Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday the chairman and the ranking member of the HELP Committee came to a bipartisan agreement on a package to stabilize our healthcare law and to lower premiums. It was the product of months of difficult negotiations. Like all good negotiations, both sides gave some and both sides got some. The product is something that neither side is completely happy with but that both sides can move forward with. That is what a good, fair compromise looks like. It took work, and, at a time when bipartisanship is desperately sought after, this was not even just a flicker but a nice flame of bipartisanship burning brightly.

Then, a few minutes ago, President Trump tweeted: I am supportive of Lamar as a person, and also of the process, but I can never support bailing out insurance companies who have made a fortune with ObamaCare.

There are many reasons to be vehemently strongly upset about this tweet and how wrong it is. First, frankly, the President doesn't know what he is talking about in the compromise.

It doesn't bail out insurance companies. It helps people who are sick and who need healthcare. It keeps their premiums low. It allows them to go to a doctor or get a medicine that they need.

Senators Alexander and Murray made sure that, in the provisions they were writing, the money would not go to the insurance companies but rather would go to millions of Americans who need help because they couldn't afford healthcare on their own.

The President ought to know what he is talking about when he tweets about bills because on this one, he had no understanding of what it is about. This helps millions of people. This keeps premiums down. This allows Americans--working class, middle class, many of whom are in rural areas in red States--it allows them to go to the doctor, go to the hospital, get medicine. Nothing bothers Americans more than when they can't get healthcare they desperately need for themselves or a loved one.

So, first, the President ought to know what the bill is about before he tweets. Clearly from this tweet, he doesn't.

Second, this President keeps zigging and zagging, so it is impossible to govern. Two Thursdays ago, the President called me in the gym and said: Let's work on a bipartisan solution on healthcare. It was his initiation. He first talked about, let's repeal and replace; I told him that is off the table. But I then said that Senator Alexander and Senator Murray are working on a compromise--and I outlined the basic compromise they were coming up with, that each side got something--and the President suggested that he call Senator Alexander and I call Senator Murray and encourage them. I called Senator Murray; he called Senator Alexander. And he called Senator Alexander, from what Senator Alexander told me, several times to encourage him.

Yesterday, he called the Murray-Alexander deal a ``very good solution.'' Now, this morning, he says he can't support it. He can't support bailing out insurance companies that have made a fortune with ObamaCare. He is wrong on the facts, as I mentioned, doesn't know what the bill is. We should have a President who actually knows the facts of bills he talks about.

Second, he is totally inconsistent. He is for it one day, against it the next day.

Mr. President, you cannot govern a country, you cannot keep America great if you don't know what is in the bills and don't have a consistent policy about them.

But he keeps zigging and zagging. Our only hope is that maybe tomorrow he will be for this again.

Finally, a word in general: We all know there are extremes in America. The hard right has a lot of power here. If every time the hard right says ``jump,'' the President says ``how high,'' his Presidency will be a failure. Yet that is what has happened repeatedly.

The hard right doesn't represent America on healthcare. Eighty percent of the people did not like the TrumpCare bill that the hard right supported--80 percent. The majority of Americans, by a substantial margin, want to see ObamaCare strengthened, not repealed. The hard right doesn't; they want to get rid of it.

If the President simply is responding to them, it is not leadership. He did the same thing on DACA. Leader Pelosi and I met with him. It was clear what we sought--approval of the Dream Act. He agreed, provided there was border security, explicitly no wall. The next day, the rightwing attacked him. Laura Ingraham or one of those radio commentators said he should be impeached. I think Breitbart News called him Amnesty Trump. And he totally reversed himself.

That is not leadership, Mr. President. That is blatant fear.

We all understand political forces. They push us all around. When you are President, you have an obligation to lead. And this Presidency has been so unsuccessful in accomplishing things--he can blame Mitch McConnell, which the President has done, or the Republicans in the Senate. He can blame the Democrats. But really the reason that we are not getting anything done and his Presidency has been so bare of accomplishment is that this President is embracing a hard-right, extreme position that is very far away from what Americans want. His Presidency will continue to fail, continue to be a failure, if he continues to do that.

So I would say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, going back to the agreement, the agreement is fair, and it is down the middle. As I said, each side gave. Let's move forward. Let's get a large percentage, a large number of Democrats and Republicans to sponsor this legislation. Let Leader McConnell have the good sense and the courage to put it on the floor. I would bet my bottom dollar it will pass. Let Speaker Ryan do the same, and we will have shown that we can get something done in a bipartisan way.

Lamar Alexander is not obstructing. Patty Murray is not obstructing. The President is obstructing at the moment. We should overcome that obstruction and work together. That is what the American people want.

I hope the President rethinks his position. He has rethought it several times already. I hope he actually reads and learns what is in the bill. And I hope we can get this done--not for any party's sake or any individual's sake but for the American people's sake, the millions and millions of Americans who can't afford high premiums, who desperately need healthcare and medicine, and who are praying for us to do something to help them.

Mr. President, on the budget, yesterday the Republican majority voted to start debate on a budget resolution that would increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion--so much for the deficit hawks. It would slash Medicare and Medicaid by $1.5 trillion--so much for the many people who don't want to cut it, who promised not to cut it, including the President. It blows a huge hole in the deficit--as I said, deficit hawks. Finally, it favors the very wealthy.

My friend here was once head of the Club for Growth. I salute him. He states his position. He believes tax cuts on the very wealthy and on big corporations will create jobs. We can have that debate. It is called trickle-down economics. But he is honest about it.

Some of the others--our Secretary of the Treasury, our advisers to the President, many in this Chamber--are saying this is a middle-class tax cut. When 80 percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent, when we remove the estate tax, which doesn't apply to anyone whose estate is less than close to $11 million, it is a tax cut for the wealthy. Some people believe that is a good way to exercise policy. The American people don't. But let's debate it that way.

Our Republican colleagues, just like on healthcare, are ashamed of this bill. They can't debate it on what they really believe, and so they put up these chimeras. They sort of make it up: Oh, no, we won't have a deficit; there will be huge growth. I think the Secretary of the Treasury said that it will decrease the deficit by a trillion dollars. That was laughable. Oh, it will go to the middle class, not the wealthy. When they lower the top rate, raise the bottom rate, get rid of the estate tax, and allow passthroughs which will mainly go to very wealthy individuals to reduce their tax rate to 15 percent--that is in the outline.

So today we begin the process of shining light on this awful proposal, of telling the truth. That is what the amendment process will be today.

Today we are going to vote on a Democratic amendment to strike the trillion dollars of cuts in Medicaid. If our colleagues don't want to cut Medicaid, they should vote for this. If our colleagues are OK with a trillion dollars of cuts in Medicaid, let them vote against the amendment, but believe me, the American people will know exactly how each Member of this Chamber feels when it comes to dramatically cutting Medicaid.

We will also propose an amendment to strike the cuts to Medicare. Now, in the healthcare bill, in one of the reiterations, we debated cutting Medicaid. We haven't debated cutting Medicare, but now we will. Some $473 billion of cuts are in the exact budget our Republican colleagues wish us to vote for. And it will shine a light on what really is in this bill, not what is said.

How many of you on the Republican side have mentioned that this bill cuts Medicare and Medicaid, this budget proposal? Are you going to start mentioning it today, or are you going to try to hide it? Because it does. By the way, the idea that this doesn't count because it is just in a budget that we can ignore is belied by the fact that there is statutory pay-go--statutory, not rules--and it says that Medicare is cut 4 percent if there is a deficit in terms of tax cuts. OK? Are you going to cut Medicare 4 percent? We don't want to do that. We hope you don't. But this budget would require that under the pay-go rules, and that is law.

So we are going to have amendments. Do you want to cut Medicaid or not? Yes or no. Do you want to cut Medicare or not? Yes or no. Do you want to vote for a $1.5 trillion deficit or not? Yes or no. And do you want 80 percent of the tax cuts to go to the top 1 percent, to the very wealthy, while middle-class taxes are raised for many people? Yes or no.

Today begins the process of truth. Today begins the process that shines light on all of the misrepresentations by Secretary Mnuchin and Gary Cohn and by the President himself, who says he is just going to cut taxes on the middle class, not on the wealthy.

This process will be going on for a while. There is going to be a very bright light shining on our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate. It is going to take them a while to come up with a bill. It is not easy writing a massive tax bill. And all the while, while they are writing it--and certainly once it comes out--that bright line of truth will produce, in my judgment, the same result we had on healthcare. The more the American people see, the less they will like it.

A CBS poll on Sunday said that 58 percent of the American people believe that the Trump bill is tax cuts for the wealthy; only 19 percent believe it is for the middle class. That number is going to get worse, my colleagues, just as the healthcare thing got worse. The American people turned against you as we Democrats shined a bright light on what it really did.

You cannot govern from the hard right. As wealthy as they are, as much as they threaten you with primaries, it is not going to work. We still have a foundation of democracy. There is still a foundation of honor and truth. And when honor and truth and sunlight hit this bill, it will crumble.

Now, I say to some of my colleagues that we want to work with you on a good tax reform bill, one that is revenue neutral, one that doesn't favor the wealthy. We believe small businesses should get tax breaks. We believe money from overseas should come back and be used to create jobs. There are lots of things we can do on common ground without blowing a hole in the deficit, without cutting Medicare and Medicaid, without favoring the rich. Defeat this bill, we will work with you, just as we have on healthcare. We said: If you defeat that bill, we will try to come up with a bipartisan compromise, and we have--one that the President is flip-flopping on, zigzagging on, saying yes one day and no the next. But we have come up with a compromise, and the same thing can happen on taxes.

Today is a beginning turning point in the tax debate, the day that what is really in this Republican bill will come to light, and the American people, as they learn about it, will not like it.

I yield the floor.

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

First, Mr. President, a brief word on healthcare. Senators Alexander and Murray continue to negotiate a bipartisan package of legislation to stabilize our healthcare markets and lower premiums, a process that began over the summer. From what I have heard, they are down to a few final issues and are hopefully close to an agreement that can be taken back to both of our caucuses. Congress ought to show, through the work started by Senators Alexander and Murray way back in July, that Congress can work in a bipartisan way on healthcare, and we have no intention of going along with President Trump's reckless sabotage of the Nation's healthcare law.

Last week, President Trump showed that he is willing to take a wrecking ball to our Nation's healthcare for the sake of politics without any regard to the people it would hurt: veterans, senior citizens, kids, and folks struggling to afford insurance. President Trump was so angry they couldn't repeal and replace, he instead said: I am going to wreck the system. The problem is, it hurts millions of innocent people all for pique and politics. He has shown he is willing to put at risk the healthcare of millions of Americans. President Trump's decision to end the cost-sharing program was an act of impulsive malice with no benefit and no end.

This seems to be his MO. He throws red meat to his rightwing base, whether it is on healthcare, immigration, Iran, or disaster aid. Then he says to Congress: You fix it up. That is not the way to lead. That is following. That is an act that exhibits no strength--no strength.

We want our President to be a strong leader. Every American does, regardless of ideology, but when the President plays so many political games that are not just harmless but that hurt people and then says to Congress to clean it up, blaming Congress for the mess he created, it doesn't work, it is not fair, it is not right, and it is the reason that, except for his base, President Trump's numbers keep sliding. They are flat now, and they are down below 40 percent. No President has had such low numbers. By the way, it is not helping the Republican Party. Numbers today show a record difference between whether people prefer Democrats or Republicans, so I would urge him to stop these harmful, almost malicious shenanigans and let us all work together for the good of our country.

On healthcare, we in Congress should continue to shore up the healthcare markets and lower premiums in a bipartisan way. We ought to reject the path of President Trump's sabotage and destruction and instead view a path of consensus and compromise. That is the way it has to go. No side wins everything they want. That is not how the Founding Fathers set up this country, otherwise we would be a dictatorship or a country without checks and balances. We ought to work together to improve our healthcare system, to lower costs for people, and to ensure that more people have access to health coverage. We Democrats have been pushing that for several months now.

I salute Senators Alexander and Murray for understanding that. They have been in careful negotiations that represent the best first step forward on healthcare. I hope we hear more from them on the status of negotiations. I hope they can come to an agreement that includes curtailing the sabotage I spoke of that the President is doing. I hope Leader McConnell and I can support this bill together, and then maybe even the House might pass it. The President has said, I think--we don't know, it changes from day to day--but I think the most recent pronouncement is that he might sign it.

Mr. President, on the GOP tax plan, as soon as today, we will vote on the motion to proceed to the GOP budget resolution, which includes instructions to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion, slash Medicare and Medicaid by $1.5 trillion, and sets up, unfortunately for everybody, the same destructive, partisan process on taxes that the GOP used for healthcare called reconciliation. It says: We don't need you. We are just going to rush it through with our votes. It didn't work on healthcare. It is not going to work on this either.

Tax reform--if it is real reform--or even just tax cuts are very complicated. If you don't have the center coming together, everyone can pick it apart, and they are setting themselves up to do just that.

Although the Republican tax plan is little more than principles at the moment--and we have talked a lot about these principles of the Republican plan--it is so far away from what the American people want because of the process they have decided to use. When you don't want Democrats and use just Republicans, the people of the hard right--a minority in the Republican Party probably--can push the debate so far over because they say: We are not voting for this unless you do it our way. So we have a bill that really is so out of touch and harmful to all but the wealthiest Americans that it is hard to believe the Republicans are putting it forward with a straight face.

It is going to be the first time, my friends, that Republicans in Congress will vote to increase our Nation's deficit by $1.5 trillion, which is spelled out as clear as day in the budget. I hope, given this dramatic increase in the deficit, all of the Republican deficit hawks are out of their nests for this one.

For the sake of ideological consistency, the same folks who decried debt and deficit under President Obama ought to denounce them under President Trump, but we haven't heard much of a peep from a whole lot of Republicans on this side with a few notable, brave, and leaderlike exceptions.

Here is what Representative Walker, a conservative Member of the House, said, lamenting what was going on:

[The deficit is] a great talking point when you have an

administration that is Democrat-led. It's a little different

now that Republicans have both houses and the administration.

There's been less talk about it this year with a Republican-

led administration than there has been the last seven or

eight years.

Representative Walker is exactly accurate.

The Republican leader on May 16 told Bloomberg TV that tax reform ``will have to be revenue neutral.'' These are his words. That is a principle he has advanced for years.

We are not hearing much from Republicans about deficits now. Yet, I repeat, this budget instructs the committees to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. It will be difficult for many of my Republican friends to say that they care about deficits and still vote for this budget.

The GOP budget resolution will also be the first time that my Republican colleagues vote to slash Medicare. The budget spells out over $400 billion in Medicare cuts, as well as over $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts--even more than the healthcare bill, and probably the No. 1 reason for its demise was that huge slash to Medicaid.

So it is going to be difficult for my Republican friends and this Republican Party to say that they want to protect Medicare and Medicaid and still vote for this budget. Unfortunately, this will not be the first time Republicans vote to advance a major piece of legislation-- changes to our Tax Code--through a hyperpartisan process known as reconciliation. Reconciliation, as has just been documented in an article--I believe it was in Politico, but in one of our leading publications--was never intended for this type of purpose.

With this vote, though, Republicans are saying from the very outset that they don't really want Democratic input on this bill because they are setting up a process in which they don't really need Democratic votes. It is honestly a shame. And just as the partisan reconciliation process portended failure for the Republican healthcare bill, it is likely to portend failure here as well.

It is difficult to pass major legislation in the Senate, as it should be. That is what the Founding Fathers intended. That is the true conservatism of our government: checks and balances, no rush. It is even more difficult if you work only with the votes of one party. As I said, that allows a small few, usually on the hard right, to dictate what is in this bill.

My guess is that the vast majority of people here didn't want to vote for Medicare and Medicaid cuts, but because they couldn't get enough votes in the House to pass the budget without putting that in, because maybe 30 or 40 Members there insisted on it, it is in there. It is not going to serve you well. If anyone thinks it doesn't have real effect, look at the PAYGO rules. This is not just the budget. PAYGO, after this budget passes, would insist on slashes in Medicare, 4 percent. That is the law; that is not a rule.

I hope that our colleagues will vote down this bill, and then I promise you, just as we are doing on healthcare, we can come together in a bipartisan way. That doesn't mean you get everything you like. It probably means more of the tax cuts go to the middle class and fewer to the wealthy, but there are lots of people on our side of the aisle who want to see small business get a tax cut, who want to see money from overseas come here and be used for jobs, and who want to see a middle- class tax break. We could come up with a bipartisan bill that would make, for the first time in a long time, this body shine.

The Republican Congress, at least at the moment on the path it is on, has abandoned the grand tradition of bipartisanship, working together, which has made this Chamber great through the decades and centuries.

When Republicans need Democratic votes, they come to us. The President and the leader have said: Come vote with us. Make it bipartisan. That is not what bipartisanship is. You don't craft a bill just within your party and then say: Voting with us is bipartisan. Bipartisanship means you sit down together and you come out with a proposal that a majority of both parties can support. They are not doing that.

Republicans will spend the entire first year of this Congress trying to pass their major agendas through reconciliation or similar vehicles, first with CRAs, then healthcare, now taxes. The majority leader himself said in a speech, ``Restoring the Senate,'' in 2014 that ``when the Senate is allowed to work the way it was designed to, it arrives at a result acceptable to people all along the political spectrum.'' But if it's an ``assembly line for one party's partisan legislative agenda,'' it creates ``instability and strife'' rather than ``good, stable law.''

The American people want to see us work together. We may not always succeed. It may not be easy, but we can try.

As I said--and I would say this to my colleagues--there are areas in which we can agree on taxes: Lower middle-class taxes; don't raise them. Give some relief to small business. Try to bring the money from overseas and put it into infrastructure and job creation. We can work together, but not in this process and not with this awful bill, which favors the wealthy dramatically, raises taxes on the middle class, hurts the deficit--increases the deficit dramatically--and is a partisan process. I hope my Republican friends keep that in mind when they vote today. If you vote this down, I promise you that we will come together in a bipartisan way and work for something that actually could pass, instead of what happened with healthcare. Try it. Try it. Reconciliation--working with one party--failed miserably for you on healthcare, and now we are coming together. Let's not repeat the same mistake on taxes.

Office of National Drug Control Policy Nomination

Finally, Mr. President, I just heard that the nomination of Representative Marino to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been withdrawn. That is the right decision. The fact that he was nominated in the first place is evidence that the Trump administration talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk. The bottom line is that this Congressman supported President Trump but is the wrong person for the job, and I am glad they saw it and withdrew.

I want to salute two of my colleagues who were way out in front on this: Senator Manchin, whose State has been ravaged by opioids, and Senator McCaskill, who has similar problems, particularly in rural areas, but all over. Senator McCaskill has legislation that I think would correct the kinds of ills we have seen in Representative Marino's proposals, and I hope that in a bipartisan way we can support them.

The opioid crisis demands that the next drug czar be solely focused on getting communities across the country the help they desperately need, and we hope the administration nominates someone who fits that bill so we can pass that nominee quickly and in a bipartisan way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent all remaining time be yielded back.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, first, on the issue of healthcare, last week, President Trump committed two

acts of pointless sabotage of our Nation's healthcare system. He signed an Executive order that would give insurers more latitude to sell temporary, junk plans that are not only incredibly risky to the consumer but undermine the rest of the healthcare market by drawing healthy Americans out of the pool. Even worse, President Trump decided to stop the cost-sharing program, which reduces premiums, deductibles, and copays for 7 million Americans a year. There is literally no upside to the President's decision to end the cost-sharing program.

Because of the President's actions, premiums will go up between 20 and 25 percent, according to the CBO. Just today in Pennsylvania, we saw premiums rise by 30 percent as a direct result of the President's actions. Deductibles and out-of-pocket costs will go up by thousands of dollars. Deficits will rise by $194 billion because the government will have to pay more in subsidies to make up for the lack of the cost- sharing program, and the marketplaces will become less stable because more people will go uninsured.

The Republican Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, may have said it best:

It's going to hurt people. It's going to hurt kids. It's

going to hurt families. It's going to hurt individuals. It's

going to hurt people with mental health issues. It's going to

hurt veterans. It's going to hurt everybody.

That is from Republican Governor Brian Sandoval.

Another point that the President should hear is that nearly 70 percent of the Americans who benefit from these cost-sharing payments live in States that Donald Trump won in the election.

Make no mistake about it--the President is deliberately undermining our healthcare system with these two actions. When premiums go up because of this action, the blame will fall on his shoulders.

There is a way out. The way out of all of this is for Congress to aggressively pursue a bipartisan healthcare bill that will take cost- sharing out of the President's hands by locking in the payments. For many months, Democrats have been pushing to stabilize the markets and to work toward a bipartisan agreement that would keep premiums down for millions of Americans. Senators Alexander and Murray have been negotiating a package that would include cost-sharing as well as some provisions that the Republicans want. These negotiations began long before the President's decision to end cost-sharing last week. I am encouraged by the progress of the negotiations, and I am hopeful that we are nearing an agreement that makes clear that we have no intention of supporting the President's reckless efforts at sabotage.

If President Trump is now supportive of an agreement that stabilizes and improves the existing system under the Affordable Care Act, we certainly welcome the change of heart. We have been asking for this for a long time. We hope that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in their realizing the damage the President has done, will join us in strengthening, not in sabotaging, the healthcare system.

Madam President, now a word on the Republican tax plan.

This week, the Republican majority will likely move to pass a budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. Amazingly, it also includes a total of $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Cutting taxes on the wealthy to be paid for by cutting Medicare and Medicaid? How many Americans want that--Democrat, Republican, Independent, liberal, conservative? The GOP budget makes it as clear as day that the Republicans will try to pay for a massive tax cut for the wealthy by cutting Medicare and Medicaid. It is the same formula they used for TrumpCare--cutting healthcare to pay for tax cuts for the rich. The American people rose up against that plan, and it failed. This plan should fail for the same exact reason.

Now the White House is out with a new report today, which reads that a giant tax cut for big corporations will increase wages for middle- class Americans. President Trump complains about fake news. Well, this is fake math, and it is as bad as any of the so-called fake news the President has complained about. This is a deliberate manipulation of numbers and facts that, quite frankly, is appalling. History shows that tax cuts like these benefit the wealthy and the powerful to the exclusion of the middle class. History shows that corporations will use tax cuts for CEO bonuses, stock buybacks, and dividends rather than for increasing worker pay or creating new jobs.

In fact, none other than Goldman Sachs concluded that shareholders, not workers, ``typically get most of the benefits of tax cuts.'' This is not a liberal think tank or Chuck Schumer talking; this is Goldman Sachs, which represents shareholders--a lot of them. The two authors of this plan, Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin, who are from Goldman Sachs, should heed what their former employer says. Even Goldman Sachs is saying that the Trump tax cuts will not create massive growth or new jobs or higher wages. In fact, another recent report by Goldman Sachs predicts only the most minor growth effects from this tax cut, not more than 0.1 or 0.2 percent.

As the President likes to point out, the stock market is at record highs, and companies are raking in unprecedented profits; yet wages have remained relatively flat. The companies are already flush with money--record profits. They are not creating jobs; they are enriching their shareholders and enhancing their CEOs' salaries with stock buybacks. It is proof positive that companies already have the cash reserves but do not use them to boost wages.

To assert the opposite, which is that giving corporations and the wealthy a tax cut leads to higher middle-class wages, belies the facts and the history, and it is a blatant attempt to fool Americans into thinking that the GOP plan would benefit them when in reality it is a sop to the rich. No wonder our Republican friends cannot talk about what the plan does--cuts taxes for the wealthy and powerful. They have to hide it and say that this is job growth. Those are fake numbers, and I would like my friends on this side of the aisle to admit that they believe in trickle-down economics, because that is what their plan is all about.

Rather than helping the biggest corporations avoid paying their fair share, tax reform ought to reward those companies that create jobs and raise wages here at home. Similarly, tax reform ought to directly benefit the middle class, but the Republican tax plan slashes a key middle-class deduction in the form of the State and local deductibility.

Now let's talk about Vice President Pence. He is visiting Buffalo, NY--a city I love in my home State. Since Vice President Pence is traveling to Buffalo, I thought that I would share some numbers about how the elimination of the State and local deduction affects western New York.

In Representative Collins' district, which stretches from East Buffalo toward Rochester, 29 percent of the residents claim the State and local deduction. They get an average deduction of $12,125. In Representative Higgins' district, which is in the heart of Buffalo, 27 percent of the residents claim the State and local deduction, with an average deduction of $12,083. In Representative Reed's district, which is just south and east of Buffalo, 22 percent of the residents claim the State and local deduction, with an average deduction of $11,716. Their constituents get clobbered, as do just about all New Yorkers and so many in the rest of the country, when you eliminate the State and local deductibility. It affects the middle class and the upper class. The State and local deduction elimination is a dagger to the heart, not just to Buffalo but to Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and all of Upstate New York.

Will Vice President Pence have the courage to answer questions about this deduction elimination? Will he tell middle-class New Yorkers that they are going to get a huge tax increase under this bill? When the Vice President arrives in Buffalo tomorrow, I hope he is prepared to explain why he wants to hike taxes on thousands of middle-class families in the Buffalo area, in the Rochester area, in the Syracuse area, and in the Albany area.

Eliminating the State and local deduction hurts the middle class, and it hammers the New York economy. Businesses, if they do not have this State

and local deduction, are not likely to relocate in Buffalo or Rochester or Syracuse or Albany. It also hurts homeowners. Make no mistake about it--if we get rid of the State and local deduction, the values of homes will go down. That is why the realtors are so opposed to this elimination. It is not just true in New York or in California or in Connecticut or in New Jersey; it is true across the whole country.

As for my dear friend and chairman of the Finance Committee's State of Utah, because of the great charity of his people--and so many tithe--35 percent of the taxpayers will get a huge, huge increase in their taxes with the elimination of State and local deductibility. So many of them do not use the standard deduction because they are so charitable, but they are penalized for that charity.

Eliminating the State and local deduction, while slashing taxes for the wealthy and huge corporations, will hurt middle-class taxpayers.

Now there are some efforts to compromise State and local deductibility. They don't work. Some have proposed letting taxpayers make a choice between getting rid of the mortgage deduction and getting rid of the State and local deduction. That is like saying: Should I chop off my left hand or my right hand, Mr. Middle-Class Taxpayer?

Others have said: Let's limit it to people who earn below $100,000. That still leaves lots of people at risk, particularly in high-priced areas like Long Island, and it doesn't reduce the deficit by much. It is estimated that a large percentage of the deficit will still go up.

It makes no sense to eliminate State and local deductibility. Vice President Pence ought to go to western New York, but instead of going just to a small business--and we want to lower small business taxes--he should go to a middle-class family in Amherst or in Orchard Park or Tonawanda and tell them that he is there to raise their taxes.

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

Mr. President, as we continue to grieve with the people of Las Vegas and families of the injured and the deceased, when I think of the pictures I see of those beautiful young people who had the best of life ahead of them, we ache for them. But our thoughts must turn to action so this doesn't happen again.

What can we do as a nation to change? Because surely when there are more mass shootings this year than there are the number of days this year, when we average more than one mass shooting per day, something has to change.

I am sure that if you asked the grieving families whether they want the laws to change so this might not happen again, the overwhelming majority would say yes, they would want us to do something. If we could talk to those brave souls who were killed and are now in Heaven, they would say: Do something. They wouldn't say: Let's wait. They wouldn't say: Leave things alone. The fact that they were killed, the fact that there were so many injured--they wouldn't think it is political to try to save their lives or prevent somebody else from dying the way they did. So when folks say: Don't bring politics into this, that it is inappropriate, I am sure the families of the loved ones who were lost would agree with me that it is appropriate and important and necessary.

Politics is where we are supposed to come together and debate the great problems of our time in order to find solutions to them. Politics is how we are supposed to make our country a better, safer, more prosperous place to live. And there is no more appropriate time than now to talk about the issue of gun violence.

Yesterday, President Trump visited Las Vegas. I am glad he went to show our solidarity and remind everyone there that they have the full support of the Nation. But he didn't talk about guns. There is a huge opportunity he

missed to lead this Nation in a reasonable, moderate debate on gun safety, but that opportunity is not over. The President still has the opportunity. All eyes are on the President to see if he will grasp the opportunity and lead the Nation to do something reasonable and moderate about guns and gun safety.

President Trump, are you going to wait to hear what the NRA says first? Are you going to wait for the NRA to give you the green light? You ran your campaign saying you were beholden to no one. You fashion yourself as a strong man. Well, are you going to show that you are not beholden to anyone now? Are you going to show your strength now? Are you going to be the first Republican President in a generation to buck the NRA? You know what the right thing to do is.

I say to President Trump: Come out and say that you support and would sign a law to ban bump stocks--the modification used by the Las Vegas gunman to make his weapons automatic. That is small, and it is the right thing to do. Don't wait for the NRA to make up their mind. Do it.

Of course, banning bump stocks can't be our only response. It is hardly enough. Even though we should do whatever we can in this body in obeisance to the NRA, we must do more. Abandoning efforts to deregulate silencers would be the next step. The police were able to figure out where the gunman was because of the noise from his gun in the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Let's forget about implementing a national concealed carry reciprocity. My police officers in Times Square don't want to let someone who has had no check, who might have a mental derangement like Paddock, come to Times Square--and they can't do anything about it; that is what that law would do--or any other heavily populated place, the downtowns of many of our big cities and even medium-sized cities, Disney World, baseball games, football stadiums. If this concealed carry reciprocity passed, crazy people could carry weapons concealed into any football stadium in America, and the police couldn't check on them and see if they had a gun.

We have to do these things. If you looked at what would be the most effective way in stopping the daily gun violence that is doable, the most important and attainable thing to do would be adopting universal background checks. It is common sense, it is measured, it is prudent, and it would be really effective.

The bill Senator Murphy introduced yesterday is one I have been involved with for a long time, and we should see if we can get enough support to pass it. We can and should talk about these issues more. It requires only a modicum of moral and political coverage. President Trump and Republicans in Congress ought to show that moral and political courage now by bucking the NRA and engaging in a reasonable debate about commonsense gun laws.

Fully automatic weapons are already illegal, made so by a law signed by President Reagan in 1986. Banning bump stocks is entirely consistent with the books. Senator Feinstein introduced a reasonable proposal. What are we waiting for, the NRA to give us a green light? That is so wrong.

If the President and Congress are so beholden to the NRA that they can't do the very bare minimum--banning a device that allowed a shooter to kill 59 Americans with ease, a device whose ban would in no way infringe on the legitimate rights of gun owners--then our politics, our means of making this country a better and safer place, will have once again failed us.

Mr. President, turning to the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, yesterday, once again, Congress received a request from the administration for a supplemental aid package that will go to help Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other States hit by storms. It also includes some money for the Western States beset by wildfires.

It is a good first step, but it is just the start of a long recovery and relief effort that will require additional aid from this Congress. While aid and resources are necessary now, these islands are just starting to assess the damage. Once they determine how devastating these storms actually were, we need to respond immediately to provide additional support and funds to assist their recovery and rebuilding, just as we have done for past storms and disasters. On this package, I have three points.

First, I am urging my colleagues to add additional and vital flexible funding for recovery like the community development block grant. We gave CDBG to help Texas after Harvey. We can't deprive Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands of this money.

Second, I am warning my colleagues on the other side--particularly those in the House--not to attach any extraneous, ideological policy riders to this urgent aid package. Ideological policy changes to the Flood Insurance Program and forest management policies should come nowhere near this bill. They tried to do it last week in the FAA bill, and we had to send it back because of joint opposition, both sides of the aisle. Let's not go through that again. I thank our chairman of the Banking Committee for helping in that regard.

Third, it has become clear that Puerto Rico's recovery will be further hindered by its ongoing debt crisis. That crisis, coupled with the devastation from Hurricane Maria, has led to growing concerns that the island will soon face a liquidity crisis. Simply put, the island is running out of money to pay for essential services like first responders, not to mention funds for rebuilding and recovery. The funds we hope to include in the disaster package are critical, but we have to make sure the island has enough cash to start the process. In FEMA, local governments often have to lay out the money first and then they get repaid, but Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to lay out so we have to deal with that issue to make it effective.

With these issues in mind, we should act quickly on this supplemental aid, but it is just the beginning of Congress's aid to rebuild.

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

Mr. President, I understand the administration intends to submit its first request for disaster aid for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands today. It is a good first step, but it is just the start of the financial aid we will need to provide to the American citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I urge my colleagues to work quickly to add additional and urgent funding for recovery, like community development block grant dollars, just as we did for Texas after Hurricane Harvey, with the understanding that an additional and more comprehensive request for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Florida, Texas, and the western wildfires will be coming from the administration once the damage assessments are complete.

Mr. President, returning to the events in Las Vegas on Sunday, we cannot let this American tragedy, another in a long line of American tragedies, fall out of our hearts and minds too quickly.

Let us pledge to be there for the families of the 59 Americans who were killed and the over 500 Americans who are still injured and recovering. Seeing the pictures of so many of these beautiful, young people in the prime of life--young, excited about the world, some of them newly married, some of them a little older with young children-- breaks your heart. So not just today or this week, but in the weeks and months to come, let us pledge to continue to show our gratitude to those firefighters and cops, the emergency and medical personnel, and all the other first responders who rushed to the scene. Let us pledge to remember the acts of everyday heroism that are a beacon of light in this moment of darkness: the lines to give blood that stretched around the block at 6 a.m., the teachers who went to school the day after the shooting to try and give their students a sense of normalcy. I hope these are the things President Trump highlights in his visit to Las Vegas today.

And one more thing: President Trump has an opportunity to wrench his party out of the grasp of the NRA and get our country and our Congress to start talking about commonsense gun safety reforms. Before President Trump ran for office, he repeatedly supported several sane, rational gun safety measures, including the assault weapons ban and longer waiting periods to purchase a gun. As recently as 2012, President Trump supported President Obama's response to Sandy Hook. In the wake of Sandy Hook, President Obama called for action. In the wake of

Las Vegas, President Trump should do the same.

We have heard it over and over again: Now is not the time to talk about gun safety because it would politicize the tragedy. My friend the majority leader said no less than three times at his press conference yesterday that it is premature and inappropriate to talk about any legislative solutions to the epidemic of gun violence.

As Martin Luther King said in his letter at the Birmingham Jail, ``not now'' means never. ``Wait'' means never. That is what he said: Wait means never.

The Republicans don't want to talk about it today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. We know why they don't want to talk about it. They know the country is totally against their view. It is not political out in the country. Over 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. A significant majority of Republicans support them. That is not political, I would say to my friend the majority leader.

It is political for him because he is afraid of the NRA, a powerful lobby that is off to the extreme. It is not political for American people or for Republicans. They are for it. Over 70 percent of gun owners support background checks for private sales and at gun shows. The only place where this is political is here, and that is because the NRA, the gun manufacturers, and their powerful lobby make these folks afraid--afraid to do the right thing. They know it is the right thing.

The NRA and these lobbies are the swamp the President is talking about. President Trump talks about the swamp, groups of lobbyists who thwart the will of the American people. That is what the NRA does.

So I say to the President, Mr. President, you have an opportunity to buck the NRA, buck the gun lobbyists, buck the swamp, and lead this country in an adult conversation about gun violence. The President can and should bring the parties together--the leaders of this Congress-- and let both sides know he is ready to address this issue head-on and talk about sensible, moderate measures of gun safety and, above all, background checks.

The President's visit is an important one today. He should be going. He should seek to provide comfort to the families and express gratitude to our first responders. But he should take it one step further. Call us together, lead this Nation in a debate about rational, moderate gun safety laws. Get us started on the work that so many Americans are desperate for us to do.

I urge my colleagues to look in the Record and see how it affects them. You are fooling yourself if you think that you are not affected by the State and local deductibility.

Of course, if you are a family of four in one of those States, the repeal of State and local could be a killer because, again, you would lose the personal exemption. The larger the family, the greater the loss of exemption.

I want to make one final point on tax reform. This is related to two people whom I know, and I knew one of them before he ever arrived in Washington. I have to make this point because what I heard them say over the weekend just turned my stomach. It was astounding. It was awful.

Over the weekend, we heard some pretty extraordinary claims from Republican legislators and Cabinet officials about what the GOP tax plan was all about, but Gary Cohn and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin deserve a special admonition.

Chief White House economic adviser Gary Cohn actually said: ``The wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan.'' That is not a surmising of what he said; that is a direct quote. ``The wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan.'' Comments like that should make everyone's head spin. According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent would reap 80 percent of the benefits of the GOP plan. The top 0.1 percent--the folks who make more than $5 million a year--would get a break of more than $1 million a year.

Some might argue, of course, that it will cause economic growth. I do not think that it will, but at least make your real argument. Do not hide it. You know that the American people do not agree with you. That is why you hide it.

Only in Wonderland, where down is up and up is down, could Gary Cohn's comments be believed. It is something like out of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell's ``1984,'' which would be to cut the top rate by 4 percent and repeal the estate tax--yes, no tax cuts for the wealthy. Bunk. It is why the Washington Post gave Gary Cohn four Pinocchios for his statement. If they had allowed more Pinocchios on the scale, I am sure he would have gotten them. He earned them, unfortunately.

What about Secretary Mnuchin? His lack of credibility resembles Gary Cohn's. He said that he believes the GOP plan would reduce deficits by $1 trillion. ``We think there will be $2 trillion of growth. So we think this tax plan will cut the deficits by a trillion dollars.'' Mnuchin's claim is fake math at its worst. As was written in the Washington Post, no serious economist, liberal or conservative, believes that a tax cut boosts economic growth so much that the tax cut pays for itself, let alone adds $1 trillion in revenue as Mnuchin claims. Four Pinocchios were given by the Washington Post. I am sure that he too--Steve Mnuchin--would have earned more Pinocchios.

Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin claim to be economic experts, and they both used to work at Goldman Sachs. If they had used this kind of math at Goldman Sachs, they would have been shown the door a long time ago. As I said before, they should know better, and they do know better. They ought to stop deliberately misleading the American people. It demeans them. It demeans the administration. It demeans the debate in this country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum calls be divided equally between both sides.

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

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