Taxpayer Assistance And Service Act
Madam President, I rise today because for the second year in a row, the President is trying to illegally steal money from the people I work for. Eight months ago, Congress overwhelmingly passed bipartisan appropriations bills, and the…
Madam President, I rise today because for the second year in a row, the President is trying to illegally steal money from the people I work for.
Eight months ago, Congress overwhelmingly passed bipartisan appropriations bills, and the President signed them into law. Democrats negotiated those bills in good faith.
With this pocket rescission, the Trump administration is saying those laws and the agreements we made when negotiating them don't matter, and he is saying the investments we made into the American people don't matter. That is going to make negotiating future appropriations bills significantly harder. How can one side make concessions if they know that the other side will tear them up along with the deal months later?
But I want to spend some time talking about the specific funding in this rescissions package that the President considers wasteful. Now, mind you, Donald Trump is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on prime-time commercials promoting Donald Trump. He is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a gold-encrusted ballroom and an arch--a monument to himself--over the objections of veterans and their families due to its proximity to Arlington National Cemetery. He is spending tens of billions of dollars on a war in Iran which is raising gas prices and home heating costs for American families.
But none of that is what Trump or Office of Management and Budget Director Vought consider wasteful. No, no, no. They consider that a priority. What Trump and Russell Vought consider wasteful is $28 million for research to reduce healthcare costs and improve Americans' health. What they consider wasteful is $70 million in education funding that supports national security priorities and helps ensure we remain competitive globally.
First, let me talk about the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality--what we often refer to as AHRQ. The Agency is ``critically important, it helps us understand what we're doing well and where we have opportunities to improve.'' Now, that is not me saying that about AHRQ; that is what HHS's Deputy Secretary nominee told me at a hearing just 2 weeks ago. Ten days later, the Trump administration said it was going to illegally impound funding for this ``critically important'' work.
AHRQ has funded advancements in telehealth to help doctors better treat patients in rural areas and help lung cancer survivors monitor for recurrence. AHRQ has supported work to reduce the rate of hospital- acquired infections and to make sure that kids waiting for a heart transplant can get one. It has funded work to improve healthcare for older Americans coming home from the hospital. This little but mighty Agency has saved literally billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, but President Trump has decided that this research is wasteful and that his personal vanity projects are more important.
Let me turn to the Department of Education. There, the President is illegally cutting funding that supports important national security interests. It funds training in less commonly taught languages that the U.S. Government determines are a national priority. It helps educate students that go on to serve in national security and U.S. intelligence roles.
These are just a few examples of what President Trump considers wasteful. It is not tens of billions of dollars lit on fire for an illegal war in Iran or taxpayer-funded commercials to promote himself; no, it is funding for Americans' healthcare and education he deems wasteful.
This pocket rescission is illegal. It is also throwing away opportunities to improve Americans' health and make our country safer. These are small but important investments that we should be making.
There is plenty we don't agree on, but I wish all my colleagues would stand up for the laws we pass and the agreements we make as part of them and stop this President and any President, Democrat or Republican, from so blatantly breaking those laws.
That is what Senate Democrats have been fighting for, and that is why we didn't vote to confirm Director Russell Vought, who said this was exactly what he would do if confirmed. It is why we have tried to enact laws to prevent this nonsense idea of a pocket rescission so we don't get to this point.
Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side have refused to do that again and again. But I am not going to stop fighting to uphold the law and for these programs that benefit the people of my State and the United States of America.
I yield the floor.