Floor Statements

Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues, Mr. Connor Domingue, from my office.

High school seniors throughout our country are looking forward to graduation, which is going to happen here in the next few months--in some cases, weeks. The sad reality, though, is that some of these high school seniors won't be able to read. They won't be able to read their diplomas.

In fact, students in several States have actually filed lawsuits against their schools for failing to teach them basic skills like reading and math. One student plaintiff actually alleged in his petition that he can't spell his name, and he is a high school senior.

And it brings me no pleasure to point this out. We all know we have a problem with elementary and secondary education in America, but the truth is that some--not all, but some--of our schools here in America have become failure factories, and our kids are falling behind their global competitors in just about every category--not just reading, not just writing, not just math, also science.

We live in the freest, most prosperous country in all of human history, and yet American kids rank 22nd--22nd--not in all 195 countries in the world, but 22nd among developed nations in terms of our education achievement. It is embarrassing, and the American people deserve better, and so do American kids.

In 1979, President Carter established the Department of Education. As you know, Mr. President, it is a Cabinet-level Agency. Its purpose was to improve education outcomes throughout the country. I want to read you what the Department's mission is supposed to be. I am quoting here. The Department of Education is supposed to ``promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.''

Pretty words. Pretty words. That is all they are. Just empty, pretty words. The results have been anything but excellent.

This chart represents reading skills among our kids in America. Down here, mathematic skills.

This is when we started the Department of Education way back here in 1979. This is where we are today. The line--we are doing a little better in math, but the line for reading is basically flat, and the line for mathematics is not exactly steep.

The truth is that our scores, both for reading and math, have not improved appreciably in decades, and any progress that we have seen from the Department of Education's long tenure--which is very low. You can see the numbers; they speak for themselves--they disappeared during the pandemic when people in power decided to close down our schools.

Funding for the Department of Education has far outpaced spending in the rest of Federal Government. If you compare spending just for the Department of Education to spending in the rest of the Federal Government, the difference is dramatic. Since the 1980s, the Department of Education's spending has increased by 370 percent--370 percent. All other forms of spending have increased, on average, about 195 percent.

Yet the scores remain stagnant, both for reading and for math. Now, looking at these numbers, I think it is pretty clear why President Trump is calling for us to shut down the Department of Education altogether. He wants to--as we know, he wants to return education to our States, and Louisiana provides a perfect example of why that is a good idea.

I want to be clear. I am not saying that Louisiana public education and secondary education is perfect. We are not well, but we are doing much better.

Over the past few years, Louisiana has actually outpaced the rest of the country in several measures of academic improvement and academic achievement in our K through 12 schools. According to the Nation's report card--that is what everybody looks to. The Nation's report card is put out every year by the Department of Education, grading our States on progress in elementary and secondary education. It might be the only decent thing that the Department of Education does. I forget the formal name of it, but we all refer to it as ``the Nation's report card.''

And according to that report card, Louisiana led the country in reading growth in 2024, and I want to show you that here in a second in a chart. But, first, I want to go back.

I should have emphasized this. Once again, these are the average reading and math scores for all the kids in America since the Department of Education was established--flat line, mostly flat line. But look what happened here--a dramatic drop in both math and education scores. That is the pandemic. That is what happened when people in power decided to shut down our schools.

It was more than one person, I understand that, but for all the people who made this decision--they should hide their heads in a bag. I mean, look what happened. We shut down our schools. We had the largest learning loss in modern history. That is just a fact.

Now, some people are going to disagree with me, and I am not saying that if they disagree with me, they are dumb. But I am saying that if they disagree with me, they better hope the dumbest person in the world doesn't die because they are going to take their place.

I want to come back. Let me go to Louisiana for a second. We didn't shut down our schools but for a short period of time. You can see the results on this chart. Between 2019 and 2024, Louisiana's fourth graders went from ranking dead last in the country for reading proficiency--here we are, 48th--to ranking 16th. I am very proud of that. Math scores also steadily increased. Louisiana climbed from being ranked 50th to 38th. We went from 50th to 38th and 48th to 16th best in our country. Louisiana made this growth happen during the pandemic and afterwards.

The pandemic was probably one of the most challenging educational periods in our country's history. Parents remember. I remember. Even if your kids are grown, you remember. It was difficult for kids to try to learn from home. It was a disaster. Shutting down these schools was a disaster, and American kids suffered because of it.

According to the Education Recovery Scorecard, which measures how much of the loss we were able to gain back, American students--I am talking about all kids throughout America--are still one-half of a grade behind where students were when they were tested before the pandemic. On average, we lost half a grade. In many States, the academic loss was a full year. That means that fourth graders today can only read as well as third graders prior to the pandemic.

This is an entire generation of kids who fell behind because our people in power decided to shut down our schools. And many of our States, despite the billions of dollars we appropriated to help them, have failed to catch up.

I am going to say it again. The people who insisted on shutting down our schools during the pandemic are responsible for the largest learning loss in modern history. It was dumb, dumb, dumb. And again, I am not saying the people that made that decision to shut down the schools in America are the dumbest people in the world, but they better hope the dumbest people in the world don't die.

Louisiana, though, managed to thrive during this period and afterwards. Why is that? We looked around at what our friends and our neighbors were doing in America and across the world, and we didn't go with the flow. Only dead fish go with the flow. We didn't go with the flow. We said: Let's look at what other countries are doing and working and what other States are doing and working, and that is what we did.

First, we started giving our teachers the tools they needed to teach, and that is important.

In 2021--I remember it like it was yesterday--our State legislature passed a law mandating that all K through 3 teachers receive advanced training in the very best methods of teaching reading. Reading is fundamental. If you can't read, nothing else matters in terms of educational progress. So we sought out the best methods for teaching kids from kindergarten to the third

grade, the best methods to teach reading. We found them, and we educated our teachers in those methods, and it worked.

We tried to make it the case that no kid makes it to graduation day in Louisiana without being able to read. In fact, we passed another law a couple of years ago. I worked very hard on this. It says: If you are in the third grade, at the end of the third grade, you are going to be tested for reading. If you can't read at a third-grade level, we are going to test you again. If you can't read at a third-grade level at the end of the third grade, we are going to test you one more time. If you still fail, you are not going to the fourth grade. You are going to stay in the third grade until you learn how to read. You might be 16 years old in the third grade, but, by God, you are not going to the fourth grade until you can learn how to read.

Now, we don't just leave the kids on their own if they can't read at the end of the third grade after being tested a couple of times. We give them what we call high-dose tutoring. We tutor them and tutor them and tutor them until they can read, and then they can move on. Because do you know when kids drop out of school? Kids don't drop out of school in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade; they drop out of school in the 2nd grade, the 3rd grade, when they can't learn how to read and nobody cares. They are just socially promoted. We stopped doing that in Louisiana.

We also started giving parents a choice in public education.

You know, competition makes us better. It makes you better. It makes me better. Competition makes all of us better. Most parents--not all-- most parents are far more invested in their kids' academic success than any teacher--I don't care how well-meaning the teacher is--than any teacher, any school administrator, or any Federal bureaucratic.

Most parents--not all, unfortunately, but most parents in America do not want their kids to be stuck in a school where violence is common and learning is rare. They don't.

Several States throughout the country--I am going to mention four in particular, but they are not the only ones. I am going to mention Florida, Iowa, North Dakota, and Utah. Congratulations to them all. They have implemented successfully school-choice programs. Utah may be the best, Mr. President. This gives parents the ability to do just what it says--gives parents a choice. They can send their kid to a public school. They can send their kid to a private school. They can send their child to a charter school.

Charter schools are tuition-free. Charter schools are public schools. They are tuition-free. But they are not run by the education bureaucracy; they are almost always run by parents and caring adults. They don't have to follow all the redtape in their local school district. They can experiment. They are independent, they are free, and they work.

Every one of these States that I mentioned--their programs are different, but each State that I mentioned--and I want to mention them again because they deserve praise--Utah, North Dakota, Iowa, and Florida. They all have a few things in common. They all allow parents to decide which school will get their kids' share of State and Federal tax dollars.

As you know, Mr. President, we fund our public schools through three sources of revenue. The largest is usually local government. In my State, about half of the money comes from local government, about 40 percent comes from the State government, and about 10 percent comes from the Federal Government. So it is mostly local money, but it is also State money to a large extent and some Federal money. But these are all tax dollars.

In these States that I just described, if parents are happy with the current public school their child is enrolled in, they can tell the State: OK, spend that money per child--that I just described--in my child's school. I am happy with my current school.

But if the parents aren't happy, they can seek another school that is a better fit and move that money. They can choose to take their child's funding to a different school to give that kid a better outcome.

This gives parents a choice, but it also--do you know what else it does? It gets some of our schools off their ice-cold, lazy butts. It makes schools compete, and competition makes all of us better.

There have been a number of studies on school-choice States, and almost all of them have found that these programs, this program of choice--you get to choose which public school you want your child to go to or you can send your child to a private school--this choice results in higher test scores, higher parental satisfaction, and higher student safety.

Last year, Louisiana joined the choice move. I am very proud of that. Our legislature passed a school-choice program. We call it the GATOR Act. Starting this fall, certain students--not all of our kids; we are going to eventually ramp it up so that it does impact all of our kids-- but certain of our kids will be able to tap into State-funded education savings accounts that parents can use to pay for their child to attend a different public or a different private or a different charter school. Our goal is 3 years. In 3 years, every student in Louisiana will be eligible to participate in this choice program.

I want to say it again. I am not saying Louisiana's scores are perfect. I am not saying that. But it is undeniable that we are on the right track. We are. We stayed open for the most part during the pandemic. We trained our teachers. We have established standards. You can't go to the fourth grade until you can read. We have implemented parental choice.

I think President Trump--and I don't want to just limit this to Republicans. Many of my Democratic colleagues believe in choice as well. Sometimes they can't be as vocal about it, but I know; I talked to them. They understand, as does the White House, that America's future is sitting in these classrooms every day throughout the country.

I have said it a zillion times, a squillion times in Louisiana. The key to Louisiana's future is not the price of oil. It is not what the unemployment rate is. It is not who the Senator is or who the Governor is. It is education.

The status quo in America isn't working. We didn't make it any better as a result of our behavior with respect to the pandemic, and we are behind, but we can catch up if we just do the right things.

One of those things is returning education to the States. I hope we do dismantle the Department of Education. It is basically a conduit for money--except that money goes through the Department of Education and the 4,000 employees there, and they all put a condition on the money as if they knew what was best for each State. They don't. We ought to dismantle the Department of Education and send that money directly to the States.

Thank you, Mr. President, for your courtesy. Congratulations on the progress that the wonderful State of Utah has made in elementary and secondary education.

I yield the floor.

I object.

I withdraw my objection.

Objection.

Mr. President, as I have said before--and I want to make this really clear--I don't hate anyone. I don't. I look for grace wherever I can find it, and when I say my prayers, one of the things I ask my Maker for is, ``Please, God, don't let me hate,'' because sometimes it is hard here in Washington.

You know, there have been many a morning when I have gotten up in my overpriced Capitol Hill apartment, and I am walking over here to the Capitol, and I give myself a pep talk. I talk to myself. I say: Kennedy, today you are going to follow Jesus.

And by 10 o'clock, I still want to follow Jesus, but I also want to slap the hell out of somebody.

So it is important that we remind ourselves: Don't hate.

And I don't hate anyone. And that includes President Biden. But President Biden and his people had the remarkable ability to take something that wasn't broken and try to fix it. They would take something that wasn't broken in government and take it apart, loosen a few screws, and then it would be broken.

In a few minutes, I am going to ask the Senate to vote to try to repair some damage that President Biden's folks did in that regard. It has to do with banks.

As you know, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency--I will call it the OCC, so you will know what I am talking about. The OCC regulates our banks, and that includes big banks but also small banks. We have got more small banks in America than we have big banks.

In fact, our smaller banks throughout this wonderful country make most of the loans to ordinary people. At a lot of the big banks, now, if you are just an average small businesswoman or businessman and you need a loan, you go to the larger banks, and they won't even see you. You have to go to a small bank to get that loan.

Small banks merge all the time. You have probably seen it in your local communities. Why do small banks merge a lot? Well, one of the reasons is they can provide better services to their customers.

Another reason that small banks tend to merge a lot is because maybe they want to move into a new geographical area, and they can't do it

alone. So they will merge with another bank in that area.

A third reason that small banks merge a lot is because they think, when they discuss their merger, that together they will be stronger and more profitable, and therefore, can make more loans.

But another reason is to try to comply with Federal regulations. I mean, our Federal regulations with respect to a bank will take your breath away. There are a bunch of them, and it costs so much to comply with rules and regulations by the Federal Government.

Our rules and regulations now cost the American businessperson about $2 trillion a year. And I am not saying all of those are banking regulations or not, but the cost of those regulations gets passed on to consumers, and that is why, in part, products and services have increased in price.

But there are so many Federal rules and regulations that a small bank will often say: You know, I can't comply with all of this loan. I have got to get help. And we have got to spread the costs.

So that bank will merge with another bank and have more people in it, and it will be cheaper through economies of scale, which I know, Mr. President, you understand because you are a very successful businessperson. But they can spread the cost through economies of scale.

So small banks merge all the time. Now we recognize that. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OCC, back in 1995, saw this coming. And the OCC, at that time, said: We want to devise a way for small banks to be able to merge fairly easily, but, at the same time, we at the OCC want to be able to make sure that what they are doing in this merger is not a risk to the consumer.

So the OCC, in 1995, issued what is called the Bank Merger Guidelines of 1995. Their rule for the merger of small banks was pretty simple. The OCC devised this short questionnaire where, if you were two small banks and you wanted to merge, you had to answer yes or no to 14 separate questions--very simple, very straightforward. To 14 questions, you answered yes or no.

And then the OCC--the folks at OCC--could look at your answers and see if they thought there was any risk to consumers. And the OCC also adopted a rule that said: Look, if we don't give you an answer within 15 days, because we are busy--the OCC said--your merger is automatically approved.

Short, sweet, very effective. We haven't had problems with our small banks, and none of these mergers--hundreds have taken place since 1995, which have actually made the financial system in America stronger and created virtually no risk.

Well, President Biden's people at the OCC decided that it wasn't broken; so they were going to fix it. Again, I don't hate anybody, but you have got to call it like you see it.

I think the folks at President Biden's OCC got up one day and thought there was an award for being stupid. They took this very simple and effective rule and procedure, and they turned it on its head. What they did was tier-one-level moronic.

Here is what they did. They threw out the old rule. They said: We are going to have a new rule, and the new rule is instead of these--this was in 2013--instead of these 14 simple yes-or-no questions, we are going to make all of these small banks submit so much paperwork to us that you could stack that paperwork right here and stand on it and practically paint the ceiling.

They threw out the 14 simple yes-or-no questions. They said that now these small banks--these are small banks, now, community banks--have to submit reams and reams of evidence: We, at the OCC, will start making a decision based on 19 criteria. The banks will have to prove that they complied with 13 of what the OCC call positive indicators, and the banks will have to show that they do not align with six of what the OCC started calling negative indicators.

The procedure, not only did it require reams of evidence, but just trying to read their rule that they put out, it was written in Sanskrit. You would have to hire a bucketload of lawyers to be able to just understand the rule.

Then President Biden's people said: Not only that, we are going to throw out this 15-day rule that, if you don't hear from us within 15 days, your merger is automatically approved.

Well, it threw the merger process for small banks that was working beautifully into total disarray. It just made the whole process more expensive, less efficient, and more expensive for consumers because the costs are passed on.

So in a few minutes, I am going to ask the Senate to reject President Biden's cumbersome rule. I am not going to suggest that we not regulate small bank mergers. I am going to suggest that we go back to the procedure that we were using since 1995, which worked, and that we go back and adopt that procedure. That doesn't mean that the OCC can't revisit it at some point.

But let me just be blunt. What President Biden's OCC people did was put together a plan--a new rule--that looks like it was put together by a heroin addict with a socket wrench. I mean, it is the most convoluted thing you have ever seen.

If we vote yes today--and I hope we do--then we will reject this rule and go back to doing it the old way.

Budget Reconciliation

Mr. President, since I have a few minutes, I am going to move to another topic, reconciliation, which you are very familiar with. Thank you for all of your contributions to it, by the way, as we put together the bill.

The American people may be a little confused about what ``reconciliation'' means. As you know, a reconciliation bill is just a budget bill. That is all it is. It deals with spending of taxpayer money.

And why is it important?

Well, first it is going to be important to try to lower the prices that are gutting the American people like a fish. Inflation--President Biden's inflation--was simply pernicious. I don't know of another word for it.

It got to the point--I don't know about in your State, but in my State, you know, people shouldn't have to sell blood plasma to be able to go to the grocery store. They shouldn't. And make no mistake--we all know this--those high prices were man-made. Again, no disrespect, but that man's name was Joe Biden, and that is true.

The first goal of our reconciliation bill is to try to help get those prices down. How are we going to do that? No. 1, we are going to reduce government spending.

Why does that matter? Well, how did we get the inflation? We got the inflation because President Biden's favorite form of spending was more. I said many times if the White House during President Biden's term had discovered life on Mars, they would have sent it money immediately. And it was all this money that they injected into the economy, trillions of dollars, Inflation Reduction Act and the America Rescue Plan. They spent all this money. We had all of this money that came into the economy chasing too few goods, created demand, supply constant, and we had inflation.

So we are going to try to get those prices down--we, meaning this Congress--by reducing the government spending, which will reduce the stimulus to the economy, which, if we do it right, ought to lower interest rates. That is step 1 that we are going to try to achieve in reconciliation.

The second part of reconciliation, we are going to continue to try to reduce the rules and regulations. All of these rules and regulations have a price.

And when you are adding $2 trillion in costs that fall on the backs of businesswomen and businessmen, to stay in business they have got to pass the costs of all those rules and regulations on to the consumer.

So if we can get rid of some of these rules and regulations, like we are going to continue to do in a few minutes when we vote on a rule to get rid of the Biden rule I was just talking about, if we can reduce those rules and regulations, goods and services will cost less.

The third thing we are going to try to do in reconciliation or our ``budget bill,'' if you prefer that term, is redesign the Tax Code so that it looks like somebody designed it on purpose.

Since 1990, average GDP growth in America has been 2 percent a year. Now, that is just not acceptable. When we hit 2.5 percent now of GDP growth, we are so happy we want to go have a toga party. Two and a half percent is not acceptable.

We have got to start growing again at a normal rate. What used to be normal for America was 3 percent. Now,

how are we going to do that? We are going to do that by encouraging businesswomen and businessmen to invest in their businesses and grow their businesses and hire more people.

And the byproduct of that is that wages will go up, and that way people will be making more money so they will be able to afford this inflation that President Biden left us with.

So the first goal of reconciliation is to try to reduce these prices, to try to kill inflation dead, but there is a second equally, some would say more, important reason, as the Presiding Officer well knows. In 2017, this Congress, during President Trump's first term, passed the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. We cut taxes by $4.3 trillion. And, boy, did it work.

The economy took off like a SpaceX rocket ship. Within a year, median household income in America had gone up $4,400, and people at the lower end of the wage scale enjoyed more tax benefits and more money in their pocket than people at the other end.

That is why I have to laugh when my Democratic colleagues say: Well, you know, this was a tax cut for the rich. No, all you have to do is look at the data. Unless you do your research on Twitter, you know that it helped people at the lower end of the wage scale more than those at the upper end. That is the good news.

The bad news is that those tax cuts expire at the end of this year. So we are going to try to extend them and make them permanent in our reconciliation bill. And if we don't, if we don't, then we are going to have a $4.3 trillion tax increase on the American people--$4.3 trillion.

I want the Presiding Officer to think about that when some of our colleagues try to throw up roadblocks to the reconciliation bill. In effect, what they are saying is, they want to raise taxes on the American people by $4.3 trillion. That is the most important thing we want to do in our reconciliation bill. It is not the only important thing, as I mentioned, but it is clearly the most important fact.

If we raise taxes right now, $4.3 trillion on the American people, this economy will begin a journey to the center of the Earth. We cannot let it happen.

Now, I don't want to minimize the importance of the role that reconciliation will play in lowering prices and lowering inflation. That is important. But worse than inflation is depression, and if we don't extend these tax cuts and make them permanent, we are going to be in a depression. And that is really what the reconciliation bill is all about.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his time, I will end like I began. I am not saying everything President Biden and his people did was wrong, but on this rule that they promulgated to hurt small banks, it was just disastrous, and we are going to try to fix it today. And my colleagues will vote with me on this.

We will return some sanity to the merger rules for small banking.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 69, S.J. Res. 13.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I saw something last week that I didn't believe. I read the article, and then I searched the internet for other articles saying the same thing to confirm that it was true, and it was true. I am still in disbelief.

The largest public school system in America is in New York City. I love New York City. I think it is the greatest city in the world. And the New York public schools publish a monthly newsletter. It is called--let's see what it is called--the Office of Student Pathways Newsletter. Every month, the public school system in New York City sends this newsletter. They blast it out to teachers, and they blast it out to parents--not just in New York City but all across the country.

In the latest newsletter they blasted out, they had one of those bullet points that they made in the newsletter that is kind of--when you look at it on the internet, it is kind of pale blue. You can click on it, and it sends you to another site.

The bullet point on the newsletter that the public schools of New York sent out was called ``Guidelines for teaching about genocide.'' ``Guidelines for teaching about genocide.'' And if you clicked on this phrase in the newsletter, it sent you to another site. Do you see what the site was? ``Stop Gaza Genocide Toolkit.'' ``Stop Gaza Genocide Toolkit.'' The administration of the New York public schools, the largest in the country, is sending this out to its teachers and its students and to the world.

If you take a look and you say ``What is in this toolkit, this `Stop Gaza Genocide Toolkit'?'' it contains the biggest bunch of anti-Semitic rot you can imagine. The toolkit, among other things, breaks down how to mobilize pro-Palestinian campaigns on social media. It tells you--it tells our students and our teachers how to boycott and encourage divestment from pro-Israel organizations. It encourages readers to print out ``Palestine'' yard signs and calls our kids and our parents to action.

Now, the head of the public schools in New York was embarrassed once people started going: What is going on? Why are you publishing this anti-Semitic, anti-systemic rot accusing Israel of genocide, after it was Israel that was attacked, after it was Hamas that started the war? The chancellor, Ms. Melissa Aviles-Ramos, said it was just a ``troubling oversight.'' That is what she said: ``troubling oversight.''

But then the article goes on to say that it has been discovered that a similar version of the toolkit--this oversight--was published in the newsletter in the prior month. It was in the October-November 2024 newsletter. That document called on all the teachers and all the students in the New York public schools and everybody else reading the newsletter--it called on them to participate in ``rage week'' and ``resist genocide'' by mobilizing on Saturday, October 5, for a ``day of action'' ahead of the anniversary of Hamas on October 7, 2023. That was the date of the terrorist attack on Israel, which apparently the administration of the public schools wants to celebrate.

Here is what one of the teachers in the public school system said when she discovered this: It is systemic rot.

``It's the systemic rot,'' said Karen Feldman, an educator of over 26 years, who resigned. She resigned.

It should not go unnoticed that in addition to this oversight--we know it wasn't an oversight; I mean, pigs may fly someday, but I doubt it; this wasn't an oversight--now we find out recently that New York State education officials have rejected President Trump's administration's demand to do away with certain diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that call for quotas, racial quotas, which are illegal in the United States of America under recent Supreme Court precedent. These State officials wrote President Trump, and this is what they said:

[T]here are no federal or state laws prohibiting the

principles of D.E.I.

I don't understand that. Racial quotas are illegal. You can't use race in America, according to well-settled law, to hurt a person or to help a person. But these officials at the State level--not the local level--they said no State or Federal laws prohibit the principles of DEI, and they said that they are aware of no jurisdiction--no jurisdiction--that the Federal Government has to withdraw funding.

Well, you know what, I hope we find out. I hope we find out. This kind of stuff makes me want to jump out of a moving car, and this is the kind of, in the words of the teacher who resigned, systemic rot, rank anti-Semitism, that in New York they are sending to our teachers and to our kids and to the world.

Let me talk about a second subject quickly.

Take that one down, John, and put up the next one.

I have talked--and I am not going to repeat--I have talked a lot about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its two cousins: National Public Radio and PBS. U.S. taxpayers spend $500 million a year subsidizing these media organizations. I have talked about that.

There was a time when maybe we needed to do that. Back in the 1940s and 1950s when we only had three TV stations and a handful of radio stations, it might have been necessary for the government to get in the TV and radio business, particularly to help our citizens in rural areas, but those days are gone. Now there are all kinds of forms of media. We have TV, newspapers, radio. We have the internet. We have Facebook. We have blogs. We have podcasts. We have cable TV. We have streaming TV. Yet the government continues to spend $500 million a year to subsidize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, and PBS. It ought to stop. It ought to stop.

President Trump has talked about it. Many Members of Congress have talked about it. I have talked about it on the floor of this Senate.

Now, some of my colleagues say the reason all this ought to stop is because the so-called journalism being published by NPR and PBS, which get their money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which gets its money from you, out of your pocket--$500 million a year--some of my colleagues say: Well, we ought to stop it because the reporting is biased. And they have marshaled a persuasive argument to that effect.

I have talked about some of the articles that have appeared, paid for with the American people's tax dollars. I am not going to go through all of them, but I will just mention a couple.

Here is one: ``How racism became a marketing tool for country music.'' That is pretty fair and balanced, huh?

Here is another one: ``The hidden racism of young white Americans.''

``AP FACT CHECK: Trump seeds race animus with COVID falsehood.''

Here is another one: ``Biden trumpets economic gains, but struggles to get credit.''

Here is another one: ``Democracy on Trial, Part One: A Blueprint For the Case Against Trump.''

This is paid for with your tax dollars. This is opinion journalism. But it is not just at the national level; it is in my State too. It is in Louisiana. Louisiana has 318 radio stations. Only 10 of them get money from Federal taxpayers through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So the folks who are publishing the articles I just referenced--pick 10 out of 138, and Louisiana said: We are going to favor you and give you money.

My State also has 48 TV stations. Eight of them get Federal money-- your dollars.

I don't know what the others did not to get Federal money, but clearly this is a case of the Federal Government picking and choosing.

Let's see what they have done with the money. I will just read you a couple of the headlines paid for with your dollars in my local public media organization:

``How illegitimate [critical race theory] concerns shaped Louisiana's new social studies standards.'' No bias there.

``Trump's anti-trans effort is an agenda cornerstone with echoes in history.'' No bias there. That came from NPR and one of my local stations.

Here is another one: ``What It's Like To Choose Transgender Sex Reassignment Surgery.''

Here is another one: ``Transgender Boy Tells Mom `It Shouldn't Be Scary To Be Who You Are.' ''

Here is another one. This came from WRKF, which also gets--it is 1 of the 10 out of 138 radio stations that the bureaucrats at CPB look with favor on: `` `Kids will end their lives': Anti-trans legislation is impacting mental health in the Gulf South.'' No bias there.

``Biography examines how systemic racism shaped the troubled life of George Floyd.'' Nobody has to take responsibility; it is systemic racism.

Here is another one that came from WRKF: ``Christian nationalism's support is strongest in rural conservative states.''

Another one: ``Dr. Rachel Levine focused on her job at HHS. Still, anti-trans politics followed her.''

Here is another one by WRKF, another example of opinion journalism paid for with your tax dollars: ``These far-right media figures are getting center stage under Trump.''

But there is more, as they say on ``The Price Is Right'' or something like that.

Here is another one. This one came from Louisiana Public Broadcasting: ``Becoming Papa: Father's Key to Gender Justice.'' I can tell you, every mom and dad in Louisiana, when they lie down to sleep at night and they can't, they are lying there worrying about gender justice.

Not.

I mean, the title of the article suggests what you ought to believe. That is not fair or balanced.

Here is another one: ``Transgender athletes seek protections to play sports.''

Let me see the next one, John.

This is John Lowery, who works with me. He is a fine American.

Here is--I love this one. This is from one of my local radio stations in Louisiana: ``Arguments that trans athletes have an unfair advantage lack evidence to support.'' What planet did this reporter parachute in from? He or she really believes that men don't have a physical advantage over a woman in sports?

Here is another headline: ``Trump `Embodies Nearly Every Aspect Of A Racist,' Author Says.''

Another: ``The Nation: Confronting Trump's Coded Racism.''

These are coming from my local TV and radio stations that get money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Here is another one: ``Sexism Is Out In The Open In The 2016 Campaign. That May Have Been Inevitable.'' I wonder who the author of this piece voted for.

Another one: ``Is Trump Really That Racist?'' I wonder who that reporter voted for.

Here is the final one I am going to mention. I don't want to put too fine a point on this: ``Scientists Start To Tease Out The Subtler Ways Racism Hurts Health.''

Now, look, you don't have to be a Latin scholar to see that these articles are biased--every single one of them--at the Federal level and at the State and local level in Louisiana. And you know what, that is the right of these State and local television stations. They have the right to say this stuff, but they don't have to say it with your money. They don't have the right to say it with your money.

Some of my colleagues are angry at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR and PBS because of their obviously biased reporting. Now, that is just a fact. No fairminded American can look at these headlines and say that those aren't biased. And some of my colleagues are mad about that.

That is not what concerns me the most. I am sorry they are mad, but that is not what concerns me the most. My question is this: What in God's name--what on God's green Earth are we doing with a $36 trillion deficit and $36 trillion worth of debt, which is just accumulated deficits--why are we giving certain TV stations and certain radio stations in America but not others $500 million a year? Why? They don't need it, and even if they did need it, they shouldn't get the money to the exclusion of every other media organization. What happened to treating all people and all entities similarly situated similarly?

So that is why I support abolishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

I want to say it again: The people who wrote these articles and the people who published these articles have every right to do that. I mean, I am a firm believer in the First Amendment. Without the First Amendment, how are we supposed to know who the idiots are? I support the First Amendment. These folks have the right to publish that, but they do not have the right to publish it with taxpayer money--$500 million a year. And we know how--I think you know how I feel. We know how President Trump feels. But I hope the U.S. Congress, in our reconciliation package, abolishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and no longer gives them or any media organization in this country a single solitary dime of taxpayer money. That is not the role of the Federal Government. And, given these kinds of articles, to do so incites the anger of at least half of our country, and that is not right.

Mr. President, I suggest--well, I have a few minutes. Shoot, I am going to take them.

Mr. President, with respect, this amendment is all Henry and no Kissinger. It is exquisitely dumb. Even a cursory examination of the statutory authority shows that this body does not have the authority to address the Social Security trust fund in reconciliation. Even a cursory examination of the media reports will show that Republicans do not support cutting Social Security.

If my colleagues are concerned about the way Social Security is being run,

as we all are, they should support the President's nominee to run Social Security.

All this amendment will do is add ambiguity to this resolution. If you are foolish enough to vote for it, you will never own your own home.

Vote on Amendment No. 2180

Mr. President, please read section 3003 of the budget resolution. It says, bigger than Dallas, that the Republicans have no intention of cutting Medicare or Medicaid benefits.

This is a bad amendment. Please vote against it.

Vote on Amendment No. 1644

Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes first talking about Russia.

To get respect, you have to act respectfully. To be taken seriously, you have to act seriously. We know that. It is a matter of common sense.

President Putin in Russia is not acting with respect toward the United States of America or President Trump. President Putin is not acting seriously.

I don't know a single fairminded person with an IQ above his age who doesn't want peace in Ukraine. We all want to see peace in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy wants to see peace in Ukraine. President Trump wants to see peace in Ukraine. I thought President Putin did. I am beginning to wonder.

President Trump, who is leading these negotiations, first asked for a cease-fire. He said: For 30 days--maybe 45, 60 days--I am asking both Russia and Ukraine to lay down their arms.

President Putin said: No, I won't agree to a blanket cease-fire, but I will stop bombing infrastructure in Ukraine. He lied like he breathed. He continued to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

Then President Trump said: OK. Let's try for a cease-fire in the Black Sea.

That would benefit both Ukraine and Russia, both of which use the Black Sea for maritime commerce. And, indeed, the world depends on a lot of the grain that they both export.

So President Trump said: Let's try for a cease-fire in the Black Sea and maritime security in the Black Sea.

President Zelenskyy said: ``Sure, I am with you,'' just like he said previously, ``I agree to a ceasefire, Mr. President.''

President Putin said: I will agree to a cease-fire in the Black Sea, but I want conditions. I want conditions.

And do you know what his conditions are?--to have the United States of America remove the sanctions on the Russian economy.

Then, to make matters worse, President Putin said: Oh, by the way, I have one other condition. I want to put the people of Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine under the administration of the United Nations.

In other words, he wants the people of Ukraine to give up their democratic form of government and be run by the United Nations.

Then, finally, President Putin said to President Trump: Oh, yes. There is one other thing, too, before I will agree to a cease-fire in the Black Sea or to a cease-fire generally.

``I don't want to just negotiate with you, President Trump,'' President Putin said.

He said: I want China to be part of the negotiations and India and Brazil and South Africa--and get this; this will curdle your lunch-- North Korea.

Mama Gump said that stupid is as stupid does. President Putin is not interested in peace. President Putin thinks President Trump took the bullet train to Chump Town.

I mean, I can tell you how I look at this and, I think, how most Americans look at this situation. I think to myself: You know, my mama didn't raise a fool, and if she did, it was one of my brothers. I see what Putin is doing. He is not serious here.

I would gently--no. I take that back. I would firmly suggest to President Putin: If you want peace, stop treating President Trump and the American people like a bunch of chumps. Stop it. If you want respect, act respectfully. If you want to be taken seriously, act seriously--because his conduct toward President Trump's hand of peace has been despicable. It would gag a maggot.

(Mr. HUSTED assumed the Chair.)

Tariffs

Now, Mr. President, on a separate subject, I want to talk about Canada.

By the way, my colleague here today, Nick Ayers, is with me. Nick is one of my colleagues in my Senate office, and I thank him for being here today.

I want to talk for a moment about Canada. I want to make it clear: I love

Canada. I have visited Canada several times, many times. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and the people of Canada are just terrific. They are hard-working. They are very pleasant. They are fun-loving once you get to know them.

The United States of America and Canada have been friends and allies for decades. We are neighbors. We share a 5,525-mile border. I am proud of that. We share history. We share values. We maintain longstanding mutual security commitments. We are both members of NATO. Canada and America are members of the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command. You probably know that as NORAD.

It is more than just security commitments, though. It is more than just business. We are friends, and I am proud of that. I remember, on 9/11--who will ever be able to forget 9/11--U.S. airspace was shut down. The people of Canada stepped right up to the plate. They immediately implemented Operation Yellow Ribbon. They opened their airports. The Canadians opened their homes. The Canadians opened their hearts to 33,000 Americans who were stranded.

There is a little town in Newfoundland called Gander. I remember this, too, that Gander has 10,000 people, but they welcomed thousands of American passengers. They fed them. They sheltered them. They comforted our American citizens. They gave them a little bit of peace at a scary time for America and the world. There was no hesitation by the people of Canada. It was only humanity. I will never forget that.

I remember, after Hurricane Katrina, which hit my State, it destroyed Southeast Louisiana--New Orleans, yes, but many other parts of my State as well--and Mississippi. Canada was the very first country and the people of Canada were the very first people to send disaster relief. Their program was called Operation UNISON. Their military ships sailed south to help us in Louisiana. They sent 1,000 people and a lot of supplies. And do you know what? The good people of Canada did the same thing when we had the horrible fires in California.

Here is my point: I don't want to be at war with Canada. I don't want to have a trade war with Canada. I want us to continue to be friends. I made this suggestion to the new Prime Minister of Canada the other day, Prime Minister Carney. I am going to make it again, and I hope, this time, he will take it more seriously. Remember, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to act seriously. If you want respect, you have to act respectfully.

Prime Minister Carney, you say that President Trump is not a fair trader. I understand your point of view. I don't agree with you, but I understand your point of view. You have got to stand up for your people. Prime Minister Carney, if you believe in free trade, then here is what you do. Make this offer today: Offer to go to zero tariffs in Canada on American goods--no tariffs, none, zero, zilch, nada--and challenge America to remove all of our tariffs on Canada so the people of Canada can sell their goods to Americans without a tariff, and the people of America can sell their goods to our friends in Canada without a tariff--zero tariffs. Let Canadian businesses and American businesses compete. Competition makes all of us better. That is one of the shared values that we have with our friends in Canada. Let American businesses and Canadian businesses go at it in a friendly, competitive way and may the best price and the best product win. That is fair trade. That is free trade.

If Prime Minister Carney wants fair trade and free trade, he will make that offer. I don't speak for President Trump, but I will certainly encourage President Trump to accept that offer, and I think he will.

There is a way to stop this trade war. It is just to remove the tariffs on both sides. Remember what Mama Gump said:

Stupid is as stupid does.

Let's don't be stupid. Let's don't have a trade war. Let's continue to be friends. Let's get rid of these tariffs.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to talk a few minutes tonight about a couple of topics--only one, if I run short of time, because I don't want to delay our vote. The first topic I would like to talk about--I know it is very sensitive--is trade and tariffs. They have both been much in the news lately.

There are really only two reasons why a country would impose a tariff, and every country in the world, to my knowledge, does have tariffs. There are only two reasons for a country to impose a tariff: first, for national security.

I think it is virtually unchallenged that China, if it could, would destroy the United States of America--not the people of China, but the Government of China. I regret to say that, and I hope someday we will live in a world where that isn't the case, but I think it is undoubtedly and unconditionally the truth.

So if China is determined to--let me try to use a more neutral word-- to undermine the United States of America, I could see where we would limit, want to limit, some of our goods such as, let's say, semiconductor design equipment. We would limit the sale of some of our precious technology to China. That is what I mean by ``national security.''

But the other reason, and the reason that most countries use the tariff, is to protect the domestic industry.

Let me give you an example. These are not two countries, but they are two States; and this would be unconstitutional, but I think it will serve my purpose. Let's suppose that Louisiana, which has the best king cakes in the Milky Way, can produce a king cake for $10, and our friends in Alabama, they can produce a king cake--not nearly as good as Louisiana's--but the best they can do is produce it for $12. Well, I would not agree, but I could understand why the elected officials in Alabama are going to say: Well, Louisiana's king cake is 10 bucks, our king cake is $12. We want to protect our king cake bakers here in Alabama, so we are going to impose a tariff.

What would that do? Let's suppose they impose a $4 tariff. So now the king cake, the better king cake made in Louisiana sold in Alabama would cost $14, and that would force people to buy the $12 Alabama king cake.

Now, my personal opinion is that most Alabamians, who are very smart people, would pay extra for the Louisiana king cake because it is so much better, but that is how tariffs work. If you have a domestic industry, like a king cake bakery, and you want to protect it from competition to allow it to grow and employ the people in that particular country, maybe you impose a tax, a tariff, on folks on the outside of your country who want to sell into your country.

I want to say this unequivocally. Canada is one of my favorite countries in the world, and the American people and the people of Canada are friends, and I would like our economies to be friends. And I mean that. But lately, we have been having a gentle disagreement--some would say not so gentle--in terms of tariffs and trade and our economy.

Canada and the United States of America do a lot of business with each other. In 2024, the United States sold to the people of Canada about $350 billion in goods--that is a lot of goods, $350 billion. Canada sold Canadian goods to the United States in the amount of $412 billion. So there is what we call a trade deficit of $63 billion.

And then you drill a little deeper, and you realize that the U.S. economy is 10 times bigger than the Canadian economy, and the population of the United States of America is 8 times bigger than the population of Canada. Canada has 41 million people; America has 340 million.

So you step back for a second, and you go, huh. Now, the United States is 8 times bigger, and our economy is 10 times larger than Canada's, but yet Canada is selling more of its goods into the United States than the United States is selling into Canada.

Any fair-minded person would have to conclude that it is because of tariffs. It is because the Canadian tariffs on American goods are higher than the American tariffs on Canadian goods. And that is what the dispute is all about.

President Trump, who believes passionately in the virtue of tariffs, thinks that the tariffs ought to be equal. That there shouldn't be a trade deficit.

Now, trade is very complicated, and I don't think that all trade deficits are bad. I am also not saying that all trade deficits are good. Trade in the complex global economy today is very complex.

But I see the President's point. I am not suggesting that I agree with the President on everything about tariffs, but when you have got your neighboring country and good friend that is 8 times smaller than you are, and in terms of population, it is 10 times smaller than you are, and your neighbor is selling $63 billion more in goods to you than you are selling to them, that seems kind of unfair. And the President, as we all know, has made that point very vociferously.

In response, the Canadian Government, the new Prime Minister Carney, he has pretty much bowed up. When President Trump said: Well, the tariffs are uneven, so I am going to raise American tariffs, Prime Minister Carney has bowed up and said: Well, President Trump, you don't believe in free trade. You are not a free trader. If you raise your tariffs, then I am going to raise mine even more.

And that is how you get into a trade war. And I don't want a trade war. And I don't think Prime Minister Carney wants a trade war, and I don't think President Trump wants a trade war.

But I think Prime Minister Carney is wrong when he says that President Trump is not a free trader. President Trump is a free trader, but like most of us, he also believes in fair trading as well.

So here is my respectful, gentle challenge to Prime Minister Carney tonight. Prime Minister Carney, you have criticized President Trump, and I

see your point of view. You said, because he is raising tariffs on Canada, that he, President Trump, doesn't believe in free trade. You have said that he doesn't--he believes in tariffs. And you have said you are going--you, Mr. Carney, are going to change your tariffs.

I hope Prime Minister Carney does change his tariffs, but I hope he does so in a way that we have a race to the top and not to the bottom. Rather than the Prime Minister of Canada raising tariffs on the United States of America after the United States of America raises tariffs on Canada, which will cause us--friends, friends--to have a trade war, I would respectfully suggest to the Prime Minister Carney of Canada that he should reduce tariffs to zero. He should reduce all Canadian tariffs on United States' goods to zero and then turn to President Trump and say: I am asking you to remove all tariffs on Canada as well.

Now, if Prime Minister Carney believes in free trade--and I take him at his word that he does--and if President Trump believes in free trade, but fair trade--and I take him at his word that he does--then let's both go to zero. How much freer can trade be? How much fairer can trade be?

Let's avoid a trade war. Let's let those good Canadian companies compete with good American companies and selling goods into the United States, and let's let those good American companies compete with those good Canadian companies in terms of selling goods into Canada. And may the best, cheapest product win.

That is my respectful challenge to Prime Minister Carney tonight. If you think President Trump is being unfair and is not a free trader, then reduce your tariffs to zero, and ask President Trump to reduce our tariffs to zero on Canada, and let's go back to being friends again.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Bishop nomination.

Madam President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I want to talk about two subjects today. First, I want to talk about assets. We have been talking a lot about spending and the Federal budget and tax dollars. But there is another side to the ledger that sooner or later, in my judgment, we need to talk about.

Here is what I am getting at: Twenty-five percent of the land in the United States of America is owned by the Federal Government--25 percent. In some States, it is a lot more than 25 percent. That is just an average. It is 620 million acres.

Now, if you inherited 620 million acres, what would you do? Well, the first thing you would do is you would be careful to conserve it out of respect for the land. You would want to make sure that the land wasn't contaminated; that it is properly fenced. You would want to preserve it.

Second thing you would do is say: Well, how can I monetize this property? I have 620 million acres here. I am land poor. What can I do to have the land generate some income?

Under our Federal Government, the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for managing the 620 million acres. And the charge to our Bureau is to do a couple of things: No. 1, conserve the land; No. 2, make sure--because it belongs to the American people--make sure that people have an opportunity to recreate on the land; and, No. 3, see if you can manage the land in a way to generate cash.

Why is that important? Why is that especially important right now? Our debt is $36.5 trillion. What does that mean? I mean, we throw around this figure of a trillion. We can hardly get our mind around it--at least, I can hardly get mine around it. Our debt is so high, and we are paying so much interest that the debt grows by $1 trillion every 100 days. So this $36.5 trillion figure, 100 days from now--a little over 3 months--it is going to be $37.5 trillion. That is how fast the debt is growing.

This number is so high and we are paying so much in interest that the debt accrues at $10 billion a day--not million--$10 billion a day; $417 million it goes up an hour; $6.9 million--let's call it $7 million a minute. How long have I been talking, 3 minutes? The debt just increased $21 million. And we have got to pay that money back. This is not funny money.

We are talking about how to start paying it back by reducing our spending. But there is another way; it is to generate income through our 620 million acres of land.

Take our national parks, for example. The first thing we want to do to our national parks is preserve them. I mean, they are beautiful. That is why they are national parks. We want to preserve them and respect them and protect them environmentally and otherwise. We also want to allow people to enjoy them.

We do that by telling folks: Come on in. You have to pay an entrance fee--but it is reasonable--if you want to come in and camp or just walk around and enjoy the scenery, go on a hike. That generates some money. You don't want the entrance fee to be too high, but you want it to be reasonable.

Some of our national parks actually allow mining, oil and gas production, and timber production, so that increases income as well.

I have seen an estimate from the private sector--there are several of these--that our public land, our 620 million acres, if we managed that land properly, could generate $90 million in revenue. So $90 million could be generated by our public land. How? Through a mineral harvesting, natural gas production, oil drilling, grazing for agriculture, hunting licenses, fishing licenses, and camping permits.

Do you know what? Our Federal lands actually generate money. We know the potential: $90 billion a year. That would help us pay down this debt.

In 2023, our Federal lands actually lost money. They lost $13 billion. We went from a potential of $90 billion--according to land-use experts, that is what they ought to be generating--to a loss of $13 billion. It is embarrassing.

I don't want to blame all of it on the past administration. It wasn't all President Biden's fault, but some of it was. Under President Biden--not him, but his people; he appointed them--they banned offshore drilling for most of America's coastlines. They prohibited mining on over a million acres of lands. They canceled leases for oil and natural gas production. They paused all new permits for LNG, which Europe is hungry for. They restricted hunting. They restricted fishing. They restricted hiking. And they buried our Federal lands in redtape. That is why we lost $13 billion instead of gaining $90 billion a year.

It doesn't have to be this way. All you have to do is look at the States. The States have State land. They don't have 620 million acres like the Federal Government does, but they have got a lot of land. The States have worked very hard to increase the revenue on their State lands while preserving them.

Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico--all we have to do is copy them. Their activities, their preservation of their property, but their monetizing of their State lands has produced, over the past few years, an average return of $14.51 for every $1 those States have invested. So the States spend $1 on their State land, they get back 15 bucks--pretty good return. They haven't sacrificed air quality. They protected their lakes and rivers, and they have preserved their State land.

The Federal Government, for every $1 we spend on our public land, we get back 73 cents. So we put out a buck, and we get back 73 cents. You don't have to be Euclid to see that we are going backward here. We need to do better.

I know that the focus right now is on spending--it should be--and it is on designing a Tax Code that looks like somebody designed it on purpose--and it should be. All those things are important. But at some point, we need to recognize the enormous amount of assets that the American people own through their Federal Government and the fact that we are actually losing money by the way we are managing them instead of generating money.

Once again, you don't have to be an astrophysicist to figure this out. All we have to do is call Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and probably West Virginia and just say: Would you all come up to Washington? We will buy you a soda and give you a nice hat if you will come on up here and tell us how you are doing it. And just copy what they are doing.

Mr. President, I want to talk for a few moments about income tax filing season. I realize the Presiding Officer would probably prefer to be condemned to hearing O.J. jokes for the rest of eternity than to hear me talk about Federal income tax filing, but it is important for Americans and my people back in Louisiana because we have a new deduction for people who have uninsured losses from natural disasters. It is really important in my State because many of my people have suffered damages, for which they did not receive insurance payments, from Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Ida, and Francine.

We passed this new deduction in December. It is called the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act. What it does is the following: It changes the law. It now says that if you are a victim of a natural disaster like a hurricane and you have a loss that is not paid for by your insurance, you can now deduct off your income tax dollar for dollar any uninsured property damage in excess of $500.

Why is that important? Well, under the old rules, you were limited in your

deduction. You could only deduct your uninsured property losses that were in excess of 10 percent of your adjusted gross income. I know that sounds complicated, and it is kind of complicated. But rather than belaboring the point, the bottom line is this: As a result of this bill that we all worked on and we passed, you can now deduct more, and this is the first time people will be able to do this.

Let me say it again. If you had an uninsured property loss, you can now deduct any of that loss above $500. This also applies in addition to the standard deduction. So if you take the standard deduction, as most Americans do, you can take this additional deduction on top of it.

I would also like to point out to all Americans but especially my people back home in Louisiana that this tax deduction is retroactive. It goes all the way back to 2020. So that means that going back to 2020, if you had uninsured losses, you can now deduct them if they exceed $500.

I know folks are thinking, well, I already filed my income taxes for 2021 and 2022 and 2023. You can file an amended return. It is very simple to do. You just file an amended return that says: There has been a change in the law, and I am entitled to have this higher deduction, and therefore the Federal Government owes me money, and therefore please send me my check.

So I wanted to make sure that Americans knew about this new tax provision we passed.

Inflation

Mr. President, the second thing I want to talk about is a subject that some people want to avoid, but I don't, and the American people don't. It is on the minds of every American. That is high prices. I know there are other issues that are important that we are talking about: male athletes in women's sports--that is important; immigration--that is important; national security--we are talking about that, and that is important; the Middle East; Ukraine. I could go on. But the single most important issue that moms and dads worry about in America today when they lie down to sleep at night and can't is inflation, high prices.

I don't want to dwell on the past, but President Biden's administration was an inflation machine. We saw inflation get as high at one point as 10 percent. What does that mean? That means that prices were going up every day, every month, at the rate of 10 percent annualized. Bidenomics, in most people's minds, became paying more to live worse. I mean, inflation just was gutting the American people like a fish. It happened because of all this breathtaking amount of money President Biden's administration spent, trillions of dollars--the American Rescue Plan, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. They injected trillions of dollars into the economy, frankly, as we are finding out now, most of it in wasteful spending that caused too many dollars to chase too few goods. Unless you are master class dumb, you know that every single time, that leads to inflation.

Thanks to the efforts of the Federal Reserve, inflation came down. It went down from 10 percent to--today, it is between 2 and 3 percent, depending on whose numbers you believe. And that is good. I am happy it happened. That is called disinflation.

When inflation goes from 10 percent to 3 percent, that means prices are still rising, but they are just not rising as quickly as they were. And that is a good thing, but it doesn't lower prices. It doesn't mean that we have now lower prices. They just aren't as high as they would have been if we hadn't tried to control inflation. That is called disinflation. Deflation is when prices actually go down. Deflation is when prices actually go down.

What the American people are wondering every single day as they sell blood plasma to go to the grocery store is, when am I going to get some relief from these high prices? And we do need to provide them relief.

I want to talk about three ways that we are in the process of trying to reduce those prices that my Democratic colleagues caused. And I don't mean to pick on all my Democratic colleagues, but as I have said before, I like breakfast food and straight answers. No economist in America believes that this inflation happened as a result of happenstance. It happened because of the breathtaking amount of money that President Biden spent.

There are three things we are doing to try to get these prices down. No. 1, reduce spending. You see it every single day from President Trump. He said he was going to audit Federal spending, and that is exactly what he is doing.

Now, there are some people that are mad. There are people that are very mad at President Trump and Mr. Musk and others for discovering all of this waste. The people that are mad don't seem to be mad at the people who caused the waste; they are mad at the President and Mr. Musk for finding the waste. I find that a little bit ironic.

But the point is that we are trying to reduce spending, and you are going to see it in our reconciliation bill that we are going to pass, as the Presiding Officer knows. You are going to see it in our budget, if we ever pass one. We are trying to reduce spending because our debt is $36 trillion, and it is going up at the rate of $7 million a minute. I have been talking 5 minutes, maybe; it has grown $35 million while I was talking.

So we are trying to reduce government spending to get this debt down but also to reduce high prices. Why does it matter? Because the less money that government spends, the less stimulative government is on the private sector. When government spends money--there is a finite amount of money--when government spends money, it is money that we are spending instead of the private sector to create jobs and to increase wages.

So the first thing we are doing--the new administration and the new Congress--is to try to reduce spending, and if we are successful, that will lower these prices.

No. 2, deregulation. The Federal Government wants to regulate every breath we take--every breath we take.

I wish you could see all of the Federal regulations. If you stacked them right here--if you stack every single Federal regulation right here, you could probably stand on this thing and paint the ceiling. It is just amazing.

Each one of these regulations has a cost. The cost of all of our regulations today is in excess of $2 trillion--not billion, not million--$2 trillion. What does that mean? That means when a business produces a product or it delivers a service and it has to comply with a meaningless, gnarly Federal regulation which costs money, that extra expense is added to the cost of the product of the service.

Duh.

I mean, businesses have to stay in business. They can't eat the cost. So they pass it on. That leads to higher prices.

So the second thing that we are doing--we are working on it every day. It hasn't been talked about a lot. We passed some bills here on the floor of the Senate, but the administration is doing even more. We are deregulating. We are getting rid of all of these excess regulations whose costs are greater than their benefit. I think the President said he has a new rule that if you are in the bureaucracy and you want to promulgate a new rule, you can do it if it is really necessary, but you have to get rid of 10 others. If we do that successfully, that will reduce prices.

So the first thing we are doing is cutting spending to get down these high prices. The second thing we are doing is implementing Federal deregulation. The third thing we are doing--we are working on it as we speak, as you know, Mr. President.

We have to grow this economy. I mentioned the high spending and the debt that has led to higher prices. Think about this. Since 2019, 5 years ago, the American population increased 2 percent. The Federal budget has increased 55 percent--2 percent population increase, Federal spending is up 55 percent. That is just a fact. The numbers are the numbers. I know we have had some inflation. We haven't had 55-percent worth of inflation. That is just a fact.

Every dollar that the Federal Government spends is a dollar that business people don't have to invest. Why is that important? Because they invest; they grow their business; they add more jobs; the business becomes more profitable; and wages rise.

The third way we are attacking these high prices is by trying to stimulate the economy to increase wages so that we actually can grow out of these high prices so that people will have more money to spend when they buy a car or

go to the grocery store. We are not going to do that with tepid GDP growth.

If you go back to 2010--what, 15 years now? America has experienced average gross domestic product growth--that means how much your economy is growing, as you know, Mr. President. Average GDP growth is a little over 2 percent. That is not going to get it. That is not going to get it. In fact, now when we have 2.5 percent GDP growth, we get so excited. We are so happy we want to have a toga party. Well, 2.5 percent is not going to get it. In order to grow out of these high prices and increase wages, we are going to have to increase GDP growth to at least 3 percent. And that used to be normal for America. That used to be very, very doable and very normal.

How are we going to do that? We are going to do that through the Tax Code. We have about $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts that we implemented back in 2017 that caused the economy to grow and wages to go up until COVID hit. Those tax cuts are expiring here very shortly, and we are going to extend them. If we don't, it will be, in effect, a tax increase by $4.5 trillion. That will send our growth down, not up.

We are also going to change some other provisions of the Tax Code; and in doing so, we are not going to add to our deficit. We are going to match those tax decreases with spending savings so that we do not add to the national debt. That is what we are doing on inflation.

I didn't want this to be lost in translation because of all the other important things we are talking about.

We are well aware that high prices are gutting the American people like a fish. But by reducing spending, by deregulating the economy, and by designing a Tax Code that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, we are going to get those high prices down.

Point 3, I am speaking of saving money. I talked a little bit about public radio and public television in America--the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, PBS. These are public TV and radio stations. The American people spend about a half billion dollars a year and give it directly to public TV. They give it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting picks its favorite local TV stations and radio stations, gives money to them, and local TV and radio stations buy programming from NPR and PBS, which is loosely affiliated with Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

There was a time when it was necessary because we only had three TV stations and few radio stations. And people in rural areas depended on the government for the media. Those days are long gone, as we know. We now have a breathtaking array of ways to get information, everything from podcasts to Facebook to Twitter to Google News to cable TV to streaming. We no longer need to spend half a billion dollars a year or half a trillion dollars a year--we spent $14.5 billion since we started funding public radio and television. We no longer need to do it.

I mean, we don't fund CNN. We don't subsidize CNN, and if somebody proposed to, I would vote against it. We don't subsidize FOX News. If somebody introduced a bill to subsidize FOX News, I would vote against it. Why are we subsidizing these radio and television stations? They need to compete with everybody else.

The final point I want to make on this subject, the audience for public radio and public television is declining. Let me say that again. The audience for public radio and public television, which your tax dollars pay for, is declining. Why is that? There are a lot of reasons for it, but I will tell you one. People used to tune into PBS and NPR and Corporation for Public bias--Public Broadcasting--Freudian slip there--because those stations played it right straight down the middle. But they don't anymore. They are very, very biased in their reporting. We all know that. I mean, all you have to do is listen to them.

This is America. You are entitled--I despise opinion journalists, but it is constitutional. On the First Amendment, you can say what you want, within reason. I support that. You are not free if you can't say what you think, so I don't want you to misconstrue what I am saying. These local stations that are getting money from the taxpayers have every right to report what they want. But they don't have a right to do it and offer a jaundiced point of view using taxpayer dollars. That is my point.

I just wanted to, as I have done in the past, I wanted to read a few more headlines. This is the kind of reporting that is being done today with your tax money on NPR, National Public Radio, and PBS. I will start with NPR. Here is one of the headlines of NPR: ``Arguments that trans athletes have an unfair advantage lack evidence to support.''

That is opinion journalism. Here is another headline from NPR: ``A Brief History of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways.''

I did not know our interstate highways were racists. I thought they were concrete. Not according to NPR.

Here is another NPR headline: ``Trump `Embodies Nearly Every Aspect of a Racist,' Author Says.''

Another: ``The Nation: Confronting Trump's Coded Racism.''

And another: ``Is Trump's Call For `Law And Order' A Coded Racial Message?''

As I said, these are your tax dollars at work.

``Sexism Is Out In The Open In The 2016 Campaign. That May Have Been Inevitable.'' That is another headline.

``Is Trump Really That Racist?'' Another headline.

And another headline: ``FRONTLINE traces the `ambition and revenge' driving SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas.'' NPR is reporting that Justice Thomas is motivated by revenge and ambition.

Another headline from NPR: ``What can the White House do to confront the narrative around Biden's ability?''

It wasn't a narrative. I mean, I don't hate anybody, and I am sorry this was the case, but President Biden had neurodegenerative disease. It wasn't a narrative; it was just a fact. I am sorry, but it was just a fact.

Last headline from NPR: ``Scientists Start to Tease Out the Subtler Ways Racism Hurts Health.''

Your tax dollars at work. I don't want to just pick on NPR. Here are a couple which you saw on television, PBS, paid for with your tax dollars. First headline: ``Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism.''

Another headline: ``How America's history of racism connects to divisions today.'' Another headline from PBS: ``The hidden racism of young white Americans.''

Your tax dollars. Another headline: ``AP FACT CHECK: Trump seeds race animus with COVID falsehood.''

Another headline: ``Biden trumpets economic gains, but struggles to get credit.''

Another headline from PBS: `` `The Other Olympians:' Transgender Athletes in the Nazi Era.''

Come on, give me a break. Gag me with a spoon.

The final headline I will read: ``Debunking common myths about gender-affirming care for youth.''

Let me say it again, Mr. President, these television stations and radio stations that are getting money from the Federal Government--your tax dollars--they have every right under the First Amendment to say these things. They do and I support the First Amendment. But they don't have an inalienable right to report these things using opinion journalism that no fair-minded American can construe as anything but representing one point of view with your tax dollars. I am going to try to stop subsidizing media, not just PBS and not just NPR but any form of media that somehow is getting Federal taxpayer dollars. It is just not right. It is not fair. I have a bill to do that. We are also going to pursue it through reconciliation. I think President Trump and Mr. Musk are going to pursue it on their own, and I think that is a very good thing.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns and law clerks in my office be granted floor privileges until May 5, 2025: John Mark Huff, Jr., John Paul Doucet, Alexandra Grace Davis, and Maura Elaine Schlee.