Floor Statements

Madam President, we are now approaching day seven of the government shutdown. The Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They run the government, and they have the responsibility to keep the government open.

And in that light, it might be a good idea and a radical idea, but in the midst of the crises that we are facing, it really might be nice for Speaker Johnson to actually bring House Members back to Washington after their 18-day vacation.

The American people are nervous about this shutdown. Federal employees are deeply disturbed. People are frightened. Republicans in the House should return to work.

As we all know, Senate rules require a 60-vote majority in order to pass a budget--60 votes. And that means that passing a budget requires bipartisan support. That is why, decades ago, the rules were established. It is very rare that one party has more than 60 votes.

So if you need 60 votes, it means that you have to compromise; you have to negotiate.

When Democrats were in power, they had to work with Republicans to get the 60 votes. When Republicans, in the past, were in power, they had to work with Democrats to get the 60 votes. That is the way it worked.

But not now. This time around, the Republicans have refused to negotiate. Basically, what they are saying is it is their way or the highway, take it or leave it. So within that context of Republicans refusing to negotiate, what is the shutdown about? What are the major issues that separate the parties?

Well, it is not complicated. As everybody in America knows, our healthcare system today is broken; it is dysfunctional; it is cruel. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but we are the only major country not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

And, in fact, our healthcare outcomes are worse, in most cases, than other major countries. It is a broken system.

Today, in the richest country on Earth, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and that results in some 60,000 Americans dying every single year, unnecessarily, because they can't afford to go to a doctor.

We pay the highest prices in the world for healthcare. It is unbelievable and unsustainable. We are now spending over $14,000 for every man, woman, and child. When you throw in Medicare, Medicaid, employer-covered healthcare, individual costs--over $14,000. That is insane, almost twice as much as other countries around the world.

We pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. One out of four Americans can't afford to go and fill the prescription their doctors write. In America today, in our great country, we don't have enough doctors. People all over America--Vermont and all over America--have to wait months to get in to see a specialist. We don't have enough nurses--massive nursing shortage. We don't have enough dentists. We don't have enough mental health counselors. And our life expectancy--how long we live--is substantially lower than other major countries, despite the fact that we spend so much more.

Now, given that reality, given that our healthcare system is broken, one might think that the issue we are debating today is, How do we improve it? How do we make sure that in America we appreciate healthcare as a human right? Which it is. How do we guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child in a cost-effective way?

In my view, that is moving toward a Medicare for All, single-payer system. If other people got ideas, bring them forward. Healthcare is a human right.

But that is not the debate we are having now. The debate we are having now is not how we improve a broken healthcare system but how we prevent a broken healthcare system from becoming even worse. And I will tell you, as the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, somebody who has studied this issue for a while, I feel very much that if we do not stop Trump's attack on the American healthcare system, the entire system could collapse.

We are on the verge of that right now. People can't afford healthcare. People can't find doctors. People can't find mental health counselors. People can't afford prescription drugs. We have a drug epidemic. We are on the verge of collapse.

What this debate is about in Florida, in Vermont, and all over this country is, if the Republicans get their way and if Democrats cave in, health insurance premiums will double for over 20 million people on the Affordable Care Act. Yes, you heard right--20 million people will see a doubling of their healthcare premiums. You can't afford healthcare now? Of course, you can't. It is outrageously high.

That is not Bernie Sanders talking. That is the Kaiser Family Foundation study. That is one of the most conservative Members, Republican Members, of the House, Marjorie Taylor Greene, making that point. A doubling of health insurance premiums.

Does any Member of the U.S. Senate want to go home to their district and explain why you are going to double premiums?

It is not just raising the outrageous cost of healthcare in America even higher, as a result of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, 15 million Americans are going to be thrown off of the healthcare they have because Trump and the Republicans made the largest cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in American history.

Let us be very clear. These cuts not only impact 15 million Americans--that would be a tragedy unto itself--they will devastate nursing homes.

Right now, the situation on nursing homes in Vermont and I expect many other States in this country is a disaster. They are understaffed. Nursing homes, in an aging society, are shutting down. Where will people who are old and can't take care of themselves, who are disabled--what happens to them if the nursing home industry collapses in America?

Community health centers are something that I have worked on for many years to increase funding. Over 32 million people access community health centers. They provide primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, lower cost prescription drugs. They will suffer enormously, cut back on services, and perhaps shut down because of that legislation if we do not deal with that.

Rural hospitals. Republicans say: Oh, we put $50 billion into rural hospitals.

Yes, but you cut $150 billion. All over this country, rural hospitals are teetering on the edge. Many of them have already closed down over the years. So if you live in rural America--the State of Vermont--and you want a hospital nearby? Well, that hospital may not be there.

Now, why did Trump and the Republicans make these massive cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act? The answer is not complicated. It was important for them to provide $1 trillion to the top 1 percent--$1 trillion. Massive cuts to healthcare; $1 trillion in tax breaks to the 1 percent.

Let me make the very radical suggestion that Elon Musk, who is now worth some $500 billion, does not need another tax break. Today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of America. Musk himself owns more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American households. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent. Never before have we seen such income and wealth disparity.

Republicans said ``We are going to massively cut Medicaid, ACA'' in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in America.

But the issue that we are debating is not just healthcare, as enormously important as that is; what we are talking about is whether we are going to allow our country to move toward an authoritarian society run by a President who is a megalomaniac, who wants more and more power in his own hands, who does not respect the rule of law or the Constitution of the United States of America.

It is not acceptable to me that our President is putting Federal troops on city streets throughout America without a request from a Governor or a mayor, trying to create provocations, trying to create disturbances so he can use military force against the American people.

We cannot allow masked ICE agents to snatch people off of our streets without due process.

We cannot continue to allow President Trump to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law by refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress. Unbelievable.

The President says: Well, money was appropriated to States that committed a terrible crime.

Do you know what their crime was? They voted against Donald Trump. And in this world right now, I guess if a State votes against Trump, maybe they are not going to get the Federal money that was appropriated, whether it is Vermont, New York, New Jersey, or other States.

Is that really what the United States of America is about? A President says: You voted against me. You are not going to get your tax dollars back in Federal investments.

According to every poll that I have seen, the American people by huge numbers do not want to see a doubling of their healthcare premiums. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 78 percent of Americans, including 59 percent of Republicans, want to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, and the polling numbers are equally high or almost as high on making sure that people are not thrown off of Medicaid.

Tony Fabrizio, who is President Trump's own pollster--not just a general pollster; he is the pollster for the President. This is what he said:

By broad bipartisan margins, voters want to see the [ACA]

tax credits extended rather than expire at the end of the

year, whether in the context of premiums doubling or 5

million families losing their health insurance. This includes

solid majorities of Trump voters and swing voters.

That is the Republican pollster.

Right now in the House, to the best of my knowledge, there are at least 14 Republicans in a very tightly controlled caucus who want to see the ACA tax credits extended. Here in the Senate, there is at least one Republican Senator who understands that in his State, his people cannot afford a doubling of premiums. My strong feeling is that there are many, many other Republicans who are not excited about going home and explaining to their constituents why their premiums are doubling.

As the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I asked people across the country in the last few days what these healthcare cuts that the Republicans are pushing would mean for them. We just sent out emails, and we have gotten many, many, many hundreds of responses.

We asked them: What would a doubling of healthcare premiums mean to your life and your family? What would it mean if you were one of the 15 million Americans thrown off of healthcare through cuts in Medicaid? What would it mean to you if the rural hospital near you shut down because of these Medicaid cuts?

In less than a week, we received responses--many hundreds--from 42 States and the District of Columbia. Today, we are releasing a report that describes the devastating human impact of the Republican budget and its massive cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Here is just some of what we found:

People are afraid that they could get sicker or even die.

Laura--won't give her last name--from Wisconsin said:

I live in fear of whether or not I will be able to afford

my life saving treatment. I have a rare kidney disease that

requires immunotherapy every 9 months. I'm terrified I'll

die.

We got a lot of those--people who are dealing with very serious illnesses who, in fact, will die. They will die if they cannot afford health insurance, and they will not be able to afford health insurance if their premiums double or if they are thrown off of Medicaid.

But it is not just the fear that people will die or get sicker because they lack healthcare; all over this country, working-class Americans will not be able to afford the food they need, pay their rent or their mortgage or their healthcare.

Brittanie from Utah writes:

I'm already living paycheck to paycheck. I have insurance

for myself and my two sons. Just bought a house that we can

barely afford.

So she is hanging on the edge. If she has to pay more for healthcare, maybe she loses her house.

Sebastian from Colorado writes:

I don't make enough to afford rent and food and health

insurance. Only 2 of those things do I need to survive. These

cuts make it even more impossible to turn things around and

get a handle on health issues.

In other words, 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Today, they can't afford housing. Today, they can't afford childcare. Today, they can't afford good-quality food for their kids. Today, they can't afford to send their kids to college. Double healthcare premiums, and these families are going to be in disastrous shape.

Cara from Vermont said that she ``was shocked by warning about the loss of the advanced federal subsidy. Rather than a premium of $100 [a] month, I could be paying more than $1,200 [a] month or 35 percent of my income, and that's before deductibles and copays.''

By the way, when we talk about a doubling of health insurance premiums, that is on average. Some people will pay less; some people will pay a lot more.

Small business owners are concerned they will have to shut down.

Joe from Pennsylvania writes:

I am a small business owner and if my health care costs

continue to rise, I will be forced to close my business and

look for a job, if I can find one.

Patricia from rural California writes:

If our local clinics and hospitals close, as they are

likely to do with federal funding disappearing along with

health insurance becoming unaffordable, people will die.

She is right.

On average, healthcare premiums will double, but here is what happens when it is not average. If you are living in Virginia, your premiums could go up from less than $650 a month today to nearly $2,200 a month next year--$650 to $2,200. That is not a doubling, it is almost a quadrupling of what you are paying. If you live in Idaho, your premiums could go up from $283 a month to $407 a month. If you live in the State of Georgia, your family could see their premiums go up from $940 a month today to over $4,000 a month.

At a time when people today cannot afford healthcare, the idea of doubling, tripling healthcare premiums is insane. It is unacceptable. No Member of the U.S. Senate should support that.

So, no, I am not going to go back to Vermont and tell the people there that I have thrown 15 million Americans off the healthcare that they have at a time when studies indicate that would mean that tens and tens of thousands of people will die as a result. I am not going to do that.

And I am not going to vote for a healthcare situation which doubles premiums for 20 million Americans.

So we are where we are right now. And the time is now when the U.S. Congress has got to look beyond their campaign contributors, has got to look beyond the oligarchs that fund their campaigns, and has got to begin standing up for ordinary Americans.

Our job is to improve a broken healthcare system and guarantee healthcare to all. Our job is not to throw 15 million people off healthcare and double premiums for more than 20 million, to shutter nursing homes, community health centers, and rural hospitals. The choice is clear. Let us stand with the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as many Americans know, the current budget is going to expire at the end of September, and if an agreement is not reached, the government will shut down, which is, frankly, not anything that anyone wants. The question that we now have to address is how we keep the government open and serve the needs of the American people.

As Americans know, Republicans have a majority in the House and in the Senate, and they also control the White House. They run the government. Republicans have the responsibility, therefore, to keep the government open.

My understanding is that there will be a vote tomorrow on a continuing resolution to fund the government until November 20. In the House, a simple majority wins, and I would imagine that, by a very slim vote, Republicans will have the votes they need in order to pass their resolution.

In the Senate, however, the rules are different--historically different. In order to pass a continuing resolution, it will take a 60- vote majority to pass. That means that at a time when there are 53 Members of the Republican caucus and 47 Members of the Democratic caucus, it will require bipartisan support. That is what Senate rules are about.

In other words, Republicans will need Democratic and/or Independent votes--I am an Independent--in order to keep the government open.

Bottom line: Republicans will need to negotiate. That is how the Senate works, and that is how democracy works.

Speaking for myself and I believe many millions of Americans, here is some of what it will take to get my vote:

No. 1. Republican leadership, don't take away healthcare from 15 million Americans by making the largest cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in history.

No. 2. Republican leadership, don't increase health insurance premiums by 75 percent on average for over 20 million Americans who get their healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

No. 3. Republican leadership, do not undermine modern medicine and the health and well-being of our children by rejecting the scientific evidence regarding vaccines.

No. 4. Republican leadership, do not allow our great country to be moved toward authoritarianism by putting Federal troops on city streets without a request from a Governor or a mayor. Do not have ICE agents snatch people off our streets without due process. Do not undermine the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law by allowing an administration to refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress.

Let me be more specific. As I think almost every American understands, our current healthcare system is dysfunctional, it is broken, and it is cruel. At a time when we spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other major country--over $14,000 per person--85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured--85 million Americans.

The Republican continuing resolution in the House does nothing-- nothing--to prevent 15 million Americans from being thrown off the healthcare they currently have, as a result of Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill. In other words, instead of lowering the number of uninsured and underinsured, if we do not act, 15 million more Americans will be uninsured. We cannot allow that to happen.

This is a life-and-death issue. Studies have shown that up to 50,000--50,000--Americans every year will die unnecessarily if we do not reverse these cuts.

So we are talking about here, if we do not act, going from 85 million uninsured and underinsured to 100 million uninsured and underinsured. Those cuts must be rescinded.

But it is not just preventing 15 million Americans from losing their health insurance; everybody in this country--every businessperson, every union worker--knows that the cost of healthcare in this country today is astronomically high and unaffordable. I don't care what State you are in--people cannot afford healthcare today. Yet, if we do not act right now, in this continuing resolution, the Affordable Care Act tax credits will expire and premiums will skyrocket by 75 percent on average for more than 20 million Americans.

Let me repeat: Healthcare premiums for 20 million working-class and middle-class Americans will go up by 75 percent on average if we do not extend those tax credits in this coming legislation.

Let me say that I wish very good luck to my colleagues, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, who want to go home to their constituents and explain why healthcare premiums are going up by 75 percent in order to pay for $1 trillion in tax breaks for the 1 percent. I do wish you the best of luck in trying to explain that one. I do not intend to.

Further, let me be clear: Vaccines work--not exactly a controversial statement. It is a statement supported

by every major medical organization in the United States and around the world. Vaccines are safe, they are effective, and they have saved millions of lives in our country and tens of millions of lives worldwide. In fact, vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements in modern history.

At a time when the Secretary of Health and Human Services has dismantled the vaccine review process, narrowed access to lifesaving COVID vaccines, fired leading public health experts, and filled scientific advisory boards with conspiracy theorists and ideologues, we must stand with the scientific and medical communities and rescind Secretary Kennedy's dangerous policies.

This is not about politics. It doesn't matter whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent. We are talking about protecting our children from polio, measles, whooping cough, and other preventable diseases.

The American people, slowly but surely, are catching on. No matter what their political view may be--Democrat, Republican, Independent-- they understand that our current economic system is rigged. They understand that the very richest people in this country are becoming much richer, while 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and millions of people are trying to survive on starvation wages.

The American people understand that while billionaires are getting huge tax breaks, they are finding it harder and harder to afford healthcare, to pay the rent or their mortgages, to afford childcare, to be able to send their kids to college, to pay for the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe, or to buy decent quality food for their kids.

The American people understand--painfully and depressingly--that unless we change the way the economy functions, their kids will likely have a lower standard of living than they do. In the richest country in the history of the world, it is likely that the younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents, while almost all new incoming wealth goes to the people on the top.

Today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of the United States. Today, we have one man, Mr. Musk, who owns more wealth--if you can believe it--than the bottom 52 percent of American households--one man, more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American households. And, by the way, he is on his way, it appears, to become a trillionaire--even richer and richer.

Today, the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent--top 1 percent, more wealth than the bottom 93 percent. And the CEOs of major corporations now earn over 350 times what their average employees make.

While the billionaire class becomes richer and richer, real inflation accounted for weekly wages that are lower today than they were 52 years ago--huge expansion of worker productivity, and yet the average worker, in many cases, is worse off than he or she was 52 years ago.

Enough is enough. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it is insane to be giving a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent. If President Trump and the Republican leadership want my vote, they will have to rescind that tax break for their oligarchic friends.

Our country today faces not only major economic crises, we are looking at extraordinarily threatening--a threatening moment to our democratic form of government. Frankly, we now have a President of the United States who does not believe in our Constitution and the separation of powers; who does not believe in freedom of speech and the right to dissent; who is moving us, every day, toward an authoritarian form of government with more and more power into his own hands.

Too many Americans from my State of Vermont and every other State in this country have put their lives on the line and sometimes died in order to defend democracy and our way of life: the right of people to live without fear, the right of people to express their point of view-- no matter what it may be. You disagree with me, that is great. That is called American democracy--the right of people to vote without intimidation.

Today, in an unprecedented way, we have Federal troops in cities in America who have not been requested by a governor or a mayor. Today in America, we have people who are being snatched off the streets--taken right off the streets or out of their workplaces--by masked Federal agents, thrown into vans, and dispatched to detention centers without due process. Does anybody think that that is what America is supposed to be about--somebody walking down the street, getting picked up by masked men, thrown into a van, and taken God knows where? Today, we have a President sending some of these people to South Sudan, Uganda, El Salvador--we don't know where. People have no relationship to the country they are being sent. Imagine being plucked off the street, sent to South Sudan, country in the middle of a civil war, virtually no government. That is not acceptable. That is not what our great country is supposed to be about.

These undemocratic, unconstitutional policies must be rescinded. The movement toward authoritarianism in this country must be ended.

In this very difficult moment in American history, let us stand with the American people and listen to their needs. Let us not throw 15 million working-class people off of the healthcare that they have so that 50,000 people a year die unnecessarily. We cannot allow that to happen.

Let us not raise healthcare premiums by 75 percent for 20 million Americans. People can't afford healthcare today. What happens when your premiums go up by 75 percent? Let us not endanger the children of this country by undermining modern medicine and making it more difficult for people to get the vaccines they require.

And at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, let us not give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent.

And, lastly, as we observe growing authoritarianism every single day, as we see more and more disrespect for the great Constitution of our country--which has made us an example to the entire world--let us-- Republican, Democrat, Independent--let us stand together and save American democracy.

If the Republican leadership does those things, you have got my vote.

Mr. President, pursuant to 22 United States Code 2776 and in accordance with the provisions of Section 601(b)(3) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations of further consideration of S.J. Res. 41 and S.J. Res. 34.

Mr. President, let me begin by stating what the debate we are going to have this evening is about and what it is not about. It is not about whether anyone in this Senate disagrees that Hamas is a terrorist organization which began this war with a brutal terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took 250 hostages. Everyone agrees with that. The International Criminal Court was right to indict the leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities, and I think most of us agree with that.

There is also, I believe, no disagreement as to whether or not Israel, like any other country similarly attacked, had a right to defend itself. Clearly, it did.

And in a certain sense, this debate is not really about Israel; it is about the United States of America and whether we will abide by U.S. and international law or whether we will continue to contribute billions of dollars to an extremist government in Israel which has caused an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

This debate is whether or not the United States of America will have any moral credibility on the international scene, whether or not we will be able, with a straight face, to condemn other countries who commit barbaric acts if we don't stand up tonight. That is what we are debating.

The vast majority of the American people and the world community understand that the Netanyahu government in Israel has gone well beyond defending itself from Hamas. Over the last 21 months, it has waged an all-out, illegal, immoral, and horrific war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. This war has already killed some 60,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 143,000, most of whom are women, children, and the elderly.

In a population of just over 2 million people--that is all that there are in Gaza--more than 200,000 have been killed or wounded since this war began. That is 10 percent of the population of Gaza. Ten percent of the population of Gaza, in the last 21 months, has either been killed or wounded. To put that into scale so that we, as Americans, can understand the enormity of what is happening there, if that kind of destruction happened here in the United States, if 10 percent of our population were killed or wounded in a war, it would mean that 34 million of us would have been killed or wounded.

The toll on Gaza's children is unspeakable, and it is literally hard to imagine. The United Nations reports that more than 18,000 children have been killed since this war began.

Just this morning--this morning--the Washington Post published a list of all of these children's names.

Mr. President, here is the list. These are the names of children published in the Washington Post today that have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

I should mention that more than 12,000 of these children were under the age of 12 and more than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated. That is how this war has impacted the children in Gaza.

But it is not just the horrific loss of life that is taking place there. New satellite imagery shows that Israel's indiscriminate bombardment has destroyed 70 percent of all structures in Gaza--70 percent of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. The U.N. estimates that 92 percent of housing units have been damaged or destroyed. Most of the population is now living in tents or other makeshift structures.

And let us not forgot, over the last 21 months, these people--most of whom are poor--have been displaced time and time again--told to go here, told to go there, told to go there, moved around--and often with no possessions other than the clothing on their backs.

The healthcare system in Gaza has been destroyed. Most of the territory's hospitals and primary care facilities have been bombed. More than 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed as well as 336 U.N. staff.

Gaza's civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities. Raw sewage now runs all over Gaza. Most of the roads have been destroyed.

Gaza's educational system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, and every single one of Gaza's 12 universities has also been bombed. I should mention there has been no electricity in Gaza for 21 months.

All of this is a horror unto itself, but in recent months, the Netanyahu government's extermination of Gaza has made an unspeakable and horrible situation even worse.

From March 2 to May 19, Israel did not allow a single shipment of humanitarian aid to come into Gaza--no food, no water, no fuel, and no medical supplies for a distressed population of 2 million people over a period of 11 weeks.

Since then, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get into Gaza but nowhere near enough to meet the enormous needs of a population besieged for so long.

When you cut off all food to a population, what happens is not surprising. People starve to death, and that is exactly what Israeli policy has deliberately done. It is causing mass starvation and famine. Children and other vulnerable people are dying in increasing numbers.

In the last 2 weeks, dozens of young children have died from starvation. Starving mothers cannot breastfeed their infants, and no formula is available and certainly no clean water to make it, in any case.

Hospitals have run out of nutritional treatments, and doctors and nurses who are already treating the desperate, they themselves are going hungry and are fainting from hunger. The World Food Programme says that the food crisis has reached ``new and astonishing levels of desperation with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.''

Just yesterday, the gold standard U.N.-backed food monitoring group, the IPC, issued a new report saying:

The worst case scenario of famine is currently playing out

in the Gaza strip.

When mass death from starvation begins, it is difficult to reverse. Aid groups say it will soon be too late to stop a wave of preventable deaths in Gaza, all of which is the direct result of the Israeli Government's policies.

What I am going to describe now is gruesome, but I think it is important for us to understand what is happening to the children in Gaza.

Mark Brauner, an American doctor who spent 2 weeks in Gaza in June, described the situation. This is an American doctor who was in Gaza.

A lot of the children have already passed the point of no

return, where their physiology has eroded to the point where

even refeeding could potentially cause death itself. The gut

lining has started to autodigest, and it will no longer have

adequate absorptive capacity for water for nutrition. Death

is, unfortunately, imminent for probably thousands of

children.

That is an American physician who was in Gaza in June.

What the extremist Netanyahu government is doing now is not an effort to win a war. There is no military purpose in starving thousands and thousands of children. Let us be clear: This is not an effort to win a war. This is an effort to destroy a people.

Having already killed or wounded more than 200,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the extremist Israeli Government is using mass starvation to engineer the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They are trying to drive a desperate people out of their homeland to God knows where.

This is not my speculation. This is what Israeli Ministers and officials are saying themselves. A few months ago, the Finance Minister vowed that ``Gaza will be entirely destroyed.''

Just last week, another current Israeli Minister said ``all Gaza will be Jewish. The government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God we are wiping out this evil.''

Another Likud member of the Knesset and former Minister called for ``erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.''

And in the West Bank--not Gaza--in the West Bank, we see this agenda being carried out clearly and methodically with more than 500,000 Israeli settlers now illegally occupying land integral to any future Palestinian State.

Earlier this month, the Knesset even approved a nonbinding motion in favor of formally annexing the West Bank. This slow-moving annexation is backed by violence. Israeli security forces and settler extremists have killed thousands of Palestinians in recent years.

Israeli settlers brutally beat a young American to death earlier this month. Just this month, an American citizen was beaten to death, the seventh American killed in the West Bank since 2022.

Despite a demand from President Trump's Ambassador to Israel--this is Trump's Ambassador Mike Huckabee--no one has yet been held accountable for these deaths.

People around the world--all over the world--are outraged by what is going on in Gaza right now and countries are increasingly demanding that Netanyahu's government stop what they are doing.

France and Canada have said that they will recognize a Palestinian State. The United Kingdom has said it will do so as well if Israel does not immediately end this war and surge humanitarian aid. And at the U.N. last month, 149 countries voted for a cease-fire resolution condemning the use of starvation as a weapon of war and demanding an end to Israel's blockade on humanitarian aid.

But it is not just the international community. Just yesterday-- yesterday--Gallup, one of the best polling organizations in our country, released a new poll that shows that just 32 percent of Americans support Israel's military action in Gaza while 60 percent oppose it--32 percent support it; 60 percent oppose it.

To my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate, I would point out that only 8 percent of Democrats support this war, and I would also point out that just 25 percent of Independents.

And to my Republican colleagues, I would point out that more and more Republicans are beginning to speak out against the atrocities of this war and the fact that billions and billions of taxpayer dollars are going to a government in Israel waging an illegal war.

Further, a recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that just 15 percent of the American people support increasing military aid to Israel, while 35 percent support decreasing military aid to Israel or stopping it entirely. Just 8 percent of Democrats support increasing military aid to Israel.

The American people are haunted by the images coming out of Gaza, and these are some of those images. These are desperate children with pots in their hands, crying, begging for food in order to stay alive. That is what the American people are seeing every night on TV, on the internet, and in the newspapers.

These are emaciated children. Their bodies, in some cases, barely more than skeletons. The American people are seeing miles and miles of rubble where cities and towns once stood. They are seeing innocent people being shot down while they wait on line to get food while they are starving. Over 1,000 people have been killed waiting on line to get food because they are starving.

Despite these war crimes carried out daily and in plain view, the United States has provided more than $22 billion for Israel's military operations since this war began--$22 billion.

One estimate, based on Brown University research, calculates that the United States has paid for 70 percent of the Gaza war. In other words, American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb schools, kill civilians, and support the cruelty of Netanyahu and his criminal Ministers.

That, Mr. President, is why I have brought these two resolutions of disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel.

S.J. Res. 34 would prohibit the U.S. taxpayer-financed $675 million sale of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs and many thousands of JDAM guidance kits.

S.J. Res. 41 would prohibit the sale of tens of thousands of fully automatic rifles--assault rifles.

These arms sales clearly violate the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibit selling arms to countries that violate international law by killing civilians and blocking humanitarian aid, and very few people doubt that is exactly what Israel is doing.

If you want to obey the law, vote for these resolutions.

The rifles in question will go to arm a police force overseen by far- right extremist Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has long advocated for the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from the region, who was convicted of support for terrorism by an Israeli court and was distributing weapons to violent settlers in the West Bank. Ben-Gvir has formed new police units comprised of extremist settlers and has boasted about how many weapons he has distributed to vigilante settlers in the West Bank, and you want to give him more rifles? That is what one of these resolutions is about.

These are rifles the Biden administration held back over fear they would be used by Israeli settlers in the West Bank to terrorize Palestinians and push them from their homes and villages.

U.S. taxpayers have spent many, many billions of dollars in support of the racist, extremist Netanyahu government. Enough is enough. Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and daily civilian massacres, and we here in Congress tonight have the power to act. No more talks, no more great speeches. But tonight we have the power to act, the power to force Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this slaughter.

The time is long overdue for Congress to use the leverage we have-- tens of billions in arms and military aid to demand that Israel end these atrocities.

At a time that Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians trying to get food aid on a near-daily basis, when extremist settlers are pushing Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and when Gaza is witnessing mass starvation as a result of Israeli government policy, the United States should not and must not be providing more weapons to enable these atrocities.

Whatever happens tonight, history will condemn those of us who failed to act in the face of these horrors.

And I yield the floor to Senator Welch from Vermont.

Let me thank Senator Welch. I yield to Senator Merkley for 10 minutes.

I yield to the Senator from Illinois, Senator Durbin.

I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Virginia, Senator Kaine.

Mr. President, let me conclude by saying this: Senator Risch was right. Hamas is a terrorist organization that began this war. They are war criminals. But Hamas is not responsible for the starvation of children today. Hamas is not responsible for the fact that 90 percent of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, that their entire healthcare system has been destroyed, that every university in Gaza has been bombed.

So today, it is not about Hamas; it is not about Israel; it is about the United States of America and whether we will continue to be complicit in war crimes and in the destruction of women and children in Gaza.

I ask for strong support for both of my resolutions.

Vote on Motion to Discharge S.J. Res. 41

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2435 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this amendment accomplishes two goals that poll after poll shows that the American people overwhelmingly want. No. 1, it cuts prescription drug costs in this country by half by having Medicare negotiate prices consistent with what other major countries around the world are doing--something similar to what Trump has been talking about.

It uses $395 billion in savings to do something else the American people desperately want: expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision. In Vermont and all over this country, you have a lot of seniors who cannot afford to go to the dentist, cannot afford dentures, cannot afford hearing aids, cannot afford eyeglasses.

Poll after poll shows that over 80 percent of the American people support both of these provisions.

I ask for the support of my colleagues.

Mr. President, President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, now on the floor of the Senate, is the most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country. It is a gift to the billionaire class, while causing massive pain to low-income and working-class Americans. Actually, though, I am wrong. This is not a gift to the billionaire class. They paid for it.

This bill is an absolute reflection of a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaires to buy elections. And when billionaires spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to elect a President or a Senator or a Member of Congress, they are not making that investment just for the fun of it; they want something in return. And this legislation--big time--is what they are getting in return.

So what is in this bill that they invested in? Well, if you are in the top 1 percent, you and the class you represent will receive a $975 billion tax break--$975 billion tax break, at a time when the richest people in this country have never, ever had it so good.

Further--this is really quite unbelievable--if you are among the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent--I am not talking about 1 percent; I am talking about the top two-tenths of 1 percent--you will be able to pay zero taxes on your $30 million inheritance.

So all of you folks out there who are waiting to inherit at least $30 million, today is a good day for you. Collectively, you will receive approximately $211 billion in tax breaks for the top two-tenths of 1 percent. Congratulations, you hit the jackpot.

If you are a large corporation and you want to throw workers out on the street and replace them with artificial intelligence, or maybe you want to shift your profits to the Cayman Islands or other tax havens, you are going to get a $918 billion tax break. Congratulations to the CEOs of large, profitable corporations.

While the rich and large corporations make out like bandits in this bill, what does it do for low-income and working families? Well, let me say a few words on that.

If you are concerned about healthcare, which I suspect that everybody in the world is, this bill throws over 16 million people off the health insurance they have--according to the Congressional Budget Office--by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1.1 trillion. In other words, the top 1 percent are getting a $975 billion tax break, and that is coming directly by throwing 16 million people off of the health insurance they have.

This bill, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients, who make as little as $16,000 a year, to pay a $35 copayment every time they visit a doctor's office.

So what is the impact of all of that? You throw 16 million off healthcare, you force people who don't have any money to pay a $35 copayment, so what is the impact of it? This is not my view. This is what the Yale School of Public Health and University of Pennsylvania determined based on a study that they did. This is the result--and it is almost so horrific, so grotesque that it is difficult to speak about, but they estimate that if this bill goes through with all of these cuts in healthcare, if 16 million people are thrown off the insurance they have, over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily every year--50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily in order to give tax breaks to billionaires who don't need them. In other words, this bill is literally a death sentence for low-income and working-class people.

Further, if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals all over the country--and I come from one of the most rural States in America. Rural hospitals are already struggling. But when you make massive cuts to Medicaid, many of them are going to shut down or not be able to provide the level of services they do today. In other words, this bill would be a disaster for rural America.

It would also make massive cuts to community health centers and nursing homes, which are very heavily dependent upon Medicaid funding.

The bottom line is that this legislation is the most significant attack on the healthcare needs of the American people in our country's history.

We already have, as everybody knows, a healthcare system which is broken, which is dysfunctional. And instead of addressing it, instead of doing what every other major country I know does--guarantee healthcare to all people--we are throwing 16 million people off the health insurance that they have.

But it is not just healthcare. The future of America rests with our children, and yet in a nation which now has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, this bill wipes out nutrition assistance for millions of hungry kids in America.

We are literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids to give tax breaks to Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerberg and the other multibillionaires.

If we understand that if we are going to compete effectively in the global economy we need to have the best education system in the world, this bill makes $350 billion in cuts in education, with the result that working-class kids will find it much harder to get the higher education they need to succeed in life.

If you are concerned about the existential threat of climate change-- and we are seeing heat waves right now all over the world--this bill decimates investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy like wind and solar and moves us in exactly the wrong direction with regard to energy.

If you are concerned about our role in never-ending wars, this bill makes a bad situation even worse by handing out another $150 billion to the Pentagon, a 15-percent increase in an already bloated Pentagon budget. We don't have enough money to feed hungry children. We don't have enough money to make sure that people continue to have the healthcare that they need. We don't have enough money to make sure the kids can get a decent education. But somehow the military-industrial complex is going to get another $150 billion, a 15-percent increase.

In my view, nobody in the Senate or the House should vote for this legislation, and I applaud all of the Democrats for voting against it. And I want to congratulate two Republicans, Senator Paul and Senator Tillis, for voting against it--for different reasons, by

the way, than I have. But I do find it interesting, and it does tell us where we are as a nation today that when one of those Senators, Senator Tillis, voted against it because he thought it was not a good bill for the people of his home State, North Carolina, suddenly the President of the United States went after him in a very, very vicious way. And, today, he announced that he will not be seeking reelection.

So it appears now that the Republican Party has really become a party of the cult of the individual. The only thing you have to do now, as a Republican, is say: I agree with President Trump. I love President Trump. President Trump is right all of the time.

Hey, that is all you have to do now to be a good Republican.

There was a day when Republicans and Democrats understood that they were elected by their constituents. Yes, you want to work with the President of your own party; nothing to do about that. But there was an understanding that you were also elected to represent your constituents and not simply pay homage and bow down to every wish and whim of the President.

During the vote-arama, I will be offering several amendments, which I hope will win support. No. 1, at a time when 22 percent of our Nation's seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year, my first amendment would fundamentally improve their lives in two significant ways. No. 1, it would cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half by making sure that our Nation's seniors do not pay any more than Europeans or Canadians pay for the same exact drugs; and, No. 2, with those savings, we are going to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. In other words, instead of throwing people off of healthcare, we are going to expand Medicare to provide a number of services that seniors desperately need and want.

Secondly, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, my second amendment would eliminate the $211 billion estate tax for the top two-tenths of 1 percent that is included in this bill. The top 2 percent, as I mentioned, get a $211 billion tax break. That is insane. We are going to get rid of that.

And lastly, at a time when we spend more on the military than the next nine nations combined, at a time when the Pentagon cannot account for trillions of dollars in assets, we are going to end the provision that allows the Pentagon to receive another $150 billion.

The bottom line is this country faces many crises: the high rate of childhood poverty, kids going hungry, the education system in deep trouble, the healthcare system completely broken. And in virtually every single area, this bill takes us in precisely the wrong direction.

When the wealthiest people in this country have never ever had it so good, it is totally insane to be offering them a trillion dollars in tax breaks so that we can cut healthcare, education, and nutrition.

This bill is not what the American people want, and I hope very much we can defeat it.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

(Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)

Mr. President, everyone knows that our country faces enormous crises. We have a healthcare system that is broken and is wildly expensive. We have a housing crisis in which millions of people are spending far more than they can afford to put a roof over their heads. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth and a childcare system which is dysfunctional. Millions of our kids cannot afford to go to college or are leaving school deeply in debt, and over 20 percent of our seniors are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. And oh, by the way, we have an existential threat in climate change, which might very well make the planet uninhabitable for future generations. These are just a few of the crises that Congress and the President should be addressing.

In the midst of all of that, going to war against Iran and supporting Israel's unprovoked attacks against that country is not something that we should be doing. We do not need another unnecessary and costly war. We have had enough of them.

In 1964, Congress voted, with little debate, for a Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving President Johnson the authority to escalate American military involvement in Vietnam. As a result, the United States expanded its presence in that country, and we were dragged fully into Vietnam's civil war. Eventually, some 2.7 million Americans served in Vietnam; and more than 58,000 died, and over 300,000 were wounded. The Vietnam war devastated an entire generation; it killed millions of Vietnamese; and it destabilized the region. It cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Vietnam war was based on a series of lies. Years later, the U.S. Government concluded that the supposed attacks that prompted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution did not happen as reported. The so-called domino theory, the ideological foundation of that war, was bogus. That was a war that never should have been fought.

In 2002, as a new Member of Congress, I can recall vividly how politicians and the media relentlessly beat the drum about the need to go to war against Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein. Over and over again, we were told that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction and that if we did not act quickly, nuclear weapons would be falling on America. Among those pushing for war in Iraq in 2002 were none other than Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who testified to Congress:

There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking . .

. nuclear weapons. If you take out . . . Saddam's regime, I

guarantee you that it will have enormous positive

reverberations.

That was Netanyahu in 2002.

The U.S. Congress, against my vote, invaded Iraq and became involved in a brutal sectarian war that lasted for almost a decade. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. That war was based on a lie, a lie that cost us 4,500 brave young Americans, 32,000 wounded, and $3 trillion in taxpayer dollars. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis also died.

War often has awful and unintended consequences. It should only be considered as a last resort. We should not go to war against Iran.

First, let me state the obvious. Trump's attack against Iran is unconstitutional. Congress, alone, has the authority to take this country into war, not the President. Trump does not have that authority.

Second, Iran did not pose an imminent military threat to the United States that would justify a preemptive attack. Just a few months ago, Trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified to Congress that the American intelligence community ``continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons programs he suspended in 2003''--from Tulsi Gabbard.

Trump dismissed that finding, saying:

Well then, my intelligence community is wrong.

Really? On what basis does he think that the entire U.S. intelligence community is wrong?

Third, diplomacy offers a better path to durably address Iran's nuclear activities than a military attack. This was proven in 2015, when the United States and world powers made an agreement that strictly limited Iran's nuclear activities and put in place blanket inspections. That agreement was working, but Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018, and Iran restarted its activities.

To his credit, Trump returned to diplomacy this year, and U.S. officials held five rounds of talks with Iran to address this issue. A sixth round of talks was scheduled for June 15, but Israel derailed those talks with a surprise attack and, in the process, assassinated the Iranian official overseeing those negotiations.

Fourth, Binyamin Netanyahu should not be dictating U.S. foreign and military policy. Trump's attack on Iran would not have occurred if Israel had not launched an illegal, unprovoked, surprise attack on Iran on June 13, sabotaging U.S. diplomatic efforts.

If the people of Israel support Netanyahu's decision to start a war with Iran, that is their business. That is their war. The United States should not be part of it.

Fifth, the United States should not be allied with the Netanyahu government in any military effort. Netanyahu is a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court for starving and killing civilians in Gaza. His government is systematically destroying the Palestinian people, killing over 55,000 and wounding nearly 130,000--two-thirds of whom are women and children.

Israel has destroyed the entire physical infrastructure of Gaza-- housing, hospitals, schools, and water systems--and continues to prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid to starving civilians in violation of U.S. and international law.

Sixth, this war is about more than Israel and Iran. It is about the very concept of international law and preventing a world where every dispute is settled with force. Whatever you think of the brutal, authoritarian, and terrorist-supporting Iranian regime, Netanyahu's surprise attack was a clear violation of international law and the U.N. Charter.

The world appropriately condemned Russia for its unprovoked attack against Ukraine. The world appropriately condemned Hamas for their unprovoked terrorist attack against Israel. Israel should be condemned for its unprovoked attack against Iran, and the United States should not be part of that illegal action.

Finally, wars are expensive. We need funding to address the healthcare crisis, the childcare crisis, the education crisis, and many other crises our people face every day. We should be investing our resources in improving life for

the American people, not wasting money on illegal and unnecessary wars.

Last year alone, the United States provided $22 billion in military aid to Israel. Enough is enough. It is beyond absurd that we continue to finance Israel's wars, while neglecting the needs of our own people.

Mr. President, for all of these reasons, I strongly support Senator Kaine's War Powers Resolution to make clear that only Congress has the power to declare war; that there is no legal basis for war with Iran; and that the American people do not want more unnecessary costly wars.

Mr. President, the so-called reconciliation bill or Mr. Trump's Big Beautiful Bill that the Republican leadership is now attempting to rush through the Senate is a rather extraordinary piece of legislation. In many respects, given the crises facing our country, this legislation does exactly the opposite of what should be done.

Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, you know--no one has any doubt about it--that our current healthcare system is broken. It is dysfunctional. It is a cruel system, and it is wildly expensive. We spend over $14,500 per person on healthcare, double what most countries around the world pay per person.

And despite all of that spending, some 85 million Americans today are uninsured or underinsured. And we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. And one out of four people who go into a pharmacy to get their prescription drugs can't afford that medicine because of the outrageously high prices.

So now, given that reality, how does this reconciliation bill address the horrific healthcare crisis that our country is experiencing?

What one might think is that given 85 million people being uninsured or underinsured, this bill would lower that number. It would provide healthcare to more Americans. Given the fact that we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other nation, one might think that this legislation would lower the cost of healthcare. Given the fact that the insurance companies and the drug companies rip us off every day and make huge profits out of the system, one might think that this legislation would take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies.

Well, if that is what you think rational legislation should do, understand that this bill does none of that--in fact, does exactly the opposite.

This legislation, if enacted, would make the largest cut to healthcare in our Nation's history in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for the rich that we have ever, ever seen--massive cuts to healthcare in order to provide tax breaks for billionaires.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this legislation would cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1 trillion. Those cuts, along with ending the enhanced premium credits for the ACA, will lead to 16 million people losing their health insurance.

That is not what Bernie Sanders has said; that is what the director of the Congressional Budget Office has told us. That is the nonpartisan group that works with Congress.

Mr. President, this bill, further, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients who make as little as $16,000 a year to pay a $35 copayment every time they visit a doctor. So 16 million people are thrown off of healthcare. Low-income, working-class people are now forced to pay a $35 copayment.

What is the impact of all of that? Well, it will not surprise anybody, if people don't have access to healthcare, if they can't get to a doctor when they are sick, people will suffer, and tens of thousands of them will die.

The Yale University School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania estimated in a recent study that if the reconciliation bill is enacted, over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily every year. That is what we are talking about--50,000 Americans dying unnecessarily because they are thrown off of healthcare; they can't afford to see a doctor each and every year.

What is the reason for that? What is the motivation for that horrific action? It is to give massive tax breaks to the very wealthiest people in this country, people who do not need them. Not only would millions of Americans lose their health insurance and tens of thousands of our constituents needlessly die if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals all over this country--rural hospitals that are already struggling--would be forced to shut down, lay off workers, or substantially reduce the services they provide. In other words, at a time when rural America is struggling--and I come from one of the most rural States in America, that is what Vermont is--this bill would be a disaster for rural America.

Further, when Trump and the Republicans in Congress make massive cuts to Medicaid, they are not just attacking individuals, they are also going after and negatively impacting community health centers, which provide primary healthcare to 32 million lower income and working-class Americans in every State in this country. Community health centers rely on Medicaid for 43 percent of their revenue. And when you cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid, you are significantly cutting back on the access that millions of Americans will have to the primary healthcare they desperately need.

At a time when the healthcare system in America is broken, when primary healthcare is even in worse shape, this will make access to primary healthcare even more difficult.

Some 22 percent of our seniors in this, the richest country on Earth, are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year. This legislation will make it harder for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the care they desperately need in nursing homes. Nursing homes in Vermont--and I expect in every State in this country--are struggling. They are understaffed. Workers there are underpaid. The quality, in many cases, is not as good as it should be. But when Medicaid now provides 60 percent of the revenue nursing homes rely on, slashing Medicaid will make a disastrous situation even worse for some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

Let us be clear. Let us not run away from it. Let us not double-talk this issue and come up with all kinds of absurd rationalizations. This legislation coming before the Senate this week is the most significant attack on the

healthcare needs of the American people in the modern history of our country.

And once again--once again--we are throwing millions of people off the healthcare that they depend upon to stay alive in order to give tax breaks to billionaires who have more wealth today than they will need for a hundred lifetimes. And yet, oddly enough, despite the enormity of what this legislation is about, not a single committee in the Senate has held a single hearing on the impact this legislation will have. In my view, really, this is absolutely irresponsible.

I am not quite sure why we continue to even have committees if the Health and Labor Committee, of which I am ranking member, does not hold a hearing on the most important piece of health legislation in the modern history of this country. That is why this morning, I released, as leader of the minority on the committee, a report discussing the impact that this legislation would have on our Nation's healthcare system. I did that by doing something pretty radical, I guess. We actually reached out to healthcare providers all over the country.

If you are going to decimate American healthcare, you may want to talk to the doctors and the nurses and the healthcare organizations around America. I think that is kind of a commonsense thing to do.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the over 750 healthcare providers from 47 States who responded to my request. I want to thank them sincerely for their thoughtful responses. We basically said: What is this legislation going to do in your State? And we got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of responses.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this report be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, let me just summarize and quote a small number of the responses that we got. If this legislation were to be signed into law, it would drive up the number of uninsured Americans in every single State in this country.

For example, if this legislation was signed into law, the uninsured rate in my State of Vermont would go from 3.3 percent to 6 percent. In Louisiana, the uninsured rate would go from 6.7 percent to 12.4 percent. In the State of Washington, the uninsured rate would go up from 6.2 to 11 percent. In Florida, the uninsured rate would go up from 10.4 percent to 18.8 percent, almost 19 percent of people in Florida will be uninsured if this bill goes through. And this is true for every State in the country--in many cases, almost doubling the number of uninsured.

Let me just quote for you what healthcare providers and State organizations around the country are saying as to the horrific impact that this legislation would have. I know many of my Republican colleagues get up and say it is not true; it is this, that, and the other thing. Listen to the doctors, listen to the organizations, the healthcare providers in your own State.

Let me just begin with Texas, a Dr. Audrey Nath, where the uninsured rate will reach 20 percent. Anybody from Texas watching this, you are going to be--if this bill goes through, you might want to say hello to your Senators here. Your uninsured rate is going to go up to 20 percent.

This is what Dr. Audrey Nath wrote:

These cuts will cause rural hospitals in Texas to close

entirely. As a neurologist, I am terrified that the closest

hospital for many rural folks may then be hours away. During

an ischemic stroke, there is only 3 hours of precious time--

If you have a stroke, you have to get care very quickly. She writes that ``the ``increased travel time may cause unnecessary cases of paralysis and death.''

That is obviously what happens, not only with a stroke but for many other illnesses if you don't have a hospital nearby.

Dr. Farhan Malik from Florida, where the uninsured rate will surge to almost 19 percent, wrote:

Plainly said, children will die as a result of these cuts.

Hospitals will cut back on ICU doctors, doctors will leave

because of salary cuts, critical ancillary services will be

reduced and more medical students will avoid going into

pediatric residencies.

Dr. Mia Henderson, who works at a community health center in Missouri, wrote that the cuts to Medicaid contained in this legislation would mean that ``we may not be able to keep the doors open''--of the community health center. ``We would potentially have to stop caring for many of our patients.''

The Louisiana Rural Health Association wrote:

Louisiana's rural hospitals and healthcare providers are

already operating on razor-thin margins, struggling to keep

their doors open while serving some of our most medically

vulnerable communities. In Louisiana, 38 percent of hospitals

operate on negative margins and 27 percent are currently

vulnerable to closure. Medicaid cuts would worsen these

losses, putting more hospitals at risk of shutting down

entirely.

Dr. Sanjay Chaube, a doctor from Louisiana, told the HELP Committee:

The proposed cuts to Medicaid will cause untold hardship

and deaths among my patients. DON'T DO THIS!

He puts that in capital letters.

You don't want the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans

on your hands.

That is Dr. Chaube from Louisiana.

Dr. Gregory Omlor from Akron's Children's Hospital in Ohio told us:

If the proposed bill is passed and [my patients'] Medicaid

insurance is cut, it doesn't mean their asthma will go away.

It will mean that in most cases they will not receive

preventive care . . . [and][s]ome children will die of their

asthma.

And here is what another doctor from Ohio said:

Implementing work requirements into Ohio Medicaid will

threaten my patients' gains. Most of my patients WANT to

work--they are desperate to. There just aren't jobs available

for folks with very low skills and health conditions that

could cause them to miss work unexpectedly. The jobs that are

available do not pay enough for an adult to survive, and they

certainly don't offer health insurance. My patients who rely

on Medicaid have frequently been born into generational

poverty, have only had access to poor quality schools, and

live in neighborhoods where their health suffers.

And by the way, this Dr. Omlor talks about work requirements. Let us understand that every single year millions and millions and millions of Americans lose their jobs not through any fault of their own. The company shuts down, company goes bankrupt, whatever it may be, they lose their jobs. They don't have a job. How are they going to get healthcare? We have taken healthcare away from them because they are not working.

The Vermont Association of Hospitals--my own State--the Association of Hospitals and Health Systems wrote that this bill ``reduces coverage and access, particularly in rural areas such as Vermont where hospitals and other health care providers are already financially fragile'' and that it will force hospitals in Vermont to ``cut back on clinical staff, services and care delivery.'' I can tell you hospitals in Vermont are struggling. This will make a very, very difficult situation even worse.

Now, I have got a radical idea, probably one that, I would say, 70 or 80 percent of the American people agree with, and that is maybe, just maybe, instead of throwing 16 million people off of healthcare, instead of creating a situation where 50,000 Americans die unnecessarily, why don't we do what every other major country on Earth does and guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

What about that?

Instead of throwing 16 million people off so we have almost 100 million uninsured, hey, why don't we do what Canada does, what the UK does, what Spain does, what Finland does, what Holland does, what every other major country on Earth does--guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

But the problem there is it is easier to throw working people off of their health insurance around here than to take on the Big Money interests who run the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. That is what this is about.

In many respects, this bill represents exactly why many Americans are giving up on democracy and have such contempt for Congress and for the Democratic Party and for the Republican Party. At a time when the richest people have never ever had it so good, they now see Republican leadership working overtime to make the billionaire class even wealthier. At a time when the majority of Americans are struggling to put food on the table and pay for healthcare, they see Republican leadership making life even more difficult for average Americans.

So I would say that I speak for the overwhelming majority of the American people who think that it is basically insane that we are talking about throwing 16 million people off of the healthcare they have and creating a situation where 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily each year in order to give hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to billionaires and the wealthiest people in this country. This is a disastrous, obscene piece of legislation. It must be defeated.

Let me thank Senator Van Hollen for his leadership on this issue, as well as Senators Murphy, Kaine, Merkley, and Schatz, who are leading the effort to make sure that we pass these joint resolutions of disapproval.

Joint resolutions of disapproval are about denying military assistance to countries that break U.S. and international law. That is all they are about: Respect the law; don't break the law.

These resolutions before us today would prevent multibillion-dollar arm sales to both the UAE and Qatar, precisely because both of these countries have violated U.S. and international law, and allowing these sales to go forward would be a dereliction in the duties of the U.S. Senate.

Let me take a moment to say a few words about these countries-- countries that would receive billions of dollars in military aid. As it happens, both of these countries have strongly authoritarian, anti- democratic governments that repress any forms of dissent.

We talk a lot about protests here in the United States. Well, they don't have protests in Qatar. They don't have protests in the UAE. You protest; you go to jail.

These are countries that exploit migrant labor, and these are countries that treat women as third-class citizens.

In the UAE and Qatar, where the ruling families are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars, there are no elections, there is no freedom of the press, and there is no freedom of speech. The ruling families of both of these countries are among the wealthiest and most powerful oligarchs in the entire world.

In the UAE's case, in recent years, they have provided extensive military assistance to the so-called Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, or the RSF. This paramilitary group started the bloody civil war in that country and is responsible for numerous horrific atrocities that, among other things, have contributed to the famine and starvation that is currently taking place in that country.

In January, the U.S. State Department concluded that the RSF, supported by the UAE--the country that would get weapons, if we are not successful in opposing that--has committed ethnic cleansing. I am not quite sure why we would support arms to a country involved in ethnic cleansing.

Clearly, the actions of the UAE are in violation of U.S. and international law. There is no reason, therefore, that we should be providing billions more in arms sales to this country.

The other arms sale we are objecting to today would go to Qatar, a country which has also broken U.S. and international law.

Qatar has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into a wide variety of political organizations in the Middle East, including the Hamas terrorist organization. And I have no understanding as to why anybody in the U.S. Senate would be voting to support a nation-- providing military aid to a nation--that has provided financial assistance to Hamas.

And while Qatar deserves credit for attempting to facilitate a cease- fire in Gaza, it should also be noted that the political leaders of Hamas have resided in Qatar for many years.

But there is another very serious problem regarding military aid to both Qatar and the UAE. Both of these countries, in a variety of ways, have attempted to corrupt our political system and the President of the United States in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution and U.S. anti-corruption laws.

I find it interesting, as I am sure millions of Americans do, that President Trump's first major foreign policy trip was not to Europe to reaffirm our longstanding alliances with other democratic countries. It was not to visit our neighbors in Canada or Mexico. No, instead, he chose, on his very first foreign trip, to go to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

Now, why was that? Why would the President of the United States go to visit countries that are run by oligarchs, that are strongly anti- democratic and oppress the rights of women?

They are kind of funny places for a President--the so-called leader of the free world--to visit on his first foreign policy trip.

Well, I think we now know the answer to that question. Trump went for the money and to secure business deals for himself, his family, and his cronies.

Shortly before Trump's visit to the Gulf, an investment firm owned by the UAE announced that it would use the so-called stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial to facilitate a $2 billion cryptocurrency deal. World Liberty Financial just happens to be 60 percent owned by Trump and his family. So by making this deal, the UAE was effectively giving the Trump family $2 billion in cash to invest as it wishes and keep the proceeds.

Even conservative estimates of such a sum would generate somewhere around $85 million in profit a year for the Trump family. Think about that. The UAE is directly giving the Trump family some $85 million a year.

Now, what did the UAE get in return? They don't give away $85 million for nothing.

In Qatar's case, that government announced, during Trump's visit, that they would give him a $400 million luxury jet for use as Air Force One, which he plans to keep for personal use after he leaves office.

Necessary security and communications updates will cost the taxpayers of our country millions of dollars and take several years. So if this plane is actually ever used by the U.S. Government, it will only be for a year or two. But that is really not Donald Trump's concern because he gets to keep this flying palace--this $400 million plane--for use for himself and his family forever--not a bad gift, a $400 million plane.

Once again, it is pretty obvious what Trump gets from this deal. It is not quite so clear how the American people benefit.

Qatar also announced that it was just, coincidentally, financing a $5.5 billion Trump-branded golf course and invested another billion dollars in Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's company, just for good measure.

Now, what are these authoritarian governments getting in return for the many hundreds of millions of dollars they are funneling to Trump and his family?

Well, it could be the arms sales we are talking about today. It could be other policy priorities of these governments.

For example, just 10 days after the UAE crypto deal with Trump, he lifted restrictions on the export of advance AI microchips to the UAE, which had previously been limited over security concerns. That delivered on a longstanding UAE priority worth billions of dollars to its leaders.

But the deeper truth is we really don't know what these authoritarian foreign powers are getting for their bribes. But we shouldn't have to be asking these questions. This is precisely why the Constitution of the United States and U.S. law make it illegal for Presidents to accept gifts from foreign powers.

The truth is that the autocratic leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have perfected the art of channeling money to Trump and his family as a way to buy influence and get what they want. Our job is to say no, to say no to providing military aid to one country which is involved in horrific policies which are resulting in famine and starvation and another country which is making huge amounts of money from side deals with the President.

Let us support these resolutions.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I know that my Republican colleagues like to do what the President asks them to do. They agree with him on virtually everything, so today I am going to make life easy for my Republican colleagues. I am going to ask them to support legislation-- extremely important legislation--that, in fact, does what President Trump claims that he wants to do.

On May 20, just a few days ago, President Trump said the following:

Not only that, remember, I am cutting drug prices by 85

percent.

This is what President Trump said a few days ago: I am cutting drug prices by 85 percent. Right now, I am saving--I am saving the whole thing because I did something nobody was willing to do. Other countries pay a tiny fraction of what we do, and I instituted favored nations. We are now going to pay the lowest in the world. We will be the equivalent of the lowest country in the world. People go to London, they go to Canada, they go to other countries, many other countries, because they want to pay their pharmaceutical products--their drugs--at a fraction of the cost. We are going to have the lowest cost of anywhere in the world. No one else could do that but me.

That is President Trump a few days ago.

Well, I don't usually agree with President Trump on anything, but, in fact, on this issue, he makes a very strong point.

In the United States today, we have a healthcare system that is broken; it is dysfunctional; and it is cruel. It is a system which spends twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other major country while 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. And one out of four Americans today cannot afford the cost of the drugs their doctors prescribe, and it is a system where over 60,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor on time.

While the current system makes huge profits for the large drug companies, huge profits for the insurance companies, it is obviously failing the needs of ordinary Americans.

So what is the U.S. Congress doing to address this crisis? Well, right now, sadly and tragically, the Republicans are trying to ram through a so-called reconciliation bill, which would deny coverage-- take away coverage--for up to 13.7 million Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In other words, in the midst of a terrible healthcare crisis, this legislation makes a very bad situation much worse. We cannot allow that to happen.

So what should we do? Well, in my view, healthcare is a human right. We should do what every other major country on Earth does and guarantee healthcare for all people.

But, today, I want to get back to what President Trump said a few days ago, and what he said is that the American people are sick and tired of paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. And he is right.

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent, or progressive or conservative, you understand that there is something wrong when Americans can't afford the high cost of prescription drugs, and the drug companies make over $100 billion a year in profits.

Let me give you just a few examples of the current situation regarding prescription drug costs in America. While it costs just $5 to manufacture Ozempic--that is a widely used drug right now--Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic, makes obscene profits by selling this drug for more than a $1,000 in the United States. That drug costs $76 in France, $85 in Germany, and $170 in Canada.

But it is not just Ozempic. Prescription drug after prescription drug costs far more in this country to purchase than in other countries--in some cases, 10 times more.

So what are we going to do about it? Well, I think it might be a good idea for my Republican friends to listen to what the President of the United States said. And, today, we are going to offer my Republican friends the opportunity to achieve the goals that President Trump has talked about.

The problem with President Trump's initiative is that he is mostly just talking. The Executive order that he has introduced and signed does not do what he says he wants to do.

Just don't take my word for it. An expert at Harvard University was recently quoted as saying:

The executive order reads more like an aspirational

statement than a serious attempt to initiate a policy change.

The Wall Street Journal--no great friend of mine--their analysts said the order was ``more bark than bite.''

Since issuing the Executive order, President Trump has gone on FOX News, and while talking about differences in American prices and international prices, he said ``he ended it.''

Good news. It is all over. He ended it. We no longer pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, according to President Trump.

During that same interview, he said that ``drug companies were great.'' The drug companies, apparently, even told him: ``Look, it's time.''

Just yesterday, at a press conference with Speaker Johnson, he claimed he ``is cutting [drug prices] by 80 to 85 percent'' because ``he stopped the scam.''

Well, there you go. Good news, America. The President said it. It must be true because he would not lie. Drug prices are down by 80 to 85 percent.

Does anyone really believe that? Nobody does.

If we want to, on the other hand, do more than just talk, we have got to do something, and the way we do it is with some serious legislation. And that is the legislation that I have introduced today.

If we want to actually lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs in America, we need to take on the pharmaceutical industry in a way that President Trump has never even thought about doing. In other words, we need less talk; we need more action.

And that is why I introduced legislation to make sure that Americans pay no more than people in other countries for the exact same prescription drug. Unlike President Trump's Executive order, my bill doesn't just ask drug companies nicely, please, to lower prices. My legislation makes it clear that drug companies must lower prices for Americans to those they charge people in other countries. In other words, what we are finally saying is, if you are charging the people in the UK $100 for this prescription drug, that is what you are going to charge the people in the United States--not 10 times more.

And the difference between my legislation and Trump's so-called Executive order is that, if the pharmaceutical industry refuses to do the right thing and substantially lower drugs, my bill will allow other companies to sell the same prescription drugs at a far lower cost. In other words, generics can come on to the market and sell the drug for a fraction of the price.

So President Trump says he supports making sure Americans pay no more than people in other countries for prescription drugs. President Trump says:

Campaign contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and

not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right

thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many

years.

Well, I am just ever so delighted that campaign contributions have no impact on the Republican Party. It could have shocked me, but there we go. President Trump said it. It must be right.

So the bottom line here is President Trump says he wants to lower the cost of prescription drugs in America by 80 to 85 percent. I agree.

President Trump has issued an Executive order which he says will do that. It will not do that.

The legislation that I have introduced has real teeth, and it will do that. So, today, I call upon all of my colleagues, especially my Republican colleagues, to support this legislation, because I know President Trump has said that the huge amount of money that the pharmaceutical industry gives in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans doesn't have any impact on the Republicans. They are prepared to stand up to the drug companies. So that is great news. I am delighted to hear that.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 1818, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana, the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, on which I serve, for his remarks. And I think nobody will disagree with him that we have seen in recent years incredible innovation, and there are drugs now on the market that are saving lives that 20, 30 years ago, 10 years ago, were not the case. And we want to continue that innovation--no debate about that.

But all that I am asking my colleague from Louisiana to focus on is what President Trump said, not last year, not 5 years ago. It is what he said yesterday. And what he said yesterday, and I quote, Senator Cassidy--this is President Trump:

I'm cutting drug prices by 85 percent. Right now, I'm

saving--I'm saving the whole thing because I did something

that nobody was willing to do. Other countries pay a tiny

fraction of what we do. And I instituted favored nations.

We're now going to pay the lowest in the world. We will be

the equivalent of the lowest country in the world. People go

to London. They go to Canada. They go to other countries--

many other countries.

But we are going to do it here in the United States. That is what he said.

So all that I am doing, Chairman Cassidy, is putting into legislative, effective language what the President of the United States said.

And by the way, he said, again, that the pharmaceutical industry and all of their campaign contributions have no impact on Republicans, only on Democrats. Well, maybe that is the case, but I doubt that very much.

So all that I am asking my colleague and friend the chairman of the committee to do is to put in place what President Trump said he was doing.

And what my legislation would do is exactly what Trump talked about. It would lower the cost of prescription drugs to what other countries are paying. That is what it does; it does what Trump says he wants to do. I would urge my friend from Louisiana to reconsider.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the American people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, understand that we have a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaires and their lobbyists to play an extraordinarily powerful role in electing candidates and defeating candidates and in crafting legislation. This is through both parties--the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Money talks. But, today, with Republicans in control of the White House, of the U.S. Senate, and of the U.S. House, we are seeing day by day how this corrupt process plays out for the priorities of the Republican Party and for their billionaire campaign contributors.

Their so-called reconciliation bill--President Trump's ``big, beautiful bill'' that the Republicans are putting together right now in the House--is a rather extraordinary piece of legislation. In many respects, given the crises facing our country, this legislation does exactly the opposite of what should be done. It is rather remarkable. You have got a problem, and instead of addressing the problem, they make the problem worse.

It is no secret that we have more income and wealth inequality in our Nation today than we have ever had. It is a serious problem. Today, the wealthiest person in the world--Mr. Elon

Musk, who is now worth more than $400 billion--owns more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American society. One person owns more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American households. It is rather extraordinary. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent, and CEOs of large corporations now make about 350 times what their workers make. Unbelievably, according to the RAND Corporation, over the past 50 years, nearly $80 trillion--that is a ``t,'' $80 trillion--in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent of the American people to the top 1 percent. So what we have seen is that the very wealthiest people in America are becoming much richer while, at the same time, 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and many millions of families are struggling to just put food on the table. That is the economic reality of today.

So what does President Trump's and Republicans' reconciliation bill do to address this grossly unfair and, in my view, unstable economic situation? What are they doing when the very rich are becoming much richer while working families struggle?

Well, here is the answer: This legislation makes the rich and wealthy campaign contributors even richer while making life harder and more stressful for the working families of our country. This legislation provides massive tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations and pays for these tax cuts by cutting Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, nutrition, education, and other programs that are life and death for working families. Let me just give you one example of how outrageous this legislation is.

As currently written, this bill provides a $235 billion tax break to the top two-tenths of 1 percent by increasing the estate tax exemption for couples to $30 million. I am not talking about the top 2 percent. I am talking about the top two-tenths of 1 percent. The estate tax is only applicable to the very wealthiest people in this country who inherit substantial sums of money from a relative. Under this provision in this reconciliation bill, a couple that inherits $30 million would now pay zero tax on that inheritance. Once again, this provision applies only to the top two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans--the very, very wealthiest people in this country and people who just coincidentally, I know, make massive campaign contributions to the Republican Party. Coincidence, no doubt, while 99.8 percent of Americans would not benefit by one nickel under this provision. This is the top two-tenths of 1 percent with $235 billion in tax breaks.

Further, this legislation would provide a $420 billion tax break to large, profitable corporations that are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens and which are, by the way, replacing American workers with robots. They get a tax break for throwing American workers out on the street and replacing them with new technology.

The bottom line: The tax provisions in this reconciliation bill provide huge tax breaks to the people in our country who need it the least while doing great harm to ordinary Americans.

Again, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, you know that our current healthcare system is broken; it is dysfunctional; it is cruel; it is wildly expensive. Despite spending almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other major nation, some 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and we remain the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

So, given that reality--the reality of a broken, wildly expensive healthcare system--how does this reconciliation bill address the healthcare crisis in America? Does it expand healthcare to more Americans and lower the number of uninsured? You have got 85 million right now. Does it lower that number? Does it take on the greed of the insurance companies and the drug companies that make tens and tens of billions of dollars every single year by ripping off the people of our country? Is that what this reconciliation bill does?

Not quite.

What this legislation, in fact, does do is cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by $715 billion, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated would eliminate health insurance for 13.7 million Americans. In other words, this legislation makes a very bad situation, in terms of our healthcare crisis, catastrophically worse. If we were to pass this bill, the number of Americans who would be uninsured or underinsured would rise to almost 100 million Americans. In other words, instead of lowering the number of uninsured or underinsured people in this country, this bill greatly increases that number, but that is not all that this legislation does.

This bill, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients who make as little as $16,000 a year to pay a copay of $35 each time they visit a doctor when they get sick--up to 5 percent of their annual income. Well, what will be the impact of that?

According to a study from Yale University, some 68,000 Americans die every year because they don't go to a doctor on time. I don't know about the Presiding Officer, but I have talked to doctors in Vermont and all over this country, and they tell me that patients walk in their doors very, very sick.

They say to the patients: Well, why didn't you come in earlier when you first felt your symptoms?

And what the patients will say is, Well, you know, I don't have any health insurance or I can't afford the copayment or I can't afford the deductible or the deductible hasn't kicked in yet.

And they don't go. Some of these people walk into a doctor's office so sick that they die when that should not have been the case.

Now, if you are making a good salary--if you are making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year--the odds are that a $35 copayment, which many people have, will not deter you from going to the doctor. You may not like it, but you fork over the 35 bucks, and you go to the doctor when you are sick, but if you are a low-income American and if you are struggling to pay the rent or you are struggling to buy food for your kids or to pay for childcare, that $35 copay may be just too much, and the result is that you don't see the doctor when you should.

When you throw almost 14 million Americans off of the health insurance they have and when you force low-income people to pay a $35 copayment that they can't afford to pay, no one can deny that many thousands more Americans will die if this bill is signed into law. If this bill is signed into law, we are providing a death sentence for many thousands and thousands of people. That is just the simple reality, and nobody can deny that.

Further, when Trump and the Republicans in the House make massive cuts to Medicaid, they are also making massive cuts to community health centers, which provide primary healthcare to 32 million low-income and working-class Americans. In other words, the cuts to Medicaid go well beyond the immediate impact on the individuals who will lose their health insurance; it impacts the entire healthcare community. Community health centers rely on Medicaid for 43 percent of their revenue. When you cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid, you are significantly cutting back on the access that millions of low-income and working-class Americans will have through primary healthcare.

Once again, community health centers, which provide healthcare to 32 million Americans--many of them in Vermont and all over this country-- are struggling today. Make massive cuts to Medicaid, and it will be a disaster for these community health centers and the people who utilize them for primary care.

It is not just community health centers that would be devastated by this legislation. All across this country, rural hospitals are shutting down and facing enormous financial pressure--all over this country. This legislation will only accelerate those closures and bring increased hardship to rural America at a time when rural America already has quite enough problems.

Here is what Rick Pollack, the President and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said:

These proposed cuts will not make the Medicaid program work

better for the 72 million Americans who rely on it. Instead,

it will lead to millions of hard-working Americans losing

access to healthcare and many of our Nation's hospitals

struggling to maintain services and stay open for their

communities.

No question, this Medicaid cut will result in rural hospitals being shut down in increasing numbers.

Further, I hope my colleagues will listen to what Bruce Siegel, the president and CEO of America's Essential Hospitals, said in opposition to this bill:

Hospitals, which already operate on thin margins, cannot

absorb such losses without reducing services or closing their

doors altogether.

That is exactly what rural America does not need. We don't need more hospitals shutting down. We cannot allow that to happen.

Let's be clear. It is not just hospitals and community health centers that are opposed to this legislation; physicians throughout this country have also come out in strong opposition to this legislation.

Let me read from a statement issued today--today--in opposition to this bill from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association:

Our organizations, representing more than 400,000

physicians who serve millions of patients, are alarmed by

proposals to implement cuts or other structural changes to

Medicaid during the budget reconciliation process. Cuts to

Medicaid will have grave consequences for patients,

communities and the entire health care system. With reduced

federal funding, it will be harder for patients to access

care, states will be forced to drop enrollees from coverage,

and it will limit the health care services patients can

access and cut payment rates.

The impact of cuts to Medicaid funding is significant and

wide-reaching, and it must be reconsidered.

That is what medical organizations in our country, representing 400,000 doctors, are saying about this disastrous piece of legislation.

Further, at a time when some 22 percent of our seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year--I will never understand how anybody, let alone a senior, can survive on less than $15,000 a year-- this legislation will make it much harder for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the care they desperately need in nursing homes.

When Medicaid provides over 60 percent of the revenue nursing homes rely on, slashing Medicaid will be a disaster for seniors and the disabled who need to be in nursing homes and their kids as well.

When you cut Medicaid, it is not just throwing up to 13 million people off of the health insurance they have; it is going to be very destructive for community health centers to provide the healthcare they need, very destructive to hospitals all over this country, especially small rural hospitals, and destructive to nursing homes as well.

That is not all that this legislation is doing. For the vast majority of Americans, including myself, who believe that women should have the right to control their own bodies, this bill essentially defunds Planned Parenthood, which provides vital healthcare to millions of women.

It is not just our healthcare system that would be devastated under this legislation. While this bill provides massive tax breaks to billionaires, it would cut $290 billion from nutrition programs. That would take food away from an estimated 4 million children and about half a million seniors.

I don't know if there is any religion in this world where it would be morally appropriate to take food out of the mouths of hungry kids and frail seniors in order to provide more tax breaks to billionaires. That is simply and grossly immoral.

Further, for the many young people in our country struggling with student debt and others who wonder how they will ever be able to afford to go to college, this bill cuts Federal funding for education by more than $350 billion.

Now, what does that mean? Among other things, it means that the average student loan borrower with a bachelor's degree in America would see his or her loan payments increase by about $3,000 a year or some $244 a month. So at a time when college is now unaffordable for millions of young people, at a time when we desperately need a well- educated population and the best educated workforce in the world, this bill moves us in precisely the wrong direction.

Finally, at a time when we already spend more on the military than the next nine nations combined and when everyone knows--whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, everyone knows there is massive waste and fraud in the Pentagon. The Pentagon has not been able to take an independent audit for God knows how many years. This bill increases defense spending by $150 billion.

Let's be clear. This is just some of what is in this terrible bill. There are other provisions equally damaging which I have not touched upon.

It seems clear to me and I expect the majority of Americans that this bill reflects exactly what is wrong with our current corrupt political system.

When we have massive income and wealth inequality, our job is to demand that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes, not do as this bill provides--give huge tax breaks to the very rich.

When 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, our job should be to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child in this country, not throw 13 million Americans off of the healthcare they currently have.

When children and seniors in this country go hungry here in the wealthiest country on Earth, our job should be to make sure that all Americans have the nutrition they need to live healthy lives, not increase the level of hunger in our country.

In many respects, this bill represents exactly why so many Americans are giving up on democracy and have such contempt for Congress. At a time when the richest people have never ever had it so good, they see Republican leadership working overtime to make the billionaire class even richer.

At a time when a majority of Americans are struggling to put food on the table and pay for healthcare, they see Republican leadership making life even more difficult for average Americans.

This is a disastrous piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about, are appalled by but, for some strange reason, gets very little discussion here in the Nation's Capital or in the halls of Congress, and that is the horrific humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza.

Today marks 68 days and counting since any humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than 9 weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel. Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.

There is no ambiguity here. Netanyahu's extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon. Defense Minister Israel Katz said:

Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter

Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure

levers.

Starving children to death is a weapon of war, is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death. What is going on right now in Gaza is a war crime committed openly and in broad daylight and continuing every single day.

There are 2.2 million people who live in Gaza. Today, these people are trapped. The borders are sealed, and Israel has pushed the population into an ever smaller area. With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities.

This is methodical; it is intentional; it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.

Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink or to wash with or to cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza. Most of the bakeries in Gaza have now shut down, having run out of fuel and flour. The few remaining community kitchens are also shutting down.

Most people are now surviving on scarce canned goods, often a single can of beans or some lentils shared between a family once a day.

The United Nations reports that more than 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million face severe food shortages. The starvation hits children the hardest. At least 65,000 children now show symptoms of malnutrition and dozens have already starved to death. Malnutrition rates increased 80 percent in March, the last month for which data is available after Netanyahu began the siege, but the situation has severely deteriorated since then.

UNICEF reported yesterday that ``the situation is getting worse every

day'' and that they are treating about 10,000 children for severe malnutrition. And severe malnutrition is not something that is cured overnight. This will have a permanent impact on the health and well- being of those kids for the rest of their lives.

Without adequate nutrition or access to clean water, many children will die of easily preventable diseases, killed by something as simple as diarrhea. For the tens of thousands of injured people in Gaza, particularly the countless burn victims from Israeli bombings, their wounds cannot heal without adequate food and clean water. Left to fester, infections will kill many who should have survived.

With no infant formula and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death. Those who survive will bear the scars of what they are going through now for the rest of their lives.

And with little medicine available, easily treatable illnesses and chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease is now a death sentence in Gaza.

What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake; it is not a hurricane; it is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a man- made nightmare, and nothing in my view can justify this.

What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world's collective conscience. History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this ongoing atrocity.

There is no doubt that Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this terrible war with its barbaric October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. The International Criminal Court was right to indict Yahya Sinwar and other leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities.

Clearly, Israel, as any other country that was so attacked, had the right to defend itself against Hamas. But Netanyahu's extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas. Instead, they have waged an all-out barbaric war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. They have intentionally made life unlivable in Gaza.

Israel, up to now, has killed more than 52,000 people and injured more than 118,000--60 percent of whom are women, children, and the elderly. More than 15,000 children in Gaza have been killed.

Israel's indiscriminate bombardment has damaged or destroyed two- thirds of all of the structures in Gaza, including 92 percent of the housing units--92 percent of housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures.

The healthcare system in Gaza has been, essentially, destroyed. Most of the territory's hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed. Gaza's civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities. Most of the roads have been destroyed.

Gaza's educational system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed--schools have been bombed--as has every single one of Gaza's 12 universities.

And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 18 months--no electricity.

Given this reality, nobody should have any doubts that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Just like his counterparts in Hamas, he has a massive amount of innocent blood on his hands.

And now, Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have a new plan--on top of everything else that has been done, they have a new plan--and that is to indefinitely reoccupy all of Gaza, flatten the few buildings that are still standing, and force the entire population of 2.2 million people into a single tiny area where hired U.S. security contractors will distribute rations to the survivors.

Israeli officials are quite open about the goal here: to force Palestinians to leave for other countries ``in line with President Trump's vision for Gaza,'' as one Israeli official said this week.

Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich said this week that ``Gaza will be entirely destroyed'' and that its population will ``leave in great numbers.''

For many in Netanyahu's extremist government, this has been the plan all along. It is called ethnic cleansing.

This would be a terrible tragedy no matter where in the world it was happening or why it was happening, whatever the causes of it might be. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the U.S. Government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster. It didn't just happen; we are a significant part of creating this humanitarian disaster.

Last year alone, the United States provided 18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved 12 billion more in bombs and weapons. And for months, Trump has offered blanket support for Netanyahu. More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinian people will be driven, forcibly expelled, from their homeland, and the United States will redevelop it into what Trump calls ``the riviera of the Middle East,'' a playground for billionaires.

Think about it: 2.2 million desperate people who have been bombed and starved and driven from their homes are now about to be forcibly expelled from their territory into God knows where so that Trump and his friends can build a riviera for the billionaire class.

This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death. And a U.S. President is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people.

Now, given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate. Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza? A real vigorous debate. I want to hear why that is a good use. We have people sleeping out on the streets of America two blocks from the Nation's Capital. You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu's war and starving children is a good idea. I would love to hear it.

We are not having that debate. Let me suggest to you why I think we are not having that debate and that is because we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows organizations like AIPAC to set the agenda here in Washington with regard to what happens in the Middle East.

In the last election cycle, AIPAC's PAC and super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined on campaign contributions. And the fact is that if you are a Member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu's war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you get defeated.

One might think that in a democracy there would be a vigorous debate on an issue of such consequence. But because of our corrupt campaign finance system, which impacts us in so many ways on this issue, people are literally afraid to stand up because if they do, suddenly, you are going to have all kinds of ads coming into your district to defeat you.

Sadly, I must confess that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu's war crimes but will do or say very little publicly about it. History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people.

We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu's war machine. We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza--not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the Senator had heard my remarks, I talked about the need to release the hostages and I talked about who started the war, which is the terrorist organization called Hamas, led by war criminals. There is no debate about that.

But what the Senator did not tell us is whether or not he thinks it is a good idea for U.S. taxpayers to be spending billions of billions of dollars on an extremist government in Israel whose stated policy is to starve children; whether or not he thinks it is a good idea to cut off all humanitarian aid getting into Gaza right now--no medicine, no clean water, no healthcare facilities open.

So the issue is not who started the war. Everyone knows who started the war. The issue is whether you commit war atrocities, criminal war acts by punishing an entire people for the acts of a terrorist organization.

Did Israel have the right to defend itself? Yes, nobody denies that.

Did it have a right to kill over 50,000 people--60 percent of whom are women, children, and the elderly? No.

Did it have a right to injure 112,000 people, to destroy almost every housing unit in Gaza, to bomb hundreds of schools at every university in Gaza? No.

Israel had a right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to engage in ethnic cleansing and to starve children.

Madam President, let me cut to the chase, and I will try to be brief here. We hear a lot of talk on the floor of the Senate about patriotism, about love of country, about how we all have to work together for the common good. It would seem to me that when we talk about those who sacrificed, those who have put their lives on the line to defend this country, we are talking about the men and women in America who are veterans.

Yet what we have seen in the last month from the President and from Elon Musk is a chain saw approach to essentially destroy the Veterans' Administration, and that is, there are plans afoot--public; no one is debating the numbers--they want to fire 83,000 employees. When you fire 83,000 employees, no one, nobody believes that anything else will happen but that there will be a deterioration in the quality of healthcare our veterans receive or a delay in the benefits they have earned.

Now, I have heard criticism of the VA. The VA is the largest healthcare system in America. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Does it have its problems? Of course it does. But compared to what? Compared to the American healthcare system, which is the most expensive in the world? a system in which 83 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured? where 60,000 people die each year? where we have the lowest life expectancy of any other major country on Earth?

So, no, the VA is not perfect. It needs improvement. But I will tell you that in the State of Vermont, I talk to a lot of veterans. I am the former chair of the Veterans' Committee, and I have been honored to talk to veterans of Vermont and all over this country. In Vermont, what they tell me is there is enormous pride in the quality of care they get at the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT, and as well in the community-based outreach clinics that exist all over our State.

And I expect, with some exceptions, that is true all over the country. The bottom line is, veterans appreciate the care that they get at the VA. They want it improved, but they appreciate it, and they do not believe that there should be massive cuts to the Veterans' Administration.

The truth is that in fiscal year 2024, before Trump took office, the VA reported over 36,000 vacancies, including 2,400 doctors, 6,300 registered nurses, 1,800 social workers, and 1,200 custodians.

When you have a workforce shortage, the solution is not to fire 83,000 people; it is to add people. It is to make sure you know where your workforce is going and that you have quality people. But you don't lay off 83,000 people.

That is not just my view.

It would seem to me that before you take a chain saw to the Veterans' Administration, you might want to talk to the veterans organizations and see what they think about it.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, or VFW, said:

We call upon VA to reconsider its planned reduction of

83,000 employees and thoroughly review any proposed cuts

prior to rolling out further announcements like this.

The Paralyzed Veterans of America said that they are ``deeply troubled by actions being taken in Washington,

D.C. that are already having a detrimental impact on the services that veterans with spinal cord injuries and diseases like ALS and MS rely on.''

The Disabled American Veterans, or DAV, said:

We are extremely concerned about the leaked proposal to

arbitrarily eliminate 80,000 VA employees.

That is what some of the major veterans organizations are saying, and I have talked to all of the--virtually all of the--veterans organizations. And they are deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about the cuts that we have seen and the cuts that Musk is proposing.

So this is not a difficult issue. Everybody here wants to make the VA more efficient. The way you do that is to come up with some plans. You work with the Veterans Committee, and you see how we can make the VA more efficient. Nobody in their right mind thinks that just firing 83,000 people is the way to go.

And let me be very clear: Mr. Musk has made it public that he thinks that we should privatize anything that can be privatized. There are people--not all people--in the Republican Party who eventually want to privatize Social Security. We are looking at $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid that dismantle that very important healthcare organization.

And if anybody thinks that the laying off of 83,000 employees of the VA--the lowering of quality of care that our veterans will receive--is not a prelude to the movement to privatize the VA, you would be surely mistaken.

So with that, Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 165, which was submitted earlier today; further, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

The bottom line: Do not lay off 83,000 employees at the Veterans' Administration.

I am not aware that in the so-called mandate of President Trump--and, by the way, he got millions of votes less than Joe Biden got 4 years previously. I don't recall that during the campaign, Trump went around the country saying: Hey, elect me, and then I will lay off 83,000 workers at the Veterans' Administration.

Yes, we all want the VA to operate more efficiently, but the idea that you can lay off 83,000 employees and make that happen is absurd.

The truth is, again, before Trump took office, we had a significant shortage in the number of doctors, nurses, mental health counselors, and other practitioners. So it is disturbing to me that anyone who claims to be supporting veterans in this country and the sacrifices they have made would object to this amendment, this resolution.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, let me say a few words about where we are as a nation, what this budget resolution does, and why I am strongly opposed to it.

As you may know, we have more income and wealth inequality in our country today than we have ever had in the history of America. Three people on top own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. CEOs now make about 300 times more than their workers. In other words, the very rich are becoming much richer, and working families are struggling.

So what does this budget resolution do to address this very serious crisis? Does it help working people? Does it help low-income people?

No, not really. It actually makes income and wealth inequality much worse by providing massive tax breaks to the billionaires and the richest people in this country, driving up the national debt and making those on top very, very happy.

In America today--the richest country in the history of the world--we have 60 percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck, struggling every week to put food on the table, to pay the rent, to deal with childcare, to take care of healthcare. Real wages--real inflation, accounted-for wages--for the average American worker have been stagnant for the last 50 years. This is why the huge increase in worker productivity. Today, all across this country, you have workers working for 11, 12, 13 bucks an hour--working for starvation wages. Some of them are actually sleeping in their cars.

Now, how does this budget resolution address the crises facing working families?

Well, at a time when many workers are struggling to find affordable housing, what this budget will do is cut back on housing programs, making it harder for working people to get decent housing. It will cut funding for low-income and affordable housing. So it makes life more difficult for millions of working families.

This is a time when 22 percent of our seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year. That is really quite shocking. It is something we don't talk about. It is something that we don't deal with here in Congress. Can you imagine a senior citizen trying to survive on $15,000 a year when seniors need additional healthcare, when seniors need to keep their homes warmer--there are all kinds of issues--trying to get by on $15,000 a year? Twenty-two percent of seniors are in that position. Half of seniors are trying to get by on $30,000 a year or less.

So how does this legislation--this budget--help seniors? What does it do for seniors?

Well, it makes a bad situation much worse. This legislation--this budget--will make it much harder for seniors to receive the care they desperately need in nursing homes. In Vermont--and, I expect, in most States in this country--we have a major nursing home crisis. Nursing homes are shutting down. It is harder and harder for people to get into nursing homes. Well, when you cut Medicaid by $880 billion, you are going to make it much, much harder for seniors to access nursing homes because two out of three seniors are dependent upon Medicaid to get into nursing homes.

This legislation would also cut back on nutrition programs for seniors at a time when many seniors are having a hard time affording the food that they need. Maybe worst of all, at a moment when Mr. Musk and his billionaire friends are laying off thousands of workers at the Social Security Administration and closing down Social Security offices all over the country, making it harder for people with disabilities and older people to get the benefits that they have paid into for their whole lives, this bill does nothing to address that crisis.

We, right now, embarrassingly, have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. It is a little bit embarrassing for the richest country on the face of the Earth. We have more income and wealth inequality than any other country. We are seeing significant growth in the number of billionaires we have, but in terms of our kids, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major Nation.

Now, how would this budget impact our children?

Well, it would make a bad situation even worse by throwing millions of kids off the healthcare that they have. That is what happens when you cut Medicaid by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. This budget would cut nutrition programs that one out of every five children depends upon. Amazingly, sadly, in America, a lot of kids go to school hungry, and this legislation would cut nutrition programs. Furthermore, for working families, this legislation would do nothing to address the outrageously high cost of childcare in America. By the way, it would make devastating cuts to education, I think, significantly in working- class communities.

It is no secret to anybody that our current healthcare system is far and away the most expensive in the world. We spend about twice as much per capita on healthcare as almost any other nation. Most Americans understand and deal with the reality every day that our healthcare system is dysfunctional. It takes forever to get a deal with the insurance companies and get your claims processed. It is extremely cruel that a significant number of people who are struggling with cancer end up going bankrupt because they cannot afford the outrageous costs of the hospital care that they have received.

So what does this budget do to address our broken and dysfunctional healthcare system?

Well, it is hard to believe, but it makes a terrible situation even worse. By cutting Medicaid by up to $880 billion, this legislation could force as many as 36 million Americans off the healthcare that they currently have. Now, right now, we have got 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured. That number would soar. So you have low-income, working people who don't have a lot of money. What happens when they get sick? We lose 60,000 people a year right now, despite Medicaid, who don't go through a doctor when they should because they can't afford to. This budget would make that situation much, much worse.

At a time when we have a massive crisis in primary healthcare--not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough mental health counselors, not enough primary care facilities where people can get into a doctor when they need to--by cutting Medicaid, this legislation would make access to community health centers, which is something I have worked on for a very long time--it would make it harder for people to access community health centers because community health centers are highly dependent on Medicaid for their funding.

Virtually every scientist who has studied the issue has made it clear that climate change is an existential threat

to our planet. I understand that the current President of the United States thinks that it is a hoax originating in China, but that is not what 99.5 percent of the scientists who have studied the issue believe. As we look around and see year after year it is becoming warmer--and over the last 10 years, the warmest on record--and we see the terrible flooding and drought and extreme weather disturbances taking place in our country and all over the world, the American people understand that climate change is all too real, and it is having devastating impacts on our lives.

So what does this legislation do to address the extraordinary crisis that we face in terms of climate change?

Well, it is hard to believe, but it makes a bad situation even worse by opening up vast swaths of public land to big oil companies so they can ``drill, baby, drill,'' and it opens up public lands to more and more oil companies. Brilliant. We face an existential threat, and this legislation makes that threat even worse.

Well, it seems to me that, instead of passing this absurd budget proposal, we should move in exactly the opposite direction that this proposal takes us. Instead of making life more difficult for the working class of our country, instead of rewarding the billionaire campaign contributors who fund many, many campaigns around here, maybe, just maybe, we should represent the needs of our constituents--the working families of this country.

One of the ways that we could do it is by raising the minimum wage to a living wage. I know that is, around here, a very radical idea. Imagine that--that we raise the minimum wage--which is, today, at the Federal level, $7.25 an hour. So we are going to be offering an amendment to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $17 an hour.

Maybe, instead of making it harder for working families to find affordable housing, maybe, just maybe, we should build millions of units of low-income, affordable housing. Maybe, just maybe, instead of making it harder for families to access childcare, we should make it easier and more affordable. Instead of cutting Medicaid by $880 billion--maybe instead of doing that--we should do what virtually every other major nation on Earth does, and that is understand that healthcare is a human right--that every man, woman, and child is entitled to healthcare as a human being. We can do that by passing a Medicare for All, single-payer program. The function of a healthcare system should not be to make the insurance companies and the drug companies much wealthier. It should be to provide quality healthcare in a cost-effective way to all of our people.

So there you go. What we have is a budget proposal in front of us which makes bad situations much worse and does virtually nothing to protect the needs of working families, but what it does do, of course, is reward wealthy campaign contributors by providing over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent.

You know, I am going to vote against this proposal. That is for sure. I wish my Republican friends the best of luck when they go home--if they dare to hold town meetings--and explain to their constituents why they think, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it is a great idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut Medicaid and education and other programs that working families desperately need. I do wish them the very best of luck as they go forward in that way.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2126 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this amendment is simple and straightforward. Millions of Americans today are working for starvation wages. What this amendment does is raise the Federal minimum wage from an embarrassingly low $7.25 an hour to a living wage of $17 an hour over a period of 5 years. In other words, 5 years from now, everybody in America would make at least $17 an hour. That is not a radical idea.

Quite unbelievably, the average American worker today makes $42 a week less than he or she did 52 years ago. Almost all of the new wealth that has been created has gone to the top 1 percent--a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the people on top.

It has been 16 years--16 years--since the Federal minimum wage has been raised.

Now is the time to address the crises facing working Americans.

I ask for a ``yes'' vote.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to resume legislative session.