Cybersecurity Information Sharing Extension Act

Mr. President, I am here to talk about a bill that is a matter of fundamental fairness to our veterans and most especially to our combat-injured veterans--a group that should evoke the sympathies and support of our Nation as no other.

I am here to talk about the Major Richard Star Act. Many of my colleagues know about it because 76 Members of this body are cosponsors. That is a large number, but so far, it has not been sufficient to gain even a vote. So I am asking today that that support be turned into action.

This bipartisan legislation will correct one of the deepest injustices impacting disabled veterans. It is labeled by stakeholders as the ``wounded veterans tax.''

The wounded veterans tax, as it stands now, causes more than 50,000 combat-injured veterans who were forced to retire to be barred from a full military pension that they earned or were promised. Let me explain. They are getting a dollar-for-dollar reduction of their military retirement pay from their VA disability benefits. The reduction, dollar-for-dollar, in their retirement pay is the result of their receiving those disability benefits for their combat injuries.

They are entitled to each of the separate and distinct and different forms of compensation. They have earned both. They are different, separate, and distinct. But right now, under current law, they are deprived of the full benefits of their pension because they were injured in combat. Just to describe this injustice should make our stomachs turn with outrage.

The Major Richard Star Act is really a commonsense bill. We use that word, ``commonsense,'' all the time in this Chamber, but in this instance, it seems particularly appropriate. It would right this longstanding injustice and finally provide these military retirees their full VA disability and Defense Department retirement benefits.

This cause is not only common sense, it is rightfully bipartisan. It has received overwhelming support--those 76 cosponsors in this body but also 304 cosponsors in the House of Representatives--and it is the collectively top priority of the military and veterans services organization communities of the United States. Yet, year after year, this bill has stalled, and detractors have worked to deny a simple vote.

Now, in public--critics have avoided taking a public position on the bill, and they have given lipservice to veterans and advocates requesting their support. What their real reasons are, I can't say.

But the fact of the matter is that these veterans have been denied this simple justice.

And let me speak to those critics.

We can't balance the Federal budget on the backs of combat-injured retirees. Doing so reneges on our obligation. It is a sacred obligation to take care of veterans after their time in uniform.

The bill doesn't create some great, new, overly generous benefit, but it would be enormously impactful and beneficial for each of those retirees who would be affected. The average is about $1,200 a month-- some more, maybe some a little bit less. At $1,200 a month--you can do the math--it is not a fortune, but it would make a difference in the lives of these combat-injured veterans.

It simply ensures that the benefits we have promised and the benefits they have earned are the benefits that are now delivered--it is that simple--not clawed back, as happens now, from the heroes who have sustained those combat-related injuries.

The veterans and heroes involved in these bills are similar to the namesake of the bill, MAJ Richard Star, a decorated war veteran and engineering officer in the Army. He suffered from lung cancer caused by burn pit exposure.

We all know about Iraq and Afghanistan burn pit exposure. We passed the PACT Act to provide care and benefits for victims of those burn pits and exposure to other toxic chemicals.

They led to his retirement and his death in 2021. He was 51 years old. Until

his death, he was a dedicated advocate for his fellow veterans and combat-related disabilities.

His wife Tonya Star walked these halls by his side. She died in 2024. She called my staff days before her passing, in tears because another Congress had ended, in 2024, without a vote on the Richard Star Act. Tonya knew the tremendous difference this legislation would make in the lives of caregivers and widows like her.

It would make a difference also in the lives of veterans like Pat Murray of North Kingstown, RI. Pat is a Marine Corps veteran and a staunch veterans advocate. He recently welcomed a baby boy, and he was forced to move back to Rhode Island to be closer to his family because the injuries he sustained from an IED blast in Iraq made it difficult to care for the newborn.

We need to be very clear. This act won't return his amputated leg. But it can provide him and his family with desperately needed financial certainty, which they deserve, they need, and they were promised.

And it would also help veterans like retired MSgt Gabriel Peterson of Biloxi, MS. He was medically discharged as a result of reactive airway disease. He is on five different drugs. They help with his breathing. It is a struggle for him to live, and this act would ensure that he could provide for his family, even if he is no longer able to be employed.

The stories are powerful, and they are persuasive. They depict the scope and impact of this act, if it were passed, in lifesaving and life-enhancing benefits, and what it will mean to the tens of thousands of veterans across this great Nation.

In fact, these veterans and their families--think of their families-- deserve a lot better. They deserve elected officials who will stand up and deliver for them the benefits they were promised and the benefits they earned; and they need them and deserve them today.

I am asking my colleagues to advance this legislation now. The principle of taking care of our veterans has never been Democrat or Republican. The Veterans' Affair Committee is supremely bipartisan. My hope is that tradition will continue, including today.

So let's put politics aside. Let's put partisan differences aside and finally do the right thing and advance this important legislation for our Nation's veterans.

And so notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1032, the Major Richard Star Act; 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.

I want to respond very briefly to my colleague from Mississippi and my friend, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We have worked together, as he does always, in a bipartisan way on armed services issues. So what I am about to say is not personal to him. In fact, I am willing to bet that it isn't his decision to object here.

But I want to refute two points. No. 1, on double-dipping, let's be clear that these are two separate programs, and the right to payment under each of them is separately deserved. Not everyone who is entitled to retirement pay gets disability benefits. You have to be in that club that nobody wants to join of being combat injured. And it is a separate form of right that in no way involves double-dipping, as we commonly refer to it. The retirement pay is for years of service in the military. VA disability compensation is for the loss of future earnings due to service-connected injuries or illnesses.

And I just want to make clear that this point is really about equity and fairness. Congress eliminated this option for nearly a million veterans who have served 20 years and have a 50-percent VA disability rating or higher. It has already dealt with one segment of this group. This unjust assessment ultimately ought to be eliminated for all the 430,000 veterans who had their military retirement pay clawed back because they are receiving VA disability benefits.

But we are starting here or taking the next step with 50,000 of those 430,000 who, in fairness, should receive both, the retirement pay and disability benefits. And we are doing it because these 50,000 have combat-related injuries.

And as to the total cost--again, not personal to my colleague from Mississippi--but the CBO told us that the Republican-supported tax cuts exploded the deficit by about $3.4 trillion.

Let me repeat that: $3.4 trillion, in large part tax cuts to people who didn't need them.

These veterans need these benefits. This cost is a minuscule fraction of those trillions. This country can afford to do right by these combat-injured veterans. The DOD Office of the Actuary has indicated it could implement the Richard Star Act in an ``actuarially sound manner.''

It is not too costly. It is financially sound. I regret that the Richard Star Act will not be passed today, but I have another measure that I would like to bring to the floor. And it is, with regret, that we are not providing unanimous consent to the bill itself.

And I understand the points made by my colleague, but I would like to present a middle ground. Since we don't have unanimous consent for the Major Richard Star Act today, let's agree to a vote. Let's have a time agreement that would authorize the Senate to take a single up-or-down vote on passage of this bill before the end of the year. This time agreement doesn't guarantee passage. It simply guarantees a vote.

One vote, that is all I am asking. Give us a vote on passage of the Major Richard Star bill, and it would be passage by a 60-vote margin, filibuster proof. If we get 60 votes, the bill passes. If not, it goes down. Let's do it before the end of the year.

I happen to think that we ought to spend whatever time is necessary on this bill. But I understand that leadership is concerned about time. And so my proposal strips away all the time-consuming procedural stuff--I have another word for it--but it allows us to go forward expeditiously. One vote scheduled entirely at Majority Leader Thune's discretion, before the end of the year--it could start and finish in half an hour or 45 minutes.

Surely, the Republican leadership can spare that short time, scheduled at

their discretion, to give these combat-injured veterans a single vote on this bill before the end of the year.

And so notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader but no later than December 31, 2025, the Committee on Armed Services be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1032; further, that there be up to 2 hours of debate on the bill, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the bill be considered read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill, with 60 affirmative votes required for passage, all without further intervening action or debate and no amendments or motions in order to the bill prior to the vote on passage.

Mr. President, I respect the points that are being made by my friend from Mississippi. In fact, we share support for every one of those armed services measures that he had described, whether it is bolstering our nuclear force, providing for more drone protection, increasing well-deserved compensation for our military men and women, and it is the reason why he has led, and I have supported, the current National Defense Authorization Act that, hopefully, will be approved by this body within days.

Where we differ is, I think, that I believe that the $9 billion or $10 billion that would go to ensure fundamental fairness to our military is there or a great nation should ensure it is there when we are talking about the trillions that we will spend on many other things, some of them very worthwhile, but, in my view, none more worthwhile than doing right by these veterans.

It isn't double dipping. It isn't overly generous. It isn't going to break the bank, so to speak. To the Federal Government as a whole, with its trillions of dollars, it is a miniscule fraction; to those veterans, it is not only a matter of quality of life and sometimes survival, it is fundamental fairness.

They were promised. They have earned it. They deserve it. They need it. They ought to have it.

And this measure simply would assure a vote--a vote. We ought to face our responsibilities. Maybe my colleagues, even though 76 of them have cosponsored--that is three quarters of this body--maybe it would still fail for whatever reason. But I would like to take my chances. And I assure my colleague from Mississippi, who I think supports the basic goal from what he has said, that I will continue fighting and working for this measure to pass. I know there is deep and broad support in this body for it, and I look forward to a time when he and I will be on the floor together, both of us, supporting this measure in a vote.

I am not giving up, and I am very hopeful that this cause will continue to be bipartisan.

Mr. President, colleagues, I think there is a tendency in this place, but probably in the country, writ large, to compartmentalize each news cycle, to get outraged by every new contest to free speech or to the rule of law or to the power of Congress, but to really never see the full picture. Yesterday's assault on a particular democratic norm is forgotten, and we just wake up the next day to some new outrage.

And I know that when people like me start talking about creeping authoritarianism in America, a lot of my Republican colleagues tune out. They think it is hyperbole or just politics. But I think it is time for all of us--Republicans and Democrats--to really step back and come to terms with the full picture of what is happening right now in America.

I know that there are many Republicans in this Chamber who are not ready to give up on democracy, but there are a group of radicals surrounding the President who have convinced him to operationalize a plan that is designed to try to crush political opposition and dissent in this country.

When democracies die, sometimes it is in a coup; sometimes it is through violence; sometimes it is the occupation of the Parliament building; sometimes it is the cancellation of elections. But normally, that is not how democracies wither and vanish.

In countries that have lost healthy democracy, normally what happens is that, over time, the regime--the party in power--just contracts the space for dissent, for speech, for political opposition such that, while elections still happen, the opposition party can never win. The rules get rigged, essentially, so that the party in power never ever loses. That is the plan. That is what President Trump and the radicals around him are trying to do to America.

I know that many of my colleagues aren't on board for this plan, but I worry that many of my colleagues refuse to see it in its totality because they deal with one outrage at a time. They justify one assault at a time without seeing the full scope of it.

We aren't on the verge of an authoritarian takeover; we are in the middle of it. Now, it is not a fait accompli. It is not certain to be successful. But if we aren't clear-eyed about what is happening, then we have no chance to arrest it.

If my Republican colleagues don't force themselves to pull back and see the totality of what is happening to the political opposition--it is hard to see because it is not happening to you. It is happening to your colleagues. You are not in jeopardy of being arrested; my colleagues are. Your allies are not being taken down off the air; ours are.

If we don't all pull back and see this for what it is, we will wake up, and there will be a day where our democracy is gone. And so I want to talk to my colleagues today about the totality of this plan, and it really happens in five steps.

The first step is to convert the justice system into a political witch hunt operation. Every totalitarian relies on the justice system to punish dissent, but also to immunize illegality for loyalists. That is the deal you get in a totalitarian state: If you speak out against the government, well, then the legal system comes crashing down on you. But if you are loyal to the government, then you can get away with crimes.

We are seeing this at scale right now. The indictment of James Comey for no crime--not a single prosecutor in that office in Virginia would sign the indictment--not a single one--until President Trump sent his personal lawyer to take over that office because only she would sign the indictment.

We see this in the arrests that are being readied for at least one Democratic Senator, for the Soros family, for the attorney general of New York--for behavior that is not criminal; for behavior that apparently, reportedly, has been engaged in by plenty of other people.

But you also see it in the way that it ultimately plays out in a very quiet way. The goal here is not to arrest everybody that opposes Donald Trump. The idea here is to just put enough fear into the ranks of those who might speak truth to power that they stay quiet, and it is undoubtedly happening. There are undoubtedly people in this country who see what is being threatened to Senator Schiff, what has happened to James Comey, and they have just decided to remain quiet. This is a tried and true tactic of a totalitarian state, is that they threaten people with arrests if they speak up, and lots of people just decide not to speak up in the first place.

But what also happens is that if you are loyal to the regime, you get away with crimes. See what happened to the mayor of New York Eric Adams. He allegedly had committed a crime. He had committed significant corruption but was exonerated by President Trump only after the mayor pledged his political loyalty to the President. In fact, one of the President's representatives and the mayor went on television to essentially publicly do the handshake--loyalty from the mayor to the President and exoneration of corruption from the government to the mayor. This is how totalitarian regimes control speech: They punish, through the legal system, dissent. They immunize corruption amongst those who are loyal.

The second part of the plan is to eliminate free press and replace it with state-run media. Now, I don't know that I would go so far to say we have state-run media in the United States yet, but there is an attempt underway to try to use the vast regulatory powers of the administration to censor media. And, again, the administration isn't hiding it. They are going on TV and celebrating the fact that, in the latest instance, they threatened to pull the licenses of TV stations that didn't take off the air one of the President's loudest critics.

But we also see it through the consolidation of media into the hands of allies of the President. One family that has just taken control of a major media group that owns, amongst other properties, CBS is looking to also take

control of CNN and may have an ownership stake and a control stake in TikTok. That family has shown a willingness to censor content, pulling Stephen Colbert off the air and to put in place, essentially, Trump- approved censors for their future news content.

So you get to state-run media not necessarily through the state owning and operating media, but by the state using its regulatory powers--its control of licenses and mergers--to make clear to the billionaire class that they can own media, that they can make a lot of money off of media, but only if it propagates Trump's narrative and suppresses criticism. It is happening right now. We are watching it happen.

The third step in the plan is to militarize law enforcement. The deployment of the military to Chicago and to Portland, to Los Angeles, is illegal. It is illegal. But it is designed to try to, once again, quell dissent and protest. This isn't about public safety. This is about political intimidation.

And you are just naive if you think that folks aren't going to be a little bit less interested in showing up at a protest if they are worried about getting roughed up by law enforcement. You are naive to think that there isn't an impact on speech when the military is patrolling your streets. The signal that is being sent is that, if you speak up in opposition to this President, you are going to be greeted by troop deployments and tear gas and military helicopters.

The fourth step in this plan is seizing control of government spending and taxation, and here is where I fail to understand why there isn't bipartisan agreement, why we don't join hands. Our Founding Fathers saw what the British King did: using taxation and spending in order to compel loyalty to Crown, in order to punish the colonists when they rose up in defense of their rights. And so when they wrote the Constitution, they deliberately put the spending and taxation powers not in the hands of the Executive but in the hands of Congress, where every faction is represented; thus, this body is in a position to broadly protect the rights of all people.

Trump is seizing spending power from us, canceling grants unilaterally--most recently brazenly deciding to refuse to spend money only in the States represented by Democrats. The day after the shutdown began, they announced that they were, first, suspending billions of dollars' worth of projects in just one city, New York City--not coincidentally represented by the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate.

And then, hours after, they released a list of canceled energy projects. They listed the States that they were being canceled in. Every single one of those States was represented by two Democratic Senators.

Everybody knew what was happening. It was an effort to use the spending power, seized by the Executive, to punish--to punish-- representatives of the people who oppose the President politically.

And then the fifth part of the plan is to rig the rules when the rules don't work for you. This is happening in the way that President Trump is going State by State and demanding that congressional lines be redrawn in the middle of a 10-year cycle in which, traditionally, we leave lines as they are. Why? He has, again, been totally honest and transparent about it. He just wants more Republicans elected. Even if the majority of people in a particular State favor Democrats, he wants the lines drawn in a way that would elect more Republicans to Congress. Now, in this case, it has, of course, forced Democratic States to do the same, but it was Donald Trump who started this cycle of changing the rules in order to make sure that his party stays in power and that he stays in power no matter how unpopular he gets.

You see the same thing happening with respect to the control of information. Totalitarian states can't accept truth. They can't accept truth, so they try to destroy truth. Well, that is what Donald Trump is doing by banning reporters from the White House who don't toe the Trump or MAGA line. That is what they are doing in saying to reporters at the Department of Defense that you can't report on military operations unless you are given preapproval. That is what happened to the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When the labor statistics showed that the economy wasn't good, that guy got fired and was replaced by somebody who would issue fake numbers that made the economy look better.

You convert the justice system so that it pursues your political enemies and exonerates your political loyalists for crimes. You eliminate the free press, and you replace it with state-run or state- influenced media. You militarize law enforcement. You seize control of government spending and taxation. You rig the rules of democracy in your favor.

You can't see the indictment of Comey, the cancelation of Kimmel, and the troops in Chicago as different events. They are all part of the same story. They are all part of a plan--a well-thought-out plan--to try to destroy American democracy and create a new set of rules that will allow Trump and his allies to rule forever.

I know this sounds extreme. It is. But, if you connect the dots, if you allow yourself to see the whole story--the totality--of this story, you will see the grave danger that we are in. I know that it is often easiest for all of us, but probably especially for supporters of the President who still support democracy, to just assume the best, instead of assuming the worst, or to just kind of close the door and batten down the hatches until the storm leaves town.

But think about how we will feel if this 250-year democratic experiment disappears on our watch and we didn't do all we could as a body and as a citizenry simply because we didn't want to face the hard reality. The authoritarian takeover isn't coming; it is here. We are in the middle of it, but it is not too late for everybody to see it and for us to stop it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today because the American people deserve affordable healthcare, and they deserve a government that works for them--not a government of threats, not a government of bullies. They deserve a government that comes together in a bipartisan way to find solutions to the problems and challenges they face.

Sadly, right now, we are on day 18 where the Republicans in the House of Representatives have not reported to work--day 18. I went over there this morning, and there are literally more statues of former Republican leaders than there are actual Republican House Members in the entire House. I

walked down the hallways. I went to the door. I went to see if anyone was there. There is no one there. There are just a bunch of statues of former leaders.

We need real leaders right now over in the House that are willing to sit down and negotiate with Members of the Senate and, yes, with the President--not to be rubberstamps of the President but to actually come back and say ``This is what I am hearing from my constituents'' because we know what they are hearing. We have seen the numbers. And some of them have been willing to say it--some of the House Members on the Republican side and some of the Senators.

Three-fourths of the people on the Affordable Care Act plans, according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, three-fourths of them are in States won by President Trump. The vast majority of them are in red congressional districts.

So we know what they are hearing because it is what I have been hearing. Some of the people are already getting notices in some States--like in Senator Warnock and Senator Ossoff's State of Georgia-- and they are seeing a doubling of their premiums or a tripling of their premiums.

I have heard the proposed numbers in the State of Minnesota, and it is not pretty.

A few weeks ago, I went on a 13-county rural tour in my State--I visit all 87 counties every year--and I met with soybean farmers. One of them told me that what he was seeing, between the tariffs drying up his market--60 percent of the soybeans in Minnesota are exported around the world. We are proud of that. We feed the world. Those markets have dried up. They can't sell their soybeans. They can't get a good price for their soybeans. I heard the same thing from our corn growers.

So when you look at what is happening with their markets and then you look at what is happening with their input costs for things like fertilizer because of the Trump tariffs and you look at the increases for them in their daily living expenses--like electricity bills and grocery bills--because of these tariffs and, yes, these healthcare premiums--you look at this, and one soybean farmer told me this is the perfect storm of ugly.

So what should our answer be--to stay away like these Republican House Members have done because they are afraid to have a vote on the release of the Epstein files? That soybean farmer is like: What? Go take care of your business. Your job is to come here and help me.

Families' budgets are being squeezed. The President promised he would bring down prices on day one, but instead, it is day 261, and the opposite is happening, especially with healthcare.

This isn't a December problem or a January problem; this is a ``now'' problem because November 1 is the date. November 1 is the day when these plans that are called different things in different States--in my State, it is called MNsure--when these plans, which over 25 percent of our farmers are on, for one thing, and a whole bunch of small business owners--they are not working at some big corporation. They do not have the option of getting their plans that way. Instead, they rely on these types of plans from the State. Ours existed even before the Affordable Care Act, but it is one of those Affordable Care Act plans.

So November 1 is when that marketplace opens up, and then they have to decide--they can't afford a doubling of the premiums. That is what this fight is about.

A poll published last week found that 78 percent of Americans think we should extend the ACA tax credits, including significant majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.

Why don't my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and my colleagues who aren't here over in the House--Republicans--why don't they see this as an opportunity to do something good, to come to the table and do something good? That is what this is about to me. I thought that is what we were elected to do, but, instead, what do we see?

According to Minnesota's health insurance marketplace, a 30-year-old in Mower County--that is one of our more rural counties kind of near the Iowa border--earning $39,000 per year would see their premium increase from $77 per month this year to $225 a month for the same plan--no extra bells and whistles; the same plan.

A family of three in Roseau County--that is way up north--with an annual income of $106,000--this is a family of three--would see their premium jump from $675 a month to $1,100 a month--an annual increase of more than $5,000.

A 60-year-old married couple in Bemidji earning $85,000 per year-- this is in the middle of our State, a beautiful lakes area. It is the home of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. They just dealt with a horrible, horrible storm, and their town showed this incredible resilience.

A 60-year-old married couple in Bemidji earning $85,000 per year will see their premium climb from less than $500 per month to $1,700 per month. That means an additional $15,000 next year for the same coverage. These increases are going to force people to make a decision.

My rural hospitals told me--behind closed doors, some of it--they said: So we have a whole bunch of people that are going to be hurt by these Medicaid cuts that were in the budget bill this summer, and we have a whole bunch of problems because $500 billion in Medicare cuts was automatically triggered by that Big Beautiful Bill, as it is called--or ``Big Beautiful Betrayal'' of a bill.

Five hundred billion in Medicare cuts was triggered why? Because the debt went up so high because of all the tax cuts for the wealthiest. That is just in law. If you put up the debt that much, you are going to get Medicare cuts that aren't going to hit individuals--they will eventually--but they are going to hit these hospitals. I say ``eventually'' because there is not going to be anyplace to go get your healthcare if you are in a rural area and these hospitals and clinics start closing down.

So on top of all that--Medicaid and Medicare--then you layer on these Affordable Care Act issues. What the people--the doctors and nurses-- told me is that because that is how so many of their patients get their healthcare, if they don't get their insurance, which some of them just won't be able to afford unless we do something about it, which is fully within our power to do--like, literally, you can take that money that was going to go to Argentina and screw over our soybean farmers in Minnesota, that $20 billion--I have no idea why that was a good idea-- you can take that money, and that is going to pay for a big chunk of just the first year of these tax credits for regular Americans and not screw over our soybean farmers.

So, anyway, they told me that if you make sure these people still have insurance, that is a huge deal to these rural hospitals. It means that they can maybe just barely eke by and make it. Otherwise, people are going to get rid of their insurance, and they are going to show up at the emergency rooms because they are not going to be getting not just primary care but elective surgeries and regular things they should be getting because they don't have the insurance, and they are going to show up at the emergency rooms, and then the hospitals are going to be paying for that care. That is what we are dealing with here.

These increases are going to force people across the country to make these impossible decisions.

A constituent of mine was caught off guard by a $2,000 premium increase.

A family of four is considering downgrading their insurance plan.

A father expects that his family will owe $16,000 more next year.

One woman currently saves more than $450 per month because of the ACA tax credit. She is retired. She is single, so she does not have any additional income coming in. That gives her $5,400 extra per year, and that is before you factor in--this is important for people to know because everyone is having trouble with what is going on in the insurance market right now--that is before you factor in what is expected to be a 21-percent increase in the premium.

Another constituent shared that her biggest fear is affording healthcare for her family. She said: Please keep up the fight for the ACA subsidies. Every day, the cost of just living goes up. I am worried for my family.

We know our healthcare system is far from perfect. There are many steps we should take to improve it. I could

spend the whole day giving some ideas that would be constructive.

One of the things that I finally got passed into law that I spent years working on and leading the bill--a negotiation of prices under Medicare.

Congress, before I got here, somehow locked itself into what the prices should be under Medicare, and you could see people and our worthy veterans under the VA getting much better deals on their drugs than all of the seniors in America. Why? Because the VA was negotiating prices, and Medicare was banned from negotiating.

So we opened that up on at least 10 drugs in the first year, drugs like Xarelto and Eliquis and Januvia and Jardiance--big, big drugs with big populations of people that use them--and we got that negotiation started during the last administration and were able to get some remarkable savings.

But there should be many more savings. These are supposed to be negotiated--15 more drugs and then 15 more drugs and then 15 more drugs--and I will tell you right now, I am watching to make sure that happens. But there could be a lot more we could do on the front of pharmaceuticals and many other areas of healthcare. But, instead, the least we can do right now is make sure that people aren't going to end up bankrupt--small-farm bankruptcy is at a 5-year high right now--who live in rural areas.

We are asking our colleagues to come to the table. We are asking the Republicans in the House of Representatives to return to work so that they are not outnumbered by a bunch of statues that have been sitting there for a hundred years in the Rotunda. We would like the real Representatives to come back and join us in negotiating to end the shutdown, which is what we want, but also to do something to help Americans with their healthcare.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to discuss the Democratic continuing resolution proposal that was on the floor earlier.

Neither proposal gained sufficient votes, and that means we have work to do to find a compromise that will enable the government to stay open, and I want to make clear why I believe the Democratic proposal has some real strong merit for Virginians and for Members of this body, both Democratic and Republican, and why I think this is such a strong proposal.

My advocacy for the Democratic position is basically focused on two issues: healthcare and the underlying basic notion that we all get-- that a deal should be a deal.

During August, I think, as most of us did, I traveled around my home State of Virginia a lot and talked to many people. The Senate had passed the reconciliation bill--that partisan bill--in July, and during the August recess, I heard a boatload from Virginians about their concerns.

Because of that reconciliation bill, six hospitals in Virginia are at risk of closure. These hospitals are all in the rural parts of the Commonwealth.

There are 302,000-plus Virginians who will likely completely lose their health insurance, 136,000 will lose the health insurance that they are currently able to access through the Affordable Care Act, and another 166,000 will likely lose health insurance because of cuts to the Medicaid Program. Virginia has a population of about 8\1/2\ million; 302,000 people losing their health insurance is pretty significant.

Those who continue to have health insurance will see significant premium increases. According to the State Corporation Commission, which is the body in Virginia that regulates industries like insurance companies, the 10 insurers that participate in the Virginia individual market in 2026 have requested rate increases from their 2025 rates, with most insurers proposing average increases of 20 percent or higher.

What would that mean? The Kaiser Family Foundation says a family of four, with two adults aged 50 and two kids under 21, are likely to pay an additional $311 per month, or $3,729 per year, because of the reconciliation reduction of ACA tax credits.

Virginia hospitals stand to lose up to $26 billion in Medicaid cuts over the course of the next 14 years because of the reconciliation bill. That is the reason why a number of rural hospitals that are sort of on the edge in terms of their financial situation are on the list of concerns about closure.

Just within the last 2 weeks, we actually had the first closures in Virginia. A well-respected healthcare network in the Shenandoah Valley that has a hospital in Augusta County but then has primary care clinics sort of throughout the region that serves patients who can be served there instead of a hospital announced that three of the primary care clinics are closing, and the CEO of the Healthcare Network said they are closing because of the Medicaid cuts made in the reconciliation bill that this body passed in July.

I also heard a lot of stories just from individuals. These are the statistics about what is going to happen in Virginia because of the reconciliation bill, but we talk to constituents all the time.

Mary from Springfield, VA--Northern Virginia--and Kim from Mecklenburg County on the North Carolina border both have children with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for access to care to allow their children to remain in their homes instead of in institutional settings. These moms are very worried that Medicaid cuts won't be available for their children's long-term care.

Brenda is a mother in Salem, VA, near Roanoke. She relies on Medicaid to help her remain in her home and not have to be institutionalized, and she worries that the Medicaid cuts will cost her access to the supports that she needs.

William in Virginia Beach, VA, on our eastern coast, says that his son has Marketplace coverage but is worried that the cuts to the ACA premiums mean that the son will no longer have access to that insurance now that the reconciliation bill has put those premium subsidies on a path to expiration.

Maria works as an employee of an affordable housing community for seniors in Fairfax, right here in the DC area. She said that since the passage of the reconciliation bill, she has seen a growing number of low-income seniors come into her office frightened that their Medicaid coverage will be reduced or terminated.

Sharon lives in Lancaster County, which is in a part of Virginia called the Northern Neck, near the Chesapeake Bay. She has called to ask my office if Rappahannock General Hospital was in jeopardy of closing due to the reconciliation bill. Rappahannock hospital is a facility I know well because my in-laws lived right there in Lancaster before they passed away in the last couple of years. It is one of the six hospitals that is listed on the national list as a hospital in jeopardy as Medicaid cuts phase in.

Then, finally, Caroline from Lynchburg, VA, in Central Virginia, has had coverage through the Virginia Marketplace and is concerned that she will no longer have access to the tax credits and subsidies that have helped her afford health insurance.

These are just seven examples of citizens from all over the Commonwealth whom the reconciliation bill--I read the big statistics about it, but these are individual families who have significant challenges.

What the Democratic CR proposal does is something that many Republicans in this body have said needs to

be done. In the aftermath of the reconciliation bill, we are hearing similar stories from our constituents and that we need to fix especially the ACA premium support so that people do not lose health insurance, and we also need to fix some of the Medicaid cuts that caused the concerns that I expressed from these seven individuals.

My visit around Virginia in August sort of made me see this healthcare concern as sort of a spectrum. When you make cuts to Medicaid or to these premiums, five different things happen:

People lose health insurance.

Those who retain health insurance see their premiums go up often because the folks without insurance go to the emergency rooms. That is more expensive care. It has to be paid for, and that tends to assist in driving up the premium cost of those who retain insurance.

Third, as I have indicated has already happened in Virginia, providers close. And when providers close, there is a fourth effect, which is people lose their jobs.

Then the fifth effect is one that I think we should talk about as well. It is not just people losing health insurance and having their premiums go up and seeing their providers close and seeing healthcare professionals lose their jobs; there is a fifth effect.

I was a mayor, and I was a Governor. I did a lot of economic development work in Virginia. I know that one of the things that businesses really care about, if they are looking for places to locate or expand, is what is the local availability of healthcare? It is really difficult to be in a community and try to pitch an economic development project but have the question asked: ``Tell us about your hospital. Tell us about your healthcare network'' and to explain that ``we had a hospital, but it closed. We have had healthcare clinics that closed.'' That makes it very, very difficult.

This fifth effect is an economic effect. The decline in healthcare clinics and hospitals, actually, is sort of like a theft of a community's future because it makes it very difficult to get people to come.

That is why I think the Democratic proposal is a solid one. And I do recognize that in the aftermath of the passage of the reconciliation bill, many Republican colleagues--both in this Chamber and the House-- have said that it is important to come back and fix particularly the expiration of the ACA premium tax subsidies. I think that would be a very smart thing for us all to do.

Finally, there is a second reason I really like the Democratic proposal, and it is this: A deal should be a deal. The Democratic proposal has some components in it that would ensure that when Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate reach a deal that goes to the President's desk and he signs it, that the President then can't immediately take the money away unilaterally.

I think everybody around my Commonwealth--Democrat, Republican, Independent, or the vast majority who don't really care that much about politics--they get that a deal should be a deal. When you negotiate and you shake hands, a deal should be a deal.

This actually is related to healthcare as well. In last year's budget, we had a deal about spending on healthcare priorities. Early in this administration, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced that he was clawing back billions of dollars of healthcare funding. To Virginia, it was $400 million--$400 million of healthcare funding that we had planned on using during the worst increase in measles, for example, in recent years. It got clawed back from Virginia, and 500 workers and contractors lost their jobs as we were trying to deal with measles and other health epidemics.

I have communities in Virginia that had had economic development projects announced, and they were counting on them for their future. Often, the announcements were attended with great fanfare by our Governor--Governor Youngkin, who is a Republican, who believed these economic deals were a good thing. They were reliant on funding from the Inflation Reduction Act or from the CHIPS manufacturing bill, but those funds, in many instances, have been clawed back.

A deal should be a deal. When we reach a deal, it should be honored so that communities do not plan for healthcare workers, do not plan for economic development projects and feel the rug pulled out from under them.

So those two features of the Democratic proposal: fixing some of the healthcare cuts in the reconciliation bill that, even by many Republicans' accounts, have gone too far; that have already led to closures of clinics in Virginia and great anxiety among individuals.

We can fix those, and we can establish a principle that should be one that we would all agree on that a deal should be a deal.

I hope as we grapple with the two proposals on the table, neither of which we were able to get 60 votes and be passed, we can take some of the wisdom in these Democratic proposals that would serve Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all over this country and make sure that we include them going forward.

With that, I yield the floor.

I object.

Mr. President, somewhere off the coast of Venezuela a speed boat

with 11 people on board is blown to smithereens. Vice President Vance announces that ``killing cartel members that poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.''

When challenged that killing citizens without due process is a war crime, the Vice President's response was that he ``didn't give a shit.''

Sometimes, in fits of anger, loud voices will say they don't care about the niceties such as due process. They just want to kill bad guys. For a brief moment, all of us share that anger and may even embrace revenge or retribution.

But over 20,000 people are murdered each year in the United States, and somehow we find a way to a dispassionate dispensation of justice that includes legal representation and a trial.

Why? Because sometimes the accused is actually not guilty. Even with the best of care, even with the best of justice, sometimes we find out it is the wrong person.

As passions subside, a civilized people should ask questions. To be clear, the people bombed to smithereens were guilty, right?

If anyone gave a you-know-what about justice, perhaps those in charge of deciding whom to kill might let us know their names, present proof of their guilt, show evidence of their crimes. The administration has maintained that the people that they blew to smithereens were members of a gang, members of Tren de Aragua, and therefore narcoterrorists.

Why? Because we say so.

But certainly, then, if they know that they belong to a particular gang, then someone must surely know their names before they were blown to smithereens. Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them, to know what evidence exists of their guilt?

At the very least, the government should explain how the gang came to be labeled as ``terrorists.'' How did the people who you say are in a gang, how did they come to be labeled as a ``terrorist''?

U.S. law defines a terrorist as someone who uses premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatants.

Show us evidence of that. Show us evidence of their guilt. Show us evidence that they are terrorists, perhaps before we blow people to smithereens.

Since the U.S. policy is now to blow people to smithereens if they are suspected of being in a terrorist gang, then maybe someone should take the time to explain the evidence of their terrorism.

Critics of this whole terrorist-labeling charade, such as Matthew Petti at Reason, explained that, in practice, what we are doing in practice ``means that a `terrorist' is whoever the executive branch decides to label one.'' You are a terrorist because you are labeled one. You can be killed because you are called a terrorist.

But where in all of this is some sort of evidence that you are guilty of something?

While no law dictates such, once people are labeled as ``terrorists,'' they appear to be no longer eligible for any sort of due process--no, the blow-them-to-smithereens crowd, at this point, will loudly voice their opinion that people in international waters don't deserve due process.

Vice President Vance asserts:

There are people who are bringing--literal terrorists--who

are bringing deadly drugs into our country.

Which, of course, raises the question: Who labeled them as ``terrorists''? And what is the evidence of these specific people who had names before they were blown to smithereens? What is the evidence against them individually? What are their names? What, specifically, shows their membership and guilt? Were they armed at the time they were blown to smithereens?

The blow-them-to-smithereens crowd also conveniently ignores the fact that death is, generally, not the penalty for drug smuggling.

The mindless trolls that occupy much of the internet whine that such questions show weakness or commiseration with drug pushers who are killing our children, a ludicrous assertion to most sentient humans but one I fear that requires a response: International law and norms have always granted due process to individuals on the high seas not actively involved in combat. U.S. maritime law explains in detail the level of force and the escalation of force allowed in the interdiction of drugs. You realize we interdict hundreds of ships off the shore of Miami, off the Pacific coast, and we don't always blow them to smithereens. Why? Because some of them don't actually have drugs on them. Hundreds of ships are stopped daily, yearly. The blow-them-to-smithereens crowd might stop to ponder that a good percentage of these ships that we actually search turn out not to be drug smugglers. Coast Guard statistics show that one in four interdiction finds no drugs.

So far, the administration has admitted to blowing up four boats suspected of drug smuggling. So there is a one-in-four chance, statistically speaking, that one of these boats may not have had any drugs on it. We will never know because they were blown to smithereens. We may never know the names of the people because they were blown to smithereens. We may never know whether they had arms because they were blown to smithereens.

It seems someone should ask, if the U.S. policy is to blow up all suspected ships, should that policy really be extolled as the ``highest and best use of our military?'' What an insult to our military.

Jake Romm puts the dilemma of whom to designate as a terrorist into sharp relief. Jake Romm writes:

The hollowness and malleability of the term [terrorism]

means that it can be applied to groups regardless of their

actual conduct and regardless of their actual ideology. It

admits only a circular definition . . . that a terrorist is

someone who carries out terrorist acts, and a terrorist act

is violence carried out by a terrorist. Conversely, if

someone is killed, it is because they are a terrorist,

because to be a terrorist means to be killable.

It is a circular definition which no one ever bothers to say: Why are they a terrorist? What is their name? What are they guilty of? What have you accused them of?

We say just say: You are a terrorist; therefore, you are killable.

It devolves to madness.

Can you imagine a doctrine in which we just blow up ships off of Miami and say ``whoops'' if they didn't have any drugs on board? Twenty-five percent of the ships that we board currently don't have any drugs on them. It is a mistake. And we allow it because it is a search, and typically it is a voluntary search. But we allow searches. But we don't kill every suspected boat off of Miami suspected of having drugs because 25 percent of them don't have any drugs.

There is a shortage of independent legal scholars who argue that these strikes are legal. Even John Yoo, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under George Bush who infamously offered the Bush administration's legal justification for waterboarding, has criticized the administration's justification for the strikes, saying:

There has to be a line between crime and war. We can't just

consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for

the military. Because that could potentially include every

crime.

John Duffy, a retired Navy captain, eloquently summarizes our current moment:

A republic that allows its leaders to kill without law, to

wage war without strategy, and to deploy troops without limit

is a republic in deep peril. Congress will not stop it. The

courts will not stop it. That leaves those sworn not to a

man, but to the Constitution [to stop this].

Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury, and executioner.

Often, people will say: What about the Barbary pirates? What about the Barbary pirates? Jefferson went after them; it should be OK.

But Jefferson understood that the Framers' intention was that the President defer offensive war to Congress, to authorization.

So while there was always a justification and still is a justification for violent defensive maneuvers to protect your shipping, there was never an authorization for offensive unless approved.

This is why President Jefferson, when faced with the belligerence of the Barbary pirates in 1801, recognized that he was ``unauthorized by the Constitution'' only with the authorization of Congress ``to go beyond the line of defense.'' Jefferson wanted the authority

to act defensively against the pirates, but he respected the intentional checks placed on the Executive within the Constitution. Only after Congress had passed the Act for the Protection of Commerce and Seamen of the United States Against the Tripolitan Cruisers in February 1802 did he change it from defensive maneuvers to protect the ships to offensive maneuvers.

Our history is prescient. If the Trump administration wants to use military power, they should seek authorization from Congress. There is a difference between war and peace. There is a difference in the rules of engagement. There has to be. Our police don't shoot people on sight. We have a process. Even off of the coast, we have a process.

We have longstanding maritime laws that we obey as well as every other civilized nation in the world obeys. We board ships after announcing who we are and that we are going to board the ship. There is an escalation if there are weapons fired, if there is a reason where the Coast Guard can escalate, but we don't just blow ships to smithereens.

The vote before us today offers every Member of this body an opportunity to reverse the decades-long abdication of this critical responsibility, of leaving this to the executive branch. Our Founding Fathers said Congress shall authorize war. The Executive is not authorized to do this.

I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution.