Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 2 p.m., Friday, September 28; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, today, I want to remember and pay tribute to Mr. Powell Moore, a native Georgian, veteran, and patriot who passed away earlier this month.

Mr. Moore was a native of Milledgeville, GA, and a graduate of both the University of Georgia and Georgia Military College. Over the course of his life, Mr. Moore served in the U.S. Army, aided two U.S. Senators and four Presidents, gave back to the community, and positively influenced those around him.

Mr. Moore served as a U.S. Army infantry officer in Germany. He worked as Senator Richard Russell's press secretary for 5 years, and over 30 years later, he returned to the U.S. Senate to serve as Senator Fred Thompson's chief of staff. He was Deputy Director of Public Information at the Department of Justice. He was a White House aide to President Richard Nixon, President Gerald Ford, and President Ronald Reagan. He was an Assistant Secretary of State under Reagan and an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush. He represented the Department of Defense in Vienna, Austria, at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in 2005, he was awarded the DOD's Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Clearly, Mr. Moore was a man of accomplishment and service to his country. Perhaps the greatest measure of his accomplishment, however, is the manner in which he conducted himself.

Throughout his career, Mr. Moore was universally respected by both political parties. He was known for investing in those around him, mentoring generations of America's future leaders of all political stripe. Mr. Moore served as president of both the Senate Press Secretaries Association and the Association of Former Senate Aides. He gave back to both of his alma maters, serving on the board of visitors for the University of Georgia's journalism school and as a trustee for the Georgia Military College Foundation and the Richard B. Russell Foundation.

Mr. Moore leaves behind a legacy that his family, friends, and certainly all Georgians and Americans can be proud of. His life is an example of true servant leadership and the American Dream. It is humbling to honor his memory today. My wife, Bonnie, and I join fellow Georgians and Americans in offering condolences and prayers to Mr. Moore's family and friends during this time.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. One of the great privileges we have in the U.S. Senate is the responsibility of confirming nominees a President puts forward for this awesome lifetime responsibility on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Likewise, nominating Justices to the Supreme Court is one of the most important responsibilities the Constitution bestows upon the President of the United States. President Trump knows this, obviously, and has clearly taken this charge very seriously.

Last year, President Trump made an outstanding choice in nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. I remember the debate on this floor, and I am delighted with his performance since he has been on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Trump has again put forward an impressive nominee in Judge Brett Kavanaugh for this awesome responsibility on the U.S. Supreme Court.

A former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, Judge Kavanaugh is an accomplished, experienced jurist with over 300 published opinions. More than 50 circuit court opinions cite one of his concurrences or dissents, and the Supreme Court has actually endorsed his opinions more than a dozen times.

Judge Kavanaugh has dedicated his life to public service, serving in various roles in the executive branch under President George W. Bush and for the last 12 years on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the DC Circuit.

Throughout his years of service, Judge Kavanaugh has also had a very positive impact on those around him. Just last week, one of Judge Kavanaugh's earliest clerks was sworn in to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit of the United States. That judge is Judge Britt Grant, a native Georgian.

Judge Grant clerked for Judge Kavanaugh, served on Georgia's Supreme Court, was elected to a full term without opposition, and is now a justice on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Judge Kavanaugh introduced her when she was sworn in to the Georgia Supreme Court, and he swore her in to the court of appeals last week. That both Judge Grant and Judge Kavanaugh are where they are today is a testament to their years of service and work upholding the U.S. Constitution.

Even with Judge Kavanaugh's outstanding qualifications, which transcend party lines, some of my colleagues across the aisle are already hysterically opposing him. In fact, some of my colleagues promised to vote against the nominee before Judge Kavanaugh had even officially been nominated. That kind of blind partisanship is exactly what the American people find unacceptable about Washington--one of the many things.

Judge Kavanaugh is an independent, well-qualified nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court who will defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution. By the way, at the White House, when the President announced that Judge Kavanaugh would be his nominee, I was really moved by Judge Kavanaugh's comments that night. He first spoke about his mom and how she later in life had become a lawyer. He talked about his father, he talked about his two children, and only at the very end did he say these brief words. He made this comment in the East Room of the White House the night that President Donald Trump had nominated him and made it public that he was the nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. This is Judge Kavanaugh's quote:

I revere the Constitution. I believe that an independent

judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic.

If confirmed by the Senate, I will keep an open mind in every

case, and I will always strive to preserve the Constitution

of the United States and the American rule of law. I don't

know how you can be more clear than that.

In 2006, during his confirmation hearing for the DC Circuit, he again faced unmerited accusations, much as he is today. At that time, Judge Kavanaugh simply responded: ``There is one kind of judge . . . an independent judge under our Constitution.''

I think it is very clear where this man's mind is, and that is to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Those quotes show that this man is very serious, and he needs to be strongly considered as the next Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In my opinion, there can be no higher responsibility in this body than to be very diligent in our due diligence of nominating and confirming a Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. Having done that, I give this man my fullest unreserved recommendation, and I encourage my colleagues in this body to also vote positively on this confirmation.

Mr. President, one of the great honors and privileges of being a Senator is that we get to confirm Presidential nominations to our country's highest courts.

President Trump has nominated an outstanding judge to fill an opening on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. That judge is Georgia Supreme Court Justice Britt Grant. Tonight, the Senate will vote to invoke cloture on her nomination so we can confirm her later this week. This is a crucial vote.

Justice Grant has served with distinction on the Supreme Court of Georgia since January 2017. In that role, she has written over 40 opinions on both criminal and civil matters and participated in hundreds of other opinions. Her positions are not a mystery. She has a long record of defending and upholding our Constitution.

She served as Solicitor General for the State of Georgia from 2015 until her appointment to the State Supreme Court. This year, she was elected to her seat on the State Supreme Court without opposition. When that happens in my State, that means people on both sides of the aisle understand how she is applying the rule of law. It is a testament to the quality of her work and the dedication she has to the Constitution and to the people for whom she works.

Prior to her public service, Justice Grant argued a commercial litigation case before the highest Court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court. And by the way, she won.

Justice Grant attended Stanford Law School. After graduating, she actually clerked for Judge Brett Kavanaugh--another outstanding nominee who will hopefully be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court later this year. I might add that Judge Kavanaugh sat through Justice Grant's confirmation hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee just a few months ago. He was there for the entire hearing because she did such a good job clerking for him earlier in her career.

Clearly, Justice Grant is immensely qualified to fill this Court of Appeals vacancy, and there is no doubt in my mind that she will do a fantastic job. In fact, our country needs more judges like Justice Grant.

I couldn't be prouder of her, her husband Justin, and their three kids, Charles, Mary Elise, and Jack.

Earlier this year, I was honored to introduce Justice Grant in her confirmation hearing and to commend her nomination with my highest recommendation. Tonight, I strongly urge my colleagues to support her final confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what we have here is another distraction from what we in this body need to be focused on today; that is, funding the Federal Government and confirming this President's nominees.

Right now, we have just 23 working days, as a result of the way the Senate operates, between now and the end of the fiscal year--just 23 days. Meanwhile, we have 329 nominees. These are Presidential nominees waiting for this body to confirm them. We need to stay on track.

This resolution is no more than political theater. This resolution was previously objected to by Senator Cornyn just last week. It will continue to be objected to again because it is unnecessary.

The Senate, the House of Representatives, and our intelligence community have all thoroughly investigated this matter. In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee has held 16 open hearings, dating back to January of 2017. They all found that Russia did, in fact, attempt to interfere in the U.S. election. We all take that very seriously.

However, let's be crystal clear. They also found there is no evidence this interference impacted the outcome of the Presidential election in 2016 at all.

This President and this body have consistently been tough on Russia. I have personally cosponsored strong sanctions on Russia and introduced legislation condemning Russian military aggression around the world. We are currently debating additional economic sanctions to hold Russia further accountable, and we will continue to do so as long as their nefarious activities continue.

What we don't need are more political distractions, and that is all this is. Therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about my opposition to the section 232 motion which will be voted on later today.

I have utmost respect for my colleagues who are bringing this motion. I totally understand their logic, and I respect their point of view on this and many other issues. One of the great things about this deliberative body is that we deliberate. Unfortunately, I just don't understand why this body continues to try to tie the hands of this President at every turn.

We all know that enacting tariffs on imports is not the goal here. This

President is committed to creating a more level playing field for our workers and our companies here at home that compete on the unlevel playing field which exists in the trade world we know of today. We need to give this President, and every future President, frankly, room to negotiate.

The 1962 Trade Expansion Act was passed by Congress to give the executive branch the authority and flexibility to negotiate on trade. It was this authority that paved the way for negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade--GATT--which helped reduce global trade barriers.

Most of my career, I have dealt within the GATT restrictions and opportunities we have to trade across borders internationally. I think, more than anybody else in this body, I have actually transacted products across borders internationally. I am very concerned, in this era of entrenchment in Congress, where we are so paralyzed that we can't even fulfill our most basic constitutional function of funding the government on time--which we have only done four times in 44 years--in that environment, if we get the authority on trade back, that we will not be able to even hold a vote and have a debate and will hamstring any administration's negotiating efforts.

Credibility in negotiating trade terms is absolutely critical. Imagine a head of state in another part of the world dealing with our head of state, knowing that before he can make any deal, he has to wait on us in this body to act. I have been waiting 3 years to see this body act on healthcare. We haven't been able to find a way to even solve one of the most near crises we all know exists today. So imagine what a world would look like if we are trying to do that in the trade environment.

Like me, President Trump is an outsider to this political process. He is a business guy who has seen the impact of unfair trade practices in the real world. For years, he has seen how America has often been treated unfairly when it comes to trade. I know, and most people who have traded internationally in the last four decades know, these rules were written by us. We wrote these rules. It created an unlevel playing field that allowed the rest of the world to develop, but guess what. In the last 40 years, we have seen global poverty be reduced by almost two-thirds, while our poverty rate in the United States, since the Great Society was signed into law, has not been reduced one iota. That is partly a function of our trade practices.

This President has made it a priority to restore fairness and balance to this trade imbalance with our trading partners around the world. He needs credibility and he needs flexibility in order to achieve that.

Looking at what we are up against today, it is easy to see why the President is insisting on getting America a better deal. Today, Canada has a 270-percent tariff on U.S. milk; the EU keeps a 10-percent tariff on American autos; Brazil bans U.S. fresh, frozen, and processed pork products; China has a 15-percent tariff on American cars; the EU has a tariff of up to 26 percent on U.S. seafood; and you cannot sell fresh American potatoes in most of Mexico. I could do this all day.

We know there is an imbalance in trade around the world. This is about making sure America is treated fairly and is in the best place to do business in the world. It is about making America more competitive and secure. It is about ensuring our economic and national security for the next 100 years.

The President is taking a different approach, sometimes controversial, but I believe he is a pragmatist, and I believe he only wants one thing for America; that is, results and a level playing field with the rest of the world.

I believe we ought to give the executive branch--just like the 1962 act did--space to negotiate. We need to give him space to succeed for American workers and for American companies here at home.

With that, I urge my colleagues to oppose this motion.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to comment on something that is somewhat misunderstood in many parts of our country, and that is the farm bill.

I have the privilege to sit in a seat of the U.S. Senate once held by Saxby Chambliss, a former chairman of this Agriculture Committee. I am fortunate to be from a State where agriculture is our largest industry. I am fortunate to sit on this committee, and we have just heard from two people, two leaders, the ranking member, Senator Stabenow from Michigan, who is my good friend, and my good friend Senator Pat Roberts, the chairman. This is a bipartisan committee.

People sent me up here 3 years ago. They said: Look, we need you to go there and get something done. I said: OK, fine.

We know we have two opposing views in Washington, so that means you are going to have to compromise. I made the comment that no one gets everything they want. I remind people, anyone, that I am married; I mean, this is something that is the American way. I come from the American business community. I can tell you that nobody gets 100 percent of everything they want in any deal. That is what we are talking about today.

This is a bill that moves this agenda forward. It provides certainty--and that is what this is about--for our agriculture industry. It is not about subsidies. It is not about protection. It is about certainty. It is about protecting a strategic industry in our country. I want to make that point upfront. This is very definitely a strategic industry.

The United States today enjoys a God-given position in the world. We are one of the three major bread baskets in the world. The world needs us to be successful in our agricultural industry.

There are hungry people in the world whom we can feed in our capacity here in the United States. Our productivity in many of our commodities has gone up in my lifetime dramatically.

I grew up working on a farm, and I can tell you, I know we produce a lot more corn per acre today than we did when I was 6 years old. This is an amazing productivity story, and the rest of the world needs that today.

A big reason our State continues to be the best State in the country is that we understand this. We have a port that we can export from. We have God-given land and water and God-given people who understand how to work that land with that given water, and we produce great products not only for our country but for the world.

For the last year and a half, we have been working on this farm bill, and all the members of that committee, myself included, have gone all over the country, listening to farmers and ranchers around the country. I have been all over my State talking to our farmers and ranchers about what is important to them.

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for providing the framework, really, for this particular farm bill. This is, indeed, a strategic industry. It must survive, and it is different.

Getting to a farm bill that balances the needs of every commodity and every region is not an easy task. This

is not a partisan problem. It is not even a regional problem. This is the United States trying to make the best use of our God-given blessings. I am happy to say that this year's farm bill does that.

Over the last year, we have all traveled around and heard what has been said. One thing is very clear; this farm bill is indeed a jobs bill. Getting it across the finish line today, hopefully, is simply a must for rural communities in Georgia and around the country.

We have worked on this in a bipartisan fashion. I am proud to say to the people back home that this is a compromise they wanted us to come up here and achieve, and it does exactly what we wanted. It achieves the objective of providing certainty for an agricultural industry that is indeed a strategic asset in the United States.

We have kept programs in place that have helped farmers in Georgia and around the country weather the low commodity market we have seen in the last couple of years. The chairman just mentioned that there are some entities and commodities that are at historic lows.

We have cracked down on fraud within the food stamps program. We have advanced turf grass and timber research. We have included provisions important to land grant universities.

This farm bill is not perfect, but as I said, it is a great compromise that achieves the objective.

One provision that has been eliminated would help ensure that American textile mills have the tools they need to compete with other countries, for example. I hope we can find a way to fix that.

However, as I said earlier, growing up and working on the land, I learned many hard lessons. At an early age, I learned that agriculture is not just a business; it is a way of life for many people around our country.

This farm bill is an investment in those people, in our ag industry, and, indeed, in our country. It is not just the product that is grown in the soil; it is the processing, transportation, retail, and, indeed, the end consumer.

There are things here meant to assist farmers only during tough times. When we say ``strategic industry,'' we have to be responsible for the survival and the transferal of the industry from generation to generation.

Madam President, as you well know, in your home State, as in mine, most of the agricultural production in the country comes from family farms. President Trump is working to renegotiate trade deals with other countries and create a level playing field with the rest of the world. This is absolutely critical.

I have lived in this trade world for most of my career. The President is trying to get equal access in other markets around the world. I know this is a tough thing after 50, 60 years of having an imbalanced trade environment, where the United States served a purpose to develop the rest of the world. We have to now stand up and provide a balance within those trade deals.

We have reduced global poverty. Since 1965, when the Great Society was signed, the United States almost singlehandedly--on the back of our open market, on the back of our trade deals, and on the back of the our military, which provided for safe transportation of goods around the world--has reduced poverty by more than 60 percent. I have seen that happen in my career, in my lifetime.

Unfortunately, in the United States, the poverty rate today is basically the same as it was in the midsixties. That is not a partisan comment. We all bear responsibility for that.

What this President is trying to do is say: Hey, wait a minute. Something is out of balance. Our ag community has been harmed by that. What we are trying to do is create a level playing field, and this farm bill supports that.

Over the long term, this bill will bring certainty to the American agricultural community. The last things family farms need from Washington today are more burdens, more regulations, and more intrusion. All of that takes away from the certainty and the planning it takes to manage a family farm.

Some people are planting a plant that will not mature for 20 years, in some cases. Some of these men and women in these families are putting product in the ground that they will not benefit from, that their heirs will benefit from. They will have to harvest it after they are dead, in many cases.

People say: Well, we need to take care of the land. Well, absolutely. Do you know that the best husbands of the land and the water and the air around the world, in my experience, have been farmers? There is a very simple reason why. If they don't take care take of their God-given blessings in the land, in the water, and in the air, and if they don't produce what they need, they surely can't hand it down to the next generation.

Farms across our country have considerable differences, based on things from region, to crops, to climate conditions. Given these differences, one-size-fits-all measurements clearly don't work. A farm in Iowa is different from a farm in Georgia, in many cases.

As I have said, this farm bill is not perfect. It is unfortunate that there is now an amendment on this farm bill that would measure appropriate and significant contributions to the family farm by applying a single manual labor threshold for farms across the country, and I think this is just wrong. The opportunity to qualify as an active contributor--and I put that in quotes, ``active contributor''--to the farm through management, bookkeeping, and other activities is important because it recognizes the contributions of all family members and individuals who actually participate in farming operations. I can tell my colleagues from personal experience that if it were not for my aunts, my cousins, my uncles, our farms would not have been successful. I have lived it. I know the difference that we are talking about here from region to region.

If the full scope of active participants in the farm is not taken into consideration, a bank may be reluctant to actually finance the operation. I have lived that.

The point is this: Even if an individual never drives a tractor, never plows a field, never milks a cow, he or she can still provide an important contribution to the vitality of the farm operation. It is a business, after all. Businesses have marketing, they have finance, they have sales, they have operations, and they have planning. Management contributions are as important as manual labor in this industry, just like it is in every other industry.

Amendments like this will lead to burdensome recordkeeping for family farms and could indeed put in jeopardy the ability to transfer that farm to the next generation.

President Trump has promised to roll back overreaching regulations and look out for rural America. Since he took office, over 870 regulations have been reversed, bringing relief to family farms and rural Americans. With this farm bill, the Trump administration and the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee have prioritized rolling back those overreaches. These should be our shared interests because it is good for our entire country and our economy.

Between now and when this farm bill reaches President Trump's desk, I hope this problem with the bill gets fixed, and there are ways to do that.

As I said, while the current farm bill is not perfect, I am proud to stand today and encourage every Member of this body to support it and vote for it. It does provide certainty in a very uncertain world for our agriculture community and the families who are the backbone of that industry.

I am delighted to be a member of this committee. I take that honor very seriously. The legacy, as I mentioned to begin with, coming in behind an esteemed Senator, Saxby Chambliss as chairman--I take this responsibility very seriously.

I want to commend the chairman and ranking member for pulling together this farm bill, and I hope to see it come to a vote, hopefully today.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous to call up amendment No. 2870 to amendment No. 2282.

Mr. President, I don't disagree that we need to send a strong message to people doing business with the United States. However, the Commerce Department has imposed a severe fine in the ZTE case--a $1.7 billion fine--in addition to penalties and compliance measures on ZTE, including the firing of its entire board and all senior executive leadership. That is not dissimilar to a commerce violation right here in the United States. If someone violates the rules and laws of our land, there are fines, penalties, and compliance measures that go along with that.

In regard to these harsh penalties, Secretary Ross has just said: ``the strictest and largest settlement fine that has ever been brought by the Commerce Department against a violator of export controls.''

The Commerce Department has leveled a harsh but justified penalty.

I agree that we need to send a strong message, and I think this does just that. However, the current NDAA managers' package would trample on the separation of powers and undercut the Trump administration's authority to impose these penalties. My amendment would prevent this year's NDAA from limiting the export control authority of the Secretary of Commerce.

I don't dispute the threat that ZTE products pose, but, remember, the majority of the chips used in ZTE products are made right here in the United States. Our government should not use products from ZTE, Huawei, or any other company with such close links to the Chinese Government.

The underlying NDAA still prohibits the entire government from purchasing ZTE products, but we should not tie the hands of the administration to enact penalties as it sees fit, particularly in these times of aggressive actions by foreign players.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up amendment No. 2870 to amendment No. 2282.

Yes.

Mr. President, one of the great honors in this body is to bring a contrasting point of view to the topic of the day. I hope to do that today.

Many colleagues in this body have voiced concerns on both sides of the aisle, frankly, about President Trump--what President Trump is doing to try to create a more level playing field for our workers and businesses. They are nervous about his negotiating style, about things he says, what he is trying to do with our allies, our adversaries, and all around the world. People in this body worry sometimes it is going to create a trade war.

Colleagues, I have worked in the trade environment internationally most of my career. I have sourced products all over the world. I shipped products all over the world. I can tell you, for a fact, that for the last 40 years we have been in a trade war.

In that time, America has helped develop the Third World and reduce poverty largely because of an imbalanced trade agreement that we made with pretty much each country around the world, and we did that intentionally, not by accident. It was out of our good will that we set up trade deals that granted access to our markets while denying access to other markets around the world.

Why did we do that? When China was a $1 trillion economy, that made sense. We wanted to help them develop economically. Now that they are a $12 trillion economy, it no longer makes sense. When Japan was rebuilding after World War II, of course we wanted to help them rebuild. We spent billions of dollars behind the Marshall Plan to do just that with Japan and all of East Asia. We set up trade deals that we knew would help their economy grow, and that made sense then.

It no longer makes sense to have an unlevel playing field with the rest of the world just so they can develop. Let me give you a reason why. One of the reasons is, because of the American consumer and taxpayer, global poverty over the last 50 years has been reduced dramatically; by some estimates, over 60 percent. Let me say that again. Global poverty, because of the American taxpayer and the American worker, has been reduced over 60 percent. Unfortunately, during that same period of time, American poverty since 1965, when the Great Society was signed into law and when the great War on Poverty was initiated, we spent $67 trillion trying to eradicate poverty in America.

Unfortunately, today we know poverty is basically the same as it was in 1965. So this imbalance we have lived with for the last half decade that partially helped the development of the Third World, pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, begins to not make sense when it damages our well-being here at home.

Like me, President Trump is an outsider to this political process. He is just a business guy who spent his career successfully negotiating deals all over the world. For years, he has seen how America has often been treated unfairly when it comes to trade. He has also seen how previous administrations repeatedly failed to contain the growing threat of rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions, like North Korea and Iran.

Since taking office, President Trump has put America back in a position of power and strength when it comes to our standing with the rest of the world. This comes after a decade where America withdrew. We had redlines drawn. We had a Russia reset. The world was questioning what our position was. Were we going to be the leader of the free world? Were we going to stand up for individual sovereignty, for individual liberty, self-determination? I think he has made that very clear and that we have turned a corner.

President Trump has, no doubt, an unconventional negotiating style-- an outsider style, if you will. Do you know what? As we have seen in his Presidential career just in the last 15 months--NATO, South Korea, and just last night, a historic summit in North Korea--President Trump's methodology, indeed, works.

Remember when he was running for office? He said: Well, if NATO doesn't increase their military spending, we just might back out. Everybody panicked: Oh my goodness, it will upset the balance with our allies over there. This is not the time to be doing that.

Guess what. NATO stepped up. I just met with a major ambassador from one of the countries in that region, and I am delighted to tell my colleagues tonight that we all know, basically, NATO is doubling the amount of money they are spending for their own national security, which is exactly what the President wanted.

President Trump is working to fix problems that others would not address. He is moving with a sense of urgency to deliver those results. I am tired of Members of this body trying to undercut him at every turn, especially in the middle of the negotiation process.

One of the things you learn when you deal internationally is that you have to have the respect of the person you are negotiating with across the table. President Trump has earned that. What we are beginning to do in this body is undercut that. I understand the article II, article I debate. I get that. But we are in the middle of processes now that are so critical. You cannot deal with trade in a one-dimensional fashion. It is part of the bigger geopolitical complex calculus that President Trump is trying to negotiate. We need a unified voice, there is no doubt. Right now, this body is sending mixed signals. It is time to put aside political self-interests and focus on what is best for the United States of America. As a business guy, I would think this is something my colleagues--especially those who come from the business community-- would understand. That is what we have to do all the time in the real world.

Last year, President Trump said that job 1 was to grow the economy. As a body, we all focused on regulations, energy, and taxes. As a result, the economy has begun to turn a corner.

Just this year, we passed a moderate bill that modifies Dodd-Frank and frees up onerous regulations on small and

community banks and regional banks--freeing up some $6 trillion all in between regulations and taxes and the work in Dodd-Frank. That $6 trillion is potentially coming back into the economy. That affects people who work for a living, not just the people who own the businesses.

Today, small business optimism hit a 30-year high. Some 31\1/2\ million jobs have been created, and 870 regulations have been reversed. Over 1,500 people in the Veterans' Administration have been let go because they were not concerned and did not perform their jobs properly.

This year, it is all about continuing to grow the economy by focusing on immigration, infrastructure, and trade. Trade is a very complex matrix of countries and industries; it is not just a very simple thing of back-and-forth. I understand that the President is trying to do it in a bilateral way. I personally would prefer the TPP approach. But that is just two individuals. We are committed to this bilateral path, and I fully support that now. Of course, how we deal with each one should be thoughtful and strategic, and we need to be in a hurry to get that done. We need a holistic approach to trade, not the ad hoc approach we have seen in the past.

Do you know what. If you want meaningful results in trade, you have to have the courage to have serious, tough conversations with other countries, regardless of how many headaches it may cause for some folks here in Washington. That includes some of our allies, by the way.

The imbalance we have in trade is not just with China; it is with pretty much every one of our allies. The solutions are not controversial. They can be dealt with the right way.

When it comes to trade, including trade with some of our closest allies, America isn't being treated fairly. We covered that already. We have been in this position for some time. It is really by our own making. We did this intentionally.

President Trump is working to begin to fix this by negotiating better trade deals for American businesses, products, and workers. Make no mistake--the beneficiaries of these trade negotiations are American consumers and American workers. Trump is doing this from a position of strength, I believe. He is leveraging that strength to get a better deal. It is not about pending alliances; it is about telling other countries: We aren't going to stand for anything less than a level playing field. I think that is only fair when we are dealing with our allies or our adversaries.

President Trump has the attention of the world and momentum to pull off better trade deals, so why are Members of this body trying to confuse and complicate the process by undermining the President's efforts?

Furthermore, we cannot discuss trade in a vacuum. The credibility of the negotiator is all-important when dealing with certain parts of the world. We need to take that into consideration when we are considering things that we have been debating here in the last 24 hours on this floor. We need to talk about trade from an economic and national security standpoint. It is, in fact, a full-blown, complex geopolitical issue.

To that point, we should all share the priority of denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula. President Trump is also working from a position of strength on that topic. This President and his team have the momentum to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Imagine what progress would be achieved compared to just 6 months ago when the worst was being contemplated.

Just as President Trump has brought China to the trade table, he has secured their cooperation on North Korea. I can tell you personally, having just visited there recently, we would not be in these negotiations with North Korea without the help of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people. President Trump's leadership on this maximum- pressure campaign led to China's cooperation on tough sanctions, which helped bring North Korea to the table in the first place.

The President made a personal commitment to another foreign leader about how to deal with ZTE. He should be able to follow through on his word. This agreement may be tied to other elements of this administration's national security agenda that we don't know about in full detail, and we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and stop undercutting the negotiating power of our Commander in Chief.

This ZTE amendment, which has been thrown into the NDAA at the last minute and before the Commerce Department made its full ruling, could threaten China's cooperation in dealing with North Korea. It is remarkably shortsighted for politicians in this body to complicate the situation with the ZTE amendment, in my opinion. I believe it will undercut our ability to negotiate, and I think it jeopardizes our negotiator's credibility.

Of course, Congress has an important role to play on all free trade agreements and certainly treaties. The advice-and-consent principle that is built into our format is absolutely critical. I am not trying to undermine that in the least. However, we should not be trying to undercut our chief negotiator in the middle of a negotiating process.

I personally have survived some of those in my career. I understand that the credibility of the person doing the negotiating is absolutely critical. However, in our situation, in dealing with any foreign leader, the full breadth of the responsibility of the legislative branch has to be explained up front. I am fully supportive of that.

To those who say this President is picking winners and losers, going back to the ZTE issue, let me say that the only winner President Trump is trying to pick today is America. I think it is refreshing that we have somebody finally standing up and fighting for us for a change, after decades of making sure that the Third World was developed.

This is about making sure that America is treated fairly and that it is the best place to do business in the world. It is about making America more competitive and secure. It is about making sure that the people who take showers after work and not before work get treated fairly in dealing with the rest of the world. This is about making America more competitive. It is about making America more secure. It is about ensuring our economic and national security for the next 100 years.

This body should put aside self-interest and focus on the national interest and give this President the room he needs to negotiate on everything from better trade to denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula. Stop the hysteria, in my opinion. This is about a much bigger picture. In the much bigger picture, we talk about the rise of China and the impact on the world.

Let me highlight a couple of things from this past weekend. President Trump issued a statement that offered an olive branch to Russia on the G7. He felt he would support their reentering the G7. What did Putin say? He said: Well, no, thank you. I am more interested in other things, like the SCO.

Most people in this body aren't familiar with the SCO. It is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It is basically China, Russia, Uzbekistan, and a few countries in that area. But India and Pakistan just attended their first meeting. I think this is an extremely dangerous development for the future of self-determining people.

I think it is time for this body to get behind a unified approach with regard to what we are trying to do with trade and North Korea and tell the rest of the world: We want to be the strongest ally you have ever seen, just like we have been for the last 200 years. It is time, as the President said in Davos, to take care of our business so we can help you take care of your business.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, May 8 of this year marked the 73rd anniversary of the end of War II in Europe. It was a time to remember the sacrifice of over 400,000 Americans who were killed and over 650,000 Americans who were wounded while fighting to defend our freedoms. In that spirit, I would like to call attention to the story of one of my constituents, James Dalton, and his three brothers: Robert, Rufus, and Harry. These four brothers served in the U.S. military during World War II at the same time, which was extremely rare. Their story is remarkable.

The Dalton brothers, who I am happy to say are still with us today, were born in Charlotte, NC, along with their sister Sally. While three of the Dalton brothers still live in Carolina, James Dalton ultimately settled in Atlanta, GA.

Robert Dalton, Jr., the eldest brother, was deployed in 1944. He landed in France and served as platoon leader in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 121st Regiment of the 8th Division. On September 2, 1944, he was wounded in action. After recovering from his wounds, he spent the remainder of his time in Europe with the 29th Infantry Regiment and advanced to the rank of captain. After returning to the United States, he was discharged with the rank of major. Because of his service, he received a Purple Heart Medal, the Bronze Star, the EAME Service Medal with five Bronze Stars, and the World War II Victory Medal.

James Dalton entered military service in 1943 at the age of 20 and sailed for Europe in November 1944. He served behind the in the Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns. He achieved the rank of technical sergeant and was decorated with the American Theater Service Medal, EAME Service Medal with two Bronze Stars, Good Conduct Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.

Rufus Dalton was deployed in October 1944, landing in Marseilles, France. His unit entered the line in the Vosges Mountains in November 1944. They were in constant contact with the German Army until April 1945. At one point, Rufus was injured with a shrapnel wound to the head; yet he still returned to his unit the next day. Rufus was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze star for his service.

The youngest of the four brothers, Harry, entered into military service the day before his 18th birthday in 1945. Harry entered the Naval Radio School and served at the Shelton Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia. He also received the World War II Victory Medal and achieved the rank of yeoman third class.

The sacrifice and service of these four brothers is laudable and so is their work in their communities after the war. Between them, the four brothers went on to hold leadership positions in business, the arts, charitable organizations, and their churches over the course of long and successful careers.

I am proud to take this opportunity to honor the life and military service of one of my constituents and his family. The story of the Dalton brothers is an inspiration to us all. I join the entire country in thanking them for their service in one of our country's darkest yet most heroic hours.

Thank you.

Madam President, today I would like to recognize the career and service of Mr. Alan Gershenhorn, a 38-year veteran of United Parcel Service. Mr. Gershenhorn started his career as a part- time package handler in Houston, TX, and has since held a number of positions within the company, including his most recent position as UPS's executive vice president and chief commercial officer. He has been a member of the UPS management committee since 2007.

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Mr. Gershenhorn served as a delegate to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and as a

trustee of the UPS Foundation. As trustee, he oversaw investments of more than 2.6 million volunteer hours and $116 million in direct and in-kind donations to communities in need around the world in 2016.

Mr. Gershenhorn worked to increase diversity at UPS and to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all. In addition to supporting UPS's business resource groups that championed employees from a wide array of backgrounds, he also served in a leadership role on the Crecer

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a milestone that happened about 3 weeks ago.

We have a couple of interesting dates. April 15 just passed. We call it tax day. But it was another day. It was also the date we were supposed to complete the Senate budget for fiscal year 2019, which starts on October 1 of this year. Well, April 15 came, and the IRS deadline did indeed hit, but there was no budget completed. This is part of the dysfunction that people back home are so upset about. I want to talk about that today, but first I want to talk about the derivative of that broken process.

In my office, we have a debt clock. A few weeks ago, that debt clock passed a milestone: $21 trillion. If that weren't bad enough, the commitments of this Federal Government over the last 50 years-- actually, indeed, over the last 100 years--the commitments that have been made in the structural programs of this big government bureaucracy have committed us to some $130 trillion over just the next 30 years.

That means that every household in America owes the equivalent of $1 million per household. These are not theoretic numbers. These are mathematical realities derived from commitments made by a lot of our programs that we have passed over the last 100 years in this country.

In my opinion, we are well past the tipping point with this debt. Last week, the CBO came out with their new forecast for fiscal year 2018 and beyond. I want to talk about that today because there are some dramatic revelations in there. At $21 trillion, we are already well past the tipping point of this crisis.

In my opinion, the CBO forecasts don't do a very good job of forecasting revenue. For example, they take very little account of foreign direct investment. They underestimate the impact of the change to the repatriation tax law we just made. I believe the revenue forecast is out of line, but I do agree with their forecast of expenses, and I

think therein lies a great learning, if we will pay attention to it.

In their forecast, on top of the $21 trillion we just crossed over, their projection is that we will add another $10 trillion or more to this debt. Whether I might quibble with that a little bit or not, it is directionally correct. Because of that, I am on the floor of the Senate tonight talking about the crisis and the tipping point we are well past, because we are out of time to deal with this.

In just the next 5 years, the interest on this debt alone, in the year 2023, will be greater than the amount of money we spend on the defense of this country, and that assumes a very low forecast for interest rates. One of the reasons for that is that the last administration, instead of buying bonds or putting out bonds that were longer in duration, put out bonds that were shorter in duration because they had a little lower interest rate--interest rates were fundamentally zero--and the rest of the world put out longer duration bonds. So what happens is that these shorter duration bonds are maturing, and when they mature they have to go out at more and more expensive rates.

In just the last 18 months, the Fed fund rate has been increased six times, one-quarter point each. That 150 basis points on our size debt is more than $300 billion a year. As a matter of fact--and this is not a forecast--this year, the interest on our debt, the interest that we pay, is $50 billion more than just last year--$50 billion more than we spent last year. Fifty billion dollars--this is a train wreck coming at us, and Congress has been reluctant to deal with it straight-up.

Every year, we go through a budget process. I have been in the budget process now for 3 years, since I got here. The first year we did a budget, it took $7.5 trillion out of the expense plan for the next 10 years--but it lasted 4 months. It was waived by this body in order to get to a grand bargain so the other side would vote for funding the government by the end of that fiscal year and so we wouldn't have a shutdown.

Last year, there was no budget done. It was basically deemed so Republicans could do reconciliation. Then, again, the budget for this year was not done. It was deemed so Republicans could again get to reconciliation. I believe reconciliation is being used improperly. We used reconciliation to try to fix healthcare and try to fix the Tax Code.

Our country is at a point where this debt now has to be our No. 1 priority. We have two crises in our country today. One is this debt crisis. The other, I would argue, is the global security crisis. The world hasn't been more dangerous than this in my lifetime, and I believe the two are interrelated.

The last Congress allowed the last administration to disinvest in the military to a point where we are now in jeopardy of being able to defend our country. It is time for action.

In business, if you get into a crisis like this, it is all hands on deck because it is about survival. I would argue that it is about that time here. The problem is that we really haven't talked about the problem in its entirety and what we can still do about it. I want to talk tonight about what is driving this.

When we look at the numbers, it is very clear. We raise about $2.2 trillion in taxes. That is income taxes on individuals, income taxes on corporations, and other sources of revenue--about $2.2 trillion. We use the first dollars to pay for mandatory expenses.

We have two types of expenses: mandatory and discretionary. Mandatory expenses are those like your home mortgage, your car payment, your insurance payment, things that get deducted automatically out of your paycheck. We have that. It is called mandatory expenses.

What is mandatory expenses? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pension benefits for Federal employees, Federal retirement, veterans' benefits, and so forth. Those are mandatory expenses, and we subsidize those today. Even though there are trust funds, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are not able to meet the needs of the citizens who are drawing benefits today. We are subsidizing out of that general account almost half a trillion dollars a year. If you include Medicaid and ObamaCare, the healthcare costs, it is almost $1 trillion, today. Out of the $2 trillion that we collect in taxes, about 25 percent of it automatically goes to those three line items. Then, about another $1.7 trillion are then taken out. Debt service is $316 billion--almost half of what we spend on our military today.

After you take all of that out, there is only about a half trillion dollars left. Yet we still have all of the other discretionary expenses that we fuss about when we do the budget. The budget only deals with discretionary spending. I believe that is one of our problems. What is in discretionary spending? Defense, veterans, and all other domestic discretionary spending.

So it is $1.2 trillion. Ten years ago, it was $1.5 trillion. Because of the Budget Control Act and because of sequestration, discretionary expenses have declined in America over the last decade, partly because of the good work of our appropriators and because of the laws that were put in place.

Fundamentally, about half of what we spend this year on discretionary spending, which includes the military, VA, and all the other domestic discretionary spending--that is the State Department, foreign aid, education, health, welfare, the whole bit--comes out of that. Half of it is borrowed money. Over the last decade, 100 percent of what we spent in our discretionary expenses was borrowed money. When we allocated money in this body for hurricane victims--and we all know we want to do that--every dollar we allocated was borrowed money. We had to go to China or to some other country and hope they are going to buy another issue of our government bonds in order for us to then subsidize our standard of living.

I have been arguing for 5 years that our standard of living is somewhat artificial because of the amount of Federal debt and the amount of household debt in America today.

The other thing I am so distraught about is that this would be fine if it were just this year. But we have a system where we have commitments over the next 30 years that are out of control.

This chart shows discretionary spending historically over the last 18 years, back to 2000. The red line is discretionary spending. The blue line in the last 18 years is mandatory spending. They both went up about the same--mandatory spending, a little more.

But look at what happens from here forward. This is not my number. This is CBO's number. This is CBO on expenses behind mandatory expenses. Again, that is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pension and benefits for Federal employees, and healthcare expense obligations of the Federal Government. This is a 20-year schedule. Again, the blue line is mandatory expenses and the red line is discretionary expenses. It goes from about $2.5 trillion this year on mandatory expenses, and in the 10-year period it goes to over $8 trillion.

That is in line with what happened just in the last 16 years. In 2000, the size of our government was $2.4 trillion. The size of our government in 2016, the last year of President Obama, was $4.2 trillion. So we went from $2.4 trillion to $4.2 trillion in that 16- year period of time, one Republican President, one Democratic President.

But this is what we face. You can't tax enough, you can't grow enough, and you can't cut enough. There is no way we can deal with this without failing to meet the obligations that this country has made to its senior citizens and to its people in need for the last 50 years.

What are you going to tell people when you have to tell them that the Social Security trust fund went to zero this year? The Medicare and Social Security trust funds go to zero in 14 years, and there is no answer for that. Today, we subsidize over a half trillion dollars into just Social Security and Medicare out of the taxes we raise. We never intended to do that. It was never supposed to happen. But past generations liberalized those programs to such a degree that the income coming in doesn't cover the outgo of those programs.

My mother is a great example. She lived until she was 93. She passed away last year. She worked for 30 years; she was retired for 30 years. There is no way the math works when that happens.

In the 1930s, when they put Social Security in, it was intended to be a last-resort insurance supplement, not a primary go-to retirement plan. The life expectancy at that time was about 59; this program started at 62. So the math was on their side. Today, life expectancy is in the 80s, and we have a retirement age of 67. So we know the math doesn't work. This cannot happen.

But the good news is there are five areas of work I believe that Congress and the administration need to begin to focus on--and now.

First, I believe our budget process is broken. I have been on the Budget Committee now for 3 years, and I know it doesn't work. It hasn't worked but four times in 44 years to fund the Federal Government. We are supposed to appropriate 12 bills a year; we have averaged 2.5 over the last 44 years.

Let me say that again. In any business, in any enterprise--a medical office, or it doesn't matter--if you were charged to do 12 items and you did 2.5, you would fix something. You would have to fix it, or you would be out of business.

We have used continuing resolutions over 180 times. Actually, Congress has shut the Federal Government down, has not funded the government, 20 times in that 44-year history--20 times. I had no idea that was the case, and I bet most Americans don't either. That is unconscionable.

We don't even deal with every dollar we spend in the budget. We deal only with 25 percent of what we spend. That is the discretionary. That is what we did on the budget here. This is never covered in the budget by law. We don't talk about it. We can no longer do this.

The first thing you have to do is fix the budget process. Second of all, I believe you have to get after redundant agencies and extraneous expenses of the Federal Government. The GAO, the General Accountability Office, thinks we have somewhere around $700 billion or $800 billion of wasted spending every year in a $4 trillion budget. That is about 20 percent. I believe that.

The third thing you have to do is grow the economy. Last year, President Trump said job one is growing the economy. We focused on regulations, energy, and taxes. The economy started growing. In the last 12 months, we have had 3 percent GDP growth. That is 120 basis points above the 1.8 percent we enjoyed for 8 years--the lowest economic performance in our U.S. history.

We believe, with future work on these things, that the economy will continue to grow. We need to work on immigration, trade, and infrastructure to continue this work.

The good news is that the biggest item--the fourth item we need to work on is that we can solve these items; that is, we have to save Social Security and Medicare. When I say ``save,'' I mean we have to plan for the time and fix it now before the trust fund goes to zero. When the trust fund goes to zero, there is no way benefits can be paid in full. If we don't do that today, there will be a crisis of a magnitude that I don't want to even imagine if we let this get to that point. That is the fourth one.

The fifth area of work is, we have to get at the spiraling driver of our healthcare costs, not the insurance that we have been fussing about for the last 8 years. We now really need to make a serious, concerted attempt in America to get after the drivers of healthcare costs.

Those are the five areas. I am convinced that when faced with a crisis, Americans are always the best in history at dealing with a crisis. We are not always the first to recognize we are in one.

My role tonight, as it has been for the last 3 years, is to call this crisis out. The CBO has all the numbers. Whether you believe them or not, they are correct. I would argue with their revenue numbers a little bit. Some might argue with their expense numbers. Bottom line, no matter what, you know that with a $21 trillion debt, the interest expense is going to grow to almost $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

If we don't do something within this planning period of 10 years, the CBO says that our interest expense alone will go to $1 trillion. There is no way this can happen.

We have to change the broken system. I think there has been no other time--I think the realization is getting there. The CBO has given us the numbers. The GAO has given us the opportunities and measured some of those opportunities.

I think the political will in this country is now such that they realize we have a debt crisis, and they have more courage, I think, to face it than elected officials do. What drives this town is the next cycle. In the House, it is 2 years; in the Senate, it is 6 years: Oh, my goodness, we can't do anything to hurt that next cycle. We have to have more on our side than they have on their side.

It is time to put that behind us. This cannot be solved with a partisan solution. My good friend from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, and I have cosponsored a bill that goes after and deals with parts of the solution for the budget problem. There is a select committee right now that was formed by the leadership--Democratic and Republican, House and Senate. There are 16 members. I am privileged to be on it. I believe there are things we can do in that select committee to fix our budget process that would help us deal with the additional things we are adding to this debt crisis.

Make no mistake, that will not solve this debt crisis. You will not solve the debt crisis by fixing the budget process alone, but you will not solve the debt crisis unless and until you do fix the budget process. The same thing applies to growing the economy. The same thing is involved with the other items we can look at in terms of redundant agencies and the healthcare costs in this country.

America has come too far to fail now. We owe it to our kids, our grandkids, and the kids and grandkids of our kids and grandkids to deal with this right now.

I met with Chairman Greenspan last year. I had the privilege to sit with him and talk about this very issue. He reminded me that in 1983, they had a solution. If we had done it in 1983, it wouldn't have been nearly as onerous as it is going to be when we try to fix this.

Again, in the late nineties, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton together--two different parties--had an agreement. They got very close to signing it, but then it fell apart because of the political nonsense in this town.

I believe the time has come right now for both sides to put our differences aside, live with an 80-percent solution and deal with this problem right now. If we don't, we will not be able to hand this to our kids. That is the last thing I want to close with. People say: Well, we are leaving our kids and grandkids a problem.

Yes, we are. Look, in this planning period, the next 10 years, when interest rates are higher than what we are spending on national defense, that crisis is right here. It is now. We are going to see it in the next decade, in my opinion. It will make 2008 and 2009 pale in comparison.

I have never seen a time when a crisis would pull us together any more ardently than this one would be right now. The question is, will we recognize that we are in a moment of crisis?

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today is tax day, 2 days later than April 15 actually, but nonetheless, today is tax day. I rise to speak about the impact of what we have done over the last 15 months to affect the future of our free enterprise system in America. When President Donald Trump took office last year, he set out with three clear priorities. Under the major objective last year, job one was to grow the economy. To do that, he charged us in Congress to focus on three things: regulations, energy, and taxes. In addition to those three, we were supposed to try to get to Dodd-Frank and take away some of the pressure on small banks and regional banks, which we have done this year in the Senate. Just a few weeks ago, we passed a bill. The reason that is important, those four things will free up some estimated $6 trillion in potential capital investment that has not been at work in our $20 trillion economy.

What we have just done with regulation, energy, and taxes will free up or have the opportunity to free up the $6 trillion. That is huge in this economy. In the regulatory environment last year, well over 860 regulations were reversed. It is the largest in history. Concrete steps have been taken to unleash our country's full energy potential, including with ANWR, the Keystone Pipeline, and adjustments to the Clean Power Plan and the waters of the United States, just to mention a few.

Finally, historic changes to the Tax Code were signed into law by President Trump. It used to be that today was a bad day in America, and we all dreaded it. It was the day we had to turn our taxes in. This year, it is actually a day of good news in that this is the last time the American people will have to file their taxes by using the old, outdated tax system that has become so archaic and so noncompetitive with the rest of the world. These changes to the Tax Code will bring relief to American workers and businesses. The average, median-income household in America--a family of four--will see its taxes reduced by about $2,000 a year, or more than half.

The change to the Tax Code of making our tax rate more competitive is making American-made goods much more competitive on the world stage. The greatest hindrance to and the greatest tax on the American worker in years past was this archaically high corporate tax rate. People said: Well, we just pushed all of those profits to the corporate entities. No, this is the greatest thing we could do for the American worker--to help them become more competitive with the rest of the world, to give them a level playing field. That is what we did in this tax bill.

We are already seeing the early positive results. Over 2 million new jobs have been created since President Trump took office, and consumer confidence is at a 17-year high. As an ex-retailer and a person who has worked with consumer products and in manufacturing for most of his career, I have watched this index. This is phenomenal to be at a 17- year high this early in this turnaround. It bodes well for the future of what we have just done.

CEO confidence is at a 20-year high. Some $2 trillion in overseas profits has potentially been unlocked to be made available now for capital investment back in this country. Yes, we already see public corporations making public statements in their quarterly earnings reviews about the capital investment plans they are laying out. We see investment increases being announced every month from public companies in America today. There is no question that businesses are beginning to bring those profits home and investing in our economy.

Nationally, in addition, over 4 million Americans have received bonuses and wage increases. Over 500 businesses have taken positive action, be it by giving out bonuses, raising wages, increasing 401(k) matches, or increasing their overall investments in their companies.

As a matter of fact, another benefit is that most of these public corporations have major foundations that do philanthropic work-- tremendously constructive philanthropic work. Most of these companies that have made these announcements about their own financial well-being and those of their employees have also dramatically increased their contributions to those philanthropic efforts and those trust funds.

In my home State of Georgia, dozens of companies are taking action because of these changes to the Tax Code, and they are making these statements public. Just go to any public corporation today that is in its latest quarterly return and look at what it is saying about how this tax change affects its business and the future of its employees. This is huge.

It is also huge for the entire country because we are much more competitive today than we have been. For years the Tax Code was working against American workers and our entire economy. It was crippling small businesses' ability to expand their companies and hire more workers. It was damaging our ability to compete with the rest of the world. Changing the Tax Code last year was the single greatest thing we could have done to have unleashed economic growth this year, and we are just getting started.

I have been through some of these large turnarounds, and I characterize this as a mega turnaround. After 8 years of the lowest economic growth in U.S. history, we are now on the rebound. That is so important for the future of our country in the long term. We have a $21 trillion debt today, as the Presiding Officer knows. One of the things we have to do in order to dig our way out of that is to get our economy healthy again. As documented by the CBO, or the Congressional Budget Office, a 1-percent growth in GDP will yield $300 billion of Federal revenue every year. That is $3 trillion over the next decade. With the projection that we are going to add $10 trillion to the debt over the next decade just from decisions that have been made over the last decade, we can see that just growing the economy alone is not enough to solve this debt crisis.

There are some in this body who have argued that this has been nothing but a boondoggle, nothing but a huge deficit-increasing exercise. Yes, there were identified costs included with this, but what was not considered by the CBO was the long-term return on investment, the leverage effect of that return on investment, or the leverage effect of this returning profit situation that we have coming back from the changes in the repatriation law. In addition to that, the CBO disagreed with using the impact of foreign direct investment, which I really don't understand.

I am proud that we got this tax bill done, and I know that the positive impact is really just beginning. There are other things we must do to deal with our national debt in the long term, like fixing our budget process, cutting back on redundant agencies, saving Social Security and Medicare, and finally getting after the spiraling nature of the underlying drivers of our healthcare costs and not just the insurance of it.

This wouldn't be happening without these changes to the Tax Code, however, and without a President with a new perspective in the White House. President Trump worked in the real world for decades, and he brings that sense of urgency to the White House. Today he is working at a business pace, not at a bureaucratic pace, and he is committed to keeping up the positive momentum.

This year, the pressure is on the other side because, right now, as we are

trying to deal with immigration, the labor issue might be a constraining factor in the ultimate growth of this economy, and we need to deal with that. For different reasons, both sides believe we need to be investing in infrastructure. I will remind my colleagues in this body that it was just in 2011 when this government threw $1 trillion into our economy. I would debate the benefit of that particular investment because it was not thrown at those stimulative issues that would grow the economy.

Today, America deals with a new world. The world situation has never been more dangerous. The best thing we can do for our military and for our people is to get this economy moving again and create a level playing field around the world to help our trade situation. That is what the President is trying to do right now--to create a more level playing field so as to grow our economy, fix our budget process, and deal with the spending issues that we have here at home.

I am excited to be a part of the Joint Select Committee on Budget Process Reform, which is charged with changing the way we fund the Federal Government every year. I am hopeful that will lead to a new budget process that will allow us to avoid the continuing resolutions and the omnibuses by which five or six people get in a room and decide how to spend $1 trillion. The tax changes alone will not dig us out of this debt crisis. We knew that this was the first step in getting it going, and I am delighted with the impact that it is having on our economy today.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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