will negotiate how to bring it to the floor and how many amendments will be offered and when votes will take place. monday is the deadline to avoid default when the federal government will not be able to pay all of its bills. as we wait to hear about the plan from senator schumer, they will work on repealing president biden's student loan forgiveness program. we'll take you live now to the senate floor on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.

eternal lord god, your promises are sure. bless our lawmakers in all their undertakings. in their friendships, keep them faithful and true. in their emotions, keep them calm and serene, free from anxiety and care. in their material things, give them contentment and generosity. in their spiritual lives, deliver them from doubts and distrust. in their work, give them guidance, courage, and success. and when misfortune comes, use

the trials to bring them closer to each other and to you. let nothing make their certainty that you alone are sovereign over their lives be shaken. we pray in your mighty name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the president pro tempore: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed, and under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of h.j. res. 45, a which the clerk will report. the clerk: h.j. res. 45, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code, and title 5, united states code, and

>> it will be addressed immediately. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman a good morning everyone, thank you all for being here is a culture of the national guard caucus in the special appreciate hearing your concerns this morning and general wilkinson about to start with you and think that you may wish to wait and as well as general belief, that in your opening statement, you talk and you mentioned specifically, the fighter squadrons that on with one when our 67th air refueling wing in new hampshire air force base at a very concerned about the status of this casey 46 units, both effectively still do not have all of those clients the way they were meant commission to fly but also, we have seen at

one or 57 they face cards to their personnel placing them about 5 percent below the national average it will recognize you face constraints in your talk about that, i'm very concerned that we have these aircraft city in new hampshire another being used but it doesn't feel like they're being used to the full extent because of this yourself constraints and so can you talk about how you expect the result of some of the issues i understand your connecting a study for the kc 46 and so when you expect results of that study you have any insights and what that will show. >> yes and you bring up a great organization and effectively refueling unit just set of ruled record for the longest continue record for their fewer. >> we are very proud of that. >> yes and it is a great organization only look across the entire air national guard is

unsure of the air force reserve does as well, we have any positions that are in excess of our strength, we need to count for those. in the personal actions specific to the 157 but really holistically, all of her guard units, but because you're the e-uppercase-letter 46 units, where evaluating in an annual basis to make sure that we have the right number of personnel requisitions so that we can fully leverage the capability of that system. so this is a temporary measure to keep in touch with what we are authorized but as we reviewed this and identified additional capabilities, we will reallocate manpower filter shortages. >> what is been temporary now for several years. >> yes and that is as we mentioned before, every just in some cases so we have to look across the entire air national guard trade and fiber the personal savings would come from the meccas of the have any insights from the staffing study

for the kc 46 and amino but that might recommend. >> i'm not aware of that right now ma'am but he can follow up with her step in the exact specifics about studying. >> general do you have any additions to that. >> reserve of the units were currently seeing more jobs in north carolina and we've seen great results in terms of coming up to speed delivery on schedule i know that the air force mobility command is holding manufacturers as to ensure the week releasing all the capabilities as fast as they are able to recover the capabilities that were not initially produce the waves should be were very much looking forward to deliveries to the air reserve base on california and expect by then the first aircraft delivery 26 we expect to see fully capable kc 46 we met, your slate. >> yes. >> i appreciate that but i think that is a message to boeing to

do better in the future as well. and general daniels, you mentioned the importance of childcare in your opening statement that i think that's critical about how important that is we have interesting cooperative effort between the force and naval shipyard and there national guard in new hampshire to do joint childcare center. they would share but can you speak to why that is so important the guard. >> yes my challenges that i have 800 for the army reserve center speckled across the united states must've of which are not in a 50-mile route and radius a major installation therefore color out in the communities and historically we have challenges finding the weekend care we just cannot find the providers will you weekend us. we have been a number of credit activities over the past year. the seller challenge we have a couple of organization we think we will making roots with to

help us have the weekend opportunity. >> will thank you and look forward to hearing more about what you have learned and sing have this committee can be supportive about an amount of time but general hawkinson i want to give your first priority for how the guard gets integrated into the space force because i think that is a very real concern in a basket general salzman about that issue on several occasions and ambiguous response has not been reassuring so i hope that we can continue to work with you on how that gets done and thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you and from the beautiful sunflower states, senator brent. >> thank you and always no need to tell the truth. at least on some occasions. >> i think you for being here new service ordination and i understand and appreciate the crucial roll with the national guard and reserve play enter components later military and

disaster at home around the world, you are there in a great asset to the well-being in the national security of our country and general hawkinson, to follow-up on center shunning beginning conversation about the space mission, when general salzman was in front of this committee, i asked him about the creation of the space national guard and he testified that is best military advice is the most cost-effective alternative the preserves operational capabilities in your best military advice, on creation of a space national guard, how would you answer that request from general salzman. >> thank you for the question and i would argue the comments the jeep of space operation mate, describing exactly the air national guard units performing a space mission. from a best advice, when i look

at the fact we been doing this mission for over 20 years and in some cases some of the only does missions we have of about 1000 people. we are about 30 percent of the operational squadrons today. to be my greatest concern is readiness to the course and by simply designating those air guard units performing the space mission to his face are typo goodness section going to do that with any resources that we currently have in my budget and it would simply be one week into the next where our airmen would change their air force to space force name at any time the capabilities they provide to our nation personnel was seen the same place the same civilian during the same mission to do everything they today and affect some of them right now writing that support to our nation are concerned is if you look at reestablishing another

component, he could cost our nation about a billion dollars and that is not only to reap structure and build this within a different component but also then need to retrain those air guard members performing mission into another mission set. an overall, when you look at this, i think it's a very easy decision. >> i think you sir. is going to ask you about the cost to stand up national guard component and perhaps you've answered that but it would give you incentives to make it clear. >> yes so we look at the cost of about 640 million, the remission will currently exist into a future type of organization the concern that we have is right now come there national guard's space units are the only unit equipped to the capability airport reserve counterparts incorporated the space force and primarily individual owners is national guard is actually, and

trained and equipped units the concern there as well as when you look at the 28 years of experience in rehab, to replicate that or to reconstitute, imitate seven - and here's the those folks through the schools and trained and i'll think our nation can afford to see god adduction and readiness of the time to my think you general daniels, would you elaborate on the significance of the national guard reserve, equipment account to the u.s. army's reserve mission. >> think it despite its way ability to modernize their army has focused on modernizing the elements are the last several years looking forward to the 20302040, future battles in the army reserve is primarily about supported service sports and therefore our modernization efforts of like behind those elements and they support about 35 - 40 percent of my ability to

modernize in terms of broad dollar value. >> i think it and general hope it's an community, and appreciate what you told me goal of seeing that the starbase program is expanding in kansas and stem education is usually important national security and economic well-being of our nation i starbase i have listed on several occasions is very compelling in its mission having success we have part of the state pretty early for the most rural and underserved or unserved at appreciate your willingness to work with me to see that we've change that circumstance and general we appreciate you to the nation and think you for the testimony i thank you for the years that and duty to the country and all can see in pretty good those who share your alma mater particular by the service. >> center. >> thank you i think the witnesses this morning any of us

in healthcare financial guard forest is a command priority. i like you i believe increasing access to healthcare in the dental care, four-part reserve, service members pay dividends and readiness especially for short notice deployment pretty less congress to introduce the healthcare sector my bill that would provide all national guard and reserve service members, remain free healthcare coverage and can you please describe the impact that this proposal sort of impact that it would have on increasing the readiness of the total force. >> thank you senator, i think you hit it right ahead, the premium free healthcare and dental care as well critically important having been through multiple deployments of the biggest things that we ceased to address the readiness is medical

dental readiness for the personnel to go and effectively say that is the largest thing that affects a readiness in fact having that ability so that every guardsman in uniform is serving has the ability to get preventive care or care when they need that in the same dental care, will ensure the medical readiness the investment and terms of training time goes into it and not only got their investment in the time away from the emily's employers to be this is the best way to ensure to make the call ready to go to answer whatever nation needs him to do. >> thank you. >> last month, the aircraft started to arrive in madison wisconsin entrusting the wisconsin air national guard the critical capability for our nations defense. have a couple of questions the

unisource a significant number of jobs. when the economic benefits for the local community that we can anticipate from hosting the 35 bartering. >> so first and foremost the community there established such a fantastic unit out actually in the use force and air force base benefit is are aerial ranges of error refueling units survive interspace which made that just a great choice and many of the community, maybe have a state-of-the-art aircraft that will be there for decades freighted number folks that employees and will be there to support that unity, forming a huge difference in the local community unfriendly having been there, just the correlation between the unit in the local community makes a huge difference. >> why very grateful that my home state is making a significant contribution to the

national security and i would say that neighbors approximately the airport are concerned about the impact of increased noise starting therefore and help secure resources and help under previous appropriations and to help us planning for noise mitigation activity. can you please elaborate on efforts for the national guard is taking to come with us planning and to engage local communities that will be impacted by the noise. >> yes so the key there is for us to work with the faa and also the unit as we get the aircraft into identify those areas where we can reduce the noise this may affect the approach patterns of the use the type of approaches into the airport, and also their departures and also working with your cruise to identify the

areas where they can reduce noise and also make the communities aware hundreds or resources available to them to help reduce the noise locally. >> in on these activities while noise. >> yes they aren't as we get more aircraft, and i look forward to being out there and symptom or something for the welcome ceremony but i think it is big one, it will definitely want to be good neighbors when the community there because there are great supporters of that organization. >> thank you. >> center bozeman. >> thank you and for being here we appreciate your service and i always enjoy getting to visit with you when we talk about military construction we appreciate your service as always we appreciate your families and certainly is a family affair and again all that you represent. and general daniels, one key element of funding for the reserve component is affronted

reimbursable authority. they sure this committee authorizes this funding authority for the military intelligence activities in support of combatant commands and defense agencies. and you. amy: the importance of this authority and if you believe undated reimbursable authority should be expanded to high demands skills such as fiber and space activities. >> yes thank you predict affronted reimbursable according allows the combatant commands use the operational offensive bring on and pay for the reservists and stand in a voluntary manner. and it allows them to have additional capacity for those folks available and ready and capable to use the civilian skills in the military trained cassette just for the requirements within the combatant commands and expanding beyond intelligence produce other key technical areas to be great value to the plans and allows the individual to use those civilian and military required schools to be very

expert in this area so expansion would be certainly be welcome. >> thank you very much. duty status reform is initiative seeking to streamline five they active, the activation and utilization reserve component members an effort to consolidate the duty status system has gone on for almost three decades i know that's been frustrated for service members. mr. schumer: madam president, last night, a large majority of both democrats and republicans in the house passed bipartisan legislation to protect the u.s. economy, protect american families, and eliminate the threat of a first-ever default. the bill is now in the senate, where we begin the process today of passing this legislation as soon as possible.

the senate will stay in session until we accepted a bill avoiding default to president biden's desk. we will keep working until the job is done. time is a luxury the senate does not have, if we want to prevent default. june 5 is less than four days away. at this point, any needless delay or any last-minute holdups would be an unnecessary and even dangerous risk, and any change to this bill that forces us to send it back to the house would be entirely unacceptable. it would almost guarantee default. so again, the senate will stay in session until we send a bill avoiding default to the president's desk, and we will

keep working until the job is done. the vast majority of senators recognize that passing this bill is supremely important. ity about preserving the full faith and credit of the united states. there is no good reason, none, to bring this process down to the wire. no good reason to bring this process down to the wire. and that too is dangerous and risky. so today i hope we see a genuine desire to keep this process moving quickly. i hope we see nothing even approaching brinksmanship. the country cannot afford that right now. instead, i hope we see bipartisan cooperation. bipartisanship is always the best way to avoid default and get this bill over the finish line. we've said it over and over again -- bipartisanship is what prevented default under president trump. it's what prevented default under president biden. and it's what will prevent

default in this case too. partisan bills and hostage-taking, meanwhile, were never going to win the day. let me say this -- last night's house vote was a resounding affirmation of bipartisanship, which i hope bodes well for quick movement here in the senate. large majorities from both sides came together to produce last night's 314 -- 314 yes votes, two-thirds from republicans and more than -- no, two-thirds of republicans voted for it and more than two-thirds of democrats voted for it. i thank my house colleagues on both sides of the aisle who fulfilled their duty to prevent a catastrophic default. we need that same spirit of bipartisanship that governed the house vote to continue here in the senate this morning. i hope that very soon we can finish the job of putting the default in our rearview mirror. this is the best thing we can do

right now, for our economy and for american families. i'm optimistic the senate's going to get this done, but it will take one more concerted, focused, and bipartisan push to get us over the finish line. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the president pro tempore: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: madam president. the president pro tempore: the majority leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the president pro tempore: witho ut objection. mr. mcconnell: last night an overwhelming majority of our house colleagues voted to pass the agreement speaker mccarthy reached with president biden. in doing so, they took an urgent and important step in the right direction. for the health of our economy and the future of our country. the fiscal responsibility act avoids the catastrophic consequences of a default on our nation's debt. and just as importantly, it makes the most serious headway in years toward curbing washington democrats' reckless spending addiction.

the bill that the house just passed has the potential to cut federal spending by $1.5 trillion. now the senate has a chance to make that important progress a reality. madam president, remember where we were just a few months ago. after two years of reckless spending and painful runaway inflation, the american people elected a republican house majority to serve as a check on washington democrats' power, and it was clear from the outset that preserving the full faith and credit of the united states was going to come down to an agreement that could pass both the people's house and earn the president's signature. in other words, direct

negotiations between speaker mccarthy and president biden, just like i said for months. for months. so back in february, speaker mccarthy got right to work. he made it clear to the president he was ready to take serious steps not only to avoid crisis in the near term, but to put government spending on a more sustainable path for the long term. unfortunately it took president biden months to accept the basic reality, but when the president finally came to the table house republicans worked hard to secure as many spending reforms as possible considering that we were in a divided government. and they produced a deal that moves every key republican priority in the right direction.

the speaker's agreement cuts domestic discretionary spending while increasing support for veterans and the armed forces. it locks in promising reforms to infrastructure permitting. it claws back unspent covid emergency funds. it slashes bloated spending at the irs. and it ties future executive branch regulations to new spending cuts. the deal the house passed last night is a promising step towards fiscal sanity. ah, but make no mistake, there's much more work to be done. the fight to reel in wasteful spending is far from over. our obligation to provide for the common defense is especially urgent. for years republicans have led

significant investments in improving the readiness of our armed forces and modernizing their capabilities to face down emerging threats. but since president biden took office, republicans have had to fight year after year to ensure we meet the needs of our military. fortunately we've secured bipartisan recognition that president biden's budget request have underfunded our national defense. this is especially true last year when republicans secured a substantial real dollar increase to defense funding and ended democrats' artificial demands for parity with nondefense discretionary spending. this brought our military valuable time, but it was hardly a silver bullet. as i said yesterday, president

biden's refusal to let the defense portion of this agreement exceed his insufficient budget request is certainly disappointing. so while the coming votes are an important step in the right direction, we cannot, cannot neglect our fundamental obligation to address the nation's most pressing national security challenges. vladimir putin's brutal invasion of ukraine continues state terrorism against americans and our partners continues. north korea's destabilizing nuclear proliferation continues. china's growing challenge to peace and stability in the indo-pacific continues as well. so the senate cannot afford to neglect its obligation to america's men and women in uniform. our urgent work to help them

defend our nation, support our allies, and safeguard our interests remains unfinished, and so does our work to bring more of washington democrats' reckless liberal spending to heel. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> when you look at where we are today our recruiters particularly in army site have been able to adjust to the current environment and we seen a steady increase in our recruiting abilities. we bent over 100% the last three months. the army national guard is on

by the end of the fiscal year. in terms of the other national guard we are challenging environment. we look at to be about 97% of our authorized by the end of the year. we had seen positive increases especially over last year. i'm not declaring victory but i'm saying right now all the trends are very positive of a hope to continue goes into the new year and make sure we maintain our army national guard authorized end strength and richer air national guard national end strength. >> tether with the elements are that you bigger most persuasive for those who are enlisting. >> for those, thank you for the question. when i go across the 50 for a visit with recruiters everywhere i go. educational benefits by the first think they bring up. the other one is benefits such as health care. what they're finding to be competitive is many companies now offer benefits they didn't

before, medical educational benefits. and so the competition for the same individuals is getting much stronger. also internally we are working with her own systems and that is reducing the time it does to get personal waivers and also addressing policies that are preventing some folks from serving. >> any other members have a comment? >> i think it's important to realize the math component. the population we are all trying to recruit is significantly smaller among gen z than millennials. that's a fact we have to deal with but also the propensity to serve has diminished, and that's all about us earning the confidence in the american people back to service is worthwhile. this is a holistic problem but there is a math component as well. >> i'd like to make a comment. i'm about to say something that is a secret, not classified what i'm going to shared with you. we have 780,000 daca recipients, people are protected under daca.

many of them want to serve this country where they grew up. there's an obstacle, congress we have not given them a pathway to citizenship. this should be a pathway. you ought to open up your opportunities. we should across the board in the military to dreamers and to daca recipients who really want to serve this country, and to think our genuine about it. for some reason there's been a resistance to perhaps there was a luxury of a lot of recruits that we did need others but i would just tell you i met them, i know them, they make great sacrifices just to have this opportunity to wear the uniform you are wearing today. i hope when you're in highest levels of the pentagon you will discuss this candidly. your predecessors have not always been cooperative whenever i raise this issue. there's a resistance because these folks are quote undocumented. they may not have been born here but they love this country as much as any of us who pledge allegiance to the flex i hope

you consider that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator capito. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank all of you and add my voice of thanks and gratitude to all of you for your service and to your families as well. i wanted to ask general hokanson, west virginia is home to some of the national guard special forces capabilities including special operations detachment europe and the second battalion 19th special forces group. can you speak to the importance of at the guards at special forces capabilities and what they contribute to the joint force? >> yes, senator. it's an incredible capability. when you look at the two special forces groups that are not in the active components are both in the army national guard and if you go back really to the early days of 9/11 it was hard special forces folks that were there and he answered admirably around the globe ever since that time. for us that something we work very closely with special operations command to make sure we make the ability for those

leaving active duty to come into the national guard and then also recruit those directly out of the national guard into our formations. it's a critical skill set that we utilized each and every day and our combatant commanders can never get enough of them. so we are doing everything we can to recruit and retain and provide those bonuses and incentives to keep them in our formations. >> so you have transition pipeline from active come for the special forces talent, is that what you're saying? >> absolutely. >> good, good. i would note into early days of 9/11 with special forces deployed we lost a good west virginia at the very beginning of that and he was a special forces national guard. this is kind of a technical question, and i'm going to ask it but i'm not sure exactly what i'm asking in terms of the technical parts of it. accurate position navigation and timing and gps services are essential to u.s. critical infrastructure and for military

operations. so our state is one of the state of west virginia to participate as a test site for the national guard national integration of time resiliency for operations called nitro. could you tell me a little bit about nitro and where you see that's going and how important that is? >> yes, ma'am. it's a very important capability because it provides alternate result get timely for gps and many of our systems operate on that. currently we have six states that a field at it and we are working very closely to support the states because this provides that capability to the states and local first responders. in the case there's a loss of the gps terrestrial signal. >> does this capability go through all different forces? would this be something every guard and reserve would have a great deal of interest in? >> we are not show the exact fielding plan. it's based on the funding provided that we do have it in six dates and 21 others have expressed an interest. we are looking at the long-term

viability of this, or if other alternate capabilities that provide the same. >> right. this anybody else want to speak to that? let me ask on cybersecurity. i'm assuming all of you have certain cybersecurity components. is it growing how important is it to you and is there a coordinating aspect of this across the forces? i'm going to start over with general bellon. >> i think acknowledging we are in information age it's only going to get more important. it's fun to everything we do. and the thing for all of us we are looking for more streamlined way for us to get a marine soldier sailors and airmen who have civilian expertise and qualifications but may not have the military occupational specialty to find a way to expedite the access to our systems. it does exist but never it's a byzantine, very ham-handed approach we have never we need to do better than that. >> general? >> the army reserve is looking to expand the amount of our

force that is cyber warriors. we are growing out of cyber protection brigade adding an additional capabilities and i meet once a quarter with the army cyber lead along with the army national guard director. we coordinate to make sure we're not hitting the training pipeline to heavy too fast. try to make sure we're all in sync as a go forward to 23rd. >> i will go to the bone expert cyber is a growth area for the navy reserve. we currently have about 8006 with an estimation were for a community and we continue to work very closely with cybercom as well as our fleet cyber which is fashioned to ensure the creation of her cyber protection to an offense capability continues to mature. where i seems happening most effectively is also related to our recruiting initiatives because we have -- >> absolutely. >> that can walk in the door immediately and we can to direct to commission. we could get a new cyber

designator which is pretty significant step. >> or out the door. once spitzer did maybe they decided they want to transition they have an incredible skill set here, ectomy that is is a big selling point. >> absolutely growth industry within the reserve currently getting at the mission assurance increasing in defense of an offense of cyber operations i absolutely looking always toward leveraging our civilian experience and taking that infant to the reserve vessel. >> general hokanson did you have, did you want to wrap it up on cyber? >> obviously we have 4000 cyber professionals in the gardner-webb part of the cyber national mission force and fully integrated into cybercom. the one thing i would highlight is with state partnership with 100 nations. one of the greatest request is to help them with the cyber defense and network defense in the country we are fighting women look at misinformation campaigns that this is critical to helping our partners and allies and the a something e leverage every opportunity. >> thank you all very much.

>> we appreciate your testimony here today. we appreciate your work in making sure our national defense is up to where it needs to be. general bellon, we wish you all the best in the next phase of your life. senators may submit additional questions. we would ask that if additional questions come in that you answer them as quickly as you possibly can. the defense subcommittee will reconvene on tuesday june 20 at 3:30 p.m. for a classified hearing with the intelligence community in this committee s in recess.

mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. thune: mr. president, is the senate in a quorum call? we are. i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: i would like too take a minute to recognize a pillar of the south dakota press corps, who has served at wynax in yankton, north dakota. his name is jerry orster. he is truly an institution on meteddia landscape in south dakota. jerry joined wnay in 1976 and has become one of the most familiar and beloved voices on the airwaves in south dakota. i have had many great conversations with squarery over

the years on air and off. i can say for certain that his departure will leave a very big hole in the south dakota radio scene. but he has more than earned his retirement. and i know that he will relish getting to spend more time with his wife, sheryl, herself just recently retired from an amazing 43 years with farm credit services of america, and with his sons and their wives and his six grandchildren. jerry, congratulations on an incredible and award-winning career. and enjoy some well-deserved rest. mr. president, last august, mere days after he had signed a bill that would supposedly reduce the deficit by $238 billion, president biden announced a student loan giveaway that is set to cost taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars over the next decade. in a presidency distinguished by

bad economic decisions, this was a particularly notable one. there are two main parts to the president $scheme. there is the outright forgiveness of $10,000 in federal student debt or $ed to,000 for pell grant recipients, which is set to cost american taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. and then there's the president's radical revamp of the income-driven repayment system, which will bring total costs for the president's plan to somewhere close to $1 trillion. mr. president, there are a number of obvious problems with the president's plan for forgiving student debt. i say forgiving student debt, but it's more like transforming the cost of student debt -- i should say transferring the cost of student debt from the relatively small students with debt to the american taxpayers as a whole. it is something of a slap in the face to americans who chose more affordable college options or worked their way through school

to avoid taking on student loans or whose parents scrimped and saved to put them through college. it is also a slap in the face to members of the military who signed up to serve is this country and earn the g.i. bill benefits to help with tuition or training. not to mention that negating this popular benefit could drag down recruitment and retention. and, of course, it's deeply unfair to ask the many americans who worked hard to pay off their loans or who never pursued college in the first place to take on the burden of student debt for individuals who took out loans for college or graduate school and agreed to pay them back. and let's remember, mr. president, we're asking taxpayers at-large to foot the built for student loan cancellation for americans who enjoy greater long-term earning potential than many of the americans who will be helping to shoulder the burden for their debts. the president president's student loan giveaway isn't a handout for the needy.

it is a government handout that will be bushel to americans who are better off. it is ironic coming from someone who claims he wants to build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. the president's student loan giveaway is decidedly more top-down. let's face it, in speaking of the economy, americans continue to struggle with the effects of the democrat-driven economy that has beset our economy from the beginning of the administration. we're nowhere getting back to the targeted inflation rate of 2%. what is the president's student loan plan almost guaranteed to do? in the words of the nonpartisan committee for responsible federal budget where the president's own treasury secretary served on the board, the president's student loan giveaway will, and i quote, meaningfully boost inflation. meaningfully boost inflation.

well, mr. president, you've talked about the forgiveness part of the president's plan, how fundamentally unfair it is. but that's only half of the president's student loan giveaway. the other half is just as problematic because it sets up a system in which the majority of federal borrowers will never fully repay their loans. the urban institute, a left-of-center think tank estimates that just 22% of those are bachelor's degrees enrolled in the program would repay their loans in full. 22%. and many individuals would never be required to repay a penny. and who will be footing the bill? -- for all those student loan dollars that aren't repaid? well, you guessed it -- the american taxpayers. and needless to say, the program will not only fail to curtail

student borrowing, it will actuallloy encourage it. if you can expect that you won't have to pay back their loans, you're much more like lay to borrow and to borrow liberally. neither the president's forgiveness nor forgiveness masquerading as income repayment will do anything to address the problem of soaring college costs. in fact, the president's student loan giveaway is like toy make the problem worse. you only have to look at what happened when the democrats forced through the tax credit for americans who purchase electric vehicles. car manufacturers, not surprisingly, raised their prices by a similar amount. similarly, if colleges can expect that the federal government will pick up a sizable part of the tab for their students' education, they're extremely unlikely to feel any pressing need to cut costs or to stop tuition hikes. if anything, colleges might

further increase tuition and fees. mr. president, currently the outcome of the forgiveness portion of the president's student loan giveaway is unclear. the president's legal authority for this action is dubious. his ability to unilaterally forgive student loans that has been challenged in the supreme court with a decision expected within weeks. today the senate looks likely to pass a resolution that would block the forgiveness part of the president's proposal. unfortunately, the president is guaranteed to veto the measure, and there are not enough democrats in the house and senate to be willing to override his veto. apparently, the possibility of garnering votes from americans with student debt is reason enough for democrats to ignore the blatantly regressive nature of the president's student loan giveaway and fact that it will almost unquestionably worsen the problem of rising college costs.

not to mention the fact that it will drive up inflation and balloon the deficit. mr. president, i haven't even mentioned the third part of the president's student loan legacy, the covid era student loan repayment pause that president biden extended six times during his presidency, with no reasonable justification. that pause, which has been in place three years, cost taxpayers $5 billion per month. fortunately, this pause is guaranteed to end thanks to the fiscal responsibility act, a legislation speaker mccarthy and president biden agreed on to raise the debt ceiling. while the end of the pause is a victory for taxpayers, the savings that will result pale in comparison to the tremendous cost of the president's student loan giveaway. if the supreme court doesn't overturn the forgiveness portion of the president's student loan giveaway, american taxpayers will be stuck with the full, nearly trillion-dollar bill.

it will be one more negative economic legacy from democrats and the biden administration. mr. president, i yield the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor to urge all of my colleagues to vote against this republican bill that would undo president biden's student debt relief plan and rip away relief borrowers croo across the country are counting on. it is hard to overstate how badly the student debt crieps is straibd our -- crisis strained our borrows. this has been a drag on our country and economy. it is holding people back from starting families or starting a business or buying a home or, in many cases, making ends meet. the student debt relief president biden announced last fall is life changing for so

many borrowers. under his plan, tens of millions of people who are struggling with student debt will finally see their balances did down, and millions will have their debt wiped out entirely. before republican interest sued to deny borrowers this life-changing relief, putting the president's plan on pause, over 26 million people across all 50 states had already applied for or were automatically eligible for that relief. let's be clear -- this relief is targeted to reach those who need it the most. 90% of the relief will go to borrowers earning less than $75,000 a year. that's such a big deal. ive i've heard from so many people across my state who are so grateful and relieved to have a glimmer of hope finally, to see a light at the end of the tunnel. now republicans want to snuff it out. they're trying to deny relief to

borrowers in court and now here in congress too. that's what we're voting on today. to the hard-working people in america who are counting on this stunt debt relief -- listen up. republicans are willing to do anything and everything to prevent you from living a life without crushing debt. let's be clear, this republican bill wouldn't only rip away relief borrowers who qualify under the president's plan that are counting on it, this cra we're going to vote on could impact the pause on loan payments and cause major problems for borrowers who have received relief through the public service loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment program. that means these republican efforts could create the perfect storm for more than 260,000 public service workers who've already earned that relief. borrowers who thought they were done paying their loans may have to pay more interest or

additional payments. think about that. you know who we're talking about? nurses and teachers and firefighters, medical researchers. seriously, these are the people who keep america going. the cold, hard reality is that if republicans get their way and pass this into law, people across the country would have relief that they have counted op snatched away -- counted on snatched away from them. plans they made will be upended. less money in their pockets. and monthly payments, not just abruptly restarted but maybe even abruptly jacked up hundreds of dollars. that is what republicans are voting for. it is chaos and hardship for borrowers and families across this country. mr. president, i can't speak for everyone, but i came here to make people's lives better. i didn't come here to punish them for this broken student loan system that they got stuck with. i cannot overstate how arcane and complicated and how broken

our current student loan system is. and millions of americans find themselves unfairly bogged down with massive debt, so of often through no fault of their own. myself and all six brothers and sisters of mine got through college thanks to federal loans and aid programs. i know how much a difference the president's plan for debt relief will make for people. i know president biden did the right thing here for borrowers and for our economy. this is not a handout, it is a hand-up that will benefit everyone. i urge my colleagues today to vote against this resolution that would needlessly hurt millions of hardworking americans. and let's work together then to fix this broken student loan system in this country. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. padilla: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: i ask that we suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. padilla: mr. president, i rise in opposition to the harmful cra resolution that would cost tens of millions of hardworking americans to see their monthly budgets get even further squeezed, making it harder to pay their bills or afford basic necessities. i rise to defend one of the largest efforts to close the racial wealth gap in our

nation's history. to debate student debt relief, it would remarkably tone-deaf for this body to spend an entire debate on the life-changing student debt forgiveness plan without acknowledging who it is that's at the decision-making table and who's not. most people consider this body, the united states senate, as being be deliberative. many members take pride in this being the most deliberative body in the world. while we may be deliberative, we're clearly far from diverse, or at least far from reflecting the diversity of our great nation. most members of this body are decades removed from when they earned their undergraduate

degrees, and many are at least years, if not years and years removed, from even having to sit down to plan how they would pay for their kids' college education. before we even get into the merits of president biden's plan to uplift millions of hardworking americans, i urge my colleagues to step outside the senate for a moment. let's step outside of the senate and step into the homes of working-class and middle-class families across the country who see skyrocketing rates of tuition and wonder if college just isn't for people like them anymore. step into the family room of parents praying that scholarships might make a college degree possible for their children, or talk to the student who is just as smart,

just as hard working as anybody else, but because of student loans and higher interest rates, see the door to higher education as closed to them. we live in a nation where the dreams of too many are determined by their parents' paycheck. and in 2023, that means working- and middle-class families with the disproportionate burden on communities of color, by the way, have to risk dangerous levels of debt just for a chance at achieving their american dream. i remember what it felt like filling out financial aid forms and facing the brutal reality that when i was looking forward to attending the massachusetts institute of technology, the cost of tuition alone was bigger

than my dad's w-2. i was only able to make it through because of pell grants, scholarships, work study, and, yes, student loans, which took years to pay off. so i know the real weight of student debt. i also know what it's like to start thinking ahead to prepare my own sons' college education. as it turns out, president biden's plan is not just good for everybody, i mentioned earlier that it's part of helping address the racial wealth gap in america. one statistic alone, his plan would mean half of latino borrowers would see their entire debt forgiven. that's not just liberating, that's a wise investment for all of us.

the increased relief for pell grants as part of the plan would uplift communities of color and cut into the racial wealth gap in america. two more statistics that are worth noting -- almost 71 pk of black -- 71% of black undergraduate borrowers and 65% of latino students receive this grant. the president's plan will mean that a generation of students will be able to begin their careers and build a life without the weight of student debt holding them back. in california alone, it would bring relief to over 3.5 million eligible borrowers, an undeniable boost to our economy and to families throughout the state. let me underscore something else about this cra. it's not just about what it threatens prospectively.

if this program is overturned, if this resolution were to pass, 43 million federal student loan borrowers would have to pay back months of payment to interest that had been relieved, forcing americans into delinquency or worse -- default. republicans seem determined to prevent relief to tens of millions of americans despite the fact that 90% of the relief would go to those earning less than 7 -- less than $75,000 a year. in one fell swoop it would cause unthinkable confusion and chaos for federal student loan borrowers and make clear that once again republicans use the american dream as a premium and higher education as a luxury, only for the wealthiest, only for those who can afford it. i refuse to accept that fate.

i urge my colleagues to see the real costs of today's cra on working families. i assure you that the real impact won't fall on the wealthy families. it will be the working families in california and across the country whose lives will be fundamentally altered should we fail them today. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: mr. president, this is an historic day in the annals of the united states senate because we are faced with a critical vote as to whether we can pass the bipartisan compromise on spending or default on our debt for the first time in history, whether we will fail as a nation for the first time ever, ever to pay our bills.

there is a strange construction in the law where we can vote in the senate and in the house for spending, send it to the president who signs it into law, go back to our states and districts and announce in press conferences that we have millions of dollars coming home, federal dollars back home to our states and districts, and take credit for it, and then not face the reality that the money that we've appropriated actually adds to our national debt. the debt ceiling is the mortgage of the united states, which needs to be expanded as we spend money. so we reached a point where we had a deadline, first june 1, now june 5, of doing something in congress to extend the nation's mortgage or default on that mortgage and debts for the first time in history. there was a ferocious negotiation that went on for weeks. it was precipitated by the threat of one person on capitol

hill, speaker kevin mccarthy, who said i'm willing to risk defaulting on america's debt. all the other leaders, including the republican leader in the senate and the democratic leader, said that is unthinkable. we would pay a price for that for generations to come. the reputation of the united states, the value of the united states dollar would be in danger because of such a careless and reckless act. so negotiation was under way for the last few weeks. an agreement was reached to speaker mccarthy's satisfaction, and it passed the united states house of representatives yesterday. now it's our turn in the senate. we've taken a look at this agreement. first let me say the premise is this. defaulting on our national debt is unacceptable, unthinkable. we cannot let it occur. so as painful as some of the decisions that will come from

this agreement reached, they are virtually at this point inevitable to avoid default on our debt. there is one i want to zero in on because it means so much to everyone in this nation, and most people don't realize that it's been part of the debate and negotiation in this croims. and that is the the question of america's commitment to medical research. the national institutes of health is the preeminent medical research institution in the world, in the world. when it comes to discovering cures for diseases, new medications, it's the national institutes of health and the food and drug administration which are charged with that responsibility, and we lead the world in research. i'm such oo -- a fanth -- fan of the agency that i can speak for a long time of what they're doing. if you or a member of your

family has a diagnosis from a doctor that scares you to death, one of your first questions is is there anything we can do? is there surgery? is there medicine? is there anything we can do. some of us have asked that question, and we pray that the answer is yes and we pray that it leads us back to the nih and all the work they put in. so here's what we face with the budget agreement that passed the house, now headed to the senate. we asked the experts on the budget to tell us what's going to happen to the budget of the national institutes of health, the preeminent medical research agency in the world, as a result of speaker mccarthy's demand that we cut spending. what will happen is this -- we face this prospect almost with certainty. we're going to see a cut in the nih spending for the first time in ten years. for ten years we have consistently increased research funds, and they paid off. finding that vaccine for covid as quickly as we did was no

accident. it was planned through medical research, and it saved so many thousands of lives here in the united states and beyond. so here we face for the first time in ten years a cut in the budget of the national institutes of health. how much of a cut? at least $500 million. $500 million. and i stepped back and i thought to myself, you mean we're going to cut medical research? that was speaker mccarthy's idea of fiscal conservatism? that to me is mindless. it may have some political goal in mind, and i don't know what it might be, but to cut that makes no sense. and let me suggest if my colleagues want to cut wasteful spending in federal government -- and there is plenty of it -- i know one place, one obvious place to start. this projected cut of $50 million -- 500 million dollars

happens to match almost exactly the amount of money we waste each year maintaining an offshore military prison that only serves to violate our fundamental values and undermine the rule of law. you probably know what i'm referring to. kwan tan know. in the -- guantanamo. in the 21 years since guantanamo opened american taxpayers wasted $7 billion on that facility. this $7 billion monument to bureaucracies and failed policy cost us $500 million a year, the same amount we're cutting from medical research to maintain guantanamo. you're saying to -- how many detainees are being held by the united states of america today at the guantanamo facility? 30. 30 for $$500 million a year.

that's almost $17 million per year per prisoner. florence, colorados, has the maximum security prison, to maintain those prisoners in that prison is around $30,000 a year. when it comes to guantanamo, maintaining a facility for 30 of these detainees is costing us $17 million per detainee. do you know who called that a crazy idea? none other than reform president donald trump. why are taxpayers paying half a billion dollars every year to keep guantanamo open? is it to keep americans safe, to contain convicted terrorists? guess again. right now 13 of the 16 remaining detainees, more than half, have

been approved for release. that means we're wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to detain men who should have been released. there are those awaiting trials. how can we possibly explain to the world, let alone to our own citizens that we have detained people for over 20 years around never charge -- 20 years and never charged them with a crime. the five men charged in relation to 9/11 has not begun, more than two decades since the attack on the united states. and those who follow the military commissions the closest can tell you, these trials, let alone any convictions that might come down on appeal, are nowhere in sight. there's not even a plan. former bush administration slij ted olsen -- sledge ted olsen

has a special interest. he was chosen by the bush administration to argue their cases in the supreme court. he is a respected lawyer in washington, d.c. sadly on 9/11, ted olsen's wife died when the plane crashed into the pentagon. he has a special interest and special level of expertise in this matter. here is what he wrote about trials of military commissions of detainees at guantanamo. he said, quote, they were doomed from the start. he's calling for the biden administration to negotiate guilty pleas with all of the 9/11 defendants. to state the obvious, we are failing the victims of 9/11 and their families by continuing the guantanamo charade. these military commissions, which was supposed to be the court of law trying the detainees have not and are unlikely to ever deliver justice. in december of 2021, i chaired a

hearing in the senate judiciary committee on guantanamo. one of our witnesses have colleen kelly, a nurse practitioner from the bronx, mother of three. she testified about losing her younger brother bill on 9/11. he was in the north tower when the first plane crashed. colleen described the pain of waiting, waiting almost 20 years after bill's death, year after year after year for something to happen. in march, i received a letter from a young woman named lala murphy, she was 3 when her father bryan died on 9/11. for nearly 22 years she has waited for a trial that has never come. she pleaded with our come government to bring it to -- with our government to bring it to an end, lala, colleen and ted olsen are not alone to deliver

justice to the victims of 9/11 and their loved ones through guilty pleas. last week l larch eila, -- lala implored them to -- do not let this drag on any longer, it these survivors begged. the signers included three daughters of new york firefighter douglas militarier. he was among the more than 340 firefighters in new york who were killed. if you see the videos of these men and women, you cannot forget their bravery. at the time of miller's death, his daughters were children, his first born was 11, the middle was 6 and the youngest four. in their letter, mr. miller's

daughters and other signers felt hopeful when the 9/11 prosecution team began negotiations to finally obtain guilty pleas from the defendants. they considered it a breakthrough that would bring closure and provide answers that they sought for more than 20 years, but their hopes were crushed when the prosecution team recently indicated they are now going to start to open pretrial litigation again. that was devastating news for these children, like mr. miller's daughter. in their letter they wrote, the thought of going back to endless courtroom proceedings when more than ten years of litigation did not lead to trial is painful. returning to pretrial he purgatory will -- pretile purgatory will not -- pergory will not -- this will not be the full measure of justice these

families deserve. sadly, sadly this is no longer possible. because these families were robbed of true justice when the administration at the time decided to torture and abuse detainees in our nation's custody and throw them into an untested legal black hole rather than trusting america's time-honored system of justice. as ted olsen wrote, and i quote, nothing will bring back the thousands whose lives were cruelly taken that september day, but we must face reality and bring the process to an end. the american legal system must close the book on military commissionings and secure guilty pleas. the biden administration must complete the inner agency process to determine the plea deals without further delay. securing guilty pleas of the detainees charged will bring us a step closer to ending the shameful chapter of guantanamo.

these men will serve out these sentences, some for the rest of their lives. when it comes to the detainees who have not been charged, they should be released. that means they must find a place for them to transfer. the united states is a nation of laws. when we indefinitely detain people who have never been charged with a crime and who have been deemed safe to release, we are betraying our own basic constitutional values. autocrats abroad point to abuse to justice their own human rights abuses, if you want to stand for liberty and riewlt of -- and the rule of law, be honest. guantanamo bay is a blight on our national conscience and it has been for a long time. it is time to accept the reality. it is not only a waste of taxpayer dollars, but it is an

injustice that must end. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from from new jersey. mr. menendez: i come to the floor to talk about the student loan. some of my colleagues are intent on overturning president biden's signature policies no matter the cost or consequence, but to overturn his landmark student loan debt program just to score political points, to force borrowers to pay back their loans with interest and stick to the administration, well, that, to me, is cruelty to -- for the sake of cruelty. how else can you describe a proposal that will strip away one of the most important economic lifelines that borrowers have relied on.

what do you call a resolution that rips away benefits for those who stand to benefit from the relief plan. i remind my colleagues that the pause on student loan repayments have saved borrowers an average of $233 per month, an amount that is crucial for our nation's teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters had who rely on the public service loan forgiveness program. for a moment i'd like to focus on the impact this resolution has on them because for these public service employees, $233 can mean the difference between making it to the end of the month or not. repealing this release especially hurts public sector workers all across the country. the very people who go to work every day to care for us, protect us, educate our kids, and keep us safe. is this body really trying to claw back benefits from thousands of every day heros in

our communities? is this really what my colleagues set out to do? for years the public service loan forgiveness program has enjoyed bipartisan support because it's essential to the promise of america. after all, if you take out loans in support of an education for a career benefiting others, then you deserve to see your balance forgiven after 120 payments or ten years as outlined under the law. for many individuals, the economic challenges of covid and the reforms that occurred as a result were the first time that they were able to enjoy the program's benefits. this harmful proposal erases that progress and once again imposes the burden of debt on hardworking teachers, nurses, police officers, and firefighters. this proposal is a slap in the face to them and to their shot at the american dream. full stop. it's a slap in the face for

public service loan forgiveness borrowers and those who stand to benefit from student loan relief. which is why i encourage all of my colleagues to ask themselves, is this vote, this misguided proposal, the kind of message you feel proud to send? when the history books are written about this moment in time, do you want to stand on the side of the 43 million americans who have played by the rules and stand to benefit from long, overdue student loan forgiveness, or do you want to stand on the side of those who want to punish hardworking americans for trying to get ahead? that to me is -- is the stark moral decision before the chamber. with your vote, you can choose to support the borrowers you represent by rejecting this plan or blindside them, rolling back nearly eight months of interest benefits they earned and deserve. in no uncertain terms, this

resolution increases the student loan debt and sets up borrowers to fail. that is not something that i want to vote for and it is not something that any member of this chamber should want to vote for. i urge my colleagues to vote no. with that, mr. president, i observe the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> first of all, thank you for being here. before i begin i want to start by saying how grateful i am. they have given their time and challenge to this effort for more than a month. we would not be here without them. our entire conference and country owes them a great deal of debt for what they put themselves through. february 1st, i had my first meeting with the president. i have been thinking about this day before i was speaker. i knew the debt ceiling was coming.

i wanted to make history. i wanted to do something no other congress has done. we would literally turn the ship but for the first time, we spent less than we spent the year before. we all made history. this was the biggest cut in savings this congress has ever voted for. not that we are just voting for it but this is going to be long. $2.1 trillion. we've covered this entire battle. february 1st, walked out after talking to the president. i was hopeful because he told me we would meet again. he sat next to me the next morning and told the entire crowd we would meet again. for 97 days, he said no.

why are you always an optimist. as an american tomorrow would be better than today. had to be an optimist, every day i woke up and said the president would change his mind, maybe want to put the country first. maybe today he would want to meet he never did. not until the entire conference passed the bill. the senate never did. it took no action. the democrats did it discharge position to only raise the debt ceiling and have no savings. they took us further off of the cliff. when i got to meet with the president we couldn't talk about the entire budget. we couldn't talk about places we could have savings, we could only focus on 11% of the budget. that 11%, not only did we give

you the greatest savings in american history, there is going to be people from welfare today that will no longer be on welfare. they will find a job because of the work requirement, not just when they find that job. their attitudes are going to change. they will believe in themselves, they will be able to buy a house and send their kids to college. because of the votes we talk tonight, the largest precision in american history. all of the covid money, billions of dollars sitting out there they said they would never bring back, to the taxpayer, hard-working americans, we stood for you. we brought that money back. for those afraid they will get audited because the president wants to have 80,000 new irs

agents, right now he hasn't 0. we took every single dollar they were going to hire somebody this year away. i promise you, i will be back next year and next year and next year. i believe government should be here to help you, not go after you. we didn't just took the money from this year but another 20 billion. i think we should get some more border agents. we capped the ability of growth for spending in the government for the next six years, we are holding people accountable. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: a group of us are going to speak about this budget deal. and if you believe that the number one job of the federal government is to defend this nation, then we have made a serious mistake in this bill.

mr. graham: i've heard house leaders suggest this bill fully funds the military. for that to be true, you would have to believe that the military is okay if you cut their budget $42 billion below inflation. the party of ronald reagan would never allow inflation to reduce defense capabilities. this bill, the top line number locks in less ships for the navy at a time china is going to expand dramatically. in in 2024 and 2025 we're going to cap the level where we're not going to expand the navy and china will go from 310 ships to 440. less money for the marines, less money for the army, less ships for the navy at a time a great -- of great conflict. not a penny in this bill to help ukraine defeat putin. they're going on the defensive

as i speak and we need to send a clear message to putin that when it comes to your invasion of ukraine, we're going to support the ukrainians to ensure your loss. if we don't do that, then we're going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. senator cotton, i'm going to yield to him. he has a time problem. but we're going to take some time here to explain to you why those of us who believe that the number one job of the federal government to defend the nation, that that concept has been abandoned and that we are going to insist and fight until we find a way to rectify some of this harm. with that i'll yield to my good friend from mississippi. mr. wicker: and i can assure my friend from south carolina that when senator cotton reaches the floor, i'll yield to be because he has a time constraint. what i want to say, mr.

president, is what i've been saying all along this year since the biden budget came out. the world is in the most dangerous situation we've seen since world war ii, and this biden budget which is now enshrined in this debt ceiling bill is woefully inadequate. it amounts to al cut in defense capability. it sounds like an increase. you can call it an increase. but inflation is running at 7% and so we'll have to increase defense spending by that much simply to keep up with what we did last year. and we would have to increase by several billions more in order to give us the capability that we need to prevent war in the

pacific. and so i just have to say that the fact that this is being called a victory by some people on our side of the aisle is absolutely inaccurate. pundits around the country had called this budget amount inadequate. and now for some reason because it's part of an agreement that the speaker has made, it's being applauded. the numbers don't lie. and i'll tell you this. i'll say this to my friends. we've got three or four years to get ready for the time when xi jinping, the dictator, president for life in communist china says he wants to be ready for a war against the united states, a war to take over the island of

taiwan. the decisions we make today can be implemented if we have the resolve to do them by 2027. about you we need to make those decisions this year. we don't need to put them off next year, and we certainly don't need to say we're going to go with the biden cuts and readiness and do 1% more next year. that is woefully inadequate. and let me say this before i yield to my friend from alaska. it's easy to hide in the budget. i'll yield to my friend from arkansas in one second. it's easy to hide inadequacies in a defense budget. people still get their social

security checks. they still get their paychecks. when it comes home to roost for us is when a conflict breaks out. we weren't ready for world war ii. and when the flag went up and we were in a war suddenly, we were way, way behind. we were ready under president reagan, and we had peace under president reagan. when we are ready, we have -- we have the ability to avoid conflict. and this budget simply does not do that. and i'll be happy at this point to -- i will yield the floor and let me friend from arkansas seek recognition. mr. cotton: mr. president. after weeks of negotiating with an ob stan nant president, the house of representatives passed legislation yesterday raising the debt ceiling and establishing budget caps for the next two years. both democrats and republicans

compromised in these negotiations and like every piece of compromised legislation, there are good parts and bad parts of this bill. i want to commend speaker mccarthy for a number of commonsense victories. this bill improves the environmental review process for infrastructure pro sects. it cuts funding for president biden's army of irs agents and saves american taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by clawing back unused covid funds. the bill doesn't go as far as i'd like. it reduces domestic spending to last year's levels which is better than more spending and taxes as the democrats posed. but i think domestic spending could return to prepandemic levels. covid emergency legislation was just that, an emergency compelled by chinese communist lies. shouldn't reset the federal government's budget in perpetuity. but again i sympathize with the speaker's constraints of a small house majority and negotiating with the democratic party that seems to prioritize welfare for grown men who won't work over our military.

and as i noted there are some victories in this bill and it prevents a default. unfortunately, this bill poses a mortal risk to our national security by cutting our defense budget which i cannot support as grave dangers gather on the horizon. the bill supporters contend that it raises defense next year when the defense budget will grow by only 1%. who thinks joe biden will get inflation to prepandemic levels? and even if he did, inflation would grow at least twice as fast as the defense budget causing even more real cuts to

defense. worst of all, this bill contains an automatic 1% sequester based off last year's budget. that means that domestic spending will go up and defense spending will go down if the sequester kicks in. let me repeat that. if the sequester takes effect, democrats will get more welfare spending while defense gets cut. who thinks the democratic leader will be dissatisfied with this result? more to the point, who thinks he won't use the threat of sequester to extort even higher levels of welfare spending. these three provisions, a cut this year in real dollars, a worst cut in real dollars for 2025 and the at mat -- automatic sequester based on last year's spending bills conspire devastating cuts to the defense budget at a time when we can

least afford it. the bipartisan national defense strategy commission report recommends a real increased defense spending of between 3% and 5% annually over inflation. this bill would cut real spending by more than 5% in two years. effectively slashing tens of billions of dollars from defense. how bad is this defense gap? if we continued our recent bipartisan custom of increasing the defense budget from president biden's irresponsible budget proposals, we could afford four additional ford class aircraft carriers, 500 f-35 fighter jets, more than 91,000 stinger missiles or half a million javelin antitank missiles, all vital to our defense and to the defense of ukraine and taiwan. while we surrender our lead and

military edge, our enemies are catching up. last year russia increased its real military spending over inflation by 1%. china increased its real spending by over 6% and iran increased its real spending by over 8%. the united states reduced our real spending by over 3%. and this bill as i've said would only make matters worse. for years washington has gotten defense spending backwards. the budget shouldn't shape our defense needs. indeed it cannot shape our defense needs. our defense needs have to shape our budget. china doesn't become less aggressive or russia less -- or iran less extreme because our military has shrunk. in fact the opposite is true. they grow more ambitious and dangerous. the defense budget should rise and fall with the dangers confronting our nation and i do not believe those dangers are receding. who here believes the world is

safer or more stable than it was a year ago? or two years ago? on the contrary america is in greater danger than at any time in my life. iran is rushing toward a nuclear bomb. russia has unleashed the largest european invasion since the second world war and china is plotting the conquest of taiwan. our military stockpiles are depleted and our defense supply chains are broken, restrained. at the same time our border defenses have effectively collapsed and cartel members, and possibly terrorists are pointed to our country. we need a military to match this perilous moment. after all protecting the safety and security of our people is our first and most fundamental responsibility. we cannot shortchange the military today without grave risks tomorrow. the weapons we buy this year will be the ones we field in 2027. the time by which china will be

at its greatest relative strength compared with the united states and when war is most likely. i know that holding firm on defense priorities isn't always easy and as i said, there are parts of this bill that i support. but i cannot support the bill because it does not adequately fund our military given the threats we face. supporters of the bill contend that the situation isn't as bad as i make it out to be. but their arguments don't hold up under scrutiny. some have claimed we could still get more defense funding through a supplemental bill or some backdoor funding mechanism but these same hollow promises were made when congress passed the budget control act of 2011 which devastated our military under president obama. i ran for the senate in part to reverse that disaster and i won't vote for a new disaster with the same promises. and as i've explained, the sequester in this bill actually produces more domestic spending than the bill's core provisions

which encourages irresponsible democrats to trigger sequester. others have claimed that we can find efficiencies in the pentagon to make up the difference. i don't disagree that -- in some places in our military but no serious person thinks that it's enough to make up for temps of -- tens of billions of dollars in cuts. moreover this claim assumes the biden administration will put our readiness ahead of social engineering. call me skeptical on that one when they start looking for efficiencies. still others supporters have shrugged and deployed the commonly used by rarely persuasive argument that the bill may be bad but there's no alternative and it's too late anyway. but it was and it remains our job to craft an alternative. we hear about things that add votes to the big bills and get in and things that subtract votes don't.

again, we know from recent experience that the last two national defense authorization acts, that a higher defense number gets nearly 400 votes in the house and more than 80 votes in the senate. the first thing, the first thing that should have been over the negotiations is a larger defense budget. democrats have no argument against that recent history. it's indisputable that increases to joe biden's defense budget garner large bipartisan majorities in the house and the senate. why weren't things settled? i don't know. the result is that a congress with a republican house and a democratic senate has now produced defense budget worse in real terms than either defense budget produced by unified democratic congress. i cannot -- cannot vote for that curious result. if it takes a short-term increase in the debt creoling to go back to the drawing board, so be it. before we vote, i would also ask

all my fellow senators a simply i yield the froor. -- i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: i want to compliment senator cotton for reminding us what the job in congress is, defending the nation, and the odd outcome is that in a time of growing conflict, we're reducing the navy. there are 296 ships in the navy today. under this budget big, 2025 there will be 286. if we continue with the biden budget there will be 290. the china navy today is 340. by 2025, they'll have 400. by 2030, they'll have 440.

this budget locks in a smaller u.s. navy at a time the chinese navy is growing dramatically. there's not a penny in this budget to help beat putin. is the navy is smaller, the army is smaller, the marine corps is smaller. this is not a threat-based budget. this is a budget of political compromise where people have lost sight of what the country needs. we need safety and security. to my house colleagues, i can't believe you did this. to the speaker, i know you got a tough job. i like you. but the party of ronald reagan is dying. don't tell me that a defense budget that's $42 billion below inflation fully funds the military. and don't tell me we can confront and challenge china. everybody in this body is

patting themselves on the back that we see china as the most existential threat to america. you are right. we did the chips act. we're doing things to help our economy combat china. at the moment of decision, when it came to the military, this budget is a win for china. please don't go home and say this is fully funded, because it is not. please stop talking about confronting china when you're dishadn'tling the american navy. how does this end? senator cotton is right. we'll be here till tuesday, until i get commitments that we're going to rectify some of these problems. the ranking member of the appropriations committee, susan collins, has been steadfastly in the camp of fiscal responsibility and national security. this deal has taken the appropriations committee out of the game. the c.r., which kicks in, cuts defense and increases

nondefense, making it really hard for me to believe that we're actually going to do our appropriations job. what i want to do, i want a commit from the leaders of this body that we're not pulling the plug on ukraine. there's not a penny in this bill for future efforts to help ukraine defeat russia, and they're going to gain on the battlefield in the coming days. it's just not about ukraine. i want a commitment that we'll have a supplemental to make us better age to -- able to deal with china. i want a commitment that we're not going to weaken our position in the mideast. there's a report out today that iran is planning to attack our troops in syria to drive us out. we're expending weapons that need to be replenished. our military is weakening by the day. this budget we're about to pass makes every problem worse. i want to end the war in ukraine by defeating putin.

if you don't, he keeps going and we're going to have a conflict between nato and russia, and our troops will be involved. if you don't send a clear signal now, china will see this as an opportunity to leap into taiwan. to the members of this body, we're staying here as long as it takes to get some commitment that we're going to reverse this ken acle -- debacle, sooner rather than later. with that, i yield to my good friend from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: i ask unanimous consent for ten minutes for my remarks, as well as ten minutes for senator wicker and senator collins' remarks before the vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i think the colleagues are making the really important point of the national security implications of the bill that we're looking at voting on. i agree with what my colleagues

have already said -- speaker mccarthy had a difficult job. i think there's a lot in this debt agreement that's important, that's positive, but the one thing we are not doing here, and by the way, mr. president, it's the most important thing we do as u.s. senators, is have a strategy for the national defense of our nation during an incredibly dangerous time globally. we're not doing that. we need a strategy. already my good friend from south carolina mentioned some ideas. i'll touch on those. mr. president, let's reiterate, you sit on the armed services committee, many of us do. we get witness after witness, including the chairman of the joint chiefs, the secretary of defense saying this is the most dangerous time since any period

in history since world war ii. that's the consensus. not a lot of people would disagree with that. authoritarian dictators with immense appetite for conquest are on the march. yet what does this budget agreement do? it cuts defense spending, significantly, as already mentioned. some will say look at the top line. we've never had a higher top line, 800-plus billion dollars. as you know, mr. president, the actual real measure of how serious we are as the country isn't the top line, because of inflation over the years, it's hard to compare. the real measure how serious we are in terms of what we're putting towards defense, the number one priority of the u.s. congress should be, in my view, is what percentage of our national wealth we're dedicating to defense.

in this budget, we'll take -- and this budget will take us in the next two years, with the cut this year, inflation-adjusted cut of 4% to 5% and nominal increase next year of 1%, which will be about a 5% to 6% cut, it will take us below the 3% of gdp number for defense, for the first time since 1991, during the peace dividend era of the clinton administration. we will be below 3% of gdp. you look at different periods of american history, the korean war, where almost 15%, vietnam 8%, cold war, reagan buildup, almost 6%. iraq-afghanistan war on terror, 4.5%. we're going to go below 3%. hasn't happened since 1999. before that, it's almost never

happened. in the history of the country, at least in the 20th century. mr. president, here's the most important point -- in 1999, the threats to our nation weren't nearly as dramatic and serious as they are today. and nobody disagrees with that. so what this budget does, it just accepts the biden defense budget, which as senator graham already mentioned shrinks the army, shrinks the navy, shrinks the marine corps. that's what it does. lesser ships, not more ships. smaller number of soldiers and marines, not more. so accepting the biden defense budget is something new. during the biden administration. what do i mean by that, mr. president? as senator cotton mentioned, the last two previous biden budgets came in in anemic numbers, and in a bipartisan way, strong

bipartisan way, by the way, democrat and republicans, significantly plussed up those budget numbers. last year, $45 billion increase to the weak biden budget on the armed services committee that every single senator on the committee voted for, except one. about as bipartisan as you can get. the year before, it was a $25 billion plus-up. mr. president, as many people know, we were already discussing, in a bipartisan way, on the armed services committee, another significant plus-up to this biden budget. so democrats and republicans new it was weak and not sufficient to meet the challenges of today. what happened? the music stopped. now, all of a sudden, we're accepting the biden budget.

i know democratic senators who think that is wrong. they think that is wrong. one amendment i'm going to offer, as we're debating this, mr. president, is to do something very simple -- it's to look at the biden pentagon's priority list, their unfunded priority list, that this president and his secretary of defense put forward. it's $18 billion, which the armed services committee in a bipartisan way was already getting ready to agree to move forward and fund. i'm going to ask my colleagues, let's fund it. at a minimum let's fund it. we've not going to bust out of the top line of this agreement. we'll just take that $18.4 billion and move it from the $80 billion irs account and put it to the pentagon.

pretty simple. should be 100-0. so we want more navy ships, more marines, or more irs agents during this very dangerous time? i think the answer is pretty clear. i think the american people know the answer. so, mr. president, senator cotton already mentioned this idea, the speaker has talked about it. we need more efficiencies in the pentagon. i couldn't agree more. by the way, the navy leadership right now, we need a lot more efficiencies out of that place. you have a navy secretary who is more focused on getting his climate plan out challenges. and what are those real world challenges? mr. president, i think you were thr. we had a brief from --

there. we had a brief from some of our top intelligence agencies. they came out. i asked if this number was classified. they told me know. they came out and said the real chinese budget in terms of military is probably close to $700 billion. that's a big budget. and as senator cotton mentioned, they're increasing in real terms six, -- 6%, 7%, 8% cranking out ships, cranking out fifth-generation aircraft. and we're going to cut the budget this year and dramatically cut it next year and go under 3% of gdp? at one of the most dangerous times since the end of world war ii. as senator cotton also mentioned, the national defense commission that the congress authorized a number of years ago

to look at the serious national security threats facing our country came back to the armed services committee two years ago and said what we need to do to address these serious national security challenges from china, from russia, from iran is have 3% to 5% real gdp or real growth on the defense budget. that was broadly accepted by democrats and republicans. as a matter of fact, i think one of the members of that national security commission is now the deputy secretary of defense in the biden administration. but we're not even close. we're going backwards. and senator graham's point about a supplemental to get leader schumer, the president to say we are going to have a supplemental for deterring authoritarian

agreg -- authoritarian aggression is going to be critical. i would say, mr. president, the vast majority of my colleagues here, democrat and republicans, would support that. we need a serious, robust defense budget to deter war. if the young men and women who volunteer and serve in our military are asked to go fight a war, we need a strong budget so that they can come home victorious, not coming home in body bags. this is deadly serious business. we're not putting enough attention to it. it's one of the number one things in the u.s. constitution that we need to provide for the common defense, to raise and support an army, provide and maintain a navy. that's our job. and, mr. president, we're not doing it with this budget, this rushed budget. we need to get serious and

hopefully in the next few days we can two that as we debate -- we can do that as we debate this agreement. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. a senator: a senator: thank you, mr. president 6789 i would ask unanimous consent that i be recognized to speak for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rounds: mr. president, play colleagues today have all had the same concern. that is while we recognize the need to address the debt limit that our country is now up against, we also recognize that the defense of our country is a critical and necessary part of our responsibility as well. the concern that many of us have is that the proposal right now in order to raise the debt limit is that part of it has a series of conditions with regards to what happens to the dollars that it takes to actually defend our country for the next two years.

we want to be able to raise the debt limit. we recognize that. but we also have to address the need for the defense of our country. and why should as a part of the negotiation, why should we be required to look at a reduction, a reduction in the amount of dollars necessary for our young men and women to be able to defend our country. and yet within the provisions of this bill there is a reduction of up to 1% of the existing budget if we don't do an appropriations process. and yet in order to do the appropriations process, we have to have 12 separate bills. the 12 separate bills all have to be passed. now, the united states senate is not known for necessarily doing anything on time. and yet here we come up to the end of the fiscal year in

october and we haven't even appropriation bills on the floor yet. would we need to be able to do rather than to have a 1% reduction in defense is have an agreement that we will a the least allow the appropriation bills come from the appropriations committee come to the floor of the senate so that we can address them. up or down with the appropriate amendments on them but to have a full discussion and to do it in a timely fashion. so, number one, let's address that limit but let's not penalize our ability to defend our country or perhaps more appropriately to say let's not limit the ability of our young men and women in uniform to defend our country. my colleagues have done a great job of explaining what happens here if we don't do our job correctly with regard to this particular bill. number one, if we go to a continuing resolution, our defense budget goes down but number two, under the provisions of this bill, the nondefense

portions of this budget could actually go up and so there's an incentive, an unfair incentive built into this to spend more on domestic programs and to spend less to defend our country which is our primarily responsibility. how do we fix it at this late stage of the game? number one, there are supplementals that are absolutely necessary. we have aggressive authoritarians throughout the world that are right now looking to see whether or not we are prepared to support our allies and those individuals who are on the front lines, specifically in ukraine, specifically looking as well in the south pacific and looking at taiwan and doing our best to turn taiwan into a porky pine -- porcupine making it less of a responsibility that china will invade taiwan. but the other piece of this along with that is that we have to do an appropriations process where we actually get a chance

to look at the defense bill and our other appropriations bills in a timely fashion so that we do not have a continuing resolution in which the defense of our country loses ground making it -- making it more vulnerable or our country more vulnerable and a more challenging job for the young men and women who wear the uniform of this country. with that i just want to say thank you to my colleagues who have laid out some great numbers for all of us and who clearly have laid out a path forward. a commitment by leadership that the appropriations process be completed in a timely fashion and that there's a recognition that supplemental funding will be necessary to confront aggressive authoritarians throughout the world. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. mr. graham: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the

senator from south carolina. mr. graham: may i be recognized for five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. graham: i will yield my t time. our next speaker is the ranking member of the appropriations committee, and i just want to let one thing before she speaks. the navy -- chief of naval operations said we need 373 ships manned, 150 unmanned platforms to deal with the threats we face around the world. we have 296 today. under this budget deal, we go to 290. 286 by 2025. what -- what does it take to get to 373. to get 373 ships, you have to spend 5% above inflation for the same period of time. this bill is 2% below inflation. so we're undercutting the ability of the navy to build the ships we need to defend america.

with that i'll recognize senator collins. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, shortly the senate will consider the debt ceiling package that passed the house last night by a strong vote. i commend the speaker for his hard work and his negotiations to prevent what would be a disastrous default with catastrophic consequences for our economy, for people who rely on important government programs, for america's standing in the world. nevertheless, mr. president, there are two issues in this package that are very

problematic. first, as you have heard from my colleagues, is the completely inadequate top-line number for our national defense. second is a harmful provision that would go into effect if any one of the 12 appropriations bills has not been signed into law. it were trigger an automatic meat ax indiscriminate across-the-board cut in our already inadequate defense budget and in the domestic discretionary nondefense funding. this would happen automatically if in fact all 12 appropriations bills have not been passed.

now, let me address both of those issues and offer to my colleagues what i believe are solutions. first, the inadequacy of the defense budget. as my colleagues have very well described, the defense budget submitted by president biden and included in this -- as the top line in this package is insufficient to the task of fully implementing the national defense strategy at a time when we face serious and growing threats around the word. -- around the world. as my friend and colleague from south carolina and alaska and others have already described,

this budget request would actually shrink the size of our navy. we would end up with a fleet of 291 ships. that is six ships fewer than today's fleet of 297 ships. and it is further, further away from the chief of naval operations requirement which is informed by scenarios involving china, for example. meanwhile what is china doing? china has the largest navy in the world now. and it is growing to 400 ships in the next two years. the story is very similar, if you look at the air force tactical aircraft. so we have a real problem.

let me give you another example. it's an example that all of us can relate to who fill our cars with gas or seek to heat our homes. this budget request falls woefully short in funding the fuel costs of our military. the government accountability office says that dod's fuel costs are likely to be 20% higher than the amount of money that is included in the president's budget. mr. president, i asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general milley, what the result would be, and he says it very clearly -- it would translate into 20% fewer flying

hours and steaming days, which would harm our military's training and readiness. so that's a very concrete area where the president's budget is clearly not going to be adequate. second, mr. president, is the harmful provision with the automatic 1% cut across the board. well, think about this if you are the secretary of defense. let's say the department of defense appropriations bill is signed into law before the start of the fiscal year in october, as i hope that it will be. doesn't matter. let's say the leg branch appropriation appropriations bill isn't signed into law by january 1 of next year.

an order goes out that has to be implemented by april 30 which would cut every account across the board by 1%. how does that make sense? think how harmful that would be. how in the world is the military going to enter into contracts if it doesn't know what its budget is going to be, despite the fact that its appropriations bill has been signed into law, but because of this threat honking over -- happening over the department. so what do we do? i don't want to see our country default for the first time in history. i do believe that would have catastrophic consequences. but we need to fix these problems. well, the first problem of an inadequate defense budget could be addressed and remedied by

having an emergency defense supplemental. that is what we need to do. that is what i would ask the administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to commit to because we know that this budget is not adequate to the global threats that we face. we know that it does nothing to deter russian aggression in ukraine. we know that it's not adequate to the challenge that we face from china. an emergency supplemental must be coming our way to remedy the first problem. what should we do about the second problem, the threat of this 1% indiscriminate meataxe cut across the board?

we need to pass each and every one of the 12 appropriations bills on time before the start of the fiscal year. and in order to do that, i am working very hard with the chair of the committee, senator murray, but we need a commitment from the senate majority leader that he will provide us with floor time. we will do our utmost to get every single one of the 12 appropriations bills marked up and reported out of the appropriations committee, but then i am asking the senate leader, majority leader, to commit to bringing each of those bills to the senate floor, either singly or individually or as main minibuses, as we used to

do, where we would pair a couple of the bills together. but it's essential, and i would implore the democratic leader to provide the commitment that he will bring each of the appropriations bills to the senate floor so that we can avoid the threat of this indiscriminate, across-the-board cut. so,mr. president, i believe that that is the path forward for us -- an emergency defense supplemental to make up for the woefully inadequate budget that has been submitted by this administration for the department of defense, for our national security; and, second, to prevent the 1% cut from ever

being triggered, a commitment that all of the appropriations bills will be brought on time to the senate floor. then it seems to me we can proceed with this package and avoid a catastrophic default for our country. thank you, mr. president. mr. graham: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you. i want to echo what senator collins just suggested. how do you begin to turn this debacle around? you admit you got a problem. it's pretty hard to quit drinking if you don't admit you got a drinking problem. so what she's suggest something that we acknowledge the obvious, that this bill on the defense side is inadequate to the threats we face. that a bill that funds the pentagon below inflation at a time of great threat is not fully funded. that she is trying to get us to wake up to the reality that if we don't speak about defeating

putin now, then the ukrainians are on the offense will be undercut. i'll never let this happen again as long as i'm here, let people negotiate behind closed doors and not tell me what they're doing on defense. i blame myself for not being more involved and more active, because in my wildest dreams i never believed that the republican party would take the biden budget that they've had attacked for a year and celebrate it as fully funding. i know who i'm dealing with now. here's what reagan told the russians -- trust but verify. i will never, ever trust again because you got an "r" behind your name that you're going to be the party of ronald reagan. you have to prove that to me.

so, as we go forward, the game will change. why is she asking this to be done? if we don't commit to an orderly appropriations process, it gets worse for the defense department. the people who wrote this bill, i would not let you buy me a car. the provisions of sequestration, for lack of a better word, the continuing resolution, if we don't do our legislative business, increases nondefense spending, decreases defense spending. i thought we were republicans? who came up with that great idea? the top line is inadequate. the c.r. is devastating, and what bothers me the most is that we would put the department of defense in this position.

we're playing with the men and women's lives in the military, their ability to defend themselves, as some chess game in washington. well, this is checkers, at best. the fact that you would punish the military because we can't do our job as politicians is a pretty sad moment for me. but people in this body on my side of the aisle have drafted a bill that would punish the military even more if we fail to do our basic job. that cannot be the way of the future. so i will insist -- or we'll be here to tuesday and i'll make an amendment to avoid default for 90 days, however many days it

takes for us to get this right. i don't want to fall into default. but we're not leaving town until we find a way to stop some of this madness. society so -- so you're not going to be able to blame knee for default because i'm willing to raise the debt ceiling right now for 90 days 20 to give us a -- to give us chance to stop this insane approach to national security. i'm supposed to talk to the president of ukraine this afternoon. i'd like to be able to tell him something s oh, by the way, you've done a hell of a job with the money we've given you. not one soldier has died. the weapons used by ukraine has punished russia's military, that's right he weakened and bloodied. they're about to take back territory. he's wondering, well, what does this mean for the future? i want to be able to tell him, i've got assurance from this body we're not going to leave you hanging. it is in our interest to beat

putin. i don't like war more than anybody else. but if putin gets away with invading ukraine, there goes taiwan. if you don't get that, you're just not -- you're just out out out -- out of touch. they have a chance to evict russia from ukrainian territory. they need more military help, not american soldiers. if putin loses, it's a deterrence for china. if putin doesn't lose, he'll keep grabbing territory until we have a war between russia and nato. this is a big, big, big deal. iran is coming up up with a plan apparently to drive us out of the mideast. i mean, that just came out today. china is building, as senator collins said, they're going from 340 ships to 440 ships by 2030. we're going from 296 to 290. that can't be the response to china. you cannot say with a straight

face that this military budget is a counter to chinese aggression, that it adequately allows us to defeat putin. you cannot say with a straight face that this budget represents the threats america faces. a military budget should be based on threats, not political deals to avoid default. nobody wants to default. we're not going to gault. -- we're not gag to -- we're not going to default. but i'm tired of having default over my head as a reason to neuter the military at a time we need it the most. to the american public, you would suffer if we defaulted. i get it. if this budget is the end of the discussion and we don't fix it, your sons and daughters are going to have more war, not less. you're going to send a signal to all the bad guys that we're all

talk. and when all be doing is putting the world on a course of sustained conflict rather than deterrence. the last time people did this was in the 1930's. they wanted to believe that hitler wasn't serious about killing all the jews, that they only wanted some land, that he really didn't want to take over the world. he wrote a book and nobody believed him. he iran ayatollah -- the iran iran ayatollah -- the iranian ayatollah speaks every day. china tests us every day. bottom line, folks -- we're not leaving until we get a path to fix this problem. susan collins, my good friend from maine, gave us that path.

if you want to go home, fix it. i yield. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the joint resolution is considered read a third time. the question occurs on passage of the joint resolution. there's been a request for the yeas and nays. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered and the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 46, and the joint resolution

is passed. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. of. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to calendar 84, h.r. 3746. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 84, h.r. 3746, an act to provide for a responsible increase to the debt ceiling. mr. schumer: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

less ships for the navy not acting in this bill to help

. they're going on the offensive as i speak and we need to send a clear message to putin that when it comes to invasion of ukraine were going to support the ukrainians to ensure your loss. if we don't do that, then we're going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. senator cotton, i'm going to yield to him. he has a problem but we're going to take some time here to explain to you why those of us who believe that the number one job of the federal government to defend the nation, that that concept has been abandoned. and that we're going to insist and fight until we find a way to rectify some of this harm. okay? with that i will yield to my good friend. >> and i can assure my friend from south carolina that when

senator cotton reaches before i will use to him because he has a time constraint. what i want to say, mr. president, is what i've been saying all along this year since the biden budget came out. the world is in the most dangerous situation we seen since world war ii. and this biden budget which is now enshrined in this debt ceiling bill is woefully inadequate. it amounts to a cut and defense capability. it sounds like an increase. you could call it an increase but inflation is running at 7% and so we will have to increase spending by that much simply to keep up with what we did last year. and we would have to increase several billions more in order to give us the capability that

we need to prevent war in the pacific. and so i just have to say that the fact that this is being called a victory by some people on our side of the aisle is absolutely inaccurate. pundits around the country had called this budget amount inadequate. and now for some reason because it's part of an agreement that the speaker has made, it is being applauded. the numbers don't lie. and i'll tell you this. i'll say this to my friends. we've got three or four years to get ready for the time when xi jinping, the dictator president for life in communist china, says he wants to be ready for a

war against the united states, a war to take over the island of taiwan. the decisions we make today can be intimated if we have the resolve to do them by 2027. but we need to make those decisions this year. we don't need to put them off next year and certainly don't need to say we're going to go with the biden cuts and readiness and do 1% more next year. that is woefully inadequate. and let me say this before i yield to my friend from a, from alaska. it's easy to hide in the budget. yeah, one sentence and then i will yield to my friend from arkansas. it's easy to hide inadequacies in a defense budget.

people still get their social security checks. they still get their paychecks. when he comes home to roost for us is when a conflict breaks out. we weren't ready for world war ii, and when the flag went up and we were in a war suddenly, we were way, way behind. we were ready under president reagan. and we had peace under president reagan. when we are ready we have, we have the ability to avoid conflict. and this, this budget so we does not do that. i'll be happy at this point, i will yield the floor and that my friend from arkansas seek recognition. >> mr. president? >> after weeks of english and with the oxidant and capricious president the house of representatives passed legislation yesterday raising

the debt ceiling and establishing budget gets for the next two years. both democrats and republicans compromise if these negotiations and like every piece of compromise legislation there are the parts and bad parts of this bill. i want to commend speaker mccarthy for a number of common sense victories. this bill improves the environmental review process for infrastructure projects. it cut funding for irs agents and saves american taxpayers tens of beings of dollars by clawing back and use covid funds. the bill does goes far as as i might like. and reduces domestic spending to last years levels which is better than even more spending and tax as the democrats proposed but i think domestic spending return to pre-pandemic levels. covid emergency legislation was just that, emergency compelled by chinese communist lies. shouldn't dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, as we all know by now, yesterday evening the house passed a bipartisan bill to lift the debt

limit and begin the process of reining in our nation's unchecked spending habit. from the time the u.s. reached the debt ceiling in january it was clear that a compromise bill would be the only way to avoid a full-blown economic crisis, which is what would happen if we were not to raise the debt ceiling. but the democrat-led senate and republican-led house and democrat in the white house, bipartisanship was, and is, a necessity. now republicans for our part were clear that any increase in the debt ceiling must come with spending reforms. otherwise it would be like you maxing out your credit card and then asking to raise the credit limit so you could borrower -- borrow more money without having an adult conversation about how you're going to pay the money

back. in the real world, that is what would happen. you'd have to have that conversation or there would be no increase in your credit card limit. but only in washington, only in the nation's capital would it be even argued that you could raise the debt limit without talk be about spending reform. and what's happened is our national debt has ballooned now to more than $31.4 trillion. that is a number that i doubt that anybody here in the chamber could tell us how many zeros follow that 31.4. and the american people are clearly unhappy with what they see is happening here when it comes to out-of-control spending. a recent poll found that 60% of adults think that government

spends too much, and they're right. they're frustrated by the unnecessary and wasteful spending, and they're eager for congress to do the reasonable, rational thing, which is to begin to get our financial house in order. that's precisely what republicans demanded throughout this process, necessary fiscal reform as part of the debt ceiling negotiation. but instead of stepping up, doing his job, acting responsibly, president biden took a very different approach. he said i refuse to negotiate. this is the president of the united states, with $31.4 trillion in debt, he says i refuse to negotiate.

he went on to say that only a clean debt ceiling increase was an option, and he refused to engage in negotiations altogether. it's helpful to remember twhas in january where we actually hit the debt ceiling, and what's happened since then is the treasury secretary has engaged in what's euphemistically called extraordinary measures in order to pay the bill, pay the bills as the money comes in through tax revenue. but now she's told us that the x date, which presumably is the default date after extraordinary measures are expawft -- exhausted would be june 5. that's monday. that's monday. so the president's known since january that this day would come. he's refused to negotiate, and he's led us into this scenario where unless congress acts by

june 5, we will breach the debt limit and begin to default on paying our bills as a nation. now, i don't have to remind anybody that inflation, as a result of some of the profligate spending habits of the previous congress, particularly on our democratic friends' side. they were happy to spend roughly $2.3 trillion last year on strictly party-line spending votes. but you put enough gasoline on the fire, and inflation is going to spiral out of control. that's exactly what has happened. as a consequence, two things have happened. one is that hardworking american families have found their standard of living reduced because they simply can't afford to keep up with the increase in costs as a result of inflation. the second thing that happened

is that in order to try to deal with this hidden tax, the federal reserves had to raise interest rates, which has slowed down the economy even more. why in the world would president biden, as a responsible public official, refuse to negotiate when he knows that the anxiety associated with hitting this x date on monday is causing even more uncertainty, even more trepidation, even more anxiety over exactly what the future is going to look like? why would he risk that? so president biden stuck to his no negotiations, no reform position for literally months, even though it was painfully obvious that a bipartisan deal

was the only way to avoid a further economic crisis. i want to pause for a moment to commend the speaker of the house, speaker mccarthy, for his leadership throughout this process. without a negotiating partner, he did everything in his power and within the power of the house of representatives to move this process forward. he stood strong behind the need for fiscal reforms and led the house in passing the limit, save, grow, and grow act. he lured president biden to the negotiating table, and he successfully moved a compromise bill through the house. but i think the back story about speaker mccarthy's leadership is that president biden didn't dream in a million years after the difficult race for speaker that we saw in january, that speaker mccarthy would be able

to unify republicans in the house of representatives and actually pass a bill that raised the debt ceiling. that's what the limit, save, grow act was. and i think president biden was shocked that he was able to get that done, and i congratulate him for it. it changed the whole dynamics of this negotiation. but now that the house has acted, the ball is in our court. this chamber will soon vote on the mccarthy-biden agreement, and now is the time for the senate to do its job. our job is not simply to accept or to rubber stamp what the house passed. that's never been the case. we weren't a party to the agreement. why should we be bound by the strict terms of that agreement?

the senate has not had a say in the process so far, and it's led to serious frustration on both sides of the aisle. this bill didn't go through regular order. in other words, it didn't go through a committee. members didn't have the opportunity to weigh in or shape the legislation at that level or even the final text. given the time constraints wholly created by president biden's delay in refusal to negotiate, this rushed process was completely unavoidable. we didn't have to get on the precipice of a default in order to act if president biden had done his job and responsibly engaged in the negotiations that he finally did engage in at an earlier point, months earlier. so the president dragged his

feet for several months, leaving the narrowest possible window to reach a deal and avoid a further crisis. this is not how this should have played out. but that doesn't mean that our hands are tied behind our backs here in the senate. the senate is not required, as i said, to rubber stamp the house bill. we have the opportunity to amend this legislation and make it better. i share the concerns expressed by the ranking member of the senate appropriations committee, the senator from maine; the senator from south carolina, senator graham; senator sullivan, the senator from alaska; and senator cotton, i believe has also spoken on that publicly, that the defense number in this agreement is simply inadequate. and it's completely unacceptable to leave in the hands of senator schumer, the majority leader, whether or not we actually pass appropriations bills this year

because if we don't, under the terms of the mccarthy-biden agreement, then we go back into a sequestration with a 1% cut across the board. that may not sound like a lot, but our country is facing more national security threats than we ever have before. whether it's the challenge in europe with russia's unjustified invasion of ukraine, whether it's the aspirations of the ayatollah in iran to build nuclear weapons, whether it's kim jong-un in north korea, or vladimir putin, or president xi. it's easy to see that the threats are not diminishing. they are getting more and more serious, which means that a sequestration of the defense

department spending by automatic operation of law is unacceptable so senators on both sides want amendments. members want to make changes to try to improve the bill. and as i said, the senate should not be cut out of the process due to president biden's foot-dragging. we still have time before the january 5 deadline, and the senate could move through the amendment process fairly quickly. we could do it today. we have ample time to vote on amendments and send an amended version back to the house for final passage. and i might add there's no reason for the majority leader to block amendment votes. senators deserve an opportunity to vote on amendments, and i hope the majority leader will not stand in the way of those senators on both sides of the aisle who want to offer

amendments and then receive up-or-down votes. this bill does include some very positive developments beginning to rein in our nation's spending habits, but it's not a magic pill to cure the federal government's chronic financial troubles. america's $31.4 trillion debt developed over the course of decades. so it's unreasonable to expect we're going to turn that around with the passage of one bill. but we can start, and we should start. and we know the pandemic accelerated these problems. we spent a lot of money necessarily on a bipartisan basis to try to deal with the public health crisis and the economic consequences of the pandemic. but then, as i said, at president biden's request, our

democratic colleagues abused the rules of the senate to go on two partisan spending sprees. first came the $1.9 trillion american rescue plan followed by the $700 billion so-called inflation reduction act. that's $2.6 trillion more, which gets us up to the $31.4 trillion today. but then they used that money to do everything from fund a super-sized irs to taxpayer-provided subsidies for rich people to buy electric vehicles. so i'm glad that the speaker was successful in addition to beginning the long process of beginning to bend the curve when it comes to reckless spending. i'm glad the speaker was able to agree with the white house to claw back some of that money including $700 billion in

unspent covid funds and to redirect a reported $20 billion in irs funding to other priorities. the congressional budget office estimates this bill will reduce federal spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, which is a strong start to fight in the fight to right america's financial ship. so as i said, this bill is the beginning of that fight. it's not the end. and i know many of us, including this senator, would like for us to be able to to do more. but the fact of the matter is one bill cannot erase decades of financial troubles. we need to build on the progress made in this legislation in the months and years to come. and of course the best way to do that is at election time, because it matters who wins elections.

it matters who's in the majority. it matters who controls a body of congress and the white house. but the next big battle will be in the senate and house appropriations committees. as we know, every year the committees are charged with writing 12 separate bills to fund the various components of the federal government. the process of drafting those bills is designed to involve public hearings, committee votes, and rigorous debate. it gives every member of the appropriations committee opportunities to shape the individual spending bills and address america's spending habits. once it's voted out of committee, then all 100 senators should have that opportunity to shape and improve the legislation. once these bills are completed, they're supposed to pass both chambers and be signed into law by september 30, every year, but that didn't happen in 2021 or

2022. the democratic senate majority leader refused to allow us to pass a single appropriation bill last year, forcing us into the ugly process of considering and passing an omb -- omnibus appropriations bill. that's not the way this is supposed to be done. congress cannot continue to operate like this with bloated budgets, back room negotiations, that is no way to gain the public's trust or to run the federal government. we need to return to a transparent process where every elected member of congress has an opportunity to participate in budgeting and deciding what the appropriate expenditure of taxpayer dollars should be. we've known this date was coming since january. president biden put us in this

difficult situation by wasting valuable time, and he has pushed us to the brink of default. now, thanks to his delay tactics, the senate's preparing to vote on a bill that no member of this body had a hand in writing. given the time crunch, this truncated process was a necessary evil, but it cannot be the norm. we need to return to the processes that were designed to promote smart and responsible spending, hearings, committee votes, and public debate are absolutely critical. for today, senators deserve the opportunity to amend this bill, and as i said, to make it better if they can, but all of our colleagues have a right to have a say in this process and i urge the majority leader to allow that process to go forward with up or down amendment votes. mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president, i want to spend a few minutes here on the senate floor discussing the debt ceiling agreement reached between the republican majority and the house and the biden white house, the fiscal responsibility act. the bill that presumably we will be further debating, perhaps amending, and voting on yet today or tomorrow.

i fully recognize that governing in a divided government is a challenging amount of work. the american people have given us that circumstance. this circumstance requires negotiation, finding common ground, otherwise we can do nothing. unfortunately, president biden, for way too long, he refused to negotiate with house republicans, refused for months to negotiate with house republicans, i suppose in an effort to intimidate republicans and pass an unaltered debt ceiling increase. this would have opened the door for more democratic majority spending, in fact, spending even more money with perhaps no, certainly fewer strings attached. fortunately that tactic did not work and the house republicans

acted to pass their own debt limit legislation. without a realistic plan, a plan that could pass the congress, the biden administration finally conceded and negotiated with house republicans to create a deal, the deal that's before us now. my view, defaulting on the national debt would send a message that we were a -- that we are a nation that cannot be trusted to pay our bills. a default would be highly dangerous to our national security and to our currency and to our economy. china and other countries, those countries that are on the fence in today's world, they're watching. they're watching how the american government operates. they want to diminish our role in the world. china would love for our

standing in the world to be damaged due to default, for the united states and its economy to be in chaos. it is vital to our economy and to our national security that we do not default and that we preserve the u.s. dollar as the primary currency, the reserve currency, not then or any other -- not the yen or any other country's currency. the implications of what happens here today in regard to default has a consequence upon our national well-being, vis-a-vis the rest of the world, and most importantly, determines the relationship we have with other countries and the role that china is able to further play in the world order. china, and these countries that are on the fence, are watching. it's time, it's vital to our

economy and national security that we do not default and that we preserve that dollar. the fiscal responsibility act isn't the legislation that i personally would introduce. it does not sufficiently cap long-term discretionary spending. it continues to tie our defense budget to spending less than the rate of inflation. and it fails to address reforms needed to mandatory programs. but it does accomplish key conservative priorities that will benefit america and help put our nation on a better path toward fiscal responsibility. reckless spending, in addition to the debt ceiling, -- reckless spending can also be the demise of our country's well-being, an endless deficit spending will

eliminate the american dream for many americans and the american dream as seen by the rest of the world. as a fiscal -- fiscal conservative, the government must spend less, must set its limit on its appetite and stop wasteful spending. our nation has had a spending problem for the last several decades, probably even longer than that. it used to be that everyone understood that deficit spending was a damaging thing to the congress. franklin delano roosevelt, perhaps the first progressive president, understood that that world war ii had -- understood that world war ii had to be paid for, it was a given that we had to pay our bills with current revenue. it seems that at that time in my view and in the democratic party

that that deficit spending was not that much of a problem. that i worry that too often republicans want to look the other way as well. we accelerated that spending during covid perhaps with the uncertainty with what covid meant to us, government spending rose rapidly and we spend too much money. but congress was slow even as covid returned to the rear-view mirror, we were too slow to turn off that covid spending spigot. coupled with reckless tax and spending sprees driven by the biden administration, out-of-control spending has led to record-high inflation. inflation is like a tax on every american and is damaging to the poorest among us.

here in congress, we talk about spending in terms of millions and billions, sometimes even trillions, but folks back home in kansas talk about spending in dollars and cents. and for every day -- everyday americans, those dollars add up, make it harder to buy the groceries that pay the rent or to put gas in their vehicles. we see it every day in our family and i hear about it everyday kansans all the time. reducing inflation requires reductions to spending. it is the cause of inflation -- the cause of inflation is when we spend more than we have to spend and we borrow money, pumping more federal spending, government spending into the economy. however, we need to fulfill the most important responsibility to

the federal government and that is to protect and defend our nation and to keep our promises to those who served in the military that defends us. my colleagues and i on the senate committee on veterans' affairs consistently said we will provide the v.a. with the funding it needs to provide care and services to the men and women who served our nation. i've heard it said many times here in the senator and elsewhere that it's too easy for us to go to war and never easy enough for us to pay for the bills for those who sacrificed so much during war. the debt ceiling deal delivers on our commitment to support veterans. the deal also secures the full funding of the toxic-exposed veterans that was authorized by the just recently passed pact act. in regard to government waste, this will slow the spending and

uncoup spending with covid funds to the tune of billions of dollars. the pandemic is basically behind us and there is no reason for us to keep spending under the rubric, under the title of covid relief funding. additionally, this legislation will cut significant funding to the biden administration's plan to hire thousands of additional irs agents. i'm an appropriator and i've long been an advocate for what we around here call regular order, what folks back home would call doing your job. i've been an advocate for us passing. we have a budget that outlines how much we can spend and what the revenues are to pay for it and we divide that money that we can spend in discretionary spending up in 12 bills with the appropriations committee and ultimately the president and the house and the president then

have it something to say about. i've been an advocate for passing those separate 12 bills. we haven't done that very well many times. for far too long we've relied on continuing resolutions and massive omnibus packages to fund our government. those omnibus packages allow for a small group of members of congress to make major -- major decisions for the rest of us. it adds to uncertainty of what's in a bill when it's such a massive piece of legislation and it rightfully creates cynicism among my constituents about what's in there and did you read the bill? the measures, the way we do it, the way we have done it in the past are not good government and they lead to the ease of additional spending. it becomes too easy to add something to a massive bill. this legislation would encourage congress to do its job by

passing 12 separate appropriation bills or face automatic caps on spending. i hope the outcome of whatever -- whatever happens on this piece of legislation, i hope the outcome with the leadership of the appropriations committee that we have today means that we're going to do 12 separate bills, each with the scrutiny of an appropriations subcommittee and the opportunity for amendments by all senators on the senate floor. working to spend less will help stop this runaway legislation, but this legislation goes a step further by stimulating the economy and protecting americans from new taxes. unleashing american energy is a key to reducing energy prices, stimulating our economy, and strengthening our national security. the permitting reforms included in this bil