Floor Statements

Now, Mr. President, there are many subjects in this very quickly changing world in which we live. The next subject is infrastructure.

Today, President Trump will continue his infrastructure week in talking about inland waterways. I would like to repeat that Democrats welcome a discussion about these issues. Democrats have argued in favor of a large infrastructure package to address our crumbling roads and bridges, our levees, our dams, our ports, and our locks for a long time. While we disagreed with President Trump on a great many things during the campaign, I think many of my colleagues thought that when Mr. Trump was elected, we could find some common ground on the topic of infrastructure.

Needless to say, so far, the President's actions on infrastructure have been a disappointment. In 6 months, the President has not given any real details about his infrastructure plan. The most he has done is endorse an off-the-shelf plan to privatize air traffic control. In fact, he actually cut infrastructure spending in his budget by over $200 billion. Now, during what they have termed ``infrastructure week,'' the White House has only proposed to privatize much of our infrastructure.

Today, I expect more of the same--bold promises, few details. What details we do hear will likely be about how large financiers should decide where and how to build American infrastructure. That has never happened before. The approach will not address the very broad infrastructure needs we have. Financiers will not pay to finance infrastructure projects from which they cannot make a buck. It is their right to seek a profit--that is what businesses do and are supposed to do--but there is no such thing as a free lunch. They are going to need to get recompense when they lay out money. That kind of approach will not fix our water sewer systems. It will not expand rural broadband. It will not fix our energy grid. It will do one thing--lead to Trump tolls from one end of America to the other.

After the election, we stood ready to work with the President on a real bill, provided it would not be just tax breaks for private financiers or roll back labor and environmental protections. We even wrote a detailed blueprint on how to spend $1 trillion. That was the President's number. It would create 13 to 15 million jobs. It would rebuild our infrastructure--large parts of it--from one end of America to the other. It would not leave out rural areas that will never benefit from any kind of private financing, as Senators Barrasso and Moran have made clear.

We sent it to the White House and never heard a peep. I have talked to the President several times on the phone and said that I want to work with him on infrastructure--no response. Now we have their plan without any consultation from Democrats. Even with talk that they should do this on reconciliation, there has been no Democratic support or votes or input. Just as their doing things by reconciliation is tying the Republican Party in knots on healthcare, it does not bode too well for them on tax reform. It will mess up infrastructure as well.

So I hope the President drops his go-at-it-alone infrastructure push and instead decides to sit down and talk to Democrats about the issue. We agree wholeheartedly on the problem and its magnitude. Let's sit down and start talking about what solutions actually make sense. Let's not have a few financiers who whisper into the President's ear determine our infrastructure policy--because it will be a flop.

Now, Mr. President, on another matter: healthcare.

Yesterday, the insurer Anthem pulled out of exchanges in Ohio, citing the administration's decision to hold cost-sharing reduction payments hostage as the reason for its exit. Anthem joins a growing list of health insurers that have chosen to leave the 2018 marketplace or considered raising their rates as a result of the uncertainty the President and Republicans are causing--deliberately, in my judgment--in our healthcare system.

The President and Republicans blame ObamaCare for insurers leaving the marketplace. It is simply not true. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it is the ``substantial uncertainty about enforcement of the individual mandate and about future payments of the cost-sharing subsidies'' that have led insurers to withdraw from the current marketplace. AHIP, which is hardly a Democratic group--it is the largest trade group of insurers and is completely nonpartisan--said the uncertainty about cost-sharing payments was ``the single most destabilizing factor in the individual market.''

The Affordable Care Act is not falling under its own weight. It is being sabotaged deliberately by President Trump and Republicans who have been whipping up all of this uncertainty to gain political advantage, to say: ``I told you so.'' They are hurting millions of people. That is really wrong.

After downplaying weeks of expectations in moving forward, yesterday our

Republican colleagues said they expect to have a repeal bill passed by June 30. That is 23 days from today. From all reports, the efforts by Republican Senators to craft a different TrumpCare will be based on many of the provisions in the House bill--a bill that would remove the guarantee of coverage for preexisting conditions, raise rates on some older Americans by as much as 800 percent, and decimate Medicaid, which so helps rural folks, folks with a family member in a nursing home, and those suffering from opioid abuse. It would also leave 23 million more Americans without health insurance.

I remind all of my colleagues on the other side that drafting a Senate Republican healthcare bill that is based on a House bill is putting lipstick on a pig. TrumpCare is fundamentally flawed, has been rejected overwhelmingly by the American people of all political stripes, and will devastate our healthcare system in order to finance massive tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. There is no amount of window dressing that can fix up a flawed concept.

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that even if the proposal is 10 or 20 percent better than the House bill, it ain't close to being good enough for the American people. Republicans ought to drop the repeal. Choose to work with Democrats to actually improve our healthcare system, not to sabotage it.

Finally, Mr. President, a word on the President's latest idea for a border wall with Mexico. After the idea of a border wall was roundly rejected in the last omnibus by Members of both parties and after no Republican from a border State area would support the border wall, the President just cannot seem to let it go. Yesterday, it was reported that he actually pitched the idea of a 40- or 50-foot-tall border wall with solar panels. Never mind that he still has not come up with a plan on how to build the wall, where to build it--on our side or the Rio Grande side--or how to get the land on the border from the private citizens who own it. Never mind that a border wall would be incredibly expensive and ineffective in actually preventing illegal border crossings. Never mind that Mexico still wouldn't be paying for the border wall or its solar panels.

The President is still pushing this medieval proposal--now with an absurd twist. Just like painting stripes on a pony doesn't make a zebra, solar panels on a wall no one wants doesn't make it any more attractive. If the President thinks his new idea will catch on in Congress, well, I have a 50-foot-tall wall made of solar panels I will sell to you.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask permission to speak under leadership time for a brief moment.

Thank you, Mr. President.

With respect to the pending vote on the Iran sanctions bill, I want to be very clear. Democrats will vote to advance this bill to the floor because most of us support the bill but also because we expect an amendment process that will follow for a vote on a strong package of Russia sanctions. I have talked to the Republican leader about this. He is amenable to that.

Our Republican colleagues should realize it will be very difficult to gather Democratic support for final passage of this bill until we deal with Russia sanctions. We feel strongly that we need a tough, effective package of Russia sanctions to move alongside the Iran sanctions. We are currently negotiating to that end. I have faith that the majority leader and I, along with Chairman Corker, Chairman Crapo, Ranking Member Cardin, and Ranking Member Brown, will be able to agree on a way forward that allows for a final vote on Iran sanctions alongside a strong and effective package of Russia sanctions.

With that, I yield the floor.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, first I want to talk about infrastructure. This week, the administration is laying out a few ``proposals'' on infrastructure. So far, it has been a major disappointment. President Trump pitched a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan in his campaign and continued to mention it in the days after the election. We Democrats welcomed the idea.

One of my first conversations with the President after he was elected was about infrastructure.

I said: You called for a trillion-dollar infrastructure program.

He said to me: At least that.

I said: Sounds good to me. Let's work on it.

We have made overtures to the White House saying we would be willing to work with the President on infrastructure. I said it to the President directly several times. Democrats have been pushing for new money for infrastructure for a very long time. We even put out our own proposal, a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, hoping it would spark a discussion.

We Democrats continue to welcome a serious and constructive dialogue on this issue, but unfortunately the President continues to disappoint. We sent our plan several months ago, and we have heard nothing for those months. Now the President seems to be intent on pushing forward an infrastructure plan on his own, one with few details, that is mostly private sector driven--that means tolls--and with minimum investment, and that would ignore a huge section of our infrastructure. The President doesn't seem to be talking to anyone but a few people in his inner circle. Some of them are financiers. Of course, they have been financing private sector infrastructure for a long time, but that is not the way we have worked in America since Henry Clay, a former--not quite a Republican. We didn't have any then, but he was a Whig--the predecessor party--and he came up with this idea of internal improvements. I remind my dear friend, the majority leader, Mr. Clay was from Kentucky.

Internal improvements were supposed to connect what was then the east coast with the far West--Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio--with roads over Appalachia, and ever since, we have had bipartisan support on the Federal Government building infrastructure and putting in the dollars for it but not from President Trump, at least thus far.

The President's plan is a recipe for Trump tolls from one end of America to the other. That is not what the American people are crying out for. They don't want more tolls. They want us to rebuild our crumbling water systems, bridges, schools, roads, broadband, not finance new tollroads.

Unfortunately, the President surrounds himself with bankers and financiers. These are folks who used to work at investment banks. They look at infrastructure as an investment to be made by corporations in the private sector, but infrastructure has never been a business investment.

Infrastructure has been something the government has invested in for decades and even centuries because the benefits of infrastructure have great--what the economists call externalities. The benefits for having a good highway is not just for the people who use the highway, but if a factory locates nearby because it can get its goods there more frequently and quickly, that is a benefit. A road itself might not generate short-term profits, but a factory might locate nearby and bring jobs and economic vibrancy to an area. The private sector might not build high-speed internet all the way out to the house at the end of the road if there isn't a profit there, but our rural people are as entitled to high-speed internet as our people in urban areas and, I might add, there are large parts of my city, New York City, where that last mile isn't done because there are poorer residents and it is less profitable.

That is why there has always been the role of government to stimulate infrastructure investment, to provide support for necessary maintenance and construction which the private sector would ignore. To connect that house at the end of the road to high-speed internet so children living in it can learn, thrive, and benefit in a global economy benefits America, even if someone isn't making a huge profit immediately from the building of that broadband. It is the same with the highway, the same with the bridge, the same with water and sewer, the same with the school with internet.

The bottom line is, if the President wants to sit down with Democrats, of course we want to do it, but if he continues to take this path with a plan cooked up by Wall Street advisers, it will not succeed or it will result in such a small measure that it will not be effective.

Again, I say to the President--there is talk, I read in the newspapers--they want to do this by reconciliation, no Democratic votes, just 52 Republican votes in the Senate. The same problem they had with healthcare, the same problem they are having with tax reform, will repeat itself with infrastructure if you don't do it in a bipartisan way.

Our colleagues constantly remind us that ObamaCare didn't work because it was done by one party, but now they are letting Trump lead them to do the same thing on just about every major issue. It is a formula for failure President Trump is advocating. He hasn't been down here in Washington that long. It is up to our Republican colleagues to teach him that working in a bipartisan way is the only way you can really get things done.

So my view is, we need bipartisanship, but the President might not get--just remember that many Republicans are very negative, initially at least, with a private sector-driven infrastructure bill because they represent rural areas.

Here is what a Republican Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso--fine man--said: ``Funding solutions that involve public-private partnerships do not work for rural areas.''

My friend, the Republican Senator from West Virginia, has said: ``As a person who represents an almost all-rural State . . . I'm concerned about how we are going to be able to incent the private dollars to go to the less-populated, less-economically developed areas of our country, because the investments are just as important.''

The bottom line is this, an investment bank infrastructure plan like the one the President is proposing is a sure loser in Congress. A Goldman Sachs infrastructure plan just will not work, except for a few. It would turn over a public good to the whims of private finance, who will not build infrastructure where America needs it. They will build it where they can make a buck, and that means tolls paid by working Americans and middle-class Americans. That means rural areas will not get the support they need. That means any project that can't generate user fees or taxes--like repairing our schools or water sewer systems-- will not get done.

There is no free lunch. When the private sector wants to finance infrastructure, they naturally--that is our free enterprise system-- want to get repaid, but who is going to repay them? The average American: the truckdriver who is scratching out a living, the salesman or saleswoman who is scratching out a living, the family who is going on vacation and has to stop every 30 miles for another big toll, the small business that depends on roads to get the goods to and from that business location.

If the President truly wants to rebuild our Nation's infrastructure, he has to approach this issue in a bipartisan way. There are several Republicans who don't want the Federal Government to spend any more money on infrastructure, but the majority of Senators of both parties probably do. The President needs to sit down with Democrats and work something out if he wants to get something done. He hasn't sat down with Democrats. He doesn't seem to want to. There are even reports that the President is considering doing infrastructure on reconciliation. That means just Republican votes, a huge mistake.

Republicans have been tied in a knot here in Washington. The President has been tied here in a knot in Washington because he insists on going at it alone.

Look at the entire Trump administration agenda. President Trump ran against both the Democratic and Republican establishments--a populist, if you will, but he has thrown his lot, since he has become President, with hard-right conservatives and is now pursuing an agenda entirely through the partisan process Republicans once decried--healthcare, reconciliation; taxes, the same. Now infrastructure? The one area where we kept the President out of it, the appropriations process worked swimmingly well. Leader McConnell and I, Senators Cochran and Leahy, and the House Members got together in a bipartisan way and we worked it out. We each thought we had some victories. It worked, but I had to stand at this desk and tell our Republican colleagues to keep the President out of it because it will bullocks everything up. Fortunately, they did. Maybe we can do that again.

I would say to the President: Mr. President, you can spend your entire first-term agenda trying to jam through partisan bills. That would be a shame because America needs to get moving again. On infrastructure, this is an issue where we really have some common ground. That is why Senate Democrats put forward a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that would create millions of jobs and actually fix our crumbling roads and bridges, invest in every corner of America, with particular attention to rural America.

We stand ready and willing to work with the President on that plan or something similar that actually achieves what he promised on the campaign trail.

Mr. President, another matter: healthcare. According to reports, Republican Senators were planning to use the State work period last week to rewrite their healthcare bill. Well, now we are back in session, and unfortunately my friends on the other side of the aisle don't seem to be any closer to having a bill. If they do have one, they are hiding it and going down the same path as House Republicans-- drafting a bill that will impact tens of millions in secret, no transparency, no committee hearings, no debate.

Even with all this secrecy, more and more Republicans seem increasingly pessimistic about finding a Republican-only bill that can get 50 votes in the Senate. Over the weekend, the senior Republican Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, said: ``I don't see a comprehensive health-care plan this year.''

Just yesterday, Senator Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, said the Republicans may rush a healthcare bill to the floor before they know if it has the support of their caucus.

Well, my friends on the other side of the aisle are learning how difficult it is to refigure our healthcare system under a process with only votes from one party--the so-called reconciliation process--and do it in a way that actually improves our healthcare, not devastate it, as the House bill would.

I hope my Republican friends will realize the only way we will get votes necessary to pass a healthcare bill is to drop repeal and work with Democrats to improve our healthcare system, not to sabotage it. We stand ready and willing to work with our Republican colleagues to further stabilize the insurance markets, build on the progress we have made in healthcare. In fact, we are running out of time before the 2018 rates are locked in.

Most insurance companies are saying they are raising rates because of the uncertainty Republicans continue to inject into the market. The President has not come out permanently for cost-sharing, which would reduce premiums and keep people in the market. They just sort of do it one at a time, and that is going to make the markets worse.

The public already unfortunately will blame those in charge--our Republican friends and the President--for the mess, as much as they would like to look past--as much of our colleagues on the another side of the aisle want to point fingers. People want something done now. They don't want fingers of blame pointed back at what happened 5 years ago or 8 years ago.

We Democrats don't want to tear everything down and start over again. Let's keep all the progress--the 20 million more Americans insured, the kids who can stay on their parents' plan, the protections for folks with preexisting conditions--and find ways to make even more progress on bringing down costs for consumers and improving the quality of care.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me first express the profound sadness that we all felt this past week about the terrorist attacks in London. My heart is with the people of that great city and with the victims of this string of attacks and their families. They are all in our prayers.

The morning after the attack, I was walking down the street in New York, and I saw a husband and wife--they looked like out-of-towners-- with three beautiful little girls, and the girls were skipping along happily. When they are with their parents when they are little, they get so happy. I thought: God, what if a bomb blew up and killed them. It just got to me.

So we really feel for these people who were just taken from us much too soon by vicious, almost inexplicable viciousness.

In this moment of trial for one of our fiercest friends and allies, the United States also stands shoulder to shoulder with the citizens of the UK in our joint fight against terrorists and those who support them.

We wish a swift recovery to the injured and comfort to the victims and

their families. We certainly hope the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice.

Infrastructure

Mr. President, on infrastructure--another matter--we know President Trump will spend this week unveiling his infrastructure proposal in several phases. We will have to wait and see what the full details of the plan are before we judge it, but we Democrats welcome a discussion on infrastructure.

We believe the Federal Government ought to invest more, not less, in rebuilding our roads, bridges and highways, our schools, electric grids, and our water and sewer systems. We should be investing in expanding broadband, which is so vital for our rural areas and a number of urban areas that are still underserved.

So we have several concerns about the President's upcoming proposal, considering the President actually cut infrastructure investment significantly in his budget proposal to Congress. How can you be for infrastructure and then cut all of these proposals in your budget? That is what he did.

Now, unfortunately based on recent reports, the entire focus of the President's infrastructure proposal this week is on privatization, which sounds like a nice word. But when you scratch beneath the surface, it means much less construction and far fewer jobs, particularly in our rural areas. It also means Trump tolls from one end of America to the other.

If President Trump wants the private sector to finance the construction of infrastructure, it is going to demand a price. That is how the private sector works. The financiers will look to turn a profit. Let's remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If the financiers put in money, they are going to want to take it back.

How are they going to turn a profit on infrastructure? Tolls, tolls, and more tolls--tolls paid by American workers, salesmen, truckdrivers, vacationers, and commuters; tolls paid by working families, middle- class families, and consumers of all stripes. A private-sector-driven infrastructure plan means tolls, tolls, tolls paid by average working Americans.

It also means that infrastructure that can't be built with tolls-- like repairing our crumbling schools, for instance--will get left behind. Moreover, a scheme that relies on private investment will leave rural areas of America behind. My friend the Republican Senator from Wyoming, a member of the Republican leadership, Mr. Barrasso, who understands the needs of his very rural State said: ``Funding solutions that involve public-private partnerships do not work for rural areas.'' That is not Chuck Schumer speaking, although New York has the third largest rural population in America. That is Senator Barrasso speaking.

Let me repeat what he said: ``Funding solutions that involve public- private partnerships do not work for rural areas.''

That is the Republican Senator from Wyoming, saying an infrastructure proposal that involves privatization ignores a huge portion of the United States--rural areas--where infrastructure investment is greatly needed. When a Republican Senator says that, we all ought to pay attention at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Privatization also ignores the ongoing maintenance needs of many of our Nation's more populated areas. Sure, maybe if the toll is high enough, a private company could build a shiny new bridge, but they won't do anything to fix the crumbling railroad switches, potholes, and water main breaks that are plaguing so many of our cities, particularly in the older areas--the Northeast, the Midwest.

One aspect the President highlighted today is privatizing our air traffic control systems. This would put the same airline companies that have added baggage fees and change fees and shrunk leg room in charge of the air traffic control system. Worse still, it would let the airlines charge consumers even more than they charge now.

If air traffic control is privatized, where are the protections for consumers? What will prevent costs of flying from going way up? Under a private system, what stops airlines from raising fees and taxes on consumers?

So privatization, whether it is for the construction of roads and bridges or in aviation, often leaves the average American with the short end of the stick and gives big corporations way too much power.

So, again, we will wait and see what the President proposes. We want to discuss infrastructure. We want to work with him on infrastructure. But if it is all or mostly privatization with minimal public investment, it will not be an effective way to rebuild our Nation's infrastructure. It will cost middle-class families more, and it will not create the kind of jobs our economy needs.

Let's not forget that the President proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill in the campaign. We Democrats were encouraged to hear this. It is one of the first things I talked with President-Elect Trump about on the phone, but so far we have been disappointed.

Senate Democrats put forward a real, trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that would create millions of jobs and actually fix our crumbling roads and bridges while investing in every corner of America. We stand ready and willing to work with the President on a real plan that actually achieves what he promised on the campaign trail. But, unfortunately, if this week, on infrastructure, is all about privatization, it is going to be another broken promise that President Trump made to the working people of America.

James Comey Testimony

Mr. President, later this week, former FBI Director James Comey will be testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. I am glad he is doing so in the open and on the record. I hope he is as forthcoming as possible. Transparency and openness is absolutely vital if we are to get to the bottom of the events of the past few months. Knowing James Comey a little bit, transparency and openness have always been his way.

I would expect that Mr. Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee will not be his last appearance before Congress. I know the Senate Judiciary Committee has made a similar request of Mr. Comey. I support their request, and I hope he will go before them as well.

Paris Agreement

Finally, Mr. President, a few words about the Paris climate accord. I was deeply disappointed by President Trump's decision last week to start the process for withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, an agreement signed by every sovereign nation, except Syria and Nicaragua--Nicaragua, by the way, because they thought the agreement didn't go far enough.

The decision will ultimately be viewed--the decision by Trump to pull out of the Paris climate accord--as one of the worst decisions of the 21st century because of the huge damage it will do to our economy, our environment, and our geopolitical standing.

Pulling out of the Paris Agreement doesn't put America first. It puts America alone and last. It puts America last in recognizing science, in being a world leader in protecting our own communities and working in concert with the family of nations in safeguarding the planet we all inhabit for future generations.

Climate change is an issue where time unfortunately is not on our side. Every year that we don't work toward lowering our carbon emission standards is another year of irrevocable damage to the environment. Future generations will look back on this decision as a failure of historic proportions.

President Trump's decision to withdraw is also a sucker punch to American workers, who should be building the next generation of wind turbines and solar panels. Now other countries, including China, our economic rival, will seize the mantel of innovation and clean energy away from America.

Listen to this. This astounded me. Just last month, Ernest & Young published the latest edition of a report ranking nations by how attractive they are for renewable energy investment. For the first time, China and India both outrank the United States. So on one of the newer technologies that will ultimately be cheaper than the existing technologies, we are already falling behind and will fall further behind. Imagine that China and India are now ranked by Ernst & Young as being better places for renewable energy investment. That is not going to help American jobs next year and certainly over the next decade.

It is a devastating loss to our economy, and the workers who would have benefited greatly from America's leading the way forward in a new industry will lose out.

Moreover, if the United States doesn't have a seat at the table with the nations in the Paris Agreement, other nations could agree on policies that hurt American businesses and American workers, even more than this self-inflicted wound by President Trump.

Now, I am glad that States like my State of New York and cities and businesses across the country are already stepping up, reaffirming their commitment to the goals set in Paris and pledging to continue to make progress in the fight against climate change. Our economy and our communities will be better for it.

I seriously hope that the President reconsiders his decision for the sake of our planet, for the future of the American economy, and for the future of American jobs, which thrive on the kind of innovation President Trump has just turned his back on.

Thank you, and I yield the floor.

Recognition of the Majority Leader

Mr. President, first, let me thank my good friend from Illinois for, as usual, his articulate, compassionate, and outstanding work and for the great job he and others did yesterday when they invited the people here. I reiterate just what the Senator from Illinois stated; that is, once they take repeal off the table--they are having real trouble with repeal--we want to sit down and make our healthcare system better. It is not perfect. No one thought it was.

It is better than it was. Many more people are covered. Preexisting conditions, college kids--kids get out of college, and they get healthcare. All of that is better. We don't want to get rid of everything, but we want to improve it. We are working. Forty-eight Senators, as my colleague from Illinois knows--every Democrat signed a letter to Leader McConnell saying we want to work with you to improve this system, not to sabotage the existing system, not to repeal the good things we have but to improve it.

And we have gotten no answer in that regard.

Mr. President, I have just a few words first about Bill Dauster, someone who has labored long and hard and well in this body. We depend on our hard-working staff. I am so blessed to have such a great, dedicated, loyal, hard-working, smart staff. One of their best traits is that they are not afraid to tell me when they think I am off base, and it helps keep things going right.

Well, Bill Dauster was one of the great staffers I have met in all the years I have been here in the Senate. He worked, of course, for Harry Reid, my dear friend. He is now working for Senator Van Hollen, but he will be retiring tomorrow.

Now, Bill was Leader Reid's deputy chief of staff for policy for many years. Before that he worked for the Budget Committee, the Finance Committee, and for Senator Feingold of Wisconsin. The list of legislation that Bill has worked on is long and illustrious. He was known as a great friend and mentor to his colleagues wherever he went.

In Reid's office, he was jokingly called ``the butler'' because he was constantly trying to help other members of the staff. Senator Reid's staffers fondly remember Bill Dauster during the final days of the debt ceiling negotiations, running in and out of Senator Reid's office as he rushed to go meet with younger staffers on the Hill who were sent to him for advice. Even on his busiest days, Bill made time for others.

In an industry in which many rub shoulders and network after work, Bill was a different kind of guy. He was known to give the same response to any coworker who asked him to come to a social event. He would repeat: I love you, but I love my family more, and I need to be home with them. He was so dedicated to his family, we heard. He would regale us with many stories about them.

He came up with great ideas. He was a great sounding board for me.

So on behalf of all of us in the Senate, we want to thank Bill for his long service to the Senate, for his role in crafting legislation over three decades, and for his mentorship to other Senate aides, old and young. He is retiring, but his influence in this body will last long after he has left.

We all wish him well in this next phase of life, where, hopefully, he will be able to spend more time where he enjoys it the most--at home with his family.

Mr. President, another matter--healthcare. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office, led by a Director who was handpicked by current HHS Secretary Tom Price, Donald Trump's appointee, released its analysis of the House Republican healthcare bill--TrumpCare.

The report makes clear that TrumpCare would be a cancer on the American healthcare system--causing costs to skyrocket, making coverage unaffordable for many seniors and those with preexisting conditions, all the while leaving 23 million fewer Americans with health insurance.

Now, when people hear this, they say: Why would the Republicans want to do it? That just seems mean-spirited. Well, I will tell you why: because their No. 1 goal is to give a tax break for the wealthiest of Americans. People making above $250,000 pay an additional charge to help everyone else with healthcare on their unearned income--not on what they do when they are working, but on stocks, bonds, and investments. The No. 1 goal of our colleagues across the aisle, sadly, is to help those very rich people get even richer.

Now, to do that, they have to take away people's healthcare. To get the money for those tax breaks, they take away people's healthcare. So the bottom line is very simple: Unless you are a healthy millionaire, TrumpCare is a nightmare. I think that is why our Republican colleagues are having such trouble putting together their own bill, because, as Senator Durbin has noted, they have excluded us from their negotiations.

Well, the CBO report ought to be a final nail in the coffin of the Republican effort to sabotage our healthcare system. Republicans in Washington and the President should read the report cover to cover, throw their bill in the trash can, and begin working with Democrats on a real plan to lower costs and improve care.

There is a lot to unpack in this report. It came out late yesterday. So I want to focus on a couple of provisions this morning.

First, on health insurance costs, the CBO report makes clear that premiums under this bill are headed up in the next several years. Consumers would see their premiums increase by 20 percent for next year's plans. Now, Republicans will crow about premiums going down in the outer years--years away. But the decrease in premiums occurs for only one reason: The quality of the insurance will plummet. If you have a barebones plan that hardly helps you, where you have to pay huge deductibles, huge copayments, and huge premiums and it covers next to nothing, of course, the cost will eventually go down. What good is that? Why even talk about that kind of healthcare? People don't need it and don't want it. Cheaper insurance isn't going to help anyone if it doesn't actually lead to the healthcare people need.

Listen to this one. Older Americans--everyone in America 50 to 64 who doesn't have a lot of income, making say $25,000 a year--TrumpCare is going to force you to pinch pennies just to be able to afford health insurance. The CBO report says that some seniors could see their premiums go up a whopping 800 percent under this bill.

In one of the newspaper articles I saw, I think the senior citizen was in his early sixties. They were making about $25,000 or $30,000 a year--not unusual for a senior of that age--and their premiums went up from $1,700 to $13,000. How are you going to vote for that, my friends, telling these people who have worked hard their whole lives that they have to pay a lot more and a lot of that money is going to wealthy people for a tax cut?

What about out-of-pocket expenses? By the way, out-of-pocket expenses really bother people. How many of us have heard over and over again: I have healthcare, and, when I went to the doctor, they said: You, first, have to lay out $5,000. How many of us have heard that? Everybody. The Republican bill makes it worse.

According to the CBO report, out-of-pocket costs could balloon for vital services in States where they decline to cover essential health benefits. Americans could be paying thousands of dollars more every year if they need maternity care or programs that treat substance abuse or mental health services.

Listen to this one. According to reports, in States that elect not to include maternity care, which every State could elect to do under the Republican bill--and many will--insurers would most likely sell maternity benefits as an add-on at $1,000 a month--$17,000 more in total. Under TrumpCare, women may well have to pay more--much more insurance--just because they are a woman, because of pregnancy. So costs go up, up, up. If, God forbid, this bill becomes law and costs go up, any citizen of this country should go to their Senators who voted for this and say: What the heck did you do? You made it worse.

Now, uncertainty in the market is the second issue. The CBO report confirms that the Republican attempts to

repeal the Affordable Care Act and the Trump administration's refusal to guarantee to continue making cost-sharing payments is causing the instability in the market.

Here is what the report says. Now, this is the report put out by the Republican-appointed head of the CBO. So this is not some Democratic propaganda-type document. These are ``just the facts, ma'am,'' as Mr. Friday said. Here is what the report says: ``Substantial uncertainty about the enforcement of the individual mandate and about future payments of the cost-sharing subsidies'' have led insurers to withdraw from the current marketplace.

AHIP--that is the biggest organization of our Nation's insurers, the insurance companies; they are nonpartisan--said the same thing.

Why, if our colleagues want more people to stay in the market and are complaining that people are leaving the market, don't we come together--hopefully, with the President, who thinks that he could do this on his own--and say: We are going to make this cost-sharing permanent. We all know insurers want certainty in the future or they pull out. That is what the insurance business is all about. Yet, grudgingly, one little step at a time, they don't take away the cost- sharing because they know the damage it would do--this is President Trump--but they are afraid to make it permanent and that causes problems.

So there is only one word for what the President is doing and our Republican colleagues are doing when it comes to the present healthcare system--sabotage. If our Republican friends continue to allow the President to play coy about these cost-sharing payments--which bring premiums down, which bring costs for average citizens down--as a potential threat, if we don't make cost sharing permanent, the system will deteriorate. Again, it will be on the President's back, on our colleagues' backs. I hate to say that, but those are the facts.

We want to make it permanent. We tried to put it in the appropriations bill, to make it permanent, which would have kept costs low or kept people in the exchanges. Our colleagues said no.

Finally, as to preexisting conditions, the CBO report states:

People who are less healthy would ultimately be unable to

purchase comprehensive non-group health insurance at premiums

comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase

it at all.

Let me repeat the last part of the CBO report written by an appointee of our Republican head of HHS: ``if they could purchase it at all.'' Think about that for a minute.

Under TrumpCare, if you have a preexisting condition, if you are sick, your health insurance costs could go up so high that you can't afford insurance. Before the new healthcare law passed under President Obama, how many of us heard from families: My daughter has cancer, but the insurance company won't cover me, or I got kicked off and I have to watch her suffer because I can't afford the treatment, the payments. It is horrible, heart-wrenching. It is going back to those days under this bill, unfortunately.

This report ought to be the final nail in the coffin of the Republican effort to sabotage our healthcare system. It will make much more certain that sick people are priced out of insurance companies, that the most vulnerable are left high and dry when they need care the most, when there is an illness in the family.

Is that the sort of healthcare system our colleagues envision for this country? When you are sick, when one of your family members is sick, is that when they are not allowed to give you healthcare? What in the heck do you have it for?

I certainly hope that is not the idea on the other side of the aisle, but this bill that the House passed would do it.

In conclusion, the nonpartisan scorekeepers have spoken loudly and clearly--no ambiguity. TrumpCare means higher costs and less care for the American people, the average American. Let's not lose sight of what is at stake here. The health and well-being of the American people is on the line. There are life-and-death consequences for so many millions of people. They are relying on us to get this right.

So for the good of the country, President Trump and our Republican colleagues should abandon TrumpCare, stop sabotaging the healthcare system, and work with Democrats--we are waiting--to fix our healthcare system, not pull it from under them.

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

Mr. President, yesterday former CIA Director John Brennan testified in the House Intelligence Committee that he had growing concerns about Russian interference in the final months of the 2016 election, adding that an investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin was well founded. He issued very strong words.

Coming from a very careful civil servant from the intelligence community, Mr. Brennan's testimony should further compel Congress and the special counsel to pursue the full truth. What Mr. Brennan said was happening gets at the very core of our democracy, the free and fair election of our representatives. Americans of all political stripes should be outraged by what Putin and the Russians did during the 2016 elections. As former Director Brennan said, in America, ``we cherish the ability to elect our own leaders without outside interference or disruption.''

So, again, I expect that the Senate Intelligence Committee will continue its bipartisan investigation into these events. I expect that Special Counsel Mueller will help us all get to the bottom of this. We must make sure he is not interfered with.

Finally, I expect this body will hold up a high standard for the next FBI Director. He or she should be someone who is nonpartisan and independent, a Director's Director, a prosecutor's prosecutor, not a politician of either party.

Amidst all of the furor, we cannot lose sight of the most serious part of

this investigation: the scope of Russian interference in our elections and whether they colluded with representatives of an American campaign in the process. That is very serious stuff--very serious. We must pursue that investigation with vigor no matter who might stand in the way of it.

Mr. President, on the budget, yesterday morning the Trump administration released their 2018 budget. The document is stunning in its cruelty. It takes a sledgehammer to the middle class, the working poor, while lavishing tax breaks on the very wealthy.

They may not have intended it, but the Trump budget is a compilation of all the broken promises this President made to working Americans. In his budget, President Trump has broken promise after promise after promise to working people without any shame, without any remorse, without any explanation.

The President promised to increase infrastructure investment, but his budget actually cuts more money from infrastructure programs than the new money it puts in. The President's proposal to slash American infrastructure investments is a job-killing 180-degree turn away from his repeated promise of a $1 trillion infrastructure plan.

President Trump's campaign promises on infrastructure are crumbling faster than our roads and bridges. I want to ask the Trump administration: How can we expect that you are going to be real about a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan when your budget cuts infrastructure dramatically--right now? Don't you think it adds up? To us, it does. It makes us very dubious of any attempt to do infrastructure by this administration. We hope we are wrong, but the budget is a document that tells where the real truth is in terms of administration beliefs. They sure as heck, by this budget, don't like infrastructure.

The President has said that education is the civil rights issue of our time, but the Trump budget calls for over $3.2 billion in cuts to higher education, eliminates programs that forgive loans for public service jobs like teachers and doctors, and eliminates subsidized loan programs that help lower the cost of college. College students of America, look at the President's budget and see if he is on your side. He sure as heck isn't.

The President said he would ``save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid without cuts. Have to do it.'' Those are his words. But the Trump budget slashes Social Security by $72 billion and cuts Medicaid by hundreds of billions, in addition to the more than $800 billion TrumpCare cuts took from Medicaid already in the House bill. All in all, it is a $1 trillion broken promise on Medicaid.

Remember, America, Medicaid is a program that affects the poor. That is a good thing. But much of the money goes to help the middle class, elderly people in nursing homes, and families fighting opioid addiction. So the bottom line is this is another broken promise to the middle class that Trump made in the campaign.

The budget breaks promise after promise after promise the President made to what he called the forgotten America, the working men and women of America. Well, this budget forgot the forgotten American.

In addition, the Trump budget depends on fantasy math to make all the numbers work. Most budgets make assumptions, and they all stretch the math a little bit, but the Trump budget takes a quantum leap into a new dimension of budgetary fairy tale.

Not only does the Trump budget assume unrealistic growth as a way to balance the budget in 10 years--no economist, liberal or conservative, thinks we can achieve 3 percent growth in the near term--but the Trump budget double counts and double dips in a way we have never seen in any budget before. The Trump budget includes the assumption they will pass ``deficit-neutral tax reform.'' In order for their massive tax cut to be deficit-neutral, they need to assume the economy grows fast enough to make up for lost revenues. But at the same time, the Trump budget assumes that growth will pay for tax cuts and help pay down the deficit--both.

Take the estate tax as an example. President Trump has proposed eliminating the estate tax in tax reform. Yet the Trump budget assumes that the government will take in more than $300 billion in estate taxes over the next 10 years. In other words, part of the budget says that we are getting rid of the estate tax, and part of the budget says that $300 billion the estate tax brings in is counted toward balancing the budget. I have never seen anything like it. If an accountant did this, my guess is--I don't know accounting standards in detail--they would be kicked out of the accounting profession.

In short, as Benjamin Applebaum in the New York Times points out: ``President Trump is proposing to balance the federal budget in part by simultaneously increasing estate taxation and eliminating estate taxation.''

Let me read that again. This is a reporter for the New York Times, not some politician of a political party: ``President Trump is proposing to balance the federal budget in part by simultaneously increasing estate taxation and eliminating estate taxation.''

The gall, the nerve, and the facts-be-darned attitude in this budget are appalling. What they said on the estate tax is a complete contradiction. The government cannot take in money from a tax that no longer exists. Where are our fiscal watchdogs on the other side of the aisle when they do stuff like this?

Everyone knows Presidential budgets contain some degree of flexibility, but what the Trump budget does is a quantum leap that would make an accountant blush, if they could stay in their profession after doing this. The budget is a total fantasy, a deeply unserious proposal to Congress. Members of both parties are right to reject it, and I applaud many of my Republican colleagues for speaking out against this proposal.

Again, what will happen--my guess--is that Democrats and Republicans will ignore the Trump budget because it is so harsh on the middle class and because it is such an accounting nightmare. We will do our own budget, and we will probably produce something pretty good for the American people, as we did in 2017--as long as Donald Trump and the White House stay out of it.

Finally, Mr. President, a word on healthcare: The Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, combined with the Trump administration's refusal to commit to making key cost-sharing payments that help keep healthcare costs low for working Americans, have created great uncertainty in our healthcare system. This uncertainty has already caused insurers to flee the marketplace or propose rate increases for next year.

A spokesman for America's Health Insurance plans--that is the insurance industry's main group; again, it is not a politician--said:

We need swift action and long-term certainty [on the cost-

sharing program]. It is the single most destabilizing factor

in the individual market, and millions of Americans could

soon feel the impact of fewer choices, higher costs and

reduced access to care.

My Republican colleagues, remember, if you continue to allow the President to do this, if we don't make cost sharing permanent, the system will deteriorate, and guess whose back it will be on? Yours, my Republican friends. You are in charge. And when people get a bad healthcare bill, you can blame anyone you want. You are in charge. Fix it.

Refusing to guarantee the cost-sharing payment is nothing short of sabotage, and the repeated attempts to pass TrumpCare will only make things worse.

The White House ought to step up and say once and for all that they will continue to make the cost-sharing payments permanently, and Republicans in Congress ought to drop their repeal efforts and, instead, work with us on stabilizing the market and improving our healthcare system.

Now, today the Congressional Budget Office will release its analysis of the House Republican healthcare bill--TrumpCare. I remind my colleagues how unusual it is for a CBO score to come out nearly 3 weeks after a bill has passed. It is like test driving a brand new car 3 weeks after you have

already signed on the dotted line and paid the dealer in full.

Republicans in the House were so worried about how bad the CBO score might be, they rushed TrumpCare through--no hearings, no debate, no score. Never mind that this legislation remakes one-sixth of our Nation's economy. It has life-and-death consequences for millions of American families.

Republicans were haunted by the ghost of CBO scores past, so they went ahead without one.

When the CBO analyzed the first version of TrumpCare earlier this year, it concluded that 24 million fewer Americans would have health insurance if it became law. We also learned the bill would gut Medicaid, crush seniors with higher premiums, and would increase out- of-pocket expenses for Americans of all ages with higher deductibles and copays.

Given that there were few differences between the first and second versions of TrumpCare, we can expect that today's CBO analysis will likely show many of the same grave consequences as the first one. Only now, of course, TrumpCare includes a new amendment that allows States to opt out of the requirement to cover people with preexisting conditions. It is hard to imagine such an amendment would make CBO's score any better than the last, and it could certainly raise a lot of new questions.

Does the deal the Freedom Caucus got with the second version of TrumpCare violate the rules of reconciliation? Will the House have to change the bill and take yet another vote on TrumpCare? We know they don't want to do that.

We also don't know the answer to these questions, and we may not know the answers even after seeing today's CBO analysis. But all of these open questions demonstrate how reckless it was for Republicans to vote on this bill without properly vetting it first.

I yield the floor to my good friend, the senior Senator from Vermont, the former and hopefully future Senate President pro tempore.

Mr. President, now, on another matter completely, last night, it was reported in the Washington Post that President Trump attempted to enlist the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, and the Director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Rogers, in helping the administration push back against reports in the press about an investigation into the President's campaign and its potential ties to Russia.

According to the same reporting, White House staff may also have ``sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly'' with the FBI and Mr. Comey to get them to drop the investigation into General Flynn.

If these reports are accurate, it is another piece of now-mounting evidence that this White House has no interest--no interest--in allowing the Russia investigation to proceed without partisan interference, and the White House seems to have little respect for the principles of the rule of law. We have not quite seen anything like it in a very long time.

Such allegations only reinforce the correctness of the decision to appoint Special Counsel Mueller to oversee the investigation and should strengthen our resolve to ensure that he is insulated from interference from this White House. Such allegations also strengthen, again, the need for an independent, nonpartisan FBI Director.

With all these reports of attempts to interfere with the investigation, we cannot have an FBI Director who has a political background, who doesn't seem right down the middle, who doesn't

seem to be a Director's Director, a prosecutor's prosecutor, an investigator's investigator. No politician or candidate with insufficient impartiality should be selected by the President or confirmed by the Senate. We Democrats will stand very strongly for that.

Given the almost daily reports about potential meddling and misconduct by this administration, Congress must exercise its oversight authority in order to keep this administration in check. Both the executive branch and the congressional investigations must proceed. This is not about politics or political advantage. When a foreign power, particularly an enemy of our country like Putin and Russia, tries to interfere in your elections--and will probably do it again in the future--we have to know everything that happened, who participated, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

If people who participated in it--if there are such people--get away with it this time, many more will do it next time. So this is an issue of national interest, national security, and even the future of our democracy. I remind colleagues that in our Constitution, the Founding Fathers worried about foreign interference in our government. When I read that in high school and again in college, I said: Well, that doesn't seem real. It is all too real today, showing both the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the need for strong oversight.