Taxpayer Assistance And Service Act
Madam President, I join my colleagues this evening to express my deep concerns. And I share your outrage, Senator Kaine, about the Trump administration's decision to recklessly take away funding for critical programs that hard-working…
Madam President, I join my colleagues this evening to express my deep concerns. And I share your outrage, Senator Kaine, about the Trump administration's decision to recklessly take away funding for critical programs that hard-working Americans rely on to get ahead.
The President promised the American people when he was campaigning that he would lower costs, and instead he is putting services that millions of people count on at risk, including in my home State of New Hampshire.
Last Friday, the administration sent its request to cancel over $800 million in Federal funding. And because today marks the end of the fiscal year, there is not enough time for Congress to stop these funds from being eliminated.
This deliberate move, as my colleagues have said, is a pocket rescission, and it is illegal. Let me say that again. It is illegal, plain and simple.
Over the past week, I have heard from countless constituents in New Hampshire about the importance of the programs that are being cut by this pocket rescission.
This funding provides housing counseling support as Senator Murray and Senator Kaine have said. That is vital to people in New Hampshire who are trying to afford housing.
It provides vital healthcare research that saves lives and education programs. It is abundantly clear that these cuts won't bring down costs. They won't keep our neighborhoods safe, and they certainly won't make our country any stronger.
Now, it is not up to the President and unelected bureaucrats at the Office of Management and Budget to decide where the Federal funding goes. They can't cancel a program simply because they don't like it. That is what they are trying to do, but it is illegal because our Constitution grants Congress--not the executive branch--the power of the purse; Congress writes the checks and the administration is not supposed to just tear them up.
Even the GAO, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog, has concluded that this move is illegal, not to mention that several of our Republican colleagues have also acknowledged that it is illegal.
When I talk with Granite Staters, one thing I consistently hear is that the cost of housing is a pain point for families already struggling with high prices.
The average price of a house in New Hampshire now is over $550,000. Too many young families can't afford that, and with housing prices hitting those highs, too many people are being priced out of this critical part of achieving the American dream.
That is why Federal programs like the Housing Counseling Program are just so important. Housing Counseling helps families buy homes, avoid foreclosures, and secure affordable rents.
Since the program began in 2009, it has helped over 4.2 million households across the country avoid foreclosure. In New Hampshire, thousands of families have used Housing Counseling to lower their home purchase price, to reduce their debt, and to secure safe and stable housing.
For example, Jake and Lisa are a young married couple who lived in an apartment in Grafton County, which is in the northwest part of our State. Their landlord decided to sell their apartment, and Jake and Lisa needed to relocate. But because of high housing costs, they struggled to find a home that was in their price range.
They couldn't afford to use a buyer's agent, so they turned to a HUD- certified housing counselor. In one instance, their housing counselor helped them obtain a home inspection that revealed major heating and electrical issues, and without this help, they might have closed on a home that would have cost them in the long term.
Their housing counselor also helped them create a plan that allowed them to pay their debts while maximizing their savings. And just a few months ago in a happy ending, Jake and Lisa officially became homeowners. But without their housing counselor, who knows when, or even if, Jake and Lisa would have been able to achieve this milestone?
Sadly, they are not alone. Too many families are still looking for a safe and affordable place to call home. And Housing Counseling isn't the only program in jeopardy.
This administration has left $230 million in Federal rural housing funds unspent. Now, Russ Vought may not think that is a lot of money, but in New Hampshire, we think that is a lot of money. And we should be doing everything possible to help families put a roof over their head, especially in the most rural parts of our country where affordable housing options are too often few and far between.
By letting this funding expire, the administration is sending a clear message to Americans: Addressing sky-high housing prices isn't one of the priorities of the Trump administration.
Now, in addition to cutting programs that help Americans find housing they can afford, the administration has cut funds that allow students to master foreign languages and become more well-rounded scholars and to do business around the world.
I mean, the President says he wants to do business around the world. He wants the United States to be a global business hub. How can we do that if we have people who can't communicate in foreign languages? And the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships program has made it possible for students from New Hampshire to attend universities that specialize in foreign languages and international relations.
These fellowships provide the skills for Americans to be the bridge to other countries and to understand cultures around the world and to do business around the world. Eliminating 1,900 fellowships denies young Americans, including Granite State youth, from developing the skills to serve our country, to improve international relations, and to strengthen our national and economic security.
The administration has also eliminated $28 million in funding appropriated to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This includes cutting a grant program at Dartmouth College--Dartmouth College where we have the only medical school in New Hampshire.
The grant program is designed to improve healthcare quality and access for rural populations living in Northern New England. The program focused on improving care for kids with complex medical needs and for better coordinating that care for cancer patients.
This doesn't seem wasteful to me, but that is what the Trump administration said when they rescinded these funds.
Now, it is not just healthcare funding that was gutted as we know. OMB also canceled funding for a program that has helped Americans build safer communities since the 1960s. The Department of Justice Community Relations Service was established in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a mission to help States and communities address and heal from incidents of discrimination.
The idea behind this program is pretty simple. If we get people talking to each other--something that might be helpful in the Senate-- we can constructively deal with incidents like swastikas painted on synagogues or racial slurs that are used in schools, and we can foster understanding and help avoid outbreaks of violence.
I have seen very directly how this program can help. In 2022 at a middle school and high school in Dover, NH, which is next to the community where I live, tensions amongst students reached a boiling point after some students decided to write racially biased and anti- Semitic posts on social media.
The leadership of the schools reached out to CRS for help in defusing the situation, and CRS offered a program it had developed called the School-Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together, or School-SPIRIT--an appropriate name.
In this instance, the schools in Dover used School-SPIRIT to convene key school administrators, students, and community stakeholders to identify the biases and prejudices that were driving tensions and to formulate a plan to help diffuse those tensions through communicating.
All in all, this was a success story for the school and for the entire community. And yet, despite the many positive outcomes all over the country, Russ Vought all by himself decided that CRS needed to be shut down.
All of this is to say that these abrupt cuts to programs Americans rely on have only created uncertainty and frustration at a time when people are already feeling immense financial burdens. They are feeling uncertainty and anxiety about what is happening in this country. These programs matter to people in New Hampshire.
They make a difference in their lives. But the President and his cronies and this administration couldn't seem to care less. It is part of a disturbing but all-too-common pattern from this administration-- bypassing Congress, skirting legal authority, and leaving families to pay the price. And what is the administration prioritizing instead? Well, they are driving up prices. They are driving up the cost of gasoline, they are driving up the cost of groceries, they are driving up the cost of home heating oil that people in New Hampshire are going to depend on because the weather is starting to get cold, and they are doing it because of a needless and costly war in Iran.
The President is also spending Federal resources, as we have heard, for ads to promote himself and his administration. He is spending Federal resources to put his name on as many things as possible, to build a ballroom, to change the color of the Reflecting Pool, to build an arch that is going to obstruct the view of Arlington Cemetery. Americans don't see those as priorities. They are concerned about how they are going to pay for their groceries, how they are going to pay for their gasoline, how they are going to pay for childcare, and this administration is doing nothing--zero, nada, nothing--to help the American people.
So let me close with this. As a former Governor, I know how important it is to ensure that tax dollars are being spent efficiently and responsibly. But let me be clear. Taking a sledgehammer to programs Americans rely on every day isn't responsible governing.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats can stop this from happening again, and I look forward to working with my colleagues so that no administration, Republican or Democrat, tries to cut congressionally mandated investments again.
I yield the floor.