Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to say a word about Puerto Rico. Today marks the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Maria's landfall on the island--the 6-month anniversary. We all know that the storm in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was one of the most powerful and devastating ever to have struck those islands. There was terrible damage to schools, hospitals, water systems, roads, homes, and businesses.

For months and months, people didn't have electricity or clean water or cell service. Far too many people are still waiting for relief. There are 120,000 people without electricity. Hundreds of thousands continue to lose power on a temporary basis. Calculating the hours of lost electricity service, Puerto Rico has experienced the longest blackout in the history of the United States.

Tens of thousands are still awaiting permanent shelter, and 10,000 small businesses are closed.

Puerto Rico struggled with a severe debt and healthcare crisis before Hurricane Maria came to its shores. The damage wrought by the hurricane has set the island even further back, despite the valiant efforts of its people.

Congress has passed significant relief as part of the bipartisan budget agreement earlier this year. We have to make sure that the aid goes to where it needs to go and that we provide additional aid if it is required.

To the long-suffering citizens of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the thousands who have relocated to the mainland, we haven't forgotten you. We are here to help you. You are on our minds, and we are going to keep fighting to help you rebuild your homes, your communities, and your beloved islands.

Mr. President, finally, on the tax bill, I just note that, once again, every day the more people learn about this tax bill, the more they don't like it. Stock buybacks continue at a hugely rapid rate. Aid to workers is much, much smaller, and the American people are learning this bill was of, by, and for the wealthiest Americans and the most powerful corporations. That is wrong. We welcome the debate on the tax bill because the more people learn about it, the more they don't like it.

Since the beginning of the tax debate, Republicans have insisted their bill is about cutting taxes for working Americans. Even though the bill would direct 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent, Republicans said workers were the focus. Even though they made corporate tax cuts permanent but let the individual tax cuts expire, they said the middle class would be the real winners.

Democrats warned that if you gave big corporations and the wealthiest Americans the lion's share of the tax cuts, those benefits wouldn't trickle down to employees and the middle class. We warned that corporations would do what they always do when they have profits-- distribute them amongst themselves. Even though big companies like AT&T were already paying low effective corporate rates, they had been shedding jobs and investment for years even before the tax bill.

Unfortunately, our warnings proved prescient. Almost every day, we hear a new story about a corporation using the savings from the Republican tax bill to purchase its own stock, called a stock buyback, which boosts the corporation's stock price to provide a reward for wealthy executives and shareholders.

Just this morning, the Kentucky-based chemical company Ashland announced a brand-new $500 million share repurchasing program. And last night, the total amount of corporate share buybacks surpassed $225 billion since the Republican tax bill became law.

Stock buybacks are a big reason why workers no longer see the benefits of record corporate profits. Why? Because instead of investing corporate profits in things that benefit the long-term health of the company and its workers--like higher wages, new equipment, research and development, or new hires--corporations spend the money on share buybacks.

In fact, stock buybacks were illegal until 1982, which is about the same time that wages stopped increasing with corporate profits.

Republicans dutifully remind us that companies are also handing out bonuses. Yes, a few. But let me highlight the disparity between buybacks and investment in workers: According to a recent analysis by Just Capital, only 6 percent of the capital allocated by companies from the tax bill's savings has gone to employees, while nearly 60 percent has gone to shareholders.

The theory behind the Republican tax bill was to allow corporations and the richest Americans to keep more of their already outrageous wealth, and maybe the benefits will trickle down to everyone else. As we are already seeing, that idea was a folly, and the American middle class will eventually pay the price.

Because of the enormous cost of the Republican tax bill, $1.5 trillion, the deficit and debt will grow over the next several years and Republicans are already targeting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare for cuts to make up the difference. So on top of a tax cut that mostly goes to the folks who need it the least, the Republican tax bill is an excuse for Republicans to come after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

That is why the bill is so unpopular that Republicans have abandoned it in last two special elections in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The American people are already waking up to the reality that the Republican tax bill was not the middle-class miracle the Republicans promised, and in November, they will have the chance to move America in a dramatically different direction by voting for a party that actually wants to focus tax relief on working America, not corporate America.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, since the Republicans jammed through a massive corporate tax cut in December, hardly a day goes by that we don't read about a corporation using the savings to purchase its own stock. The average citizen may ask: What is that all about?

Well, when a company purchases its own stock, it is sort of artificially making less stock, buying it back, and raising the price of the shares. Why do they do that? There are two reasons, both to benefit the corporate CEOs but not the workers. First, corporate CEOs have a lot of the stock themselves, so they make money; second, they look better when the stock price goes up. But the stock price isn't going up because the company has sold more goods, been more productive, bought new machinery, or found a new product. The stock simply goes up because they have decreased the number of shares. It is a scam in a certain sense, helping corporate CEOs, helping shareholders--80 percent of the shares are held by the top 10 percent, so it doesn't really help average Americans, and that is including 401(k)s--but it doesn't help the worker.

We have heard many claims from our Republican friends: Pass this tax bill, and the workers will benefit. Well, unfortunately, now we see who is really benefiting. Just as we predicted, it is the corporate CEOs and the wealthiest of Americans.

Just recently, the total amount of share buybacks surpassed $220 billion this year. According to the market data firm, TrimTabs, share buybacks in 2018 averaged $4.8 billion a day--a day--double the pace for the same period last year.

For a few weeks, right after the President passed his tax bill, what happened? They had these companies announce bonuses for average workers. Very few Americans saw those bonuses--a lot of hoopla, but not much else. The bonuses--not wage increases, not new hires, but one-time annual bonuses--anyone who gets them, God bless them; there have just been so few. Those bonuses are being overwhelmed by a deluge of corporate share buybacks, which do not benefit the average worker, but benefit the CEOs and the heads of the companies.

According to an analysis by JUST Capital, only 6 percent of the capital allocated by companies from the tax bill has gone to employees, while nearly 60 percent has gone to shareholders--again, to the corporate CEOs who own those shares, the wealthiest of Americans who own the vast majority of shares. Ten times more capital is going to shareholders than to workers.

So this bill, which is poorly structured and aimed at the wealthy, ain't working. The more Americans see it--you know, there was an initial thrust: Oh, we like the tax bill. At first, it was unpopular as we talked about it here on the floor. Then, with these bonuses and the stock market going up, popularity went up a little. Now it is flattening out and even heading down. In the last three polls, fewer people liked this tax plan, and that is going to keep happening, my Republican friends, because they know what it was aimed at and you know what it was aimed at--the corporate CEOs who came to lobby you and the wealthy individuals who came to lobby you. It is no wonder the American people are starting to turn on the Republican tax bill. Polls have shown its popularity is underwater and trending downward, not up.

This idea that tax cuts would be a political panacea for Republicans come November is losing altitude fast. Remember, that is what our Republican friends said: Well, maybe people are upset with the President's tweets, and maybe this and that are not going so well; maybe they are not accomplishing that much, but now, with the tax bill, we will win the election.

Well, look at the Pennsylvania election where a Democrat won the district

that Trump carried by 20 points. This is the kind of district that our Republican friends need to carry. These are Republican suburbs in blue- collar Southwest Pennsylvania.

Early in the race, what did Republicans do? They tried running ads about the tax bill to help their candidate, Rick Saccone, during the first few weeks of February. These were the super PACs, the Koch brothers, and all the others who will benefit hugely from the tax bill. Somehow they believe that because they will benefit, everyone is going to think they have benefited.

They ran these ads, often paid for by the Kochs. Two-thirds of the ads mentioned taxes--two-thirds of all Saccone's ads, both by the Koch- like super PACs and by Saccone himself. The next week, 36 percent mentioned taxes. Guess what. After 2 weeks of these tax ads, our Republican friends tested it out, and they got rid of taxes as an issue. It wasn't working. It wasn't working with fairly well-off middle-class Pittsburgh suburbanites or blue-collar workers in Greene County and Westmoreland County and Washington County in Southwest PA, which are areas where people had voted for Trump.

It is eerily similar, folks, to the Governor's race in Virginia--the same thing. That was before the bill passed, but still, Republican candidate Ed Gillespie started his campaign on a tax plan similar to the Republican tax plan. He had to give it up because it wasn't getting traction.

The American people are smart about this. They know what is going on. They know the vast majority of this goes to the wealthy. They know the amount that is going to them is small. They know their tax break is temporary and the corporate tax break is permanent. Most of all, they know we have created a huge deficit. And how are some of our Republicans friends saying we pay for the deficit? Cut Medicare. Cut Social Security. Cut healthcare. That is not what the American people want.

Poll after poll shows healthcare is far more important to the American people than tax cuts. Do you know why? If you get a break on your taxes of $20 a week and your premiums go up several thousand dollars in a month or even several hundred dollars in a month, that little increase is wiped away. Our Republican colleagues, even in their tax bill, caused premiums to go up by monkeying around with healthcare.

The Republican Party needs to wake up and realize that by giving massive benefits to corporations and the wealthy, it is never going to be a popular issue for them in the election because it is a terrible policy for the average middle-class and working Americans. It gets to the contradiction at the core of the Presidency. The President talks like a populous but governs like a plutocrat. Let me repeat that. The President talks like a populous but governs like a plutocrat. He just got rid of a Wall Street executive--Gary Cohn--and now he is putting in as his economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who has favored the wealthy, Club for Growth policies--help the wealthy and all of America will benefit-- throughout his whole career. That is not how Trump ran. That is not what he tells working people when he goes to a big tent in Pennsylvania. But that is what he is doing. Sooner or later, it catches up with you. The Pennsylvania election showed it is catching up faster than our Republican friends would like. The President talks like a populous but governs like a plutocrat.

President Trump said that his tax bill would be a middle-class miracle, but the actual legislation is a miracle for the wealthy corporations and the richest 1 percent. As I said, part of the problem is that the President surrounds himself with the wealthy elite. Those are his advisers. These wealthy elites push for tax cuts for the rich and rhapsodize failed economic orthodoxies like trickle-down. That applies to Larry Kudlow. Here is a man who is a cheerleader for Bush- era economics. He ignored the housing bubble and actually recommended-- Larry Kudlow, the man who is now going to give the President economic advice--that Americans buy stock in the fall of 2008 when everyone else saw that the economy was about to collapse. Does anyone think Larry Kudlow is going to bring a renewed focus on improving the middle class? Forget it. He believes in the plutocracy. He has his whole career. That is who President Trump picked. He is getting rid of one and putting in another, like going from the frying pan into the fire.

By the way, I think the President loves having the big crowds of working-class people in those tents, but who are his real friends? They are the very wealthy. That is who he hung out with in New York. He cares what they think, and that is why his policies are so aimed at them.

My Republican friends, in a nutshell, this is the problem you face. Your rhetoric is all about helping working people, but your policies and the people developing them are all about helping corporations and the rich.

I am not against the rich or corporations. God bless them. Let's hope they do well. But average Americans need far more help than the top 1 percent and wealthy corporations. Give it to average folks. They need it. They are still struggling with paying for college, affording a vacation, helping their elderly mom and dad through a healthcare problem. They are who need the help, not the top 1 percent. But our Republican colleagues aim everything at that top 1 percent.

If we would only get rid of Citizens United, that awful decision that allows the wealthy to have such huge influence on the Republican Party, the super PACs--individual Members have super PACs funded by the wealthy. I wish we could get rid of it on both sides, Democratic and Republican. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Supreme Court is doing it.

The rhetoric of Republicans: Help working people. The policies of Republicans: Help the wealthy corporations and the rich. As we have seen in poll after poll and in recent elections, the American people are waking up to that reality.

It is hard to make a tax cut unpopular, but Republicans have managed to do it by designing a bill that will direct 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and $1.5 trillion to the deficit and then threaten to cut Medicare and Social Security to make up the difference. My colleagues, that is a toxic combination, and Republicans will not be able to run on it because only a very few wealthy Americans support that agenda.

Russia

Mr. President, now on a different matter--Russia. A little more than a week ago, our friends in the United Kingdom--England, Great Britain-- suffered an attack on two individuals by a nerve agent. In a joint statement today, the leadership of the United States, the UK, France, and Germany agreed that Putin was behind it. To her great credit, Prime Minister May demanded an immediate response from Putin and promised appropriate countermeasures. She has already expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and I hope she takes additional action. Expelling 23 diplomats is strong action, but we need more.

Mr. Putin--he is a bully. I grew up in Brooklyn. There are a lot of bullies around Brooklyn. You have to stand up to them, or they will keep taking advantage of you. That is how a bully works.

Let's compare Prime Minister May's action to President Trump's. It is a study in contrast when it comes to Russia. Prime Minister May was quick and decisive about countering Russia's aggression. President Trump can hardly seem to utter a peep in criticism of President Putin-- a man who is trying to undermine the power of the United States, a man who is trying to undermine the very democracy of the United States, the beauty of America. It was on full display this week when, instead of personally defending our ally Britain, President Trump didn't say a word about the attack, directing everything through aides or statements.

President Trump warns all the time that ``we need to get smart'' about other countries taking advantage of the United States. I agree. I tend to agree with the President on China. China is taking advantage of us, and President Trump, to his credit, is doing more than the Bush or Obama administrations did. But guess who is taking advantage of us even more than China. Russia. They meddle in our elections, continue to sow division on social media through Russia-linked bots or building an intelligence machine to meddle in our elections again later this year. Putin constantly attacks our allies, our friends.

President Trump, when are you going to get smart about the threat Russia poses to the United States and our allies?

We in Congress, 98 to 2, the Democrats and Republicans together-- Leader McConnell and I worked this out. We voted to implement mandatory sanctions against Russia. Guess what, America. President Trump hasn't even implemented them. What is he afraid of? What is he hiding?

Hopefully, we will get an announcement today that maybe he is implementing sanctions after what Russia did, but that is not enough. As my friend from New Jersey has suggested, the President should further sanction Putin and anyone else involved under the Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act for this heinous attack in the UK.

We are still waiting for President Trump to direct our intelligence agencies and the State Department to use the resources we have provided them to combat Russian cyber attacks. We have heard from officials who are in charge of cyber security. They have gotten no direction from the White House, no orders to do anything. We are still waiting for actions to harden our election security, and we are still waiting for President Trump to utter one word of public criticism for what Putin is doing to the United States and democracies around the world.

I say to President Trump: Your silence speaks on this issue. Your silence speaks volumes to the Russian Government and America's other adversaries, as well as our friends and allies. Finally, it speaks volumes to the American people. More and more Americans are asking: Why is President Trump so afraid to take on probably our No. 1 menace, Russia? What is he hiding? What is going on? Why?

It is ringing in America's ear. The President is not going to escape it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, at this moment all across the country, students are walking out of school for 17 minutes in memory of the 17 Americans who died at Stoneman Douglas High School 1 month ago today.

Here on the floor of the Senate, I join with those students in remembering the fallen students and teachers of Stoneman Douglas. I join with them in remembering the beautiful children who died at an elementary school in Newtown. I join with them in remembering a long line of American children who perished in the slow-moving tidal wave of gun violence that is consuming our country--all the unopened presents and uncelebrated birthdays, all the empty chairs at dinner tables, graduations, and holidays. These kids had their whole lives ahead of them.

This has gone on for too long. When a disease plagues our people, we seek a cure. When we see drug addiction stealing the lives of our youth, we get together here in Congress and try to do something about it. Why is it that when it comes to gun violence--which is responsible for just as many, if not more, deaths--we throw up our hands and pretend there is no solution?

We know there are commonsense things we could do. Close the dangerous loopholes in the background check system; ensure that anyone with a criminal history or history of mental illness can't get their hands on a gun; and, yes, we should debate the assault weapons ban because weapons of war have no place on our streets and no place in our schools.

While so many students today are mourning their friends and classmates, we in Congress are in a unique position. We alone have the ability to change our laws to make America safer and, God willing, prevent another one of these massacres--these horrible, horrible massacres.

What will we do with that awesome responsibility? I was here on the floor of the Senate when this body failed to advance any legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook. The shame we all felt, and America felt, as this body was unable to act because a powerful special interest seems to have its grip on too many of our colleagues. Well, let this time be different. Let this time be different.

In a moment, I will read the names of 17 Americans--14 children--who were killed in the horrific attack at Stoneman Douglas High School. I am joined by a good number of my colleagues who wish to read the names of children and other victims who died at the hands of gun violence in their States. May their memories--may their memories--inspire us to act.

Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque Anguiano, Scott Beigel, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Christopher Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me thank my friend from Illinois, Senator Durbin. There has been no more passionate, effective, strong, and consistent voice for the Dreamers, for those beautiful, young people who simply want to become Americans and contribute to America. He will never let this issue rest, nor will we. We are going to do everything we can to help the Dreamers. We hope President Trump finally sees it in his heart to actually get something done. We had a bipartisan agreement. It could have passed. It had some things we didn't like, and it had some things the other side didn't like, but President Trump, in one of the more inept acts in terms of legislating, blew the whole deal. We are going to keep working.

I thank my colleague from Illinois.

Gun Safety

Mr. President, as the Senate debates the banking bill, Americans are wondering if the Republican majority will ever move to take up the issue of gun safety. Tomorrow, thousands of students across the country--awakened students--will participate in a nationwide walkout to demand action. At 10 a.m. in high schools from one end of America to the other, students will walk out for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 who gave their lives at Stoneman Douglas High School, in solidarity. But they are not going to stop there; they are going to keep working and working and working until we get something done.

When the students walk out, what will this Senate, what will this Congress, what will our Republican friends be able to say? Nothing, because we will have done nothing in that time to address gun safety in a meaningful way.

The unfortunate reality is that it seems there is too little courage in the White House to take on the NRA. After sounding the right notes when the cameras were on, President Trump has backed away from everything but the policies to which the NRA gives its rubberstamp approval.

I am still amazed at this. I believe it was on the issue of age that the President criticized Senator Toomey at his televised meeting and told him not to be afraid of the NRA. He said he wasn't.

And what does the President do? He doesn't show one one-hundredth of the courage that Senator Toomey showed on guns.

Senator Toomey and I don't agree on much, and I would have gone further than he did in the checks bill that he and Senator Manchin put together, but he had the courage to buck the NRA.

President Trump, you have no courage to buck the NRA. You talk a good game, and then, when it comes to action, you are afraid to do anything--anything--that gets the NRA upset.

The NRA is so far away from where America is. Over 90 percent of America wants background checks. The NRA and Trump don't. A huge percentage--over 80 percent of gun owners--want background checks-- comprehensive and universal background checks. President Trump and the NRA don't. The majority of Americans want protective orders so that if a family member or a friend or a teacher sees a young person acting like they are angry or upset and might do damage, their gun could be temporarily taken away. Most Americans want that. President Trump and the NRA don't, and neither do our Republican friends. The vast majority of Americans would like a debate on assault weapons--or certainly the majority. President Trump, the NRA, and our Republican majority don't.

Mr. President, why don't you retract what you said to Senator Toomey. Why don't you admit that he had more courage than you? Why don't you say that you are afraid of the NRA, because that is really what is going on here. No one is going to be taken in by nice words spoken in an hour in front of a TV camera when you then back off on anything. Of course, the plan was released Sunday night. They thought, hopefully, that it would get no news coverage, but it is still in the news.

Unfortunately, too many Republicans here on the Hill are in the same boat as President Trump, but not Senator Toomey. They want to appear as though they are doing something for gun safety but are only willing to support the smallest bore policies that the NRA gives a green light to. They say: OK, let's do these small things first; maybe we will do more later.

We all know the game here. Everyone sees what is going on. My friends on the other side don't dare support anything that the NRA opposes, even though the vast majority of Americans want them to. Our friends hope that we will pass something tiny, something small so that they can clap their hands and say they did something on gun violence and move on. The day they want to do something meaningful and real on gun safety never seems to come.

My friend the Senator from Texas--he is a good friend of mine. We banter in the gym almost every morning. I have worked with him on a number of issues. But he comes to the floor every day and says: Let's do the small Fix NICS bill, and then we will see about other proposals. He knows as well as I do that Fix NICS is not even close to enough of a response to the epidemic of gun violence in the country. He knows as well as I do that the NRA is OK with Fix NICS but not universal background checks.

Fix NICS only improves reporting within the existing background check system. The big loopholes that allow so many bad people, felons, and those adjudicated mentally ill to get guns--the gun show loophole, the online loophole--are not touched by Fix NICS.

I say to my good friend the senior Senator from Texas, when you are a doctor and you are sewing up a wound, you don't just do the first stitch and then walk away and say: We did something. No, you have to do the real job to cure the injury. I appreciate that my friend from Texas wants to pass this bill. Democrats support it. I am a cosponsor. But as a response to the spree of shootings in our schools, on our streets, in our churches, movie theaters, nightclubs, concerts, and on street corners every evening, a bill to repair just one tiny little aspect of the background check system is not sufficient.

A policy or an attitude that says that we cannot offend the NRA on anything will never, never, never help ameliorate our problem of gun violence to a sufficient extent.

As my colleague Senator Murphy, Senator Cornyn's coauthor of Fix NICS, has said: ``If we were to only debate the Fix NICS Act, we would be slamming the door in the face of all of these kids who are demanding change.''

He said it perfectly.

Democrats are fighting to make sure that Fix NICS isn't our only response. I hope and pray that my Republican colleagues will find the courage to go beyond what the gun lobbyists tell them is OK and work with Democrats on real and significant gun safety legislation.

Trade

Mr. President, now on another matter, this is a happy moment because many Democrats--certainly I--agree with the Trump administration when they blocked the proposed bid by the Singapore-based Broadcom to purchase the San Diego-based Qualcomm, on national security grounds.

Let me say this unequivocally: President Trump and his administration made the right decision on blocking Broadcom from taking over Qualcomm.

We all know that China has been rapacious about trade and very smart. They look for places where they can steal our best technology. They develop it there in China and keep us out of their markets and then try to flood the world with their products, sometimes dumping them. China has been rapacious about trade. Frankly, in my opinion, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration did enough. President Trump has a much better attitude.

One particular area of concern is how frequently foreign companies have sought controlling stakes in cutting-edge technology companies like Qualcomm. Qualcomm has done a great job, and they are leading the world in developing the 5G system. We need to preserve that as Americans because it has both economic and national security concerns.

As China seeks dominance in the semiconductor and wireless industries, the United States must be wary of attempts to acquire U.S. leaders in these industries. As to a foreign-controlled Broadcom, I don't know what the links are between Broadcom and China. I suspect there may be some, but China could move to take it over and, poof, the dominance that we would seek in 5G technology developed here would go away. It is a national security concern and an economic security concern.

We Democrats believe that the CFIUS model should extend not just to national security but to economic security. When China attempts to steal our best technology by buying American companies--whether it is robotics, AI, or chips on Qualcomm--we ought to block it.

China doesn't play fair. Lifetime President Xi hopes to dominate in the crown jewel of America's industries--the tech industries and others, where we dominate because we have been so good because we have taken immigrants, Mr. President, from around the world, and they helped develop these great things. We have to be wary of China--wary of China. To his credit, President Trump is more wary of China than the last five or six administrations, and I am glad he is. I am glad his administration is. It is just almost too late, but it is not yet.

It is no secret that President Trump and I share similar feelings on the issue of trade, particularly when it concerns China. I have often been critical of this administration--like I have been of previous administrations--when it fails to follow through on the President's rhetoric or misdirects its policies.

The recent steel and aluminum tariffs are an example of how the administration has the right instincts but bad

execution. If properly calibrated, tariffs could be an effective tool to rein in China. China certainly dumps and has sought dominance in the steel and aluminum industries. Instead of targeting heavily subsidized Chinese steel and aluminum, the President has put in place across-the- board tariffs that would hurt many of our domestic industries. There was an article today about a Missouri ball bearing company that doesn't know where it is going to get its steel from. It hurts allies like Canada.

Canada makes its own steel and aluminum. We have a trade surplus with Canada. Putting Canada in the same boat as China is a huge mistake. That is why these tariffs--and I support the thrust of them--should have been more carefully targeted.

In contrast, the action on Qualcomm is targeted and effective in terms of protecting U.S. industry, and I urge the Trump administration to do more of these things. They will fill a hole that previous administrations failed to fill.

Russia Investigation

Mr. President, finally, on Russia, we all know that the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee has ended its investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 elections. The House Republican majority on the Intelligence Committee has so discredited itself.

The report makes several assertions that are contradicted by already well-known facts. It says that Russia had no preference for Donald Trump in the 2016 elections. Remember, it is not just the intelligence community's assessment that the Russians were trying to elect Trump, but an independent grand jury--nonpolitical--in the special counsel's investigation concluded the same thing on the basis of evidence independently acquired and presented by the special counsel. By saying they disagree with the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, Speaker Ryan and Chairman Nunes are closer to Putin's view than the view of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the DNI--people in the administration.

It seems that there are no lengths to which Chairman Nunes and Speaker Ryan will not go to protect this White House, even when it damages America's security.

After Chairman Nunes's midnight run to the White House, his partisan memo, fake memo, and fake scandals about unmasking FBI text messages, no one should take this report seriously. I would say, to the vast majority of Americans, Chairman Nunes has discredited himself. He is much more of a partisan operative than a representative helping America be secure.

The House Republican majority has never taken this investigation seriously. From the very beginning, they have sought to distract and kick up dust. They have shown time and again that they are willing to put party before country--something our Founding Founders warned against. They are willing to twist facts and ignore evidence about a foreign power attacking our democracy because it might cause political damage to the President. It is a shocking and shameful abdication of duty.

In my judgment, Chairman Nunes, you and your committee have made a shocking and shameful abdication of duty to America. A congressional party that is wholly subservient to the political interests of the President is failing fundamentally to fulfill its constitutional obligation. Congress is supposed to be a separate, equal branch of government. Read the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. One of the main purposes of Congress was to check the power of the executive branch. Our Founding Fathers feared an overreaching executive branch, as I know my friend from Nebraska knows, because he cites these things. That responsibility doesn't fall only on one party. It falls on all of us.

That is why there has been a history of bipartisanship and cooperation on the Intelligence Committees, where the vital interests of the Nation are at stake. That has been the case through the years. Until Chairman Nunes seemed to get ahold of this, that tradition was a grand one and a good one. Now that tradition has been discarded by House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee through this embarrassing episode that will historically go down as one of the lowest moments of any committee's actions in Congress.

Let me say pointedly to my colleagues that the Senate Intelligence Committee has been quite different than the House Intelligence Committee. I salute both Chairman Burr and Ranking Member Warner for trying to run things in a different way. Let us hope that the Senate Intelligence Committee does not go the way of the House and continues its bipartisan cooperation to get to the bottom of this mess. That is because we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 and to report those findings in an unbiased way. If the House isn't going to do it, the Senate must.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, let me thank my good friend from Florida. His State may be more affected by climate change than just about any other. We hear about water lapping up on the shores of Southern Florida already and the constant flooding. We have seen these amazing pictures that equal 1,000 words about the coral reefs--and he even talked about a word we rarely use in Brooklyn, ``critters.'' We want to save the critters too.

So he has been eloquent--not just today but constantly--on the issue of climate and does it in such a practical perspective that just about every American of every ideology, part of the country, and thought process can understand. So I thank him.

Of course, I thank our great leader on this issue, the Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse. He is passionate, and his passion carries over into effective action. There has been no voice more clarion, more constant, more effective in remembering that we cannot ignore this issue, constantly reminding us how important it is. I thank Senator Whitehouse not only for pulling us all together tonight but for his great strength and constancy on this issue.

I join my colleagues to shed light on the subject of climate change, which has received scant attention, unfortunately, from President Trump and this Republican Senate. Despite decades of incontrovertible evidence that climate change is harming our planet, President Trump and the Republicans have done nothing about it. In fact, worse than doing nothing, they have actively weakened our environmental laws, decrying the very science that has helped us progress, has helped men and women progress through the centuries.

Republicans in Congress have undone the environmental protections that held corporations accountable for polluting our streams. They have undone the rule that increased transparency in the management of public lands. Through an unrelated tax bill, congressional Republicans opened up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

In the executive branch, EPA Administrator Pruitt has implemented an extreme deregulatory agenda, unwinding the rules that keep our air clear, our water clean, and limit carbon emissions that poison our atmosphere and our planet.

Worst of all, President Trump announced that he will pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, which would make America the only country in the world that isn't a part of the agreement. While the world comes together to negotiate sensible climate change policies, while other nations and other foreign businesses grab the mantle of leadership on green energy, the United States, which used to be such a leader on so many issues, can only sit and watch from the sidelines-- all because President Trump decided to pull out of the Paris accord. What a remarkable mistake. It will go down in history as one of the worst days in American history, as the world gets hotter and climate change takes its toll on our country and the world.

Climate change is real, human activity is driving it, and it is happening right now. These are facts. This is not speculation. This is not someone spinning a tale. These are facts not in dispute. Scientists know it. Businesses know it. The world knows it. The American people know it too.

We in New York learned about the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy. It took so long to rebuild our coastal communities. All of Long Island understood that climate change is real and devastating when you do nothing about it.

The storms are getting more powerful--storms like Sandy--more frequent, and there is no doubt that climate change is playing a role. We watched three recordbreaking hurricanes buffet our cities and our coastlines, devastating parts of Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Stronger wildfires have ripped through our Western States. According to NOAA, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for disasters in the United States, costing hundreds of billions of dollars. We are running out of time to do something about this issue.

Together with my colleagues this evening, led by Senator Whitehouse, who will be giving his 200th ``Time to Wake Up'' speech--what a great accomplishment; I admire it--I urge all Americans--particularly younger Americans, who understand that this planet will decline if we don't do something, and it is their planet--I urge everyone--younger Americans, older Americans, everybody--to contact Republican Senators and Congressmen and tell them to wake up on climate change.

I yield the floor.

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

Now, Madam President, after the deadly shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, the American people are wondering if Congress can do something meaningful to curb the epidemic of gun violence--an epidemic that has gone on far too long and taken the lives of far too many.

For years, Democrats have proposed commonsense gun safety policies to ensure that dangerous people can't get their hands on dangerous weapons. Recently, Democrats have reiterated our support for several specific measures, including universal background checks, protection orders, and a debate on banning assault weapons.

Americans of all political stripes support a debate on these policies, and yet the majority leader, who has given gun safety no time on the floor of the Senate, has also given us no indication we might consider the issue anytime soon. He is sweeping it under the rug. The NRA is powerful around here.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Trump failed to show the conviction and steady leadership required to make progress on this issue. After indicating support for a host of reasonable gun safety measures a few weeks ago and in front of the TV cameras he invited in, yesterday President Trump released a list of administration policies which represent a 180-degree reversal. What President Trump said at the public meeting and what he proposed yesterday are opposites.

After signaling, for instance, he would be for raising the age of purchase of assault weapons from 18 to 21--a modest measure--President Trump backed off saying he would leave it to the States and the courts to decide. That is a copout, and we know that. After indicating support for universal background checks, President Trump makes no mention of closing the dangerous gun show loophole or internet sales loophole. There is no mention of anti-domestic violence legislation, no mention of assault weapons or support for significant changes to protection orders. The President's plan consists only of small-bore, NRA-approved policies, including the absurd proposal to send more guns into classrooms by arming teachers.

In the wake of so many American tragedies, the Trump proposal on gun safety is utterly insufficient as a response. Even if you discarded the idea of arming teachers and took the Fix NICS proposal and the changes to mental health in President Trump's proposal, that wouldn't be close to enough to address the issue of gun violence. The Nation is clamoring for significant, meaningful progress on gun safety, but President Trump's proposal is just a baby step, when America needs to take a giant leap.

The administration's proposal makes it perfectly clear that President Trump has an obeisance to the NRA. Even when President Trump momentarily departs the NRA script, he quickly gets reeled back in. If President Trump, his staff, and some of our Republican friends are wondering why his ratings are so low, it is because he does this all the time. At the meeting, he publicly challenged conservative Republican Senator Toomey. He said: Oh, I guess you are afraid of the

Madam President, on a different subject--Russia. Despite heaps of evidence Russia interfered in our election, President Trump has hardly lifted a finger to punish Russia or safeguard future elections. This is a dereliction of duty.

Over the last few weeks, the Senate has heard testimony from the DNI--the Director of National Intelligence--and the head of the U.S. Cyber Command. Neither had been directed by the administration to counter Russia's continued efforts to undermine our democracy. A report in the New York Times last week documented how President Trump's State Department ``has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has allocated since late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy.'' Still, the Trump administration has not fully implemented the sanctions Congress passed to punish Putin.

Meanwhile, Russia-linked bots continue to sow division and inflame political tensions on social media. Multiple officials from the intelligence community have warned that Russia will try to interfere in our elections again. We have done nothing to harden our election security in anticipation of the midterms.

Our democracy is under attack, and the President of the United States seems unwilling to punch back or even harden our defenses. It is as if an enemy naval flotilla were headed to our shores, and we didn't put up any defense. That is exactly what is happening. It is a new world. It is not a flotilla of a navy or planes buzzing along our coasts, but it is these cyber attacks and social media attacks on our election system, but they are every much as vital to America as our physical defense. Yet we hear nothing, nothing, nothing out of the White House.

You only have to look to our ally, the United Kingdom, for an example of how a nation should respond to the threat from Russia. Just today, Prime Minister Theresa May went to the House of Commons to expose a likely Russian attack against two people in her country using a nerve agent. She demanded a response from President Putin and promised appropriate countermeasures if he refuses or the answer is insufficient.

Prime Minister May's quick and decisive action is exactly what is missing from President Trump when it comes to cyber security in our elections.

President Trump still has an opportunity. Over the weekend, President Putin rather ridiculously blamed Ukrainians, Jews, or other minorities for the attack on our election in 2016--another attempt, of course, at misdirection and distraction. In reality, Special Counsel Mueller's investigation has charged 13 Russian nationals with subverting the 2016 elections--not Ukrainians, not Tatars, not Jews but 13 Russian nationals.

Today Leader Pelosi and I, alongside Senator Feinstein and Congressman Nadler, sent President Trump a letter urging him to use all available resources to extradite the 13 Russian nationals named in the special counsel's investigation to stand trial here in the United States. Ensuring these Russian nationals stand trial in the United States would be a clear signal to those who seek to meddle with our elections that their actions are not without consequences. This is imperative to deter Russia and any other nation in the future from attacking our democracy. This is another test of President Trump's leadership and another test he is failing miserably.

If President Trump really cared about our country, he would expand every resource in his possession to bring justice to these foreign actors who meddled with our country's most sacred democratic process-- the one enshrined by the Founding Fathers, embraced and even worshiped by Americans over the centuries with good reason.

Now there is meddling in this sacred process and President Trump does nothing? Why are we not hearing anything from those on the other side of the aisle about that? You can be sure that if it were another President--particularly a Democratic one--we would hear howls, but this is not about Democrats or Republicans. This is about our democracy, and Americans inevitably ask the question, Why is President Trump so afraid to do anything about Putin?

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, later this afternoon President Trump plans to announce sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs. Let me say once again, I believe the President's instincts on China are correct. All those who are trying to push him away from his instincts will allow China over the next decade to become the dominant economic power and greatly hurt American jobs and American prosperity as well. So I would say: Mr. President, stick to your instincts.

But while the President's instincts are correct, the execution on these tariffs is poor. That is the difference here--not the instinct, not that we shouldn't go after China, and not that we have to do more to bolster American wealth and American workers against rapacious policies of China's. China will stop at nothing, nothing, nothing, to steal our intellectual property and to manipulate its currency to exclude American companies from being there.

China has been rapacious about trade, and I have spoken about this problem for years. Early on--I think it was 2004 or 2005--Senator Graham and I discovered that China was manipulating its currency. I heard it from Crucible steel up in Syracuse, NY.

The great thinkers said: They don't manipulate their currency. This is protectionist.

In the same week--I was quite proud of this--the New York Times editorial board, which is liberal, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which is conservative, both said: There is no such thing as currency manipulation, and Schumer and Graham ought to back off.

Of course, we proved to be right on that and other issues.

China is rapacious. If we don't stop China, America will be a weaker place with fewer good-paying jobs, with less wealth, less strength, and we probably won't stay the greatest country in the world--although we deserve to because we play by the rules.

President Trump has identified the right opponent--China--much better than both the Obama and Bush administrations did. Both Democrats and Republicans have been blind to this issue, and Trump isn't. Good. But I would say to the President: Don't swing blindly and wildly at our foe, China. Establish a well-placed jab at China. Set them back. Let them know we mean business.

President Trump ought to rethink his plan so it actually achieves what he says he wants it to achieve.

U.S. steel and aluminum workers have been battling heavily subsidized products from China for decades. I know. I have Nucor in my State, in Auburn and in Chemung County. On aluminum, I have Alcoa in my State, in Massena. Our steel and aluminum workers deserve a more level playing field against these countries like China that heavily subsidize their products or other countries that purchase Chinese steel at artificially low prices and ship it to the United States. A targeted trade action against China would be very helpful not only in providing relief for the steel and aluminum workers in New York and around the country, but it would send a strong shot across the bow to China for the first time in decades: We mean business. We are not going to let you prey on us any longer.

Targeted trade against China and against countries that allow China to sell them steel at artificially low prices and then send it here, go after them, but instead of getting right at China, the President's across-the-board tariffs will cause more damage to key allies and other domestic industries. I not only have steelworkers in Upstate New York, I have a lot of autoworkers. For instance, we are so proud of the GM plant in Tonawanda near Buffalo and the Ford stamping plant also in Western New York. We are so proud of our agriculture.

Incidentally, the President is right, Canada has put in certain restrictions on American dairy going to Canada that has hurt companies like the Cayuga cooperative in Central New York and O-AT-KA in Genesee County.

We have to protect and help our workers in auto manufacturing and our farmers who do export and who do good things. China doesn't let our auto products in, in a fair way, but other countries do--Canada does.

So the President's proposal does more harm to Europe and other allies

like Canada than it does to China. That is what is wrong with it. It is so typical of this White House. Even when they have a good idea, they mess it up because they don't think it through, and the President acts only by his instincts. You have to act by your instincts and put a thought process on top of it.

The goal of the President to go after China was not really achieved very well in his proposal. The haphazard way these tariffs were put together has caused policy to miss the mark. It seems no one is at home in the White House right now. President Trump makes up his mind one day, changes it the next, and meanwhile trade policies, foreign policies, gun policies, immigration policies are all in chaos because he says one thing one day and another thing the next. So we need the President to follow his instincts but then allow the people who know this issue to craft something smart.

The President and I may agree on trade. As I said, we are closer on this issue than I have been with either the Bush or Obama administrations, but the slapdash way these tariffs were constructed have few of us cheering, even those of us who really have wanted to go after China long before politics was a gleam in President Trump's eye. Well, maybe that is not true; it may have been a gleam in his eye but before he ran for anything.

I strongly urge the President to rethink these tariffs and focus his policy more directly at China and countries that ship cheap Chinese steel to the United States. On the flip side, I am sure some of our business interests will tell the President do nothing on trade.

The chamber of commerce--they are interested in the bottom-line profits of their big companies, and they don't care if they make those profits at the expense of American workers. They are not a barometer here, and President Trump is right to ignore them. We have to be smart about this--not just tough, but tough and smart. We need to get tough and smart on China, and the right approach is targeted action against China's most flagrant abuses.

Republican Tax Bill

Mr. President, on tax, since the Republican tax bill passed last year, nearly every day there has been a new story about a corporation choosing to pass along the savings from the tax law to wealthy shareholders and corporate executives because they buy back their stocks. They use this new tax money not to help their workers but to buy back their stocks. In January, there was an initial flurry of all these bonuses. They have been totally overwhelmed with stock buybacks. What Democrats said is proving to be true. The vast majority of this tax break is for the wealthy, by the wealthy, used by the wealthy to help themselves, not help workers. That has been the history when you give these corporations lots of money, when they have so much money already, without pointing it in the direction of helping workers.

Yesterday, Chevron joined the parade of those with stock buybacks. It was Chevron who announced that while it was making no changes to workers' compensation or benefits, it would be restarting its dormant stock repurchasing program. Do you know how much Chevron got from this tax bill? Mr. President, $2 billion. Do you know how much they are giving their workers--or benefits--out of that $2 billion? Nothing. Nothing as of now. Do you know what they are using it for? Stock buybacks. Let our Republican friends come to the floor and defend those stock buybacks. Let them do that.

Today, another oil company, Hess, announced it would be purchasing back $1 billion of its stock by the end of the year. Since the start of 2018, just in the last few months, the cumulative total of share buybacks has passed $200 billion. Let me repeat that, $200 billion has been used for stock buybacks. The month of February set the 1-month record for share buybacks, and analysts at JPMorgan--hardly a liberal think tank--says they ``expect total buybacks in 2018 to surpass $800 billion, way up from the $530 billion last year and demolishing 2007's all-time high that came in a bit below $700 billion.'' That is not Chuck Schumer or CPAC or any of these liberal think tanks, that is JPMorgan Chase.

So our poor Republican friends had hoped this tax bill would send them on a trajectory to win elections and, by February, the numbers are starting to turn against them again. Look at the Quinnipiac poll of yesterday. Why? Because, as this tax bill plays out, what Democrats said all along; that the vast majority of the benefits are going to the wealthy, it increases the deficit, and it increases the clarion call of many on the Republican side to cut Medicare and Social Security to pay for the deficit they created--it is not going over too well. We will match our argument against theirs now in October and November. We are confident we are going to win that argument, and that is why already the enthusiasm about this tax bill is fading.

The massive deluge of corporate share buybacks is proving to be the principal legacy of the Republican tax bill--not benefits to workers, not bonuses, not wage increases, not even new equipment or investment in R&D. I would welcome that. Nope, corporations are spending the bulk of the savings from the tax bill on themselves, their corporate executives, and their wealthy shareholders.

Guess how much of the capital companies have earned from the tax bill has been allocated to their employees, the workers who were going to get such huge benefits from this bill--6 percent. No, no, it is not 60; it is 6. Sixty is the percentage that has gone back to corporations in the form of stock buybacks--a 10-to-1 ratio. It doesn't make much sense. The American public is beginning to realize that. Those are the numbers according to Just Capital.

As I said, the American people are starting to catch wind of the truth. Three separate polls yesterday--I mentioned Quinnipiac, and there are evidently two others. Three separate polls show the popularity of the Republican tax bill was significantly underwater and has lost ground since the last round of polling. I predict those numbers will continue to slip as more Americans learn that their hard- earned taxpayer dollars were used to give a tax break to corporations who hoard the savings for themselves. It is no wonder their candidate in a hard-fought race in Southwest Pennsylvania has abandoned the tax argument. It is not going over well with his working-class constituents because they get a tiny, little bit, and everyone else gets so much more.

Mr. President, Democrats have a plan to rein in these buybacks and put the middle class first. Yesterday, Senator Baldwin and I announced an amendment to the pending banking bill that would rein in corporate buybacks by giving the SEC the authority to reject buybacks that come at the expense of workers. Who will object to that? I hope not my colleagues. They say the buybacks will benefit workers, so they shouldn't be objecting to our bill. Senator Baldwin's bill and my bill would require company boards and their executives to put their money where their mouth is and certify that the buyback is in the best long- term financial interest of the company.

We are going to make this one of the top amendments to the banking bill, and I hope it gains Republican support. If Republicans mean what they say about their tax bill helping workers, they should join Senator Baldwin's amendment. The glut of corporate share buybacks highlights precisely how the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put to ill use. Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, or raising pay, corporations are spending the lion's share of the tax savings on goosing their stock.

Let's not forget, these buybacks are relatively new. A ruling by the SEC in the early eighties said they could start doing these. Before that, the heyday, when corporate America dominated the world, profits were great, jobs were growing, and wages went up, the safe harbor provision wasn't there. Corporations had to go through a lot of proof before they could buy back their stock, and that made sense, but once our Republican colleagues got in power, they did what the corporate leaders want them to do and look what happened.

The amendment to say no buybacks unless they can prove it is really going to benefit their workers and be in the long-term financial interest of their company, that amendment is going to be one of the top amendments to the upcoming bill. I hope it gains Republican support. I really do. If Republicans mean what they say, they should

join Baldwin's amendment, as I said before, but I want to repeat it for the benefit of all my good Republican friends.

Now, the glut of corporate share buybacks highlights precisely how the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put to ill use. Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, raising pay, corporations spend the lion's share of the tax savings on goosing their stock. Americans are just scratching their heads, wondering why we put ourselves in deeper debt so corporations could further enrich themselves. Why do we tell our children and grandchildren they are going to pay for the pay raise of the CEO of Exxon or the increase in value because his stock is going up? That doesn't make any sense at all. There are much better uses for the money.

Yesterday, Democrats announced our plan to help build a trillion dollars of desperately needed infrastructure in America. How do we pay for it? We unwind some of these tax cuts for the biggest corporations to pay for a massive infusion of Federal funds in infrastructure--job- creating infrastructure, which is desperately needed. Just by putting the top rate on individuals where it was, reinstituting the AMT and the estate tax, which goes only to the very wealthy, and setting the corporate rate at 25 percent--you may recall it was the Business Roundtable that asked for 25 percent. Oh, no, for our Republican colleagues and Donald Trump, that wasn't good enough. Make it lower-- even though the 200 biggest businesses in America said 25 percent was certainly an adequate drop. Many on my side wouldn't even think that is good.

In any case, the BMT asked for 25 percent. We go to 25 percent, along with these other changes, and guess what we do with $1 trillion. We create infrastructure jobs--millions. We create new roads and bridges, new water and sewer. We say that every rural home in America should get broadband just as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s said every rural home should get electricity. We update our power grid so all this new energy coming from other places can go to the most populated centers. It would be a huge shot in the arm for jobs in America, for prosperity in America, far more than this slanted tax bill aimed so much at the few wealthy who are so tight with this new Republican Party.

I daresay our proposal is a much more effective use of taxpayer dollars than a handout to the biggest corporations and will create far more good-paying jobs in the process.

I hope our Republican colleagues will rethink things. Their path is a path to a cul-de-sac, to great losses in the election. Rethink that tax cut. Don't allow these buybacks. They are doing no good for anyone but a handful, and that is where 60 percent of the money is going on the corporate rate.

Join us in taking some of that money to do what the Federal Government has done since Henry Clay proposed it in the 1820s: Put that money into infrastructure, jobs, good-paying jobs, efficiency. Let's not let China or another country become the leader in infrastructure. They invest. The Chinese Government, the Japanese Government, the European Government invest in infrastructure, and so did this government, until Donald Trump became President and the hard right gained a stranglehold over the Republican Party. Let's reverse course before it is too late.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, President Trump's instincts on China are correct, but his execution is poor. He should stick with those instincts and not those who label anything we do to protect America against China's rapacious policies as protectionist. At the same time, he should fix his plan so it really does what he intends it to do or wants it to do.

I have been one of the chief critics of the status quo on trade. Americans--and I share this view--resent all those academics who any time we try to do anything with China say: protectionist, trade war.

The bottom line is simple. China is eating our lunch. China is rapacious. China, day by day, gnaws away at our economy by manipulating currency. They sometimes do it, they sometimes don't, but they will again when they can.

By having no reciprocity, they don't let good American industries in, but they want to come here--and do, easily--buying our family jewels, our intellectual property, our leading companies in robotics, artificial intelligence, chips, and pharmaceuticals.

China has a plan to take advantage of America, to surpass us economically by not being fair. They keep their huge market protected, steal our stuff, learn how to do it, then try to come sell it here and gain an advantage when they can by manipulating currency.

The President should not be deterred by all of those business interests that are only interested in their profits, not in what is good for America. That is their job, their shareholders--I get it--but he should not be deterred by them. At the same time, he has to back off this plan which doesn't do what it is supposed to do. Major harm is done to allies like Canada and Europe, not to China.

That is the tightrope we need to walk on. If the President walks on that tightrope carefully and well, we will support him.

The President's instincts to go after China are correct, but the policy he proposes doesn't fit the bill. It is not well targeted, it is not precise and, as a result, it could cause a mess of collateral damage that hurts America more than it helps.

The sweeping nature of the tariffs has already justifiably angered key allies in Canada and Europe and could draw reciprocal tariffs on American goods, raising costs on average consumers from coast-to-coast. A country such as Canada, with which we have a trade surplus, could retaliate.

Mr. President, focus on China. Go after China and do it in a smart, focused but sharp-edged way. Don't create a policy that hurts our allies more than it hurts China and causes China to sort of giggle at our ineffectiveness.

A trade war is not what we want. Making China play by the rules is what all Americans want, except for a handful of businesses that just see their interests and raising their profits no matter where the jobs go or where they sell goods.

China dumps counterfeit and artificially cheap goods into our market, denies productive U.S. companies fair access to their markets, and steals the intellectual property of American companies. I am pained, actually pained, because I love this country, and I want to see us stay economically No. 1. I am pained when I go over in my mind the statement of retired four-star GEN Keith Alexander, who is in charge of cyber security in America. He called China's theft of our intellectual property the ``greatest transfer of wealth in history.'' American wealth is actually being stolen by China, and we sit here and shrug our shoulders or do things that are not effective.

The Trump administration should rethink its approach to sweeping tariffs while there is still time and focus attention on China. China is our No. 1 trade problem--not Canada, not Europe. President Trump could do a much better job of tailoring his trade policy to address the real problems instead of creating new ones.

Infrastructure

Mr. President, on infrastructure, a year ago last January, guided by what President Trump had said, wanting to

work with Democrats on infrastructure, Senate Democrats unveiled our $1 trillion infrastructure plan. It was an outline.

We sent it to the President. We said it was one of the areas where we could work with the President to get something done. Then we waited and we waited and we waited. A full year after we made our proposal, the Trump administration finally released one of its own. Frankly, President Trump's plan on infrastructure, to put it kindly, was underwhelming. It is going over like a lead balloon, and it is very simple why. After a year of bold promises about trillion-dollar infrastructure, a plan to build ``gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land,'' President Trump's infrastructure plan proposes no new net increase in infrastructure funding. He put in $200 billion and then took it away by cutting the existing programs on infrastructure. It will not get the job done. Robbing Peter to pay Paul a pittance will not do nearly enough to rebuild our infrastructure.

Because so much of the funding is not from the Federal Government, which has traditionally funded the lion's share of infrastructure-- highways, water and sewer--the money is going to have to come from two places, neither of which is a good option: localities, which are starved for cash already--they are not going to build much--or the private sector, which will, of course, quite naturally want a payback. That is how the private sector works. They are not going to put money up unless they are paid back. They are not going to lend money without being paid back. We know what that will mean--tolls, tolls, and more tolls. Trump tolls from one end of the Nation to the other. That is not what America wants. Trump's plan is already a huge flop. Hardly anyone is paying attention to it.

We Democrats have a better deal to offer the American people. Rather than cutting existing infrastructure projects to pay for a paltry program that will not work, we want to roll back the Republican tax giveaways to big corporations and the very wealthy and invest that money instead in job-creating infrastructure. The overwhelming majority of Americans would say, they would rather see millions of jobs created than give tax breaks to the wealthiest. Our plan could create up to 15 million good-paying jobs for the middle class.

We have already seen, by the way, that those tax breaks are not creating many jobs. Instead, they are going to stock buybacks, which is a way for corporate executives to take that money, raise their own salaries and raise the salaries of shareholders, the vast majority of whom are in the top 10 percent of America.

We are proposing something new and different. We propose to put the top rate back to 39.6 percent. The wealthy are doing great in America; they didn't need a tax cut. It is the middle class that needed more of one.

We propose restoring the AMT. That AMT prevented the wealthiest of Americans from evading taxes. It is a tax expert's way of restoring the Buffet rule, which says that a rich corporate executive shouldn't pay a lower rate of taxes than his or her secretary.

We restore the estate tax. After all, that benefits 5,000 wealthy families. We also close the carried interest loophole.

We raise the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, which is what the Business Roundtable called for. But our Republican friends and President Trump were in a mania to just cut, cut, cut corporate taxes-- even at a time that corporations are doing well--and moved it to 21 percent. We go back up to the 25 percent that the Business Roundtable suggested.

With all that money, what do we invest it in? A modern infrastructure plan that would build everything from roads and bridges to schools and airports, to high-speed internet and more, with a focus, by the way, on rural internet because one-third of rural America doesn't have it.

In addition to the traditional types of projects we have long built in this country, we are building 21st century infrastructure--as I mentioned, rural internet, high speed. In the thirties, Franklin Roosevelt said that every home in America should have electricity. It was aimed at rural homes that didn't have it. Today, we Democrats believe that every home should have high-speed internet, and that, too, is aimed at rural America--where close to one-third of the homes don't have high-speed internet--and at our inner cities as well.

Only with real, direct investment of Federal dollars will we build the kinds of transformational projects that need to be built. Only with real investment will rural America see the projects it needs built. Only with real investment will we create millions of good-paying jobs.

You say: Where is the money going to come from? We don't want to increase our deficit. The tax bill has done that enough.

We say: Take some of those tax breaks from the wealthiest of Americans and put them into middle-class jobs, plain and simple.

Americans are realizing now where that money is going. The tax bill, before it came out, was unpopular. It had an initial splurge of popularity, and now, as Americans learn what it is actually doing, it is becoming less popular again. It will go back to where it was, I believe. More Americans will dislike it than like it, but when they hear we can take some of that money and put it into infrastructure and create millions of middle-class jobs, I think Americans of all stripes will embrace that policy.

We Democrats want to work with the President and our Republican colleagues on infrastructure, but we want to do it in a way that produces real results, not the chimerical proposal the President made that will produce very little infrastructure, almost no jobs, and put Trump tolls all across America. We hope the President will move away from his plan and come much further in our direction so that we can get something done for the American people, particularly the American working and middle classes.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, when the Republican majority forced through a $1.5 trillion tax cut to big corporations and the richest Americans, a big question was, What will those companies do with the money? Roughly, $1 trillion of that $1.5 trillion was aimed at the biggest corporations.

Republicans promised that corporations would reinvest the savings from the tax bill, stimulating jobs and economic growth. We Democrats warned that corporations would do what is best for themselves, not necessarily what is best for workers or the economy. There is often a dichotomy, as we have learned over the years.

It has been only a few months since the Republican tax cut was signed into law, and while a few corporations here and there announced annual bonuses with a whole lot of hoopla from the President and the Republicans, we don't hear a peep now that they have been announcing an avalanche of corporate stock buybacks--an absolute bonanza for corporate leaders and for wealthy shareholders. Over $200 billion in corporate buybacks have been announced since January, putting corporations on pace to spend over $1 trillion this year buying back their own stock.

This morning, the oil and gas giant Chevron announced it expects to restart its share repurchasing program since halting it in 2015. Why? Because they just reaped $2 billion in savings from the Republican tax bill. Chevron told the Houston Chronicle last week it is planning no major changes or benefits given to its workers. Let me repeat that. Chevron is planning no major benefits to its workers but huge stock buybacks. Is that what America wants? No, but that is what is happening, as we predicted, with this tax bill.

The Chevron example is not alone, unfortunately, my fellow Americans. An analysis by Just Capital found that 6 percent of the savings companies received from the tax bill are going to employees, while 58 percent are going to shareholders in the form of dividends, share buybacks, and retained earnings. The problem is, buybacks don't really help workers or average Americans. They don't really grow the economy. In fact, the money corporations spend on buybacks crowds out investment in the things that do help workers and help our economy--research, development, new equipment, new hires, better pay for employees. But those benefits are in the long term. The corporate CEOs, the boards, the leaders of the corporations--the big ones--get an immediate benefit when they buy back stock. The stock goes up, the shareholders are happy, but workers and America get no benefit.

What buybacks accomplish is the funneling of even more money to corporate executives and wealthy shareholders. Buybacks don't help the American workers. They don't grow the economy. By taking stock off the market, corporations inflate the value of their stockholdings.

Who holds all this stock? Not average Americans. The richest 10 percent of America owns 80 percent of the stock. That is including pension funds and everything else. When corporations goose their stock, those benefits go to a tiny piece of the pie--the upper crust.

(Mr. CRAPO assumed the Chair.)

This is the legacy of the tax bill: further benefits to the wealthy, incentives to raise corporate pay and stocks, and no real help--minimal real help for workers. Just as Democrats predicted, the Republican bill has unleashed a tsunami of corporate backslapping, while working Americans get left behind.

Net Neutrality

Mr. President, now on an entirely different matter, yesterday Washington became the first State to institute its own net neutrality requirements after the Republican-led FCC voted to repeal net neutrality in December, helping the big ISPs and hurting the average consumer. That is typical of what the Senate on the Republican side and what our President have been doing. Over half of the States have similar legislation pending in their legislatures. The States are rightly concerned about what the end of net neutrality may mean for their residents.

When the Republican-led FCC repealed net neutrality, they handed the large internet service providers--your cable company--all the cards. They said: Do what you will with the internet. ISPs could charge consumers more for faster service or start segmenting the internet into packages, forcing consumers to purchase faster times for their favorite websites. Big companies could pay to get faster internet service, while startups, small businesses, and average Americans are left in the slow lane. High-demand websites that offer streaming television, sports, and movies could be slower if you don't pay up. Public schools that don't pay for premium service could be put at a significant disadvantage. In rural America, where there is less competition, ISPs will wield even greater power to raise the price on consumers without fear of losing business.

An internet without net neutrality is a tale of two internets where the best internet goes to the highest bidder, those with the money, and everyone else loses.

Democrats want to keep the internet free and open, like our highways, accessible and affordable to all Americans regardless of your ability to pay, where you live, or the size of your business, no slow lanes, no paying for internet packages, like cable, no one set of rules for big corporations and another for everyone else. Every American should be able to affordably and easily access the internet. That is what Democrats believe.

I am glad Washington State has already taken action to reinstitute net neutrality, but we need to do it across the country. Democrats have put together a CRA that would undo the FCC's decision and put net neutrality back on the books. As you know, Mr. President, we will be able to bring that to the floor. Every Democrat has signed on, but only one Republican has--Susan Collins. I say to the other 50 Republicans who are in this Chamber: Whose side are you on? Whose side are you on-- the big cable providers or the average consumer who depends on the internet? This vote will determine that.

I urge all Americans--particularly our younger people--to contact their Senators and demand that they sign up to save the internet.

One final point. President Trump campaigned as a populist, but what he and our Republican colleagues have been doing over and over again-- whether it is what they tried to do on healthcare, whether it is the tax bill, net neutrality, or anything else--they want to help the wealthiest and the most powerful. They are the ones who backed them and funded their campaigns. That is wrong. That is not what America wants.

The only good news I can see out of this is that Americans are realizing this. Over 70 percent of people believe that Donald Trump favors the wealthy over the middle class, despite how he campaigns and despite his occasional rhetoric and tweets. They are realizing that the Republican Party seems to favor them. It is just that the Democrats, whether we had the Presidency or the majority in the House or the Senate, were able to block these things until now. Now the wealthy and powerful are getting far too much, and I believe my Republican colleagues will reap the whirlwind.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is nice to hear my colleague's words. I would also want to mention a few things about the same issue.

Mr. President, it has been nearly 3 weeks since the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Still, unfortunately, the majority leader hasn't committed to any floor time for the debate on the issue of gun safety--no time to debate universal background checks, a policy that over 90 percent of Americans support, including the vast majority of gun owners; no time to debate protective orders to allow law enforcement to temporarily disarm individuals who have shown credible signs of being a harm to themselves or others, especially relevant after Parkland; no time to at least have a debate on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines on the floor of the Senate.

The kids who survived that horrific shooting are speaking up and speaking out and are demanding that we address this issue head-on. I believe they are moving the conscience of the Nation. I met with them. They are fine young men and women. Instead of just cursing the darkness after what they went through with the losses of friends and colleagues they suffered, they are trying to light a candle, urging us to debate and do something real. Yet, the majority leader is moving to a banking bill today with no promise of time to consider a package of commonsense gun safety measures.

We need to debate them on the floor. We can't just try to do one little bill by UC with no debate or put it into some other big bill. This needs a national debate. This issue is consuming America, and for the Senate to turn its back and do nothing, or to try to just slip some minor measure through, doesn't work.

Last week, America watched President Trump whipsaw on gun safety issues in a matter of days. All of America felt pretty good when the President met with a bipartisan group. He seemed to be open to tackling gun safety in a bipartisan way in a nationally televised meeting. Then, the next day, he met with the NRA behind closed doors and seems to once again have backed off.

It is a show we have seen before, and it is getting old. Too many times we have watched the President say the right things when the cameras are on but refuse to follow through the moment they are switched off--oftentimes doing a 180-degree reversal of his position.

On the issue of gun safety, just like the issue of immigration, we could find a bipartisan consensus. It is very possible, but it requires the President to show some leadership, some followthrough, and some consistency. Otherwise, Congress will do what it has done after every mass shooting for the past decade--nothing.

Those brave, young students will be here in a few weeks, having watched Congress do nothing again. What a black mark that will be-- lowering the even low ratings of this body.

Madam President, yesterday, I met with a group of survivors from the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, FL. Two weeks after losing classmates, friends, and teachers, these kids have not given themselves over to grief or cynicism. They organized and resolved to change their country. They went to Tallahassee. They traveled to Washington. They are committed, and they are inspiring.

We just went to the observance of Billy Graham's death in the Capitol Rotunda, and a man of the cloth probably would have said that instead of cursing the darkness, these kids are lighting a candle, which is a beautiful thing to do.

As I was sitting with them, I remembered meeting with the young people who survived the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I remember sitting with parents of the kindergartners and first graders killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. I still ache for them and their parents, parents who had presents stashed under the Christmas tree that were never opened. Photos of those beautiful children still sit on my desk.

All of them--the students of Stoneman Douglas, parents from Newtown, parents of the victims in Orlando, Las Vegas, Columbine, Charleston, and everyday gun violence in cities and towns all across our country-- all of them are calling on us to act. The slow-motion massacre of American children must end. The time has come to make meaningful changes to our laws to keep Americans safe from the epidemic of gun violence.

Let me tell you, the students of Stoneman Douglas will not stop until we achieve meaningful change. They know small measures will not get the job done. That is why they told me, every one of them: The Fix NICS bill is not close to enough of what we need to do. Fix NICS has wide support in this Chamber. I am a cosponsor. But it is just the first tiny step that addresses one specific issue. We have a whole host of other issues to address, not one.

It is true that the records of NICS need to be fixed, but it is also true that we need to close the gun show loophole. It is also true that we need to make sure online sales go through background checks so that felons or those adjudicated as mentally ill or spousal abusers can't get guns. Over 90 percent of America agrees with that. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so afraid of the NRA that they can't even embrace universal background checks, which 90 percent of America addresses. Special interest lobbying--the kind of thing President Trump campaigned against, the NRA is doing it. The NRA is doing it.

We need to stop writing bills that address only the last shooting and start

making laws that prevent the next one. When you have a sick patient, you don't just treat one symptom; you cure the disease. That is what universal background checks will do. Fix NICS would be a good thing to do, but it is a tiny step when we need a giant leap. It can't be the only thing we do. In fact, the only reason it hasn't cleared this Chamber already is that the Republican Senator from Utah objected to it. Such is the vice grip that the ideologues from the gun lobby have on the entire Republican Party. They are so against what America wants. They are so against what rank and file Republicans want. Even on something as limited as Fix NICS, the gun groups find a way to get in the way.

I believe the priority of this Chamber should be to pass universal background checks. That would accomplish what Fix NICS does and a lot more. President Trump has said that he would push ``strongly comprehensive background checks'' in the wake of Parkland. We Democrats are calling on him today to keep his word. We sent him a letter asking him to support existing legislation, bipartisan legislation, to close the loopholes that allow anyone to purchase a gun at a gun show or on the internet without a background check. These loopholes make no sense. Leaving these loopholes unclosed would be as if we checked someone's ID at the liquor store but not at the bar. That is what you could say about Fix NICS. It would be as if we checked someone's ID at the liquor store but not at the bar. We should have the same checks across the board.

Today, I call on President Trump to come out in support of legislation that would close dangerous loopholes in our background check system. The NRA vehemently opposes that, but I say to President Trump: Show some leadership, buck the NRA. They are way out of touch with the American people, with gun owners, and rank and file Republicans. I say to the President: Show some leadership, buck the NRA, endorse these policies, and you can finally break the gridlock and get something meaningful done.

Madam President, there is one other matter. I know my colleagues from North Carolina are waiting, and I salute them for being here in praise of a former member who just passed from their State, Billy Graham.

Yesterday, the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, ADM Michael Rogers, testified that Putin's efforts to interfere with American democracy have not abated since the 2016 election and likely have intensified. According to several reports, Kremlin-linked bots continue to stoke political divisions in the United States via misinformation on social media. Here is what Admiral Rogers said:

President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that

there's little price to pay and that therefore [he thinks] `I

can continue this activity.' Clearly what we have done hasn't

been enough.

He is absolutely right. It is extraordinary, confounding, and dangerous how little the Trump administration is doing about Putin's campaign to undermine our grand democracy. President Trump refused to punish Putin after he took office, despite the consensus view of 17 American intelligence agencies that Putin interfered in our elections. President Trump has still refused to fully implement the package of sanctions passed by this Congress with only five dissenting votes combined in both the House and Senate, two here and three there. Yesterday, when my friend, the Senator from Rhode Island, asked Admiral Rogers, the Director of NSA, if the Trump administration had directed him to counter Russian meddling, he replied: ``No, I have not [been directed].''

That is astonishing. A hostile foreign power interferes in our election, continues to interfere with our democracy, is planning to interfere in our next elections, and the President of the United States is hardly lifting a finger. It is as if they were preparing for war and tanks or planes were lining up, and we decided to do nothing. Cyber attacks and manipulation of the news media are other ways that hostile powers attack us.

People have to wonder why President Trump is so soft on Russia, so unwilling to criticize President Putin, and so slow to stand up for America and protect our democracy.