Floor Statements

Mr. President, we have a lot of business to get to this week, but because the topic is so important, I would like to address Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in our elections and the Trump campaign's potential involvement.

Over the past several months, the investigation and the FBI have been the target of a smear campaign by Republicans, in the media primarily-- in a media outlet that is hardly regarded as down the middle, in a media outlet that just seems to ask ``how high'' when President Trump says to jump.

Now it has been joined, quite naturally, by several Republicans here in Congress. Their intent is not to push back on the special counsel's findings or to introduce exculpatory evidence on behalf of Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, or Flynn, who have been indicted or convicted. Their intent is not to make an argument about the substance of the investigation at all. Their intent is to discredit the investigator and the investigation itself, by falsely painting it as biased or partisan. That way, whatever its findings are at the end of the day, they have created a permission structure to dismiss them.

When you are afraid of the result, you attack the process. When you are afraid of the message, you shoot the messenger. That is what is happening right now with the escalating rhetoric in the rightwing echo media chambers. The commentators at FOX News have actually called Mr. Mueller's investigation a coup--an outrageous charge that has been repeated by a Republican Congressman on the floor of the House. That is how overblown this rhetoric has gotten.

Mr. Mueller is one of the most trusted and respected public servants in America. He has served administrations of both parties. He was first appointed by a Republican and was installed as a special counsel by President Trump's pick for Deputy Attorney General, Republican Rod Rosenstein. As everyone in America knows, he is as straight a shooter as one comes. Impugning his motives and calling his investigation a witch hunt or a coup is, frankly, hysterical.

I regret even repeating those ridiculous comments because there is not a shred of evidence to back them up--not a shred. If any of these critics had evidence, they would pursue their claims in court, but, of course, there is no evidence. So, instead, they wage a warped campaign in the press, fueled by an avalanche of trumped-up allegations and disinformation.

What are they so afraid of?

We all know why. The special counsel's investigation is an important one for our democracy. We have to get to the bottom of what happened in last year's election no matter who ends up on the short end of the stick when those results are announced: How was

Russia able to wage a successful information campaign to influence our election? To what extent were any members of Trump's Presidential campaign coordinating with that foreign attack on our democracy for political benefit?

These are vital questions that every American should know, and it is an outright disgrace that our Republican colleagues have not joined in in asking for this--so many of them--being as partisan as can be and putting their party over country. If Russia continues in these types of investigations, woe is America--woe is America.

Rather than this concerted campaign to sully the investigation and the FBI, President Trump and his allies should be encouraging them to do their job, to do it right, and to do it thoroughly. The stakes are too high and the topic too serious.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays, and I yield back all time.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Ron Wyden for the excellent job he has done in leading the opposition to this bill. I am incredulous that someone on the other side of the aisle said that this will decrease the deficit. That is just amazing. The lack of factual fidelity for what is in the bill and what the other side is saying is unparalleled--unparalleled. I want to thank Senator Wyden for his valiant efforts in pointing that out. I want to thank Senator Sanders and Senator Cantwell as well, the ranking members of our committees, who worked so hard on this bill.

In closing, very soon the Senate will vote for the final time on the Republican tax bill. When future generations look back at the short and messy history of the Republican tax bill, its most enduring lesson will be what it has taught us about how not to legislate. After only a few months of frantic, backroom negotiations by only one party, we are left with a product as sloppy and as partisan as the process used to draft it. Even today, three provisions of the bill were found to violate Senate rules. So now, all of a sudden, the House will have to vote again tomorrow. That is a perfect microcosm of the hasty and reckless process--can we have order?

It is a perfect microcosm of the hasty and reckless process that produced this legislation.

If my Republican friends think these are the only mistakes that will be found in their bill, they are sorely mistaken. Many more will almost certainly be unearthed. But the bigger issue is the failure of this legislation to live up to each and every one of the promises made by Republicans about what it would mean for our country.

What has been sold as a middle-class miracle will instead deliver a hefty windfall to the wealthy and only paltry, temporary relief for some in the middle class. Others will see an increase right from the get-go. So all of the talk--no middle-class person will pay a tax increase--gone, gone. And in a few years, a majority of the middle class will see their taxes go up. What kind of middle-class relief is that?

What has been sold as a deficit reducer will instead balloon the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion, maybe more. Our children and grandchildren will be asked to clean up the mess made tonight by our Republican colleagues in their eagerness to give the very wealthy, the very powerful corporations, a big tax break.

What has been sold as a bill to give people more freedom to choose their healthcare will instead raise premiums and reduce the number of Americans with health insurance by 13 million. The number of people who get a small tax cut and still have to pay more than that tax cut in premium increases is large. What a huge mistake my colleagues made by eliminating that provision in the healthcare bill, because the middle class is going to pay the price.

What has been sold as a job creator and wage-booster will do little of either, as companies--large, big, powerful companies--are already initiating stock buybacks instead of hiring more workers and raising wages. Is that what you intended? Give them more money so they can buy back more stock, increasing the wealth of corporate CEOs, increasing the wealth of the very wealthy, sending billions of dollars overseas to overseas investors. That is what is happening already. Corporation after corporation has said: Aha, with this new money, we will do even more stock buybacks.

Ultimately, the American people will learn that Republicans have squandered their so-called ``once-in-a-generation opportunity'' on corporate welfare and taxes for the rich, financed by tax increases and healthcare increases on the middle class.

The Joint Committee on Taxation just released a report that found that by 2027, nearly 145 million middle-class families earning under $200,000 will either get tax hikes--can we have order, Mr. President?

This is serious stuff. We believe you are messing up America. You can pay attention for a couple of minutes.

Nearly 145 million middle-class families earning under $200,000 will get either tax hikes or a tax cut of less than $100. Eighty-three percent of the middle class will either pay more in taxes or get little but crumbs. Is that what you intended? Is that this great bill that is helping the middle class? Absolutely not.

Meanwhile, according to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent of earners in our country will reap 83 percent of the benefits of the tax plan. The top 5 percent--the top 5 percent--will reap 99.2 percent of the benefits. Is that what you intended? That is what you are doing. The very, very wealthy--the highest spectrum--get almost all the benefits. Some bill for the middle class.

The raw numbers are a staggering indictment of the Republican tax plan, as they have been throughout the course of this debate. The data reveals what the Republican tax plan truly is--a tax scam that will rob middle-class families to pay for corporate tax breaks and giveaways to the wealthy.

In an age of extraordinary income inequality, when the upper echelons of our economy are capturing an ever-greater share of the pie, the Republican tax bill is like pouring gasoline on a raging fire, making income inequality, as bad as it is now, even worse. It will exacerbate all the bad trends in our economy that over the past few decades have produced dramatically more wealth for the already wealthy, while producing less work and less pay for working people. That fundamental imbalance in our economy will be made even more precarious. What a disgrace. That is what this bill is. It is an absolute disgrace.

It is not just an ideological difference; it is something dramatically opposite of what America needs. There is no reason for a single middle-class family to pay more while every single corporation pays less. If you want to help the middle class, give them a real tax break. The rich get far more dollars back than the middle class. That is fact--an irrefutable fact.

On top of that, as Senator Wyden warned everybody a few minutes ago, this tax bill will endanger Social Security and Medicare. Republicans have already said, led by Speaker Ryan, that they will use the deficit they are about to create as an excuse to come after those earned benefits. The AARP is very reluctant to take stands on bills like this, but it was so bad for the elderly, the AARP felt compelled to publicly oppose it.

Elderly Americans are not the only ones who should be worried, although they certainly should be. If you are 40, 45, or 50, working hard, trying to put money away for retirement while sending your kids to college, and you are counting on these programs to be there when you retire, know this: Cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are likely to fall on your shoulders because of this monstrosity of a bill. The Republican tax bill is the first shoe to drop. The second will fall on the social safety net that allows millions of hard-working Americans to retire with dignity and security.

For all of these reasons, it is not a surprise that in poll after poll after poll, the American people overwhelmingly oppose this bill.

My Republican colleagues have done what is nearly impossible. It is a bad trick, but they have accomplished it.

They have managed to make a tax cut bill even less popular than previous tax hikes. Who would have thought they could accomplish that? Who would have thought? In fact, it is the second-least popular piece of major legislation in 30 years, opposed 2 to 1 by the American people, and the more they learn about the bill, the less they like it. By the way, what was the first? The Republican healthcare bill earlier this year.

It is not hard to understand why the dark heart of the Republican policy agenda easing burdens on those who already have so much, while punishing or ignoring those who have too little, is a profoundly unpopular idea. My Republican friends ought to listen to the American people, the fount of wisdom in our democracy, or there will be a reckoning.

The American people do not believe in trickle-down, as all of you seem to. Give the very top money, and they will create jobs. It hasn't happened. AT&T--do you know what their tax rate was over the last 10 years? Eight percent. Do you know how many jobs they created? Zero. They cut 80,000 people. Let's give them more money while hurting the middle class. It makes no sense.

The American people are saying in a loud, clear voice that they oppose tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. They don't believe in trickle-down, as you do. They oppose gutting healthcare, as you want to do, and they oppose this one-party approach to legislating. The American people know that a slapdash partisan process will not result in good law. My Republican colleagues ignore the warnings of the American people at their own peril.

In just a short time, Republicans will have a choice whether or not to affix their name to this awful legislation. Although the Republican propagandists may call its passage a political victory, it will be very fleeting and illusory. The substance and polling are so rotten that a year from now, Republicans will be running away from this bill in shame for voting yes this evening.

There is an alternative: Vote no. Come to the table with Democrats. Begin serious, bipartisan talks on tax reform. Get a good bill, and work in the way this Chamber is supposed to work: bipartisan, moderate, thoughtful, open. You have done none of those--none of those.

I have little faith that, at this late hour, my colleagues will choose the better course, but if they do, we could do something great for the country and for this body at the same time. We could return to regular order, where the legitimate policy differences between our parties are argued in broad daylight, and with painstaking effort, we compromise even after we fiercely debate one another. Isn't that what we came here to do?

I challenge a single one of my Republican colleagues to say they are proud of the way this tax bill was written and passed. I challenge a single one. I know this isn't what they would like to see. I know this isn't what so many of you came here to do. I know it is not what you tell your constituents the Senate ought to be. I know so many of you lament the steady erosion of bipartisanship here in the Senate, as do I, as do my fellow Democrats. So rather than resign to the failures of the current moment, I plead--plead--with my Republican colleagues to imagine a better path forward. Vote no. Vote no and prevent taxes from going up on millions of middle-class families. Vote no and stop 13 million Americans from going without health insurance. Vote no, so we don't add $1.5 trillion to the deficit, putting the burden on our children and grandchildren. Vote no and say that you want to have the kind of bipartisan debate befitting the grand traditions of this United States Senate. Vote no. Otherwise, I believe the entire Republican Party and each of you will come to rue this day.

I yield the floor.

I yield back all time.

Vote on Motion to Waive

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

Mr. President, first, our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected by that horrible train crash near Seattle, WA. I know that authorities are still investigating what caused the crash. We have to find out what went wrong and then work to fix it. We in New York know what this is like. We have had a few of these derailments and crashes--Spuyten Duyvil on the Metro-North, where four people died about a year and a half ago or a year or two ago. It was very bad. We have to work on train safety, and there are lots of things to do. I am not going to talk about that now, but we do have to. For now, we are wishing the very best for everyone on that train, and we remain deeply grateful to the first responders who reported to the scene.

Mr. President, on another sad note and before I move to the substance of the day, I want to spend a moment in recognizing a dear friend of mine who passed away this weekend, Bob Wilmers, one of the most respected and prominent benefactors in Buffalo, NY--one of the great cities in my State and in our country.

Very few men had done as much for Buffalo since its founding hundreds of years ago as Bob Wilmers had done for the last several decades. He was the chairman of M&T Bank. He helped the bank grow from a small bank into one of the largest employers in the region--6,500 employees. As he built the business and created thousands of good-paying, middle-class jobs, he helped Upstate New York dramatically.

M&T Bank was a large bank, but it was not one of these banks that engaged in swaps overseas or other risky types of investments. It lent money to small businesses, and it had a deep caring for the communities which it served. It was a model bank, in my opinion. It did an amazing job in helping to revitalize our upstate economy, which has had trouble over the last several decades due to so many different things, including bad trade policies.

Bob was also not just committed to the bank, which he loved, as he loved the employees, cared about them, and was such an honorable employee; he was also committed to Buffalo and philanthropy. He directed almost $5 million to local nonprofit organizations in New York--the bank did under his leadership. That is because Bob himself was a philanthropist. He was a man with a big heart, and he always gave in every way. He spent many years supporting one of the great art museums in America, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, just to name a couple. He was a booster to everything Buffalo. He was never in the camp that thought Buffalo's best days were behind her. He always believed in Buffalo's potential and its future and helped to make that happen. The city of Buffalo is turning around. We are so proud in so many different ways. It is, in good part, because of Bob Wilmers.

On a personal level, my wife and I will miss him. He visited my wife for lunch a few months ago. He was 83 years old, and he was on his rickety, old bike and rode through the streets of New York City to meet her so that they could have lunch.

Bob's wife Elisabeth and Iris and I spent many happy hours together. He was a brilliant man, a brilliant banker, decent, caring, and civic- minded. The loss is the Wilmers family's, and our condolences go to Elisabeth. It is a loss for Buffalo and the United States. Bob will be truly missed. His untimely death has sent shock waves throughout New York State, and we will miss him so.

Mr. President, on a different subject, I again warn about the danger of the smear campaign against Special Counsel Mueller.

Over the weekend, allies of the President in the media escalated their phony attacks on Special Counselor Mueller to an outrageous degree. One of the assertions that arose this weekend was that Special Counsel Mueller improperly obtained emails from the Trump transition team. This is a bald-faced lie. There is no proof behind the allegations. There is no substance behind the allegations. They can't point to any indication that Mueller's team did anything that was improper, let alone illegal. The Mueller team is allowed to request whatever it wants. They are special counsel, special prosecutors. They either have to get the accountholder's permission or go

through appropriate criminal processes. In this case, there is no indication that they didn't follow the guidelines.

So to those complaining here in the Congress and in the media, point to something specific that Mueller did wrong here.

They can't. These attackers are creating impropriety when there is none. Their attacks are not based on fact or logic. This is a hatchet job, plain and simple. If they have a legal complaint, they can pursue it in court, but of course they don't. That is why these attacks are only speculation on TV by partisan pundits.

Robert Mueller is one of the most respected and trusted civil servants in our country. His integrity is unimpeachable. The concerted campaign to discredit him and his investigation in the rightwing media is nothing more than propaganda and disinformation to try to turn the public's attention away from the real investigation--Donald Trump's potential collusion with Russia and the collusion of his campaign and the attempt, if it is found, to obstruct justice and prevent an investigation from going forward.

I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will defend the special counsel from these spurious attacks. Everyone--Democrat and Republican alike--must reject the strident voices that falsely impugn Special Counsel Mueller.

Mr. President, we have a lot to accomplish before the end of the year. Government funding runs out on Friday. We still haven't reached a bipartisan agreement on lifting the budget caps to ensure that our investments in economic growth and job creation rise in tandem with our investments in our national defense or in a disaster supplemental that treats equitably California, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as Texas and Florida. We need a bipartisan agreement to fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers, end the sabotage of our healthcare markets, protect the Dreamers, and shore up pension plans for hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans.

We should be doing all these things together instead of in a piecemeal fashion. It will lead to a better bipartisan result, which is a necessity. To try to do it in a partisan way, as the House of Representatives seems to be doing, will lead to nowhere and to a government shutdown. Instead of jamming through a partisan tax scam in the House and Senate, we should be working on middle-class priorities.

To make matters worse, House Republicans continue to waste time on a partisan CRomnibus that is dead on arrival in the Senate. There is another path. Republicans and Democrats should continue to negotiate a genuine bipartisan agreement that paves the way for the major unresolved issues to get to the President's desk. With so little time left before the end of the year, those negotiations must proceed in earnest. They haven't been.

Today, in the House, the Republican Members of the team called off the negotiations and said: Let's do it tomorrow--as the clock ticks.

A few items have become sticking points and should be addressed. We still don't have a deal on pensions. Over 1 million Americans are waiting for our Republican friends to do what is right and work with us on a solution to the pension crisis in America. These working people every month put money into a pension hoping that when they retire, they are not going to become rich, but they can live a life of dignity. A lot of that has been robbed from them. We have an obligation to help them. That is a high priority for Democrats in the Senate and the House.

We still don't have a resolution on Democratic funding requests for opioid treatment. We know the scourge of opioids, the number of deaths throughout America--rural, suburban, urban, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, everybody. In the flower of their youth, so many are being taken by opioids. We don't do enough, and there is a clamor from the Nation to do more.

What about veterans' care? Cuts have hurt our veterans who have served us. They are not getting the help they need.

Our infrastructure is crumbling. We need help in rural areas, urban areas, suburban areas. What about that?

There is no resolution on adequate funding for Puerto Rico and its resiliency or the Virgin Islands, no resolution on fixing our wildfire funding problem which we proposed.

We still don't have an understanding on the Republicans' plan to extend the 702 FISA Court program. The majority leader has told us: Oh, we have to act on FISA. He could put it on the floor today. He could have put it on the floor last week, instead of putting three judges-- some of whom had dubious credentials--on the floor. So to tell us we are running out of time for FISA, when the majority leader controls the floor and hasn't done anything for months, rings a little hollow.

We still don't have a good deal on the healthcare package. Now that Republicans are pushing through a partisan repeal of the individual mandate in their tax bill, which causes premiums to rise 10 percent-- when America gets those premium increases this spring and summer, they will know who to blame. The number of Americans without insurance will rise by 13 million. The bipartisan stabilization bills will not have the same impact. We will need new legislation to account for the Republicans' latest attempt to undermine our healthcare system.

We still don't have a disaster package that adequately takes care of Puerto Rico, California, the Virgin Islands. I hear that my friends from Texas--both Houses--are demanding we rush through a partisan disaster package through the end of the year. Texas needs the money, but the Governor of Texas has refused to tap the State's $10 billion rainy day fund--the largest in the country--to help Houston and other parts of the State recover from Hurricane Harvey. Yet, at the same time, he is demanding immediate Federal assistance. On its face, it is absurd. It is an absurd position for a routine critic of Federal Government spending to demand money immediately, while he has a $10 billion fund sitting there. Imagine if those moneys were in New York or Maryland what our Republican colleagues would be saying. Constantly, we have this what is good for the goose is not good for the gander on our Republican side. I could have used stronger words, but I stopped myself.

I say to the Governor of Texas: If a rainy day fund is not for a rainy day, which Texas had, then what the heck is it for? I, for one, don't want to vote for a nickel for Texas unless they tap that rainy day fund.

Of course, last, but certainly not least, we have to ensure protection for the Dreamers. Bipartisan negotiations are ongoing in the House and Senate. That is good news. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House are trying to come to an agreement on helping the Dreamers, who just want to become Americans, and coming up with border security which we all believe we need. One thousand Dreamers are losing their status every week. While our Republican friends twiddle their thumbs, we need action on the Dreamers, and we need our Republican colleagues to cooperate.

On these issues and more, there is a lot of work left to do. Instead of rushing through their partisan tax bill, I would urge my Republican colleagues to focus on the year-end negotiations.

Speaking of the tax bill, it appears it will be before us on a final vote early this week. Although there were significant changes in the conference report, Senators will not have much time to grapple with them. The conference report was released late last Friday. We are taking a final vote on a bill that will change the entire Tax Code only a few days later. It will be a culmination of the sloppiest legislative process I have witnessed in my time as a Senator. Fittingly, unfortunately, the results will be a mess as well.

My Republican friends are squandering their so-called once-in-a- generation opportunity for tax reform on a massive corporate bailout paid for by middle-class tax increases. What a shame.

At a time when our economy is increasingly stacked against the middle class and in favor of the wealthy, the Republican tax bill will skew the playing field even further out of whack. It will explode inequality in the country,

where the top 1 percent of earners already capture over 20 percent of the national income, while the bottom 50 percent take in only 13 percent. It will explode the deficit, starving our country of the resources it needs to invest in education, infrastructure, and scientific research--all the things that help the middle class.

After all of that, it will endanger Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Then, 1 or 2 or 3 years down the line, Republicans will come back to slash those programs to pay for the deficit they have created.

Finally, our Republican friends say: Well, it will create a whole lot of jobs. Give money to the wealthiest corporations. As has been shown over and over again, the wealthiest corporations have a ton of money right now. They are not creating jobs. Give them more money? They will not create any more jobs. The only claim our Republican colleagues have for the middle class is trickle-down. Well, my friends, no one believes in trickle-down except for a handful of wealthy, greedy people who seem to be controlling what you are saying and doing in this tax bill.

This bill, in short, is a cynical one-two gut punch to the middle class. It raises middle-class taxes to pay for corporate tax cuts and decimates their earned benefits as a kicker. Surely we can do better than this.

Tomorrow Republicans will have a chance to vote down this tax bill, which is one of the least popular pieces of legislation in the last 30 years. My Republican colleagues have accomplished an amazing trick. A tax cut, usually popular, is 2-to-1 unpopular in America. Good work.

They know what is in it. The public knows. They know they are getting crumbs, if anything, and many are getting increases, while the highest income people do great. Well, let me just say, if by some miracle, our Republican colleagues get the good sense to vote this package down and really help the middle class instead of just helping the wealthy, we Democrats will be there. They will find a Democratic leader and a Democratic Party willing to work with them on real bipartisan tax reform.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, on the year-end negotiations, they are making headway--that is good--but many issues still remain to be resolved.

We need to provide funding for community health centers, CHIP, and areas that have been hit by disasters. We need to pass a bipartisan deal to pair the Dream Act with border security and pass a budget deal that fully funds both our national security and our economic security, in the common parlance known as ``parity.''

If we don't lift the spending caps for defense and also urgent domestic priorities--jobs, the economy--both will come under the specter of sequestration. Lifting those spending caps in equal measure has been the basis of successful budget agreements going back several years.

There has been parity between defense and nondefense for the last three

budget negotiations. That is how it ought to stay. That is what brought us to good agreements. That is what averted shutdowns. Unfortunately, it appears that the Freedom Caucus in the House, which doesn't represent the mainstream of America or even the mainstream of Republicans, is trying to derail another successful parity agreement. Unfortunately, Speaker Ryan, as he is doing far too often, to the detriment of the country and his party, is just following its lead.

Last night, the House posted what is called a CRomnibus--a very short-term extension of funding for jobs and economic development that will lead to cuts in those areas but a long-term extension and a large increase of funding for defense. This is merely a ruse that is designed to slash funding for education, healthcare, infrastructure, and scientific research--all things the Freedom Caucus doesn't want the government to fund--against the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans.

At this late hour, it is also an unfortunate waste of precious time. Earlier this week, 44 Senate Democrats sent a letter to our Republican colleagues that explicitly warned them that Democrats could not support such an approach. Because 60 votes are needed to advance a spending bill here in the Senate, House Republicans should have known not to waste everyone's time with a partisan spending bill that could never pass in the Senate.

The CRomnibus is nothing but a spectacle--a charade, a sop--to some militant, hard-right people who don't want the government to spend money on almost anything. It is a perilous waste of time as the clock ticks closer and closer to the end of the year.

It is time for our Republican colleagues--especially in the House, where the Freedom Caucus is like the tail wagging the dog--to get serious about working with Democrats toward a real parity agreement. Every hour that the House spends on the CRomnibus is an hour that could be spent on our working on a deal to avert a shutdown and solve the many pressing issues that Congress must grapple with before the end of the year.

If Speaker Ryan decides to press forward with a CRomnibus, it will quickly fail in the Senate, and we can get back to negotiating a real bipartisan agreement that will provide certainty and full funding to both our national defense and the middle class. Speaker Ryan has gone along with this approach three times in a row--or the House Republicans have. I think Ryan was the Speaker for two of those three and was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee for the third. Right now, Speaker Ryan is pursuing a dead-end strategy. Instead, we urge him to continue working with Democrats on a bipartisan, long-term agreement that will keep the government open and fund our major priorities-- defense, with jobs and the economy on the other side.

By the way, even on the other side of the ledger, the things that affect our security, like the border and the FBI, are funded on the nondefense side, and you have to have security in every way in this terrorism-ridden world in which we live.

Mr. President, a word on the Republican tax bill. On both process and substance, it appears that the Republicans' conference committee is making all the mistakes that the Republicans made when they passed their bill in the first place. Even though there is still not a final agreement on the text of the tax bill, Republican leaders promise a vote on the committee report as early as Monday of next week. I am not sure that my colleagues will have had enough time to have read and digested the bill that passed this Chamber a few weeks ago, let alone an entirely new conference report that will include many changes. It is the same rushed, awful process as before, and it can only result in mistakes and unintended consequences that could wreak havoc on the economy. Why are our Republican colleagues rushing this bill through? I think that they are ashamed of it.

Every day, the more people know about the bill, the more they don't like it. Just in the polling data today, it shows that the popularity of the bill continues to plummet, and a poll out today said it is not just that the people do not like the bill but that those who vote for it will be affected at election time. The poll today asked people if they were more or less likely to vote for a Congressman who would vote for this bill or to vote for a Senator who would vote for this bill. Many in the public said that they were less likely to vote for a Congressman who would vote for this awful bill. The public knows that it is awful. Why? They know that Republicans are doubling down in this new proposal on the core mistake of their bill by tilting it even further in favor of the wealthy.

I saw on TV this morning a guy from the Club for Growth and a guy from--I forgot the name--another group. These are narrow, narrow groups that have very little support and that are funded by the hard-right group of billionaires who want to see their taxes cut. They don't even talk about what is in the bill. They try to talk about its being a job creator, but they dare don't say, like so many of my Republican colleagues, how disproportionately it goes to those in the upper incomes and not to the middle class.

Amazingly enough, behind closed doors, they have made a bad bill even worse. One of the most significant changes that have been made by the conference committee will be to lower the top tax rate 2 percentage points more than in the original bill. Let's help those millionaires get an even lower tax rate than they have now, for they are doing so poorly. This is crazy. There are a lot of wealthy people in America. God bless them. I don't resent their wealth, but they don't need a tax break. On the other hand, there are hundreds of millions of struggling middle-class people, and they could use that kind of money. Yet millions of people in this bill who are middle class, upper middle class, and who are struggling to be middle class get a tax increase. Instead of lowering the rate on the highest income people, why not use the money to help those in the middle?

Despite all of the concerns about raising middle-class taxes, which makes the bill as unpopular as I just mentioned, the one big thing that Republicans go back and change is the rate paid by the wealthiest of Americans. They lower it. When it comes down to a choice between the middle class and the wealthy and the middle class and big corporations, the Republicans just instinctively, atavistically--in a knee-jerk way-- choose the wealthy and the powerful over the middle class. That is why they are struggling.

I believe that is why President Trump's numbers are as low as they have ever been. People are getting a feel--a smell--in that President Trump talks about the middle class, but when he acts, like in this tax bill, it is to help the wealthiest and the most powerful. That happens with issue after issue.

I see that my colleague Dick Blumenthal, the Senator from Connecticut, has come to the floor. He is going to talk about net neutrality, I believe. Again, help the big cable companies and the corporations, and make it harder for the middle class when it comes to cable service and the cost of cable.

Republicans claim that lowering the top rate is an attempt to address tax hikes that would result from their plan to gut the State and local deduction, but reducing the top rate only helps the very wealthy-- couples who make over $1 million in the last draft that we heard about--but they are already the prime beneficiaries of this tax plan.

I have a feeling that President Trump was hearing from his handful of wealthy friends who pay a lot in State and local taxes, many from my home State of New York. He decided, well, I will lower their taxes even more. But 99 percent of State and local deductions are taken by Americans with incomes under $1 million. More than half of the taxpayers who take the SALT deduction make less than $100,000. Reducing the top rate does nothing to help the 99 percent of taxpayers who take SALT. It only helps the top 1 percent, who make over $1 million. But this is what, it seems, the President and our Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate keep doing.

As I have said from the start, eliminating or cutting the State and local deduction would hurt the middle class across the country. It would raise taxes on millions, lower home values for millions more, and gut our State and local

programs--education, law enforcement, infrastructure. None of those programs were addressed in the conference. Instead, the richest Americans will likely get an even bigger tax break.

There is no reason to rush the bill through the Senate.

Tuesday night, as our Presiding Officer knows, we had an election in Alabama. This Chamber is waiting for the seating of a new Senator. Shouldn't the people of Alabama have their voices in the Senate present for a vote on the tax bill?

Again I would say to my friend the majority leader, slow down and wait for Senator-Elect Jones to arrive before taking any more votes on the tax bill. Democrats waited for Republican Senator Scott Brown in 2010, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, Republicans don't seem to want to do the same. It is the right thing to do, and it will give every Senator and the American people more time to consider the legislation.

Madam President, as we know, last night a Democrat won in the State of Alabama for the first time in a quarter century.

Last night's election of Doug Jones was not only the repudiation of a candidate unfit to serve in this body; it was an affirmation of a candidate who represents the very best of public service.

I read Doug Jones' bio. One story stands out in my mind. As a second- year law student, Doug Jones skipped class to attend the trial of the Klansman ringleader of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church--an event, as we all remember, that shook the conscience of our country and helped launch a mighty movement for civil rights. Although a young Doug Jones was moved by the disposition of justice in that trial, he was left with the impression that other members of the conspiracy had escaped the reach of the law. So 24 years later, when Doug Jones became the U.S. attorney in Alabama, he pursued charges against two more Klan members involved in the bombing, winning their conviction, and delivered a long-delayed but mighty righteous justice.

Doug Jones deserved to win the race last night. He is a fine man, was an excellent candidate, and is going to make an outstanding Senator for the people of Alabama. I congratulate Senator-Elect Jones and look forward to welcoming him to this Chamber and our caucus.

Two additional points in regard to the election, which has a link to the Chamber here:

First, the election of a Democrat in such a conservative State, which hadn't had a Democratic Senator since 1996--they elected one in 1990, I guess--is a clarion call for bipartisanship. The American people are clamoring for us to work together, to eschew the politics of divisiveness and once again conduct our politics with civility, decency, and an eye toward compromise. That is what Doug Jones represented as a candidate, it is what he campaigned on, and his election should signal to all of my Republican colleagues that the American people, from the deepest red States to the deepest blue States, yearn for our politics to function again in a bipartisan way.

The election of a Democrat in such a conservative State is a clarion call for bipartisanship. The people of Alabama have spoken, and they have sent a message asking both Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve our greatest challenges. That is how Doug Jones campaigned. Roy Moore did not try to pursue any scintilla of bipartisanship, and it might have been one of the reasons he lost, particularly in the suburbs of Birmingham and other cities. I hope we in this body will take this election in earnest and pursue a course of bipartisanship.

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

Mr. President, last week, the House and Senate passed a short-term funding bill to keep the government open as Republican and Democratic negotiators continue to work on a long-term spending deal. The negotiations are advancing well, but many issues remain to be resolved.

First and foremost, we must resolve the issue of the spending caps. If we do nothing, there will be painful and unnecessary cuts to both defense spending and programs that invest directly in jobs and economic development for the middle class in early January. We must lift the spending caps for defense and also those urgent domestic priorities in equal measure. That has been the basis of the successful budget agreements going back several years and as recently as April of this year. There was parity between defense and nondefense, and that is how it ought to stay. That is what brought us home to a good agreement and no shutdowns in previous years.

As the opioid crisis continues to rage, dimming the bright future of so many Americans, we have a moral obligation to step up our country's support for addiction treatment and recovery. I have had a father cry in my arms because his son was online waiting to get into a treatment program, but it was too crowded. He had to wait, and his son died of an overdose before he could get in. We can't have that in America.

So many of our young people, the flower of our youth, are dying or being hurt so badly, addicted, with this opioid crisis. We cannot sit by, just as we cannot sit by with foreign threats that plague our country.

As veterans continue to struggle to find the quality healthcare they deserve after bravely serving this Nation, we should be making additional investments in veterans' healthcare and veterans hospitals. Just as we need to help

our soldiers abroad, we need to help those who have fought for us, risked their lives for us, and now have healthcare problems.

As hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of miners, truckdrivers, construction workers, and food service workers approach retirement age, we have to make sure the pension plans promised to them have enough in the bank to fulfill that promise. These people painstakingly paid every month into their plans, and so did their employers. They would forgo larger salary increases so they could make sure they are taken care of when they retire.

Now that the pension funds--in good part because of the crash of 2008--don't have the money they need, these people should not be left out. Hard-working American families deserve to retire with the dignity and security they have earned. If we don't meet these pension obligations today, they are going to cost the government a whole lot more tomorrow. That is why Democrats are fighting for a pension solution in the year-end spending bill.

These are all urgent priorities. There are more. They can't wait another day, just as we must make sure our men and women in uniform have the resources and support they need to do their job. Let's do both in a bipartisan way.

As Democrats continue to push for desperately needed funding to combat the opioid crisis, improve veterans' healthcare, and shore up pension plans, we will also be pushing to reauthorize CHIP--the Children's Health Insurance Program--and community health centers, as well as dealing with certain healthcare programs that have expired.

We have to do more for the Americans in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands who are still recovering from devastating natural disasters.

We are in the process of negotiating with Republicans to provide a significant investment in border security in exchange for DACA. These talks continue to progress, and I am hopeful we can reach an agreement on that issue as well.

We have a lot to get done before the end of the year. We don't have much time to do it, but with the concerted effort of both parties, negotiating in good faith, I believe we can reach an agreement acceptable not to every Member of either Chamber but to large numbers of Members on both sides of the aisle so we can pass our agreement by a wide margin.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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