said instead of 107,000 jobs, we're likely to see 210,000 jobs per month.

well, what's happened? it turns out the congressional budget office despite their optimistic projection were wrong. we've seen numbers even better than their optimistic projections. economic growth for the second quarter of 2018 was 4.2%. and a record 876,000 new businesses were created. the federal reserve now estimates that growth in this quarter we're in is likely to be 4.1%. wow. we'll see what the final numbers are but if it's anywhere close to that, that is extraordinary. if we've gone from 2% to 3% to 4%. with #.2%, 4.1% growth, what else is happening? unemployment rate has gone down. it's the lowest it's been since december 1969. so it's a big deal. the pro-growth policies that some of us have been promoting on this side of the aisle,

including tax reform and regulatory relief have made a difference. small business optimism is at an all-time high according to the national federation of independent businesses, nfib. and most important to me, wages are finally going up. because the last ten years it isn't just that the economy has been relatively flat, it's that wages have not increased. in fact, if we take inflation into account, wages have been flat or declining on afternoon. that's why a lot -- on average. that's why a lot of people feel the middle-class squeeze. higher expense, particularly health care costs but also everyday cost. health care costs are driving it but housing costs, the cost of food, the cost of education. by the same token, you've got wages that were flat. that's a squeeze. so your take-home pay is not going up but your expenses are going up. a lot of frustration around the country the last several years about that. now we see wages going up.

2.8% is the wage growth last month. that's the highest wage growth since the mid-2009's, so since mid-2009, remember before the recession, we've not seen a wage growth like this. that's great news. i hope we continue to see that solid wage growth because that's what we ultimately ought to be looking for. since the first of last year, i've held over a dozen small business roundtables, where you talk to them about religions they care about. every -- where you talk to them about the regulations they care about. these companies are pass-thrus. they pay taxes individually, which is the case of a vast majority of small businesses. and so they're seeing the lower rates. but they're also seeing a new advantage to the new laws on investment. if you invest money in your company, you can deduct it from your taxes now. you have bonus depreciation now.

now you have 100% depreciation. you can write things off immediately. that makes a huge difference. and it is exciting. the presiding officer was talking about being at one of his small businesses in louisiana today at lunch, and it's the same story i've heard all over our state. this was a distillery, as i recall. in ohio, our breweries and distilleries are taking advantage of a specific part of the new tax bill that helps them on their excise taxes. but also just the overall lowering of their rate, increasing the productivity of their workers. which is the key thing to getting wages up. since the first of the year, i have also visited 22 businesses directly. so now a roundtable discussion, but i go to these businesses and talk to them specifically about how they're using this tax bill. everyone who has got good stories to tell. some -- everyone has got good stories to tell. some have secrecied wages and

have -- some have increased wages and have gone public about that. a lot of smaller businesses have done that as wellment, but they've done other things, too. some have expanded retirement benefits, bought new equipment. a lot of small businesses i know, i go talk to them they say we're actually taking these older pieces of equipment we have, these machines, and we're upgrading them. which again makes those workers more productive. makes that company more successful, allows wages to go up. in one small business i visited, they had a machine that was roughly 31 years old. they got the machine in 1986. and i thought it was an amazing coincidence that this tax code, which hadn't been updated since 1966, and they were using the tax savings they got interest that to take a machine that was bought that same year and upgrading it, modernizing it, about a $1 million investment

for them that they never could have made in a small business without the tax cut legislation. so it is working. sometimes again companies are doing a combination of these ver just things. they might be increasing the 0 401(k) match but also adding nor their entry-level pay. so it's doing what it was intended. ness first quarter we have numbers already for the amount of money that came back to our country. so over $300 billion. over $300 billion came back to the united states from overseas. that's what they call repatriation, money that was earned overseas that companies were keeping overseas before because they had no incentive to bring it back. what does that mean? it means it gets invested here, sometimes in that new company and plant, sometimes in people's wallets and pocketbooks. that money is being used to create this better economy we're talking about. that $300 billion from this

quarter compared to last year? about ten times more. the lower tax rates for individuals means that 90% of the people in america got a statement from their employer saying, guess what? uncle sam is going to take less out of your paycheck because they're withholding changed. so for 90% of workers in america, they've gotten something saying you're going to have more of year hard-earned money staying in your pocket. you're going to be able to take it home rather than having uncle sam take it out as part of your taxes. as i said during the tax reform debate when we had very spirited debates here, some on the other side saying there's no middle-class tax relief in the legislation, i say, the proof is in the legislation. sure enough, 90% of americans saw that in their paychecks, the proof is in the paycheck. it is not really a political debate. it's a real-life situation for people who are living paycheck

to paycheck, which is most of the people i represent. so it's a big deal for the median-income family in ohio, that's $2,000 a year on average. that means a vacation that they otherwise couldn't take, investing more in your retirement, investing more that their kids. so it is working. i noticed earlier, wages are rising more than since 2009. along with the lower tax rates, along with the changes we talked about in terms of doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, people are feeling more hope and opportunity. due in part to this lower business rate and the national tax system, companies are looking to hire more. what i hear back in owe mostly now is -- what i hear back in ohio mostly is now we're looking to hire people. we need more skills a lord

number of americans have said now is the time to find a quality job. a record number of americans because they see the "help wanted" signs. the number of americans who are employed part time for economic reasons who want to work full time but can only find part time work is now the lowest it's beeness since december of 2007. now you have got to go back more than ten years to find the number of people employed part-time who want full-time work. that's the lowest it's been since december of 2007. that's good. we want people to work full-time, not part-triumphant i believe we're going to continue to see this rising tide. i think there are some provisions in the ttacker code that will help even more. there is a provision called opportunity zones where if you invest in some of the neighborhoods in ohio that have had the highest persistent stubborn rates of poverty, then you get a tax break. that's going to help to increase investment in some of those poor neighborhoods. those opportunity zones are getting started now and that's

going to ensure people who have fallen behind have a chance to catch up. john f. kennedy says a rising tied lifts all boats. it can, but you got to be sure you are going into those kinds of neighborhoods and ensuring that they have the opportunity to be lifted, too. i think opportunity zones will help there. despite this strong and growing economy, there does remain this weakness in our workforce that will continue to hold us back. and that is that a lot of americans are not looking for work. they are literally on the sidelines. the labor economists call that a low laborforce participation rate. it means that the percentage of people who are in the workforce looking for a job is relatively low. so you have this strong economy. you have the lowest unemployment numbers that we've had in years going back to 1969. and yet you have a lot of people in the shadows who are on the sidelines who aren't even looking for work so they don't

show up in the unemployment numbers. if you took the laborforce participation rate -- the percentage of people in the workforce and you go back, let's say, ten years ago to just before the great recession, and you compare it to today, use the same labor force participation rate, what would you guess the number would be today? it is not 3.7%. it is more like 8.5%. so as strong as this economy is, as good as things are, as optimistic as people are the fact that wages are going up -- all good things -- and the tax bill is hugely responsible fog that, and it is helpful. it is has pulled a lot of people back into work. it has pulled people back into work altogether. there is this group of people, probably over eight million american as an example between the ages of 25 honored 55, able-bodied -- between the ages of 25 and 55, able-bodied men,

who aren't working. it's not good for them because they aren't getting the respect they need. the numbers for women are perhaps not quite as high. but also at relatively high levels. but it's also bad for our commitment of we need these workers. we want these people in the workforce, right? why is it happening? well, i think there are a few reasons. i think one reason is that americans don't have the skills that we would hope they would have in order to meet the job requirements of today. what i do -- what do i mean by that? today if you don't have a technical skill, whether you are in health care or manufacturing or whether you're in one of the service industries, it's hard to find a job. so to our young people here today, get that skills training. and if you look at the unemployment in ohio right now,

ohiomeansjobs.com -- a lot of these jobs are for things like a machinist or a welder. or someone is it's skills and information technology skills, coding as an example. if you go to coding school, you can get a job in ohio. in health care, there are a lot of people who are being hired to have those technical skills, including coding skills to provide for digitized health care records, for example. if you look at the jobs being offered and you look at the high unemployment, it doesn't make sense. part of it is because the job skills aren't there. there is a lot of exciting stuff going on in my state and other states where you have colleges, particularly some of the community cleanse, who are working closely with some of our businesses and also with some of our high schools. the high schools have career and

technical education now that is expanding. in ohio we're doing a good job of getting in order and more young people interested in career and technical education. we started a caucus here, senator kaine and myself to promote and expand the technical education. we are not there yet. there is still a lot of skills training that could and should go on in order to provide people with the tools they need. that's part of it. part of it i think is the dependency trap. what i do mean by that? there is an issue. when you're on government support, when you're on government dependency, and you want to go to work and it's both the fact that there is a cliff in terms of losing your benefits and also there is a mountain in terms of higher taxes. so one thing that some of us

have worked on here and need to do more on is to say, how do you work with the states to provide more of that transition? if someone wants to leave a government program, how do you have a way to transition that so you don't have this big cliff and mountain ahead of you because that creates a disincentive? i do think there's work that can be done there. but i will tell you, i think the biggest single issue in terms of these relatively high numbers of people who are out of work altogether, the people who are on the sidelines, is actually the opioid crisis and the drug issue. why do i say that? well, one, i see it back home. i go around my state. i spend a lot of time talking to people at treatment centers. i talk to people who are in recovery. i talk to people who are addicted. i talk to people who are experts providing that treatment for that longer-term recovery and talk to first responders. and there are just a lot of people in my state. we're probably top five in the country in terms of the

percentage of people addicted, the number of overdoses per economy ttackers the number of deaths per cap tax in america as a whole we lost 72,000 people last year to drug overdoses. historically high numbers. grim statistics. more people died last year of drug overdoses than we lost in the entire vietnam conflict. think about that. but a lot of these people are addicted. they aren't part of the statistics you read about the overdoses and deaths as tragic as they are. they are another part, which is people who are not productive in life because they're not engaged anymore with their friends or their family or their work. the drugs have become everything. i'll give you a couple of statistics that i think are shocking to me. one is from the u.s. department of labor. they did a study of men between, again, 25 and 55 who are out of

the workforce to say, how could this be? over eight million men out of the work, if'sforce together? i can itly with the opportunities out there the jobs that are being offered. they found that almost half of those men acknowledged taking pain medication on a daily basis. on a daily basis. what does that mean? there is another study by the brookings institute, brookings says, again, about half the people who they surveyed, almost half said that they were taking pain medication on a regular basis. one said the day before, one said son a daily basis. what they also said is, asked a further question, how many of you are taking prescription drugs? third of the people acknowledge -- thirds of the people being a -- two-thirds of the people acknowledge taking prescription drugs. these are shocking statistics. i do not believe this is overreported. i believe it is