mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mrs. moody. mr. moran. mr. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff.

mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff.

mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis.

mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. senators voting in the affirmative -- banks, barrasso, blackburn, britt, budd, cassidy, cotton,

ernst, grassley, hagerty, hawley, hyde-smith, kennedy, moreno, paul, schmitt, scott of florida, tillis, and young. senators voting in the negative -- duckworth, durbin, king, lujan, murkowski, murphy, padilla, peters, sanders, warner and welch. ms. slotkin, no.

mr. sheehy, aye. mr. schatz, no. mrs. moody, aye. mr. crapo, aye.

mr. scott of south carolina, aye. ms. rosen, no. mr. tuberville, aye. mr. husted, aye. mr. johnson, aye. mr. risch, aye. mr. kelly, no.

mr. ricketts, aye. mr. blumenthal, no. mr. daines, aye. mr. justice, aye. ms. cantwell, no. mr. graham, aye. ms. collins, no. mr. marshall, aye. ms. lummis, aye.

mr. mccormick, aye. mr. schumer, no. mrs. gillibrand, no. mr. sullivan, aye. mr. mcconnell, aye. mr. wyden, no. ms. alsobrooks, no.

mr. cramer, aye. ms. blunt rochester, no. mr. kim, no. mr. merkley, no. mr. lankford, aye. mr. kaine, no. mr. warnock, no. ms. hirono, no.

mr. booker, no. mrs. murray, no. mr. heinrich, no. ms. cortez masto, no. mr. rounds, aye. mr. moran, aye. mr. reed, no.

mr. thune, aye. mr. cornyn, aye. ms. warren, no. ms. hassan, no. mr. ossoff, no. mr. fetterman, no. ms. smith, no.

mr. van hollen, no. mr. markey, no. mr. coons, no.

ms. baldwin, no. mr. hickenlooper, no.

mrs. shaheen, no.

vote: the clerk: mr. boozman, aye.

the clerk: ms. klobuchar, no. mr. hoeven, aye. the clerk: mr. schiff, no.

the clerk: mr. bennet, no. mrs. capito, aye. mr. wicker, aye. the clerk: mrs. fischer, aye.

the clerk: mr. cruz, aye.

the clerk: mr. mullin, aye. mr. lee, aye. the clerk: mr. gallego, no.

the clerk: mr. curtis, aye.

the clerk: mr. whitehouse, no. the presiding officer: the yeas are 51, nays 49. the confirmation is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be l immediately notified of the senate's action.

the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you very much. to my colleagues, we'll soon be starting what is commonly called a vote-a-rama. if you've never been in one, it's okay. but know it's a chance to have spirited discussion and debate about policy and about the budget resolution. so what's happened here is that the budget committee reported out senate concurrent resolution 7 that will allow through the reconciliation process the spending of money and the reduction of spending based on different committees. this resolution allows for $175 of border and immigration policy enhancements, but it doesn't spend a penny. it allows the judiciary committee and the homeland security committee to come up

with up to $175 billion plan to secure our border and do immigration reform. and what will happen is that those two committees, mr. president, will work with the trump administration to meet their priorities. there's nothing in this resolution directing one dime of spending. and no spending bill can be implemented without presidential signature. so i want to make sure that's clear. there's $150 billion in increased defense spending. why? because we have a lot of threats. since the withdrawal of afghanistan, radical islam is on the rise. we've got a hot war with russia and ukraine. israel is facing enemies on seven sides. we've provided weapons to allies in ukraine and illinois. we've got to reinforce our industrial base. we need more money into our military. yesterday, to make sure that we can deter war, and if we get into a war we win it, so the $150 billion will be allocated

by the armed services committee. we don't direct how the $150 billion is spent. we allow the armed services committee to spend that much if they choose. so this idea that there is somehow money in this resolution for ukraine or any other specific purposes, not true. all we do is create a number for the committees to 6 -- to mark up to and it's up to the committee as to what is in the $150 billion package. to all the colleagues here, you'll eventually get the work product. and if you don't like it, you can vote now. what we're doing is jump-starting a process that will allow the republican party to meet president trump's immigration agenda through the reconciliation process and the democrats used this very process to pass obamacare and the

inflation reduction act. we're going to use it to secure our border. we're not going to grow the government for the sense of growing the government, we're not going to create the green new deal, ladies and gentlemen we're about to embark on a plan to start the most transformational border security bill in the history of the united states. we had 11 million people come to this country illegally. fentanyl kills thousands of americans every two weeks, they come across the southern border, we are running you out of places to hold people, tom holder came to the republican senate two weeks ago and said ice is out of money. this starts the process to get tom holman to get the money he needs so he doesn't have to let people go. laken riley's murderer was in

detention and was released because of lack of bed space and wound up killing the person. we need more detention beds. we need to finish the law. this $175 billion will be allocated by the committees in question and it will allow president trump to finish the law, secure the border and deport criminals. ice is out of money. if you think it's a good idea to go after the criminal gangs that have come here over the years illegally, then you're right. to my democratic colleagues, you should be working with us, not against us. everybody should want to clean up the mess of the last four years. everybody should want to go after criminal gangs, everybody should want to secure the border because it's a national security nightmare, and nobody should want the dilemma of a nation having to let somebody go who could potentially be dangerous because you have no place to put them. this $175 billion will allow the

most transformational bill, it will be allocated by the armed services committee. they'll decide what to spend it on, there's a lot of not o'modernization we need of our nuclear triad fleet. we need more weapons. our stockpile is low. there's a bunch of things we can spend the $150 billion. when it comes to border security, the committee's of jurisdiction will allocate that money, not this resolution. but without this resolution, we can't move forward. why is this resolution important? without this bill passing, senate concurrent resolution 7, there is no hope of getting money for the border the way it needs to be done. without this resolution passing tonight or early tomorrow, we're not going to get any money for the military without having to negotiate nonmilitary spending increases. we don't have a lack of spending

problem in our country. we have spent way too much on things that don't matter enough part of this browse will be committees finding offsets, reducing spending, so we're telling the armed services committee, spend $150 billion the way you see fit. we're telling two committees to send $175 billion to secure our border and we're telling seven other committees, find savings inside your committee to offset the spending we're creating in this bill. i think they can do that. i think what doge is doing is good. this is a form of that. every committee's that's been instructed to save at least $1 billion will be able to go into the committee and reduce spending because we're directing them to. my hope is that the $342 billion we're going to spend to secure our border, help the military, enhance the coast guard will be

offset with $342 billion of cuts in other parts of the government. we can do it, but this resolution has to pass or we won't do it. i'm highly confident that the republican chairman of the committees in question will deliver. i'm highly confident that we can find savings in the government to offset the spending we're creating. the democrat party -- democratic party used this process for the green new deal, they used this process for obamacare. we're using this process to help the military, to secure the border and enhance the coast guard. that's the difference. we're doing things that need to be done to make us safe. 3,000 americans die every two weeks because fentanyl comes across the border. we're going to fix that. since president trump's been in office, border crossings have gone down by 90%. we want to finish that law.

we want to make sure we never release another person in this country because we don't have a bed. we're going to make sure that the criminal gangs keep leaving, not staying because the ice doesn't have enough money. why are we doing this? because tom holman and mr. vought, the head of omb told us two weeks ago we're out of money to finish the job that president trump started. to my house colleagues, i would prefer a big beautiful bill that makes the tax cuts permanent and does what it needs to do for our military and cut spending. i wish you all the best. i prefer what you're doing to what we're doing, but we have to have a plan b if you can't get it done soon? what is the senate doing? we decided to front end load security. we want to make the tax cuts permanent, we're going to work with our house colleagues to do that. they expire at the end of the year but we have time to do

that. it is the view of the republican senate that when it comes to border security, we need not fail, we need to have the money now to keep the momentum going, we need money for the military because the world is on fire. to hi house colleagues, we need to get there together, if you can pass one big beautiful bill that makes the tax cuts permanent, not four or five years, we'll cheer over here. nothing would please me more than if speaker johnson can put together the bill that president trump wants. i want that to happen but i cannot sit on the sidelines and not have a plan b. this nation is under threat. the illegal immigrants who have come here by the millions need to be sent back by the millions. the border needs to be secure, the wall needs to be finished. we need more detention space, we

need to upgrade our military capability now. the reason we're doing it now is because we were told ice is out of money now. so i'm hoping that the house can deliver, but i am very confident that the senate, early in the morning, republicans, not one democrat vote, will set in motion a process that will transform our border security to the most modern adepressive -- aggressive security plan in history, north and south, that will set in motion $175 million of new spending to secure the border in a way that has never been achieved in the past. if this resolution fails, god help us all. if this resolution passes, help is the on the way. if you believe in securing our border, this bill gets the job done, if you believe the

military needs to be stronger, n weaker, if you believe the coast guard needs more money to deal with national security threats. this bill delivers. this is a bill that will combat fentanyl, killing americans. there are are more americans dying every two weeks from fentanyl than on 9/11. hundreds of thousands of young americans, young and old, but mostly young, have died from fentanyl poisoning coming from across the southern border. we are going after them. without resources, it won't work. tom holman came to us and begged us for money to continue the plan he's enacted to get gangs out of this country, to secure that border, to have more detention space. tom, we heard you. we're going to meet your needs. so i'm excited about this debate. i'm excited about republican-led

chairman committee chairman finding ways to reduce spending to pay for this. this is a big bill, folks. the republican party is going to go all in on border security. we're going to upgrade our defense capability and we're going to pay for it. anybody at home had to pick between two things? you couldn't be everything -- you couldn't have it all, that you had to spend because your child got sick or hurt and you had to cut somewhere else because there wasn't enough money to do both? we're going to set priorities. if you have a sick child or something bad in your family something happens, that goes first. that means you have to pick somewhere else, except in washington. that model's over. we're going to start a new way of doing business. we're going to spend on things that need to be done and should be done by the federal government to keep your safe and we're going to offset it by reducing spending in areas not as important.

i'm excited about this process. i urge my colleagues to come down on both sides of the aisle and participate in this debate. this is what i was elected to do, i think. make america safe and prosperous and do it in a fiscally responsible way. the idea that we're going to actually offset spending is a great day. we're going to deliver. this is going to go into the night. our democratic colleagues are going to have a chance to offer a lot of amendments to our approach. and they will want this and they will want that. about what breaks my heart is they don't see the value in what we're doing. every american should want more money into dhs to secure our border and more money in the hands of the military at a time of great threat, but we can't get there. we can't reach common ground on those issues so we're going to

use a process they used. they used the process to create obamacare, the green new deal, the inflation reduction act. we're going to use that very same process to make the cartels' life miserable, to go after cartel gangs, go after the -- upgrade the military and make our military the most lethal it's been since ronald reagan and we're going to pay for it all request. 0 -- pay for it all. i will read a script that will start the process to the senator from ohio, the presiding officer. this is why you came. this is what you promised to do. i was on the campaign with you and you looked your voters in the eye and said we're going to do things differently. we're going to secure the border, stop the fentanyl from poisoning your kids and we're going to be serious about fiscal responsibility.

we're going to pay for all of this. so, mr. president, you have a chance here to do what you promised you would do and all of us on this side of the aisle, people are counting on us and they are counting on this republican majority. they're counting on this republican majority to give the president the money he needs to do the job that he promised to do and we're going to deliver. we're going to do it and we're going to do it tonight, and if it's 5 o'clock in the morning, i don't care how long it takes, we're going to deliver and we're going to pay for everything we do. so in a little bit, in a small period of time, around 5 o'clock, we're going to start this process and this is a big deal, folks. this is not just business as usual in washington. this is a different way of doing business. i yield. mrs. murray: mr. president. the presiding officer: i

recognize the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, we need to be focused on solving problems, and i think most of us here get that. no matter who the president is, our constituents expect us to work for them. they expect us to fight for them, and they expect us to do the hard work would of passing laws to make their lives better. people don't send us here to make their lives worse, but that's exactly what trump and musk are doing. they are looking at our most pressing problems and making them worse and this budget proposal will only add fuel to that fire. right now, even as egg prices hit an all time high, trump and musk have done nothing to lower prices. they've done nothing to address the housing crisis or help families get quality affordable child care or address other issues i hear about from folks all the time.

instead they are slashing programs that help our families make ends meet. they are dputing an -- gutting an agency, and starting trade wars that will impose what is effectively a trump sales tax entirely on the backs of american workers. as china works to strengthen its global leadership, trump and musk have ceded the ground cutting off investments we make to continue our country's leadership and help our allies. at the most precarious moment, he is going to cleanse gaza so trump and his family can build waterfront property there.

calling our ally a dictator and meeting with russia without inviting ukraine. when it comes to the bird flu, trump and musk are firing the very workers who are responsible for tracking the disease and keeping it from spreading further. and now suddenly they are desperately trying to hire them back, and as texas deals with a serious measles outbreaks, trump's health secretary can't tell parents that the vaccine does not cause autism and to be clear it does not. trump and musk are firing faa workers who make sure flying is safe. who does that help? and now steve is letting musk run wild by inappropriately

accessing through sensitive files. how does that make sense? while president trump is busy making problems worse and quoting dictators, what are we doing here in the senate? are we holding president trump accountable? are we holding his co-president elon musk, the richest man in the world who has billions of dollars and conflicts of interest accountable? are we putting a stop to the catastrophic cuts and reckless firings that are hurting people and our communities and setting our country back decades? that seems like a good use of time? i heard some republicans admit cutting things like medical research and firing people like our v.a. workers are bad ideas. so you would think maybe we could work together from that common ground but instead

republicans are throwing all their effort behind a bipartisan plan to slash and burn programs that help our families and raise costs for everyday americans and shovel billions of dollars to help people who already have billions of dollars. meanwhile, i would like to recommend to my colleagues we are less than a month away from a deadline to pass bills to fund our government. and as we approach that government, the entire world is watching as president trump and elon musk shut the government down bit by bit whatever parts elon doesn't like. trump and musk are already showing thousands of our essential workers the door despite the fact that they have no clue what those workers do or why their jobs matter. they're just turning off the lights and hoping for the best. i am hearing so much alarm from back home from fired workers and from the people who depend on them. trump and his co-president are

shuttering entire agencies, they're locking workers out of their devices and buildings and demanding the work of the american people come to a screeching halt again for no good reason. and let me really drive home just how damaging and extreme these firings are because we're not talking about some routine changing of the guard or some thoughtful or strategic plan to make government more efficient. trump and musk are just taking a wrecking ball to the u.s. government. they don't care what they smash up. they don't care who they hurt, and they don't seem to have any idea just how painful this is for american families. we are talking about tens of thousands of people and counting being pushed out the door without any plan and without any justification beyond trump and elon just want to slash and cut with reckless abandon.

this has nothing to do with making government more efficient. it's about breaking it beyond repair. fundamentally, this is not about cutting waste or curbing fraud. instead this is about putting the federal workforce into trauma. that's what omb director russ vought callously put it. so they are mass firing hardworking women and men, many of them veterans whose only mistake was serving our country, serving our communities and believing they wouldn't get stabbed in the back by a wanna-be dictator and the richest man in the world. in setting aside the fact that many were illegally fired and without real cause, it's not just the workers who are suffering because of this. these cuts undermine essential services for the american people, right down to some of the most basic fupgss of government -- functions of government. trump and musk are firing people

who -- have afford ashl hehealth -- affordable health insurance. people who help families get back on their feet after a disaster and people who help americans get their tax refunds. they are firing people who help our economy stay competitive, from firings that undermine energy projects and thousands of good jobs to firings that undermine innovation and technology, to -- they are laying off national park rangers which will mean longer wait times, dirtier bathrooms, delayed emergency responses and closed parks. they fired forest service workers crucial to preventing wildfires. they are firing faa workers, including personnel who work on radar and landing and other

critical infrastructure that help our aircraft navigate safely. they are firing these people and pretending it is no big deal weeks after the deadliest cash we have -- crash we have seen. the bonville power administration is losing hundreds of highly skilled workers, and that includes everyone from electricians, engineers, dispatchers, line workers, cybersecurity experts and many more. these are literally the people who keep the lights on. and now they're being fired on a whim because trump and elon musk do not have a clue of what they do and why it's important. and you know what? they don't care to learn. they don't seem to understand these positions are funded by rate payers, by all of us who live in the northwest. they are not from federal funding. trump and musk have even fired over a thousand v.a. workers,

including people doing low profile saving research for our veterans, research to prevent veterans' suicide, build life changing prosthetics, address opioid addictions and more. it will mean longer wait lines for veterans to see health care providers. it could mean ongoing clinical trials coming to a stop, it means delays in getting your disability claims approved. they have fired clinicians even though the disabilities claims is over 250,000. it is not just a betrayal of our federal workers, it is a betrayal of the men and women who served in uniform. many of the workers being fired are veterans themselves. trump is firing veterans. and let's not forget the thousands of nih researchers

having their research thrown into jeopardy and the patients watching president trump carelessly taught us their best hope for a secure into the shredder -- and medical research layoffs are not the only once putting american lives at risk because trump and musk are firing public health workers who respond to disease outbreaks. cybersecurity experts who protect our sensitive systems and our data. scientists who make sure our water and air are clean and we are ready for extreme weather. workers that help our communities prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, not to mention members of law enforcement who helped stop violent crennels and of -- criminals and of course our nuclear engineers, people who

manage our nuclear weapons stockpile are being fired by the hundreds with no real strategy. we know there was no strategy because they turned around and hired them back. we know they did the same thing to our workers who are responding to bird flu. reckless layoffs followed by, wait, no, come back. there is -- that is not a plan. to casusly fire -- to fire people who help us fight deadly diseases, that is the height of dangerous incompetence. and nuclear cleanup work has been hit as well. i've been fighting to get more resources for the hanford cleanup, it is already understaffed and now trump is actively making things worse. i have heard from directly from workers at hanford who have been laid off even after some were

recognized for their outstanding work. that underscores the reality of these firings, they have nothing to do with merit. in fact, the way they are targeting new employees, including those recently promoted, n.o.w. these -- now these workers are being fired from their jobs, some of our best workers. one more thing, they are even illegally firing the government watchdogs who provide accountability and prevent fraud. if trump and musk were really committed to tackling waste, fraud and abuse, would they fire the very people serving in nonpartisan roles whose very job is to uncover and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. if they were interested in transparency, would they have torn down websites?

this grows by the day as does the fallout and alarm being caused by it. my phones have been ringing off the hook and i know i'm not the one. again, these sweeping layoffs do not address fraud or waste. they are arbitrary, pushing out high performers and the promising next generation of our workforce who won't be easily replaced. not to mention the hiring freeze prevents them from even trying. here's the thing so important to remember. these are people who have families. they work hard. they love their country. they're not being sent packing because they've done anything wrong or because their work is not important. they are being pushed out simply because trump and musk are trying to break the government, trying to make it not work to the people who need it.

it is wrong and if this doesn't stop now, it will be catastrophic. the scale and scope of trump and elon's purge will set our country back decades. it's not like you can fire anyone and say, oh, wait, my bad and rehire everyone at the snap of a finger. if you are a v.a. medical researchers working -- researcher working for less than you could make in the private sector and find that your discovery isn't worth the investment, would you want to come back? especially with the chaos and incompetence of this administration. this is not twitter, you can't fire everyone and hope for the best. people's lives are at stake. elon musk has no clue what nuclear safety engineers do at hanford. he doesn't care that the social security social security is already under staff and pushing

more of those federal worker out the door will make life harder for our seniors. arbitrarily firing federal workers is going to break something, worse than it already has and it will break it irreparably. when it happens, the blame will fall scarily on trump and musk and republicans. it's not just fired that is a serious problem. there are funds frozen without rhyme or reason or legal authority for trump to do that. i'm not just worried about the funding deadline i'm worried about the de facto firing now. trump and musk are still illegally blocking hundreds of billions of dollars of funding we all secure for the people we represent back home. putting good-paying jobs on the chopping block, creating incredible uncertainty for

businesses. and it's another week of trump's illegally funding blockade has come and gone, still reports are coming in from my state and across the country of the chaos and cuts this is causing. and yet little to nothing has been done by this administration to restore investments in people in red and blue states that they're counting on and republicans here in congress continue to sit by idly while our communities are robbed of hundreds of billions of dollars in bipartisan spending. what enwhile it's our business and workers that are robbed. with each day that passes a, the uncertain fate of these investments takes a toll of its own. ever-growing anxiety for workers whose jobs are in jeopardy, to farmers who are eyeing the calendar and waiting for resources they are owed, for

business owners worried a ripped-up contract may put them under. it is putting the hardwork being americans in dire straits. a small monument ordered new machines but now trump is stiffing them on funds they need to make that payment. a wheat farmer installed solar panels under a federal program but trump is going to leave him holding the bag. a greenhouse has completed its end of the bargain to install upgrades. trump has stopped the federal government from doing the part it promised. and there are so many other federal investments on hold as well. forest service funding to reduce wildfire risks and restore ecosystems, epa funding for clean water infrastructure, cleanup work at our superfund sites, hud and department of energy investments to bring down folks' energy costs and create new good-paying jobs, funding for our roads and bridges and

transit and flood mapping and fisheries, so many other things. medical research has also been completely upended at research the institutions across our country, throwing lifesaving research, clinical trials into uncertainty. meanwhile, they have not only i will elementary schoolly blocked our forest -- illegally blocked our forest systems and shuttered systems, they are now illegally dismantling the department of education. they've already bulldozed the independent research arm of the department of education. they're taking a wrecking ball to ongoing evidence-based research and basic collection data we need for accountability to improve outcomes at our schools and colleges. and among the many contracts trump canceled with his executive order was funding for a program that helps students with disabilities transition

from high school to work. and work to improve adoption of evidence-based literacy practices in washington state. these billionaires have no idea what programs they are cutting. given the chaos of all these efforts from trump's sweeping radical and illegal executive orders to elon musk jumping from agency to agency and doing seemingly whatever he pleases, it is getting hard to keep track of all the funding that is being illegally blocked. even stuff they say has not been blocked or say has not been blocked is still frozen. but one thing that is clear, is hurting our families, communities and it needs to stop remember, musk is the richest man on earth, with deep business ties to china and a direct line to putin. republicans have chosen to stand

by and twiddle their thumbs as he unilaterally, clandestinely and illegally cuts our constituents off from the federal investments they are owed and badly need. we have zero insight or oversight of what conflicts of interest musk has, as he chokes off government funding left and right and as he hands over our sensitiven if data and systems -- sensitive data and systems to patently unqualified individuals with no accountability. this multibillionaire is operating completely in the dark hoping his lies are allowed enough to drown out any calls for truth or transparency. you can agree or disagree about federal spending. goodness knows we have a lot of debate on it here. but it is a complete lie to tray and say this is all fraud, waste, or conspiracy. as a longtime appropriator, i can tell you, we debate these bills publicly.

we post the details out in the open. we pass them in a bipartisan way. republicans overwhelmingly supported the individual bills we put together in committee last year, many unanimously. spending is not a conspiracy just because elon musk doesn't know how to read a usa spending document o it is not fraud just because he didn't like it. a law is not illegal just because he disagrees with it. this guy just does not know what he's talking about, and it is frankly embarrassing. he doesn't know how to count. the doge website says it is slashing $55 billion, but it only lists $16.6 billion, and half of that is a typo. they took $8 million, with an m,

as in musk can't count, and counted it as $8 billion with a b, as in b.s. that is not saving money. it is poor reading comprehension. speaking of reading comprehension, i don't think elon fully grasped when the concepts of transparency and accountability means. when he tweeted out the names of government employees a month ago and this month again, that was accountability. but when his employees obtain -- elon musk gets to go look at all of our most sensitive data, but no one gets to look at what he is actually doing. that cannot be the standard. it is not maximally transparent for elon musk to decide for himself what he shares publicly about his actions. it is maximally concerning, especially given there are many

obvious conflicts of interest, but elon has not recused himself from a single decision. how is it not a conflict when the owner of spacex is gutting nasa while taxpayer funds to his company keep flowing? how is it not blatant corruption when the owner of tesla is freezing grants and loans that benefit his competitors? how are we supposed to just trust him when he is probing agencies that have done -- are doing right now investigations into his businesses? trump fired the ag inspector general who was investigating musk's company neuralink and then fired the fda officials who were reviewing t he fired the epa inspector general and transportation inspector general as they were looking at tesla. he fired the labor inspector general as the department has

several investigations into musk's companies. and trump fired the defense inspector general who was looking at spacex and notably musk's connection to putin. and it's not just musk who is concerning. he has brought on an army of walking red flags to pry into our government's most sensitive data. how are americans supposed to feel knowing someone who was previously fired for leaking sensitive information from their employer is digging through your most private financial data? how are americans supposed to feel knowing someone who engaged with prominent white supremacists is helping to shut down usaid. how are they supposed to feel that someone who tweeted anies italy racist statements, someone

who said they were, quote, racist before it was carbolics was given control over incredibly important treasury payments? and what sort of any, if any, secret vetting is going on here? are they trying to pick the least qualified people? elon, you're supposed to filter out red flags, not select for them. the american people deserve transparency. if elon musk really has nothing to hide, then he should leave his safe place on x and at trump rallies and come before us at a congressional hearing to be held accountable to the public. what they are doing here is not just illegal, it is devastating for working people in every zip code in america -- red and blue states alike. right now we need to be speaking out with a unified voice to ensure that when congress passes a bill, the law is followed. and we need to focus on negotiating serious funding bills on a bipartisan basis

ahead of the fast-approaching march 14 deadline. that is exactly what i am trying to do right now. and a long-term c.r. should not be acceptable for anyone here. as i have remooneded my colleagues many times now, there is a world of difference between a short-term c.r. that gives us additional time for good-faith negotiations on our funding bills and a long-term c.r. that would not only create major shortfalls for critical programs but would also hand vast power over spend decisions to an administration that absolutely cannot and should not be trusted. passing a clean full-year c.r. would, first of all, create major shortfalls and fail to adjust for new realities on the ground. it could mean that instead of babies getting fed through wic, moms are put on a wait list. and instead of families getting rental assistance, they're -- they get cut off.

a clean full-year c.r. means veterans are not able to get the care they need and the benefits they have earned in a timely way. and it means our military falling behind from forcing cuts across dod to pausing promotions, station changes, and other really essential functions. it also means losing opportunities to provide resources for new challenges and to provide a check on trump policies, including ones that members on both sides of the aisle have issues with. i want to emphasize, because this is really critical, unlike a short-term c.r., a clean, full-year c.r. creates slush funds for this administration to adjust spending priorities. that is a nonstarter e with a full-year y.c., congress would be turning over our power of the

purse to a president who's already shown he couldn't care less about the separation of powers. a yearlong c.r. would be a green-light for president trump, elon musk and russell vought to redirect funding to their own pet projects and slash and burn and zero out the programs we have supported in congress that our families count on. maybe they siphon moneyway from public schools. maybe they slash federal work study grants, maybe they zero out money for national parks or monuments they think are too woke, or what would that even mean? maybe they end family reunification or dismantle the guardrails for detainee immigrants something we are already seeing with the use of guantanamo bay. they could cut funding to eliminate hiv or increase vaccination rates. they could turn our constituents' prioritieds into

slush funds, clean energy investments could become a payday for fossil fuels. money meant to stop fentanyl and opioids could fuel private prison operations and mass deportations. congress must detail its spending priorities and direct president trump to implement these programs faithfully by passing appropriations bills just as it does every year. there's truly no telling just how far they will go in end abouting our federal budget. from what our constituents need into whatever trump and musk want. if you don't think things could get worse, you are wrong. a clean, yearlong c.r. is frankly an unacceptable outcome. we cannot tell our constituents that instead of using our authority to check a president, we give him the keystone x.l. to the king -- the keys to the kingdom. we cannot say instead of fighting to get you the resources you need, we'll let a billionaire have more say in

where your tax dollar goes instead. so we need republicans to get serious about these bipartisan funding bills, and we've got to know that once those bills become law, trump will actually follow them. we cannot just reach an agreement, pass a bill, and then stand by while president trump rips our laws in half. there is a serious bipartisan path forward for our country, but it is one where congress works together to avoid a shutdown, stops the de facto shutdown that is already happening and reasserts its authority to protect the funding our communities need. but, unfortunately, that's a far cry from the path republicans are going down with this pro-billionaire, antimiddle-class budget resolution that's on the floor. let be very clear. the republicans' budget resolution doesn't just accept, it actually doubles down on what trump and musk are doing, and it's not about balancing the budget. we all know that, because they

don't plan to reverse one of the biggest drivers of the debt -- republican tax cuts. despite all the bogeyman that republicans like to point to as driving the debt, the reality is that the single biggest driver of our national debt since 2001 has been republican tax cuts. the trump and bush tax cuts have cost our nation over $10 trillion and the counting. you'll never guess what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are focused on right now. nothing to lower the cost of eggs. it's actually more republican tax cuts. no, they will not be paid for, and yes, they will blow up the national debt. well, elon musk hacks and chops away through the government in the name of meager savings and republicans clear him on, they're all hoping we will ignore the elephant they brought into the room. open as this budget -- even as this budget is a roadmap for

painful cuts to programs flames count on -- families count on, they can give billionaires more tax cuts. republicans are going down this partisan path because they know democrats are not going to join them in throwing medicaid, nutr nutrition assistance and veterans benefits into the wood chopper to throw more tax cuts at billionaires and the biggest corporations. this budget resolution is the doge resolution, as it assumes the staggering amount of $1 trillion in unspecified cuts in 2025 alone, and $9 trillion over ten years. where do we think those kinds of dramatic cuts come from? it's going to come out of snap benefits that keep our kids from going hungry. it is going to come out of our public schools and community health centers. it is going to come out of lifesaving medical research.

it will mean costs going up, up for everyday americans. it means child care costs going up when families lose access to head start and other quality affordable options. it means heating and cooling costs going up when families get cut off from liheap. it means rent going up as assistance programs are slashed. it means your health care costs go up as community health centers and family planning providers are forced to close their doors. it means grocery costs going up, as programs like snap and wic are gutted. not to mention what happens when you cut support for farmers and ag research. if you are cutting that deeply, that painfully, you are going to start cutting veterans disability and education benefits, medicare and medicaid, which for the information of all senators 30 million children

rely on. there is just no other way to make those numbers work, especially when we know that this is just step one in their plan. and step two? tax breaks for billionaires and massive corporations. first they are handing elon musk a chainsaw to cut programs families rely on, with no accoun accountability. then they are rewarding him with enormous tax breaks. and that is completely unacceptable. we should not betaking kids out of child care to give billionaires a tax break. we should not be taking food off the family table to put more fuel into private jets. i grew up in a family that knew what it was like to fall on hard times. my dad, who was a veteran, got too sick to work. he had multiple sclerosis. my mom kept us afloat with my dad's v.a. benefits and food

stamps and a new job she got thanks to a federal workforce program. it wasn't easy. mom always said they crawled, crawled to social security and medicare, but she worked hard. and our government was there for them when those hard times came. i know there are families struggling right now, just like my family struggled then. i hear from them every day in the letters we get in washington, d.c. and in the conversations back home in washington state. they work hard, they play by the rules, they deserve, at the very least, the same opportunity my parents had when i was growing up. i'm not going to stand by silently while republicans try to sell that opportunity away to pay for even more tax breaks for billionaires. i get why that sounds like a good idea to billionaires like donald trump. i get why it's a sweet deal for elon musk, the richest man in the world. it's great for them because they're not footing the bill. the bill for these tax breaks,

the cost of these cuts is going to be paid by folks like my mom and dad. everyday americans will pay for billionaire tax breaks with their health care. they will pay for billionaire tax breaks with abandoned medical research. they will pay for billionaire tax breaks with shuttered family farms and small businesses. republicans can try to spin a fairy tale how this will pay for itself or will work out for everyone and nobody cares or won't be affected, but the reality is going to show through, pretty darn quick and pretty darn painfully, because spin is not going to put food on the table. it will not pay the rent. it won't fix the roads. it won't lower prices. it won't lower interest rates. and it won't put money in families' dwindling bank accounts. when it comes to the job we're all sent here to do, helping people and solving problems, families need real solutions,

not tax breaks for billionaires and talking points for everyone else. i urge my colleagues, i had the brakes. not just on this devastating partisan budget resolution. hit the brakes on what president trump and elon musk are doing right now. let's instead come together and work on serious bipartisan bills to fund the government. let's get investments that are sorely needed to the folks we represent. let's pass legislation that gives folks a hand, instead of this republican plan that gives billionaires a handout. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i have five requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. paul: things are not as they

appear to be, and in washington that's not unusual. in fact, that may be the norm, that in washington things are often not what they appear to be. if you follow the news, you've been seeing reports of elon musk and doge and getting rid of waste and fraud and abuse by the billions, if not trillions, of dollars. and yet, we are meeting here today, though, because congress, namely the senate, wants to increase federal spending. on the one hand, you have elon musk and doge and the democrats complaining to high heaven, he's cutting too much, they're cutting too much, and senate republicans are coming forward today to pass a budget to allow them to raise federal spending. what gives? are republicans for getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse and reducing the deficit, balancing the budget, as the president

says, or are they really for increasing spending $340 billion? the budget that we will vote on will allow increased expense in the military by $150 billion, increased spending for the border $175 billion, $20 billion for the coast guard. adds up to about $340 billion. well, if we were fiscally probability, if we were fiscally conservative, why wouldn't we take the savings from elon musk and doge and move it over here and help with the border? why would we be doing a brand-new bill to increase spending by $340 billion? that's because the senate is acting as it always has. the senate hasn't gotten the message. president trump came to town. a new way of thinking. they're shuttering agencies, shutting people down, they're finding things like $2 million in guatemala for sex changes,

$3 million spent in brazil for a girl-centric climate change, $4.8 million spent in ukraine for social media influencers. while you're at it, we spent -- not we, but the people who vote for this, i voted against all of this, but the members of the senate who voted for this spent several hundred thousand dollars sending designers in ukraine to the fashion show in paris. it goes on and on. thousands of dollars for a trans opera in colombia. more thousands of dollars for a trans comic book in peru. hundreds of thousands of dollars spent studying rats to see if lonely rats use more cocaine than well-socialized rats. guess what -- lonely rats love the cocaine. you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money on this

claysiness -- craziness. why not take that crazy spending that doge and elon musk are finding and move it over to securing the border? instead, fiscal conservatives are faced with a bill they're putting forward to just simply . i'm all for moving it around. i'm all for saving it from the craziness and pushing it over into something more valuable. there is a procedure for doing that. it's a special procedure, doesn't require any democrat vote, it can happen through simple majority and has a fancy name, it's called rescission. so all the administration would have to do is bundle together several hundred billion dollars of savings, which it appears they're finding, bundle it together in one bill, send it back to us, and by simple majority, without any help from the democrats, republicans can cut spending. instead, things aren't what they appear to be. you see all this great work being done to cut spending, to cut waste, fraud and abuse, then

you see the senate acting. we're going to vote all night long to set up a bill to increase spending by $340 billion. there is a true philosophical debate within the republican party, and really within both parties, about what the biggest threats to our country are. are the gravest threats to america from within or from without? i would argue that they're from within. i don't lay awake at night fearing for an invasion, the invaders are coming to our shores any moment. doesn't mean we shouldn't be prepared, defend ourselves. it doesn't mean we have to have unlimited spending on our military. many in my family have served. soldiers have to be paid. we should take care of them. but we shouldn't be everywhere around the world all the time. we spent close to $300 billion in ukraine, soldiers all over africa and syria and everywhere.

we don't need to be doing that. if you want to put our military money and spending in perspective, we spend more than the next nine countries combined. it's not that we're spending too little. we're spending a lot. if you decide you want more money for the military, take it from the climate change, the girl-centric climate change in brazil. quit spending your money overseas. over the years, we've given egypt nearly $60 billion. who runs egypt? a general where there are no elections. kind of like ukraine, where there's a president, you about he doesn't have to run for reelection because he's canceled the elections. why in the world would we give money hand over fist to dictators and people who don't stand for election? if egypt we gave it to the mubarak family. when he was ousted, he had $20 billion on him.

not all on him, a lot was in swiss banks, but he was word 20 billion. that's noting each of his kids -- that's nothing. each of his kids were worth another 5 billion. he stole 30 billion of the 60 billion american taxpayers sent to egypt. that's the story of your foreign aid, you've been being ripped off decade after decade. while elon musk and doge are doing their job working overtime to late at night, finding us those savings from foreign aid, send them back. we spend 40 billion in foreign aid. could you could -- you could send 30 billion back, america would be safer. you could put it to the military or border. your choice. there's money that can be saved and moved around, but it has to come back. ultimately, all the talk of the savings is ephemeral. it isn't real until congress votes on it. it has to be certified by a

vote. if couldn't doesn't vote, it sort of wishes and washes around in the ether, and it may or may not wind up being savings. ultimately, congress has to do their job. what we're doing today, the vote on the budget, is not doing our job. what we're doing today, which will be a republican-led effort, minus me, will be an effort to tee up a bill to increase federal spending. i would say let's take the savings that we're finding, move that over to any accounts, do it through a vote of congress, due it through a simple majority. it can be done even without the budgetary process. a rescission process can be sent back without going through the budget problem. what we are faced with, though, is come the end of the year -- we're halfway through the year so we're voting on a budget today that is really somewhat of a fiction because the year is already half over. we know what's being spent.

we know in the end we're going to spend a little over $7 trillion this year. the problem is we're going to bring in about $5 trillion and we're going to spend about $7 trillion. we're $2 trillion short. they're getting ready to add a couple billion dollars for california. it's appropriate to have sympathy for people in their plight but it is not good for the country to borrow money to send it to anyone. if we're going to help people in need, we should be taking that money from the taxes that come in. we shouldn't be borrowing it from china and sending it to california. no matter how noble the purpose it is, we should be spending what comes in. we should not be borrowing a penny. but come the end of the year we're going to to be over $2 trillion in increased debt for one year. what's our total? our total is going to be over

$37 trillion, maybe $38 trillion by the end of the year. interest? the largest item in our budget is now interest, about $1 trillion in interest every year. one estimate is over the next ten years it will be like $14 trillion in interest. interest doesn't buy anything. interest isn't feeding anybody. interest isn't putting out fires in california. interest is simply wasted because of the profligate ways of both parties. people voted for a change. they said we're going to get a change. they like what donald trump is doing. they like what doge is doing. they like what elon is doing. and yet here we are. the republicans are acting like the democrats. they're going to vote to increase spending by $342 billion. it's all going to be borrowed. you can say, well, as some will say, we're going to cut spending to equalize the money we're

going to spend here. but none of that is listed in the budget. the house has a budget. the house republicans passed a different budget, and in their budget it they list $1.5 trillion worth of savings. they have to get to this. they cannot do their special simple majority vote, the reconciliation vote, unless they find $1.5 trillion. in the senate bill, there's $4 billion. they will say it's just a floor. we're going to find more than that. but all they would promise was the 4. in the house they realized that is not really believable, not really comforting, so the house said we're doing $1.5 trillion. as this debate unfolds over the next 10, 12, 15 hours, we'll be here for a long time. get your popcorn, turn your c-span on. as this unfolds i will offer an amendment and my amendment will say let's alter the budget to not only say we're going to

increase spending by $340 billion. my amendment will say we should cut spending to pay for it by $1.5 trillion. ideally we do this by bringing a rescission package. savings that elon and doge is finding, but it would work this way as well to at least show that we are serious about this. because i've seen this happen again and again. and i know what the story is going to turn out. i know that come september, which is the end of our fiscal year, we're about halfway through it, as we get to the end of the fiscal year republicans are going to be going uh-oh, i've got to go home and explain to people that the deficit is $2.2 trillion, one of the worst years ever, and i've got to explain to people republicans are in charge, we're taking care of it now. when it looks like the problem is getting p worse. we have to immediately start cutting spending. every republican needs to be voting to cut spending. there is a way to do it.

it's called a rescission package. if you continue to borrow, though, if you think i'm going to be nice to everyone and give everyone money, you can do it, but the borrowing is going to crowd out everything, because we made many, many promises. we have promised people medicare, we promised people medicaid, we promised people social security. we promised people food stamps. guess what? that's equal to all of our tax revenue. those four promises -- medicare, medicaid, food stamps, social security -- that equals all of our tax revenue. we don't even vote on those programs. the programs that we vote on that is the budget, that is military and nonmilitary, is a third of the spending. it's all borrowed know. essentially our debt equals our budget. everything we vote to spend in the budget is borrowed. so things are out of whack. you can't help everyone and be everything to everybody. a way to look at this is let's say you make $25,000 a year, and all of your money goes to your

rent and your food and taking care of your family. you've got nothing left over. you are working poor. and you walk by somebody on the side of the street and they are homeless, and you feel sorry for them. would you immediately go to a bank and borrow $1,000 and give it to a homeless person? no you wouldn't because that would make no sense whatsoever. that's what we are doing. we look around the world and we see homeless people. we look around the world and we see hungry people. so we simply go to china, the bank, and we borrow money from china and then we send it to africa. you know what? if you send your own money as charity, if you send your own money, it's noble. if you send somebody else's money or you borrow the money and make the country go further in debt and put us more in peril, that's not charity. that's what's destroying our country. that's what's eating us up from the inside out. the gravest threat to america is from within, not from without.

what happens when the currency unr unravels, what the value of the dollar loses 5% in a week? that is what happens in the end stages of a currency being destroyed. people say it will never happen to america, can't happen to america. we're the strongest dollar, the reserve currency of the world. can't happen here. it can and has happened to great nations. it's happened to great civilizations that have lost their currency, that have destroyed their currency. does it always unravel gradually enough that you can fix it? sometimes it unravels in the space of weeks. when the german money lost its value in the early 1920's after the first war, in september it took like 100 marks to buy a loaf of bread. two weeks later it was a thousand marks. at the end of september it was a million. middle of october it was ten

million. the currency, if you look at the currency and what it would buy in a two-month period was completely destroyed in a two-month period. the pictures from the history books will show people putting the german mark into wheelbarrows, wheeling it up to fires to burn for warmth. it was worth more as fuel than it was to buy things. the workers were demanding they be paid more than once a day because you had to go out and get your pay at noon and spend it then because it it was worth half as much money at the end of the day. that's what looks like when a country destroys its currency. how do you destroy your currency? how does inflation occur? if you watch television, you see these people who are either dishonest or would fail basic economics. they're like inflation is transitory and we're not sure what it's from, but maybe it could be greedy people owning grocery stores causes inflation. no. inflation is an economic fact. it comes from borrowing money

and the federal reserve prints up money to buy the borrowed money. we get behind on our payments, spend more than comes in so we have to borrow money. the fed buys our treasury bills. the fed doesn't have money. the fed creates that money. that's what inflation is. so much of it gets passed on to government. everybody knows in the last three or four years and part of the election was over the inflation of the biden administration. prices were up over a 20% period over 3 or 4 years. in order to keep up with that we built up inflation protection to most of our government programs. so social security has cost of living increases. they keep up with the inflation or try to keep up with inflation. and as they do, the programs get larger and larger and larger and we get p more and more behind the eight ball. that's what's happening. it's coming to a head. social security runs out of money in 2033. when it runs out of money everybody gets 20% to 25% less in social security.

what do you think is going to happen in our country when the poorest among us who live only on social security, when they lose the value of their check and they lose 25% of their check? what do you think is going to happen in this country? and nobody is preparing for it. nobody is doing anything to reform social security, reform medicare, reform medicaid. people are just petrified of everything. what is so be horrible and so hard to say that people that are able-bodied ought to work? i think everyone should work. i think everyone who is able-bodied should work not as punishment but as a reward. we should have a work requirement on every check that goes out. everybody should work. it's how you get your self-esteem. you can't give people self-esteem. you can't say here, johnny, here's a trophy. we know you can't spell or add but here's a trophy for being an mathlete. you have to earn your

self-esteem. just adding work to medicaid and saying you want free health insurance from the government, adding a work requirement saves $100 billion. having the states pay more for medicaid. why do i want the states to pay more for medicaid? because they don't have a printing press. why are the decisions of this body so awful? because there's a printing press. i had a conversation with one of my democratic colleagues, and he said, i said we have to make a choice. you've got to decide whether you're going to help the poor in our country or help the poor in ukraine or help whoever you're paying in ukraine. he said we shouldn't have to make a choice. it's like you do have to make a choice. the fact that you think you don't have to make a choice is why we're $36 trillion in the hole. you have to make choices. which comes first, ukraine or america? you can't do both, because we don't have enough money. we only have enough taxes coming in to pay for social security, medicare, medicaid, and food

stamps. everything else is borrowed. so maybe able-bodied people need to go back to work. maybe there needs to be a work requirement. maybe for goodness sakes, food stamps shouldn't buy sugaring drinks, chips, d ing dongs and twinkies. cutting back what the government buys as food. today the opposite will happen. things aren't what they appear to be. things are never in congress really what they seem to be. we will pass a bill, ostensibly by the conservative majority. but the purpose of this bill is to spend $340 billion in new spending. instead what we should be doing is taking the savings from waste, fraud, and abuse that doge and elon are finding, we should save that, take those

savings and use it to spend for things that people think are of higher priority, such as the border and/or the military. but i will oppose this budget because i'm not for spending more money. i will oppose this budget because i want to have nothing to do with the $2.2 trillion deficit. at the end of the year those who vote for this budget and those who vote for the new spending will have to explain to people at home, how about that $2.2 trillion deficit? how did that happen under a republican watch? and until someone is brave enough to say, no, it's going to go on and on, and there is a danger if we don't stop it, we're going to destroy the country. so, mr. president, i will offer an amendment later on to cut spending, to actually put teeth into this budget resolution to cut real spending, to balance our budget, and to do and complete the promises that the

president had in the campaign. with that, i yield back my time.

.

i've only really answered to constituencies. republican conference and the people kentucky.

over the years the first group coordinates campaigns and vote and they lead our conference. a specific childhood dream and a euro for their confidence and i've had the privilege to lead and i remain deeply grateful. today is appropriate to speak

about a deeper allegiance and gratitude. fellow kentuckians have sent me and every day the trust to replace jimmy do their business right here representing our commonwealth has been an honor of a lifetime. i will not seek this honor. current term in the senate the last i've been a student of history my entire life. i can't remember the last time i didn't have a piece and i know

how tempting it can be. somehow notorious failures were inevitable. this isn't how things work. i had to look further at my own life to recognize it. a child how encounter with holyoke polio

mrs. shaheen: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mrs. shaheen: i ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my colleague from north carolina, senator tillis. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. shaheen: thank you. i'm pleased to come to the floor today with my friend and colleague, senator tillis. he and have i cochaired the senate naval observer group, we've traveled together on a number of occasions and we just came back on tuesday from a very brief trip to ukraine. we were joined by senator bennet, who was not able to join us -- who is not able to join us right now, but i think it's important for us to come to the floor and to talk about what we saw and what we heard in ukraine. it was incredibly powerful to

travel to ukraine, to see first hand the situation on the ground there and we visited a number of places during the day. we met with residents in downtown kyiv who had lost their homes in the january 1 missile attack there, an attack that landed only about two blocks from the presidential palace. while we were there actually meeting with the folks who lost their homes, the air raid sirens went off, which is a usual occurrence in kyiv, fortunately it was not for us in downtown kyiv, but an outlying community. but it was a warning of more incoming russian missiles. and i've seen the reports in the last couple of taste that says that vladimir putin wants peace,

but i have to say i'm skeptical. because if he really wants peace, nothing is stopping him from calling off those missile and drone attacks, attacks that are not targeting just usica's -- ukraine's military, but are targeting civilians throughout the country. they are targeting power grids. -- power stations. we visited one of those power stations. this was us. it was a very cold day. you can't see the power station background, but it was a unique design done by the ukrainians in a short period of time with help from the united states to help protect that site from russian attacks. they had in late december a missile that hit the side of the transfer station in ways that if

they had not had the reinforcements it would have taken down that station. what's interesting is not only have they figured out the design on the station, but they what they call a mobile firing team that is two machine guns, you can barely see one of them on the truck and a radar, which is down here sort of out of sight, again, done with u.s. dollars. and they are able to -- they were able to protect that transfer station and have those mobile firing teams at a number of sites around the country to protect their electricity grid because what we know and what we heard is that the russians are trying to shut down their power grid because they want to freeze out the ukrainians in this war. we also visited a children's hospital that was bombed on

july -- in july. we visited with two teenagers. one young woman who was 16 who not only host her mother in a russian attack but she lost her ability to walk. she think she had, senator tillis, about 16 operations, at the opponent we saw her and they were pleased that they thought she was actually going to be able to walk again thanks to the great care that she got at the amtti hospital that the russians deliberately targeted in july. but, like so many ukrainians, the young woman we met with hasn't given up. her father sat by her side surgery after surgery, and despite the odds, she is learning to walk again. she reflects, i think, the

resilience, the perseverance everyplace that we want and every meeting that we had. despite russia's advantages and size and manpower, ukrainians have not and will not give up. and we should not give up on them either. ukrainians have developed robotic mobile fire teams, as i said. they have been able to make incredible innovations to fix damaged battlefield equipment. we had a chance on our way into ukraine to go through poland where their moving -- they're moving equipment into ukraine and where we saw the center where they have a group chat with people on the front lines to help them with instructions on how to fix the equipment in

real time as it gets damaged. this not only saves time and money for the ukrainians, but for us it's an incredible learning opportunity for us as we think about what we need to do to support our own military. so the ukrainians are sharing their battlefield innovations and insights. it makes the united states stronger and it shows how much of the assistance we've given to ukraine is actually going to benefit us here in america. when the assistance was frozen in january, it had a major impact on the ground. we spoke to ngo's in poland, people who are supporting ukrainian refugees in that country. and as one of them was preparing to give us a presentation, he stopped, he turned to us and said, i can't give this presentation and act like everything is normal.

i thought he was one of the most impactful people we heard from. i don't know if you felt that way too, senator tillis. but he said that on january 24, the u.s. embassy told me to stop all work. he said i had to fire single ukrainian mothers who escaped the war and now have no jobs and no way to feed their children. he had to stop psychosocial support services for those traumatized by the war. one girl he had been treating for self-harm was gone. he doesn't know if she's all right. along the stop work orders, the ngo's were told to remove all american flags. think of that. american flags are coming down in poland, one of the most pro-american countries that we can have. the people that we spoke to said

that their trust has been broken. the decades of investments and these alliances we made were gone with just one phone call. now, i understand that people are tired of this war, but if we think giving russia or china free rein won't affect us here in the united states, we are wrong. the russians are thrilled. vladimir putin has to be loving this. he's always wanted to undermine nato. peace for our time is what chamberlain said when he signed the pact with hitler, appeasement doesn't work with dictators. when vladimir putin gets what he wants, it puts americans in danger. we understand this. putin can't be trusted.

that's a realistic assessment of the battlefield. one ukrainian woman who lost her son in the fighting said she would support cease-fire negotiations but with securities for ukraine. freezing the front lines won't do anything for ukraine because in a few years, russia will invade again. he invaded crima, there must be a guarantee that russia won't attack again in a couple of years. i believe nato membership for ukraine needs to be on the table. this is not only going to protect ukraine from future attacks, it will put ukraine in the best possible negotiating position. putin wants ukrainians to be afraid. we saw that when we visited

pucha. it was under siege for 33 days, held by the russians. we talked to the mayor, to the priest of the church. we saw the mass graves where people were buried, the 500-plus people who -- civilians who were killed in bucha. they were killed just going about their daily lives. this is the picture of the body of one of those civilians killed. and you know how they identified her? it was her manicurist. she identified her by the manicure. we met with the investigators who showed us the picture of the russian commander who gave the order to kill the civilians. he did it because he wanted to frighten the population.

we can't -- vladimir putin is responsible for this. he's responsible for the bodies in bucha and for thousands across ukraine. and he's got to be held accountable. we cannot let him get away with t this. so i want to end by unde underlying -- underlining an important point. there is bipartisan support for ukraine in congress. i believe we will continue to support funding and that if we had another supplemental bill that came to the floor, it would pass with republican votes because americans like senator tillis and i and senator bennet who went with us, we have been impressed by the ukrainians' courage, by their resilience, by their willingness to defend their freedoms and our freedoms. they've kempt their economy -- kept their economy and their

people going throughout this horrible war. but by june ukraine is going to start running out of what they need. that's why we need to use the nearly $300 billion of russian-seized assets to help ukraine rebuild. it's why i've called on secretary rubio to prioritize the waivers for unfreezing aid to ukraine. thousands of ukrainians have given their lives in the fight for a sovereign ukraine. they've been on the front lines for all of us defending democracy. to abandon them would not only be a gift to putin, it would endanger our allies and the security of the united states. i yield the floor to my colleague senator tillis. mr. tillis: i want to thank senator shaheen for actually a long-term friendship and vision she had back in 2018 when she came to me and wanted to reconstitute the senate nato observer group.

it could not have been a better time for us to pay more attention to this very important all alliance. but it's also right now today, four days away from the three-year anniversary of the invasion of ukraine. very important to talk about the nature of vladimir putin and the tactics that they use to terrorize populations. president putin in october prior to the invasion in february said that he was sending troops to an area to do a training exercise. while we were getting intelligence that it looked like more than that he was already lying to the world by saying, we're just going to train up our soldiers a little bit more. and then after the first part of the year going into january, he said, well, we're doing the training exercise. it just coincidentally happens to be along the ukrainian border, but it's just a training

exercise. and then he creates any number of pretext to then talk about how provocative ukraine is, operating a democracy within their borders. and he creates the p-text for a special military -- pretext for a special military operation, invading ukraine, trying to finish what he started when he invaded crimea back in 2014. vladimir putin is a liar, a murderer, and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of ukrainians. and that's bad by itself. but you knows what' worse is owe what's worse is when you employ tactics that intentionally terrorize a population. now, senator shaheen talked about the power grid. i was in that meeting. she was talking about -- let's talk about systematically how this mind works, the mind of vladimir putin, the leadership of russia.

it's very cold in ukraine. very, very cold in the wintertime. and they have tried to systematically deny them heat over the winter to freeze them out. they've had to spend millions of dollars hardening substations just to prevent families, hospitals, critical businesses, first responders from having power. that's how this man thinks. but that's not bad enough. shortly after they invaded ukraine and they got the surprise of their life that the ukrainian people were willing to fight and die for their country, and they've done it in a way that putin could not have possibly imagined. putin should be embarrassed. a so-called world power got repulsed by what is now the largest army in europe. it wasn't when the invasion occurred. and just with our help through materials, they've held off russia for three years.

putin probably understood at some point that he wasn't going to be able to win it through conventional tactics. so what does he go to? terrorist tactics, the same sort of tactics he uses in africa with mercenaries, terrorizing populations, indiscriminately killing people. that is what vladimir putin does every single day, 24/7, 365 around the globe. but now let's get back to ukraine. he decides to allow under orders russian military to go into a community of about 200,000 people. that's roughly the size of the community i live in, in north carolina just north of charlotte. imagine what they're doing. they're going through the city and indiscriminately when somebody walks past them, shooting them, sometimes with 50 caliber weapons and tank armor. murdering them, stacking them up in mass graves. i went to this site. i saw it firsthand.

this is how he's trying to win the war because he can't wip the hearts and minds of the ukrainian people, he's destroyed the hopes and dreams of anybody that's lived in the soviet era. and he wants that to reemerge. and he's willing to do anything, including terrorizing innocent civilians to break their will. but thank god the ukrainian people are the brave people that they are because this hardened them. this made them go on to a battlefield and live in trenches 24 hours a day, repulsing the russian invasion. there is no moral person on this planet who can consider putin to have a legitimate reason to effect this sort of carnage. and i saw it firsthand. and i will never be able to forget it. and what the american people and the world population will never be able to forget either is the

aftermath of the -- in vladimir putin. ladies and gentlemen, china is already helping russia. north korea has sent thousands of troops and north korea don't really care about life. they've allowed 4,000 to 5,000 of their soldiers down the battlefield within six weeks of getting on the ground. they are throwing body after body after body trying to kill and break the will of the ukrainian people. and it's just unacceptable. so look, i'm a republican. i support president trump. and i believe that most of his policies on national security are right. i believe things are pretty good. but what i'm telling you, whoever believes that there is any space for vladimir putin and the future of a stable globe better go to ukraine, they better go to europe, they better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. and it will be a cancer that

spreads into the south china sea, into taiwan, and metastasize across the globe. so ladies and gentlemen, when i tell you that vladimir putin is a liar, a murderer, and a man responsible for ordering the systematic torture, kidnapping, and rape of innocent civilians, believe me because the evidence is mile high. so for those of us who have invested the time to understand this, believe me when i tell you this is important to every single one of you. if you believe that ukraine is a country an ocean away and not relevant to our national security, think again. the world is small. the world is watching. the strength of our alliances are on the line, and the future of democracy and the world is on the line if we do anything less than defeat vladimir putin. thank you, mr. president.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: thank you, mr. president. today we are debating the narrow senate fiscal year 2025 budget resolution that fulfills promises to secure america's borders, our national defense, and unleash our energy potential and finally start to get our fiscal house in order. in the near future, i expect us

to move forward with a budget resolution that allows us to prevent more than a $4 trillion tax hike on american households, the largest tax hike in the history of america. that will be felt by virtually every american if tax cuts expire at the end of this year. because the other side has filed a litany of tax amendments that rehash various false narratives, and each side will only have one minute to debate, i'm going to spend a little time right now explaining. why we can't afford a $4 trillion-plus tax increase, the positive impact that the trump tax cuts had on the economy, and some of the key provisions that expire at the end of the year. at the end of this year, many key provisions of president trump's 2017 tax cuts and jobs act are set to expire. triggering an over$4 trillion tax hike on american families and businesses.

while taxes will increase on americans of all income levels, the majority of this tax hike, about 2.6 trillion of it, will fall on those making less than $400,000 per year. an afternoon family of -- average family of four making about $80,000 a year, will see a $1700 tax hike in 2026. another $600 billion-plus will hit millions of small business owners who could see federal tax rates skyrocket up to 43.4%. tens of millions of families will see their child tax credit cut in half from $2,000 to $1,000. the list goes on. but first i'll talk about what the trump tax cuts actually did and why failing to extend key provisions would be economically devastating for millions of hardworking taxpayers. so what did the trump tax cuts

do? there's been a lot of talk recently about how extending these tax cuts are for billionaires and corporations, but the facts actually show otherwise. the 2017 tax bill increased the take-home pay and power -- and empowered a growing economy. individuals across all income brackets received a tax cut, not just, as opponents suggest, for the uber wealthy. in fact, the trump tax cuts made the tax code more progressive, meaning the highest income earners now pay a greater share of all income taxes than they did before 2017. the majority of benefits accrued to the working middle-class families of america. between the bill's passage in 2017 and 2021, the bottom 50% of earners received the largest reduction in average tax rates at 17.3%.

in addition to lowering tax rates across the board, the trump tax cuts doubled the standard deduction and the child tax credit and provided tax relief for america's entrepreneurs and small businesses. the effect of pro-growth tax reform was immediate. not only did taxpayers get to keep more of their hard-earned money, but a growing economy helped a median household income reach all-time highs. the labor market improved. workers saw wage growth and the unemployment rate fell dramatically to 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years. and the lowest income workers experienced the largest wage growth. corporate inversions became a thing of the past, and america became the place to do business. all americans reap the benefits of a booming economy.

extending this current tax, proven policy and building on it, is the best way to restore economic prosperity and economic opportunity for working families, many of whom are still struggling to recover from the historic inflation of the last four years. as american families contend with increasing costs of everyday living, the last thing they need is another massive tax hike on top of that inflation. failure is simply not an option. what happens if the trump tax cuts expire? as i've said, if we do not extend these tax policies, americans will be hit with an over $4 trillion tax increase. more than $2.6 trillion of that tax increase will fall on households earning less than $400,000 per year. an average family of four making $80,000 will be saddled with a $1, 700 tax increase.

this is the question identify lent a six to eight week groceries. 90% of taxpayers would see their standard deduction cut in half. owners of over 20 million small businesses will face a massive tax hike with taxes up to 43.4%. seven million taxpayers will be impacted by the alternative minimum tax, up from just 200,000 taxpayers currently. many more small businesses and farms will have their death tax exemption cut in half. the national association of manufacturers recently highlighted that if we allow the trump tax cuts to expire, six million jobs will be at risk, $540 billion in employee

compensation will be lost, and u.s. gross domestic product will be reduced by $1.1 trillion. bottom line -- while we aren't considering tax policy as a part of this reconciliation package, it's important to set the record straight at what's at stake in the upcoming tax gachlt the stakes -- tax debate. the stakes couldn't be higher. you're going to hear tonight dozens and dozen oz of tax amendments be brought. we're going to respond to each of those by explaining that that debate is not this amendment. this budget that we are debating today is on the border, on our national defense, and on increasing our oil and gas production to strengthen our economy. that's why the senate and house republicans are working together to act as quickly as possible to make these tax cuts permanent, but that will be in the next step, and prevent a massive tax

hike to provide certainty and relief to families and businesses across this nation. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from maine. mr. king: thank you, mr. president. the news is coming so hard and fast these days, that it's hard to sort it all out. every day seems to be something new that captures our attention, concern, our interest. and what i'd like to do today is try to put some of it in perspective and what's going on in our governing of this country. i don't believe what i'm going to be talking about today is partisan. it should not be partisan because what i'm really talking about is competent government and constitutional government. really two categories -- competent government and constitutional government. that should not be a controversial issue. neither of those are something that we should be arguing about. it's what we have a responsibility to carry through in terms of our jobs here in the u.s. senate. so the two categories i want to

talk about -- my headings are thoughtless and dangerous. first i want to talk about thoughtless. the hiring freeze. a hiring freeze can be an effective tool if it's used thoughtfully and systematically. but to do it across the board without a process for exceptions that's built into it, you end up with all kinds of unintended and negative consequences. firefighters, parks, losses elsewhere by attrition. there should be a systematic exemption process. now it's haphazard and random. park seasonal employees first were under the hiring freeze. now they're not. it's sort of like, oh, oh, or, we're going to be okay without park season employees. people said, oh, no, we didn't mean doctors and nurses, so that's okay.

you can hire them. my point is it's not a rational process. it's ready, fire, aim. literally, ready, fire, aim is what we're talking about and people aren't doing this in a thoughtful and systematic way. and, by the way, the difference between frontline delivers ever deliverers of care at the v.a. and the people who answer the phone who are categorized as bureau cat, i don't think there's a stark difference there. if you're a veteran and are seeking care and an appointment at a v.a. health facility and nobody answers the foreigner, that's a -- answers the phone, that's a denial of benefits. that's a denial of benefits, just as if they close the door in your face. that's what we're talking about, is weak an enning -- weakening the systems. the hiring freeze, it's possible to do a hiring freeze. when i was governor of maine, i instituted a hiring freeze. but we did it in a systematic and thoughtful way.

we had a process for dealing with exemptions and without destroying the morale and throwing the entire operation of government into chaos. and, by the way, why do we have the government? to serve the people. to serve the people. so let's talk about the next step -- the firings. the famous fork in the road letter is a perfect example of a thoughtless way to approach a problem. the letter went to everybody. the letter wasn't selective. it went to everybody -- all civilians in the cia, in the national security agency, in the defense department. also, of course, all the other civilian agencies. so -- but it wasn't targeted in a way. if you want to get -- if you want to leave federal service, we'll pay you through september, but it hit everybody. again, it's not a rational or thoughtful way to trim the federal workforce. you should be talking about where are we over -- where

are -- do we have too many people, do we have overstock in terms of public servants and where do we need more, for example? but instead it went to everybody. by definition, that's not a rational process. firing -- let me just put this in perspective, by the way. on the fork in the road letter, the estimate is as of today 75,000 people have taken that option and left. and i suppose the people who are behind this think that's a great victory. the dollars saved from those 75,000 people represent .1% of the federal budget. so people out who are seeing, we're cutting the budget, we're cutting, we're saving, we're saving the taxpayers money, .%. that's not -- .1%. given the chaos and the uncertainty and the deletion of

services to our american people, i would argue that's not worth t -- worth it. .1%. everyone got these letters. people are being fired now in the cia, fbi, the v.a., and on this -- on this letter, what if only the best people take the option to leave? then you've really shot yourself in the foot. you've encouraged people who were going to retire anyway or who could get a better job in the private sector. so it's almost -- it's anti-intelligent way to handle this. and then you got situations like at the department of energy, the first weekend they fired 350 people in the national nuclear security administration, the people who handle nuclear materials and are responsible for our nuclear stockpile.

they fired almost -- i think it was something like 20% of the personnel. three or four days later, they realized, uhoh that was a mistake. a good, solid process wouldn't have made a mistake like that. they would have realized from the outset that these are jobs that we aren't going to be firing, we aren't going to be eliminating. it seemed to be based on some kind of quota. i don't know what it is. and then -- okay, now we're seeing everybody being fired who's on probation. probationary people, people who work for the government for less than a year or two. okay, again that's our arbitrary. -- that's arbitrary. being on probation doesn't mean you're an effective or not an effective employee. you could be one of the best employees in the whole federal government and you just came on and yet you're gook fired. it has nothing to do with the

productivity or skill of the worker. it has nothing to do with the importance of the position. it has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the agency in question, serving the people of maine. if you're probationary, you're gone. here's another thing about probation. it turns out in the federal government, if you're promoted, you're on probation in the new position. you may have worked for the department fossil five or ten -- in the department for five or ten years. you're on probation. you're fired. even though you have five or ten years of experience. and people did get these ridiculous letters saying your performance has not been adequate. floss basis for those -- tplves no basis for those letters. it was arbitrary. and that's -- remember i thought -- i said my categories are thoughtless and dangerous. this is thoughtless -- probation. oh, by the way, about 30% of the

federal workforce are veterans. now, we don't know the exact figures. that's one of the problems. we have no transparency about what's going on here and who's actually being let go and who isn't. but a reasonable extrapolation is, 30% of the people being fired are veterans. people who put their lives on the line for this country. and then they went into public service and they're being fired. that's outageous. again, was no one thinking about this? a thousand were fired at the v.a. just a couple of days ago. we learned that people supporting the v.a. crisis line were fired. what genius thought that was a good idea? last friday immigration judges were fired. we're talking about immigration and border and control of immigration, and we're firing

immigration judges? what possible sense does that make? here's one. we've had -- i think three curious aircraft incidents in the last month, and they just fired i think 300 people at the if a fax -- at the faa. great, including people who are in the business of maintaining the systems that keep our airplanes safe. in the wake of three serious airplane crashes, including one here in washington that killed 67 people, we're firing people at the faa? give me a break! what kind of sense does that make? what kind of service is that to the people of the united states? here's one that's not life or death, but the national park service. 1,000 people were fired last weekend at the national park service. i suspect they were probationary, that means okay they'd only been there a year or to.

but that doesn't mean they weren't in jobs that were important. the headline in this morning's paper, chaos at the national parks. the lines are twice as long. if there's chaos at the national parks in february, lord knows what it's going to be in june or july. in yosemite, in acadia in my state of maine, and here's a beauty. some of these people that are be fired are people who collect fees at the park. so to save a buck, we're going to lose $5 from fees not being collected. genius. come on. five percent of the workforce at the national park service are being fired, and i can tell you, i'm the cochair of the national park subcommittee, the energy natural resources committee, we need more people at the national parks, not less. we've had a staffing shortage going back half a dozen or ten years where visitation is way up

and staff is flat or declining. now it's really declining. and this is a direct hands-on experience for the american people. gettysburg -- they've been laying off people at the battlefield. last night apparently something called the presidential management fellowship program, a training program that's decades' old that brings talented people into the federal government, eliminated. no explanation, no rational. eliminated. okay, that's the thoughtless part. let me give you a little personal experience. when i was elected governor of maine, we had a serious best of my knowledge et deficit. we were in a recession. we went through a process very similar to the impetus for what's going on now. we looked at the entire workforce of the state of maine. but we did it in a thoughtful and transparent way. we developed a task force that

included private citizens, legislators, and members of the administration, and we took eight months, mr. president, eight months, not eight weeks, and we looked at the entire structure of the state of maine government and reduced our workforce by about 10%, significant reduction. but we did it in a thoughtful way and in a way that made sense in terms of the ongoing service to the people of maine. so it can be done, and i'm not unsympathetic with the idea of making things more efficient. and even possibly downsizing the government, where it's called for and where additional people aren't necessary. so, i'm not here to say we shouldn't be looking for efficiency and saying everything in the federal government is perfect. i don't believe that for a minute. but i think if we're going to take on this exercise, it ought to be done in a sensible way by

people who know what they're doing. and that brings me to doge. i don't know what they're doing. nobody does. i don't know who these 25-year-olds in the irs, rummaging around in the irs system, i.t. system. we learned the last couple days social security. what are they doing? who are they? what are their qualifications? do they have security clearances? do they have conflicts of interest? there's no -- all of the rules designed to protect us from people making arbitrary decisions that aren't accountable, you talk about bureaucrats being unaccountable, these are the ultimate una unaccountable people. we don't know what relationship is to the federal government, what authority they have, up what law they're operating. it's clear from mistakes like firing 350 people at the nuclear security agency, they don't know what they're doing.

they're firing people who we need. okay, that's the thoughtless part. it's inexcusable. that's just pure efficiency of government doing the right thing, and it can be done, but these people aren't doing it. the second part of what's going on is the dangerous part, and this is where i call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are standing by and watching our government be -- the structure of our government be attacked with no response. elimination of entire congressionally created ag agencies. usaid was established by statute and over a weekend these people fired everybody, closed the agency, took the name off the door, and threw the rest of the world into chaos, where these people were working on important

projects all over the world, that were part of our outreach to the world. you know what? as soon as we went out of business at a.i.d., china is right in the market. it's like walking away from engagement with the world. it couldn't be a more self-defeating piece of work. by the way, it's a tiny part of the federal budget. and james madison famously said, when he was a general, if you cut the foreign aid budget, you're going to have to buy me more bullets. foreign aid is part of the national security of this country, and to demolish this agency without any input from congress, without any relationship to the foreign affairs committee or anybody else up here in the congress, is grossly unconstitutional. it's grossly unconstitutional. here's the problem,

mr. president, this isn't just a battle between the senate and the house and the president and they're fighting about powers. no, the reason the framers designed our constitution the way they did was that they were afraid of concentrated power. they had just fought a brutal eight-year war with a king. they didn't want a king. they wanted a constitutional republic, where power was divided between the congress and the president and the courts, and we are collapsing that structure. and the structure wasn't there for fun. it wasn't, hey, we'll design this complicated system. it was there to protect our freedom. because the people that wrote our constitution understood human nature, and they understood a very important thousand-year-old principle -- power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

the whole idea was to divide power, and to the extent we allow this assault on our constitution, this collapsing and excessive power being granted to the executive to ignore the laws passed by congress, and by the way, appropriations bills are laws passed by congress, which the administration is also ignoring by freezing funding for programs authorized and funded by congress, to the extent we do that, we're not only making a mistake now, but we're altering the essential structure of our constitution that's there for a reason, that's there to protect our freedom. and the people cheering this on i fear, in a reasonably short period of time, are going to say where did this go? how did this happen? how did we make our president into a monarch? how did this happen? how it happened is we gave it up! james madison thought we would

fight for our power, but no. right now, we're just sitting back and watching it happen. article 2 of the constitution, the president said, oh, article 2 gives me a lot of power. no, it doesn't. it makes the president commander in chief. that's true. here's the key sentence in article 2 of the constitution, which defines the president's power, the key sentence is not the power of the president, the responsibility of the president is to take care that the laws being faithfully executed. not write the laws. not deny the laws. not ignore the laws. not pick which laws he or she likes. to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. that's the responsibility of the president. right now, those laws are being ignored. impoundment. impoundment. the president trying to say congress appropriated this money through appropriation bill signed by president, but i'm not

going to spend it because i don't like it, i don't like that purpose, whatever it is. i'm sorry. it's absolutely straight up unconstitutional, and it's illegal. president nixon tried to do that in 1973, and the congress, virtually unanimously, passed the impoundment control act which said no, presidents can't to that. they can't ignore the will of congress because article 1 of the constitution gives the congress the power of the purse. we're giving it away this week. we're standing by and watching it, watching the essential power of this body evaporate. not evaporate, migrate down the street to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. the power was divided for a reason. there's criticism in the press saying people are talking about a constitutional crisis, they're crying wolf. no! this is a constitutional crisis. it's the most serious assault on our constitution in the history

of this country. it's the most serious assault on the very structure of our constitution, which is designed to protect our freedoms and liberty, in the history of this country. it is a constitutional crisis, and i'll tell you what makes it worse, the president and the vice president are already hinting that they're not going to obey decisions of the courts. many of my friends in this body say it will be hard, we don't want to buck the president, we'll let the courts take care of it. number one, that's a copout. it's our responsibility to protect the constitution. that's what we swear to when we enter this body. to stand back and say we're going to watch all this happen, and the courts will take care of it, that's an abdication of our responsibility. if you look at history, yes, it's true, presidents have gained power. in my reading of history usually it wasn't because presidents usurped power, but the congress

abdicated it. we haven't declared war, for example, since 1942, yet that's a clear responsibility of congress of we sure have been in some scrapes since 1942. we've abdicated that power, and we're now in the process of abdicating the power to control the appropriations process. i mention about doge, no authority, no accountability, no transparency, we literally don't know what they're doing, we can't find out what they're doing. just this week, the destruction of the independent agencies, created by congress. they were created as independent agencies for a reason, because they didn't want them to be dominated by the vicissitudes of politics. the president gets to appoint members of the board, and they're very carefully balanced, not firing someone at the national labor relations board so there's no quorum so they

can't act. that's a direct violation of congressionally established policy. these independent agencies were created for a reason. again, oh, i forgot to mention, illegal firing of inspector generals. the senator from iowa is a champion of inspector generals. in the first few days, something like 18 inspector generals were fired, completely contrary to the law. the law is the congress must be given 30 days notice of the firing of an inspector general, and reasons therefore. not done! not a peep. what's it going to take for us to wake up, when i say us, i mean this entire body, to wake up to what's going on here? is it going to be too late? is it going to be when the president has secreted all this power and the congress is an

afterthought? what's it going to take? the offenses keep piling up. as i said, leaving it to the courts, number one, is a copout, and number two, when the vice president said something, i can't remember exactly what he said, but the courts should not have the power to do this. of course, the president over the weekend famously quoted nap napoleon, when you're saving your country, you don't have to obey any law. wow, a president of the united states quoting napoleon about not having to obey the law. so, i intended to talk about ukraine, but senator tillis and senator shaheen did it so articulately, i think i'll let that pass, except to say it's shameful we've suddenly pivoted from the support of a democracy that was grossly and illegally invaded, from the support of that country to the support of a murderous dictator. i heard something about zelenskyy is a dictator.

the only dictator in this game, mr. president, is vladimir putin. he's the dictator. to argue that somehow ukraine started the war? what universe is that -- is somebody in that would say something like that? again, i won't pursue, but i can tell you putin's happy, xi jinping is happy, iran is happy, north korea is happy. they love what's going on, to see us retreating from the world, whether it's a.i.d. or ukraine. they love to see us retreating from the world, looking weak and looking unreliable. finally, on this point, we seem to be systematically alienating our allies. i've been on armed services for 12 years and have learned that the key asymmetric advantage this country has in the world is allies. china has customers. we have allies. well, we're giving that away. if i wasn't on the floor of the

u.s. senate, i'd use a slightly different term, but we're giving away our asymmetric advantage in the world by what looks like alienating allies, whether threats of tariffs or speeches in europe telling them what their probe lems are -- problems are, basically saying we're going to abandon europe. what a great idea, abandon europe at a time there's a murderous dictator with his eyes on the baltics, poland, and said he would like to reestablish the soviet empire. the worst possible geopolitical things we could do would be to abandon ukraine. so, mr. president, this is a constitutional crisis, and wewe've got to respond to it. i'm just waiting for this whole body to stand up and say no, no, we don't do it this way. we don't do it this way. we do things constitutionally. yes, it's more cumbersome, it's

slower, that's what the framers intended. they didn't intend to have an efficient dictatorship, and that's what we're headed for. mr. president, this is a very dangerous moment. we've got to wake up, protect this institution, but much more importantly protect the people of the united states of america. thank you, mr. president. . i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i rise to support the budget resolution that's before the united states senate. speaking to that, i want to remind people of some history. these famous words came from

rahm emanuel, president obama's chief of staff. it dates from about 2008. he famously said, quote, you never want a serious crisis to go away, end of quote. there's no statement that better encapsulates the mindset of the previous administration. we all know americans are struggling to cope with economic and social disruption, still carrying on from the pandemic. the biden administration saw a real opportunity, an opportunity to permanently increase the size and scope of government. they said that they wanted to

transform america. i hope everybody on my side of the aisle wants to preserve america. in my view, it makes sense in times of national emergency for government to take steps to help individuals, families, and small businesses weather that storm. but once the crisis subsides, so should the programs and spending enacted in response. yet here we are in 2025. federal spending as a share of the economy remains at levels never seen outside of war or national emergency like recessions or depressions.

in 2019, before the pandemic, the total federal spending totaled $4.450 trillion. in 2024, the federal government spent over $2 trillion more. that's a total of $6,75 $6,750,000,000, a relative increase of over 50%. we must begin to put spending back on a path of normalcy, and that's why we're having this debate that we call the budget reso resolution. the path to normalcy is a spending path that accounts for the historic inflation of the

past four years as well as population growth. now there's a lot of people in this body that would say that spending that much is still too much, but i think it fits in with the principle of the 1974 budget resolution. once inflation and population growth are factored in, federal spending in 2024 remained roughly $1 trillion above prepandemic levels. and if social security and medicare and interest on the debt are set to the side, federal spending was still over half a trillion dollars above 2019 levels, and i hope you'll study the chart here that shows what i just told you.

unless we have a course correction, our national debt will set a new record as a share of our economy in 2028. that is eclipsing the previous high water set in the wake of the world war ii. and you can see that here in the period of time where was it, world war ii. as another democrat said, elections have consequences. so as a part of the november mandate, president trump is looking for ways to reduce wasteful government spending. and through this budget resolution before the senate now, we plan to help in that process. but in fact that power should

rest here. the president shouldn't have to do it. but it's congress that has the power of the purse, and we'll have to do the heavy lifting. getting out of the fiscal hole that we dug for ourselves requires that we first stop digging. the budget that we're debating this week takes that first step, and some people would say too small of a first step. any new spending will have to be accomplished by reductions in spending elsewhere. i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on a return to fiscal sanity, and that fiscal sanity is the prepandemic level of spending increased only by inflation and population growth. i yield t

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that shari piy, a fellow in my office be granted floor privileges for the rest of the year. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the american people are being robbed in broad daylight. big oil is cashing in on their billion-dollar deal with donald trump from his campaign. the $1 billion to help trump win, and in return he'll rig the rules of the game in line with the pockets of the oil, gas, and coal industry ten times over. so let's call trump's energy agenda what it really is, oil

above all. not all of the above. trump's billionaire friends promised to raise tens of millions of dollars, and in return he promised he would deliver policies that will force working families to pay more, inhale more toxic air, reduce their kids' chances for a healthier future. and especially as the climate crisis continues to turbo charge, extreme weather costing billions in damages, sky-high energy bills. we know that working families don't have any more to give to the oil, gas, and coal industries. gas prices are up, electricity bills are up, home heating costs are up, and yet donald trump is going after the programs, the

agencies and the workers that help keep our air and water clean and create jobs. meanwhile, big oil is raking in record profits, more than $172 billion in profits in 2023 alone. this administration isn't governing. it's graveling to big oil and big gas and big coal and the entire fossil fuel industry. every dollar that goes into a billionaire's pocket is a dollar taken out of a working family's budget, money that should go to its food and rent and education. it is robbery in broad daylight from working families to create tax breaks for billionaires. and the trump administration is trying to carry out their single biggest heist right now, attempting to illegally seize

$20 billion from the congressionally authorized climate bank. as we speak, they're trying to loot the climate bank. this bank, formally called the greenhouse gas reduction fund, is based on my national climate bank legislation with chris van hollen, and it's already at work for you, leveraging private dollars to cut energy bills for families, small businesses, improve resiliency against climate change fuel disasters and create local economic opportunity. trump and musk are trying to get their hands on this money, your money, through whatever means necessary. even if that meant forcing denise chung, head of the criminal division of the d.c.

u.s. attorney's office to say that there had been a crime committed in the climate bank, which then would allow trump to reclaim all the money in the climate bank. and what did denise chung say? she said she could not find a crime. they said you're going to find a crime. she said she could not find a crime in the climate bank, and so she had to resign. she had to resign from being the head of the criminal division in the u.s. attorney's office right here in washington, d.c. because she refused to follow the orders of her supervisor who is getting instructions from the white house, because that was the only way they could fulfill the promise to oil, gas, and coal to kill the climate bank. they wanted to freeze that money in the absence of any crimes, any wrongdoing, which surprise,

just happened this week. just happened. their goal is to take money away from families, take money from clean energy, take money from disadvantaged communities and give it to the fossil fuel companies and special interests. yes, they want to raid medicaid. they want to raid education programs. they want to raid veterans benefits. but also for the oil, gas and coal industry they've got to kill tax breaks from wind and solar. the climate bank is revolutionizing the way we generate energy, electricity in this country. that's not powerful leadership. it's political plunder, and working families are paying the price. trump's farce on energy creates an emergency for the american people. instead of taking steps to lower energy costs for families, the trump administration is actively driving up your energy costs by

pushing for our energy, american energy to get shipped overseas for higher profits and tying our energy market to the volatility of the global energy marketplace. from late 2021 through 2022, surging exports of our energy from the united states, liquefied natural gas cost americans $111 billion in higher energy prices for natural gas customers here in the united states. consumers, homeowners, businesses. why? because big oil and big gas want to is export our energy out of our country, send it overseas, because they get a bigger price on the open seas. that's what it's all about. in a recent study from the department of energy found that

it's extremely likely lng exports will lead to more sticker shock for americans. an average increase of over $120 per year still coming. again, while oil executives, natural gas executives cash in on even bigger paydays. so what's the trump plan? turn consumers in america upside down and shake money out of their pockets for profits for the oil and gas industry. and what happens? prices go higher for consumers here. that's how they make their money. they're doing it hand and glove with the trump administration. this is not an energy emergency. this is a trump energy tax on the american people, an energy tax which, to be clear, is only growing in severity as trump cuts off funding for clean energy projects, fires hardworking employees, imposes tariffs, all of which will make

electricity even more expensive for american businesses, for american consumers. it's a deliberate strategy to make sure working families stay dependent on a damaging fuel source that makes a handful of billionaires richer and richer and richer by the day. but make no mistake, they're not attacking us because they're winning. the fossil fuel industry is backing donald trump because they know they're losing, they're losing, despite trump's attempts to kill the green revolution, the reason energy boon is happening all across the country. the fossil fuel industry is terrified because they know that wind and solar are the future. last year, get this number. this is why they're petrified. this is why they're scared. the 0% of all new -- 90% of all

new electric -- electricity was renewable, why do they have to kill the tax breaks, why do they have to kill the climate bank? you do renewables every year for the next ten years, then it drives right at the heart of the business model of natural gas and coal and oil industries in our country. that's why they need to a lot the climate bank. that's why they need to kill the tax breaks for wind and solar, all electric vehicles in our country. on-shore wind and solar power were the cheapest megawatts on the grid last year from construction to operation. the big oil bosses know, if given the choice, measures will pick the cheapest, cleanest energy source every time. they are killing your choice. they're not letting you pick

which energy source you want. nearly 80% of clean energy investments from the inflation reduction act, also known as the biggest climate bill in world history, 80% of the investments have gone to republican districts creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in two years. think about that. trump is actively working to destroy economic work and jobs in the places that got him elected. 80% of the jobs are in red states. think about that. that's the oil and gas industries raising money. we're talking about construction workers, building wind turbines, engineers, all of these are good-paying, family sustaining jobs helping to build america's future, and yet -- and yet, trump and his enablers want to tear it all done just to keep

their fossil fuel cronies happen, just to keep the greenhouse gas emitters happy, just to make sure there is no competition. they don't believe in competition. this should be darwinian annoying inducing competition. what oil and gas is being ex bracketed is killing the -- extracted is killing the marketplace. allen was thinking of -- adam smith had a big smile on his face, the market's finally working, but that had to be killed. that had to be killed. and if that wasn't enough, trump was attacking the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, the agency that warns and helps protect us against hurricanes and floods and wildfires. why? because it gets in the way of his fossil fuels' allies ability

to pollute. last year disasters supercharged by climate change cost the united states more than $500 billion. hurricane milton and helene, that cost $300 billion. the fires in l.a., $200 billion. three incidents, $500 billion worth of damming. three. that's -- damage. that's all. half of the defense budget. what are they doing? they're taking down the defense in the future against superstorms. they'ringif to take it down and -- they're going to take it down and ravage businesses, it will have a devastating impact on our country. we're not even through the month of february and already in los angeles and other places we can see the storms. we can see the -- we can see the floods. we can see the damage.

so this is absolutely unbelievable what is happening. families forced from their homes. businesses wiped out, entire communities devastated. instead of preparing for the future, trump is making sure it gets worse. imagine standing in the wreckage of a hurricane ravaged neighborhood with nothing but rubble as your home and your president is choosing to make future disasters worse and fire the workers that would help you rebuild. that is the cruelty of his administration. it's become a wholly subsidiary of the oil and gas industry and giving them a permission slip to wreak havoc on every other american and everyone is picking fossil fuel billionaires over working people and they aren't hiding it. since april of last year after trump sat down with the big oil executives and asked for the

billion }dollar campaign -- billion }dollar campaign check, they have ballooned by $40 billion more in wealth for those individuals while the rest of the country is worried about how to pay for their bills. trump's fossil fuel donors are making a fortune. let's not forget the bigger picture. our global standing is on the line. when we let fossil fuel energy dictate our energy, china is surging ahead and saying thank you, trump administration for letting us take over the renewable energy industry. they're investing in electric vehicles, battery storage and all the industries that will define the 21st century economy. what is trump doing? kneecapping our ability to compete. he's locking us into outdated, expensive and polluting energy systems while the rest of the world moves forward without us.

you can't be an isolationist when it comes to climate change. it's global warming. this isn't just about energy policy. this is about what kind of country we want to be. will we be the leader or the lagger? do we want to be a country that builds, innovates and transforms or a country that allows that -- that clings to the past and knowingly raise costs on american families that pollute the world that we live in order to line the pockets of the ultra wealthy. the choice is ours. trump and his fossil fuel friends want you to believe that you don't have a choice and have to accept dirty air, polluted water and hurricanes that is brought on that the president of the united states president trump exists, calling

it a chinese hoax. 3 events, $500 billion worth of damage. i'm not mentioning the other events that happened. they're wrong, people want lower bills, not higher bills for exxon. they don't want another handout to chevron. it's not drill, baby, drill, it's plug in, baby plug in. that that's what this young generation wants, plug in. we have a choice, we can fight for lower costs and a livable future. we can invest in the industries of tomorrow instead of getting locked into the polluting past, we can stop exporting fossil fuels abroad and driving up our own prices here they america, we can ban fossil fuel executives and lobbyists from using our agencies for their own personal

pocketbooks or as i call for in my big oil from the cabinet act, that they can't work. they can't work for the energy department. they can't be inside taking over the agenda. we can strengthen the low-income and heating and cooling relief program so that the poorest americans don't have to put so much of their paycheck towards heating and cooling. we can safeguard energy efficiency standards for appliances so people pay less on their bills. we can do that. we can remove the tax loopholes that prevent oil and gas companies from paying their fair share. we're talking about tax breaks for oil companies that have been on the books for 100 years, they call creating a climate bank socialism, what do you call the oil and gas tax breaks? that's socialism. that's allowing for a noncompetitive marketplace so the clean technologies, sol r

and wind -- solar and wind they can't be deployed. amount a minimum, we can't take away the competition. they're mow nopists -- monopolists, they want to stifle new technology, they don't have any new ideas except making themselves rich. if republicans are here tonight looking for revenue to pay for the things that they want to pay for, let's start with ending those tax breaks now and having oil companies finally pay their fair share. ultimately we can stand up to the corporate greed that is bleeding working families dry and demand a future where energy policies serves the people, not just the powerful. that's exactly what we're going to do because the clean energy revolution isn't just coming, it's already here and it's scaring the living daylights out of the oil and gas and coal industry. they are petrified. it's happening in red states, 80%, and blue states, it's

lowering costs, creating jobs, making communities stronger. no amount of corruption or no amount of fossil fuel money isingif to stop it -- is going to stop it and we will not back down and we will not allow the trump administration to sell out the american people, especially the young people. we're not going to allow their future to get sold out. we are not going to surrender the way the oil and gas and coal industry want us to surrender. because this is not about the highest bidder who can a lot the programs like the national climate bank to pay for their billionaire tax breaks. we will fight for the workers for the clean energy future and all families to enshun they have -- ensure they have cleaner air and a livable future, and we will fight not just for ourselves, but all living

children and and grandchildren. this is about justice, fairness, and the very future of our country. we cannot back down now. this is the time, this is the place. we must wage this battle on behalf of the coming generations or else the devastation will become catastrophically unimaginable. so let's have this fight this year about our future. i think that's the least we owe to young people in our country. and i yield back. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you. i have two unanimous consent requests. mr. president, unanimous consent that -- i ask unanimous consent that for the duration of senate concurrent resolution 7, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2025, the majority and the democratic managers of the resolution while seated or standing in the manager's desk to be permitted to deliver floor

remarks, retrieve, review and edit documents, send, e-mail and other data communications from texts displayed on a wireless personal assistant device and tablet devices and that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor during consideration of the budget resolution. further, that staff be permitted to make technical and con forming changes to the resolution if necessary, consistent with the amendments during the consideration, including calculating the associated change in the net interest function and incorporating the effect of such adopted amendments on the budgetary aggregates for federal revenue, the amount by which the federal revenue should be changes, new budget authority, budget outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the

public. further i ask unanimous consent for two minutes to debate -- of debate equally divided prior to each vote during consideration of senate concurrent resolution 7. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. graham: if there was ever a mouthful. that was it. i ask unanimous consent that the following staff members from my staff and from senator merkley's staff be given all-access floor -- senate floor during senate concurrent resolution 7. republican staff catherine, katrina wilson, lillian meadows, mike jones, melissa blisner, josh smith, and tyler evishe,

they're all written down. i apologize to the families of those i just insulted. that's it. the presiding officer: without objection. the chair recognizes the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that chance mitchell be granted floor privileges during consideration of resolution 7. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. mr. reed: mr. president. the presiding officer: recognize the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you. the receiptic of donald trump and republicans is all over the map. here's what's important to know. republicans want $4.5 trillion in tax cuts primarily for the richest americans paid for with sharp cuts in programs that help average americans and the most vulnerable in our society.

yesterday i spoke on the floor about one of the most cynical parts of this resolution, gutting health care for children, seniors, and americans with disabilities through extreme cuts to medicaid and the children's health insurance program, chip. donald trump said that medicaid and medicare would be off limit s, but the budget put out by republicans indicates something quite different. during the debate on this budget, republicans will have the opportunity to vote on amendments to show where they stand and more importantly who they stand with. everyday americans or the roughly 75 billionaires in -- 750 billionaires in the united states. that's the stakes. hundreds of millions of nurses, firefighters, office workers, systems administrators, salespeople, and their children

versus the interest of roughly 750 people whose wealth grows by millions every single day. ripping health coverage away from americans may be the worst part of this budget, but it is far from the only bad provision. instead this budget is part of a broader decision by president trump and congressional republicans to force american families to pay more for food, health care, and education, again all for the wealthiest americans can get a huge tax break. the big, beautiful bill that donald trump favors is expected to gut medicaid by at least $880 billion. cuts could be devastating to the 80 million americans who rely on medicaid and chip, who are almost entirely children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working men and women who depend upon

medicaid protection. forcing struggling americans to pay more for health insurance or to lose health coverage altogether is heartless policy and a slap in the face of the millions of families who are struggling to make ends meet. and yet medicaid is not the only target in the resolution. food for the dinner table is also on the chopping block with cuts of reportedly at least $230 billion. and each of us has seen news reports about the long lines at food pantries in our states. who hasn't heard that the price of eggs is up 15% in the last month alone? who doesn't remember also the campaign promise of donald trump to bring grocery prices down on the first day? yet here we are with a trump-backed bill that makes groceries even more expensive for 42 million americans who

qualify for snap. gutting this program, the snap program, doesn't lower prices, but it sure will increase the problem of hunger in the richest country in the world. put simply, president trump's big, beautiful bill is forcing vulnerable american families to pay more for food and health care. such policies directly contradict the president's campaign promise that, quote, starting on day one, we will end inflation and make america affordable again. republicans can't dodge the truth. $880 billion in medicaid cuts and $230 billion in snap cuts will mean more kids go hungry, more seniors can't afford lifesaving treatment, and more households are forced into poverty. the budget resolution's cost

raising trifecta ends with higher education costs. instead of making college more affordable and offering young americans more pathways to prosperity, this republican budget will increase the cost of student loans and cut other programs to help americans offset the cost of education. education cuts come at perhaps the worst time. most jobs that provide living wages require some post-secondary education or training, a college education which has long been a ticket to the middle class is now too expensive for too many families. meanwhile, the main source of government higher education aims to low and moderate-income families, the pell grant, has lost most of its purchasing power. at its peek in 1975 and 1976, the pell grant named after any

predecessor covered more than 75% of the cost of attendance at a public four-year college. today it covers less than 30%. unsurprisingly, over 40 million americans now have student loan debt which prevents them in many cases from purchasing a home, moving to areas where they might be able to use their talents more effectively, and many other consequences. forcing americans to pay even more for college makes education less attainable, weakens our labor force, and will have long-term repercussions for american families, american prosperity, and american security. now, many americans may be wondering what's the point of all these cuts? it's not about reforming

programs. there has been no serious analysis of any of these programs. all they've looked at is what does it cost and how can we use that money to fund taxes. that's not government reform. that's not wise government. that's just ripping off most americans to satisfy 785 billi billionaires. and it's not even about reducing the deficit. as i said, it's just unlocking a fast-track way to reward the wealthiest americans, some of whom are now in the trump administration. republicans have been pretty clear. the central purpose of their budget is to permanently extend the failed 2017 trump tax bill which was an unpopular giveaway to the wealthiest americans. merely half of the benefits from extending the trump's tax bill

will flow just to the richest americans. those earning $450,000 or more each year. president trump promised on the campaign trail that, quote, starting on day one, we will end inflation and make america affordable again. but we're now on day 32 and costs have not come down. in fact, inflation hit 3% for the first time in months this january and the president took no action while egg prices hit record highs. a particular point of pain for many families. and just like this budget resolution, the president has been intent on forcing families to pay more, not less, for everyday goods. in just one month, the president has implemented or threatened tariff taxes on nearly every item imaginable. nonpartisan experts are clear.

these tariff taxes will not make america affordable again. the peterson institute projects the tariff taxes on canada, mexico, and china alone would cost u.s. households $1,200 a year, a tariff tax. other researchers have found the president's threat to place reciprocal tariffs on our trading partners would cost families $2,600 a year. analysts at the investment bank jeffries project car prices will jump by $2,700 under the president's canada and mexico tariffs while the national association of home builders found president trump's lumber tariffs during his first term which he promised to raise again, in his first term raised housing prices by $9,000. and he wants to do it again.

we'vele heard a lot about -- we've also heard a lot about mr. musk, doge, and fraud, waste, and abuse, but that operation doesn't seem to be about preventing fraud, waste, and abuse or lowering costs. by the way, if you were really interested in eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, why would you fire all the inspector generals? they are independent agents who are charged specifically to root out waste and corruption in the federal government. president trump did that. so this is not about getting rid of waste or anything else. again, find me trillions of dollars to give away to rich americans. in fact, the other as pocket of this goal is just to create mayhem and to impact so much of gove government. firing responsible staffers who are handling key issues, weapons, nuclear weapons.

i was in the airport on monday evening flying down from providence, and a young lady came up to me and said she was fired a few days ago from the national nuclear administration because she was a probationary hire. but guess what? when they discovered that they could not protect nuclear weapons, not do sensitive maintenance on them so that they would be ready for deterrence, she was suddenly called back. not very smart. we're trying to fire researchers who are out to cure alzheimer's disease, who are trying to get rid of -- experts to try to fight bird flu and seeking access to computer seems at the irs and social security administration which contain personal and financial information for each and every single american.

i don't think most americans want elon musk to know all of their financial information, their personal information, maybe even health care information. but that could happen. it's not combatting fraud, all these things. in fact, it's closer, particularly with the irs information, to committing fraud. indeed the budget resolution we will vote on tonight is just further evidence that republicans and president trump have no plan and no real interest in lowering costs for families. and i think that's wrong. now, i'm all for tax cuts, but it should be tax cuts for the middle class, tax cuts for those struggling with higher prices, and tax cuts for small business, not 750 billionaires. forcing regular americans to cover tax cuts for the richest americans is not the sort of

economic policy we should be pursuing in the senate, and i urge my colleagues to rethink which americans deserve their support. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: thank you, mr. president. starting last week the trump administration began firing hundreds of federal aviation

administration employees. today we had a hearing in the commerce committee to talk about what kind of a key lawyer we need at the faa, and we asked questions about this. but what's perplexing is while the american people were watching in horror as a delta airlines plane flipped over on the toronto runway, president trump was focused instead of purposing dedicated faa employees from the federal workforce, something that i believe makes us less safe in the skies. among those fired were aeronautical information specialists, legal instrument examiners, telecommunications specialist, all of them play a key role in supporting the work of air traffic controllers. in fact, there was a story today in "politico," the headline is air traffic controllers cannot do their work without us. that is a quote from the article. and inside the article a

statement reading from the article, one of the people last week let go was an aeronautical information specialist, a member of a team outside washington whose job it was to create, map, and highways in the sky. the preplanned routes that pilots control and controllers use to guide airplanes. so it's very perplexing that we've had these accidents and now we have an administration that wants to cut people at the faa. this headline here refers to the fact that the last trump administration actually blocked safety rules. that is what today's commerce hearing was about for a number two person at the department of transportation. the people that served in the first trump administration and why did they block these safety rules. in fact, some of these safety rule which would have required manufacturers to have better safety were written and proposed by the faa, but when the trump

administration came in and then nine days after the first max crash, somehow the rule that was set to move forward was pulled. so now we're seeing an administration that is being, in my mind, thoughtless to the incidents that we have now seen in aviation and saying it's okay to cut people at the faa. i disagree. the administration has said that it's no big deal because it's one percent of the workforce. now, i know the objective is to give a $4 trillion tax break to corporations and ultra we willy people but -- ultra wealthy people but i don't understand how cutting. the lives of the american people are worth way more. these people are not just a bunch of junior hires. no, one news report stated that

more than 130 of those eliminate held jobs that directly or indirectly support the air traffic controllers. they support the facilities and the technologies they use to keep the planes and their passengers safe. end quote. so you're going to tell me that a telecommunications specialist who supports the maintenance of key communication technology used by controllers is not important to aviation safety? what have we not seen in these incidents that have just occurred here in dca and other places? are you going to tell me that the legal instrument examiners who ensure that the pilots are medically fit to fly are not important to aviation safety? are you going to tell moo that the air traffic controllers, the same workers that originally were exempted from the administration's hiring freeze, but then after the fatal collision at dca put a spotlight on the issue, they literally

came to a different answer. most astonishingly of all is that the administration has let go of aeronautical information specialists who evaluate and prepare navigational charts and helicopter routes used by both controllers and pilots. now, we just had this air collision in the dca area, and what was it about? a route that didn't seem to be -- a decision that somebody had made to let these planes fly too close together. made no sense. how did that route get approved? who at the faa said it was a good idea to allow the department of defense to fly in the same airspace as a plane landing on runway 33 at dca airport? so mapping, helicopter routes in a busy airspace i think is critically important and not somebody that should have been

fired this week from a job. our aviation system is not a place where you can shortchange workers. this rule proves it. this rule, which would have mandated that manufacturers of aviation implement a safety management system constantly approving on an analytical basis is critical information about how to maintain say. but it never got implemented. so i am concerned that an administration that in the previous trump years thwarted the safety rule and now is firing people at the faa after these crashes are going to continue to erode the aviation safety net. surprisingly after the helicopter crash with the crj from american airlines, there was a lot of discussion about how and why a military helicopter would be in the same

space as a crj regional jet trying to land at dca from kansas city. one of the questions asked was, why was there not this next-generation technology that would allow the plane to be detected? and -- i'm sorry is allow the helicopter to be detected. this included a dod helicopter in the dca collision incident. the issue is that the controllers needed this information, but an exemption done in the trump administration gave them an exemption to this, and this week we find out in a letter that they never ever used avsb in a way to help us in our aviation safety.

air traffic controlsers know that these firings are antisafety. a constituent of mine in washington state, a former air traffic controller, wrote me on sunday about how important these workers are. according to him, he said, quote, these technicians and engineers maintain every piece of equipment that keeps our flying public safe, keeps radars and instrument landing to air traffic controllers on automation and the technicians undergo years of specialized training to maintain critical missions and systems and cannot be replaced quickly. in the 35 years since i began my controller career, we have never, ever had a surplus of technicians and engineers. to the contrary, it's a challenge to keep them in these jobs. once our aviation system infrastructure is compromised, it takes decades to take it back

and money will not be saved and lives may be lost. end quote. i thank mr. greenwood for his service. i hope the administration is listening. i hope that you figure out now is not the time to shortchange aviation. unfortunately, right now we don't even have a confirmed faa administrator. they're critical to this job. we had a strong administrator, mike whitaker, who was confirmed 98-0 by this body. ment didn't matter to elon musk who went after administrator whitaker because he dared to fine spacex for not following the rules. and, as a result, the faa now does not have an administrator. at one of its most critical points in decades. all the firing of employees and dan

dangling resignations and trying to get people to resign to save money, to get a tax break at $4 trillion to corporations and the ultra wealthy is not what we should be doing. we should be working hard on aviation safety. we should not be rolling back safety rules. we should be enforcing safety rules and implementing them as fast as we can, that says this body, this body knows that aviation safety is a priority. i thank the president. and i yield the floor. mr. bennet: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you. thank you, mr. president. i appreciate the opportunity to speak. i returned from ukraine earlier this week where i saw both the suffering that the ukrainian people have endured over the

past three years at putin's hand and the courage they have forged to save their country and their children. the suburban town of bucha where russian troops tortured and massacred hundreds of civilians in the first day of putin's unprovoked invasion. the shattered children's hospital putin's missiles nearly destroyed, the apartment buildings in central kyiv struck by putin's drones and lawyers accepting for the thousands of ukrainian children who have been kidnapped from their parents by russian soldiers. by most statement estimates, at -- by most estimates, at least 40,000 ukrainian troops have been killed in battle and another 308,000 have been -- 380,000 have been wounded.

the population in that country means that war has scarred nearly ever neighborhood. in cemeteries all across ukraine, fresh graves piled with dirt and flowers testify to their sacrifice. at least 12,000 civilians have -- amid this torment, the ukrainians continue to send troops to the front and to mobilize to keep there is abouts and their homes and kids in school. they did not ask for putin's thuggish invasion. and from the very beginning, our intelligence agencies have told us something that putin never has understood -- that the ukrainian people will never submit to him. that if every weapon were denied them, they would fight with sticks and stones and their bare

hands to protect their country from any invading tyrant. but especially from vladimir putin of russia. fortunately for ukraine and for the rest of the free world, they have not had to fight this invasion with their bare hands. the american people have steadfastly supported them. we have sent $66 billion in military aid and $51 billion in nonmilitary aid. that's a lot of money, mr. president, but it represents just .52% of our gdp. unlike the wars in afghanistan and iraq, not a single american soldier has been sent to fight. our european allies have stepped up as well. together, they've actually committed more than the united states. but their sums represent a much larger percentage of their economy, which makes sense

because they are closer to the danger that russia poses. and i cans at the same time, even -- and, at the same time, even farther allies like australia and japan, continue to support ukraine as well. our allies and our partners know the stakes of this war. they know that supporting ukraine means standing with people that are willing to fight for the country that they love. they know that rolling over to putin will embolden other dictators around the world, especially xi jinping of china. the rest of us may not need this reminder, mr. president, but the people sitting at 1600 pennsylvania avenue apparently do. since they seem to be the only ones in the free world who do not understand the stakes of this war. over the last few days, president trump has chosen the side of tyranny, of putin, of

xi, and profoundly undermined our national security. like someone reading russian twitterbahts, he deliberately and falsely accused ukraine of starting the war. he called zelenskyy the freedom fighter who is leading the fight in ukraine a dictator. mr. president, he invited russia to rejoin the g7, a group of the world's most powerful democracies that has met regularly since the 1970's and which throughout russia -- and which threw out russia after they invaded ukraine in 2014. before negotiations have evening started, mr. president, president trump's secretary of defense, pete hegseth, took ukraine's potential nato membership off the table a and just this week, the trump

administration held talks with russia in saudi arabia without the decencyive even inviting ukraine -- without the seency of even inviting ukraine to the table. it pains me to say it but our old colleague, secretary of state marco rubio, even suggested that the united states should lift sanctions on and bolster economic collaboration with russia while russia shells civilians in ukraine. some of our republican colleagues believe it doesn't matter what president trump says, only what he does. that it doesn't matter when he will -- when he says that he's going to send american troops to gaza or seize the panama canal, or falsely accuse ukraine of starting this war. but a president's words matter more than most. and president trump's harmful words and policies will only

embolden putin. they will further convince putin that he is winning, that time is on his side, and that he has no reason to accept a peace deal that is anything less than overwhelmingly favorable to his maximalist desire. in literally every one of his comments on ukraine, president trump has undermined our national security. every time he opens his mouth, he weakens our bargaining position and makes the world more dangerous. we all want this war to end. on that, the president and i agree. but for the sake of ukraine and the sake of the free world, it must only end with a just and enduring peace. while the united states and our allies and ukraine work together

to establish the terms of the peace and to get ready to negotiate with putin, the ukrainians are going to have to keep fighting throughout this winter season, this freezing winter, where the civilian population is just doing everything they can to keep their houses and their businesses and their schools warm and liveable. the ukrainian soldiers are not asking to be relieved of this terrible burden. they are embracing it, because they know that any ceasefire without meaningful security guarantees will allow putin to rebuild his weakened army and attack again and again and again. and obviously, obviously everyone in this chamber knows that any meaningful negotiation has to include ukraine.

doing anything else, as the trump administration just did in saudi arabia, would be an insult to the memory of every soldier who's laid down their life in this war. i cannot claim, mr. president, to know donald trump well. it is obvious that i deeply regret his election. but i don't blame him for winning the election. he beat my party, the democratic party, badly in two elections. he even found a way to get elected after he was the first president in american history to take away a fundamental civil right from the american people, a woman's right to choose, and still got elected again. that is extraordinary! and it is a testament, i'm sorry to say, to the democratic

party's weakness, and to his own skills and talent. particularly in this era, i don't doubt that his experience as a reality tv star taught him things that helped him get elected. i am much less certain, however, that his checkered commercial real estate background prepared him to negotiate a hotel deal with vladimir putin, much less a deal that concerns the fate of the free world. donald trump is -- donald trump is not the only person, mr. president, with private sector experience in our government. i can tell you from my experience working in denver, when someone is having a negotiation, who has deal fever, you can see it, you can smell it. when they are so desperate for a

deal on any terms. the people that i negotiated with in denver had a lot more discipline than that. we told each other that we would never agree to any deal that hadn't cratered at least three times, because that was the only way you could tell whether you were getting the best deal. if you didn't have the guts to walk away, mr. president, you were never going to get the best deal that you could. i have never seen a worse case of deal fever than donald trump's approach to the coming negotiation with vladimir putin. never in my life have i seen it, and it's never been more important. i doubt the world has seen such an ill-conceived pursuit of negotiation since the infamous 1938 munich agreement, in which the u.k. and france and it'sly allowed -- italy allowed nazi germany to an ex part of

czechoslovakia. and the damage he's doing is not only that we will get a worse deal. it's that we will undermine ukraine's position on the front line. without security guarantees from the united states, and from europe, putin will only bide his time, regroup, and invade again. after the fictions that president trump has spewed about who started this war, not to mention the chorus of defeatism from his vice president, his secretary of defense and the director of national intelligence, does anyone -- does anybody, including putin and xi jinping, doubt what would happen if putin invaded again? this is less the art of the deal, mr. president, i'm afraid, than it is the art of defeat. after all these years, after all these battles, it would be truly

pathetic for the united states, the world's most powerful country, to accept a fever-induced deal with russia like the munich agreement. look it up. not perhaps on twitter, but in your much more reliable tenth-grade western civ textbook. after that deal, hitler did not stop in czechoslovakia, but continued his war on europe and left unchecked putin will do the same thing. putin's propagandists have told us repeatedly, and to make matters worse anyone concerned about beijing's potential takeover of taiwan knows that there will be no better test of how the free would will respond to xi's potential invasion than how we respond to putin's. come to think of it, if china does invade taiwan how would we

evaluate the leadership capacity of an american president who claimed that it was taiwan who had invaded china, not the other way around? that is the level of duplicity that we are seeing from donald trump right now. so, why the deal fever? that's a good question, mr. president. president trump's aspiration for a nobel peace prize is well-known. he can hang it next to his gold-plated faucets and his first editions of "the art of the deal." but if you heard from people in this chamber, even he might think twice, if he understood that walking down this path of appeasement makes him more likely to be remembered like nefsh ill chamberlain -- like neville chamberlain. negotiations can end this war in a just matter only if ukraine

can negotiate them from a place of strength. the american people have been incredibly gin russ in our support of -- generous in our support of ukraine. even so, this war cost us less than 0.6% of our gdp, while allowing us to send ukraine old weapons, when we invest in our own cutting-edge replacements. permitting us to learn from ukraine's extraordinary innovation on the front lines and its world class use of new war-fighting technologist, such as drones. and boosting our economy without costing a single american soldier's life. we and our european allies have to continue surging military assistance to ukraine, not forever but so ukraine is best positioned to make this deal. not just for ukraine, but for

us, and for free countries all over the world. contrary to what many people believe at the outset of this war, and what president trump apparently believes today, putin's invasion of ukraine has been costly to him, very costly to him. three year of the ukraine people's tenacity and courage have degraded the russian military. as we speak, russia is losing twice the number of soldiers every month as putin's war continues. in total, putin has squandered mon than $200 billion and suffered a staggering 700,000 casualties at the hands of ukrainian patriots. three times the number of soldiers russia lost in afghanistan, a country famously regarded as the graveyard of empires. we didn't ask for this war,

neither did ukraine, but putin is in a weaker position to threaten europe today than when he first swung his iron fist at the ukrainian people. the last thing we should do now is weaken our negotiating position when we and europe have so much at stake, when the world has so much at stake. putin believes he can beat ukraine not because he thinks ukrainians are weak, but because he thinks we are weak, and he thinks president trump is a pushover and a sucker. at the beginning of his invasion of ukraine, putin was surrounded, as tyrants are and dictators are, by yes men scared to tell them the truth about their own weaknesses, and in this case russia's weaknesses, made three fundamental miscalculations going into the war. one was about the strength of his own army. he had invested billions of

dollars planning for the invasion, but much of it was siphoned off because of russia's endemic corruption. the second miscalculation was about the ukrainian people's patriotism and willingness to fight to the death. no matter how president trump tries to undermine this sacr sacrifice, the honor roll of history will forever -- will forever record ukraine's courage. putin's third miscalculation was that the world would roll over and allow him to invade his peaceful neighbor. unlike the other two mistakes, he had evidence for the final point. after all, when he began his invasion in 2014, by lawlessly sending his little green men to oc occupy crima, which is part of ukraine, the world did nothing, the united states did nothing. he thought the world would do nothing when he invaded crimea again. it turned out, unlike putin, we

actually learn from our mistake. the free world has stood up to putin this time around. we have supplied arms and other support while the ukrainian people have died on the front line of their country and for the west. their cemeteries are bulging with fresh graves. they have earned the free world's support. but even more important to us and our allies, we have protected our national security and affirmed our commitment to the post-world war ii rules-based international order. how this ends will determine whether that order persists and whether the united states continues to provide the leadership our parents and grandparents supplied since world war ii. world war ii was another war started by a tyrant, but it was

ended by the world's democracies. many americans inside this chamber and outside understand the stakes. they know, as ronald reagan proclaimed 40 years ago, in advancing freedom, americans carry a special burden, a belief in the dignity of man, and that freedom is america's core, and that we should never deny it nor forsake it. this is what we risk today by withdrawing our support of ukraine. we will abandon both the ukrainian people and the core of what america stands for, and we cannot do it, mr. president. this is personal for me and so many of us. my mom was born a jew in warsaw in 1938. she and her parents and aunt were the only ones who survived the holocaust. the nazis killed everyone else

in her family. authoritarian aggression left an indelible mark on my family and countless other families in ukraine and poland in the 1930's and 1940's, where stalin and hitler killed together 16 million human beings. these victims of fascism died believing that they were invisible to the rest of the world, forgotten people in unforgettable years. the lesson i learned from my mom is that the united states can never let that happen again by trying to appease a dictator, the way that chamberlain did. that is not aprock -- that is not apocraphyl. i had dinner with my mom last night, she's 86 years old, can't

believe she's lived long enough -- i'm happy she has, but she can't believe she's lived long enough to see another tyrant's invasion of their peaceful, democratic, european neighbor. but she hasn't lived long enough to forget her generation's searing lesson. she knows the eternal truth, that the greatest enemy of fascism is man. even if president trump continues to ignore reality, my mother and millions of americans who make up the greatest generation, understand the united states has a special responsibility here. it has always been far too easy for some in high office to ignore their moral responsibility to speem sacrificing -- to people sacrificing their lives a continent away on behalf of our shared values and interests. history occasionally records their name like chamberlain in