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 bill will help get

energy projects approved more quickly rather than being bogged down in a set of bureaucratic regulations, things that should take months or a few years hopefully will take -- will be the case and not take years or decades. raising the debt limit is not something i or any of my colleagues should take lightly. why have a debt ceiling if it's just automatically increased every time it's met? don't we wish that would work in our credit card bills that we receive? have a limit on what -- we have a limit on what we can spend because sometimes people and always government needs to be told no. we are seeing firsthand the consequence for spending outside our means, and there will continue to be more conse consequences, but no deal is not a solution either. this is really the clash of a bad outcome of a default and the

bad outcome of more spending, more inflation and a greater challenge to our country and its economy. no deal is not a solution. it doesn't -- and defaulting i can't see any way that that is helpful to kansans or americans. the american people elected a divided government, what we work in every day here. democrats hold the white house and the senate. the house republicans deserve credit for negotiating a deal with a reluctant president and passing an agreement with reasonable caps on federal spending. this bill represents progress and is that proverbial step in the right direction. to not continue to borrow money we don't have and saddle future generations with the consequences. the debate cannot end here, however, with this vote. however the outcome of this

legislation, congress, we should never have to wait for a crisis, an economic crisis, the debt ceiling to take fiscally responsible measures. it should be a part of a way of life here. those responsible measures need to become the norm for every member of congress and for this and every other president. without a serious long-term plan and subsequent action to reduce spending, we'll be back in this position way too soon, and we'll jeopardize the american dream. it threatens our children and our grandchildren's futures as well as our nation's ability to defend itself against global threats. i always tell myself that my responsibility as a citizen of this country, not as a senator necessarily, but just as a citizen, is to do what we can do to make sure the american dream is alive and well, liberties and freedoms that we enjoy as americans through the sacrifice and service of many and the

wisdom of founding fathers and the constitution of the united states, our job is to make certain those liberties and freedoms are protected for people we'll never meet. and that the american dream is alive and well for people today and their children and grandchildren. america still stands as a beacon for others around the world, and there are others in other countries who are trying to live the american dream. they're envious of what we have. but it's fragile and it can go away. it's our responsibility to make sure that's not the case. we can't let this happen. we have to confront our threats head-on. and, yeah, it's easy to take a side and defend that side and advocate for that side. it's what we do here.

but there are times in which it's necessary for us, for the well-being not of us as individuals or us as elected officials but for the well-being of the country to find a way, a path forward and in today's environment and today's world, it requires bipartisan cooperation and bipartisan agreement as a blueprint to develop a more fiscally responsible legislative agenda. we'll debate this bill. we'll potentially and perhaps hopefully amend this bill. but our work is cut out for us. the american people deserve us to make the decisions that protect us from our adversaries, keep the american dream alive, and make certain that our children and grandchildren and those we've never met have a brighter future. the issue before us is one of those that has a consequence in all those arenas.

i'll work with my colleagues today as we move forward on this legislation to make sure that the outcome is something that advances a cause that's important to me and to the people i represent. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, years ago, talking like 15, maybe 18 years ago, i was speaking at a town in oklahoma and my daughter wanted to go with me, which was great.

so we took off. i had reserved a hotel. so we get there. we're going to stay overnight and i'm speaking somewhere the next morning. we arrive at the hotel late that evening, and when i get there and check in, i knew initially we're in trouble. you have that feel when you pull up to the hotel and you think this may not work. pull up, check in, but there's no one at the desk. and then it just gets harder as we get to our room. it's dark, lots of light bulbs that or out in the passageway. get to our room to be able to check in. when i shut the door and the two of us come in, i shut the door behind us and the crack underneath the door was so large, i could physically see the patio and the balcony and everything else outside. and it was so loud because it was right next to the highway, i thought we're in trouble. this is just not going to work. so we ended up packing everything up and just going to search and find another place

thinking there's no way we'll both be able to sleep. why do i tell you that silly story? well, when we were traveling there, heading there, we anticipated one thing and then we got there and went through the details, and it ended up being different. i tell you, this past weekend when i read through the 99 pages of the debt ceiling bill, i would read through a section of it and i would get to the end of that section and be surprised at the except for at the tail end of each section. it's not what i expected when i read through the document page after page. i have to tell you we are a nation that leads the world. we're the world's largest economy. we're to be responsible in how we handle our budgeting and the process. we're to get it right because we're the united states of america. and i've been concerned for quite a while on the trajectory

of our spending and challenge us as a nation to be able to change the trajectory of our spending because we have to start working back to balance. if we can't get back to balance in a year, it will take a long time for us to get there but we've got to get started in this process. my frustration has been sometimes we seem to start and we stop again. then we start and we stop again. the several years i've been here in the united states congress, i voted for some debt ceiling increases because they change the trajectory. and have voted against some because they were status quo or they didn't. i had higher expectations for this one. now initially when it came out, it was this is going to save $it trillion. it slowly got swrown graded it's going to save $1.5 trillion. when we read the fine print and how much it's going to save, i get to the fine print and find out actually it increases spending 3.3% next year and the

year after that it increases spending 1% again. it actually doesn't decrease spending at all. it increases spending, both this year and next year. but then it has the promise of the next eight years after that that it will only grow 1% a year after that every single year except that's not an agreement this congress can make. this congress can only vote on things for this particular session of congress. we can't commit the next congress to actions of this congress. each congress stands on its own and everyone knows that. it sounds good to say it's going to save these trillions of dollars in the next eight years except each congress will actually vote on a budget for the next eight years, and there's no commitment from future congresses by this one to do that. in fact, i've been here long enough to be able to see agreements be made for what a future congress will do that didn't actually happen. and so the $1.5 trillion in

savings is only a decrease of the increase of how much we were quote, unquote, planning to spend but hadn't actually budgeted it. as many people may know, there's not a budget set for the next year what we were going to spend. so cbo just assumed we were going to increase at least by inflation and any amount less than inflation is suddenly savings when there was no budget that was actually set. so my first big surprise was it actually doesn't reduce spending. it actually increases spending. the next big surprise comes when i start looking at how even some of the quote, unquote savings are actually managed. there's a supplemental piece that's in this or a piece that's set aside where it takes what they call recisions. not going to get into budget bashly gook that is tough for us to process. there's about $22 billion that is taken out of items that is

covid spending that's not going to be spent and pulls it over to the department of commerce and leaves it there in the department of commerce apartment and we'll decide later how to spend it. i ask the obvious question, isn't this supposed to go to deficit reduction? the answer came back, well, a few billion went to deficit rugs but $22 billion actually went over to the department of commerce's budget and is being parked there and they'll have other opportunities to be able to spend those dollars in the future. let's not really -- that's not really a savings on the recision. there's permitting reform in this which i'm grateful for. quite frankly, there's bipartisan support for permitting reform in many years because we can't get lithium and cobalt. we can't move solar and wind power because of permitting, just like we can't move natural gas and hydrogen in co2 because of permitting issuings. we have to do major reforms so we can produce more energy for the future of our country. when i saw the permitting issues, i thought good we need to get started on some of these

permitting issues. except when i read through it, there seems to be a lot of exceptions to it. for instance, there's a two-year commitment to say you're doing the more strict environmental impact statement, you've got to get it done in two years unless the administration declares it complex and then they've got a lot more time. in fact, an infinite amount of time. it limits you to 150 pains for an environmental -- pages for an environmental impact statement. that brings the paper down unless the administration declares it complex and then it's a whole lot more. it limits the number of pages even unless it's the appendix, if the administration declares these are actually to go in the appendix, then there is actually no cap, no limit for that. it also says that in this time period piece that if you get to two years from the environmental impact statement, if they don't achieve, i asked the logical question, if an administration or agency doesn't get it done in

two years, what happens? the answer is, well, you have to sue the federal government and that agency. to make them do it. and then it has to go through the court system, which as this body knows will take two or three years, then if the court finds in their favor, a the court can declare the agency has another 90 days to get it resolved, unless it's considered complex. and then they have unlimited time. so the permitting piece, as i read through it i thought, why are there all these exceptions that are out there that give it an out every single portion of it? there's a section of the bill that talks about what's called administrative paygo. that's a rule that's existed in some administrations before where they will say, if you're going to add a cost to america through an administrative action, you've got to look somewhere else and decrease the cost because by the constitution, only this congress can actually increase spending. that's not something the administration has the constitutional authority to do. so that's a reasonable rule.

so it puts in this administrative paygo to say if the administration is going to increase, it has to decrease somewhere else. and at the very end it says, unless the director of the office of management and budget considers the additional spending necessary. no restrictions if it's considered necessary, then they have an unlimited amount they can do. and even that restriction actually goes away on january 1, 20 days before president biden's term ends so it's not even all the way through even that restriction goes away and i can't figure out why slid it gives, like, three weeks of home base without a restriction like that and why if we're going to put a restriction in there, why it would end in two years anyway? it's a good idea, it should be a good idea for every president, not just for this one. and why there would be suddenly

an out clause in it. there is a 1% decrease across the board. i have worked with the senator hassan across the aisle to work on a way to end all shutdowns. the senator who is the chair of the appropriations on the floor right now, she sand i have had this conversation. she's committed to doing all 12 appropriations bills. so am i. we need to bring regular order and actually go through the process. weight don't agree on everything. welcome to america. 320 million americans don't agree on everything. okay. let's talk it all out. let's have the vote and go from there. we haven't had that ability in years now. so senator maggie hassan and i have a deal ending government shutdowns and pushing us towards doing all 12 appropriations bills. it is a nonpartisan bill. i don't find anyone here who doesn't want to get us back to

regular order. the way this bill sets is up the sequestration to push us towards those 12 appropriations bills says that if appropriations bills are not done by april 1 of next year, there is a 1% across-the-board cut that will happen in the current year spending in the last five months of the year. that's a pretty big spending. it really only hits defense. nondefense will actually go up and defense will be cut by 1% from last year's amount. what 234 the world -- what in the world? why would it be set up that way? why would it be designed to shape where it hits defense? and where there were other options to get to actual appropriations, why wouldn't we do something like that that's nonpartisan, that's simple and straightforward to be able to do?

the student loan suspension, there's been much publicity on the right about, well, this ends the student loan suspensions, except it ends it on july 30, when president biden already says he's ending it on august 30. in fact, cbo said, this doesn't save any money at all because it was already going away. it literally moves it forward a month but doesn't change a thing. then there is a work requirement process which i have to say i am a big believer in work requirement. i think work is dignity, i think work brings dignity to a family and an individual, unlike anything else that family can bring. i think it is great for kids to grow up in a community where the adults around them work and they set that example and they build on that. it's just a unique dignity in work. quite frankly, some of that just comes from what i have seen and some comes from my faith. when i look at even scripture, there was work in the garden

before the fall. work is not a consequence of the fall. work is a gift from god. it gives us purpose and meaning and helps us set the next example. so anything we can do as a culture to encourage a culture of work i think is beneficial to people and families. now, i understand full well the disabled, those who have kids, there are situations where itens can a be a done. i completely respect that. but in this particular bill, the incentives for work requirements has a little caveat stuck in the back of it that says, all of this applies to these states and they can't take all these waivers where they pull away work requirements. they can't do those things unless secretary becerra, the secretary of hhs, declares that that state is doing is good work to try anyway. no restrictions on it. it just says solely you secretary becerra, if he decides that, it gives way. so as i look at the bill, i seat

a lot of good -- i see a lot of good intentions in the bill but i see a whole lot of exceptions. and i see a whole lot of ability for the administration to waive that, a waive that, waive that. quite, frankly,ly, as a congresses i wish we could sit down across the aisle and have dialogue to say, what is congress' responsibility? what are the policies that are wise policies? and not hand authority to the white house, republican or democrat, and say, which is good policy that we need to pit in place and do those -- to put in place and do those things. we'll get back to that. today wasn't the day. that's frustrating for me. i'm going to oppose this bill today. but i want us to be able to keep working because we've still got work to do. mr. president, as one side knows as well, i know congress is focused on this as well -- rightfully so; the american people expect us to get this

resolved s but can't i tell you a little bit of heartbeat issue for me. it is june 1. that may not mean a lot of things to a lot of people. but for those of us from oklahoma, today is the 102nd anniversary of the worst race massacre in american history, it happened in the tulsa, oklahoma, may 31 overnight to june 1. 102 years ago today, greenwood was a smoking heap of rubble after an all-night violence and massacre on hundreds of africans in north tulsa. a stain on our station, a stain on our state. and 102 years later, i hope we still pause and remember as a state and we continue to learn the lessons and continue to be able to work towards being a more perfect union. today the greenwood rising

museum is open. folks are coming in and out talking about what happened 102 years ago. the folks are engaging in conversation. there's community groups all over north tulsa that are meeting with people just to be able to talk and to say, what have we learned 102 years later? how can we still be better as a nation still? we've learned a lot. we've grown a lot. but it's unfinished business for us. so on june 1, i remind us as a body, there was a massacre 102 years ago today. we shouldn't ignore this moment to remember how we take tragedy to triumph. i yield the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from washington.

mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. let me acknowledge the final statements from the senator from oklahoma. thank you for reminds us of the important lesson that we need to learn. mr. president, like so many of my colleagues, i spent last week back home hearing from folks in my state and everywhere i went p, i heard from people who -- about how the investments that we make here in congress actually matter in their daily lives. how the funding that we provide from here helps students at lake washington institute of technology in kirkland pursue their dreams and get a higher education and find a good-paying job. it helps entrepreneurs in tacoma, start a business and grow it from the ground up. it helps pregnant moms who rely on the reinier valley care center. i saw how our federal

investments make cutting-edge biomedical research possible at the alan institute in seattle leading to breakthroughs that save lives and give people more time with their loved ones. again and again i heard about the resources that we send back home pay off in a truly meaningful way. and it's true. the investments we make in our country are critical. they're critical in helping our families succeed, keeping our communities safe and keeping our nations strong, secure, and competitive. we aren't simply spending, we are investing. we are investing in fighting deadly fentanyl in upgrading our crumbling infrastructure, we're investing in keeping america on on the cutting edge of clean energy and scientific innovation. we are investing in rebuilding american manufacturing and bringing industries of the future back home here to our shores. i could go on and on, but the point is, the funding decisions

we make right here in this chamber are not just numbers on a page; they are investments in people, in families, in our communities, and ultimately in our country's future. and they're also crucial to keeping our country secure and on the cutting edge, as competitors like the chinese government work hard to outpace us. as we all know, our adversaries are not restricting their investments in their futures. they're not. and they're not teetering on the verge of calamitous default for the sake of of partisan politics. and yet instead listening to people back home, instead of listening to the flashing red warning signs from our competitors, house republicans have been insisting on draconian cuts and harmful changes to the programs that are a lifeline for struggling families and the lifeblood of our global leadership.

house republicans pushed to slash this funding for key federal programs is alarming and the way they have tried to make their cuts is downright reckless. we've got to be clear about what they have done here. instead of working through the budget and appropriations process, as we do every year, to craft our nation's budget and determine how we spend money, house republicans just decided they would threaten to tank our economy and force the u.s. into default to extract partisan conceptions. and they absolutely have not been shy about it. we heard from house republican leaders and even the leader of the republican party talk openly about taking our economy and the american people, quote, hostage. that's -- that is damning. house republicans admitting to using the full faith and credit of the united states of america as a political weapon.

needless to say, that is not how this should work. negotiating is not one side saying, give me everything i want or else. negotiating is coming to the table saying, here are my concerns; here are my principles; here's what i'm hearing from families in my state; where can we find common ground? that's what people elected us to do. that's what they sent us here to do. and, franksly, that's what i think many of us want to do. i have heard from so many of my colleagues about their desire to return to regular order, and i have been working with senator collins to do that on the appropriations committee. but let's get one thing straight. hostage-taking is not regular order. it is just not. that's not the way we should arrive at the top-lines for our spending bills. and it's time we put an end to this dangerous brinksmanship at the next possible opportunity by

scrapping this debt ceiling and taking the threat of default off the table once and for all. no other country handles its credit like this. hostage-taking is no way to have a conversation about our nation's fiscal future. and let be clear. for house republicans, this never was truly about the debt anyway. republicans added trillions to the debt under president trump, through tax giveaways for billionaires and giant corporations, but they refuse to even talk about asking billionaires to pay at least as much in taxes as a firefighter or a nurse. they won't talk about closing giant loopholes for big oil or big pharma. they definitely won't talk about capping tax giveaways to the wealthy. instead, house republicans want to give handouts to the rich and massive corporations. they want to make life harder for struggling families by

cutting the programs that they rely on, and make competing globally harder for our nation by capping our ability to invest in our future. they agreed to raise the debt ceiling three times under president trump, without batting an eye, but their tune changed when a democrat was in the white house. president biden and congressional democrats have been clear from the outset -- default is not an option. and should never have been a threat. because it would be catastrophic to our nation's economy, to the financial security of our families, and to the stability of the global economy. so i applaud president biden for his laser focus on taking default off the table. and while i know the president has pushed hard to hold the line or recent progress and protect vulnerable people who need support, and reject the house republicans' most extreme

demands, we have to be clear-eyed and honest about how this bill fails to meet our current moment. especially how it will limit our ability now to make the investments we need to strengthen our economy and invest in america's future. i will vote for this legislation because default is not an option. but i do so with deep kesh and with the -- deep concern and with the determination to prevent us from ever being in this situation, and lessen the damage of these cuts at every possible opportunity. that can include working with the administration and my colleagues to consider a supplemental, but that conversation has to consider more than just defense and ukraine, because there are other really important priorities, like border security, disaster relief, and other nondefense items we should not let be shortchanged. this is absolutely not a bill i

would have written, and the fact that the choice here is between a bill that cuts resources for american families or trashing the nation's credit and causing a global economic meltdown is an indictment of house republicans who decided taking our nation's credit hostage was an acceptable thing to do. understand that the programs being cut make a real difference in people's lives. i know that firsthand. i am someone who grew up knowing what it meant to get by on a tight, tight budget. i had a big family, six brothers and sisters. my dad was a world war ii veteran. he ran a mom-and-pop store on main street, selling everyday goods in botel, washington. we never had a lot, but we always got by. a lot of times that was because our government had our backs. when my dad got sick and was diagnosed with multiple

sclerosis, my mom had to figure out how to support seven kids and find a job that would make that possible. a federal workforce training program helped her get a job as a bookkeeper to keep my family afloat. me and my siblings, all seven of us, got through college thanks to federal assistance, because our government invested in pell grants and other programs. my family and i had to rely on food stamps for a brief time. we didn't go hungry because of federal investments in nutrition. so i'll say it again -- the funding decisions we make right here, in this chamber, are not just numbers on a page. the policy we write and sign into law has a direct consequence on people's lives and every member of congress needs to recognize that. so rest assured i remain very focused on keeping our

appropriations process moving forward here in the senate, marking up our spending bills in a timely, bipartisan way. and i want to make it clear right here on the senate floor that i will be doing absolutely everything i can to protect the investments that help those families get by and ensure that this great country lives up to its promise, from child care to housing to lifesaving research and more. as chair of the senate appropriations committee, i will be a voice for working families in my home state and all across the country. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: thank you, mr. president. i've been here about 4 1/2 years, and i come from that world where you can never do what we do here. when you run a business, you're competing, you're earning your

revenues. they're not given to you, like in government. here we just have to be smart enough not to spend more than we take in. sadly, when you look, all the data is there historically, we haven't balanced a budget since the late 1990's. over 50 years, there are some things that are just criteria you need to take into consideration and maybe view it as a given. our system, which is built on enterprise, sound regulation, not overbearing, taxes that you can pay without being a wet blanket on the economy, over 50 years other than two or three years that happened to coincide in the clinton years when we balanced the budget, we've never generated more than 18% of our

gdp in revenue through the federal government. it's this simple. when you have high rates, you plush more into the treasury, the first couple years, you go from whatever the economic growth rate was to something a half to a percent and a half lower, when you cut taxes, and it was getting close, it wasn't quite there, pre-covid, the trump tax cuts, you're going to deplete revenues the first couple years, but then you benefit from an economy that's growing more robustly. we know all of that. the missing link here is anywhere else you've got the rigor of the marketplace when you're running something, it's not merciful. if you behave there like we do here, you're on the ash heap of

enterprises that just don't survive in the long run. nowhere else can you borrow now up to 30 cents on every dollar that you spend and expect that to be a good, long-term business plan. i'm one, in the time i've been here, gotten along with a lot of democrats on passing legislation that is practical. we can still do it. but when it comes to the big agenda items, in terms of how much you spend, are you going to have the fortitude to do a real budget? we haven't done that. whenever we've had moments of discipline, with budget caps, sequestrations, they seem to unravel soon after we put them in place. again, look at the numbers. we, from the time we were founded to the year 2000, had very little debt. most of that came after world

war ii, the greatest generation was the deepest in debt we'd ever been historically as a country. they were savers, they were investors, they were hard workers. they paid it off and built the interstate highway system, the most capital-intensive thing we've ever done as a country. when you morph into being consumers and spenders, that's what greece did, that's what italy did, that's what spain did, that's what portugal was doing until they had to get back on the wagon. otherwise, the second largest economy in the world was going to be in trouble. they put basic discipline into their system. they spend more through the federal government there than we do, but they pay for it generally. they're not borrowing it from future generations. we've got to find a way, as democrats and republicans, to

take the priorities that are important to this country, and i haven't mentioned so far the real drivers of our structural deficits. that's social security. that is medicare. that is medicaid. all programs that we want to be there, but we want them to be solid. until we get the backbone, the political discipline, we're going to keep skirting the rigor that it takes to make this thing work long term, and you can expect more of the same. what you're seeing here today is no different. it's just punctuated with a little more drama than normal. we know we've got debt ceilings. if we didn't have that, we'd probably plow further into debt. but the numbers always win in the long run. we're running trillion-dollar deficits. both sides of the isle

generating -- both sides of the aisle generating them from the bush years. we had covid come along. we politically enterprised, i think through two years, not recognizing what the real capability of our economy would be, and we're in a pickle. i'm going to do a little math quiz here. i did it with a bunch of reporters three months ago. i said what is 1% of 30 trillion? mr. president, would you venture to make a guess on that? the presiding officer: i wouldn't. mr. braun: so 1% of 30 trillion is 300 billion. after 30 seconds of silence, one reporter offered 300 million. i said you're off by the power of a thousand. that's how abstract these numbers become. but they become real over time when you take interest rates that have gone up 4% to 5%. now that you know what 1% of

30 trillion is, try 5%. that's 1.5 trillion. that's what we're going to be pricing in to our debt that we're incurring. the only blueprint out there has been from the biden administration, puts us 20 trillion further in debt in just ten years. all this is going to do is knock it back to just 18 trillion more. that is shameful for future generations. this institution needs to be healthy and it needs to live within its means, like households do, like local and state governments do, like all businesses do. try talking to your banker running a 30% loss, want them to lend you the money. they would laugh you out of the office before you got into the details of really what you need. it's a bad business plan. i could go on about that, but

it's been happening for now over two decades, both sides of the aisle. the deal is generally made by some on our side of the aisle, that hold defense sacrosanct, don't want to budge at all. the other side views domestic spending more importantly. but we generally work out this same deal. but you know what the net result is? we're deeper in debt. i did take finance 101. i spent 37 years running a business, with full competition, the rigor of it, was on a school board, was on ways and means, and our state government. it can be done. we've got the printing press in the basement. that's the fed, when they take all this fiscal stimulus we did, put it on their balance sheet. that's how you print money. bad business plan for future

generations. i'm here, going to introduce an amendment called the no-default amendment. we should not be flirting with this year after year when we know what's going to happen anyway. until we put real reforms into the system, expect the same. the next time we hit the debt ceiling, when the treasury says you're entering into extraordinary measures, that's when the clock starts. my amendment, if you can't get a real deal done with reforms, addressing the things i've talked about, we're going to start paring back this place, and it's going to be across the board. defense and domestic spending. every 30 days, a 1% cut. if you are so thick headed that you can't get it done then, another 30 days, you do it

again. that would put some rigor into the process. but if we're not honest with the public and really address the programs that are dearest to most americans -- social security, medicare, medicaid -- quit doing mandatory spending on things that aren't important, we're going to run this place into the ditch, and i fear for what my kids and grandkids are going to have to deal with, and i think all americans should be worried about that. this would be at least a start of putting a little bit of discipline into an undisciplined system. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky.

mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent that the following interns from my office be granted floor privileges until june 30, 2023. mattie jackson. joseph thoburn. madeleine wassinger, brett and mary kate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: our national debt now stands at about $32 trillion. how did we get here? whose fault is it? republicans? democrats? well, the answer is yes, both parties are at fault for different reasons. republicans come to this floor and will come to this floor today saying we need unlimited military spending. and democrats will come to this floor and say we need unlimited welfare spending. and guess what happens? they compromise. people say washington doesn't compromise. they compromise all of the time. that's what this debt deal that's before us is, is compromise.

but the compromise is always to spend more money. how do we know that? the debt deal that's been crafted by biden and mccarthy is an unlimited increase in the debt ceiling. see, historically when we raise the debt ceiling would be $100 billion or $200 billion or, god forbid, $1 trillion. it was a dollar amount. this debt ceiling will go up until january 2025. how many dollars will be borrowed? as many as they can possibly shovel out the door. it will be how much money can you shovel out the door until january 2025. that's how much we will spend. is there a dollar amount? no. how much will you shovel out and how fast can you shovel it out? there will be no restraint from this debt deal. there is a pretense. there is a playing around the edges as if there might be a cut here or there might be a cut there. there are no cuts. why?

two-thirds of your spending is entitlement spending. the on-budget entitlement spending is medicare, medicaid, food stamps and other programs. they're called mandatory, and no one ever looks at them. they go on in perpetuity. this is what drives the deficit. who took them off the table? how come there's no discussion of this? actually republicans took them off the table because they fear being criticized by the democrats. it's being used in the presidential campaign. let's not talk about the entitlements, but that's two-thirds of what gets spent every year. so if you don't talk about the entitlements, if you don't talk about mandatory spending, you're, frankly, not a serious person, and you will not make a serious dent in this problem. so we've taken off the table all mandatory spending. no discussion of it. does this mean they're in good shape, that medicare and social security and all these programs are in good shape? heck no, they're not in good shape. they're all running out of money, headed towards

bankruptcy. is anybody brave enough to reform them? no, not a damn thing is going to be done for any of them. but when you take them off the table, take all the entitlement spending off the table, now we're down to one-third of the budget. now you're going to try to do budgetary reform while excluding two-thirds of the spending on one-third. but it's worse than that. the one-third they call discretionary spending. it's about $1.6 trillion. half of that is military. so they took that off the table. so mandatory spending, entitlements is going up 5% under this deal, because that's what it's been doing for years and years. it's going up at 5%. military is going up at 3%. so what are we left for? what are we left looking at? we're looking at one-sixth of the budget, somewhere between 15% and 20%, a small sliver of the budget. it's called nonmilitary discretionary and they think we're going to do fiscal reform

on that small sliver of government. guess what? you can't do it. you can eeliminate all the nonmilitary discretionary money. eliminate all this chunk of money and you still never balance the budget. there was a time when there was a conservative monument and the conservative movement had a voice in washington. there's still some voice but not much. but there was a time when people on the conservative side of this said in order to be a thoughtful, rational, realistic, strong response to the budget deficit, you would have to balance your budget in five years. in fact, we voted on a constitutional amendment in this body, and every republican voted for it but it said you had to balance five years. why five years? because most of the plans lasted longer than that. most of the balanced in years nine and ten would basically fudge the budget. the only years they had power

over the first year or two there weren't many cuts. they always had unrealistic expectations in year ten. what have i done? i said let's look at balancing this in five years. what would it take? about five or six years ago i introduced something called the penny plan. what would it do? it would cut one penny out of every dollar. it actually would balance. actually the first year i did it it didn't cut one percent. i froze spending for five years and the budget would have balanced. but the trick is, or not the trick. the truth is that you have to cut all spending or freeze all spending. you can't just freeze a sliver of the spending. so people have talked about there is a 1% trigger on the non, on the discretionary spending. that's $16 billion. they're going to add $4 trillion in debt over the next two years and they save we might save $16 billion, which even that is not going to happen because the trigger isn't real, doesn't have muscle, and will be evaded. but the thing is is that if we were to balance the budget over

five years, what would happen is there now needs to be about a 5% cut of all the spending, each year for five years and then the budget would balance. you say isn't it just a number? what would that mean to real people? why do i care whether the budget is balanced? well, go to the grocery store. go to buy gas. go to buy anything. go to pay your rent. look at your cost of living and look at what inflation is doing to you. who does inflation hurt the worst? those on fixed income and those in the working class because they don't have extra, expandable income. most of their income goes towards things they have to purchase each month. where does inflation come from? the senator from indiana described it accurately. we run a debt. this place spends money we don't have and where is the deficit made up for? we sell that debt to the reserve. the reserve buys it. wow, this is a great system. we spend money we don't have. we print up things called treasury bills. the federal reserve comes over

and buys them. we can do whatever we want. we have the printing press. when we create new money, that new money enters into circulation, that is inflation. inflation is an increase in the money supply. when you increase the money supply, you chase the same amount of goods, you're going to chase the prices right up and that's where inflation comes from. so the debt is not just a number. the debt is about the value of your paycheck. it's about how far your paycheck goes. right now we're in a bit of a spiral. we've had 9% inflation. it's a little lower now but we've had as high as 9 %. i think the social security increase went up nine to match that. some people say even with the 9% increase i still can't buy everything i need. i'm still being squeezed. but it's a bait and switch, because your government isn't honest with you. if your government wanted to be honest with you and they say we're going to be everything to everyone and we're going to give you stuff, and it's funny because we have this comparison sometimes with sweden and people

say, many democrats will say we want to be sweden, we want to be sweden and we're going to give you everything. we'll have a big government that coddles you from cradle to grave. you know how they do it in sweden? with a balanced budget. i'm not advocating we become sweden but they balance their annual budget every year. you know how they have all that free stuff to give everybody, how they have a safety net that includes everything, including college, free health care, everything? they tax everybody normal amounts -- enormous amounts of tax. over here the bait and switch is we're just going to tax the rich people. it's easy. they don't do that in sweden. in sweden they tax everybody. it's a 60% income tax beginning at $60,000 a year. so everybody pays. the middle-class pays. if we wanted to be honest and we're going to say we're going to give you this massive safety net, you don't have to work, everybody can have a basic income, you do all of this. we would be honest, or we should be honest and say it would take massive taxes.

instead there was a dishonesty. there is a dishonesty on both sides of the aisle. the democrats say welfare is free and all these things are free. what do republicans say? the military industrial complexion is free. you can have all the weapons you want. give hundreds of billions of dollars to ukraine and it won't cost anything because we'll print it up. there were times in our history when you went through a war, the devastation of war, in world war ii, that people actually suffered and you could see the suffering and people felt like they had to pay something. but now we just put it on the tab. but there is a point at which the tab gets so large that there can be something precipitous happen. the question is always, has always been is this a gradual problem or we'll just have to deal with a little inflation, 5%, 10% here, or is there a point at which there's a claiment -- calamity? if you look at the stock market for the last a hundred years, some people will point to seven different days in which 80%,

90% of the downturn occurred in seven days? is there a possibility of calamity when we're so destructive to our dollar, so destructive to good sense? i think the american people want more from us. recent polls have said 60% of americans say don't raise the debt ceiling without significant reform. 43 republicans, 44 of us actually said we want significant reforms before we raise the debt ceiling. but then the devil's in the details, in concluding what is significant and what is not significant. so what will end up happening, my predict shun here is almost every democrat will vote to raise the debt ceiling and about half of the republicans will vote. it will be a 75-25 vote, and in the end the debt ceiling will go up. people say that's good, we didn't have a calamity. the stock market didn't crash because we didn't pay our debt. but you might want to ask yourself, is this really a contrived controversy? is it really a reason in which we would ever default?

is there a reason why we wouldn't make our interest payment? we bring in $5 trillion and our interest payment is $500 billion. so that would be like you make $100,000 and your mortgage payment is $10,000. if you made $100,000 a year and your mortgage payment is $10 thousand,000 is there any chance you would default, any reason you wouldn't cut your other expenditures to prioritize your interests so you don't get kicked out your house. we don't do it up here. we threaten default, scare the markets and say we'll default if the debt ceiling doesn't come up. no, we would default only if we refuse to cut spending. so we spend $1 trillion more than comes in every year. that's the problem. if we simply said we're going to pay the $500 billion, 10% of our revenue for next year. we're going to pay the interest no matter what. and guess what? we'll tell the marketplace we're never going to default. we will always do that. that would be great.

the market would go gangbusters and say we no longer have to worry about those knuckleheads. they finally decided they're going to pay their interest and they always will. then what would happen? we wouldn't have enough money for everything. we should look at where we can save money. the problem has always been this. republicans point at democrats and say we don't like your programs, let's cut your programs. democrats look at republicans and say don't cut our programs. cut yours. everybody is don't cut mine, cut yours. that's why i've taken the approach and continue to take the approach we should cut everything across the board. in the past there were always conservatives who say let's get rid of public television. let's get rid of "sesame street" and big bird and they would get so much grief over it it's like why do that? you're not balancing the budget over big bird. take 1% of big bird's budget. take 1% of everybody's budget. what would that bring about? it would bring about more conservation of the dollar. it would bring about more

restraint and more reform. i'll end with this. people say where would you cut? i would say everywhere. but i can give you on the tip of my hand ridiculous stuff that should have 100% cut but is never cut and goes on and on. in the early 1970's william proxmire, a conservative democrat, pointed out that the national science foundation was spending $50,000 to study what makes people fall in love. that's a better, i think topic for cosmo poll tan -- cosmo poll tan magazine than a government study. nowadays it's gone up. we spend $1 million having young people take selfies of themselves while smiling and looking at it later in the day to see if looking at pictures of yourself smiling makes you a happier person. that costs you $1 million. we spend $1 moi -- 1.5 million studying the mating call of a

frog to see if the country frog is different than the city frog. we spent nearly $1 million studying the japanese quail to see if they are more sexually promiss -- promiscuous when they're on cocaine. does it get better? i complain about this every year and everybody shakes their head and says why are we doing that? the national science foundation, we increase their budget 50% last year. people said we have to compete with china. so let's give the national science foundation more money. we were almost, increased their budget by 50%. the people are studying why you go on dates, why you're happy, why the male frogs, what their mating call is. this is the craziness. but it never gets better because we always spend more money. my amendment would do this. my amendment would reduce the spending in real terms. we'd actually spend less money next year than last year. it would be a 5% reduction in money. and you'd spend less each year

and over five years you balance your budget and then we'd be on course to balance. people say why not? who can do this? half of europe does it. sweden balances their budget. germany balances their budget. over half of the countries of europe run an annual balanced budget. our spending is catching up to us. i say we act now and i recommend a yes vote on my amendment. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate that. i rise today to discuss the importance of both the permitting sections and the

provision to expedite the completion of the mountain valley pipeline that are included in the fiscal responsibility act. i want to commend speaker mccarthy and house republicans for negotiating a legislation that makes responsible reductions in government spending while avoiding a government default, including in this legislation are key elements of the builder act, a permitting reform proposal which was championed by congressman garret graves and by house natural resources chairman bruce westerman. the bill represents a positive first step in improving the permitting projects for all kinds of projects. by amend be the national environmental policy act for the first time since 1982, we will help projects of all types, whether we're talking about a road, a bridge, a transmission line, a renewable energy project, a pipeline, or a port.

simply put, a project shouldn't take longer to permit than it takes to build. and that should be true regardless of what type of project is under consideration. this legislation will impose statutory deadlines on completion of environmental impact statements and environmental assessments. it will streamline the review process with threshold language that tells agencies when various levels of review are necessary. and it allows agencies to share categorical exclusions for similar projects because multiple agencies should not have to do the same work twice. makes sense. by placing the one federal decision policy into the nepa statute, this legislation will allow project sponsors to work with a single lead federal agency. most of those listening probably thought that was what was happening anyway and all these

different agencies were giving individual opinions. if you want to build things in this country, we should not force project sponsors to bounce back and forth from one agency to the next often facing litigation at every step. it's just simply common sense to allow project sponsors to work with one lead agency. now, more work is needed beyond this bill to fix our broken process for permitting projects. reforms to the judicial review process, fish and -- timely fish and wildlife reviews and improvements to the clean water act are all very important. i introduced the restart act last month with a number of my epw republican colleagues to address those issues, and i will continue to work in a bipartisan way toll see additional reforms into law. today's legislation is a positive step on permitting reform and again i want to thank

congressman graves and chairman westerman for their efforts to get us to this point. the mountain valley pipeline, it is a prime example of an important project that has faced senseless delays mostly as a result of litigation filed by antinatural gas activists at the u.s. court of appeals for the fourth circuit. this project has undergone numerous, numerous environmental reviews and received approvals from multiple federal agencies, both under the trump and the biden administrations. these include actions from the federal energy regulatory commission, better known as ferc. the u.s. forest service, the bureau of land management, the u.s. fish and wildlife service, the u.s. corps of engineers, the west virginia department of

environmental protection, and the virginia department of environmental quality. these are agencies that have already approved this construction of this pipeline. given the multiple actions by federal and state environmental agencies, approving this project, assertions that this project has not gone through adequate environmental review are just plain wrong. both the trump and biden administrations have expressed support for this project. secretary of energy jennifer granholm recently sent a letter to ferc endorsing the project. so the mountain valley pipeline is 95% complete and would be finished today if it weren't for the rulings by the fourth circuit that have stayed or vacated multiple approvals granted by federal and state environmental regulators. the fourth circuit has acted nine times with respect to the

mountain valley pipeline. in eight of those nine occasions, the court has either stayed or vacated an approval from a federal or a state agency. only once did the court uphold an approval for this project, and that was when the court upheld water quality certifications from the state of virginia under section 401 of the clean water act. but within days of that opinion, the same fourth circuit panel vacated similar 401 water quality certifications from the state of west virginia. because certification from both states is necessary to allow the army corps of engineers to issue a required 404 permit for the mountain valley pipeline, vacating certification from one state has had the effect of continuing to prevent the project from moving forward.

we've become all too familiar with the fourth circuit's blocking of key projects. the same panel that has rejected nearly all of the state and federal approvals for the mountain valley pipeline brought before it took similar actions to vacate state and federal approvals for the now canceled atlantic coast pipeline. project sponsors for the atlantic coast pipeline appealed one of the fourth circuit's four adverse opinions all the way to the supreme court. the supreme court reversed the fourth circuit in a 7-2 opinion that was written by justice thomas and joined not only by republican appointed judges but also by justices ginsburg and breyer. despite winning at the supreme court, the atlantic coast pipeline was canceled amid the threat of continuing litigation

and permitting challenges. activists are using the same playbook at the fourth circuit to try to stop the mountain valley pipeline. this is a pipeline that will result in $40 million in tax revenue and $150 million in royalty payments in west virginia annually once it is completed. the project will open markets to west virnlg's -- west virginia's natural gas providing good-paying jobs not just in my state but enhancing our nation's energy security and our own national security. given the project's benefits and given approvals from state and federal regulators across multiple administrations from both parties, i do not believe that a handful of judges should have the final say. this legislation will ratify approvals issued under the biden administration from the u.s.

forest service, the bureau of land management, and the fish and wildlife service along with approval from the federal energy regulatory commission. these documents will be insulated from judicial review to prevent further delays. additionally, the bill requires the army corps of engineers to issue necessary project permits, including that 404 permit i talked about earlier within 21 days. both virginia and west virginia environmental regulators have issued necessary certifications for this permit. but the fourth circuit has further -- has delayed further permitting action by vacating west virginia's certification. this legislation makes it crystal clear that congress expects the mountain valley pipeline to be completed consistent with the previously approved environmental

documents. i've consistently fought for commonsense reforms so that we can actually ensure that we can build here in america, including key projects such as the mountain valley pipeline. so it sl my hope that per -- so it is my hope that permitting reforms, both the provisions that are in this bill and those that we should consider in the future, will allow projects to be approved and constructed in an efficient manner that does not require congressional intervention. it also should be pointed out and emphasized this does not mean that any environmental regulation that is put forward is ever shortchanged or overlooked. that's not the point here. so on occasions when the process fails projects of significant regional and national interests, we have the authority and the responsibility as elected representatives to step in and ensure a project is allowed to

proceed. with that, mr. president, i thank you, and i yield the floor. and then asking to raise the

price limit so you could borrow more money without having a conversation in the

real world that is what would happen you have to have that conversation or there will be no increase in your credit card limit but only in washington, only in the nation's capital would it be even argued that to raise the debt limit without talking about spending reform. and what happened is our national debt has ballooned now more than $31.4 trillion. that is a number that i doubt anybody here in the chamber could tell us how many zeros. follow that with 31.4. and the american people are clearly unhappy with what they see is happening when it comes to out-of-control spending. a recent poll found 50

percent of adults think the government spends too much. and they're right. they're frustrated by the unnecessary wasteful spending and their eager for congress to do the reasonable, rational thing which is to begin to get ourfinancial house in order . that's precisely what republicans demanded throughout this process, for necessary fiscal reforms as part of the debt ceiling negotiations. 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 a united states for trillion dollars in debt.

he went on to say a clean debt ceiling increase was and refused to engage in negotiations altogether. is helpful in january we had that is what happened is that treasury secretary has engaged in what euphemistically is called extraordinary measures in order to pay the bill as the money comes in for tax revenue. but now she's lost the exit date which presumably is the default day after extraordinary measures are exhausted would be junethat's funny . so that is known as january is day would come these reviews negotiate this led us

into a scenario where unless congress by june 5 we will reach the debt limit and begin the default on paying ourselves as a nation now i don't have to provide a party that installation as a result of some of the conflict spending, they were happy to send $4.3 trillion last year on the party line spending boats but was enough gasoline on the fire and inflation will spiral out of control that's exactly what is a consequence two things have happened one is that hard-working americans have found their standard of living reduced because basically it afford to keep

up with the increase in costs as a result of inflation the second thing is that decided it was hidden tax of federal reserve had to raise interest rates which has slowed down the economy even more. why in the world is buying as possible shall refuse to negotiate when he knows that the anxiety associated with an s date on monday is causing even more uncertainty . even more asian you have more anxiety over exactly what the future is like what the risk that will present by scott to his notifications, no reform decision four months .

even though it was painfully obvious bipartisan deal was the only way to further crisis wants applause for a moment to amend this the house 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 this process forward users online before physical for the house on the safe he board president biden to the negotiating table successfully, i still let us think of that story about speaker are these leadership is by dream in 1 billion years after the difficult rates race for speaker that we saw in january that

speaker will be deals unify all is in the house of representatives and actually passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling limits wrote act was and i think president biden was shocked that he was able to get that done i write to him for it it changed the whole dynamics of this negotiation but now the house is acting as if the wall isn't in our course we will vote on the and now is the time for thesenate to do his job . our job is not simply to accept and what the house passed. that's never been the case we were and are parties to the agreement why should we found

on the strict terms of that agreement ? the senate has not had a say in the process so far is led to serious operation on both sides of the. is building the order, go to the members in the legislation that level or even file tax the time constraints only created by president by way and refusal to negotiate, this ross process was a little reading it on the process of evil in order to pack president biden done his job and responsibly engaged in negotiations finally to engage in an earlier point months so the

president dragged his feet for several reading and as possible windows reach a deal went further crisis this is not how is playing out that doesn't mean that our hands are tied on our backs is the senate is not required as i said rubberstamp the house still we have the opportunity to amend this legislation and make it better. i shared the concerns expressed by the number of the set of provisions in the. the center of south carolina sensor, state senator from alaska and senator, i believe has spoken on the defense number in this agreement is simply inadequate. and it's completely acceptable to leave in the hands of senator schumer the majority leader will not

leave house operations bill this year because if we don't on the terms of the party line, and the into a sequestration that's one percent cost across the board that may sound like a lot but is facing more national security's. and we ever have before it's challenged in europe or russia's unjust invasion of ukraine, whether it's a aspirations of the iso will arrive, to build nuclear lines, but it is kim jong-il and what you, or vladimir putin or presidents xi, is easy to see the threats are not getting more and more serious which means a

sequestration of the apartment spending my operation of law is unacceptable . so senators on both sides want, members want to make changes to improve the. as i said is that should not be cut out of the process to you president biden's driving. we still have time before the january deadline and the second will in the process. we could do it today we have ample time to vote on amendments and send them back to the house or final passage. and i have there's no reason for the majority leader to block them". saturdays are the most on this will be majority leader will not stand in the way of said on both sides of the.

want to offer amendments and then receive or down votes this bill does include very positive developments ranging in our nation's spending is not a magic pill is your wife financial trouble. is $1.47 debt decades. so is unreasonable to expect to turn around with the passage of one bill we can start, we should start and wheel and accelerated these problems. we spent a lot of money necessarily on a bipartisan basis to try to deal with the public health crisis, consequences of the month and i said, and present by his

quest for our democratic colleagues and used the tools of this to go on to partisan spending sprees, one game the rescue plan followed by the $700 billion so-called inflation reduction. is two $6000 more to get this stuff to the 31.4 trillion today. but then they use that money to do everything on a supersized irs taxpayer provided subsidies for rich people vehicles. so i'm glad the speaker was successful in addition to beginning the long process of beginning to give the curve when it comes to reckless spending. i'm glad the speaker was available to all that money reason billion dollars in unspent funds and to redirect

a purported $20 billion in irs money to other priorities . congressional budget office estimates this bill will reduce federal spending by one $5 trillion over the next decade which is a strong start but in the fight to write america's financial ship. so as i said this bill is the end of but it's not the end and i know many of us including this center would like for us to be to do more. but the fact of the matter is one bill erase decades of financial trouble. we need to build on the progress made in this legislation in the months and years to come. of course the best way to do that is at election time.

because it matters who wins elections it matters who is in themajority, canceled by congress and the white house . but the next big battle only in the senate and house appropriations committee as we know every year the committees are part of providing separate bills on various components of the federal government. the process of crafting those bills is public hearings, committee votes and rigorous debate. it gives every member of the appropriations committee opportunity to shape the individual spending bills and address american spending habits once is now canadian all 100 senators to 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 year. didn't have it in for one or

safely to the democratic senate majority leader refuse to allow us to pass an appropriation bill last year forcing us into the ugly process of answering and passing on the bus appropriations bill. at not believe this is supposed to be on risk continue to operate likethis , but spending bills and macro negotiations. that is no way to gain office costs or to run the return to a transparent regular process where every elected member of congress have the opportunity to participate in budgeting and deciding what the expenditure of taxpayer dollars should be . so we've known this day was coming since january.

president biden puts us in this difficult situation by wasting valuable time and he has pushed us to write of default. now back to his delay tactics e-voting one of the homeowner member of this congress had a hand in writing and signed this for us was unnecessary 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 debates article for today senators deserve the opportunity to spend this as i said make it better if we can all our colleagues asynchronous process and i heard the majority leader to allow the process to go forward with up or down numbers. >> i you.

>>

test. one job is to defend its

vision and we have made a serious mistake in this bill. i've heard house leaders suggest this bill will leave on very format each room you have to believe the military was okay if you cut their budget reason billion dollars the below inflation. the party of ronald reagan would never allow inflation to reduce defense capability. this bill the top five numbers best ships of any kind when trying is going to expand in 2044 and 45 we know sending you a little we cannot expand the needy and at the same time china will go from 300 and ships in a 10 year training 440 less money

for the army, list ships for the final conflict. not to help ukraine be. everyone on the offensive as we see the men need to send your message when it comes to the invasion of ukraine will support the ukrainians to ensure your loss. if we don't do that we're going to smash the feet out of the jaws of victory center cotton, i'm going to yield to him but we will take time to explain when those also believe the number one job of the federal government is to defend the nation, and that we are going to fight until we find a way to reconcile this hard. with that will yield to my

good friend.>> when senator connie reaches the floor i will yield to him because of time restraints what i want to say is whati've been saying all along . but the world is in the most dangerous situation we've seen since world war ii. this buy-in budget which is now in trying to this debt ceiling bill is woefully inaccurate. it announced 285 in defense capability that sells like an increase. you can call it an increase but inflation is running seven percent so we have to increase distance spending by that much simply to keep up with whatwe did last year .

we have to increase several billion more to get us the capability that we to grant or in the pacific. so i just have to say that the fact that this is being called victory by some people on that side of the file is absolutely inaccurate . pundits on the country have called this budget announced inadequate and now for some reason because it's part of an agreement the speaker has made is being applauded. the numbers don't lie and i'll say this to my friends. we've got three or four years to get ready for the time when xi jinping in finest

china says he wants to be for a war against the united states . a war to take over the island of taiwan. the decisions we make today can be. we have the resolve to do that by 2027 we need to make those decisions this year, we don't need to put them off next year and we don't need to say we're going to go with the biden cuts in readiness and do one percent more next year. that's woefully the status before i yield to my friend from alaska. it's easy to hide in the body.

one sentence i will yield to my friend from arkansas. it's easy to hide inadequacies in the defense budget. i think people still get their social security checks, they still get their paychecks . when it comes home to roost, ready for world war ii. when i went to the summary way behind. we were ready under president reagan and meehan under president reagan. when we are ready, we have the ability to avoid conflict and this budget simply does not do that . i will yield the floor and let my friend from arkansas say his peace. >> mister president, after

weeks of negotiating that austin is capricious president and congress passed a bill raising the debt ceiling. democrats and republicans compromised these negotiations on every piece of legislation there are good parts and bad parts of this bill. i want to commend either the number of victories. this bill improves the environmental review process corresponding for president biden's army irs agents and saves taxpayers and millions of dollars. available go as far as i would like it reduces domestic spending levels which is better than more spending and taxes the transfer of those domestic spending returns and levels. emergency held by chinese communist want to reach the

federal government's budget in perpetuity to the speakers constraints of a small house majority in the notion party that seems to prioritize welfare for grown men who don't work over our military i would victories in this bill to the default. unfortunately this bill poses a moral risk to our national security by tyingour defense budget . it poses great dangers on the horizon. bill supporters contend it raises defense spending my 3.2 percent compared to last year and that's true on face value inflation was six percent last year when a three percent raise prices go up by six percent. a small child with you normally won't go as far and it gets worse next year the defense budget will grow by

one percent. thanks joe i will get inflation to pre-pandemic models? even if he did inflation will grow as fast as the defense budget prompting even more cuts. worst of all, this bill contains an automatic one percent c kuester based off last year's budget.that means domestic spending will go and defense spending will go down if the seat. the. if the sequestered democrats will get more welfare spendingwhile defense is cut . case the democratic leader will be satisfied with this result? more to the point that she will use the c kuester to start higher levels of welfare spending? these three positions in real dollars that was for five

hundred seat after on last year's defense bills conspire to put devastating cuts to the transponder time with least afford it. the national defense strategy? or recognize a real increase in defense of three and five percent annually over inflation. this bill would cut spending my more than five percent in two years ./and tens of billions of dollars of debt. how bad is this defense spending? if we continue our recent bipartisan cuts to increase the defense budget from president biden is irresponsible budget proposals we afford additional ford class aircraft carriers.500 and 35 fighter jets. 191,000 stinger missiles for

javelin antitank results, all to our defense defense of ukraine and taiwan. while we surrender our need our enemies are catching up. last year russia increased israel military pending by one percent china increased israel spending five or six percent increased israel spending my eight percent. the united states produced our real spending by over three percent and this bill as i said only make matters worse. here's washington defense spending backwards logic should be our defense spending. our defense needs to shape our budget. to become aggressive or less constrained because our military as trunk. in fact the opposite is true

payroll business and dangerous. the defense budget should rise and fall with the dangers of our nation only dangers are receiving. >>

y servicemembers. often these celebrations of the lives and legacy of our fallen soldiers and loved ones takes place outside in community clean spaces. our parks need clean water. the decision is detrimental to national parks where two-thirds of the park waters are impaired with much of this pollution linked to out of park upstream activities. under the saca decision issued on may 25 of this year, a slim majority of the court led by justice alito concluded that the clean water act extend to wetlands that have a continuous surface connection with waters

of the united states. this result does not mean the court unanimously endorsed this new test. in fact, this decision was to put it mildly, complicated. justice thomas followed a concurring opinion which justice gorsuch joined, justice kagan concurred on the judgment with justices sotomayor and justices sotomayor, keg ann and jackson joined. put another way, four members of the supreme court, justices sotomayor, kagan, kavanaugh and brown-jackson agreed it does not apply to the wetlands of the -- of the saca property -- sackett property. in an opinion joined by three justices, justice kavanaugh contended that by narrowing the act's coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands, the

court new test will leave some wetlands no longer covered by the clean water act with significant repercussions for the water quality and flood controls throughout the united states. justice kavanaugh specifically noted that the health of the chesapeake bay would be at risk under the court's new test. our national treasure, the largest estuary was one of two examples given along with efforts to control flooding along the mississippi river. in its opinion the majority claims that the clean water act repeatedly uses waters in context that confirm that the term refers to bodies of open water. despite the convenient fallacy, the waters of the bay are by no means limited to open waters. the chesapeake bay receives half of its water from 110,000

streams and 1 .7 million acres of wetland most of which are non-navigable tributaries and wetlands that drain to those tributaries. the wetlands are critical to restoring the chesapeake bay and its tributaries. wetlands are essential to water quality. they trap pollutants a, they're running off farmlands, sub-bar ban parking lots and city streets before they can reach the 111,000 miles of local streams, creeks, and rivers that empty into the bay. entering the atlantic hurricane season, it is worth noting that wetlands also protect coastal communities. wetlands also mitigate slow onset climate change effects like sea level rise and sunny day flooding that threatens lives, businesses and properties and waterfronts and cities like

annapolis. maryland, pennsylvania, virginia have state regulations that could offer backstop coverage for wetlands that are adjacent to but not adjoining the bay in its covered tributaries. epa can no protect -- can no longer protect. nationwide, more nan 111 million acres of wetlands and ecosystem services they provide are estimated to face the essential threat from the loss of federal protection. justice kagan also wrote a brief opinion on her own, joined by justices sotomayor and jackson in which they characterized as the court's appointment of itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy. in her view, which i share, congress deliberately drafted the clean water act with a broad reach to address a problem of crisis proportion, although the majority disagrees with that

decision, she wrote, it cannot rewrite congress' plain instructions because they go further thank the court would like. but this is precisely what the majority did here, she concluded. just as it did last year when it curtailed the epa's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants. second is the latest in a latest series of rulings to protect human health and the environment. this one happens to hit especially close to the statutory home of the chesapeake bay program partnership. for now to assert jurisdiction over an adjacent wetlands under the clean water act, a party must establish first that the adjacent body of water constitutes waters of the u.s. relatively permitted body of water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters and second that the wetlands has the continuous service connection to make it difficult to determine

whether the water ends and the wetlands begins. this arbitrary new definition strikes at the heart of the chesapeake bay program. moreover, as justice kavanaugh notes, the court's new test is sufficiently novel and vague, that it will create precisely the type of regulatory uncertainty that the majority roundly criticized. the decision muddies the waters for a clear, workable waters of the u.s. definition. the rule announced in december established a clear and reasonable definition. the commonsense approach by the epa must now be -- defend -- recognizes that pollution upstream can have downstream impacts. so we must protect the system to safeguard downstream communities and our environment.

the role of this opinion invites opponents to challenge, also maintain long-standing clean water act permitting exemptions for routine farming and ranching activities. basically comply to what we thought the rule was before the supreme court decisions almost a decade ago. in addition to the indirect cost of regulatory uncertainty, the loss of clean water protections will have significant economic consequences for outdoor recreation which supports 788 billion dollars in consumer spending and more than five million jobs in the united states annually. wetlands do not just provide habitat for wildlife and trout and fisheries that enhance outdoor recreational opportunities. they also clean water for farmers, they drive our economy through the production of food. in order to protect our resources in our new reality, we must enforce the the federal

authorities left that protect clean water, protect states strengthening their own laws. in addition, clean water infrastructure grants programs suchals the clean water state revolving fund and the non-regulatory coastal habitat restoration programs like the coastal program, offer resources to support states, tribes, and ngo's restoring wetlands in their own best interests. water pollution has never respected political boundaries. our constituents all rely on clean water for drinking, swimming, fishing, irrigation,s and more. i urge my colleagues to consider the seriousness of this setback and let us work together to mitigate the damage of this decision. with that, mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will now call the roll.

quorum call: >> the measure of how serious we are as a country is at the top one because inflation is hard to compare the letter of

how serious we are in terms of what we'recoming towards defense , the number one priority of the u.s. congress should be in my view what percentage of our national wealth that came to defense. in this budget, will take us in the next two years with this year inflation is just 45 percent and i'm nominal increase next year would be in 5 to 6 percent it would take us below the three percent of gdp number four defense for the first time since 1999. during the era of the biden administration so we will be below three percent of gdp, different kinds of american history, vietnam, eight

percent. reagan billed almost 6 percent,, afghanistan, 4 and a half percent. are going to be below three percent, as is 1999 and before that it's almost never happened in the history of the country at least in this line century and your in 1999 threats to our nation worth nearly as dramatic as they are today and nobodydisagrees with that . so what this budget does is access the biden defense budget which senator has already mentioned trixie arnie, shrinks at 80, shrinks the marine corps. that's what it does less ships, not warships. smaller numbers of marines, not more so accepting of buy-in defense budget is actually something you.

during the biden administration, what do i need my? asked senator visions, the last two previous biden budgets came in in an edict numbers and in a bipartisan way, strong bipartisan way by the way. democrats and republicans crossed those budget numbers. last year $45 billion increase for the week by 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 $5billion loss . mister president has made people know we were already this in a bipartisan way on the armed services committee another bus up to this budget so democrats and republicans

knew it was the and not sufficient to meet the challenges of today but what happened, the music stops and now all of a sudden we're accepting the biden budget. i know senators who thinkthat is wrong . so one of the offer as we are getting this mister president is to do somethingvery simple . is to look the biden pentagon priority list for unfunded priority list does this president and his secretary of defense put forward its $18 billion is the arms services committee in a bipartisan way was getting ready to move forward and on and i'm going to ask my colleagues let's fund is at a minimum let's fund it.

the top line of this agreement, we locate that 18.4 billion it from the irs. and to the pentagon. pretty simple. should be 100 zero. do we want more need the ships, more marines more irs agents during this very dangerous time? i answer is pretty clear. the american people know the answer. so mister president, senator, already mentionedthis idea. we need more efficiency and had gone, i couldn't agree more . needy leadership by the way we need a lot more efficiencies out of this place. we have 80s more focused on getting his kind out before his shipbuilding plan. priorities in the department

of navy are remarkably misaligned with real-world challenges are those real-world challenges? mister president i did you were there. we had a talk with our agency officials they came out, was a classified briefing this number was classified and they told me know. they cannot real chinese budget that was close to $700 billion. that's a big budget. it sentence her cotton mention increasing in real terms six, seven, eight percent, cranking out ships. cranking out new generation aircraft are going to cut the budget this year and dramatically cut it next year and go under three percent of gdp in one of the most dangerous times since the end of world war ii.

asked senator cotton also mentioned the national defense commission that the congress authorized on a number of years ago to look at a serious ...

land will be taken for the pipeline project. and i stand to speak on their behalf about the reasons that i will speak to remove the mountain valley pipeline provision from the bill when we vote on it later tonight. it would be one thing if you could build pipelines in midair, but you can't. to build a pipeline, you have to take people's land. sometimes the land you take might be public land, national park or national forest. but in any pipeline project of size in the mountain valley pipeline is about 330 miles

long, you have to take a lot of land from private landowners, most of whom don't want to give up their land. that means that when you do a pipeline project and you approve it and you give a private company the right to take people's land, you ought to do it carefully after significant deliberation. and so since the 1930's, there has been a pipeline permitting process that has required for an interstate pipeline, first, a determination by the federal energy regulatory commission that there is a need for the pipeline, the gas pipeline. and then once that determination is made, a separate determination has to be made about what is the best route for the pipeline. and once those determinations are made, you're able to take private land to build a pipeline even though those landowners will never benefit at all from having a pipeline cross their property. additionally, the permitting process isn't just about

building but it's about holding the developer to strict standards so that when they build the pipeline, they minimally disturb the land, they minimally affect species, they minimally affect creeks and streams and river crossings. the mountain valley pipeline is proposed to go about 110 miles through the poorest part of my state, appalachia. in the appalachian region of virginia a lot of people don't have very much. for many of them, that land is what they have and for many of them that land has been in their family for generations. they are entitled to a fair process that would look about the need for the pipeline and what is the best route and then would insist that the pipeline be built to a high standard to maximally protect their property. congress has made a decision that this is not to be decided by congress. pipeline ruth -- pipeline

routing is not to be determined by congress. instead you put it in administrative agencies. why do you do that? because, a, they have expertise. and, b, it's less likely to be abused. if you were to let congress do pipeline deals, it would be pretty easy for somebody to look at a map and say this county never voted for me, why don't we run it through that county and take their labd -- land. instead we remove it from congress so professionals can undertake the right analysis and review. in this bipartisan debt ceiling deal, there's a provision to green light one project in the united states, the mountain valley pipeline, to green light it and to say that there will be no more administrative process to determine whether it had been fully permitted and no more ability for the courts to review the administrative agency decisions. i strongly object to that. i don't have an objection to the pipeline itself.

i've been asked again and again and again, and i've said this is not for congress to decide. in fact, it would be wrong for congress to do this. you should have an administrative process. you should go through it. a pipeline proponent should have to meet the standard, get over the hurdles. and when they do, then, okay then they should be able to take land and build a pipeline, but only then. we shouldn't shorten it and give one project a green light. this is ultimately about virginians who care about their land. they don't want to give up their land for this pipeline because they don't think they'll benefit by it. sometimes a county will take someone's land to build a road, and even if you're not happy about that, at least there's a road. you can have an ambulance get to your house on or your kid can go out and catch a school bus on. but a pipeline project of this kind transmitting gas from one part of the country to the

other, people can't hook into it to get low-cost natural gas. many of the communities in virginia that this pipeline would cross don't have natural gas distribution to their communities. it might have some effect upon global gas prices but that won't affect somebody who doesn't have gas service to their home. so my virginians just want to be sure that if this pipeline is built, it has met the requisite standards of the review agencies, both state and federal, and it has withstood any court challenges. this is a pipeline project that's been under way for awhile, and i know the proponents of this provision will say it's been going on too long. but one of the reasons it's been going on for awhile is because the company was slipshod in a lot of its operations and construction, particularly early in the life of this project. i do believe that the company has better management now. but the project has been cited

for dozens of clean water act violations, other construction problems that have led to mutt slides on people's property. that is why my virginia constituents are so desiring that let's do this the right way or let's not do it at all. the provision in this bill not only from yous these virginia -- frustrates these virginia landowners whont to be sure if their land will be taken it is done after a fair amount of consideration but it also does something that i believe is unwarranted and historical in the wrong way. it is a rebuke of the fourth circuit of the united states court of appeals which is headquartered in richmond, my hometown, which has been the court that has heard cases about the mountain valley pipeline. challenges to agency decisions in the previous administration where the court said look, the agencies didn't do what they were supposed to do. go back and do it right this

time. when landowners feel they are being abused they have a right to go to court and present their case and the fourth circuit and district courts within it have said you've shown your case. the company didn't do it right. the agency didn't do it right. go back and do it right. that's made the company upset. for 18 years i tried cases in the fourth circuit, and i won some and i lost some. when i lost, i wasn't happy. but if i lost, i would tell my client we can appeal, and we would appeal to the fourth circuit and sometimes i would win my appeal and sometimes i would lose my appeal, but when we lost, i wasn't happy. but we would try to get the united states supreme court to take the case up. never once did i tell a client after a loss, what we need to do is go to congress and take this case away from the fourth circuit and put it in a court that's more likely to be favorable. i would never have thought to do that. no one gets that deal. no individual gets that deal,

no civil rights plaintiff gets that deal. no criminal defendant gets that deal. no small business gets that deal. most people would be embarrassed to ask for that. i lost, i'm unhappy. why don't i get congress to rewrite the rules of federal jurisdiction and take this case away from the court that's made me unhappy and put it in another court. and yet, that is what this bill will do. it will end further administrative review. it will end judicial review of any permit. and it will say only this, if someone wants to challenge what congress is doing here, saying it's unlawful or unconstitutional or an overreach, they have to file that challenge in the d.c. circuit court of appeals. they cannot file it in the fourth circuit, where this project is being considered. both to protect these landowners who have a right to a full and deliberate consideration if they're going to have to give up

their land and to protect the integrity of both our court system and this body, i strongly oppose this provision. i will move later in the day to bring up my amendment. and i would encourage my colleagues to support me in it. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from west virginia. mr. manchin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. mr. manchin: i rise to speak in favor of the mvp, they call it the mountain valley pipeline. i call it the most valuable pipeline that we have to offer energy to the people of america. it's been under tow for a long time. i brought some, some illustrations of what we're going through because my good friend from virginia, the senator from virginia who just spoke, and we respectfully disagree on this. this is something we worked on for an awful long time. first of all, i want to make sure everybody understands. you cannot get permission to move forward on a pipeline, transmission line, anything that you want in this country unless there's a market for it. you've got to show that there is a person or a group or a market

that this product, whether it's electricity on transmission lines or gas in the pipelines, oil, whatever, there has to be a market. it can't go from here to there and try to build a market. so there has to be a need. there has to be a need. if there's going to be a need in the market, then it's proceeding. then it goes through the process. this started over eight years ago, going through that process. i don't think there's another permit that's ever been scrutinized or request for a permit than this, than this mountain valley pipeline. we'll call it the mvp. ferc has approved mvp three times. not one time. three times. basically over eight years of review, started with the obama administration, went thousand the trump administration and now we're in the biden administration. let's look at where the need is. this pipeline is -- it takes the

marcela shell. it goes into an area that's basically -- excuse me. mr. manchin: into an area that is basically deprived of natural resources themselves. let me tell you some of the areas we'll be table to serve in a direct and indirect way. our military bases in south carolina, who are in desperate need. there was a pipeline come out of the same shell of gas called the atlantic coast pipeline that went on for years and was finally scrubbed because the price got so exorbitant, and they could not get through the litigation that went on for

years. after $6 billion or $7 billion, dominion energy pulled the plug on it. when they tell you everything's fine, they did all of this. where every there were problems, it was -- wherever there were problems it was sent back. when ferc goes through it, it is an arduous process. it's looked into everything. if the courts say, look at this, and then they do that and correct that and they find something else. wouldn't you think they would see it the first time if they needed something corrected? as i said it has been through yourly vetted -- through yourly vetted. it has gone through eight nepa reviews, six environmental impact. the environmental impact study

can take one to four years. six times it went back to that. so when anyone thinks that this has not been scrutinized and has not basically gone through every agency that it was required to go through and had every review possibly done done would be mistaken if you see just the outline. three rounds of permitting were approved by ferc. they aproastled all of them. it -- approved all of them. it still wasn't good enough. went to the courts, back it came. went to the courts, back it came. the bureau of land management, fish and wildlife, they all did it three times. now we have a situation where if you look at winter storm elliott in december of 2022, the carolinas had the highest natural gas price in the

country, $50 to $60 for a million b.t.u. normally that is 2 poin 50 to $$6, that's where it stays. you tell me an average family or hardworking family that can afford $40 to $60btu. is there a need. absolutely there's a need. is there basically a need for pricing that stabilizes and helps people get through tough times and takes care of their family and home and also the job they work at? absolutely. you have that. duke energy says the mvp will save 4.5 million customers $3 billion over 25 years. duke energy is a very large power company within north carolina. and they're saying that we don't

have that product. we need this product. they were counting on the atlantic coast pipeline to give them the product. that didn't happen. now they're counting on mvp. who gets gouged? everybody talks about big business and the companies and this and that, 4.5 million customers, that's who's going to pay the price. when you talk about the price, let's talk about this. this line when they started on this pipeline, there was proximate cost of $3.5 billion to build it. we're over $6.6 billion now. who do you think's going to pay that price? it's going to be paid by the customers who he need the product. we're paying $50 to $60 per btu and they should pay $4 billion

to $6 billion there and it will be supported by their families. we had a lot of talk here and a lot of different conversation. there's a new summit view business park in franklin county in southwest virginia, it is struggling to attract businesses to that park that would create jobs for the hardworking people of that area that they cannot attract and be able to furnish the energy that that part needs to attract the different industries that would like to come. so for economic development, just having a job, taking care of your family, living in beautiful southwest, virginia, -- southwest virginia, they don't have that opportunity. north carolina has lost out on $1 billion in investments because the businesses cannot afford the high price of gas and we have an abundance of it in west virginia and pennsylvania and coming out of the eastern part of ohio, willing to share it and put it on a market to

keep the prices where they should be affordable. so the review process, as we said, has been incredibly thorough and rigorous, eight nepa reviews, six environmental impact statements, two environmental assessments, three rounds of review by the same federal agencies, ferc, fish and wildlife and blm, been before the court numerous times, nine times to be act. -- to be exact. nine times before the court. when it does it stop in when does it stop? the cost has ballooned, doubled in price. here we are. you would think we are trying to get this line started. it's going to be 303 miles, but guess what? 283 miles are already built. it's already laid in the ground. they said there's been violations because there's sedimentation and they didn't go

back and recede. they weren't -- reseed, they couldn't because of court action. it's a catch 22. they couldn't reclaim what they wanted to reclaim because they were taken to court, stopped and brought to task again for not reclaiming. if we pass this piece of legislation within six months, this line will be in production. we only have 20 miles to go. that will put 2,500 people to work. about $40 million to $50 million annually coming to the states of west virginia and some to virginia as it passes through. there's about two to -- anywhere from 200 to $250 million that will go to individuals who own their gas rights that are being sold and put into the line. that's every year. that's a tremendous support for

the poorest parts of our country -- the poorest parts of our country, the people are finally able to sell what they own, the resources and help stabilize the prices that will help all people and the states that are effected. $1.2 billion in additional investment to complete the project. we have tried everything humanly possible. we really have. i just couldn't believe that we couldn't get this after what happened to the previous lines that they were trying to build to bring product to the marketplace. so there's all different people who are upset. i understand that. my good friend from virginia, my senator enfriend who we were -- senator friend, who we are close friends, it doesn't affect our friendship, it doesn't affect us fighting for many of the same causes, but it brings a healthy discussion. are we going to move forward in this country, are we going to

have permit reform? are we going to be able to build the necessary transmission it takes. i'm talking about power lines. if anything it takes longer for a power line, pipeline. everything is being stopped now. it's not that they are protesting the pipe itself, it is that they are protesting the product in the price of gas. there's a transition going on in energy throughout the country, a transition throughout the world to a certain extent, but we still cannot run our country without the gas, without the oil, and without the coal that we need for dispatchment. that means 24/7. gas an coal itself is over 60% of the energy that we use, right here in this capitol, this is pjm that is distributing the power. it's all of the above, it's wind, solar, coal, gas, it's everything that gives the reliability that when you turn

that switch on, you're going to have lights. when you turn the heat on, you're going to be warm, when you turn the air conditioner on, you will have comfort, if you want to cook your food, you will be able to do it. that's what we can do in america. in the transition, there will be a transition in new technologies that replace a lot of what we're talking about, but we're a long way away from that. and to deprive people who need this for their livelihood and make them pay ten times more for something that is abundant. it would be different if the good lord didn't give us the resources, but it would be a shame and a sin not to use the resources that we have to help all human kind. that's what we're talking about. if you look at the process of what we have gone through and what we embarked on, probably going to be here through most of the night, going through the minutes, everyone needs to have their say. i agree. we have been here long and

understand that this piece of legislation that we have before us has to pass. the mountain valley pipeline is in that piece of legislation. it still has some review processes, we're not asking for that. we're asking for the things that have been done multiple times proceeds on the proceeds on. that's all we're asking for. but with that, when you think about three, four months ago we started talking about the debt ceiling. we have to address the debt ceiling and we need to make sure that the value of us having the currency is stable. if we pass an amendment or any amendment, this amendment, my dear friend is going to introduce, or any amendment, we will default. it's as simple as that. we will default. now, it would be different if this had not gone through eight

years of scrutiny, court nine times, been looked at in every way shape and form. that would be different. nobody's seen fg. trying -- seen everything. trying to slide something through. that didn't happen. we are trying to move forward to get the energy that we need that we have. it was unbelievable when people thought maybe eel have iran produce more oil, maybe veal have -- maybe we'll have venezuela produce more. that's ridiculous. you can't lead that way and have the rest of the world look at you not do something for yourself and not do anything. we can help the rest of the world and help the world of global climate if we work together. i can assure you what we have right today before us is a product that's going to help an

awful lot of people, 4.5 million just in one state that depends on this product to give them some relief from the highest prices, probably about the highest prices in the country except for the northeast. so i would say there's so much at risk right now if we move forward and would pass this amendment that would go on this bill that would have to go back to the house with us not defaulting. we cannot take that risk. so i would ask all of my colleagues, all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, consider what we're doing. consider basically the value that this product brings, consider also the review this product has gone through and i think you will find it more than adequate, more than comforting that basically we have a product that will do an awful lot of good for america and humankind in the states and this will help us in ports sending l.n.g. to

our allies throughout the world. two billion cubic feet a day go into this line helping america be energy independent. i encourage all of my colleagues to vote respectfully against the amendment that will be offered to strip this out of the bill. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor.

the house passed a bipartisan bill to lift the debt limit and begin the process of reining in our nation's unchecked spending habits. from the time 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. this is what would happen if we were not raised the debt ceiling but the democrat led senate and republican mud house in the immigrant white house bipartisanship was and is a necessity.

republicans for our part were clear that any increase in the debt ceiling must come with spending reforms. otherwise it would be like maxing out your credit card and then asking to raise the credit limit so you can borrow more money without having an adult conversation about how you'll pay the money back. now, in the real world that is what would happen. you have to have that conversation or they would be no increase in your credit card limit. only in washington, only in the nation's capital would it be even argued that you could raise the debt limit without talking about spending reforms. and what has happened is a national debt has ballooned to more than $31.4 trillion. that is a number that i doubt

anybody here in the chamber could tell us how many zeros follow that 31.4. the american are clearly unhappy with what they see as happenings here when it comes to control spending. a recent poll found that 60% of adults think that government spends too much and they are right. they are frustrated by the unnecessary and wasteful spending and they are eager for congress to do the reasonable rational thing which is to begin to get our financial house in order. that is precisely what republicans demanded throughout this process, necessary fiscal reform as part of the debt ceiling negotiation. instead of stepping up and doing

its 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 billion 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 is helpful to remember that it was in january where we actually hit the debt ceiling in what has happened since then is the treasury secretary has engaged in what euphemistically be called extraordinary measures in order to pay the bills as the money comes in for tax revenue.

now she has told us the next day which is presumably the default date after extraordinary measures were exhausted would be june the fifth. that is monday to that is monday. the president has known since january that this day would come and he's refuse to negotiate and he has led us into this scenario where unless congress acts by june 5 we will breach the debt limit and began the default on paying our bills for the nation. i don't have to remind anybody that inflation is a result of some of the spending habits of the previous congress particularly our democratic side. they were happy to spend roughly $2.3 trillion last year and strictly partyline 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 hard-working american families have found their standard of living reduced because they simply can't afford to keep up with the increasing cost as a result of inflation and the second thing that has happened in order to try to deal with this hidden tax the federal reserve has had to raise interest rates were which is slow down the economy even more. why in the world would president biden as a responsible public official refused to negotiate when he knows 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? president biden stuck to his no negotiations, no reforms position for literally months. even though 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 to save and grow act.

he lured president biden to the go shooting table and move the compromise bill through the house and i think the back story about speaker mccarthy's leadership is that president biden didn't dream in a million years after a the difficult race for speaker that we saw in january that speaker mccarthy would be able to unify republicans in the house of representatives to pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling. that's what the limit, save, grow act was. i think president biden was shocked that he was able to get that done. i congratulate him for it. change the whole dynamic of this negotiation. now that the house has acted the ball is in our corporate this chamber will soon vote on the

carthy biden agreement and now is the time for the senate to do its job. our job is not simply to accept or to rubberstamp what the house passed. that has 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 committee. members didn't have the opportunity to weigh in our shape the legislation at that level or even the final text. given the time constraints wholly created by president bidens to lay in refusal to negotiate this rushed process

was completely unavoidable. we didn't have to get on the precipice of the default in order to act. if president biden had done his job responsibly and engage in negotiations that he finally did at an earlier point, much earlier. the president dragged its feet for several months leaving the narrowest possible window where we could avoid a further crisis. this is not how this should have played out. that doesn't mean that our hands are tied behind our backs. we are the senate. the senate is not required as i said to rubberstamp the house bill. we have the opportunity to amend this legislation to 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 and the senator from alaska and senator cotton i believe has also spoken on that publicly. 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 we go back into it 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 a 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 ang in north korea or vladimir putin or president xi. it's easy to see the threats are not diminishing. they are getting more and more serious which means a sequestration of the defense department's spending by automatic operation of law is an acceptable. so senators on both sides want amendments and members want to make changes to try to improve the bill and as i said the senate should not be cut out at the process due to president biden's foot-dragging. we still have time before the january the fifth deadline where the senate can move through the amendment process fairly quickly. we could do it today. we have ample time to vote on

amendments and send an amendment version back to the house for final passage. and i might add there is no reason for the majority leader to block the amendment process. senators deserve an opportunity to vote on amendments and to help the majority leader will not stand in the way of both 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 to rein in our nation's spending habits but it's not a magic pill for the government's chronic financial troubles. america's $31.4 billion that has developed over decades. so it's unreasonable to expect we are going to turn that around with the passage of one bill but we can't start and we should

start and we know the pandemic accelerated these problems. we have 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 president biden's request to her democratic colleagues have used the rose listened to go on to partisan spending sprees. first came the $1.9 billion 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 use that money to do everything from fund a supersized irs to taxpayer

provided subsidies for rich people to buy electric vehicles. so i'm glad the speaker was successful in 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 clawback some of that money including $27 billion in unspent covid funds into redirect a reported $20 billion in irs funding and 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 in the fight to write america's financial ship. as i said this bill is the beginning of that fight. it's not the end and i know many of you including the senator would like for us to be able 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 is in the majority. matters who controls the 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 appropriations committee opportunities to shape the individual spending bills and

address america's spending habits. once it's voted out a committee all 100 senators should have that opportunity to shape and improve the legislation. once these bills are completed they are supposed to pass both chambers and to be signed into law by september 30 every year. that didn't happen in 2021 or 2022. the democratic senator the georgia leader refused to allow us to pass a single appropriations bill last year forcing us into the process of considering a passing an omnibus appropriation bill. that's not the way this is supposed to be done. congress cannot continue to operate like this with last-minute spending bills in backroom negotiations and no way to gain the public's trust to

run the federal government. we need to return to a transparent and regular process where every elected member of congress has the opportunity to participate in budgeting and deciding what the appropriate expenditure of taxpayer dollars should be. we knew this day 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 delayed -- the senate is preparing to pass this bill that no member of this body of the member -- an ability in writing. 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. today senators deserve the opportunity to amend this bill and as i said to make it better if they came and let all of our colleagues have a say in this process and i urge the majority leader to allow that process to go forward with an up or down amendment vote. mr. president i yield the floor.

about this budget deal and if you believe the number one job of the federal government is to defend this nation that we have made a serious mistake in this bill. i have heard house leaders suggest this bill fully funds the military. for that to be true you would have to believe the military is okay if you cut their budget

$42 billion below inflation for pay the party of ronald reagan would never allow inflation to reduce defense capabilities. this bill the topline number locks and lashed ships for the negative time china is going to spend dramatically. in 24 and 25 we are going to cap spending at a level we can't expand and in the same period of time china is going to go from 310 ships over to your period to four and 40. less money for the rains less money for the army les ships for the navy in a time of great complex. not a penny in this bill to help ukraine defeat putin. they are going on the offensive and we need to send a clear message to putin that when it comes to your invasion of ukraine we will support the ukrainians to ensure your loss. if we don't do that we are going

to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. senator cotton. i'm going to yield to him. but we are going to take some time to explain to you why those of us who believe the number one job of the federal government to defend the nation but that concept has been abandoned and we are going to insist and fight until we find a way to rectify some of this harm. with that i will yield to my good friend. >> and i can assure my friend from south carolina that senator cotton will be here. what i want to say mr. president is what i have been saying all along this year since the biden budget was announced. the world is in the most

dangerous situation we have seen since world war ii. and this biden budget which is now enshrined in the debt ceiling bill is woefully inadequate and it amounts to a cut in defense capabilities. it sounds like you could call it an increase. inflation is running at 7% so we will 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 billion more in order to give us the capability that we need to rip out war in the pacific and so i just have to say that the fact that this is being called the victories by some people on that side of the aisle is absolutely

inaccurate. pundits around the country had called this budget i'm not inadequate and now for some reason the agreement that the speaker has made is being applauded. the numbers don't lie and i will tell you and i'll say this to my friends we have got three or four years to get ready for the time when xi jinping, the dictator of 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

results by 2027 but we need to make those decisions this year. we don't need to put them off until next year and we certainly don't need to say we are going to go with the biden cuts on readiness and do more next year. that is woefully inadequate and then i'll yield to my friend from alaska, it is easy to hide hide -- i will yield to my friend from a arkansas. it's easy to hide inadequacies in defense budgets. people still get their social security check and their paychecks. when it comes home to roost for us is when the conflict breaks out. we were ready for world war ii.

and when 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 had the ability to avoid conflicts and this budget simply does not do that. i will yield the floor to my friend from arkansas. >> mr. president after weeks of negotiating an opposite and president president of house of representative pass the legislation raising the debt limit to establish funding caps for the next two years. it's a compromise legislation and their good parts and bad parts. i want to commend speaker mccarthy were a number of victories. this bill improves the

infrastructure projects and cuts funding for president biden's army of irs agents and saves american taxpayers tens of millions of dollars by clawing back covid funds. while it doesn't go as far as i might like it reduces spending to last year's levels which is better than even more spending and taxes as democrats imposed. domestic spending will return to pre- ban to make levels. emergency legislation by -- should not reset the federal government budget for perpetuity but i sympathize with the speaker strength in the small house authority in negotiating this seems to prioritize welfare over our military. they are a victories in this bill to prevent the fall. unfortunately this bill poses a mortal risk to our national security by cutting our defense

budget and i cannot support it as grave danger is over the horizon. it raises defense spending by 3.2% and last year that was true face value. inflation was 6% last year. when you get a 3% raise prices go up by 6% even a small child can tell you your money won't go as far and your family will have to tighten its belt. and it gets worse next year when the defense budget will grow by only 1%. who thinks joe biden will get inflation to pre-pandemic levels? even if they did inflation would grow twice as fast as the defense budget causing even more real cuts to families. of all this bill contains an automatic 1% sequester based on last year's budget. that means domestic spending will go up and defense spending

will go down if the sequester kicks in. let me repeat that. this sequester takes effect democrats will get more welfare spending will 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, the cut this year in real dollars a worse cut in real dollars for 2025 and it automatic sequester based on last year spending bills will threaten devastating cuts to the defense budget at a time when we can least afford it to the bipartisan national defense strategy mission report recommends a real increase in defense spending about three to 5% annually over inflation. this bill would cut real

spending by more than 5% in two years effectively slashing tens of millions of dollars in interest. if we continued our recent bipartisan cuts in increasing the defense budget from president biden's irresponsible budget proposals we could afford for additional aircraft carriers, 500 fighter jets. more than 91,000 stinger missiles or half a million javal and anti-tank missiles all vital to our defense and the defense of ukraine in taiwan. while we surrender our lead in the road or enemies are catching up a last year russia increased israel 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% in and this bill as i have said will only make matters worse. for years washington has gotten defense spending. the budget should shape our defense needs and indeed it cannot shaped our defense needs. our defense needs have to shape our budget. china doesn't become less aggressive or russia less pretentious or iran less extreme because our military is -- 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 towards a

nuclear bomb. russia has unleashed the largest european invasion since the second world war. china's plotting to cut defense to taiwan. our military defense supply chains are broke and. at the same time our border defenses will effectively collapse and criminal aliens -- we need a military to match moment. protecting the safety and security of our people is our first and most fundamental responsibility. we cannot shortchange the military today without grave risks to tomorrow. the ones we buy this here will be the ones we feel than 2027. a time by which china will be at its greatest strength compared with united states can and when the war is most likely. and no holding firm on defense priorities isn't always easy and

in their parts of this bill that i support but i cannot support the bill because it does not adequately fund our military. supporters of the bill contend the situation isn't as bad as i make it out to be. their arguments don't hold up under skirt me. the claim that we could still get more defense spending through a supplemental or some other backdoor spending cut this control the budget -- which devastated our military to present obama -- i won't vote for any disaster. as i've explained this sequester in this bill actually produces more domestic spending than the bills for provisions which encourages irresponsible democrats to trigger sequester. others who claim they can find efficiencies in the pentagon to make up the difference. i don't disagree there's to trim

in some places. no serious person thinks it's enough to make up for tens of billions of dollars in cuts. moreover they assume the biden administration will put a readiness ahead of the social engineering. i'm skeptical on that one when they start looking for efficiencies. other supporters have shrugged in the commonly used. rarely persuasive argument that the bill may be bad but it's too late. but it was and it remains our job to craft an alternative. we hear lots of things that adds to these big bills getting in the strike. still. we know from recent experience the last two national defense authorization act that a higher defense number is nearly 400 votes in the house and more than 80 votes in the senate.

the first thing, the first thing they should have settled in these negotiations with larger defense budget the democrats have no argument in this indisputable increases did joe biden's defense budget garners large bipartisan majorities in the house and senate. why wasn't that settled? the result is congress with a republican house and a democratic senate did not make the defense budget worse and need to do get these budgets unified democratic congress. you he cannot vote for that curious result. takes a short-term increase in the debt ceiling to go back to the drawing board so be it. before we vote i would also ask all of my fellow senators do you feel more safe or less safe than he did a year ago? if you feel more safe by all means vote to/our defense budget

that is not, don't. join me in demanding the protect our nation. i yield the floor. >> the senator from south carolina. i want to couple met senator cotton for reminding us what her job in congress is to defend the nation and the outcome is that a time of growing conflict for reducing the navy for 296 ships in the navy today under this budget by 2025 that would be 286 if we continue with the biden budget would be 290. the chinese navy today is 340 and by 2025 they will have 400 by 2030 they will have 440. this budget box and a smaller u.s. navy and the time the chinese navy is growing dramatically. there's not a penny and this

budget to help beat putin. the navy is smaller, the army is smaller than marring core is. this is not a threat. this is a budget of political compromise for people who have lost sight of what the country needs. we need safety and security through to her. to my house colleagues i can't believe you did this. to the speaker i know you have a tough job. i like you but the party of ronald reagan has died. don't tell me that he defense budget that is $42 billion below inflation fully funds the military. don't tell me we can confront and challenge china. everybody in this body is patting themselves on the back that we think china's most existential threat to america. you are right. we did the chip sector we are doing things to help our economy combat china and at the moment 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 china when you are dispelling the american navy. how does this and? senator cotton is right we will be here until i get a commitment that we are going to rectify some of these problems. the ranking member of the appropriations committee susan collins has been vastly in the camp of fiscal responsibility and national security. this bill has taken the appropriations committee out at the game. the cr which kicks and cuts defense and increases non-defense making it hard for me to believe that we are going to do our preparation job. so what i want to do, i want a commitment from the leaders of this body that we are not pulling the plug on ukraine.

there is not a penny in this bill for future efforts to help ukraine to beat russia and gain on the battlefield in the coming days. i want to have a commitment will have a supplemental to make us better pull to deal with china. i want a commitment that we are not going to weaken our position in the mideast. there's a report out today that iran is planning to attack our troops and syria to drive us out. we are expanding weapons that need to be replenished and our military is weakening by the day. this budget we are 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 will 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. so to the members of this body we are staying here as long as it takes to get some commitment that we are going to reverse this debacle sooner rather than later. with that i yield to my good friend. this is from moscow. mr. presley is unanimous consent for 10 minutes for my remarks as well as 10 minutes for senator wicker before the vote. without objection. my colleagues are making a really important point of the national security implications of the bill that we are looking at voting on and i agree with what my colleagues have already said. speaker mccarthy has a difficult job and there's a lot of this debt agreement that is positive but the one thing we

are not doing here and by the way mr. president the most important thing we do is u.s. senators is have a strategy for the national defense of our nation during an incredibly dangerous time globally. we are not doing that. we need a strategy. already my good friend from south carolina mentioned some ideas on i'm going to touch on those. mr. president let's reiterate you sit on the armed services committee and 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. 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 and get what

does this budget agreement due? it cuts defense spending significantly as already mentioned. now some people will say well look at the top line. we have never had a higher top line, 800 plus billion dollars. mr. president as you know the actual real measure of how seriously are sequestered -- as the countries of the topline because of inflation over the years it's hard to compare the real measure of how serious we are in terms of what we are putting towards defense and the number one priority of the u.s. congress should be in my view is what percentage of our national wealth we are dedicating to defense. in this budget it will take us in the next two years with the cuts this year inflation adjusted cuts of four to 5% and

a nominal increase next year of 1% which would be a five to 6% cut. it will take us below the 3% of gdp number for defense for the first time since 1999. during the peace dividend era of the clinton administration. we will be below 3% of gdp. if you look at different periods of american history the korean war where almost 50% get mom, 8% ronald reagan built up almost 6% iraq afghanistan. we are going to go below 3%. hasn't happened since 1999 and before that it has almost never happen. in the history of the country the least in the 20th century and mr. president here's the most important point. in 1999 the threat to our nation wasn't nearly as dramatic and

serious as it is today. and nobody disagrees with that. so what this budget does it accepts the biden defense budget which is senator graham has are mentioned shrinks the army, shrinks the navy, shrinks the marine core. 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 an anemic numbers and in a bipartisan way, strong bipartisan way by the way democrats and republicans significantly plussed-up those budget numbers. last year 45 billion-dollar

increase to the biden budgets on the armed services committee that every single senator on the committee voted for except the one. about as bipartisan as you can get through the year before it was a 25 billion-dollar 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 knew it was and not sufficient to meet the challenges of today. but what happened? the music stopped and now of the sudden we are accepting the biden budget. i know democratic senators who think that is wrong. ..

that this president and his secretary of the fence put forth its $18 billion, which the armed services committee and a bipartisan way was already getting ready to agree to move forward and fund. i'm going to ask my colleague, what is funded? at a minimum left monday. were not going to bust out of the top light of this agreement. people take $18.480 billion irs health. pretty simple to be 100 -- zero. do we want more navy ships? more marines? or mom more irs this very

dangerous time? i think the answer is pretty clear. think the american people know the answer. so, mr. president, and her cotton already mentioned the idea the speakers talked about we need more efficiencies in the pentagon. i could not agree more. by the way the navy leadership right now, we need a lot more efficiencies out of that place. you have it navy secretary more focused on getting his climate plan out before his shipbuilding plan. the priorities and the department of the navy right now are remarkably misaligned with real world challenges. what are the real world challenges? mr. president i think you were there we had a brief from some of our top intelligence agency officials. it was a classified briefing i asked if this number was classified, they told me no.

they came out to the real chinese budget in it is about $700 billion. that is a big budget. a center cut mentioned there are increasing in real terms six, seven, 8%. cranking out ships. cranking out fifth generation aircraft. and we are going to cut the budget this year end dramatically cut it next year and go under 3% of gdp? at one of the most dangerous times the end of world war ii? senator cotton also mentioned the national defense commission that the congress authorized a number of years ago to look at the serious national security threat came back to the armed services committee two years ago and said what we need today of

to address the serious national security challenges from china, from russia, from iran is three -- 5% real growth on the defense budget. that was broadly accepted by democrats and republicans. as a matter fact i think one of the members of the national security commission is now the deputy secretary of defense in the biden administration. but we are not even close. we are going backwards. senator gramm's point about a supplemental to get leader schumer, the president to say we are going to have a supplemental for deterring authoritarian aggression is going to be critical. and i would cite mr. president of the majority of my democrats and republicans would support that. we need a serious robust defense

budget to deter war the young men and women who volunteer to serve in our military are asked to go fight a war need a strong budget so that they can come home victorious. not coming home in body bags. this is deadly serious business. we are 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 teresa supported army to provide and maintain a navy that is our job mr. president we are not doing it this rushed need to get seriously hopefully the next few days you'll deplore.

mr. president progressed i would ask announcements that i be right next to speak for up to 10 minutes? chris without objection very correct my colleagues today have all had the same concerns recognized the need for the debt limit the country is now up against we recognize the defense of the country is critical and necessary part of our responsibility as well. proposal right now, in order to raise the debt limit that part of it has a series of conditions with regards to what happens to the dollars the next two years we want to be able to raise the debt limit. we recognize that the defense of

our country and why, should as a part of the negotiation, why should repeat required to look at a reduction, a reduction in the amount of dollars necessary for our young men and women to defend our country. within the provisions of this bill is a reduction up to 1% of the existing budget. and yet order to do the appropriations process lift of 12 separate bills. twelve separate bills all have to be passed. the united states and not known for doing anything on time. and yet here we come up to the end of the fiscal year in october we've not seen appropriation bill on the floor yet. what we need to be able to do rather than have a 1% is have an

agreement on the appropriations committee come to the floor of the senate so we can address them. up or down but you have a full discussion and do it in a timely fashion. let's address the debt limit. but let's not penalize our ability to defend our country or perhaps more appropriately to say because not limit the ability of our young men and women perform to defend our country. my colleagues who do not do her job correctly with regard to this particular bill. number one of the go to a continuing resolution our defense budget goes down. but number two under the provisions of this bill the non- defense portions of this budget actually go up. so there is an incentive upon their incentive built into this to spend more on domestic

programs and spend less to defend our country which is our primary responsibility has how do we fix it at this late stage of the game? there are supplementals absently necessary. we have aggressive authoritarian throughout the world that are right now looking to see whether or not we are prepared and those individuals of the frontline specifically in ukraine. specifically looking as the south pacific. looking at taiwan to turn taiwan into a porcupine make it much less of a possible ability china will invade taiwan. but the other piece of this along with that that we have to do in appropriations process we get a chance to look at the defense bill and our other appropriation bills in a timely fashion so we do not have a continuing resolution in which the defense of our country loses

ground making it more for our country more for the young men and women who wear the uniform of this country. but that it would to say thank you to my colleagues have laid out some great numbers for all of us. with clearly laid out a path forward. take them up leadership the appropriations process be completed in a timely fashion there is a recognition supplemental funding will be necessary to confront throughout the world. with that yield the floor. correctly note the absence number nine. texas senator will be recognized for five minutes. >> without objection. i will yield my time. our next speaker is the ranking

member of appropriations committee. i just want to let one thing before she speaks. the chief of naval operations said we need 373 ships manned. when her 50 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 is it take to get 373? the cnl of the navy said to get through to 73 ships you've got to spend 5% above inflation for a sustained period of time. this bill is 2% below inflation. we are undercutting the ability of the navy to build the ships we need to defend america with that i recognize that her call and speak to senator from maine. >> mr. speaker, shortly the

senate will consider the debt ceiling passage the past last night they a strong vote. i commended the speaker or his hard work to prevent to be a disastrous with catastrophic consequences for our economy, for people who rely on important government programs. nevertheless mr. president there are two issues in this package that are very problematic. versus we've heard from my colleague is completely inadequate top line number for our national defense.

second is a harmful provision that would go into effect appropriation bills have not been signed into law. it would trigger an automatic across-the-board in our already inadequate defense budget. china and the domestic discretionary not about 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 offers to my colleagues. which i believe our solutions.

first the inadequacy of the defense budget. as my colleagues have very well described the defense budget submitted by president biden and included as the top line in this package is insufficient for the task implementing the national defense strategy. and a time when we face serious and growing threats around the world. as my friend and colleague from south carolina and alaska and have already described would actually shrink the size of your navy. we would end up with the fleet

of 291 ships. that is six chips fewer than two days late of 297 ships. it is further, further or whether 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. it is a growing to 400 ships in the next two years. the story is very similar if you look at the tactical aircraft. so we have a real problem. let me give you another example. it's an example all of us can relate to fill our cars with gas

or heat our homes. this budget request falls woefully short and fennec the fuel cost of our military. the government accountability office says dod fuel costs are likely to be 20% higher than the amount of money that is included in the president's budget. mr. president asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general milley what the results would be. he said it very clearly. it would translate into 20% fewer flying hours which would harm our military training and readiness. so that's a very concrete area for the president's budget is

clearly not going to be adequate. second, mr. president, is a harmful provision with the automatic 1% cut across the board. think about this if you're the secretary of defense. what say the appropriations bill is signed into law before the start of the fiscal year in october. does not matter. let's say the alleged branch appropriation bills is not signed into law by generate first of next year. 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? out in the world is the military going to enter into contracts if it does not know what it's budget is going to be despite the fact is appropriations bill pension signed into law. but because of the threat training over the department. so what do we do? i do not want to see her country default for the first time in history. i believe it would have catastrophic consequences but we need to fix these problems. the first problem of the defense budget could be addressed and remedied by having an emergency defense supplemental. that is what we need to do but that is what i would ask the

administration and colleagues on the other side of the aisle commit too. because we know it's up with the global threats that we face. we know nothing to deter russian aggression in ukraine. not adequate to the challenge we face from china. an emergency supplemental must be coming our way to remedy the problem. what should we do about the second problem? the threat of 1% indiscriminate 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 we need a commitment from the senate majority leader he will provide us with floor time. we will do our upmost to get every single one of the 12 appropriations bills marked up and reported up to the appropriations committee. then i am asking the senate majority leader to commit to bringing each of those bills to the senate floor. or individually as what we used to do when we would pare a couple of the bills together. but it is essential and i would implore the democratic leader to provide the commitment that he

will bring in each of the appropriation 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 is the path forward for us. an emergency defense supplemental to make up the woefully inadequate budget. from this administration or the department of defense. our national security. and second, to prevent the 1% cut from ever being triggered. a commitment 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 is catastrophic default for our country. thank you, mr. president. >> a senator from south carolina for quick thank you went 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 admit you got a drinking problem. what she is sick texting is knowledge the obvious. built on the defense site is an adequate to the threats we face. a bill that funds the pentagon below inflation is not fully funded. she is trying to get us to wake up to the reality that if we do not speak about defeating putin now the ukrainians are on the offense will be undercut. i will never let this happen

again. as long as i am here to let people negotiate behind closed doors and not tell me what they are doing on defense. i blame myself for not being more involved in more active. because in my wildest dreams i never believed the republican party would take the biden budget that they have attacked for a year end celebrated as fully funded. i know who i am dealing with now. here's what reagan told the russians trust but verify. i will never ever trust again. because you are behind your name that you are 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 do not commit to an appropriation 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 for a lack of a better or the continuing resolution if we do not do our legislative business, increases nondefense spending, decreases defense spending. i thought we were republicans. came up with that great idea? the top line is inadequate. cr is devastating. what bothers me the most is that we would put the department of defense in this position. we are playing with the men and women lives in the military. their ability to defend themselves as some chess game in

washington this is checkers at best. the fact you would punish the military because we cannot do our job as politicians is a pretty sad moment for me. but people in the somebody 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 i will make an amendment and how many days it takes to get this right i do not want to fall on the debt. we are not leaving town. some of this madness.

i need to raise the debt ceiling right now for 90 days no strings attached to give us a chance to stop this insane approach to national security. i am supposed to talk to president of ukraine this afternoon. i would like to be of the tell him something. by the way of done a great job with the money we have given you. not one soldier has died. the weapons used by ukraine weakened and bloodied are about to take back territory he is wondering what does this mean for the future? i want to be able to tell him i have assurance from this body we are not going to leave you hanging. it is in our interest to beat putin. i do not like a war more than anyone else. putin gets with invading ukraine their ghost taiwan but if you don't get that you are just 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 is a deterrence for china. if putin does lose he will keep grabbing territory before we have a war between russia and nato. this is a big, big deal i wrought is coming up with a plan to drive the middle east. that just came out today. china is building, senator collins said they're going from 340 ships, to 440 ships by 2030. we are going from 296 to 290. that cannot be good response cannot say with a straight face that this military budget aggression. that it adequately allowed to defeat. you cannot say with a straight

face that this budget represents a threat to america faced. military budget should be based on threat not political deals to avoid default. nobody wants to default. we are not going to default. default hanging over my head as a reason to neuter the military at a time we need it most. i get it. this budget is the end of the discussion and we do not fix it your sons and daughters are going to have more or not (were going to send a signal to the bad guys we are all talk. what we are going to be doing is putting the world on a course of sustained conflict rather than deterrence.

the last time people did this was in the 30s they want to believe hitler's was not serious about killing all the jews. then we wanted some land he wrote a book and nobody believed it. iranian ayatollahs speaks every day. china open line. 400 feet yesterday. they are testing us every day. out of line, folks, we are not leading until we get a path to fix this problem. susan collins, michael trip collins remain gave us that path. i yield.

the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you. i've been informed that shortly

the majority leader will come to the floor and announce his commitment and the body's commitment to do a supplemental to make sure that the damage done by this bill is at least partially corrected. this bill puts our military behind the eight ball. there's not one penny in this bill for ukrainian assistance. as i speak today, ukraine is engaged in a fight for its life. they're going on the offensive. i have high hopes in the coming days or weeks that they will liberate part of their territory occupied by russia. the assistance we have provided in a bipartisan fashion and our european allies has made all the difference in the world. we were told after the invasion, kyiv would fall in four days. 600 some days later they are still fighting. the russian army has been

weakened because of the weapons we've provided. i think appreciate the bipartisan support to make sure we win a war in ukraine without one american soldier being involved. if we can defeat putin in ukraine, that means china will who feelly take notice and putin will be stopped because if you don't stop him in ukraine, he's going to keep going and we'll be in a war between nato and russia. so i want to -- i appreciate all the hard work of the staff to make a statement to the people who are facing threats from china, from russia, from iran that we have not abandoned you. there is not a dime in this bill to deal with the threats i think we face from china consistent with the threat level. there's money in this bill, but not enough. so i'm hoping that those who are watching this in ukraine understand that senator schumer and mcconnell are going to say in a moment we have not abandoned you. we're going to keep helping you, as you struggle to liberate your

country from the war criminal putin. whether you believe we should be helping ukraine or not, i do. people in this body on both sides of the aisle in the senate understand that putin's invasion is the defining moment of the 21st century, that if he gets away with this, there goes taiwan and the world will begin to crumble. the world order we've created since world war ii would be jeopardized. war crimes on an industrial scale by putin cannot be forgiven or forgotten. to the brave men and women in ukraine, help is on the way. to the people standing up to china, living in its shadow in taiwan, help is on the way. to the american military who is underfunded because of this bill, help is on the way. for three days i and some others have been screaming to high heaven that what the house did

was wrong. it's right to want to control spending, and there are some good things in this bill. but it was wrong to give a defense number inconsistent with the threats we face. i do believe that we're on track to right some of those wrongs. to my colleagues, i am not the perfect as the enemy of the good. i vote for for my share of bipartisan bills and get crap for it, like most of you. but as long as i'm here, i'm going to speak about the need of the federal government to get the defense budget right. budgets are based on threats, not political deals. and if you think the world is safer, you've missed a lot. so hopefully in a few minutes there will be an announcement that puts us on a course correction to undo some of the damage and there will be a clear signal from both the leader and

the minority leader, senator mcconnell, that help is on the way to those who live in the shadow of totalitarian governments and those who are on the battlefield. to my american citizen friends, i wish there were no war anywhere. i wish china wasn't the way they are. i wish the ayatollah didn't want a nuclear weapon and would use it if he could. i wish that putin would not have invaded ukraine. i wish that the world was different than it is. but if you want peace and you want stability, it comes at a high price. the good news for us is not one american soldier has died evicted russia from ukraine. the ukrainians have fought like tigers. it is in our national security interest to provide them the weapons and the technology to keep this fight up. their win is our win.

so i look forward to hearing the statement that i think is forthcoming. it does not fix this bill totally, but it begins to march in the right direction. to my colleagues, thank you for listening. thank you for working with me and others. victory for ukraine. i yield the floor. i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the following joint statement between senator mcconnell and me be participated in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i know of no further debate on the motion to proceed. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not, the question is on adoption of the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 84, h.r. 3746, an act to provide for

a responsible increase to the debt ceiling. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the only amendments in order be the following to h.r. 3746 -- paul, 107, braun, 91, marshall, 110, sullivan, 125, hawley, 93, kennedy 104, cotton 106, budd 134, lee 98, cane 101, kennedy -- kaine, 101. kennedy 102. that at 7:30 p.m., if any of these amendments have been offered, the senate vote on the amendments in the order listed, with 60 affirmative votes required for coption, with the exception -- for adoption, with the exception of the lee, kennedy and kaine amendment. that there be two minutes for debate equally divided prior to each vote, and six minutes prior

to the kennedy amendments. following disposition of the above amendments, the bills be -- the bill be considered read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill. as amended, if amended, with 60 affirmative votes required for passage, all without intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that all votes after the first be ten-minute votes in length. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i am pleased, so pleased, to announce that both sides have just locked in an agreement that enables the senate to pass legislation tonight, avoid voiding default. for the information of my -- avoiding default. this is what will happen on the

floor, in a few minutes, the senate will begin holding votes on 11 amendments, 10 from the republican side, one from the democratic side. to finish our work tonight, after the first amendment, we are limiting each vote to ten minutes. so i ask my colleagues to stay in their seats or near the floor during the votes. let's keep this process moving quickly. after we finish voting on the amendments, we are immediately considering final passage and by passing this bill we will avoid default tonight. america can breathe a sigh of relief, a sigh of rae leaf, because -- of relief, because there this process with are avoiding default. from the start, avoiding default has been our north star. the consequences of default would be catastrophic. it would almost certainly cause another recession. it would be a nightmare for our economy and millions of american families.

it would take years, years to recover from. but for all the ups and downs and twists and turns it took to get here, it is so good for this country that both parties have come together at last to avoid default. i thank my colleagues, both sides of the aisle, for their cooperation. let's finish the job and send this very important bipartisan bill to the president's desk tonight. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: mr. president, i call up amendment number 107 and ask it be reported by number. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. paul, proposes an amendment numbered 107. mr. paul: the biden-mccarthy debt deal will do nothing to avert the looming debt crisis, a debt deal that creates no limits to the debt accumulation over two years is not fiscally responsible and should be rejected. my amendment replaces the spending caps with caps that balance the budget in five years and limits the extension of debt to $500 billion and i urge a yes vote. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: respect to my

colleague, i strongly urge a no vote. this amendment would create catastrophic damage throughout the federal economy, with spending cuts as much as 37% by 2028, putting federal programs like medicare, medicaid, border security and transportation into extremely difficult circumstances. this is not the america that americans expect and we should not allow this vote to pass. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: