Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 18; 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, and morning business be closed. I ask that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Oldham nomination and that time until 2 p.m. be equally divided; that at 2 p.m., notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Oldham nomination with no intervening action or debate; and that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. 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 our Democratic colleagues.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a problem that is growing and needs to be confronted or we will regret our decision to lay down in the face of Russian aggression and Syrian aggression inside of Syria.

As you well know, we have been trying to find a solution in Syria for quite a while. We were able to reach an agreement about deescalation zones in southwestern Syria where, basically, the parties would disengage, and we reached a settlement with the Russians, U.N. Resolution 2254, to create some space to stop the fighting and the killing.

What have we found? In recent days, the Syrian regime has intensified military operations within the southwest Syria deescalation zone negotiated by Jordan, Russia, and the United States. The Russian Air Force is flying in this area, and we are doing nothing about it.

The bottom line is that if we allow Russia to get away with this and Assad to get away with this, it is going to hurt us everywhere else in the Mideast. When President Trump meets with President Putin on July 16, I hope he will bring this up.

The question is this: Are we going to let Putin walk all over us? We had 8 years of that, and I am kind of tired of it.

Now, 6,000 civilians have already fled their homes. A lot of them have been killed in this area where we reached an agreement with the Russians and the Jordanians and the world at-large. These people were assured under this agreement that they would not be bombed or slaughtered anymore. Now the slaughtering and the bombing has started anew. They are going to look at us and everybody in the region is going to look at us as all talk and no action. The United Nations is going to be seen as weak.

I like a strong President. I appreciate what President Trump has done to rebuild the military. I like the fact that we are talking with North Korea to avoid a conflict with North Korea, but I also like the fact that the President has told North Korea: We are going to stop your nuclear program and missile program. We would rather do it peacefully, but it is going to stop. Stop threatening the United States. We are trying to make it a win-win.

We have taken the fight to ISIS in a new way. There are a lot of things to say about our military and foreign policy under President Trump, like getting out of the Iran deal, which was terrible. It is all good. It is about to erode in a big way.

If we let Russia and Assad violate the agreement that we negotiated and they don't pay a price, then it is going to hurt our standing everywhere, and it is going to embolden Russia and Assad even more.

This is a nightmare for Israel. Syrians have suffered enough at the hands of Assad and Russia. It is a nightmare for the Kurds, and it really affects our standing in the world.

When this meeting happens on July 16 in Finland, I hope the President will bring this up if it is not resolved before then because, President Trump, if you let Putin get away with this and Assad get away with this, then, good luck everywhere else in the world.

We have had 8 years of letting bad people get away with bad things. I hope you will bring it up and bring it to an end because our word should matter. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes. Hundreds have been killed in violation of an agreement we signed, I think, last year.

Secondly, the meeting with Putin is a good thing. You have to talk to your enemies, your friends, and everybody in between. National Security Advisor Bolton had it right. There are things we can work on with Russia and there are things we can't. Russia is an enemy. They are not a friend. They are an enemy of democracy, but you have to talk to your enemies as well as your friends.

We do have some common ground--maybe even in Syria. Russia has had bases in Syria for a long time. I don't mind that they continue to have bases. I don't want to turn Damascus over to the Iranians, and I don't want Syria to be run by the Russians. I want Syria to be run by Syrians.

There was a statement today by the President that Russia denies meddling in our election. You are right, Mr. President, they deny it, but they are lying. When you meet with Putin and he says we had nothing to do with it, I would take the opportunity to show him why we disagree. When you meet with Putin, I would explain to him what happens if you continue to meddle in our election.

Not only did they meddle in the 2016 election--I am not alleging they changed the outcome, and I have seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians--but I am 100 percent convinced that it was the Russians who stole the Democratic National Committee emails and Podesta's emails. It was the Russians who took out ads all over the country pitting one American against the other.

The bottom line is this: Russia did interfere in our democracy. They are doing it everywhere else in the world. When they say they didn't, they are lying.

President Trump, if you don't bring this up, it will be a huge mistake. If you don't push back against the lie, it will be a huge mistake.

As to what they are doing now, I hope President Trump will tell President Putin: We know what you are doing, and you had better knock it off because you continue to do this at your own peril. If we have a face-to-face between President Trump and President Putin and there is not a clear understanding by President Putin that we have had it with his interference in our democracy and his destabilizing the world at- large, then it will be a huge mistake and a great opportunity lost.

There are areas on which we can agree with the Russians and places where we can work with the Russians, but to have a good relationship with Russia, you have to have an honest relationship with Russia. Here is the honest relationship with Russia: Putin is no friend of democracy. He interfered in the 2016 election, and he is going to do it again in 2018. He really is not a Republican or a Democrat. He hates us equally.

Remember the dossier--this piece of garbage that was collected in Russia by a foreign agent paid for by the Democratic Party? Where do you think they got that information from? Do you think Putin would hesitate 1 minute to undercut you if he thought it was in his interest? He will do what is in his interest, and when the pain is too great, he will back off.

I am counting on you, and the American people are counting on you, President Trump, and the world is counting on you to set the record straight when it comes to Putin's interference in democracy, including ours. I hope he understands after this meeting is over with that if he continues to go down this path, it is at his own peril. If we don't make it painful, he will keep doing it.

We are doing a lot of good things in terms of pushing back against Russia but not enough, because if we were doing enough, they would not be interfering in the 2018 elections, and they are.

Finally, as to whether or not they did it, every intelligence agency we have, under the Obama administration and now the Trump administration, says without equivocation that the Russians interfered in our election. It wasn't some 300-pound guy sitting on a bed somewhere. They stole the emails. They gave them to WikiLeaks. They are trying to divide us. They are not a friend of Republicans. They are an enemy to all of us.

President Trump, use this opportunity to clear up the record and set it straight when it comes to Russia's interference in our democracy. Find common ground where you can. It makes sense to work with the Russians in Syria, and it makes sense to work with them in North Korea. It makes no sense to believe the lie or to make them believe that we believe the lie, and the lie is that they didn't interfere.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Yes. Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will object.

My colleague from Utah, who is a very smart man on the Judiciary Committee, like I am--I don't know if I am smart, but we are on the same committee--we are actually making progress here.

Just briefly, Senator Cruz has had an amendment that says if someone is suspected of being part of an enemy force, they will have a hearing to strip their citizenship, which avoids the problem Senator Lee and I have. He is trying to combine that with his amendment.

Unfortunately, there is no ability to hold them as an enemy combatant during that process--and maybe we can work that out later--so I object.

Mr. President, I want the same 30 seconds.

I implore you all to understand the difference between fighting a crime and a war. The Senator's amendment, as drafted, applies outside the United States.

Remember Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen who hid with al-Qaida in Yemen? We killed the guy. If we had captured him, the last thing I would have wanted him to hear is, ``You have a right to a lawyer,'' because he is now part of the enemy force.

The case law is very clear here. You had saboteurs from Germany marry up with American citizens in Long Island to commit sabotage in America. In re Quirin, the Court held that an American citizen who joins the enemy force can be an enemy combatant under law of war and tried by the military.

We have a case where a man was held at Charleston for 5 years--Mr. Padilla, who sided with al-Qaida. The court said it doesn't matter if you are captured in the United States. Your activity matters.

Here is what I want. I don't want to read these guys their Miranda rights because they are recruiting in our own backyard. American citizens are high on the list of al-Qaida and ISIS to use against us. When we capture them, I don't want to read them the Miranda rights.

We don't have to hold them indefinitely. If an American citizen is suspected to join the enemy, let's have a hearing about whether or not they have given up their citizenship. That way, we don't have to read them their Miranda rights and lose the ability to interrogate a person who has joined the enemy.

What you are doing is incentivizing ISIS and al-Qaida to find an American because they have protections other people would not have in their own backyard. It is insane to say America is not part of the battlefield. Ask people in New York if America is part of the battlefield. Ask people in the Pentagon if America is part of the battlefield. If you think America is not part of the battlefield, vote with him. If it is, table this amendment.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I will try to be brief. I appreciate Senator Paul's passion. He has been doing this for 6 years. I think he has been wrong for 6 years.

Let me say something. There is a reason I am not talking about eye surgery on the floor: I don't know anything about it. You are talking about legal concepts you clearly don't know anything about. You are fighting a crime; I am fighting a war. If it were up to Senator Paul, there would be no difference between a criminal and a warrior. Radical Islam in the form of ISIS is not trying to steal your car or break into your house; they are trying to destroy your way of life. So if you believe we are at war, as I do, we should apply the law of war.

For 33 years, I was a military lawyer, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a military judge. I think I know the difference between fighting a crime and fighting a war. When it comes to fighting a war, if you capture somebody who is part of the enemy force, the last thing we worry about is how to try them. We want to hold them under the law of war to gather intelligence, to make sure we understand what this person knows about any enemy operations.

We had 450,000 German and Japanese prisoners in the United States. Guess what. Not one of them had a lawyer. If you had said what he just said, in World War II, they would have run you out of town. Most Americans would find it odd that a Japanese or German prisoner of war would be entitled to a lawyer under the Bill of Rights because they are not.

We are fighting a war, and I would like to win the war sooner rather than

later. When it comes to killing the enemy, that is part of war. But if you are lucky enough, clever enough to capture one of these bad guys, the last thing I want them to hear is ``You have a right to a lawyer.'' You don't. Under military law, no enemy prisoner has a right to a lawyer. You are talking about fighting a crime; I am talking about fighting a war.

There are 44 people in Gitmo who have been held for over a decade who will never see the light of day because they are part of the enemy force. They have had due process under the law of war, and they are too dangerous to let go. They are not going to be tried in Federal court and they are not going to be tried by military commission because they are too dangerous to let go. And we have no interest in a trial; we have an interest in keeping them off the battlefield. They will die in jail without a trial.

That is what happens when you join al-Qaida or ISIS--you can get killed, or you can die in jail. So if you are an American citizen thinking about joining ISIS, don't. You are not going to be captured because of the color of your skin or your religion or your political views; you will be captured because you turned on your own country.

In every war we have ever had, American citizens have unfortunately sided with the enemy. Guess what ISIS is trying to do as I speak. They are trying to recruit people in our own backyard. How many people have bought the propaganda over the internet? The two guys in Boston--one of them had permanent status. They bought into this crazy construct that you have to kill everybody in the name of religion. The guy who ran over the folks in New York--all these people have one thing in common: They were radicalized by the enemy, and they became soldiers of the caliphate.

So here is what I am trying to say: It is not my view of the Constitution that I want you to look at; it is what the Supreme Court has said.

Ex Parte Quirin--a 1942 case--involved capturing German saboteurs in Long Island. The last time I checked, Long Island, NY, is part of the United States. You had American citizens collaborating with the enemy. They were captured as a group. The American citizens were tried by military commission, and one of them was executed. Why? Because under the law of war, once you join the enemy, your American citizenship doesn't protect you from the consequence of your act.

In re Quirin said: Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of belligerency which is unlawful because [it is] in violation of law of war.

In 2009, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan was fighting for the Taliban. There is no bar to this Nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant. For those who understand the law of war, this is one of the timeless concepts.

He is trying to turn the war into a crime. I agree with Senator Paul--if you are charged with a crime, you can't be held indefinitely and questioned without legal representation because you are being accused of a crime, and you have rights as a criminal defendant. When you become an enemy combatant, you have rights under the law of war, and there is no right for an enemy prisoner to be given a lawyer.

Mr. President, I object. I have so much more to offer, but I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Senator Lee is a very good friend, and he is very sincere. I will object, and I want to let the body know that I think the best way to handle this issue is, if American citizens are suspected of collaborating with the enemy--ISIS or al-Qaida--we have the due process in place to strip them of their citizenship. That way, you don't have the problem of reading them their Miranda rights. You can hold them, without question, as enemy combatants.

I will end with this. There is a court case right on point, that of Mr. Padilla's, who was an American citizen who was held as an enemy combatant. The court says that it doesn't matter the location of capture, he can be captured in the United States and still be held as an enemy combatant.

So I object, but I really want to work with Senator Lee to see if we can find a compromise down the road.

Madam President, I appreciate being recognized. I am going to talk about a budget proposal by my colleague from Kentucky, Senator Paul.

To those who want to balance our budget and get us out of debt, count me in. How do we do that? I would like to do it without destroying the military. I would like not to open up the wound when it comes to the effects of sequestration.

Unfortunately, Senator Paul's approach is devastating to the military. It creates unpredictability at a time when we need predictability. It throws us back into the old system where nobody knows what is going to happen.

Let me tell you about how you balance the budget and get us out of debt.

In 2008, this blue line represents discretionary spending. This is about 30 percent of overall Federal spending. You can see that from 2008 to 2028 it has been relatively flat. In the budget agreement we entered into just a few weeks ago, we are spending less on nondefense discretionary spending by $2 billion than we did in 2010. This red line represents about the 65 to 70 percent of Federal spending called entitlements, and it is going through the roof. So if you want to balance the budget, you have to deal with the red line. You can't take it all out of the blue line.

Sequestration has taken about $1 trillion out of the military. I compliment President Trump for entering into a budget agreement that will restore funding to the military at a time when we need it the most.

What did sequestration do to the military? According to Secretary Mattis, ``no enemy in the field has done more to harm the combat readiness of

our military than sequestration.'' What a stunning statement that is. In other words, Congress has sunk more ships, shot down more planes, and taken more soldiers off the battlefield than any enemy.

Under sequestration, we are at the smallest level for the Navy since 1915, the smallest Army since 1940, and the smallest Air Force in modern history. That is about to change with the budget agreement--$700 billion for the military to retool, to buy new equipment, to have more people so that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines can spend a little bit of time with their families instead of being deployed all the time. So I applaud Senator Paul's zeal to balance the budget.

What I want to do is to expose what this budget actually does. If you are a defense hawk, you should be against this approach because it does the one thing we can't afford to do. It creates unpredictability when it comes to our national defense strategy.

At times like this, I miss Senator McCain because I know he would be here with me.

Under this proposal, we are going to cut $404.8 billion next year. How much comes out of defense? Well, we will figure that out later. We know $6 billion has to come out of it, but it effectively sets aside the budget agreement that plussed up defense. Over the next decade, $13.358 trillion will be cut. Of that, how much comes out of defense? Well, we will figure that out later.

Let me tell you what that means to the military: devastation. Here is what Secretary Mattis said on April 26 about predictability: We need predictability so that we can actually put a strategy into effect. If you do not have a budget that reflects the strategy, it does not work.

Under the budget agreement, we have predictability for the next couple of years. We are restoring the cuts, and we have to build on what we have done in the next 2 years through the next 10 years.

What does this budget proposal do? It destroys predictability. It requires $404.8 billion, and it doesn't tell the Department of Defense how much they are going to have to pay. We know $6 billion.

Here is what I would suggest. If the past is any indication of the future, our friends on the other side are not going to let us exempt defense. Sequestration was half out of defense, half out of nondefense, and left entitlements pretty much alone.

Senator Paul says we are not going to deal with Social Security. Social Security is going broke. Somebody needs to deal with it. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill dealt with it by adjusting the age of retirement to save Social Security benefits. So when you take Social Security off the table--and let's say, magically, that everybody agreed with me that we should not undercut the defense budget, that we should actually add to it and give predictability--how do you get $13 trillion if you take Social Security and defense off the table? Well, we won't because you can't.

So to those who claim to be defense hawks--which I proudly claim to be--this is a symbolic vote. Yes, the symbolism here is that we don't care about predictability when it comes to defense spending, that we are undercutting the agreement we achieved just a month ago to give the military the funds they need to defend this Nation.

Now, if you live in a world where the military is small and we don't have any troops deployed anywhere, this might work. On September 10, 2001, we didn't have one soldier in Afghanistan. We didn't have an embassy, and not one dime in foreign aid went to Afghanistan. The next day, we got attacked, coming from Afghanistan, because radical Islam will not leave you alone just because you want to leave them alone.

President Trump is right to rebuild the military. He campaigned on setting aside sequestration. It was dumb. It hollowed out our force. It has been a nightmare for our military. Planes have been falling out of the sky.

What does this budget do? It puts us back into a level of unpredictability. It requires $404 billion out of the 2019 budget. It says that $6 billion has to come from defense. After that, we don't know.

Here is what I know. It is going to undercut everything we have done to provide predictability. At the end of the day, this budget puts everything every defense person has been hoping for in jeopardy. It takes the efforts of President Trump to rebuild the military and throws it in a ditch, because if you take Social Security off the table, if you took defense off the table, then you can't get there from here. Do you want to destroy the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice, the

Mr. President, each year Hilton Head Island in South Carolina is proud to host the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing Golf Tournament at the Harbour Town Golf Links at the Sea Pines Resort. With Harbour Town's red and white striped lighthouse as a backdrop, a world-class golf tournament is held annually the week after the Masters. Our tournament champions have included a notable number of Hall of Fame golfers: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, Hale Irwin, Bernhard Langer, Johnny Miller, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Tom Watson, and Payne Stewart.

More than 1,200 volunteers staff the tournament during the week. Their work is felt and seen by the more than a hundred thousand people who attend the tournament every year and the millions more who watch the tournament broadcast in 226 countries. Last year, the tournament infused over $96 million into the State of South Carolina's economy.

Even more notable than the golf is the impact the Heritage Classic Foundation has on the local communities in South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1987, $38 million has been distributed to those in need in these two States. Since 1993, 322 high school seniors have received more than $4.1 million for 4-year college scholarships. This fall, 34 Beaufort County collegians will receive foundation grants at an expenditure of $159,000.

Last year, the foundation helped facilitate more than $2.9 million in donations. The Heritage Champions Fore Charity has produced more than $7.2 million for participating nonprofit groups. Last year, the Birdies for Charity program distributed $216,000 in pledge donations, bringing the total to $5.7 million since it was created in 2000. The nonprofit groups that staff the tournament concession stands made $247,706 for their charities in 2017.

On behalf of all South Carolinians, I want to express my deep appreciation and congratulations to the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing Golf Tournament on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and wish them another successful tournament this week.

Mr. President, I will be very brief. The first thing I want to do is to thank Senators Alexander and Collins for trying to work very hard to solve a problem that we can fix. There are a lot of things about healthcare that I don't see us fixing between now and tomorrow. This is not one of them. Healthcare is very complex. It is one-fifth of the economy. I think there is a better way to do healthcare than ObamaCare. Most Republicans want to replace it. Most Democrats want to repair it.

We are not talking about that. We are talking about an island of agreement that will matter between now and October--what Senator Alexander and Murray came up with. You had bipartisan support. There are two provisions that allow flexibility in terms of the 1332 regulations and to continue payments to make sure that person who makes too much for a subsidy but not enough to be self-sufficient when it comes to healthcare gets a little bit of help. That is the plumber and the other people that Senator Alexander described.

President Obama took care of these people through Executive action. That has been found to be unconstitutional by our courts. Legislatively, we are trying to continue this program to help somebody whose premiums are going

through the roof but who are not eligible for the statutory subsidies and create a new level of help that will keep their premiums from skyrocketing and actually decrease their premiums in October by 40 percent.

There are a lot of things we can agree on, and there are a lot of things we can accomplish when it comes to healthcare, but this is not one of them. I can only imagine how these two Senators feel.

Senator Collins, working with Senator Nelson from Florida, added a third provision to the Alexander-Murray concept that makes eminent sense. I doubt if there is one Governor in the country who would oppose what Senator Collins is trying to do--to allow States to petition for Federal funding to help the States deal with the sickest people in that State by coming up with innovative, high-risk pools and allowing States to experiment with what works best for the sickest people in their State by accessing Federal funding. You can't spend it on roads and bridges, but you can use it for the high-risk population, the people who drive the most cost. I doubt if there is any Governor in the country who would say that this is a bad idea.

Senator Nelson thinks it is a good idea. Our most conservative Members in the House think it is a good idea. We have taken Alexander- Murray and added a third component that I think is an excellent idea. When you combine the three things, you can lower the cost by 40 percent for that self-insured person who makes over $45,000 and lower their premiums by 40 percent by October.

It matters a lot to the people described, and there are millions of these people who will not get a 40-percent reduction. They are going to get a 10-percent or a 20-percent increase, and already they are paying about 25 to 30 percent of their income just for healthcare. It is mind- boggling that we are where we are.

I will just add this and turn it over to Senator Rounds. How did we get here? I think the desire to control the House and take back the Senate is overwhelmingly good policy. Somebody on the other side believes that if we can block this proposal--the Collins-Nelson- proposal, the Alexander-Murray proposal--if we can keep that from becoming law, these premium increases that are surely to come will fall upon the Republican Party and will give us yet another tool to take back the House and regain the majority in the Senate. The reason I say that is because I have come to believe that there is no other explanation, and that is sad. That to me is a real dropping of the Democratic Party in terms of the role they play around here.

We work together where we can. Sometimes we are wrong; sometimes they are right. Sometimes it is the other way around. But this is the one occasion where we seem to have been right up until now.

Why is it not in the omnibus bill? Because of Democratic objections. Last Saturday, we spent an hour on the phone with the President of the United States--Senator Collins, Senator Alexander, myself, and Congressman Walden--talking about this proposal, about how it would lower premiums, how it is good policy, and how this is the right way to continue to help the people in question. At the end of the hour discussion, the President said: Count me in. I want to help. I agree to the concept. What would you like me to do?

It never crossed our minds to call a Democrat. Our concern was the House. We needed the President to call Speaker Ryan. Senator McConnell was enthusiastic for this. We honestly believed that the problem would be in the House, with our Freedom Caucus friends. We asked the President to call the Speaker of the House, and Kevin McCarthy, and he did. The Speaker told him: We are for it.

I thought: home run.

Between last Saturday and now, what happened is that Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, and Senate Democrats have objected to this proposal, and the rationale is abortion. The language that is in law is exactly the same language that would apply to this legislation. The Stupak language applying to the Affordable Care Act, dealing with Federal funds and abortion, is still the law of the land. But under the omnibus approach, we are going to run the subsidies through the Labor- HHS bill, where Hyde protection would apply--no more, no less than any other Federal dollar dealing with healthcare.

Senator Alexander has done a very good service to the body. In the bill that we will vote on soon, there are over 100 applications of the Hyde language to healthcare spending at the Federal level. Apparently, these dollars don't make the cut. Why? They know that if we don't get this relief in March, in October premiums are going to go up, and they are literally making up a phony excuse based on Hyde protections. The reason I know it is phony is that, if they really believe what they are saying about Hyde language, they wouldn't vote for this bill at all because every other Federal dollar runs through the same system we are proposing this go through. If you really cared about the abortion issue the way you claim, you could not support this bill or any other piece of legislation that has been around since 1976.

Clearly, the Hyde problem is not much of a problem when it comes to every other Federal healthcare dollar. It is only a problem here. The only reason it is a problem here is that you don't want us, as Republicans, working with you to fix a problem that needs to be fixed because you are thinking of October in terms of your political future. You are not thinking of October in terms of people.

Here is what I hope happens to you. I hope you lose votes. We have our problems on our side. We will probably pay a price come November about some of the things we have done wrong. All I can say to my Democratic colleagues is this: The reason you are stopping this provision from becoming law is that you think it gives you a political advantage in November because of premium increases in October. This is exactly why the American people hate politics so much.

I want to be on record in March as being a Member of the Senate who works with the other side when I can, surrounded by people on my side of the aisle who are historically seen as centrists when it comes to trying to solve problems. There is nobody on this floor who has a reputation of being an ideologue. Senator Collins is a pro-choice Republican, and she is OK with sending these dollars through Hyde protections because they have been around so long. Lisa Murkowski is a pro-choice Republican. She was with us yesterday, saying that she is dumbfounded about this argument about abortion.

So play the tape later on. When the premiums go up 10 to 20 percent for hard-working people and there is a debate about why that happened, I want somebody to play this tape, because we have 24 hours to stop that.

Every expert who has looked at this says the following: If you do Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson, you will prevent a premium increase of 10 to 20 percent, and you will lower premiums in the next couple of years by up to 40 percent. I don't know what the day is. It is some day in March, but I have lost track of what day it is. Yet I am here to say, when that debate comes about in October, I want you to play this tape. We had a chance today to fix this problem, and the only reason we are not going to do it is due to our Democratic colleagues' decision to play politics with this issue rather than to solve the problem.

The President of the United States is for this. The majority leader of the U.S. Senate is for this. The Speaker of the House is for this. Every Republican leader is for this. The Senators on the floor who work with Democrats are for this. We are urging our colleagues, before it is too late, to change their minds and get this into an omnibus in a fashion so as to lower premiums, not to sit on the sidelines and watch them go up. So, when the debate happens in October, play this tape.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is an honor to recognize Dr. Larry Bowman of Seneca, SC, as he throttles back his duties as director of orthopedic sports medicine for Clemson University's football team.

Larry completed his undergraduate education at West Virginia University before earning his masters in bioengineering at Clemson University. Following an internship at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Larry served our country as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis, WA. He returned to the Palmetto State to earn his medical degree at the Medical University of South Carolina College of

Medicine and, after completing his residency of orthopedic surgery, founded Blue Ridge Orthopedics in Seneca. Since Larry's founding in 1981, Blue Ridge Orthopedics has become one of the largest and most trusted orthopedic providers in the Upstate.

In 1988, Larry was selected to support the Clemson Tigers as the football program's orthopedic team physician. Larry and his colleagues from Blue Ridge Orthopedics have since attended every Clemson practice and game, treated hundreds of athletes, and earned the trust and respect of coaches, players, and fans. Larry also works with Clemson's department of bioengineering as an adjunct professor. The profound impact he has had on Clemson University inspired the football program to name the visiting locker room at Death Valley in Larry's honor.

In addition to his decades of work at Clemson, Larry has served as the team physician for Southern Wesleyan University and Anderson University and worked at the Medical University of South Carolina as a clinical professor in the department of family medicine. Larry is the director of the AnMed Family Practice Sports Medicine Fellowship, a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and was recognized with the Jack C. Hughston Physician of the Year Award in 2006 for his outstanding contributions to sports medicine. Larry has worked tirelessly to commit each of these roles to improving the quality of life of South Carolinians, and I am confident he will continue to do so in this next chapter of life.

I join the State of South Carolina and Clemson fans nationwide in thanking Dr. Larry Bowman for his dedication over the last 30 football seasons. It is my distinct pleasure to celebrate the many contributions Larry has made over the course of his career, and I wish him all the best.

Mr. President, please inform me when 10 minutes has expired.

I rise tonight to let the military know that we may have a short night in the Senate, but you are going have better days ahead. This whole exercise, for me, is about you. It is about those who have been fighting this war for the last 17 years. It is about stopping the madness created by the Congress in 2011.

What we did in 2011 was we came up with a budget proposal called sequestration. If we could not find a bipartisan path forward to cut $1.2 trillion in the Federal budget over a decade, we would punish the military by taking $600 billion out of the military and $600 billion out of nondefense spending and leave entitlements alone. Nobody thought it would happen. There was a penalty clause in the Budget Control Act to make sure that the supercommittee would act responsibly. Guess what. They didn't. There is no use blaming them over everybody else. The bottom line is, we couldn't reach a budget agreement. We spent $47 trillion over the next 10 years, which is how much we will spend. We couldn't save $1.2 trillion, so sequestration kicked in.

What has it done to our military? This is what General Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, said:

Let me be clear: As hard as the last 16 years of war have

been on our military, no enemy in the field has done as much

harm to the readiness of U.S. military than the combined

impact of the Budget Control Act's defense spending caps,

worsened by operating for 10 of the last 11 years under

continuing resolutions of varied and unpredictable duration.

This is the Secretary of Defense telling the Congress that no enemy on the battlefield has done more damage to our military than the budget agreement that we reached in 2011.

I want to congratulate President Trump for keeping his campaign promise to rebuild the military.

In case you couldn't understand what I said, here it is in writing. Spend some time looking at it. This is one of the most respected warriors of his generation, who is now Secretary of Defense, telling the Congress to end the madness. Tonight we are going to end the madness. If we have to lose some sleep, we are going to end the madness.

We are going to spend $160 billion over the next 2 years rebuilding a military that has been in decline since 2011. How bad is it? It is terrible. If you don't believe me, just listen to what our commanders say. About 60 percent of the F-18s in the Navy aren't able to fly. We have lost more people in training accidents than we have lost on the battlefield. If you ask every military commander, they will tell you that sequestration has done a lot of damage when it comes to our military readiness. This $160 billion infusion of cash is much needed.

When you talk about deficits, here is what I can tell you. We are spending, GDP-wise, at the lowest level on defense really since World War II, when you look at GDP spending on defense. It has been above 4, close to 5 percent of GDP; we are in the 3.5-percent range. When I hear Senator Paul say we have doubled the defense budget, compared to GDP spending on defense, we are at the low end.

What has happened since 2011? This is the way the world has turned out since we passed sequestration through the Budget Control Act. The Syrian civil war came about, the collapse of Libya, the rise of ISIL, the invasion of the Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimea by Russia. China is building islands over land claimed by others. Yemen is falling apart. North Korea is pressing toward the capability to hit the homeland with a nuclear-tip missile. We have had cyber attacks come from North Korea.

The bottom line is, since 2011, all hell has broken loose, and we have been standing around here looking at each other instead of listening to our commanders. President Trump has listened. President Trump is behind this budget agreement--2 years of funding to rebuild the military at a time they need every dollar they can get.

As to the deficits, yes, they bother me, but here is what I can tell the public without any hesitation: You can eliminate the Department of Defense, and you are not going to change the debt situation long term for the country. Two-thirds of the debt is driven by mandatory spending in interest on the debt itself. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are entitlement programs that are growing in a tremendous fashion because the baby boomers are retiring en masse. We have fewer workers, and all these trust funds are failing. That is what drives the debt, not military spending. One-third of the Federal budget is discretionary spending. Out of that one-third comes the military, and it is about 50 percent of the one-third.

All I can say is that I want to applaud Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer for reaching an agreement. The nondefense spending is about $160-something billion. What does that mean? That helps the FBI. Without this infusion of cash, the FBI will have fewer agents in 2018 than they did in 2013. They are on the frontline of defending the Nation as much as anybody else. The Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the National Security Administration--all of these nondefense agencies have a defense role, and they will benefit from this budget agreement.

Sequestration did not get us out of debt. Fixing sequestration is not going to add to the debt in any serious way.

Every Republican voted for the tax cuts because we believe the $1.5 trillion and then some will be made up by economic growth. I think we are more right than wrong about that.

When it comes to defense spending, Republicans and Democrats have finally listened to this statement by General Mattis, and all of us came together behind our President to increase defense spending in a fashion relevant to the need.

To those who believe that the military is well-funded, you are not listening to anybody in the military. You haven't spent any time in the field. I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan 42 times in the last decade. I can tell you the pressure that has been placed upon our military. You have to put all of the money in deploying people--robbing Peter to pay Paul--so training suffers and readiness suffers.

It has been a miserable experience to be in the military the last 4, 5 years. Families go lacking. People are deployed more than they should be because we are not big enough. This $160 billion is going to allow us to grow the Navy. We are moving toward a 350-ship Navy, not 278. We have the smallest Navy since 1915, the smallest Army since 1940--that is where we are headed under sequestration. This turns it around.

President Trump, thank you for keeping your promise to rebuild our military.

To Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, thank you for working together in getting us on track to rebuild the military and help some accounts that need help outside the military.

To the Members of the body, there are a million reasons to vote no on any bill. While I respect how you vote, I don't know how you go to the military and explain your vote if you vote no. How do you tell those in uniform, who are getting by under incredibly difficult conditions because they don't have the money to train and be ready--they are in a hot war. What do you tell them--well, I voted no because this and that?

The deficit and debt are a problem. Senator Paul, to his great credit, is willing to reform entitlements. I have worked with him and Senator Lee to reform Medicare and do something about Social Security to keep these programs from going broke. I will compliment Senator Paul. He is a man of great political courage when it comes to taking on hard issues like entitlement reform. But when it comes to military, I could not be more different. He is holding us up. He has every right to do so.

I just want to let our soldiers know, and all their families, that we are going to wait him out and that you are not the reason we are in debt. The money we are giving you, you take gladly. There will be a smaller pay raise in here. But Senator Paul's solution to raising pay for the military is to withdraw from Afghanistan.

I have not heard one general tell me we can leave Afghanistan safely. That day will come, but we are nowhere near that day. All I can tell the public is, the last time we took our eye off Afghanistan, we got 9/ 11. I don't know how much money we spent after 9/11, but we lost almost 3,000 Americans. Based on 19 people who were willing to kill themselves, they took almost 3,000 of us with them. Just think what would have happened if we had left too soon. We are not going to do that again--never again.

I trust those in our military leadership. I am proud of my Commander in Chief, President Trump, for giving them the ability to fight the war. The gloves are now off. They just need the resources to take the fight to the enemy and turn it around because what happens over there matters here. If you don't believe me, remember 9/11.

Whatever it takes and as long as it takes, we are going to increase defense spending in the next 24 hours. Then we are going to start marching to fix other problems. The Dreamers have waited a very long time to bring certainty to their lives. Next week, we will take up their problems, their plight. The one thing I can tell you today is, in the next 24 hours, we are going to end the nightmare for the military. Next week, we will take up solutions to help the Dream Act population and secure our borders. We can do two things at once.

If you want to get the country out of debt, count me in. If you want to tell younger people they have to work longer and cannot retire at 65 because we live so much longer, count me in. If you want people at my income level to take less from Social Security because I can afford to give some up, count me in. If you want people in my income level to pay more into Medicare because we should, count me in.

The one thing for which you cannot count on me is to use the military as a punching bag and blame it on them that we are in debt. We are not in debt because of them. What General Mattis said is we can always afford freedom, and we can afford survival.

If you don't believe the people we are fighting would kill us all if they could, then you have a short memory. The only reason 3,000 died on 9/11 and not 3 million is they couldn't get the weapons with which to kill more of us. If North Korea keeps going the way it is going, God help us all. If the Iranians ever go nuclear, God help us all. We live in dangerous times.

If radical Islam could get its hands on a chemical or a biological weapon, it would use it. The best way to keep them from hurting us here is to stay over there and partner with our Afghan partners, our Iraqi partners, and others. More Muslims have died in this fight than anybody else. They have seen the face of the enemy, and I have certainly seen it. The best way to keep it off our shores is to have a strong military that creates lines of defenses over there so we can be safe here.

I am very happy tonight. I had to miss my flight, and I am not going to get much sleep, but what we are doing pales in comparison to what the military has done for the last 5 or 6 years--a lot with less. They have taken on too much danger and too much risk because the Congress has sat on the sidelines and watched Rome burn. Those days are over.

Whenever we vote, we are going to vote. I will make a prediction that we are going to get more than 60 votes to fund the military. When it gets to the House, to my fiscal conservative friends, I understand there are things in the nondefense spending aspect of this they will not like--I get that--but there are Democrats in this body, and there are Democrats in the House, and they have a say. That is just the way it is.

So I will sleep well tonight. I may not sleep long, but I will sleep well in knowing that the men and women in uniform, who have suffered so much for so long, will be better off in the morning. A short night for me will mean better days ahead for them.

All I can say to my colleagues is not to let these groups mislead them about what their job is. Their job as Members of the U.S. Congress, in my opinion, is to defend this Nation above all else. Without national security, Social Security really doesn't matter. Without national security, everything we enjoy could be lost.

The primary role of the Federal Government, in my view, is to give the men and women in uniform, who are all volunteers, what they need to keep us safe. Come tomorrow, they are going to have more. If it means we stay up late tonight, so be it.

To the congressional leadership, thank you. To the President, thank you for being a Commander in Chief we have desperately needed for the last 8-plus years. To my colleagues, vote yes. You may get some criticism from people who run blogs, but the next time you see a soldier, you will know you voted right.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I will be making a unanimous consent request in just a second. The reason I am doing this is that every hour we go without funding the military, every day that we wait, and the longer we continue this madness, the worse it is for those who fight in a war we can't afford to lose.

I think that Congress, in the words of General Mattis, has done more damage to the military than any enemy on the battlefield. So tonight I am speaking for you. We are going to end this madness as soon as we possibly can.

I respect Senator Paul, who is a fiscal conservative--every bit of it--but when it comes to national security, not so much. He wants to do entitlement reform. God bless him. That is where the money is at.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, at 8 p.m. today, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 1892 with a further amendment; further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the Senate vote on the motion to concur.

I know what is in it--$160 billion over the next 2 years that is absolutely necessary to rebuild a military that is in decline. If you don't believe me, ask the Secretary of Defense.

There are other things in this bill, some of which I like and some of which I don't. I know this: If the President of the United States, who is our Commander in Chief, says he will sign it if we will send it to him, and the reason that we are not going to send it to him right now is because Senator Paul has every right to object, this is a debate worth having.

What is the most important thing for our country?

The deficit and debt are real, and, to his credit, Senator Paul is willing to do the hard things, such as to change the age of retirement and to means test those benefits. That is how you get out of debt.

What we are doing tonight is putting money into the pipeline of a military that has suffered mightily since Senator Paul and others voted for sequestration in 2011.

Enough is enough. The day of reckoning is upon us. Every hour, every minute matters to me. So this is what I am trying to tell people back in South Carolina: If you are worried about the debt and deficit, count me in. But to go there, you have to do something that very few people will do, and Senator Paul is not in the category of the very few.

On the debt and deficit, I give him high marks--on national security, not so much.

He said tonight on television that the best way to give the military a pay raise is to withdraw from Afghanistan. Go over to Afghanistan before you say that. Name one military commander that believes that is a rational approach to increasing military pay. You had better pay them a lot more because they are going to be fighting for a lot longer if we leave now.

How much has 9/11 cost us? It is this kind of thinking that led to 9/ 11. The only people I know who like that idea are the Taliban. They wish we would leave tomorrow.

ISIL is now present in Afghanistan. I wish the world were not so dangerous, and I wish it wasn't so complicated, but it is. Have we learned nothing from radical Islam? ``Leave them alone, and they will leave you alone'' does not work. Their goal is to destroy their faith and rebuild it in the image of their view of Islam, to destroy our friends in Israel, and to come after Christians, vegetarians, Libertarians. They are coming after you, and the only thing between them and us are the men and women in the military--the 1 percent who have suffered mightily.

In the words of General Mattis: No enemy has done more damage to our readiness than budget cuts plus continuing resolutions.

He is a nice man. Let me say it more directly: Congress has shot down more planes through budget cuts then any enemy could hope to. Congress has crippled the Navy more than the Chinese or the Russians could have ever hoped to. Congress has made it harder for people to be with their families because our military is too small for the times in which we live.

The times in which we live are the most dangerous since the 1930s. I will repeat that again. The only reason 3,000 of us died on 9/11 is that they couldn't find a way to kill more of us. If they could ever find that way, they will do it. As long as we have some soldiers in Afghanistan, Afghanistan is not likely to be the platform for the second 9/11.

If you think this is over the top, talk to the people fighting the war. Go there yourself. I spent a lot of time in Afghan prisons and detention centers, looking at the enemy, as a reservist and as a Senator. I know exactly what they have in mind for us.

Here is my pledge to those who are doing the fighting. We are going to end this insanity. We are going to rebuild the military.

President Trump, thank you so much. Thank you for understanding that debt and deficits are no excuse to leave the warfighter hanging out.

What do you tell somebody who doesn't have the equipment they need to go to the fight? Well, the debt and deficit are the reasons you don't get any more. If we have to raise taxes--whatever it is--to make sure that we can keep our military going, I will do it.

I have come to conclude, like Ronald Reagan, that the best way to help the economy is to cut taxes. Ronald Reagan cut taxes, he rebuilt the military, and he engaged in entitlement reform. We should follow his lead. Ronald Reagan did not believe in this isolationist approach. He believed that on the other side of that wall is an evil empire, and he stared it down.

I went to the military in 1981. The first thing I got was a 25- percent increase in pay by Ronald Reagan. I liked that guy from that day until now. The morale was low after the Carter years, and readiness was in decline. Reagan changed everything.

President Trump, I think you are on course to change everything. We are taking the gloves off. We are changing the rules of engagement. We are going to provide the equipment and training that our men and women desperately need. We are going to set aside these budget cuts.

To Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer, thank you for coming together. To those who object to some things in this bill, I get it. But what is more important--the debt or deficit or the war in which we are in? There is nothing in this bill, if it went away tomorrow, that would get us out of debt. The debt that we are adding to defend the Nation can be fixed in 5 minutes if we did some entitlement reform.

When I was 21, my mom died. When I was 22, my dad died. My sister was 13. We moved in with an aunt and uncle who never made more than $25,000 in their life working in the cotton mills. If it wasn't for survivor benefits and social security going to my sister, we would have had a hard time making it. If it weren't for Pell grants, she probably wouldn't have gone to college.

I am 62, and I am not married. I don't have any kids. I make $175,000 a year. I will gladly give up some of my Social Security so people who need it more than I can have it. I will gladly pay more into Medicare to keep it from falling apart. I think a lot of people like me would do that if they were asked. So I don't need any lectures about the debt and the deficit.

We are in a shooting war. We had more people die in training accidents than we had in combat because we made them do too much for too long without enough. That is going to end.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, at 8 p.m. today, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 1892 with a further amendment; further, that if cloture is invoked, all postcloture time be yielded back and the Senate vote on the motion to concur.

Regular order.

Mr.President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks.

Mr. President, I want to thank all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle who have joined in this debate and are having their voices heard. You are on the right side of history. You are where America will be. It is just a matter of time until we get there.

To my colleagues on the other side, I appreciate your passion, but I think you are on the wrong side of history.

What we are trying to do here today is to proceed to a bill. It is called a motion to proceed. But I think what we are trying to do is proceed to a better America. We are one of seven nations on the entire planet to allow abortion on demand after 20 weeks; that is, the fifth month of pregnancy.

What do we know about unborn children at that stage of development? We know that for a doctor to operate on that unborn child, they provide anesthesia because it hurts the child, and no doctor wants to hurt the child in an effort to save the child's life. Listen to what I said. Medical practice dictates that if you are going to operate on a 20- week-old, unborn child, you provide anesthesia because science tells us that the baby can feel pain.

Can you only imagine the pain it will feel from abortion? There is a reason that there are only seven countries in the world that allow this. The question for America is, Do we want to stay in this club or do we want to get out? I want out.

Twenty States have a version of this bill, and more are taking it up as I speak. When informed of what we are trying to do, the majority of pro-choice people support this. Abortion is a divisive issue, and it is an emotional issue, but in the fifth month of pregnancy, I think most Americans are going to side with what we are trying to do--stopping abortion on demand in the fifth month.

Does it make us a better nation? I would say it does not.

So we are trying to proceed to make sure that America will be a better place and that we become part of the mainstream of the world when it comes to protecting unborn children after the fifth month of pregnancy.

If you look at a medical encyclopedia and read about the birthing process, parents are encouraged in the fifth month to sing to a child because the child will begin to associate your voice with you. Read it. There is literature of all kinds stating what you should do in the fifth month to enhance the relationship between you and your unborn child.

We do allow exceptions to save the life of the mother. It is a terrible situation when we have to pick between the mother and child, and there is an exception for that situation. The result of rape or incest if the child was a minor--when it comes to a pregnancy caused by a rape, we require that the law enforcement authorities be notified of the rape before the abortion, not at the time it occurred, and I think most Americans would want people to come forward and report rape.

It is a difficult situation, but we have commonsense exceptions, and this is a commonsense bill designed to change America in a commonsense way. It is a motion to proceed to put us in better standing as a nation in the world at large, I believe. It is also a motion to withdraw-- withdraw from the club of seven nations that allows abortion on demand at a time when doctors can save the baby's life, but to do so they have to provide anesthesia because that baby can feel so much pain.

Savannah Duke is a young lady in South Carolina. She is 17 years old. She goes to high school in Spartanburg, SC. She does all the things that a 17-year-old would do. She is an incredibly gifted young lady. At 20 weeks, it was discovered that she was missing a leg, and the doctors feared she would have severe birth defects. Her parents, Wendy and Scott, when deciding what to do, could see the baby move, and they decided not to opt for an abortion. She is in high school today.

There is Micah from Iowa, as you probably heard from Senator Ernst, who has been a stalwart on this issue. He was born at 20 weeks and is alive today to tell about it.

This is not about medical viability. Roe v. Wade says that there is a compelling State interest to protect the unborn at medical viability. I would argue that the difference between medical viability in 1973 and 2018 is enormous. What we are trying to do is provide a new theory to protect the unborn, and it goes something like this: Can a legislative body prohibit an abortion on demand at a time when science tells us that the baby feels excruciating pain, at a time when science tells us that parents should sing to their child, at a time when science tells us that a baby has well-connected tissues and can feel pain and, on occasion, can also survive? My answer is yes; it is OK for Congress and State legislators to pass laws saying that in the fifth month, we are going to disallow abortion on demand. There will be exceptions, but they will be rare. There are 10,000 cases every year that are protected by this law.

So what are we trying to do? We are trying to proceed forward to a better day in America. We are trying to get out of a club where there are only six other members. We are trying to reconcile the law with science.

To my friends on the other side who talk about science a lot, count me in. Science is very important. We should listen to our scientists. When it comes to climate change, I do. I am convinced that climate change is real.

You should listen to what doctors tell you about the unborn child in the fifth month. You should listen to what medical science is able to do to save the child's life. You should listen to the stories of people who actually make it at 20 weeks. You should understand that excruciating pain is felt by an unborn child in the fifth month, and America does not want to be in the club of seven countries that allow abortion on demand.

I don't know where the vote will turn out. It is probably going to be short of 60, but to those who believe in this issue, we will be back for another day. We are never going to give up until we get America in a better place. The better place, I think, would be having a country that recognizes that, in the fifth month of pregnancy, the law will be there for the child, because science is on the child's side, and we will reconcile our laws to science.

We know what science says about a baby in the fifth month. We know what the law says: They can be aborted on demand. I think there is a disconnect, not only between science and law but between what is right and where we are today. I just don't see how this makes us a better nation, to continue this practice of allowing babies to be aborted on demand in the fifth month of pregnancy when we know they feel a lot of pain. I just don't see how that makes us a better nation. We will get there, Mr. President, with your help and the help of others.

A majority of the American people are on our side when they understand what we are trying to do. There are 20 States who have some version of this, and it is just a matter of time until most States will.

As to this debate, I don't think it is a waste of time. I want to do two things. I want to get out of the club of seven nations that allow abortion on demand of babies that feel excruciating pain when they are operated on to save their lives, and I can work on behalf of the Dreamers, too. I can do two things at once. I can talk about getting America in a better spot when it comes to babies during the fifth month of pregnancy and finding a better life for Dreamers. I think it is kind of odd that somehow you can't do one without the other.

I want all of these Dream Act kids--young adults now--to stay in the country they know. They have no other place to go. On average, they were brought here at the age of 6 and, if you told them to go home, it wouldn't be some foreign country. It would be the home they were raised in and the life they know. So it makes perfect sense to me that we should be trying to find a solution to secure our border and fix a broken immigration system and deal compassionately with millions of young people who, through no fault of their own, have no place else to go but America.

It also makes sense to me that we can talk about this issue at the same time and that we as a nation will rise to the occasion and withdraw from a club where there are only six other nations on the planet that allow a baby to be aborted in the fifth month of pregnancy at a time when that child can feel excruciating pain and young parents are encouraged to sing to the child. If science urges you to sing to the child, I want the law to stop an abortion unless there is a darn good reason. Our time will come, for the Dreamers as well as the baby. Our time will come.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I appreciate the majority leader allowing us to do this.

To the present Presiding Officer, thank you very much for trying to fix a difficult problem called immigration.

I am going to start with what drives my train the most. I want to fix a broken immigration system. There are 700,000, 800,000 DACA recipients who are going to go into chaos on March 5 if we don't do something.

As to the President, I think you were right to end this program and to give Congress the chance to fix it through the legislative process. I thought President Obama overreached through Executive action. You said March 5, we are going to replace DACA with legislation. The only way that works, Mr. President, is for you to help us and lead us to the right answer.

The one thing I can tell you that drives my train the most is rebuilding a broken military. We have an opportunity here to fix these problems: help the men and women in the military who have suffered mightily from sequestration, to get them more money at a time when they need it; to provide certainty to 800,000 young people who have no other country to call home than America; again, to repair a broken border, start transforming a broken immigration system, and marching to comprehensive reform in phase two.

The reason I am here tonight is I see an opportunity to do something we should have done years ago--increase defense spending consistent with the threats we face.

Here is what Defense Secretary Mattis said on June 12, 2017: ``No enemy in the field has done more to harm the combat readiness of our military than sequestration.'' Congress has shot down more planes and sunk more ships by denying the military the assets they need to build new equipment, to replace old equipment, to keep people in the field in the fight, and other people trained and ready to go in the fight.

General Milley, the Chief of Staff of the Army, said: If we return to sequestration, the Army will be required ``to draw down end-strength even further, reduce funding for readiness, and increase the risk of sending under-trained and poorly equipped Soldiers into harm's way.'' So this is the head of the Army saying: If we can't get our act together and increase military funding in a more permanent way, if we go back into sequestration, you are requiring me to increase the risk of sending undertrained and poorly equipped soldiers into harm's way. If that doesn't motivate you, what will?

General Goldfein said: ``[P]ermanent relief from the Budget Control Act--with predictability funding--is absolutely critical to rebuilding Air Force capability, capacity, and readiness.'' We have lost a lot of capacity. Our readiness is at an alltime low because we are having to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep the planes in the air in the Air Force.

Navy Secretary Spencer said on October 28: The ``Budget Control Act and cap sequestration has cost us between $4 and $5 billion dollars due to the starting and stopping of acquisition programs, the inability to start programs.''

I could go through line by line what has happened under sequestration. Sixty-two percent of the F/A-18s in the Marine Corps and the Navy can't fly because we don't have enough spare parts. We have a chance here to fix that problem.

To my Democratic colleagues, I am convinced you care about this too. I am convinced you will work with President Trump to increase military funding.

To the majority leader, Senator McConnell, I want to thank him for putting a number on the table consistent with the problems we face in the military. It is $130 billion over 2 years.

To my Democratic friends, I do expect you to get some nondefense spending increases because sequestration has hurt across the board. The NIH has been kept alive because of bipartisan efforts. The FBI will have less agents this year than they did in 2013 because of sequestration. The CIA, the NSA, all of these defense programs under the nondefense portion of the budget have suffered, and they need help too.

What I would like to do is to ask the Congress to stop the s-show and grow up. Act consistent with the greatness of this country. Find a way to work together on the layup.

If you are looking for political cover to deal with increased military funding, 70 percent-plus of the people believe we would need more military funding. If you are looking for political cover to deal with the DACA population, 82 percent of the public supports a pathway to citizenship for the DACA population. I can't find too many issues that poll like that.

This is a FOX News poll, which means it is true: 79 percent of Americans and 63 percent of Trump voters favor granting citizenship to illegal immigrants under 30 who were brought here as children. Sixty- three percent of Trump voters understand that we need border security, but they have no animosity toward these young people who came here at the age of 6, on average, and literally have lived their lives here with no place else to go.

Here is the good news. We would be crazy to want them to leave. If you have met any of these Dream Act kids, the last thing you would want them to do is to leave. There are bad people in every population. There are 900 people in the population of Dream Act, or DACA, kids who are in the military, and there are 20,000 teachers. So on March 5, I don't want someone to have to deal with the fact that a fifth-grade teacher who everybody likes has to leave the country. That is insane.

I know my Democratic colleagues will support more defense funding with the understanding that the Congress, through legislation, deals with the DACA problem. They are willing to put money into the system for border security. They are willing to make a down payment on changing our immigration system to more merit based.

At the end of the day, there is a deal to be had. It just needs to be done. The

reason this bipartisan group that I am a part of came about is because nobody was doing much of anything. I am not getting in anybody's way. We have had months to figure out what to do. Just a couple of weeks ago--less than a couple of weeks ago--the four whips of the House and the Senate began to work on this. To be honest with you, that is a bit late.

As for the President, we can't do this without you. This was one of the centerpieces of your campaign--immigration. President Obama tried and failed, and I appreciate his effort. President Bush tried and failed, and I appreciate what he did. I worked with both of them across the aisle to pass bills that went through the Senate with 60-plus votes, to only go to the House and die. I am tired of that scenario.

To my House colleagues, I know this is tough politics for you. But if President Trump can find a way to lead us to a solution, I think it will allow the House to finally act.

On Tuesday, we had an unusual meeting with the President of the United States for about 40 Members of the House and the Senate, from both sides of the aisle, and we spent 55 minutes on national TV, watching President Trump listen, cajole, and urge us to find a bipartisan solution. This is what he said Tuesday:

This should be a bill of love. Truly, it should be a bill

of love and we can do that. . . . But it also has to be a

bill where we are able to secure our border.

You are right, Mr. President, security and compassion are not inconsistent. As a matter of fact, you cannot have one without the other. Let's do phase one and go to comprehensive tomorrow. He urged us to come up with a bipartisan product, and he wants to sign it.

President Trump on Tuesday showed a command of issues, the right approach to a difficult problem, urging us to work together in a bipartisan fashion. He talked about security being essential, but he understood that compassion and love have to be part of this because these kids literally have no place to go. They have put their roots down in America. They were brought here by their parents. I don't believe President Trump wants to kick them out March 5.

To my friends at the White House, on January 4, we had a meeting of Republicans with the President, and I went over the bipartisan proposal that I was working on with Senators Durbin, Gardner, Flake, Bennet, and, later, Senator Menendez. Nobody was surprised as to what we were doing. I said: This is a good position to start from. Can it be made better? Yes.

Senators Tillis and Lankford have the SUCCEED Act. We met with them, and I think we adopted a lot of their good ideas. So at the end of the day, the Dream Act by Senators Graham and Durbin became more like the SUCCEED Act.

On Thursday at about 10, I get a phone call from Senator Durbin: I just talked to the President to let him know that we have reached an agreement.

On January 4, I said: We are 99 percent there.

Senator Durbin called me and said: I had a good conversation with the President. He wants to hear what we have done. He is encouraged by it. I made a request to go to the White House.

General Kelly came over at about 11. I went through the proposal, which had been shared numerous times, and he said: What about this? What about that?

I said: It is all about getting the process started. General Kelly, we are not going to get comprehensive on our side for DACA. We are not going to give 11 million legal status and hope that someday we will deal with border security and merit-based immigration. We have to have a phase one that is a down payment on all four areas outlined by the President.

By the time we got there, at noon, there were more people at the meeting, and all I can say is that what happened between Tuesday and Thursday, I don't know, and between 10 and 12, I don't know, but it took us in the wrong direction.

The President whom I saw on Tuesday is the man who can close this deal and lead this country to get an answer that Obama and Bush could never get. We are where we are.

To my good friend, Senator Perdue: I share your desire to replace chain migration with merit-based immigration. One day we will have a system where the nuclear family gets green cards, which will free up millions of green cards for a workforce we desperately need. The only way you will get that is to deal with the Democrats and give them what they are wanting out of this deal. They are not going to give us what we want the most--which is legal immigration, a secure border, and a merit-based immigration system, based on DACA--and let me tell you why. What leverage would they have with the 10 million illegal immigrants that they would like to see have a better life, too? Almost none.

To my colleagues on the other side, from the very first day that I sat down and talked to you, what did I tell you? I have no animosity toward the 11 million. I just don't want any crooks or bad people. Let's get them right with the law. Let's transition to a system where we do not do this every 20 years. Let's secure our border, increase legal immigration, have an E-Verify system that works, and put people in jail who are illegals in the future. Let's give the 11 million who can come out of the shadows and are not criminals a chance to get right with the law, by paying a fine, passing the English proficiency exam over time, getting at the back of the line of the country where they come from, and 10 years later they can apply for a green card--a pathway to citizenship that I think could be earned.

How did 11 million people get here? They did not sneak up on us. If you know anything about the economy in South Carolina, there is a lot of tourism, and it is a heavy service industry. If you go to a golf course in South Carolina, you will see beautiful golf courses maintained by good people, and you are going to see mostly Hispanics. If you go to a meatpacking plant in South Carolina, you are going to see people doing a job you wouldn't want, making a decent living, working really hard, and most of them are Hispanic.

How did this happen? Most of us looked the other way as people came to our country trying to better their lives--some crooks, some rapists, some drug dealers, but mostly really good people trying to improve their lot in life. All that I ask is that we fix this system once and for all so we don't have a third wave 20 years from now but that we deal with the reality that these people are here, and they have been here for a long time. And America always needs good people--not just from Norway but from all over the world.

We need a reliable partner at the White House. General Kelly I admire greatly. He lost his son in service to our Nation. He has been leading Marines in combat for decades. He is new to being chief of staff. He did a heck of a job creating order out of chaos. But at that meeting, he said something I take exception to: You have got to stop fiddling.

General Kelly, as much as I admire you, for 10 years I and many others in this body have been trying to find a way forward to fix an immigration system that is broken, to turn it into a merit-based immigration system over time, to get the 11 million right with the law, to increase legal immigration so employers don't have to cheat, and to make our Nation better and stronger. So I haven't been fiddling.

What I asked the White House is this: Find out what you are for. I can't read your mind.

This proposal just picked up support from more Republicans. We didn't write the Bible, but we gave the President his funding for fiscal year 2018 for the wall and security outside the wall. I don't believe we are going to get $10 billion or $20 billion funded in 1 year. I don't think that is possible.

We begin to break chain migration within the DACA population. We limit green cards to nuclear families, which is a down payment on a merit-based immigration system. We eliminate the diversity lottery because it is a bad way to give out visas, and we took those 50,000 visas and said: Why don't we do the following: Create a merit-based program for underserved countries, which are mostly in Africa. Here is what I believe: merit-based immigration all over the world, not just in Europe.

What has made us special and unique is that we come from everywhere. We are nobodies where we came from, and we can be a somebody here.

I have said a couple of times, and I will say it again: Norway is a great place. If your are from Norway, you are a Norwegian. If you are from America, what are you? You will not know us by the way we look. You will not know us by the way we talk, because Dick Durbin has an accent. We talk differently, we look differently, but we have a lot in common, and out of the many we have become one.

In an effort to decide who comes to America in the future and to fix a broken immigration system, one thing I will never give in to is changing what it means to be an American. There are people from all over the globe dying to get here. We can't accept everybody, but we need to make sure that, as we go forward in the future, we do not forget our past.

Out of every country all over the globe, we have created something special here. Everybody has a story. My grandfather came from Scotland, Lindsey Graham, and could barely read or write. Neither one of my parents finished high school. And I am in the Senate, thanks to the good people of South Carolina. Everybody has a story. I don't want those stories to end. I want new chapters, one after another.

So to the President, what I saw Tuesday was a man that understood what America was all about, a leader who understood that bipartisanship must occur and understood that love and security are not mutually exclusive. What I find today is complete chaos.

To think that our Democratic colleagues are going to give us everything we want on the fence and hope that one day we will deal with the DACA population is a bit unrealistic--and count me in for being on your side there. I don't want to put these kids through any more hell. I don't want to wait until March 4. I want to go ahead and get it done now. We should have done it years ago.

I want to get a down payment on border security and change our immigration system, but we can't do it all at once, because everybody tells me comprehensive will not work. So let's figure out a way to chop it up in two parts. You have to start somewhere.

So here we are, trying to figure out what the hell to do. Let me tell you what we should do. We should listen to the American people. We should do what they want us to do, which is to take care of the DACA population, rebuild the military, and start fixing the broken immigration system.

If we just did what 70 percent of the American people want us to do, we would have figured this out. As to the 30 percent, you have your right to think what you want. Along with other Republicans, I have been called every name under the Sun, and I am still standing. There are people who will never let us get to yes because they have an irrational view of what it takes to fix this system.

There are voices in the White House that we all know very well that have been telling us for years: You have too much legal immigration, and everything is amnesty. Don't listen to that voice or those voices because if you do, you are going to be right where Obama and Bush were. They tried, and they failed.

We don't have the luxury of failing anymore. March 5 will be here before you know it. I am not going to sit on the sidelines and watch these young DACA recipients have their lives turned upside down, because we are better than that as a nation. Equally but more importantly, I am not going to go any longer in allowing sequestration to destroy the military at a time we need it the most.

Look through the eyes of a soldier, and you will find out what to do on the military. Look through the eyes of a DACA recipient, and you will find out what to do there. Don't be blinded by loud voices and hateful people.

We owe it to this great Nation to fix hard problems. We owe it to those who are in the fight to give them the equipment they need to win a war we can't afford to lose. We owe it to the families of military members to have more certainty, not to be deployed so much. We owe it to ourselves to get these DACA kids right with the law because they will add value to our country.

To my Democratic colleagues, now is the time. Give us the space.

To my Republican colleagues, this is a defining moment for our party. Are we going to continue to be the party that can't get to yes? Are we going to continue to be the party that always has a reason not to do DACA, or are we going to be the party that finally realizes that these young men and women add value to our country and we welcome them with open arms and that they have to work to stay and they will?

To the defense hawks, the only way you are going to get your money is to deal with immigration rationally.

Senator Durbin, we don't agree on a lot. I bet if you looked at our votes, we are 90 percent one way versus the other. But for 10 years, you have been a very good partner on comprehensive immigration reform. You have given. You have made people mad on your side.

To those who think they are going to deal Senator Durbin out, you know zero about this issue.

To Senator Menendez, you know the story of America better than I do because your family came here because they had to. America allowed you to leave a place that was horrible, and, boy, is that a great experiment in how things can turn out well. You cancel out my vote most of the time, but I appreciate your being here in this body trying to find a way forward for future immigrants. Your voice on this issue has meant a lot to me because I have not walked in your shoes.

Senator Bennet, thank you for being calm when a lot of us get hot. Thank you for caring about the meatpackers because that is important to Colorado. Thank you for trying to push your party to yes.

To the people who have worked with me in the past on the Democratic side, some may say you have given nothing. I think you have given a good bit. I think we have too.

Senator Flake, you are from Arizona. You and Senator McCain know this issue better than I do. He knows what it takes to secure the border, but he also understands the benefit of illegal immigration being fixed for the good of the country.

Senator Gardner, I didn't know you much at all. You are the NRC chairman trying to make sure we hold on to this body, and, God, I hope we do--nothing personal, but I hope we do. I am amazed at how strong you have been. You have been under a tremendous amount of pressure to get out of this dealmaking business, and you have withstood that pressure. The people of Colorado should be very proud of you and Senator Bennet. We don't agree on a lot, but on this, you have been champions.

To the other people who came on board supporting the concept, the proposal, either in totality or the idea that we need to move forward, on my side of the aisle, I cannot thank you more. The well is pretty poisoned.

To the White House, I want to help you, but you have to help yourself. There is a way to do business around here that has stood the test of time. There are some things that will hurt you over time. When people want to help you--you may not agree with them, but you know they want to help you--take the help. When people disagree with you, understand there is always tomorrow.

To President Trump, you won the election. You beat me. Only you, quite frankly, Mr. President, can fix this problem because you have credibility others don't. Don't let this moment pass. Don't take us backward; take us forward.

Thank you all for trying really hard for a long period of time to do the right thing.

With that, I yield.

Mr. President, I am genuinely honored to recognize before the U.S. Senate and the Nation Charles Dalton of Greenville, SC, on the occasion of his retirement as chief executive officer and president of Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative and Blue Ridge Security Solutions.

Born and raised on a farm in Pickens, SC, Charles from an early age developed a love for antique cars, Clemson football, and serving the Upstate of South Carolina. Charles cofounded and operated a furniture company in Pickens with his brother, Allison Dalton, before starting his career with Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative.

Charles was elected chief executive in 1982 and has committed his time to serving the State of South Carolina by bringing power to remote, mountainous communities in five counties in the Upstate. His leadership over the last 36 years has helped the energy provider's membership to more than double, growing from 29,000 members to approximately 66,000. Charles has a reputation as a humble, accessible leader. In fact, he has been known to give out his home phone number to Blue Ridge members in an effort to provide constant service and maintain relationships in the communities in which he serves.

In addition to contributing to the Upstate's growing economy during his tenure at Blue Ridge, Charles has also served in multiple capacities on nonprofit boards, including the Greenville chapter of the American Red Cross, Peace Center, and Cannon Memorial Hospital. He was selected to serve as a commissioner for the South Carolina Department of Transportation and cofounded the Upstate South Carolina Alliance, an organization committed to establishing the Upstate as a prominent economic region competing in the global economy. After his retirement, Charles and his wife, Libby, are looking forward to remaining engaged and active in the Upstate.

Charles has received statewide recognition for his contributions to business, regional collaboration, and community service in South Carolina. In 1998, he was selected by Governor Beasley to serve as South Carolina's ``Ambassador for Economic Development.'' As a proud graduate of Clemson University, Charles was recognized with the 2014 Distinguished Service Award by the Clemson Alumni Association for serving as an exceptional role model for present and future students. Last year, Charles was awarded the Spirit of the Upstate Award for consistently exhibiting exceptional leadership and dedicating his personal and professional life to strengthening the Upstate region in South Carolina. These accolades serve as a testament to the profound role Charles has played in improving the lives of South Carolinians in the Upstate, and I am confident that he will continue to do so in this next chapter of life.

It is a distinct honor to recognize Charles Dalton on this important milestone. I ask that my colleagues join me in thanking Charles for the many contributions he has made over the course of his career, and I wish him all the best.

Mr. President, as in many other industries, the insurance sector, both property/casualty and life, have become more globalized than any time in history. Disasters such as 9/11 transformed the property and casualty industry. The life insurance industry has followed, with an increasing amount of insurance risk transferred to affiliates and nonaffiliates around the globe.

This business model is impacted directly by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which moves the United States from a mostly global international system, where we tax American companies and individuals on their worldwide income, toward a territorial system. Under the new system, companies are to be taxed in the United States on the income derived here and are to be taxed on their foreign earnings by the nations in which that income is derived.

What we are seeking to do here is to encourage enterprises to start in the United States, to expand in the United States, and to bring as many foreign operations home as they can while remaining not only competitive, but innovative leaders in creating new products and services. The new 21-percent corporate rate will help do just that. However, this bill does not take us fully to a territorial system. The bill applies a minimum tax on certain payments to foreign affiliates. At 21 percent, the U.S. can compete with virtually any nation in the world, but if some nations have a corporate rate of, say, 5 percent or less, then the new system will incentivize companies to move their operations overseas, so the bill includes a minimum tax. It is called the base erosion antiabuse tax.

The first year, the base erosion tax is essentially a minimum tax of 5-percent tax without deduction for certain payments made by a U.S. company to its foreign affiliates. Starting in 2019, that minimum tax increases to 10 percent.

We do not want companies moving mobile assets around the world to find the lowest corporate tax rate. However,

I do not think we should be taxing enterprises on payments that never actually leave the U.S., but instead are obligations that are combined with obligations from the foreign affiliate to the U.S. parent. That is where clarification is needed as to how this base erosion tax will work in the context of U.S. insurance policies that are reinsured overseas.

Under current law, reinsurance is already subject to a gross premium excise that serves as an antibase erosion tax of sorts. Adding the base erosion tax on top of that could be detrimental to these U.S. insurance companies. However, how the base erosion tax is computed may be determinative of whether the tax is tolerable. I believe that, with respect to reinsurance, the base erosion tax was intended to apply only on net payments actually made.

Under certain forms of reinsurance that are commonly used in the life insurance industry, called modified coinsurance or funds withheld coinsurance, underlying investments are retained by the U.S. insurer, which is subject to tax on the earnings from the investments. Under these arrangements, the reinsurance payments are taken into account for purposes of the base erosion tax only when the U.S. insurance company actually makes payments to its foreign affiliate.

My understanding of the conference report is that it intended to limit the base erosion payment to the net amount paid to the foreign reinsurer, taking into account the amounts owed by the reinsurer to the U.S. party. That result is consistent with one of the fundamental principles underlying the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017: Assets generating income should be taxed where those assets are sited. In determining the amount of base erosion payments, the amount of premium paid to the reinsurer must be offset by any return premium, ceding commission, reinsurance recovered, or other amount received the insurance company with respect to the reinsurance for which such premium is paid to the reinsurer. Moreover, this treatment is consistent with the regulatory accounting regime imposed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Consistent with those principles, base erosion payments do not include amounts paid to a foreign affiliate that are subject to U.S. income tax. For example, payments to a foreign partnership by a U.S. taxpayer that the foreign partnership certifies are effectively connected income are not base erosion payments. The income has not been shifted offshore, and there has been no erosion of the tax base.