Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday, we saw a very unusual celebration at the White House as Members of Congress took turns exalting the President and speaking in glowing terms about the tax bill they had passed. There appeared to be quite a contrast between the celebration at the White House and the reaction by working Americans.

Why weren't working middle-class Americans celebrating so vigorously? Why does poll after poll find that this is the most unpopular tax bill since the 1980s, in fact, including tax hikes by Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and President Bill Clinton? This bill is even less popular than those tax increases.

Speaker Ryan seems to think the Republican tax bill is unpopular because Americans don't know what is in it. He is wrong. The American people are smart. They get it. They don't like this tax bill because they do know what is in it: lots of goodies for President Trump and his family and very little for theirs.

This tax bill isn't popular with working people because they know that if Republicans really wanted to give them a tax break, Republicans would have given it to them directly and not to corporate executives. Middle-class

Americans remember the corporate excesses that led us to the terrible losses of the great recession. They sacrificed and worked hard to help the economy recover. They remember the tough choices we had to make in order to get our economy working again, and they don't want to see that progress turned back. But the recovered economy President Trump inherited from President Obama is in danger of backsliding under this trickle-down approach, with Republicans once again breaking the Federal bank to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy.

Middle-class Americans weren't popping champagne bottles yesterday because they know that they will be on the hook again when reality sets in on the massive deficits and irresponsible excesses of the Trump economy. The real economy isn't a chart or a graph to them; it is their ability to put food on the table, send their children to college, and plan for retirement. Republican economics have not historically worked out well for them. The economy created over 11 times as many jobs under President Clinton as it did under President George Herbert Walker Bush. It created over 10 times as many jobs under President Obama as President George W. Bush. Today, U.S. job openings are nearing all-time highs and 15 million Americans have gained employment since 2010.

We have much, much more work to do to address issues like underemployment, labor force participation, and wage growth, but the economy Republicans are gambling with today is one that middle-class families worked hard and sacrificed to create. Moreover, middle-class Americans are not easily fooled when it comes to their bottom line. It will take more than focus groups and political publicity stunts to convince them that this Republican bill was written with their interests in mind.

Many Americans opened their paper this morning to read that major corporations like Wells Fargo and others were boosting U.S. investment or providing bonuses in the wake of the huge tax breaks provided to them by the Republican legislation. It is certainly a good thing that many of these companies are considering greater investments in their American workforce, but the relationship between these tax breaks and higher pay or bonuses seems to fall apart under scrutiny. Some companies, like Wells Fargo, have already admitted that these pay raises were preplanned and not the direct result of the tax bill. Indeed, this coordinated announcement appears more intended to appeal to the Trump administration than to prove anything about the effectiveness of the Republican tax bill for American workers.

Moreover, it appears the real problem many Americans have with the Republican bill is that they believe it will balloon the public debt in order to disproportionately benefit the rich. Based on every credible analysis of the bill to date, they are very likely correct. So, rather than watch for publicity stunts, Americans should, in the coming weeks, watch how much corporate executives take in bonuses. They should look at the more than $70 billion in share buybacks that major corporations have announced since the Senate passed the Republican tax bill. Once corporations got the clear signal that this legislation would likely pass, their reaction was not to raise wages, not to stabilize the pension funds, but to buy back their shares, which is a double benefit for the managers of these companies and for the shareholders.

First, it typically raises the price of the stock on the market, which makes the value go up and gives direct benefits to shareholders. For the managers, most or much of their pay is related to their shareholdings. By the way, they are usually incentivized to increase share price, so their other pay is increased. So it is no surprise that this is the reaction of most corporations. It is quite telling that some company executives have made it clear that their plan for the funds released by this tax bill will be devoted to share buybacks. It is, in fact, ironic because many of these companies were having to pay an effective tax rate of less than 10 percent, much less than the new statutory rate. Does that mean they are going to give even higher wages? If a company was paying an effective tax rate of 8 percent and wasn't significantly raising the wages of their workforce, what does the new statutory rate of 21 percent do to their incentive? Nothing at all.

Americans can and will also consider the fact that 35 percent of American company stock is owned by foreign nationals, who are projected to pocket a $48 billion windfall by 2019 as a result of corporate tax breaks. Yes, this tax bill will incentivize corporations to buy back stock, a significant amount of which is owned by foreign entities, individuals, and corporations. So $48 billion of these funds will go overseas; it won't be devoted to salary increases, wage increases, R&D; it won't even be devoted in some sense to the United States because it will flow overseas.

They should ask: In light of these historically huge gains for the corporate investor class, how many of these corporations will make sure their pension funds, for example, are fully funded? There is no requirement that would prevent a company from buying back stock even while its pension fund is not actuarially sound. That has happened in the past. That is likely to happen in the future. So you have to ask yourself, as working families are: If I have a company that is giving its shareholders and management huge benefits, and my pension is questionable--it is not fully funded--is that right? I think the answer is, honestly: No, that is wrong.

How many companies will ship jobs overseas because they will see a financial advantage? In fact, corporate executives will feel a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to do that. How many companies will continue to replace their workers with contractors who may have no healthcare from the company and no pension benefits? Jobs that could be filled and were filled in the past by real employees with real benefits will now be shipped away from the company to contractors.

I supported efforts by several of my Democratic colleagues to place conditions on these massive corporate tax breaks so that there would be at least some requirement that American workers share in this multitrillion dollar giveaway, but all of these proposals were rejected by our Republican colleagues. I believe they will have to explain to the working men and women of America why shareholders are getting huge benefits and they don't have a fully sound pension fund. Why are additional Americans being laid off by these corporations at the same time they are providing huge buybacks of their stocks to their shareholders? These are a series of questions I think American working families and the middle-class will continue to ask.

They are already aware this bill was not designed for them. It was designed for the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest individuals in America and, indeed, globally. When the evidence mounts, it will further confirm those views. I think they are very, very accurate.

I know Americans will continue to work hard. They will continue to try to build this economy. But with the passage of this bill, this is clearly now President Trump's economy. All of the sacrifice and effort to build jobs under President Obama, which cut the unemployment rate from double digits down to 4.5 and 5 percent--all those could be jeopardized by what has transpired here, and the President owns it.

As we go forward, I think we have to realize this legislation is not going to help working families.

I have heard my colleagues, very sincerely and very eloquently, talk about some of the challenges we face, like job training. We are facing a situation in which many experts predict that within the next 12 years--by 2030--we will lose one-third of the jobs in the United States. They will go away because of technology and because of artificial intelligence. What is going to happen to the 30- or 40-year- old working man or woman? What does one do when a job he or she has prepared well for, and done very well, is suddenly taken over by a machine? Will one turn to private corporations and ask, please, help me?

I know what the answer will be: Not our responsibility. We only have an obligation to our shareholders--to enrich them. That is all we do. Thank you very much.

They will turn to the government. What will we do? We will say: We are sorry. We are already $1.5 trillion in the hole. Because of the tax bill, we can't afford any job training, career

transition, long-term unemployment sustainment, which we will need to allow people to make this transition. Oh, by the way, as to those retirement benefits that are under huge pressure, we cannot help you. We have the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, but that is so underwater. Sorry.

By the way, with natural phenomena--the floods that are coming--we are currently talking about a disaster relief bill. In this Chamber, we are all aware that our National Flood Insurance Program is in a deep hole. It is--no pun intended--underwater. Where are we going to get this money to pay for the obligations we have already put on our books for the National Flood Insurance Program? What are the cities and communities going to do when we say we don't have it anymore, that we gave the money away?

We are now facing very difficult situations--we know they are coming--with unavoidable costs. There is our national defense. We have to rebuild our nuclear triad, our submarines, our bomber fleets, our land-based systems. Over several years, that will be hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. We know we have to do it.

Instead of doing that, yesterday, we decided to give $1.5 trillion or more in deficit spending to the wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest corporations. I don't think it makes good sense. I think working Americans and middle-class Americans understand that very well--in fact, better than we do, collectively. What they have done, essentially, and what they are saying to anyone who would ask is, this is a terrible piece of legislation. Why did Congress pass it?

That is a question that will reverberate throughout this year and next year and, unfortunately, I think, for a long time because it will take us time and effort and sacrifice and tough votes, as we had in the nineties and again in 2009 and beyond, to get back on track for working families.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act along with my colleague, Senator Whitehouse. I am also pleased that my colleagues, Representatives James Langevin and David Cicilline, will be introducing a companion measure in the House of Representatives.

Our legislation will give Rhode Island voice and voting representation on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), which manages some of the most important fish stocks for our State's commercial fishing industry--chief among them squid. Indeed, the National Marine Fisheries Service reported that Rhode Island led Atlantic States in the harvest of squid in 2016, bringing in 22.5 million pounds and helping make Point Judith, Rhode Island one of the most productive and valuable commercial fishing ports in the United States. For years now, Rhode Island's landings of stocks managed by the MAFMC have outpaced the landings of those managed by the New England Fishery Management Council, where Rhode Island is represented. Moreover, Rhode Island has a larger stake in the Mid-Atlantic fishery than many of the States that currently hold seats on the MAFMC.

Because so much is at stake for our State in every decision the MAFMC makes, our bill would expand the MAFMC by two seats in Order to ensure that Rhode Island will have the minimum number of seats guaranteed to other States on the council. It will allow Rhode Island to continue to have representation on the New England Fishery Management Council, where it still has significant interests. This proposal is not unprecedented. In fact, it is modeled on a provision of the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act that added North Carolina to the MAFMC in 1996 while allowing it to retain its membership on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Mr. President, this is a commonsense proposal and one that my colleagues and I will be working to advance either on its own or as part of the reauthorization the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Collins, Cochran, Gillibrand, and Murkowski in introducing legislation to renew the law that expands the reach of libraries and museums and enables them to better serve their communities. These vital institutions educate, inform, engage, and connect people from all walks of life.

In 1996, Congress passed the Museum and Library Services Act, establishing the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS, to house our Nation's library and museum programs together for the first time. My predecessor, the late Senator Claiborne Pell, a great champion for expanding educational and cultural opportunities to all communities, was instrumental in passage of this law. The Senate Committee report for this bill noted the ``great potential in an Institute that is focused on the combined roles that libraries and museums play in our community life, in support of research, learning, and entertainment, and in support of American culture and history.''

Over the last 21 years we have seen IMLS, with a relatively modest Federal investment, build the capacity to support and expand access to library and museum services at the State and local levels. IMLS has been the source of major Federal support for nearly 120,000 libraries, including public, academic, research, special, and tribal libraries, and 35,000 museums, including art, history, science and technology, children's, historical societies, tribal, planetariums, botanic gardens, and zoos. We have seen access to libraries and museums increase, and these institutions continue to evolve as community hubs, advancing the growth and vitality of the areas they serve.

In Rhode Island, IMLS funding for the grants to States program under the Library Services and Technology Act, LSTA, has supported improved online resources; literacy initiatives, including a summer reading program; and the provision of talking books to residents with visual impairments and disabilities. Providence Public Library was awarded a recent grant to provide underserved teens with learning opportunities, leading to digital credentials, academic credit, exposure to work, and entry into education and career pathways. IMLS has also supported and elevated the work of Rhode Island museums. For instance, the Tomaquag Museum in Exeter was one of ten recipients nationally to be recognized with a 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The Providence Children's Museum and the Preservation Society of Newport County also received grants to support their work in recent years.

I have been proud to continue the work of Senator Pell in supporting robust funding for libraries and museums and authoring the last two renewals of the Museum and Library Services Act. I have seen firsthand the impact libraries and museums have had on our communities in Rhode Island and the residents and visitors they serve, making our State stronger because of the services and experiences that these institutions provide.

The museum and library communities have provided invaluable input in helping us craft this bipartisan legislation. I would especially like to thank the Rhode Island library community for hosting me at libraries across the state and convening a roundtable discussion last year to delve deeper into the programs libraries are providing and ways to improve how they serve their communities.

In response to the input and insight offered by the library and museum communities, the bill we are introducing today, the Museum and Library Services Act of 2017, strengthens the use of data-driven tools to measure the impact and maximize the effectiveness of library and museum services and better tailor local services to address and meet community needs. The legislation provides for technical support and assistance to improve data collection. It also enhances IMLS's collaborative efforts with an expanded number of Federal agencies in order to fully leverage the benefits libraries and museums provide to Americans.

This legislation also amends LSTA to highlight the role of libraries as community hubs, equipped to provide services and programming in such areas as literacy, education, lifelong learning, workforce development, economic and business development, digital literacy skills, critical thinking, financial literacy skills, and new and emerging technology. The bill provides greater emphasis on recruiting and training the next generation of library and information science professionals from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. Additionally, it focuses leadership grant funds on activities that serve a range of library types and geographically diverse areas; have evaluation, analysis, and dissemination components; and involve, impact, or have future applicability in libraries. And, in the aftermath of this past year's devastating hurricanes and wildfires, the bill clarifies that grant funds can be used to help libraries get resources back online as communities face the challenge of recovering from a disaster.

The Museum and Library Services Act of 2017 also builds on the over 40-year legacy of Federal support for improving and expanding access to museum services. It addresses the critical need for professional development and recruiting and preparing the next generation of museum professionals, emphasizing diversity so that museums better reflect the communities they serve. The legislation also highlights the educational role of museums and the diverse ways that museums engage their communities, and it encourages partnerships with other agencies, professional networks, and community-based organizations to expand and enhance access to museum services.

The Museum and Library Services Act of 2017 will continue our tradition of supporting our communities through their museums and libraries, while looking ahead and providing flexibility for these vital institutions to respond to changing demands and missions. Our bill has the support of the American Library Association and the American Alliance of Museums and many of their affiliated associations. I thank my colleagues for supporting this endeavor

and look forward to more joining us as we work together to urge swift action to adopt this important legislation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Rhode Island Fishermen's Fairness Act along with my colleague, Senator Whitehouse. I am also pleased that my colleagues, Representatives James Langevin and David Cicilline, will be introducing a companion measure in the House of Representatives.

Our legislation will give Rhode Island voice and voting representation on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), which manages some of the most important fish stocks for our State's commercial fishing industry--chief among them squid. Indeed, the National Marine Fisheries Service reported that Rhode Island led Atlantic States in the harvest of squid in 2016, bringing in 22.5 million pounds and helping make Point Judith, Rhode Island one of the most productive and valuable commercial fishing ports in the United States. For years now, Rhode Island's landings of stocks managed by the MAFMC have outpaced the landings of those managed by the New England Fishery Management Council, where Rhode Island is represented. Moreover, Rhode Island has a larger stake in the Mid-Atlantic fishery than many of the States that currently hold seats on the MAFMC.

Because so much is at stake for our State in every decision the MAFMC makes, our bill would expand the MAFMC by two seats in Order to ensure that Rhode Island will have the minimum number of seats guaranteed to other States on the council. It will allow Rhode Island to continue to have representation on the New England Fishery Management Council, where it still has significant interests. This proposal is not unprecedented. In fact, it is modeled on a provision of the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act that added North Carolina to the MAFMC in 1996 while allowing it to retain its membership on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Mr. President, this is a commonsense proposal and one that my colleagues and I will be working to advance either on its own or as part of the reauthorization the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Collins, Cochran, Gillibrand, and Murkowski in introducing legislation to renew the law that expands the reach of libraries and museums and enables them to better serve their communities. These vital institutions educate, inform, engage, and connect people from all walks of life.

In 1996, Congress passed the Museum and Library Services Act, establishing the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS, to house our Nation's library and museum programs together for the first time. My predecessor, the late Senator Claiborne Pell, a great champion for expanding educational and cultural opportunities to all communities, was instrumental in passage of this law. The Senate Committee report for this bill noted the ``great potential in an Institute that is focused on the combined roles that libraries and museums play in our community life, in support of research, learning, and entertainment, and in support of American culture and history.''

Over the last 21 years we have seen IMLS, with a relatively modest Federal investment, build the capacity to support and expand access to library and museum services at the State and local levels. IMLS has been the source of major Federal support for nearly 120,000 libraries, including public, academic, research, special, and tribal libraries, and 35,000 museums, including art, history, science and technology, children's, historical societies, tribal, planetariums, botanic gardens, and zoos. We have seen access to libraries and museums increase, and these institutions continue to evolve as community hubs, advancing the growth and vitality of the areas they serve.

In Rhode Island, IMLS funding for the grants to States program under the Library Services and Technology Act, LSTA, has supported improved online resources; literacy initiatives, including a summer reading program; and the provision of talking books to residents with visual impairments and disabilities. Providence Public Library was awarded a recent grant to provide underserved teens with learning opportunities, leading to digital credentials, academic credit, exposure to work, and entry into education and career pathways. IMLS has also supported and elevated the work of Rhode Island museums. For instance, the Tomaquag Museum in Exeter was one of ten recipients nationally to be recognized with a 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The Providence Children's Museum and the Preservation Society of Newport County also received grants to support their work in recent years.

I have been proud to continue the work of Senator Pell in supporting robust funding for libraries and museums and authoring the last two renewals of the Museum and Library Services Act. I have seen firsthand the impact libraries and museums have had on our communities in Rhode Island and the residents and visitors they serve, making our State stronger because of the services and experiences that these institutions provide.

The museum and library communities have provided invaluable input in helping us craft this bipartisan legislation. I would especially like to thank the Rhode Island library community for hosting me at libraries across the state and convening a roundtable discussion last year to delve deeper into the programs libraries are providing and ways to improve how they serve their communities.

In response to the input and insight offered by the library and museum communities, the bill we are introducing today, the Museum and Library Services Act of 2017, strengthens the use of data-driven tools to measure the impact and maximize the effectiveness of library and museum services and better tailor local services to address and meet community needs. The legislation provides for technical support and assistance to improve data collection. It also enhances IMLS's collaborative efforts with an expanded number of Federal agencies in order to fully leverage the benefits libraries and museums provide to Americans.

This legislation also amends LSTA to highlight the role of libraries as community hubs, equipped to provide services and programming in such areas as literacy, education, lifelong learning, workforce development, economic and business development, digital literacy skills, critical thinking, financial literacy skills, and new and emerging technology. The bill provides greater emphasis on recruiting and training the next generation of library and information science professionals from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. Additionally, it focuses leadership grant funds on activities that serve a range of library types and geographically diverse areas; have evaluation, analysis, and dissemination components; and involve, impact, or have future applicability in libraries. And, in the aftermath of this past year's devastating hurricanes and wildfires, the bill clarifies that grant funds can be used to help libraries get resources back online as communities face the challenge of recovering from a disaster.

The Museum and Library Services Act of 2017 also builds on the over 40-year legacy of Federal support for improving and expanding access to museum services. It addresses the critical need for professional development and recruiting and preparing the next generation of museum professionals, emphasizing diversity so that museums better reflect the communities they serve. The legislation also highlights the educational role of museums and the diverse ways that museums engage their communities, and it encourages partnerships with other agencies, professional networks, and community-based organizations to expand and enhance access to museum services.

The Museum and Library Services Act of 2017 will continue our tradition of supporting our communities through their museums and libraries, while looking ahead and providing flexibility for these vital institutions to respond to changing demands and missions. Our bill has the support of the American Library Association and the American Alliance of Museums and many of their affiliated associations. I thank my colleagues for supporting this endeavor

and look forward to more joining us as we work together to urge swift action to adopt this important legislation.

Mr. President, tonight, the Republican leadership intends to force a vote on their tax bill. President Trump has called this tax bill historic. Indeed, it will make history, but not for the right reasons. It is a historic transfer of wealth from students, seniors, and working families to the wealthiest corporations and individuals in America and, indeed, throughout the world. Historians and voters will look at the way this bill was written, in a rushed and sloppy manner, without thoughtful debate--indeed, we have to send it back to the House of Representatives so they can vote again--and with a reckless and willful disregard for facts and independent analysis.

In forcing this massive restructuring of our economy through Congress, Republican leaders have permitted no real amendments and ignored every nonpartisan analysis of their bill that does not fit their worldview. As a result, this trickle-down tax bill is quite possibly the most fiscally irresponsible piece of tax legislation to have ever been railroaded through Congress over the objections of the American people.

Some will say: Wait, what about the Affordable Care Act? Let me remind you, the ACA was paid for. It had to get 60 votes. It was on the Senate floor for 25 consecutive days. There was a full committee process, and Democrats accepted many Republican amendments in the House and in the Senate. That is not the case with this historic bill.

The Trump tax will adversely affect my home State, Rhode Islanders, in so many ways. The temporary benefits will not cover the long-term damage

from this bill or offset the increased costs for things like childcare, education, healthcare, and housing. The reason the American people oppose this bill is simple--and they do oppose it--it forces the middle class to accept yet another Republican tax giveaway to corporations and the richest 1 percent with little or nothing for them.

It also gives trillions of dollars in permanent tax cuts to corporations while raising taxes on over half of American families over the next decade. In doing so, it gives $48 billion to the foreign investors who own roughly 35 percent of American company stock. That is right. Many of these tax benefits will go through corporations by either dividends or stock redemptions to foreign owners, amounting to $48 billion to foreign investors. That is not putting the American working man and woman first; that is putting them at the end of the line. It makes the Tax Code more, rather than less, complicated and very clearly incentivizes and rewards multinational corporations that send jobs and stash money overseas.

Moreover, special loopholes for passthrough entities will create a bonanza for tax lawyers and accountants and people figuring out ways to get out of paying their taxes. It will not help working men and women who come in and punch in every morning, work hard, and then go back to their families. It will not help them at all.

And there is not a single respected economist or tax scholar on the left or right who concludes that this bill simplifies the Tax Code and pays for itself--not one.

Republicans know all these facts. They have heard the public's objections, and they still plan to send this bill to President Trump for his signature. The President will try to tell the American people that his great political victory is a win for working people, but they see all the benefits going to his type of businesses--real estate passthroughs. In fact, at the last moment, the conference committee put in a special provision to make sure that real estate entities could benefit from this bill. That means President Trump's organization benefits from this bill.

It is not fair. It is not wise. It is not good policy. The American people know this instinctively. They look at what is going on, and they see this as it is--a giant gift to the wealthiest corporations and individuals at the people's expense in so many different ways.

The consequences of this legislation are going to be staggering and generational. We will not quickly overcome this historic mistake. The total abdication of fiscal responsibility in this bill is stunning. Adding trillions more to the deficit will put massive budget pressure on national defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other vital programs that keep our commitments at home and abroad. These are the programs that allow us to keep faith with the American people who sent us here and also to ensure that we are moving toward a more peaceful and prosperous world. For future generations facing an economic crisis, or the challenge of their time, or cyclical economic downturns that we cannot always foresee, those future generations will look back on this unnecessary tax giveaway and wonder why today's Congress was so irresponsible.

In 2001, I was here, and I opposed the Bush tax cuts. At that time, however, we had an estimated $5 trillion surplus, and we didn't anticipate the 9/11 attacks. We were at a time where Russia was turning away from its Communist past to what we thought was a democratic future. China was just emerging as an economic power in Asia. It is a totally different situation today. We all know it. My colleagues on the other side know it. We are challenged by 16 years of war, which we have made no attempt to pay for, and we are putting our national security behind benefits for the wealthiest Americans that are enshrined in this bill, adding $1.5 trillion to pay for tax cuts for the most wealthy in this Nation and in the world.

Many of the recipients of our largesse--Republican largesse--this evening will not be Americans. As I noted, a significant portion of American stock in our companies is held by foreigners. When stock buybacks take place--and that is what corporations have announced they will do--a huge amount of these tax cuts will go outside of the United States, and not help our economy. Maybe it will help some people buy expensive yachts overseas and expensive French Impressionist paintings, but it will not help working people in Pawtucket, RI, or Cranston, RI-- not at all. This is a bill that is full of loopholes that will be exploited for years to come. Indeed, we are already hearing rumors that we can expect more legislation to ``fix the bill.''

This would be different if we were talking about real tax reform-- real tax reform that benefitted the middle class, real tax reform that raised the earned-income tax credit, real tax reform that benefited people who work every day, wage workers particularly--but this bill doesn't do that. Real tax reform comes as a result of an open and bipartisan process. It is ideally revenue-neutral, like the 1986 law under President Reagan, which took a bipartisan consensus, which made major reform, and which is something that was not only procedurally but economically sound.

I hope, going forward, that we can work together to prevent and undo the damage from this bill and enact real, responsible tax reform that boosts take-home pay, spurs job growth, closes loopholes, expands opportunity, and strengthens the long-term financial stability and security of our Nation. But that is not this legislation.

One final point--this Monday, the President announced his national security strategy, his overarching vision of what will make this country safe, secure, and strong as we go forward. Part of that national security strategy is to reduce the debt through fiscal responsibility. My Republican colleagues are about to increase the debt through fiscal irresponsibility. This national security strategy isn't even 24 hours old, and it is being abandoned. It is being abandoned before literally even the pen is dry on the paper. When it comes to tax cuts, national security places far to the rear, and we know what is going to happen. As this deficit grows--and it will grow much larger than the $1.5 trillion that is projected--it will squeeze out spending. It will squeeze out defense spending, despite the efforts on both sides to try to increase support for the military. It is impossible to create a deficit of this magnitude and not see the consequences both on the defense side and the nondefense side.

In fact, I am baffled because we have heard so much--particularly from my Republican colleagues--talk about the need to support our men and women in the field after 16 years of war. Why aren't we at least saying: If we are going to borrow $1.5 trillion, let's give it to the men and women in uniform. No. We are here tonight saying: Let's give it to the richest people in America and in the world. There is lots of rejoicing going on throughout the world tonight because when shareholders' stock is redeemed in the companies they own, they are going to be wealthier, and they are going to use that wealth not for America but for whatever reason they want. Again, is it a new yacht or a new painting?

I just hope that in the waning few hours of this debate, we can move the consciousness of colleagues and reject this legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, as Republicans in both Chambers rush to conclude their secret negotiations on the final details of their tax bill, I want to make clear to my colleagues what should be obvious about this legislation. We may not yet know the results of all of their horse-trading leading up to the final legislation, but the American people are watching this process. It is plain to see that, should this Republican bill become law, Republicans will have knowingly and deliberately made worse the most dangerous threats that we face to our economic and national security. Worse yet, they will have drained the public coffers that our children and our children's children will need to take up these challenges.

We all know what these challenges are. We face unprecedented income and wealth inequality that threatens to stifle the social mobility that is the hallmark of the American Dream. There is also declining productivity, which has kept middle-class wages stagnant, and bred economic anxiety for too many parents wondering if their children will attain a higher standard of living--much higher, they hope--than they have achieved. We have a surging deficit from decades of trickle-down economics and unpaid-for wars that, if left unaddressed, could apply huge pressure to our ability to keep our most basic promises to the American people, not to mention meeting our obligations as a world power.

To the families watching what is going on in Washington right now, the Republican end game appears to be to invite fiscal crisis due to irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and then, because we have already given trillions of dollars away in tax cuts, to demand that Congress shred Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other vital programs in order to pay our bills. We know this is the road that this bill sets us upon, and the American people certainly see this coming. So let no one who votes for this bill say that they did not know the consequences of their actions. This will not be remembered as tax reform, but rather as a serious mistake to be corrected in the future.

How do middle-class Americans know that Republicans did not write this bill for them? Because they have watched Republican economics rig the tax system in favor of the wealthy and corporations for years, even as wealth and income inequality have reached historic levels. They took the Republicans at their word when Republicans promised that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which skewed tax relief to the top

1 percent over the bottom 20 percent of Americans by more than 6 to 1, would eventually trickle down. That is what they thought, but on the eve of the great recession, aftertax income for the richest 1 percent had soared while middle-class wages continued to stagnate. We are still waiting for the Bush tax cuts to trickle down and to pay for themselves. They likely never will.

These Republican proposals make matters even worse by financing tax giveaways for big business and the rich on the backs of those just trying to get by. Economists, relying on the Federal Survey of Consumer Finances, recently determined that the top 1 percent of American households now hold about 40 percent of the Nation's wealth, which is a 50-year high. This legislation overwhelmingly benefits them while raising taxes on 48 percent of American taxpayers by 2027.

Many of the families whose taxes will go up have already been through tough economic times during the Great Recession. Productivity in the American workforce has been declining, and wages have grown at an even slower pace than that. These families don't need numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to know our Nation's recovery was historically slow. But our middle-class weathered the Great Recession as Americans have always done. Now, because of the lopsidedness and deficit-busting features of the Republican tax bill, Moody's Analytics has warned that this ``fiscal policy mistake'' could very well take us prematurely into an economic bust. Middle-class families have just emerged from the last crisis of Republican economics, still battered and bruised, and they know that, if Republicans force a plan like this on the Nation again, it will be their children who are on the hook to pay for it.

Make no mistake, there are times when running a deficit is advisable or even economically necessary--particularly when times are tough and families need help to stay in the working class and get back on their feet. But regressive tax cuts just sit on our credit card with little to show for all that red ink, and the tab we are leaving the next generation is still running from 16 years ago.

Like many of my colleagues, I was here to take the tough votes and make the hard choices that led to the Clinton-era surplus. The failed experiments of supply-side economics turned that surplus into a CBO- projected deficit of over $10 trillion over the next decade. And even if we accept all of the rosy assumptions of dynamic scoring and take it on faith, yet again, that wealth will trickle down and that no recession will come in the next decade--all of which are assumptions on which I wouldn't wager anything--the Joint Committee on Taxation calculates that this bill would still increase the deficit by over $1 trillion. Facts do not go away simply because we ignore them, and if Republicans continue to ignore the budget hole their policies create, then this massive deficit and the budget pressures that follow it will be their legacy for future generations.

More importantly, however, I must ask: What national priorities will our colleagues on the other side deem too expensive after we have given 1 trillion more borrowed dollars to the wealthy? What choices will Republicans try to force on the American people when they decide there simply isn't enough for the Armed Forces, the jobless, the sick, and the elderly? Republican leadership is already vowing to take up ``entitlement reform'' next year, which is Washington-speak for giving the top 1 percent everything they want and then forcing practically everyone else to choose who loses their Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid to plug the budget hole. Therefore, before Republicans blow apart the Federal budget yet again, it is worth reviewing the massive costs the American people are already committed to pay.

First, as I have discussed before, this bill essentially guarantees that we will struggle to meet the needs of our national defense. Our war deficits from the past 16 years alone are projected to add over $1 trillion to the national debt by 2023 and over $8 trillion by 2056. We all know we must modernize the nuclear triad, which will cost $1.2 trillion in 2017 dollars over the next 30 years. A 355-ship Navy would cost, on average, $102 billion per year through 2047. Necessary additions to the end strengths of the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps will cost an additional $18 billion, $6 billion, and $3.6 billion, respectively. Where will this money come from, since we have already given it away to the wealthiest Americans?

This chart shows what happens to the defense budget when large-scale tax reductions are put into effect, starting in the Reagan era of the 1980s. One of President Reagan's first initiatives was to build up defense. This chart shows the percentage of GDP devoted to defense spending. President Reagan promised to make America strong. To actualize his feeling and view of peace through strength, he built up the defense budget significantly--going from a little over 5 percent of GDP when he took office up to almost 7 percent. But in the mid-1980s, he also engineered tax cuts that lowered taxes on the wealthy in proportion to lower income Americans, and eventually, those tax cuts and the deficit caught up with defense spending. As we notice, through the later 1980s and all the way into the 1990s, except for one respite, we had a declining defense budget. In the first year of the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, there was another attempt to decrease defense spending. So the line went up a bit, but after that, of course, with deficits increasing, with other pressures mounting on the budget, defense spending plummeted.

Then, within the Clinton administration, there was a conscious effort to reduce defense spending. The so-called Cold War peace dividend took place. At the same time, though, because of the tough votes on tax reform that we took, we were building up a significant surplus.

We saw again here, with the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, an increase in defense spending. Once again, that was a product the desire of the President to lower taxes, which he did, but more importantly, was the unexpected and catastrophic attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. That, together with the later decisions to go into Iraq and maintain our presence in Afghanistan, led us to increase defense spending, but, once again--once again--a growing deficit with tax cuts, with no increases to pay for wartime operations, saw the defense budget peak and then begin to decline, and we are in that decline right now.

If history is any judge, when we pass these tax cuts, I think we will see a further decline as defense spending is squeezed by an already- acknowledged increased deficit and by the difficulty of cutting other programs to relieve budget pressures. We are not positioning ourselves well. As I previously mentioned, we are already looking ahead at necessary expenditures totaling trillions of dollars over the future, and if we don't make them, it will leave our Armed Forces, and indeed our position in the world, in a very precarious position.

The irony will be that many of my colleagues will come down here and vote one day soon on a huge tax reduction for the wealthiest, including a $1.5 trillion deficit increase, and on the next day say: ``We need more money for our military, that is the most important thing.'' If our military were the most important thing, we would be voting on a bill to provide that type of financial support and relief to the military today, and letting the tax cuts for the wealthy wait.

This is one of the remarkable periods in our history; probably the first time in our history, that we have conducted a war for 16 years, and have yet to ask the American people, in any significant way, to participate by paying their fair share for the national defense. In fact, throughout this period, with rare exceptions, we have cut taxes, and the cuts have basically benefited the wealthiest Americans. That is why all of this together has caused former Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta, Ash Carter, and Chuck Hagel to indicate that this tax bill is ill-advised. Following 16 years of debt-financed war, providing even bigger deficit-busting tax cuts doesn't make any sense for our national security.

My previous comments, along with the comments of former Secretaries of Defense and others seem to have touched a nerve with Speaker Ryan because, when asked specifically, he took some umbrage at these comments. In an interview with NPR, he said he simply could not understand where our

concerns were coming from. To put it bluntly, I am comfortable siding with three former Secretaries of Defense over the Speaker when it comes to budgeting for the men and women of our Armed Forces, for the reasons I outlined in my discussion of the history of defense spending and tax cuts over the last 30-plus years. Inevitably, the tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, because of the way this bill is structured, will put pressure on defense spending. What I don't want to happen is to have people down here 2 months from now pounding the desks about how we are not responding to the needs of our troops, saying that we haven't made them the most important thing in our lives, or that we are neglecting our national defense. Frankly, they have ignored this whole topic by committing to give tax cuts and increase the deficit. That is the wrong priority, in my view.

As the chart clearly demonstrates, these tax cuts eventually catch up with us. They produced defense cuts--maybe not immediately, but we are not working on a situation like we had in 2001. When President George W. Bush instituted his tax cuts, we had a $5 trillion surplus on the books. That was because we took those tough votes in the 1990s to increase taxes and to build up a surplus.

We don't have that pad any longer. We are already $10 trillion in the hole, so the effect of these cuts will be much quicker and much more dramatic when it comes to the situation we will face not only in terms of supporting our military, but actually taking major steps to upgrade the platforms, the technology, the training, the readiness, and the quality of life of the Armed Forces. We don't have a $5 trillion surplus to dip into to pay off the wealthiest while we try to fix defense. We are in a situation where advocacy for this tax cut, in my view, totally and deliberately ignores the costs we are going to have to pay to protect ourselves. For the first time in our history, we have conducted almost 20 years of war, and we have asked our troops and their families to serve, but we haven't asked any other American to stand up, at least with their financial support, and help us deal with the crises we face across the globe.

It is not just our Armed Forces that will be squeezed and crowded out of the Federal budget because of these Republican proposals; the middle class and the working poor will also have to do a lot more with a lot less.

Many of my colleagues have already pointed out that the CBO has estimated that 13 million Americans will lose their health insurance because Republicans will repeal the individual mandate to pay for tax cuts. They can try to spin this as an expansion of choices, but the bottom line is that more people will be sick, and fewer of them will get the care they need.

Other middle-class American families can expect to lose access to critical tax advantages that allow them to remain self-sufficient during hard times. This approach promises to crush families on two fronts. It will force more families who are down on their luck to slip out of the working class, and then, because of massive deficits, the social safety net will be weakened when these families need it the most. This legislation will likely trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare in 2018 alone, and with the Republicans' entitlement reform on the docket for next year--publically announced by Speaker Ryan--this may just be the tip of the iceberg. If we pass this tax bill, under our pay-go rules, we are in a position where we will be facing a $25 billion cut to Medicare just next year, in 2018. Indeed, for many Americans, this vote is not about taxes, it is about Medicare--what they thought they had earned and are entitled to, what their children believe they need in order to withstand the obvious health problems as one ages.

This does not even begin to cover the struggles facing working-class Americans every day. We are in the midst of a historic decline in labor force participation that economists are struggling to explain, and many States that are experiencing deep declines in labor force participation are among those hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. A few weeks ago, President Trump declared a public health emergency on opioids. Where are the resources coming from to face that national emergency? There will not be that much left after this tax cut.

What we are beginning to see--this is not cause and effect, but it is a correlation--is that a lot of individuals are leaving the workforce because they feel displaced by new technology or because they are noncompetitive or for a number of reasons, and this seems to correlate very highly in those States with large losses with this opioid epidemic. In my home State of Rhode Island, this epidemic is real. It is taking the lives of individuals. On a national scale, it is something that has already been proclaimed a public health emergency by the President. Again, where will the money come from after these tax cuts? Will the problem just go away? I doubt it. The money is going away, but not the problem.

We have to ask ourselves: If we are in a national public health emergency, why aren't we standing up and providing the resources to help Americans face this problem? It goes back to the same logic: If we are in our 16th or 17th year of war, why aren't we standing up and saying that we better put up some money for the troops, their equipment, and their families?

No--what my colleagues are saying is: We had better cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, for corporations. We have to create loopholes for passthrough entities that give advantages to private equity concerns, legal firms, accountants, and others.

As we look at these problems, millions of Americans are sitting around their dinner tables, and they don't believe we need to give trillion-dollar tax cuts to corporations that have international operations. They are more likely thinking about more mundane things closer to their lives, such as, what about the roads and bridges in my community? Why does this country have an investment backlog in transportation of $836 billion for highways and bridges and $122 billion for transit? Why aren't we doing the big infrastructure bill that the President indicated during the campaign--which is going to cost real money? Instead, we are giving real money away.

This makes a huge difference--because pursuing tax cuts first doesn't just neglect infrastructure, it neglects jobs. The jobs infrastructure projects create are middle-class jobs. These are not the private equity analysts. These are not the sophisticated financial engineers. These are the laborers, the structural engineers, and the men and women who pour the concrete. They are not going to get much out of this tax bill. At the family dinner table, they are probably wondering how they can afford to send their children to college.

How can they even continue to send their children to elementary and secondary schools that are in a horrendous state of repair? The Department of Education has estimated it would cost $197 billion to bring all public schools in the United States to good condition, and there is a $30 billion funding gap in annual capital construction and new facility funding. This is not just a Rhode Island problem; this is a problem in every State of the Union. Public school buildings are decrepit, and we are sending children to those schools. If this legislation passes, where will we find the money to help State and local communities deal with these issues so that children can go to schools that are modern, up-to-date places where they can learn?

Once you get past the elementary and secondary education levels, today everyone insists the jobs of the future all require more than a high school education. We have a generation that has racked up about $1.3 trillion in student loans and is facing a job market that provides few opportunities and not enough opportunities to pay them off. They are worried. People are worried that their children--many of whom are still living with them after college--will never be able to pay off these loans. Where is the multibillion-dollar package of assistance, aid, and loan forgiveness that will allow this generation of Americans to have the same benefits that my generation had? That is not the situation today. Everyone in this Chamber knows this because, when they go home, they hear from parents who are wondering when their child will ever get out from underneath the significant debt they have.

These are all real problems that working families face. There is another

problem that is looming and will exacerbate these problems even more dramatically. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, up to 30 percent of the work done by 60 percent of occupations today is vulnerable to automation. By 2030, 75 million to 375 million--up to 14 percent--of the global workforce will need to change jobs. These advances in artificial intelligence could cause a huge erosion in human jobs.

What are families doing? What should we be doing? Frankly, we should be thinking of ways we can help people make the transition, and prepare them for what we know is coming. We know there is going to be a huge loss of jobs. We know that, when people drop out of the workforce, when companies get smaller, their pension obligations don't get that much smaller. We are also facing huge shortages in terms of pensions.

One of the ironies I suggest will happen--``irony'' is too gentle of a word--is that these corporations that are getting huge tax benefits are not going to raise wages. They are not going to turn it over to the people who work for them. They will buy back their stock, and some of these companies will buy back their stock even though their pension plans are not fully funded. That is not only an irony but an additional problem with the approach we are taking to this legislation.

The jobs in danger are not all entry-level positions. This is not about somebody who has a pick and a shovel and is displaced by a machine. We are talking about jobs, for example, in radiology. With computers and artificial intelligence today, doctors will admit they can read x-rays better than many technicians. They can do it in such a way that you don't need as many radiologists to review the records. They can be much more efficient. We are talking about jobs that are not core, entry-level jobs done by people who can easily do something else. We are talking about people who have master's degrees, who have years of training. This is going to come very quickly. What do they do? How do they compensate? Where do they get a job?

We know that this is going to happen, and we are weakening ourselves financially from being able to respond. Yet the legislation that is being proposed is oblivious to what we know is going to happen.

People will come here and say: ``We need more money for national defense.'' Why don't we do that now, instead of giving a big tax cut and raising the deficit?

In a few years or few months, people will say: ``This opioid crisis is out of control; it is even worse than it was when the President declared it an emergency.'' Let's do something.

We don't have the money. In a very few years, when people say, ``We are losing hundreds of thousands of good jobs; let's do something,'' the answer will be ``Sorry, we can't.''

By the way, we don't have much of a safety net for those people who are being displaced by these machines because we have eroded that too. We have huge challenges before us. The American people are watching us. They know these things. They are seeing in their workplace machines gradually replacing human beings. If you are a driver for UPS and you haven't figured out yet that these big companies are buying autonomous vehicles, they are using drones to deliver packages, et cetera--they understand what is coming. They see their children with huge debt living at home because they can't afford to buy a home, given their school loans. They sense the fragility of not only their own job but also the support for their parents on Medicare and Medicaid.

One of the things I thought was interesting when I heard we were going on to entitlement reform is the fact that the biggest amount of money spent in Medicaid go to nursing homes, and it goes to individuals who are not the poorest of poor. They are middle-class people, seniors, or people with long-term disabilities who have exhausted most of their funds. They have sold their house or mortgaged their house, et cetera, and they are the ones who are taking the bulk of the Medicaid money and funding. If we cut Medicaid, what we are going to do is tell a lot of middle-class people: You are out; you are out of this nursing home. Or we are going to tell their sons and daughters: You thought you had a problem paying off your children's tuition; you thought you had a problem at work because you haven't had a raise in several years. Guess what. Unless you come up with $1,000 extra a month, your mother is out of that nursing home.

That is the reality. That is what Americans around their kitchen tables and coffee shops are talking about. They are not talking about big tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations and individuals. It is no surprise that, if you look at any of the polling with respect to this tax bill, the American people are against it. My colleagues, particularly on the other side, are committed to getting something through that the American people don't want. They have said it. The polling has been extensive: We don't want this; we have real problems at home.

I am here to say that I believe this is a great mistake. I don't think any of us going forward should be in a position to say: Someone should have told me; someone should have told me that we need trillions of dollars to improve our defense above and beyond the current money we are spending. Somebody should have told me that hundreds of thousands-- if not millions--of good jobs are going away because of artificial intelligence. Someone should have told me that young people are drowning under college debt, and we should fix that. Someone should have told me that we are in a situation where working conditions and the prospect of work is so fragile for so many people.

I think this is a great mistake. I hope my colleagues will reflect on what we are about to do and reject it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the Trump administration's irresponsible plans to dismantle net neutrality.

This is a very important and timely issue for Rhode Islanders. The Federal Communications Commission's--the FCC's--efforts to repeal net neutrality protections could have a devastating impact on students, small businesses, and ordinary Rhode Islanders who cannot afford to pay higher premiums on internet traffic.

I have joined many of my Democratic colleagues in urging the FCC to abandon its reckless plan because it would radically alter the free and open internet as we know it and be an abdication of the FCC's responsibility to protect consumers.

Net neutrality does something incredibly important. It requires internet providers to treat all data equally. Net neutrality ensures a level playing field for everyone on the internet. It means free and open access to websites and information.

Over the past 20 years, the internet has become central to the lives of Rhode Islanders and, indeed, millions of Americans--practically every American. From students completing homework assignments to small businesses conducting e-commerce, or family members communicating with loved ones on the other side of the country or the world, the internet is now our primary means of communication. As such, I believe this is an issue of fundamental fairness and equality of opportunity.

This proposed repeal of net neutrality protections undermines the principles of a free and open internet and could be an unprecedented giveaway to big broadband providers, benefiting a few large corporations at the expense of their customers who use and rely on affordable access to the internet every day.

Net neutrality protections also ensure that all content is treated equally. Without these rules, large internet service providers may choose to block, throttle, or prioritize certain internet traffic. Without these protections, big internet service providers will be given the power to erect virtual toll booths for some customers and fast lanes for others. As a result, the repeal of net neutrality rules will likely be bad for consumers, businesses, students, and everyday Americans who cannot afford to pay additional premiums for internet access.

If these rules are repealed, internet providers can essentially say, if you want a quick download from a Web site, you have to pay more. They can go to businesses and ask them to pay more for this fast service. They can't do that today. Everyone is treated equally.

This is particularly important when it comes to small businesses. As I go around Rhode Island to small businesses, as I have done these last few weeks, one of the reasons they are growing is because they are starting to take a presence on the internet. They have an internet business; they are beginning to sell across the country or across the globe. A small business in Wickford, RI, East Greenwich, RI, or Smithfield, RI, is not going to be able to pay the same premium for access that Amazon or a big corporation like Walmart can, and they will be squeezed further. The reason a lot of these small businesses are able to keep a store open in Rhode Island--or anyplace else in the country--and employ local workers is because they are starting to see a share of their profit come from the internet. They would like to see that grow, but if that diminishes, then the pressure on them to stay in business locally becomes acute.

These are real consequences, not hypothetical. If these rules are repealed and net neutrality is done away with, the consequences for businesses, communities, and individuals will be significant.

Let me make another example. Places of learning like our libraries, schools, and institutions of higher education all rely on offering internet access, which is already expensive. I did a press event at a public library, and they pay significant amounts of money so they have broadband access, and it is a mecca for everyone to come. The head librarian told me that they have people sitting on their doorsteps in the morning before they open and after they close so they can get a broadband signal from the library. Why are they doing that? You can't get a job today unless you can get online because that is where they post job offerings, that is where you have to send your resume, that is where you have to get the response back when you have a job interview. If you can't get on the internet, the chances of getting a job today are close to zero. It was a lot different 20, 30, or 40 years ago, when you could go down to the factory, fill out the form, pass it over the divider to the person in charge, and they would give you a telephone call back or you would come back in a few days and see how you were doing.

Local libraries are also the place where students across Rhode Island and the Nation gain access to the internet to do their homework, apply to college and financial aid, and explore the world around them. This is particularly the case in poorer neighborhoods. They can't afford to have computers or internet in their home. If you go to the public library in South Providence, right next to St. Michael's Church, in the afternoon, the kids are all there and are on the computers doing their homework. They can't do

that, in many cases, at home. They simply don't have the access.

We are always sitting around here talking about how we have to educate our young people and how we have to get them ready for a technologically challenging world, and then we are about to pull the rug right out from underneath them because that library will not be able to afford access to some sites that these young people need.

It is not just the young people who are using the libraries; it is also seniors who want to stay in touch with their families. There are functions that are so critical--as I mentioned before, you literally cannot apply for a job today unless you can get online. How does a person struggling, particularly in low-income, working-class neighborhoods, get online when they can't afford already expensive service, which could be more expensive if these rules are withdrawn and net neutrality is abandoned?

I heard about all of this in detail when I visited the Providence Public Library. Providence is an urban center, so there are other ways, perhaps, to compensate for access to libraries. But when you go to a rural area, those libraries are especially important. More than 83 percent of libraries report that they serve as their community's only provider of free internet and computing services in rural areas. If you need free service, the only place you can go to is the library. This is going to put another cost on them at a time when public-private support is being diminished.

We have a tax bill pending before us that is going to eviscerate charitable contributions. It is going to take away the deduction. Some of that money goes to our public libraries. If it doesn't go there, they will not have access.

I mentioned small businesses because, as I said, this is particularly critical. We have seen an improving economy, and for a lot of small businesses, that is because they are starting to have a presence on the internet. If that presence now comes with a higher price because the providers can say that if you want to get access and fast downloads, you have to pay X, once again, that X to a small mom-and-pop business could be huge. That X to an Amazon or Walmart is just a rounding error.

We know it is going to happen. It is not fair. It undercuts what we think is the heart and soul--I know it is the heart and soul of our economy in Rhode Island for small business, and it is another big benefit for the well-to-do businesses that can pay more and will pay more. This is not a direction we should be going.

Even more disturbing is that the FCC's proposed action may be based on a skewed public record. As we all know, under the Administrative Procedure Act, when a rule or change is proposed, they have to take public comments. There are credible reports that bots--the electronic networks of computers--impersonating Americans filed hundreds of thousands of phony comments to the FCC during their net neutrality policymaking process, thus distorting the public record. Their supposedly fact-based and comment-based approach could be fictitious. It could be a product of special interests who decided to link together thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands, of computers that randomly generated messages--or not so randomly, but deliberately generated messages.

What we have done is join our colleagues, and we have urged that the FCC abandon this proposal. As I said, I have joined many of my colleagues in asking, at least, that the FCC delay the vote on net neutrality until it can conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that it has a clear and accurate understanding of the public's view on this important topic. It is not based on a group of individuals and many electronically linked computers; it is based on the true sentiment of a broad range of the public. At least delay the proceeding until you can assure us that.

Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. This attempt appears to be part of a larger program the Trump administration is using to roll back regulations that protect ordinary working men and women throughout the country. The Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, and the administration seem to say, very deliberately, that this is their goal. Just roll back regulations, without analysis that is appropriate, without a sensitivity to the benefits as well as the costs.

My view is that rather than trying to limit access to the internet, they should be doing things to make it easier, make it cheaper for small businesses, for libraries, for individual Americans to get on and use the internet, not to take advantage of the rulemaking process to fatten the bottom line of big companies that are doing quite well already.

It is clear that the FCC should not vote this week, or ever, to repeal net neutrality protections that have benefited so many Rhode Islanders and Americans. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposition to the FCC's proposed dismantling of the net neutrality rules. It is important. It is important for our constituents. It is important for our small businesses. It is important for our future generations as they prepare for a very complicated and challenging world, and, for some of them, the only way to get access to the computer is the public library. The only access for a small business to the new marketplace on the net is being able to afford to be on the net. That is all in jeopardy today. I hope we can stop these net neutrality rule appeals, and do it immediately.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in reminding all of our Members, but particularly our friends on the other side of the aisle and the Administration, that there is a very real human cost for each day we delay taking corrective action on President Trump's unnecessary decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or DACA.

There was no need for the Trump administration to create this crisis. There was no reason to throw nearly 800,000 Dreamers and their families into such uncertainty. Yet the President--despite the fact that most Americans from both political parties support a solution for the Dreamers--decided that he needed to overturn this initiative for little more reason than the fact that it was put in place by President Obama. These young people, who are American in every way but on paper, may be uprooted and moved to countries that are totally foreign to them. Yes, their parents broke the rules to bring them here as children, but their departure now will be our loss. These are the basic economic facts and common sense. Moreover, these young people have become our classmates, neighbors and coworkers, the parents of our children's friends and an undeniable part of our American community.

I thank many of my colleagues who spoke eloquently here to put names and faces to the young people who are affected by this crisis. I would like to associate myself with their remarks. I have also had an opportunity to meet with Dreamers in Rhode Island who were brave enough to share their stories with me and with my staff. I hope to meet more of them, but I can state that these are exactly the kind of hard- working young people who we should be encouraging to put down roots in our communities.

Skeptics should know the facts. Dreamers have been subjected to deep scrutiny. They faced background checks by immigration officials, they have paid significant fees, and they have followed the rules. It is simply untenable to continue to delay a resolution of their status in our country any longer. Indeed, too many of my colleagues seem to be in no hurry to reach a meaningful agreement on passing the bipartisan Dream Act. This has been an effort that has been led by Members on both sides of the aisle because many--unfortunately, not enough yet--on both sides of the aisle believe that these young people are American in their values and in their commitment to this country. They will contribute to this country. They already are.

There seems to be this illusion that we have until March 5, the official end date for DACA, to continue to try to

fix this problem. There are others who seem to believe that this crisis, which was prompted by President Trump's decision, is an opportunity to gain concessions in other areas. This approach of waiting to try to game the crisis is wrong. It is certainly wrong for the young people who are waiting nervously--in fact, ``nervously'' is too mild a term--to determine whether they can stay and contribute to this great country, as they are already doing.

We have an opportunity, but we have to take it quickly to ensure that these young men and women can find a way to stay in this country and contribute to this country. It remains my sincere hope that my colleagues will come to the table in good faith to pass the bipartisan Dream Act. Again, let me state that there are Members on both sides who recognize that these young people are making great contributions to the country, and this is the only country they have known. Many of them were infants when they were brought here. They are American in every way except on paper.

We need to make progress on this. We don't have until March. We have to do this as quickly as possible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to make a few remarks to honor a great American.

Sean J. Stackley served as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition from July 28, 2008, to August 3, 2017. He also served as the Acting Secretary of the Navy from January 20 to August 3, 2017. By virtue of the length of his Navy service, Secretary Stackley has become the longest serving Assistant Secretary of the Navy in history. Until Sean's service, Franklin Delano Roosevelt held the record for the longest serving Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but Sean has eclipsed that record by almost 2 years.

I first came to know Secretary Stackley as a staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2005 until the time he was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Before that, Sean graduated from the Naval Academy in 1979 and served on Active Duty in the Navy until 2005, when he retired after having been program manager for the LPD-17 Program.

It would be hard to find a more dedicated public servant who brought so much to the table and continued to give his best even after he could justifiably have moved on to an easier job. There was hardly any area of building the Navy of the future where Secretary Stackley's good judgment and broad experience has not improved the outcome. During his tenure, he was responsible for placing 90 ships, nearly 1,700 aircraft, and over 20,000 weapons under contract. He was a staunch advocate for making every dollar count and worked to employ competitive techniques on every contract where possible. He championed multiyear contracts on mature programs, including the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, Virginia class attack submarine, MV-22 tiltrotor, and the F/A-18 Super Hornet Programs which collectively saved the taxpayer over $6 billion. He drove direct competition on many programs, including the Presidential helicopter, air and missile defense radar, ship-to-shore connector, and amphibious combat vehicle. He also introduced many creative forms of competition, including combining two different ship classes in one solicitation and introducing competition on the Aegis weapon system for the first time in 40 years.

Secretary Stackley's creativity in acquisition contributed to ensuring a strong industrial base. He promoted open architecture standards for all Navy programs to provide competitive opportunities for large, medium, and small businesses. He ensured the Department synchronized contract awards on major weapons programs so that industry could be more efficient by combining commodity and subvendor buys. He also challenged the Department's purchases of contractor services which saved the Department over $2 billion. He was also an advocate for small business and proactively assigned every deputy program manager to be the small business advocate in every program office.

Secretary Stackley did not shy away from difficult problems. He commissioned an end-to-end review of CVN-78 program to keep the ship under the congressional cost cap. He was a champion for the Navy's cybersafe efforts. He implemented a settlement for the A-12 litigation, the longest running government contract case in history, by working diligently with General Dynamics and Boeing to find a win-win solution for the government and the contractors. He was always mindful of the warfighter ensuring the Urgent Needs Process was agile and responsive. He recognized the strength of working with our international partners and forged strong ties on a myriad of programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter and Columbia class submarine.

Secretary Stackley was a staunch advocate for the acquisition workforce. He successfully argued for tools and funding that would provide necessary training and certification for the workforce. In addition, he was passionate about promoting diversity. His dedication to the workforce was most evident during the Washington Navy Yard shooting and the days and weeks that followed where he was most concerned with the well-being of the individuals impacted.

I am very sorry to see Secretary Stackley leave government service, but he has more than earned time to pursue other goals. However, I am confident that his legacy will continue with the strong team that he built and nurtured.

With that, I want to wish Sean and his wife, Terri, ``fair winds and following seas.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following motion to H.R. 1, the Tax Reconciliation Act, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following motions to H.R. 1, the Tax Reconciliation Act, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, two weeks ago, I urged my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reject the partisan and fiscally irresponsible Republican tax proposal in the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I asked them to remember that, when it comes to our responsibility to plan for the nation's long-term economic future, we are here to create opportunity and security for future generations--not to serve the short-term interests of partisan politics. Today, I regret to say that the process surrounding the Republican tax bill has only become more rushed, more partisan, more bitter, and less transparent. My Republican colleagues wrote this bill behind closed doors, held no serious hearings or debate, and even now are planning to make substantial changes to the final bill that we will vote on before we have even had the benefit of a comprehensive, nonpartisan score of its cost.

We all know better than to believe that this irresponsible process will lead to a responsible or sustainable outcome. Therefore, because it is clear that this bill is an unprecedented giveaway to wealthy corporations and individuals at the expense of poor, sick, elderly, and middle-class Americans, and because it will drive our Nation trillions of dollars further into debt, I strongly urge my colleagues to reject this bill and to work with both sides of the aisle to craft tax reform that will help--rather than burden--future generations and the middle class.

The only future generations that this bill appears to take into account are the children and grandchildren of the wealthiest families in the United States, including President Trump's family and the families of the wealthiest Cabinet ever assembled by any President. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, half of all households, and two-thirds of households making between $54,700 and $93,200 would see their taxes go up under the current Republican bill. Individuals who struggle to get by because of sickness or the unavailability of well-paying job opportunities would lose tax exemptions and advantages that have helped them stay afloat. Many Americans who have played by the rules and persevered through our long recovery from the great recession will open their paychecks to see a little more taken out every month, but not for their benefit. On the other hand, for the 5,000 American families with fortunes in the millions of dollars or more, the Republican plan to repeal or drastically curtail the estate tax could, on its own, funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to those few who need it the very least.

The mere idea that we would raise taxes on poor and working Americans to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest American estates epitomizes how this Republican tax bill is wholly at odds with our values. The trillions of dollars this bill will add to our deficit will almost certainly lead to deep cuts in earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare, as well as our national defense. Indeed, major cuts to defense historically follow deficit-increasing tax cuts, and this is almost precisely why we have an estate tax in the first place.

Our Nation first enacted estate taxes in order to pay for military conflicts without driving the Nation deeply into debt. Starting in 1797, and continuing through the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I, the United States used temporary estate taxes to offset the costs of war. Congress kept the estate tax after World War I as a means of balancing the Federal budget and countering the growth of massive wealth inequality. Because of this foresight, the estate tax was a critical source of revenue that softened the blow of the Great Depression and supported the war effort in World War II.

Prior Congresses saw it as their responsibility to pay America's bills at home and abroad. They did not leave years of war on America's line of credit, nor did they expect the poor and working classes to pay while the

wealthiest took a tax cut. There were certainly times when running a deficit was necessary, and even economically wise, but because of this pay-as-you-go principle, no American generation has faced what we do now: 16 years of deficit-financed military conflict with no end in sight, compounded by the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that never paid for themselves, despite repeated Republican promises. Before we give the wealthiest Americans another tax cut at the expense of our children and our children's children, we need at least an idea of how we are going to handle trillions of dollars in compounding war debt--not to mention the trillions more we must spend to maintain and modernize our military--and address our basic domestic needs that have gone unnoticed and underfunded for so long.

That is why I plan to file a motion on this bill that would send this bill back to the Finance Committee to reinstate the estate tax at current levels and place all the revenue generated by it into a trust fund. Those funds, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade, will be devoted evenly between maintaining the readiness of our Armed Forces and addressing the opioid epidemic here at home. This motion not only restores original intent of the estate tax as a tool for combating deficits in times of war but also makes a much needed down-payment on our long-stalled domestic agenda.

But the bill's elimination of the estate tax is just one of its many harmful provisions. The bill sabotages our healthcare system by repealing the individual mandate, which could easily throw 13 million Americans off their health insurance and increase premiums for millions of others. Yet again, the 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions must fear that their premiums will skyrocket or that they will be left with no options at all.

And the poor and the sick may find even fewer options after this bill forces $25 billion in cuts into Medicare in 2018 alone because of the massive deficits it will produce. Do not tell me this will pay for itself with growth. I have served in this body long enough to know that trickle-down economics doesn't work, and I take the word of the scores of economists who say, in no uncertain terms, that this bill will balloon the debt and will not create enough growth to offset it. Even major companies like Cisco, Pfizer, and Coca-Cola say they will use the gains from these massive corporate tax cuts to pay shareholders, rather than create jobs or raise wages for the middle class. We are making decisions here that will guide the largest economy in the world. We simply cannot roll the dice on a plan of this scale and hope for the best.

It remains my sincere hope that my Republican colleagues will see the error of their ways and choose to work with Democrats on tax reform that is bipartisan, reasonable, and in keeping with our responsibility to leave this Nation better than we found it. We can and should address other domestic priorities in dire need like our Nation's infrastructure, the economic security of children and seniors, and programs that create and sustain employment for the middle class. I and my colleagues are ready and willing to work in good faith on tax reform, but we cannot begin that work until we abandon the kind of recklessness and partisanship that led to this Republican tax bill.

Once again, we are all here, and we are all committed to defending our Nation, but this bill will make it virtually impossible to do what we know we must do. There are unavoidable costs in our national security that are not even counted in this bill. My fellow members of the Armed Services Committee and I have committed to making needed increases to the size of our military forces. It costs roughly an additional $1.8 billion per year for every 10,000 servicemembers. Where will we get that money when we are going $1.8 trillion in debt to provide tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? We want a 355-ship Navy. There have been some estimates that doing that will require at least an additional $1 trillion a year. Where are we going to get that when we have already given $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest Americans? We have to modernize our nuclear triad, our submarines, our land-based missiles, and our aircraft. There are estimates that this will cost about $400 billion per year in costs. Where are we getting that, since we have given the money--$1.5 trillion--to the wealthiest Americans? We have overseas operations in Iraq. Over a 10-year period, roughly $10 billion must be repaid. We pay about $1 billion a year there. For Syria, that is $13 billion. If we stay there for 10 years--and that seems to be the present policy--that is $130 billion. We pay $50 billion a year to support the Afghan operation. We are going to stay there, apparently, under the current procedure--not based on time but conditions--for another 10 years. Add that up, and that is about $640 billion over the next 10 years, just to maintain the situation in those three countries.

These are not costs we can ignore. If we did, we would--at the very least--be turning our backs on the policies announced by this President and this Congress--and by my Republican colleagues in particular. But where is this money coming from? We don't have the situation we had in 2001 when President George W. Bush proposed his tax cuts. We don't have an expected $5 trillion surplus. We already have a multitrillion-dollar deficit over 10 years, and we are adding to that deficit. We know we have to maintain the military expenditures.

Anyone who is voting for this bill is essentially saying: I will talk a good story about supporting national security, but when it comes down to the money, it is going to go to the wealthiest Americans, to things like the estate tax cut. It is going to go to the wealthiest Americans who are paying the alternative minimum tax. The money we need for security will not be there unless we borrow it from future generations--to fund the things we know we already have to fund to defend America.

This is absolutely irresponsible, and, as a result, I would hope we could regain our senses, sit down, and deal, on a bipartisan basis, with tax reform that could help all of us and could indeed even begin, after 16 years, to put real money into our national defense rather than borrowing it from future generations. Again, this bill is not only economically unwise because it will not generate growth, but it is also irresponsible because it will put us in a position where we will be choosing, very shortly--in the next several years--whether we are going to cut defense or whether we are going to cut Social Security or whether we are going to cut everything because the deficit is growing so large. I don't think we should put ourselves in that position.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is our responsibility to ensure that future generations will have greater opportunity and greater security than we inherited from our parents and our forebears. To accomplish this, we must put aside political expedience and take a sober look at the health of our national economy and our ability to keep our commitments at home and around the world. With this in mind, I rise to urge my colleagues to reject the partisan and fiscally irresponsible Republican tax proposals in the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. When we strip away the rosy, but false, economic projections and ideologically motived economic theories the Republicans have been using to hype this bill, it is clear this bill trades away our nation's long- term economic health and the well-being of working Americans, the poor, the sick, and the old in order to benefit the wealthy. Moreover, this bill will take us trillions of dollars deeper into debt at a time when the costs of 16 years of debt-financed wars continue to mount. Republicans owe it to our country and to future generations who will be stuck with the multi-trillion-dollar cost of this bill to go back to the drawing board and produce a balanced and permanent bipartisan path forward on our Nation's broken Tax Code.

It does not take an economist to see that the Republican tax bill is a historic $1.5 trillion transfer of wealth from poor and working Americans to the very wealthiest among us, but a few of its glaring injustices are worth mentioning. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, it gives over twice as much tax relief to millionaires as it does to Americans making under $50,000. Just 5,000 of the wealthiest American families will receive hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade in the form of estate tax breaks at a time when income and wealth inequality in this country are at historic highs. This transfer of wealth through estate tax repeal alone requires us to go back to the drawing board. On the other hand, the bill

raises taxes on 19.4 million households earning under $200,000 by as much as $500. Forty-six percent of households making under $100,000 and 50 percent of households making under $75,000 will either see their taxes go up over the next decade or see no change at all, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. While tax cuts for big corporations are made permanent, the Republican bill plans to claw back what little it gives to everyone else after a few years, setting up even bigger tax hikes for the middle class down the line. This does not even begin to cover the return of TrumpCare that has been added to this bill, which would take healthcare coverage away from 13 million Americans and drive up costs substantially for the poor, the sick, and the elderly.

This bill is a bad investment and, frankly, it is one we can ill afford. According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model provided by the University of Pennsylvania, the bill will reduce Federal revenue by as much as $1.7 trillion and increase our national debt by $2 trillion in the 10-year budget window. By 2040, this becomes $3.6 trillion in lost Federal revenue and up to $6.9 trillion in debt. We would take on all this debt for an estimated 0.4 to 0.9 percent boost in GDP. For $1.5 trillion, we could make needed repairs to our streets and highways across America--creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process. We could pay off every American's credit card or student loan, or lift every American above the poverty line for years. Instead, this bill would put yet another massive charge on America's credit card that will not create jobs, will not trickle down, and most certainly will not pay for itself. We still have a $5.6 trillion in deficits and interest payments from the Bush tax cuts to prove it. With over $20 trillion in national debt, it is long past time to stop experimenting with people's lives and livelihoods to prove yet again there are no merits to supply- side economics. America has pressing needs and very real bills coming due.

Mr. President, I would like to spend the remaining time of my remarks addressing something about which we have heard far too little in this debate, and that is the impact on our national economic health of the unavoidable and compounding cost of 16 years of military conflict paid for almost entirely through debt. For the first time in our history, the United States reduced revenue--in the form of the Bush tax cuts-- rather than the usual pay-as-you-go approach to financing the post-9/11 wars. While we debate potentially adding trillions of dollars to the debt for an ill-conceived tax bill, the costs of war are coming due.

According to calculations in the thorough report by the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute at Brown University, ``[e]ven if the U.S. stopped spending on war at the end of this fiscal year, interest costs alone on borrowing to pay for the wars will continue to grow apace . . . [f]uture interest costs for overseas contingency operations spending alone are projected to add more than $1 trillion to the national debt by 2023. By 2056, a conservative estimate is that the interest costs will be about $8 trillion, unless the U.S. changes the way it pays for the wars.''

In a sense, what we are doing is mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren as we continue to add debt, and this is unavoidable debt in so many cases. We know we cannot immediately stop our engagement in countries throughout the world--in Afghanistan, in the Middle East and other areas. And, frankly, we are facing tremendous challenges in the Korean Peninsula. The approximate combined President's budget request for the Departments of Defense, State, and USAID for fiscal year 2018 is $14 billion for Iraq and Syria, and $48.9 billion for Afghanistan.

Furthermore, these costs do not account for much needed maintenance and modernization of our military assets. For example, modernizing, operating, and sustaining our nuclear triad--which includes submarines, bombers, and ICBMs--is projected to cost $1.2 trillion in 2017 dollars over the next 30 years. We are debating taking $1.5 trillion and giving it to the wealthiest Americans when we know that we need an additional $1.2 trillion over 30 years to secure the safety of the United States and the civility of the world through nuclear deterrence. This begs the very simple question: If we want to borrow $1.5 trillion, why don't we invest it in a cost we know will come due--protecting our country and the world through the renovation and reinvigoration of our nuclear triad.

The Navy recently validated a requirement for 355 ships. This would require the Navy to purchase around 329 new ships over 30 years--an average cost of $102 billion per year through 2047, which is 13 percent more than the $90 billion needed to build and operate the current 254- ship fleet envisioned in the Navy's 2017 plan. Once again, we are committing ourselves to billions of dollars of costs to our Navy shipbuilding program while we are entertaining a 1.5 or more trillion- dollar tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans. We know these costs are coming due, but we are fooling ourselves into thinking we can continue spending on credit forever.

We can expect even greater costs if our military increases end strength, as so many on both sides of the aisle are proposing. This is because of high operational tempo, which is not likely to diminish. For every additional 10,000 servicemembers, it costs roughly $1.8 billion per year for pay and benefits, and to train and equip these personnel. If the Army grows to 580,000 personnel, it will cost an additional $18 billion per year, but we are taking that money, and we are giving it in tax cuts, the prominent amount of which is going to the wealthiest Americans. We are not investing it now in increasing our military forces. If the Air Force grows by 30,000 personnel, it will cost an additional $6 billion per year. If the Marine Corps grows by 20,000 personnel, it will cost an additional $3.6 billion per year. If you talk to the Commandant or Chief of Staff of the Air Force, they will tell you they have to increase the size of their force because of the operational tempo. Indeed, if you talk to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, he will tell you they are in a desperate situation maintaining sufficient pilots to fly our aircraft. So we could be buying hundreds of new F-35 aircraft at a significant cost and watch them parked because we can't afford the flight crews to fly them and to maintain them. We know these costs are coming, and we are ignoring them until they come due. We are ignoring them now for the benefit of these tax cuts.

If we do not chart a responsible path forward on economic policy, we will leave all these costs to the next generation, to the detriment of our children, our national security, and our position of world leadership. Frankly, it might not be even that long before serious issues materialize. Once the markets determine that $1.5 trillion is just a small fraction of what we still must pay to protect ourselves; to continue our commitment in Afghanistan, to continue to support allies across the globe, markets may learn very quickly that the deficit is beginning to devour us. The markets will react, as they have in the past. So we could see a serious problem long before even our children confront these debts.

That is why earlier today former Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter sent a letter to congressional leadership and the House and Senate Armed Services Committee leadership that warned us that the fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican tax proposal will contribute to a growing budget crisis. The letter urges Congress to instead address the sequester that threatens to ``hollow out'' our military's ability to sustain the commitments of its global missions.

Mr. President, tax policies have real consequences. We can debate the value of one tax proposal over another, but that is not the debate before us. The simple facts are that this tax bill will give breaks to the people who need them the least, take money from working Americans, leave millions of Americans sicker and worse off, and further strain our ability to keep America safe from growing and changing threats across the globe. It also threatens expenditures on healthcare, education, infrastructure, and other vital domestic needs as the debt balloons due to this bill's unaffordable tax breaks for corporate titans. This is not what we owe the next generation. It is not even what we owe our children today. I urge my colleagues across the aisle to consider our Nation's future and join us in opposing this legislation.

Like so many here, I was here in 2001 when President George W. Bush proposed his tax cuts, which I opposed, and assured us that our economy would grow, that jobs would multiply, that we would be fine. Let me remind my colleagues that he said this after we had made the tough decisions in the Clinton Administration that led to a projected surplus in the billions of dollars. The mantra from many people at the time was, let's give the money back to the American people.

We don't have a surplus today. We have a significant deficit. It will grow with this bill because this bill says that we are going to increase it by $1.5 trillion at a minimum, and it will not be just $1.5 trillion.

I suggest that, unless we abandon our commitments to the men and women of our Armed Forces, unless we decide to disengage from the deterrent that we must have to defend the Nation from a nuclear Armageddon, unless we decide to leave Afghanistan--after the President announced that no longer are we basing our decisions on time but on conditions--there will continue to be trillions and trillions of dollars of unavoidable costs that should be included in this debate.

This is not the time to take trillions of dollars and give a disproportionate share to the wealthiest Americans. This is the time for us to work together, to provide the resources for our military, to provide investments for our people, and to deal with the issue of inequality between the wealthiest 1 percent and everybody else. None of that is accomplished by this bill. In fact, this bill will complicate, compound, and make even more difficult the problems we face in defending the Nation and giving people a chance at having better futures.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.

After several months of negotiations, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have arrived at a completed conference agreement. Earlier today, we passed the NDAA for the 56th consecutive year.

Let me highlight some of the important issues that we addressed in this agreement. This conference agreement authorizes a total of $692 billion, which includes $626.4 billion in base budget funding for the Department of Defense and certain security activities of the Department of Energy and $65.8 billion in overseas contingency operations, or OCO, funding.

Of course, we could not have done it without the cooperation of all the members of the committee, including the Presiding Officer, and I thank him for his contribution and his service.

This includes the administration's $5.9 billion budget amendment we received earlier this month, which seeks an additional $4.7 billion in base budget funding to bolster missile defense and to repair two Navy ships after recent collisions, as well as $1.2 billion in OCO funding for operations in Afghanistan and for additional capabilities in the Central Command area of operations.

The conference agreement includes significant increases in additional resources aimed at restoring full spectrum readiness, as soon as possible, across the military services. Specifically, operation and maintenance funding, widely known as the lifeblood readiness, was increased by $1.16 billion for the Army, $277.9 million for the Navy, $82.3 million for the Marine Corps, and $1 billion for the U.S. Air Force.

This conference agreement supports the topline of $700 billion for national defense, or 050, activities, which is roughly $150 billion over the Budget Control Act cap. If the cap is not adjusted and if this amount is fully funded by the appropriators, then we would trigger the harmful across-the-board cuts of sequestration, just at the time when we are trying to restore readiness.

I want to be clear. I agree that the DOD needs additional resources. But we must address the caps for both defense and nondefense activities.

I remind my colleagues that under the Budget Control Act, or BCA, national defense activities include certain programs at the FBI and the Coast Guard, while nondefense activities include the State Department, veterans' care, Customs and Border Protection, and the TSA. We need to look at our Nation's needs holistically, and we must remain vigilant over the amount of money the DOD can effectively utilize. We have to look at national security, and that includes both sides and both caps

With regard to our overseas operations, the conference report authorizes the entirety of the funding request for our efforts in Afghanistan, including $1.7 billion to invest in critical aviation capabilities, such as close air support platforms and modernized rotary wing assets, and to continue to sustain and train the existing fleet.

The report also authorizes 3,500 special immigrant visas to continue to uphold our commitments to the many brave Afghans who have provided critical support to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In this regard, let me thank Chairman McCain and Senator Shaheen, without whose efforts this provision would not have been included, I believe, in the final conference.

The conference report continues robust support for our counterterrorism efforts against ISIS, al-Qaida, and the other violent extremist groups, including approximately $1.8 billion for the Train and Equip Programs in Iraq and Syria. It also fully funds the Department's budget request for U.S. Special Operations Command.

With this bill, we will enhance public transparency and congressional oversight of military operations and the policies that underpin them. Most notably, it requires a public articulation of the legal and policy frameworks governing the use of military force outside of declared war zones, as well as additional reporting on civilian casualty incidents and DOD efforts to prevent them.

The conference report includes a requirement for the Secretary of Defense to appoint a senior official in the Department to lead an effort to harness and integrate all of the Department's capabilities to confront and defeat the kind of strategic influence operations that Russia has conducted against us and our allies over the last 2 years. It is vital that the Defense Department integrate its cyber capabilities with its information warfare experts to provide capabilities and options in time for next year's election cycle in the United States and to support our allies in Europe against Russian operations directed against them.

Additionally, the conference report includes a requirement for the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State to develop and report to Congress on a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to counter the Russian malign influence threat. Such a detailed strategy must include measures to defend against and deter Russian activities related to national security, including hybrid warfare, cyber attacks, and information operations.

The 2018 NDAA also authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish the Indo-Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative, which will be used to improve our posture in the Asia-Pacific region and provide additional resources to increase partner capacity and multilateral exercises in the region.

The Chief of Naval Operations' Force Structure Assessment from last winter identified a goal of 355 ships, including 66 attack submarines. This bill makes a good downpayment on that goal by adding five ships to the budget, including one DDG-51 destroyer, two littoral combat ships, one LX(R) amphibious ship, and one expeditionary sea base.

Perhaps not as dramatic, but no less important, is the addition of $698 million in the budget request to allow the Navy to begin expanding the submarine industrial base. Achieving the CNO's force structure goal will require adding 18 attack submarines to the previous force structure goal of 48 boats.

This will be no small challenge since retirement of older submarines will exceed deliveries of new submarines. During the 10-year period of 1991 to 2000, we ordered only four attack submarines--Connecticut, Jimmy Carter, Virginia, and Texas--so we have to do some catching up.

Providing the resources for the Navy to expand the submarine industrial base in an orderly fashion will be a critical element of efficiency and a critical element in building up our fleet.

The conference fully supports the budget requests for the modernization of the triad and its nuclear command and control to ensure we can deter existential threats to our homeland. Our triad of submarines, ICBMs, and bombers have been in service for decades and must be replaced.

Secretary Ash Carter put the situation eloquently when he said that a failure to do so, in his words, ``would mean losing confidence in our ability to deter, which we can't afford in today's volatile security environment.''

In the area of technology and acquisition, I am pleased that this bill shows strong support for the Department's network of labs and test ranges, which help drive efforts to maintain our battlefield technological superiority. In particular, I think this bill makes significant strides in enabling DOD to develop and buy the modern software and IT systems that are integral to every system, platform, and business system in the Department of Defense. Additionally, it reauthorizes the Defense Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to expand the number of universities capable of working with the Pentagon on advanced research.

The bill also pushes DOD to make use of advanced ``Big Data'' techniques to manage its business functions and processes. New ways of collecting, analyzing, and applying the lessons of data are revolutionizing the commercial world. It is time that DOD applied these same techniques to lower costs and save money and time.

The conference report also includes a provision that would allow the Army to transfer all excess firearms no longer actively issued for military service to an organic facility for the purpose of melting and repurposing. This provision not only allows the Army to divest itself of these weapons, but it will also provide a steady stream of work to our organic foundries. These are an important part of our arsenal system.

Furthermore, the provision will authorize the Secretary of the Army to annually designate additional excess firearms that are no longer in military use to be repurposed. This commonsense approach will allow the Army to save money on storage costs, as well as repurposing these excess weapons for higher priority needs identified by the Army.

I am also pleased that the conference report builds on a markup amendment by Senator Nelson that directs the Department to conduct a threat assessment and deliver a master plan for climate change adaptation.

The conference report includes House language from my colleague Congressman Jim Langevin that codifies several findings related to climate change and expresses the sense of Congress that climate change is a threat to our national security.

In the area of military personnel, the conference agreement accomplishes much on behalf of our servicemembers and the Department of Defense. The bill authorizes a 2.4-percent across-the-board pay raise for our troops and extends authority to pay over 30 bonuses and special pays to encourage recruitment, retention, and continued services.

It also includes authority for service Secretaries to extend by an additional year the time that the recruits may remain in the Delayed Entry Program to ensure that background checks are completed, so that they are not unnecessarily separated due to the fault of government. These are individuals who are here illegally. Their status is a result of their joining the MAVNI Program. If this program were terminated, we would lose their service to our military forces and they would be forced to leave the country.

Additionally, the bill permanently extends the special survivor indemnity allowance under the Survivor Benefit Plan, which was due to expire early next year. This ensures that widows of our veterans and servicemembers who die of service-connected causes will continue to receive their monthly benefit and authorizes annual cost-of-living adjustments to this benefit going forward.

With regard to military family care, the report authorizes $50 million for impact aid, including $40 million in supplemental impact aid and $10 million--twice the usual amount--for military children with severe disabilities. For military families and for local school systems all across this country, this impact aid is absolutely essential. Furthermore, it requires the Department to improve pediatric care and related services for children of members of the military.

This bill will also improve military family readiness by addressing the shortage of qualified childcare workers, requiring that the realities of military life be considered in setting the operating hours of childcare centers, and by increasing flexibility for families when the military requires them to move.

Let me conclude by stating the obvious. The reason this bill passed was because of the extraordinary bipartisan leadership of Senator John McCain and also because of the extraordinary bipartisan leadership of Chairman Mac Thornberry of the House Armed Services Committee and Ranking Member Adam Smith. I look forward to working with them in the future.

Finally, the conference agreement would not have been possible without the hard work of the entire committee staff, who worked diligently to help finalize this agreement. I thank Chris Brose, Eric Swabb, and all the majority committee staff for their hard work this past year. On the minority side, I thank my staff director, Elizabeth King. I also thank Gary Leeling, Creighton Greene, Carolyn Chuhta, Maggie McNamara, Jonathan Clark, Jonathan Epstein, Jorie Feldman, Ozge Guzelsu, Jody Bennett, Kirk McConnell, Bill Monahan, Mike Noblet, John Quirk, Arun Seraphin, and Jon Green.

Let me state the obvious: They do the work. Sometimes we get the credit, but the work is theirs. I am deeply appreciative of all of their efforts.

Again, let me indicate what is obvious to all our colleagues. Without the inspirational, practical, dynamic, and unrelenting leadership of Chairman McCain, we would not be at this moment today--the 56th consecutive passage of the National Defense Authorization Act.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from Maine and the Senator from the great State of Nebraska.

No. Once again, we have been following Senator McCain, and he took us all the way. Thank you