Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, we are getting encouraging signs that we may be having some votes tonight. I hope that proves to be true and the Senate does its part to get out of the shutdown.

I was thinking, though, I have been telling a lot of staff around here and everybody else: I apologize for us not getting our work done.

I think a lot of people don't realize how many people around here haven't been paid for 41 days. Do you know who they are? Everybody you can see in this room and every one of your staff members and everybody else who has been doing the hard work, showing up.

I was thinking yesterday, with all the cars in the driveway, those young people that are coming in to pick up their Members and take them back to their apartments, condos, wherever they live here--those kids are doing that on a weekend and not getting paid either.

I also think that getting out of the shutdown and getting the tens of millions of people that are hanging in the lurch across the country--it is just a good thing.

It is a shame we got here, but I want to thank the Members on both sides of the aisle that have finally decided that we need to do our work here, pass a continuing resolution, pass actual regular order bills, and prove this place can work.

The work is not done. We have about 90 days now to fix the other part that we couldn't get agreement on. Let's make sure we start doing the work now so that every Capitol Police officer, every Sergeant at Arms, every Senate staff, and all the people down on the dais who are working extra long hours actually get paid for the hard work they do.

On behalf of the other Members, I thank you.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we had a great hearing in the Indian Affairs Committee yesterday, and I wanted to come to the floor and talk a little bit about it. Before I do, I want to thank Chairman Murkowski, Vice Chair Schatz, and especially Senator Markwayne Mullin, who came to the hearing to hear the 130-year-old saga of what I consider is injustice, racism, and all kinds of bad things that the Lumbee people have experienced.

Back in January, I introduced the Lumbee Fairness Act, which is to right what I consider to be more than a century of wrong. The issue has come before the Senate many times, but every time, it has failed. It is like the Lumbee have been promised so many times by so many politicians and so many election cycles, and yet, at the end of the day, they are left without a resolution to a problem that started over 130 years ago when they were first recognized by the State of North Carolina.

You know, these days, it is rare to see Republicans and Democrats come together in doing anything, but when it comes to Lumbee recognition, the support has become overwhelming, and it is bipartisan. We are talking about support from current President Trump, former President Joe Biden, Vice President JD Vance, Vice President Harris-- former Vice President--Gov. Josh Stein, the North Carolina General Assembly, and nearly every Member of our congressional delegation.

Here in the Senate, nearly two dozen Members from both parties have cosponsored the Lumbee Fairness Act, including Senator Schatz, the vice chair of the committee, and Senator Mullin, who sit together on the committee.

What is interesting about Senator Mullin is that Markwayne Mullin is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. The major opponent to the Lumbee Fairness Act being passed are the Cherokee.

Let that sink in. A policymaker in this room, a Member of the U.S. Senate, is an enrolled member of a Tribe that is opposing Lumbee recognition.

Why are they doing it? Well, over the past, they would say that the Lumbee were fake Indians or that they weren't real; that their story was, you know, fabricated. They have gone to conventions, and they have done all kinds of things to try to mislead people about this issue. But the fact of the matter is, I am not going to let them off the hook this time.

But before I want to talk about the Lumbee, I do want to talk to the Cherokee people.

I moved to North Carolina in 1998. I got involved in politics in 2006. I ran for the legislature, and I became the speaker of the house in 2011--the second Republican speaker since the Civil War.

For years, politicians have been promising the Eastern Band of Cherokee that they would renegotiate their compact and treat them more respectfully, and for years, those promises were not fulfilled.

I became speaker, and the only bill in the 4 years, the two terms that I was speaker of the house that I ever allowed to go to the house floor without a majority of the support of my Republican colleagues was to right the injustice that was done to the Eastern Band of Cherokee by allowing them to modernize and negotiate a new compact, which was transformational for the enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.

So to the Eastern Band of Cherokee--not the leaders who are opposing this now, people that I consider to be a part of the casino cartels that are objecting to this because of money--to the Cherokee people, know that I care as much about you today as I did when I took the step to oppose a majority of my Republican colleagues to right that wrong-- and we did.

Now I have another Tribe in my State, and I want to right that wrong, and the Cherokee are standing in the way. But it is not just the Cherokee; it is the Choctaw; it is the Chickasaw; it is other Tribes. But, folks, I am not letting off of this.

The Lumbee's history is long and well documented. They were recognized by the State of North Carolina in 1885 and began seeking Federal recognition just 3 years later. That was 137 years ago.

During the 20th century, the Lumbee were among the dozens of victims of the termination era--a very dark period in our Nation's history where, on this floor, racist policies, Jim Crow policies, were acted out every single day, and the Lumbee became a victim.

In 1956, Congress passed the Lumbee Act that acknowledged the Tribe but cruelly denied them the benefits and recognition that every other Tribe receives, putting them in a no-man's land. The Federal Government has since worked to correct the grave injustices of the termination era for nearly every other Tribe except for the Lumbee.

Time and again, the Lumbee have proven their case. Their records are filled with testimony, studies, and reports that all lead to one conclusion: The Lumbee are a Tribe fully deserving of Federal recognition.

The House has acknowledged that repeatedly, passing the Lumbee recognition bill with broad bipartisan support in every Congress since the 116th. This year, it was unanimously voted and included in the National Defense Authorization Act that we are about to begin conferencing on.

In 2022, I promised to identify and expose the small but persistent opposition to this bill, and I am not going to go into the details here--I did in a speech I did yesterday--but let me just tell you what I found. It is pretty simple. It is a small handful of well-funded Tribes hiring high-priced DC lobbyists to spin half-truths and stir fear, motivated by profit, not principle. At the center of that opposition is the Eastern Band of Cherokee leadership.

Again, let me make the distinction between the elected leaders of the Eastern Band of Cherokee and a Tribe that I am fully dedicated to, and I have demonstrated that through the actions I made when I was the speaker of the house in North Carolina.

But at the center of the opposition is also a lobbyist whose name--I will have you refer to my testimony yesterday. But it is just rooted in financial self-interest, folks. That is their right, but let's not pretend it is anything more. We got them. We have found them passing out leaflets at Native American conventions talking about fake Indians, undermining the case for the Lumbee. It is disgraceful. But we are tracking them, and everywhere we go, almost invariably, I can find somebody that can give me information where they are trying to spread lies and confusion.

The Eastern Band--in reality, it is not just about the Lumbee. The Eastern Band of Cherokee have opposed nearly every recognition effort in their geographic vicinity that might affect their financial interests. They tried to do it with the Catawba, and we succeeded there.

Now they are running the same playbook on the Lumbee. They are spending millions of dollars on lobbyists and pay-for-play reports. They will pay whoever they have to to conjure some sort of report that builds their case. It is like: I have this thesis. Now give me a report to support it because it is going to keep the Lumbee in this limbo they have been in for 137 years.

It is disappointing to see the kind of money wasted on tearing down other Tribes instead of lifting up their people.

To the leadership of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, spend those millions of dollars on education, on improving the situation in the boundary, helping your people like I have.

So yesterday in the hearing, the principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee said: Let it just happen in the Department of the Interior. Let it run its course.

Well, that is political speak for ``Let the administration do it, take 10 or 20 years, and then we will have a lawsuit that will take another generation to settle.'' We know their playbook. I have studied this. I know what they are doing, and we are going to match them at every step along the way.

Since 1978, they have said: Don't recognize them by an act of Congress; let it go through the process.

But here is the reality: Congressional recognition has become the norm since 1978. Twice as many Tribes have been recognized by Congress as through the administrative process. Congress has recognized Tribes by legislation many times, including the Little Shell Tribe of the Chippewa Indians in the 2020 NDAA and six Virginia Tribes in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. I supported both of those bills because it was the right thing to do.

Mr. President, in closing, I hope that the Eastern Band of Cherokee leadership knows that I care about the people of the Eastern Band of Cherokee as much as I care about the Lumbee. I went to great lengths to have the Eastern Band experience the benefits that came from the work I did as speaker of the house. I will go to great lengths in my remaining time in the Senate to help them in the future as soon as they do the right thing and allow the Lumbee people, after 137 years, to get the Federal recognition they deserve.

Mr. President, on Saturday, I was in Western North Carolina for the day because that marked the 1-year anniversary of the landfall of Helene in a place that a hurricane has never really been before, about 200 miles inland in the Smoky Mountain Range.

In North Carolina alone, it had an impact landwise equivalent to the

State of Massachusetts. About a dozen river basins were at historic, 100-year flood levels, and the damage was tremendous. The loss of life: 108 people in North Carolina alone, more than 250 people by the storm, and $59.6 billion in damages.

It is actually the most expensive storm in North Carolina's history, breaking the previous record of $30 billion by Hurricane Florence back in 2018: 74,000 homes damaged or destroyed; 5,000 miles of roads damaged or destroyed, including major portions of I-40, which are still only one lane in each direction for about a 20-mile stretch between North Carolina and Tennessee; I-26 was damaged; Blue Ridge Parkway has just opened up; 848 bridges damaged and destroyed; 20,000 farms and 800,000 acres of timber damaged; 163 water systems damaged, with Asheville not having drinkable water for almost 2 months after the storm.

When I was in Western North Carolina, I heard someone say that the one community I was in was back on its feet. But for every community that is back on its feet, there are still several communities that are on their knees or flat on their back. In fact, there are some communities that we wonder whether or not they ever will come back.

And the reason I talk about it, in addition to being the 1-year anniversary, we have got real problems in the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund and resources available.

The President, rightfully, acknowledged that there was a release of money about a month ago, but all of that is money that is already-- those are reimbursements. Those are costs that have already been incurred. We haven't even gotten to a point where we are trying to become more resilient or to prepare for the next storm.

When I was riding from Old Fort to Chimney Rock, I was going down a stretch of highway--not a stretch of highway, a stretch of State road. There are still cars in the creekbeds. There are roads that are in the creekbed because they are trying to figure out where they are ultimately going to put it, back on a hillside, when they can get stabilization there and actually have the funding to build the roads.

I know a lot of people have moved on, but in Western North Carolina, we haven't moved on. We are suffering as much today as we were the day or 3 or 4 days after the storm last year.

According to the latest FEMA Disaster Relief Fund monthly report, the major disasters account balance right now is at $1.4 billion. That is dangerously low.

Last month, FEMA approved 7.5 billion from the major disasters account.

In 2024, there were 90 FEMA-declared major disasters, nearly double the 30-year average of 55 declarations per year.

Already this year--and we are really ramping up in the hurricane season right now--we have had 40 major disaster declarations in 22 States. FEMA simply doesn't have the funding needed to respond to a major disaster.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a shutdown posture right now. We have storms in the Atlantic and more storms forming off the coast of Africa, and we are not prepared for another major disaster should it hit this weekend, nor do we have the money that we need to help communities across this country, especially in Western North Carolina, recover from Helene.

The House-passed continuing resolution that we tried to vote on this week had $22\1/2\ billion for the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund. But that money is not here today because we are in a shutdown posture. We are not funding any area of government, but we are especially hurting the Disaster Relief Fund and FEMA. And the only thing standing in our way is a simple vote to continue funding at levels that my Democratic colleagues have agreed to before.

Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a CR that the President or that the majority leader has decorated with ornaments. We call it decorating some of these spending bills like a Christmas tree. This is a simple continuing resolution to spend at the level we were spending yesterday. There is nothing more to it. There is money in here to help with disaster relief, but there is nothing more.

This shutdown is hurting people in North Carolina. This shutdown will hurt more people. We lost the season last year--the tourist season--in the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountain parks. That was a hurricane. That was an inland hurricane disaster. This year, it is the disastrous vote of the Democrats, not allowing us to continue to fund at the levels that we did yesterday.

We are not asking for anything more than that. We are asking for time to negotiate the premium tax credits, the ACA credits. I am on record saying we do need to find a good place for that. It is not about canceling them. But, folks, we can't even get to that if we can't agree to something as basic as this: Can we spend today what we did yesterday?

And I know that there are several Members on that side of the aisle that would like to move with a clean CR and get to that negotiation. I am just speaking on behalf of people in North Carolina, particularly in Western North Carolina, who are struggling mightily. I hope that we can get back to funding the government where we can plus-up the Disaster Relief Fund and that I won't have to come to the floor next week to see who is going to be against this unanimous consent for doing just that.

Let's do our job. Let's get back in business. Let's get the government funded. Let's help the people in North Carolina and in dozens of disaster-declared places all across this country.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the quorum call with respect to the Rinaldi nomination.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about two subjects very different in nature. I want to start with the deadline and, I believe, tomorrow's imposition of a 50-percent tariff on Brazil imports.

I really appreciate what the administration is doing, trying to get other countries on notice that we are tired of unfair balance of trade. We have probably allowed it to go on for too long. So some of the chaos that some people may think the administration is creating with these tariffs is absolutely necessary to stop the chaos of the United States being unfairly positioned with trade partners. So on that side of the ledger, I support what the administration is doing.

But as somebody who advised businesses on capital expenditures, on corporate relocations, on manufacturing facilities, those sorts of things, in my prior career, I am worried about how this 50-percent tariff on Brazil--a country that we have a trade surplus with-- undermines our credibility as we are trying to negotiate these other tariffs because I met with some members of the Brazilian senate earlier this week in my office. I actually had a number of them there. It was opposition and governing party in my office.

The President has threatened a tariff on Brazil because he is not satisfied with the outcome of a judicial proceeding related to a prior leader in Brazil. I had someone who described themselves as a friend of this man who said: I am a friend of this person, and we are working to try and get that judicial outcome reversed, but we don't understand how a judicial decision of a sovereign nation would end up resulting in a tariff for a country that has a trade surplus with the United States.

I agree, and I think it really puts Brazil in an untenable situation. To avoid the tariff, they would have to disrespect their rule of law, and they would have to overturn, arbitrarily, something that has gone through their courts. Whether or not their courts live up to the standards of the United States, I don't know. I guess you could argue it one way or the other. But at the end of the day, they are a sovereign nation, and we have a positive balance of trade with them, and we are asking them to reverse a court decision or encounter a 50- percent tariff on goods coming into this country. Well, think coffee, think inputs from manufacturing, think any number of products that you buy, apparel that says ``Made in Brazil'' having a 50-percent tariff applied to it because our President of the United States doesn't like the outcome of a court system in a sovereign nation.

So I would encourage the President to do like that senate member in my office, who is a member of the opposition, the minority party, who says: He is a friend of mine. We are working through our court system, but allow us to do that. Please don't do the economic damage to a nearly 200-year-old relationship with a sovereign nation.

And on that subject, I agree.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.

Some may know and some may not that today is Medicaid's birthday, and I thought it was probably a good time to--or anniversary or whatever you want to call it. But I came down here to reconnect to a discussion that I was having with my colleagues and with the White House on some of the concerns I have with the provisions in the bill that we packaged that was called the Big Beautiful Bill. That is actually not a marketing term. It is literally what the name of the bill is.

First, I have to stipulate that there are aspects of this bill that I would love to vote on 10 times--for example, the tax reform. The tax portions of this bill were something I worked very hard, as a member of the Finance Committee, to get passed back in 2017. What we did there was to avoid the single largest tax increase in U.S. history. For those who say it was tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, you probably ought to read the language or have somebody who has read it explain it better. The tax reform measures help people who grew up like I did, first and foremost. Go to that trailer park that I lived at on Richards Road in Antioch, TN, which is just south of downtown Nashville, or go to the one that I lived in in Jacksonville, FL, and ask them what happens--when you ever tax businesses--to their jobs.

I could get into a lot of other discussions, but the bottom line is, I didn't have a problem with the tax provisions. I actually wish that the tax had been in the content of the first bill and that we had taken the time to get the Medicaid policy right.

But I am back here again to talk about the Medicaid policy because we have to get it right. One of the reasons I decided to resign when I was confronted with the challenge of opposing this bill--I should say ``retire,'' not ``resign.'' I am still here--was to make the point that getting this policy right was more important than my getting reelected. I think the Medicaid policy in this bill is so fundamentally flawed that if we don't correct it that my colleagues--red State or blue State Republicans, purple State Republicans, and red State Republicans--may end up being guilty of almost the identical mistake that Barack Obama made when he forced ObamaCare down our throats without seeking a single Republican vote to get policy that made sense.

I was so convinced that Obama was wrong that I quit my job and worked full time to get the North Carolina legislature ready for only being in the majority for the second time since the Civil War as I was so convinced the policy was going to be wrong a year before it got implemented and that the Democrats had overreached. I became the second Republican speaker of the house in North Carolina, since the Civil War, based on a bad healthcare decision.

The policy that the House sent us in the reconciliation bill was good policy for Medicaid. It had a work requirement, which I support; it had all kinds of policies for waste, fraud, and abuse that made sense; and it saved $100 billion over 10 years. But then somebody in the White House tried to convince the Senate that they should up the ante for $200 billion more in revenue to pass policy that will do, I think, irreparable damage not only in the policy but in the politics, but we have time to fix it.

The reason I came to the floor today on the birthday of Medicaid is to say I believe the President does not want to harm qualified beneficiaries of Medicaid, but this bill will in its current form. There is a way to fix it. There is a way to have President Trump's legacy deliver on his promise not to push people off of Medicaid and government support systems who qualify for them. I am not talking about the ones who probably shouldn't be on it. There is a way to fix it, but if we don't fix it, I believe that our President's legacy--President Trump, whom I have supported; I have supported each one of his election efforts, and I support him to this day--is at risk if we don't recognize we are done and move on to the next thing.

We don't have to touch a line of the tax policy. We can have a discussion about some of the renewable energy, but I am not going to have that discussion. I want to have a discussion about something that I believe could be the Republicans' ObamaCare. Now, there are some States that probably are not affected substantially, but the majority is. I believe, if we come together and work on this policy and also work on the policy that is set to expire at the end of September--and that is some of the subsidies for the healthcare exchanges for ObamaCare--we could get this right, and this President's legacy will be righting the mistake that was made by Obama and avoiding the mistake that his advisers have told him he should pursue.

So I want the President of the United States and my colleagues in the Senate body to know I am unbridled by any political considerations for the next 17 months, and I stand ready to work with my Republican colleagues and Democrats who are willing to be bipartisan and do something right for our healthcare policy here to get this right. And if I do nothing else in my remaining 17 months, that is worth the effort.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about two subjects, the first of which is the vote that will begin here in about an hour and a half, and that is on this rescissions bill. I have indicated, I voted for the discharge petition and the motion to proceed last night. For those that may not know that process, voting for the discharge petition simply means that we took it out of committee. Voting for the motion to proceed simply means that we are now on the bill and will be considering amendments over the course of the next several hours to determine if we have Member support to change the bill, to improve it from different people's perspectives, and I intend to vote for final passage at this time.

I am also looking at other amendments that maybe will make the bill better, but I also have to speak to the unique nature of this rescissions package so that we make sure that we get this right, and we lay groundwork for future rescissions.

The only time that we have had a successful rescissions package in modern history was 1992. And that rescission--by the way, for those who don't know what rescission is, it just simply means this funding will be cut. You will not be allowed to spend money in the administration.

Well, in 1992, the successful rescissions package actually had significant cuts, but in every case, it had very detailed lists of specific programs that were going to be cut. So then as Members, when they proceeded in 1992--candidly, I wasn't even paying attention to politics back in 1992 at this level--but when they were proceeding with the rescissions package, they can look at a specific line item and come to the floor, like we are going to do this afternoon, and say: I don't like that line item. I am going to see if I have enough support among my colleagues to take that one out. I will end up voting for the rescission, but I want that out because I disagree that we should be cutting the funding.

In an ideal world, that success in 1992 would have instructed the rescissions package we have before us today, but the reality is, we don't have those details. I am prepared to vote for this rescission package with the hope that I can trust those who are going to make the detailed decisions for about $7 billion of the total $9 billion rescission.

About $2 billion of it is associated with National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. People have asked me why wouldn't I try to vote on an amendment to cut that out. Because I believe that those organizations have drifted over time, that we probably, at some point, should provide funding to them, but I am not going to fight that part of the rescission because at least we know exactly what it is. So Members have to decide whether or not they are OK with it.

I suspect we are going to find out there are some things that we are going to regret, some second- and third-order effects, and I suspect that when we do, we will have to come back and fix it, similar to what I am trying to do with a bill I voted against a couple of weeks ago, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill that I think we are going to have to go back and work on.

But the remainder of the rescissions package really is at the top level. We have no earthly idea what specific cuts will occur, but I am willing to give OMB and the President the benefit of the doubt that they are going to be responsible cuts. There are two kinds of areas that I am going to be focused on, in particular. There is an area that could lay the groundwork for the administration to cut roughly $200 million from a Ukraine support program. It is not the military support program. I appreciate what the President is doing in terms of finally getting to a point where we are going to sustain support for Ukraine. This happens to be a program that some believe, you know, if it is cut could harm some of the nonmilitary aid that we are providing Ukraine. I share that belief.

Now, I have been told as late as yesterday that will not be one of the cuts, and so I am willing to move forward and vote on this bill on the assumption that that comes to pass. However, if we find out that some of these programs that we have communicated should be out of bounds, that advisers to the President decide that they are going to cut anyway, then there will be a reckoning for that. It won't be in this bill, but this is only a small bill. This is a $9 billion rescissions package, folks.

We have been told that through DOGE there should be $1 trillion or $2 trillion in savings. The reason why it is so important to get this rescissions bill right is because if confidences are betrayed with a $9 billion bill, do you really think you are going to have the support for wide-open, ``trust us'' decisions for future larger decisions?

In other words, if my confidence is betrayed here, then I won't vote for another rescissions bill, unless we have that line-item programming. But I am willing to go through this exercise, and, hopefully, we can trust the administration to not go down the path that we have been assured that they won't when they are given this broad ability to make up to about $7 billion in cuts.

Now, some of them are obvious. People are going to say: Well, Tillis, you are worried about--pick some sort of liberal program in some part of the world. Well, obviously, we are not. There are a lot of things that we can cut where scope creep, or fraud, or abuse exists, but some of these programs will have life impacts.

I was in Kenya, in Nairobi outside of Kenya. I was at a Sudanese refugee camp a couple months ago. And what struck me in this refugee camp were these American signs in a maternal ward with children that had distended bellies. They had flies crawling all over them, expectant mothers sick, and they were thankful that they had that condition to bring their children to and to potentially get support for expectant mothers. They were thankful for those conditions that we would find abominable in this country, and they were willing to give the United States credit to give them those conditions.

Those are the kinds of programs that I am imploring the administration to not touch when given the broad authority that they will get with this bill--because if they do, it could be the end to billions of dollars that we could potentially rescind if we don't do one of two things in this bill: No. 1, get this authority and cut programs like I just described in Kenya or Ukraine or get this authority and betray a confidence with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle in a spending decision that was used to fund the government.

We have got this yearend appropriations we have to work on--September 30. We have got to fund the government. Now, how likely is it that Democrats are going to come with us--the only way we can fund the government is to get at least seven Democrats to vote with us at the end of September 30 or we could go into a shutdown.

If I am a Democrat and you are trying to get me to vote and get to a 60-vote threshold to fund the government and you have just betrayed a prior agreement and a prior appropriation, what is the likelihood that they are going to do that? So if we don't get agreement, if I see any rescissions that are betraying a confidence that we as U.S. Senators made to get the government funded, that is going to be a problem for me in the next rescissions bill.

Now, somebody may say I am showboating or doing something else by coming to the floor and doing this, but, folks, I am trying to protect this administration from itself in terms of future decisions that will make our job more difficult to govern here.

I want the President to be successful with these rescissions packages. I want the people advising him to know how they execute will determine whether or not President Trump is ultimately successful.

Federal Reserve

Mr. President, so that is all I have to say about that, but I do have a brief comment before I relinquish the floor, and I apologize to my friend and colleague from New Hampshire.

There has been some talk about potentially firing the Fed Chair. And I think probably people need to be educated on how--the Fed really only has two things that they need to do: They need to keep unemployment low, and they need to manage inflation. It is called a dual mandate.

Now, some people may actually think that Chair Powell just has broad authority to set policies around that and that by firing him or replacing him then everything is good, that person can make good decisions that a given administration likes. Folks, there is something called the FOMC, which has 12 voting members and 7 members that come into the discussion when we are talking about policies around rates.

Twelve of them have to vote for a rate increase to occur. No one person, including the Chair, can influence that unless there is a consensus. So if anybody thinks that firing Chair Powell is going to change their focus and their method on the dual mandate, simply, they don't know what they are talking about. They don't know how this whole process works, and I hope they do because the consequence of firing a Fed Chair just because political people don't agree with that economic decision will be to undermine the credibility of the United States going forward. And I would argue, if it happens, you are going to see a pretty immediate response, and we have got to avoid that.

Look, I have had problems with Chair Powell, but at the end of the day, I respect him, and I respect the independence of the Fed. And if anybody thinks that it would be a good idea for the Fed

to become another Agency within the administration, subject to whatever the President's advisers want him to do, they are making a huge mistake, and they really need to study how that process works.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, Senator Kennedy talked about Scooter, and Senator Scott talked about Bubba. I want to talk about Jelly Roll.

It turns out, in a committee hearing with Jelly Roll--the country music rock singer--he grew up in Antioch, TN.

I said: Do you remember Countryside Village?

He said: Well, they call it Countryside Meadow.

I said: I used to live there.

He said: I did, too.

It is a trailer park that is still standing on Richards Road in Nashville, TN.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties, I was living in that trailer park, and I was living with a family in the economic bubble. I remember back then when President Reagan came in and he offered tax cuts that everybody characterized as tax cuts for the rich. But let me tell you all, when we saw those tax cuts implemented, Thom Tillis and Jelly Roll ended up finding opportunities beyond our wildest imagination.

So it turns out that those so-called tax cuts for the rich back then lifted me out of that situation into a high-tech career and now standing here before you in the U.S. Senate.

This and several other amendments are amendments that are standing in the way of other people getting lifted out of that same trailer park. So, ladies and gentlemen on our side of the aisle and those over there, I hope you will join us.

Shout loudly ``no.''

Vote on Motion to Commit

Mr. President, the reality is, let's fast-forward now to 2017. I was in this Chamber when we passed the TCJA. After we passed this, again, everybody was arguing this was all tax policy for the rich, but we unleashed an American economy that we had not seen in our history. In fact, it was better than the tax cuts of the Reagan era.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to get every bit of what we did in 2017 back on the books because people are not understanding the pro-growth nature of this tax policy.

I hope my colleagues will vote loudly yes once again--no--no once again.

Mr. President, I am guessing, while they are probably focused a little bit less on me because I have made an announcement this weekend, but you can already tell that this narrative is about how we are all about the wealthy.

I have already stipulated that I have concerns with the Medicaid bill. You all know where I am on that. But we were talking about the tax bill, and there is nothing in this tax bill that I think falls short of an extraordinary opportunity for economic growth that lifts up the very people whom I grew up with. For that reason, once again, I hope you will vote loudly no.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, in truth, you can see this sort of upping of the ante. These are the gimmicks that we play when we want to get a show vote, especially with somebody who may be running for reelection. We know that this isn't going to materially change things.

My friend from Maine knows where I am on healthcare, and I hope that we get things fixed. But this exercise, by virtue of its being a voice vote, tells you all you need to know about this process. And for that reason, I would suggest just one more loud ``no'' vote.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, I come today to explain my vote yesterday for voting against the motion to proceed on this bill.

I spent most of my career in management consulting. I managed large, complex enterprise projects, multiyear, thousands of hours, with a lot of complexity that takes people, process, and technology to make them work. I learned a lot in that career, and I was able to go to the legislature and take that mindset as a member of the minority for two terms.

Then we got the majority in 2010, and I found myself being the speaker of the house. We were in the middle of the financial crisis. When I got sworn in in January of 2011, North Carolina had a $2 billion shortfall on a $20 billion general revenue fund, and I had 6 months to balance that budget.

We did something that had not been done in North Carolina. We took the time to understand every aspect and every dollar that was being spent in government. We determined how to cut government in a way that was sustainable. We cut 12 percent from the university system budget, not at the rate of growth but the actual spending.

I had some people say that it was going to be disruptive, and the University of North Carolina would never be the same again. But we did it in a way that was instructed by the operations of the university system. And we did it in a way in concert with the chancellors.

And do you know what happened? We actually balanced the budget. We did do those cuts. And the last time I checked, the North Carolina University system is still considered one of the greatest systems in the United States of America.

Why do I use that example? Because the Medicaid proposal in this bill bears no resemblance to that kind of discipline and due diligence. It has no insights into how these provider tax cuts are going to be absorbed without harming people on Medicare.

Even worse, most of my colleagues do not even understand, on either side of the aisle, the interplay of State-directed payments and the devastating consequences of the funding flows that are going to be before us.

Here is how I figured out the impact in North Carolina: I used to be speaker of the house. And I like the speaker and have a good relationship with the speaker and the President pro tempore, so I called them up. I had my staff ask them if they would do an impact assessment on what this proposed bill would do to the Medicaid Program in North Carolina.

But I didn't want just the view of the Republican partisan staff that report to the speaker and the President pro tempore on how they are going to absorb this bill. I decided to go to Josh Stein, the Governor. I went to his Democrat staff for Medicaid. I asked them to prepare an estimate, independent of the estimate that I had done with fiscal research.

But I took it a step further. I went to the hospital association. I asked three different independent groups--a partisan Democrat group, a partisan Republican group of experts, and a nonpartisan group of the hospital association to develop an impact assessment, independent--not talking, not sharing, reporting to me.

What I found is the best case scenario is about a $26 billion cut. Now, we have got a delay, so it may be 2 years; it may be 1 year. All it does is make that $26 billion happen in year 1 or year 12. But the impact is the same, and it is indisputable.

Now, when I actually presented this report, that you can find on my website, I had people in the administration say: You are all wet. You don't know what you are doing.

I said: Well, why don't we assemble a series of meetings. We are going to provide you our analytics. You go through it. Tear it apart.

And I told Mehmet Oz, whom I consider to be one of the most capable people in the Trump administration--he is a brilliant man. I encourage my Democrat colleagues to talk to him. He knows his stuff, and he is very focused on getting efficiencies out of CMS.

So we had three different conference calls with CMS, with Oz on the video and me on the video. I said this: Guys, I would love nothing more than for you to prove me wrong. I would love nothing more than for you to tell me it is not $26 billion or $30 billion; that it is $2.6 billion or $2 billion or $200 million.

But after three different attempts for them to discredit our estimates, the day before yesterday, they admitted that we were right; that between the State-directed payments and the cuts scheduled in this bill, there is a reduction of State-directed payments, and then there is the reduction of the provider tax. They can't find a hole in my estimate.

So what they told me is that, yes, it is rough, but North Carolina has used the system; they are going to have to make it work.

All right. So what do I tell 663,000 people in 2 years or 3 years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there anymore, guys?

I think people in the White House, the amateurs advising the President, are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.

Do you know the last time I saw a promise broken around healthcare, with respect to my friends on the other side of the aisle, is when somebody said: If you like your healthcare, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep it.

We found out that wasn't true. That made me the second Republican speaker of the house since the Civil War, ladies and gentlemen, because we betrayed the promise to the American people. Two years later, three years later, it actually made me a U.S. Senator because in 2010, it had just been proposed. And just anticipation of what was going to happen was enough to have a sea change election that swept Republicans into the majority for the second time in 100 years.

Now Republicans are about to make a mistake on healthcare and betraying a promise.

It is inescapable that this bill, in its current form, will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet room when I was there with Finance, where he said: We can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs.

Now those amateurs who are advising him--not Dr. Oz; I am talking about White House healthcare experts--refuse to tell him that those instructions that were to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse all of a sudden eliminates a government program that is called the provider tax.

We have morphed a legal construct that admittedly has been abused and should be eliminated into waste, fraud, and abuse.

Money laundering, read the code. Look at how long it has been there. I was speaker of the house. I refused to do it. When I left North Carolina, I said we are not going to do a provider tax. I left it at 2\1/2\ percent. Now it is 6--a mistake on the part of the leadership.

Frankly, I know my friends are probably going to think I am a little bit crazy here, but I actually passed a law that made it illegal to expand Medicaid.

Why did I do that? Because I was convinced someday we would be here. I would have rather found a way to get more people on Medicaid at the standard FMAP than having this 90-10 match and watching it disappear and taking away desperately needed healthcare.

Over the course of the evening, I may look for an opportunity to speak again, but I am telling the President that you have been misinformed. Your supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.

I love the work requirement. I love the other reforms in this bill. They are necessary, and I appreciate the leadership of the House for putting it in there. In fact, I like the work of the House so much that I wouldn't be having to do this speech if we simply started with the House mark.

I have talked with my colleagues in North Carolina. I know that we can do that. And I believe that we can make sure that we do not break the promise of Donald J. Trump that he has made to people who are on Medicaid today.

But what we are doing, because we have got a view on an artificial deadline on July 4 that means nothing but another date in time--we could take the time to get this right if we laid down the House mark of the Medicaid bill and fixed it.

My friend and colleague from New Hampshire, I jumped in front of her, so I am only going to take another minute or two.

But we owe it to the States to do the work to understand how these proposals affect them. How hard is that? I did it. How hard is it? How hard is it to sit down and ask the Medicaid office, ask the legislative staff, ask the independent hospital association what the impact is? If there is no negative impact, what is wrong with daylight? What is wrong with actually understanding what this bill does?

I know what it does because I spent a career implementing complex systems, and then I had the privilege of being speaker of the house, and I implemented a limited government setting. And since I have been here, I have focused on bills and watched their implementation from the cradle until they are fully implemented.

We owe it to the American people and I owe it to the people of North Carolina to withhold my affirmative vote until it is demonstrated to me that we have done our homework; we are going to make sure that we fulfill the promise; and then I can feel good about a bill that I am willing to vote for. But until that time, I will be withholding my vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 198 through 249, with the exception of Calendar No. 241, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk with the exception PN89; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I also ask indulgence for one more minute.

This is really easy. Yesterday was my 38th wedding anniversary. I have convinced Susan Tillis to stay married to me for 38 years. I wish I was going to be with her and a couple of dozen family members down at the beach, but I am doing my work here, and I am going to stay until it is done.

I also want to wish my grandson--they are celebrating his second birthday today down there at that same beach house--happy birthday.

God bless my family. I love you.

Mr. President, I am going to be brief. I promise, Senator Van Hollen, I am going to be about 5 minutes. This is an easy one.

No. 1, I probably should have said this earlier. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I completely disagree with the narrative of the billionaire tax. Folks, this is actually reducing or making sure we don't raise taxes on people like me who grew up in trailer

parks, didn't get my degree until I was 37, struggled to make ends meet. Those people benefit from that. I read the bill. I think most of you know I am detail-oriented. It is not what it seems.

I also should have thanked Senator Crapo. He is a good friend, a great leader. I should have thanked him for the hard work he is doing. I got a little focused on the Medicaid failed baseline that is in the bill, but I should have started with that. Thanks to Mike Crapo and Senator Thune, whom I admire as our leader.

I am here to talk about the production tax credit and the investment tax credit. It is another classic example where think tanks and people who haven't worked a day in business are setting policy in the White House without a clue about what they are potentially doing to our grid.

A lot of people probably--I had Alex Weinstein, who is a self- described philosopher and expert in this area in my office--talking with three people, practitioners, that actually work in it. One is someone who specializes in power purchase agreements for large businesses.

Walmart is one of the most sophisticated buyers of electrons in the world. They map out their power requirements years in advance. They want to make sure their food doesn't spoil and they have power running. They have already made several power purchase agreements with projects underway, folks. This bill is basically gutting it.

Instead, everybody is high-fiving.

What is amazing to me is the mark that we laid down the other day almost achieved the same level of cuts as the House bill, within $30 billion--within $30 billion. And instead of thinking that was progress, somebody got cute and decided to take away in construction and put it in service.

Let me tell you why this is disingenuous. I was a partner at Pricewaterhouse and worked in utilities practice--large utilities, like TECO, Duke, Florida Progress, AEP. I know this industry. I understand baseload; I understand peaking; and I understand this technology, which is increasingly becoming viable because of storage as a part of augmenting baseload.

Now, we have the Walmarts and all these data centers, and everything we wanted to bring back onshore putting in these power purchase agreements teed to these projects, like solar, in particular, like wind, and other innovative--renewable natural gas, methane, hydrogen. I can go on.

But somebody, a self-described philosopher in a think tank that I admire a lot, but I realized, if you are a philosopher and in a think tank, you, by definition, have never worked in an operational role. You can't possibly understand what happens to this pipeline of power purchase agreements and the future of our grids.

Here is what is going to happen. Wipe it clean. Put an excise tax in. Effectively throw the football into the end zone, spin it, walk away, do the party dance. And what you have done is create a blip in power service because there isn't going to be a gas-fired generator anytime soon.

Folks, the generator is necessary to create power with gas--best case, 5 years from now. That is best case, 5 years from now. So you can't get that online and, at the same time, this whole pipeline is going down.

So I want that philosopher to tell me that he understands how to plan out power over time and to let me know that when all these projects fail--some will make it, some will get subsidized, some will go bankrupt--so it won't be Armageddon, but it is going to be a problem. So they better get it right.

It is another example, folks, when you rush a bill and don't think through the implementation, you don't get it right. I hope my colleagues recognize it is half-baked. It is another reason why we should go back to the House mark, get Medicaid right, so I can come onto the floor and tell my colleagues on the other side of the aisle why they are wrong on all the attributes of the House mark; why they are wrong on some of their characterizations of the tax bill; and why they will be wrong on an energy policy that makes sense.

But I have to vote against the bill for my own party--that I have never parted from before--because we are rushing to an arbitrary deadline with people who have never worked a day in this industry. Maybe they philosophized and have written a few white papers on it but haven't gotten their hands dirty. This is another segment of the bill that needs to change.

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