Floor Statements

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Klobuchar.

Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate one of my constituents, Dr. Curtis Jones, Jr., on being named the 2019 National Superintendent of the Year. Dr. Jones is an outstanding public servant, and I am honored to commend him in the Senate today.

A native of Barnesville, GA, Dr. Jones is the son of a schoolteacher and a preacher. Prior to becoming an educator himself, Dr. Jones graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served over 20 years in the Army, retiring as lieutenant colonel. Upon retirement from the Army, Dr. Jones began his career in education as a JROTC instructor before becoming a high school principal, assistant superintendent, and later superintendent of Griffin-Spalding County Schools.

Dr. Jones joined his current school district, Bibb County Schools, as superintendent in 2015. Under Dr. Jones' leadership, the school district has been completely turned around, and the graduation rate has increased by more than 20 percent. Dr. Jones has brought the Macon-Bibb County community together for a common cause, and it has been a joy to see the school district's progress as a result of his leadership and service to those students.

Throughout this entire process, Dr. Jones has repeatedly recognized the teachers, principals, and students in his school district for their contribution to this award. He has also attributed his success to the love and support of his family. Dr. Jones has truly made his State and country proud, and I congratulate him and his family on this high honor.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today as one of a number of our colleagues to talk about something that really bothers me. We are seeing historic obstructionism in the Senate today. It has been going on for the last 2 years.

One of the fundamental responsibilities in the Senate is to provide advice and consent on Presidential nominations. When President Trump took office, he acted with urgency to fill positions in his administration with highly qualified and highly skilled, experienced individuals from the real world--not just people from the bubble but people from America. Unfortunately, Democrats have slow-walked this confirmation process every step of the way. In my view, this is historic obstructionism, and it needs to stop.

This is the first time in U.S. history that the minority party has not waived the 30-hour debate rule to this degree. As a result, of the 1,200 nominees to be confirmed by any new President, only 714 have been confirmed to date. At the end of last year, because of this historic Democratic obstructionism, we had 386 nominations in line waiting to be confirmed. At the end of Obama's first 2 years, only 5 nominees were outstanding, compared to the 386 for President Trump at the end of last year.

Let me say that again. At the end of President Obama's first 2 years, only five nominees had not been confirmed. That means that out of everybody he sent to the Senate, only five at that point had not been confirmed. However, at the end of December this past year, President Trump still had 386 nominees in the pipeline right here in the U.S. Senate, waiting for us to get to them.

Of the last three Presidents, we have collectively only had 24 cloture votes required by the minority party--only 24. However, during President Trump's first 2 years, Democrats forced 128 cloture votes on nominees on the Senate floor. Each one of these cloture votes requires 30 hours of debate. We can't do anything else on the floor while we are doing that. That means the normal business of the Senate cannot be transacted because we are waiting, due to the 30-hour debate rule, to get to the vote. Basically, under those realities, the Senate is able to do only one confirmation per week. Do the math--386 weeks is a long time.

What is going on here has nothing to do with the nominees' qualifications, either. Every single one of Donald Trump's nominees who received a recorded vote was passed. Not one has failed to pass in this body--not one. The vast majority of these nominees are noncontroversial and get more than 70 or 80 votes and in some cases more than that.

This chart shows that of the cloture votes we have had to take, 48 percent got more than 60 votes, and 37 percent got more than 70. That means 70 percent of the nominees got more than 60 votes. These are not controversial nominees. That is not the issue.

My own cousin, who is now Secretary of Agriculture, waited 4 months. I know this personally because he bunked in my place for 4 months while we were waiting to get his confirmation. When he finally got to the floor of the Senate, he got 87 votes.

It is clear that the Democrats will stop at nothing to obstruct the Senate from working on real issues. Every hour we have to spend in the 30-hour waiting period is time we can't utilize to take up the country's business and the priorities Americans want us to be working on. If this obstruction continues, President Trump will not have his full team in place until the end of his second term.

These delays are petty, and the American people have had enough. I hear about it every time I go home.

For the last 2 years, several of my colleagues and I have pushed to keep the Senate in session during the traditional August State work break in order to confirm nominees and make progress on funding the Federal Government. In August of 2017, the leader of the majority party, Senator McConnell, agreed to keep us here for the month of August in order to work on several things we were working on, including confirming these nominees. The minority party agreed, after 4 days, to basically confirm 77 nominees on that one day. What makes that important is that prior to that time in August, in all of that year, we had only been able to get 44 nominees confirmed. While staying here last August, in 2018, we confirmed 43 nominees and completed 75 percent of the government funding bills.

As I speak today, there are 249 nominees before the U.S. Senate waiting to be confirmed. Basically, that would require 249 weeks to do if we follow the rule we have been following over the last 2 years. These nominees include the Assistant Secretary of Readiness for the Department of Defense, who has been waiting to be confirmed for 8 months. This is in the Department of Defense, the Assistant Secretary for Readiness--one of the crisis areas we have in our military. For 8 months this nominee has been waiting to be confirmed. The Under Secretary for Food Safety in the Department of Agriculture--one I hear a lot about--has been waiting 9 months in line to be confirmed.

The people on the other side are saying: The President is just not sending up nominees fast enough.

Well, what happens with these folks who have been sitting here for 9 months waiting to be confirmed?

The Assistant Secretary for Economic Development at the Department of Commerce has been waiting to be confirmed for 8 months.

These are not low-level nominees; these are Assistant Secretaries who are waiting to be confirmed.

This has to stop. This President is not even able to form his own Cabinet in complete terms because these Assistant Secretaries are not in place. We should be working around-the-clock to get these people confirmed.

If this obstructionism continues, we should try to change the existing rules for confirming nominees by reducing the 30-hour debate rule at minimum. There is a plan in the Senate right now that would reduce the 30 hours of debate to 8 hours for most and 2 hours for

some. Reducing the debate time required would speed up the confirmation process and allow us to focus on other business in the Senate that people want us to address. Every single Democrat in the Senate today who was also here in 2013 supported reducing debate time on nominees, and they should do so again right now.

I will close by saying that despite this historic obstructionism, the Senate has, indeed, over the last 2 years--because we focused on this as a priority, even with this 30-hour debate rule being enacted--we confirmed 63 district court judges, 31 circuit court of appeals justices, and two Supreme Court Justices. These judges will have an impact on the judiciary for years to come.

By the way, these are not activists with political agendas or motives. They are accomplished, experienced jurists, dedicated to upholding the Constitution and adhering to the rule of law. It is criminal that we waited that long to get these people confirmed.

I applaud the President for nominating such outstanding individuals to these positions. If this historic obstructionism continues in the Senate, I believe President Trump will not have his full team in place until the end of his second term, if then. This obstruction needs to end. The resistance movement threatens the security of our country and our ability to deal with the problems facing America today. It is time to rise above this partisan gridlock, change the rules, confirm these nominees, and finally begin to get results for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a crisis in my home State and indeed five other States across the Southeast. I rise to talk about disasters in California and to talk about our friends in Puerto Rico.

On October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael made landfall on the Florida Panhandle as a category 4 hurricane. It was one of the strongest storms to ever hit the United States. Over the next few hours, Hurricane Michael barreled through Florida and tore through southwest Georgia. In a matter of minutes, homes were flattened, tracks of timber were destroyed, and farmers' crops lay down in the field. People's lives were radically affected forever.

This hurricane hit at exactly the time of year when most crops were ready for harvest. It doesn't matter if they were peanuts, cotton, or pecans--they were all just beautiful this year. As a matter of fact, in the State of Georgia, I grew up working on our family's farm there, and I have to say the cotton crop last year was probably the best I had ever seen. It was almost cruel. Today, agriculture is Georgia's top industry and our No. 1 economic driver. Before the hurricane, farmers in my State were expecting a record harvest. Instead, their crops were completely destroyed.

Shortly after the hurricane hit, President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Secretary of Agriculture Perdue all came down to Georgia. Together, we toured the devastation and heard from farmers and local officials about the tough road of recovery ahead. Some farmers said they could clean up, replant, and have a crop next year as long as they had adequate resources. Other farmers were not so lucky.

Georgia is the top pecan-producing State in the country. One of our largest pecan farms is owned by two brothers in Bainbridge, which the Vice President and I personally visited. We personally saw the damage in their fields. Some 800 acres of pecan trees were gone. I cannot describe to you what that looks like. On the ground was a solid carpet--if you can imagine this--of mature, beautiful, inch-long pecans that were ready to be harvested but were on the ground, ruined.

One brother said:

The farmer in me wants to farm this land, but there's no

way I can make it. Next year is the year I'll lose it,

because we're not like the cotton guy. Nothing against them,

but they get to replant a seed next year and have a crop. I

don't.

The problem is that the pecan crop can be annually insured, but there is no insurance product for insuring pecan trees. If these two brothers replant, it could take 7 to 10 years for the trees to mature enough to even generate a minimum revenue. Most likely, full production would take over 12 years. For them, this is truly a generational loss.

The other brother said:

My brother and I built this business from nothing. We will

make it. We may not be in the pecan business anymore, but

we will be doing something else. We are fighters. [Our

families are committed to this land.] You just have to go

on.

When they saw the devastation, President Trump and Vice President Pence stepped up to the plate and made a commitment to our agriculture community.

President Trump said: ``Farmers really got hurt here, especially in Georgia, but we're going to get it taken care of.''

Vice President Pence said:

We will rebuild these crops and these communities. We will

restore southwest Georgia. We will restore the Sunbelt region

bigger and better than ever before.

This afternoon, I am here to say that the Vice President and the President are living up to their word. After this disaster relief was caught up in the political nightmare of funding the last 25 percent of this year's budget, we now have the opportunity to put this standalone supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate. The President and Vice President have been absolutely resolute in their support of getting aid to the victims of these disasters. They are now asking Congress to pass this all-inclusive disaster relief bill right now.

The State of Georgia has already stepped up and offered tax credits, short-term financing, and other forms of direct assistance to those who have been impacted, but they have only scratched the surface. The people of Georgia have come together and helped their neighbors, served meals to each other, and assisted first responders in their recovery efforts.

In Florida alone, then-Governor Rick Scott, who is now our colleague here on the Senate floor, was in the race for this Senate seat, and he actually suspended his campaign to devote all of his time, in his responsibility as the Governor, to lead the effort of analyzing the damage in Florida and determining what needed to be done. He can speak directly to the need. He is a cosponsor of this bill, I might add.

However, despite efforts by Senator Isakson and others and me in our State, this Senate body has yet to take action on disaster relief for the agriculture community in the Southeast. Our farmers simply cannot wait any longer. The situation in my State is dire. I would say it is the same across the South. Because revenue from the 2018 harvest was destroyed, bankers can't lend money to farmers who right now are asking to borrow money to put seed in the ground, to fertilize the ground, and to prepare the ground for next year's crop. It is as simple as that. Growers cannot replant because they can't get their financial houses in order because we haven't adopted a resolution for last year's harvest that they were not able to achieve. Rural communities are suffering, and in many places, economic activity is at an absolute standstill as it waits for the Federal Government--this body and the House of Representatives--to do its job.

For some in my State, the timing of assistance is not just a matter of putting a crop in the ground this year; it is a matter of potentially never putting a crop in the ground again. If we do not help these people right now, they may lose their businesses and livelihoods through no fault of their own. That is the reality we are facing here. The people in my State have asked me to utilize every sphere of influence, turn over every stone, and exhaust all options to get disaster relief right now.

We are past the time when this should have gotten done. I have spoken with the President many times about this. His commitment to our farmers is unwavering. Just last Monday night, he said: David, get it done. He called me again on Saturday night before he left for Vietnam. He said: David, what do we have to do to get this bill across the Senate floor? Talk to our friends in the House, and make sure that everything that is needed is in.

Senator Isakson, I, and several other Senators have introduced a supplemental disaster relief bill on the floor of the Senate, and President Trump has agreed to sign it. Our bill includes disaster relief for agriculture. It also provides additional funds for Georgia and other States like Florida, Alabama, the Carolinas, Alaska, Hawaii, and California that have battled natural disasters over the last year on

their own. It also builds on the Trump administration's past efforts and includes the remaining funding for Puerto Rico.

Both the House and Senate have previously supported similar proposals. They should be even more inclined to do so now that it is not tied up with the overall 2019 budget drama. This is a standalone supplemental bill that includes those things that people on both sides of this body agreed to and voted for just last year. This bipartisan package is a win for our farmers. It is a win for families and businesses that were devastated by historic hurricanes in the Southeast and wildfires in the West. It is a win for the people of Puerto Rico whom the President has previously helped. He was committed to including that in this bill.

I sincerely hope this body will move quickly and pass this disaster relief bill without further delay. I humbly ask each of my colleagues in this body for their individual support and for their vote in this disaster relief package that will save hundreds, if not thousands, of farming families in my home State from having to give up what they love, and that is farming the land that in many cases they inherited from their families. In other cases, people who graduated from HBCUs-- some of our brightest young people--borrowed money to buy the land or are leasing the land, and they are in danger of losing this dream of making a living on the ground in Georgia.

Our country and our people are counting on us to get this done, and time is of the essence.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a great loss suffered in my home State of Georgia and more specifically in the city of Valdosta. For more than 40 years, Parker Greene spent every day of his life thinking about how he could make a difference in his community by supporting the various missions at Moody Air Force Base, which is located just on the outskirts of Valdosta in South Georgia. Parker passed away on December 18, 2018, at the age of 86. He leaves behind a lasting legacy that will be remembered throughout my home State for decades to come.

Parker moved to Valdosta in 1970 and immediately became involved with the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce. He was named to the military affairs committee and quickly developed a fondness for the airmen stationed at Moody, as well as the multiple missions housed at the base. Through the years, his level of advocacy for Moody continued to increase. The local community recognized this and created the Moody Support Committee and named Parker as its chairman. As chairman, Parker took countless trips every year to Washington, DC, to impress upon congressional and Department of Defense leaders the importance of maintaining a robust Air Force presence at Moody due to its strategic location in the southeastern U.S. and unmatched community support.

In the 1990s, when the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended closing Moody and moving its missions to other bases, Parker and the Moody Support Committee tirelessly walked the halls of Congress and the Pentagon to advocate for the removal of Moody from the BRAC list and to increase its mission presence. Parker's efforts proved successful. His determination allowed Moody to continue its mission, while sparing the Valdosta community from certain economic loss due to the closure of the base.

Following his successful efforts in the 1990s, Parker continued his work on Moody's behalf to relocate new missions to the base in order to diversify Moody's mission presence and further prove its strategic importance. In fact, in 2007, the newly constructed consolidated base support center at Moody was named after Parker because of his efforts on behalf of the base and its airmen. Former Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley was at the renaming and presented Parker with the first-ever Chief of Staff Exceptional Service Award.

Several years later, Parker was awarded the highest honor the Air Force can bestow on a civilian: the Air Force Distinguished Public Service Award. The award stated that Parker ``distinguished himself by service as an Air Force advocate, with both an intimate knowledge of Air Force operations and a deep grasp of social and economic issues vital to Moody Air Force Base. He has expertly advised the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff, and senior Air Force leaders on these matters while serving as an Air Force civic leader to the community surrounding the installation.''

Of course, Parker could not have accomplished his many feats without the loyal and steadfast support from his lovely wife Dr. Lucy Greene. Together, they made an unstoppable duo, and Lucy proved to be as tireless an advocate for Moody as Parker. I know I speak for the entire State when I offer my heartfelt condolences to Lucy and their two children, Buck and Sharon.

While we mourn Parker and the loss to Moody AFB and south Georgia, I know that everyone can look at Parker's record of achievement and see an unparalleled legacy of selflessness, kindness, and service to others. I have no doubt that Moody will continue to be a leading example of Air Force excellence because of Parker's impact on the base and his advocacy for the region in Atlanta and Washington.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an experience I had this weekend that was extremely memorable to me.

I used to live in Texas. I used to be involved in businesses in the Valley, as they call it there--from Brownsville to Weslaco, to Edinburg, to McCowan. This past weekend, a good colleague of mine, Senator Steve Daines from Montana, and I traveled to the southern border to visit the Customs and Border Patrol people, to visit with ICE people, and to see firsthand what goes on in a typical night. We were there overnight on Sunday night. We had a remarkable evening, and we saw firsthand what these people are up against.

Before I make my comments, I want to say that from Deputy Chief Ortiz all the way down in the organization in that sector--the McCowan sector that we were in--the best of America is in uniform right now, every day and night, protecting our rights and privileges here in the United States. I was proud to meet these people and to be a part of this trip.

What we saw this weekend is disturbing on many levels. We spoke directly to Border Patrol agents. We went to the retention center. We saw firsthand that we have not just illegal immigration there, but we have a national security crisis. We saw it firsthand.

This is a situation that the border agents face every day, and it is a grim situation. It is shameful that we here in Congress have not given Border Patrol agents adequate resources to do their jobs.

First, the real tragedy at the border is the dramatic increase in illegal drug trafficking. Even though the conversation in this room deals mainly with illegal immigration across that border, in this sector, the drug traffic increases are remarkable.

This year alone, fiscal year 2018--this is from October 1 to today-- we had a 22-percent increase of heroin seized at the southern border, a 38-percent increase of methamphetamine and a 73-percent increase in fentanyl.

The amount of fentanyl seized by ICE so far this year is enough to kill every American citizen by overdose. Let me say that again. The tonnage of fentanyl seized is up 73 percent this year across the entire southern border, and that is not 100 percent of what is crossing that border. That is a 73-percent increase over the last year. The tonnage that has been seized this year is enough to kill every American citizen by overdose.

What is so remarkable is the estimate that only 7 to 10 percent of the drugs that they are attempting to bring across the border are actually interdicted--less than 10 percent. That is consistent with what our SOUTHCOM combatant commander tells us repeatedly year after year. By the end of fiscal year 2019, CPB--Customs and Border Patrol-- will have seized 1.7 million pounds of narcotics at the border.

The Border Patrol agents we spoke to estimate that they are only able to stop, again, about 10 percent, and that is because they don't have the resources.

The movement of drugs from Mexico to the United States at the southern border is the greatest drug threat to our country. These drugs pouring across the border are destroying communities across the Nation. Congress has to act to give these Border Patrol agents and our ICE agents the infrastructure they need to address this dramatic spike in illegal drug trafficking.

I know that the illegal immigration topic is a hot topic. I don't disagree

with that, but we are not talking about this at the level that we should.

We have had historic opioid legislation. I was a supporter of that. Now we need to move on and make sure we secure the southern border.

The second point I want to make is that agents on the ground told us how Mexican drug cartels just across the border use migrants--illegal immigrants coming up out of Central America--to camouflage what they are doing and to distract our border agents from the real war that is going on, and that is the intrusion of illegal drugs into the country.

The cartels charge a toll for every individual who comes through their area of control. It is amazing right now. The charge is $8,000 per person. There are some estimates that this toll business on illegal immigrants coming across the southern border is somewhere around $2.1 billion in revenue for the cartels. These are the illegal cartels just south of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. This doesn't account for the billions of dollars these cartels earn from the drug trade every year, which is a primary business.

There are some estimates that the $2 billion they get in tolls for illegal immigrants coming into the United States is overshadowed by tenfold, relative to the drug trade. Some estimates are $25 to $30 billion of first cost value in revenue from the drugs that are coming across that border.

Many of the illegal immigrants being exploited by these cartels are unaccompanied children and family units. We met some of these people. It breaks your heart. The number of these to claim asylum has surged at our southern border since 2014. This massive surge is due to loopholes in our asylum and immigration laws.

These laws allow unaccompanied minors and family units to easily assert broad asylum claims. Again, the number of family units, individuals with children, and unaccompanied children has skyrocketed over the last 5 years.

Due to certain provisions in the law and court rulings currently enforced, these children and individuals are released into the United States while they are theoretically waiting for their formal removal proceedings to begin months or years down the road.

These loopholes, combined with programs like DACA, have led to a staggering increase in the number of unaccompanied children and family units at the border.

In fiscal year 2019 to date, there is a 280-percent increase in the number of family units apprehended at the border compared to the same point in fiscal year 2018. From just 1 year ago, there is a 280-percent increase.

The monthly apprehension numbers we are currently seeing even surpass those during the Obama administration. I think this chart shows it best. We see what happened over here, in blue, under the last administration. This is a dramatic increase in the number of illegal apprehensions at the southern border, primarily driven by catch-and- release and the implementation of some of these loopholes we are talking about right now. That was a dramatic increase--more than a 2\1/ 2\ times increase--250 percent in just 8 years.

The word got out that the new President, who was elected in November--right here--said: Well, we are going to enforce the law. They began to do that, and we saw a dramatic decrease in illegal immigrants coming across the border--a dramatic decrease.

Then there was a court case that said: Well, you can't really do that. That court case is being appealed, and what we have seen since then is that the cartels are back in business. This is one measure of the drug trade that we don't talk about. These are the poor souls who are coming across our border illegally right now.

By the way, we are at a point now that is higher than at the peak during the Obama administration. People say: Well, you know, we don't have a crisis here. It is not a problem. Well, the numbers are down.

I don't know what numbers they are looking at, but these are the numbers. These are facts. I believe right now we have a full-blown crisis at the southern border.

I am not trying to define how we use money to put up a border wall or anything. That is not what I am trying to do in this speech. What I am trying to do is point out that we have a full-blown crisis of illegal immigrants and illegal drugs crossing the southern border. I saw it firsthand on patrol with our border agents over the weekend. I am contrasting that with years ago, when I used to go across that same border, when this was not a crisis.

The last four Presidents have built 654 miles of barriers. We saw some of it in this sector. They have built 654 miles of barriers. Now we have 2,000 miles of total southern border. The four Presidents--from George H. W. Bush all the way to President Obama--have built border barriers because they all agreed that this is a crisis. It was intended to stop or slow down drug trafficking and the illegal incursion of illegal immigrants.

President Obama built 135 miles. President Trump has 124 miles under construction right now. What we have been talking about here in the last few weeks is just 55 miles; we heard today it is an additional 55 miles.

The question is, Do these barriers work? Well, we have three areas where, over the last 30 years, border barriers have been built--San Diego, Tucson, El Paso--and we have actual numbers to show that the illegal crossing of drugs and illegal immigrants in those sectors where those barriers were put up dropped 95 percent. But what they have done is, they have pushed this traffic to areas that don't have those barriers. One of those was the McCowan district, which we visited this weekend.

There are 250 miles of border across 19 counties. It is a crisis down there. Right now, what we have there is 55 miles of barrier with 35 gaps in it. They have 55 miles that were built in 2006 in this sector. It is totally ineffective. The quickest thing we could do in that sector is close the 35 gaps. There were supposed to be gates, but there are no gates there. There is some litigation regarding that, but we need to fix that and make that barrier effective.

The U.S. Capitol Police--who do such an outstanding job protecting Members of Congress, our staffs, the Capitol building, and several blocks around every day--employs about 2,000 officers. The Metropolitan Police Department here in Washington has over 4,000 employees to help protect an area of 68 square miles.

Let's put that in perspective. There are 55 miles of barrier with 35 miles of gaps in it, and only 3,000 agents in that entire sector. I think you can see where the problem might be.

We have to give these men and women the tools they need to be successful and to protect our country. The longer we wait to take action, the more money cartels will make off drug trafficking, the more people will die, the more families will be destroyed, and the longer our communities will be in danger.

Some estimates show that my home State of Georgia has over 70,000 gang members in it--70,000. It is a destination for these people.

There were Hondurans who were apprehended that night while we were on patrol. We asked them where they were going. One said New York; one said Miami; and one said Woodstock, GA.

As we continue to debate this issue, I want to say clearly and unequivocally that Congress has to do better. We all must do better. For the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our Nation's border, we must do better for our country.

We can start by passing disaster funding for the people in Georgia and other States who are hurting from historic hurricanes and fires. It is outrageous that the funding package being considered here today does nothing to help these farmers and victims of these wildfires out west and of the hurricanes in the southeast.

When President Trump came to Georgia to tour the damage after the hurricane, he said:

Farmers really got hurt, especially in Georgia, but we're

going to get it taken care of.

Vice President Pence said:

We will rebuild these crops and these communities. We will

restore southwest Georgia. We will restore the Sunbelt region

bigger and better than ever before.

We have a moment right now in time where Congress needs to act. Today we have to get this funding done and move forward. We have to get this disaster relief, I think, moved forward in a supplemental, if that is what we are going to do, but this has to happen immediately. Disaster relief should be considered right now--no more excuses.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is my honor to join my colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, in this brief colloquy about the current economic results that the President's agenda is achieving. I would like to put it in perspective though.

Just a little bit over 2 years ago, we had suffered through 8 years of probably the most onerous increase in big government regulatory reform that we had ever seen. These regulations were so onerous that they basically shut down free enterprise for a decade. Add to that a tax environment that was not competitive with the rest of the world, and the result was that we had the lowest economic growth in United States' history--1.6 to 1.9 percent, depending on whom you believe. Regardless of that detail, it was absolutely uncontested that it was the lowest economic growth in the United States' history. There was no secret behind that.

Actually, in 2009, when the last administration started, the economy was

at a low point because of the financial crisis. So they started from a very low point to start with. It is more draconian than the numbers indicate.

Two weeks after President Trump was elected, I was included in a leadership meeting in the White House to talk about how we are going to achieve the President's No. 1 objective, and that is to grow the economy. He said during the election and, indeed, during that meeting, that job one was to grow the economy. We had to put people back to work, get enthusiasm back, and get confidence in the U.S. economy again and in each other. In that meeting, we outlined, basically, what was required to do that. President Trump gave us his vision of what we had to do.

We wanted to work on regulations, energy, taxes, and, indeed, pull back on as much of the Dodd-Frank bill as we could. Those things in the first year were intended to get the economy jump-started. Then, in the second year, we were supposed to talk about immigration, infrastructure, and trade.

History will show that in the first year, more than 870 regulations were reversed. We unleashed our energy potential in two major projects: ANWR in Alaska and the Keystone Pipeline. Those benefits are even yet to come.

Thirdly, we passed a historic tax bill that made the United States more competitive with the rest of the world. We lowered the corporate tax rate. We changed the individual tax structure. We eliminated the repatriation tax.

The next thing was so important. We actually passed a bipartisan bill that pulled back on the most draconian parts of the Dodd-Frank bill. The Dodd-Frank bill was a knee-jerk reaction from the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. It really did put regulations in place that pulled back on the banking industry in many ways. Some of those, we might argue, were required. Certainly, on the money banks in New York, some things were needed. I would argue that not the full breadth of what Dodd-Frank did, but that is an argument for another day.

Last year, we got 17 of my Democratic colleagues in this body to agree that a minor adjustment in the Dodd-Frank bill would make a tremendous difference for small community banks and regional banks. We did that. We passed that with 17 votes from the other side. What this did in aggregate was to free up somewhere around $6 trillion back in the economy. That is real money when you are talking about a $21 trillion economy. Not all of that has flowed back in yet.

Here is what has happened. There is $2 trillion on the Russell 1000 balance sheets. These are our largest public companies, and they had the largest balance sheets in their history. They had about $2 trillion on their balance sheets.

Second, we had about $2 trillion on bank balance sheets of community banks and regional banks because of Dodd-Frank. Estimates were $3 trillion overseas in unrepatriated U.S. profits. What we have done in the last 2 years is fundamentally remove the roadblocks for that capital to flow back into the United States.

What are we seeing? Just the initial blush of regulatory reform pumped up CEO confidence and consumer confidence to 30-year highs. We saw that in the first 6 months of 2017. What happened after that was that consumers started to react, employers started to react, and capital started to flow. The free enterprise system started to breathe again after you took the jackboots of an oversized Federal Government off the throat of free enterprise.

We just heard the Presiding Officer's story about a small business. Those are multiplied by the thousands across our country. This isn't just about big business, as you and I well know. It is about individual enterprise. It is flowing again after a decade of being absent.

I am also proud to tell you that if you look at what the economy is doing right now--honestly, I am just a business guy, but I can back this up with economic realities--these facts are not debatable. This is the greatest economic turnaround in the United States' history. We are growing about a little more than twice the rate as we did in the past decade.

We created 5.3 million new jobs. Median income is the highest in U.S. history. At the same time, unemployment is at the lowest it has been in 50 years in total. African-American, Asian American, and Hispanic- American unemployment is the lowest ever measured. By any measure, this economic turnaround proves that what we believe in actually works. If you get big government out of the way and let the free enterprise system work, capitalism can breathe again, and this is what happens.

Are we going to have a steady rise in a consistent 3.5 percent, 4 percent growth? No, this is free enterprise. This is capitalism. What happens is we form capital. We have an idea for a product or a service, and we develop that. We get a customer. We make a transaction. Cash flows, and we reinvest that. This is what capitalism is. Capitalism is not Big Government getting all of your tax money, turning around, and redistributing that out because that absolutely shuts down free enterprise. As we know, free enterprise is the best economic system we have yet devised on the face of the Earth.

I am embarrassed that the President of the United States--I never thought I would see this day, on the floor of the House of Representatives in a joint session of Congress, in the State of the Union Address--had to feel like he had to make the statement that the United States would never be a socialist country. The fact that it is even debated is so embarrassing to me. It is unbelievable that this could even be proper as a viable alternative, given the history of the last 100 years alone.

If you go back to the 1970s and the great experiment that the Soviet Union was going to bring egalitarianism to the world, well, that failed. We have failed social states today in Venezuela, Cuba, and others. The Soviet Union today in Russia is a mere shadow of its former self because they played the game wrong. It may take decades before that can be rebuilt.

There can be no debate that freedom is what America is about. Our forefathers and foremothers fought and died to make sure that we would always have the liberty of the free enterprise system. That is what we are enjoying right now. That is what we are visibly witnessing before our very eyes today. As we go into a Presidential cycle in 2020, I hope that we have enough sense as a country to see that as the issue that we ought to be debating.

Yes, we have problems. Our debt is a serious threat to our own national security. It is the No. 1 threat to this continued economic boom we are all talking about. We have $21 trillion of debt. What is worse than that is that over the next 10 years, no matter what we do in terms of discretionary budget, Congress will add another $10 trillion to the debt unless we do something to save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It is as simple as that.

We are actually spending about the same or a little bit less than we were in 2009 in terms of discretionary spending. That is less than one- third of what we spend as a Federal Government. The mandatory side of that equation never gets debated in this body. It is automatic-- mandatory. It is an automatic withdrawal, like a house payment, car payment, or insurance payment in a private business.

There is no doubt in my mind that we can solve every one of these. America is not bankrupt. We have more assets than we have liabilities. We have all the wherewithal in the world to solve our long-term debt problem. The rest of the world knows that. That is why they are still buying our corporate bonds and treasuries. I have never been more optimistic about the future of our country for my children and my children's children, but we have to deal with this Federal debt. Growing the economy, as President Trump said 2 years ago, was the first step toward doing that, but we have to get serious about dealing and saving the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare. That doesn't mean cutting them. It means finding a viable financing way to make them viable indefinitely. There are so many ways to do that.

I will close with this. It seems to me that what is at stake here is the very Republic that we are talking about. What are we going to be in the next 100 years? I would submit to you that the evidence is before us right now that one thing we have to be in order to protect the freedom of our country is to remain committed to the free enterprise system that we all have built this

economic boom upon that has been the greatest economic boom since World War II and in the history of humankind.

I implore both sides here to put the political differences aside, and let's get to funding this government on time, which this Congress has only done four times in the last 44 years. Congress has actually shut the government down, including this last one, 21 times.

This is totally unacceptable and unnecessary. I think that with a bipartisan approach, we know there are so many places of agreement that we can begin to do that, and I ask for everybody's forbearance and patience and willingness to engage in a bipartisan way to actually deal with some of these life-threatening issues we see before us.

As we do that, I hope we can end the debate once and for all about what really works here--lower taxes, less regulation, and certainly you have to have controls to make sure we have a level playing field for everybody in the United States, but this onerous, top-down-driven, controlling Big Government policy does not work. We proved that in the last decade and in other decades in the last 100 years.

It is an honor to be in the U.S. Senate. It is an honor to be an American. I never took that for granted, having lived outside of the United States. I can promise the Members of this body that what we have right now is not a false positive. What we have is evidence that capitalism works, the free enterprise system works. If we want to protect our liberty, we have to continue to develop that system.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor an incredible man and an incredible Georgian. J. Harold Shepherd passed away earlier this month, but his legacy will far outlast his time on earth. If you have spent time in Georgia or anywhere in the Southeast you may have heard of his family's work at the Shepherd Center. The Shepherd Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the top rehabilitation hospitals in the country and the result of Harold's lifetime of passion for others and the disabled community.

A fourth generation Atlantan, Harold was the youngest of six children. He started in construction with his father at age 15, and as a young man started Shepherd Construction Company with his three brothers. Harold and his family members oversaw the construction of thousands of miles of interstate highways and city and country streets, and built all but one section of I-95 in Georgia.

Harold's proudest achievement, however, was the Shepherd Center. The

hospital was founded after James, Harold, and his wife Alana's son, sustained a serious spinal cord injury on a beach trip. James spent six months at a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado, where he ultimately regained his ability to walk. When James returned home to Atlanta, he and his parents grew frustrated with the lack of rehabilitation care options in the Southeast and developed a plan to open the Shepherd Center.

What started as a six-bed rehabilitation unit is now a world- renowned, 152-bed research and rehabilitation facility spread across three campuses. Until his passing earlier this month, Harold spent nearly every day volunteering at the hospital and developed a reputation for being an incredible storyteller and historian. He was beloved by the staff at the Shepherd Center, and dedicated his life to them, his family, and the disabled community in Georgia.

Harold is survived by his wife, Alana Smith Shepherd; his sons James H. Shepherd, Jr. and Thomas C. Shepherd; and his grandchildren Julie Shepherd, James H. Shepherd III (Sarah), and Thomas C. Shepherd, Jr. He is also survived by four great grandchildren, James Harold Shepherd IV, Josephine Shepherd, Virginia Shepherd, and Annie Shepherd.

Mr. Shepherd will be greatly missed, and I thank him for his service to our community.

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

Mr. President, here we are at approximately 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon trying to do the people's business in a situation that nobody wanted. Yet because, I believe, of political self-interest, we are in a situation right now where we are in what I would call a crisis mode of operation.

We need to get a deal done. But I want to address a couple of topics today that are at issue here as we debate the funding issue, which is at the crux of why we are here today and this weekend.

Our country was built on immigration; there is just no question that we are all direct derivatives, in one way or the other. But I would like to be very clear that most of the people who have come to this country over the last two centuries came in legally. Today, we bring in 1.1 million people a year--legally. We bring in about 70,000 people who have a job-related way to get into our system. There are about 70,000 direct family members; that is, a spouse and immediate children. There are another 300,000 refugees and asylum seekers. There is a rational reason we should do that, and we have been doing that.

Today, every day, asylum seekers and refugees are permitted into our country, but there are another 800,000 who come in legally every year, and the only reason they come in is that they have an indirect family link, through generations, to the 70,000 that come in. Given that environment, we also have a temporary work permit system here that, again, has over 1 million people in it--every year.

Our country is the most welcoming, philanthropic country in the history of the world. To think that just protecting our borders as a national security issue is somehow hard-hearted and radical--no country in the history of the world has ever demonstrated that it was a radical thought to maintain and protect the sovereignty of their own country and their own borders.

Indeed, there are only 6 reasons why 13 colonies came together in the first place in the late 18th century and formed the United States of America. The No. 1 reason articulated is to provide for the common defense of our country.

President Trump is leading right now in his first responsibility, and that is to protect every citizen of the United States of America. He is fighting for the American people. Actually, that is how he got elected. He got elected because he complained about the dysfunction in Washington, about politicians, bureaucrats, and the media. So did I, in 2014--2 years before President Trump did. I believe people are fed up with this dysfunction in Washington.

I want to reemphasize that what is at issue here is the protection of our sovereignty as a country--not to change the immigration laws; that is not what is at debate today.

I want to remind everybody that just in this body this year, 43 of my colleagues across the aisle, in an immigration bill proposed by Susan Collins on this side, 43 Democrats voted for a $25 billion border security package--43. I think President Trump has demonstrated tremendous negotiating willingness over and over, over this past year, on this issue.

Let's be clear what is going on. The flow of drugs and human trafficking on our border are completely unacceptable. Everybody in this body agrees with that, demonstrated by the fact that 43 Democrats actually voted for a $25 billion border security package earlier this year. There is no way you can avoid admitting that. This has to stop.

The undampened flow of illegal drugs has created a crisis in our country. The fact that we sit here and are more concerned about the political realities in Washington than we are about stopping human trafficking across our southern border is totally unacceptable. An open border goes against the very ideas of why our country was founded. It totally undercuts American sovereignty. The American people know that. They are fed up with the status quo, and I can tell you, firsthand, so is President Donald Trump.

The Dems are very clear. My colleagues have demonstrated that they prefer open borders, illegal drug transfers, and human trafficking to a commonsense protection of our southern border.

We know fences work. I have been to countries around the world where they are protecting their borders with simple fences where they need them.

We have multiple approaches to defending our southern border. We have many miles right now that already have similar fences up that deter illegal crossings.

At the same time, this President has shown over and over again that he will work with our colleagues across the aisle to find some common solution here that we can all live with. He is ready to make a deal today. In fact, as we speak, the Vice President, the President, and the Chief of Staff are in the White House right now; the leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate is, right now, negotiating.

This needs to get done. I have done dozens of these in my career, and looking at what is important to both parties, there is no reason this can't get done.

I believe the President is ready to make a deal to fully fund the Federal Government--the last 25 percent. Let's remember how we got there. This body, the Senate and the House, did something they haven't done in 22 years, and that is fund at least 75 percent of our Federal Government on time. That was by September 30. We are here, at the end of our first quarter of the next fiscal year, still trying to fund the last 25 percent because of this controversy over the border wall.

The first number was $25 billion, as I said, which was agreed to by the other side. Then, there was another $5 billion offered. Lastly, the President, I thought, had a deal earlier this week with our colleagues across the aisle for $1.6 billion. That deal was taken away.

We are right now, I think, experiencing the second Schumer shutdown of this year. The first was over the DACA controversy. President Trump took the Democratic request for 600,000 work permits for an indefinite period of time and changed that and made an offer of a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA recipients. He took a chance with the ultraright in our party, the conservative part of the party. He took a chance and stood up and said: This is the right thing to do, if it is paired with the right deal on the other side.

I believe there is no reason we can't get this package done right now. I think the President agrees with that. I think the Democratic leader agrees with that. But prior to yesterday, for a few days, there was no one talking.

I give Mick Mulvaney and the Vice President a lot of credit. I know that the Vice President was in this building until about 9:30 last night negotiating this. I just believe it is time to get this done.

Nancy Pelosi, in the House, repeatedly said that President Trump couldn't get the votes from the House to pass a funding package that included these border security priorities. We now know she was wrong. The votes were there. The House has sent a bill back over here that not only has border security but a relief package--a serious relief package for hurricane victims, disaster relief victims, and the wildfire victims in California.

The U.S. Senate should have included President Trump's priorities from the very beginning. Now this body has a chance to do the right thing.

It is time to get this done. We are here. Let's get a deal, bring it back in here, pass it, get it back to the House, and let's stop this nonsense. Let's not yield to political self-interest on either side.

I implore all of us who have influence with the people who are negotiating this: Let's get beyond this. This is so close. There is no reason we are sitting here, letting America be nervous about whether we are going to get this done. This should have been done back in September, as I said earlier. Now let's focus on our national interests, the things we are all called to do in our oath of office: Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Let's fully fund this government--the last 25 percent--move past this, secure our border, and provide disaster relief for the people who have a timely need, right now, for us to do that.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last month, we lost a true Georgia original.

Mac Collins was a friend of mine. He was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 12 years. He was born in Flovilla, GA, in 1944. At the time, Flovilla had a population of 240 people.

Mac always liked to say he was a graduate of the school of hard knocks. Together with his wife, Julie, he started a trucking company many years ago. Mac started with a single vehicle that he often had to repair at night. Julie kept the books, answered the phones, and sometimes helped load the trucks. The Collins family had a simple motto: ``Can't never could.'' They never gave up, and their hard work paid off. Today, Collins Trucking hauls timber and goods across the South and Midwest and is still a family owned and operated business.

Eventually, Mac turned to public service. He won a seat on the Butts County Commission and a few years later became Butts County's first Republican county commission chairman.

Eventually, Mac was elected to the Georgia State Senate, where he served from 1988 until 1982. Back then, I think you could count on one hand the number of Republicans in the entire State. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992 and served for 12 years. He fought to make America more competitive by changing its archaic Tax Code. He worked on veterans issues and served on both the critical U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and the prestigious Intelligence Committee. Mac was serving in leadership as deputy whip during some of our Nation's most trying days in the aftermath of 9/11.

Throughout his years of service, Mac Collins never forgot his roots. For Georgia Republicans, he was definitely a pioneer. For all Georgians, regardless of their political beliefs, he was a champion. Max's example of entrepreneurship and servant leadership serve as a shining example for us all.

Mac is survived by his wife, Julie, four children, a dozen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Bonnie

and I join all Georgians--and Americans, for that matter--in lifting up their family in our prayers during this time and in honoring Mac Collins' very impressive legacy of service.

When Mac Collins passed away, Georgia and America lost a true statesman, a leader, and my friend.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, as we come to a close of the 115th Congress, this will be my last speech in this Congress. It is an honor to be in this body. It is a privilege that I take very seriously, as I know the Presiding Officer does as well.

Today, I come to talk about a topic that I told this body in my maiden speech was the reason I ran for the Senate, and at the end of each year, I try to remind us all of where we are on this topic--the financial crisis that the United States faces today. It is intertwined with the global security crisis that we heard about in a speech just a minute ago. They are very much interrelated.

Today, we have $21 trillion in debt. What makes that so important is that just this week, just recently, the Federal Reserve increased the Fed fund rate one-quarter point. To most people, that really doesn't sound like a big deal, but this is the ninth increase in just the last couple of years. Just this one-quarter point increase means $50 billion of new interest that the Federal Government is obligated to pay each year, every year. Over the last couple of years, those nine increases together represent a 2.25-percent increase. So that 2.25 percent increase in the interest rate means an additional $450 billion of new interest expense liability the Federal Government has incurred over the last couple of years. To put that in perspective, we only raise about $2.2 trillion in total Federal income tax. We spent about $700 billion on our military and only $200 billion on our veterans.

This is a train wreck, and it is a crisis of full proportion. Yet here we were just last night passing our 186th continuing resolution since 1974 when the Budget Act of 1974 passed. That is one of our problems. Combine that with 8 years of lethargic economic productivity, and you end up with a burgeoning debt crisis.

It is projected by the Congressional Budget Office that, at current interest rates, with no other interest rate increases, the interest on the debt will grow--by 2023, just 5 short years, we will be spending more on just interest than we will on national defense. That cannot happen. The world bond markets probably won't let that happen. And here we are in 2018.

How did we get here? In 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration, this country had $6 trillion of debt. In 2008, at the end of President Bush's administration, we had $10 trillion of debt. In 2016, at the end of President Obama's tenure, we had $20 trillion of debt. In that 8 years, America added more to the debt than all other Presidents combined prior to 2008.

Today, the rate of growth continues. We are at $21 trillion. In my office, we have a debt clock that actually shows real time how this debt clicks forward every day, every minute. It is a sobering thing to watch because this is a legacy we are giving to our children and our grandchildren, and there is no reason to let this go forward. We can solve this today.

Under the Obama administration, over those 8 years, the Federal Government borrowed a little less than 35 percent of what it spent as a Federal Government. Let me say that again. It borrowed almost a third of what it spent. To put that in perspective, the discretionary part of our budget--we spend about $4 trillion a year, including all of our mandatory expenses, but only 1.3 of that 4.3 is discretionary. Discretionary spending is about 25 percent. So if you are borrowing 33 percent and your discretionary spending is 25 percent and all of your first money that comes in goes to pay for the mandatory expenses--like a car payment, a house payment, insurance payments--automatically deducted, that is exactly what happens in the Federal Government. What we have is a situation where every dime--during those 8 years--of discretionary spending was by definition borrowed money.

Today, we are not borrowing quite that much, but the problem continues that most of our domestic discretionary spending is borrowed money. This is not lost on leaders around the world. Our near-peer competitors in Russia and China pay attention to this. They saw we cut our military spending over those 8 years ending in 2016 by 25 percent. That is one reason we see a very active China right now in the South China Sea. It is also why we see Russia being very active in the Middle East. It is because of our inactivity and our withdrawal from the global stage, and that was driven largely by the political position that administration was in at the time, but I also believe it is because of the Federal crisis we have relative to our national debt.

Today, if you look at the sources of our income and the uses of that income and our expenses, just on the Federal budget side, we raise about $2.2 trillion.

The first three line items that we dedicate money to or allocate money to is a subsidy for the Social Security trust fund. Now, this is the first year that has really happened. It was never supposed to happen. The trust fund was supposed to sustain itself forever, indefinitely. It was supposed to be self-sustaining.

The second item is the Medicare trust fund. Now, the Medicare trust fund has to be subsidized by the general account of the Federal budget.

The third is this unlimited entitlement we have called Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. It is an unlimited expense depending on what different Governors decide to do and what the Federal Government has to do in terms of matching funds that go to those States.

Those three line items--just those three--account for more than 50 percent of all Federal income tax dollars we collect--over 50 percent.

The Social Security trust fund is projected to go to zero--the balance in that trust is supposed to go to zero in 12 years. The Medicare trust fund is supposed to go to zero in 8 years. This is a situation that is exploding before us. Discretionary expenditures have leveled out. Those are being fairly controlled. What is not being fairly controlled are all the mandatory expenses--the Social Security, expense of Medicare, Medicaid, pension benefits for Federal employees, and the interest on the debt. The fastest growing of all that is the interest on the debt, as I mentioned earlier. We have added $450 billion of new interest expense just in the last 2 years.

I believe there is a way forward. We have been talking about it. President Trump said job No. 1 when he got elected was growing the economy. Why? Well, one of the benefits--we put people back to work, we have confidence going again, and we get the economy going, but it also raises more dollars for the Federal Government.

The Congressional Budget Office said that if we grow the economy 100 basis points more than we were growing during the Obama administration, which was only 1.9 percent over 8 years, that that 1 percentage point of growth adds $300 billion a year. Well, we are growing much faster than that now. We are growing at almost twice the rate. The GDP is growing at almost twice the rate it grew during the Obama administration. What that means is that we have lowered the curve over the next decade of this debt cycle--this ever increasing debt cycle--we have lowered the curve by as much as $3 trillion, by some estimates. That is the first step.

The second step is this budget process we are working on to try to fix it. We formed a joint select committee this year of equal numbers of participants from Republican to Democrat,

House and Senate. While we didn't pass a bill coming out of that exercise, we did agree on several things that will allow us to avoid putting pressure on the end of the year that leads to these continuing resolutions and these omnibuses that are generating more and more debt.

The third thing is, we are done with Agencies' excess spending. This year, the Department of Defense has provided--the first ever in U.S. history--its own internal financial audit. There was a law written in 1981 that said this was required, but nobody has ever forced that to happen. Secretary Mattis and President Trump have forced that to happen. Over the next couple of years, we will be digesting exactly what they are finding in that internal audit. We can't get a turnaround if we don't know what is going on with the outflows, and that is exactly what we are doing in the Department of Defense.

So make this known, that President Trump says: Yes, we have increased spending to get our readiness back, to recap our military, and to develop the capability we need to protect this country. But at the same time, he is holding the Department of Defense accountable for every single red cent it spends, and the first step of that is this internal audit.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Budget Committee--this is in the wheelhouse of those two committees, and I can state that every single member, Democratic and Republican, is interested in that audit and how it can make us much more productive and efficient in terms of how we spend taxpayer money.

The fourth is, after 8 years of arguing about the healthcare insurance plans for the individual market, which is about 21 million people, we need to start talking about the underlying cost drivers of our spiraling healthcare costs.

Lastly, the fifth and final thing we have to do to address this debt over the next 20 to 30 years is that we immediately have to save the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Programs for our recipients who need those benefits, but we also have to secure them for the future.

There are solutions out there. That is the good news today. The bad news is, yes, the spiraling debt is still with us. It is absolutely the No. 1 threat to our national security; there is no doubt about that. I believe that, and Secretary Mattis believes that. Prior Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that. We have to get the political will to face the American people and to tell us all that we have to have a plan over the next 20 or 30 years that will absolutely bring this back into reason.

One of my great colleagues in this body, a Democrat, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, has an idea to go out in the future and pick a certain date, agree on the debt as a percentage of GDP, and then move backwards with a guardrail plan on a roadmap to today to allow us to get there over time. I am in full support of that. He has been a big ally in this effort to rein in the debt and to develop a budget process that is sensible.

Mr. President, it is clear to me that after 4 years in this body, we have made some progress on this but not nearly enough. In 6 short years, one of our major trust funds, one of the major pillars of our social safety net system, the Medicare system--that trust fund goes to zero.

We deserve better than this. Democrats and Republicans both agree on that. What we have to do now is translate that into cooperation on this floor this next year; to talk about compromise, to find ways to get through the extreme positions this town and the media really encourage us to take.

Behind the scenes--behind that door right there--you know and I know we talk in a different way than we do when we are in front of the media. I believe, behind that door right there, lies the solutions to most of these problems, where we can be cooperative and find common solutions to these problems.

The last thing I will say is this. This country is not bankrupt. We have about $130 trillion of future unfunded liabilities. If you just look at the next 30 years, that is true. Fortunately, though, on the other side of the balance sheet, we have some people estimate well more than $250 trillion of assets.

The question is, Do we have the will to address the debt problem over some reasonable period of time using our assets and our productive capability to make this country stable and financially strong again? Not only do the citizens of the United States deserve this and need this, the rest of the world needs us. We are the most philanthropic country in the history of the world. Yet that is jeopardized by this intransigence that continues in this city.

I am an optimist, and I believe we will solve this. We have a good many new Members coming into this body next year--some great Members who are retiring--but it is time this moves up in our priority chain, where this is the No. 1 crisis that we begin to deal with.

I believe the best days of America are ahead because this problem has solutions, and we have plenty of resources to do it. It just depends on the political will.

Let me say this too. I believe, with a Democratic-controlled House, a Republican-controlled Senate, and a Republican in the White House, the American people have sent a message to Washington saying: OK, guys, it is time. This is one of the priorities.

We will see in this next year if the House decides to legislate or they decide to investigate.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, here we are again at the end of a quarter and the end of a calendar year--not the end of our fiscal year. But here we are again with late-night sessions and people running around in a very unprofessional manner, in my opinion, talking about how to get our government funded.

Let me put this in perspective. This is the end of December. October, November, and December are the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2019. We are already one-fourth through this fiscal year, and we are still talking about the completion of authorizations and appropriations to fund the government for this year--not next year, this year.

In 2018, the Senate and, indeed Congress did something we haven't done in a long time. For the first time in 22 years, we did get 75 percent of the Federal Government discretionary spending funded. By the way, that is only about 25 percent of what we spend as a federal government, but that is a conversation for another day.

On July 31 this year and earlier than that--we started the appropriations process earlier this year and had an opportunity in the Appropriations Committee. The subcommittees and the committee did a fabulous job this year. Democrats and Republicans got together behind closed doors, no cameras, and really argued the points and came to compromises on most of the issues, so that by July 31, we had funded 12.25 percent of this year's Federal budget for discretionary spending.

We decided as a body, with the leadership's approval, to stay here in August of this year. Because of that, we went from 12.5 percent to 75 percent of the discretionary budget being appropriated and approved. Indeed, the appropriators did their job this year and would have gotten 100 percent had we not had the disagreement over border security.

Let's be clear. As we sit here at the end of this quarter, the Senate should have already totally funded the Federal Government's discretionary budget by September 30 of this year. That was 3 months ago. Instead, what we are about to do is have a vote in the next day or two on a continuing resolution for the remaining portion of this year's Federal budget, the 25 percent. This will be the 186th continuing resolution this Congress and other Congresses have used to continue to fund the government in a temporary manner.

I have a major problem with that. First of all, it is an admission that Congress can't do its job. The No. 1 responsibility of Congress is to make sure the government is funded. It is one of the reasons Thirteen Colonies got together in the first place to form this country.

This continuing resolution, as bad as it is, should not be used, but even in its current potential existence, it is so bad for a couple of other reasons.

No. 1, it does not address the border security issue on which the President and the Democrats had prior agreements. Even just a few weeks ago, we

had agreements on some numbers for border security that are not being honored right now. It is like you negotiate to a point, and then one side says: Well, we are going to back up on that. Well, we will agree to this. And then they back up again.

The American people are not fooled. This is not an immigration issue any longer. It is clearly a national security issue. The President is right: Over 85 percent of the illegal drugs come into this country illegally across that border. Almost 100 percent of the fentanyl that comes into this country comes across that southern border of the United States illegally.

There is a second reason this is such an insidious thing to do right now with this continuing resolution. It is incredibly disappointing that this continuing resolution does nothing to address disaster relief funding for the people of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, and California who have been devastated by historic wildfires and hurricanes.

The reason this is so critical right now is that this hits agriculture in these States in a way that is so insidious. The reason is that it hit at exactly the harvest time, when crops are being harvested or are potentially going to be harvested. It devastated entire regions of that portion of the United States.

In December and January, what farmers are typically doing is they have taken the money from the crops, paid back the planting loan from this year to the banks, and now in January will start negotiations for loans for next year for the planting season. What this continuing resolution does is kicks the can down the road until a theoretic date-- somebody picked February 8 as an arbitrary date. This devastates farmers and smalltown bankers who are trying to fund next year's crop because they have no way of paying this year's.

I am absolutely convinced that President Trump wants to help these farmers and the people in California who have been devastated by these fires. He has said so repeatedly. In October, on a trip to Georgia and Florida, he saw the devastation from the hurricane and the tornadoes that came with it and all the damage that came from that event, and this is what the President said:

The farmers really got hurt, especially in Georgia. . . .

But we're going to get it taken care of.

There is no question that the President of the United

States wants to make good on that promise. The problem is, he

is dealing with another party that is not being genuine in

their effort to find a solution to this funding issue right

now.

Democrats in the House want to clearly push this out into the new year for an obvious reason, and that is what we are pushed to tonight, tomorrow, and the next night. I fully believe the Senate should be back here the day after Christmas, frankly, to debate this, to get to a resolution, to some compromise, to get the benefits that we have identified are necessary to protect this strategic industry of ours called agriculture.

I remember that during my career, we would work half a day on Christmas Eve. I remember that. It hasn't been that long ago. We might take Christmas Day off, and then the next day, most people in America are back to work if they are not taking vacation. But here in the Senate, right now, we won't be back until sometime in January, and we have given ourselves until February 8 to resolve this issue. That is unacceptable. I believe it is unacceptable to the President. It is certainly unacceptable to a person who comes from the real world as an outsider to this process.

Here is another derivative negative to kicking this can down the road: It not only affects the funding we are talking about this year; it also talks about the planning and budgeting for fiscal year 2020, which starts October 1, 2019. From January 8 until July 31, there are 19 weeks or 57 workdays--only 57, the way the Senate operates today. What that means is that the Senate and the House have to appropriate 12 appropriations bills--I believe before July 31--in order to fund the government before September 30 next year. Here is why: The August break is a work break, and people in the Senate and the House go home and work in their States during the month in August.

If that happens this year, then when we come back in September, we will have 12 working days in September. There is no way we are going to have any appropriations bills and the conferences necessary to get that done in September.

It is very clear that this continuing resolution is improper, it should not be done, and it puts the people who have been devastated at risk. And I think that right now, we need to be very serious about one thing, and that is, going forward, we need to find a way to create a politically neutral platform to fund this government on time every year without all this drama.

I yield the floor.