Floor Statements

Mr. President, last week I entered into the Record the winning essays in my office's eighth annual State of the Union Essay Contest. I would like to congratulate the other finalists in this year's contest and likewise ask that their essays be printed in the Record. The essays follow, in alphabetical order according to the finalists' names.

The material follows:

Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States.

I would like to congratulate the almost 600 students who participated this year. It is truly heartening to see so many young people engaged in finding solutions for the problems that face our country. To my mind, this is what democracy is all about.

A volunteer panel of Vermont teachers reviewed the essays and chose Marjorie ``Maggie'' Parker as this year's winner. Maggie, a sophomore at Woodstock Union High School, focused on the need to prevent hate crimes, particularly against members of the LGBT community.

Alaura Rich, a senior at St. Johnsbury Academy, was the second place winner. Alaura wrote about the prohibitive cost of a college education at a time when the United States needs to have the best educated workforce in the world.

Oliver Minshall, a junior at Hanover High School, was the third place winner, having written about addressing income inequality and creating a more equitable and sustainable economy.

I am very proud to ask to have printed in the Record the essays submitted by Maggie, Alaura, and Oliver. The material follows:

Mr. President, I come before my colleagues in the Senate to urge in the strongest possible terms that the Republican leadership here accept its responsibility and not allow the Government of the United States of America to shut down. Republicans control the Senate. They control the U.S. House. And a Republican is in the White House. Please do not shut the government down.

A government shutdown will be extremely distressing and difficult for millions of people in every State in our country who utilize government services. A government shutdown will be extremely painful for millions of Federal employees who depend upon their paychecks to provide for their families. A government shutdown will make it much more difficult for U.S. military personnel, the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to defend us, to do their jobs.

The American people do not want a government shutdown. I do not want a government shutdown, and I believe that most of my Republican colleagues do not want a government shutdown. It is imperative that President Trump understand that despite what he said in May, that statement is wrong. When he said our country needs a good shutdown, that is wrong. Our country does not need a good shutdown. What we need is an annual budget that addresses the many needs of the American people.

Just last night, this is what a spokesperson from the Pentagon stated:

We have been working under a Continuing Resolution for

three years now. Our current CR expires tomorrow, 19 Jan.

This is wasteful and destructive. We need a fully-funded FY18

budget or face ramifications on our military.

This afternoon, I say to Senator McConnell, the Republican leader here in the Senate: Please do not shut the government down. You know, Senator McConnell, the political reality as well as anybody in our country. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to pass this budget agreement. You don't have 60 votes. Please, sit down with Democrats, and start negotiating in good faith. Please, do not shut the government down.

More and more Democrats are sick and tired of kicking the can down the road, tired of our not addressing the major crises that are facing this country, tired of running a $4 trillion operation, which is what the U.S. Government is, on a month-to-month basis.

Yet it is not just the Democrats who are demanding that we finally have an annual budget. It is the Republicans as well. My understanding--what I have heard from the news media--is that there are now five Republicans who are prepared to vote against this continuing resolution and even more who have voiced deep concerns about the lack of an annual budget. They know and I know that just passing another temporary budget is totally irresponsible and is abdicating the job that we were elected to do.

What the American people understand--what every businessperson in this country understands, what every family in America understands--is that you cannot run a government, given the many crises that we face, on a month-to-month basis. We cannot continue to abdicate our responsibility. Finally, we must address the problems that are facing the American people.

Last night, the Pentagon told us correctly--and I state again that this is what was said: ``We need a fully-funded FY18 budget or face ramifications on our military.''

Let's not forget that we are 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year. There are 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone, and the Republican leadership here has still not given us an annual budget.

It is not just the military that faces a crisis situation because of the lack of an annual budget. Today, 27 million Americans get their primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs through the community health center program. In my State of Vermont, one out of four Vermonters gets his primary healthcare through a community health center. There are 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone since the beginning of this fiscal year, and the Republicans have not yet reauthorized funding for the community health center program, which is now facing a severe crisis in terms of recruiting and retaining the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff it needs to maintain the quality of service it must maintain.

What doctor or what nurse is going to go to a community health center when he or she doesn't even know if that facility is going to receive funding? There are 27 million Americans who depend upon community health centers. As I understand it--and I am glad--the Republicans are now prepared to reauthorize the CHIP program. There are 9 million kids who need that program. In the 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone, finally, they are talking about reauthorizing CHIP. That is good, but you cannot forget the community health centers.

The community health center program in this country is 50 years old. It was developed in the 1960s. It is supported by virtually every Democrat and, I think, the vast majority of the Republicans. Yet it has not been reauthorized. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed and addressed now.

On Veterans Day, everybody here goes running all over the country, giving great speeches about how much they love the veterans, but the Veterans Health Administration cannot continue to provide decent, quality care to those of our veterans who put their lives on the line to defend us when they have over 30,000 vacancies. In Vermont and around the country, the VA provides good, quality care, but you cannot provide care in a timely manner when you have 30,000 vacancies at the VA. This issue cannot be kicked down the road. It must be addressed now, not next year.

As everybody knows, in Louisiana and in Vermont and all over this country, there is a horrible, horrific opioid and heroin epidemic that is sweeping this country. It has hit my State of

Vermont hard. It has hit States all over America. Last year, 60,000 people in our country died as a result of opioid or heroin overdoses. We need to help State governments, local communities, families, and police departments to address the opioid and heroin epidemic. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It must be addressed now, not through a continuing resolution that absolutely ignores this crisis. It must be addressed now.

Last year, unbelievably, some 10,000 people with disabilities died while awaiting decisions for the applications they made to the Social Security Administration for their disability benefits to be approved. People with disabilities apply for benefits. They wait, they wait, and they wait. Last year, 10,000 people with disabilities died while waiting for decisions. Many of them died because the Social Security Administration is, today, grossly underfunded, understaffed, and simply not able to deal with the volume of claims they have received.

It is not just people with disabilities. In my State of Vermont--I hear this every day--there are older Americans who are not getting the quality of service they need from the Social Security Administration. Our job is to adequately fund the Social Security Administration so it can protect the needs of senior citizens and people with disabilities in our country. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed now, and this continuing resolution, which I presume we are going to vote on later today, does not deal with it.

Mr. President, 1\1/2\ million Americans are in danger of seeing their pensions cut by up to 60 percent. These are truckdrivers, construction workers, machinists, and others who have worked their entire careers with the expectation that they would receive a decent pension when they retired. We have a responsibility to protect the pensions of these hard-working Americans and keep the promises that were made to them. This is another crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed now, and the continuing resolution that is going to come before us has not one word to say about that.

Then we have a child care crisis in this country. Millions of working families can't find quality, affordable child care. We have a student debt crisis in this country--40 million people, many of them deeply in debt, unable to get on with their lives for the crime of having gone to college. That is a crisis that we have to deal with. We have an infrastructure crisis in this country. All over America, roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants are collapsing. How do we continue to ignore those crises? At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the rich are getting richer and everybody else is getting poorer, our job in Congress is not just to give tax breaks to billionaires. Our job is not just to try to throw 32 million Americans off the health insurance they have or deny the reality of climate change or to end net neutrality or make racist comments about countries throughout the world. Our job is to represent the needs of ordinary Americans. We cannot continue to ignore these problems. We cannot continue to kick the can down the road.

Once again, I say to the majority leader: Let us begin to negotiate in good faith. Let us reach decisions that will improve life for the American people, not simply ignore their needs.

When we talk about the crises facing this country, we are also talking about a crisis precipitated by President Trump in September of last year. As a result of President Trump's rescinding of President Obama's Executive order on DACA, some 800,000 young people in our country are today living in fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. If we do not act--and act now--it is possible that many of these young people will lose their legal status and be subjected to the possibility of deportation. This must not be allowed to happen.

This issue to my mind is one of the great moral issues of our time. These young people, who were brought into this country, some at 2 years of age, 3 years, 5 years of age, are people who have lived virtually their entire lives in the United States of America. They are working, they are in school, they are in the military, and 20,000 of these young DACA people are now teaching in schools throughout the country.

It would be one of the cruelest acts in modern American history or our history in general if we said to these young people, who know no other country but the United States of America, that they could be deported from our shores. It would be an unspeakable crime, and we must not allow that to happen. That is not just the opinion of Senator Bernie Sanders; that is the overwhelming point of view of the American people, of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

A poll just came out last night from CBS. The poll showed that 87 percent of the American people believe that we should protect the legal status of the Dreamers--87 percent--and that poll is consistent with poll after poll after poll. The people of the United States across the political spectrum are saying that we cannot turn our backs on these Dreamers. The vast majority of people believe we must provide a path toward citizenship.

There is now bipartisan legislation that has been written by Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, and others, and I say to Senator McConnell: If 87 percent of the American people think we should provide legal status to the Dreamers, let us do our job. Let us pass this legislation. This is not a profile in courage. This is what the American people want, and let us do what the American people want.

As we well know, terrible, terrible hurricanes struck Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands months and months ago, and people there are still suffering. Many people in Puerto Rico today still do not have electricity. Then there are devastating wildfires and mud slides that have taken place in California. How long does it take for this Congress to respond to the crises facing our fellow Americans?

What I say is, we were elected to do our jobs in representing the American people. That is what we are paid to do. We cannot run a government on a month-to-month basis. Senator McConnell does not have the 60 votes he needs, and now is the time for him to sit down with the Democratic leadership and negotiate a serious agreement on the budget situation, on parity between defense and nondefense spending. Negotiate a serious agreement on DACA, providing legal status and a path toward citizenship for our 800,000 young people; negotiate a serious agreement on disaster relief.

The truth of the matter is, we can do it. We can do it. The differences of opinion are not that wide, but we cannot do it and will not do it unless we finally sit down and start negotiating in a serious manner. That is what I implore Senator McConnell to do.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment. If the Congress does not get its act together by tomorrow, there will be a government shutdown. A government shutdown will be extraordinarily destructive to the people of our country, millions of whom depend upon government services. It will be destructive to millions of Federal employees who keep their families going with a paycheck from the government. It will be destructive to the U.S. Armed Forces, men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us. So it seems to me that we have to do everything we can to prevent a government shutdown.

As everyone knows, we have a Republican Party that controls the U.S. Senate, a Republican Party that controls the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Republican who is in the White House, President Trump. We are now 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, and the Republican Party has yet to give us an annual budget.

The U.S. Government is a $3 trillion operation. There is no business in this country of any size that can run week to week, month to month. We need an annual budget, and now the Republicans are coming back, asking for a fourth continuing resolution. You cannot run a government like that. It is unfair to the American people, unfair to the Armed Forces, unfair to all of us.

Three and a half months have gone in the fiscal year; yet the Children's Health Insurance Program has not been reauthorized. This is a program that has existed for decades with bipartisan support. How can we not reauthorize the CHIP Program?

Three and a half months of the fiscal year have come and gone, and we have not reauthorized the Community Health Center Program, which provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, low-cost prescription drugs to 27 million Americans

in every State in this country. If legislation were brought to the floor of the Senate today, the Blunt-Stabenow bill reauthorizing the community health centers, I suspect, would get 70, 75 votes; yet Republicans, after 3\1/2\ months, have not been able to reauthorize the CHIP Program or the Community Health Center Program.

When we talk about the budget process, we are talking about three major issues; there are more, but there are three major issues. No. 1, will we continue to have parity in spending between defense spending and nondefense spending? Since 2011, in four different budgets, there has been a bipartisan agreement that for every dollar spent on defense is a dollar you will spend on the needs of a struggling middle class, millions of people who are struggling every day to keep their heads above water economically--a dollar here, a dollar there. That has been agreed upon on four separate occasions, but several weeks ago, the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: We want to do away with that parity. We want to be able to spend more on the military and less on the needs of working families.

We have a middle class that is shrinking. We have people all over this country working two or three jobs. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any other major country on Earth. We have millions of elderly people who can't make it on $12,000 or $13,000 a year. We have a crisis sweeping the Nation, hitting my State of Vermont very hard. We have infrastructure that is crumbling. We cannot ignore the needs of the working families of this country and spend huge amounts of money only on the military.

Some of the things we have to do as we come together, as we must, for a bipartisan agreement is, of course, reauthorize CHIP and, of course, reauthorize the Community Health Center Program. The Stabenow-Blunt bill has nine Republican cosponsors. Every Democrat will support it. We have the votes. Let's do it.

We have to deal with the pension issue. One and a half million American workers are about to lose 50 to 60 percent of the pensions they were promised by the U.S. Government. That cannot be allowed to happen. We have to stand with those workers.

I went to a meeting earlier today dealing with the Social Security Administration. The Social Security Administration provides a process-- the administrative arm makes sure that the elderly, disabled, and people who get Social Security benefits get those benefits in a timely manner. For years now, Republicans have underfunded that administration, and today there are simply not enough employees to do the work that has to be done. Amazingly enough, over at the House they are talking about massive cuts to the Social Security Administration on top of all the cuts they have already received.

The Washington Post wrote an article a few weeks ago--unbelievable-- and what they said is that over the last year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities who had applied for Social Security benefits died while waiting for those claims to be processed. They were not processed in a timely manner because the Social Security Administration does not have the workers it needs and has been significantly underfunded. For the sake of the senior citizens of our country, for the sake of the disabled, any budget agreement when we have parity must supply sufficient amounts of money for the Social Security Administration so that they can do their work.

Every Veterans Day, every Member of this body talks about how much they love veterans. The Veterans' Administration today has 30,000 vacancies, which means that our veterans are not getting the quality and timely care that they must be able to receive. We have to start filling those vacancies. Any budget agreement must include increased funding for the VA.

In my State of Vermont and all over this country, there are millions of young people who went to college, went to graduate school, and have left school deeply in debt. Because of high interest rates, some of those people now owe more money today after paying off, year after year, their debts than they did when they took out the debt. We have to address the debt crisis facing some 40 million Americans.

In Vermont and all over this country, if you are a working person, what do you do if you have a 3-year-old or a 2-year-old? Well, you look for decent, quality childcare. But all over this country it is extremely difficult to find that quality childcare. Any serious budget agreement we reach must include increased funding for childcare so that working people in this country know, when they leave their kid at a center, that child will receive quality care at a cost that is affordable. Every dollar we invest in early childhood education is a dollar very, very well spent.

All over this country, in this, the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world, we have infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants--which is crumbling. In many parts of rural America, including the State of Vermont, we do not have high-quality, affordable broadband or cell phone service. How do you maintain a community, how do you bring business into a community, how do kids do their homework if you don't have decent broadband or cell phone service? We have to invest in rural America and make certain that every community in this country has broadband and the kind of infrastructure that it needs in order to prosper.

One of the tragedies taking place in this country today is resulting, unbelievably, in a lowered life expectancy rate here in the United States of America. Our life expectancy rate is actually in decline, and one of the reasons for that is the tragic opioid and heroin epidemic, which claimed some 60,000 lives last year. We cannot ignore that problem. We have to invest in prevention. We have to invest in treatment. We have to help States all over this country and the families who are struggling with this issue.

My point is, we need parity, not for some abstract, inside-the- beltway reason; we need parity in spending because we need more in this country than just a strong military. We need a strong middle class. We need a strong working class. We cannot turn our backs on tens of millions of people who are struggling.

The second issue that we have to deal with here in the Congress is the issue of DACA and the need for clean Dreamers legislation. In September, President Trump initiated a very serious crisis. What he did is rescind President Obama's Executive order providing legal status through DACA to 800,000 young people. These are young people who were raised in the United States of America. These are young people who today are working. They are in school; they are in the military. This is the only home they have ever known. This is the only country that any of them or many of them can even remember. The idea of simply doing away with the legal status that they have, subjecting them to deportation, subjecting them to being taken away from the only country they have ever known and loved is literally beyond comprehension and unspeakable.

In September, when Trump initiated this process by rescinding Obama's Executive order on DACA, he said to the Congress, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You fix it. Get legislation.

Well, there are people right now--Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, and others--who are working on legislation, which doesn't go as far as I would like it to go, but they are working on serious legislation in the House. The vast majority of Democrats and many Republicans understand that we cannot turn our backs on these young people. That is not just what we feel here in the House and in the Senate; it is what the American people want. Poll after poll shows that 70, 75, 80 percent of the American people say: Provide these 800,000 young people with legal status. Provide them with a path toward citizenship. Very few people think that we should turn our backs on these young people, let DACA expire, and subject them to deportation. Let us do what the American people want us to do, and let us pass a strong Dreamers Act.

Last but not least, we had some terrible hurricanes some months ago. They brought a lot of disaster to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Months have gone by, and we have yet to pass the kind of disaster relief that communities in those States and territories desperately need.

We cannot continue to kick the can down the road. We cannot continue to

run a $3 trillion government on a month-by-month basis. It is unfair to everybody. We have to sit down and negotiate a serious budget agreement. And what Republicans must understand is that, yes, they have a 51-to-49 majority here in the Senate, but you need 60 votes to pass this type of legislation. You need 60 votes, and that means you cannot do it alone. You cannot give the Democratic caucus a fait accompli and expect Democrats to say: Oh, yes, sir, we are going to follow you. This requires bipartisan discussion on the parity issue and domestic spending and bipartisan discussion on DACA.

We have a strong majority of Members of the Senate who support a Dreamers piece of legislation and a path toward citizenship. We have a strong majority of the American people and a strong majority of Members of the Senate who want disaster relief. This should not be a difficult problem. The American people want a resolution, and they want it done in a bipartisan way. Let's do it. Let's not kick the can down the road. Republicans must understand that they must negotiate in a bipartisan way.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of nearly 800,000 Dreamers, young people who were brought to this country as children who today are living in fear and uncertainty. As a result of the Trump administration's decision to end the DACA Program, these young people are at risk of losing their legal status and, in fact, face deportation from the only home that most of them have ever known, and that home is the United States of America.

This is one of the great moral issues of our time, and it is an issue that must be dealt with now as part of the budget negotiations. It cannot be kicked down the road any longer. We must pass the Dream Act now as part of the current budget negotiations.

In the last 6 years since the DACA Program was established, these young people--again, people who were brought to this country as infants, in many cases--were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. For the first time in their lives, they could walk the streets of this country without fear, without worrying about being arrested, without worrying about being deported. Think about what it means to live in this country every single day knowing that, at any moment, you could be arrested or deported. What DACA finally did is to give these 800,000 young people a legal status and a protection so they could go out and work, so they could go to school, and so they could serve in the U.S. military without fear.

As we all know, tragically, on September 5, 2017, President Trump announced the end of the DACA Program through Executive order. President Obama had established it through Executive order, and President Trump ended it through Executive order. In his announcement, President Trump noted:

I look forward to working with Republicans and Democrats in

Congress to finally address all of these issues. As I have

said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and

compassion, but through the lawful democratic process. It is

now time for Congress to act.

That is Donald Trump.

The President was right. It is time for Congress to act. It is time for Congress to not kick the can down the road.

Our Republican President, Mr. Trump, told the Republican-led Congress to get to work on a DACA fix, and I say today to the Republican leadership: Let's do it. Let's do it now. That is what President Trump asked you to do. Listen to him, and let's do it--not next month, not in March, but right now--as part of the budget agreement.

People are working on this issue now. We can come to a consensus. We can pass the Dream Act if there is a political will to do it.

Let us also be very clear. Despite what some have said, this is an urgent matter that must be addressed now. Since President Trump rescinded the DACA Program in September, more than 15,000 Dreamers have already lost their DACA status and are now subject to deportation. Each day the Congress does not act, 122 people lose their DACA protections, and 851 people each and every week. This is a matter of urgency, and we have to act accordingly.

But I want to assure my Republican colleagues that not only is this the right thing to do from a moral perspective and from an economic perspective, but it is also exactly what the American people want. Nobody here is asking anybody in the Senate to rise up and to be extraordinarily brave and courageous. Why don't you just do what the American people want us to do? No profiles in courage are needed now. Poll after poll has shown that the overwhelming majority of the American people want to provide legal status to the Dreamers and to protect them from deportation. From a political perspective, this is not a difficult decision.

A Washington Post-ABC poll from September 2017, a few months ago, found that 86 percent of Americans support allowing Dreamers to stay in the United States. So 86 percent of the American people support providing legal status to Dreamers. This is not a tough political decision.

Another recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac found that 77 percent of voters and 65 percent of Republicans support legislation to protect Dreamers and provide them an opportunity to work, to go to school, and to pursue a pathway to citizenship.

Another poll conducted by CNN last month found that by an 83-percent to 13-percent margin, Americans support efforts to allow Dreamers to remain in the United States instead of facing potential deportation. Only 15 percent believed that Dreamers should be deported.

Passing the Dream Act is also in our national security interests. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently noted:

The United States faces extraordinary security challenges

that are placing growing pressure on our Armed Forces. That

is why we need legislation that will provide a pathway to

citizenship for those immigrants who, among other attributes,

are serving or have served in the military, whether they are

in America legally or were brought here illegally as

children.

That is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

In addition, just last week three former Secretaries of Homeland Security wrote to House and Senate leadership expressing both their strong support for a DACA fix and for the urgency of acting now. Secretaries Chertoff, Napolitano, and Johnson warned of the need for Congress to act immediately and emphasized how the agency needs time to implement a new program. Without it, they caution that the delay will sow uncertainty in the business community and drive undocumented individuals further into the shadows, with immediate deportation looming for tens of thousands every single month.

Let us be very clear that when we talk about the DACA Program and when we talk about these young people receiving legal status, these young people are vetted, they pay a fee, and the vast majority of them are now at jobs important to our economy. They are in school or they are in the military. In order to get DACA status, they could not be convicted of a felony or a significant misdemeanor or pose a threat to national security or public safety. As almost everybody recognizes, these

are fine young people whom we should be very proud of and should not be talking about deporting them.

DACA gave these young people a shot at the American dream, and having been given that opportunity, they seized it and they are excelling and contributing to our country--to their country--in so many ways. With 91 percent of DACA recipients in the workforce, they play an important role in our economy. Many hundreds of Dreamers have taken up the call to serve in our Armed Forces. Can my colleagues imagine a young Dreamer now serving in the Armed Forces, putting his or her life on the line to defend this country, and then reading about Members of Congress who think we should deport them? How outrageous is that?

Furthermore, there are some 20,000 DACA recipients who are currently teaching in our schools. We desperately need good teachers, and 20,000 DACA recipients are doing just that.

Yet, because of President Trump's cruel decision to rescind the DACA Program, as well as the Republican-controlled Congress's failure to act, these young people's lives and livelihoods have been thrown into chaos and uncertainty.

It is our job to enact a legislative fix now. The President has called for a fix. The vast majority of the people of this country want to see a fix. A fix is important to our national security. It is the right thing to do. Let us do it.

I am, however, very concerned that President Trump is using the 800,000 Dreamers as a bargaining chip to force the taxpayers of this country to pay for an $18 billion wall. Now, some may remember that during his campaign for President, Donald Trump told the American people that it was the Mexican Government that would be paying for the wall. Well, it turns out that it didn't quite work out that way, and now it is the taxpayers of this country who are supposed to pay for a wall.

Let me be as clear as I can be. We cannot and we must not hold the lives of 800,000 young Dreamers hostage in order to fund a wall that the vast majority of the American people oppose. We cannot and we must not allow Donald Trump to shut down the government to fund this wall, but that, it appears, may very well be--for whatever reason--what Donald Trump wants.

Let me remind my colleagues what Donald Trump said last August at a rally in Arizona, the Presiding Officer's home State: ``Believe me, if we have to close down our government, we're building that wall.'' August 22, 2017, Donald J. Trump.

Now, I do not know why Donald Trump may be pushing for a government shutdown. Maybe he thinks it will work well for him or work well for the Republican Party politically. I have no idea, but I do know that the idea of a government shutdown is a very bad idea. Maybe Republicans will gain from it, maybe Democrats will politically gain from it. I do not have a clue. What I do know is, the American people will lose from a government shutdown, and, in a bipartisan manner, we must do everything we can to prevent that shutdown.

A shutdown would harm tens of millions of Americans who would be unable to access vital government services; it would disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands, or more, Federal employees who depend upon a check to provide for their families; and, in fact, it would endanger members of the U.S. military who are putting their lives on the line to defend our country.

The U.S. Congress has a responsibility to the American people to prevent a government shutdown and to work in a bipartisan manner to reach a budget agreement that is fair and that addresses the very serious problems facing not only DACA recipients but the working people of our country.

So I say to my Republican colleagues, you control the White House, you control the U.S. House, and you control the U.S. Senate. You have a responsibility to govern.

For President Trump and the Republican leadership to allow DACA to expire without a new program in place is not only a failure to govern, it is an act of extraordinary cruelty.

We know President Trump wants to build a wall, I guess somewhat like the Great Wall of China. The problem is, building walls may have made sense in the 14th century, but I would inform the President that technology has somewhat changed since then, and our job is to provide strong border security in the most cost-effective way we can, and that way is not building a wall. Ironically, while the President wants to spend $18 billion to build a wall, he is taking money away from other far more important and effective border security measures.

Let me quote from an article that appeared in today's New York Times:

The Trump administration would cut or delay funding for

border surveillance, radar technology, patrol boats and

customs agents in its upcoming spending plan to curb illegal

immigration--all proven security measures that officials and

experts have said are more effective than building a wall

along the Mexican border.

The wall also has become a bargaining chip in negotiations

with Congress as lawmakers seek to prevent nearly 800,000

young undocumented immigrants from being deported.

But security experts said the president's focus on a border

wall ignores the constantly evolving nature of terrorism

immigration and drug trafficking.

In other words, if we want strong border security, if we want to keep people out of this country who should not be coming into this country, if we want to keep drugs out of this country, building a wall is not the most cost-effective way. It may have been a great idea in the 14th century in China when they built their Great Wall, but it is not a great idea in 2018, in the United States of America.

So let me just conclude by saying, we are at a very important moment in history. If we do not do the right thing, if we do not do the moral thing, if we allow some 800,000 young people--people who have spent virtually their entire lives in this country, who know no other country, who see the United States of America as their home--if we betray them, if we take away their legal status, if we allow them to be deported, this will be a moral stain on this country that will never ever be wiped out.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for as much time as I need to complete my remarks.

Madam President, despite Donald Trump's assertion last May that ``our country needs a good shutdown,'' the truth is, shutting down the government is a serious and dangerous action that we must do everything possible to prevent.

Shutting down the government would impact tens of millions of our fellow Americans who would be unable to access government services. It would severely impact Federal employees who would not get the paychecks they expected. It would also have a very significant impact on our Armed Forces. In other words, we must do everything we can to prevent a government shutdown, which is exactly what will happen if a budget agreement is not reached by January 19, when the short-term continuing resolution expires.

I am very disappointed, therefore, that the Republican Party, which controls the White House, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate, is pushing us closer and closer to a very dangerous government shutdown. The Republican leadership in Congress and the White House must not allow this shutdown to take place. They have to compromise. They cannot get it all.

As everyone knows, in 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act. The centerpiece of that bipartisan legislation was that there would be parity in defense and nondefense spending. That agreement continued in the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. All of these bills provided equal amounts of funding for defense and nondefense purposes. Any future effort to increase the Budget Control Act caps must continue to

adhere to this principle of parity. In other words, we have had a bipartisan agreement now for 6 years that has continued on four separate budgets. But now, threatening us with a government shutdown, the Republicans want to break that agreement.

I was very disturbed to hear Senate Majority Leader McConnell on the floor yesterday say:

Since fiscal year 2013, defense cuts have outpaced domestic

spending cuts by $85 billion. To fix this, we need to set

aside the arbitrary notion that defense spending be matched

equally by new nondefense spending. There is no reason why

funding for our national security and our servicemembers

should be limited by an arbitrary political formula that

bears no relationship to actual need.

That was Senator McConnell on the floor yesterday.

Unfortunately, what Senator McConnell said was inaccurate and misleading. His statement conveniently ignored the fact that mandatory spending on domestic programs like Medicare have been severely cut over this time period. He also ignored the fact that during this period, the Defense Department has also received tens and tens of billions of dollars in funding through the Overseas Contingency Operations funding, which is not capped at all.

If you include the Overseas Contingency Operations funding, the reality is that overall defense spending has gone up, not down, over this time period, while nondefense discretionary spending has been severely cut.

Further, Senator McConnell ignores a very, very important reality; that is, nondefense discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP is now at a 40-year low. This longstanding agreement regarding parity for defense and nondefense spending is not some kind of inside-the-beltway, esoteric issue. It is an issue that will impact tens of millions of working families in this country who, today, are struggling to keep their heads above water.

Over the last 40 years, while the middle class of our country has been shrinking, the people on top--the top 1 percent--have been doing phenomenally well. The actions of the Republican Congress in the last year have only made a bad situation, an unfair situation, even worse. In the United States today, some 28 million Americans have no health insurance. Yet, over the last year, the Republicans have attempted to throw an additional 32 million people off of the healthcare they have, including proposed cuts for Medicaid by up to $1 trillion over a 10- year period.

Tragically, the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of nearly any major country in the industrialized world. Instead of doing all that we can to end childhood poverty in this country, the Republicans have proposed to once again make a horrific situation even worse by cutting nutrition programs for children, cutting the WIC Program for low-income pregnant women, cutting the Head Start Program, after-school programs, and funding for public education.

There are millions of senior citizens in this country who can barely make it, and I sometimes wonder how in God's Name they do make it on $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year in Social Security. How do you keep your house warm, how do you buy the food you need, how do you buy the prescription drugs you need to stay alive on $13,000 or $14,000 a year? There are millions of senior citizens in this country in that position. Yet, despite that reality, over the last year we have had to fight off one Republican effort after another to cut Social Security COLAs, to raise the retirement age, or to even privatize this life-or-death program.

Further, the Republicans have proposed massive cuts to LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is keeping people warm in Vermont today when the weather goes below zero. All over this country, millions of people, often senior citizens, depend on this program. Yet President Trump, in his budget, proposes to wipe it out completely. Republican leaders are also proposing cuts to the Meals on Wheels program, senior housing programs, and Medicare.

Today, in a highly competitive global economy, when we need to have the best educated workforce in the world, when the new jobs that are being created require a higher education, hundreds of thousands of bright young students desperately want to get a college education, but they are unable to do so because their families lack the income. But Republicans, incredibly, want to make that situation even worse by proposing massive cuts in the budget they recently passed to Pell grants--the major source of funding to help low-income young people get a college education--and other financial assistance programs for college. In my view, we should be making public colleges and universities tuition-free. Republicans today are proposing to make it harder for our young people to get the higher education they need.

During this budget process, when the Republicans want to expand military spending by some $100 billion--$100 billion--over the next 2 years, by far the largest increase in military spending in American history, we will not turn our backs on working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. The U.S. Government must do more than greatly expand military spending and give tax breaks to billionaires. Our job is to protect the working families of this country, and that is what the new budget must do. That means we must have parity between defense and nondefense spending. That is why this budget--the proposed budget--that we are working on now must address the many crises facing the working families of the United States. That is what the American people want, and that is what we must deliver. Among many other things that must be included in the new budget that we are working on is full funding for community health centers, which provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs to some 27 million Americans in every State in our country. It has been more than 3 months since funding for community health centers has lapsed. Our Nation's 1,400 community health centers in roughly 10,000 communities throughout this country are deeply worried right now as to when they will get the funding they need.

I just spoke to the leadership of community health centers in Vermont the other day. They have had a longstanding problem--as have community health centers all across this country--in retention and attracting new doctors and nurses into their programs. What we are seeing now is a situation where many people who might want to work at a community health center are saying: Why would I want to go there when the Republicans are delaying funding for this vitally important program?

If we do not act soon, 70 percent of the funding for community health centers will be cut and 2,800 health centers will close their doors. Community health centers must be funded at the levels contained in the bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this year. I congratulate Senator Blunt and Senator Stabenow for their bipartisan work on this issue, and there are a number of other Republicans who are cosponsoring that legislation. We could pass it tomorrow if it were on the floor of the Senate. Let us do that.

The offsets to the prevention program of the Affordable Care Act that were included in the December 21 agreement are unacceptable, and they must not be repeated. The Blunt-Stabenow bill has nine Republican cosponsors. This bill represents a modest 5-percent increase in funding at a cost of just $2 billion over 5 years--the very least we can do to address the major crisis of primary healthcare in America, especially in rural America.

As you know, Federal funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program expired on September 30, 2017. If the CHIP program is not reauthorized, 9 million children in working families will lose their health insurance. Can you imagine that we have a Congress prepared and acting to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country, but somehow or another they have not gotten around to reauthorize and re- fund the Children's Health Insurance Program? That must be done immediately and, once again, without regressive offsets which take money from other health insurance programs.

We must keep our promises on pensions. If Congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in multi-employer pension plans could be cut by up to 60 percent. We must not rescind the promise we made to 1.5 million workers.

We must expand Social Security services for seniors. Since 2010, Congress has cut Social Security's operating budget by 16 percent, and Republicans want to cut it another 4 percent this year. These budget cuts have resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 employees, the closing of 64 field offices, and reduced hours in many others. In Vermont, one field office has seen its staffing cut by 30 percent. According to a recent Washington Post article, 10,000 people died in the past year while they waited for decisions on Social Security disability benefits. We need to increase the funding for these vital services by at least $1.4 billion just to bring staffing back up to where it was in 2010.

We need to keep our promises to our veterans, the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our country. Right now, we have tens of thousands of vacancies in the VA. Those vacancies must be filled. Veterans must be able to get high-quality, timely healthcare.

We must fight the opioid and heroin epidemic that is sweeping this country. All over America, we are seeing tens of thousands of people, often young people, overdosing on opioids and heroin. States and communities all over this country need the resources for prevention and treatment. That is an issue that cannot be delayed. It has to be dealt with now.

Everybody knows that in the last several months, we have seen disastrous hurricanes impact Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In Puerto Rico today, there continue to be many people who still do not have electricity. We must pass disaster relief right now that is adequate and that treats Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands just as we will treat Texas and Florida. We cannot continue to delay given the enormous suffering that is existing in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands.

Very briefly, let me touch on another issue of enormous consequence which simply cannot be ignored. On September 5, 2017, President Trump announced that he would be rescinding President Obama's Executive order on DACA. That decision means that some 800,000 young people who have known the United States of America as their only home--this is where they grew up; this is where they went to school--are on the verge of losing their legal status in terms of education, in terms of employment, and in terms of serving in the military if that program is not reestablished. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, these young people live in a constant fear of being deported. Since the President's announcement in September, more than 11,000 people have lost the protections under DACA, with there being approximately 22,000 set to lose their legal protections by the March 5, 2018, deadline.

Any spending agreement must address the fear and uncertainty that has been unnecessarily caused by the administration's reckless actions, and a clean Dream Act must be signed into law as part of the budget negotiations. Protecting the Dreamers and moving these young people toward citizenship is not some kind of wild and radical idea; it is precisely what the American people want. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 77 percent of the American people support providing legal protections to the Dreamers. This is an issue that must be dealt with, and it must be dealt with now.

When history looks back on this period, I do not want it to see a U.S. Congress that worked overtime to protect billionaires and large corporations and a Congress that turned its back on working families and the children and the sick and the poor. I do not want history to look back on this period and say that Members of Congress thought it appropriate to spend $100 billion more on the military but were not concerned about veterans who did not get the healthcare they needed or some 800,000 young people who are now frightened that they will lose their legal status.

As the U.S. Senate, we must get our priorities right, and we need a budget that deals not only with military spending but with the needs of the middle class and working families of this country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I understand that my Republican colleagues and President Trump are busy celebrating the passage of the tax bill that was voted on at 1:30 in the morning. They are very excited, and they are very happy about it. I understand that. I guess, if one is a billionaire like President Trump or is a wealthy campaign contributor, you do have a whole lot to celebrate. Maybe, if you are 1 of the 6,000 lobbyists here in Washington, DC, who helped to write the bill, you are celebrating a lot today. Yet, if you are one of the vast majority of the American people who is in the middle class, you should not be celebrating today. In fact, you should be pretty nervous.

The passage of this legislation marks a great victory for the Koch brothers and other wealthy campaign contributors who will see, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, huge tax breaks for themselves. In other words, the wealthiest people will become much wealthier. Meanwhile, the deficit--what is owed by our kids and our grandchildren--will increase by $1.5 trillion as a result of this bill. The largest and most profitable corporations--companies like Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, and General Electric--despite record breaking profits, are going to see very, very large tax breaks to the tune of many billions of dollars.

Now, at a time when the very wealthy are becoming much richer, tens of millions of American families are struggling to keep their heads above water economically. There are 40 million Americans who are living in poverty. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center tells us that in terms of this legislation, 83 percent of the tax benefits will go to the top 1 percent by the end of the decade, who are already doing phenomenally well, and that 60 percent of the benefits will go to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. Meanwhile, at the end of 10 years, some 92 million middle-class households will be paying more in taxes.

On top of all of that, as the only Nation--major country--on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people, this bill will result in 13 million Americans losing their health insurance. I understand the President was really excited about this. Hey, what a great day. There are 13 million more Americans who are losing their health insurance when we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people.

In the ending of the individual mandate, what all of the experts tell us is that our healthcare premiums will go up. If you are an average person out there, your healthcare premiums will very likely go up as a result of this legislation. Meanwhile, starting next year--I am not talking about 10 years from now--some 8 million middle-class families will pay more in taxes.

Doesn't it say a lot about Republican priorities when they make permanent the tax breaks for corporations; yet they make temporary the tax breaks for working families, which will expire in 8 years?

Furthermore, I would hope that every American is listening closely to what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is talking about. I have to give Ryan credit for being pretty honest about the intentions of the Republican Party. Just this morning, he was on ABC, saying what he has said for quite a while, and that is that the Republican plan is a two- step approach. Step No. 1 is passing the legislation that passed last night here and today in the House. Step No. 2 is, having run up a deficit of $1.5 trillion, they are now going to come back and offset that deficit by making massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

According to Ryan, they have a two-step program. Step No. 1 is to give massive tax breaks to the rich and large corporations and to run up the deficit by $1.5 trillion. Step No. 2 is to offset that deficit by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

How unspeakable and outrageous is this plan? How much does it go against what the American people want? This gives huge tax breaks to billionaires--to the Trump family, to the Koch brothers--and then pays for those tax breaks by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

There are millions of senior citizens and people with disabilities in Vermont and all across this country who, today, are struggling to buy food, to heat their homes, and to buy the prescription drugs that they need because they are trying to survive on $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year in Social Security. There are people who have worked their entire lives and have exhausted themselves as they approach retirement. Do not tell those people who live on $12,000, $13,000 a year in Social Security that you are going to cut their benefits through a Chained CPI or by some other mechanism in order to give tax breaks to billionaires. How outrageous that would be.

Don't tell older workers--many of them with health problems after their having worked 20, 30, 40 years--that you are going to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to Microsoft, Pfizer, or General Electric, but then you are going to ask them to work more years in order to be eligible for Medicare.

I understand that every Member of the Congress would like to go home for the holiday season, and so would I. This is the time of year during which Vermont is very, very beautiful. The truth is that it would really be unconscionable for us to leave Washington after giving tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations while we ignore the enormous problems that are facing the middle class and working families of our country.

When Donald Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, the DACA Program, nearly 800,000 lives were thrown into chaos and uncertainty. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, hundreds of thousands of young people today are living in terrible fear and anxiety about losing the legal status they currently have in the only country they have ever known. These are young people who grew up in the United States, went to school in the United States, are working in the United States, and are in our military. This is their home. It would be unspeakable to take away their legal status and subject them to deportation.

Since the President's announcement in September, more than 11,000 people have already lost their protections under DACA, with approximately 22,000 set to lose their legal protections by the March 5, 2018, deadline. These are hundreds of thousands of wonderful young people. We cannot turn our backs on them. We must deal with DACA before we leave for the holiday break. Any end-of-the-year spending agreement must address the fear and uncertainty caused by the administration's reckless actions, and a clean Dream Act must be signed into law.

This is not just what Bernie Sanders wants; this is what the American people in overwhelming numbers want. A Quinnipiac poll came out just the other day in which 77 percent of the American people supported maintaining legal status for these young people and allowing them to move forward toward citizenship--77 percent--and that is consistent with other polls that have been taken. A vast majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents understand that it would be incredibly cruel and harmful to our country in so many ways to deny legal status to the Dreamers. We cannot turn our backs on the Dreamers. We must address their crisis right now.

It has been almost 3 months since funding for community health centers has lapsed. Our Nation's 1,400 community health centers serve more than 27 million people in roughly 10,000 communities throughout the country. In my home State of Vermont, one out of four Vermonters gets their primary healthcare, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs, and mental health counseling at a community health center.

How does it happen that the Republican leadership can spend months on a bill to give tax breaks to billionaires but not address the lack of funding, the reauthorization of the Community Health Centers Program or the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare to 9 million children?

In this country, there are 1.5 million workers and retirees in multi- employer pension plans who could see the pensions that they worked for over their entire lives cut by up to 60 percent. People were promised these pensions a few years ago, and in a disastrous act, Congress took away that promise, and

working people could lose the pensions they were promised by up to 60 percent cuts in those pensions. Congress needs to act before the end of the year to make sure that no one in America in a multi-employer pension plan will see their pension cut.

Those are real issues impacting real people, but there are more. There was an article recently in the Washington Post, and it said that because of major cuts to the Social Security Administration, people with disabilities are not getting their claims processed in a timely manner. The result was that in 1 year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities died before they got their claims processed.

What the Republicans have been very active on is making sure that the Social Security Administration does not get the funding it needs, which means that it is harder for people who have retired and people who have disabilities to get the information they need or the claims that they have processed in a timely manner. We must make sure that every senior and person with a disability gets treated with dignity. We have to restore adequate funding to the Social Security Administration.

One of the great outrages that currently is taking place in this country and really is quite beyond belief is that at a time when we live in a competitive global economy and when we need the best educated workforce in the world to be able to do the new jobs that are being created, which require more education, we have over 40 million people in our country who have left college or graduate school in debt and sometimes deeply in debt. I am talking about people I have met who have gone to medical school or dental school and are $300,000 or $400,000 in debt. People graduate college $100,000 or $150,000 in debt. This is a crisis that is impacting millions of people. It is impacting our entire economy. It is an issue that must be addressed. Maybe, just maybe, before we give tax breaks to billionaires, we might want to significantly lower the debt burden so many people in this country have in their student debt.

This is the year 2017, soon to be 2018. This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Yet there are communities in Vermont, Utah, and communities all over this country that do not have adequate broadband service. How does a business start up in a community if that community does not have rapid broadband or good cell phone service? The answer is, it doesn't. It can't. That is one of the reasons why rural America is hurting so badly. We must invest in rural infrastructure to make sure every community in this country has quality, affordable broadband.

There is an opioid epidemic sweeping this country, impacting Vermont, my neighboring State of New Hampshire, West Virginia, Kentucky, and all parts of this country are seeing people dying from overdoses from opioids and heroin. This is an epidemic that must be addressed. We can't simply walk out of here and leave people all across the country without the resources they need to treat people who are addicted and to prevent our young people from becoming addicts. We need to invest in treatment and prevention for the opioid epidemic.

As we speak, there are over 30,000 vacancies in the Veterans' Administration. That means that we have to make sure every veteran in this country who goes to the VA gets the quality and timely healthcare he or she needs. We can't turn our backs on the veterans. We have to invest in the VA.

The bottom line is that, as much as all of us would like to get out of Washington and go home, we simply cannot turn our backs on tens of millions of working people and people in the middle class. It is not good enough to pass tax breaks for billionaires and then leave town. So I hope the Republican leadership will immediately bring to this floor the legislation that we need to address the many crises facing the middle class of this country.

With that Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, a few moments ago, my friend from South Dakota was speaking about the bill. He made one statement that I do agree with, and that is, just because you say something over and over again does not make it true. Unfortunately, much of what he said is just not accurate. The truth is that what we are seeing today, in an unprecedented way, is the looting of the Federal Treasury.

Today marks a great victory for the very wealthy campaign contributors who have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to the Republican Party. These billionaires will see a huge tax break for themselves at the same time as the deficit of this country is driven up by about $1.5 trillion.

Today is also a victory for the largest, the most profitable corporations in America, companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, and General Electric, which, despite recordbreaking profits, will now see hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, where the people on top are becoming wealthier while the middle class shrinks and 40 million live in poverty, this legislation--according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center--will provide 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent, while increasing taxes on 92 million middle-class households by the end of the decade. Let me repeat that. By the end of the decade, this legislation will provide 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and, incredibly, 60 percent of the benefits to the top one- tenth of 1 percent, while, at the end of the decade, 92 million middle- class households will be paying more in taxes.

Does anybody really believe that when we have such a massive gap in income and wealth inequality, we should be giving 60 percent of the benefits in this bill to the top one-tenth of 1 percent?

It says a lot about the priorities of the Republican Party when the tax breaks for corporations in this bill are permanent, while the tax breaks for working families expire at the end of 8 years.

Furthermore, I hope that every American is listening to what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is saying, and other Republicans, when they talk about how they are going to offset the $1.5 trillion in deficits they just created by giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. What Ryan is saying and many other Republicans are saying is that they are going to come back and offset that $1.5 trillion in deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And if I am wrong on that assertion, I would hope that some of my Republican colleagues would come down to the floor and say that I am wrong, but I do not suspect that will be the case.

During his campaign for the White House, Donald Trump said over and over again to the American people, quote after quote, day after day, that he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Well, I say to the President: For once in your life, keep the promises that you made, and tell the Republican leadership now that you will veto any legislation that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. I suspect we will not be seeing a tweet from the President on that issue.

Moving toward passing this very unfair piece of legislation, the Republican leadership--which controls the House and the Senate--will move soon to shut down the Congress and head home for a holiday break. After massive tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, they believe their work is done, and they are ready to head home.

Well, I respectfully disagree. Maybe, just maybe, before Congress adjourns for the holidays, we should start paying attention to the needs of the working families of this country, to the middle class of this country, and not just the billionaire class.

We need to address the crisis that faces some 800,000 young people who are currently in the DACA Program. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, these young people today are living in constant fear and anxiety that they may lose their legal status and, in fact, be deported from the only country they have ever known.

Imagine somebody who is 20 or 25 years of age, has lived in the United States virtually his or her entire life, went to school here, now has a job, now is in college, now is in the military, and because of Trump's disastrous attack on DACA, repealing DACA, 800,000 young people are worried about whether they are going to be able to even stay in this country.

The American people are very clear about how they feel about this issue. I believe just today there was a Quinnipiac poll that appeared on this very issue, and this was the question:

Which comes closest to your view about undocumented

immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children? A) They

should be allowed to stay in the United States and to

eventually apply for U.S. citizenship. B) They should be

allowed to remain in the United States, but not be allowed to

apply for U.S. citizenship. C) They should be required to

leave the U.S.

That was the question asked of the American people.

Here is the answer. Seventy-seven percent of the American people--77 percent--say that these young people should be allowed to stay in the United States and move toward citizenship. Seven percent say they that should stay in the United States but not gain citizenship. Twelve percent say that they should be forced to leave the United States.

Republicans, by overwhelming numbers, say that these young people, these Dreamers who have spent their entire lives in this country, who know no other country, should be allowed to stay in America and apply for citizenship. Ninety-one percent of Democrats say that, and 81 percent of Independents say that.

As we speak, young people are losing their legal status. We have to act on that and act on that now, before we adjourn for the holidays. Put yourself in the place of a 20-, 25-year-old person living in extraordinary anxiety. We have to act now to address those concerns. We have to do what the American people want us to do.

As I think most people know, the Koch brothers are the major funders of the Republican Party. They have probably given billions of dollars over the years. Even Charles Koch acknowledges that the right thing to do is to provide legal status for the Dreamers.

Let me quote from a recent op-ed in the Washington Post by Charles Koch and Tim Cook, the head of Apple:

The United States is at its best when all people are free

to pursue their dreams. Our country has enjoyed unparalleled

success by welcoming people from around the world who seek to

make a better life for themselves and their families, no

matter what their backgrounds. It is our differences that

help us to learn from each other, to challenge our old ways

of thinking and to discover innovative solutions that benefit

us all. To advance that prosperity and build an even stronger

future, each successive generation--including, today, our

own--must show the courage to embrace that diversity and to

do what is right.

We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get

things done in Washington, and we know that people of good

faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy. If ever

there were an occasion to come together to help people

improve their lives, this is it. By acting now to ensure the

dreamers can realize their potential by continuing to

contribute to our country, Congress can reaffirm this

essential American ideal.

This is from Charles Koch. He funds the Republican Party. They might want to listen to him as well.

But it is not just the need to address the crisis facing our Dreamers. As you know, community health centers providing health insurance, healthcare, for 27 million people have not been reauthorized or refunded. We have to address that issue, and we have to address it now.

Nine million children are in the Children's Health Insurance Program. While we are busy giving tax breaks to billionaires, we have not had time to reauthorize a health insurance program for the children of this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

We have disaster relief out there. Folks in Congress will go home to celebrate the holidays, and will light up our homes. In Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, they can't light up their homes because many of them still don't have electricity as a result of the recent disasters they have experienced. We need to do disaster relief. We need to do it now for the people of Puerto Rico, for the people of the Virgin Islands, for the people of Texas, and for the people of Florida.

There are 1.5 million workers who are about to lose the pensions they were promised, and those pensions, after a lifetime of work, will be reduced by 60 percent if we don't address the multiemployer pension plan crisis. We have to do that.

Over 40 million people in this country are dealing with student debt. They leave college deeply in debt. Many of them are in despair because of their financial situations--because of their outrageous levels of student debt. We have to address that.

We have an opioid epidemic that is killing people from coast to coast. We have to start investing in treatment and prevention.

We have 30,000 vacancies in the VA today. Our job is to make sure that every veteran in this country gets the quality healthcare he or she needs. They don't get it with 30,000 vacancies in the VA. We have to invest in the VA.

There were 10,000 people on disability who died last year while waiting for the Social Security Administration to act on their applications; 10,000 people died last year because the Social Security Administration is greatly understaffed--massive cuts to the Social Security Administration. The elderly and the disabled in this country are entitled to have prompt process when they apply for benefits. They are not getting that. We have to pay attention to that, and on and on it goes.

The bottom line is that the U.S. Senate should be doing more than providing 83 percent of the benefits in a tax bill to the top 1 percent. We cannot go home unless we address the very serious crises facing the working families and the middle class of this country.

With that, I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

If I could ask my colleague from Oregon a simple question--he is the ranking member of the Finance Committee. This is a bill that deals with trillions of dollars in our entire economy.

It impacts every person in America. Would he mind telling the American people just how many public hearings there were to hear from economists, to hear from the business community, to hear from labor, to hear from senior advocates, to discuss this rather long and complicated bill?

Talk about taxes in general----

Let me translate that into English. In other words, as I understand what the Senator is saying, billionaire campaign contributors could then legally put money into churches, which would then do the political work that they otherwise would have been doing.

Absolutely. It is not only that mistakes are made; it is that when you don't open the doors to the American people, to economists, to mayors, to Governors, to businesspeople, and to leaders in the labor movement to see what do you want in tax reform--when you don't do that--and when you conduct your business behind closed doors, you end up with legislation that represents the needs of the billionaire class, which also makes a number of mistakes.

In that regard, I would tell my friend that this afternoon, the Senate Parliamentarian advised that certain provisions of the Republican tax legislation violate the Byrd rule, including a provision allowing for the use of 529 savings accounts for home schooling expenses; the short title--the Tax Cut and Jobs Act--and part of the criteria used to determine whether the endowments of private universities are subject to the legislation's new excise tax. These provisions may be struck from the conference report absent 60 votes.

With that, I raise the following points of order against the pending conference report:

That subsection 11000(a) violates section 313(b)(1)(A) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; that subparagraph (B) of section 11032, starting on page 75, line 17 and all through page 76, line 9, violates section 313(b)(1)(D) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; and that the phrase ``tuition-paying'' as it appears on page 309, line 12, and page 309, lines 14 through 15, violates section 313(b)(1)(D) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, as everybody knows, the Republican Party now controls the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. We also know that unless a budget agreement is reached by December 22, the U.S. Government will shut down, which will cause serious harm to our country, including the men and women in the Armed Forces and our veterans.

I do not know why the Republican Party, which controls all the branches of government, wants to shut down our government. I think that is wrong, and I think a shutdown will be very hurtful to people from coast to coast.

Earlier this year, President Trump tweeted: ``Our country needs a good shutdown.'' I strongly disagree. I don't think we need a good shutdown; I think we need to reach an agreement on a budget that works for the middle class of our country and not just the wealthiest people.

It is no great secret that we are living in a nation that has almost unprecedented income and wealth inequality, at least since the 1920s. We have the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.

I don't believe that now is the time to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country in a horrific tax bill and then at the end of 10 years raise taxes on 83 million middle-class families. I think that makes no sense. I don't think it makes much sense to be passing a tax bill that gives 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent.

Apparently it is not good enough for my Republican colleagues that corporate America today is enjoying recordbreaking profits and that the CEOs of large corporations are earning more than 300 times what their employees make. What the tax bill would do is give over $1 trillion in tax breaks to large, profitable corporations at a time when already one out of five of these major corporations is paying nothing in taxes. That is apparently not good enough--we need to lower taxes for large corporations even more.

Right now as we speak, legislation is being written behind closed doors by the House Freedom Caucus and other Members of the extreme rightwing to provide a massive increase in funding for the Pentagon for the rest of the fiscal year, while only providing temporary and inadequate funding for the needs of the working families of this country, including education, affordable housing, nutrition, environmental protection, and other vital programs.

What we have seen over the last year is a Republican effort to throw 30 million people off of health insurance. What we then see is a Republican effort to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations and at the end of 10 years raise taxes on middle-class families. Now what we are seeing on the part of the Republican Party is an effort to increase military spending by $54 billion while ignoring the needs of a struggling middle class. We have to get our priorities right and maybe--just maybe--we have to start listening to what the American people want, not just what wealthy campaign contributors want.

In terms of the Republican so-called healthcare bill, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, there is massive opposition from the American people. In terms of this tax bill, in case you haven't seen the last few polls, there is massive opposition to a tax bill that gives incredible tax breaks to people who don't need it and raises taxes on the middle class. Maybe--just maybe--we should start paying attention to the needs of working families.

For a start, let us be clear that since the passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011, Democrats and Republicans have agreed to operate with parity, which means if you are going to increase military spending, you increase programs that meet the needs of working families, domestic spending. There was parity in 2011 and parity three times after, and parity must continue. It is not acceptable to be talking about a huge increase in military spending and not funding the needs of a shrinking middle class, which desperately needs help in terms of education, in terms of nutrition, and so many other areas.

Furthermore, the American people are quite clear that they want us to move toward comprehensive immigration reform. They understand that it would be a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to say to the 800,000 young people who have lived, in most cases, their entire lives in the United States of America: We are ending the DACA Program. You are going to lose your legal status. You are not going to be able to go to school. You are not going to be able to hold a job. You are not going to be able to be in the military. We are taking away the legal status that you now have, and you will be subject to deportation. That is not what the American people want. They want to continue the DACA Program, and, in fact, they want comprehensive immigration reform--and now. Now is the time to deal with that.

I am happy to say that on this issue, there are a growing number of Republicans in the House and in the Senate who understand that in America, you are not going to throw 800,000 of our brightest young people, who are serving in the military and holding important jobs, out of this country by withdrawing their legal status.

I have been deeply involved, as have Senator Blunt and others, in the Community Health Center Program, which is so important for the people of our country. Twenty-seven million Americans today receive their healthcare through community health centers, which provide primary care, provide mental health counseling--so important today--provide dental care, and provide low-cost prescription drugs. While my Republican colleagues have been busy trying to throw 30 million people off of health insurance, while they have been busy trying to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the rich and for large corporations, somehow they have not had the time to extend the CHIP program or the Community Health Center Program. How in God's Name can we be talking about tax breaks for billionaires and not extending a health insurance program for the children of our country? If the CHIP program is not reauthorized, 9 million children and working families will lose their health insurance.

Let us get our priorities right. Let us immediately pass legislation extending and funding the CHIP program and the Community Health Center Program.

In the Midwest, as you well know, and all over this country, we have a major crisis in terms of pensions. So many of our older workers are scared to death about retiring because they have very little or nothing in the bank as they end their work careers. If Congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in multiemployer pension plans could be cut by up to 60 percent. People who have worked their entire lives, people who have put money into a pension program, people who have given up wage increases in order to gain decent pensions now stand the possibility of seeing their pensions cut by up to 60 percent. How can we do that? How do you tell someone who has worked their entire life, who is looking forward to a decent retirement, that we are going to cut their pension by up to 60 percent? We cannot do that. When a worker is promised a pension benefit after a lifetime of hard work, that promise must be kept. Congress needs to act before the end of the year to make sure that no one in America in a multiemployer pension plan will see their pension cut. Yes, I also think that is more important than tax breaks for billionaires.

We need to make a downpayment on universal childcare. In my State of Vermont and all over this country, it is increasingly difficult for working families to find high-quality, affordable childcare. We must, in my view, double the funding for the Childcare and Development Block Grant to provide childcare assistance for 226,000 more children and move toward universal childcare for every kid in America. What the social sciences tell us is that there is no better investment than early childhood education. Every dollar we invest there is paid back many times over by kids doing better at school and by kids getting out, getting jobs, and becoming taxpayers.

There is another crisis in this country that has to be dealt with. Ten years ago, Congress passed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to support Americans who enter public service careers-- teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, social workers, and military personnel. One of the absurdities that exists in America today is that we have tens of millions of Americans who are paying outrageous interest rates on their student debt. People who have done the right thing by trying to get the best education they could are now being punished because they went to college, went to graduate school, and are having to pay a significant part of their income back to the government in terms of their student debt. Congress must address this issue, and there is legislation to make sure that, at the very least, if you are prepared to go into public service work--if you want to be a teacher, a nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, a social worker, or want to go into the military--we will forgive your debt. That is an issue that should be dealt with before the end of the year.

We have a crisis in terms of our rural infrastructure, and I come from a rural State. In the year 2017, soon to be 2018, how does it happen that in rural communities all over America there are inadequate broadband capabilities? How do you start a small business in a small town if you don't have good-quality broadband? How do the kids do well in school if they can't gain access to the internet? This is the United States of America, and we should not be trailing countries all over the world that have better broadband access at lower costs than we do. If we want to grow rural America, if we want our kids to stay in rural America, we have to deal with the collapsing infrastructure in this country, especially in rural America.

Mr. President, I don't have to tell you--because Ohio has been hit hard, as has Vermont, New Hampshire, and all over this country--that we have a terrible, terrible epidemic in terms of opioid addiction. I am trying to deal with this issue in the State of Vermont, and I know it is severe in Ohio. We have to be adequately funding programs that focus on prevention, making sure that our young people do not get trapped into a life of addiction. We have to provide the kinds of treatment people need. We cannot ignore this. This is an epidemic that is sweeping this country. More people will die this year from opioid overdoses than died during the entire war in Vietnam. We have to adequately fund treatment and prevention for the epidemic that we are seeing in terms of opioids.

We ought to keep our promises to our veterans. We now have tens of thousands of positions at the Veterans Administration that have not been filled, and we need to make sure they are filled so that the veterans of our country, when they go into the VA, get high-quality care in a timely manner, which they are entitled to.

There was an article, I think it was in the Washington Post, a couple of weeks ago that talked about the fact that 10,000 people died in the last year, waiting for a decision on Social Security disability benefits. In other words, you have people who desperately need these benefits; they have applied for these benefits through the Social Security Administration, and they wait and they wait and they wait. Unbelievably, in the last year, 10,000 people died while they were waiting for a decision from the Social Security Administration. This has everything to do with the fact that there have been budget cuts in recent years that have been significant and have resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 employees in the Social Security Administration, the closing of 64 field offices, and reduced hours in many others. In Vermont, one field office has seen its staffing cut by 30 percent. We have to adequately fund the Social Security Administration so that our elderly and our disabled can get due process in terms of the benefits for which they have filed.

In 2016, the National Park Service recorded over 330 million visits to national parks and over $11 billion in deferred maintenance. In other words, our national parks are very, very popular, but they are not getting the maintenance work they need. Meanwhile, the President wants to double fees for people visiting our beautiful national parks. This is an issue we must deal with.

The bottom line is that we are coming toward the end of the year, and we have a lot of work to do, but the work we do has to start reflecting the needs of the working people of this country, not just the billionaire class. We cannot give $54 billion more to the military and ignore the needs of our children, our elderly, our sick, our poor. We have to come up with a budget proposal that works for all of us and not just wealthy campaign contributors. As a member of the Budget Committee, I expect to be very active in that process.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to congratulate and honor an exceptional Vermonter, Dora Spaulding, who this year is celebrating 50 years of dedicated service to the students at the Marion Cross Elementary School in Norwich, VT.

Ms. Spaulding has been the administrative assistant at the Marion Cross School for the past 10 years and was secretary to the principal for 40 years prior to that. Her story is all the more impressive when one considers that Dora Spaulding attended Marion Cross School herself, from first to eighth grade. It is hard to imagine today, but Dora was the only girl in her entire first-grade class.

As the school's administrative assistant, Ms. Spaulding is responsible for the payroll, purchasing, bus transport arrangements, facility rental schedule, and other administrative tasks for the school, but more than that, she is, in many ways, the face of the school. In fact, several members of my staff grew up in Norwich and attended the Marion Cross School and speak highly of her many contributions to the students, school, and the community.

Dora Spaulding embodies the spirit of dedicated public service. I applaud her for helping to steward countless young people over the past 50 years and for her tremendous commitment to education and community.

Mr. President, President Trump and the Republican leadership, as we just heard, are talking every day on television, at news conferences, telling the American people how this tax bill that was passed here at 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday--without any hearings, with no serious debate--how this tax bill is designed to help the middle class and how it was written for the middle class.

Unfortunately, I suspect that I will not shock too many Americans by suggesting that what President Trump has been saying is not truthful. This legislation, according to numerous independent studies, will provide 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent--62 percent of the benefits will go to the top 1 percent--while increasing taxes on 83 million middle-class households by the end of the decade. Why? The reason is that the tax cuts for middle-class families expire by the end of 2025, while the tax breaks for large corporations are made permanent.

We are living in a moment in American history where we have an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, where the top one- tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, where the top 1 percent owns almost twice as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and, if you can believe it, where three of the wealthiest people in this country--Mr. Gates, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Buffett--three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population. That is where we are right now.

Yet, in the midst of this incredible level of income and wealth inequality, my Republican colleagues believe that this is a moment when 62 percent of the benefits of so-called tax reform should go to the top 1 percent and 42 percent of the benefits should go to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, while at the same time tens of millions of middle-class families will end up paying more in taxes. How crazy is that? So we have a situation in which the wealthy, who need tax breaks the least, will benefit the most, and the working class and middle class of this country, who need the most help, will benefit the least.

The President of the United States and my Republican colleagues tell the American people that trickle-down economics--giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations--will expand the economy. We just heard Senator Thune talking about that. They will create new jobs and will bring in so much revenue that it will pay for the deficit it creates.

Every independent expert who has taken a look at this tax bill has said it will substantially increase the deficit, even after accounting for the possibility of increased economic growth. The Joint Committee on Taxation has told us that this bill will increase the deficit by $1.4 trillion over the next decade. Why is that important?

First of all, it shows, if I may say, the hypocrisy of my Republican colleagues who, year after year after year on this floor, lectured us about the dangers of a $20 trillion national debt and growing deficits. We heard this time and time again. But somehow, when it comes to the need to provide tax breaks to billionaires, that concern about the deficit seems to have disappeared.

Secondly and more immediately, there is no doubt in my mind that if the Republicans are able to pass this bill, which will soon go to a conference committee--this bill that gives huge tax breaks to the top 1 percent and raises the deficit by $1.4 trillion--there is no doubt in my mind that they will suddenly rediscover their great concern about deficits and the debt and move directly within the next few months to begin the process of cutting programs desperately needed by the working families of this country--the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor.

This is not just Bernie Sanders speculating. This is what the New York Times said in a front-page article a few days ago:

As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early

Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are

preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the

package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision:

undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society,

leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for

millions of Americans.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other Republicans are beginning to

express their big dreams publicly, vowing that next year they

will move on to changes in Medicare and Social Security.

President Trump told a Missouri rally last week, `We're going

to go into welfare reform.'

Let me take this opportunity to translate into English what phrases like ``entitlement reform'' or ``welfare reform'' really mean. What they mean in reality are massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, affordable housing, and other programs desperately needed by a declining middle class. It means that after they pass this so-called tax reform bill, which would provide a $200,000 tax break to CEOs who make over $16 million a year, they will come back to the floor of the Senate and fight for cuts to Social Security for senior citizens trying to survive on $12,000 or $13,000 a year. So there are massive cuts for millionaires and billionaires in their taxes at the same time as they want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for struggling seniors.

``Entitlement reform'' means that at a time when millions of seniors are splitting their pills in half because they cannot afford the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs, Republicans want massive cuts to Medicare. It means that when two out of every three nursing home residents in this country rely on Medicaid to pay for their long- term care, the Republicans want to make massive cuts to Medicaid.

We do not know exactly what form these cuts will take. I think that is not yet clear. There has been discussion among Republicans about raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70 years of age, forcing older workers to work years more before they can get their earned retirement benefits.

Maybe they will cut back on cost-of-living increases through a so- called Chained CPI--a new formulation that means lower benefits not only for seniors but for millions of disabled veterans. They apparently believe, for those of you on Social Security now, that the COLAs you have been getting in recent years are just too high. That zero percent increase you got a couple years ago? It is much too high; we have

to change the formula and lower benefit increases.

Maybe they will go back to their long-term dream of privatizing Medicare and converting it into a voucher program, which will say to the elderly in this country: Here is a check for $8,000. You go out and find private insurance on your own. I would say good luck to any elderly person in this country who is struggling with heart disease or cancer. You see what kind of insurance program you are going to get with a check for $8,000.

I would remind my colleagues that many of these proposals were included in the budget resolution the Republicans voted for right here on the floor of the Senate. This is not speculation; these are issues and items that Republicans already voted for. They already voted for a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, which would throw some 15 million Americans off of health insurance. They have already voted in the budget to cut Medicare by $473 billion. In my view, the last thing we should be doing is giving tax breaks to billionaires while cutting programs for the most vulnerable people in our country.

During the campaign, Donald Trump, as a candidate, promised he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He made that promise over and over again. I have some charts. Let me quote some of the tweets and some of the things Donald Trump said on the campaign trail.

This is what he said: ``I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.''

On another occasion, he said:

I'm not a cutter. I'll probably be the only Republican that

doesn't want to cut Social Security.

That was January 24, 2015.

It's my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way

it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is.

That was Donald Trump on March 10, 2016.

Here is another quote:

You know, Paul [Ryan] wants to knock out Social Security,

knock it down, way down. He wants to knock Medicare way down.

And, frankly--well, two things. Number one, you're going to

lose the election if you're going to do that. . . . Now, I

want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to do a

lot of things to it that are going to make it much better,

actually. But I'm not going to cut it, and I'm not going to

raise ages, and I'm not going to do all of the things that

they want to do. But they want to really cut it, and they

want to cut it very substantially, the Republicans, and I'm

not going to do that.

Before I go on to the next quote, I want to tell Donald Trump that, as a candidate, man, he was exactly right. This is what he said on March 29, 2016. He said that the Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

Well, Candidate Trump, you were exactly right, because that is now what we will see in a few weeks or a few months.

Another quote from Donald Trump as a candidate:

Social Security faces a problem: 77 million baby boomers

set to retire. Now, I know there are some Republicans who

would be just fine with allowing these programs to wither and

die on the vine. The way they see it, Social Security and

Medicare are wasteful `entitlement programs.' But people who

think this way need to rethink their position. It's not

unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to

expect to get their money's worth--that's not an

`entitlement,' that's honoring a deal.

Well, there it is. Candidate Donald Trump said over and over again that he would not cut Social Security, that he would not cut Medicare, that he would not cut Medicaid. In fact, quite correctly, he predicted that the Republicans would try to do exactly that.

Now I would like to talk directly, if I might, to the President of the United States.

Mr. President, on the campaign trail, over and over again, you said that you would not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Today, I am asking you nothing more than to keep your word. Don't lie to the American people.

Millions of people voted for you because you said you would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Keep your word. Tell Senate Leader McConnell and tell House Speaker Paul Ryan that you will veto any legislation that cuts these programs.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is no secret that I am strongly opposed to this disastrous, unfair, and destructive piece of legislation that we are debating today that will give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country, to the most profitable corporations, and to billionaire campaign contributors.

What really concerns me is that we are debating, as everybody acknowledges, a very complicated and confusing piece of legislation that is over 500 pages long. Here we are a few hours before we are going to be voting on this legislation, and nobody has seen it. Nobody even knows what is in this legislation. It is probably being written as we speak right now. That is not a very effective or intelligent way to deal with legislation that impacts every American and trillions of dollars.

One of the concerns I have as we look at this bill is that there are provisions in it that nobody really understands in terms of whom it impacts and whom it benefits. As one example, buried in this legislation, on page 503, section 14504, is a paragraph entitled ``Modification to Source Rules Involving Possessions.'' That is the title of that section. What does that mean? As best we can understand, it means that if you are a hedge fund manager who is a resident

of the Virgin Islands, you will be able to get a major tax break on capital gains and a 90-percent reduction in tax liability on your income.

It has been estimated that corporations and the wealthy are avoiding over $100 billion each and every year by stashing their cash in the Caribbean and other offshore tax havens. It appears that this provision will make a bad situation even worse. In adding insult to injury, it appears that this provision may help only a handful of wealthy hedge fund managers who have claimed residency in the Virgin Islands. It has been estimated that this provision alone--one provision in a 500-plus page bill--will cost over $600 million in lost revenue in the next decade--$600 million in lost revenue when we have a $20 trillion debt and 40 million people who are living in poverty.

Now, I see no Republican Senators on the floor, but I am sure that staff is watching this discussion. I have a question that I would like to discuss with Senator Wyden but, more importantly, with some of our Republican colleagues.

What I would like to ask my Republican colleagues is whether there has been a hearing on the need to provide tax breaks to wealthy hedge fund managers who have established residency in the Caribbean.

I would say to my friend from Oregon that there are a lot of problems facing our country--a declining middle class, 40 million people living in poverty, 28 million people having no health insurance. I am not aware that one of the great crises facing this country is the need to provide tax breaks to wealthy hedge fund managers who have established residency in the Caribbean. It may be one of those great national crises that I have missed, but I don't quite perceive it as being an issue that the American people seem to be deeply concerned about.

I hope that my Republican colleagues--maybe Senator Hatch or others-- will come to the floor and tell us who this provision benefits. Are we talking about one hedge fund manager? Are we talking about two? Are we talking about three hedge fund managers who are going to divvy up some $600 million in tax breaks over the next decade?

I ask my colleague from Oregon, who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, his thoughts on the issue.

I thank the Senator very much.

I would just say, according to a number of independent studies, despite what President Trump and the Republican leadership are saying, the overwhelming bulk of the tax benefits in this legislation goes to the top 1 percent. I believe the number is 62 percent that goes to the top 1 percent.

You have 62 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, by the end of the decade, my good friend, Senator Wyden from Oregon, there is no question but that tens of millions of middle-class Americans will be paying more in taxes; is that correct?

So here we have a nation today that has a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality--worse than at any time since the late 1920s. The top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and 62 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent. The Republicans' solution is to make this grotesque inequality even worse by giving 62 percent of the tax benefits to the top 1 percent.

I want to get back to this one point. I suspect that when you rush a bill of this magnitude through the U.S. Senate when there have been virtually no hearings, no experts, no real ability to have significant debate and discussion at the committee level, what you are going to find the day after this bill is passed are absolutely outrageous provisions.

I suspect--I don't know, and I would like my Republican colleagues to help us here; I cannot verify because we don't have the information-- that on page 503, section 14504, there is a provision that will provide $600 million in tax breaks over a 10-year period that will end up in the pockets of a handful of Wall Street hedge fund managers. That is what I suspect. Maybe I am wrong. Therefore, I hope that some of the Republicans who put this provision in the bill will tell us how this is going to benefit the people of the United States or the Virgin Islands or anyplace else.

Again, I am speaking to the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, who knows something about this.

Is this an issue, Senator Wyden, that has been discussed for 1 minute?

Let me make two points as I wind down here.

One, yesterday, I challenged my Republican colleagues, after this bill is passed, to tell us and tell the American people that when they rack up a deficit of $1.4 trillion, they are not going to

come back and cut Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, education, nutrition.

Tell the American people that you are not going to balance the budget and compensate for your huge tax breaks to the rich and large corporations by going after the middle class and working class of this country.

I challenged my Republican colleagues yesterday to come to the floor and tell the American people that they would not do that. They have not responded to that challenge.

The second challenge today is to tell us what is in section 14504, page 503. This is a provision that would provide $600 million in tax breaks to my Republican colleagues. Who is going to get those tax breaks? We believe--and tell us if we are wrong; maybe we are--that we are talking about a handful of hedge fund managers. Who are they? How many of them are there?

I would ask, respectfully, that Senator Hatch or any other Republican come down to the floor and tell us who benefits from section 14504.

I will.

Absolutely. That is absolutely what they will do. They will talk about saving Social Security; they will talk about entitlement reform. What they mean is cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, and cutting Medicaid.

As the Senator has indicated, it is not some kind of an abstract, theoretical idea. That is what Speaker Ryan is already talking about. More to the point, that is exactly what was in the budget that was passed here several months ago.

I will.

Mr. President, let me conclude my remarks.

I would urge my Republican colleagues to come down to the floor of the Senate and explain to the American people what section 14504 is about and who benefits from some $600 million in tax breaks over a 10- year period. Is it two hedge fund managers? Is it five hedge fund managers? What is it?

That is my request, and I hope we can get a response to that quick question as quickly as possible.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I think about what is going on here today, I think this is in many ways a historic day, a day that historians will look back on--December 1, 2017--and they will conclude that today is the day of one of the great robberies, of criminal activities, if you like, in the modern history of this country. The Federal Treasury is being looted tonight. As we speak, there are lobbyists all over Capitol Hill, writing down in handwriting, amendments to this bill to give hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in tax breaks to large corporations. As we speak, they are probably still writing those amendments.

Meanwhile, this Senate, this Republican-led Senate has been unable to reauthorize the CHIP program, the health insurance program for low- income children. They didn't have enough time to do that. We have been unable to reauthorize the Community Health Center Program, providing 27 million people with health insurance. We don't have the time to do that. But tonight we are presumably going to pass legislation when, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, 62 percent of the tax benefits go to the top 1 percent, and 10 years from now, millions and millions of middle-class Americans will be paying more in taxes.

I have not the slightest doubt, as I have said before, that after the Republicans pass this huge tax giveaway to the wealthy and large corporations, they will be back on the floor of the Senate, and when they come back, they will say: Oh, my goodness, the deficit is too high. We have to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and nutritional programs. In other words, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires and to launch profitable corporations, they are going to cut programs for the elderly, the children, the working families of this country, and the poor. This legislation will go down in history as one of the worst, most unfair pieces of legislation ever passed.

I say to my Republican colleagues, as you saw on November 7, the American people are catching on. They are demanding a government that does not simply work for corporate lobbyists but works for the middle class. They are demanding a tax system that says to the wealthy and large corporations: You are going to start paying your fair share of taxes, and, no, we are not going to cut Social Security; we are going to expand Social Security. We are not going to cut Medicare; we are going to move to a ``Medicare for all'' healthcare system. The American people are catching on.

While Republicans may get away with this act of looting tonight, history is not on their side. The day will come, and it will come sooner rather than later, when we are going to have a government here that represents all of us, not just the Koch brothers, not just the billionaire class, not just wealthy campaign contributors.

I yield.

Madam President, could we have order, please?

Thank you.

Madam President, tonight is chapter 1 of the Republican Party Koch brothers plan.

Tonight, the Republicans provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and to the largest corporations, while raising the deficit by over $1.4 trillion.

Part 2 of their plan--probably coming in a few months--will be to call for massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to pay for their tax breaks to the rich. For those of us who don't want to cut these vitally important programs that the American people have paid for, this amendment establishes a 67-vote threshold to make those cuts.

If you don't want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to give tax breaks to millionaires, support this amendment.

I would just say that I would be delighted to gut and destroy this legislation, but pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974--I am sorry.

Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I would like to enter into the Congressional Record the scores produced by the Congressional Budget Office for section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1618; and the score of section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1855.

In Senate amendment 1618, CBO estimates that opening the coastal plain for oil and gas leasing and managing ``it in accordance with requirements of the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 (including regulations)'' will result in net Federal receipts of $1092 million from 2018 through 2027.

In Senate amendment 1855, CBO estimates that managing lease sales ``in a manner similar to the administration of leases under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 (including regulations)'' will result in net

Federal receipts of $910 million from 2018 through 2027, a decrease of $182 million compared to the language in Senate amendment 1618.

I ask unanimous consent that the following CBO tables be printed in the Record.