this done and done quickly and obviously we all want to see that president tax priorities addressed which is making not only tax 2017 tax extending but making them permanent. that is certainly the priority for most if not all of the republican senators here in the congress. we will continue to work together in a way that ultimately gets us across the finish line and helps put the president's agenda in place. those priorities are very clear as outlined our budget resolution helping with what the house is doing i think we are on a good track to achieve success. if we achieved success it's can be a good thing not only for the president but for this country. >> are you defying the president was going on with your own budget plans and

strong enforcement of what the house is working on. >> i think you made it clear for a long time that he would prefer one big beautiful bill and we are playing with that too. if they can produce one big beautiful bill to work with him to get it across the finish line but we believe the president also likes option already. the legislation that and voting on tomorrow. >> you can continue watching this program on our website, over to capitol hill as the u.s. senate returns from a brief recess live coverage here on c-span2.

mr. grassley: soon we'll be voting on the nomination of kash patel to serve as director of the fbi. i have spoken with my colleagues on this nomination within the last couple days, but i want to spend a few more minutes urging my colleagues to vote for mr. patel's confirmation. mr. patel's career shows that he's a man who will fight to defend the constitution and fight to expose corruption. this is exactly the kind of experience the fbi director needs.

for almost a decade now, mr. patel served as a public defender, defending the constitutional rights of least popular people in america. after serving as public defender, mr. patel joined the department of justice under democrat president obama as counterterrorism prosecutor in national security division. in this role, he investigated and he prosecuted many important cases, including the world cup bombing in uganda in 2010, for which he received the award of excellence. in 2017, representative devon

nunes asked mr. patel to join the house permanent select committee on intelligence to uncover the truth about russiagate, and mr. patel did uncover the truth. mr. -- through tireless work in regard to that investigation, mr. patel showed that crossfire hurricane was based on fraudulent, even discredited infor information, actually paid for by the democratic national committee and the clinton campaign. after exposing the russia gate scandal in congress, mr. patel then went on to serve in senior national security positions in the national security council, then as a deputy director of

national intelligence and as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense. mr. patel managed large intelligence and defense bureaucracies, identified and countered national security threats, and prosecuted and defended the accused. he's done this while fighting for transparency and accountability in government. we all know that will things are transparent. the people that are connected with him are going to be more accountable. and we also know that the public's business in this great democracy of ours ought to be public. mr. patel experienced and mr. patel had vision in why, is why

he's been endorsed by organizations representing more than 680,000 law enforcement officers and by dozens of former and current fbi agents, state attorneys general, and u.s. attorneys. these people understand law enforcement. these people understand the rule of law. and these people who have endorsed mr. patel trust that he will do the right thing. and we should as well today by voting for mr. patel. i want to speak now to those who have been viciously opposed mr. patel's nomination. at the heart of their opposition is the fear that he'll act like democrats did when democrats

were in power. so these democrats are afraid that the fbi under mr. patel's leadership will use lawfare against political opponents like the fbi used lawfare against president trump and others. these democrats are afraid he'll use subpoena power and coordinate with the media to target those seeking accoun accountability, just like democrats did against mr. patel, and also against my own investigative staff. these democrats are afraid that he'll deploy the fbi to conduct

investigations and engage surveillance against those who disagree, like they did with catholic families and parents expressing concern at school board meetings. these democrats are afraid that he'll retaliate against whistleblowers like the biden administration did against fbi and irs agents who blew the whi whistle. after reviewing mr. patel's record and listening to his testimony at his hearing, i'm conv convinced that these fears that the democrats have are unfounded. mr. patel's leadership will not be business as usual in the fbi

as it has been in previous administrations when the fbi, the people on the seventh floor, not the local agents, were used for political weaponization. mr. patel told us at our hearing he wants to reduce fbi involvement in politics and domestic surveillance. mr. patel wants to end political investigations and strengthen protections for whistleblowers. mr. patel wants to make the fbi accountable once again, get back the reputation that the fbi has had historically for law enfor enforcement, and he wants to hold the fbi accountable to

congress, to the president, and most importantly, to the people they serve, the american taxpayer. my democratic colleagues often lament that mr. patel won't protect the independence of the fbi, but there's a fine line between independent judgment and being accountable. the fbi has been accountable all too long. my democratic colleagues decried the recent firing of fbi agents and somehow want to blame mr. patel for those personal deci decisions. that isn't fair obviously because he's not running the fbi. as my oversight has shown, many of those fired agents were behind the retaliation against multiple fbi whistleblowers.

they ruined lives and careers for their own political ends. they should be held accountable, and, yes, they should have been and have been fired. the fbi has also kept too many secrets. it has hid from the duly elected members of congress the origins of the lawfare against president trump, which we all know and which i've shown in my exposure of a lot of e-mails was in large part from the anti-trump agent, timothy tebow. and now based on testimony from soon-to-be deputy attorney

general todd blanche, we know that the biden doj and fbi violated process by not sharing evidence with trump's defense team that could have helped trump's case against the government. if that happened -- now just think, if that happened on the democrats' side, you wouldn't hear the end of it. yet, you can't hear a peep today from my democratic colleagues. the government hid its investigations into those who dared to question the democrat party line. but then when it's convenient for political reasons, the fbi would leak or coordinate with the media to hide the truth and to smear people.

we need to restore transparency. we need to restore oversight. we need to restore accountability at the fbi, particularly on that top floor of the hoover building. mr. patel is exactly the man that can do that. and it's why those who benefit from the status quo have come so forcefully against him with a relentless smear campaign. mr. patel is a reformer, and we need a reformer in the fbi. we need to restore the public trust, and we need to return the fbi to its core mission, which is to keep people on the --

people on our streets safe. bottom line, it's the people doing the everyday work at the fbi, enforcing the law, solving crimes, that the people on the seventh floor of the hoover building should be doing instead of thinking how we can get at our political enemies. i will be voting to confirm mr. patel, and i'll urge my colleagues to do the same thing. i yield. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: mr. president, as i hear the senior senator from iowa, it's like i'm living in another world. i'm not alleging that mr. patel has an enemies list. he's the one that has said that.

i'm not alleging that he would use law enforcement against donald trump's political enemies. he's the one that has said that. and so i will be voting no, and i hope i'm wrong. i hope the senior senator from iowa is right. but i have to say if somebody has been in politics and worked for the united states congress and then worked as an organizer of the january 6 insurrection and has been pretty explicit in how law enforcement should be used, then we probably should assume that we shouldn't believe the sanitized version that he presented during the nomination hearings, but rather that we should believe everything else that he's ever

done and said, and that is why i will oppose this nomination. mr. president, i ask consent that these remarks appear in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schatz: mr. president, the price of just about everything is going up right now. anyone that has been to the grocery store in the past few weeks knows how hard it is to find a dozen eggs. since the president was inaugurated, the price of eggs has gone up by 15%, which is the single biggest monthly increase in ten years, the price of coffee is up 25% and everything from gas to cars to insurance is the question getting more -- is getting more expensive. donald trump knows the main thing people elected him to do was to lower prices and rest assured he is working day and night to fix it. everybody knows that the best way to lower costs for

individual americans is to cut taxes for billionaires. everybody knows that. if eggs are $8 where you're living, obviously cut taxes for billionaires. if coffee is increasingly expensive, cut taxes for billion theirs. that is the very -- billionaires. that is the very first thing that republicans in the new congress decided to do is to cut taxes for the richest people who ever exist. and they're going to do it by making regular people pay. now, that might sound like a partisan accusation, and of course on some level it is, but if you're sitting at home listening to the chatter about one big beautiful bill or two bills and you're wondering what it all means, here's what they are doing. they want to cut taxes for billionaires to the tune of about $4.5 trillion.

$4.5 trillion. and because they already blew up the federal deficit in 2017, and because there are some house republicans, and maybe some senate republicans, who won't vote for a package that increases the deficit, they need to find savings elsewhere. it is very hard to find $4.5 trillion of savings. so what are they doing? they're having to cut programs and services that help people on a daily basis. hundreds of billions of dollars from social security, medicare, medicaid, the affordable care act subsidies and food assistance. they are slashing funding for cancer research and disaster discovery and schools and national parks, they are laying off people in agencies,

one-third of whom are veterans. this is not for the holy grail of efficiency. food is rotting at the dock, medicine is rotting. the national park service is already backed up. normally it takes one minute to get into the national park, it's cold outside, it's taking 90 minutes to get into national parks. that's not efficiency. they are laying off probation ordinary people -- probation ordinary people, they are laying people off, someone who performed well, the united states government is saying you are doing so good, we want to do something important, you get put into a probation category and then you get laid off. why? because they need to find $4.5 trillion worth of savings. that's what's going on. as we speak, there are multiple

outbreaks of disease and illness within the united states. we're in the middle of the worst flu season in a decade, 13,000 americans dead, nero viruses have skyrocketed and 06 cases -- 60 cases of the bird flu, and not to mention if you can find eggs, it is $8 or $10. in texas, 58 people, mostly children, have gotten meals, and that is to say nothing about the ee bowla -- ebola virus. president trump is on it. we learned yesterday that after doge fired officials at the department of agriculture who were working on containing the bird flu, they had to backtrack to try to rehire them.

sometimes they don't have these people's e-mail addresses. sorry, can you please come back? i don't know how to find you. this is not efficiency. this is an arson job so they can generate savings so they can shovel $4.5 trillion to the people on that stage at inauguration. that's what this is. we are less than two months into the year and we've already had four major deadly aviation disasters, including one right here in washington over the potomac. and trump is firing hundreds of faa employees, people who have jobs like maintenance mechanic, information specialists, safety assistant. they actually asked a bunch of air traffic controllers to quit. we're short air traffic controllers. we've been short air traffic

controllers for six or seven years. as a matter of fact, when i was chairman on a relevant committee, we worked on a bipartisan basis to put a lot of money to hire more air traffic controllers, you can be a conservative and think the government should be smaller, i assume nobody would think we should lay off air traffic controllers, and if we do that, it should be something else more urgent than air traffic control is at stake. let's understand what is at stake. what's at stake is $4.5 trillion of tax cuts for the wealthiest people to ever walk the planet. we are less than a month away from the march 14, funding deadline and we don't have top line numbers let alone full committee bills. we are nowhere near a defense bill. but the only thing republicans are focused on right now,

urgently, is cutting taxes for billionaires. people are dying because of the flu and the bird flu. let's cut taxes for billionaires. airplanes are falling out of the sky. let's cut taxes for billionaires. people are losing their homes in wildfires in los angeles and floods in kentucky. let's cut taxes for billionaires. families can't afford their health care or housing no matter how they work. let's cut taxes for billionaires. kids are falling behind in school, with a third of the eighth graders below in reading skills. let's cut taxes for billionaires. trump is cutting funding for cancer research and disease prevention. let's cut taxes for billionaires. thousands of national park service workers fired.

i know what we should do. why don't we solve a -- shovel a bunch of money to a bunch of billionaires. millions of people are on the verge of starvation and disease because president trump suspended one of our primary forms of foreign policy, usaid. what is their solution? not to exert any pressure on the omb or anything else, let's cut taxes for billionaires. everything come downs to this. why? it is the main thing they think about. there are so many smart people on the other side of the aisle, so many people who accomplished so much in their careers, and they are lighting it on fire for this man. the solution to every problem, big or small, domestic or global, complex or simple, is to cut taxes for billionaires.

this is their project, this is their reason for being. whatever else motivated them to run for office in the first place, this is the first thing they're doing instead of a bunch of other stuff. it doesn't have to be like this. you can be a republican and give them their cabinet and their judges and justices, but my god, stand up for this place. why would you run for office and then just remove your frontal lobe? and do whatever this man thinks. it doesn't matter how much harm comes to your hospitals or your schools or your roads or the one-third of federal workers who are veterans.

the solution always is to cut taxes for billionaires. i yield the floor.

as of today the senate has ãã the fastest rate getting nominees through the senate confirmation process since 2001. we are encouraged with how that has been going we owe that to

our colleagues who have been willing to step up and very committed to getting them across the finish line, despite, i might add, a lot of democrat resistance, they try to make it hard but as we continue to grind to the process we been successful in getting 18 done tomorrow we will do cash patel we have a couple more that we will tee up for next week. with regard to legislation as you all know senator graham of the budget committee last week reported out a budget resolution and thank them for doing that, that tease up an opportunity for us to move that across the floor. as you all know, that unlocks budget reconciliation which will follow from it. this particular budget resolution i think as you know addresses the presidents priority securing the border. in implementing and putting in place as immigration policies rebuilding military and parading energy dominance for the country. it's focused on those three

things border, national security and energy. the house is working on a different budget resolution and we certainly wish them all the success in moving it. we would like to get the tax piece done quickly and we would like to see the presidents tax priorities at rest not making not only the tax 2017 taxes extending them but making them permanent. that is certainly the priority for most if not all of the republican senators here in our conference. in a way that gets us across the finish line. and helps put the president's agenda in place.

if we achieve success it's gonna be a good thing not only for the president but for this country. >> are you defying the president by going ahead with your own budget plan, he pretty strongly enforced with houses working on. >> i think he's made it clear for a long time that he would prefer one big beautiful bill. we are fine with that if the house can produce one big beautiful bill we are prepared to work with them to get that across the finish line. but we believe that the president also likes option reality and that it addresses the three critical priorities period ago that president trump took the oath of office just down the hall here in the rotunda. and 30 days later, he continues

to betray the promises that he made to the american people when he was on the campaign trail. he promised he would focus on reducing prices and costs that the american people have to bear. in fact, costs are going up. he promised to fight for working americans, the forgotten americans, but with the help of the richest man in the world, elon musk, he is actually going about cutting very important public services to the american people in order to make way for and pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest in this country, people like elon musk. and i come to the senate floor today because we are in the process of setting up the framework in which that is going to happen. republicans are bringing to the

floor probably tomorrow a budget resolution that will set in motion that process of providing tax cuts for the very wealthy at the expense of other americans. that is a great betrayal by the trump administration. but, mr. president, before i talk about that great betrayal by donald trump, i want to talk about another betrayal that is going on as we speak. and that is his betrayal of the ukrainian people and everybody who yearns for and fights for freedom and democracy around the world. what we are witnessing is not america first. are witnessing america in retreat. the ukrainian people for over three years now have been fighting against the brutal

onslaught by vladimir putin. they're fighting to protect their sovereignty, their way of life. and president trump is throwing the ukrainian people under the bus and at the same time betraying people who fight for freedom around the world. you know, donald trump likes to pick on people he perceives as weaker. we all know that he made fun of people with disabilities. he likes to pick on people who have differences. but when it comes to other bullies, he is a weak, weak person. he backs down. and that is what we are witnessing with respect to vladimir putin. donald trump is backing down. in fact, he just today blamed the ukrainians and president

zelenskyy for putin's attack on the ukrainian people. in fact, he called zelenskyy, president zelenskyy a dictator when it's vladimir putin that is the dictator and launched the assault on the ukrainian people. we should all be ashamed, ashamed, mr. president. i met with president zelenskyy at the munich conference over the weekend along with many of my senate colleagues, a bipartisan delegation. all of us, republicans and democrats, said to president zelenskyy that you have our continued support. the ukrainian people have our continued support. but at that same conference, we saw vice president vance not even talk about the threat from putin and our support for the ukrainian people. in fact, we heard him lecture

the people from europe and others around the world gathered at that conference about their, quote, weak democracy and said that really what they needed to do was kowtow to the farthest right parties in germany. neo fascist parties in germany. then after saying that he went out and met with them. that is now the united states foreign policy in action and all of us on a bipartisan basis should be standing up and saying that that's wrong. we had the secretary of treasury arrive to extort zelenskyy saying that unless you give us half of your rare mineral reserves to pay for past support, you don't get any additional support from the american people. imagine if during world war ii fdr had said to churchill and

our other allies, hey, we're for longer going to support you in the fight against fascism, nazis and hitler unless you sign over now half of your natural resources. mr. president, this is a shameful moment for the united states. we have stood up for freedom. we have stood up for democracy. we have stood up for the rule of law. and now president trump is throwing ukraine and freedom-loving people around the world under the bus. so i say to our nato allies and other allies around the world and partners who believe in the rule of law and believe in democracy, you're going to have to carry this mantle for now. a lot of people say, oh, that's just president trump saying these things. watch what he does, not what he says. when an american -- what an american president says matters. and when president trump talks about abandoning ukraine and how

president zelenskyy is the dictator and how ukraine started the war, not putin, that is throwing ukraine and our nato allies under the bus. so our european allies, our european nato friends, they're going to have to step up and clearly carry that mantle. and i really urge my senate republican colleagues to do so at this moment. it was donald trump who in speaking about americans who lost their lives in combat said, and i quote, they are losers and suckers, unquote. that's what the now president of the united states said about americans who sacrificed their lives for our country. folks may also recall that's what he said about our former colleague, senator mccain, because he was taken prisoner.

so i really hope that those in the senate in both parties will stand up and stand up for the principles the united states has stood for up, not perfect ly. far from perfectly. but what we've stood up for since world war ii and in this -- that post-war period where we helped construct many of the institutions that helped set the rules of the road in the globe today. now, here at home we're also experiencing a betrayal. i just was earlier today at a rally in front of the department of health and human services. it was a rally to protect the public health and specifically

to help protect medical research that's conducted at the national institutes of health and at institutions around our country. colleges and universities and other places where they do the research that leads to treatments and cures that save lives in america. and it's pretty simple when you start slashing funds for the nih and its programs and when you start slashing the research team at nih. it means more americans will die prematurely of disease. it means more americans will suffer for lack of treatments. and yet that is what we saw the trump administration do recently. fortunately, a federal court has put a stay on those illegal actions, these actions to just

unilaterally try to cut important public investments in medical research. so let's not sugar coat it. the consequence of doing that is very serious. they do important research in cancer, in alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases, diseases that plague probably every american family and rare diseases. firing nih employees and canceling important grants and reducing support for medical research will mean more americans will die early. so what is going on? well, it is the great betrayal. because the reason we're seeing these efforts to slash important public investments across the board and to cut important

positions in federal agencies is because they want to make room for a big tax cut for wealthy people. and you can see that the person that donald trump, president trump has chosen to do his dirty work is elon musk, the richest person in the world who is in the process of conducting illegal raids on various government agencies. and i say illegal raids. i've never seen the courts so busy. courts are issuing temporary restraining orders because there's a lot of law breaking going on. and we have to fight this in the courts and we have to fight it here, and the american people are fighting it around the country. mr. president, this is the most corrupt bargain in american

history. elon musk paid $280 million, $280 million to help elect donald trump and donald trump is now -- has now turned the keys to the federal government over to elon musk. and make no mistake, this has nothing, nothing to do with government efficiency. we all welcome any effort to make the federal government more efficient. but this has nothing to do with that. and this has everything to do with helping the federal government serve the already powerful at the expense of working americans and to clear that way, make cuts to pay for tax cuts for the very, very wealthy. you know, during the presidential campaign, candidate

trump talked about reducing prices, lowering costs for american families. when he was asked about project projects he said, i don't know what that is. i don't know who those people are. but as soon as he was sworn in down the hall here, he went about implementing project 2025. now, why on the campaign trail would he say he knows nothing about it? he knew it was very unpopular, and that, however, is exactly what he's implementing right now. in fact, the person he installed in the white house as the head of office of management and budget was russ vought. he's the author of project pro project. -- he's the author of project project. and just a reminder to our colleagues, omb is like the command and control center for the entire federal budget.

so president trump put the author of project 2025 in the cockpit for the federal budget and has elon musk running and doing the dirty work at federal agencies around the country. if this were about government efficiency, you wouldn't start out by firing all the inspectors general. the inspector general's job is to be independent watchdogs. their job is to look out for waste, fraud, and abuse. so if you want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, you don't start by firing the inspectors general. in fact, that's what you would do if you wanted to have people look the other way or not see when people were committing waste, fraud, and abuse. and in fact that is exactly what is happening now.

because if you look at what elon musk and his cronies are doing, they're going into federal agencies and taking and reviewing and have access to the most sensitive personal information of the american people. they did that at the department of treasury. social security numbers, bank accounts. the acting head of the social security administration, a career official, just quit because he said it was inappropriate to turn over sensitive social security administration information to elon musk and the doge boys. we've seen that in other agencies, too, where career federal civil servants whose loyalty is to the country are resigning rather than follow illegal orders. and i commend them for not following illegal orders.

if this were about efficiency, why would the trump administration tell the employees at the consumer financial protection bureau to stay home and not work? so they continue to get paid, but they don't do their jobs. that's what they've been ordered. why? so the cfpb is a bureau that helps protect american consumers against people that are engaged in fraud and con artists and cheats. they've gone after a lot of powerful people, a lot of powerful organizations, and they have returned over a billion to the american people, dollars that hardworking americans were cheated out of.

and they went and got them back for them. and yet here comes trump, in the name of efficiency, telling people to no longer do their work, even though they're being paid for it, and their work is to go after fraudsters and cheats? i think we know what's going on here, mr. president. what's going on here is we have elon musk trying to create a government that helps the already powerful and cuts services that benefit every american, like what happens at the veterans administration, the social security administration, and, yes, at nih when it comes to medical research, to help clear the way for tax cuts for very wealthy people. that's what's going on here. and tomorrow we're going to begin to consider a budget resolution that creates the

framework for providing those tax cuts to the very wealthy at the expense of all americans. so i serve on the senate budget committee, and last week we had a preview of all of this. we considered the budget resolution, and those of us on the committee had an opportunity to propose amendments that would at least put up guardrails to protect the american people from deep cuts to services that are important to them to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. and so i offered a number of those amendments and will have a chance on this full senate floor to consider these amendments in the coming days. one amendment i offered is very straightforward. it says, it shall not be in

order in the senate to consider any bill, joint resolution, motion, amendment, or amendment between the houses that cuts funding to medicare or medicaid benefits. so if there is abuse going on in the medicare or medicaid programs, absolutely go for it. but that's not what we're talking about here. we said, don't cut benefits to the american people. now, we had a vote on this in the budget committee, senate budget committee, and it was party line. every democratic senator voted to protect medicare and medicaid. every republican senator voted against it. i'm sure we're going to have a chance to vote on this again on the senate floor. and i would point out, mr. president -- i think it was this morning or last night -- president trump said that medicaid would not be cut.

he said medicare would not be cut. so i hope, since the time my republican colleagues voted against this in the committee and the vote we'll have in the next couple days we'll have a unanimous vote on this bill to protect medicare and medicaid because president trump just said he has absolutely no intention of doing that. so let's see what happens. i also offered an amendment in the budget committee to make sure that medicare continued to have the authority to negotiate lower drug prices for people on medicare. we had a fight for decades -- we had to fight for decades to allow the medicare program to negotiate lower drug prices for the american people. the pharmaceutical companies have fought it tooth and nail.

but we got it done a few years ago. as a result of that we did, this year americans on medicare, seniors on medicare, will have no more than $2,000 of out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs. and because we finally gave medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices, just like every -- insurance companies have that power. well, medicare is a big insurance entity in one way, and yet they were prohibited by law from negotiating lower drug prices for the medicare program and the american people. well, we changed that. we gave them the authority to negotiate those lower drug prices. and guess what? it saved the medicare program money and it saved american seniors money because they now have lower drug prices on a couple classes of drugs, and they're continuing to move

forward on that. so i had an amendment in the budget committee simply to say, it shall not be in order in the senate to consider any proposal that undermines and undoes and destroys the power of medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. again, mr. president, the vote was all democrats on the senate budget committee voting yes to protect the ability of medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. every republican senator voted no. i had a couple other amendments as well. another one was an amendment to prohibit cutting -- and, again, these are cuts that a lot of us don't want to make because they are important to many working families, and we certainly don't want to make these cuts to clear for tax cuts for the very

wealthy. so i also proposed an amendment that it not be in order to consider any legislative vehicle that would cut funding from the national school lunch program and the school breakfast program. these are very important programs to make sure that every child in the classroom has the nutrition they need in order to succeed. it's pretty basic. let's make sure every kid in school has the nutritious meal they need simply to sustain themselves and be able to therefore pay attention to what the teacher is saying rather than pay attention to an empty stomach. so i thought, surely our colleagues would agree that we shouldn't cut that program to make way for tax cuts for the very wealthy, but,

unfortunately, the result on the vote was the same. every democratic senator voted to prohibit these cuts, and every republican senator voted to green-light these cuts going forward. well, i know our colleagues will have a chance to vote on this on the senate floor in a couple days because senator hirono and i will be offering that amendment. so, mr. president, just to close and summarize, it was 30 days ago that just down this hall president trump was sworn in. he said he was going to usher in a great, golden age for america. of course, sitting right behind him were the people he was

talking about providing a golden age for -- elon musk, already the richest man in the world, and other billionaire tech titans. and what we've seen in the 30 days since is that great betrayal. president trump is not focused on reducing prices or costs for the american people. no, he's focused on implementing the plan that he disavowed on the campaign trail, project 2025. that's what he's focused on, the plan he knew would be very unpopular. and what that plan does is call for very deep cuts and slashing very important services that matter to the american people, including medicaid, in order to make room for tax cuts for the very wealthy.

so this is what the elon musk operation is all about, and it is all about the great betrayal. and people around the country from all parties are waking up to this, not just democrats. republicans, independents, people who eliminate 10 -- who voted against did not -- who voted against donald trump, and also people who voted for him. in the last 30 days they recognize that something very different is happening in america and that he's slashing and illegally slashing all of these important investments for the american people. -- in order to take care of these people who were sitting right behind him on inauguration day, elon musk and the billionaires. that is a betrayal, mr. president. and i yield the floor.

mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: it was nearly three years ago, mr. president, the world watched in horror as russia pursued a bloody, full-scale invasion of the sovereign nation of ukraine. i was in vilnius, lithuania, with senator chris coons, when reports first trickled out that the war was starting in europe. three years ago the russian invasion of ukraine was not a partisan issue in the united states.

congressmen and senators on both sides of the aisle agreed on the basic facts -- russia was waging an unprovoked, illegal war and must be stopped at all costs. and for the past three years we have supported ukraine with the funding it needed to beat back russian aggression and defend the frontline of democracy in europe. and the ukrainian people have done just that. 46,000 ukrainian lives have been lost. 46,000 defending their nation against putin. we have joined with our nato allies and other countries around the world standing by ukraine. they've shown an extraordinary courage, a courage for the history books. but it turns out that the new president of the united states, donald trump, does not see this the same way as i do, and we have for three years.

the fact of the matter is this, president donald trump is a pushover for russian president vladimir putin. he's always been, and he'll always be. since trump took office, he has played right into putin's hands. the outrageous comments he posted today on truth social make that painfully clear. in the post, trump attacked, not putin for the invasion, but the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelenskyy, blaming him for russia's invasion. as i said, it's killed more than 46,000 ukrainians and displaced millions more. it's disgusting to say president trump called zelenskyy, the president of ukraine, a dictator without elections. can you believe it?

an american president selling out a democratic leader bravely defending his country from an actual dictator, putin, a former kgb apparatchik at that. it is insulting to say that. it is shameful. but from this president, it's no surprise. president trump is doing nothing more than parroting kremlin propaganda and spreading lies that putin whispers into his ear. i could call on trump to apologize to the people of ukraine who have suffered so much because of this russian invasion, but it would be a waste of breath. let me be clear to president trump -- you don't make america great by selling out our nation and our allies to a russian dictator. most of my republican colleagues know this. i have spoken with them over the years. they've joined me in a bipartisan coalition to be part of the ukrainian caucus in the senate. but it's time now for them to speak up.

i know they're politically fearful of donald trump and his power, that if they say the wrong thing he, with elon musk's money, will come in and take them on in a primary. but there has to be a point where they stand up and say what you really believe, have the courage to do it. i'm reminded of a quote from a fellowilan, our nation -- fellow illinoisan, our nation's 16th president. our nation was torn apart by the bloodshed of the civil war. ahead of the inauguration for his second term, abraham lincoln addressed the nation right out there. he said, quote, both parties' deprecated war, but one would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other one would accept war rather than let it perish. the war came. although president lincoln was referring to the two factions in the civil war, i believe it applies here as well.

putin has made war rather than let ukraine survive, and ukraine has had no choice but accept war rather than see itself perish. president zelenskyy and the ukrainian people have led that noble effort with strength, fortitude, and determination. as their ally and a fellow democracy, which putin certainly is not, and as a nation committed to freedom, the united states of america has an obligation to stand by ukraine, not to appease putin. mr. president, on a separate topic, this photo says it all. it shows the world's richest man, elon musk, who has not been elected to anything and has taken the greatest pleasure in senselessly gutting u.s. food aid for some of the world's poorest people, somehow or

another giving a tribute. i won't even try to describe it here. this month, president trump and elon musk attempted to dismantle usaid, the largest trinityor of humanitarian -- largest distributor of humanitarian aid on this earth. musk was gleeful when he said, quote, we're feeding usaid to the wood chipper. usaid provides clean water in haiti and jordan, helps fight malaria and tuberculosis in kenya and uganda, and supports human rights programs in burma, china, iran, north korea and sudan. it provides economic assistance in central america to help address the root causes of migration and counter the flow of fentanyl into the united sta states. it funds humanitarian operations in syria, including for security camps to prevent the resurgence of isis, as well as campaigns to counter disinformation from

russia and china, all programs critical to our national security. not only are these cuts to usaid a betrayal of american values to satisfy the narsicism of elon musk, but they hurt innocent people, and they hurt american farmers while we're at it, who for decades helped provide such critical and strategic food aid. despite the lies by musk and others about u.s. foreign aid ittes can for about 1% of our federal budget. a fact they leave out, billions of these aid dollars flow back into the american economy. these programs have broad bipartisan support historically in congress. they make america stronger, more influential on the global stage, and america, with these programs, is doing the right thing. that is until president trump's reckless and illegal freeze on such assistance, already appropriated into law by

congress. look at this headline. gutting usaid threatens billions of dollars for u.s. farms and businesses, including american farmers dealing in rice, wheat, and soybeans purchased as food aid. yes, i come from a farm state. i'm proud of what my agricultural people do. they grow some of the best crops in the world. god blessed with us the land and climate to achieve that. they not only feed the world, they feed the poorest people in the world as well. not only is the sweeping usaid cut illegal and counterproductive, but it hurts our farmers and people in america, in illinois, kansas, louisiana, nebraska, iowa, texas, wisconsin, and many other states. american farms supply more than 40% of the food aid that usaid distributes around the world, and now hundreds of millions of dollars of such commodities are

stranded in ports, rotting away at the direction of the new administration. talk about waste, doge? take a look. you're causing it. here's what president of the illinois farm bureau said recently, quote, it's not just food aid to developing nations and the exercise of soft power. usaid has substantially benefited farmers by funding crop research that has produced useful varieties of corn and soybeans over many decades. some of that research happens in places like the in fact of illinois. that's what the president of the farm bureau said about usaid programs. even in instances where american lives and livelihoods are not directly threatened, gutting usaid threatens americans' safety. usaid-supported programs stem pandemics, help failed states, and displacements from war, threats that don't respect borders. but because of the president, this president's sweeping d

directive to pause international aid, bipartisan, congressionally appropriated funds to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid in places like venezuela, iran, and north korea have ground to a halt. programs like pepfar have been a key example of humanitarian success abroad. it was started under president george w. bush. as a reminder, a republican president, who wanted to curtail the aids epidemic ravaging the world. pepfar saved more than 25 million lives so far. because of president trump's di directive, it's been halted. make no mistake, sad as it is to say, people will die as a result of this decision. in the last decade, usaid clean water and sanitation programs have provided more than 70 million people first-time

sustainable access to clean drinking water, something we take for granted in america, which really decides a person's fate in developing world. these programs have a six to one return in dollars saved in health, economic, and education, but because of president trump's di directive innocent people across the world will suffer, and america's reputation will be w weakened not made stronger. american defense officials for generations have supported these programs. these have always been bipartisan programs. because they're far cheaper than military interventions, and clearly effective, proven so over the years. trump's first secretary of defense, jim mattis, said, if we don't fund foreign aid, quote, then i need to buy more bullets. when did saving lives of innocent people, strengthening the american economy in the process, and growing our self-powered presence around the world become a political issue? under president donald trump and

the co-president, elon musk. lastly, i want to highlight how lies about usaid have spread online, some amplified by russia, china, and other adversaries. for example, there's a false video created by a private company which links to the kre kremlin, the company with links to the kremlin, alleging that celebrities were paid by usaid to visit ukraine. the russian influence campaign was reposted on twitter by elon musk. no surprise. and became a viral d disinformation rallying cry against usaid. but it was false. like so many allegations of supposed outrage by usaid. yet this kind of nonsense is used by mr. musk to justify gutting entirely congressionally appropriated american soft power programs, while many of my republican colleagues, virtualry all of them, sit silently.

nations like china already sense strategic openings under president trump's decisions to halt serenity foreign aid. this -- halt senate foreign aid. this senate cannot afford to roll over, play dead, and hand over congressional authority on these programs and larger consti constitutionally designated appropriation powers. foreign aid is misunderstood by many americans. they think it's about 20% of the federal budget, when asked. it turns out to be 1%. i've seen is in action around the world. some of the scenes i witnessed i'll never forked. the dusty -- i'll never forget. the dusty village in india, where the children were given for lunch something my kids would never touch, yours either. it was like a dough ball used for catfish bait. you looked at that, you think they're going to eat that? sure, it's full of good grains and nutrients, but it doesn't look very appetizing. they ate it like it's their last

meal. but they didn't eat it quickly. they hesitated, stopped for a moment, bowed their heads in prayer, then lifted up and started eating their lunch. i asked what the prayer was about. they said they're that i go the united states for sensing this food -- sending this food. otherwise, they'd have nothing. i take great satisfaction in that experience and memory. it says a lot about these programs and what they mean to people around the world. it said a lot about america. that this was one of our priorities too. the nameless, faceless kids around the world got something to eat to keep them alive, because america cared. that defines america and its values as far as i'm concerned, the notion of, quote, feeding the usaid program to a wood chipper may be a big laugh for elon musk, but it's a sad commentary on the values mr. musk and this administration. for goodness sakes, let's stand

by american values. a lot of people depend on it. i yield the floor. quorum call: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: is the senate in a quorum? the presiding officer: we are. mrs. shaheen: i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. shaheen: i come to the floor today to call attention to the trump administration's unconscionable disregard for air safety. last month, here in washington, we saw the deadliest commercial aviation event on u.s. soil in over 23 years.

and while this loss of life was horrifying, it was unfortunately not unimaginable. in recent years, near misses at airports across the country have increased, and the incident at dca illustrated just how quickly these dangerous situations can take a turn for the worst. several times last year, runway incidents were narrowly avoided, due in no small part to the heroic actions of certified professional air traffic co controllers who staff our towers. these controllers are hardworking americans. they often log 6-day weeks and 10-hour days, and that's on a good week. so even before this week's misguided and, frankly, stupid -- i mean, i have to say i think it's a stupid decision to lay off hundreds of faa workers and air traffic controllers who have been

overworked and understaffed. this is not a new problem. we've known about it for years. for years in congress we've been sounding the alarm about the need to invest in our air traffic control workforce. last year's faa reauthorization bill, we worked in a bipartisan fashion to address this issue, to support our air traffic control workforce so they can do their vital, often lifesaving jobs effectively. by partnering with the national air traffic control union and the faa, we successfully adopted a new staffing method model, staffing model in the reauthorization bill, and they have been making good progress, but of course we have more work to do. it's important to acknowledge that any response to the tragedy at reagan national airport must include a commitment to reinforce all parts of our aviation safety workforce.

controllers would be the first ones to tell you that they don't work in a vacuum. the equipment they use is maintained by hundreds of dedicated support personnel who go through years of highly specialized training. many towers and facilities operating buildings and on equipment that's 5, 10, even 15 years old. and when something goes p wrong, they need to know there's someone on call to fix things because lives literally depend on it. americans need to know that the skies are secure and that their safety is a top priority. sadly, i can't say that the actions we're seeing from this administration does any of that. secretary duffy said he wants to surge air traffic controller hiring. i agree with him on that. we can and we should hire more air traffic controllers, but not at the expense of the rest of

faa's workforce. we can hire any number of air traffic controllers tomorrow, but without the dedicated support staff that make their work possible it wouldn't matter. so how is the administration responding to the american people's distress over frequently increasing close calls and crashes. sadly, like the one we saw in toronto this week. well, over the weekend this administration fired nearly 400 faa employees, some of them in my state of new hampshire. we heard an outpouring of concern over the weekend from controllers, pilots, airlines, and passengers who want to know that they're going to be safe when they fly. i'm sure the administration must be hearing this too, but when asked about the impact of the irresponsible and reckless

effort, this is what secretary duffy had to say. he said, and i quote, zero critical safety personnel were let go. well, so i'm not sure i understand this. we're telling the american people that if a communication system goes down while the plane is approaching the runway, the person who knows how to get it back up and running isn't critical? that if the power goes out and an in route facility while 747's are flying overhead, the 18 fired maintains personnel who know how to turn the lights back on won't be necessary? that the staffers who develop innovative safety and flight procedures every time there is an incident to make sure your plane takes off on time and arrives safely are fair game to be fired? because we just lost 13 of them. and to anyone who's worried about our national security,

good news. according to this administration, the faa employees working on a classified radar system to detect cruise missiles aren't all that important either, and they also were fired. so i'm going to say that again because this administration thinks that the civil servants at the faa's national airspace system defense program are apparently not critical to our safety. none of this makes me or my constituents sleep better at night, but i bet you it makes our enemies happy. the administration has tried to defend this by saying that everyone who fired was probationary. they'd like you to believe that these are all brand-new employees. sort of the philosophy that the last one in is the first one out. but that's not how the system works. and it sure as heck isn't how

you keep americans safe. in fact, employees who were promoted based on stellar performance within the last year, many of them who have been with the faa for 10 or 15 years, are also labeled as probationary employees when they start their new positions. so in fact, the administration just fired some of the people with the most experience, not the least. and this speaks to what is a bigger problem. time and again we're seeing this happen with so-called government efficiency, in quotes, experts. listen, like most of us in this chamber, i think we should do everything we can to make government run efficiently and effectively, but indiscriminately freezing hiring across the board, pushing out thousands of civil servants makes that problem worse, not better. last week hundreds of employees

at the national nuclear security administration were fired without warning. this week the administration is scrambling to try and hire most of them back because they didn't realize they oversee our nuclear stockpile. and the department of energy fired more than 1,000 employees, including three-quarters of the state and community energy program's office. now, i don't know if the people who are making these decisions in the administration even know what that office does, but i can tell you that in new hampshire, we depend on them because they help keep weatherization programs up and running, they support emergency operations in the wake of disasters, and with folks in new hampshire dealing with some of the highest home heating costs who are worried about how they're going to keep themselves warm this winter, and

states around the country still recovering from floods and fires and winter storms, i can't imagine why anybody would think that it's a good idea to get rid of the people who are helping make sure those programs operate. and then on monday we found out that dozens of usda employees, the department of agriculture, who have been working to prevent bird flu were fired. and then the white house realized what they had done, they panicked and they tried to bring them back. that's on top of all of the people around the globe who have been monitoring the bird flu potential epidemic, who have already been fired with the closure of the u.s. agency for international development. and just this afternoon we heard that nearly 500 employees at the national institute of standards and technology would be fired, including almost 60% of the

chips office. so the effort that we stood up, that this congress stood up to try and make sure we could compete with china, with taiwan in the production of semiconductors, which are included in almost everything we use from our cell phones to our refrigerators to our cars, 60% of those people are now gone. so who's going to provide that effort that we need in order to compete with china? these are the staff that make sure our high-tech semiconductor manufacturing industry stays competitive. example after example shows that the firings that elon musk has taken credit for have not been thought through. either he's doing it deliberately in an effort to undermine the united states or

he's doing it because he's so ignorant, he has no idea what any of these people do or what their operations do. either way, it's inexcusable. i heard from a constituent this week who works, who worked, past tense, for the new hampshire fish and game department for 24 years, and she just took a job as a wildlife biologist. her job focused on implementing the pittman robinson wildlife restoration act. as my colleagues know, this involves conserving bird and wildlife habitat, hunter education and shooting ranges. its funds come not from taxpayer dollars, but from excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment. and yet, her job was terminated under the guise of government

efficiency. she has a mortgage, she has kids in college who need health care coverage. but her main ask to me was to help put a stop to these firings and to simply help her get her job back, because like most of our public servants, she cares about the mission of her work. over and over we're seeing this administration take out irresponsible, reckless initiatives with devastating consequences for critical positions without taking a second to think through or learn about what those positions do. and when things inevitably break as a result, they don't own up to their mistakes. instead they try to convince you that keeping the lights on at control towers or inspecting airplane engines, making plans to manage some of the busiest

airspace in the country really isn't critical to your safety. well, i don't believe that and i don't think you should either. for the sake of the american people, we can and we must do better. i don't think people elected donald trump to dismantle this country's air traffic control system. i think they elected him because they wanted to see inflation go down, they wanted to see their grocery prices reduced, they wanted to see help with rental costs, with the costs, mortgage rates, with energy costs. and what have we seen in the weeks since donald trump got inaugurated? no effort to address any of those things. all we've seen is an effort at retribution against his perceived enemies, at firing and undermining of services and

programs within the government to serve the american people. for the sake of our citizens, we must do better. i'm calling on this administration to right this wrong as quickly as possible, before it's too late. i yield the floor.

. mr. welch: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. welch: mr. president, i would like to speak about the importance of fema, the importance of fixing it, but not destroying it.

mother nature this week provided yet another reminder of the devastating impacts of natural disasters. in kentucky, we had catastrophic flooding that inundated communities and led to thousands of evacuations. at least 14 are dead, and all of us, our hearts break for the people of eastern ken -- kentucky. i offer all my support in getting the aid you need to help recover. that's the same commitment i've offered to our colleagues in hawaii, north carolina, california, and florida. and it's also the commitment many of my colleagues made to me and senator sanders after vermont's devastating floods in july of 23 and 24. what we know in vermont is that disasters that have afflict us all over the -- afflict us all over the country, they don't

care who you voted for, they don't respect county or state lines, they are indiscriminate and unpredictable and the storm metes out its suffering in a bipartisan way, there's no escaping it. but we need fema, that's what we learned in vermont. when the storm arrived, fema was there, in the immediate aftermath when people had seen literally their homes swept down a river, when the crops and farms had been destroyed, when businesses were ruined, fema was there to help in the immediate aftermath. but we alreadies experienced -- we also experienced something that i heard from my colleagues in fema-related situations and that is in the longer-term recovery, you run into the frustration of a distant

bureaucracy that can't make quick turn around decisions on such things as granular as whether you can install a 24 inch culvert instead of a 16 inch culvert. that's why the reform we need is focused on empowering local communities to have much more decision-making and implementation authority in executing the recovery that takes oftentimes well over a year or two years. you simply can't have that done by folks not in the community. and those folks in the community are totally invested in getting their community back on its feet, helping its businesses, helping the folks who lost their homes, helping the farmers who lost their crops. so the reform that we need in fema is definitely there and we can do that, we must do it together. because any of these natural disasters are going to come our

way at some point regardless of which side of the aisle you represent. it's one of the reasons i am absolutely so concerned about what's happening at fema now. there's been a doge envaccination. and -- a doge invasion. i use that explicitly. what does elon musk know about the suffering in these communities? where does he get the authority -- where does he get the callousness to say that fema should be destroyed? something, by the way, the president himself has said. when i think about all the folks in vermont, all the folks now in kentucky, all the folks in california from the fires, hawaii in the fires, to be told that the response of the federal government when a catastrophic event happened in their community without any responsibility on their part, they were on the receiving end

of mother nature making its decision to hit that community at that time. why do trump and musk say we ought to get rid of the agency that is on the scene as the storm arises and stays there, hopefully until people get back on their feet? the other thing that's happening with doge going into fema is that they're getting access and accumulating very personal information. if you are in the path of the storm and you seek fema aid, you have to give significant -- a significant amount of your own personal information, but that is solely for the purpose of evaluating your claim. we now have the doge folks, and these are very young people. we don't know what their credentials are. we don't know what the use is

they're going to put this information to, getting the personal information of people in all of these communities around the country. they have no right to do that. they have no need to do that. it doesn't facilitate the former of fema, it's just an invasion of privacy. so, mr. president, we need fema. we can fix it, we can reform it. but i talked to colleagues on both sides of the aisle but they know most of our states are net setup to deal with a catastrophic event. in the case of vermont with a once in 100-year storm that came two years in a row, but we don't have the infrastructure of an emergency response to deal with that, we need the help of the federal government. and that's exactly the role of

the federal government should may. it has a fiscal capacity that none of our states have and the definition of an emergency is something that couldn't have been prevented by the actions in the state. so we need to recommit ourselves to assuring the american people and each of our communities that if and when there is a disaster, fema will be there. but we also have an obligation to make it work better so in that long-term recovery that's so essential, both emotionally and physically that will give the local communities much more authority to make their decisions and empower them with much more control of the funds needed to meet that recovery as quickly as possible. we not only can work together to improve fema, the only way we will is if we do working together. how in the world is it a

partisan issue when you're talking about the folks you represent or i represent who find themselves in the path of a fire, in the path of a flood, in the path of a hurricane or a tornado? we come together to help each other when that happens. that's the responsibility we have, but more than that, it's really the wonderful opportunity to serve where we're in a position to help americans, regardless of where they live, regardless of what their political persuasion is, but because we respect them, the lives they built and we want to help them after destruction of things that are really important to them and their community, we want to help them get back on their feet. mr. president, i yield the mr. president, i yield the

hello everybody i am proud to be joined by merkley and dynamic

eminem duo. northwest dynamic duo. this week will mark one month donald trump was sworn in as president. in the first month donald trump has way to scorched earth campaign against the rule of law and for one simple reason to get his billionaire buddies a tax break and had the american people pay the cost. senate republican say to bills, donald trump is changing his mind every hour from yesterday senate republicans voted to proceed on the budget resolution, this morning you saw the president trump flip the script again further sowing chaos. republicans have talked to big-game about flooding the zone but instead they are grounding

in their own chaos and confusion. if this is what republicans have created in a preview of the housing of governing it loads very poorly for them and very poorly for the country. of course republicans couldn't do to bills, 50 bills 100 bills doesn't make a difference because the one thing the united on the one thing they're trying to get done house and senate republicans is to give their billionaire buddies attacks break and have the american people pay the cost no matter what it is. senate democrats will expose republicans reconciliation budget bill exactly for what it is. a sinister front for clearing the way to cut taxes for donald trump billionaire buddies. now this is going to be a long

drawn out fight the reconciliation budget bill is only the first step in adobe an important one democrats are glad to have this debate with republicans. the hollowness of the republican arguments on cutting waste and we will expose republican dams to cut healthcare so they can help their billionaire buddies. we will expose the attempt to cut medicaid and housing in nih empower doge, all for one purpose. helping the billionaire buddies. and there tax rate, trying to change the subject, donald trump hotels in gaza, canada, these are distraction to hide the truth because they know one popular there tax policy is. it was unpopular in 2017 . . .

bipartisan spending more and estimating disease zero concept workers actually do managing nuclear weapons stockpile for responding to bird flu, senate republicans are sprinting to make trillions in will hurt red and blue states should so they can shower tax

cuts richest people in the world. no streetlights gleaners loves this plan. they are getting all the benefits but they are the ones footing the bill. middle-class americans will pay for billing or textbook and the cost will be measured and should family farms, families and kids on medicaid, losing their healthcare and oozing out on hard-earned benefits. we should not be taking food off of family specs. i grew up in a family that knew what it was like to fall on hard times. my dad was a world war ii veteran. sure keep us afloat with my dad's va benefits and our

government was there for them heart times came. i hear from them every day. they are working so hard and play by the rules and they deserve at the very least, the same opportunity my parents had when i was growing up the not going to buy 12 republicans still the opportunity away. immigrants are going to ensure americans know this is the most flat out trolled anti- middle-class budget we've ever seen. zero chance we will let for publicans passes easy way without a fight to create real fraud, waste and abuse and make

sure people back home note elon musk is firing va doctors, food and safety inspectors -- senator the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. are we in a quorum call. the presiding officer: we are not blackburn i have eight committees who will meet. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. after decades high inflation under the biden-harris administration, our national debt now sits at $36.4 trillion. in many ways, this number represents one of the biggest threats to our nation. as interest payments on the debt now eclipse our country's total defense spending. think about that.

the debt, interest on the debt is costing the hardworking taxpayer more of their money. it's taking a greater share of their tax dollar than what we are spending to provide for the common defense. it is astounding that that is where we are. but this problem has gotten worse through the years. during the last few months of the biden administration, october to december of last year, our country ran a deficit of more than $710 billion, up 39% from the same period in 2023. the american people know this is unsustainable. among many other reasons, that is why the american people showed up in record numbers and

gave a mandate to donald j. trump as president of the united states winning the electoral college and the popular vote. the american people know full well they are overtaxed. government is overspent. and they are tired of it. and since inauguration day, the president has been hard at work on this issue getting the economy under control. in one of -- and one of the first things he did back in office was to establish the department of government efficiency. it is being led by elon musk and the agency is working to uncover and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government. and to no one's surprise, doge

has found a lot of waste, especially with programs that should never have been put on the books in the first place. now, in recent weeks, the agency working overtime to find ways to save money for the taxpayer, they found $33 million in education department grants to groups that push far-left ideas like critical race theory and $44.6 million in canceled leases for unused office space, and $45 million in scholarships for students in burma, $182 million in department of health and human services contracts that had nothing to do with health, nothing. they even found $168,000 for a

museum exhibit for anthony fauci and a billion dollars in dei programs. now, when you scoop all of that together, you have a pretty good savings for the u.s. taxpayer who has been funding all of this. removing these programs and recouping those dollars, that is the right thing to do. in addition, doge has worked to reform the mismanaged u.s. agency for international development. we call this usaid. under the last administration, the agency used its $40 billion budget to support left-wing and anti-american causes around the world, including terror-tied extremist groups in the middle east. as doge uncovers the left's abuse of taxpayer dollars,

washington democrats have tried desperately to paint the agency as unaccountable to the american people. but the exact opposite is true. doge which reports directly to president trump is restoring government accountability by reining in the federal government and reining in the bureaucracy. by the way, they're unelected. that's why last week president trump issued an executive order to support doge directed federal departments to work with the agency to reduce the size of the federal workforce. a downsize is desperately needed. the government employs more nan 2.4 million civilian employees at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars each year. to support these efforts, i recently introduced a package of

bills called the doge act which would hold the federal government accountable for managing taxpayer dollars. now, all of these bills would help to drain the swamp. and these are bills that i have proposed oef the last -- over the last several years. but we brought them together under the heading of the doge act. it would implement a hiring and salary freeze, direct agencies to reduce the size of their workforce by 5% within three years, and establish a commission to report to congress on moving nonnational security agencies outside of washington, d.c. in addition, the legislation would create a pilot program to determine federal employees' compensation based on merit, not seniority, something that is so important to do

because right now the longer someone holds a job, the more they're going to make. let's move that to how well they do their job and how well they perform in fulfilling the responsibilities that are given to them. and it would require agencies to reinstate their pre-covid telework policies, a measure that is especially crucial after just 6% of federal employees worked in an office full time during the biden administration. tennesseans go to work every day. they're working full time in order to get a full-time paycheck. and they're astounded when they hear that under the last administration, the biden administration, 6% of federal employees worked full time.

but you know what? they all got a full-time paycheck, courtesy of the hardworking u.s. taxpayer. perhaps most importantly, the doge act would cut nonsecurity discretionary spending by 5% by fiscal year 2028 and every following year saving taxpayers billions of dollars when it comes to government spending, tennesseans and certainly americans demand accountability. with doge republicans are delivering it. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the next portion of my remarks be placed separately into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. in one of his first acts back in office, president trump defended our country's cherished principle of equal citizenship by ending birth tourism.

for years foreign tourists have abused our nation's birthright citizenship by visiting america with the sole purpose of having their children here. these tourists have no intention of staying here or of even raising their children in america. instead they return to their home country to rear their children who now have the benefit of american citizenship. but no ties or loyalty to our nation. this abuse of our citizenship is wrong. yet democrat-aligned groups are trying to stop president trump's order in the courts. when you look at the numbers, you realize how much is at stake with this executive order. according to one estimate, birth tourism results in 33,000 births to women on tourist visas each year. think about that.

33,000. that's tens of thousands of people each year who claim american citizenship and all its benefits while having nothing at stake in the future of our country. to no one's surprise, birth tourism has spawned a multimillion dollar industry and it is rife with fraud and criminal activity. in china, traffickers charge clients tens of thousands of dollars to coach them on lying to customs and border protection, obtaining a visa, and reaching our country. in fact, the problem has gotten so bad, that airlines in asia are turning away pregnant passengers to america over birth tourism concerns. this cannot go on, which is why i fully support president trump's efforts to bring this

terrible practice to an end. i yield the floor. a senator: blur b-- mr. murphy: mr. president, the idea that citizens are -- by a set of laws applied consistently regardless of one's income or political power or political affiliation, it's a fairly modern invention. because for thousands of years laws were simply what rulers used to impose and maintain power, to control people. laws were applied or crimes were

invented for the ruler's critics and laws were ignored or waived away -- waved away for those in favor with the regime. now early americans had watched our founders sought to create a nation where all plencreated equal in the face of the law and the law was applied uniformly and justly. that idea -- equal justice, the law applies to everybody regardless of who you support politically or who i are aligned with -- or who you are aligned with politically -- was in many ways the founders most vital check against tyranny. that's the difference between a democracy made of equal citizens and an autocracy where the law

is simply whatever the ruler decides. it is a foundational principle of american constitutional democracy. it is not something that we can take for granted. now, i will admit likely every president has made a decision or decisions that compromised that belief in the rule of law. often those decisions were related to one of the maximalist powers that the president supposes. that's the power of the pardon. i, for instance, did not agree with president biden's decision to issue pardons to his family members. i thought that was excessive. i thought that compromised the rule of law. but this president's contempt for the rule of law, donald trump's contempt for the rule of law, is unprecedented.

what we are all watching right now is donald trump throw away the idea that laws apply to everyone equally. and it is astonishing to watch so many of my republican colleagues fall in line. some of them may be on board for the destruction of the rule of law because they want the trump family to rule forever, but many of them know that this is wrong, what is happening, and their silence is heartbreaking. donald trump issued a statement over the weekend -- quote, he who saves the country does not violate any law. that's a quote attributed to one of the most notorious dictators of the last half millennia -- napoleon bone part. it is a stunning claim that

trump decides what is illegal. if he had said that in 2017 maybe we could just write it off as trump being trump. it is just bluster trolling. but this time he is actually implementing a methodical campaign to seize control of the law and apply it differently depending on whether you support him or oppose him. take, for example, what happened on friday night. trump ordered the department of justice to cut a deal with the indicted mayor of new york city, eric adams. the deal was simple. if adams pledged loyalty to trump and agreed specifically to cooperate with trump's immigration raids in the city, trump would look the other way regarding adams' corruption.

the charges would be dropped and adams could keep stealing money as long as he was politically loyal to trump. they didn't hide this deal. adams and a high-ranking trump official literally went on tv to announce that they had formed an alliance based upon the release of charges in exchange for political loyalty. but when trump told the highest-ranking justice department employees in new york city to execute the corrupt deal, they wouldn't. the top official resigned rather than take part in the corruption. so did the next in the chain of command. by the time that trump found someone who would implement the deal, seven doj lawyers and four of adams' deputy mayors had resigned because what was happening in plain view was a fundamental challenge, a

fundamental corruption to the rule of law, a rule of law that up until today republicans and democrats had both revered. meanwhile, other parts of trump's team are engaging on the other side of the ledger targeting and harassing, using the law, the president's critics. because that's what happens in a nation without the rule of law. law enforcement lets loyaltyists like -- loyalists like adams off the hook and is overzealous in targeting critics. let me give you just one example of what is schaaping right now as we -- of what is happening right now as we speak. last month trump's new fcc chairman opened an investigation into a single radio station that had the audacity to simply file a news report about an ice raid that was happening locally. multiple other sources filed

similar reports with similar footage but only one investigation was opened, and you guessed it, it was against the radio station that was owned by a high-profile critic of donald trump, george soros. so the game is clear. like, we can see it. they're not even hiding it. there is not a rule of law anymore. there is one set of law for people or entities who are loyal to donald trump, and there is one set of law for people who dare criticize him. that is not democracy. and if we don't find a way, republicans and democrats, to come together to defend the rule of law, if we don't say that what is happening today -- deals being cut with corrupt politicians in exchange for their pledges of loyalty to

donald trump -- if we can't speak with one voice about that kind of corruption, well, then our democracy is cooked, which brings us to the pending nominee. to lead the fbi, kash patel. if your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the department of justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then kash patel is the perfect person to lead the fbi, and that is likely exactly why he was chosen. listen -- kash patel is a joke. many of my republican colleagues know this. he has spent the last four years taking the most extreme positions inside the world of maga in order to make money for himself. for instance, he says that he

can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the fbi was behind the january 6 invasion of this building. let me say that again. the man that my republican colleagues are about to vote to lead the fbi believes that there is irrefutable proof that the agency he is about to lead secretly organized the violent assault on the capitol. that is bananas. our republican colleagues know that. that is a lie. and we're about to put this guy in charge of the fbi, an agency that he claims organized a secret plot to invade the capitol? he wrote a book called "government gangsters" and at the end he added an appendix entitled "enemies list." like, straight out of the mccarthy era. he has a list -- wrote it down -- of people he believes are enemies of america.

and, shocker, they're owl democrats -- they're all democrats, or republicans who dared speak out and criticize donald trump. you're going to put at the head of the fbi an agency that can arrest anyone they want, put people in jail, a man who thinks that anyone who disagrees with donald trump politically is an enemy of the united states. patel has further suggested that anybody who administered a 20 election could be subject to arrest. why? because he believes in his heart that the election was rigged, despite the fact that joe biden won by seven million votes, far, far more than trump won by in 2024. so anyone who helped rig the 2020 election is in his mind a potential criminal. this is off-the-wall stuff. but, of course, it is because

while he believes this, he also knows that there's a money-making opportunity in all of this. this is his logo, k$h. he says all these things. it makes him a hero to the gullible conspiracy theorists inside maga. he uses them. he sells stuff to them. t-shirts, sweatshirts. if you buy this sweatshirt for $55, it says all net profits go to the kash foundation. you know what we found out, unsurprisingly, that by 2023 by selling all these sweatshirts and merch, the kedh foundation

purports to support heroic whistleblowers with legal services and other support services. you know what percentage of that $1.3 million went to actual services? less than 15%. kash patel pocketed almost all the money that he made from selling these t-shirts. he even hocs a covid vaccine reversal pill. in addition to selling t-shirts and pocking most of the proceeds, also sells a vaccine reversal pill that is just like pure snake oil. but if there are enough people loyal to donald trump to buy anything trump's lieutenant's sell on the intent, then fair

game. to top it all off, just recently after his confirmation hearing, we also found out that kash patel has been a fashion consultant to a shadowy holding company controlled, it seems, by members of the chinese communist party. like, honestly, honestly, how on earth are we going to let someone lead the world's most important, most revered law enforcement agency who is secretly in business with the chinese communist party, who believes that the fbi organized the invasion of the capitol, who runs a fake charity, who has a brand in order to make money off of his affiliation with donald trump? he has an enemies list. he thinks that people who helped elect joe biden are criminals. this is a really dangerous

moment. this is a really dangerous moment. this deal that donald trump just cut with the mayor of new york, it's a big deal. it's a big deal. i admit that prior presidents have made decisions that compromise the rule of law. but we've never seen anything like this, so brazen and out in the open, that the mayor of new york and a trump official would go on national tv to announce that they had made an arrangement in which mayor adams could continue his corruption as long as he was politically loyal to donald trump. they did that out in the open on tv because it's a signal to everybody else out there that the law will be applied differently to you if you are loyal to the president and that the law will be zealously applied to you, maybe in excess

of the letter of the law, if you are a critic of the president. that's why they went on tv, to show the world the corruption as a signal that things are different now, that the law is not the law, the law is what president trump decides the law is. the law loses all meaning when it becomes simply what the president, what the leader on any given day decides. this is the worst possible moment to put a person like kash patel in charge of the fbi. it is heartbreaking to see so many of my republican colleagues, many of whom i admire, put loyalty to donald trump ahead of loyalty to this country, and more specifically loyalty to that sacred principle, the rule of law. my prediction is that if you vote for kash patel, more than

any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave.

run the country deeper into debt

that's not a plan for support. stand on their feet destroyed and they need more massive giveaways and they don't want to see that debt run up in the process but that's where they are. republican colleagues might say not so fast. this is about securing our border but don't let that fool you and the appropriation will to address this and we had a strong bipartisan defense bill in the democrats supported bipartisan that was a year ago

they it was killed. and then handed trump that i don't want you to fix the problem, i want this as a campaign element chaos of the border so you have democrats ready to work on national defense and security at the border. this is about slashing bills for families and give it to the richest americans. as the real republican resolution and this is over 9 trillion in cuts to programs.

you'll see it in the unallocated cuts, $9 trillion. that includes -- president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. lujan: mr. president, over the past week elon musk and donald trump have fired thousands of federal workers, many of them in new mexico, without warning. the calls that i get to my office from constituents all across new mexico expressing concern, surprise, alarm, not knowing what's going to happen next, worried about a project, a professional that i spoke to that works for the bureau of indian education, who has a responsibility to help diagnose

and support students with disab disabilities, asking do i stay and help these kids? what's going to happen with this stuff? now, whether it's our neighbors who work to support the national l labs, to keep us safe, or friends who work at the united states department of agriculture, helping our farmers and ranchers feed our nation, these illegal mass firings are impacting communities across every corner of new mexico. let me sum this up, what i keep hearing from new mexicans every day is please help me. speak up. say something. do something. bring attention to what's happening to the harm that's going caused in our communities, for all of our constituents. this isn't about democrats or republicans. it's about right or wrong. it's about real people. now, instead of protecting these jobs and helping our fellow

americans, senate republicans are pursuing a partisan budget resolution that will make it even harder for families to afford their health care, put food on the table or get an education for their students, for their kids. now, this is, quite frankly, chaos, and it's chaos that the american people cannot afford. new mexicans and americans from all walks of life rely on the programs that republicans are now attacking. these are programs that feed seniors, veterans, children, the disabled. these are programs that house our veterans, and keep folks warm during these winter months. and why are republicans ripping these services away from people who need them? to fund this trump tax scam. now it's 2.0. the american people and

constituents across new mexico are the ones that told me, back in 2017, this feels like a scam. what republicans are saying is that middle-class families are going to get everything in here when it comes to a tax cut, but what we saw play out is if you're making millions of dollars, you did okay, you got the brunt of everything that was in this tax scam. lying to the face of the american people. that's what happened in 2017, and it certainly feels the same now. now, let's talk about one possible outcome of this budget resolution. in new mexico, medicaid covers 75% of births, supports around 92,000 children in my home state. across the country, nearly 40% of babies are born with the help

of medicaid. for these babies and pregnant women, this program is vital, offering a chance to grow up healthier and have the best opportunity to succeed. we should all want that for our constituents. that's not partisan. now, unfortunately, republicans have made it clear that they are determined to slash medicaid. they tried it in 2017. what i hear my republican colleagues, when they're being interviewed and being asked the question, are you going to cut medicaid, they certainly attempt to try in every form and fashion to say no, no, no, we're not going to touch it, we're just going to leave it up to the states. let me translate what that means. what republicans in congress are going to do is work to eliminate every federal dollar with medicaid. there's this acronym, fmap, it's a federal matching program to

make medicaid work across america. that's what they're going after. and if you visit with anyone across america that knows anything about how this program works, they will all tell you, without these federal dollars, this program goes away. this republican budget resolution sets the stage for dismantling medicaid, which could result in pregnant moms and babies losing health care. that's just one possible outcome. as i said earlier, the american people deserve honesty and transparency. look, i understand if my republican colleagues want to do this. just own up to it. tell the american people what you want to do. let them know. just be honest with them. that's the least that the american people deserve. last week in the budget committee, i offered a number of commonsense amendments to help lower costs for families, to

strengthen border security, safeguard health care, promote american manufacturing and businesses, and invest in public safety. top of mind for many americans, i offered an amendment to ensure that elon musk and his companies are not profiting off the same government that he's dismantling. elon musk, who was not elected by the american people, is pursuing an extreme agenda to serve his own interests and grief. all while the american people are paying the price for it. if republicans are serious about tackling the issues and lowering costs, let's work together. you have partners here ready to do this for the american people.

but my republican colleagues know better than i that what's happening under this president and elon musk is the cost of goods continues to go up. i don't know how many of you were at the grocery store this weekend in this chamber, but if you haven't been, go by. go by and try to buy some eggs. you will see a sign that limits you to maybe a dozen, maybe two, and you're going to see the costs going up and up and up -- milk, butter. you look at it, you see it, you name it, it's all increasing in price. what happened to president trump saying on day one he was going to lower the cost of these goods for the american people? it's not happening. look, to sum this up, americans will not be able to make ends meet if senate republicans dismantle the programs that make our country strong and secure to

advance yet another tax scam. thank you, mr. president.

number could keep up even though we have the ability to withstand, we couldn't keep up because people are so disturbed about his vision for america, vision of attacking families and goldplated billionaires. it a vision of president trump and we have the tax giveaways. the senate resolution proposes 3.7 and past voice. millionaires and billionaires get most of that and the tax

giveaway proposal. 80% top 10% in america. i know elon musk doesn't need more treasury money richest americans, makeup billionaires don't need more to run up our debt but that's what this proposal does. the house budget resolution goes further and tax giveaways and over the weekend article after article saying that fat enough. tax giveaways to the powerful. we need more space. take a look at the budget last week. guarantee they follow through on the program they link the tax

cuts directly to program costs for families they will giveaway an additional dollar presented their plan and it doesn't stop there. this will result in higher deficit here in the united states. shows the difference between the years of deficit so h.w. bush

and more deficit flashers in his first and produce a surplus of the end of the second bush presidency he raised of the first deficits and income obama who decreases the income trump and he closed the lid off like bonds the deficit and then come biden and it's down again. this is a pattern. if you seen this before. it's often said will was in one

you. you been fooled time and time again and again it's embedded in his budget resolution on for the senate right now. i find it remarkable democrats deliver on decreasing deficits but somehow through the magic of marketing the mistake republicans still present themselves as fiscally responsible if i encourage my colleagues to say we are going to keep putting spotlight and investments will go up the president trump to say have for every previous republican going back decades.

i would like to think we could come together and say there is efficiency but it's absurd to giveaway to the richest americans of words coming from, think of the picture president trump during his inaugural address and all you see is one billionaire after another. they love this idea because there's never enough where i live they do not struggle they

wanted will not dying you shouldn't be doing anything but that will lead it's and my mother had children in the home and all kinds of activities for kids and the mechanics signing and not one in the price of homes the rules. why? hedge funds are buying of housing and we haven't invested enough in devising the degree have been put forward that would

discourage such funds. and hundreds of thousands the issue of homeownership. i.e. will show hopefully and across the aisle. richard and it's all slashing programs families depend on.

howard and the white house. and the first in china and putin and russia and we don't want religion. we not only have a president who admires authoritarian but he is acting like a dictator breaking the law violating the constitution that i don't like. doesn't have that power. we have separation of powers in

america. today getting anything done yet to look for any and remember the conviction and designation. and i will be imperial and not provide the funds. look at three in the midst of a year drought in the american west that challenges us in extraordinary ways, from vast new insect and disease outbreaks to catastrophic wildfire. instead of having fire seasons,

there are many people know who observe it's become try to, i would say to observe that fire season lasts all year. our national forests in colorado and throughout the rocky mountain west are the headwaters of america. in those forests is the origin of the streams and rivers that flow to the rest of the western united states in the case of just the colorado river basin alone, 40 million people rely on it. it is the lifeblood of the american west, the lifeblood of the western united states and of every town and every community no matter how big and no matter how small. in colorado, of every farm and ranch across the american west, they depend on this water and they depend on the forest where this water stops.

it's a critical aspect of this, i think that everybody who is downstream of us, needs to care about the health of our forest. and also our public lands, mr. president. as many people know, since covid ripped through the united states of america, our public lands became a place where the american people, to find refuge, the american people to be able to get away from each other, for families to have the time to also be together on america's public lands. and as many people now say, our public lands are being loved to death. we've had americans from all over the world come and discover the public lands in colorado and throughout the west, but created new pressures on our communities, on the lands themselves and also on the communities surrounding them. and now when we find ourselves in a place where we are facing

these challenges and where we've done a little bit of work just over the last few years because of the money we were able to get into the bipartisan infrastructure bill, it's not the forest that we're thinning, it's the forest service staff that has been clear-cut by what the trump administration is doing. it has proposed to do even before the trump administration began their across-the-board cuts on the forest service, the forest service had 30% less workforce than it had 30 years ago. think about that. while the stresses and strains have grown, while the effect of that 1,200 year drought and climate change has grown, now we find ourselves in a place where the forest service is getting whacked by the administration. last year, even before the trump

administration came back to town, i met with forest service employees in colorado. actually not just forest service but the other western plans, the western public lands agencies from the western slope of colorado to the eastern plains of our state who told me that they can't hire anybody to work for these agencies because federal pay has not kept up with the cost of housing. mr. president, these were the best jobs in our communities years ago. you could live on one person's salary. you could have a household, you could raise kids in a community. you never had to leave the community you grew up in if you had one of these jobs. today nobody can afford housing in colorado. that's a huge problem for america, not just for my state, but it's certainly true of the public employees in the forest

service. to add insult to injury, it takes months and months and months of bureaucrat nightmares to hire people. and now donald trump has come here without any understanding of the needs on the ground of the american people and of our states and of our watersheds, and he has decided to impose across-the-board cuts that i suppose he's going to use in the end to try to justify the $4.6 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. you heard that right. at a time when we have had the worst income inequality we have had since the 1920's, donald trump wants to extend his tax cut for the wealthiest while he's doing things like cutting the forest service across the board. mr. president, 45% of the benefit of that bill go to the top 5% of america.

i never understood the priority the last time that he cut taxes for the wealthiest people and claimed it was a middle-class tax cut, but i especially don't understand it when he is slashing the forest service. this isn't about the forest service employees, although i think they should be treated better. it's about the people that they serve. they are public servants that are doing the work we need them to do in our forest, and it's already challenging enough to do it without these cuts. to level an across-the-board cut, terminating 4800 employees, including 09 in -- 90 in colorado. they are already struggling to keep up with the demands of the american people and the realities on the ground. in the last few days, my office

has heard from a number of forest service employees who were fired last week. we heard from a forest service workerer whose first job was as a firefighter, which is a common way to come into the forest service. she recently returned to the forest service to manage high priority recreation and restoration projects for one of the busiest forests in the united states and also to the monument that honor our world war ii veterans. i heard from a 40-year career civil servant who worked for multiple agencies in rural colorado, including 25 years in the forest service. as a result of her vast experience and years of service, she was recently promoted which put her on probationary status,

not because she was a new ploy employee, but -- new employee, but because of her vast experience, she was elevated and promoted, nevertheless she was a probationary employee because of the way the bureaucracy works and over the weekend she was let go and worries she will never have her well-earned position. these people have done absolutely nothing wrong. we heard from a lifelong coloradan who is a national leader for forest conservation and deeply respected in our community. this person moved across the state for a position with the forest service. their work, creating a safer landscape for firefightersor work in when a fire does break out, which, by the way, is almost all the time these days,

mr. president. ironically, the administration fired a member of the national colorado forest leadership team, get this, mr. president,ho was

actually involved tax planning for staff -- planning for staff reduction. it was the across-the-board reduction, it was the thoughtful reduction that you can do if you're close to the level.

our forests look nothing like central park, mr. president, and i'm not sure if president trump understands that. this person was responsible for teams of pandemic working on -- people working on energy production and the responsible use of our public forests, and there are countless stories of people who signed up for seasonal work to help recreational, range land and wildlife habitat who are now unemployed. trump and musk's actions are not about efficiency or repaying american taxpayers. these cuts don't root out fraud or government waste, but these actions do place an immense burden on the citizens of colorado, on the citizens on the west. we are hanging out communities to dry all over -- all over the american west. i'm glad my colleague from oregon is here, the former chairman of the finance

committee who also has had to watch these crazy tax cuts, which, by the way, mr. president, i'll say that my colleague -- that's not even the speech i was supposed to give, it was about the across the board layoffs of people across the forests who are already undermanned, but for what? to pass a tax bill -- not you, but these guys on the other side where 45% of the benefit goes to the richest people in america or more. cutting staff that put out unattended camp fires, that manage timber sales and support wild land firefighters, means that our communities will face more wierld risks. they require permits to work on the public lands, from out fitters and guides to oil and

gas companies, also to manage -- we, the american people risk losing our access to our most cherished public lands. our federal workers have devoted careers to making our communities and country better. they put the american people first. and i'm grateful for their service. does that mean they couldn't do their job better? no does that mean they couldn't do it in a more efficient manner? no. that's one of the reasons we fought to put more money in the budget to fighting fires themselves because waiting until the fire happens is the most expensive way to deal with it. the second most expensive way would be to lay off the very people that help prevent the conditions from arising that are going to lead to those fires, which, by the way, costs $50,000 an acre to fight. the forest service employees throughout the west are

fundamental to our economy and to our communities in colorado. in fact, the fact that they've been hard to hire them -- them has compromised our communities in really fundamental ways, and we ought to double down ot forest service mission's in investing in watershed help, rooting out waste and cutting red tape to make the agency a better partner for rural communities across the country. that's what we'd be doing. instead, president trump and musk's actions tos eviscerate the federal -- to eviscerate the federal workforce took a torch to that and tear apart our rural community. it's an insult to the rural community and all of america. they should not do it and they should rescind these cuts. with that, mr. president, i

yield the floor. mr. murphy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the recognize the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. i'm down here on the floor tonight, this afternoon, with my colleague, senator kaine from virginia, and the ranking member of the finance committee, senator wyden, to talk about the spending and tax bill that is coming before the congress, driven by republicans and the trump administration, whether it's one bill or two bills, it doesn't really matter. it is the centerpiece of donald trump's economic agenda. and it's really important to talk about the impacts that this spending and tax package will have on the are american public. well, there will be some new spending for defense and some new spending on immigration

policy. the heart of this spending and tax package will be familiar to many americans because they remember it from 2017, during the first trump administration. the heart of this republican economic proposal is a massive tax cut for the very, very wealthy and for corporations. and this time not borrowed to be paid back later by middle class taxpayers, this time paid for by immediate cuts to some of the programs that regular, ordinary americans, many frail seniors depend on, like the medicaid program. just for a little bit of context, it does appear to a lot of americans that this whole thing deals a bit like a scam. this is a government that is being handed over to the

billionaire class in order to operationalize government to make money for the very, very wealthy, and for the rest of us to pay the price. the cost of gas is going up, the cost of groceries continues to go up. and meanwhile donald trump and his billionaire crowd are doing better than ever. just a couple of examples. since elon musk, the richest man in the universe, has taken control of the government with donald trump, the value of his business has gone up by 30%. tesla stock has gone up by 30%. of course it has because elon musk has been able to get into the government and arrange things for his company. the nlrb is gone, they fired the democrat on the board, it is unable to muster a quorum. it is not convincidental that t

nlrb had several open investigations of tesla. our foreign policy has been monetized to support people like elon musk. news just broke yesterday that vietnam is really worried about trump's tariff policy, and so the way they're going to try to get some help from the trump administration is to give some help to elon musk's businesses. they are going to give elon musk a starlink contract. so elon musk and the billionaires are able to operationalize and monetize our money policy. of course elon musk has access to the data, especially the data inside treasury that's going to help him gain an advantage on competitors, whether to set up a new tax payment system or a new universal payment capacity on twitter. so it's not shocking that the value of musk's business has gone way up because he now controls the federal government

in a way that can benefit his business. but trump is doing very well too. he made 100 million off of an mem coin, an meme coin where we have no idea as americans who's buying it. it is very likely foreign actors trying to influence the administration who can secretly buy the meme coin and then whisper to donald trump that we've got your back when you need it. $40 million from amazon for a new documentary of the firl first lady, amazon and meta -- and the montization of foreign policy for donald trump just like the montization of foreign policy for elon musk. the pga and the saudis were meetingwith the president to try -- meeting with the

president to settle their disputes. not to mention that donald trump is in business with one of those golf leagues. it just appears to many americans like this administration puts the billionaires, the corporations, those that are loyal and friendly to donald trump first and all the rest of us second. the apex of this effort to turn our government -- and government policy over to the billionaires is this tax cut. again, this tax and spending package has a lot of elements to it. but the centerpiece is a tax cut that is 852 times bigger for the top 1% of earners in this country than for low-income families. that's a number that's a little hard to get your head wrapped around so i just wanted to put it on this chart. that's what 852 times looks

like. the rates go down for folks that make more than $600,000 a year, but they don't move for folks that make under $600,000 a year. i mean, they're not trying to hide what's going on here. rates are going down, if you make a whole ton of money, rates are staying the same if you're middle income or low income. if you're in the top 1%, your average tax cut is about $70,000. that's a lot of money. that's a lot of money. but if you're making $30,000 a year, and there's a whole bunch of people in this country that are making $30,000 a year, especially when republicans refuse to support the minimum wage going up, if you make $30,000 you get about $130.

$$70,000 if you're doing well, $130 if you're doing. why do people making $600,000 a year need $70,000 while only $100 goes to everybody else? the corporations are in here too. they came to congress and said we need a lower tax break and trump and his republican allies gave them in a tax breaks lower than they asked. they made a claim that all of this money going to corporations would be going to workers. they had a specific claim that it would result in $4,000 more in income to every american because that's how trickle-down economics work in the brains of republicans. you give a bunch of money to corporations, they will be generous and give the money to workers in extra income. well, we now have eight years of experience since the first tax cut they are looking to reauthorize. we know what happened.

the studies show it wasn't $400,000, it wasn't $1,000, it wasn't 500, 200 or 400. it was zero. the tax cut resulted in an increase in salary to those people that worked for those corporations that got the big tax cut. it is zero. it's a scam. when you put this much money, it does not trickle down. when you give corporations those enormous tax cuts, it does not trickle down to everybody else. it stays in the pockets of the wealthy, the corporations use it in order to do stock buybacks, in order to inflate ceo salaries. it just separates the rich from the poor. it is a scam. it is a scam. now, the last thing i'll say before turning it over to senator kaine is that this version of the giant billionaire and corporate tax cut is so much worse than the first version.

it still is a tax cut for the wealthy that's 852 times bigger than for folks at the bottom of the income scale. but whereas in 2017 it was all borrowed -- and that's bad because that money has to be recouped somehow. that means that everybody eventually is going to either pay higher interest rates or have their taxes raised or their services cut to service all that debt, trillions of dollars worth of debt. this times republicans are contemplating not borrowing the money but instead just taking it from poor people and middle class people. just taking it from them to give it to the billionaires and the corporations. the cut they're contemplating in the house of representatives is a cut to medicaid. now, they're also thinking about cuts to medicare, your parents primary health insurance, they're contemplating cuts to

the affordable care act. that's the program that ensures 20 million working americans. but they really zeroed in on medicaid and they're contemplating such devastating cuts to medicaid. they're going to eviscerate the program. you may say well, medicaid is for poor people. that's not me. well, listen, i think we have an obligation to try to make sure that everybody in this country, even poor children, have access to health care. but medicaid also pays for your parents or your neighbors' nursing home costs. if you cut the amount of money that they're talking about out of the medicaid program, you're literally talking about nursing homes shutting down and seniors being out on the street. that's not hyperbole. that's what happens when you make these massive cuts to medicaid. what they're talking about this year is not just running up a credit card bill in order to fund the tax cuts for the wealthy. they're literally talking about putting seniors out on the street in order to fund the tax cut for the wealthy. it just -- the whole thing just feels like a scam to people.

the favors being given to billionaires that are inside the government, the tax cut that benefits the very, very wealthy at the expense of everybody else, the cutting of services that help regular people in order to finance the tax cut. and whether it ends up being one bill or two bills, the centerpiece is still the centerpiece. the transfer of resources and wealth from regular people, from the middle class, from poor people to the very, very wealthy, the millionaire and billionaire class, the corporations. and so we're going to tell this story here on the senate floor, all over the country, while this bill moves its way through the process, either as one bill or two bills. because regardless of the process, the story is still the same.

a scam. to take money from regular people to make the lives of the rich and powerful even more lavish. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to follow my colleague from connecticut to talk about the pending business before the senate. the 2025 budget resolution. my colleague talked about this discussion and the republican proposal as a sham. i'm going to use a slightly different term that i bet we all know, trojan horse. trojan horse. we all know the story about the battle of troy when invaders created this beautiful gift of a horse that they then gave to those in the beseened city -- beseiged city. it turns out it wasn't a gift. it was an agent of destruction. ands that what he this budget deal is. you know, if the republican

majorities here and in the house cared about the budget, we'd have an appropriations deal. there is an appropriations deal on the table to be taken at the end of last calendar year, but after the election result, the republican majority decided we don't want to negotiate with the democrats and the -- in the senate. we'll kick it into next year and come up with a budget deal that we write. we would have had an appropriations deal before the end of last year. we would have an appropriations deal by match 14. instead what democrats are hearing is that the republicans don't want to do the traditional appropriations budget. they want to do a continuing resolution which would be very harmful. if my republican colleagues cared about the budget, they would complain that elon musk and donald trump unilaterally violating past appropriations deals that we all voted for and that the:signed. if -- the president typed. if they cared about the budget,

that would matter to them because a deal is a deal, especially a deal that we voted on. instead my republican colleagues are quietly ak elsing to head -- acquiescing to head start programs closing, to community health clinics closing or reducing services, to veterans hospitals and clinics grappling with serious staff short annuals. -- shortages. why would my colleagues quietly acquiesce to those kinds of violations of appropriations bills you voted for if you cared about the budget? this discussion is a trojan horse. the advertised purposes of the bill that is pending before the senate now are twofold. border security and defense. let me take defense first as a member of the armed services committee. do you need to use reconciliation to do defense spending? we not only do hundreds of

billions of dollars a year in defense spending in a bipartisan way, but twice in the last calendar year we did supplemental appropriations to defense, once in april as part of a supplemental security deal and once at the end of calendar year 2024 as part of a continuing resolution. we spent $850 billion and we added to it twice with a bipartisan vote. you don't need reconciliation for that. you don't need reconciliation to find spending on border security. i've been here since 2013. we did a border security bill that was bipartisan that spent money in this chamber. the house republican majority killed it. in 2018 we did a bipartisan border deal in this body but -- that spent tens of billions of dollars on border security. president trump urged everyone to vote against it. my colleague from connecticut played a key role in a tough bipartisan border security deal just last year.

president trump said vote against it. all of those bills had significant budgetary resources to invest in border security. donald trump and house republicans opposed them. so if there's a track record of being able to do defense spending in a bipartisan way, border security spending in a bipartisan way, then why are we claiming, why are my republican colleagues claiming that this reconciliation bill is about those two items? it's not. what's it about? my colleagues have done a good job of explaining it. this is about an effort to dramatically cut spending programs that support everyday virginians and everyday americans and then to take those dollars and use them to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest americans and the biggest corporations. taking from people who rely upon community health clinics, rely upon medicaid, rely upon student

loans, taking those dollars and then using them to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. my colleague from connecticut talked in particular about the fixation that republicans have had in slashing medicaid. we saw it in 2017. the republican priority during donald trump's first year was to kill the affordable care act. but it went much farther than just killing the affordable care act. the republicans made attack on the core of the medicaid program a key element, and that's why they ended up losing on the floor of the senate in one of the most dramatic votes i ever participated in. medicaid is about our neighbors and parents in nursing homes. medicaid pays for more than half of the births in this country. the hospitals are reimbursed by medicaid. 50% of the medicaid budget goes to children. i'm sorry, 50% of medicaid

recipients are children. only 20% of the budget of medicaid goes to kids but 50% of the recipients. when you go after medicaid, you're going after folks with disabilities. you're going after our parents and grand parents in nursing homes. they're going against kids. they're going against mothers, low-income mothers delivering children in american hospitals. the tax cuts for the wealthy are not necessarily part of the proposal that's before us in the senate right now, but the house gop has given away the game, the big beautiful bill that's being urged on both house and senate republicans by the vice president and president. it contains the tax cuts for the wealthy that my colleague senator murphy has described. we need to have $4.5 trillion of tax cuts and just as was the case in 2017, they will go to folks at the top end. in fact, almost half of the benefits of these tax cuts would go to the top 5% of taxpayers. that is the end result of the

process of reconciliation that we are starting on today. so i would just say let's be candid about what's going on here. we can't trick people. we can't convince people that oh, this is about border security and national defense when we've got a demonsable bipartisan track record of being able to advance in those areas. the people that are out there who the gop are trying to trick in this effort, they're the ones in communities that are complaining about head start programs being closed. they're the ones that see health clinics reduced or clinics laid off. they're the ones that are getting punished because they're veterans. the indiscriminate layoffs that are being pushed by the doge brothers and president trump hit veterans. 30% of the federal workforce is veterans. it's only about 3% of the civilian workforce.

but if you do massive indiscriminate layoffs of federal employees, who are you hurting? you are hurting people who have served this country and are entitled to respect and gratitude. they don't deserve to be treated in donald trump's words as losers in the way that they're being treated with these indiscriminate layoffs. these are the people who are being affected thus far by these policies of the president. so that's what we're fighting about and that's who we're fighting for. we're going to offer amendments during vote-a-rama to clarify what's going on to protect medicaid and children's nutrition and other safety net programs and we will battle to try to convince some republicans to join us in those amendments. but let's just be clear about what this is. it's a trojan horse effort to amass savings off the backs of everyday people to pour into tax

cuts for wealthiest of americans who don't need help. we need to resist it in every way we can, and i look forward to joining my colleagues in doing so. with that, mr. president, i yield back. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i want to thank my colleague senator murphy and senator kaine for very strong speeches. i look forward very much to working with them in this fight. my colleagues have raised a host of important issues that i want to touch on, and i'm going to start with the big picture of what is going on in america as the senate careens towards a budget showdown. donald trump as of today seems to consider himself royalty. elon musk seems to believe he calls the shots. they're trampling over the

constitution and violating the laws as they try to rip apart so much what makes america special. and they're clearing the way for financial predators and wall street scammers to steal from innocent americans. they're gutting medical research the day after the deadliest airplane crash on american soil in decades and when more airplane crashes seem to be happening by the hour, they fired hundreds of people who work on airline safety. they're slashing the university system which is the envy of the world and a huge source of economic growth and opportunity in america. they fired hundreds of people who manage our nuclear arsenal because whatever doge ordered, those fires didn't seem to have any idea what the department of energy does. national parks closed because they don't have enough staff. that's going to be a disaster for rural communities who depend on tourism.

farmers missed payments they're owed. mr. president, nobody i know voted for this chaos. now, i heard firsthand from oregonians this past weekend at town hall meetings. thousands of oregonians, according to the press, were in attendance. they shared their real fears and legitimate concerns about how this slash-and-burn approach we're seeing from trump and musk is is a recipe for a lower quality of life in america and people will lose their lives as a result of these attacks on health care and medical research. unfortunately, there's barely been a peep from republicans. in fact, i heard more support for trump than criticism for this lawlessness from the other side. and it is business as usual here in the senate. it is so important to my colleagues on the other side that they're letting trump and musk get away with this destruction. it is another round of breaks for billionaires and big corporations.

that, colleagues, is the republican prize at the end of this process. that's trump's plan to pay back his supporters who bought the election for him. now for some specifics, the centerpiece of the plan is extending his 2017 tax law at a cost of more than $4 trillion. ultra wealthy americans would get tax breaks of hundreds of thousands of dollars. families who live paycheck to paycheck, as my colleagues have been talking about this afternoon, would be lucky to get enough to cover groceries for a week. what an outrageous imbalance. trump and republicans want typical american peoples to be satisfied with peanuts compared to the growing fortunes of elon musk and trump's other billionaire donors. and it's not just a bunch of extensions. trump wants even more breaks for big, profitable corporations.

senate republicans want new giveaways to the ultrawealthy. who would it be paid for? by booting tens of millions of americans off their health insurance, increasing child hunger, laying off hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers, and raising the cost of living here. the republican chair of the house budget committee had a whole list of destructive proposals a few weeks ago. dozens of pages long. item after item. it looked like the kind of plan you would design if your goal was to wipe out the middle class in america and push tens of millions of families into poverty. but this was a real document from a republican committee chair. a couple of low lights stuck out to us on the senate finance committee -- trump and republicans want to take a wrecking ball to the medicaid program. it is a devastating prospect for tens of millions of americans, and i heard about it in oregon all this weekend.

medicaid pays for two out of three nursing home beds. where do american families turn when nursing homes no longer accept medicaid due to these republican cuts? mr. president, what my colleagues are saying is, who's going to take care of our parents and our grandparents? medicaid covers 30 million kids. that includes half of all american kids with special needs. cuts to medicaid will set these kids back for the rest of their lives. hospitals, nursing homes, other providers in rural communities all over america barely hang on. they depend on medicaid. if the republican cuts go through, rural america is going to become a health care dessert. -- desert. clean energy tax cuts, which i worked on for a full decade, mr. president, are another disaster in the making. republicans are looking at wiping out a host of tax

incentives for clean energy to pay for a big chunk of their handouts to the top. nobody is rooting harder for republicans to succeed on this than the chinese government. that's because if republicans follow through and gut the clean energy tax credits that we passed in 2022, it will be a total surrender to china on clean energy. hundreds of thousands of american jobs would be destroyed. energy prices would jump. that'll hurt working families and small businesses. the jobs and investment we've attracted to america over the last few years, that goes to china and other countries that win the cheap energy arms -- the clean energy arms race at our expense. you look at that document from the house budget committee chair, and it's one item after another that's going to clobber typical families and communities across the land. you're looking at a tax increase on single moms. you're considering a tax

increase that will consider a raising the cost of a emwho. they are even considering taxing scholarships for kids looking to go to college. the only people who won't feel the pain are the ultrawealthy. there's a game of hide-the-ball happening here in the senate with this first resolution that hides all the unpopular plans and the second bill that comes down the pike. over in the house of representatives, they're trying to cram it all into one bill. in the end, the process here in congress won't really matter to the people whose lives are made worse by the painful cuts republicans are preparing to inflict on the country. the reality is, this agenda goes hand in hand with the lawlessness we're seeing from elon musk and donald trump. my view is, this amounts to pillaging the government.

they're breaking vital programs and agencies, and there's no sign they care about the people who are hurt so greatly along the way. donald trump even admits out in the open that it's causing pain -- his words, not mine, mr. president. here in the senate, republicans are getting ready to add to the cuts. they're getting ready to give even more tax handouts to the top. donald trump, elon musk, the billionaire donors who support them. as my colleagues have said this afternoon so eloquently, we're going to shine a light on this floor on the destructive agenda of the republicans as the debate continues. the american people do not support what's happening here in the senate, where donald trump and musk are doing to their government. we are going to do everything we can to stop that. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. bennet: mr. president. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, i was here to talk about the cuts to the forest service in colorado. but i want to add just a couple of thoughts. i appreciate so much what they were saying because the american people are struggling, and it's not just with inflation, it's with an economy that for 50 years that that is worked incredibly well for the wealthy and hasn't worked for anybody else. it used to be the american dream. that's how we knew when our country was working, when you worked hard and you could get ahead. when you worked hard, you are knew your kids were going to get ahead. and we're at a moment in american history for the first time when our kids, people that are 30 years old, are going to earn -- half of them are going

to earn less than their parents are. and people all over the country are looking at it and saying, that's not the america that i recognize. that's not the american dream. and it's not the american dream. today in the united states, mr. president, the top one percent of people own 20% of our income. the bottom 50% own 10%. the bottom 050% own half what the top 10% half. some people might say, oh, my god. that's just a natural feature of how our economy works. it's not, even in this country. 25 years ago it wasn't true. it was reversed. 25 years ago the bottom 50% earned twice as much income as the top 1%. and that has flipped, since ronald reagan came here with his trickle-down economics, that my colleague from connecticut was talking about, with a tax policy that was all about rewarding the wealthiest people and the folks

who were outsourcing jobs from the united states of america. and now donald trump is here to do it again. as he did when he was president the last time. he went to the mahoning valley in ohio and said, you're welcome for your middle-class tax cut. but 50% of it went to the wealthiest 5% in our country. he gave a little tip, agos the senator from connecticut was saying, to the -- to working people in our country to obscure the fact that what he was doing was giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people. i'll finish just by saying this. sometimes people say, that's not surprising, michael. they're the richest people. so maybe they pay the most in taxes. maybe they should get the biggest benefit. the reality is very different because somebody is going to have to pay for this bill. it's either going to be the cuts that they're going to make to medicaid, which are cuts to a

program in a society -- which are cuts to a program for health care coverage for people in this country that are poor or working poor, or they're not going to pay for it at all. and if they don't pay for it at all, the people that are going to have to pay for it are the kids of police officers and firefighters all over our country who are going to have to pay the debt that is incurred by donald trump's tax bill, which is what happened the last time. the chairman will remember that. they didn't pay for it the last time. and when they didn't pay for it the last time, every working person in america is having to pay for it because the interest rates that are on our national debt. my friend from virginia was the mayor of richmond. this tax policy is one -- and i know my colleague from california wants to go, so i'm going to stoplight but this tax -- to stop.

but this tax policy is equivalent to the mayor of richmond saying i am going to borrow more money than we have ever borrowed in the city's history. and i would say to him, i'm worried about that. i'm worried about what you might, as amended, it on. tell me what you're going to spend it on. are you going to spend it on parks? no. are you going to spend it on infrastructure? no. are you going to spend it on mental health, which we desperately need all over the sdmun no. early childhood education, k-12 education, the university in our community? no, no, no. what are you going to do with all this money that you're borrowing? well, i'm going to give it to the two richest neighborhoods in richmond, virginia, and i'm going to expect it will trickle down. you woulding run out on a rail -- you would be run out on a pray for doing that which is why no mayor in america has ever done that. no governor in america has ever

done that and donald trump is about to try to do it for the second time. for the second time! and i hope that people in this body won't be fooled by it. because we saw it before. and we could get a big, bipartisan vote in this senate to begin to reestablish a set of economic rules that's actually lifting the fortunes of the vast majority of people in this country instead of giving these tax cuts to the people in america who need it least. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from

california. mr. schiff: mr. president, it is a great day to be a billionaire in america. for the rest of us, not so much. egg prices are the highest they've ever been. rent is through the roof. prescription drug costs are squeezing families and seniors. but billionaires like elon musk? billionaires are doing just great. in fact, they're about to be doing a whole lot better because if donald trump and my republican colleagues have it their way, they're about to get another massive handout, a $4.5 trillion handout, to be precise. yes, trillion with a "t" and one that will explode the national debt. this bill, the one we will all but certainly soon consider on this very floor, reads like a thank you card to the ultrawealthy. it supercharges the president's 2017 billionaire windfall.

but how, we should ask, are we going to pay for it? well, we already know, don't we. they are going to come after medicaid. 44% of their proposed cuts to fund this tax cut for billionaires are to medicaid. they're going to come after medicare and health care generally. they're going to come after the services that keep our veterans housed, our communities healthy, our children educated. all of it, all of it is on the chopping block. and here's the thing -- they are already chopping away. so let's be crystal clear about what republicans are asking us to consider. it is a smash-and-grab targeting -- not the local store, but the local praesh. a cash grab from the programs that keep so many hardworking families afloat. and what will be the biggest wealth transfer in modern american history. and in exactly the wrong direction.

from the working and middle-class families to the uber rich. at a time when billionaires need it the least. now, don't get me wrong. i'm all for people succeeding beyond their wildest manation. but like everyone else, they should earn it through hard work, not by stealing it from work being people. all this comes as elon musk and donald trump seek to co-opt every lever of government, to go after anyone who dares stand up to them. when i called out musk for seeking access to americans' personal banking and financial data from the irs, he retweeted one of the replies and aimed it at, well, me, yours truly. it read, he's not trying to snoop around my personal finances. he's trying to snoop around yours, meaning mine. they're not even hiding it anymore. the goal has never been to cut government waste or make

government more efficient. no, the goal is to help their wealthy friends and go after anyone who dares criticize them or hold them accountable. they plan to use a weapon ipsed irs, a weaponized doj, a weaponized fbi to investigate and prosecute and persecute donald trump's enemies. not just elected officials like myself, but anyone who steps out of line. business owners, big or small, who could be next in line for an audit, if they express their opposition to the president and what he's doing to hurt them with tariffs or anything else. or journalists who write stories that the president doesn't like, an anyone, because anyone standing up to them is standing in the way of their very simple, well-demonstrated goal, one-man rule, give donald trump all of the power so he can take from the poor and give to the rich,

to feed his ego and his bank account and that of his pals. remember winter of 2023? donald trump stood at the gold-plated mar-a-lago podium and told a room full of the richest people in america, and i quote, you're all people that have a lot of money. you're rich as hell. we're going to give you tax cuts. mr. president, most of my california constituents are not rich as hell. far from it. and donald trump couldn't care less about them. the vast majority of them make less in a decade than it costs to pay the million-dollar membership fee at mar-a-lago, let alone the amount necessary to get a gold-plated promise from the now-president that their taxes will get lowered. but for this administration, it's never been about ordinary americans. if you look at what donald trump is proposing here, the priority is exceedingly clear.

if you look what elon musk has done offense the last few weeks, his priority is pretty damn clear as well. a single mother choosing between paying rented a buying groceries? that's not the priority. a veteran wondering if the housing assistance that helped them get off the street is going to dry up? that's not their priority. but that billionaire who wants another yacht? now, that is their priority. when a ceo wants another corporate loophole, that is the priority. now, of course, they won't put it that way. they'll tell you this is about spurring investment or creating jobs or unleashing the power of the free market. we've heard that story before. remember 2017, when donald trump gave trillions to the wealthy and promised these tax cuts would pay for themselves? guess what -- and you won't believe this, they didn't.

they didn't pay for themselves. in fact, they exploded the deficit by as much as $2 trillion. now they're telling us the only way to fix the hole they dug is by cutting services for the americans who actually need them, and of course more tax cuts for rich people. we all heard it when they told us if we just cut corporate taxes a bit more, the savings are sure to trickle down to working families. well, they didn't. corporate profits hit record highs. ceo bonuses soared. but wages? wa wages, for regular people, they barely budged, to the point where it would take an average worker at an s&p 500 company almost 200 years to make what their ceo made last year. think about that for a moment.

it would now take an average worker at an s&p 500 company almost 200 years to make what their ceo made last year. how is that right? how is that fair? how is that good economics? and how could they possibly want to make that worse? what is their goal? to provide another tax cut for the wealthy so that it will now take 300 years for an average worker to make what their ceo makes? we're hearing the same pitch all over again. but i'll tell you what has changed since 2017, since that last big giveaway? nothing. nada. bupkis. they want you to believe they can afford to shower the we wealthiest people and

corporations with even more tax breaks, but we can't afford to pay for the workers, including a ton of veterans who dedicated their lives to serving this country at home and abroad. that we can hand trillions to millionaires and billionaires, but can't afford to help families afford child care, or hire firefighters or fund critical cancer research. that the real problem, they would have you believe, in the richest country in the world is the program that helps seniors retire with dignity. at the end of the day, governing is about choices. choices aren't always easy. there are very few clear choices in a complex and robust democracy. but this should not be a hard choice, because today we're not asked what we can afford. we're asked what we choose to afford. we could choose to invest in our children, in our workers, in our

future, or we can choose to hand the wealthiest americans another tax cut they don't need. we can choose to honor the commitments we've made to seniors, to veterans, to families struggling to get by, or we can choose to break those commitments just to make sure elon musk's tax bill stays as lowell as humanly possible -- as low as humanly possible. after all, launching your car into space isn't cheap. we could choose to build an economy that works for everyone, or we can choose to keep writing blank checks to those who already have more than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes, or 200, or 300. donald trump has made his choice. elon musk has made his choice. what will we choose? donald trump and elon musk would have you believe that america is broke. america isn't broke, but it is

broken for so many people who actually do the work. so no, it's not a great day to be a teacher struggling to pay the rent, or a nurse working a double-shift just to afford groceries. it's not a great day to be a retiree watching social security and medicare under attack. but it is a great day to be a billionaire in america, and that, my colleagues, is exactly the problem. i yield back.

and today he wants one bill. this morning the confusion continues. frankly this is all a sideshow. republicans could do to build, 10 bills, 50 bills, 100 bills. it doesn't make a difference because donald trump and house and senate republicans are united where it matters most.

they want to give their billionaire but he's the tax break and have the american people pay the cost no matter how many bills. this is going to be a long drawn out fight to the debate to begin this week will fill into next week and the week after and go one possibly further. we will have late night here on the floor exposing republican hypocrisy on health care, national security, on job creation, on inflation and most of all and where their main focuses, their northstar tax breaks for their billionaire but he's. democrats are glad to have this debate with the republicans. we are glad to expose the truth here on the senate floor. no matter how republicans. >> it their number one goal is tax cuts for their billionaire but he's. they are laying the groundwork to defend medicaid raise health

care costs for tens of millions of working families and also they can help their billionaire but he's with another tax break. republicans are preparing to cut nutrition programs to feed hungry kids. so they can help their billionaire but he's can get other tax breaks. republicans are making it harder for americans to own a home so they can help their billionaire but he's with another tax break. republicans are preparing to/nih funding and reduce the chances that he can cure so many on this is that affect tens of millions. they are slashing nih funding even as a measles outbreak is breaking out in texas. all so they can help their billionaire but he's with another tax break rl, i spoke no english, but when i enrolled in elementary school, i

met miss petri, the school librarian who read to us every week. it was miss petri who helped me learn english and instilled in me a lifelong love of reading. the public education i received at schools gave me, a girl from very humble beginnings, the opportunity to get ahead. my story is not unique. our public education system has enabled generations of americans to get ahead, and has been essential to our country's economic success and global leadership. but despite their promises to make life better for working families, donald trump, elon musk, and their billionaire buddies have set their sights on gutting support for public education. trump has made no secret of his desire to eliminate the federal

department of education altogether. thankfully, the department of education was created by congress, and only an act of congress can eliminate it. but even so, trump's assault on the federal government is already undermining the department's ability to meet its mission of supporting our nation's students and teachers. in their quest to give trillions in handouts to trump's billionaire buddies, republicans are poised to gut the department of education and programs on which millions of american children rely. they have no problem eliminating federal funding for programs that support low-income students, low-income schools, students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and much more. just look at project 2025. they want to eliminate funding

for title 1 schools which support low-income students. we are talking about funding for 49,000 title 1 schools throughout the country, including 170 schools in my state of hawaii. they have no problem coming after federal funding for programs that provide after-school care, child care, and even school meals. none of this is hypothetical. cutting after-school programs could make life even harder for working parents already struggling to make ends meet. republicans don't seem to give a rip about the millions of children in their schools. they care about one thing and one thing only, delivering for their billionaire buddies. but democrats care about you, about your family, and about

your children's fundamental rights to a quality public education. that's why senator peters and i will be introducing a series of amendments to this massive misguided budget proposal to fund a giveaway for billionaires at the expense of our kids. our amendments will protect our schools and their service, and the services children and families rely on, including an amendment to protect school meals. this is a simple amendment. it would prevent any reduction in funding for the national school lunch program and breakfast programs which have been wildly successful in feeding 29.6 million children at

95,000 schools nationwide every single day, including 93,000 children in hawaii, 102,000 children in south dakota, 518,000 children in south carolina, and many, many more. every single state has thousands of children who rely on the school meals paid for by the federal government. from coast to coast and beyond, these programs keep our kids from going hungry. for many kids, school meals are the only meals they can count on all day. i can't believe we are standing here fighting over whether or not kids have the right to eat, but apparently even that is controversial to my republican colleagues. so here we are.

it's simple, mr. president. we have no business depriving our kids of lunch to fund massive giveaways to trump and his billionaire buddies. it's that simple. i yield back.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. rosen: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. ms. rosen: thank you. mr. president, i rise today to speak on an issue that will affect millions of hardworking families, seniors, children,

veterans, and any american who relies on essential services. as we'll soon see, republicans are going to use the budget reconciliation process, a tool designed to lower the national debt, to pass massive new tax cuts for billionaires and the ultra wealthy. and to pay for these tax breaks, they're proposing devastating cuts to vital programs that people in my state of nevada rely on, including medicaid, snap, supplemental programs for women, infants and children. so let me say that again. congressional republicans are going to cut critical government programs like medicaid and snap in order to give the wealthiest americans even more tax cuts. you got that right. their policies are while billionaires win and families lose. this isn't fiscal

responsibility. it's moral negligence. this isn't just about economic policy. this is about the livelihoods of everyday americans. at a time when nevadans are already grappling with economic hardship and a rising cost of living, these actions by my republican colleagues, well, they're just plain wrong. they're just out of step. instead of using this budget process to provide relief for hardworking families, republicans, they're exploiting it to push through policies that benefit billionaires like elon musk while leaving millions of americans, i'll say everyday, hardworking families, regular people, everyday people, leaving them all behind. leaving you in the lurch. again, their motto seems to be billionaires win, families lose.

and let's remember when senate democrats, what are we did with the budget process when we were in the majority. anybody remember? well, we gave medicare the power to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. we capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. we helped hardworking americans who were being crushed by high costs. we stood up to corporate interests on behalf of the middle class. and now, well, my colleagues, republicans are in the majority. what do they want do? again, billionaires win, families lose. they want to give additional billions in tax breaks for the the wealthiest americans while the rest of us are footing the damn bill. the numbers tell the story. extending these tax cuts would give the top 1% of earners, those making roughly $750,000 a year or more, a tax cut averaging more than $60,000 a

year. and i'm going to put that in perspective for a moment. the tax cut that the top 1% would get is more than the total income of most families who rely on medicare or snap or just most families in general. it's the top 1%. and the two programs republicans are planning to cut -- medicare and snap -- they're going to cut them in order to pay the tax cut, tax cuts, trillions of dollars. again, for who? elon musk and their billionaire buddies. you heard that right. these expanded tax cuts will cost the federal government $4.2 tri trillion. so you might be asking yourself, wait, so how are republicans, how are they going to pay for all this? in order to help offset some of that cost, they're going to decrease funding for medicaid, for snap, and other services

that support people with disabilities and elderly individuals. medicaid alone provides health coverage to almost 80 million americans, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities, like i said. and these cuts, well, they would directly harm some of the most vulnerable people in our society, making it harder and harder for them to get the kind of lifesaving care or just any care that they may need. in my state of nevada, more than 800,000 people rely on medicaid for their health care. 800,000. and any reduction in its funding would leave these individuals, some of them our friends, our neig neighbors, they go to church with us, any reduction in funding is going to leave these individuals without access to affordable health care or the ability to see a doctor.

similarly, snap is a lifeline for millions of families seeking to feed their children. to feed their children. it feeds our seniors. it helps our working parents. and it's estimated that more than 40 million people rely on snap just to put food on the table. nearly one in six people in nevada benefited from snap last year. the majority of whom are children. you got that right, one in six people benefit from snap in nevada, majority of them are children. so we're talking about parents who rely on this program to make sure that their kids don't go to bed hungry or that they have breakfast before they go to school. they're feeding hungry kids. republicans are proposing cuts to snap that would affect millions of families, driving up

food insecurity, placing an additional burden on those who can least afford it. and on top of these cuts, you have to consider the cuts that the trump administration has already made. actions that are hurting veterans services, health care, and good-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure. the trump administration has already made cuts to the staff at the department of veterans affairs, including the people that staff the veterans assistance hotline. these cuts are going to have severe impact to our veterans. they served our country with honor, they deserve the best possible care when they return home, and cutting doctors and nurses and counselors and people who answer the help line, how is that helping those who protected us, who keep our homeland safe? we owe them that.

well, these cuts aren't showing that at all. and the administration has also targeted medicare for staffing cuts that could undermine health care for seniors across the country. nearly one in five seniors depend on medicare for their health care needs, and for many it's their only source of care. letting go of medicare employees will impact seniors' ability to access this literal lifeline. we've also seen a tax on the infrastructure projects. these projects, what i want to tell you is that they support good-paying american jobs. good-paying jobs in construction, in engineering, and in public works. they fix our roads and our bridges and our trains. our grid. it matters.