Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following motion to commit for the bill H.R. 1 be placed in the Congressional Record:

A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on

Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would protect families and small businesses from cost

increases by ending the trade war with Canada.

Madam President, first, I want to thank my colleagues and, especially just now, my colleague from Georgia, for their work tonight, for their expression of what is at stake in this moment. And to Senator Warnock, I say thank you and amen.

I am here today because I am joining the majority of Americans who are deeply alarmed by this plan from the President and his congressional allies, a plan that will make life less affordable for more Americans.

When we return home for this Fourth of July, it would be nice to be able to tell our constituents that we came together and passed bipartisan legislation to help bring down costs for families. Instead, my colleagues who vote for this legislation will have to explain why, at a time when families' pocketbooks are strained, they chose to support a partisan bill to make American life even less affordable.

What will America look like once this bill takes effect? Millions of people will have lost their health coverage thanks to the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. More people won't be able to afford preventive care and cancer screenings, and more people will get sick. Healthcare premiums will surge for everyone because fewer people will have care, and the number of uninsured Americans will increase.

Rural hospitals will close their doors because they lost Medicaid reimbursements that help keep them afloat. More people, especially in States like mine, will have to make long car rides just to get to a hospital 50 miles away in those desperate moments when minutes feel like hours and hours like eternities.

Seniors will be thrown into grave peril because this bill threatens hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts.

And once this plan eviscerates food assistance programs, it will be much harder for families to afford to put food on the table at a time when groceries are already far too expensive.

Let there be no mistake, more families and children who today are being fed will go hungry, and all the while our children will be burdened with trillions more in debt.

In the name of what cause is all this done? Well, it is all to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. This bill will also make us an America where our people are less free.

In New Hampshire, during my time as Governor, we adopted Medicaid expansion with support from both political parties, and we balanced the budget at the same time. We understood that, with health, comes freedom: the freedom to work and provide for one's family; the freedom from disease and despair; the freedom that comes from--why do I even have to say this?--being alive. Granite Staters also understood that a great country like ours treats its people with great dignity. In America, we don't sacrifice the health of our

neighbors, and we don't let families fall sick. We do not imperil our economy, our debt, and our workforce just to pay for a tax giveaway for a billionaire.

So what kind of country will we be with this bill? We will not only be less healthy, but we will be less prosperous and less free. In short, this bill is at odds with what we aspire to be as Americans.

It is also worth noting how remarkably out of step this bill is with the American people's plea to bring down costs. In a democracy like ours, theoretically, the people's representatives pass legislation that reflects the aspirations of the majority. I say ``theoretically'' because, clearly, that is not what is happening today. Indeed, according to the data from the Joint Economic Committee minority, if one combines this bill with the President's tariffs, then firefighters, truckdrivers, and teachers, for instance, will lose $470 or more next year while the top 0.1 percent--who are the people who earn about $4 million or more--will be $348,000 richer.

This bill would take away healthcare from tens of thousands of Granite Staters and would take a similar toll across the country. Indeed, in both Florida and Texas, the number of people who will lose their health insurance is greater than the entire population of New Hampshire--millions of people losing care with a stroke of a pen.

What have these people done to deserve that? All the American people are asking for is for us to help bring down costs. So the President and the Republicans in Congress take away their healthcare?

Sometimes in Washington, we are faced with bills that fail to fully meet the moment, to be sure, but it is rare to find legislation like this: a bill that makes life less affordable during a time when Americans of every political stripe are crying out for lower costs; a bill that seems as if it was drafted just to make a mockery of the wills and wishes of the majority of the people in this country.

Lately, many of my colleagues and some political pundits have been talking about this bill as if it were inevitable--a runaway freight train so vast that it cannot be stopped. In light of this inevitability, they suggest that some of the bill's deficiencies can just be overlooked. But, of course, this bill was not inevitable, nor is it now.

So let's be clear: Each and every Senator in this body has free will--God-given free will--which means that the measures in this legislation that gut Medicaid weren't written by mistake or by chance. We didn't arrive at this day with a vote on this terrible budget bill by accident. Let's not delude ourselves. We are only here because a majority in this body decided to ignore the majority of the country and make a series of decisions. The Republican majority decided to gut Medicaid. They decided to take away healthcare from millions. They decided to raise insurance premiums for the rest of us. They decided that closed hospitals were a risk worth taking. They decided that taking food away from hungry kids was acceptable. They decided that trillions more in debt was not a problem. The Republican majority decided that depriving the American people of all of these things and raising their costs were worth it just as long as they paid for another tax break for billionaires.

That is the bargain that this administration, along with my Republican colleagues, is forcing the American people to accept. Our people will be less healthy, and our kids will have more debt, but the President and billionaires like him will get a tax break.

Of course, part of what makes this bill so frustrating is it includes some individual provisions that I have spent years trying to pass into law. This bill includes provisions I support, some even that I authored, like strengthening the R&D tax deduction to support our entrepreneurs and a tax cut for families to make childcare more affordable. I also support this bill's provisions which would tackle our housing crisis by expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which would bring down the cost of housing, as well as a provision making mortgage insurance tax deductible so that it is easier to buy a home. I support a bill with real tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses, unlike the token measures included in this bill.

If my Republican colleagues worked across the aisle to draft a bill that brought this bipartisan approach to other critical areas like healthcare and food assistance, I would vote for it. Instead, my colleagues chose to take these commonsense solutions hostage by linking every good idea to three bad ones, turning this into a purely partisan endeavor. So, yes, I am glad that some of these bipartisan provisions will be signed into law, but I regret that they aren't a part of a truly bipartisan effort because of the politics of division and destruction that President Trump brings to Washington.

I know that there are many areas of common ground with my Republican colleagues in this body, but it has become far too difficult to move forward on finding solutions when, at every turn, the President seems far more interested in demonizing and dividing rather than in bringing people together; in turning areas of agreement into weapons to force disagreement. Now, that is exactly the kind of cynical politics of division that does lasting damage to our families, to our economy, and to our democracy.

President Trump, likely, will get this bill passed. He may get enough of the Republican caucus to stand in line once again to pass it, even though my Republican colleagues know that budget analysts have added up the financial cost of this bill and have told them that it adds trillions upon trillions to our national debt, burdening our children's futures.

But, you know, as important as the debt is, it is not the only cost of passing this awful bill. There is another kind of cost, a cost not simply of dollars and cents. I shouldn't have to remind this administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about the nature of this cost. They know it. Just to be clear, this tax break for corporate special interests and billionaires has a price--a price that can't be summed up in a budget line or written off during tax season--because when we debate healthcare in America, some dress up these discussions with words like ``reconciliation'' and ``program'' and ``discretionary spending,'' but what they are talking about is being sick and being healthy. What they are talking about, whether they want to admit it or not, is living and dying.

So how much does this bill cost?

The cost is that of millions of Americans losing their healthcare. The cost is of countless numbers of families feeling the pain of higher insurance premiums. The cost is a mother being forced to choose between paying out of pocket for her own care or paying for groceries for her kids. It is a price that is exacted in cancers that go undetected. It is exacted in chronic illnesses that go untreated. It is exacted in the healthcare challenges in our country that continue to go unaddressed because we spend all our energies simply trying to keep our heads above water in the floods of the President's own making.

The pricetag is more than dollars and cents. It includes the cost of losing more people from our workforce because they are too ill to work. It includes the gnawing pains of hunger and the slow toll of malnutrition that will come as food assistance programs are robbed. It includes the anguish of young parents who no longer know how they will make ends meet. It includes the lost hopes and deferred dreams of people held back by illness. It includes the cost of having to say more early good-byes.

What is the pricetag of this bill?

The price, in the end, is the health and freedom of millions of Americans. It is a price that will be paid because somewhere on the road that brought us here, here in President Trump's Washington, some people decided that the health of some child or her mother may be dear but that it doesn't carry the same weight that a bigger tax return for a billionaire does.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Motions to Commit for the bill H.R. 1 be placed in the Congressional Record:

A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on

Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would cut taxes and lower costs for middle class

families and small businesses, and eliminate tax breaks for

billionaires and corporate special interests.

A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on

Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would ensure that, consistent with current law, Federal

Medicaid funds are not used to provide health coverage for

undocumented immigrants.

A motion to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee on

Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) strike section 70411 (relating to tax credits for

contributions of individuals to scholarship granting

organizations) (including the amendments made by such

section) if it could result in expanded voucher programs that

support schools that do not comply with requirements of the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1400

et seq.) for students or their parents or guardians.

Mr. President, I am honored to recognize Lynette Kaichen of Effingham as June's Granite Stater of the Month. Lynette founded an organization that provides clothing to children being placed in emergency foster care.

Ten years ago, Lynette and her husband became foster parents for children in emergency cases. In an emergency removal, kids going into foster care have little time to pack a bag with personal items or clothes, which means that most kids show up to their foster home with nothing of their own. Lynette was frustrated by the lack of support for these children, who are already going through a traumatic experience and have often lost everything, and by the fact that they have to move into a new and unfamiliar situation without any possessions. She knew that emergency foster parents would likely have some toiletries and toys or books ready, but the main problem that she ran into was not being able to plan ahead and have the correct size of clothing on hand. Lynette realized that if an organization could have every size of clothing ready ahead of time, every child in a foster home could have the clothes that they need.

Lynette decided to take action. She started The Pass Along Project from her kitchen table, putting together kits full of over a week's worth of clothing and shoes in every possible size from newborn to adult, ready to be delivered on short notice to a foster parent giving a child a home. Over the past 8 years, the organization has grown to include a warehouse in Pembroke, and The Pass Along Project now serves more than 500 children across New Hampshire each year. Lynette's goal is to be able to provide kits for all children in our State in foster care and also those who have entered the care of their relatives under similar circumstances.

Lynette's dedication to supporting to children that are going through a difficult time is an outstanding example of the Granite State spirit of stepping up to help those in need. Her compassion and attentiveness to children entering foster care is why I am proud to name her June's Granite Stater of the Month.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues to stand up for the freedom of American women as we mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, and I want to thank Senator Blunt Rochester and my colleagues for leading this effort on the floor this afternoon.

In New Hampshire, we proudly call ourselves the Live Free or Die State, and today, I would like to take a moment to reflect on what the Dobbs decision--a decision that represents the largest attack on freedom in modern American political history--means not only for the future of American women but, even more fundamentally, for freedom in our democracy itself.

It is difficult to keep up with the Trump administration's attacks on freedom, with attacks on our rights to due process, freedom of speech and expression, freedom to vote, and more. Perhaps the President hopes that with each cascading outrage, the American people will forget that he set in motion the events that led to the Supreme Court taking away freedom from half of our population--the fundamental freedom of a woman to make her own health decisions. But, of course, we haven't forgotten. We Americans have never been inclined to forget attacks on our liberties.

What did the Dobbs decision mean? It took away a woman's freedom to make deeply personal health decisions, the freedom to decide when and if to start a family, the freedom to get lifesaving care when a woman's health is imperiled while pregnant.

This is more than a freedom to get a specific medical procedure. In practice, we are talking about the freedom to chart one's own future--a freedom which should be enjoyed by all free and equal citizens in a democracy. But with the Dobbs decision, for the first time in our country's history, our daughters are now less free than their mothers were at their age. Since the Dobbs decision, we have become a country where a fundamental freedom can vanish once a woman crosses a State line. We have returned to a kind of sectionalism of bygone eras that history should have taught us to avoid where women who are pregnant and live in States with draconian laws banning abortion know that in the event of a dire medical emergency, they may have to make a long drive to cross State lines or run the risk of being thrown in jail for just trying to get lifesaving care.

This isn't hypothetical. Already, lives have been imperiled and even lost in experiences that we have heard from Georgia, Florida, Texas, and in States all across the country.

Indeed, at this very moment, Members of this body are seeking to pass legislation--the Republican budget bill--which would, among other measures, make it impossible for many women to get the care they need and shut down women's healthcare clinics all across the country. Their legislation is effectively the final step in establishing a backdoor national abortion ban.

So, to my Republican colleagues: Please stop singing the same song to us that the women of America are being alarmist--a song that we heard before Roe was overturned and that we have continued to hear since. I want to know just when exactly in the process of having one's freedom stripped away are we allowed to become alarmed. Are we only allowed to be concerned about losing a fundamental freedom once that freedom has become nothing more than a memory?

Ultimately, behind all of this talk of laws and precedent, of State statutes and Federal, behind all the medical discussion about women's healthcare, the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe begs us to ask a question as simple and as fundamental as they come, a question that the opponents of reproductive freedom and the President himself ought to answer: When our Declaration of Independence declared that all are created equal, does that promise belong to American women or do we believe that truth is not self-evident after all?

When the suffragettes at Seneca Falls wrote that they ``insist women have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States,'' do we still believe those words or were the suffragettes wrong?

Do we believe that we are better off when everyone gets to chart their own future? In the land of the free, do the full blessings of liberty belong to our daughters as well as our sons?

Can a democracy like ours persist when, divided by State lines, half its people live half-free? In the end, that is what this debate is really all about.

So what is it, on this anniversary, that America's women ask for? It is simple. They want what all Americans want. Their aspiration is to be free. And so long as we wish to call ourselves the world's greatest democracy, the President and this body would do well to remember our country's promise and heed their call.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I am honored to recognize Catherine Reed of Hanover as May's Granite Stater of the Month. Catherine started a food pantry, called the Food-is-Medicine Pantry, at the Dartmouth Cancer Center when she saw how many of her cancer patients needed food assistance.

Three years ago, Catherine was working at the Dartmouth Cancer Center as a social worker when she discovered that there was a significant gap in resources for her patients. She was helping a patient get assistance with paying for rent, car payments, and fuel oil, but learned that the patient was also struggling to afford their groceries. Catherine realized that there were very few options for food assistance for her patients, and the stigma surrounding food insecurity stopped many of her patients from asking for help. Catherine decided to take action, and with the help of a coworker Chelsey Canavan, Catherine secured funding for a food pantry at the Dartmouth Cancer Center, with fresh and healthy donations provided by a local nonprofit organization.

Catherine knew that in order for the food pantry to improve the lives of her patients, she needed to make sure that anyone who needed help was comfortable asking for it. She explained to her patients that proper nutrition is a part of the treatment for their cancer because the stronger that someone goes into treatment, the stronger they can come out of it. Catherine took grocery orders from her patients daily and delivered the groceries to people's cars before they left in order to make things as easy as possible for them.

Catherine saw firsthand the difference that food assistance makes for cancer patients. She began working to expand the food pantry program, including collecting data, presenting a poster at an oncology conference, contacting a hospital in Tennessee to learn about their food pantry so that she could model best practices, and creating a referral system to bring more patients into the program. The program's eligibility has grown to include all patients at the center, and for each patient who chooses to participate, their entire family is provided with fresh and healthy food harvested and delivered by local organizations.

Catherine's attentiveness to her patients is a great example of the Granite State spirit of going above and beyond for your community. She saw a problem and did not look around for someone else to solve it. She got to work. Her determination and her compassion is why I am proud to name her May's Granite Stater of the Month.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I am honored to recognize Meenakshi Dwaraka and Salome Castillo Valencia of Nashua as April's Granite Staters of the Month for their work to establish a free coding class for local elementary school students.

Both Meenakshi, 16, and Salome, 17, were interested in coding from a young age. Meenakshi's dad, a computer scientist, first inspired her to develop digital skills, and she quickly realized that she enjoyed competing in coding competitions. Salome learned how to build websites and code during the Covid-19 pandemic and has continued to improve her skills and even sell websites that she has created. The girls, who met in sixth grade, noticed that there were not many opportunities to learn computer skills until students entered high school, despite the increasing importance of the field. They decided to help fill this gap by starting a free coding class for students in third grade through fifth grade so that kids from all backgrounds could learn the basics of coding from a young age.

The class, which Meenakshi and Salome teach at their local community center in Nashua, has grown over the weeks. When they first started offering the class, they didn't have very many students, but over time, they have seen an increase in attendance and interest. Students from different high schools in the area have also reached out to ask for help in starting their own classes and expanding the program. Students in the class learn block coding, basic robotics, and computer safety, giving students the opportunity to learn skills that will eventually help them compete in the 21st century economy.

Meenakshi and Salome's dedication to increasing access to computer skills is an excellent example of the Granite State spirit of sharing knowledge in order to empower others. Their commitment to helping students from all backgrounds prepare for the future--and have fun--is why I am glad to name them April's Granite Staters of the Month.

Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Baldwin, for such excellent, poignant, moving descriptions of the real cost of this budget plan that we are on the floor to consider tonight.

I rise today to join my colleagues and the people of New Hampshire in standing up against the attempt by the Trump administration and some of my Republican colleagues to effectively end Medicaid as we know it and add $37 trillion over the next 30 years to our national debt, all in order to pay for more tax giveaways for corporate special interests and billionaires.

Americans of every political stripe are alarmed because this bid to end Medicaid as we know it will lead to more families, more children becoming sick and unable to get care, and because ending Medicaid as we know it will devastate our economy, weaken our workforce, and, most of all, make our people less free.

Medicaid is a pillar of America's healthcare system. Tens of millions of Americans, including working Americans, pregnant women, and millions of children depend on Medicaid every day for routine care, for treatment for chronic illnesses, for lifesaving care from serious illnesses, for treatment for addiction, and for much more.

No legislation has done more to allow more Americans to live longer and healthier lives than the bills that established Medicaid and Medicare and the efforts that followed to strengthen both of these landmark laws.

So before we proceed, let's take a step back for a moment and remember that Congress created Medicaid for two simple reasons. Prior to Medicaid's creation, a great swath of our country--tens of millions of Americans--were

forced to try and get by without healthcare. For many working people and their families, the kind of routine and preventive care that many today take for granted, were luxuries. Serious illnesses were often left untreated, becoming virtual death sentences.

We established and later expanded Medicaid because we understood that, in a country as great as ours, we don't turn our backs on our neighbors. But we also created Medicaid because we know that it is in all of our economic interests to have more healthy people. When more people are healthy and able to work, they can get ahead and stay ahead, provide a better life for their family, join the workforce, and, in so doing, make our economy stronger.

There is, of course, much more work to do to make healthcare more affordable for all of our people. But Medicaid saves lives. Over the course of the program's history, Medicaid has allowed hundreds of millions of Americans who otherwise would be uninsured to live healthier lives and to build a future.

But now the Trump administration and some of my Republican colleagues are poised to end Medicaid as we know it in order to pay for tax breaks for corporate special interests and billionaires.

The Republican plan to eviscerate Medicaid would be devastating to our country. The Republican plan is, unsurprisingly, short on details. But they have put forward proposals that, if you do the math, mean cutting a third of Federal Medicaid funding, all to give billionaires and corporate special interests a tax break.

Now, let's look at what this decidedly unreasonable, outrageous, and dangerous plan would do. Cutting Medicaid by a third means living in a country where millions of children no longer have healthcare; a country where more of our friends and neighbors get sick and can't afford to see a doctor; a country where more of our friends and neighbors stay out of the workforce because they can't afford treatments for chronic conditions like lupus, making them too sick to work; a country where families who have children with disabilities can't find adequate coverage to provide the kind of complex care, both at home and in school, that these children need. One issue, in particular, I want to highlight is the way in which slashing Medicaid would weaken our fight against addiction.

New Hampshire has been hit hard by the fentanyl crisis. These Medicaid cuts could kick hundreds of thousands of people struggling with addiction off of Medicaid, out of treatment, and off the road to recovery. This will, among other things, make law enforcement's job even harder, and it will make our children less safe.

So let's be clear about what the Republican plan to slash Medicaid will do. It will make people less healthy. It will weaken our workforce and hurt our economy. The fight against fentanyl will only get tougher, and more people will die who otherwise could have lived.

In the administration's plan to eviscerate Medicaid, the cuts only appear on the page as percentages and dollar signs, but their impact will be felt by real people.

My office, as has Senator Baldwin's, Senator Kim's, and Senator Durbin's, has been deluged with letters and calls from constituents who are concerned about the administration's attack on Medicaid.

I could tell you hundreds of stories, but instead I will just give you three.

There is Michelle from Manchester. She was diagnosed with a rare and frequently fatal form of cancer that upended her career and her life. To go through the long process of cancer treatment by paying out of pocket would be daunting, perhaps even prohibitive for most anyone. But Michelle was covered by Medicaid. She got the care that she needed. She got healthy. She was able to go back to work. She is now cancer-free because of her courage and strength and because she was covered by Medicaid.

Then there is Noa from Merrimack. Now, Noa is 20 years old and experiences disabilities and is blind. She has had to face challenges that few of us can imagine. But thanks in part to the support that she has received through Medicaid, she has been able to have many of the opportunities that all parents want for their kids and that all kids want for themselves.

She has a part-time job at a nearby bank. She does charity work delivering flowers to seniors. She loves horseback riding and has competed as a Special Olympian. She accomplished all this thanks to her bravery, optimism, and generosity, but she may not have even gotten that chance without Medicaid.

And then there is Cheri from Lebanon. Like other Granite Staters, she has had struggles with addiction, as well as mental health challenges, but Cheri was eligible for Medicaid. She got treatment and went into recovery. She was able to go back to work. Today, Cheri is a perinatal peer support educator and coordinator for Dartmouth Health. She helps families every day. Because she got care when she needed it, she is now working to provide care for others, touching untold and unknown numbers of lives through her work. And she was my guest this year at the President's joint address to Congress. But none of her recovery, employment, and lifesaving work would have been possible or happened without Medicaid.

So if the administration intends to eviscerate Medicaid, if they intend to go through with their plan to cut Medicaid by a third to pay for a tax break for billionaires, then before they do, they should at least stop and explain to these three people--Michelle, Noa, Cheri--who is the one that they want to kick off of Medicaid.

How would any of us be better off if any of these three people are forced to go without healthcare?

Most Americans are proud of our capacity to come together and ensure that our friends and neighbors can get healthcare and be able to work and raise families. But this administration evidently considers the provision of lifesaving healthcare to Americans from all walks of life to be a problem.

Now, beyond the huge pricetag of this budget plan--a plan that explodes the deficit by 37 trillion more dollars over 30 years--and let's be clear: The Republican budget writers are going to use accounting gimmicks to try to hide this cost. And let's be clear too that the $37 trillion in additional debt won't be used to improve healthcare. It is to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.

But there is another cost to the President's attacks on Medicaid, because as important as it is that we protect the healthcare provided by Medicare--and that is tremendously important--protecting Medicaid healthcare marks neither the beginning nor the end of what we need to do to improve healthcare in our country and make it more affordable.

We need to confront real challenges in our country's healthcare system. Big Pharma keeps drug prices too high. We have the best doctors in the world, but too few people can afford to see them. Too many Americans live with chronic diseases.

Labor and delivery centers across our country are more and more scarce, and rural hospitals are struggling. Americans need to summon our best ideas and our best efforts to meet these challenges, but we will not make progress so long as this administration continues to keep us trapped in old debates and tries to unravel bipartisan support for the progress that we have already made.

Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. When I was Governor of New Hampshire, we managed to expand Medicaid and balance the budget at the same time, and we did both on a bipartisan basis. We did it with the support of many business leaders and law enforcement leaders who didn't always vote the same way come November, but they did agree that we are all better off when people are healthy.

President Trump and congressional Republicans are presenting us with a false choice. We don't have to choose between keeping the status quo on the one hand and blowing up our healthcare system on the other. We don't have to buy the falsehood that, somehow, we have to close rural hospitals and throw seniors out of our nursing homes to improve our healthcare system. There are better ideas, and a whole lot of them are bipartisan.

There are bipartisan bills right now to lower the costs for patients when they go to the doctor by implementing something called site neutrality. There are bipartisan bills that will lower drug

costs by bringing more generic drugs to market. But these ideas only help if there is a functioning healthcare system to build on--a functioning healthcare system, as challenged as it is, that includes Medicaid.

As Americans, we don't shrink from challenges. We don't surrender to cynicism and lies. We work together. We do hard things. We do what it takes to build a better future for our country, and we do it in a way that brings all of us along together, and that includes ensuring that all of us have healthcare. That is the way we created Medicaid. That is the way we expanded Medicaid. And it is through that same spirit of hard work and optimism that we can overcome the healthcare challenges of today if we can summon the political will to do it.

A will has been so sorely lacking since this President arrived on the scene. The Senate should not pass a budget that rips healthcare away from millions of Americans--60,000 of whom live in my State--just to give tax cuts to billionaires, but that is what this budget will do. It is un-American, and it is shameful.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

Well, Senator Booker, I have a question for you about Medicaid and Medicaid expansion, but I want to start with a little bit of background.

As you may recall, when I was Governor of New Hampshire, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the program Medicaid expansion became an option for my State, and I worked with people of both political parties to make sure that the people of New Hampshire could actually get the benefit of Medicaid expansion.

Expanded Medicaid meant that for the first time, working adults who couldn't earn enough money to actually buy insurance themselves but who were working and single could actually get healthcare coverage. Medicaid expansion meant that people with mental illness who wouldn't be covered by traditional Medicaid actually could get healthcare and could get coverage. People with substance use disorder--with addiction--could finally get Medicaid coverage and get better.

We worked across party lines. It took a few tries, but we got Medicaid expansion done in New Hampshire, and today, Medicaid covers more than 180,000 people in my State, including more than 90,000 children, more than 15,000 people with disabilities, and nearly 10,000 seniors.

Here is another number that people don't always think about: It covers 10,000 people who are getting addiction treatment. My State, as you know, has been very, very hard hit by the fentanyl crisis, and you know, when the President gave his joint address in March, I brought a woman from New Hampshire with me who had been suffering from addiction. Medicaid expansion covered her treatment. She got into recovery. She is now working in the private sector but also offering counseling and peer recovery services to people who are trying to get their addiction treated through Medicaid expansion, and she is now on private insurance.

I remember talking to another Granite Stater while we were working to pass Medicaid expansion. She had been laid off from her job as part of the great recession, right? She had had an ongoing, chronic stomach condition. As she got laid off, her health insurance went away, too, and she couldn't afford the COBRA fee to keep her health insurance. She couldn't get healthcare, so she got sicker and sicker, and she couldn't go to work. But because she was a single adult, she couldn't get Medicaid coverage. So here is somebody who has been working, who wants to work, who has a chronic illness and can't get to work. We passed Medicaid expansion. She got coverage, she got treatment, and she got back to work.

The other great benefit of Medicaid expansion covering people with addiction in New Hampshire has been that, as people have gotten better and as more and more physicians have learned to integrate addiction care into primary care, we have a lot more people in recovery.

Like many of our States, we also have a workforce shortage. What has been happening now? New Hampshire is a leader in recovery-friendly workplaces so that people who got this Medicaid expansion coverage got their addictions treated, got better, can go to work in the private sector, and get private insurance. That is some of the benefit of Medicaid expansion.

But, of course, what we are hearing about now from the House and Senate Republicans is their desire to make massive cuts to Medicaid, including Medicaid expansion, and they are doing it. They want to rip away healthcare from millions of Americans so that they can pay for big tax breaks for billionaires and corporate special interests.

The Republicans have proposed cutting up to a third of Federal funding for Medicaid. If those cuts go into effect, that could mean 30,000 children in my State will lose their healthcare coverage. That means one in five seniors in New Hampshire could lose their nursing home care. All told, that could mean 60,000 people cut off from Medicaid, including, for instance, a young man whose parents I just met at the airport, actually, who has autism. Medicaid pays for his healthcare, but he could be cut off too.

So if Republicans continue with this plan, I am really, really concerned about what is going to happen to the millions of Americans who currently get their healthcare through Medicaid.

Senator Booker, can you address the ways in which Medicaid helps provide healthcare for Americans and the disastrous impact it would have if Republicans proceed with their plan to take coverage away from up to 25 million Americans just so that they can pay for big tax breaks, by the way, for people who are already billionaires?

Yes.

Yes, we do.

Will the Senator yield for another question?

Well, thank you for yielding the floor for a question while retaining the floor, and thank you for the very nice compliments.

I do have a question for you about Social Security, and then I think another colleague of mine has additional questions.

But, look, as you know, we just talked about my wonderful State, New Hampshire. You also just talked about your mother. And I should just also let you know that my mother always made me memorize the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. So as I listened to you read it, I thought, Mom--

I hope my mom is watching right now.

But here is my question. And just by way of background, as you know, New Hampshire is a small State. It is a very rural State. And, recently, the Trump-Musk forces have announced that they want to close a Social Security office in Littleton, NH.

Now, in Littleton, NH, that Social Security office, which takes applications and provides technical assistance for people who need Social Security or need Medicare or who have questions about their current coverage--it is the northern-most office in New Hampshire.

So they close that office, and now my folks in the North Country--and there are about 334,000 in New Hampshire with Social Security. My people in the North Country will have to drive as far as 100 miles to go to another New Hampshire Social Security office.

And, meanwhile, of course, they are laying off people from Social Security offices, and they are making it harder to get assistance via the telephone, which, as you know, many people who are on Social Security find the telephone the easiest way to make a connection to get technical assistance.

Elon Musk has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. He says he wants to cut $700 billion from Social Security and Medicare. So my question to you, as we are looking at an administration that says that it wants to make things more efficient but is actually laying people off, closing offices, making it harder for people to actually connect with a Social Security office--my concerns, of course, are that this is just going to delay claims, delay coverage, make it harder for people to get on Social Security because, actually, Trump and Musk want to cut Social Security. Trump said, of course, that he was going to protect it when it he was running for office, but now he is letting Musk do his cuts.

So, Senator Booker, can you speak to the ways in which seniors across the country count on the Social Security benefits that they have paid into?

This is not charity. People pay into the Social Security system. They earn the benefit.

And can you talk about the disastrous impacts if this administration takes benefits--Social Security, Medicare--away from our seniors?

A hundred miles.

You did very well.

Thank you.

Madam President, I am honored to recognize Kenneth Chapman of Woodstock as March's Granite Stater of the Month. Kenneth recently retired after serving as Woodstock's town moderator for 50 years.

Kenneth was raised to believe that service to his community and to others needed to be a priority. After settling in Woodstock as a young adult, Kenneth began attending school board meetings and joined different town committees. Kenneth enjoyed the ways in which the small town allowed him to directly feel the impact of his efforts to give back to his community. After being asked to moderate a special town election in 1975, Kenneth realized that he had a passion for upholding democracy and ran for the official role of town moderator. He continued to serve in this all-important role through this year's town meeting season, marking 50 years in service to Woodstock.

During his half century of service, Kenneth has had a tangible impact on his community. He has seen the town grow and adapt to new technology, personally overseeing the switch to more modern voting machines, even as he has continued to ensure that Woodstock voters freely and civilly participated in countless elections and town meetings. Over the years, Kenneth also helped his community as a nationally registered paramedic, as an incorporator and trustee of the North Country Center for the Arts, as a member of the Western White Mountains Chamber, and as a member of the Lincoln-Woodstock Cooperative School Board.

Kenneth's commitment to service as town moderator is an excellent reflection of New Hampshire's commitment to safeguarding free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy. And his devotion to serving the Woodstock community in countless other ways as well is a great example of the way Granite Staters take it upon themselves to work with their friends and neighbors to solve problems. I am proud to name Kenneth Chapman as March's Granite Stater of the Month.

Mr. President, I am honored to recognize Amber Morgan of Nashua as February's Granite Stater of the Month. Amber's flower shop Fortin Gage Flowers sells a special floral arrangement every month and donates the proceeds to a local community group.

Amber is an active member of the Nashua community. She sits on the city's citizen advisory committee and has built relationships with many local organizations. In the 2 years that she has owned Fortin Gage Flowers, Amber has often donated bouquets for charity events.

Amber's new Flowers for Good Campaign spotlights a different organization every month with a unique bouquet. Amber donates proceeds from the sale of the arrangement to the organization and the recipient of the bouquet can learn about the group from an information card included with the flowers. Amber sees the campaign as a way to spread awareness of groups in the area that are helping Granite Staters in a fun and creative way.

Amber's passion for uplifting local organizations is a wonderful example of the Granite State spirit of going the extra mile to support your community. Her commitment to lifting up others is why I am proud to name her February's Granite Stater of the Month.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Fritz Wetherbee, a New Hampshire icon who is retiring after six remarkable decades of bringing our State's rich history to life.

For generations of Granite Staters, Fritz has been the trusted voice and friendly face of New Hampshire history. He has recorded more than 5,000 segments of ``Fritz Wetherbee's New Hampshire'' for WMUR's ``New Hampshire Chronicle,'' traveling to every corner of the State to uncover and share the fascinating historical accounts that make the Granite State unique. His iconic voice and witty personality have made our State's history accessible and entertaining for audiences of all ages. Just hearing his voice on a Chronicle segment--especially after a long week away from New Hampshire--is its own unique and comforting ``welcome home.''

A native of New Hampshire, Fritz returned home after serving in the U.S. Army and built a career in media, including various roles for local radio stations, reporting for the Monadnock Ledger, joining New Hampshire Public Television for educational programming, and eventually launching his namesake segment in 2001 on WMUR. He also shared his expertise with the next generation by teaching journalism at Keene State University. His work has garnered both critical acclaim and academic recognition, including five Emmy Awards and honorary degrees from the University of New Hampshire and Rivier College. Fritz's career exemplifies a genuine commitment to preserving and sharing our State's heritage, setting the standard for excellence in New Hampshire journalism.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Fritz Wetherbee for his decades of service to New Hampshire and to wish him well in his well- deserved retirement. His work has not only educated and entertained us but also strengthened the bonds that tie our communities together through shared history and traditions.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Vermont for his eloquent words just now, for his passion for his constituents and for all Americans and his understanding of the importance of healthcare to the people we all represent.

I rise to join my colleagues in opposing the attempts by the President and congressional Republicans to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires by ending Medicaid as we know it, cutting healthcare for children, seniors in nursing homes, adults with developmental disabilities, and hard-working families.

At a time when American families are struggling to keep up with high costs, I can imagine few ideas more ill-advised, more counterproductive, more outrageous, and more devastating than to make lifesaving healthcare unaffordable for millions of our fellow Americans.

Millions of people depend on Medicaid every day. For families who are struggling to make ends meet, Medicaid gives them the ability to get care, whether that means routine checkups, preventive care, or treatment for serious illnesses or disease.

Medicaid also provides long-term care to many seniors and to people with disabilities, including children with autism, Down syndrome, or cerebral palsy. They all depend on Medicaid for medical care and support services.

Congress created and expanded and strengthened Medicaid for two main reasons--first, because we understood that in a country as great as ours, we can't turn our backs on our neighbors. There is nothing American about leaving seniors or families with children with disabilities to fend for themselves. A great country treats its people with great dignity.

But we also passed Medicaid because we know that it is in all of our economic interests to have more healthy people. When more people are healthy and able to work, they can get ahead and stay ahead, provide a better life for their family, join the workforce, contribute their talents, and in so doing, make our economy stronger.

Our country is not better off or made more prosperous when more of our fellow citizens fall ill to preventable diseases or are held back by chronic illnesses or when people with disabilities can't get the support they need to get jobs or participate in our communities.

But even as families try to keep up with high costs, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans decided that now is the time to raise healthcare costs and make healthcare more unaffordable for tens of millions of Americans. The proposed Republican budget will require major cuts to Medicaid, slashing hundreds of billions of dollars from this critical health program simply to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires.

Now, some of my colleagues defending the President may point out that during an interview last night, the President insisted that he had no plans to cut Medicaid. However, as the Sun rose this morning, the President came out in full support of the Republican budget proposal--a budget that would eviscerate Medicaid. Look, if the President doesn't want to cut Medicaid, then he shouldn't endorse a budget that ends Medicaid as we know it.

Let's take a moment and discuss what slashing Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars will actually do because we can't forget that in the Senate, when we are debating dollars, we are really talking about people. We are talking about our constituents.

We are talking about Michelle, a Granite Stater from Manchester who

was diagnosed with a rare cancer and was only able to get treatment and get healthy enough so she could go back to work because of Medicaid.

We are talking about Jim, a Granite Stater who was born with cerebral palsy but was able to go to college, get a job, get married, and raise a daughter because he got the care and support he needed--yes, through Medicaid.

We are talking about Ashley, a Granite Stater who struggled with addiction to opioids and lost her husband to an overdose. Ashley was able to get her life back on track and now works to help others recover from addiction just like she did because of treatments she received through Medicaid.

These are just a few of the people that my office has heard from who benefit from Medicaid. And it is not just them. In New Hampshire, there are 180,000 people on Medicaid--that is over 10 percent of our State's population--including more than 90,000 children, more than 1,500 pregnant women, more than 15,000 people with disabilities, nearly 10,000 seniors, nearly 10,000 Granite Staters who are struggling with addiction who depend on Medicaid for medication-assisted treatment, the gold standard of addiction care. So make no mistake, when the President and his allies in Congress talk about decimating Medicaid, these are the people whose lives they are playing with.

So before the President and some of my colleagues proceed, the American people deserve some answers. Would our country be better off if any of the people whose experiences I discussed didn't receive care? Would our country be better off if we left people like Michelle, Christine, Jim, and Ashley to fend for themselves? Is America--our economy, our workforce--better off with more people sick?

Who do these cuts serve? The millions of Americans who would lose their care--what wrong did they commit? What did they do to deserve losing their healthcare? If the President and his allies in Congress end Medicaid as we know it, I don't know what any of the millions of people on Medicaid, the Granite Staters I have heard from--I don't know what they are going to do, and to be blunt, neither does the President or my Republican colleagues. But they are apparently all in on taking away Medicaid without any plan to help my constituents or theirs preserve access to high-quality healthcare and the peace of mind that comes with it.

Of course, what is remarkable about the President's attempt to gut Medicaid is how painfully out of step he is with the country. And I think he knows it. The American people are clamoring for prices to come down. They want us to work together to bring down costs. You can search all across our country, from New Hampshire to the Pacific Northwest, to a thousand towns in between, and you will not find anyone who is asking for their healthcare to become even less affordable. No, the only people who think that are Washington Republicans.

It doesn't have to be this way. In New Hampshire, when I was Governor, we expanded Medicaid and balanced the budget, and we did both on a bipartisan basis.

Now, there is wasteful spending that we need to cut, to be sure, but if the President and my colleagues listen to the American people, if they talked to families in New Hampshire, they would know that only in Washington, DC, is money used to help a child with autism go to school and reach their full potential regarded as a waste.

So before my colleagues try to pass this budget, the American people deserve to know why support for a child with asthma or treatment for someone struggling with addiction should be sacrificed to pay for another tax break for a billionaire. The American people deserve to know at what point the President decided that the health of their families was expendable. The American people deserve to know why the President is not interested in lowering costs but has instead decided to weaken our economy, hamper our workforce, and make life less affordable for more Americans.

I urge my colleagues to reverse course and work across the aisle on a bipartisan basis to protect Medicaid and lower costs for our families.

I yield the floor.