“Republicans passed a tax cut law last year that stopped a massive tax hike. It cut taxes for families, seniors, and businesses, and it ended taxes on tips and overtime. It also created new savings accounts for kids, which are already helping families and businesses save millions of dollars for the next generation.”

“Mr. President, last year, my Republican colleagues and I enacted the Working Families Tax Cut Act, which prevented the largest tax hike in our Nation’s history. Not a single Democratic Senator voted for it. This bill made permanent tax reforms that were enacted in 2017 and expanded on that 2017 tax bill, allowing taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money. This included provisions that reduced tax bills of individuals and families as well as pro-growth tax policies critical to boosting domestic business and employee wages. Without the 2025 tax bill, we would have had the largest tax increase in the history of the country. Now, this Working Families Tax Cut Act also fulfilled President Trump’s campaign promises to have no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and expanded tax relief for our senior citizens. It also increased and indexed the child tax credit, and it allowed for the deduction of interest on car loans. Truly, this is a working family tax bill cut. But a great new tax exemption was created to encourage savings and particularly to start at an early young age. The law has in it an innovative new savings tool for children under 18 called Trump Accounts. These new savings accounts opened for contributions on July 5 and, according to the White House, over the next 5 days, families invested $125 million in these new accounts for children. In addition to family contribution, there are over 50 companies committed to offer Trump Account contributions for children of their own employees. Moreover, a growing list of philanthropists and nonprofits are pledging to make donations to Trump Accounts. Just as one example, Michael and Susan Dell have pledged to contribute $250 to the first 25 million accounts established for children 10 and under. The Working Families Tax Cut is lowering tax bills. It is, at the same time, invigorating the economy and at the same time helping a new generation build financial security. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“The Democratic Party is moving toward socialism. Socialists are winning Democratic elections and bringing extreme ideas into the party. Their platform wants the government to take over healthcare, housing, schools, and business. They want to get rid of police, prisons, the military, and border enforcement. They even want to eliminate the Senate and change how our whole government works. Some of their leaders are open communists, and that leads to taking away people's freedom.”

“Mr. President, there is no doubt that the Democrat Party has moved sharply left in recent years, but this election cycle has seen the Democrat Party take a big step further toward full-blown socialism. New York City’s new Democrat mayor, a self-proclaimed Democrat socialist, might be the most notable example, but he is far from alone. Around the country, socialists have been winning Democrat primaries, and it is no exaggeration to say that socialism is rapidly gaining a prominent new role in the Democrat Party. So let’s talk a little bit about socialism and the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. When you look at the platform, right away, you see some predictable things; namely, government control of almost everything. Healthcare, business, housing, education, energy-- all of these sectors would come under government control in a democratic socialist state. And when I say ``government control,’’ I don’t just mean they would be hit with a lot of regulations; I mean government control. Government would become the ultimate decisionmaker for American families in most aspects of their life. Take healthcare, for example. We often talk about the doctor-patient relationship in medicine. Well, under democratic socialism, that would be a lot more like the government-patient relationship. It is the government that would decide what healthcare Americans are eligible for, what medications they can take, and when and where they are able to access care. Americans place a high value on choice and freedom, but freedom and choice do not last very long when government takes over, and under democratic socialism, government would be truly taking over. I could dedicate a whole speech to what happens when government takes control of the economy and the means of production and of healthcare and education and energy. But there is more to the Democratic Socialist platform that I want to talk about. I guess I have to hand it to Democratic Socialists. Despite their plan for government takeover of most aspects of American life, they do have a couple of cuts on the table. But the nature of those cuts is a big problem. Democratic Socialists would like to defund the Pentagon; they would like to abolish immigration enforcement; and they would like to eliminate the police. That is right. The official platform--the official platform of the Democratic Socialists states that their goal is to ``demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.’’ Think about that: ``as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system’’--the official platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. I don’t think I need to explain to anyone just how unhinged that is. If anyone thinks we can keep our communities safe while fully abolishing the police and prison system, I have some oceanfront property in South Dakota to sell them. The problem is that Democratic Socialists do believe this. Swept up in their utopian fantasies, they believe that by implementing the right system--socialism--they can somehow do away with human evil and remove the need for police or prisons--or armies, for that matter. But, of course, no system is going to be able to fully eliminate evil. No matter how many social programs you put in place or how much education the government provides, there are always going to be men and women who choose to harm others for their own ends. And the idea that we would eliminate the men and women who protect society from these people-- well, again, I don’t think I need to explain to anyone just how quickly the peace and safety that we take for granted would evaporate, on both the local and national scale. And the Democratic Socialist platform doesn’t end there. Everything I have discussed so far would remake our country on a massive scale to the point of its being unrecognizable as the free, secure, and prosperous Nation that we have known over the past 250 years. But Democratic Socialists would take it even further. Their platform calls for officially changing our system of government, for eliminating the Senate and replacing ``the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.’’ Those aren’t tweaks around the margin; that is a full abolishment of the American system. That is the elimination of the checks and balances that define our government and help prevent any one branch from exceeding its lawful authority, and it is the elimination of real protection for minority rights. ``[W]e know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up’’ the authors of the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America write. And that is exactly what they propose to do: eliminate the American system and build another in its place. And this is the political organization that is currently finding a home in the Democrat Party. Democrats are giving a home to an organization that is not merely dedicated to the radical expansion of government but to the actual elimination of our system of government. Why? Well, at its worst, socialism moves into full-blown communism-- the economic system that characterized the Soviet Union and oversaw not merely the exploitation of workers and ordinary people but the complete loss of freedom for millions and the death of millions more. And just in case you think that has nothing to do with the Democratic Socialists of America, think again. The Wall Street Journal reports that several members of the Democratic Socialists’ National Political Committee are ``dedicated Marxists and communists.’’ One of the organization’s national cochairs, in fact, is a member of the Democratic Socialists’ Red Star Caucus whose goal is not merely socialism but communism. Communism--the hallmark of some of the world’s most repressive regimes. So I ask again, why are Democratic Socialists finding a home in the Democrat Party? I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“President Trump is standing up to China, not selling us out. Past leaders were weak and let China steal our technology and take over key supply chains. Trump is showing strength by punishing China for buying oil from Russia and Iran, blocking them from building bases in Greenland, and producing more American energy and minerals. We must stop depending on China for our medicine and materials.”

“Mr. President, when it comes to foreign policy, the Republican Party’s philosophy will always be ``peace through strength.’’ Yesterday, at the United Nations, President Trump made that very clear. He made it clear that America continues to lead with peace through strength. The President of communist China, Xi Jinping, will hear the same message later this week, when he comes to Washington, DC. Now, I just heard the minority leader of the U.S. Senate come to the floor and say something about the fact that he thought that President Trump was going to sell out our country to China. Let me set the record straight. President Xi last visited the White House 11 years ago. Today, he is going to arrive to a very different America and a very different President. A decade ago, Barack Obama was in the White House. The Obama policy with regard to China was appeasement. It was accommodation, and it was apologies. Obama’s weakness gave China free rein--free rein to undermine our economy and our national security. China spied on American businesses. They stole American technology. And China strengthened its grip on global supply chains. As Democrat climate alarmists forced the closure of our coal-fired powerplants, China built new ones. They continue to build them today in the race for power and the competition over artificial intelligence. From new technology to global supply chains, China’s goal is to be the military, the economic, and the technological superpower of the world. China wants to push America aside. Their vision is not cooperation. It is not even competition. It is complete control. The American people want safety, prosperity, and freedom. That is what we want at home in America. America can’t be free if we are dependent upon China for our medicine, for our materials, and for our minerals. We need to do more. America can’t continue to lead the free world if we allow China to steal our best ideas and our newest technologies. We must stand firm. America needs to stand strong. We must say to China: Never again. We also must say it to ourselves: Never again will we allow ourselves to be in this position. President Trump is very clear-eyed. He sees the stakes. He knows the threats. He also understands that American strength is more important today than ever before. That is why the President is acting decisively to protect American interests. Fair trade, historic tax cuts, aggressive deregulation--they have all made us stronger and more prosperous. Innovative American companies still give us a great strategic edge. Republican tax cuts are putting more money into people’s pockets. A secure border means less fentanyl coming through China, through Mexico and the southern border into the United States. Investment is coming to American manufacturing in record amounts, trillions of dollars. America is producing more energy than ever before. We are also mining more critical minerals. These minerals are critical for our homes, our factories, and our national defense. Under President Trump, America is hitting China’s ambitions north, south, east, and west. What he has done is hold China accountable. That wasn’t done in the previous administration, and President Trump is doing it without apology. Just yesterday--just yesterday--President Trump signed a historic agreement, and it is regarding Greenland. The agreement prevents our adversaries--including communist China--from building military bases in Greenland or making critical investments there. This was a historic agreement. The Trump administration has also hindered China by blocking their access to cheap oil. No longer can China buy oil at steep discounts from dictatorships in Venezuela or Iran. Additionally, we voted, here in the Senate, on our late colleague Lindsey Graham’s efforts on China and oil. The President has now signed into legislation the Lindsey Graham bill, putting new penalties on China for importing oil and energy from Russia or from Iran. The penalties are stiff. The penalties are severe. As the largest buyer of Russian energy, China now faces these tough new penalties. The United States is systematically blocking the vast ambitions of the so-called axis of aggression--China, Russia, and Iran. This is the definition of peace through strength. Weakness invites attacks; strength deters them. And Republicans are going to continue to show unmatched strength in defense of our American economy and our Americans’ safety. President Trump is going to do the same this week, when he meets with President Xi. And so I say to my colleague from New York, the minority leader: That is the straight record. That is setting the record straight about what things were like in the Democrat administration, and what things are like with President Trump in the White House. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“I am asking the Senate to vote on my amendment. Congress should not run college sports or make rules about player pay and transfers. Bad court rulings and monopoly laws caused this mess. My amendment frees college sports from those laws so schools, players, and leagues can make their own rules.”

“Mr. President, the people who oversee the post office now want to run college sports. What could go wrong? The U.S. Congress has been called upon during one of the more important times in our history to make difficult decisions about the future of our country. We have navigated wars, economic downturns, and natural disasters. These are the kinds of nationwide issues the Federal Government should address. The Founders never intended for the Federal Government, though, to usurp the authority of your local school board or your homeowners association. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that Congress would one day be in charge of dictating the rules for college sports. Yet, with gas at over $4 a gallon, a persistent war with Iran, $40 trillion in debt, the Senate has decided that the most urgent thing now is to dictate how college sports are run from Washington. It came to this decision, of course, after acknowledging that government caused the very problems this bill purports to fix. This is the exact scenario the great Harry Brown described when he said: Government--you know, they know how to break your legs and then hand you a crutch and say, see, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk. I come to the floor today to offer an amendment that would avoid the Federal takeover of college sports. Unlike the underlying bill, my amendment rejects the idea that politicians should run college sports. My amendment would put the trust in the schools, the students, the coaches, and the conferences to run their own sports. You see, the whole problem originated because the government, through the courts, took the power away from the NCAA. My amendment accomplishes this goal simply by granting an antitrust exemption so that the NCAA, the conferences, the college students, and the schools can make their own deals without unelected judges or politicians micromanaging every detail of compensation and eligibility. Jason Russell, a journalist with Reason magazine, perhaps summed up this bill’s Federal takeover of college sports best when he wrote: This is not the job of the Federal Government. These decisions should be made privately by an association. The NCAA always did this until the courts interfered with them, calling them a monopoly and taking away their just power to govern themselves. Jason Russell goes on to write: This bill is the culmination of a slow march toward Federal control of college sports that began almost 140 years ago in the courts. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It is a piece of antitrust legislation, but quite quickly, antitrust became a weapon against businesses of all sizes. A brief review of the antitrust cases shows you the ridiculous nature of antitrust law. One of the most ridiculous examples of antitrust as a weapon of government came in 1967. In Utah Pie Company v. Continental Baking Company, the Court determined that a bakery violated antitrust laws by selling its pies too cheaply. Now, you would be forgiven for being confused if you thought monopolies were where someone controlled the market and raised your price. The government sued Utah Pie Company for selling its pies too cheaply. Not long after that, in 1969, the government sued IBM for dominating the computer market by innovating too quickly. Now, I thought monopolies were going to prevent competition. There would be no innovation. They would block new innovation because they didn’t want someone to get into their territory. Instead, they accused IBM of innovating too frequently. So antitrust law is full of the government going after people for charging too little and innovating too much. The world is upside down, and antitrust law is a perfect example of the illogic of the government. The logic of antitrust became so contorted that the FTC accused cereal makers of maintaining a shared monopoly on the theory that the brands blocked competition by being so popular, they flooded the store shelves with their product. After 10 years of litigation, the FTC dismissed the case, ruling the staff failed to prove the shared monopoly charges. They were being accused of being too competitive. They were putting too many products on the store shelves. So you had like six or eight cereal makers making so many cereals that they said: You are blocking competition by introducing too many products. These are the absurdities of antitrust laws. This is the antitrust law that ended up destroying college sports. When you see the mess that is college sports, don’t think it just happened and now government has to come in and fix it. Government created the problem. Government took antitrust law, used it against NCAA, neutered them, and said: You can no longer make your rules. So when it is the government’s fault, maybe we should get rid of the government problem, not add more government to try to solve the problems. Antitrust laws granted the courts the ability to intrude on private contracts and dictate how people should run their businesses or their associations, like the NCAA, and courts have grown increasingly comfortable using that power, increasing the scope of antitrust law with each case. For over 100 years, this country has left regulation of sports where it belongs: with the institutions and individuals and voluntary associations that have always run college sports. Until 1984, college athletics were excluded from antitrust law because antitrust law didn’t deal with noncommercial amateur pursuits. But in 1984, the Court decided that the NCAA couldn’t impose television broadcasting restrictions on college football games. Well, why not? It is a volunteer association. If you don’t want to be in the NCAA, don’t be in it. Form your own association. Have your own rules. But there is an advantage to being in it because people watch the NCAA, watch the Final Four, and they watch the March Madness. So it is that tradeoff. You get something, but in order to get it, you accepted, voluntarily, the rules--that is, until the Court came in, messed everything up, and neutered the NCAA. Rather than recognizing that there may have been an underlying reason for the restrictions, the Court threw out the restrictions and began the slippery slope we are on today. That case in 1984 established college athletics as a commercial enterprise, but it wasn’t until 2015 that the courts really sank their fangs into college athletics. In 2015, the court decided that the NCAA could not require students to maintain their amateur status by refusing payments for the use of their name, image, and likeness. The court decided that eligibility rules for a private association are best decided by the government, not the members of the association. This is a real tragedy, and the reason I bring it up today is not because college sports is so messed up by the government. When you let antitrust law pervade private associations, you get rid of all of the rules that people voluntarily accept. It is no different than your homeowners association. It has all these rules. You voluntarily accept them if you want to be part of that particular neighborhood. It is the same way with the NCAA. But they can’t make the rules anymore because the courts said: You are a monopoly. You are no longer allowed to. All of the problems in college sports can be laid at the foot of antitrust law. You can say it is the courts, but it is really Congress. Congress passed these ridiculous laws, and for 150 years, they have been used in a ridiculous way. In fact, to this day, antitrust laws protect Big Business against Small Business. If five doctors get together and they say ``Well, we want to get our annual fee or our exam fee to be $100’’ and they are in separate practices that come together, the government will sue them for antitrust even though they are trying to use their leverage to negotiate a higher price with a billion-dollar company. The insurance companies are protected from doctors organizing or nurses organizing or hospitals organizing even though they are the big player. The big bully is the insurance company, but they are protected by antitrust and the small business people are punished. This is the history of antitrust law. In 2015, the court finally decided that the NCAA could not require students to maintain their amateur status. This NIL--name, image, and likeness--you can’t have rules against it. You are a monopoly. No more rules. So it is the Wild West, and it is chaos now. Nobody says it is not chaos. But the chaos was created by the antitrust laws. The chaos was created by the government. The court decided that eligibility rules for a private association would be decided by the government, not the members of the association. Since 2015, a flurry of cases has decided issues as parochial as how much individual athletes are paid out of broadcast revenues and how long student-athletes are eligible to play, when they can transfer, who they can play for, how old they are, what injuries they can play with. It is really not the government’s business to be involved. Government has shirked its real duties--which are paramount, which are of great national importance--to focus on something it knows nothing about. And mark my words, this won’t be the end of it. Sports has commissioners--a commissioner of baseball. Who is going to be the commissioner of college sports? Will we be back here in another year with people lobbying us to tweak the eligibility rules, tweak the transfer rules? As important as college sports are to students and institutions, they aren’t something Congress should micromanage. Athletes and institutions should be free to make choices about who they work for, who they play for, and what rules they should be subject to. This bill manages to interfere with college athletics at nearly every level. It limits the ability of certain employees to freely leave one school and accept a job at another. It decides how students may go about licensing their name, image, and likeness. It even decides when the transfer students are eligible to play. The bill actually forbids a return to the historic model of amateur sports where athletes are not paid. I am old enough to remember when amateur sports was lauded. You remember when we beat the Russians. We beat them with amateurs. It was commendable. They put all their professionals out there, and we beat them with amateurs. But people knew what it was to be amateurs. People who remember Bobby Jones remember and respect that Bobby Jones didn’t take money. There was something admirable about someone so pure that they didn’t. There was always something more admirable--not that money is bad, not that the NFL and NBA are bad. Look, our basketball players go after a year anyway. They are playing 1 year and going to the NBA. Some of them are going directly from high school, and that is their business. There is always this avenue to make money, but now what we have done with this bill is we have micromanaged this, and in the bill, it actually forbids anybody from preventing amateurs from being paid. You will no longer--it was probably a lost dream anyway, but this bill prevents the NCAA from ever going back to having true amateur sports where they aren’t paid. The bill would also set up a Commission on the future of college athletics. A legislative Commission--this is where we will get to the commissioner of college sports--will recommend new rule changes to Congress in the future. It seems that we already have an institution that does this; it is called the NCAA. Congress should not mire itself in another endless cycle of solving problems it caused. We should address the root cause, which is the antitrust law, that got us here. I have several bills to get rid of some of these old antitrust laws that I think actually favor Big Business over Small Business. One of the antitrust laws says that if you buy more in bulk from someone--so if you are a hardware store and you buy 5 hammers or you are Walmart that buys 5,000 hammers, there is a law that says you are not allowed to give discounts to big suppliers. Well, that is ridiculous. It goes against all economics. So what I am offering is an amendment that would actually solve the problem faced by college sports. My amendment would not create all the new rules for it. It would simply reverse the previous antitrust interference and prevent future interference by exempting college sports from antitrust laws. Now, the interesting thing is, in order to pass their bill, they actually do a little bit of exemption from antitrust laws. They do a little, though, and then in place of that, they replace it with congressionally dictated laws. What I would do is just get rid of antitrust laws. NCAA would have their power back again, and they would be able to make these rules. It might be that NIL probably still continues, but it would be a negotiated settlement and NCAA would do it. This would ensure conferences, colleges, and athletes are free to negotiate and enter into agreements that benefit everyone without the heavy hand of government dictating what parties could offer or accept. It would also prevent Congress from imposing rules governing such minutiae as eligibility for transfer students as a threshold for reporting name, image, and likeness income. I love college sports as much as anyone, which is why I think the best way we could protect college sports is to stop sticking our nose in where it doesn’t belong. Now, we have the bill before us, and you would think, in a country like ours that prizes democracy in a republic, we would have debate, we would be able to present my amendment, and it would either pass or fail on its merits. So what we will do is ask to bring my amendment down for a vote, and it is going to be rejected. And that is disappointing that we are going to do this whole thing where we take over college sports and any dissent will be muted and there will be no attempts to alter the bill. The bill has been written in private, but there will be no ability for anyone to amend this bill. That is a disappointment. So what I will be asking for is permission to have a vote on my amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 6758.”

“College sports are falling apart because courts, not clear rules, decide how they are run. We need to pass our college sports bill to fix this. Other senators are working on a deal to vote on several changes to the bill, including this one. We need to give them more time to finish that deal, so I object to moving forward right now.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object. College sports are one of the last great institutions in America that still bring people together. Today, all across our country, fans see the institution falling apart. Rosters are being rebuilt every year through an unrestricted transfer market. Schools are locked in an arms race of ever-increasing NIL spending. Coaches spend as much time recruiting their own players as they are preparing for opponents. Eligibility rules are no longer determined by clear standards but by lawsuits, by court orders, and by last-minute injunctions. It is why the Senate has now overwhelmingly voted three times to advance the bill called the Protect College Sports Act. We will finish that bill this week and send it to the House and then, hopefully, on to the President for his signature. Senator Paul has identified one of the critical problems. The antitrust laws applied to the collegiate sports system are currently the reason why sports are governed by court order rather than by fair, enforceable rules for all. The Protect College Sports Act provides the NCAA with the ability to govern, but any antitrust protection is narrow, and it comes with guardrails. My understanding is that Senator Cruz and Senator Cantwell are discussing a package of possible amendment votes, and this is one of them. Let’s give them the opportunity to work through the process and see if we can get votes on Senator Paul’s amendment as well as other amendments. And as they work on it, let’s give them a little bit more time for that reason. And for that reason, Mr. President, I object.”