Floor Statements

Mr. President, first, I want to respond. We can solve this problem and solve the problem of people in trailer parks by limiting the tax cuts to people making $400,000 a year and less. That would cut the cost of this bill by 60 percent. It would also obviate the necessity of kicking 17 million people off of healthcare and thousands and thousands of young people and people across the country from SNAP. You can do this and give tax relief to the middle class without the unnecessary tax relief in this bill that goes to the richest people in our country.

So my amendment is really simple. If you think people making $1 billion a year need and deserve a tax break, and also, if you want to give a really good ad to these guys in November of 2026, vote no on the amendment and say that billionaires--no, not billionaires, people earning $1 billion--need and deserve a tax break.

I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. President, I have a motion to commit at the desk.

I ask that further reading of the motion be dispensed with.

Mr. President, when the Senate considers the reconciliation bill, H.R. 1, it is my intention to make the following motions to commit the bill:

A motion to commit the bill to the committee on Finance

with instructions to report H.R. 1 back to the Senate with

changes that provide funding for the Internal Revenue Service

to ensure adequate funds for enforcement, operations support,

technology modernization, and taxpayer services.

A motion to commit the bill to the committee on Finance

with instructions to report H.R. 1 back to the Senate with

changes that would cause the bill not to increase the deficit

for the period of fiscal years 2025 through 2034.

A motion to commit the bill to the committee on Finance

with instructions to report H.R. 1 back to the Senate with

changes that would strike any provision that reduces funding

to Medicaid and would ensure that any reduction in average

tax liability for individual taxpayers is limited to those

with an income under $400,000.

Mr. President, this bill is a farce. Imagine a bunch of guys sitting around the table and saying: I have got a great idea. Let's give $32,000 worth of tax breaks to a millionaire, and we will pay for it by taking health insurance away from lower income and middle-income people. And to top it off, how about we cut food stamps-- we cut SNAP--we cut food aid to people?

It is a joke. I would say it was a joke, except it is not the least bit funny.

I have been in this business of public policy now for 20 years--8 years as Governor, 12 years in the U.S. Senate. I have never seen a bill this bad. I have never seen a bill that is this irresponsible, regressive, and downright cruel.

The basic premise of the bill, as I said, is to cut benefits for the American people, particularly in the areas of healthcare and food, in exchange for tax cuts for the very wealthy.

I know my colleagues are going to come to the floor, because I have had this discussion before, and they are going to say: Oh, no, this is a middle-class tax cut. This is going to cut taxes for people in the middle class.

Well, here is a little suggestion of how to get out of this mess: If you cap the tax cuts at people making $400,000 a year--which is a pretty healthy income--the cost of this bill would drop by 60 percent, and you wouldn't have any need to cut Medicaid. By the way, there are Medicare cuts also built into this, and SNAP. So $400,000--in other words, we are for the middle-class tax cuts. That is OK. But just stop it at $400,000, and don't give the tax breaks to the people--a millionaire, under this bill, gets a $32,000 tax cut. A person making $5 million or $10 million gets a couple hundred thousand dollars of tax cut. I don't think they need it. They sure as hell don't need it as much as people need health insurance.

So just to put a fine point on it, this bill is literally--and remember my $400,000 suggestion so we are taking care of the middle class. But with 60 percent of the cost above $400,000 in income, this bill is literally taking food out of the mouths of kids to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax break.

Those are the facts. They are ugly. And like I say, if we were talking about this at random, sitting around at a lunch table, people would say: Well, that is a joke. That is ridiculous. Nobody would suggest that.

But here we are. And several of my colleagues, including Senator Tillis from North Carolina, have pointed out there is no rush on this bill. We don't have to do this bill by July 4 or July 10. There is no rush. These tax cuts don't expire until the end of the year. Let's take our time and write a decent bill. Let's kill this bill. It would only take four or five Senators on the other side. We can kill this thing and start over and write a decent bill, on a bipartisan basis, and I think we would find agreement on middle-class tax cuts.

But I think we can also do some things with expenditures that wouldn't be so bloody harmful. Medicaid. Let me start with hospitals. In Maine, I have talked to the hospitals. I have talked to the hospital association. I have talked to small hospitals, large hospitals. They are mostly running on a 1-, 2-, or 3-percent margin. The analysis is that this could cost us two to five of our rural hospitals.

And when a rural hospital goes out, several things happen. One thing is the

economy of the town goes with it. In most of these small towns, the hospital is the major employer. So you are talking about the economics of those jobs in a small town that will make a huge difference in that local economy.

The second thing that happens is a loss of services for everybody in town, not just the Medicaid people. If that hospital closes, everybody in town is going to have to drive another 30, 40, 50, 100 miles to get care, and they are going to have to not only--there may be closures; there will certainly be cutting of services. We already have a serious problem in Maine with obstetric services. We have a county with no obstetric services. That is only going to get worse under this bill.

The hospitals are pleading with us to not do this. And again, do we really need to do this to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax break? It doesn't make any sense.

Now, I have talked about hospitals, but let's talk about people. The analysis is that 60,000 people in Maine would lose their insurance coverage--40,000 under Medicaid, about 20,000 under the Affordable Care Act.

We have had a lot of personal stories tonight. I want to tell a story about myself. When I worked here in the seventies, I had insurance. It was employer-supported insurance. We paid part of the premium. I had insurance as a junior staff member in this body 50 years ago. Because I had that insurance that covered a free checkup, I went in and had my first physical in 8 years, and I wouldn't have had that physical if the insurance hadn't covered it. I wouldn't have been able to spring for it.

I had that physical, and the doctors found a little mole on my back. They took it out, and I didn't think much of it. And I went in a week later, and the doctor said: You better sit down, Angus. That was malignant melanoma. You are going to have to have some serious surgery.

And a friend of mine who was a doctor said: Angus, here is my best advice. Let them be as radical as they want in that surgery.

And I had the surgery, and here I am. If I hadn't had insurance, I wouldn't be here. And it has always haunted me that some young man in America that same year had malignant melanoma; he didn't have coverage; he didn't have insurance; he didn't get that checkup; and he died.

That is wrong. That is immoral. So the idea of cutting health insurance from people is just--oh, well, they just won't have coverage for their doctors' visits. No. People die when they don't have health insurance. There is statistical analysis to bear that out. So this isn't any joke.

And by the way, people say: Well, we are talking about fraud in Medicaid. Listen, at almost a trillion-dollar cut in Medicaid, 15 million people being cut off--40,000 in the State of Maine--that isn't fraud; that is cutting people who need the care.

And I don't understand the obsession, and I never have--and I stood right there and watched John McCain cast that vote to save the Affordable Care Act, along with my colleague Susan Collins. I don't understand this obsession with taking health insurance away from people. I don't get it. Trying to take away the Affordable Care Act in 2017 or 2018 and now this. What is driving this? What is the cruelty to do this, to take health insurance away from people, knowing that it is going to cost them--it is hard to calculate the cost--up to and including losing their lives.

OK. Let's talk about SNAP. Let's talk about SNAP. The average benefit for SNAP is $6 a day. You feed yourself on $6 a day. The average cost of a meal in the United States is about $10.50 a day, so we are already below cost, if you will.

And here is what it means in my State. Twenty percent of the children in my State are food insecure, and we are talking about cutting SNAP and taking dollars away from those kids. And I was interested in that, and I thought: Oh, that is pretty bad. I am worried Maine is at 20 percent, 20 percent of our kids are food insecure.

So I did a little research. In Arkansas, it is 24 percent of the kids who are food insecure; in Iowa, 17 percent; South Carolina, 14 percent; Michigan, 19 percent; Missouri, another 19 percent. That is one out of five kids are food insecure, and we are going to cut that food in order to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax cut.

That is not only bad policy, it is downright immoral.

OK. What is the other problem with this bill? There are so many. So many problems, so little time. It is irresponsible. It adds about $4 trillion to the deficit. And by the way, this current policy thing doesn't pass the straight-face test. A seventh grader knows that it is nonsense. If this bill doesn't pass, then there isn't a $4 trillion hit on the budget. If it passes, there is.

And the thing that really gives a lie to this nonsense is, also in this bill is a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. If it is not really debt, then we don't need to increase the debt ceiling. It is a sham. Voodoo budgeting.

So I don't want to hear any more from my colleagues about deficits. I don't want to hear any more crocodile tears about deficits. We are mortgaging our future. I hear all this drama about deficits from people who are voting for this bill to add $4 trillion to the deficit unnecessarily.

There is a saying of a famous New Englander: Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words. Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words.

Your actions are, you are adding to the deficit unnecessarily, so don't talk to me about deficits.

Now, the first rule, if you are in a hole, is stop digging. And we are in a hole. We are in a hole. So you stop digging by not passing this bill or not passing it in the extreme form that it is to give the tax benefits--60 percent of the tax benefits--to people making over $400,000 a year.

What has driven the deficit, if you go back and look over the last 20 years, there are three things: One was the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts--we had major tax cuts and then a war that we put on the credit card; the unpaid-for Trump tax cuts in 2017; and COVID. Now, COVID was an emergency. And the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and 2010, those were emergencies. That is where you run deficits. But you don't run deficits when times are good, and that is exactly what we are doing here.

If you are in a hole, stop digging.

By the way, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group, has said--and I haven't heard this mentioned--this bill will actually accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. There is a nice thing for you. It will make those funds go insolvent sooner than would otherwise be the case.

Gutting the IRS. By the way, I have another suggestion for my colleagues. You want to find $600 billion a year? Enforce the tax laws against cheaters. That is the estimate: $600 billion a year is left on the table because cheaters, mostly high-income, are not paying the taxes they owe. The poor stiff that gets a 1040, he has to pay it. Everybody knows what he is making. But it is these people with the fancy lawyers and accountants--and I am not talking about tax avoidance here. I am talking about stone-cold tax evasion, $600 billion a year. That would be nice, instead of cutting Medicare and Medicaid and food stamps.

Another piece of this bill that hasn't gotten much attention is ICE. The current budget of ICE is $9 billion a year. Under this, they are increasing it $75 billion over 4 years. That is an additional $18 billion a year. They are tripling the budget of ICE. They are tripling the budget. We are dangerously close to creating a Federal police force, which we have never had in this country, and we shouldn't have.

And by the way, I have never in my life seen a law enforcement officer with a mask on. I don't get where that came from, a law enforcement officer wearing a mask. Where I come from, people that wear masks are not the good guys, and I don't understand that.

But to triple this budget, you wonder where that is going to take this country.

So let me go back to the beginning. All this damage to give a tax break to a guy who is making a million bucks.

The chairman of the Finance Committee wasn't here, I think, when I said this. Mr. Chairman, if we limit the tax cuts to people making $400,000 and less, it will reduce the cost of this bill by 60 percent. It will ameliorate the need for any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. It would also minimize the hit on the debt and the deficit.

There is no rush to pass this bill. Let's kill it, give it a merciful death over the next 24 hours, and then start over writing a responsible bill to deal with the expiring tax cuts for the middle class and deal with issues within the Federal Government that should be addressed.

But this bill is not the answer. It is a sham, and it is a shame, and it is embarrassing to even be debating this bill. It should have never come before us in this form. I hope that enough of my colleagues will see that this is an unnecessary damage to the citizens of this country and the citizens of their State. Every State's citizens are going to suffer, and this is something that we, in this body, can and should prevent.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, when the Senate considers the reconciliation bill, H.R. 1, it is my intention to make the following motion to commit the bill:

A motion to commit the bill to the committee on Health,

Education, Labor and Pensions, with instructions to report

H.R. 1 back to the Senate with changes that double the

maximum Pell Grant by 2029, and increase the maximum award in

future years by indexing the award to inflation.

A motion to commit the bill to the committee on Finance to

strike any provision that reduces the average tax liability

of individual taxpayers with income in excess of

$1,000,000,000.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Preble Street on their 50th anniversary for their outstanding contributions to the State of Maine and our Nation. Over the past 50 years, Preble Street has provided our most vulnerable Maine community members with shelter, food, medical care, casework, and support. Preble Street has evolved over the past 50 years, but its commitment to helping the people of Maine remains at the heart of its mission. Preble Street started with the inspiration and hard work of Joe Kreisler, a social work professor at the University of Southern Maine, and his dedicated students as a training ground to provide Portland's most vulnerable with basic services: clothing, food, and a place to use the bathroom. The difference this compassionate group has made is indelible; the legacy they have created will continue to change lives well into the future.

The Preble Street team has risen to meet every challenge along the way, of which there have been many. Whether assisting neighboring shelters at risk of closing to ensuring that Maine's people did not lose access to critical services--or contending with the COVID-19 pandemic--Preble Street took their operation on the road to ensure our most vulnerable were safe from both illness and hunger. Preble Street is not just a shelter; it is an integral part of our Maine community, creating jobs and hope for people from every background. In the last year, Preble Street's dedicated staff and volunteers helped hundreds of young people find safety, necessary services, and housing. Additionally, hundreds more homeless adults have been able to meet their basic needs and work toward a better future. Preble Street has also provided over 500 veterans and their families with housing support, ensuring those who have valiantly served our country have a consistent roof over their heads and steady access to healthy foods. It is the effective and passionate work of Preble Street that underscores the collective impact communities can make when coming together.

After each interaction with Preble Street--whether through supporting Stuff the Bus, a Thanksgiving food drive led by Preble Street, or the Food Hub--I and many others leave with a better understanding of what I can do to help those who are suffering in our communities. This is one of the gifts of Preble Street's outreach: to be the voice of many who too often remain voiceless and ``walking the walk'' to the organization's core belief that the well-being of our entire community depends on identifying the challenging problems that affect us all. Equally sincere is Preble Street's mission and desire to be a part of those solutions. That is the essence of Preble Street's gospel.

Joe Kreisler, Mark ``Swannie'' Swann, the staff, and volunteers at Preble Street have derived innovative solutions to the challenges faced in Maine. Preble Street's site-based Housing First model--one of the first in the Nation--led to several locations in Portland that provide long-term housing for chronically homeless adults. In addition to reducing strain on overnight shelters and addressing homelessness, Preble Street has created an extensive system to fight food insecurity, including soup kitchens, mobile food pantries to meet people where they are, and their Food Security Hub. Altogether, Preble Street provides the greater Portland area with over 100,000 meals per month, an amount that does not go unnoticed or unappreciated in Maine's biggest city.

On top of their altruistic mission to provide barrier-free assistance to those in Maine, Preble Street also seeks to do so sustainably. Preble Street is investing in energy-efficient equipment; they partner with local farms; and they source some of their electricity from solar energy. Those experiencing homelessness are some of the most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, and Preble Street recognizes this challenge. Their commitment to uplifting the people of Maine sustainably is a testament to what our communities are capable of when people come together with a mission to do genuine good and create lasting change.

From its early beginnings in the basement of a chapel, Preble Street has pioneered a way to sustainably provide homes, food, and other services to the most vulnerable in Maine. Preble Street's impact can be felt across our State and has undoubtedly saved many lives and bettered many more. On behalf of the U.S. Senate, I offer my deepest gratitude for the work Preble Street has done and will continue to do in our State.

Mr. President, almost 75 years ago, the junior Senator from Maine rose in this Chamber to deliver a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country, a crisis not arising from a foreign adversary but from within, a crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American experiment.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith's ``Declaration of Conscience'' turned out to be one of the most important speeches of the 20th century and defined her for the ages as a person of extraordinary courage and principle. And here she is with her famous red rose that she always wore on her lapel.

Now, I should admit upfront that I worked for Candidate Bill Hathaway, who defeated her in the election of 1972. But she and I made it up years later when I was producing a documentary on her life for Maine PBS. In fact, as we began the project, I was so worried that she might resent my having worked for her opponent, so I sent her a letter confessing my role in her last campaign.

Her response was pure Margaret Smith:

Dear Angus King, it is perfectly alright with me that you

once worked for Mr. Hathaway. Yours sincerely, Margaret Chase

Smith.

Simple as that.

In working together on the documentary, she shared some fascinating background on this famous speech, including that she drafted it by hand at her kitchen table in her hometown of Skowhegan, ME, on Memorial Day weekend of 1950.

After returning to Washington a couple of days later, she steeled her resolve and headed to the Senate floor. As luck would have it, when she got to the trolley from the Russell Building, there next to her sat Senator Joe McCarthy, who was the subject of the speech.

``Why are you looking so serious, Margaret,'' he asked her.

``Because I'm on the way to make a speech, Joe, and you're not going to like it.''

She told me that she was so nervous about the speech and the breach that it would make in her relationship to the then-powerful Senator McCarthy--this was the height of the Red Scare in the 1950s, remember-- she told her chief aide, Bill Lewis, who was up in the Press Gallery, not to hand out the copies of the speech until she started speaking on the floor because she was afraid she might lose her nerve. But she went through with it, and the rest is quite literally history.

Here is how Margaret Chase Smith began that speech:

Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply

about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling

of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide

and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is

a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership

either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of

our government.

Remember, this is Margaret Chase Smith. These are her words, 75 years ago.

She continued:

I think that it is high time for the United States Senate

and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh

our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing

our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we

are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.

Later in the speech, here is one of her conclusions:

It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as

Republicans and Democrats about elections and started

thinking patriotically as Americans about national security

based on individual freedom.

I think that is very important, Mr. President.

She said:

It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as

Republicans and Democrats and started thinking patriotically

as Americans about national security based on individual

freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and

victims of totalitarian techniques--techniques that, if

continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come

to cherish as the American way of life.

Senator Smith's speech had plenty of criticism for the Democratic administration at the time, but the real focus of her urgent plea to her colleagues was the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom she never mentioned by name in the speech, by the way. But Joseph McCarthy had embarked upon an anticommunist crusade in a manner that threatened the principles of free speech and the rule of law embedded in our values as a nation and in our Constitution. In other words, it wasn't McCarthy's anticommunism she objected to; it was the manner in which he carried it out.

I fear that we are at a similar moment in history. While today's serious national condition is not involving the actions of one of our colleagues, it does involve those of the President of the United States.

Echoing Senator Smith, today's crisis should not be viewed as a partisan issue. This is not about Democrats or Republicans or immigration or tax policy or even the next set of elections. Today's crisis threatens the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries.

Again, this is not about the President's agenda, although, yes, I do disagree with most of it; it is about the manner in which he is pursuing it, which includes ignoring the Constitution and the rule of law. And it is this roughshod nonprocess that endangers all of us--all of us--his detractors and his supporters alike.

What is at stake is simple and, in fact, was the driving force behind the basic design of our Constitution: the grave danger to any society of a concentration of power in one set of hands--the concentration of power in one set of hands.

The paradox at the heart of the structure of any democratic government is that power is given to the government to protect and serve the people, but at the same time, the people must be protected from that same power being used against them.

Madison put it clearly in the 51st Federalist:

But what is government itself--

Madison said--

but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men

were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were

to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on

government would be necessary. In framing a government which

is to be administered by men over men--

And, of course, it would now be men and women over men and women--

the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the

government to control the governed; and in the next place

oblige it to control itself.

A dependence on the people--

He was talking about elections--

is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but

experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary

precautions.

Precautions that go beyond regular elections. The most important of these ``auxiliary precautions'' is the explicit separation of powers between the Executive and the legislature, which is at the heart--at the heart, at the very heart--of our Constitution, better known as checks and balances.

My fear is this phrase ``checks and balances'' has become such a cliche that we don't recognize it as the fundamental premise of our constitutional system.

There is nothing new, by the way, about the recognition of the danger of concentrated power. The ancient Romans summed it up with a simple question: ``Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?'' or ``Who will guard the guardians?'' How do we control the government that we have created to keep it from abusing the people?

Another way to define this danger is a universal principle of human nature: All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is important to emphasize that the danger I am describing here isn't based upon institutional jealousy of Senators worrying about the President taking some of their power or a loss of the prerogatives of the Senate or the politics of Democrats and Republicans. It is about the violation of the very deliberate division of power between the legislature and the Executive, which is, as I said, at the heart of our Constitution. It is there for a reason: to see that the power is not concentrated in one set of hands. And this is the most important bulwark between our citizens and--let's call it what it is--tyranny.

Again, Madison warned us in no uncertain terms, this time in the 47th Federalist:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and

judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced

the very definition of tyranny.

Madison's word, ``tyranny.''

Later in the same essay:

There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive

powers are united in the same person.

``There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person,'' and yet this ``accumulation of all powers''--the term that Madison used--is exactly what is happening today before our very eyes. Although many in this body, unfortunately, seem determined to ignore it, deliberately ignore it, the evidence is everywhere: from the elimination of congressionally established Agencies to the withholding of appropriated funds--an appropriations bill, Mr. President, by the way, is a law; it is not a suggestion to the Executive about where he or she should spend money, it is a law to be observed--to issuing Executive orders purporting to be law in place of legislation, to sidestepping, if not ignoring, court orders.

This President is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert and therefore complicit.

It is worth pausing for a moment to look at the terms of article II, which outlines the powers and responsibilities of the President-- article II of the Constitution. At the outset, we have to remember that the Declaration of Independence was directed specifically at the depredations of the British King, and later, the Framers had recently come through a brutal 8-year war against that same King. It is clear that a monarchy was exactly what the Framers were trying to avoid in the structure of the new government, and it explains the limited powers granted to the President in article II.

So let's look at article II. In light of this antimonarchical intent, article II only gives the President 1\1/2\ unilateral powers. The unilateral power is the power to issue pardons. That is something the President can do without any check or balance. The half unilateral power is the role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in wartime, but even that is constrained by the reservation to the Congress of the power to declare war.

With these two exceptions, all the other powers in article II granted to the President--appointment of judges, Federal officials; making treaties with other countries; vetoing legislation--are all bounded in some respect by the requirement of congressional assent.

I want to repeat, article II is not a broad grant of authority to the President. It is anything but. It is a restriction on the powers of the President.

And here, I think, is the most important phrase in article II. The principal responsibility of the President is spelled out in the last paragraph of article II: The Chief Executive ``shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed''--``shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'' It doesn't say only the laws he agrees with or that he has any power whatsoever to make laws. His job is to execute the laws passed by Congress without exception--a responsibility this President is spectacularly failing to meet,

to ``take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.''

While this is the most serious breach of our constitutional order, the administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule--or tyranny, as Madison would say.

In the style of the Declaration of Independence, here is a partial list--only, where the Declaration says ``he,'' it is referring to the King of England. ``He'' as used in my list refers to the President.

Here is the list:

He has enabled the random firing of personnel throughout the government without regard to the importance of the job or the qualifications of the individual, which has severely compromised the ability of the affected Agencies to carry out the purposes Congress intended--the very antithesis of faithfully executing the laws.

He has enabled the dismemberment of Agencies providing essential services to the American people, most particularly in the Social Security and Veterans' Administrations, by people who literally don't know what they are doing--again, in violation of his responsibility to faithfully execute the laws creating those Agencies and programs.

He has systematically--early in the administration--fired independent inspectors general throughout the government whose job it is to find fraud, corruption, and malfeasance in Agency programs, in clear violation of Federal law and apparent intent to govern without constraints.

He has used the power of the government to threaten, intimidate, and extort private law firms for the supposed offense of representing clients he doesn't like--an exercise of governmental power nowhere found in the Constitution and a clear violation of the very structure of our legal system.

He has used the power of the government to threaten and intimidate former government officials based upon actions and statements with which he disagrees, thereby sending the message throughout the government that pleasing the President is more important than telling the truth.

Again, he has no such power over the Constitution, and the result of this abuse of his office is the opposite--the opposite--of faithfully executing the laws.

He has openly threatened media platforms, particularly television networks, with license revocation or other punishment for airing content he doesn't like, in clear violation of the First Amendment, which is one of the fundamental bulwarks of our freedoms. For a President of the United States to threaten a media firm with revocation of their license or other kinds of punishment because they publish content he doesn't like--that is the antithesis of the First Amendment.

By the way, the compromise of the free press has been a sign of incipient despotism throughout history and right up to today.

He has used the power of the government, including the impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds and threatening tax-exempt status, to threaten and intimidate private universities in order to force them to adopt policies to his liking--again, a power found nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in article II.

He has enabled a national program of arrest and deportation of individuals in this country with no due process whatsoever. And even when it is admitted that at least one such individual was sent to a foreign prison by mistake, he has refused to make any effort to return that person to his home, despite court orders--including a unanimous order of the United States Supreme Court--of him to do so.

This entire process is a violation of the 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th Amendments. It certainly is not consistent with his obligation to faithfully execute the laws.

He has openly suggested the possibility of sending U.S. citizens to a foreign prison for undefined crimes, thereby placing them outside the reach of our criminal justice system, including the constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel.

He has abused the limited powers delegated to him by Congress in connection with tariffs and trade by declaring emergencies where none exist and singlehandedly plunging our economy into chaos and risk of inflation, unemployment, and possible recession--a perfect example of the dangers of one-man rule.

The Constitution specifically delegates to the Congress, in article I, section 8 clause 3, the power over trade and commerce among nations. Congress delegated that power to the President under certain limited circumstances, that of an emergency, not that the President can define an emergency however he wants.

I live in Maine. We are on the border of Canada. There is no emergency that justifies the imposition of tariffs with Canada. If he wants to propose a tariff against Canada or Britain or any other country, he should come here, because that is our responsibility. We should debate it; and chances are, we can come up with a more rational solution than the one that was presented to the country several weeks ago.

He has also attempted to cut off funds to a single State, my own, because he took personal umbrage at our Governor's refusal to bend to his policy preference, which was inconsistent with the law of our State.

Our Governor's position was not on the issue of trans athletes. It was on the issue of State and local control, which is the basic bedrock of our representative form of government.

Tellingly, during that exchange, he said something really amazing and revealing. The President of the United States said:

We are the law.

That is more fitting to a king than to a President. ``We are the law.''

By the way, an Executive order is not law, despite what this President seems to think. An Executive order is not law. The Constitution does not give the power to the President to unilaterally decide what the law is. Again, his job is to faithfully execute the laws that are made here in this building.

This ``we are the law'' comment is a clear statement of an intent to govern as a sovereign without regard to the Constitution or the rule of law.

In a field that I have some specific knowledge of, he has compromised national security by dismantling those Agencies charged with defending our Nation against the clear and present danger of cyber attacks and firing many of the individuals--with no stated cause--who are best suited to mount that defense.

He has further compromised national security by alienating our allies with his unlawful and indiscriminate imposition of tariffs, which has severely undermined confidence in our country, again, acting far in excess of the limited power over trade delegated by Congress.

I have served for the past 12 years on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, and I have come to realize that our asymmetric advantage in the world is allies. China has customers. We have allies. To alienate our allies without good reason, with no emergency, with no consultation with Congress, with no consultation with the Foreign Affairs Committee, with no consultation with much of anybody, that I can tell, is a serious compromise of our national security, both in terms of our intelligence capability but also who will come to our aid in a time of trouble.

This is not a complete list. It does, though, present a disturbing and dangerous pattern. This President is attempting to govern as a monarch, unbound by constitutional restraint or by law, not as a President subject to the constraints of the Constitution or the rule of law.

Again, this isn't about his policies, whether they be mass deportation or trans athletes, trade and tariffs, or the appropriate levels of staffing of the Federal Government. Reasonable people can discuss those, work out policies, and find what the law should be. It is not unilaterally in the hands of the President to make those decisions.

No. The issue before us we can no longer avoid is the manner in which he is pursuing those policies, which violates both the spirit and expressed terms of our founding document.

Again, this isn't about observing the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution just to check the appropriate boxes. This is about preserving boundaries to protect ourselves and our people from the abuse that inevitably--inevitably--flows from the unbridled concentration of power.

To those who like the policies of the President and are, therefore, willing to ignore the constitutional means of effectuating them, I and history can only say: Watch out. Today, the target may be the undocumented or Federal workers, but tomorrow, perhaps, under a different king President, could be you.

Once this power is concentrated into one set of hands, it is going to be very difficult to get it back, and it could turn that power against anybody who displeases the monarch.

So what can we do? What are the guardrails? How can we buttress? It is important. The first guardrail is the Congress itself, the part of our government actually empowered to define policy, appropriate funds, oversee the actions of the Executive. But, unfortunately, the majority in Congress has thus far wholly abdicated these fundamental responsibilities and thus far shown little inclination to even recognize the danger, let alone take action to confront it.

We could reclaim our power, however, by pulling back the trade authority--there is a bill to do that--instituting vigorous oversight of the activities of DOGE to determine to what extent their actions compromise the congressional intent, or holding the President's nominees and his prized tax bill until he seizes his attempts to make policy unilaterally, including compounding Congressionally authorized and appropriated funds.

You know, do our job. That is the simple solution. Do our job.

The second guardrail is the courts, which are generally holding up their end of the constitutional bargain. But they read the press just as we do, and they need to know we are ready to reassume our powers and responsibilities. As easy as it may be for us to rely entirely on the courts to save us, that is a copout. Reclaiming power must be a joint project.

The final guardrail is the people, who more and more are speaking up in rallies, in correspondence with us, in town meetings, and in conversations at the grocery store. But their only real power, the midterm elections, don't happen for 19 months. And in the meantime, the burden falls back on us.

I don't think we have 19 months, given what has happened in the first 100 days. We need to act now before the awesome power of the United States Government is consolidated into one set of hands. When that happens, there may be no going back.

No. We here in this body can't escape the responsibility of our oath. Each of us swore, mind you, to ``support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic'' and that we would ``bear true faith and allegiance to the same.'' The ``same'' being the Constitution.

Clearly, the Framers knew that someday, there might be domestic enemies of the Constitution and made it our literally sacred obligation to defend the Constitution from those domestic enemies.

I should mention that Joe McCarthy primaried Senator Margaret Chase Smith a few years after her speech as punishment to standing up to him, but to no avail. She crushed her opposition and won going away.

With thanks to Margaret Chase Smith for her example and inspiration, this is my ``Declaration of Conscience.''

I don't relish this moment, but I feel I have no choice but to call out the clear implications and dangers of what is happening--what is happening day by day--before our eyes.

To do otherwise, to keep silent, would be to compromise what I believed about our country since my first civics class in high school and at about the same time when I watched my dad risk his career to fight for justice and the rule of law.

So here I stand.

Abraham Lincoln came to the Congress in the midst of the Civil War at a time when our forebearers--like us--were reluctant to face the responsibilities that had been thrust upon them. At that critical moment, this is what Abraham Lincoln said:

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this

Congress and this Administration, will be remembered in spite

of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance,

can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which

we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the

latest generation.

``The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.''

Mr. President, I deeply hope that in the midst of our fiery trial, we will choose honor and the Constitution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1773 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I think I would title this amendment the ``Are There No Limits?'' amendment.

My amendment is that there should be no tax cuts for anyone earning-- an individual earning--more than $1 billion a year. There are 170 people who fit into that category in this country. That is 6,000 times the income of the average American family.

The Senator from Idaho is discussing how these tax programs work. We can discuss and debate that, but the question is, Do people who make $1 billion a year need a tax cut? If you believe that people who make $1 billion a year deserve and need a tax cut, signify by voting no.

Mr. President, do I have any time left?

Nobody is talking about raising the rates. The only question before us on this amendment is, Should the rates be cut for people making more than $1 billion a year?

I urge a ``yes'' vote and will accept a voice vote.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

The Senator was discussing--

I want to ask you questions about veterans in this country, but before I do, you talk a lot about courage.

And how the world has been changed by people of courage, and I look down at my tie that I have on today, which has the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and we think of that as a sacred document, an important document, in our history. But these people had the courage to put their lives on the line for a radical idea that people could govern themselves, that we could be independent of a monarchy, and they were putting their lives on the line.

That is courage, and I am afraid we have people around here, Senator, who won't put their jobs on the line for the idea of America, for our Constitution, for the guarantees that are provided in the Constitution, for the First Amendment, for the structure of the Constitution, for the independence and separation of powers, which is what provides the protection, the essential protection, for our freedoms.

But let me ask a question about veterans. We had a hearing this morning in the Veterans' Affairs Committee. We were hearing nominees, and I commented that here we are, mostly voting on nominees in this extraordinary historic time as if everything is normal.

What I said in the committee this morning was we are playing ``Nearer My God'' on the deck of the Titanic, and we are talking about all these nominees and all these votes that we are having and not talking about what is happening to our country.

In terms of veterans, here is what is happening. No. 1, every time the guy with the chain saw takes so much pleasure in firing people, if you hear about 1,000 people fired in this government, chances are over 300 of them are veterans. Thirty-percent of the Federal workforce is veterans. In the VA, I suspect it is an even higher number.

So what is happening in the Veterans' Administration? The first thing that happened was a hiring freeze, and the hiring freeze affected everybody in the Veterans' Administration until somebody said: Well, wait a minute, what about doctors and nurses? What about direct care workers? And they said: Oh, wait a minute, we didn't mean for that.

That is sort of symbolic of the way this thing is going because they are not thinking. It is ready, fire, aim, time after time. So you have a hiring freeze. Then they say: Wait a minute, there is this group we want to do, but then they leave the hiring freeze in place for the people that are working behind the scenes.

I think the Senator will agree that if nobody is there to answer the phone when a veteran calls to make a claim or make an appointment, that is a denial of benefits just as if they cut the benefits.

OK. So 2,400 people fired--and by the way, those people being fired are getting emails that say you are being fired for poor performance. There was no analysis of performance. There was no examination of how they were actually doing or whether these people were contributing. It was random. It was people who were on probation. Do you know why? Because they are easier to fire under our laws.

So we have got people being fired, ostensibly, for poor performance. Think of that as somebody who has put their life on the line for their country because they are a veteran, and then they go to work in public service for the Veterans' Administration, and they are being told poor performance when everybody knows that is a sham.

So the next thing that happens is the Veterans' Administration announces they are going to fire 83,000 people over the next 6 months. Now, they say we are going to return to the size of the Veterans' Administration it was in 2019. No. 1, that is an arbitrary number. Why not 2020 or 2016? You know, it is an arbitrary number. It is not based on any analysis or deep thought.

Here is the problem, Senator. I want you to be ready to respond to this. Here is the problem: There have been seven major pieces of legislation benefiting veterans since 2019, the biggest of which, of course, is the PACT Act, the largest expansion of a veterans' benefit program in probably the last 30 or 40 years, and you need people to administer that program. And instead, they are firing people.

The Secretary of the Veterans' Administration says: Don't worry. It is not going to affect services at all. I don't think that statement passes the straight-face test.

Then we have a statement from the VA that says: We have very proudly--we have canceled 600 contracts, but they won't tell us what they are.

I am on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. We don't know what they are. We don't know what the plan is for those 83,000 people that are going to be fired. I guess my question is: What do you think of an organization that says to a veteran: Thank you for your service, you are fired?

Mr. President, the news is coming so hard and fast these days that it is hard to sort it all out. Every day seems to be something new that captures our attention, our concern, our interest.

What I would like to do today is to try to put some of it in perspective as to what is going on in our governing of this country. I don't believe what I am going to be talking about today is partisan. It should not be partisan because what I am really talking about is competent government and constitutional government--really, two categories: competent government and constitutional government. That should not be a controversial issue. Neither of those is something we should be arguing about. It is what we have a responsibility to carry through in terms of our jobs here in the U.S. Senate. So, of the two categories I want to talk about, my headings are ``thoughtless'' and ``dangerous.''

First, I want to talk about ``thoughtless.''

The hiring freeze. A hiring freeze can be an effective tool if it is used thoughtfully and systematically, but to do it across the board, without a process for exceptions that is built into it, you end up with all kinds of unintended and negative consequences with firefighters, parks, losses elsewhere by attrition. There should be a systematic exemption process. Now it is haphazard and random.

Park seasonal employees first were under the hiring freeze; now they are

not. It is sort of like: Oh. Oh, never mind. We are going to be OK with park seasonal employees.

VA frontline health workers were first subject to the hiring freeze. Then people said: Oh. Well, we didn't mean doctors and nurses, so that is OK. You can hire them.

My point is, it is not a rational process. It is ready, fire, aim. Literally, ready, fire, aim is what we are talking about, and people aren't doing this in a thoughtful and systematic way.

By the way, the difference between frontline deliverers of care at the VA and the people who answer the phones who are categorized as bureaucrats--I don't think there is a stark difference there. If you are a veteran and are seeking care and an appointment at a VA health facility and nobody answers the phone, that is a denial of benefits. That is a denial of benefits just as if they had closed the door in your face. That is what we are talking about--weakening the systems that are serving our public.

So the hiring freeze: It is possible to do a hiring freeze. When I was the Governor of Maine, I instituted a hiring freeze, but we did it in a systematic and thoughtful way. We had a process for dealing with exemptions and without destroying the morale and throwing the entire operation of government into chaos.

By the way, why do we have the government? To serve the people. To serve the people.

So let's talk about the next step--the firings. The famous ``Fork in the Road'' letter is a perfect example of a thoughtless way to approach a problem.

The letter went to everybody. The letter wasn't selective. It went to everybody--all civilians in the CIA, in the National Security Agency, in the Defense Department, and also, of course, to all the other civilian Agencies, but it wasn't targeted in any way. It was, ``If you want to leave Federal service, we will pay you through September,'' but it hit everybody. Again, it is not a rational or thoughtful way to trim the Federal workforce.

You should be talking about, Where are we over? Do we have too many people? Do we have overstock in terms of public servants, and where do we need more, for example. Instead, it went to everybody. By definition, that is not a rational process. Let me just put this in perspective by the way.

In the ``Fork in the Road'' letter, the estimate, as of today, is that 75,000 people have taken that option and left. I suppose the people who are behind this thing think that that is a good victory. The dollars saved to the Treasury from those 75,000 people represent one- tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget. So the people who are saying that we are cutting the budget; we are cutting; we are saving; we are saving the taxpayers' money, it is one-tenth of 1 percent. Given the chaos and the uncertainty and the deletion of services to our American people, I would argue that is not worth it--one-tenth of 1 percent. Everyone got these letters. People are being fired now in the CIA, the FBI, the VA.

On this letter, what if only the best people take the option to leave? Then you will have really shot yourself in the foot. You will have encouraged people who were going to retire anyway or who could get a better job in the private sector. So it is almost--it is an anti- intelligent way to handle this.

Then you have got situations like at the Department of Energy. In the first weekend, they fired 350 people in the National Nuclear Security Administration. Of the people who handle nuclear materials and are responsible for our nuclear stockpile, they fired almost--I think it was--something like 20 percent of the personnel. Then, 3 or 4 days later, they realized: Uh-oh. That was a mistake. So now they are trying to bring these people back.

The point I am making is, a good, solid, thoughtful process wouldn't have made a mistake like that. They would have realized from the outset that these are jobs that we aren't going to be firing, that we aren't going to be eliminating. It seems to be based on some kind of quota. I don't know what it is.

OK. So now we are seeing everybody is being fired who is on probation, probationary people--people who have worked for the government for less than a year or two. OK. Again, that is arbitrary. Being on probation doesn't mean you are an effective employee or you are not an effective employee. You could be one of the best employees in the whole Federal Government, and you have just come on, and yet you are going to be fired. It has nothing to do with the productivity or skill of the worker. It has nothing to do with the importance of the position. It has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the Agency in question that is serving the people of Maine. If you are probationary, you are gone.

Here is another thing about probation: It turns out, in the Federal Government, if you are promoted, you are on probation in the new position. You may have worked for the Department for 5 or 10 years. You are promoted. You are on probation. You are fired. Even though you have 5 or 10 years of experience--you are capable; you are doing a good job--there was no effort that I can see. People did get these ridiculous letters saying: Your performance has not been adequate. There was no basis for those letters. It was arbitrary--arbitrary.

Remember, I said my categories are ``thoughtless'' and ``dangerous.'' This is thoughtless: probation.

Oh, by the way, about 30 percent of the Federal workforce are veterans. Now, we don't know the exact figures. That is one of the problems. We have no transparency about what is going on here and who is actually being let go and who isn't, but a reasonable extrapolation is 30 percent of the people being fired are veterans--people who put their lives on the line for this country. Then they went into public service, and they are being fired. That is outrageous.

Again, was no one thinking about this? A thousand were fired at the VA just a couple of days ago.

We learned that people supporting the VA crisis line were fired. What genius thought that was a good idea?

Last Friday, immigration judges were fired. We are talking about immigration and the border and the control of immigration, and we are firing immigration judges? What possible sense does that make?

Here is one: We have had, I think, three serious aircraft incidents in the last month, and they just fired, I think, 300 people at the FAA--great--including people who are in the business of maintaining the systems that keep our airplanes safe. In the wake of 3 serious airplane crashes, including 1 here in Washington that killed 67 people, we are firing people at the FAA? Give me a break. What kind of sense does that make? What kind of service is that to the people of the United States?

Here is one that is not life or death, but it is the National Park Service. A thousand people were fired last weekend at the National Park Service. I suspect they were probationary. That means, OK, they had only been there a year or two, but that doesn't mean they weren't in jobs that weren't important. The headline in this morning's paper: ``Chaos at the National Parks.'' The lines are twice as long as they normally are, and if there is chaos at the National Parks in February, Lord knows what it is going to be in June or July in Yosemite and at the Grand Canyon and in Acadia, which is in my State of Maine.

Here is a beauty: Some of these people who are being fired are the people who collect fees at the park. So, to save a buck, we are going to lose 5 bucks from fees not being collected. Genius. Come on. Five percent of the workforce at the National Park Service is being fired.

I can tell you I am the cochair of the National Park Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. We need more people at the national parks, not less. We have had a staffing shortage going back a half a dozen or 10 years, where visitation is way up, and staff is flat or declining. Now it is really declining. This is a direct, hands-on experience for the American people.

Gettysburg: They have been laying off people at the battlefield. Last night, apparently, something called the Presidential Management Fellows Program--a training program that is decades old that brings talented people into the Federal Government--was eliminated. No explanation. No rationale. Eliminated.

OK. That is the thoughtless part. And let me give you a little personal experience. When I was elected Governor of Maine, we had a serious budget deficit. We were in the middle of a recession. So we went through a process very similar to the impetus for what is going on now. We looked at the entire workforce of the State of Maine, but we did it in a thoughtful and transparent way. We developed a task force that included private citizens, legislators, and members of the administration, and we took 8 months--8 months, not 8 weeks--and we looked at the entire structure of the State of Maine government and reduced our workforce by about 10 percent--a significant reduction, but we did it in a thoughtful way and in a way that made sense in terms of the ongoing service to the people of Maine.

So it can be done, and I am not unsympathetic with the idea of making things more efficient and even possibly downsizing the government where it is called for and where additional people aren't necessary. So I am not here to say we shouldn't be looking for efficiency and saying everything in the Federal Government is perfect. I don't believe that for a minute. But I think, if we are going to take on this exercise, it ought to be done in a sensible way by people who know what they are doing.

That brings me to DOGE. I don't know what they are doing. Nobody does. I don't know who these 25-year-olds are that are in the IRS, rummaging around in the IRS IT system or--we learned in the last couple of days--Social Security. What are they doing? Who are they? What are their qualifications? Do they have security clearances? Do they have conflicts of interest?

All of the rules that are designed to protect us from people making arbitrary decisions that aren't accountable--you talk about bureaucrats being unaccountable; these are the ultimate unaccountable people. We don't know what their relationship is to the Federal Government, what authority they have, under what law are they operating. It is pretty clear from mistakes like firing 350 people at the Nuclear Security Agency--it is pretty clear they don't know what they are doing, and they are firing people whom we need. OK. That is the thoughtless part, and it is inexcusable.

That is just pure efficiency of government, of doing the right thing, and it can be done, but these people aren't doing it.

The second part of what is going on is the dangerous part, and this is where I call upon my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are standing by and watching the structure of our government be attacked with no response--elimination of entire congressionally created Agencies.

USAID was established by statute, and over a weekend, these people fired everybody, closed the Agency, took the name off the door, and threw the rest of the world into chaos where these people were working on important projects all over the world that were part of our outreach to the world.

And, you know what, as soon as we went out of business at AID, China is right in the market. It is like walking away from engagement with the world. It couldn't be a more self-defeating piece of work.

By the way, it is a tiny part of the Federal budget.

James Mattis famously said when he was a general: If you cut the foreign aid budget, you are going to have to buy me more bullets.

Foreign aid is part of the national security of this country, and to demolish this Agency without any input from Congress, without any relationship to the Foreign Affairs Committee or anybody else up here in Congress, is grossly unconstitutional. It is grossly unconstitutional.

Here is the problem: This isn't just a battle between the Senate and the House and the President and they are fighting about powers. No. The reason the Framers designed our Constitution the way they did was that they were afraid of concentrated power. They had just fought a brutal 8-year war with a King. They didn't want a King. They wanted a constitutional republic where power was divided between the Congress and the President and the courts.

We are collapsing that structure. And the structure wasn't there for fun. It wasn't there because, hey, we are just going to design this complicated system. It was there to protect our freedom because the people who wrote our Constitution understood human nature, and they understood a very important thousand-year-old principle: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So the whole idea was to divide power. To the extent we allow this assault on our Constitution, this collapsing and excessive power being granted to the Executive to ignore the laws passed by Congress--and, by the way, appropriations bills are laws passed by Congress, which the administration is also ignoring by freezing funding for programs authorized and funded by Congress. To the extent we do that, we are not only making a mistake now, but we are altering the essential structure of our Constitution that is there for a reason, that is there to protect our freedom.

The people who are cheering this on, I fear, in a reasonably short period of time, are going to say: Where did this go? How did this happen? How did we make our President into a monarch? How did this happen?

How it happened is we gave it up.

James Madison thought we would fight for our power--but no. Right now, we are just sitting back and watching it happen.

Article II of the Constitution--the President said: Oh, article II gives me a lot of power.

No, it doesn't. It makes the President Commander in Chief; that is true. But here is the key sentence in article II of the Constitution, which defines a President's power. The key sentence is not the power of the President. The responsibility of the President is to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed''--not write the laws, not deny the laws, not ignore the laws, not pick which laws he or she likes. To ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed''--that is the responsibility of the President. Right now, those laws are being ignored.

Impoundment. Impoundment. The President is trying to say: Congress appropriated this money with an appropriation bill signed by the President, but I am not going to spend it because I don't like it. I don't like that purpose, whatever it is.

I am sorry. It is absolutely straight-up unconstitutional, and it is illegal. President Nixon tried to do that in 1973, and the Congress virtually unanimously passed the Impoundment Control Act, which said: No, Presidents can't do that; they can't ignore the will of Congress because article I of the Constitution gives the Congress the power of the purse.

We are giving it away this week. We are standing by and watching it, watching the essential power of this body evaporate--not evaporate-- migrate down the street to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The power was divided for a reason.

There is some criticism now in the press saying people are talking about a constitutional crisis; they are crying wolf. No. This is a constitutional crisis. It is the most serious assault on our Constitution in the history of this country. It is the most serious assault on the very structure of our Constitution, which is designed to protect our freedoms and our liberty, in the history of this country.

It is a constitutional crisis, and I will tell you what makes it worse: The President and the Vice President are already hinting that they are not going to obey decisions of the courts.

Many of my friends in this body say: Well, you know, it would be hard. We don't want to buck the President and everything. We are going to let the courts take care of this.

No. 1, that is a copout. It is our responsibility to protect the Constitution. That is what we swear to when we enter this body. But to stand back and say: Oh, we are going to watch all this happen, and the courts are going to take care of it--that is an abdication of our responsibility.

By the way, if you look at history, yes, it is true Presidents have gained power. In my reading of history, usually it wasn't because Presidents usurped power but because the Congress abdicated it. We haven't declared war, for example, since 1942, and yet that is a clear responsibility of Congress. And we sure have been in some scrapes since 1942. We have abdicated that power. And we are now in the process of abdicating the power to control the appropriations process.

I mentioned about DOGE: no authority, no accountability, no transparency. We literally don't know what they are doing. We can't find out what they are doing.

Then, just this week, the destruction of the independent Agencies created by Congress. They were created as independent Agencies for a reason--because they didn't want them to be dominated by the vicissitudes of politics.

The President gets to appoint members of the board, and they are very carefully balanced--not firing someone at the National Labor Relations Board so there is no quorum so they can't act. That is a direct violation of congressionally established policy.

These independent Agencies were created for a reason.

Oh, I forgot to mention the illegal firing of inspectors general. The Senator from Iowa is a champion of inspectors general. In the first few days, something like 18 inspectors general were fired, completely contrary to the law. The law is the Congress must be given 30 days' notice of the firing of an inspector general and reasons therefor. Not done. Not a peep.

What is it going to take for us to wake up--when I say ``us,'' I mean this entire body--to wake up to what is going on here? Is it going to be too late? Is it going to be when the President has accreted all this power and the Congress is an afterthought? What is it going to take? The offenses keep piling up.

As I said, leaving it to the courts, No. 1, is a copout. No. 2, when the Vice President said something--I can't remember exactly what he said--but why should we--the courts should not have the power to do this. And, of course, the President, over the weekend, famously quoted Napoleon: When you are saving your country, you don't have to obey any law.

Wow. A President of the United States quoting Napoleon about not having to obey the law.

So I intended to talk about Ukraine, but Senator Tillis and Senator Shaheen did it so articulately, I think I will let that pass except to say that it is shameful that we have suddenly pivoted from the support of a democracy that was grossly and illegally invaded--from the support of that country to the support of a murderous dictator.

I heard something about Zelenskyy is a dictator. The only dictator in this game is Vladimir Putin. He is the dictator. And to argue that somehow Ukraine started the war--what universe is somebody in that would say something like that?

Again, I won't pursue, but I can tell you, Putin is happy, Xi Jinping is happy, Iran is happy, and North Korea is happy. They love what is going on, to see us retreating from the world, whether it is AID or Ukraine. They love to see us retreating from the world, looking weak and looking unreliable.

Finally, on this point, we seem to be systematically alienating our allies. I have been on Armed Services now for 12 years, and I have learned that the key asymmetric advantage that this country has in the world is allies. China has customers; we have allies. Well, we are giving that away. If I wasn't on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I would use a slightly different term. But we are giving away our asymmetric advantage in the world by what looks like systematically alienating our allies, whether it is threats of tariffs or speeches in Europe telling them what their problems are, basically saying we are going to abandon Europe.

What a great idea: Abandon Europe at a time when there is a murderous dictator who has his eyes on the Baltics, on Poland, and who has said he would like to reestablish the Soviet empire. The worst possible geopolitical thing that we could do would be to abandon Ukraine.

So this is a constitutional crisis, and we have to respond to it. And I am just waiting for this whole body to stand up and say: No, no. We don't do it this way. We don't do it this way. We do things constitutionally.

Yes, it is more cumbersome. It is slower. That is what the Framers intended. They didn't intend to have an efficient dictatorship, and that is what we are headed for. This is a very dangerous moment. We have to wake up, protect this institution, but much more importantly, protect the people of the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 198 and ask that it be reported by number.

This afternoon I was on the floor. I was privileged to attend to the remarks of the distinguished chair of the Finance Committee where he characterized the upcoming tax bill that will be before us shortly. He characterized it as principally benefiting the middle class and working class and denied that it would be especially or in any way beneficial to the superwealthy in our country.

Well, I have always subscribed to Ronald Reagan's motto: Trust but verify. I am simply asking to verify what the chairman of the Finance Committee said this afternoon. My amendment would just say: no reduction in tax liability to someone making more than $500 million. There are about 400 families in America, and $500

million seems to me a number that would justify not having a tax reduction. That is all the amendment does--no tax reduction and liability for those making more than $500 million.

I urge a ``yes'' vote to verify what we were told on the floor this afternoon.

Mr. President, I would like to begin my remarks this afternoon by talking a little bit about the Constitution.

I spent some time last week talking about the Constitution and our failure to observe that the constitutional, fundamental structure of the division of power between the Congress and the Executive is being violated and that Congress is allowing it to happen.

Another provision of the Constitution is the provision in article I about advice and consent. It is a fundamental check and balance built into the Constitution, by the Framers, for a reason. It wasn't a throwaway line or a few sentences that were put in because they wanted to fill the paragraph out. Again, it is part of the structure that was designed to protect us from tyranny. The structure involved the division of power, the separation of power, because the Framers knew, if all power was concentrated in a single individual or a single institution, that that institution or that individual would inevitably abuse our people. That is human nature. That is 1,000 years of human nature. All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So the advice and consent provision was in the Constitution for a reason. It was in there for a reason in order to provide a check on the Executive and the people who were going to be put in charge of running the administration.

By the way, I want to stop for a minute and focus on the word ``administration'' and the word ``Executive'' because it really goes to the discussion we are having in this country right now about how our government is supposed to work.

The ``Executive'' comes from the word ``execute,'' and the word ``execute'' means ``to put into action.'' It doesn't mean to initiate the action. It means to put it into action. It is the same for the word ``administration.'' There is a reason we call it the administration. They are to administer the laws. In fact, the obligation on the President in article II is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. It does not give the President the power to ignore laws or to decide which laws he or she thinks are OK; to ignore the responsibility and constitutional authority of the Congress to define spending. It does not give the President that power; although the fellow we approved for the Office of Management and Budget last week thinks he has that power or this President or any President has that power. That is absolutely antithetical to the whole concept of the Constitution as established by the Framers.

So ``administration'' means administer the laws. ``Executive'' means execute the laws, not make them. We make the laws here, and the administration is to faithfully execute those laws.

Now, let's talk about ``advice and consent.'' ``Advice and consent'' means we have a responsibility--a constitutional responsibility--to consider each of the President's nominees for these important jobs. This isn't something that we may do or occasionally do; this is a fundamental part of our job.

We take an oath when we come here to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I think it is interesting. They knew in 1787 that there was a potential for domestic enemies of the Constitution.

So we have an obligation to take ``advice and consent'' seriously.

Now, I am a former Governor, as is the Presiding Officer. And as a former executive, I believe the executive should have the ability to choose the team that they want, to choose their advisers, to choose the people who they will work with, with some limitations. In other words, I start with the premise that the person elected should--perhaps, ``get the benefit of the doubt'' is a little too strong. But I start with the premise that they were elected, and they should be able to choose the team that they are going to be working with.

However, I think there are two qualifications. And, by the way, this has been my stated position on this subject since I entered the Senate. We should give the benefit of the doubt to the Executive. However, the nominee must be manifestly qualified and not hostile to the mission of the Agency to which they have been appointed--two criteria, two criteria that, for me, give life to the idea of ``advice and consent.''

OK. Let's talk about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He, unfortunately, checks both of the boxes as to being disqualified. No. 1, he is not remotely qualified to run an organization of the magnitude of HHS. He has no background in management, no experience in running anything remotely like the scope and scale of the Department of Health and Human Services, no executive experience in that sense.

That is No. 1: Is he qualified? No, he is grossly unqualified.

But the second box is my criteria: Is he hostile to the mission of the Agency? And if the mission of the Agency, HHS, is to protect the health of the American people, I would argue he is manifestly hostile to that mission.

There has been a lot of discussion here today, and I think it is interesting. I don't know how this debate is

going. I haven't heard too many people come up on the floor and support this nominee and tell us why he should be approved, because do you know what? If this were a secret ballot, this man wouldn't get 20 votes. Everybody in this body knows he is not qualified. Everybody in this body knows he has no business anywhere near this position. But here we are; we are going to take a vote. Unfortunately, it will probably be on a party-line basis.

But let me focus on just one little piece. On January 29, barely a week ago, before the Senate Finance Committee, here is what Mr. Kennedy said:

News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-

industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety. All of my kids are

vaccinated.

I bet that came as news to a lot of the people he has been leading astray over the last 25 or 30 years.

All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have

a critical role in healthcare.

I am reminded of Saul on the road to Damascus--a miraculous conversion. A bright light was shown, and, suddenly, the scales fell from his eyes in his confirmation hearing.

Let's go back, a little over a year, to July 6, 2023. This is a quote--a direct quote:

There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.

He later said on the podcast:

Vaccines are inherently unsafe.

This man shouldn't be confirmed because he told the committee and the Senate something diametrically opposed to the position he has taken the last 30 years, all of his adult life.

Maya Angelou said if somebody tells you who they are, you should believe them. And he has told us repeatedly.

And he has acted on his vaccine skepticism. This isn't something that was rumbling around in his head. He has traveled the world. He has written articles. He has gone on podcasts. He has gone on TV. And he has discouraged people from being vaccinated. And now he has this miraculous conversion 10 days ago:

All my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a

critical role in healthcare.

The same thing during COVID--he said:

It is criminal medical malpractice to give a child one of

these vaccines.

Wow, criminal malpractice.

And, of course, as has been discussed, he said:

I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.

In July of 2023, there was one study in England--I think it was in 1998--that purported to show a tenuous connection between vaccines and autism. I am reasonably confident that one of the authors of that study recanted it. It was withdrawn, and it has been debunked over and over and over again. But this man has been peddling this lie for 20 years. Who knows how many parents have fallen for that, and who knows how children have paid the price.

Just to talk about vaccines, at one point during the pandemic, there was a survey in July of 2021. Remember, that was the height of it. They surveyed 50 hospitals in 17 States. Ninety-four percent of the patients hospitalized in July of 2021 were unvaccinated. What does that tell you? Vaccinations worked, and people who were unvaccinated were at an enormously higher risk--94 percent of the people were unvaccinated.

In addition to the vaccination issue, this man doesn't respect the FDA, the Agency that was put in place to protect our health, to regulate us, to be sure that we are getting safe medications, to deal with some of the awful problems of the potential of harmful medications literally getting into America's bloodstream.

In December of 2024, barely 2 months ago, he said he would fire officials at the FDA. And in October 2024, he said on X:

FDA's war on public health is about to end. If you work for

the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two

messages for you . . . Preserve your records, and . . . pack

your bags.

He didn't say a certain office in the FDA or a certain part of the FDA or maybe there was one provision or part that he didn't think was helpful. He said: ``If you work for the FDA''--that is everybody-- ``preserve your records, and . . . Pack your bags.''

This man is not only unqualified; he is anti-qualified. He is a danger.

We have physicians in the Senate. I believe that the Hippocratic Oath, ``Do no harm,'' should apply to Senate votes. You should not be voting for somebody who you know is going to do harm to the public health.

So this is really a kind of surreal debate because everybody in this Chamber knows this man should not be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Now, I want to end with a personal story. One of the few advantages of being older is that you have a long memory. In 1952, I was entering the third grade at MacArthur School in Alexandria, VA, and in my class in the third grade was a kid named Butch. He was horribly twisted into a wheelchair. I don't think I had ever seen a wheelchair when I was going into the third grade, but he was there.

And here it is--I am not even going to say how many years later, but I can close my eyes and see Butch in that chair. Polio was what he had. He was in pain daily. He could barely make himself understood. His arms were crossed. His legs were bent grotesquely in the wheelchair. And 3 years later, the Salk vaccine began what turned out to be the elimination of polio.

Where would we be as a country if this man had been the head of--at that time, it was HEW--and somehow put a stop to this vaccine, which I believe he has said even the polio vaccine should be rescinded, which has saved millions of lives around the world. Where would we be?

I can't escape the memory of that boy in that wheelchair. I can't escape the memory of my parents not letting me go to the public swimming pool because of the fear of polio, not being able to go out and play in the summer in Virginia because of the fear of polio that stalked the land.

The former Republican leader was a victim of polio. The former President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a victim of polio. And it was the vaccine that ended it.

I hope this place comes to its senses and rejects this surreal nomination. It would be hard to find someone less qualified to serve in this position. I believe it will lead to damage to our country, to our health, to our children.

I urge my colleagues to vote no. If you vote yes, you will regret it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield 30 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Schumer.

Mr. President, we all began our careers here with the following words:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the

Constitution of the United States against all enemies,

foreign and domestic.

When each of us arrived here in the Senate, we took this oath to support and defend the Constitution, as it says, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I think it is interesting that the Framers could see that there might be domestic enemies to the Constitution. Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump, but our oath was to defend the Constitution, and right now--right now, literally at this moment--that Constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our Nation's history--an assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself.

It is hard to grasp what is happening because of all the events that are swirling around us over the last several weeks. It is happening so fast, coming from so many different quarters and so many different actors, it is hard to get a picture of what is really happening fundamentally.

But this is an assault, and how we respond to it will define our life's work, our place in history, and the future of our country. None of us will ever face a greater challenge.

Before we get to the challenge, however, I think it is important to ask why we have a Constitution in the first place, and why ours has, so far, stood the test of time.

The answer to the first question, why have a Constitution in the first place, is contained in the preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more

perfect Union--

There is No. 1--

establish Justice--

No. 2--

insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,

promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of

Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and

establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

These are the basic purposes. If you want to know what the Constitution is for, there it is. There is the list. ``Insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence.'' Insure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

But there is a paradox at the heart of the creation of any government, whether it is here or anywhere else on earth and anywhere else in history. There is a paradox built in, because the essence of creating government is to give it power, give it our power in order to look after us, in order to provide for the common defense, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide justice to our people. In other words, we are giving our power to this separate entity.

But we have to do so with the realization that the power that is being given has the potential to be abused. In other words, how do we give power to this entity, this government, and ensure that the government itself doesn't use that power to abuse us as citizens?

This is a question at the heart of all political discussions throughout history. The Romans even had a question that captured it.

The question was ``Quis Custodiet, ipsos custodes?''

It means ``Who will guard the guardians? Who will guard those who we have given power to guard us?'' It is a fundamental question that has confronted every society and every government throughout history.

Madison put it this way--and, by the way, he used a gender-specific term; I suspect if he were writing it today, it would be more broadly phrased. But here is what Madison said:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If

angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal

controls on government would be necessary. In framing a

government which is to be administered by men over men, the

great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the

government to control the governed.

That is the function.

And in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Our Framers understood this; they were deep students of history and also human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power--George

Under the Constitution, I vote no.

Mr. President, today I speak in honor of Andrea Quaid and reflect on her outsized impact in my office and across the State of Maine. Andrea passed away the morning of January 31, 2025. She was an exemplary model for living passionately and in the pursuit of making a difference in the lives of others. Andrea was a graduate of Dartmouth College--part of the first class that included women--and she was immensely proud to be part of that trailblazing path for other young women to follow. Her zest for life and for new and interesting things fueled her as she worked in several States and abroad--specifically in Paris--for a number of years before she made her way to Maine, where she found herself at home.

In Maine, she forged her lifelong career with a decades-long commitment to public service, which began when she first worked as a legislative aide in the Maine State House; this role partly overlapped my terms of service as Maine's Governor. Andrea later worked as a trusted district representative for then-Congressman Mike Michaud, who served as Maine's Representative in the 2nd Congressional District for over a decade. To say that Andrea came to my office fully prepared to navigate issues of concern for Maine constituents would be an understatement; she didn't hit the ground running, it was more a sprinter's pace. In this role, Andrea exemplified what it means to be a dedicated public servant. In fact, as Andrea received care in her final days of being with us, she continued to think of others by referring other patients and hospital staff to her colleagues in my office for casework support. Andrea truly embodied selfless service--and did so through the final hours we were all fortunate to have her in our lives.

Maine is often described as one big small town connected by long roads, and Andrea was well-known up and down our highways and byways for being heavily involved throughout the State for her volunteerism, friendship, and her ability to bring people together. In addition to her advocacy as

a caseworker in my Augusta office, Andrea also served as a board member for the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn campus. Andrea was also well-known for her passion for theater. Not only did Andrea participate in community theater as an actress in productions at the Lewiston-Auburn Community Little Theater, but she also shaped the direction of the Lewiston-Auburn Community Little Theater as a board member.

Andrea will be missed deeply and leaves behind her beloved brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew, as well as countless friends and colleagues. She will continue to live on through the many ways she touched the lives of everyone around her. I am certain that the community Andrea nurtured will reflect fondly on the laughter and memories we had the privilege to share with her. Until then, the State of Maine lost a proud daughter, and I join her friends, family, and fellow staff in grieving our loss.

Madam President, today I wish to recognize MAJ Michael Marfut, U.S. Army, for his outstanding work on behalf of the people of Maine and the Nation as a 2024 Department of Defense Legislative Fellow serving in my Washington, DC, office.

Over the past year, Mike has been integral in shaping my foreign policy and defense priorities. He helped secure several provisions in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act--FY25 NDAA-- that will make our country stronger and safer. Mike led my staff in orchestrating important appropriations for the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Coast Guard, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He also helped lead an excellent congressional delegation to the Antietam Battlefield. His contributions to office morale and our collective work product are emblematic of his good character, competence, and strong work ethic.

Throughout his tenure in my office, Mike demonstrated a level of professionalism and hard work I have come to expect--but not take for granted--from Department of Defense Legislative Fellows. Indeed, he follows a long line of accomplished military officers who have made impactful contributions to my office and U.S. national security policy. Over the course of the year, Mike prepared and advised me on wide- ranging and complex matters under consideration before the Senate Armed Services Committee. His attention to detail has served me well; Mike managed over 400 individual authorization and appropriation requests and over 600 markup amendments. He brought his operational and leadership expertise to assist me in the Strategic Forces Subcommittee briefings and deliberations which resulted in critical

funding authorizations and legislation. His fingerprints lay throughout the NDAA in the form of legislation and report language. Mike was my lead expert on matters of blast overpressure and military suicide prevention resulting in at least six provisions becoming law. He also served as the subject matter expert on cybersecurity certification requirements, ensuring important oversight matters were included in the NDAA. Furthermore, he helped secure important funding for advanced research impacting Maine from Aroostook to York County. In addition, he became my go-to lead for monitoring the horrific war in Ukraine and Israel where he provided clear-headed and thoughtful analysis and liaised with representatives from the White House, State Department, and Department of Defense to convey my positions and concerns. His candor and honest assessments provided critical insights during this fraught time in U.S. history, and our Nation is better because of it.

On behalf of my colleagues and the U.S. Congress, I thank Mike for his dedicated service to my staff, the State of Maine, the U.S. Army, and the Nation. Part of what makes the U.S. military the greatest in the history of the world is that servicemembers like Mike dedicate their lives to service and sacrifice for their country. Major Marfut does not do it alone, so I also acknowledge the support of his family-- his wife Alexandria and his children, Maria, Audrey, Grace, and George. I wish them all the best in what I know is a bright future.