A joint resolution terminating the national emergency declared to impose duties on articles imported from Canada.

Mr. President, I appreciated the words of my colleague from Maryland because I was standing there thinking that a budget is actually a choice. It is a value choice. It is an economic voice of where you want to spend the taxpayers' hard-earned money.

What this budget does, as he points out, is $6 trillion in the next 10 years that would be added to the debt because of tax cuts for the wealthiest people.

I have no problem making sure we don't increase taxes for people making under $400,000 a year. That is a good idea. But this is a way- different animal than that. It actually takes the parts of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, makes sure they stay in place, and then adds even more so that two-thirds of the benefits from this is going to the wealthiest and the big corporations.

The thing he raised that I loved was, What could you do with that money? Well, you could reduce the debt. That would be a good thing. You could put part of it so that we make sure we do that. You could put the funding into actually taking on, some say, tax incentives for housing, which we so dearly need, to work with the private sector to build more housing. You could put it into incentives for childcare. You could shore up Social Security. You could do all kinds of great things that the people actually thought they were voting for, even a large number of them who voted for Donald Trump. But that is not what this budget is.

So I appreciate Senator Van Hollen pointing out that, in the end, these budgets are a choice: Who do you want to spend the money on? What do you think is going to work for this economy?

We already know that Donald Trump has sent this economy into a tailspin, as the market continues to go down. And this isn't just the market, as horrified as traders and experts on Wall Street are. You have got to take it to Main Street. And when you take it to Main Street, you have got people who have been depending on their retirement, whether it is a 401(k) or some other kind of retirement, for the rest of their lives.

You have people who have saved money for their kids to go to school. Or you have young people just starting out who maybe have, you know, 5 years into savings and don't know if their jobs still are going to be there because the economy is going into a tailspin. That is a choice. That was a totally self-inflicted wound yesterday. That was a choice.

The economy, coming out of the pandemic, struggling through all of that--inflation and the like--was actually, when Donald Trump took over, in a pretty good place. And look at what he has done--a completely unnecessary, self-inflicted wound.

But the problem is who it wounds: thousands of dollars in taxes on the average family, $20,000 more for a home for young people who might want to buy their first home, more money to buy a car. It goes on and on and on.

So when I look at that budget, I just can't see it in a vacuum. I see it in the totality of what is going on right now, because with these tariffs, the wealthiest people are going to lose billions of dollars or millions of dollars, but they are going to be fine, though, because they have got everything else. But it is the people who are living paycheck to paycheck or are depending on Social Security--they are the ones who are going to suffer from this.

Then you add this budget to the mix. This budget would give massive tax cuts to the ultrawealthy and pay for it

by raising costs, taking away healthcare, and threatening the economic security of tens of millions of Americans. It is a major handout to the wealthy.

If you don't know what the numbers are, here is a great one to remember: It would give Elon Musk a $50 million tax break over the next 10 years. Do we really think he needs that? Does he need $10 million more? He does not.

You could literally structure this budget so that you are not reducing taxes or giving special deals to people making over $400,000 a year. You could do that.

But that is not what this is. It went the opposite way. It gives the wealthiest 0.1 percent an average tax cut of $180,000 a year. In total, over the next 30 years, it would give $25 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and the big corporations.

Meanwhile, what is happening to people's grocery prices? What is happening to their healthcare prices? What is happen to their housing prices?

This isn't speculation. Look at what happened the last time the Republicans ran this playbook in 2017. They told us back then that those tax cuts would trickle down, that wages would go up, that jobs would come back.

What actually happened? Big companies spent nearly a trillion dollars on stock buybacks to enrich their executives and their wealthy shareholders. Wages for working people barely moved. Manufacturing jobs didn't boom. But the first year after that passed, corporate America spent over $800 billion buying back its own stock at more than 50 percent higher than the year before. And this year those buybacks are projected to top $1 trillion for the first time ever. That helps Wall Street, not Main Street. So here we are again: same trickle-down theory, just repackaged with even more debt and even fewer benefits for the middle class.

As noted, the debt, this budget, the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would add $37 trillion to the debt over the next 30 years--$37 trillion on the backs of our kids and grandkids. That is right. We are leaving the next generation to foot a $37 trillion bill so we can give billionaires a tax cut today. That is the choice.

And it is all wrapped up in very complex language so it doesn't sound like they are doing it, but check actual news sources. Look at this to verify what the actual numbers are. And $25 trillion of it is tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations over the next 30 years.

The kicker: They are trying to hide that massive debt, what even their own Members--these are Republican elected Members of Congress-- have called a budget gimmick, intellectual fraud, and--my favorite one--fairy dust. Instead of leveling with the American people, they are using an accounting trick to pretend that these new tax cuts cost nothing.

I believe that the American people know better. I believe they knew better when they woke up this morning to see where the stock market was and thought about all their hard-earned money and what they were doing with it. I believe they know better when they look at any kind of simple description of what this budget is.

They promised to lower the deficit, but this budget adds trillions to the debt. They promised to bring down costs, but you don't even need to check the news. Just go down the grocery aisle and see if that has really happened. And they promised to put everyday Americans first, but this budget, it puts the wealthiest first or they wouldn't be getting the lion's share of the benefit.

Under this plan, healthcare for nearly 80 million Americans is at risk, including two-thirds of nursing home residents, two in five kids, and one in three Americans living in rural areas. That is because--why do I say that? I am just making that up? No. That is because the budget plan includes instructions to cut $880 billion from the House Energy and Commerce Committee--that is the one the House sent over--which oversees Medicaid.

The Congressional Budget Office--nonpartisan--said it plainly: It is mathematically impossible to meet that target without cutting Medicaid.

This is a plan to cut Medicaid. That is why we have a different vision. You could do a budget--and I see Ron Wyden is here, the highest ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee. He knows what we could do if they would work with us. We could do a budget that would lower costs, not raise them.

And how does this raise costs for people? You already see it right now, and they are not doing anything about it. You see the tariffs are going to make it worse, and then you also see what is going on with this budget with Social Security, Medicaid, and the like. We could strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Instead of giving a $300,000 tax cut to someone in the top 0.1 percent, we could invest in childcare, affordable housing, education, and--yes--affordable energy. And at the same time, we could put some aside to bring down the debt. That is how we support working families. That is how we make sure seniors retire with dignity.

So we are standing up all day today to expose this budget for what it really is. It is benefits for the wealthy and the big guys at the expense of everyone else, and that means you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am proud to be here with my colleague from Washington State, Senator Cantwell. She and I both worked in the private sector for years before we got into politics or government. And I learned a lot from representing companies. I learned a lot from representing companies that did work all over the world and got a really good understanding firsthand of the virtues of working with the rest of the world and the virtues of capitalism when it goes well and it is done well.

So much of America's success has been our ability to bring people in from other countries that become our next doctors and become our next police officers but also to have those customers around the world. Ninety-some percent of our potential customers in America are in other countries.

No better example of that is Canada, which is directly to the north of Minnesota. As I like to say, we can see Canada from our porch in our State.

For my State, Canada--No. 1 trading partner--is actually bigger than the combination of the second, third, and fourth trading partners for our State. Yet this President has been messing around with Canada from the moment he got into office, mocking them and saying they should be the 51st State.

I hope Americans understand the result of this. It is not just retaliatory

tariffs that wiped Kentucky bourbon off the shelves in certain provinces; it is also that tourism from Canadians is now down 70 percent in our Nation. That is not some kind of group tariff; those are individual people who are so pissed off that they have just made their own decisions that they don't want to come to our country.

As bad as it is to have booing of Minnesota hockey teams--we are used to a lot of action in our sports leagues--but this is going to affect small hotel owners, small restaurants, cafes, people who run little bookstores.

These are the people that come and visit our country and love our country. And international tourists spend an average of something like $5,000 every time they come to America. That money is going to Americans.

That is just one example, and that example just resonates with me because it shows these countries that have been our friends and our allies for so long, whether it is Canada, fighting alongside of America in two world wars; whether it is the fact that Canada was there after 9/11, and they were the first country there to be by our side; whether it is Europe, which has long been our friend. You think of all the Americans in my State, Norwegian-Americans--we like to joke that we have more people from Norway than they have in Norway--Swedish- Americans. Think about all the people that have long roots in those countries. Think about Japan and South Korea, which he put tariffs on yesterday that were even larger than the rest of the world. He did 10 percent on the penguins on those two islands, but Japan and South Korea get even double that at least. Why do that?

There are ways to negotiate this. There are issues we have with dairy in Canada that I am well aware of that could be negotiated, for instance in the USMCA trade agreement that President Trump had actually negotiated himself in the first administration that I supported. But instead we see total chaos.

So what does this mean? I was on some programs last night, and I could not believe the vitriol from the traders on Wall Street who could not believe how the market ended that day, yesterday, and now we see more of it today. Cramer, who is so really well known--Jim Cramer--for his views on the stock market and trading, was really, really helpful to listen to all of that.

But I then thought to myself, this isn't just about Wall Street; it is about Main Street. And what this amounts to, when you look at what happens with tariffs, when you raise these tariffs, when so many of our goods have parts from other countries or are from other countries--what does this mean? Well, it is the biggest tax increase on working Americans since 1968.

So I refuse to look at this budget that we are debating today just in a vacuum because, as problematic and horrible as it is that two-thirds of the benefits are going to the wealthiest Americans and big corporations, you have that setting for that budget right at the same time as we see these tariffs.

As I noted about an hour ago when I focused on this issue of the unfairness of this budget and the values choices that are being made in this budget that are not in favor of regular Americans, I also believe that anyone that looks at these tariffs realizes, you know what, Elon Musk is going to be fine with these tariffs. He is going to lose money. Everyone is going to lose money because of this. You already see it with corporate value. But who is going to be able to afford that and who isn't? Well, the people who are not going to be able to afford it are the people who get by with their paychecks twice a month; the people who rely on their savings and their 401(k)s and maybe are about to retire or are in the midst of retirement; the young people who want to buy their first house and are now not certain, despite what has been a growing, strong economy, with issues of inflation. But now look where we are--completely self-inflicted wound.

On Wednesday, when the President announced an across-the-board tax on all imports, with even higher taxes, as I noted--some as high as 46 percent--on goods from the EU--20 percent tax on the EU right when they have been fighting alongside us with helping Ukraine and taking on the tyrant Vladimir Putin.

Why don't we just throw a bunch of taxes on a relationship that has been growing and getting better and better as we woke up from our slumber from the pandemic and realized we have real allies here? Allies--European Union, Japan, South Korea. When you combine our economy, something like 50 percent of all those allies' democracies, allied democracies, is unbelievable. And you have Russia at 1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent. But where is he putting the tariffs? The most on our allies. It makes no sense.

These sweeping tariffs are taxes that will raise costs for everything from medicine and food to clothes and housing. You already see the damage. The impact was immediate.

Yesterday, the stock market fell almost 5 percent--the worst day since the pandemic crash in March 2020--and today, it continues to fall. Small businesses are freezing investments. Retailers, manufacturers, and farmers are in limbo. They were already operating on a small margin. This chaos and this uncertainty are hurting our economy.

It is unclear to me if the White House even knows what they are doing. They literally put a 10-percent tariff on a bunch of penguins on the Heard and McDonald Islands. There are no actual humans living on those islands, but they were afraid of those penguins, I guess, and decided that those penguins, which they must view as some kind of economic risk to our country, should be slapped with a 10-percent tariff. Those penguins probably can't engage in retaliatory tariffs. I don't know.

But that is exactly the kind of nonsense and ridiculous chaos we are seeing.

So what are the facts? Americans were already feeling the costs of the Trump tariff tax. They are the ones paying the price.

Since he took office, wholesale prices have gone up on everything from meat and coffee to natural gas and lumber. That will increase what families pay--this newest tariff tax--for groceries, utilities, and housing. For the average American family, it is going to be a $4,000 increase in the cost of living per year--the average price of a home to increase by $20,000 and the price of an American car to rise by $3,000.

Those aren't my numbers. Those are what experts have looked at. And they have to adjust it, of course, every single day when he comes out with a new tariff. So at one point it was $5,000 and then $4,000, but that is what we are seeing right now.

Again, it doesn't mean much to Elon Musk. It means a lot to the people in my State, the people I met with on my 14-county rural tour that I just took a week or so ago.

At smalltown townhalls with the Farmers Union, we heard repeatedly from farmers about how these tariffs--on top of higher input costs, avian flu, and, of course, weather events--threaten their livelihoods, and that is especially true for small farmers.

I heard from small brewers who know that much higher tariffs on aluminum will either cut into margins or raise prices for customers.

And I met with local leaders who don't know if they will be able to keep pace with their housing goals that they need to keep their economy strong in rural America.

People in my State do not want this Trump tariff tax, and our Republican colleagues should be standing up to him.

People in my State share the concerns of this broad bipartisan coalition--the retail industry leaders, the American Farm Bureau, the American Farmers Union, the National Association of Home Builders, the Chamber of Commerce. They have all been very clear in opposing this.

And the chaos doesn't end with economics. President Trump is invoking emergency powers to bypass Congress and launch trade wars.

Stand up, I say to our colleagues. Stand up and assert your power.

This is a dangerous abuse of authority that undermines the Constitution and threatens our system of checks and balances. That is why I cosponsored the bipartisan Trade Review Act, to reassert Congress's constitutional role in trade policy.

Our allies are stunned. After spending decades building strong trade relationships, in addition to longstanding security friendships, this Trump tariff tax is now blindsiding our closest allies

and our trading partners. The damage, as I note, is going to extend way beyond farm products and manufacturing. It is also going to be about the vibe, the fact that no one will want to visit our country. They are already canceling their trips. This will have a devastating effect on our economy.

And I see Senator Rosen is here, who is actually leading the effort, a very key piece of legislation, to take this on and say: You can't do this if you are going to hurt tourism to this extent.

As you know, Senators Kaine and Warner and I put forward our amendment that finally got four Republicans to stand up with us when it came to Canada. We said: This is a false claim about the need to invoke emergency powers when it comes to Canada and the border. And four of our Republican colleague agreed with every single Democrat, and we actually passed that bill.

People do not want us to isolate ourselves from global supply chains, to forfeit foreign markets. They want to expand. We want to be a country that makes stuff, that invents things, that exports to the world, not a country that puts our heads in the sand and pretends the rest of the world doesn't exist. And then they all go out and do trade together, and we are here isolated.

Our country is a strong country. Our country is a strong economy. And he is going to literally throw away all of the gains we have made and these small businesses that have blossomed all because--I don't know-- he said he was going to do something like this. And now he tells us we are in the middle of a surgery, and it is just going to be painful.

Well, again, for the wealthy, they can get through those surgeries. They can get the special rooms with the nice views and the nice windows. For the rest of us, the rest of the people in this country, people who live month-to-month, this is not the same for them.

We can and we should stand up to unfair trade practices. I have been a long believer in the targeted use of tariffs. It was helpful for some of our iron mines up north. But what he is doing here with these across-the-board tariffs is reckless. It is going to drive this economy over the cliff, and it is time our Republicans stand up in the U.S. Senate--we have already had four do it--and say: Enough is enough. Let's do things that help the American people instead of just helping a bunch of billionaires.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am proud to follow my colleague from Michigan, who, of course, has served herself. Then I am also proud to be here with Senator Rosen of Nevada, and there are so many veterans in Nevada.

We rise today to urge our colleagues to oppose this budget. A budget is a statement of priorities, and our priorities should be helping people who are the hard-working people of this country, particularly those who have served our Nation, and not giving two-thirds of the tax cuts to a bunch of wealthy, wealthy people and big corporations. That, sadly, is what is in front of us today.

Of course, the whole situation is exacerbated by the Trump tariff tax, which amounts to $4,000 per family every year, $20,000 more on a new home--really a problem for young people--and $3,000 more on a car. That is what we are dealing with right now.

But our focus, right at this moment, is on our veterans. When our veterans signed up to serve our Nation, there was no waiting line. And when they come home to the United States of America and they need a job or they need an education or they need to get healthcare, there should never be a waiting line in the United States of America. We have worked so hard from way back to the fiasco at Walter Reed, after we added new veterans into our healthcare system--after Afghanistan, after Iraq--to upgrade the benefits for our veterans, to upgrade the kind of services they have gotten. For the most part, there have been some major improvements, but the VA is under attack, sadly, by the Trump administration and, in particular, by Elon Musk. We need to stand up for the more than 9 million veterans who rely on the VA for care, including the 106,000 veterans in my State.

For weeks, I have been hearing from veterans and veterans' families who sacrificed for their country. They are worried about what the slashes to VA services will mean to them.

I heard from a disabled Gulf war veteran who is living with lung cancer who is concerned that he won't be able to get the care near where he lives anymore.

One woman whose husband was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam pleaded that our veterans answered a call to serve and protect democracy.

She added:

We need to reciprocate by providing them with the service

and benefits that they earned and need.

I heard from the mom of a vet who served in Iraq. Her son suffers from traumatic brain injury and also was exposed to burn pits. She said her son had received life-changing therapy through the PACT Act, which is something we worked so hard on in a bipartisan basis to pass, but his access to that care is now at risk.

Those cuts that were proposed in the House budget and, over here--the funny math, where you can't figure out where anything is going--all of it puts this at peril.

In her words:

Promises were made, and promises need to be kept.

I was at one of our county VAs. Senator Smith and I and Congresswoman Craig were there, and we met a man who had served our country, who went into the private sector, and who took a significant pay cut to go work in veterans services and help our veterans. He was just up to his probationary period, was told he was fired, and then maybe he is rehired. He doesn't know because he doesn't have email access anymore. Even if he is rehired, he is not sure he wants to go back.

One of my husband's law students spent his whole life defusing bombs. That was his work with the military. He then came back home. He went to law school. He worked really hard. He then got hired as a lawyer at the VA--something that he could only have dreamed of in the early part of his service. He is also disabled. He works there at the VA. He is 2 weeks short of meeting his probationary period, Senator Rosen, and he gets fired. He told my husband, who had been his professor, that he doesn't think he is going to go back if he is rehired. Why? Because no one deserves to be treated with this indignity.

So we are not only seeing these funding freezes and problems, we are also seeing incredible patriots who have served our country who are having to leave the work at the VA.

Just last month, we learned that the administration is not done. They now plan to fire more than 80,000 staff by the end of the year. That would mean firing nurses and staff who process benefits. This is not hypothetical to our veterans. It shouldn't be hypothetical to anyone in this body.

We must stand up, and we must stand up to this budget. I hope that our Republican colleagues, as they see the news from their constituents of what is happening, particularly in rural areas with people who have worked their whole lives and now they don't even know if they are going to be able to keep their farm going because of these tariffs--the last thing you want to do is pass a budget that gives two-thirds of the budget to the wealthy and big corporations. That is the opposite of what we should be doing right now.

We ask our colleagues to stand up to this President and finally say enough is enough. This is not a kingdom. They are not subject to a King.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before I deliver the body of my remarks, I do want to respond briefly to my colleague, the Senator from Wyoming, on the question of national security because just last night, we learned that President Trump had fired the head of the National Security Agency right after his meeting with Laura Loomer, a rightwing activist. Not only was the head of NSA fired, but so were some other folks who worked at the National Security Council.

This is part of a pattern of President Trump firing people who have experience, people who know their subject matter, and replacing them with political cronies. We already saw the results of that amateurism and amateur hour when it came to Signalgate, which is a big violation, of course, of classified information that very well could have put our troops at risk.

So I think when we talk about national security, it is important to recognize what is happening in this administration that is undermining our national security.

H. Con. Res. 14

Mr. President, I want to focus on the great betrayal. When he was a candidate going all over the country, Donald Trump said that he was going to look out for the forgotten Americans, that he was going to focus on kitchen-table issues. He was going to bring down prices on day one. On day one, he was going to bring down prices. Yet, what we are witnessing right now is just the opposite. We are witnessing the rigging of the American Government to gut services for working families. We all saw Elon Musk proudly brandishing a chain saw not that many weeks ago at a CPAC conference in the State of Maryland. Well, they are cutting away at services that benefit every American family. And for what purpose? To help the billionaires.

The centerpiece of the great betrayal is arriving on the Senate floor today. That will be the kickoff for the next phase of that great betrayal because Republicans are going to be taking the next step toward implementing a giant giveaway to the very, very wealthy, the already-powerful, and big corporations, and they are going to pay in part for it at the expense of the rest of America. But they are also not going to pay for a big part of it, and that will come at the expense of the rest of America when you blow up the deficits and debt and put upward pressure on interest rates.

Where they are talking about cutting are places like Medicaid. We will talk more about the very, very harmful impact that will have on the American people.

The President is talking about offsetting the costs of the tax cuts for the very rich with revenues from tariffs which amount to nothing more than a huge national sales tax. We will talk a little bit about that as well.

Then, of course, Elon Musk is claiming to find all these savings in the Federal Government. He is not making the government more efficient; he is actually rigging the government to help the very powerful, like trying to get rid of things like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned billions of dollars to American consumers who were cheated by fraudsters. Some people don't like that. CFPB made some powerful enemies, so they want to get rid of that. That is just one example of how this is not about efficiency but actually putting the government to work for billionaires and powerful people at the expense of the rest of the country.

Donald Trump has called this budget resolution that we are going to be debating on the floor as the first step to what is going to be the ``big, beautiful bill.'' Well, it is going to be a beautiful bill if you are a billionaire tech titan or if you are a billionaire in the Big Oil industry or in Big Pharma. It is going to be great news for all of you, but for the rest of America, it will be the great betrayal.

Mr. President, we know this because we have seen this movie before, although this time, we are going to see it on steroids. Back in 2017, during the first Trump tax cut for the wealthy, a lot of promises were made, and so we now have the reality of what happened to compare to the promises that were made at that time.

Let's look at those promises. Donald Trump promised that giving tax cuts to wealthy people and big corporations would generate so much additional economic activity by trickling down to everybody else and somehow lifting everybody up. He claimed that would generate so much dynamic activity that it would generate additional revenue, and the additional revenue would be enough to offset the revenue lost because of tax cuts to rich people.

That is not even close to being true. In fact, what it did was it added $2 trillion to the deficit. Just check with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. I actually asked this question in repeated hearings in the Senate Budget Committee. I serve on that committee. I asked it of Republican witnesses, Democratic witnesses, witnesses that are just called for their expertise. Not a single person has tried to claim that the tax cuts from 2017 actually paid for themselves--not even close. So that didn't happen.

We also heard the claim from Donald Trump back then that corporations that got these tax cuts would use some of their additional revenue to quickly boost wages by $4,000 on average to their workers, to their employees.

That didn't happen either. What did happen was that some of those savings went to much bigger CEO bonuses. So that didn't happen for regular workers. It was really good for the CEOs.

Another thing that Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues claimed back then was that when corporations got these big tax cuts, they would take those additional moneys and invest them in plant and equipment and therefore help the overall enterprise and grow it.

That didn't happen either. What did the corporations use that extra savings for? Well, they used it for stock buybacks. They used it to jack up the price for the stockholders, but they did not use it to help expand plant equipment that helped the overall economy.

By the way, about 30 to 40 percent of those stockholders are actually foreigners. They don't live in the United States. They are not Americans. So that big tax cut for the rich here, when it was used in the form of stock buybacks, was a great bonanza for a lot of very wealthy people overseas.

Now we are back here on the eve of passing a Republican budget resolution. I hope we don't pass it, but appears Republicans have the votes. And we are seeing this movie all over again. Deja vu. It is worth, therefore, again reminding us of what happened.

Senator Wyden and I were on the floor the other day when he released a really blockbuster report about how major U.S. drug companies--Big Pharma--were able to exploit provisions of the 2017 Trump tax giveaway in a way that allowed them to dramatically lower their taxes. Pfizer's tax returns, we showed, had 50 percent of their revenues coming from U.S. sales but only listed profits in the United States at zero. So Pfizer, when you look at their returns, acknowledge that 50 percent of their revenues came from American customers, but they booked zero profit on those revenues and sales in the United States.

How did they do that? They did it by essentially using overseas tax havens. It is called round-tripping. Essentially, they took profits here, funneled them through these schemes overseas, and as a result, they lowered their taxes by 40 percent. That is a pattern we have seen with other pharmaceutical companies as well.

Other Americans don't have that ability, right? Those Americans who get their W-2 forms, you pay your taxes on those earnings. You don't get to funnel them through overseas tax havens. Mom-and-pop shops, small businesses--they can't make secret deals with foreign governments to hide their profits. So these schemes are designed to benefit one group and one group only, and that is very profitable corporations and very wealthy individuals.

The result is, when Pfizer does the kind of schemes--employs the kinds of schemes--that it has and they lower their effective tax rates, it means they are not paying their fair share here in the United States that we use to invest for the common good, whether it is infrastructure, whether it is our public schools--all things that, of course, Pfizer benefits from just as other major corporations do. So it is just a form of freeloading on the rest of the American people. That is what the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy are all about--big handouts for the very wealthy and freeloading on the rest of Americans.

If you look at the folks who were cheering on Donald Trump at the swearing-in, at the inaugural, they were the folks who were going to be benefiting the most. Elon Musk was right behind him. Of course, Elon Musk spent $280 million to help elect Donald Trump. He is sort of getting more than his money's worth these days. There were other billionaire tech titans and other billionaire members of the Trump Cabinet--the most billionaires, by far, of any Cabinet in American history. Those are the people who are going to benefit from the tax giveaway to the very wealthy. Everybody else is going to pay for it in one way or another, and I want to talk about some of the ways they are going to pay for it, the rest of America.

One way is, it is going to send our deficits and debt skyrocketing again. As I said earlier, back in 2017, they claimed that no, no, no, no. It would all pay for itself. Well, it increased our deficits and debt by $2 trillion. This time, it is an even bigger, whopping increase on the deficits and debt: $6 trillion over 10 years and a $37 trillion increase in the debt over the next 30 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. These are the nonpartisan, green eyeshades guys--just the facts. That is the consequence of the Republican tax giveaway to the rich: huge deficits and debt. As I said, it will be three times higher than the last one, which was bad enough. And we are not incurring this additional debt because we are fighting a war. We are not incurring this debt to fight a pandemic or a recession. We are incurring all of this additional debt just to give the big corporations and the wealthy another round of tax cuts. So maybe it is not surprising that we are already seeing an effort to hide what is happening.

So how do you hide $6 trillion in deficits and debt? Well, there are a lot of accounting gimmicks that are being employed. One of them is to say: Well, let's just use the current policy baseline. Now, bear with me for a moment because this does get a little technical, but it is important, and it also reveals the scheme that is being employed by Republican Senators to try to cover up the costs of their tax cuts for the very wealthy.

You know, normally, we use what is called a current law baseline. In other words, the Congressional Budget Office tells us how much the deficits and debt will increase by the policy changes we are making to current law. That makes sense because current law is what exists until we change it. So current law tells us what our deficits would be now under the framework we currently have, but Republicans want to change this to a current policy baseline.

What they are saying is, Well, they gave tax cuts to the very rich and corporations for 10 years, and now we are going to do it for at least another 10 years. So let's not count the additional costs of that when we compute the deficits and debt.

Well, it doesn't really work that way in the real world. I mean, if you were, let's say, a wealthy person and if you went through your family budget, and last year you bought 600 Rolexes, which put a lot of strain on the budget, and then you were sitting around the kitchen table this year to draw up the budget for the upcoming year and you said, ``Well, you know, my dear, you know, it really won't make our budget this year any worse if we buy another 600 Rolexes because we bought them

last year,'' now, that doesn't make any sense, and Americans know that, but that is exactly what Republican Senators are trying to do with their budget gimmicks. They are going to try to pretend away $6 trillion in new debt.

Now, if you look at the budget resolution, it does anticipate that kind of addition to the deficit. They say: Well, we are also going to offset that by cutting $2 trillion.

Now, when I do the math, if you claim you are cutting $2 trillion-- and we will talk a little bit about how they plan to do that--you are increasing the deficits and debt by $6 trillion. Even if you cut the $2 trillion, you are ending up with a whopping net deficit-debt increase. That is going to drive up interest rates for every American and make it harder for all other Americans to pay for things like cars and houses and mortgages and interest payments on cars--all this, again, in service of a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations.

Now, what is another way that President Trump says he is going to pay for this tax cut to the rich and big corporations?

Well, he says we are going to have all this additional revenue coming into the government through tariffs. He called it ``Liberation Day.'' We saw how the country responded. We saw how the markets responded. They went way, way down. Economists of all political stripes are predicting a much higher risk of a recession. Some say it is much more likely than not at this point because of those tariffs. The President has unleashed a tariff war, and let's talk about what they are because, in effect, this is a national sales tax. This is pretty simple math.

When you put a tax on goods coming into the United States, it is the importer, the American importer, who pays that, and if you have to pay that extra amount and you have tight margins already, tight profit margins, you are going to have to pass that cost on to whom? The American consumers. That is why economists estimate that the Trump national sales tax is going to cost the average American household up to $4,200 a year. That is what the President is doing. That will come in many forms.

The National Association of Home Builders predicts it will cost up to $10,000 more to build a home because we import lumber and gypsum from other countries. We have lumber and gypsum here in the United States, but in order to accommodate the demand for new homes, we also import, and that will jack up the price, according to the National Association of Home Builders, up to $10,000. Others are predicting even more.

A researcher at Cornell University estimates that new cars could cost as much as $20,000 more because of how many times certain car parts cross boundaries and will face tariffs. You may send a part to the United States through some business in the United States that works on enhancing that part. It goes back to another business overseas. They do something more. Then it comes back and is then used in an American car. If every time it crosses a border you are facing a big tariff, the costs of those cars are going to go up. In the case of the U.S.-Canada border, sometimes auto parts cross them as many as six times before the final assembly.

So whether it is buying a car or buying a house, these are things families work hard to purchase, to save up for. The Trump tariffs are going to put them farther out of reach. This is a Trump tax increase on the American dream. Again, for what purpose? All to provide tax cuts and a big tax windfall to the very wealthy and the biggest corporations.

But the harm from this national sales tax is not only the additional prices Americans will pay here at home; it is also the losses to businesses in the United States that produce products here and export them overseas because the rest of the world is not going to stand still and do nothing while Donald Trump slaps a big tax on the products they are sending to the United States. They are not going to do that. In fact, China has already responded. They just imposed a 34-percent tariff on American products. They have also taken other measures to make it harder for the American businesses that produce goods here to export those to China.

When China puts on a 34-percent tariff and when other countries around the world respond as they inevitably will, it means American companies here at home will not be able to sell as many of their goods around the world. That is pretty obvious. Again, that is pretty simple math. That means they will have to lay off people. That means less economic activity here at home. Again, all for what purpose? To say you are offsetting tax cuts for the very wealthy.

If anybody doubts this does not cost American producers and manufacturers, let's just look back to the first Trump administration, where there was a mini version of this tariff war, a much smaller one, and even that smaller one cost the American taxpayers dearly because what happened was, when President Trump in his first term imposed tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States, China responded. They slapped on tariffs to American exports, especially American agricultural exports--wheat, soybeans. What did that mean? Again, it is simple math that those American producers sold fewer goods in China, and it cost them.

What did President Trump do then? He actually used a big taxpayer subsidy--it was around $28 billion--to pay off American farmers who had been hurt by his mini trade war at that time. Well, the best way not to hurt American farmers is to not slap on these tariffs in the first place, which inevitably invites retaliation.

Why should the American taxpayer have to foot the bill for all this? The last time, this was a mini trade war. Now he has taken this worldwide. Imagine if you had to cover the costs for the losses of every American business through some taxpayer subsidy. I mean, it would be just a huge number. So here we have the President of the United States wreaking havoc on the American economy--again, to pay for tax cuts for the very rich.

You know, I had some very small businesses in my State of Maryland writing to me about some of these costs that they are facing. Here is one I got just a couple of weeks ago. This is from, again, a very small business in Greenbelt, MD. This is a person who has a small hand-dyed cotton/yarn business.

She writes:

Most of my yarns are imported and can't easily be

replicated by domestic suppliers. In 2 weeks, I will receive

my first custom-blend yarn from Peru, which has taken me and

the mill the better part of a year to develop. The 10-percent

tariff on Peru imposed with no warning and no provocation

means this yarn will suddenly cost me about a mortgage

payment extra. Several of my existing yarns will also cost 10

to 25 percent more now when I go to reorder, thanks to the

Canadian and EU tariffs. This cuts severely into my already

tight margins.

Again, this woman is talking about cutting losses, cutting her income, and missing a mortgage payment. This is a very small business.

Here is another letter:

My daughter and I own a greeting card and paper packaging

distribution company. It is our 45th year in business. We

employ some 20 Baltimore City and County residents and have

100-plus independent sales reps throughout the United States

selling our product.

While most of our products are manufactured in the UK and

the European Union, 20 to 25 percent of our product, which is

designed in the UK, is manufactured in China. And because of

the first Trump administration, the cost of that went way up.

But now, with this new round, it brings the total sales tax

cost, the tariff on this small business, to 45 percent, with

10-percent increases each month.

This person says they have 20 people, 50 people. They are going to lay off about 10 percent of their employees if this happens. And it just did happen.

So this imposes real harm and costs on the American people.

As I say, it is a double whammy. First, it is a national sales tax, and so American consumers pay more. And then, American businesses get socked because they can no longer export as many of their goods and products overseas.

Let's look at another way that Senate Republicans want to pay for this tax cut for the very rich and the big corporations, and that is by cutting Medicaid. All you have to do is look at the instructions in the House budget resolution, which will be part of what is considered here today. And as the Congressional Budget Office has told all of us that the only way to find the $880 billion that they want to cut under

the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is to come after Medicaid. I mean, it is just mathematically impossible to do it otherwise.

So while Donald Trump said he ``loves and cherishes'' Medicaid, that is not what they are actually doing.

In addition to taking direct hits at Medicaid--and we have discussed the impact of that on the floor of the Senate at length, and we will discuss them at greater length--we also see Elon Musk and Donald Trump going after the people who administer Medicaid and Medicare benefits.

In fact, just last week, they fired at least 300 civil servants at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. They provide and deliver those healthcare benefits to 160 million Americans across our country.

I want to read just one message from one of those fired civil servants. I just got this letter on Monday:

Today, my life was changed so swiftly I can barely catch my

breath to consider what I have now lost. Just wanted to share

my story after 44 years of public service (30 in the military

and 14 in the federal government). I was proudly serving the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and I got a letter today

ending my public service--cold and hard.

It said--and she quoted:

``Thanks for your service . . . we basically don't need you

anymore.''

This is to a disabled veteran who loves her country and has been serving, as she writes, ``since I was 18 years old.''

I have raised my right hand more times than I can remember.

. . . I want my story out there to help others. . . . Federal

workers and especially Veterans don't deserve this treatment.

No one does.

That is a story we are hearing across the Federal Government--people fired indiscriminately based on a big lie. Many of these people, just to add insult to injury, got letters saying they were being fired for poor performance, only to find out that they had actually received glowing performance reviews, and, in many cases, they had been recently promoted based on their merit.

That is not only happening at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid-- again, these are the people who helped deliver those benefits. You know, benefits don't do much for you if the people who deliver them and administer them are gone.

Of course, that is what is happening at the Social Security Administration as well. At the Social Security Administration, they came in. They randomly, indiscriminately fired a lot of people. And now reports indicate they want to get rid of over 8,000 more folks at the Social Security Administration. These are the folks who deliver Social Security benefits to 73 million Americans--1 in 6 Marylanders.

Social Security keeps 20 million Americans, including kids, out of poverty. We have 73 million people on Social Security. For 20 million of them, that is the difference between being in poverty or not being in poverty.

I should point out, this is not about government efficiency, as I said earlier. If you look at the 12,000 Federal employees who work at the Social Security Administration, which is in Baltimore--we are proud that they have their home there--they have been running the Social Security Administration for the past 90 years and have never missed a payment.

So when Secretary of Commerce Lutnick said, ``You know, I don't think Americans would miss 1 week of their Social Security payments. Only the fraudsters would feel that. They are the only people who would notice''--what a pile of garbage. He said his mother wouldn't notice. Well, you know, how many moms and dads have billionaire sons? That is the question.

I will tell you, 73 million Americans will notice. But that is the kind of attitude--the attitude--we are seeing from Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, and Donald Trump.

I see my colleagues are on the floor here, and so I am going to wrap up my remarks. But I will be speaking more in the coming days. I see both of my colleagues, the ranking member of the Finance Committee and Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota.

I will tell you, the proposal we are going to hear from the Republicans is to add $6 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years to pay for tax cuts for the rich. You know, if you really want to blow through the deficit like that, there are a lot of other more important things we could do for the country with that money.

We could save Social Security. Think about that. We could fund special education fully in our schools and finally meet those promises. We could expand Medicare to give seniors dental, vision, and hearing benefits--something that Senator Sanders from Vermont has been calling for, for a long time. We could expand the child tax credit.

If you want to blow through the deficit and debt by $6 trillion or $37 trillion over 30 years, we have a lot better uses for that money than tax cuts for rich people and big corporations.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today, following my colleague from Maine, to talk about S.J. Res. 37, which we believe will come up for a vote later this afternoon, possibly somewhere between 6 and 7 o'clock.

I am proud to have introduced this resolution a few weeks back, together with a group of bipartisan Senators, many of whom will take the floor this afternoon to speak about it.

Let me just first talk about the fact that this resolution is a little bit unusual in terms of Senate procedure. There are not many things that a single Senator can file and then be guaranteed a floor vote. In fact, there are only three or four such procedures. This resolution is filed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which was the act used by Trump to declare the Canadian emergency that is the subject of my resolution.

The IEEPA statute is an old statute. It has been around for quite a while. I will just state, at the outset, that IEEPA, the act that the President has used to declare an emergency and impose tariffs, is an act that was designed to be used against adversaries. Congress wanted to give the President tools to deal with adversaries--nations that were enemies, cartels, rogue states, and dictators.

IEEPA was not designed to be used against allies. IEEPA says nothing about tariffs. It does not say that the President's actions against adversaries should include tariffs.

The administration's use of this Emergency Powers Act to go against an ally is pretty unusual. It is not unprecedented. The President did it in the first term when he imposed IEEPA tariffs against both Canada and the EU. But it is important to know that this is generally a statute that was designed to counter adversaries.

I stand here strongly in the belief that Canada is not an adversary; they are an ally. Canada is not the 51st State; they are a sovereign nation. And Canada is not an emergency for the United States.

Are there differences of opinion between the United States and Canada? Sure, there are. It just so happens, in the trade space, we have a state-of-the-art trade deal negotiated by President Trump and his team, the USMCA, which was adopted by nearly a 90-to-10 vote in this body, that gives us the ability, when we have differences with this friend and ally, Canada, to work them out.

And it is unfortunate, in my view, that instead of going through the USMCA, we are using an act designed to counter adversaries to impose these tariffs.

I want to talk about tariffs. I want to talk about the President's rationale for imposing the tariffs, and then I want to talk about the importance of this resolution and the many stakeholders outside this body who are supporting S.J. Res. 37.

First, on tariffs, President Trump's aides have basically admitted that this is a sales tax--a new sales tax. The tariff revenue will hit everyday people by making the cost of their goods go up.

This is a CNN headline from a couple of days ago: ``Trump aide says tariffs will raise $6 trillion''--that is a reference to Peter Navarro--``which would be the largest tax hike in US history.''

To be fair, this is the total tariff effect, not just the Canada effect--Canada, China, Mexico, and potentially other nations. But what we are likely to see today with the tariff announcement is that it will be the largest tax hike in U.S. history.

Many have been writing about the challenges of tariffs and this tax hike.

From CNBC:

Consumer confidence in where the economy is headed hits a

12-year low.

This was an economy that was extremely strong just 2 months ago, on President Trump's Inauguration Day. It was a very, very strong economy, not a perfect economy. But since that time, we have seen volatility in the stock market. We have seen growing inflation. We have seen reducing consumer confidence. We have seen some suggestions of slowing economic growth--even negative economic growth from some. And that is due, in large part, to the prospect of this national sales tax--tariffs to the degree of $6 trillion--but also somewhat to the chaos about whether and when and how they will be implemented.

Other economists have also written. A recent article in the Washington

Post talks about the stock markets' grim view of tariff shenanigans:

Markets have plummeted since Trump announced new levies on

Canada, Mexico, and China, erasing all gains since his

election.

The tariffs are still likely to be economically

destructive: They will snarl global supply chains, raise

costs to consumers and cause layoffs in industries that

depend on imported inputs like steel.

This means more than just the additional pain for consumers

whipsawed by inflation, higher prices on imports and, now,

the possibility of recession.

Tariff shenanigans are shaking up the American economy, creating huge anxiety and hurting consumers and businesses.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal called the Trump tariff effort ``The Dumbest Trade War in History.''

The Wall Street Journal's point was a point I made earlier. Why use IEEPA, a statute designed to go after enemies, when we have a trade deal that President Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico? None of this is supposed to happen under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated and signed in his first term.

Again, I give the President huge credit for this. I believe the USMCA vote in the first term got 89 votes in this Chamber. That is hard on anything, much less a trade deal--what an accomplishment.

But the USMCA created dispute resolution mechanisms that would make imposition of tariffs unnecessary.

The U.S. willingness to ignore its treaty obligations, even

with friends, won't make other countries eager to do deals.

Maybe Mr. Trump will claim victory and pull back if he wins

some token concessions. But if a North American trade war

persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in

history.

I have given you challenges in the global economy and in the American economy that are happening because of the trade war. Let me now get specific on Virginia. I heard my colleague from Maine talk about who is affected in Maine.

In Virginia, I have been traveling around the State, talking to Virginians, and they are very, very worried about these Canadian tariffs. They are not worried in the abstract. They saw them in 2017, 2018, 2019. They know what happens with tariffs.

It is an unusual group of businesses in that it is big, small, medium size--it is everybody.

I have a bakery in Northern Virginia, Mom's Apple Pie. They have three locations. The owner, April--I see some nods. There are people who are Mom's Apple Pie fans. It is a great small business bakery. Their operations are in Leesburg, Occoquan, and Purcellville.

I was meeting recently with the owner, and she said: You have to do something about these Canadian tariffs.

I said: April, you have three small bakeries. Tell me how the Canadian tariffs hit you.

She said: Pie tins. All our aluminum pie tins come from Canada.

If you raise the price of a pie tin by 25 percent, the price of a pie goes up a bit. Nobody has to buy apple pies. When the price goes up, a whole lot of people will decide they are not going to buy apple pies. This is a classic small business that is affected by Canadian tariffs.

Let's go to the largest businesses.

We are experts at ship and sub building in Virginia. We manufacture the most sophisticated items that are made on the planet Earth--nuclear carriers and nuclear subs. Thirty-five percent of the steel that goes into ships and subs made for our Navy, for our military, comes from Canada. Sixty-five percent of the aluminum steel comes from the United States, but 35 percent comes from Canada.

I serve with the Presiding Officer on the Armed Services Committee. We already are having a hard time producing ships and subs on time, on budget. Take aluminum and steel and ratchet them up by 20 percent, and it is going to get even harder to defend the Nation and produce the ships and subs that we need.

Like Senator Collins talking about her ag sector, ag and forestry is still the biggest industry in Virginia. People think of it as high- tech. No, ag and forestry is still No. 1, and it is my farmers and foresters that are most concerned about the Canadian tariffs because they saw what happened last time.

The first thing that happens, you put a tariff on Canadian exports. Potash, the ingredient in agriculture fertilizer--80 percent of potash comes as an import into the United States. So that immediately goes up by 25 percent, according to what the President has said he is going to do. That hurts farmers very, very badly.

Second, there has never been a one-sided trade war in the history of the world. When one party puts a tariff on, the other side retaliates. In the first Trump administration, the retaliation was heavily against the ag sector.

My soybean farmers that were exporting soybeans couldn't export to markets that they were previously able to. My apple farmers who export apples to Canada couldn't do it to the same degree, and their exports dropped and their revenues dropped. And this is already a low-margin business.

My distillers and wineries and breweries--many of which find an important part of their revenue might be 10 percent or 15 percent or 25 percent in export markets to the EU, to Canada, to Mexico--suddenly find that retaliatory tariffs price their products out of business.

I was with Dave Cuttino, the founder of Reservoir Distillery in Richmond, yesterday. He talked about the fact that, even before these tariffs have gone into effect, because President Trump announced them but then delayed them, there is an anger in the Canadian consumer: We don't want to buy American products if you are going to treat us this way.

He has been told by his distributors in the Alberta Province that there will be no American product put on any more shelves because: We are so furious at the way we are being treated in this.

Big Businesses, small businesses. Volvo Trucks is one of the largest manufacturers in Appalachian Virginia--in Dublin, VA. They manufacture all of the Volvo over-the-road trucks that you see anywhere in North America. They export significantly--significantly--to Canada and Mexico. They also import source materials from Canada and Mexico. The tariffs will increase the cost of their inputs, driving the price of their trucks up, making those trucks less competitive.

We have a lot of businesses in Virginia that have operations on both sides of the border. BWXT in Lynchburg is the Nation's premier producer of nuclear reactors for ships and subs, as well as nuclear reactors for other possibilities. They have operations in Canada, and they shift product back and forth across the line in ways where the tariffs will make it more expensive.

So the Virginia effect--and let's be clear, there is another one the Senator talked about: tourism. We rely on tourism in Virginia. We are a Top Ten tourism State, and we have a lot of Canadian tourists. In fact, Canadians are among the most frequent visitors to Virginia Beach. To our pristine, wonderful beachfront community, Canada tourism is strong. Canadian tourism to the United States--air reservations from Canadians coming to the United States are down by 75 percent because of the feeling that they are not being treated fairly. They are looking at the United States, an ally, and they are saying: Why us?

So there is an effect on the economy--the big picture--on the stock market, inflation, at the kitchen table, the cost of groceries. Building supplies come from Canada--a lot of lumber. Housing is already too expensive. A tariff on lumber coming in from Canada is just going to drive up the cost of any home renovation project or new home construction. There are tariffs on Canadian automobiles. A lot of the U.S.-plated automobiles are made--or at least products are significantly made--in Canada. Those prices will go up. So, from the kitchen table of a family to our Nation's larger shipbuilders, these tariff shenanigans pose a huge economic risk.

I go back to a point that was raised in the Wall Street Journal article: Why not use the USMCA? Why not use the USMCA? President Trump negotiated it. It was a success. It was something that succeeded in a bipartisan way. There have been discussions about whether, after 5 or 6 years, the USMCA should be renegotiated. I think that is fine. We renegotiated NAFTA. President Trump made it better. If 5 or 6 years of operating under USMCA has taught us ways it can be made better, that is fine, too, but when you establish a treaty with an ally that includes

a dispute resolution mechanism, why not use that mechanism instead of reaching for a statute that was designed to punish an adversary and putting massive sales taxes on goods that will make it harder for Americans to economically thrive?

So that does raise the question, If the USMCA is available and if there are differences of opinion on trade, why is the President imposing tariffs and using an emergency declaration rather than using the USMCA? I want to get to that next.

The President has said there is one reason he is doing this. There is one reason for the emergency, for labeling Canada through this use of emergency power as an ``adversary,'' and the reason is fentanyl-- fentanyl. No one in this Chamber and no one here now or any of the 100 Senators would dispute that fentanyl is a massive problem and, indeed, an emergency. The opioid overdose deaths in my State and in Alabama--in all States--heartbreaking; the stories of families who lost their loved ones--heartbreaking. I was in Roanoke earlier this morning with an ESPN reporter who was a gymnast and now works at ESPN, Lauren Keller. Lauren is from Roanoke, VA. She was in her freshman year at Rutgers when she got the call that her mother, at age 45, had died. Her dad called her. She went to the airport. She flew home. By the time she landed in Roanoke, her dad had died as well. Both overdosed on OxyContin, an opioid-based pain medication.

So is fentanyl a problem? Yes. Is it an emergency? Yes. Is substance use disorder generally an emergency? Yes, of course it is. That is why we passed the HALT Fentanyl Act just about 2 weeks ago in this Chamber--a big bipartisan vote. That is why we are putting budgetary resources into interdiction technology. That is why Senator Ernst and I got a provision in the Defense bill 2 years ago to require more cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican military on fentanyl interdiction.

It is an emergency, but fentanyl is not a Canadian emergency. Calling it a Canadian emergency and putting the same tariffs on Canadian products as we put on Mexican and Canadian products is an invented emergency, not a real emergency. And guess what. The Trump administration agrees with me on this. Even though the President has declared a Canadian fentanyl emergency, there is a Biblical statement, I think, about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

One of the President's key intelligence advisers Tulsi Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, and she presented to the Intel Committee an annual assessment required of her office. It is called the ``Annual Threat Assessment.'' It looks at every threat that the United States is under globally. Who is threatening us militarily? Who is threatening us with fentanyl? Who is threatening us with cyber attacks? Who is threatening us with misinformation?

As she presented the report to the committee, one of my colleagues, Senator Heinrich of New Mexico, looked through the report and noticed that Canada wasn't in the report. Canada was not even mentioned as a threat in the Trump administration's first ``Annual Threat Assessment.'' There was even a section in the report specifically about fentanyl, and Canada wasn't mentioned.

So my colleague asked the DNI: I don't see Canada mentioned. Canada is not mentioned as a threat. It is not even mentioned as a threat in fentanyl.

And her testimony at the committee was: You are right. The fentanyl threat is a China and Mexico threat; it is not a Canada threat.

So is there a fentanyl emergency? Yes, there is. Should action be taken to stop it? Yes, there should. Might that action even include looking at tariffs against China for sending precursor chemicals into the United States or into Mexico to be manufactured into fentanyl? It is a fair question. I haven't challenged the China tariffs. Should Mexico be subject to some tough action, possibly including tariffs, because of their role in allowing so much fentanyl to come into the United States? It is a very fair question. That is why I haven't challenged the Mexico tariffs. But even the Trump administration, in their presentation to the Intel Committee, said that Canada was not a fentanyl threat.

This is an article from The Globe and Mail, which is the largest daily newspaper in Canada, published in Toronto from last week:

In the aftermath of Tulsi Gabbard's testimony, Canada not

mentioned in U.S. threat assessment summary of fentanyl

crisis.

There is a fentanyl emergency, but it is not Canada. So let's dig into this a little bit further.

In 2024, let me tell you how much fentanyl was seized at the southern border of the United States. It is slightly over 21,000 pounds of fentanyl--devastating, devastating. How about fentanyl seized coming from Canada into the United States--half of that? a quarter of that? a 10th of it? It is about \1/2\, 000th of it. The estimates have been-- although there is a new report that is just coming out, as I am speaking on the floor, from The Globe and Mail, saying even these estimates are high--21,000 pounds from Mexico and 43 pounds from Canada in the entire year of 2024.

The Toronto Globe and Mail is doing an assessment of the 43 pounds, and here is what they found: that the 43 pounds is an overstatement. The 43 pounds includes fentanyl interdicted in some northern cities like Spokane, WA, and those were put on the Canadian interdiction stat even though, when we have dug into it, what we have discovered is, even though Spokane is pretty far north, that fentanyl didn't come in from Canada; it came in from Mexico, and all the people who were arrested as the fentanyl was interdicted in these northern cities were connected to Mexican cartels.

So this gives some scale: 21,000 to 43 pounds, and the 43 pounds is dramatically overestimated. We think this actual number may be down in a very, very few pounds. It is not an emergency from Canada, and it is certainly not an emergency that would justify treating Canadian products with exactly the same tariff that we would levy on products from Mexico and from China.

I think that allies are really important, and I think it is wrong to call an ally an adversary. Here is an article that appeared in the AP a little bit ago that I just want to read into the Record: ``A beloved library that united the U.S. and Canada faces new border restrictions'' because of the President's emergency declaration. This appeared in the Associated Press on March 26, just last week. Let me just read this into the Record.

For Allyson Howell, her hometown library is more than just

a place to borrow a book; it's also a unique space where

different cultures from the U.S. and Canada have mingled and

developed ties for more than a century.

Howell and others fear that could change under a new

regulation implemented by President Donald Trump's

administration as tensions continue to rise between the two

countries.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the line

between Howell's village of Derby Line, VT, and the town of

Stanstead, Quebec. The entrance to the imposing [brick-style]

and stone building is on the U.S. side, but an informal

agreement between the two countries has allowed Canadians to

enter [the library] without a passport.

Canadians cross the border on a sidewalk leading directly

to the library that is monitored by the [USCBP]. The nearest

border checkpoint is not within eyesight of the building.

Inside the library, there is a line on the floor marking

the international border, though residents of both countries

have been able to move freely among the stacks.

But since Tuesday, the only Canadian visitors able to enter

on the U.S. side have been cardholders and library [staff].

All others have had to use an emergency exit on the Canadian

side. Starting October 1, all Canadians will have to enter

from their side of the border or pass through a security

checkpoint on the U.S. side. It's a big change from the honor

system arrangement the two countries have always used, users

of the library said.

``This feels like . . . one more step of building this

chasm between these . . . nations,'' said Howell, who

described the library as ``really special'' and a ``real

symbol'' of international cooperation.

Derby Line is a village of . . . 700 people within the town

of Derby, located in the rural Northeast Kingdom section of

Vermont. Stanstead is a town of about 3,000 residents.

Like many rural border communities in the U.S. and Canada,

their economies and cultures are linked. But the ties have

become strained under [President] Trump, who has advanced

tariffs and tightened border protections in some communities

that [rely upon one another].

Why do this? Why do this?

Like President Trump, I think it is right to say, ``America first,'' but I don't want America alone. I don't want an America pushing aside its longstanding allies who have stood with us. Canada stood with us on 9/11. Canada has stood side by side with U.S. troops in every war we have been in. They have fought with our troops. They have bled with our troops. They have died with our troops in every war since the War of 1812. Yet we are going to treat them like an enemy, and we are going to make them go through an emergency exit through a library.

This calls up to my mind memories that I have of a South, when I was born, where a certain kind of people couldn't go in the same doors as other kinds of people. This is no way to treat an ally. This is no way to treat a friend.

As I conclude--I see other colleagues here, ready to speak--I am happy to say that the S.J. Res. 37 has picked up the support of a whole lot of people who I think are pretty important people outside this Chamber. This morning, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weighed in, in support of S.J. Res. 37. I am going to read from the letter that they have sent to Senators:

[T]he tariffs being imposed on imports from Canada and

Mexico, America's two top trading partners, are inflicting

real harm on American workers, companies, and farmers.

Tariffs are taxes--paid by Americans--and they will quickly

increase prices at a time when many are struggling with the

cost of living. These import taxes are also harming U.S.

manufacturers and drawing retaliatory duties, worsening their

impact on our economy. [Further], these tariffs are at odds

with commitments the United States made in the landmark

USMCA, which was negotiated by the first Trump

administration.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports S.J. Res. 37, and they join a number of other organizations: the AFL-CIO. That is threading a needle when I get the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the same page on a matter of such importance. We have the United Steelworkers; the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers; the National Retail Federation. Retailers don't want to see costs of products increase; North America's Building Trades Unions; Sheet Metal Workers; the U.S. Conference of Mayors; Foreign Policy for America; the National Taxpayers Union. Tariffs are a tax; and Advancing American Freedom, a think tank that was established by former Vice President Mike Pence. They all have weighed in to support S.J. Res. 37. Tariffs are a tax. Tariffs will hurt our families. Canada is not an enemy.

Let's act together to fight fentanyl. We can do that. We have done that. We have shown it with the HALT Fentanyl that we passed 2 weeks ago. Let's not label an ally as an enemy. Let's not impose punishing costs on American families at a time they can't afford it. Let's not hurt American small businesses. Let's not make our national security investments and ships and subs more expensive.

I earnestly request that colleagues support S.J. 37 when we vote on it later today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the budget that we are debating really comes down to one simple idea: the massive transfer of wealth and resources from the poor and the middle class to the ultrawealthy.

What is being proposed in the Senate right now is stunning in its scope. We are talking about a piece of legislation that has such deep cuts to Medicaid--this is the program that insures 24 percent of American families. One-quarter of Americans get their health insurance from Medicaid. You don't know it as Medicaid because it is called something different in each State. In Connecticut, it is called HUSKY. In Wisconsin, it is called BadgerCare. But in every State, about a quarter of the population gets their insurance through a Medicaid- funded program. Most of those folks are working full time, but for one reason or another, that is where they get their insurance.

You are talking about kicking millions of people off of that program--and for what? For what? To rack up the biggest bill ever on the credit card of the middle class--an explosion in debt--but also to fund a tax cut for the fabulously wealthy.

This is the 2017 tax cut, which is essentially going to be mirrored, we believe, by this tax cut. The top 1 percent of earners got tax cuts 852 times bigger than working families in America. We don't know the final shape of this tax cut, but it won't look fundamentally different from that. This is a really bad time to be a working mom or dad in America.

This week, we are passing, apparently, a massive cut in healthcare benefits for working families in order to pad the pockets of the wealthy.

We are also dealing with the Trump tariff plan, which has been a ``Keystone Cops''-like rollout that will ultimately raise prices for every single American.

Tariffs can work as part of a coordinated, thoughtful approach to trying to rebuild American industry, but they only work when you partner those tariffs together with industrial policy, incentives to help promote the industry that you are trying to punish when the products come from abroad.

I am not reflexively opposed to the use of tariffs, but this use of tariffs is bananas because it is not paired with any domestic industrial policy, meaning that you are just going to get the downside--the massive increase in costs for consumers--without the upside, which is job creation in the United States of America.

So before I get to the insult to middle-class families that will come through the budget, let's just talk about what is going to happen with these tariffs.

We know how it is going to work because we saw how tariffs worked in Trump's first term. Let me just take one specific example. In Trump's first term, he proposed a 20-percent escalating tariff on washing machines. The idea was, you know, we want washing machines to be made in the United States instead of outside of the United States, but because he didn't pair that together with any more comprehensive help for the washing machine industry in the United States, it was only the downside.

It was only the downside not just because of the lack of a comprehensive policy but also because there were no checks on the corporations that saw the tariffs as a means to gouge consumers. You have to also partner tariffs together with some accountability for corporations--for the greedy corporations that get wide-eyed when they see the tariffs and realize, well, this is an opportunity to not just pass the tariff along but to jack up the price a little bit more and say it was all because of the tariffs.

Here is what happened on washing machines. So you have a 20-percent escalating tariff. We have the data. We saw what happened. The economic data tells us that the washing machine companies passed along the 20- percent tariff and then padded the price increase sometimes by 15 percent, sometimes by 50 percent. But it is worse than that. The price increase was not just for imported washing machines; they also increased the price of the domestic washing machines that weren't subject to the tariff. Why not? Why not? The Trump administration won't hold us accountable for that. Nobody really looks to see whether the washing machine was made in America or not. We will just raise the price on everything.

What do you buy when you buy a washing machine as well? A dryer. So guess what happens. Even though dryers weren't subject to the tariff, the price got jacked up on the dryers as well. Dryers went up by 50 percent sometimes in cost--15 percent, 20 percent. All of a sudden, prices went up for everything.

Now, Trump collected a bunch of money in tariffs--$80 billion--but that was literally just middle-class people paying the additional amount to the company and the company passing it along to the government. So it was just a tax. It was just a tax.

OK. Maybe you could live with that if it revitalized the domestic washing machine industry, if there were tens of thousands of people going back to jobs in that industry, but that didn't happen. I think there were one or two domestic washing machine factories that opened up, and Trump, of course, made a big deal. Do you know how many jobs it was in total? Less than 2,000 jobs. Less than 2,000 jobs were created for a tariff that jacked up costs for every American and resulted in $80 billion of middle-class taxes being collected by the government. That works out to about $800,000 per job.

So that is what is coming at scale, not just on washing machines but on virtually every consumer product: a big price increase, little to no domestic job creation, all the pain on the middle class.

Tariffs can work, but this is not the way that they work.

So this week, Senate Republicans, instead of trying to help consumers deal with the impact of these tariffs--I mean, we are talking about huge price increases coming for American families, and this week, we could be sitting here, voting for bills that cancel the tariffs or try to help middle-class families in another way. We are doing exactly the opposite. Instead of helping families deal with the impact of the tariffs, instead of holding the greedy corporations in check as they get ready to gouge consumers, we are debating a bill that would cut almost $1 trillion out of Medicaid--the program that provides insurance for a quarter of Americans. That will result in raising healthcare costs for tens of millions of Americans.

We are also talking about giving a massive tax break to the billionaire CEOs of the companies that are going to be doing the price gouging and to the companies themselves. That is outrageous. That is outrageous.

If you were a regular, ordinary American, what you are being told is that you are going to have to pay huge new price increases on everything you buy. You are going to have your healthcare disappear, and corporate profits and take-home pay for CEOs are going to skyrocket. Who is asking for that? What American is asking for prices to go up, my healthcare to be cut, and billionaires to get a big tax break?

Let's start talking about these tax cuts, OK? They are at the center of this bill. Everything in the Trump administration is about a simple story: How do I help my Mar-a-Lago billionaire friends?

So this is the old tax cut because we don't know all of the details of the new one. If you look at sort of the poorest Americans versus the richest Americans, the tax cut is 852 times bigger.

But here is a back-of-the-napkin analysis of what this new tax cut is likely to look like, if it is, basically, formed like the old one. Instead of taking the poorest Americans versus the richest Americans-- instead--let's just look at, sort of, the bottom 60 percent of income earners in this country. That is roughly about everybody who makes $90,000 or less. So that is a lot of your neighbors. Right? I mean, $90,000 is an income that is familiar to a lot of Americans.

So under this new tax cut, if it looks like the old one--and that is the signal that we get--households in the top 1 percent are going to get an average tax cut that is 120 times bigger than the tax cut given to people who are making $90,000 or less. So that is 152 times bigger than the very poor.

But let's take somebody who is making $60,000. The richest 1 percent are going to get a tax cut that is 120 times bigger. How is that fair?

OK, now, you would say: Well, that is because they make a lot more money; so, of course, they are going to get a bigger tax cut.

But let's do the math a different way.

As a share of after-tax income, the tax cuts for the top are still more than triple the total value of the tax cut received for people with incomes in the bottom 60 percent. So even when you adjust for the fact that they are making more money, they are still getting a tax cut whose value is three times bigger than folks who are making a middle income in this country.

And why? Does anybody believe in trickle-down economics anymore? It has been completed discredited.

Again, we have the 2017 tax cuts as evidence. Donald Trump touted out a big promise. He said: These tax cuts for corporations and billionaires and millionaires, they will trickle down to everybody else, and I will tell you the number. The average worker will get a $4,000 salary increase.

That was the promise. The money will trickle down. The corporations will be so generous--so generous--that they will take their giant tax cut, bigger than they even asked for--Senator Whitehouse just showed you the chart where corporations have gone from providing 30 percent of American tax revenue down to 10 percent of American tax revenue--what a great deal for corporations.

OK. That is a nice chart. That makes sense if the corporations are taking their lower tax liability and turning it around into wages. Instead, they are not. They are keeping it for themselves, for their executives, for their top shareholders.

The analysis shows that that promised $4,000 salary increase as a result of the tax cuts, it wasn't $4,000. It wasn't $2,000. It wasn't $1,000. It wasn't $100. It was zero because all of that money-- virtually all of this money--ended up getting gobbled up by the corporations, mainly for stock buybacks. It didn't go to increased compensation for their employees.

So it is not to raise wages. I guess it is just to make rich people richer.

From 2017, when that tax cut passed--that first Trump tax cut passed--until 2023, Elon Musk's wealth grew by 1,222 percent. I don't even know what that looks like. Jeff Bezos' grew by 96 percent, Zuckerberg's by 50 percent, and Rupert Murdoch's by 50. I use those names because those were the billionaires who were at Trump's inauguration, cheerleading him into office because they know that another big tax cut for their company and for them personally is coming.

I will admit to you, median income overall grew from 2017 to 2023. So everybody in the country was making more in 2023 than they were making in 2017. But median income was not growing by 50 percent, 96 percent, or 1,222 percent.

So this is a massive tax cut, the vast majority of it going to the very, very wealthy.

But what makes it even harder to understand is what Senator Whitehouse laid out for you. Most of this is just going on your credit card. Most of this is just being borrowed. And that has a consequence-- the national debt potentially doubling as a result of this massive tax cut for the very, very wealthy.

It is just so heartbreaking, the hypocrisy. I mean, I could string together a 24-hour-long video of my Republican colleagues talking ad nauseam about the danger of debt, the rising deficit.

We can't spend money on kids. We can't spend money on climate. We can't spend money on schools. We can't help people go to college. No, no, no, we can't do any of that. We can't do any of that because of the deficit.

Yet when it comes to a billionaire tax cut, a corporate tax cut, we are going to potentially double the debt. Nobody is caring about the debt. In fact, they are rigging the rules of the Senate. They are breaking the rules of the Senate just so they can get away with a massive increase in debt and deficit.

But somewhere along the line, they said: Well, do you know what? We can't borrow the whole thing. We have got to make it look like we are cutting some spending. So let's cut some spending to make it at least look like it is not all borrowed. But let's make sure that the spending we are cutting only hurts poor people and the middle class because God forbid we can cut spending that helps the rich or the affluent. God forbid we take away some of the tax breaks that help them.

So where are the cuts coming? Medicaid. Eighty percent of the cuts are Medicaid--$880 billion in the House bill, a similar amount, cutting Medicaid.

Medicaid, as I said, is the program that insures 24 percent of Americans. At least two-thirds of those are working--working full time. They just don't have health insurance through their employer. So they have to get it through Medicaid.

So when Republicans decided that they couldn't borrow the whole thing--like, we will double the national debt, but we are not going to triple the national debt--they targeted the cuts to hurt the middle class and poor people.

So I just want to end by telling you what this means in realtime. I don't actually know what it means to give billionaires another $50,000 in tax breaks. I really don't know what that means. I don't know what that life is like. I don't know what it is like to have seven houses and four yachts. I don't know what a billionaire does with an extra $50,000. I can't actually explain that to you. I don't understand that kind of rapacious greed.

What I do know is what happens to poor people, the people who live in my neighborhood in the south end of Hartford, when they lose their Medicaid.

Linda lives in Sherman, CT, a small town in western Connecticut. Following the economic downturn in 2008, Linda had trouble finding work. And that was tough for her because she is a cancer survivor. She had high healthcare expenses, and she needed work.

She was underemployed. She worked in plant nurseries and agriculture. Her husband, at the same time, lost his job as an auto mechanic. They lost their healthcare insurance.

But then, when the Affordable Care Act passed, Medicaid was expanded. More people were made eligible for Medicaid, and in 2010, she was able to sign up for Medicaid.

She said:

I had so much anxiety [all the time] about how to pay for

healthcare. We were going through all of our money, and we

[just] thought, ``this isn't right, people shouldn't have to

worry about [just] being basically healthy.''

But once she got healthcare, she was able to restart her life. Linda went back to school because now she had healthcare. She got a new degree. She found a job teaching agriculture at a local high school. But that program didn't provide healthcare. So she still needed that Medicaid.

``Medicaid,'' she says, just ``provides such a baseline for society. It [allowed me to maintain] my health so that I was able to continue working.''

The Medicaid cuts that they are talking about will destroy Medicaid expansion. In fact, some States will automatically cancel the Medicaid expansion program when these cuts are made, meaning that people like Linda all across the country are going to lose their healthcare. For what? For a massive tax cut for the wealthy.

Emily Granelli is a worker at one of Connecticut's biggest behavioral health and substance abuse providers. So every day she is talking to people who rely on Medicaid so that they can get help for their mental health disorder or their substance abuse disorder. And let's be honest. We all have somebody in our life who has a serious mental illness or has struggled with substance abuse. So you know these people.

She wrote me a letter talking about the fact that the conversations in their therapy groups in the last month have fundamentally changed. They are actually not doing therapy any longer for mental illness or substance abuse. They are now doing therapy for the anxiety all these people have knowing they are about to lose their health insurance.

One case manager told me--she writes that she was working with a client to find housing. The client now just wants to stop looking because she feels like there is no point because she is going to lose her Medicaid. Republicans are going to strip her Medicaid from her. She won't be able to get her medication and services. She feels hopeless.

A clinician told me about an hourlong session she had the day before. Seventy-five percent of it was focused on the client's fear of losing her

benefits and what that would mean for her and all the other clients. She shared with me that if there was a way for her to leave the country right now, she would.

At this provider, 35 percent of their clients would likely lose access to mental illness and substance abuse services if these cuts go through.

What are we doing? Why are we doing this? Why are we choosing--why are my colleagues choosing--to destroy healthcare for millions of Americans in order to pass a tax cut that basically helps corporations and billionaires and millionaires? It is fundamentally immoral.

I have to believe, like in 2017, when Republicans were trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act, which insured 20 million Americans, that there are a handful of Republicans who know that this isn't right, who maybe aren't ready to stop it today--tonight's vote isn't the final vote--but might be willing to stand up to this thievery before it is too late.

The people of this country who are getting killed by higher prices that are coming because of the tariffs and are going to be hurt by these Medicaid cuts and are going to be furious when the rich become richer at their expense, they are counting on just a small handful of my Republican colleagues to realize right from wrong.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Senator Whitehouse, first of all, for all the work you have put into passing that legislation, which has given access to millions of people across the country who are struggling with addiction and recovery access to services.

Again, I said what I said in my underlying remarks. There is not a single Member of the Senate who doesn't have a close family member or a friend who has struggled or is struggling with addiction. This is a nonpartisan, apolitical problem. Addiction doesn't care if you are left, right, Republican, or Democrat.

We did come together around funding these programs. So it is hard to understand--it is heartbreaking--that I am telling you the story of one of Connecticut's biggest addiction treatment providers, and they are telling us that if these cuts go through fully, one-third of their clients will lose access to some or all of their services.

And to your point in your initial speech, Senator Whitehouse, I mean, maybe I could understand if we were deciding to cut funding for addiction treatment because we had some other really important priority that helped regular people--like if we said: Do you know what? There is a housing crisis in this country. Right now, we are going to have to borrow money from addiction treatment in order to make sure that people get housed. Or, you know, our schools are underfunded and teachers need to be paid more. And, OK, it is really hard to cut funding from addiction treatment centers, but at least we will get better education for our kids. That is not what we are doing. We are cutting funds for people struggling with addiction who get served by programs that we agree are important in order to fund a tax cut for corporations and super, superrich people. That is why this is fundamentally immoral.

I would.

Right.

It is thievery masked by a bogus economic argument that says the money will eventually find its way down to everybody else. That is not true. That has never been true. In fact, the opposite is often true.

The billionaire class is sometimes referred to as sort of citizens of everywhere, right. They are global citizens. They globe-trot from homes in the United States and Europe and the islands. But that is also where their money ends up going as well.

It used to be that the richest guy in your community was investing only in your community, but today, when we pad the pockets of the uberwealthy, that money either does not get spent or it ultimately gets delivered to investments that flow into economies all over the world. These tax cuts don't end up back in America. To the extent the money gets spent anywhere, it gets spent in international index funds.

So the theory of the case--which has always been cover for simply delivering more and more excessive resources to the very, very wealthy--has never worked, but it works even less now when, in a global international economy, the very, very wealthy have options to invest in the United States or, often, for higher returns, invest somewhere else.

I thank the Senator for the question. Listen, I read it as just a different kind of thievery.

So what we are talking about here is this massive thievery from Medicaid recipients so that we can pass along this big tax break for folks that don't need it. But my sense is that the billionaire and investment and Wall Street class is really upset that there are still a few remaining government programs that they haven't gotten their hands on, that they haven't operationalized in a way to make themselves money.

They have had their eyes on Social Security for decades. I remember George Bush proposing privatizing Social Security, which is essentially just taking that big lump of money and handing it to the investment managers so that they can skim some money off the top.

They also looked at schools the same way, I think, Senator Whitehouse. They have been discrediting public education to the point where now they don't think the Department of Education needs to exist. And why? Why? Because they ultimately want to do the same thing for our public schools. They want to privatize our elementary schools, our middle schools, and our high schools so that they can have private equity funds owning the schools, providing some form of education but just seeing our kids as a source of profit.

So you can tell me if I am wrong about this, but my sense is that the theft happens in all sorts of different ways: sometimes in just a transfer--Medicaid recipients losing, billionaires winning--but sometimes by taking government programs and turning them--instead of something that tries to work for the common good, as a program that just gets turned into a vehicle for profit for the very, very wealthy.

Sure.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1977 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, so we have learned that the Republicans think that it is essential to blow up the deficit and debt in order to allow people making $100 million a year to get a tax cut.

But what about a half a billion dollars? Do you think it is fair to kick millions of people off their healthcare--that is what your Medicaid cuts are going to do--so that you can give a tax cut to somebody who makes $500 million?

Just a little perspective: If you make a half a billion dollars, you have just enough to afford the essentials--a six-bedroom house, three vacation homes, five luxury cars, a yacht with a full staff, and--good news--you have just a little bit left over, $499 million a year.

It is immoral to kick people off of their healthcare in order to give a handout to somebody who has that kind of wealth. This amendment gives the Republicans a chance to do the right thing: no blowing a giant hole in our budget, no more massive debt in order to help people who are making a half a billion dollars a year.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a visual aid.

Mr. President, families lose, billionaires win. That is the Republican plan. The Republican plan slashes $2 trillion for the programs families depend on to thrive in order to give more tax giveaways to the very richest Americans.

Families lose--$2 trillion in core programs slashed--to deliver another $2 trillion to the richest Americans. That is a terrible plan. How about families thrive? How about billionaires pay their fair share? Now, there is a good plan we ought to be all able to get behind. But there is even more that is wrong with this Republican plan.

We found out yesterday a new estimate of the cost of their plan in new debt over the next 10 years: $7 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t,'' trillion dollars--of unpaid-for tax cuts with most of it going to the richest Americans.

But there is even more bad news because they want to extend that deficit, debt-creating machine into the future, and CBO tells us that that will cost $37 trillion, at a minimum, in new debt--$37 trillion. Well, that is awfully hard to get your hands around, $37 trillion in new debt.

But there is even more bad news. They want to tell the American public their plan produces no new debt. They have this new version of the world in which they simply wave away the debt and say, ``pretend it didn't exist.''

It is called magic math. And it works like this: You sign a lease for a house. You are going to rent a house for a year. It costs $2,000 a month. It costs $24,000 a year. And at the end of the lease, you decide to renew it, but you tell your spouse: Hey, honey, it doesn't cost an additional dime.

Well, that is what my Republican colleagues are doing. They are establishing, not just new tax giveaways, but they are extending, creating law that renews the lease on old giveaways, which will cost that additional $37 trillion, and then saying: Don't worry, honey, it won't cost a dime.

Are the American people so out of touch that they can't detect the lie in that? I don't think so.

And are my Republican colleagues so out of touch that they really want to try to deceive the American people in this manner? I don't think so.

So colleagues across the aisle, let's have integrity in what this plan will do and at least be honest about what we tell the American people. The American people don't want the smoke and mirrors. They don't want the magic math gimmick. They want honesty about what this bill will do and what it will cost--what it will cost in terms of programs, what it will cost in terms of changes in tax law.

You know, folks back home, they say: Billionaires? They can take care of themselves. Just what they earn on their existing investments is enough to float a family on the yacht for the rest of eternity. Why are we doing a bill that takes away from core healthcare, housing, and education programs for families to add more wealth to the billionaires?

With this one bill alone, Republicans are giving 22 trillion to the wealthiest

10 percent of Americans, while the bottom 10 percent get enough to buy a cup of coffee.

Here is a cup of coffee. Well, there is no coffee in it. But think of this as a cup of coffee.

Now, does the Republican plan for that bottom 40 percent--does it pay for a cup of coffee a day? No. A cup of coffee a week? No. A cup of coffee a month? No. You get one cup of coffee for the entire year--$6. That is the estimate of what the bottom 40 percent get with the Republican plan--one cup of coffee for the entire year.

So to the 40 percent of Americans who are striving to get on their feet, this is what the Republican proposal is for you. While they are giving the top 0.1 percent over $300,000 a year a person, they are giving you one cup of coffee. Don't drink it all in one place. Take a little sip each day of the year because that is all you get.

Our plan is different. Democrats are fighting for families. We are fighting for healthcare, for Medicaid. We are fighting for healthcare because it is a foundation on which families thrive. We are fighting for education because it is a foundation on which families thrive. We are fighting for housing--affordable housing--because it is a foundation for families to thrive.

That is the plan: Families thrive, and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.

How did we get to this point?

Let's turn the clock back to 1974. Let's go through a little time machine, back to 1974. At that point, Democrats and Republicans came together and established a new budget process, called the Budget and Impoundment Control Act, because they were so concerned about deficits and concerned about President Nixon impounding funds. So they said: We have to rectify these soaring deficits.

And so they said, three things--three pillars: Well, first we will create a fast track--a fast track--a filibuster-free pathway to reduced deficits. And even Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the national defender of the filibuster, agreed. All 100 Senators voted for this bill--one purpose, decrease deficits. And that plan had these three pillars:

First, deficit reduction in the first 10 years--that was the core vote.

Second of all, no increase--no provision can create an increase in a deficit in any given year after the first 10 years.

And, third, we are going to use honest numbers--no more smoke and mirrors, no more gimmicks, no more trying to deceive the public, saying we have a responsible plan when it is creating massive additional debt.

Well, that plan--that 1974 plan--worked for 22 years. And along comes 1996. And in 1996, my Republican colleagues wanted to do a tax plan that involved huge giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, and they said: But we can't get 60 votes. We need Democratic help. We can't get that to the floor.

And they said: OK, let's do a nuclear option. Let's reinterpret that first pillar--must reduce deficits in the first 10 years--and say it can increase deficits.

In this very Chamber right here, it happened. The former Republican leader, Robert Dole, appointed his staff member Robert Dove to be Parliamentarian, and they reversed the plain language of the law in order to blow up deficits with tax giveaways to the wealthy.

Now, it turned out, that year, they didn't end up using that nuclear provision because they struck a different deal with President Clinton. But they did use it in 2001 and 2003. They did use it in 2017--all for massive tax cuts, the majority going to the richest Americans.

So this plan--this Republican plan--it isn't new. This plan has been the core strategy since 1996: Run up debt and give massive amounts of money to the richest Americans.

It is very disturbing to me--very disturbing to every American who sees that all we are doing under the Republican vision is increasing wealth inequality, undermining the programs for families to stand on to thrive, and proceeding to enrich the richest people in our Nation.

You know, back in 1974, when Democrats and Republicans together crafted this plan, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 23 percent. Today, it is 100 percent. Our national debt is equal or slightly above our national gross domestic product.

In 1974, the annual deficit was $6 billion. Today, it is about $2 trillion. In 1974, the total national debt was $475 billion. It seemed like a lot at the time. Now it is $37 trillion or just shy of $37 trillion.

But while running on fiscal responsibility since 1996, the Republican Party has been the party of fiscal irresponsibility, changing the Senate rules to run up deficits and debt, giving away the Treasury to the richest Americans, and imposing that massive debt on the families in the future.

It is hard to get your hands around what their $37 trillion debt plan means, but think about it like this: Since Independence Day, July 4, 1776, we have run up less than $37 trillion in debt, and they want to add $37 trillion or more in debt with this single bill.

Wow, that is something.

You know, Candidate Trump said he would be a champion for families, but President Trump is a champion for billionaires. This is the great betrayal.

In February, Democrats voted for amendment after amendment to help families, and my colleagues across the aisle voted, almost in every case unanimously, against those amendments to help families.

Democrats voted for an amendment to make sure Medicaid was protected; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted for an amendment to lower the cost of groceries; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of housing, and Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of prescription drugs; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of health insurance; Republicans voted against it. Democrats put forward amendments for families to thrive and for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, and Republicans voted against them because that is not their plan. It hasn't been their plan since 1996. Their plan has been: Families lose, and billionaires win.

If this budget proposal--this vision for the reconciliation bill that will be subsequently crafted--doesn't help families, who does it help? Well, let's look at who was lined up behind Trump at his inaugural address just down the hall, done inside because the weather was so cold. Well, whom did we have? We had Mark Zuckerberg standing behind the President, the billionaire of Meta, who owns Facebook, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund. We had Jeff Bezos, the billionaire of Amazon, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund. We had Sundar Pichai, the billionaire of Alphabet, which owns Google, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration funds.

Billionaires lined up behind him, but not just those three, also the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink and now, infamously, the name behind DOGE, who spent more than a quarter billion dollars to elect Trump and my Republican colleagues.

And those are just the contributions we know about. We don't know about all the dark money they may have spent.

Slashing programs families rely on to give trillions of dollars to the richest Americans, that is the Republican plan--billionaires who don't care if we slash Medicaid. They don't care if grocery prices go up. They don't care about the cost of housing or prescription drug prices or health insurance because they are billionaires. What costs to us a month's salary for them is a 1-second blip in their financial landscape.

You know, Donald Trump said about the 25 percent tariffs on cars:

I couldn't care less.

I couldn't care less if [automakers] raise their prices.

Well, you know who does care? American families. American families care because a car is a significant part of their budget. And they do care about the health insurance. They care about the groceries. They care about the rent or the interest rate that drives their mortgage.

You know, there aren't so many billionaires in America. What is the point to help a very small group of the richest get even richer? Well, that is a longer story about how money pollutes our political process.

But here on the floor, where we can argue the pros and cons of policies, let's at least use honest numbers, not

replace the CBO numbers with some fake numbers, not use magic math.

We are here, Democrats on the floor, to expose this fraud. We are here to stop this fraud. We are here to fight for America's families. We are here to stop this budget resolution and this subsequent reconciliation bill in which families lose and billionaires win because we want families to thrive and billionaires to pay their fair share.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, throughout these 25 hours of debate, there has been one theme that no Member of this body should forget, that no American should forget because it is the heart of this bill. And what is the heart of the bill? Families lose, and billionaires win.

This bill features $2 trillion in cuts to core programs in healthcare, housing, and education--the programs that help families stand on their feet and thrive and move into the middle class and succeed and their children succeed and the next generation.

But, no, my Republican colleagues say: Slash those programs because they are not the folks who power our campaigns. We don't care about the families struggling to succeed. Well, no, what we care about are the billionaires, so we wrote this bill for billionaires.

Just how much? Well, that $2 trillion funds tax breaks for the richest Americans. And then because that is not enough, this bill borrows $37 trillion over 30 years to fund additional tax breaks--$37 trillion in debt.

Cuts to programs for families to fund tax giveaways to the richest Americans--that is what this is about.

If you care about healthcare across America, if you know that Medicaid provides--well, in my State, about a third of our citizens have health insurance through Medicaid. Our rural clinics and our rural hospitals do far better. And why do they do far better with Medicaid? Because patients can pay bills because they have health insurance.

Medicaid is critical for programs for people to get out of their addiction. Medicaid is critical for seniors to be able to get nursing home care. Medicaid is essential for those with disabilities. It plays a huge role for our veterans. And they want to strike it down. They want to strike down Social Security, get rid of all the clerks that make Social Security work, that turn the gears and make sure the checks go out on time, because why should we worry about Social Security? Billionaires don't need Social Security.

Strike out the lunch programs for schools. We know that kids learn far better when they have a full stomach. So programs like that matter, but not to the billionaires, not in this bill.

Mr. President, $2 trillion in cuts for programs families depend on to fund massive tax giveaways to the richest Americans.

Then, on top of all that, a gimmick--a gimmick to say to the American people: While we are adding $37 trillion in debt, we will tell you we are adding nothing.

It is called current policy baseline. It is magic math. It is like this: You rent an apartment. The apartment costs you $2,000 a month, $24,000 for the year. You rent it for a year under contract.

Then you get to the end of the year and you say: I think I will sign a contract for a second year. You say: Oh, but that will cost nothing.

That is the magic math, when we know--everyone knows--it will still cost $2,000 a month or more with inflation, more because the rent might go up. But the magic math from the Republican side says: No, no; it is zero. It is zero.

Extending new tax benefits that would have expired costs $37 trillion, and Republicans say: Just pretend it away.

Now, what I would like to understand is why the party that has often run on fiscal responsibility has decided, first of all, to strike down the nonpartisan numbers that create an honest debate. That has been the rule, the direction, the bipartisan consensus since 1974. We will use honest numbers. We created a whole organization--the Congressional Budget Office--to make sure the numbers were fair so we could have an honest debate here and with the American people. But the magic math produced on this bill throws all that overboard. Fiscal responsibility overboard. Massive $37 trillion in new debt from this bill.

Do you know what? Our entire national debt today is less than $37 trillion. This one bill--this one bill--produces even more debt than has been piled up over the 249 years since the Declaration of Independence. If that isn't fiscally irresponsible, I don't know what is.

You know, you may ask: Don't those folks who are struggling--the 1 out of 10 who are really trying to get on their feet--isn't there something for them?

Well, the estimate is that they get the equivalent of $6 a year.

Well, if you have a fancy cup of coffee at Starbucks--not where I go for coffee, but many do--it costs about $6. This bill doesn't give a cup of coffee a day to the bottom 10 percent. It doesn't give a cup of coffee a week to the bottom 10 percent. It gives one cup per year. That is what you get out of this bill if you are in the bottom 10 percent, struggling to get on your feet. Don't drink it all at once, just one little sip each day for 365 days because you in the bottom 10 percent are not a billionaire.

Going to cut your programs that get you on your feet--the fundamentals for families to thrive in healthcare and housing and education and good-paying jobs--to enrich the richest Americans.

This is perhaps the worst bill I have ever seen debated on the floor of the Senate.

So, colleagues across the aisle, turn back to your speeches and your election campaigns that said ``I am for fiscal responsibility,'' and come and join us and write a real bill in which families thrive and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. That would be an advance for the United States of America. That would be good work on the floor of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it has been asserted this week that under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act, the chair of the Budget Committee has the authority to instruct the Congressional Budget Office, known as CBO, and the Joint Committee on Taxation, known as JCT, to ignore budget law when developing cost estimates for legislation, including budget reconciliation bills. It has further been asserted these directed estimates are appropriate to use for budget enforcement purposes claiming that past Budget chairs have taken similar actions. This is false.

I would like to put some facts into the record. Section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act defines how CBO and JCT should construct the baseline. This is called the current law baseline. This act does not defer to some unlimited authority of the Budget chair, provide for multiple or competing baselines, or say the current law baseline should not be used for scoring reconciliation bills. For 40 years, Congress has used cost estimates based on section 257 of this act. Codifying the baseline established a standard budget enforcement regime, ensuring that CBO and the Office of Management and Budget use the same baseline definition when developing their respective economic forecasts and budget projections. There are some very specific instances when section 257 directs CBO to consult with the Budget Committees to determine whether a proposed law should continue in the baseline. Importantly, these instances are enumerated, and they do not apply to revenue provisions-which are treated as expiring as written in law. The section 257 current law baseline has applied to all reconciliation bills since its enactment.

Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act--colloquially referred to as the Byrd Rule--is also in statute. The Byrd Rule provides strict guardrails on what is, or is not, appropriate for inclusion in a reconciliation bill. During adoption of the Byrd Rule in 1985, floor debate indicates it was understood that the Parliamentarian would advise on Byrd Rule violations, and the Senate would vote accordingly; a role for the Budget chair was not mentioned, even by the author and namesake of these constraints--Senator Robert C. Byrd.

Since the Byrd Rule's adoption, it has been long-accepted practice-- accepted by both sides of the aisle--to rely on the Parliamentarian to advise the chair on reconciliation privilege and enforcement issues, including evaluating compliance with Byrd Rule tests that all hinge on the scores of the provisions. Section 312 authority has never been asserted to allow the Budget chair to dictate scores to enforce or manipulate the Byrd Rule. The Senate

has always relied exclusively on CBO and JCT scores when evaluating the Byrd Rule, and CBO and JCT have always relied on the section 257 current law baseline to produce those scores.

Reconciliation is one of the Senate's few privileged, fast-track mechanisms for passing legislation, particularly legislation of substantial size and scope. The Budget Act grants the Senate this targeted exception from its standard of open debate and cloture protections with an expectation that there will be limitations. The inappropriate assertion that broad authority under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act allows a Budget chair to ignore budget law, upend multiple layers of procedure, and undermine the Parliamentarian's role, is a clear violation of the Byrd Rule and the Senate precedent around reconciliation limits.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1758 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, my colleagues, my good friend from South Carolina compared this bill with balancing the family budget. Well back in my neighborhood, balancing the budget means you only spend what you earn. It doesn't mean borrowing, and it doesn't mean borrowing $37 trillion and sticking it to the next generation.

If you agree that we should work toward balancing our budget, then vote for my amendment. It creates a point of order for any reconciliation bill that by itself would create more debt on America, on the next generation than all the debt our Nation has run up between July 4, 1776, and today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam President, what we don't like is $37 trillion in new debt hoisted on the next generation. This is throwing fiscal responsibility overboard to the bottom of the sea. We have never had a more fiscally irresponsible bill on the floor of the Senate than this one.

Vote on Amendment No. 1758

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks that have just been given by my colleague from Kentucky. I think the main message we need to hear there, and what I am going to talk about, is that the problem we have in America is not that our taxes are too high or too low, but that our spending is too high.

And Republicans, today, I am confident, will be unified in delivering, as President Trump calls it, ``one big beautiful bill'' for the American people.

What does this bill include? The fiscal year 2025 budget resolution fulfills promises to secure America's borders, increase our national defense, unleash our energy potential, and finally start to get our house in order.

I agree completely with my colleague: We have got to reduce our spending. And this bill contains a target with a minimum floor of $2 trillion in spending reduction in our Federal budget.

Importantly, it also lays the groundwork to make permanent and build on the 2017 Trump tax cuts so that American families can keep more of their hard-earned money to stop financing Washington's spending problem.

Our conference is united in preventing an over $4 trillion tax hike on American families and businesses and delivering additional tax relief to those who have suffered for 4 years now under inflation.

We are united in making this proven tax policy permanent to provide the certainty that businesses need to make long-term investments that drive growth and stability for our families as they save and plan for the future.

We are also unified in our resolve to restore fiscal sanity and know that the best way to do so isn't to tax hard-working Americans more. It is to spend less.

While many tend to focus on the policy disagreements that occur--as they should in these Halls--the reality is that Republicans are completely unified in delivering on President Trump's agenda, a major portion of which is to restore the economic prosperity experienced under his Presidency.

Let's just look back for a minute about the bill that we are trying to extend and make permanent now.

Most Americans don't pay attention to the minutia of tax policy, but if you

ask them, the majority will tell you that they would rather keep more of their money than let the government spend it. And that is exactly what the 2017 tax cuts did.

Those Trump tax cuts lowered tax rates for the overwhelming majority of Americans, simplified the Tax Code, and encouraged companies to do business in the United States instead of abroad.

In addition to lowering rates across the board, it provided targeted tax relief to the middle-class working families by doubling the standard deduction and the child tax credit, and to small businesses by providing a new 20-percent deduction, enabling America's entrepreneurs to create new jobs, increase workers' wages, and reinvest in their business.

The majority of the benefits from the Trump tax cuts, contrary to what you have heard all day from the other side, flow to working middle-class families, the bottom 50 percent of earners receiving the largest reduction in average tax rates at 17.3 percent.

Contrary to the claims that you have heard all day on the floor today that benefits were only for billionaires and corporations, the Trump tax cuts actually made the Tax Code even more progressive, meaning that the highest income earners today pay a greater share of all taxes than they did before. And if we can extend this tax cut, that will continue to be the case.

The generational reforms we made in 2017 were designed to strengthen investment, boost economic growth, increase take-home pay, reduce poverty, and make America strong. And they worked. Not only did taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned money, but a growing economy powered median household income to an all-time high. The labor market improved, workers saw record wage growth, and the unemployment rate fell dramatically to 3.5 percent, the lowest in 50 years. The lowest income workers experienced the largest wage growth. There was a capital formation explosion in the United States and corporation inversions-- corporations leaving America--stopped and became a thing of the past, as companies came back home to America and became the place to form capital and do business again.

All Americans reap the benefits of a booming economy. Extending this current, proven tax policy and building on it is the best way to restore economic prosperity and opportunity for working families, many of whom are struggling to recover from the historic inflation of the last 4 years.

Tonight, I expect we will hear once again the politics of fear, as my Democrat colleagues claim all sorts of dire things that will happen, including that we are just going to cut taxes for the wealthy so that we can do our own projects and benefit the wealthy and corporations.

This attack has been used for nearly a decade, and it is just as false now as it has been in the past. Americans should not be scared by these falsehoods. What they should be alarmed by is what my colleagues and I committed to preventing: the largest tax hike in history that will occur if we do not extend the current Trump tax cuts.

This chart shows, of all these dollars of tax relief that we are talking about, contrary to the argument that they go to the wealthy, $2.6 trillion of this tax hike goes to people in households making less than $400,000 a year. And the vast majority of that goes to people making in the middle, lower, and upper middle-income categories.

Families of four making $80,000 will see a $1,700 tax hike if we don't extend this tax relief. And 20 million small businesses will see their rates go up to 43.4 percent. The child tax credit will be cut in half. The standard deduction will be cut in half. The lowest income earners in America are the ones who are benefitting the most from this legislation today.

Republicans are united in our efforts to make this work. Now, one of the things we are focusing on is making the tax cuts permanent. Not only are we focused on extending these policies, but we are committing to make this growth in our economy permanent so we don't have to face these dire consequences in the future.

Permanent tax policies promote stability and lead to more pronounced economic effects than temporary ones. Making these tax cuts permanent will provide businesses with the certainty and the stability they need to make the long-term investments that drive growth, accelerate productivity, and increase prosperity across all segments of our economy.

Studies find that a permanent extension of the TCJA would increase long-run GDP by 1.1 percent and increase after-tax income for all Americans of all income levels.

Making the small business deduction alone permanent is estimated to create 1.2 million jobs annually over the first 10 years, increasing to 2.4 million jobs in the long run.

The President's Council of Economic Advisers just released an analysis that says extending the Trump tax cuts, combined with other pro-growth economic policies that we are pursuing now, would boost the level of short-run GDP growth by 3.3 to 3.8 percent and long-run real GDP growth by 2.6 to 3.6 percent.

Now what does that mean?

It means we are going to see that it will raise annual real wages by $2,100 to $3,300 per worker, increase real annual take-home pay for median-income households with two children by roughly $4,000 to $5,000, save over 4 million full-time equivalent jobs from being destroyed, and facilitate $100 billion of investment in distressed communities.

The analysis also projects that extending these tax cuts, ``together with full suite of the Trump Administration policies--such as deregulation, which the CEA previously estimated would add 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points to real GDP growth over a decade--is expected to result in 3.0 percent annual real GDP growth rates over the next 10 years.''

Now, what does that mean? According to CEA, that 3.0 percent growth in our GDP will result in $4.1 trillion of additional revenue to the Treasury to help deal with our national debt--$4.1 trillion.

To unleash that growth, the best way to make these tax cuts permanent is by using a current policy baseline. This is the scoring method that more accurately reflects reality.

The average American easily understands that there is a difference between a tax increase and a spending cut. However, there is an inherent bias in Congress's scoring process, where tax policy is treated differently than spending policy.

If tax rates are scheduled to increase, like they are right now if we don't act, preventing that tax hike is counted as a ``cost'' in uncollected future revenue. But many spending programs are assumed to be extended beyond their expiration. So the spending just continues and continues unabated, which the budget rules say don't have any ``cost.''

That is what we are trying to fix today in this bill. In fact, there is $2.5 trillion in spending that is automatically extended by our budget rules over the next 10 years, under a current policy baseline, that they currently use.

Even the Obama White House has used a current policy baseline for tax policy. They recognized that there is a difference between increasing taxes and cutting spending. In 2013, the Obama White House stated that a ``current policy baseline is the appropriate reference point since it measures changes relative to the status quo, rather than the mix of expiring provisions and policy changes that would likely never be implemented.''

Interpreted, what they said was exactly what I have been saying. President Obama and his team said: You can't say that just keeping the tax rates where they are and not raising them is the same as spending more money.

We need to level the playing field and sever the connection that creates a tax-and-spend budgeting process in Congress, and that is another thing we are going to do today.

Critics who have been strangely silent over the years as trillions of dollars in spending has been automatically extended under a current policy baseline now take offense to correcting that bias toward forcing Federal spending.

As applied to only the tax policy, those critics assert that we will be increasing the deficit by using a current policy baseline or we are using this baseline to hide the cost.

Let me be very clear: We are not hiding the score that JCT and CBO would

assign to the bill under a current law baseline. In fact, I like to see that score. It shows the amount of tax increase that my colleagues on the other side are trying to push onto the American people.

But let's be fully transparent: Both an estimate based on the current policy and one based on the current law will be released when we consider this bill on the Senate floor, and then Americans can see what kind of savings have been given to them by not raising their taxes.

Under our current existing tax regime, the revenue to the GDP ratio this year will be about 17.1 percent, meaning we will raise taxes for the Federal Treasury under our current tax policy of about 17.1 percent of GDP on a current policy baseline. It will also be about the same next year if we don't let the taxes go up, meaning that the revenue will not appreciably change.

Yet my colleagues on the other side say it is going to spike a hole in the deficit because--why? Because they won't get their hands on that $4 trillion of new tax revenue out of the American people. This would not increase debt relative to GDP; it would simply prevent a tax increase.

And we need to be honest about what those tax increases would and would not do. Those who say we should let taxes go back up say: Wow. Then we can use it to pay down the national debt some more. Every tax increase that Congress has adopted for as long as I can remember was not used to pay down the national debt. It was used by Congress to spend more money.

We have to take that pressure off of spending as well. Congress does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. Senate Republicans are united in our desire to take concrete steps to address our deficit and get our fiscal house in order.

Because the bill we are debating today is within the confines of reconciliation, the scores and numbers that will be discussing don't reflect that full fiscal picture. In order to have an honest discussion of what needs to be done, there is an acknowledgement that needs to be made that other factors are also at play that can generate economic growth and reductions in spending.

What am I talking about? Economic growth. As I indicated in one of the charts we just had up, the estimates from the CEA are, if we make the tax cuts policy permanent, the confidence it will give our economy and the boost that it will give our economy in tax incentive policy will grow the economy by as much as $4 trillion of new revenue to the Federal Treasury.

The President is also directing impacts in the government through his efforts and the Department of Government Efficiency to aggressively cut waste, fraud, and abuse from our government programs. Spending on Federal Government programs has ballooned in recent years. We have a responsibility to evaluate these spending increases and ensure that these programs work effectively and efficiently for everyone.

The President has also undertaken and will likely pursue more deregulation. Deregulation has had as big an impact on revenues as economic growth as tax policy has in the past, and we should recognize that.

The bottom line is that in addition to the action that Congress can take, there are activities that the President is currently engaged in that will impact our fiscal policy by either reducing spending or increasing revenue, and we should also take those into consideration.

Congress must begin the process of restoring fiscal sanity by achieving deficit reduction and spending reforms as the best way to achieve that goal. In contrast, imposing the largest tax increase in our country's history would be counterproductive by easing the gliding path and making it easier for more spending.

We will have a very robust debate in the weeks ahead about the best way to deliver on President Trump's agenda, and I look forward to those discussions. The budget resolution unlocks the process for us to strengthen our national security, secure our borders, permanently extend the Trump tax cuts, and provide additional middle-class tax relief.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Democrats claim that the Republicans are gearing up for a so-called class war and that extending the 2017 tax cuts is a handout for the wealthy. We have heard this so many times. It is no more true now than it has been the last umpteen times.

The Trump tax cuts reduce taxes for an overwhelming majority of Americans, and middle-class households receive the largest proportional benefits of the cuts. Those tax cuts also made our Tax Code more progressive. The highest income earners paid a greater share of taxes than they did before 2017. On top of lower tax rates across the board, those tax cuts provided targeted middle-class tax relief by doubling both the standard deduction and the child tax credit.

If those cuts expire this year, the middle-class families will be hit the hardest. The average family of four making $80,000 will see their taxes increase by $1,700. In fact, more than $2.6 trillion of the tax hike, which would result from failing to extend these cuts, would fall on households making less than $400,000 and, primarily, lower and middle-income families.

While Democrats attempt to distract from these claims by saying they are tax cuts for the wealthy, the Republicans remain focused on preventing tax hikes on working families and investing in American jobs.

I encourage a ``no'' vote, and I would be glad to voice vote it if we could agree on that.

Vote on Amendment No. 1737

Mr. President, I could just say what I said the last time, but I want to give a few more statistics.

Just last year, the Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the top 0.01 percent of taxpayers paid an average Federal income tax rate of 30.6 percent in 2019, compared to 5.3 percent for those in the 50th and 90th percentiles and a negative 2.2 percent for those in the bottom 50 percent. It is indisputable that most of the Federal tax burden is paid by the high earners. The top 10 percent of filers paid 72 percent of Federal income taxes. The top 1 percent paid more in Federal income taxes

than the bottom 90 percent combined. In addition, the voluntary tax compliance remains high.

In other words, as I said before, the Trump tax cuts made the Tax Code more progressive, not less. The American people deserve more than empty platitudes about billionaires and tax hike proposals that even a complete Democrat Congress could not pass under President Biden.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Vote on Amendment No. 1977

Mr. President, I think it is pretty clear that, no matter what the taxes are on the upper income brackets, it would be claimed that they aren't high enough. But let me just give a few more statistics.

Most of the Federal tax burden is paid by higher earners. Indeed, the top 1 percent of taxpayers pays more Federal income taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined. The tax cuts that we are talking about make the code more progressive, as I have said, and the highest income earners pay a greater share of taxes than they did before 2017. Federal tax collections have been near all-time highs since the Trump taxes were enacted, and the voluntary compliance rate remains high and stable. Higher taxes serve as disincentives to work and save and invest.

The American people deserve better. We are committed to helping all hard-working taxpayers get ahead, and I will work with anybody who is ready to focus on helping protect our families in America.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, again, my colleagues continue to argue that our now-wealthy companies are showered with an ever-increasing tax break and need to pay their fair share. I would point out that the TCJA that we are talking about in this legislation doesn't even touch the tax rates either way with regard to corporations.

Leaving that aside, before these tax cuts back in 2017, the United States had a 35-percent corporate tax rate--one of the highest in the world. Companies were fleeing America to do their capital formation in different parts of the world. After we did what everyone in those days agreed was an important reform of our business tax system, we had an end to corporate inversions, and capital started flowing back into the United States with the investments from companies around the world. We saw the greatest and strongest economy that we have seen in our lifetimes develop with the growth in jobs, wages, benefits, and a reduction in unemployment, and the wealth of the average family in America reached all-time highs.

Mr. President, I guess I have to say that this legislation doesn't deal with tariffs. But I am interested that the minority leader wants to turn the discussion to tariffs because they don't like the way the discussion on taxes is going.

Some would want to distract us from these important issues that we are dealing with and try to shift this decision, but most importantly, none of President Trump's tariffs rely on any authorities made from any--either this or prior--reconciliation bill, nor are they contingent on anything happening in the one we are considering.

It also bears noting that any enforcement effort to open foreign markets for our farmers, workers, and businesses is backed by tariffs.

What President Trump has said is that the existing tariff efforts to open markets for our Americans are not moving fast enough, and he is seeking to create opportunities.

Under President Biden, there was literally no enforcement, in fact, no negotiations to open trade across this globe. We can and should have a debate about how we should engage in effective trade, but that is not this bill.

I encourage a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, I represent a State that Donald Trump won in November. And one of the reasons he did was his promise on the campaign trail that he would lower costs for Nevada families.

He said this:

[O]n day one, we will end inflation and make America

affordable again.

And he said--and I am going to quote again:

When I win, I will immediately bring prices down starting

on day one.

Well, it has now been 74 days since he was sworn in, and it is clear that he actually didn't mean any of that. He betrayed the American people, and he lied to Nevada families.

Instead of lowering costs, he has done the opposite and imposed policies that have actually raised the costs. Two days ago, President Trump proclaimed April 2 as ``Liberation Day,'' the day the administration announced the most sweeping tariff hikes in almost a century.

And just in the last 48 hours, this is what has happened: The stock market had its single worst day since 2020, at the start of the pandemic. It was on track to match or exceed that loss today. Car companies have already had to lay off hundreds of workers at their U.S. plants. And nearly half of the 60 countries that were targeted by President Trump have already announced retaliatory tariffs, which will only raise prices further and hurt American small businesses--Nevada's small businesses.

And all of this is before many of these tariffs actually go into effect at midnight tonight.

Most importantly, these tariffs, well, they are reckless, and they will decimate businesses around the country, and, like I said, including in my great State of Nevada.

I have already heard from Nevadans and Nevada business owners who are worried about how these new tariffs will impact their businesses, their livelihoods, and their families, including the founder of a small business in Reno.

They wrote to me saying:

We maintain a small production facility in Reno . . . these

duties will force us to raise retail prices by 37 percent,

and we don't believe our customers will accept that. This

policy could wipe us out entirely.

And I am going to quote again:

I'm not asking for a favor. I'm asking for leadership that

reflects the urgency and reality that we face. These tariffs

do not bring jobs back. They raise prices, punish small

businesses, and put livelihoods at risk, while making it

harder for companies like mine to do what we've done for

thirteen years: create jobs, innovate, and support our

families.

And it is not just our small businesses in Nevada that will be hit the hardest. Our families--our families--already being squeezed by the high costs, are going to see prices go up even further.

And let's be clear, these tariffs--Trump's tariffs--they are a national sales tax. From your medication to gas, to the groceries you buy, Republican tariffs will increase the cost for goods for hard- working families across this country, things we rely on every single day.

Tariffs are also going to increase what you pay at the fuel pump. They are going to increase the price of construction materials, making housing even more expensive.

Through his national sales tax, Trump is passing along higher costs to everyone, no matter where you live--passing them on to everyone. That is what Trump's sales tax is doing. That is what Trump's tariffs are doing.

In fact, a nonpartisan policy research center recently found that these new taxes, well, they are going to cost the average family nearly $4,000 a year--$4,000 a year--all while increasing home prices by roughly $20,000 and car prices by $3,000.

Where will it end? It makes absolutely no sense. It is just plain cruel to hurt families by raising costs when their budgets are already squeezed.

And this also hurts Nevada's local economy because when people start tightening their wallets because prices are higher everywhere they go, we start to see a decline in tourism, the very backbone of Nevada's economy. And we are already seeing the impacts. Domestic travel into Harry Reid International Airport was already down last month, which means fewer hotel rooms booked and fewer tourists visiting the entertainment capital of the world. International travel in the United States is also down, which is driving our visitor numbers down--again, hurting our economy more and more every day.

In fact, in the wake of Trump's tariffs on Canada that went into effect last month, bookings for flights from Canada into the United States are already down--down by 70 percent--compared to this time last year.

And here is the most troubling part: A recent report estimates that up to 14,000 hospitality jobs could be at risk due to decreased international travel as a direct result of Trump's tariffs.

When President Trump was confronted about the rising costs due to these tariffs, well, what did he say? Well, he said this. President Trump said:

I couldn't care less.

``I couldn't care less.'' That is actually what he said to all of us, to all of you. And that should tell you everything you need to know about where his priorities lie.

Donald Trump isn't focused on the American people, on all of us. He is focused only on making himself and his billionaire friends even richer.

While everyday families are paying the price, the wealthiest individuals and corporations are going to get more tax cuts, better tax cuts, leaving working families to shoulder the financial burden of his reckless decisions. And they will feel it every month at the kitchen table, when they go to pay their bills, every week when they go to the grocery store, every week when they go to the gas pump, when they try to buy a new home or even repair the one that they have now.

This isn't the direction we should be heading. As Democrats, we believe in a fairer economy, one where working

families are not left behind. We believe in policies that create good- paying jobs, reduce costs for families, and hold corporations accountable for their actions. We believe in an economy that rewards hard work and makes it easier for the middle class to thrive.

We owe it to our constituents, like the Nevada small business owner who wrote to me worried about how Trump's tariffs will hurt him. And that is why we are all here, because we have a responsibility to our constituents, to our family, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our communities to support policies, well, that benefit them, and to stand up to policies that do not, policies that hurt them, like Trump's reckless tariffs, Trump's national sales tax.

So it is time to put the needs of the American people first. It is time to deliver real relief to our workers, to our families, to our businesses that have been struggling for far too long.

So I urge my colleagues across the aisle to stand up against Trump's reckless tariffs, to stop this extreme Republican budget, which will increase costs on all Americans, on all families, on everyone, no matter what ZIP code or State you live in.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we are here today to talk about our Federal budget. Republicans are, once again, going to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a massive new tax cut for billionaires-- a massive new tax cut for the billionaires--and the ultrawealthy, paid for by cutting programs and services critical to Americans' health, like Medicaid.

This is going to affect children, families, even the men and women who serve our country. This would be on top of devastating cuts that Elon Musk and Donald Trump--well, that they are already implementing across the government--cuts that are hurting men and women who bravely served this country, cuts that are hurting our national security, and cuts that, sadly, cruelly, are making life harder for our veterans.

I don't have to tell anyone here the Department of Veterans Affairs provides essential care to the men and women who served this Nation as well as their families who worry about them every single day.

These services are not a luxury for our veterans; they are a necessity. They are a promise that we, as a nation, will take care of those who are willing to risk their lives for our safety and for our freedom. This is the very least we can do for those who sacrificed so much.

But instead of working to cut down on wait times at the VA or expanding access to these critical services for our veterans, the Trump administration announced a plan to cut 80,000 employees from the Agency, where one-quarter of those employees are veterans themselves, as Senator Klobuchar just alluded to.

It is bad enough that those 80,000 people are out of a job, through no fault of their own, but on top of that, this misguided action is only going to make those wait times longer--make them worse--and it is going to limit the Agency's ability to care for and to support our veterans.

Of course, we are not just talking about healthcare here. The VA provides services on everything from short- and long-term housing options, life insurance, pensions, education stipends, and assistance for our--our--veterans, not Democrat or Republican veterans, our veterans, the veterans who served the United States of America, not a red America, not a blue America, America. These are our veterans. It is our responsibility.

The VA plays a pivotal role and particularly plays a role in groundbreaking public health research.

This is not the first time that Trump and Musk are attacking the government Agency that our veterans depend on. I can't even believe I am saying this, but they have gone after the Veterans Assistance Hotline and the Veterans Crisis Line--the Veterans Crisis Line. This line provides veterans with lifesaving mental health support and support for navigating the complexities of getting the care they need. Could you imagine?

These cuts, they are just not numbers on a page. These are real people--employees who work tirelessly to make sure that our veterans have someone to talk to in their deepest, darkest moments, many of these employees veterans themselves.

I have had veterans come to my office in tears who are there helping younger veterans who come back to save them from the brink of suicide. They cry to me: Please don't cut these services.

We have to help each other. These hotlines save lives every day. That is what my veterans services folks are telling me. It is what I know, and it is what we all know.

Firing these staff members, it means fewer people answering the phone when a veteran is in need. We don't know what hour of the day that will be. There are going to be fewer people to help guide them through the system. There would be fewer people ensuring that they receive the benefits that they have earned through their service.

Veterans, they already face long wait times for medical appointments, overwhelmed VA staff, and a system that is already stretched far too thin to meet the demand. Now these layoffs are only going to exacerbate the problem. It is just unconscionable. Frankly, it is just plain cruel.

I, for one--and I hope everyone here, I know everyone in Nevada-- believe that our veterans deserve respect and deserve so much better.

You don't have to take it from me. Veterans in my State of Nevada are paying attention. They have been reaching out to my office every single day to push back on these reckless actions.

In fact, I am going to read a letter I got from a veteran in Reno. A veteran wrote to me, and I am just going to quote their letter:

I am a Nevada veteran, raised in Reno. I joined the Marine

Corps after high school and served honorably to then return

home to begin my studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Veterans have fought for their fellow countrymen and women

due to their selflessness and sense of responsibility to

protect our communities. Senator, I am asking you to return

the favor and protect our Veterans from President Trump's

attack on the PACT Act and his cutting of VA jobs.

That is just one of the letters I recently received.

Another veteran from Las Vegas wrote to me. Again, I am going to quote their words. It starts like this:

I, as a veteran, am concerned with the continued attacks on

the Department of Veterans Affairs. I am currently awaiting a

benefits claim for a condition that the army claims to have

caused, as well as receiving treatment only through the VA.

I served two tours in the army as a combat medic and [I] am

entitled to my benefits. These attacks delay care and create

undo anxiety both regarding my health and [my] finances. I

implore you to fight with everything you can.

This is from a combat medic, imploring me to do everything I can.

So the idea that cutting jobs at the VA for the sake of ``government efficiency,'' it is nothing more than a smokescreen. This isn't wasteful spending. This is not wasteful spending. I can't say that often enough. Taking care of our veterans, it is not a waste. Serving our veterans, it is not a waste. Our veterans are not a waste, and this isn't wasteful spending.

The people who work at the VA, they serve our country, and they serve those who have served our country. And they are proud of it. They provide services that help our veterans access critical healthcare and the benefits they rely on. By failing to protect that, we are failing our veterans, plain and simple.

It doesn't end there. Congressional Republicans are following suit, and they are proposing cuts to other critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP, both of which millions of veterans rely on to pay for more of their tax breaks for billionaires. So they are going to cut Medicaid, cut SNAP, cut the VA. Why? Because billionaires, the people who need it least, are going to take it from the people who need it most. I am going to say that again. They are cutting benefits for people who need it the most to give it to billionaires who need it the least. They don't need any more money. They have plenty.

More than a million veterans live in a household that participate in SNAP, that food assistance program. Ten percent of veterans under the age of 65, well, they are covered by Medicaid. Make no mistake, cuts to SNAP, cuts to Medicaid, just like cuts to the VA, are going to hurt our veterans and their families.

We cannot allow these cuts to go through without understanding their devastating consequences. The men and women who served our Nation deserve better. We have promised them better.

Veterans aren't the only ones being impacted by these devastating cuts from Elon Musk and the Trump administration. Every single one of us--all of us--are being put at risk. The very safety of our Nation is threatened by the cuts this administration is making.

We have heard, time and time again, from those in Congress who prioritize a very strong national defense that we have to protect our military. And, of course, I am right here with them. Of course, we need to make sure our military has the funding and the resources to protect itself, protect our freedoms, and make sure Americans are safe around the world.

But, you know, our security as a nation isn't just protected with our military might. Defense is just one of the three legs of a stool which our national security stands upon. Without diplomacy and development, our defense is weakened--the three-legged stool: defense, diplomacy, and development.

Yet the Trump administration has gutted USAID. And even the current Republican agenda has proposed even more cuts that would reduce our global leadership, leaving us with a national security strategy that is dangerously out of balance.

For decades, USAID has been the cornerstone of our foreign policy. The Agency has worked to help prevent conflicts, respond to global pandemics, promote democracy, and strengthen the economies of our partners, which all of that, in turn, strengthens us and creates new opportunities for us. And it does all of this for less than 1 percent of the Federal budget.

Despite this, the Trump administration and Elon Musk have cut efforts to vaccinate populations against infectious diseases and to trace outbreaks. Do you know what? This leaves Americans abroad and at home at high risk.

They have cut programs that foster stability in the areas that are on the brink of war. And they have cut programs in which our partners and allies depend on.

Now that we have stepped away from our leadership role around the world, we are seeing those who do not share our values--China and Russia. When we leave, who rushes in to fill the gaps? They do. Make no mistake, China and Russia are there to fill the gaps. And I ask this question: How does any of this make us safer?

We cannot afford to ignore the importance of diplomacy and development in our national security strategy. To do so would be to ignore the lessons of history, which tell us that investing in peace and stability abroad is just as crucial as investing in our military at home.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has not only gutted USAID, it has also cut funding to the State Department for support for counterterrorism, counternarcotics, cyber security, anti-trafficking, and so much more.

These programs are not wasteful spending. They are investments in our national security, in the health of our citizens, in the safety of the world. These efforts help us build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous future for the United States, and they must be prioritized alongside defense or, make no mistake, we will all pay the price.

At a time when global instability is on the rise, it is critical that we take a comprehensive approach to security.

Our military men and women are indispensable, and so are the diplomats and aid workers who help build the conditions for lasting peace and prosperity around the world.

The stakes are incredibly high. By attempting to eliminate entire Agencies like USAID or slashing national security programs at the State Department, the Trump administration is undermining our long-term security. By slashing funding for the VA and cutting jobs that support our veterans--cutting the Veterans Crisis Line--the administration is turning its back on those who have already sacrificed so much for this country.

And this isn't just a matter of dollars and cents; this is about our values,

about who we are as a people, about what we stand for, what we respect, who we honor, who we care for, and how we stand up for each other. It is about ensuring that the men and women who serve in this country and those who protect our national interests around the world have the support, respect, and what they need to succeed and protect each and every one of us.

We can't afford to let these cuts go through, and I urge my colleagues to stand with our veterans and their families, our military and their families, and our global security partners. Let's protect the people who protect us. Let's invest in the diplomacy and development efforts that keep us safe. Let's ensure that the men and women who have proudly served this Nation get the care and respect they deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are gathered here to talk about the budget. We are going to be voting on a budget resolution shortly, and I am concerned.

I am concerned that there is so much enthusiasm among conservatives and Republicans for cutting waste and cutting fraud and ``quit spending $2 million on sex changes in Guatemala and $3 million on girl-centric climate change in Brazil, $4.8 million on social media influencers in Ukraine.'' I am excited by eliminating all of that waste. I have been calling for it for years.

But I will tell you what worries me. What worries me is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors. On the one hand, it appears as if all of this great savings is happening, but on the other hand, the resolution before us will increase the debt by $5 trillion. So which is it? Are we cutting spending or are we expanding the debt?

If we expand the debt at $5 trillion, that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years.

Now, which is it?

I thought we had an election. I thought we had an election. And the other side was complaining loudly that, oh, my goodness, there is going to be too much cutting in spending, and our side is saying, no, no, no.

I am looking at the numbers. The budget resolution is going to add $5 trillion over about a 2-year period. So they are going to add more than $2 trillion a year to the debt. In what world is that conservative?

They say there is a difference between the parties, and yet, when you look at the numbers, when you look at the fact that this budget resolution is going to borrow $5 trillion, you scratch your head and say: What is up here? Is there somebody not really being honest with us? They are going to borrow $5 trillion, and yet they will say: Well, the spending is coming down, and we have put these numbers in the budget that will reduce spending.

If so, why are we borrowing $5 trillion?

The reason they are going to ask the Republicans and the Democrats-- but it will be mostly Republicans voting for this debt--the reason they are asking for it is because they are anticipating that is what they will need. They are also anticipating that--you know, it is kind of embarrassing, really, to talk about debt. It is extremely embarrassing for Republicans, who say they are conservative, to be adding $5 trillion in debt and voting for it, so they don't want to do it very often. Let's try to spread it out over a long time. Let's try to get through the 2026 election. Let's try to get to 2027 before we have to have this embarrassment brought back in front of us.

But the embarrassment and the shame are coming much quicker. We are going to get to the end of September 30--that is the end of the fiscal year for our Federal Government--and the American people at that time will be told--hopefully someone in the media notices this--that the deficit for this year will be over $2 trillion. The estimates are that there will be about $2.2 trillion. And we are going to borrow $5 trillion.

Now, some would argue: Yeah, but we need to give them a chance. We need to give them a chance because the spending number actually looks like they might reduce spending.

But here is the problem. The spending number is lower, but this bill also adds $325 billion in new spending: $150 billion for the military- industrial complex and another $175 billion for the border. But that is new money.

How much money did we spend last year? A little over $7 trillion. But that is not enough, according to all the people here on my side today that are going to vote for this budget. They want more than last year. Well, if last year was $7.1 trillion, that must mean they are going to want $300 billion more than that. But the number in the bill says--no-- $6.5 trillion. So they are saying we are going to spend less.

You know what, I have seen the way this place operates, and I don't trust either party. Why? Because I have seen the deficit and the debt grow and triple since I have been here. It is $36 trillion. Now, I voted against every last penny of it. I voted against the spending bills. I have voted to balance the budget. I have introduced budgets that balance over 5 years.

But you know the one thing that would happen even if I had my way and I could introduce and my budget would be accepted? There would have to be some debt accumulation. So what I am offering today is, let's accumulate some debt, let's raise the debt ceiling. I have never voted for this before, but I am willing to vote for 3 months, about $500 billion, to raise the debt ceiling. Why? Because it has to happen.

Why don't I want to give them $5 trillion? Because then you are just turning your back, and they are going to do whatever they always do. What does the swamp always do? Take your money, borrow money. Spend and borrow. It continues unabated.

But if you wanted to keep your Congress on a leash, if you wanted to have leverage, if you wanted to have leverage to say: Well, what if you are not being honest with me? What if in 3 months the deficit is over $2 trillion, and what if in 3 months the spending levels aren't $6.5 trillion but, in actuality, $7.4 trillion? How would we then rebuke you? How would we stop you? How would we stop the spending?

Well, the way we would stop the spending is by not giving you any more borrowing.

So what I am proposing today is an amendment that will raise the debt ceiling by $500 billion. To me, that is an extraordinary amount of money, but your government spends it so darn fast that that is about 3 months' worth of spending.

But there is nothing conservative about raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion. It boggles the mind to try to comprehend how anyone who is self-describing themselves as conservative would vote to increase the debt by $5 trillion. It makes utterly no sense.

But it also is free rein for the spenders because they have got $5 trillion they can spend. In recent years, on occasion, they haven't even put a number in there. Probably the only reason we are getting a number is because the rules of the budget require a number. But what they have been doing, both parties, is they have been just saying: Well, why don't we just borrow money for 2 years or 3 years. And many people argue--many on the other side of the aisle will say: We shouldn't even have these votes at all. Why have a debt ceiling at all? Let's just let it spin out of control.

Has anybody ever seen the Debt Clock? Go to the debtclock.org and watch the number spinning wildly out of control.

Now, some will say deficits don't matter. This was the Cheney family. Dick Cheney famously said deficits don't matter. But the thing is, they really do because you have to pay interest on the debt. We are paying about a trillion dollars in interest. So the largest item in our spending now--bigger than our military--is actually the interest. Over the next 10 years, we are going to pay about $14 trillion in interest. I think it is actually probably worse than that. That is what the estimates are now. But it is literally out of control.

You say to yourself: How would we rein in spending?

You have to look at everything. Every item we spend money on has to be looked at. You have to look across the board at everything.

But what we have is the current administration says we are not going to look at Social Security, despite what the other side says about Social Security. Nothing is going to happen to Social Security. They are not going to fix it. They are not going to make it better. They are not going to reduce anything. Social Security is going to be untouched. So is Medicare. But then there are reports and complaints saying: Well, we shouldn't touch Medicaid either. And then people say: Food stamps-- we can't touch food stamps.

Well, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps comprise all the money that comes into our government. They are about $5 trillion worth. That is about what we pay in taxes.

So the government brings in about $5 trillion and spends $7 trillion. That is about a $2 trillion overdraft. We are $2 trillion in the hole every year, and we are up to about $36 trillion, $37 trillion total.

But how would we actually get there if you are taking off the table Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps? Those four items are about $5 trillion--pretty close to it. So if you take all the entitlements off the table, what are you left with?

People love and they get excited about the terrible foreign aid. I do too. I think it is the lowest hanging fruit. It is the most egregious, the spending. It is the easiest to cut. But I forced a vote on that 2 weeks ago, and we got no Democratic votes. In fact, I don't think there is a Democrat in Congress who will vote to cut 1 penny. I would like to do that sometime: introduce a bill to cut a penny or cut a dollar to see if they would.

Let's cut $1 from the $2 million that they spend doing sex-change surgery in Guatemala with U.S. tax dollars. Will the Democrats support a bill to cut $1? Probably not.

Even if they admitted the program was egregious or horrible or out of normalcy, they would probably insist the money be spent somewhere else. And that is sort of the debate we have over time.

I have a bill called Bonuses for Cost-Cutters, which says that if you are in charge of a budget for government--let's say you are in charge of $12 million at the Department of Energy. If you save $1 million, you would actually get a personal bonus for the Federal employee as an incentive.

When I put this forward, the main complaint that usually comes from across the aisle is they are OK with giving Federal workers bonuses for saving money, but they insist that the money not go back to the Treasury. This is the big debate that is going on also.

What Elon Musk has done and DOGE has done is absolutely commendable, and we need more of it. The whole place is rotten. It needs to be shaken up, and we need to look for waste. But there is going to be another debate: Is that waste going to come back, and are we going to vote on it? Are we going to codify it? Are we going to make it real by lowering our numbers?

But the only way we would have any leverage on either party is by only giving them a little taste of the money. Don't give them so much money they are wallowing in it and it comes out as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. Give them about 3 months' worth. Let's see how they do in 3 months. If the spending totals that are in the bill come forward in 3 months and those are the spending totals that Congress approves, I would be pretty satisfied with that.

In fact, I have told them the bill, on large--I am for continuing the tax cuts. I am for keeping the tax cuts permanent. I voted for them in 2017. I am for reducing spending, which, on the surface, some of the numbers look better, but I am just not for borrowing $5 trillion.

If we are doing a good job, if we are doing a better job, why are we borrowing $5 trillion? Something doesn't add up. Something is fishy. If we are going to do such a good job and if we have transformed government and if we are different than the other side of the aisle and we really are for less spending and less debt, why are we borrowing more money than we have ever borrowed at one time in the history of the country? This will set a record. I believe $5 trillion will be the most that has ever been borrowed in one fell swoop.

This will be a vote--and I think an ignominious one--in which professed conservatives stand up, stand forward, and vote for more debt than Congress has ever voted for at one period of time. It just disappoints me. I am so disappointed. But I am also disappointed because I think that within a few months, when the American people see this--particularly when Republicans at home see: Oh, my goodness, I heard all this good news about cutting foreign aid and cutting all this crazy spending around the world, but the deficit is still $2 trillion this year. And then they are going to scratch their heads. And maybe they give the Republicans another 6 months and look. And then they are going to find that another trillion has been borrowed in another 6 months. And they are going to

find we are 2 years into a new Republican administration, with a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House, and we are going to borrow $5 trillion. Something doesn't add up here.

Someone needs to stand up and say something. Someone needs to give conservatives, if we have conservatives in this body, an alternative. That is what my amendment will be. My amendment will be an alternative.

Instead of borrowing $5 trillion, sticking our head in the sand, and saying, ``No, please be nice to us, and do what you promised and spend less money,'' no, we give them 3 months, and we say: Prove to us that you will, for the first time, adhere to your word.

And it isn't just a couple of individual people. This is the history of the institution. Occasionally, through the last several decades, there have been people who have come forward, and they have put forth rules. It was Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. There were different rules that said: You have to pay as you go. So if somebody brought up $300 billion in new spending, you would have to cut $300 billion from somewhere else.

But do you know what has happened? These things have been evaded time and time again.

Why are people like me cynical of the process? Why do people like me not believe them when they say they are going to cut spending? Because they always go back on their word. They exempt themselves from rules they create.

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, pay-as-you-go would have been effective, but it has been evaded by Congress 60, 70 times now. So I say: Trust but verify.

I say: Trust. Accept your colleagues if they say they are really going to do this. But give them 3 months for the borrowing. Don't give them 2 years for the borrowing. Don't give 5 trillion. Don't put yourself on record.

Today, if this is passed, or tomorrow morning early, if this is passed, Republicans who vote for this will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts. They will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed. So there really is a disconnect here. Something is not as it appears. There is a smoke and mirrors.

There is this great enthusiasm across the land for what is happening. I share that. I share President Trump's desire to balance the budget. I am pleased with his Cabinet. I am superpleased with having Elon Musk and DOGE and these young people looking for waste. I am for all of that and more. But if it is going to be reflected in something, we have to borrow less. If we are still borrowing the same amount, maybe it isn't real. Maybe we are just talking about things, and we are not actually doing them.

It is hard to cut spending. Everybody wants something. Everybody wants something from government. But there is no such thing as something for nothing. It has to come from somewhere. Most people know this in their daily lives. If you work, you get something for work, and you feel good about yourself because you worked for something.

You can't simply just hand out money to people. You can't print out money like it grows on trees.

But, I can tell you, there is an absolute historical record of abuse by both parties. But what saddens me, in particular for Republicans, is Republicans will go on record today to increase the debt more than the Democrats ever had. The new world's record for accumulation of debt, the new world record for expanding debt in our country will belong to the Republican Party with this.

This is a sad day. I will vote against this bill and object to it unless we get rid of this enormous amount of borrowing. If we get rid of the $5 trillion and adopt my amendment, I will vote for the bill.

The bill would borrow, if my amendment were passed, $500 billion. Is it enough? No. We would have to do it again. We would come back in 3 months. But this is the idea of trust but verify.

If the promises are real and if the big spenders in both parties are doing a good job, when they come back and prove to us that they have actually done something they have never done in the past--they have changed their ways, and they are not going to keep adding massive debts, year after year--then we give them another 3 months. If they do a great job, maybe we give them 6 months. But we don't give big spenders in Washington who have a terrible history with the debt--we don't give them no leash at all, no controls at all, $5 trillion here. Spend it however you want. We don't do that, at least we profess not to on our side.

So my amendment will give all Members of the body a chance to say: Do you want continued oversight of your government by looking at the debt ceiling periodically or do you just want to wash your hands?

I say if we wash our hands, we speed up the demise of our country. I think now is an inflection point.

The stock market in the last 2 days lost over $6 trillion. We live in perilous times, and I think the people who just keep going on their merry way saying: We will just do the same thing, and we will tell the people it is a little different than the other side, and maybe they will vote for us this time; maybe they won't--I don't think it is going to happen. I think the people are frustrated. I think the people are annoyed. I think the people are frankly worried who are trying to save or getting closer to retirement or looking at their retirement nest egg and saying: Oh, my goodness, look at what has happened to us. Where are we going?

Part of that message is an indictment of tariffs, and I think millions of investors think tariffs are a bad idea. But part of it is an indictment over our massive accumulation of debt, the fact that we are spending $7 trillion and bringing in $5 trillion.

I hope the body will consider my amendment. Maybe I will be shocked. Maybe we will get enough votes from both sides of the aisle to actually have a shorter leash and have more perspective and more concern and oversight for what our spending would be.

So I recommend a ``yes'' vote on my amendment, which will change the debt ceiling from $5 trillion to $500 billion.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

President Trump wants the national security workforce to work for our security instead of any other agenda.

Federal employees already enjoy more benefits and protections than the private sector. They don't need the ability to hold national security hostage to the union agenda.

In February, we learned that over 100 intelligence officers were using an official chat room to discuss obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit topics. Tulsi Gabbard quickly fired them. If they were a union, she would not have been able to.

For the security of our Nation, support President Trump's reforms and oppose this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 1466