Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I recognize George Mickelson, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several weeks.

George is a graduate of Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, SD. Currently, he is attending Creighton University in Omaha, NE, where he is majoring in finance and technology. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to George for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Daniel Moe, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past several weeks.

Daniel is a graduate of Sioux Falls Christian High School in Sioux Falls, SD. Currently, he is attending Dordt University in Sioux Center, IA, where he is majoring in biology and minoring in political science and chemistry. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Daniel for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we received more good economic news on Friday with the announcement that the economy created 224,000 jobs in June.

Meanwhile, unemployment remained near its lowest level in half a century. June marked the 16th straight month that unemployment has been at or below 4 percent. That is a tremendous record.

June also marked the 11th straight month that wage growth has been at or above 3 percent. Before 2018, wage growth had not hit 3 percent in nearly a decade.

Friday's announcement was just the latest piece of good news about the economy. Thanks to Republican economic policies, the economy has taken off during the Trump administration. Economic growth is up, wage growth is up, personal income is up, and the list goes on.

Importantly, the benefits of this economic growth are being spread far and wide. One of the distinguishing features of the economic expansion that we have been experiencing is the way it has been reaching those who have trailed behind economically.

Over the past 3 years, pay hikes for the lowest income workers have exceeded pay hikes for the richest workers. Huge numbers of new blue- collar jobs have been created, and the employment situation for minorities has improved substantially.

The unemployment rates for Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans are all at or near record lows. The Wall Street Journal notes that ``Nearly one million more blacks and two million more Hispanics are employed than when Barack Obama left office, and minorities account for more than half of all new jobs created during the Trump Presidency.''

So where has all this economic progress come from? At the end of the Obama administration, 2\1/2\ years ago, the economic outlook wasn't too rosy. The economy was sputtering, and American families were struggling. Some were predicting that a weak economy would be the new normal.

Republicans, however, didn't agree with that. We knew that American workers and American businesses were as dynamic and creative as ever. But we also knew that burdensome regulations and an outdated tax code were holding our economy back and reducing the opportunities available to workers. So when we took office in 2017, we got right to work on improving

our economy in order to improve life for the American people.

We eliminated burdensome regulations that were acting as a drag on economic growth, and we passed a historic reform of our Tax Code to put money in Americans' pockets and make it easier for businesses to grow and to create jobs. Now we are seeing the results: a thriving economy that is extending more opportunities to more Americans.

For all of Democrats' talk about inequality, it is actually Republicans and President Trump who have done something about it. We have helped create an economy that is lifting up people across the entire economic spectrum.

There is still more work to be done, of course. For one thing, we need to make sure that the agriculture economy is able to catch up to the economy at large. But thanks to tax reform and other Republican economic policies, American workers are doing better than they have in a very long time.

It is unfortunate that the gains we have made would be reversed if Democrats have their way. Democrats' plans--from budget-busting government-run healthcare to free college--all have one thing in common: They would cost a lot of money.

Where would the government get most of that money? From tax increases--tax increases on businesses and tax increases on ordinary Americans.

Thanks to the tax relief that Republicans passed, the economy has expanded, paychecks have increased, and more jobs and opportunities have been created.

Raising taxes would result in the opposite: fewer jobs and opportunities, a smaller economy, and more families struggling to get by on smaller paychecks.

Republicans are determined to make sure that doesn't happen. We are committed to building on the progress we have made and further expanding economic opportunity for all Americans.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10, the Senate vote on confirmation of the following nominations in the order listed: Executive Calendar Nos. 47, 52, and 51; that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action. I further ask that at 4:30 p.m., the Senate vote on the pending cloture motions on the King and Pallasch nominations and that if cloture is invoked, the confirmation votes occur at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, on Thursday, July 11. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion with respect to the Wright nomination ripen following disposition of the Pallasch nomination.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I have 5 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session

of the Senate on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities

The Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Aviation and Space

The Subcommittee on Aviation and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Energy

The Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 106, S. Res. 188.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment to the resolution be withdrawn; that the Cruz substitute amendment to the resolution at the desk be considered and

agreed to; that the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; that the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be withdrawn; that the Cruz amendment to the preamble at the desk be considered and agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 239 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I further ask unanimous consent that the Shaheen amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

I further ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I understand that there are two bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

I now ask for a second reading, and I object to my own request, all en bloc.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, July 10; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Wetherell nomination.

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

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis) would have voted ``yea''.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. President, if I might, let me describe where things are in the state of play with respect to the supplemental appropriations bill that deals with the border.

I know the situation at our border has been at a crisis point for weeks now. Our agencies are stretched to the breaking point, struggling to care for the overwhelming flow of migrants; yet we have House Democrats continuing to play politics with the border funding bill.

Again, to describe the state of play, we had a request from the President 7 weeks ago for $4.5 billion to address this humanitarian crisis we are having at our southern border, and the Democrats didn't act on it. They described it as a manufactured crisis. When I say the Democrats, I am talking about the House Democrats, which is where most spending bills originate.

After the House failed to act and failed to respond to the President's request for emergency funding, the Senate decided to act. So the Senate Appropriations Committee took up and passed a bipartisan bill out of the Appropriations Committee by a vote of 30 to 1--not a vote that you see all that often around here these days.

So that bill was reported out to the floor. In the meantime, the House Democrats decided that maybe it wasn't, after all, a manufactured crisis and perhaps they needed to act. So

they picked up a bill--a partisan bill--and passed it out of the House of Representatives on a party-line basis, after which the Senate voted on its bill, the bill I mentioned that was reported out of the Appropriations Committee by a vote of 30 to 1, and it came to the floor where it passed yesterday by a vote of 84 to 8--84 to 8 in the U.S. Senate.

Well, just to demonstrate that the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate is the vehicle that should move forward and should go to the President for his signature, the President had indicated he would veto the House-passed bill, but we took it up. We took up the House-passed bill yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We had a vote on it. It got 37 votes here on the floor of the Senate--not nearly enough, obviously, to pass the Senate. Of course, it was going to meet a certain veto by the President even if it had.

That being said, there were 37 votes for the House-passed partisan bill that came out of the House of Representatives. Here on the floor of the Senate, there were 84 votes for the bipartisan bill produced by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Where we are right now is that was sent back to the House. The House, frankly, should just take up that bill and pass it. We know for certain the President would sign it. Again, I think it demonstrates a body of work that reflects the will of both sides, Republicans and Democrats-- certainly in the Senate--to get a vote of 30 to 1 out of the Appropriations Committee or 84 to 8 on the floor of the Senate. You had to have a high level of bipartisan cooperation.

That bill to address the humanitarian crisis at our border is awaiting action by the House of Representatives. All they have to do is simply pick it up and pass it and send it to the President, where it will be signed into law, and we will get much needed resources and much needed manpower to the southern border, where they desperately need it. I hope that will be the case.

We are being told that the House is now considering sending yet another partisan bill over here to the Senate. The only thing I can tell you is, if you want to get legislation signed into law by the President of the United States that actually does deliver and put the much needed assistance on the ground that is desperately needed on the southern border, the only surefire way to do that right now is for the House to pick up the Senate-passed bill, which passed here with 84 votes, pass it, and send it to the President, where it will be signed into law, and that $4.5 billion will be on its way to the border to assist with all the needs down there that are currently being unmet. I hope that can happen yet today.

That is the state of play with respect to the supplemental appropriations bill.

Democratic Party

Mr. President, I think 2019 is going to go down in history for the Democratic Party. It has been a notable year.

While the Democratic Party has obviously always been left of center, I never expected to see the Democratic Party running so far to the left of the American people or wholeheartedly embracing socialism and a government takeover of a large part of the economy.

The socialist fantasies are rapidly piling up: a government takeover of healthcare, a government takeover of the energy sector, government- funded college, a government writeoff of all student loan debts, guaranteed income, government-guaranteed housing, and on and on. So what is wrong with that? After all, those proposals sound really nice-- free healthcare, free college, the government guaranteeing you an income. Here is the problem: Providing all that stuff is going to cost a lot of money, an almost inconceivable amount of money. Somebody is going to have to pay. You might say that obviously the government is going to pay, but the government has to get its money from somewhere. Here is the catch: The government gets its money from the taxpayers.

Can't we just take that money from rich taxpayers? If you talk to some of the socialist Democrats offering these proposals, they will talk about making the rich pay. The rich are their favorite funding mechanism. Want free college? We just get the rich to pay for it. Want free healthcare? We can just get the rich to pay for it. There is just one big problem with that: There aren't enough rich people in America to even come close to paying for Democrats' socialist fantasies. Deep down, Democrats know it, which is why they tend to get very foggy when pressed on the details of how they are going to pay for some of their plans.

Take the junior Senator from Vermont's proposal of a government takeover of America's health insurance, the so-called Medicare for All plan. A conservative estimate puts the cost of that plan at $32 trillion over 10 years. The current cost is likely much higher since the Senator from Vermont's most recent plan for government-run healthcare also includes long-term care, which we all know is an incredibly expensive benefit.

The Senator from Vermont did release a list of proposed tax hikes to pay for his proposal. The only problem is, the tax hikes wouldn't come close to covering the estimated cost of his original Medicare for All plan, much less the cost of his new expanded Medicare fantasy.

Of course, as staggering as the costs of Medicare for All would be-- more money than the Federal Government spent in the last 8 years combined on everything--they pale in comparison to the cost of the so- called Green New Deal. An initial estimate found that the Green New Deal would cost somewhere between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10 years--$93 trillion. That is more money than the 2017 gross domestic product for the entire world. That is right. You could take the entire economic output of every country in the world in 2017, and it still might not pay for the Democrats' socialist fantasy. Once you realize that, it is pretty obvious that the Green New Deal is not a plan that could be paid for by taxing the rich.

How about taxing every household making more than $200,000 a year at a 100-percent rate for 10 years? That wouldn't even get you close to $93 trillion. How about taxing every household making more than $100,000 at a 100-percent rate for 10 years? That wouldn't get you anywhere close to $93 trillion. Like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal would be paid for on the backs of working families.

I have talked a lot about the money aspect of Democrats' socialist proposals, and that is one of the major problems with these proposals-- they sound nice until you realize that actually nothing is really free. Working Americans are still going to be paying for the cost of all those programs through new and much higher taxes.

But that is far from the only problem with some of the Democrats' socialist fantasies. Leaving aside the fact that the Federal Government is not exactly known for its efficiency or bringing programs in on time and on budget, there is the tremendous cost Americans will pay in the loss of their freedom, the loss of their autonomy. Americans are used to choices and being able to make their own decisions. It is part of our heritage. Those are freedoms we cherish. That is not the way things work under socialism.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with Medicare for All. Medicare for All doesn't give Americans health insurance options; it takes them away. Are you part of the majority of Americans who are happy with their current healthcare? Too bad. Medicare for All eliminates all private insurance plans and replaces them with a single, government- run, one-size-fits-all plan. Under Medicare for All, private health insurance plans as we know them would actually be illegal. If you are not happy with the government-run plan, too bad; you won't have any other choices.

The treatment options would also be limited by what the government decides. If the government doesn't want to pay for a particular cancer treatment, for example, as has happened in other countries with socialized medicine, you will be out of luck.

Then, of course, there are the long wait times that are the hallmark of socialized medicine. Imagine having to wait months for diagnostic imagining or needed surgery or having to stand by while your spouse or child is forced to wait months for care. That is the kind of thing Americans would have to look forward to under Medicare for All.

Margaret Thatcher once said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. Once Democrats have taken every dollar they can from the rich to pay for their socialist fantasies, they will come after the paychecks of ordinary Americans, who will face higher and higher taxes for fewer and fewer benefits and greatly reduced choices. Democrats' socialist dreams would quickly trap the American people in a nightmare.

I yield the floor.