Debates

“I support this bipartisan bill to improve our tax system. It stops shady tax preparers from scamming low-income Americans and sticking them with the bill. It also speeds up refunds, improves customer service at the IRS, and makes it easier for people to get help filing their taxes.”

“Mr. President, I rise to express the strongest possible support for the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act. Senate Democrats began working on this more than a decade ago when I first became chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. This bipartisan legislation contains more than 60 tax reforms to improve tax policy for the American people. It cracks down, in particular, on shady tax prep services that scam low-income Americans to make a quick buck. For too long, taxpayers have been victimized by these shady tax preparers. They file returns that overclaim refunds; they pocket excessive fees from their customers; and then they leave the taxpayers struggling to repay the IRS for the erroneous tax returns the scammer filed on their behalf. These updates will help ensure refunds get out the door on time. It will improve customer service at the IRS, and it will make it easier for taxpayers to get the help they need during filing season. The bill contains provisions championed by Members--and I want to emphasize this--on both sides of the aisle. I could stand here all day describing how these provisions are going to improve service for taxpayers, but I am going to name just a few in the interest of time. The bill includes provisions championed by Senators Warnock and Warner that will digitize tax returns, expand online services, and make it easier for taxpayers to know when they will be getting their refunds. A provision championed by Senator Bennet protects access to the Earned Income Tax Credit. A provision authored by Senator Welch would expand access to critical low-income taxpayer clinic services for taxpayers who have a dispute with the IRS. It includes an important provision by Senator Coons which reduces unnecessary tax burdens on Americans held hostage abroad, and a bill that I worked on with Senator Hassan that helps ensure that whistleblowers will receive the recognition they deserve for blowing the whistle on wealthy tax cheats. So there has been an extraordinary amount of hard work that goes into this. I wish to yield now to my Northwest partner, and as we say in Oregon: This bill is no small potatoes. I yield to my friend.”

“I oppose this resolution, and I will keep blocking it. It attacks transgender people instead of helping Americans with rising costs for food, gas, and healthcare. We should be debating high prices and the risks of artificial intelligence, not trying to ban transgender kids from sports.”

“Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Senator Blackburn’s resolution. Make no mistake, the Senator’s resolution is not about celebrating the impact of women and girls in sports. This resolution is yet another salvo in the relentless, escalating attacks on Americans’ freedom that MAGA Republicans are waging at every level of government. While families are facing the affordability crisis, the Trump administration and my Republican colleagues care more about limiting Americans’ access to vaccines and healthcare, dictating school curriculum and banning books, overruling the judgment of experts when the facts do not align with their extremist agenda, and even policing what sports kids can play. You know, we should be having a big debate out here right now on the fact that healthcare costs are skyrocketing, gasoline prices are skyrocketing, diesel prices are skyrocketing, food prices are skyrocketing--everything is skyrocketing--and it is all cascading down onto the kitchen tables of families trying to pay their bills. And it is all because of this war in Iran. And the price of fuel is going through everything in our society. The price of diesel is skyrocketing. That is what farmers use to do their farming. That is what farmers use once they finish their farming to put it in trucks and travel it across the country to put it on people’s kitchen tables. The prices are going up and up and up. We are not having a hearing on that. Yesterday, the President met with all of the trillionaires and the billionaires in the White House who are the AI giants. And, of course, people are scared in our country. They are wondering: Is the government going to do anything to control AI and these billionaires and millionaires? So Trump met with them, and when it was all finished, Trump said: You don’t have to worry about it--he just took care of it, Trump--because all of these trillionaires and billionaires are all agreeing that they are going to voluntarily agree to a morally binding standard. What? Are we really going to trust these people--by the way, they are all guys--these guys to really protect our people from AI? Donald Trump is talking about something that is morally binding. We should be having hearings on this. We should be having debates on this out here. But we are not because, in a Republican-controlled Senate, they put all these people in a witness protection program. They don’t appear before Congress. We don’t debate the issues that are really impacting people, their families, and their kitchen table--the things that they really want to have the Senate do something about. And that is because MAGA Republicans are obsessed with demonizing a small group of people to distract from the President’s disastrous policy agenda. And Senator Blackburn’s resolution is just the latest distraction. This effort is senseless. It is cruel. It is hateful. Politicians in Washington, they don’t get to decide who belongs in society and who does not. I lead the Trans Bill of Rights because it is our moral obligation to defend the rights of trans people. Trans people deserve the right to healthcare, to receive proper identity documents, to safe schools and workplaces, to serve their Nation, to celebrate the same unassailable rights to education and to jobs and to housing as every other American--simply put, to experience the freedom, the joy, the opportunity afforded to every other American. Earlier this year, I met with Abbott, a constituent of mine from Massachusetts. He is 13 years old, a three-time Little League all-star baseball catcher. Abbott is a successful and beloved student. And with the freedom and dignity to get the healthcare he needs, Abbott is thriving. Every child deserves that freedom, that safety, that opportunity. Abbott understands this. He came into my office to demand that his rights and the rights of other children like him be protected. And I fully support him. Today, I stand in opposition to this resolution, and I stand in defense of all children. Here in America, we know that freedom must be fought for. It is fought for by people who say ``no more’’ in the face of discrimination; ``no more’’ in the face of invasive laws that seek to limit what healthcare you can get; ``no more’’ to restrictions on whom you can love, what books you can read, what fields you can play on. Every transgender and nonbinary person deserves to live freely and without fear of discrimination. This resolution is not about freedom; this resolution is about fear. And I will stand to object as many times as necessary to stop such fear, such hatred. Mr. President, I object.”

“I want the Senate to pass the Kids Online Safety Act right now. This bill makes tech companies design safer products and gives parents and kids tools to protect themselves online. It does not censor content. Big Tech's lobbying has delayed this bill, and that delay has cost children their lives. I also want us to send more military and economic aid to Ukraine soon to help them survive the winter.”

“Mr. President, I am here to talk about the Kids Online Safety Act and receive unanimous consent for its passage, but I cannot begin this conversation without remarking on the colloquy that we just heard because I so strongly welcome the powerful statements made by Senator Tillis. I hope he reflects a growing consensus on his side of the aisle in favor of action by the United States to help prepare Ukraine for the long, hard, cruel, potentially devastating winter ahead. I came back from my 11th trip to Ukraine just several weeks ago more convinced than ever that the United States must stand behind Ukraine, not just with words on the floor of the Senate and not just with the Russia sanctions bill--as profoundly and important as it is--but the kind of materiel, self-defense, and other military aid and economic support that will help Ukraine weather the cruel, hard winter ahead. And there were three requests that President Zelenskyy made to me when I sat face-to-face with him at the National Prayer Breakfast: the Russia sanctions bill, air defense, and Starlink. They are all potentially within the control of the United States of America. And time is not on our side or their side, and they are fighting our fight. Our national security interests are at stake. In North Carolina and Oklahoma and Utah--all across the country--our sons and daughters will be in harm’s way if we allow Ukraine to fall to Putin’s slaughterous, murderous aggression. So I am hoping we can have a conversation in the next 30 days so that when we come back and we do the NDAA, we can make use of this consensus to take that next step. We are not done with the Russia sanctions bill, significant as it was. And I thank my colleagues for joining in that effort in the memory of Senator Graham and the response to the pleas from Ukrainians for our throttling flow of revenue to Putin’s war machine. To bring him to the table and to seek peace, that is the goal--peace in Ukraine, security for the people of Ukraine who are so bravely fighting now. I thank my colleagues for their support for Ukraine and for the United States standing up and standing strong for the people of Ukraine, and I welcome this colloquy. I hope the next time we are on the floor, talking about it, we can make it a bipartisan colloquy because support for Ukraine should be and has been bipartisan. Mr. President, I want to share my appreciation--speaking of bipartisanship--for my partner in drafting and advocating the Kids Online Safety Act, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Unfortunately, she had to make a flight and so is not with us physically. I think she is here in spirit. I don’t claim to speak for her, but we have worked together tirelessly on this bill through public hearings--the kinds of advocacy that it has taken to get us this far with whistleblowers, documents showing that Meta and others knew that their products were harming children. This bill is the result of years of painstaking negotiations with our colleagues, with advocates, with tech companies. And because of those negotiations, and all the work that was done, we were able to pass this legislation through the Senate by a 91-to-3 vote. We have hundreds of endorsements from across the tech industry itself. But the major reason we have reached this point is very simply the parents and young people who came forward and spoke to colleagues, gained the consensus that we needed to go forward. This bill is a tribute to parents and kids who have been the most effective advocates. And let me begin by making absolutely clear, the talking points about censorship or privacy are simply a red herring. This bill is about product design, not blocking content. It is about making product design safe, not about censoring. Those talking points about censorship or privacy are simply misleading and false. None of it exists in this legislation. The Kids Online Safety Act simply imposes the same standards of accountability that every other industry faces. It requires tech companies to be responsible for their own products. It requires transparency. It gives kids and parents the tools to protect themselves. Now, just very bluntly, the reason this measure hasn’t passed is the tech industry’s power, its money, its sway, its lobbyists and lawyers-- armies of them. And there is a human cost to delay. The human cost is lives. One of the most heartbreaking experiences of this fight is meeting parents who have lost their children--some of them who lost children after the Kids Online Safety Act was introduced. If the Kids Online Safety Act had been law, maybe their kids would be alive today. I meet parents whose children were taken from them in 2023, 2024, 2025. Holding back this legislation has cost lives. The excuse was engineered in Silicon Valley and K Street not to adopt our legislation. Those excuses and lobbying have cost several lives. And, frankly, if delayed today--if it occurs--that is potential damage as well. More children will suffer because the tech industry seems to have a powerful veto over the U.S. Congress. I want to speak directly to all the parents, everybody watching at home, especially parents who have lost children. There are moms and dads who are anxious that social media is doing harm to their children, and young people themselves who know that they are losing control over their lives because of the addictive content, purposefully made addictive and driven to them by algorithms beyond their control and beyond their knowledge--secret algorithms. We will overcome Big Tech’s obstruction. We will overcome Meta and Mark Zuckerberg. We will overcome the Big Tech obstruction that has so far prevented KOSA from becoming law. Our coalition has grown, and it is growing. We have more cosponsors and more support than last session. We will not go away. We will not surrender. We will not give up. That is a promise. Senator Blackburn and I will fight as long and hard as necessary to pass this bill. We will pass it again through the Senate. It was approved unanimously by the Commerce Committee. And we will send KOSA to the President’s desk after it is passed. But we need your help. We need your help to contact, literally, Members of Congress over the next 30 days to ask them--as they ask you for your vote: Where do you stand on the Kids Online Safety Act? Will you vote for it? Put KOSA on the ballot and demand that Congress pass a strong internet safety bill to protect children. So I want to thank all the cosponsors, all of my colleagues who have supported us, all the parents and children, all of the advocates, and hope that we can actually pass it by unanimous consent today. And if not then, as soon as we return. And I ask, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 1748 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”

“I want the Senate to pass this bill quickly. It does not censor speech or violate the First Amendment. It only regulates how websites are designed so they do not harm children. Many kids face online bullying and adult contact. We need to act.”

“I want to respond very briefly because everything that has just been said in objection to this bill is totally irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it is based on the misunderstanding that this bill somehow imposes censorship or content evaluation. In fact, it is not a free speech issue. The bill explicitly focuses on design features. Section 102(a) says a platform must exercise reasonable care in the ``creation and implementation of any design feature’’ when that design feature foreseeably contributes to one of the enumerated harms. The bill even defines ``design feature’’ in section 101(4) as a platform feature or component that encourages or increases ``the frequency, time spent, or activity of minors on the . . . platform’’-- ``the frequency, time spent, or activity of minors on the . . . platform.’’ It couldn’t be clearer that we are talking here about the kind of design feature that is involved when a manufacturer makes a defective toaster or a car that goes off the road, or some other harm-causing feature that could be foreseeably corrected. And, finally, the bill specifically protects a child who goes looking for content. Section 102(b)(1) says the duty of care cannot be construed to require a platform to prevent a minor from ``deliberately and independently searching for, or specifically requesting, content.’’ In short, the duty of care has nothing to do with censorship. It says nothing about allowing government enforcement based on the viewpoint of users expressed through speech. And it preserves the First Amendment and everything that is involved in it. I know my colleagues understand that America is in the midst of a mental health crisis. And one in four children ages 9 to 17 reports sexually explicit interaction with someone they believe was an adult online. And 59 percent of U.S. teens report having experienced cyber bullying. This problem will not go away in the next 30 days. It will only become more egregious and urgent. And so I regret that Senator Paul is objecting today, but I am hoping that we will act quickly when we return.”

“I want the Senate to pass my bill right now. The Trump administration wants to build data centers on public lands, including in Oregon. These lands belong to the American people, not private companies. Data centers use too much power and water, which hurts Western states facing drought. We must protect our public lands for future generations.”

“Just last week, it was reported that the Trump administration intends to develop public land in several States, including Oregon, to build new data centers. Since he took office, Donald Trump and his allies have taken every opportunity--every opportunity--to chip away at what belongs to the American people, all in an effort to boost profits for corporations and secure bigger campaign support for themselves. Public lands are owned and paid for by the American people--our taxpayers. The people get to decide what to do with their public lands, not the big corporations and especially not Donald Trump. By now, it is well proven that all too often these facilities place massive demands on local utility grids and scarce water supply. In Western States like mine, this is especially troubling as we are facing very serious drought conditions. My legislation gives Congress a chance to stop these corporate land grabs before they do more damage. This is an opportunity to reject the effective privatization of America’s beloved public lands and protect them for future generations of hunters and anglers and hikers and campers. Congress must not let the Trump administration establish a dangerous precedent, a precedent that our public lands are a fire-sale inventory for development by the highest bidder. I urge any Member of this body that cares about preserving our public lands and putting a stop to Trump’s taxpayer rip-offs to support my bill. So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5658, submitted earlier today; further, that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”

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“We need to pass this bill right now to protect public lands. People are already developing these lands in Oregon and across the West, and Donald Trump is mismanaging them. My colleague from Kentucky is blocking this bill today, but I will keep coming back until these lands are protected.”

“Mr. President, I will just be very brief. The fact is, that can’t happen because the reality is, these lands are already being developed in my home State and across the West right now. This is an immediate threat to public lands that we have the opportunity and a requirement to address today in order to protect them. You can’t wait to set something up--the way that my colleague from Kentucky is talking about--while Trump runs roughshod over America’s public lands. I am going to be back in this body again and again until we get a balanced approach to protection with respect to these issues, which we are not getting today because of my colleague’s objection. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.”

“I object to this request. The Trump administration has weakened the Justice Department offices that fight fraud and fired the people who watch for government corruption. Instead of creating a new division run by political allies, we should pass my bill. It brings back a task force that successfully fought organized crime and fraud for 40 years.”

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have to start by noting that President Trump and his cronies are using the White House to commit political fraud and corruption on an epic scale. This is unprecedented levels of corruption. The rot runs deep. And to allow for that massive Trump corruption, the administration dismantled the ordinary mechanisms of government that deter, investigate, and punish that kind of activity. We should be embarrassed at an administration that has deliberately destroyed the mechanisms of government that investigate and police corruption. The DOJ historically had all sorts of different components that worked to investigate and prosecute fraud: the Public Integrity Section; the Consumer Protection Branch; the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team; the Tax Division; the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, known OCDETF. All have been gutted or side- lined under this corrupt administration. If there is something we should be embarrassed about, it is the destruction of those mechanisms. Along with that, in his first month, the President dismissed 19 inspectors general, the actual people whose job it is to root out fraud and corruption in government. It is clear that fighting fraud is not this administration’s priority. What is, is weaponizing the Justice Department to use as a tool to go after President Trump’s political enemies, and this new component is the perfect vehicle for more of that. The Division’s current head, just to give you an idea, is the former cochair of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, which is the semicovert array of Trump operatives put into government across various different organizations to go after and punish his political enemies and to propagate the lie that somehow he actually won the election against Joe Biden. We have asked, on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions about what this Division--how is this going to work? What is its structure? What is its operation? No answer. So this whole thing is clouded in mystery, tainted by the Weaponization Working Group, and completely at odds with destruction of all the organizations within the Department of Justice, the components that actually did this work and whose destruction our Republican friends had absolutely no complaint about as they were being torn apart. Now, there is one that I will focus on: the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. When I was a U.S. attorney, I had an OCDETF group, and we worked in a very important way. OCDETF was who had brought Federal, State, and local law enforcement together to focus on organized crime, drug trafficking, and major fraud operations. It targeted major players. It had a financial crime component. Fraud was a piece of it, and the cartels and other big crime networks were its target. President Reagan established OCDETF. What is not to like about it? It is very successful. It had a winning track record. Well, OCDETF got eliminated entirely by the Trump administration. So I have a bill that would actually do something more meaningful about fraud, that would take a proven mechanism that worked for 40 years targeting cartels, big organized criminal investigations, huge fraudsters, RICO characters, and simply restore it to the way it was. It was working perfectly well. Mr. President, so I, therefore, ask that the distinguished Senator’s consent be modified and, instead, the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 4004 and the Senate proceed its immediate consideration; and I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”

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“The President promised to lower costs for families, but prices for gas, healthcare, and food have gone up instead. At the same time, he wants to spend $1.8 billion of taxpayer money on projects that honor himself, like parades and a ballroom. I want the President to explain to the American people why spending billions on himself is more important than paying for healthcare for our veterans.”

“Mr. President, 2 years ago, the American people elected a new Congress and a new President. The American people did so based on a promise that the President and his allies in Congress would work to bring down high costs. So now it is worth asking a simple question, one that the American people will ask their elected representatives when they return home in a few days: Did the President and his allies in Congress make good on their pledge to bring down costs for American families? The answer is clear: No. Not only has the President failed to make good on his pledge to bring down costs, not only is it evident that he never even bothered to try, but it is clear that on virtually every metric, it costs more to be an American than it did 2 years ago when this President was sworn in and the 119th Congress began. It is worth taking a moment to go line by line, cost by cost, broken promise by broken promise, to examine the ways in which the President’s policies--including his tariffs and his war--have driven costs higher and higher. Before the President took office, he promised that he would bring gas prices down from $3 a gallon to less than $2. But under this President and his majorities in Congress, gas prices haven’t just failed to go down, they have instead shot up to around $4.50 a gallon, meaning gas costs 50 percent more now than when Donald Trump entered office. Since the President began his reckless war with Iran without a plan to win, the American people have paid an additional $93 billion on gas in less than a year, and, on average, each American family has had to spend $790 more on gas since this war began. And the President failed even more catastrophically to bring down diesel prices. Diesel now costs around $3 more a gallon than it did when the President took office. Farmers and truckers are weathering the highest prices for diesel in American history, with costs at the pump exceeding $6.50 a gallon last week. Now, it is one thing to fail on a promise to lower the price of something; it is quite another to be responsible for the highest price of that good ever recorded in our country’s history. The President also promised to make healthcare ``affordable again.’’ Of course, this is not at all what happened. Instead, the President gutted Medicaid to take away healthcare for millions of Americans in order to pay for tax giveaways to billionaires like himself. He also allowed health insurance premiums to surge, meaning more families now pay more for insurance every single month, even if they don’t get sick. Just before the President took office, the average monthly cost for health insurance was $468 a month. The President did not reduce those premiums by a dime. Instead, families now pay $611 a month. That is almost $150 more monthly, almost $2,000 more per year--$2,000--dollars that could otherwise be spent on the mortgage, the rent, repairs for the car, let alone parents just using it to do something nice for their kids. And what about the cost of groceries? The President promised repeatedly that he would bring down grocery costs. Well, let’s look at the numbers. Since the President took office, ground beef has risen to $7 a pound, and coffee has risen from about $7 a pound to more than $9. Now, I don’t know if the President is right when he says that ``groceries’’ is an ``old-fashioned word,’’ as he often claims, but I do know that old-fashioned math tells us that $9 is more expensive than $7. And let’s say we take everything all together--all the goods and services that we pay for every day--and add it all up. How much, if at all, did the President and his allies in Congress reduce costs? They failed to reduce costs at all. The American people have had to pay an additional $4,200 on goods and services since the President took office. The President had nearly 2 years to try to lower costs, and instead, families had $4,200 more taken out of their pockets. This isn’t a partisan point. This isn’t spin. This is just basic mathematical facts--facts that make evident that the President both completely failed to lower costs and honestly didn’t even try. So if the President failed to bring down costs, what has he been working on these last 2 years? Well, the President’s been clear about his priorities. He is not interested in lowering costs for families. He is interested in raising monuments to honor himself. He hosted military parades in his honor. He destroyed the East Wing to build himself a golden ballroom. He has been trying to put his name on other monuments. He is running taxpayer-funded ad campaigns praising himself. And, according to a new report from the Joint Economic Committee Minority, while the American people are paying more to keep up with high costs, the President wants to spend $1.8 billion on projects to flatter his own vanity. Now, we throw lots of numbers around in Washington, but it is worth remembering what the American people know full well: This is real money we are talking about. It is the American people’s money. We owe it to them to ask: How could that same $1.8 billion help them? What can $1.8 billion buy when it is not being diverted by an apprentice dictator, who, rightly fearing that no one will ever honor his Presidency after he is gone, rushes to build gilded tributes to himself? Mr. President, $1.8 billion, it can buy a lot of things: It can pay for the electric bills for 12 million families for a month; it can fill up more than 35 million tanks of gas, even at the President’s new high prices; it can buy 600 million school lunches, fully paid for, so our children can have a good, healthy meal at school; $1.8 billion could hire around 30,000 new firefighters to keep our communities safe; and it can pay all the medical expenses--every medical bill--for more than 88,000 American veterans for an entire year. If the President insists on spending the people’s money on himself, he owes them an explanation. So if I have one request today, it is this: I want the President to explain why a monument to honor himself is a better use of taxpayer dollars than paying for healthcare for veterans. Is a ballroom to make one man feel like a King more important than healthcare for a year for the heroes who fought to keep our country free? What more did America’s heroes--people who have given everything to this country--what more do they need to do to deserve the $1.8 billion that the President would rather spend to honor himself? And when in America did honoring service become less important than honoring one man’s ego? I know that a majority of Americans, including many of my Republican colleagues, also find the President’s vanity projects distasteful, but I think we are all doing a bit of play-acting if we forget that the President’s determination to shower himself in honors is not simply excessive or distractions but is wrong and is distinctly un-American. Consider our other Presidents. George Washington didn’t order the construction of the Washington Monument. Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson didn’t pick out sculptors to build their memorials. John F. Kennedy didn’t name the Kennedy Center. And none of them tried to put themselves on our currency. They received these honors from grateful citizens after their time in office. The current President is the only exception to this rule. George Washington was a rich man as well, but he used his wealth to support the Continental Army. He didn’t use his office to enrich himself, nor did he have any interest in being King. The reason why this matters is because the President’s desire to appease his own vanity and his failure to bring down costs are linked because it is deeply telling that the President will go to such extravagant lengths to honor himself. He will break with American values and precedent when they stand in the way of his whims; he will use a wrecking ball to tear down buildings; he will spend great time and effort planning every detail; he will file court appeals while defying court orders; he will pilfer taxpayer funds and even ignore the law and the Constitution--all just in his mission to leave a gilded tribute to himself. But he can’t be bothered to lift a finger to bring down costs despite his promise to do so. What does this all reveal? It reveals that the President is uninterested in listening to what the American people want. The American people don’t want the President to build a golden ballroom; they want him to build homes that they can afford. They are not asking for parades and car races on the National Mall; they want to pay less at the pump on their way to work. They don’t want his face on our currency; they want to keep more money in their pockets. So, in closing, what does the final accounting of this President’s broken promises tell us? Since the President took office, Americans have had to pay $4,200 more to keep up with rising costs while the President spends $1.8 billion to keep up with his own ego. In short, it tells us that the President seeks to rule but that he is unable to lead. He seeks to honor himself, but he is unable to honor his word. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. GRAHAM). The Senator from Oregon.”

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“President Trump is canceling nearly a billion dollars in government funding that Congress already passed. This is illegal and breaks the Constitution. Only Congress has the power to decide how money is spent, and the President cannot cancel programs on his own without our vote. Both parties need to work together to stop this.”

“Madam President, we have a challenge--a problem--and that is the President is exercising a line-item veto, and line-item vetoes are unconstitutional because the Constitution assigns the power of the purse to Congress, not to the President of the United States. Laws are not suggestions. The Constitution is not optional. A President is not a King. That was the Founders’ vision for our democratic Republic. But on Friday, President Trump swung a wrecking ball at the Founders’ vision, at the Constitution. He and Russ Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, proceeded to--in the dark of night--notify that they were canceling nearly a billion dollars in programs authorized and funded by law. Well, let’s be clear. Canceling resources for these programs is both illegal and unconstitutional--illegal because the funding is in law, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President himself, and unconstitutional because the Constitution creates a separation of powers, with the power of the purse belonging to Congress, not the President. This has been tested a few times. In 1996, Congress tried to give the President a line-item veto, and the Supreme Court struck it down. It struck it down as unconstitutional because it violated the Constitution’s separation of powers. Yesterday, the independent, nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reaffirmed that this strategy by Trump, called a pocket rescission--a fancy name for a line-item veto--is illegal. Here is what they said. I will quote it at some length. And that fiscal year--we are hours away from it ending. So, in other words, more simply put, it is Congress’ job to design, authorize, and fund programs. It is the Executive’s job--the President and his team’s job--to implement those programs. The assignment of responsibilities is designed to ensure that we have a government that serves the people. In a democratic republic, the people’s representatives in Congress-- from every part of the country, from every walk of life--debate and negotiate and legislate so that you will have programs and spending decisions that reflect the needs of every part of the Nation. We don’t just deliver programs for red States when Republicans have the majority; we don’t just deliver programs for blue States when Democrats have the majority--no. All of us, working together, produce spending bills to serve people throughout this country--urban and rural, north and south, east and west, plains and coast. However you want to divide up the country, we serve everyone. So a President taking those bipartisan agreements to serve everyone and canceling out individual programs is both illegal and unconstitutional. But in an authoritarian, strongman state it is all different. The President alone decides what gets funded and can use that power to reward allies and punish opponents. In those states, there is no separation of powers; there is one authority. Call it a King. Call it a czar. Call it an emperor or a dictator or a tyrant. Whatever you call it, it doesn’t fit in a democratic republic. We do not have a tyrant or a dictator. We do not have a King. We have a President with responsibilities under the Constitution to implement the programs that we design, authorize, and fund here in Congress. That is how you get government by and for the people rather than by and for a billionaire or by and for an elite class or by and for a King himself. But last year, Trump did exercise his strategy of operating as a King in a, if you will, line-item veto through this fancy term ``pocket rescission,’’ canceling nearly $5 billion in programs authorized and funded by law. That tool, called a rescission, was created under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, and it allows the President to propose canceling a program, but it also says that cancellation does not take effect unless Congress votes to cancel the programs, and we haven’t voted to cancel these programs. So, therefore, that is why it is illegal to cancel them. Well, it is pretty straightforward. The law says that no rescission or cancellation goes into effect without Congress authorizing the cancellation by law. Madam President, I have here what I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, a statement from the chair of Appropriations, Senator Susan Collins. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: point here. She notes: Then she goes on to cite the independent Government Accountability Office. So on both sides of the aisle, those of us who are defending the Constitution are coming together and saying: We have to fix this, and we have to put an end to this end run of canceling programs with days to go and then claiming the clock has expired. This is essentially the situation. Imagine Cinderella and she is in her carriage. The carriage turns into a pumpkin at midnight. So in comes the President, and the President says: We are going to pause these programs--or Cinderella’s travel--and so we are going to hold her hostage for a few minutes until midnight so her carriage will turn into a pumpkin. And then, the equivalent of that, of course, is that the program’s legal window to be implemented has expired. That is what is going on here, and it is an ugly, ugly version of ``too clever by half,’’ as we say back home, to do a line-item veto. And my colleagues across the aisle, we will all be affected by this. The programs the President tried to cancel--his process of canceling-- may be programs that are favored by one side or the other, but imagine a different President with a different set of priorities. We have to defend the institution. We have to defend the Senate and make sure that no President of any party, at any time, gets a line-item veto that corrupts us from being a democratic republic into being an authoritarian state. So as Democrats and Republicans all sworn to the same defense of the same Constitution, let’s come together and set this right. And we have tried to set it right before. In the Appropriations Committee, I and others offered amendments to say: Hey, make sure this is immune from being undone by a rescission within 90 days. Colleagues, you know, wanting to not embarrass a President, said, well, they are not going to support that; the Republican majority said they wouldn’t support that. But we heard assurances that they agreed with us, with the principle, that they weren’t going to let it happen, but here it is. Five days before the end of the fiscal year, it just happened, and the chair of the Appropriations Committee is crying out and crying foul that this is not acceptable under the law or the Constitution. So let’s all listen to her. Let’s all listen to the Constitution. So this situation must be remedied, and a number of my colleagues are here tonight to speak to it. And I just want to pass this conversation on to the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee to emphasize how important it is that we address this and we address this tonight.”

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“President Trump is illegally refusing to spend money that Congress passed and he signed into law. He is cutting funding for healthcare research and home-buying help. The Government Accountability Office has already said twice that this is illegal. I want Congress to pass our bill to stop him and protect our power to spend federal money.”

“Madam President, I thank my colleague from Oregon for setting out what is going on here because, as he said, on Friday night, President Trump announced that he was stealing more money from the American people. Trump and his Budget Director, Russ Vought, call it a pocket rescission. Well, whatever you call it, it is illegal. Trump is taking the bipartisan funding that we passed, funding that Democrats and Republicans agreed on, that he signed into law, and he is now ripping out the pages he doesn’t like. Forget about ideas like Congress and the law. Look, this is theft from the American people, plain and simple. In this case, Trump is tearing away funding to help Americans buy a home. He is cutting off funds for healthcare research which would prevent things like hospital infections that are dangerous or saving taxpayers literally billions of dollars. But you know what, Trump could not care less. While he blows your tax dollars on an illegal war, Trump is illegally cutting off funding for health research, housing, and more. I guess that is no surprise given how this President is constantly out of touch with American families--saying ``tariffs’’ is his favorite word or saying that he loves inflation or saying he wants housing costs to go up. He said that. But where are my Republican colleagues who passed these funds that Trump is now stealing? Because this did not come out of left field. No one can pretend to be surprised by what is happening now. When Russ Vought was nominated as Trump’s budget chief, he was pretty darn transparent about the fact that he planned to break the law, he planned to tear up our bills, and he dared us to stop him. That didn’t stop every Republican Senator from voting for him. When his Deputy was nominated and told us this summer that pocket rescissions were very much still on the table, what happened? Once again, every Senate Republican voted to confirm him too. Anyone watching could see this coming from a mile away. Trump used this scheme to unlawfully impound $5 billion last summer, for heaven’s sake. That is why Democrats have fought again and again and again to prevent the President from being able to use this illegal tactic, including in recent negotiations over the CR that is now law. But Republicans have refused to work with us to prevent Trump and Russ Vought from stealing from the American people. Time after time after time, they have shot down our attempts to stop this administration from defying Congress and robbing our constituents. Let’s talk more about this pocket rescission scheme for a minute and what is at stake. President Trump and Russ Vought are saying: Hey, we can ignore the law. We can ignore bipartisan deals and just make our own decisions as long as we do it last-minute. Everyone knows that is ridiculous and illegal. Congress would never have created a system that gave any President the ability to decide to just ignore or bypass a law. It makes no sense. In fact, GAO has looked at what this President has done and has said it is clearly illegal twice. My Republican colleagues know this. Some of them have even said so. But whenever they have had the chance, they have not joined us to put an end to this. Democrats have language that Republicans could have let us put in the last CR or the CR before. We have taken vote after vote on versions of this language on the floor and in committee. And, of course, we had the vote where Republicans confirmed the unabashed architect of Trump’s illegal scheme as budget director. Well, now, tonight, they are getting one more chance. Senator Merkley and I and others have a bill to help Congress reassert its authority-- our authority--and head off Trump’s completely illegal pocket rescission scheme. And we should be clear. Trump isn’t just illegally robbing our constituents through this pocket rescission; there are a whole lot of other funds that he is refusing to get out the door--more healthcare research funding, grants to prevent teen pregnancy, funding to protect Americans from global health threats, and even a quarter of a billion dollars to help families in rural areas get the financing they need to finally achieve their dream of owning a home. Hundreds of families in rural America will be denied the shot to buy a home as Trump lights this money on fire tonight. So it is not just the pocket rescission; it is all the rest of the money this administration is holding up or misspending. The Republicans have been pretty quiet about it. Russ Vought has always made his message to Congress painfully clear. He thinks the votes we all take here don’t count. He thinks the laws we pass are optional. Now is the time for our Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to help us now pass a bill that makes our message to Russ Vought equally clear: Stop stealing from our constituents. Start following our laws. I yield the floor.”

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  Respect 98 of 100

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“I want the Senate to pass this bill. Only Congress has the constitutional power to spend government money, and the President is breaking the law by withholding $800 million we approved. He says he wants to save money, but he spends it on television ads, ballrooms, and an illegal war instead. At the same time, he is cutting $56 million from a program that helps families buy homes.”

“Madam President, I rise with my colleagues. I appreciate the Senator from Oregon and the UC he will seek in a few minutes about a very important bill to reclaim congressional authority over appropriations. I think both Senators Merkley and Murray have done a good job of laying out the law that appropriations are an article I power for Congress and the Impoundment Control Act requires that, once appropriated in a budget that the President signs, the dollars have to be spent. And so they have done a great job with the law, and the President with these pocket rescissions is violating the law. Since they have talked about the law, I want to talk about priorities. I want to talk about priorities and what this move of the President shows about his priorities. When the news was announced that he was going to cancel $800 million of appropriated funding in a budget that he had signed, he and some others said they are trying to shrink government or make government more efficient. Folks, that is a joke. That is a laugh line. You heard my colleague from New Hampshire talking about spending money on ballrooms, on arches, on trying to put his name on buildings. He is not trying to shrink anything. You see news in the last couple of days about President Trump stealing money from the Department of Homeland Security to run ``Love Me’’ ads on television because he is so insecure about his low popularity. Can I take money that is supposed to be going to protecting America’s border and turn it into ``Love Me,’’ ``Love Me,’’ ``Love Me’’ ads on television? He is not trying to shrink anything. In fact, the White House is here trying to get us to agree to a 40-percent increase in the Pentagon’s budget in the middle of an illegal war so he can continue to, as he says, restart bombing after the midterms. Can I just ask this question: Has any President ever publicly put ``midterms’’ and ``bombing’’ in the same sentence? I am likely to restart bombing after the midterms. Who has that thought much less says it publicly? So the President who is cutting the $800 million is seeking more money for an illegal war, is running ads about himself on television, is trying to build ballrooms and arches and put his name on buildings--this is about priorities. Can I tell you about just one of these items that the President is proposing to cut in the $800 million? It has been alluded to by my colleagues. The $800 million in funding includes, in the midst of a housing crisis, when all of our constituents are talking to us about housing affordability--the Trump administration wants to cut $56 million to the HUD Housing Counseling Program, which aims to expand and preserve home ownership opportunities in every ZIP Code in America. Now, this funding in Virginia enables nonprofit organizations in my Commonwealth and around the country to offer essential financial and support services for families looking to access the American dream of home ownership. One of my providers in Virginia reports they have helped--using these funds--they have helped over 1,000 families in the past 2 years achieve the American dream of owning a home, and a large factor that has contributed to their success has been these funds that President Trump wants to cut. With the funding, they have helped families build basic financial knowledge and the skills they need to become successful homeowners. In other cases, they work with families for a year or more to help them repair their credit and pay down their debt and save for downpayments, which helps them afford to buy a home. The long-term support has helped bridge the gap for families to find a home and ensure they are able to become successful and sustainable homeowners. So the Trump administration’s decision to cancel that funding when they are seeking money for ads or ballrooms or arches or names on buildings or illegal wars is directly affecting our constituents in their effort to have a piece of the American dream. Everything my colleagues have said about the law is correct. This violates article I of the Constitution. It violates the Impoundment Control Act. It goes against the promise that the President made when he signed the budget, that he would implement it. But the thing that makes me the maddest and the reason I am so excited to be here to support my colleague is, to cut programs that help Americans afford homes to fund ads and ballrooms and illegal wars shows that this administration’s priorities are completely out of touch with what our citizens expect of us. And I hope my colleagues--if they are not willing to stand up for their own prerogative as Members of the Senate to write a budget, at least stand up for your constituents who are crying out for housing relief and not let that money be taken away to be put into ballrooms and illegal wars. I yield the floor.”

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“The President is illegally canceling over $800 million that Congress approved for housing, healthcare, and education. The Constitution gives Congress the power to spend money, not the President. Both parties in Congress should work together to stop these cuts and keep any president from canceling our funding.”

“Madam President, I join my colleagues this evening to express my deep concerns. And I share your outrage, Senator Kaine, about the Trump administration’s decision to recklessly take away funding for critical programs that hard-working Americans rely on to get ahead. The President promised the American people when he was campaigning that he would lower costs, and instead he is putting services that millions of people count on at risk, including in my home State of New Hampshire. Last Friday, the administration sent its request to cancel over $800 million in Federal funding. And because today marks the end of the fiscal year, there is not enough time for Congress to stop these funds from being eliminated. This deliberate move, as my colleagues have said, is a pocket rescission, and it is illegal. Let me say that again. It is illegal, plain and simple. Over the past week, I have heard from countless constituents in New Hampshire about the importance of the programs that are being cut by this pocket rescission. This funding provides housing counseling support as Senator Murray and Senator Kaine have said. That is vital to people in New Hampshire who are trying to afford housing. It provides vital healthcare research that saves lives and education programs. It is abundantly clear that these cuts won’t bring down costs. They won’t keep our neighborhoods safe, and they certainly won’t make our country any stronger. Now, it is not up to the President and unelected bureaucrats at the Office of Management and Budget to decide where the Federal funding goes. They can’t cancel a program simply because they don’t like it. That is what they are trying to do, but it is illegal because our Constitution grants Congress--not the executive branch--the power of the purse; Congress writes the checks and the administration is not supposed to just tear them up. Even the GAO, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog, has concluded that this move is illegal, not to mention that several of our Republican colleagues have also acknowledged that it is illegal. When I talk with Granite Staters, one thing I consistently hear is that the cost of housing is a pain point for families already struggling with high prices. The average price of a house in New Hampshire now is over $550,000. Too many young families can’t afford that, and with housing prices hitting those highs, too many people are being priced out of this critical part of achieving the American dream. That is why Federal programs like the Housing Counseling Program are just so important. Housing Counseling helps families buy homes, avoid foreclosures, and secure affordable rents. Since the program began in 2009, it has helped over 4.2 million households across the country avoid foreclosure. In New Hampshire, thousands of families have used Housing Counseling to lower their home purchase price, to reduce their debt, and to secure safe and stable housing. For example, Jake and Lisa are a young married couple who lived in an apartment in Grafton County, which is in the northwest part of our State. Their landlord decided to sell their apartment, and Jake and Lisa needed to relocate. But because of high housing costs, they struggled to find a home that was in their price range. They couldn’t afford to use a buyer’s agent, so they turned to a HUD- certified housing counselor. In one instance, their housing counselor helped them obtain a home inspection that revealed major heating and electrical issues, and without this help, they might have closed on a home that would have cost them in the long term. Their housing counselor also helped them create a plan that allowed them to pay their debts while maximizing their savings. And just a few months ago in a happy ending, Jake and Lisa officially became homeowners. But without their housing counselor, who knows when, or even if, Jake and Lisa would have been able to achieve this milestone? Sadly, they are not alone. Too many families are still looking for a safe and affordable place to call home. And Housing Counseling isn’t the only program in jeopardy. This administration has left $230 million in Federal rural housing funds unspent. Now, Russ Vought may not think that is a lot of money, but in New Hampshire, we think that is a lot of money. And we should be doing everything possible to help families put a roof over their head, especially in the most rural parts of our country where affordable housing options are too often few and far between. By letting this funding expire, the administration is sending a clear message to Americans: Addressing sky-high housing prices isn’t one of the priorities of the Trump administration. Now, in addition to cutting programs that help Americans find housing they can afford, the administration has cut funds that allow students to master foreign languages and become more well-rounded scholars and to do business around the world. I mean, the President says he wants to do business around the world. He wants the United States to be a global business hub. How can we do that if we have people who can’t communicate in foreign languages? And the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships program has made it possible for students from New Hampshire to attend universities that specialize in foreign languages and international relations. These fellowships provide the skills for Americans to be the bridge to other countries and to understand cultures around the world and to do business around the world. Eliminating 1,900 fellowships denies young Americans, including Granite State youth, from developing the skills to serve our country, to improve international relations, and to strengthen our national and economic security. The administration has also eliminated $28 million in funding appropriated to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This includes cutting a grant program at Dartmouth College--Dartmouth College where we have the only medical school in New Hampshire. The grant program is designed to improve healthcare quality and access for rural populations living in Northern New England. The program focused on improving care for kids with complex medical needs and for better coordinating that care for cancer patients. This doesn’t seem wasteful to me, but that is what the Trump administration said when they rescinded these funds. Now, it is not just healthcare funding that was gutted as we know. OMB also canceled funding for a program that has helped Americans build safer communities since the 1960s. The Department of Justice Community Relations Service was established in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a mission to help States and communities address and heal from incidents of discrimination. The idea behind this program is pretty simple. If we get people talking to each other--something that might be helpful in the Senate-- we can constructively deal with incidents like swastikas painted on synagogues or racial slurs that are used in schools, and we can foster understanding and help avoid outbreaks of violence. I have seen very directly how this program can help. In 2022 at a middle school and high school in Dover, NH, which is next to the community where I live, tensions amongst students reached a boiling point after some students decided to write racially biased and anti- Semitic posts on social media. The leadership of the schools reached out to CRS for help in defusing the situation, and CRS offered a program it had developed called the School-Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together, or School-SPIRIT--an appropriate name. In this instance, the schools in Dover used School-SPIRIT to convene key school administrators, students, and community stakeholders to identify the biases and prejudices that were driving tensions and to formulate a plan to help diffuse those tensions through communicating. All in all, this was a success story for the school and for the entire community. And yet, despite the many positive outcomes all over the country, Russ Vought all by himself decided that CRS needed to be shut down. All of this is to say that these abrupt cuts to programs Americans rely on have only created uncertainty and frustration at a time when people are already feeling immense financial burdens. They are feeling uncertainty and anxiety about what is happening in this country. These programs matter to people in New Hampshire. They make a difference in their lives. But the President and his cronies and this administration couldn’t seem to care less. It is part of a disturbing but all-too-common pattern from this administration-- bypassing Congress, skirting legal authority, and leaving families to pay the price. And what is the administration prioritizing instead? Well, they are driving up prices. They are driving up the cost of gasoline, they are driving up the cost of groceries, they are driving up the cost of home heating oil that people in New Hampshire are going to depend on because the weather is starting to get cold, and they are doing it because of a needless and costly war in Iran. The President is also spending Federal resources, as we have heard, for ads to promote himself and his administration. He is spending Federal resources to put his name on as many things as possible, to build a ballroom, to change the color of the Reflecting Pool, to build an arch that is going to obstruct the view of Arlington Cemetery. Americans don’t see those as priorities. They are concerned about how they are going to pay for their groceries, how they are going to pay for their gasoline, how they are going to pay for childcare, and this administration is doing nothing--zero, nada, nothing--to help the American people. So let me close with this. As a former Governor, I know how important it is to ensure that tax dollars are being spent efficiently and responsibly. But let me be clear. Taking a sledgehammer to programs Americans rely on every day isn’t responsible governing. Congressional Republicans and Democrats can stop this from happening again, and I look forward to working with my colleagues so that no administration, Republican or Democrat, tries to cut congressionally mandated investments again. I yield the floor.”

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“The President is breaking the law by cancelling spending that Congress already approved. He is cutting money for healthcare research and national security education while spending tax dollars on himself and a war in Iran. I want Congress to block these cuts and protect the funding we agreed on.”

“Madam President, I rise today because for the second year in a row, the President is trying to illegally steal money from the people I work for. Eight months ago, Congress overwhelmingly passed bipartisan appropriations bills, and the President signed them into law. Democrats negotiated those bills in good faith. With this pocket rescission, the Trump administration is saying those laws and the agreements we made when negotiating them don’t matter, and he is saying the investments we made into the American people don’t matter. That is going to make negotiating future appropriations bills significantly harder. How can one side make concessions if they know that the other side will tear them up along with the deal months later? But I want to spend some time talking about the specific funding in this rescissions package that the President considers wasteful. Now, mind you, Donald Trump is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on prime-time commercials promoting Donald Trump. He is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a gold-encrusted ballroom and an arch--a monument to himself--over the objections of veterans and their families due to its proximity to Arlington National Cemetery. He is spending tens of billions of dollars on a war in Iran which is raising gas prices and home heating costs for American families. But none of that is what Trump or Office of Management and Budget Director Vought consider wasteful. No, no, no. They consider that a priority. What Trump and Russell Vought consider wasteful is $28 million for research to reduce healthcare costs and improve Americans’ health. What they consider wasteful is $70 million in education funding that supports national security priorities and helps ensure we remain competitive globally. First, let me talk about the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality--what we often refer to as AHRQ. The Agency is ``critically important, it helps us understand what we’re doing well and where we have opportunities to improve.’’ Now, that is not me saying that about AHRQ; that is what HHS’s Deputy Secretary nominee told me at a hearing just 2 weeks ago. Ten days later, the Trump administration said it was going to illegally impound funding for this ``critically important’’ work. AHRQ has funded advancements in telehealth to help doctors better treat patients in rural areas and help lung cancer survivors monitor for recurrence. AHRQ has supported work to reduce the rate of hospital- acquired infections and to make sure that kids waiting for a heart transplant can get one. It has funded work to improve healthcare for older Americans coming home from the hospital. This little but mighty Agency has saved literally billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, but President Trump has decided that this research is wasteful and that his personal vanity projects are more important. Let me turn to the Department of Education. There, the President is illegally cutting funding that supports important national security interests. It funds training in less commonly taught languages that the U.S. Government determines are a national priority. It helps educate students that go on to serve in national security and U.S. intelligence roles. These are just a few examples of what President Trump considers wasteful. It is not tens of billions of dollars lit on fire for an illegal war in Iran or taxpayer-funded commercials to promote himself; no, it is funding for Americans’ healthcare and education he deems wasteful. This pocket rescission is illegal. It is also throwing away opportunities to improve Americans’ health and make our country safer. These are small but important investments that we should be making. There is plenty we don’t agree on, but I wish all my colleagues would stand up for the laws we pass and the agreements we make as part of them and stop this President and any President, Democrat or Republican, from so blatantly breaking those laws. That is what Senate Democrats have been fighting for, and that is why we didn’t vote to confirm Director Russell Vought, who said this was exactly what he would do if confirmed. It is why we have tried to enact laws to prevent this nonsense idea of a pocket rescission so we don’t get to this point. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side have refused to do that again and again. But I am not going to stop fighting to uphold the law and for these programs that benefit the people of my State and the United States of America. I yield the floor.”

“I want the Senate to pass my bill right now. The president is refusing to spend money that Congress approved. Under the Constitution, only Congress decides how to spend public money. The president cannot just cancel funding for programs he dislikes, and the Supreme Court has already ruled against this. The money will expire in a few hours if we do not act.”

“Madam President, we have heard tonight from the independent Government Accounting Office that what the President did in proposing and putting forward this line-item veto is illegal. We have heard in the words of the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee that this is illegal. We have heard colleagues speak tonight from different directions about why it is illegal--because the Constitution makes it so. The Constitution says the power of the purse rests with Congress. There have been undoubtedly a number of Presidents who wish they had a line-item veto. Nixon tried. He cut funds that had been passed into law, and the Supreme Court said: Nope, you can’t do that. Have you read the Constitution, President Nixon? That is not just illegal; that is unconstitutional. Then in 1996, Congress tried to actually shed its responsibility and give the President a line-item veto and say: Hey, Mr. President, we passed these bipartisan spending bills, but strike out anything you want. The Supreme Court responded and said: No, Congress, you actually have this responsibility. You can’t assign it to the Supreme Court. You can’t assign it to the President. No, the Constitution places it squarely on Congress. There is a reason for that, and that is, Congress represents the power of the people from every corner of the land coming together to craft programs and to decide how to fund them that serves this Nation. To delineate or to assign that important function representing people throughout the Nation and say ``None of that matters; the President can just kill any program he wants’’ is to believe in a King. I have news for my colleagues: There is no King in the Constitution. That is why we are here tonight. There is also a very practical consideration. If you craft bipartisan spending bills that serve every part of the country, but then a partisan President can strike down the ones that, well, maybe are more likely represented by Senators from the other party or House Members from the other party, well, then you have undermined the whole concept of us working together to serve the whole Nation, and therefore you make it very difficult to do bipartisan bills in the future. So that is why so many people have come to speak to this. That is why the chair of the Appropriations Committee put out such a powerful statement on it. That is certainly why I am here tonight. And that is why we have come to the floor with a bill, S. 5670, to fix this-- because the President, in exercising this line-item veto, said: I am going to do something clever. I am simply going to hold on to the funds that I am supposed to spend under the law until there is no time left in the fiscal year, in the financial year--a year that expires a couple hours from now. So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5670, introduced earlier today; further, that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”

“The Constitution does not let a president cancel programs on his own. Republicans blame others for our debt, but they caused it with wars and tax cuts for the rich. Their recent tax cuts could add 50 trillion dollars to the debt over 30 years. We should spend that money on healthcare, housing, education, and jobs instead of giving it to the wealthiest Americans.”

“Madam President, the Constitution matters. And what does the Constitution say? That is pretty straightforward, and yet my colleague from Wisconsin just wanted to shred the Constitution. He says: It doesn’t matter. We want a President to cancel programs. He said he wouldn’t even care if it was a different President. Imagine a different President canceling programs in his home State. Maybe that Senator would be singing a somewhat different tune. And then we saw that debt chart. Wow, well, let’s understand where that debt comes from: the war in Afghanistan, from a Republican President; the war in Iraq, from a Republican President; the Bush tax cuts--1 and 2--for the billionaires and megamillionaires, from a Republican President; the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires under Trump 1 and 2. Those are the sources of that debt. And so it would be a nice thing if someone would come to the floor about debt--from the other side of the aisle--and would actually own that they are the problem, that they have been pissing away our national wealth on foreign wars and giveaways to the richest and most powerful Americans, running up last year a bill that added $30 trillion to the debt over the next 30 years. I didn’t hear that in the commentary from my colleague from Wisconsin nor did I hear from him that he knows that if the interest rate is 1 percent higher than the Congressional Budget Office estimated, that $30 trillion debt that he voted for last year will be $50 trillion over the next 30 years. And do you know what else? The estimate used for that debt was 4 percent, and right now we are paying 5 percent. So we are already 1 percent higher. It just would be nice that those who preach fiscal responsibility would not continue to be the ones who are spending this Nation into bankruptcy. That would be nice because then we would have funds to invest in families, healthcare, and housing and education and good- paying jobs. This century is going to belong to the nations that invest in education and infrastructure, not to the ones that give away the national Treasury to the richest Americans and say: The hell with families across this great land.”

“I want the Senate to pass the ETHICS Act. It bans members of Congress, the president, the vice president, and their families from buying, selling, or holding individual stocks. Lawmakers should not be voting on laws to help their own stock portfolios.”

“Madam President, congressional stock trading is profoundly corrupt. We in this Chamber were elected to serve the public, not our portfolio. But what do the American people see? They see Senators and Representatives who are thinking about their portfolios when they are voting on different measures, including a whole lot of tax credits and tax deductions. They are both different elements. If someone in this Chamber is sitting on a significant holding--let’s say renewable energy stocks--they might be thinking about: I want to promote those stocks, rather than ask the question: Is this the right move for America? What if they are sitting on fossil fuel stocks or oil stocks or maybe Wall Street stocks and they are thinking, ``I want to give a big break to the banking community on Wall Street to inflate my personal wealth’’? That is just absolutely wrong. It is a massive conflict of interest. About now, 14 years ago, Senator Sherrod Brown and I introduced the idea that we should end this stock trading, and that means buying, that means selling, and that means holding. It has been a while to build the momentum on this, but even the President of the United States, in his last State of the Union, said we should attack this problem. And the American people see that, while Members here are thinking about their portfolios--trying to make themselves richer, corrupting their votes on the issues before us--they are suffering. Instead of thinking about your stock portfolio, maybe you should be thinking about the price of gas at the pump, maybe thinking about the cost of diesel and fertilizer for our farmers, maybe thinking about a war of choice--an unconstitutional war of choice--that is spending more than $1 billion a day. Maybe we should be thinking about the fact that we have the most expensive healthcare system that delivers the least effective healthcare for a person in the developed world, and maybe we need to improve it. Maybe we need to think about the fact that the career technical programs in other developed programs--other developed countries--are pretty good and maybe ours should be better. Maybe we should think about the fact that college debt is a millstone around the neck of our children, when children in other countries are able to go to college debt free. Maybe we should care about families instead of thinking about our portfolios. The American people see Congress--the House and Senate Members--and the President of the United States cashing in on stock trades. The President of the United States actually invested in stocks before announcing big agreements for major companies--buying Dell stock before a major announcement, buying Nvidia stock before a major announcement. Come on. This is massively corrupt, and we should be ending it. So let’s end it. Entry-level employees and executive branch Agencies are required to recuse themselves from conflicts of interest, but Senators and Representatives think it is just fine to get rich on conflicts of interest and corrupt their representation of the public. That is why we need the ETHICS Act, which would ban Members of Congress and their spouses, their dependents, and the President and the Vice President and their dependents from owning, trading, or holding individual stocks. If they want to invest in America, invest in a broad-based mutual fund that has establishment in all of these industries at once, like the S&P 500 fund. Members of Congress should be banned from making new trades, and Members of Congress will have to divest their holdings or move them to mutual funds. There is so much corruption that we need to tackle--banning crypto corruption; banning funding for Trump’s gold-plated, billion-dollar boondoggle; stopping insider trading on prediction markets; implementing a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court; outlawing the taxpayer-funded ``cash for cronies’’ slush funds, like the President arranged with his $1.8 billion fund when he sued himself to award himself $1.8 billion of money; banning Members of Congress to have a longer period before they serve as lobbyists; and more. But Congress can lead by example. Right now, let’s pass the ETHICS Act. Now, some may say: Well, wait. Isn’t there this bill coming from the House? That House bill leaves people holding the very portfolios that we have to get rid of. It preserves the conflicts of interest. That is pretty damn weak tea--keeping the corruption and legitimizing it--and, meanwhile, throwing in an extra measure on the bill that proceeds to engage in the effort to rig the November election. Wow, well, that is certainly not a serious effort to address this corruption. But the ETHICS Act, it is that serious effort. Let’s pass it. Let’s ban Members of Congress from trading stocks. Let’s make it clear to every American that we are here to serve the people, not our portfolios Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the bill at the desk, the ETHICS Act; further, that the bill be considered read three times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”

• Reasons given
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  Speech in the House

  Reasoning 100 of 100

  This statement drew 8 conclusions and gave a reason for each one.

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“The earlier bill does not actually ban lawmakers from owning individual stocks, and its rules on blind trusts are fake. It also includes voter ID rules meant to stop women and Native Americans from voting. I want the Senate to pass my ethics bill instead, which truly stops corruption and protects voting rights.”

“Madam President, I wish my colleague had actually got a bunch of things right, but he got a bunch of things wrong. I don’t know what propaganda he was reading, from what source that wants to continue the corruption. But he said that the bill that came earlier today said you could not hold stocks. It actually allows you to hold those individual stocks. It allows the corruption to continue. And yet, he is saying: Oh, I voted for this great bill because it bans holding of stocks. But he is wrong. There is a reason this was done. It was to allow a vote in the House, a vote in the House that pretended to address the issue, rather than addressing the issue. And we have had a bill virtually parallel to this bill come through committee. It has been worked on in committee. Many of these elements and nuances--great. Fine. Let’s continue that conversation. But don’t come to this floor and misrepresent the bill that you voted on earlier tonight as having banned the holding of stocks because it allows it. And second, blind trusts. They are called bogus blind trusts. As one Member of this body said to me: I meet every quarter with the guy who runs my blind trust. You want another example? Who runs a blind trust for the President of the United States? His family runs it. His son is involved in running his blind trust. Are you kidding me? Everyone understands blind trusts are not blind. So bring a bill that doesn’t have bogus blind trusts. It has an extensive exemption for small businesses, and yet we heard a lot of conversation about small businesses. And then voter ID. Can’t we be honest about the voter ID strategy? It was written to disenfranchise--fancy word for block citizens from voting that Republicans don’t want to vote. The President put forward an Executive order that said: You have to submit your voter roll to the President’s team, they will decide who votes, and send the list back to you. And then they went and got an ethics act--not an ethics act--SAVE Act--the SAVE Act. What did the SAVE Act say? The same thing. The President gets to decide who votes. That didn’t pass here. And it didn’t even have a majority support here, let alone supermajority support. So, the President did another Executive order. And under this order, the President would strike down--his team would strike down people that look suspect to them. What are we talking about? We are talking about 64 million American women whose last names do not match their birth certificate. Your name doesn’t match your birth certificate, you can’t vote. And the President could strike this down right before the election, making it impossible for people to proceed to get reauthorized to vote. And they couldn’t even get reauthorized to vote, reregistered to vote, using their birth certificate. Wow. And they didn’t want Native Americans to vote, so they put in a provision that said any ID that doesn’t have an expiration date is excluded. Well, you know, you are not a Tribal member year by year or month by month, my friends. You are a Tribal member for life. They don’t have expiration dates. They knew that, and they put it in to stop Native Americans from voting. Why? Why do you want to stop women from voting? Because they vote more on the blue side of the aisle. Why do they write those ID requirements to stop Tribal members from voting? Because they vote more on the ``D’’ side of the aisle. People have called this Jim Crow 2.0. What are they talking about? After the Civil War, we had a national consensus, we were going to protect people’s right to vote. And in the South, you had a lot of States that had a majority of Black citizens. To this very Chamber, 2 U.S. Senators were elected from Mississippi; 14 Members of the House were elected from the South that were Black Americans. And then reconstruction ended in a horrific deal that was struck and the result was almost a century of blocking Black Americans from voting. And that is what the President wants to do. Not specifically Black Americans, not the same way, but any group that votes predominantly on the blue side of the aisle. Now, we actually had a bill, and it was called the Freedom to Vote Act. It had ID in it, but it wasn’t ID designed in a partisan fashion. So I say to my good colleagues: How about you actually come forward with a version of ID that isn’t designed for partisan advantage? That would honor the vision of the Constitution. That was what was in the Freedom to Vote Act. And the President wants to attack vote-by-mail. And why is that? Vote-by-mail is the highest integrity system in the land, bar none. Why is that? Because on election day, it is easy to manipulate the election. Here is what you do: You change the location of the precinct voting from the previous year so people go to the wrong place; you proceed to put out false information about the location; you put out the wrong date for voting; you put out text messages--and this has been done-- saying ``sorry you missed the election last week, hope you will vote next year’’ when the election is actually coming up the next Tuesday; you put in machines that don’t work; you put in staff members that don’t work; you perceive to create 8-hour lines like they created in the urban areas of Georgia--recent history. That manipulation can’t be done in vote-by-mail. That is why the President hates vote-by-mail, because it stops the rigging of American elections on election day. And it has this very powerful form of voter ID called a signature. The same thing we use to verify checks and so many other transactions in life. Same signature we use on our marriage certificates. Same signature we use on financial transactions. And if the signature doesn’t match, it gets challenged, and a voter has a chance to cure it. My point here is that the bill that came before this Chamber earlier today was designed to rig the November election--my colleagues know that--and it allowed the corruption in stockholding to continue. That is why we are creating and putting forward a real bill with real ethics tonight.”

• Personal attack
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  Speech in the House

  Respect 97 of 100

  This statement targeted a person rather than their actions or views: “that is what the President wants to do”.

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