Floor Statements

Mr. President, the Appropriations Committee takes very seriously the oversight and accountability of every CDS request. The project and certifications for each item are posted on both the committee website and Members' official website. Senators have to certify that neither they nor any immediate family member has a financial interest in the item request, and GAO, which is Congress's nonpartisan auditor, conducts an analysis of select projects every year.

The Johnson amendment would prohibit virtually any public communication about CDS and make the process less transparent.

This amendment states the remedy for breaking that new rule, for telling our constituents what we are doing is to rescind that CDS.

This is an important way for Senators to advocate for their States and communities through investments in local projects like improving transportation, drinking water infrastructure, workforce programs, childcare centers.

This amendment would take away your ability to be responsive to your communities. We absolutely should be letting our constituents know what we are doing here and what we are advocating for.

I strongly urge you to oppose this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 3428

Mr. President, I echo the thanks to all of our subcommittee and committee members and especially to the chair of our committee, Senator Collins, all of our staff--everyone who has worked really hard to get here.

These are good, bipartisan bills--bills that make crucial investments to help all of our farms and families and veterans and servicemembers thrive.

I urge a ``yes'' vote. I believe Congress should decide how to spend taxpayer dollars. This is how we do it. Vote yes.

Vote on Amendment No. 3411, as Amended

Mr. President, the National Counterterrorism Center plays a crucial role keeping our country safe. The Agency is responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence to help protect our Nation from terrorist threats. It is sober, serious work that requires a level head and a commitment to putting the mission before politics, which is why I am deeply alarmed that Republicans are charging ahead to put it under the thumb of a conspiracy theorist who espouses White supremacist views and is patently unqualified for this important role in just about every way imaginable.

You are supposed to pick people with qualifications, but just about everything we know about Joe Kent is disqualifying for this role and alarming. There is his track record chumming it up with White supremacists, from discussing campaign strategy with avowed White supremacist Nick Fuentes to giving an interview to a guy who has defended Hitler, to rallying with the founder of a far-right paramilitary group. And let's not forget the Proud Boy that he hired as a consultant.

And it is not just his connections. There is his own bigoted statements, like claiming Islam is ``based on conquest at its core'' and pushing racist ``replacement theory'' rhetoric. That is alarming stuff. Let's be frank: These are White supremacist views, and they should have absolutely no place in our Federal Government.

And then there is his track record of politicizing intelligence, like when he was caught redhanded pushing to change intelligence reports-- facts be damned--so they would agree with Trump and attack Biden.

Joe Kent also has a track record of peddling conspiracies and attacking law enforcement, from saying our country is at war with a ``leftist cabal'' or calling to completely defund the FBI and ATF, Agencies that keep Americans safe from foreign and domestic threats, or pushing the offensive and false conspiracy that the January 6 insurrection was somehow a deep-state plot.

You want to know who in the Federal Government was behind the insurrection? How about we start with the man in the White House who promised to march to the Capitol with them. How about we start with the President who calls rioters patriots. How about we start with the guy who pardoned violent cop beaters en masse.

If you cannot be honest with the American people about January 6, you have no business being trusted with protecting our democracy. It should be that simple.

And let's not forget, Joe Kent was on the infamous Signalgate chat, where classified attack plans were discussed with no regard for security, for law, not to mention the safety of our servicemembers.

You know what he had to say about that? He said no classified information was discussed. That was the answer he gave at his Senate confirmation hearing.

Now, it is obvious that answer was a complete lie. Last week, the Pentagon's watchdog confirmed there was classified information in that Signal chat.

So was Kent being intentionally dishonest or does he not understand what classified information is? Either way, it is completely disqualifying, which, as I think I made clear, is pretty much the pattern here.

So here is my warning to Republicans. Confirming someone like Joe Kent to lead the National Counterterrorism Center makes about as much sense as putting Donald Trump in charge of releasing the Epstein files after all that we have learned. We have all the evidence we could ever need in the public record right now that he is not going to do the right thing, and we have no reason to believe he will do this important, high-stakes work in a serious, impartial manner, let alone a competent one.

So I am here to urge all my colleagues to join me in doing exactly what people back in Washington State have done each time they were asked to trust Joe Kent: vote no.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I appreciate the Senator from Utah being here tonight to offer this package, but I believe there needs to be a more bipartisan and thoughtful way to consider how we protect the future of our public lands.

For example, the legislation that the senior Senator from Utah wants to pass tonight does not include my Wild Olympics bill. Now, this is a bill that will help preserve the wild and scenic rivers of the Olympic Peninsula. That has very strong support from Democrats and Republicans in my State. There is a strong nonpartisan coalition of support for this bill from Tribes, hunters, fishermen, conservationists, and even loggers. That is because my bill supports the peninsula economy and ensures continued access to our world-class outdoor recreation on the Olympic Peninsula, and it preserves critical habitat for salmon and water resources for our very rural communities.

Moreover, this bill has passed the House several times now with bipartisan support. In fact, I have been working on this for over a decade to build support and consensus around this bill. It is carefully drafted, it is a thoughtful piece of legislation, and the grassroots support for this bill has only grown over the years. That is exactly the kind of bill which should be included in a bipartisan public lands package.

I would invite the senior Senator from Utah to visit the land this bill covers, to help protect our Olympic National Forest.

I think you would find out why I am here tonight objecting to this because it doesn't include it.

I want the Senator from Utah to know that my door is always open. I hope that in the future, we can work together in drafting a public lands bill that does include legislation like my Wild Olympics bill, and I know I am not alone. Many of our colleagues have worked on important legislation for their respective States.

So for now, I object, but I do so with my hand outstretched, ready to work with the Senator together on a public lands package that is comprehensive.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 6 minutes prior to the vote.

Mr. President, today, I will be voting to move ahead with the first spending bill for fiscal year 2026.

Now, there is no doubt that the path forward on appropriations this year has been made extremely challenging by President Trump's flagrant lack of regard for Congress and our laws, and it has not been made any easier by the unprecedented partisan rescissions package that Republicans passed last week. But we cannot afford another slush fund, full-year CR, and we cannot accept the draconian cuts being pushed by Trump and House Republicans. So we do need to chart a different path forward and pass full-year, bipartisan spending bills that invest in folks back home and make sure Congress and our constituents have a say in Federal spending. The way, of course, to ensure that happens is through a bipartisan appropriations process.

So I am very glad that, thanks to the senior Senator from Georgia, working across the aisle with his partner, the senior Senator from Arkansas, we were able to negotiate and report out of committee a good bill to fund our military construction needs and the Department of Veterans Affairs in fiscal year 2026.

As the daughter of a World War II veteran, the programs we fund in the MILCON-VA bill are very personal to me. Doing right by our vets and getting them the care they need and the support they were promised is a moral obligation, which is why I am pleased to say the MILCON-VA bill we are voting on delivers the funding needed to live up to our Nation's commitments to our veterans and makes crucial investments to support our servicemembers and our national security.

The bill includes essential funds for VA care, including rural health, women's health, medical research, and the caregivers program I have long championed, and for the first time, it puts funding levels for those important programs in statute. It also expands the pilot I started to make sure that childcare is not a barrier to any veteran who needs care and increases funding to address veteran homelessness and mental health needs.

When it comes to supporting our servicemembers and their families, there are investments for nearly 300 construction projects, including new family housing construction and child development centers.

There are also investments to bolster our footprint in the Pacific and support our NATO projects. These are incredibly important to our soldiers, to our veterans, and to our national security.

No doubt there is more I would like to see done in this bill. It is not, of course, the bill I would have written on my own. But I do hope Republicans will work with us now to consider critical amendments to improve the bill and make sure the administration actually delivers for veterans, something I think it has certainly failed to do on many fronts over the last few months.

There is also some discussion of adding two other funding bills that we have negotiated and reported out of committee to make this a minibus package. These are solid, compromised bills that reject the truly draconian cuts proposed by President Trump and

House Republicans, and I would like to see them considered by the full Senate.

Now, for that to happen, I hope Republicans will work with us to ensure, once again, that there is an opportunity to debate and amend all three bills.

So I am a ``yes'' vote on moving forward today with debate of the MILCON-VA bill, and I hope we can keep this process moving because passing our appropriations bills is the best way we can make sure Federal spending reflects the needs we are hearing about in our States and actually solves problems for people at home.

No one wants a shutdown, and the way we avoid that shutdown is by working together. That is not a secret, not a surprise; it is a reality we all know. As the majority leader noted recently, the math tells us that it takes 60. It takes bipartisan cooperation. Unfortunately, Republicans have been chipping away at that cooperation, especially with the rescissions vote last week.

But, to be clear, if Republicans continue cutting bipartisan deals with more rescissions, that is not cooperation. If Republicans try and jam through another slush-fund CR, that is not cooperation.

So for anyone considering the partisan route, you cannot write a bill without talking to Democrats and then act surprised when Democrats don't support it. You want our votes; you work with us. And this bill today that we are considering shows that is possible. So I want to applaud the bipartisan work of the senior Senators from Georgia and Arkansas to get us to this point, and I hope all of our colleagues can take that lesson to heart as we move forward with consideration of this bill and our work on bipartisan bills to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.

Let's stay focused on that instead of embracing Russ Vought's vision for a Congress that is more partisan, less powerful, and less able to make life better for the people we represent.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Motion

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, Republicans were jamming through the most expensive bill in the history of the country. And now, they say they are worried about the debt. Two weeks ago, Republicans said $4 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in the world was nothing, literally. And now, they are saying a truly tiny fraction of that for rural radio is just too much.

So I have to ask: Is this a joke? Are they really that bad at math? First, Republicans were saying trillions in tax cuts were free. Get real. And now they are pretending to be fiscal hawks by shutting down local news and letting epidemics go unchecked around the world.

Here is another math lesson for my colleagues. Republicans could cut every dollar ever spent on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since it was created down to the last dime, and it still would not cover the cost of the bill Republicans just jammed through. Republicans could actually cut every dollar we have spent on foreign aid since World War II, and that would still fall short compared to the cost of the Republican tax cuts. Republicans could even cut the amount in the first rescissions bill every single day for a year, and it still would not equal their tax cuts to help their rich donors.

So make no mistake, if Republicans choose to do Trump's bidding, if they push through this package to rip away funding for emergency alerts and global health programs, it is not because they take the debt seriously. And that will be just as true for the next package because, let's be clear, if Republicans go along with this package--despite the fact that they clearly have issues with it and despite the fact Russ Vought has refused to answer the most basic questions, even from the Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee, about which programs he is going to cut--if all of that is not enough to give Republicans just some pause and they let Russ Vought steamroll them through this package, don't be surprised when he sends more cuts down the pike. It could be medical research and afterschool programs, maybe heating assistance, workplace safety, road maintenance. Everything is going to be on the chopping block. And all our time here in the Senate is going to be spent on those requests.

Here is the kicker. No matter how many rescissions Russ Vought sends, no matter how many rescissions Republicans just roll over and let pass, they will never offset the trillions in tax cuts they just passed without blinking an eye because you could rescind the entire fiscal year 2025 spending bill twice over, and it still would not cover the $4 trillion in tax cuts Republicans just showered on the richest people in this country.

So however this vote goes, expect to hear more from me on this every time Republicans try to pretend that we do not have enough money for childcare or medical research or other programs that our families rely on.

I have said a lot about how patently absurd it is for Republicans to pretend they are passing these cuts because they care about the debt, but I do not want to lose sight of the larger issues. It is not just Republicans play-acting about the debt that is absurd. The bigger problem here is that these cuts would be devastating for our communities and for American interests around the globe.

When it comes to local news, these cuts could force local stations that people know and trust--know and trust--off the air. This isn't just about a program or two taking a haircut. Trump wants to slash every penny of Federal funding that supports over 1,500 local TV and radio stations. Those stations and those funds reach 98 percent of all Americans, and they are especially crucial for serving our rural areas and Tribal communities.

Dozens of these stations rely on these investments for half of their funding and some rely on it for as much as 99 percent. If these cuts go through, those stations go dark, weather forecasters communities have turned to for years, news anchors that are their trusted voices, local reporters who track down answers their communities need and hold their officials to account will be sent packing, and those stations will go silent.

Do we want our farmers to have good local coverage of weather and market conditions? Do we want our Tribal communities to know what is going on at their State capital? Do we want families to have updates about the local school board on community events? Because this package of cuts throws all of that in jeopardy, to say nothing of emergency alerts. These stations can be a lifeline when disasters strikes. They are a trusted source of information and sometimes the only source people have access to.

When the devastating wildfires hit Southern California earlier this year, public radio broadcasts let millions of people know how to stay safe. When Hurricane Helene battered North Carolina, a local public radio station was the only source of information for many people. And, in fact, many stations use their towers to actually deliver emergency alerts to people's cell phones when cell towers go down. This funding supports stations that play an integral role in many of our States' emergency planning. Do you think our communities should have less warning in an emergency? Do you want to leave folks back home with less information when they are in harm's way? Well, I guess you vote for this bill if that is how you feel.

I want you to know, I am a hard no.

Let's not pretend a secret deal from Trump and Vought to reallocate $10 million is somehow a serious fix to this. It is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the massive cuts being pushed through here. In fact, it is less than 1 percent of the overall funding that this package would rip away for public broadcasting and those alerts.

Don't forget, these cuts will impact some of our kids' and parents' favorite educational shows--``Sesame Street,'' ``Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood,'' ``Daniel Tiger.'' PBS Kids has a long track record of creating shows that are beloved, not just because they keep kids entertained but because they are thoughtfully crafted to help them learn and grow, to stoke their curiosity, to teach them caring and empathy. Any parent will tell you that is a worthwhile investment, and any parent will also warn you, if you take away shows like this that gets kids engaged and gets them thinking, take that away, then there is an avalanche of brain-rot television waiting to fill that void, content that is crafted not to get kids thinking but to keep them watching at all costs.

We have to save ``Sesame Street.'' We have to tell Trump and Vought Big Bird is not on the chopping block in this country. And we have to send this rescissions package to Oscar's place--a.k.a. the trash can.

Mr. President, I want to talk, as well, about the devastating cuts that this package proposes to foreign assistance. I thought America's leadership was important to Republicans. But apparently, they want to pennypinch when it comes to keeping our commitments across the world. Apparently, they want to save money by letting families starve and kids die of preventable diseases because that is what this package will do.

And this isn't some thought exercise. We have already seen how the first round of reckless DOGE cuts are working out. There is already a growing death toll and a huge leadership void that our competitors are racing to fill--people who needed healthcare, but Elon Musk shut down the only clinic for miles; kids contracting diseases like HIV and malaria because Trump totally upended our global health response. And let's not forget they are going to destroy contraceptives we have already purchased, rather than distribute them.

People are starving to death while food supplies from our American companies are sitting rotting in ports. That is another part of why America's farmers are coming out in opposition to this bill, by the way. This week, 500 tons of high-energy biscuits expired--food that we already paid for, food that was meant to save lives. And because Trump and Elon Musk blasted USAID to smithereens and couldn't be bothered to fix the mess that they caused, this food is now going to be incinerated, even as people we promised to help watch their kids starve. That is outrageous, and it is infuriating.

Is that what Republicans think of as world leadership? Is it leadership to Republicans when Trump fires thousands of State Department workers who keep our Nation safe and make our voice heard in the world? Is it leadership to Republicans when we pull investments out of international organizations and create a void that our adversaries like China will be all too happy to fill?

We already know the DOGE cuts were devastating. We know that. What I don't know is why on Earth Republicans are getting ready today to double down and codify them by passing this bill.

And, no, ``because Trump said so'' is not a good answer, especially when it is clear that Russ Vought is the one steering this particular ship. I am not even sure Trump knows what a rescission is.

But I am sure Republicans know better than to think these cuts will make our Nation strong. I know that because we passed these investments in a bipartisan way and because I have heard them speak out about how much they hate these cuts.

You can go back and watch our hearing on this. Many of our colleagues across the aisle during that hearing voiced deep concerns with these cuts that they now intend to pass today because we all know these investments benefit American businesses that help feed the world. They help stop outbreak. They stop diseases abroad before they threaten and spread and threaten

us here at home. They help promote stability and avoid chaos and conflict that can put our interests and our servicemembers in harm's way. They help us advance America's interests and keep our country safe and prosperous. That is the smart thing to do. It is the smart thing to do. And, of course, it is also the right thing to do.

So it is worth saying, cutting these investments is just downright wrong. We should not be voting to let children starve or die from preventable diseases. We should not be voting to go back on our word to the world. Saving a couple of pennies is not worth losing our credibility or causing millions of needless deaths across the globe. It is not even close.

I want to impress upon one final point, and that is: It did not have to be this way, and it still does not have to be this way. In fact, if Republicans come to their senses and vote this down, we can still go a different route. We can do what we have always done and consider bipartisan rescissions as part of our annual appropriations process. That offer has always been on the table, and it still is.

I have heard Republicans say they don't like this package. In fact, they are trying to dial it back the tiniest bit. I have also heard they don't want to spend the next several months processing these requests out here on the floor instead of focusing on our annual funding bills or any number of other pressing priorities.

So don't vote for it. Work with us to write bills that make targeted rescissions on a bipartisan basis. You don't work for Donald Trump. You don't work for Russ Vought. You actually work for your constituents. You can put them first, and you can vote this package down. That has some real benefits compared to going down the path of this unprecedented--unprecedented--partisan rescission.

I am serious. I want my Republican colleagues to think about this-- and I mean really think about it.

For one thing, if we do things the normal, bipartisan way, you get to assert your say as a Senator about what is getting targeted. It is not just, ``This is what Russ Vought says. Take it or leave it.'' You can actually be part of the discussion and speak out for what is important to you.

For another thing, if we go the bipartisan route, you don't have to get jammed by this deadline. Instead of rushing through these cuts this week, without fully getting to consider and debate them, instead of being told: No, you can't change this; we don't have time, we can all sit down, make thoughtful decisions, and maybe even make worthwhile changes as we go.

Here is an important point: If we do rescissions together through our appropriations bills instead of just letting Trump and Vought just jam them through whenever they want, my colleagues would actually know what in the world they are voting for because let's get one thing straight: Republicans don't actually know what programs are going to get cut if they pass this package. We don't know. It is one of the great outrages of this package.

Russ Vought is just outright refusing to tell us what programs he is going to cut if this package passes. At our hearing with him, he refused to go into detail. He stonewalled us. We asked, and we asked. The chair--the Republican chair--even asked him about this, but OMB would not tell us.

The question is, What will you cut?

The answer has been: Pass it. We will see.

That is why the Republicans decided to protect just a handful of programs without actually reducing the funding that was associated with them because they do not know the impact of this bill. So they preserve funding for Jordan, Egypt, and a few university partnerships. What about our allies in the Indo-Pacific? What about the implementers of these programs in our States? None of us should accept not having those answers. I am sure my colleagues were told their priorities won't be impacted, but Director Vought cannot keep that promise given the scale of these cuts. The math does not add up.

Even if you believe we should make cuts, you should be joining us to demand we actually know what is being cut. If we do this the right way, the bipartisan way, we would know because we would be writing the bill. We would. Now, doesn't that sound a lot better than just passing this Pandora's box and finding out later what got cut?

Finally--I have said this before several times, but I want to warn my colleagues, once again--if you keep going down this path, you are going to further undermine our bipartisan process. We have never--never before--seen bipartisan investments slashed through a partisan rescissions package. Do not start now, not when we are working at this very moment in a bipartisan way to pass our spending bills. As I said earlier, bipartisanship doesn't end with any one line being crossed. It erodes. It breaks down bit by bit until, one day, there is nothing else. Sure, a few Members may be willing to stick it out and work as hard as they can to get a result, but this Senate doesn't work off a few Members; it works off of consensus-building, and the more bridges you burn, the fewer paths you leave to get things done.

So why go down this partisan path? Why vote to spend the next many weeks considering more and more of these packages? Why do it for a set of cuts that is so damaging, a set of cuts many of you have concerns with?

We are at the table right now--the Appropriations Committee right now. We are writing bipartisan spending bills, and we absolutely can and will discuss bipartisan rescissions. Why don't you all join us and make the work easier instead of making that work harder by passing this bill and setting a very painful new precedent.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are about to vote on this package, but I wanted to first make sure my colleagues understood that we are not just voting on whether local news stations shut down or whether communities can get information in an emergency or whether or not America retreats on the world's stage and break its word or whether or not we let children die of hunger or preventable diseases just to save a few pennies. All of that is at stake here, but there is a lot more at stake as well, like whether we allow partisan rescissions to cut bipartisan funds for the first time ever--colleagues need to understand that, for the first time ever--or whether Russ Vought can steamroll this body and whether Republicans will pass a bill of cuts when they don't even know what is in it.

I mean, really, I have heard Members complain to high heaven about not having time to read a bill before voting on it. Well, this is even worse. The administration has outright refused to tell us what will get cut if Republicans pass this bill. Even the Republican leader admits that. This is a Pandora's box of cuts.

What I want to leave my colleagues with is this: We are not just voting on the devastating cuts in this package, we are also voting on how the Senate is going to spend the rest of the year. Are we just going to do rescission after rescission? Because we know Russ Vought is just itching to send us more. And as you have all seen throughout this process and as we have seen at every hearing we have had with him, he doesn't care if you feel steamrolled; he doesn't care if you want more details; he doesn't care whether you want different cuts.

So the vote before us right now is really about do we--we are elected representatives, all of us--want to write the laws and even consider targeted rescissions within those bills? Do we want to have time to move them on the floor or do we want to spend every day, every week here debating how much of the last spending bill to unravel and whose communities get robbed?

This will not be a hard vote for me, and it really should not be a hard vote for any one of us.

I am a strong no, and I hope all of our colleagues will join us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this amendment reflects what Senate Republicans landed on after a long discussion 2 days ago, zeroing out every penny of Federal support for local radio and TV stations our constituents rely on, ripping away investments in emergency alerts, gutting lifesaving aid, and making steep cuts to foreign policy investments we have made on a bipartisan basis.

You might ask: What are those cuts? And even some of my Republican colleagues have said: We don't know because this administration will not tell us. So while this amendment makes one small trim, it seeks to protect just a handful of priorities without actually reducing any of the overall cuts.

The reality is, Republicans are planning to rubberstamp President Trump's request.

It is our communities, our reputation, our interest around the globe that will suffer the consequences. I will be voting no on this amendment and on final passage. I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, Republicans passed the most expensive bill in the history of the Senate. Why? To cut taxes for billionaires and, at the same time, to cut Medicaid and SNAP for needy families.

But now Republicans are pretending they are concerned about the debt--so concerned that they need to shut down local radio stations, so concerned that they are going to cut off ``Sesame Street.'' They are so concerned that they want to whack away at our global credibility and slash humanitarian aid in the process.

The idea that this is about balancing the debt is laughable. You could cut every dollar ever spent on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since it was created and it would not cover the cost of the bill that the Republicans just jammed through. You could cut every dollar we have spent on foreign aid since World War II and that total would still fall short compared to the cost of the Republican tax cuts. Or how about this? If Republicans cut the amount in this rescissions bill every single day for a year, it still would not equal their tax cuts to help rich donors.

So I hope I have made the point. Let's stop pretending this move is about the debt, and let's stop pretending there is no alternative to passing a partisan rescissions package that cuts bipartisan funding, because I have declared, over and over, there is an alternative, which is to do what we always do and discuss rescissions as part of our annual funding bills instead of doing Trump's bidding.

Let's talk about what is at stake here, starting with the damage that these cuts would do to our communities by cutting rural areas off from local news and emergency alerts and ending high-quality kids' programming. If Republicans pass this package they are offering, they are going to slash funding for over 1,500 local news stations nationwide. These are stations that provide an enormous community service, especially in rural areas and in our Tribal communities. They cover stories that matter to families but that often get overlooked by national news. These stations and this funding reach 98 percent of all Americans, and let's not forget they also deliver local emergency alerts. Some of these local radio stations are a genuine lifeline for communities when disaster strikes.

Who among us thinks our communities should have less warning when there is an emergency?--because that is what voting for this package means.

It also means cutting off funding for high-quality kids' programming. There is a reason shows like ``Sesame Street'' are beloved by kids and parents. It is not just entertaining, it gets our kids thinking; it teaches them about math and spelling and caring and kindness. If Republicans let shows like this get canceled, they are going to open up the floodgates to a wave of what I call brain-rot TV that is engineered to keep our kids watching.

To my colleagues who think they have short-term temporary fixes to reduce cuts to one or two public radio stations or television stations in their States, that will not solve the problem.

And what do you say to those 120 rural stations that will lose 25 percent or more of their funding? What do you say to the dozens of rural stations that will shut down because of this bill and cut off local news, educational programming, and lifesaving services to the rural communities that we serve?

Let's not forget: The other cuts in this bill would seriously undercut our credibility on the world stage.

I thought American leadership was worth investing in; and when we voted for those funds, so did Republicans. Did Republicans forget why we thought that was important when we voted for them? Did Republicans forget that outbreaks spread if we don't help stop them? Did they forget that humanitarian assistance doesn't just prevent death, but it prevents chaos and conflict and keeps our American troops out of harm's way? Did they forget that these investments bring business to our American companies, and they

help feed the world or that building alliances and playing a leading role at international organizations allows us to advance our interests and counter our adversaries?

Set aside the global strategy for a moment. We should not be voting to let children starve or die from preventable diseases. We shouldn't be voting to go back on our word to the world. Saving a couple of pennies is not worth losing our credibility or causing millions of deaths across the globe. It is not even close.

If Republicans really care about the debt, they can start by revisiting the $4 trillion in tax breaks they just showered on billionaires.

There is a lot more to say about how damaging these cuts would be for our country, but you don't have to take my word for it because even several of my Republican colleagues have said it themselves: They don't like this package. They are already trying to dial it back the tiniest bit, but I do know they have concerns.

Here is a tip: If you don't like it, don't vote for it. Think about who you take orders from--President Trump, Russ Vought, or your own constituents and your own communities?

And let's be honest. For all of his bluster, President Trump will forget about this in a week. He doesn't care about rescissions. He probably doesn't even know what it means.

If you don't like this package but you think you should do more targeted rescissions, do you know what? We can discuss that in a bipartisan way, completely separate from this partisan package.

I have been clear, and I will say it again right now: I stand ready to discuss rescissions as part of the bipartisan spending bills just as we have always done. That is the right way to go about this. How many times have Republicans called for regular order? Well, at no point in our country's history--at no point--have partisan rescissions been regular order. Anytime we have done this in the past, it has been bipartisan. Republicans should join us to make sure this does not become a bad, new first and to ensure that our time on the floor is spent considering important legislation, including our funding bills, rather than one rescissions request after another.

We are working right now to advance fiscal year 2026 bills--right now, at this very moment--and, hopefully, in a bipartisan way. We passed the first two out of committee last week. I want us to continue that work, but I really worry the passage of these bills is going to complicate the road ahead even more because, if Republicans decide it is fine to undo the last bipartisan spending deal with Trump's partisan cuts, then getting these bills across the finish line is going to get really hard. If they keep this kind of thing up, one of these days, Republicans are going to find they have broken the process.

Let me spell out what that looks like, because I think there is a misconception here that wrongly convinces some Members: It is OK; this is the straw that won't break the camel's back.

The reality is that bipartisanship doesn't end with any one line being crossed. It erodes. It breaks down bit by bit until the day there is nothing left.

Don't get me wrong. The negotiating table is always there. And in my experience, there are usually a few Members willing to stick it out and work as hard as they can to get a result.

But here is the thing. The Senate doesn't work off of a few Members. It works off of consensus building and bipartisanship. And the more bridges you burn, the fewer paths you leave to get things done. You can't just keep pushing people away and breaking that basic trust that keeps this place working. Not to mention, if Republicans pass this package of cuts, Russ Vought has made it abundantly clear he will send more. If Republicans pass this package now, we are going to be back here in a month debating whether to rip away funding for, say, after- school programs.

Instead of spending our time doing the hard work and passing laws, instead of considering the bipartisan spending bills we are working on right now, is this floor just going to be drowned in package after package of partisan cuts; fighting over how much of the last deal we are now going to unravel; fighting over whose projects get canceled, whose communities get robbed. I hope not.

I am going to end now with something I talked about during our committee hearing that we held on this package.

When I first came to this Congress, one of the hot-button issues was the line-item veto. President Clinton of my party was asking to have it. Chairman Byrd of my party was organizing against it with Republicans.

I was asked should a Democratic Senate help a Democratic President rip up the bills that we all worked together to pass. I said no. I said no, that is not how this should work. I came here to help my State and my constituents, not to weaken or surrender those responsibilities to any President.

That is as true for me today as it was then.

If my colleagues agree, which I believe many of them do, then the course we have to take here is clear. We need to reject this package outright.

That doesn't mean we can't have a bipartisan conversation about the rescissions as we now write our funding bills. That is the way that we need to do that. That is the way it has always been done. But we have to reject this new precedent of partisan, stand-alone rescissions.

If this place is going to work, if we are going to work together to serve the folks we represent back home, we have to make choices that help us move closer together and bring more people to the table, not choices that push us apart and chip away, bit by bit, at the trust that makes this place work. Otherwise, one day, we will find we have none of that trust left.

I urge my colleagues to protect that trust and join me in voting no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, Republicans made the wrong kind of history. That is because last week, they passed what may well be the single most expensive piece of legislation in the history of our country--all to help the rich and hurt the poor. This should go in the ``Guinness Book of World Records.''

Let's not forget that the history doesn't end there because they passed the biggest bill in the history of the Senate with the biggest gimmick in the history of the Senate by basically saying that trillions of dollars in tax cuts for billionaires are free.

This farce is only getting worse because now do you know what Republicans are turning to? Do you know what the next order of business in the Senate is? They are going to take up President Trump's request to slash local news and bipartisan foreign policy investments in order to ``balance the debt.'' That is a serious case of amnesia.

Republicans just saddled the national credit card with $4 trillion in debt--that is trillions with a ``t''--so that they could give massive tax breaks to the richest people in the country. They would have added even more to that debt if they hadn't cut over $1 trillion in healthcare and nutrition assistance for millions of Americans.

But now that it has passed, now that they have saddled the next generation with loads of debt to help billionaire donors, many Republicans want to return to talking now about getting the Nation's fiscal house in order. Are you kidding me? Do you really think we don't remember what just happened last week? Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape.

One week ago, Republicans were pretending trillions in debt for tax giveaways to their corporate buddies and megadonors was nothing-- literally nothing. Now these same Republicans say that local news, which provides crucial information in emergencies, is just too expensive to support. Now these same Republicans say that we can't afford to continue lifesaving aid that prevents famine and epidemics even though--keep in mind--we are talking about a sum total of less than 0.14 percent of our overall Federal budget. The irony is almost as rich as the corporate CEOs, who made out like bandits in that big, awful mess the Republicans passed last week.

This rescissions package is not just bad because many Republicans are trying to have it both ways on deficits and the debt now; it is just plain bad on the substance. These cuts hurt our communities, and they hurt our country.

Let's start with the local news.

Republicans are trying to rip away investments that support over 1,500 local public TV and radio stations. These are stations that serve rural areas and that give them local news you simply cannot find anywhere else. It is coverage that matters to people, like what community events are coming up, how the school board is preparing for next year, weather and market reports for our farmers, not to mention emergency alerts when a disaster strikes.

You do not have to look hard to find an example of how important it is that we get disaster warnings right.

When the devastating wildfires hit Southern California earlier this year, public radio broadcasts let millions of people know how to stay safe.

When Hurricane Helene battered North Carolina, a local public radio station was the only source of information for many people.

Then, of course, there was the recent tragedy in Texas and a flooding in New Mexico. These were incredibly deadly floods. My heart goes out to all of the families who were affected, especially those who lost loved ones, and my deep gratitude goes out to our first responders. I am committed to helping those communities recover, to coming together like we always do as a nation after a tragedy.

While we learn more now about what is needed, one thing that all of our communities need is a strong emergency response system. One thing I can tell you is, when dangers arise, cutting local news stations, silencing trusted sources that can push out important warnings when cell towers fail and your home internet connection goes out, won't make anything better.

Don't even get me started on how this rescissions bill will hurt free educational programming for countless kids. We are talking about shows that kids and parents love. But after saddling our country with trillions in debt for billionaires, many Republicans are saying: There is just not a penny left for our kids. Sorry. We are going to feed Big Bird to the fat cats.

That is the message Republicans are sending here. This isn't quite how they would put it on ``Sesame Street,'' but America knows that message is brought to you by the letters ``BS,'' and it is so dangerously shortsighted. Talk to any parent. They will warn you that if the Republicans' cuts end up canceling free, high-quality programming that is thoughtfully developed to get kids thinking and growing their curiosity, there is an alarming amount of

low-quality junk to fill that void--content that is instead carefully engineered to keep kids watching and shorten their attention spans.

Actually, do you know what, it makes sense. Maybe getting our kids hooked on brain-rot TV is part of the Republican plan. After all, if our kids are watching PBS, they might learn to count, and if our kids learn to count, how will Republicans ever convince anyone that trillions of dollars in tax cuts are free?

So I know. Let's not forget. President Trump wants Senate Republicans to rip up investments they themselves--they themselves--helped secure to advance America's global leadership. Apparently, being the leader of the free world is now just too expensive.

The reality of that matter is that these are investments that pay off for our own country, from supporting American farmers and companies that provide the food assistance that saves lives; to stopping dangerous viruses and epidemics while they are still far overseas, away from us, before they have a chance to threaten American lives; to preventing conflict, avoiding chaos and crisis that can cause a dangerous spiral; to strengthening our ties with key partners and defending our interests in international organizations.

We don't just make these investments because they are the right thing to do; we do it because it is the smart thing to do for America. But it is worth saying that it is the right thing to do as well.

It is unthinkably wrong that this President is willing to shell out trillions for some of the richest people in the world, only to turn around and say that less than a penny a day is too expensive to protect hundreds of thousands of little girls from HIV. It is wrong for Republicans to say, ``Oh, we have got to get those corporate executives a bigger bonus,'' only to turn around next week and say, ``Oh, we don't really have to worry about the work our farmers do to help those starving kids.'' It is also foolish to think that this is just a luxury or just charitable work. Our farmers know better. Americans who contract infectious diseases abroad know better. The companies in our States that work overseas to stabilize conflict-affected communities alongside the DOD know better. It is bad strategy and a surefire way to hand China the upper hand. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that it is just plain wrong.

Let's be clear. If they cut this funding, Republicans will not just be turning America away from the world; they will be turning the world away from America.

Do Republicans really want to cause needless suffering or slash bipartisan funding and break commitments we already made together to save a quick buck? Is America's credibility so cheap to them?

They talk about peace through strength as if they are carrying on Ronald Reagan's legacy. Reagan spent about a half a percent of our GDP on foreign assistance. Today, we spend less than half that.

Keep in mind that cuts proposed here are really a drop in the bucket compared to the tsunami of spending and tax giveaways that Republicans just passed. I mean, you could cut every single penny the U.S. has spent on foreign assistance since World War II, and it would not add up to the cost of the tax cuts the Republicans passed last week. And that is all saying nothing about how pushing this through won't just cut bipartisan investments; it will cut out the heart of the basic principles that make bipartisan deals possible. How are we supposed to negotiate a bipartisan deal if Republicans turn around and put it through the shredder in a partisan vote?

This entire package next week should be rejected outright. There is nothing about it that is serious except for the threat it poses to our communities.

To suggest even for a second that Republicans are doing this to address the debt is laughable, and I encourage the American people to laugh at anyone who pretends as much because you could cut the equivalent of this bill every single day for an entire year and it still would not match the cost of the billionaire tax cuts the Republicans passed last week.

So, to my Republican colleagues, instead of doing Trump's dirty work, instead of doing Russell Vought's bidding, let's do our jobs. Reject these partisan cuts to bipartisan funding and turn our focus squarely to the job ahead: writing bipartisan, full-funding appropriations bills.

Do you know what? If there is a discrete pot of funding that is not being spent well, if there are cuts that make sense to include, if there are things that need to be updated and things that need to be reformed, let's have a conversation about what makes sense to rescind and improve as we write those bills in committee, the way we have always done.

My Democratic colleagues and I have said for months that we are willing to discuss rescissions in our bipartisan spending bills. We have done this in a bipartisan fashion for years no matter who has been in the White House or which party has had the majority in either Chamber.

My commitment to Chair Collins and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle remains the same: I am willing to work with you to include rescissions in our bipartisan spending bills as we continue to work on the fiscal year 2026 process.

Instead of moving forward with this partisan rescissions package, let's reject that package and have these discussions and work together. Let's move forward on the bipartisan appropriations process and address all of those decisions there.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I, too, want to stand and join with our colleagues from Idaho with our deep sorrow for everyone in those impacted communities. It is close to the border of Washington.

Many of our responders joined with all of you, and our hearts and thoughts and prayers go to everyone impacted. That community will be devastated for a long time to come.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2771 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, my amendment is about a really important issue that has not gotten near enough attention for how devastating it will be for women in our country. The Republicans' bill will cut millions of women off from birth control, cancer screenings, essential preventive healthcare--care that they will not be able to afford anywhere else--and it will shutter some 200 healthcare clinics in our country and take another step toward enacting Republicans' plan for a backdoor, nationwide abortion ban.

How does it do this? By defunding Planned Parenthood. This is a long- sought goal of anti-choice extremists--no surprise. It is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people, but Republicans are bent on ripping away any access to abortion care and happy to cut off this lifesaving care, no matter that women may not have another place to get the care that they can't afford or another place they can get any care at all.

This amendment that I am offering will strip this awful provision to defund Planned Parenthood from this bill and protect healthcare access to the millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood health centers.

I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 302(f) of that act for the purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

Are the remaining nine titles of the Senate substitute scored by the CBO using a current law 257 baseline?

Mr. President, I have been here a long time. Not only have I been the Budget chair but I am the longest serving Democrat on that committee, and in my 33 years here in the

U.S. Senate, things have never, never worked this way where one party so egregiously ignores precedent, process, and the Parliamentarian, and does that all in order to wipe away trillions of dollars of costs for a bill that could just be the most expensive legislation this body ever passes.

Forget Senate procedure for a minute. Math has never worked that way. I taught preschool, and I will tell you, even our littlest kids know the difference between a trillion and zero. It doesn't take a preschooler to tell you they are using magic math or that you can't just ignore the rules you don't like.

How many times have my colleagues cried about the debt? How many times have they told me: I know you want to invest in childcare, Patty, but we have got to get this budget under control?

But now that it is tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, suddenly, the budget doesn't matter anymore. Suddenly, the rules do not matter anymore. Suddenly, a couple trillion goes away with a sprinkle of fairy dust, and bypassing the Parliamentarian and precedent isn't really bypassing if you just close your eyes and just pretend real hard.

Have you no shame? If you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them we have to bring down the debt after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history--if you think you can do that and then be taken seriously, well, do you know what? If you believe that, maybe you are foolish enough to think that zero and a trillion are the same.

I can't believe this is what we are doing today, because I can tell you right now, if this happens, we will all laugh you out of the room because we have never seen anything like this, not in my time here in the Senate, not in my time on this planet. We are not going to let anyone forget that you are trashing the rules in order to pass this egregious bill.

I yield the floor.

Correct.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon and our other Budget chairs and ranking members from previous years because this is really important.

There are some things you can't change with legislation despite what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to believe. For example, one plus one is two, and while a trillion might have a lot of zeroes in it, it is, in fact, a much, much bigger number. Now, that might sound obvious, but, apparently, my colleagues across the aisle need a little reminder because,

right now, Republicans are pretending not to get it. It is almost beyond belief, and it is certainly beyond common sense.

After years of complaining about the debt--in fact, at the same time they are talking about how we need to address the debt--Republicans now are suddenly pretending they don't know how to count. Republicans are suddenly pretending the Parliamentarian doesn't exist if they don't talk to her. Republicans are suddenly pretending that precedent doesn't exist if they just fake amnesia and that norms and consequences for breaking them will just disappear if they wish them away really hard. My preschool students had more common sense.

Republicans should know, if they replace math with magic, if they tear up the Senate process, if they blow off the Senate Parliamentarian, that bill will come due--and not just the bill for $4 trillion blown on tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. The bill will also come due for trashing this Senate process and precedent when Republicans are no longer in the majority.

If Republicans are serious about plowing forward with rewriting or ignoring Senate procedure and the laws of mathematics, I would just ask: Spare me the empty excuses. Spare me the explanations that totally ignore the reality of what you are doing. I mean, do they really think it washes away everything to say: Oh, it is fine to break the process in half because we say it is fine; oh, it is fine; we have the authority to ignore math? Give me a break.

To every Republican who really thinks this is a convincing argument and to anyone who thinks ``we can'' is just acceptable rationale for going nuclear and pretending the most expensive bill in the history of our country can be paid for by some magic-bean counting, here is my challenge to you: Go back home and try that game with your constituents. Tell them it is OK. Yes, the debt is going to be $4 trillion and higher 10 years from now. That is true, but it is fine. We voted on it, and we get to say a trillion is actually zero. Go ahead. See how that works for you. And you may as well tell them you are voting against gravity next because that is just as reasonable.

And don't forget: When you tell your families back home that trillions of dollars in tax cuts for billionaires and companies are free because you waved a wand or you said some magic words, don't forget to tell them those are just tax cuts for the billionaires, not for working families.

Don't forget to tell the folks back home: Yeah, I voted to say a trillion dollars is nothing, but we still need to kick people off of their healthcare. That is just too expensive. We still need to close those hospitals. We have to cut costs. And we still have to kick people off SNAP because the debt is out of control.

Don't forget to mention: No, we can't afford childcare. We can't afford paid family leave. We can't afford to solve your problems.

Magic math is apparently just for billionaires. You all are getting less.

Please, Republicans, send that message to your constituents. Just see how it goes over because you can fool yourself, but you are not going to fool the American people. They don't get to balance their budget with magic math. They don't get to pretend $1 trillion is nothing. And they don't get to pretend that this bill is free because at the end of the day, regardless of what policy baseline you all want to use in DC, those families back home are the ones who will be paying the actual cost.

I yield to Senator Merkley.

I would.

To my friend from Oregon, I never would have contemplated it, and I never would have put it forward. I happen to know that if I would have suggested that, my Republican colleagues would have been all over me, telling me that breaks the rules.

I thank the Senator for his question because it is just stunning to me that the vast majority of debate--in fact, all the debate--that came from Republicans at the time I was chair of the Budget Committee and trying to put forward a smart budget for the United States of America--the only thing they talked about--was debt and deficit. The only challenge they made to us was debt and deficit. The only time we tried to do anything for childcare, for healthcare, they threw the debt at us.

So this is pretty stunning to me that, now that they need to raise the debt for giving tax breaks to the very rich people who stood behind the President at his inauguration, then they play with the numbers and pretend it is not real, and ``trillion'' all of a sudden becomes ``zero'' and: I am using some rule you have never heard of to try and pretend that this isn't real.

It is fairy dust.

I can't find it.

If the Senator would yield for a question--and I know we need to move on here--I just want to add one thing. It is not just that it is going to be debt. It is the cost to families because of this debt they are putting in place.

I would ask the chair of the Budget Committee now, as he knows as I do: People's houses are going to cost more because their mortgage interest rates are going to go up. Their car interest rates are going to go up.

These are not just magic numbers sitting out there pretending. Real families are going to feel the cost of this debt and this deficit.

Mr. President, I really want to thank my colleagues. The Senator just said they used to call themselves deficit hawks. We need to call them deficit robins. They are robbing from you to pay for the billionaires. They are no longer deficit hawks. Agreed?

Mr. President, I think it is a really important discussion that we had right now about the deficit and the debt, but I want to talk a little bit more about this bill, in general.

You know, recent KFF polling shows that this Republican ``Big Ugly Betrayal Bill'' is overwhelmingly unpopular. In fact, this thing is more underwater than the Titanic.

Nearly two in three Americans view this bill unfavorably. That goes up to nearly three in four when they learn it will kick millions-- millions--off their health insurance. And it goes up to nearly four in five when they learn it will choke off funding to their local hospital.

In other words, the more the American people hear about what is actually in this ``Big Ugly Betrayal Bill,'' the more they dislike it.

So with that in mind, I want to be here today to say a little bit more about what is in the Republicans' latest version. Spoiler alert: It is still big; it is still ugly; and it is an absolute betrayal of the people who sent us here to fight for them.

The Republican plan is still going to mean over 16 million people losing healthcare. As patients get kicked off their ACA plans, kids and struggling families will get kicked off Medicaid.

Rural hospitals are going to be forced to shut their doors. The Republican plan is still going to mean more starving families. New redtape is going to cut people off from their SNAP benefits that they need to put food on the table, and it is going to take away kids' school meals.

The Republican plan still rips away support from the people in this country who are struggling the most to give away billions in tax breaks to billionaires who need help the least.

In short, this latest version of the Republicans' bill would still be one of the biggest transfers of wealth from the people at the bottom to the people at the top in our Nation's history.

When it comes to healthcare, this Republican abomination will cause millions of people to lose their insurance and see their costs skyrocket in one way or another. It will create mountains of new paperwork and bureaucratic barriers that are positively meant to kick people off their Medicaid and ACA coverage. And there is new sabotage to the ACA healthcare markets, which will mean more people losing their affordable coverage.

Meanwhile, there is nothing--a big, fat zero--when it comes to renewing the tax credits Democrats passed to lower your healthcare costs. That is right. While Republicans are showering their billionaire donors in new tax breaks, they will not lift a finger to extend healthcare tax credits that are saving millions of families thousands of dollars a year on health coverage.

Instead, they are going to make sure people lose healthcare coverage, including our seniors, people with disabilities, pregnant women, millions of patients who rely on Medicaid. And let's not forget, the cuts in their bill are going to shutter hospitals across the country, especially in our rural areas.

Do you have Medicaid? Medicare? employer sponsored coverage? Regardless, Republicans have some pretty bad news for you because it hardly matters what insurance you are on when you don't have a hospital to get care anymore.

In Washington State, we have 14 rural hospitals that are fighting to survive and would likely close under this bill, mostly in areas represented by Republicans, I should add; not to mention, we have six rural labor and delivery units that could be forced to close their doors under this bill.

Do you know what the Senate Republicans did? They made that problem worse. They put even more pressure on our rural hospitals. I am telling you, this betrayal is getting bigger and uglier by the day, and this cannot get lost.

Republicans want to shut the doors of one of the biggest healthcare providers in the country. They want to defund Planned Parenthood. That is wildly harmful and wildly unpopular. It would shutter at least 200 health centers that provide a wide spectrum of care, including cancer screenings, Pap smears, and birth control for millions of women.

And let's not forget Republicans are cutting nutrition assistance too. This big ugly betrayal would make one of the biggest cuts to SNAP in history. We are talking around a $200 billion cut over the next 10 years. Now, it should be obvious, but that would be devastating for our country and for our kids' future.

And yet Republicans are not giving up on taking dinner off the table, taking school lunch off kids' trays, all so they can shovel tax cuts at billionaires and wealthy corporations.

It is worth underscoring the new redtape in their bill is even targeted at some of our most vulnerable families because it expands work requirements to apply to seniors and parents with kids in school.

When my dad--a World War II veteran--got sick with multiple sclerosis, he lost his job. He lost his job. My mom was at home--seven kids she was raising. My dad lost his job, and they had to spend--my mom had to spend some time getting some new skills so she could go back to work and take care of our family.

Do you know what? During that time, we had to rely on food stamps in

my family to feed those seven kids in my family. But under this Republican bill today, because neither of my parents had a job during those few months, my family would not be eligible for SNAP benefits. We would not have even gotten food on our table at the worst time in my family's life.

This is wrong.

Thanks to those food stamps, my family did get through that rough patch, and all seven of us kids grew up to give back to our communities, whether as a firefighter, middle schoolteacher, or even here as a U.S. Senator.

So I can't emphasize enough: Republicans want to cut families from SNAP and Medicaid Programs that give people a hand up in hard times. Why? So they can give an enormous handout to the richest people and the biggest companies in our country.

Oh, and at the same time, they are making it harder to afford groceries and healthcare. I should mention they are also gutting energy investments in a completely chaotic way. It is all but guaranteed to drive away jobs and drive up energy costs for all American families.

And at the same time in this bill, they are giving billionaires billions of dollars. Republicans are going to give students the short end of the stick. This big mess of a bill would tear away programs and protections that make it possible for many students to pursue a higher education. It eliminates grad PLUS loans. It cuts families off from parent PLUS loans. It punishes students who go into public service or a medical residency and more.

Meanwhile, they are tearing down the guardrails from gutting regulations that protect students whose universities commit fraud to opening up a Pandora's box for Pell grants with a new loophole that would let low-quality programs suck up our taxpayer dollars.

These changes are especially going to hurt students from low-income families and first-generation college students and our veterans. Some of them will have no way to go to college when Republicans take their support away.

Some will be driven into predatory private loans they can't afford, and some will get lured into low-quality programs that take their money, waste taxpayer dollars, and leave the student worse off.

If that wasn't enough, if the Secretary of Education wanted to try to stop this kind of fraud and protect students, Republicans will leave them about as much authority as the school hall monitor because in this bill, Republicans prevent any Secretary of Education from making regulations that carry added benefits for borrowers.

And it hardly matters if that is a good impact like saving students money, protecting taxpayer dollars from fraud, or making higher education more accessible. Republicans are going to make problems worse and make fixing them even harder. Students in this country should be outraged.

I want to be perfectly clear about something: If Republicans charge ahead with this big awful mess, which they seem intent on doing, they can kiss any last shred of credibility goodbye, as we just talked about, when it comes to pretending to care about balancing the budget or addressing the national debt.

The idea was already laughable. For the entirety of the 21st century, the biggest driver of the national debt has been tax cuts that Republicans championed. But now, as we just talked about, they want to put at least $4 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t''--on the national credit card. Why? So they can shower the richest people on the planet with more money.

And then they are pretending all the math works, and it is kind of just easy peasy if they only just--they can do it if they kick people off healthcare or take enough meals away from kids or close enough hospitals or, better still, use some absurd accounting gimmick to pretend--to pretend--that billions of dollars in new tax cuts for their billionaire donors actually just don't cost anything.

Well, I have got some bad news for Republicans: Your math is terrible, and so is this bill. This thing is very expensive, and you don't have to take my word for it. Ask the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which just said the latest version of this bill will add 4 trillion--``t'' trillion--to the debt just over the next 10 years.

If Republicans want to ignore them, you can also ask the fiscal hawks at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. They calculate that the House bill adds $5 trillion to our debt when you include interest payments and the costs of making temporary provisions in this bill permanent. And we are told the Senate bill is even less fiscally responsible.

Everyone agrees this thing is not beautiful, but it is recklessly big, and it won't just increase the debt; it will blow it up. This may very well be the most expensive bill in history. I say it may be because Republicans are still planning changes. We have not yet gotten the final bill.

They already cut out even more taxes for multinational corporations. SNAP benefits, they are still on the chopping block. Healthcare, still on the chopping block. In fact, they want to cut Medicaid even more painfully. We may not know how expensive the Republicans' bill will be in the end, but we know who is paying for it--it is you, working families.

And it is important for people to know, as bad as this bill is, Republicans were trying to make it even worse. Now, Democrats have been fighting them every step of the way, and we have notched a few important wins by challenging every single provision we possibly could under the Senate rules.

So I want to talk about some of the things Democrats were successful in getting out because if Republicans had had their way, not only would this bill take away more food from our struggling families or shutter even more hospitals and kick even more people off their health insurance, it would have also sold off all of our public lands.

And instead of just slashing CFPB funding, it would have completely shuttered the doors of a very important Federal watchdog that protects Americans from getting scammed.

If Republicans had had their way, this bill would make it easier to buy gun silencers, harder to get your earned income tax credit, or pay off your student loans, and effectively impossible to get insurance plans on the Marketplace to cover abortion care.

If Republicans would have had their way, this bill would have also given Trump more power to deny funding to our constituents on a whim and less power for the courts to stop him.

We are talking about a full smorgasbord of really awful, unpopular ideas and policies that would have hurt our families and weakened our democracy--ideas that were this close to making it into this bill. But Republicans did not have their way. Democrats have been fighting back at every single step. We got those provisions tossed in the shredder, and we are still doing our darndest to send the rest of the bill to the shredder as well.

Now, let's be clear. When we talk about how unpopular this bill is with the American people, the reason is simple: This bill polls like garbage because it is garbage. That is why it should go nowhere except a trash bin.

Democrats are going to keep pushing back on this monstrosity with absolutely everything we have got at every step that we can. We are not going to stand by as Republicans shutter hospitals so the richest people in the country can build another vacation home. We are not going to sit around and let Republicans kick millions of people off of their insurance and raise working families' premiums so corporate executives can get a bigger bonus. We are not going to be silent as Republicans take food away from struggling families so they can help billionaires fuel up their private jets. We are going to keep speaking up, we are going to keep pushing back, and we are going to make sure everyone-- everyone--knows exactly what is going on here.

This bill is deeply unpopular--that much is clear--but if Republicans keep pushing for this disaster, buckle up because we are only going to keep getting louder and louder about how big this is, how ugly it is, and it is only going to get more unpopular with the folks back home as these provisions are enacted if this bill passes.

I am pretty astounded by how far some Republicans are trying to stick their heads in the sand on this. One Republican Senator told their concerned constituents ``We're all going to die.''

Well, maybe that is a better name for the bill--at least it is more honest--because when you take healthcare away from people, when you make it harder to get, when you make it harder to afford, when you close the only hospital for miles, yes, you are right, people will die.

You would think my colleagues would show a bit more concern about that. Instead, that Senator actually doubled down, and in a response video, she filmed walking through a cemetery. I don't know how you get out of touch that much to misunderstand this, but let me be clear about something to our Republicans: ``Whistling past the graveyard'' is a metaphor to stop ignoring dangers; it is not a literal messaging suggestion.

If you thought Republicans couldn't be any more dismissive to their own constituents, this week, another Republican Senator who was speaking about people voicing their concerns about these Medicaid cuts said people will ``get over it.''

I have news for every one of my Republican colleagues who is trying to deny the reality of this bill and pretend the fairy tales they are telling themselves are true: When someone's local hospital closes, they don't get over it. When someone's kid is kicked off healthcare, they do not get over it.

If Republicans don't want to take my word for it, they can listen to the doctor I spoke with, who warned that when patients go uninsured, they delay care, and it increases costs for everyone. Instead of paying $10 for diabetic medication, we will pay $10,000 for an amputation.

Or Republicans can actually read the countless letters I am getting from my constituents sharing their stories:

My dad is a double amputee. He relies on Medicaid.

Without Medicaid, we couldn't get my kid's antiseizure

medication.

Or, I am a full-time caregiver for my daughter with cerebral palsy or my son with spina bifida or my elderly mother, and this bill threatens to kick them off their healthcare and the supportive services they rely on to survive.

Better yet, Republicans can go out and talk to their own constituents, because I have no doubt they will hear similar stories. They will even come to you. Advocates have been here in DC all week. I have seen them in the halls. I have heard them from my office.

Now the Republicans can listen to the people across the country who are warning them about this bill, and they can do the right thing and abandon this effort or they can keep ignoring them. But make no mistake, in the end, the American people will have their voices and their votes heard, because at the end of the day, this bill, this monstrosity of a bill, is all in the goal of a tax break for multibillionaires and corporations, and the way they pay for it is by taking away your healthcare and your nutrition, the things your family or your neighbors or people you know rely on. That is just wrong, it is un-American, and we are fighting back.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask permission to speak as if in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I know people from all over Washington State have been celebrating Pride this month, and many are going to be heading to Seattle this weekend, and a lot of those celebrations will actually be taking place at Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill. For those who don't know, Cal was a friend of mine, so I want to

share a little about his story and how it relates to what is happening in our country today.

Cal was a Vietnam veteran and Washington's first openly gay State legislator. During my time as a State senator, we worked together to help make State government more accessible to the public. But in 1995, like so many at that time, we lost Cal too soon as a result of his AIDS diagnosis.

I remember visiting him in the hospital just a month before he passed, and, of course, he wasn't focused on himself. He was telling me, newly elected to the U.S. Senate, what I needed to do to make healthcare better for other people in our country.

That is still relevant today as we face down Republican attacks on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Cal's election back then was a huge step towards equality, and he really helped change people's opinions.

I have served now on the Senate Appropriations Committee since I was first elected here and have always kept stories like Cal's close to me, fighting to invest in medical research and HIV prevention programs, year after year.

Over the years, we have made enormous and tremendous strides in the fight to prevent and even cure HIV and AIDS so that others do not suffer that fate that Cal did.

NIH funding is supporting work to discover an HIV vaccine. And, separately, PEPFAR, which helps prevent HIV infections around the world, has been one of the most effective programs in our country's history.

But Donald Trump has now terminated more than $250 million in NIH funding supporting work to discover an HIV vaccine. Much of that work happened at Fred Hutch in Seattle for over 20 years. And now he is pushing Congress to pass hundreds of millions in cuts to PEPFAR.

And it is not just that. Trump is terminating all kinds of NIH studies if they even have the words ``gay'' or ``trans'' in them.

He is overseeing an all-out government campaign to turn back the clock and go after our trans friends and loved ones. It is totally wrong, and it is backwards.

Pride this year represents tremendous progress, but that progress is being threatened today like never before. So to everyone who is heading to Cal Anderson Park this weekend, I hope you will join me in reflecting on Cal's story, remembering how his fight matters today, and using your voice to speak up against this discrimination and this administration.

We can't let them sweep these attacks on science and the LGBTQ community under the rug. Let's keep fighting together to end HIV and AIDS, to protect healthcare for everyone, and for equal rights under the law no matter who you are or whom you love because in the end, we will win.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rani Elwy and Ian Newsome from my staff be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the Senator from Maine (Mr. King), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.