July 25, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 126 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S5084-S5093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I move to proceed to executive 
session to consider Calendar No. 351.
  THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The motion was agreed to.
  The clerk will report the nomination.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Mary M. Rowland, of Illinois, 
to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of 
Illinois.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Mary M. Rowland, of Illinois, to be United States District 
     Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.
         Mitch McConnell, John Boozman, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, 
           Pat Roberts, Mike Rounds, Thom Tillis, Roger F. Wicker, 
           Cindy Hyde-Smith, Kevin Cramer, John Hoeven, Rob 
           Portman, Dan Sullivan, Chuck Grassley, Richard Burr, 
           John Thune, Roy Blunt.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum 
calls for the cloture motions be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.


                             Mueller Report

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, yesterday the American people finally 
heard at length directly from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In his 
testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence 
Committee, the special counsel gave voice to his report on Russian 
interference in our 2016 Presidential election and President Trump's 
obstruction of the investigation into it.
  What the American people and I heard from Special Counsel Mueller was 
an explanation and confirmation of the deeply troubling findings and 
conclusions of his investigation and his written report. He told us 
that the Trump campaign welcomed the help of a hostile foreign power, 
Russia, to influence our 2016 election, accepted that help, lied 
repeatedly about it, and benefited from it.
  He confirmed that there was voluminous evidence that President Trump 
had obstructed justice through his efforts to interfere with and impede 
the special counsel's investigation. Most importantly, contrary to the 
President's claims, the special counsel confirmed that his 
investigation had not exonerated the President of the crime of 
obstruction of justice. When asked, Robert Mueller made this crystal 
clear,

[[Page S5085]]

testifying that ``the President was not exculpated for the acts that he 
allegedly committed.''
  In his testimony yesterday, Special Counsel Mueller did not back away 
from any of his written report's findings. The American people saw and 
heard him emphatically defend them.
  Special Counsel Mueller, a decorated war hero, gave every single 
American cause for deep alarm when he called Russian interference in 
support of the Trump campaign ``among the most serious challenges'' to 
American democracy that he had ever seen.
  He agreed that it was ``unpatriotic'' and ``wrong'' to seek campaign 
help from a foreign power, and he decried President Trump's failure to 
acknowledge or respond to the systematic and sweeping Russian 
interference, warning: ``They're doing it as we sit here.''
  Yesterday, Donald Trump tried to defend himself in tweets while 
Robert Mueller defended our democracy with his testimony.
  The special counsel's testimony and events of the past few weeks have 
led to the undeniable conclusion that it is time for the House of 
Representatives to begin a formal impeachment proceeding against 
President Trump.
  I stand here today on the Senate floor, the place where an 
unprecedented trial would occur, understanding the gravity of this 
moment in our Nation's history. I stand here today because I believe we 
have reached the moment where we must stand up for the survival of our 
democracy.
  Before I came to this decision, I said that I needed to hear directly 
from Special Counsel Mueller and other witnesses, that Congress needed 
to obtain documents, and that we needed to gather all the facts and 
evidence.
  I had hoped that the House Judiciary Committee's investigation would 
get us answers to the questions about the President's obstructive 
conduct that remained after Special Counsel Mueller issued his report. 
I had hoped that the President, who continues to insist that he did 
nothing wrong, would cooperate and that the House Judiciary Committee 
would receive testimony and other evidence from the Trump campaign and 
Trump administration witnesses. That has not happened, and that is 
because of continued and deliberate Presidential obstruction.
  Just listen to the numerous roadblocks that the President has put in 
Congress's way since Special Counsel Mueller issued his report in 
March. President Trump has denied the entire Congress access to the 
full and unredacted version of the Mueller report and its underlying 
materials.
  President Trump has claimed that key witnesses, like former White 
House Counsel Donald McGahn and former White House Communications 
Director Hope Hicks, are immune from testifying or simply don't have to 
comply with congressional subpoenas.
  President Trump has opposed testimony from two of the special 
counsel's top deputies and restricted the scope of the Mueller 
testimony, and President Trump has vowed to fight any future 
congressional subpoenas.
  What we have seen from President Trump is a pattern of repeated and 
baseless defiance of the House's constitutional authority to 
investigate, especially subpoenas seeking evidence that the President 
obstructed justice and abused his power.
  The President has engaged in stonewalling that shows an unprecedented 
disregard and contempt for a coequal branch of government under our 
Constitution--disregard and contempt that would make Richard Nixon 
blush with envy.
  Taken together, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's testimony and the 
President's obstruction of the congressional investigation compel us to 
immediately begin a formal impeachment inquiry.
  I do not come to this decision lightly. An impeachment proceeding 
against the President of the United States is a matter of the highest 
constitutional magnitude, but when the evidence demonstrates that the 
President of the United States obstructed the special counsel's 
investigation and when the facts and the evidence demonstrate that the 
President of the United States is continuing to obstruct justice, 
seeking to derail a legitimate congressional investigation into the 
lawfulness of his conduct while in office, then Congress must do its 
constitutional duty and act.
  The acts of obstruction that Special Counsel Mueller described in his 
report and in his testimony yesterday to Congress are impeachable 
offenses--a view shared by myriad constitutional scholars, attorneys, 
and prosecutors.
  The President improperly pressed then-FBI Director James Comey to 
drop the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael 
Flynn and, subsequently, fired Comey because of the Russia 
investigation--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony.
  The President unlawfully demanded that then-Attorney General Jeff 
Sessions reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation and take 
over the investigation--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's 
testimony.
  The President engaged in witness tampering and falsification of 
government records when he directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to 
fire Robert Mueller and later pressured McGahn to deny that it had 
happened--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony.
  The President engaged in a coverup when he sought to prevent public 
disclosure of evidence about the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower 
meeting--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony.
  The President abused his constitutional authority by holding out the 
prospect of pardons in exchange for witnesses' silence--confirmed 
yesterday by the special counsel's testimony.
  That Robert Mueller found so much evidence that this President 
committed impeachable offenses might be shocking, but it should not be 
surprising. After all, look at what we have learned about this 
President during his 2\1/2\ years in office, what he is willing to say 
and what he is willing to do.
  Did an American President put family members in high-level White 
House policy positions--positions requiring security clearances that 
should never have been issued? Yes, he did.
  Did an American President repeatedly show infatuation with and 
express sympathy for authoritarian figures around the globe, most 
notably Vladimir Putin, the man who interfered with the 2016 election 
to President Trump's benefit? Yes, he did.
  Did an American President face multiple, repeated, and credible 
allegations of sexual assault by more than a dozen women--sexual 
assault that he bragged about on tape? Yes, he did.
  Did an American President become known as individual No. 1, in effect 
an unindicted coconspirator on charges of Federal campaign finance law 
violations that were brought against his lawyer, Michael Cohen, in New 
York? Yes, he did.
  Did an American President seek to divide Americans based on race, 
religion, and ethnicity, directing racist language at elected Members 
of Congress and urging others to celebrate that hate? Sadly, yes, he 
did.
  We have watched as Donald Trump has given the Constitution a stress 
test, the likes of which we haven't seen in 230 years. We have watched 
him attack judges and seek to intimidate the judiciary.
  We have watched him disregard Congress's coequal role in government 
under article I of the Constitution, whether by spending unappropriated 
money on his border wall, relying on ``acting'' government officials to 
eviscerate the Senate's advice and consent function, or ignoring 
legitimate oversight requests.
  We have watched the President sue Congress in order to block release 
of his tax returns and refuse to disclose any meaningful information 
about his business operations, especially sources of foreign investment 
and loans, raising alarming questions about violations of the 
Constitution's emoluments clause.
  This President relishes attacking the freedom of the press and has 
incited violence against journalists for exercising their First 
Amendment rights.
  Donald Trump is tearing at the fabric of our democracy, literally, 
every single day. And yesterday, the Congress and the American people 
heard the facts and evidence that Congress can and should act to hold 
him accountable.
  In the face of impeachable offenses, it is the Constitution that 
entrusts the Congress with the responsibility of deciding whether to 
remove a President of the United States from office for

[[Page S5086]]

high crimes and misdemeanors. Indeed, in the face of evidence of 
serious and persistent misconduct that is harmful to the Nation, 
Congress would be abusing its constitutional discretion and setting a 
dangerous precedent if it did not begin an impeachment inquiry.
  If the evidence of obstruction of justice and other wrongdoing that 
Robert Mueller explained yesterday is not evidence of impeachable 
offenses, what is? What damage would a future President have to inflict 
in order to trigger an impeachment inquiry?
  I have no illusions about where an impeachment inquiry will lead. My 
Republican colleagues have thus far shown themselves unwilling to hold 
this President accountable. They believe that everything is ``all 
over.'' But the evidence in the Mueller report and the special 
counsel's testimony yesterday explaining it, defending it, and 
reaffirming it compel us to do what is right and what is necessary, and 
that is to exercise our authority and begin an impeachment proceeding 
against Donald Trump. Nothing less than our democracy is at stake. I 
call upon my colleagues in the House of Representatives to do so.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                            Budget Agreement

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I have one message for my colleagues 
in the Senate and those who might be watching. It is about this chart, 
which is very simple. This is the line of what we call discretionary 
spending. This is about 31 percent of the budget. That is the budget 
agreement you have read about in the newspapers the last couple of 
days. That is what we are talking about.
  It is a blue line. It has to do with paying for our national defense, 
so it is about half of the dollars; then for our national parks, 
America's best idea; then for the National Institutes of Health, the 
source of medical miracles ranging from restoring your heart to curing 
Zika to the National Laboratories, which are the sources of our 
competition with the rest of the world. That is what this money is for.
  What the blue line recognizes is that for the last 10 years, the 
growth in spending for national defense, national parks, the National 
Institutes of Health, and National Labs has gone up at about the rate 
of inflation, and for the next 10 years, including the budget agreement 
that the President and the congressional leaders recommended this week, 
it will go at about the rate of inflation.
  The point is, for 20 years--2008 to 2029--the increase in spending 
for the amount of money we are talking about and for the type of 
spending in the budget agreement is not the source of the Federal 
deficit. What is? Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest--
that is the red line that 10 years ago was $1.8 trillion. At the rate 
we are going, it will be $5.4 trillion in 10 years. That is not the 
type of spending we are talking about in the budget agreement.
  My message today is in support of properly funding national defense, 
national parks, National Institutes of Health, and National Labs and 
not beating our chest and pretending that we are balancing the budget 
on the backs of our soldiers, our medical miracles, and our national 
parks when, in fact, it is the entitlements that the President and the 
Democrats and the Republicans in Congress need to address.
  I will talk about the blue line today. I have talked about the red 
line plenty before. Former Senator Corker and I introduced legislation 
a few years ago that would have reduced the growth of this red line by 
$1 trillion over 10 years. The only problem was, we were the only two 
cosponsors of the legislation.
  The budget deficit is vitally damaging to our country, but the budget 
agreement that President Trump recommended is not the source of the 
budget deficit. That part of the budget is under control. That is 31 
percent of all the dollars we spend in the United States. Just add to 
that, if this continues for another 10 years, this blue line--national 
defense, national parks, National Institutes of Health, National 
Laboratories--is going to go from 31 percent of the budget to 22 
percent of the budget, and mandatory spending is going up to 78 
percent. This is the budget deficit. This is the budget agreement we 
are going to be voting on next week. That part of the budget is under 
control.
  Here is what the budget agreement, which the President recommended 
and our Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have 
recommended and which I strongly support, does. The first thing it does 
is suspend the debt limit--the amount we can borrow. If we don't do 
that, we have a global fiscal crisis. We all know that, so we need to 
do it.
  Second, it raises the defense and nondefense discretionary budget 
caps. That is this blue line down here. That is the amount of money we 
can spend, as I said, on national defense. That is about half of the 
spending--and then our veterans, National Labs, biomedical research, 
and national parks.
  Let's talk about the military for just a minute. Former Secretary of 
Defense James Mattis, who had enormous respect here in Congress, said 
that ``no enemy in the field has done as much harm to the readiness of 
the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act's 
defense spending caps, worsened by operating for 10 of the last 11 
years under continuing resolutions of varied and unpredictable 
duration.''
  In plain English, what that means is that because of the President's 
leadership and the recommendations of our bipartisan leaders, we will 
avoid what Secretary Mattis said has been so damaging to our military.
  Here is what happened. Back in 2011, we passed the Budget Control Act 
to try to limit this part of the budget. That came after a special 
committee was appointed, which everyone hoped would deal with this part 
of the budget--the problem part, the part that is causing the deficit.
  The Budget Control Act came up with a formula that everybody thought 
would work. They said: Well, if we put in there that we will have 
dramatic reductions in military spending, Congress will never do that, 
so they will be forced to finally do something we all should have had 
the courage to do a long time ago, and that is deal with entitlements.

  What happened? We didn't deal with the red line, and we cut the 
military. We cut the military badly over the last 10 years, and we are 
just now beginning to catch up. Last year, Congress avoided 
sequestration and increased discretionary spending for fiscal years 
2018 and 2019.
  Let me say it again, because I am going to repeat it over and over 
and over: We increased spending last year at about the rate of 
inflation. That is not the cause of the Federal deficit. Reaching that 
agreement, though, meant that for the first time in nearly a decade the 
Department of Defense received its budget on time, and it received a 
record funding level for research and development.
  This new 2-year budget agreement that the President has recommended 
will rebuild our military by providing $738 billion for defense 
discretionary spending for 2020 and $740 billion for 2021.
  It will also allow us to fulfill the commitment we made as a part of 
the New START Treaty in 2010 in December. I voted for that, and part of 
the deal with President Obama was that if we passed the treaty limiting 
nuclear weapons, we would make sure that ours worked. President Trump 
said the other day that Russia has 1,111 nuclear weapons, and they all 
work. We don't want them to use them, and the best way to keep them 
from using them is to make sure ours work.
  We have reached a budget agreement so that we can get to work on the 
appropriations bills and hopefully get many of them done before the end 
of the fiscal year, which is the 30th of September. That is important 
to the military especially.
  When I met with Secretary of the Army Mark Esper, who was approved by 
a big vote yesterday as Secretary of Defense, we talked about what it 
meant to have an appropriations bill passed into law on time, instead 
of a so-called continuing resolution, which is just a lazy way to go. 
It just says to spend next year what you spent last year, which means 
we don't spend for the things we need to spend, and we don't stop 
spending on the things we shouldn't spend.
  Here are some of the benefits of passing the appropriations bill on 
time,

[[Page S5087]]

which would mean October 1. It keeps large projects on time and on 
budget. That is true in the Defense Department, and it is also true 
other places. We have a big project called the Uranium Processing 
Facility at Oak Ridge, TN, which comes through the Energy and Water 
Appropriations Committee, which I chair, and Senator Feinstein is the 
ranking member. We made sure that is on time and on budget--$6.5 
billion by 2025. But if we don't appropriate the money on time and on 
budget, we can't finish the project on time and on budget, and who is 
hurt by that? Our national defense and our taxpayers or the Chickamauga 
Lock in Tennessee.
  All of the Army Corps of Engineers leaders have told me: Don't start 
these projects and then stop them. Don't stop and start and stop and 
start. That wastes money and slows things down.
  So, for the last several years, we have continued steady 
reconstruction. We need to pass these on time and on budget.
  Also, it keeps equipment maintenance at the Department of Defense on 
schedule. That saves money. There is more research and development for 
new technologies. It speeds up modernization of current equipment and 
keeps military training on schedule. That means soldiers, sailors, 
airmen, and marines are properly prepared for prompt combat, and it 
prevents accidents.
  This new 2-year agreement also helps our veterans. In 2018, President 
Trump signed the VA MISSION Act, which the Senate passed by a vote of 
92 to 5. The MISSION Act gave veterans the ability to seek medical care 
outside the Department of Veterans Affairs and see a private doctor 
closer to home. So if you are 60 miles away in the State of Nebraska or 
Kansas or Tennessee and you need medical care and you can't be seen at 
a VA facility, you can see a private doctor close to home. This budget 
agreement makes sure we have enough money to support that, and I will 
ask the staff here how much that is.
  Senator Perdue said yesterday that 40 percent of the increase in the 
spending in this budget agreement, on the discretionary side, is to 
help veterans with the Choice Program. So it is not even in the 
national defense part of the budget; it is in the nondefense part of 
the budget. It helps veterans. So 40 percent of this increase is 
helping veterans on top of what we spend for defense, and we still keep 
the spending at about the rate of inflation. That is not the source of 
our budget deficit.
  It is important for the American people to know that the Republican 
majority in Congress has worked together with Democrats to provide 
record levels of funding for science, research, and technology. In the 
Senate, Senator Blunt from Missouri and Senator Murray from Washington 
State have provided the leadership for that in the Appropriations 
Committee.
  In April 2016, Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes 
of Health, told our Appropriations Committee--I am a member of that, as 
are Senator Durbin and others; we worked on this together--that with 
adequate and consistent funding, he can make 10 bold predictions about 
some of the medical miracles he expects over the next several years. He 
talked about regenerative medicine that would replace heart transplants 
by restoring your heart from your own cells. He talked about vaccines 
for Zika, for HIV/AIDS, and for the universal flu, which kills tens of 
thousands. He talked about an artificial pancreas. He talked about 
cures for Alzheimer's or at least medicines that would identify the 
symptoms--that would identify Alzheimer's before the symptoms and do 
something about it.
  Since fiscal year 2015, the Appropriations Committee has increased 
funding for the National Institutes of Health by $9 billion, or 30 
percent. From $30.3 billion in 2015 to $39.34 billion in fiscal year 
2019, Senator Blunt and Senator Murray did that by cutting some 
programs and increasing the National Institutes of Health. They did it 
all down here in the blue line that stays within the rate of 
inflation--not up here in the red line. That is called good government.
  I can't tell you the number of leaders of academic and research 
institutions I meet who say that the young investigators in our country 
are so encouraged by this new funding for biomedical research, and they 
are busy working on the next miracles. That is what consistent funding 
will do.

  Dr. Collins came back to the committee this year, and I asked him if 
he was ready to update those bold predictions. He said: We are close to 
a cure for sickle cell anemia--sickle cell disease--and a new, 
nonaddictive painkiller which in my view would be the holy grail in our 
fight against opioids. With this new budget agreement, Congress could 
increase funding for the National Institutes of Health for the sixth 
consecutive year to continue this lifesaving research and do it all 
within the blue line, which is not the cause of the Federal budget 
deficit.
  Let's go to the Office of Science. Last year, the Energy and Water 
Development Appropriations Subcommittee that I chair with the Senator 
from California, Mrs. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat, agreed, along 
with Congress, for the fourth consecutive year--and President Trump 
signed it--to provide record funding for the Department of Energy's 
Office of Science. With this new budget, we can do it for 5 years. What 
does this mean? This means funding for the 17 National Laboratories, 
including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which are America's secret 
weapon. No other country has anything like our National Laboratories. 
Many Americans worry about competition from China and other parts of 
the world. How do we meet that competition? Through innovation.
  Where does that innovation come from? It is hard to think of a major 
initiative that has not come since World War II without some federally 
sponsored research funding. Funding our Labs is important and helps 
keep us first in the world in supercomputing. Why is supercomputing 
important? Because it keeps our standard of living high and keeps our 
national defense on its toes.
  China knows that. Two years ago, China had the two top 
supercomputers, but today the United States has the two fastest 
supercomputers in the world and the Exascale computing project will 
deliver the next generation system starting in 2021. This 
accomplishment is not the result of 1 year of funding or one political 
party but 10 years of bipartisan effort through the Bush, Obama, and 
Trump administrations, Democratic and Republican, to try to make sure 
America is first in the world of supercomputing. We did it all under 
the blue line over the last 10 years. The funding went up at the rate 
of inflation, not through the Moon like in entitlements which is the 
source of the Federal budget deficit, not the money we spend to keep 
ahead of China and Japan in supercomputing.
  On national parks, Ken Burns and others say America's national parks 
are our best idea. There are 417 of them. They have a badly deferred 
maintenance backlog. Senators Portman, Warner, King, myself, and others 
are working with President Trump, who supports our legislation, to try 
to cut half of the deferred maintenance in the national park backlogs 
in the next 5 years. We are going to use money from energy on Federal 
lands to do that.
  Americans are often shocked to find when they go to Federal parks 
that bathrooms don't work, roofs leak, and campgrounds are closed 
because there is not enough money for maintenance. This budget helps 
make sure our national parks are something Americans can continue to 
enjoy--all 418 of those parks--and we do that under the blue line that 
goes up at the rate of inflation, not at the budget-busting rate of the 
entitlements line.
  I have said this over and over, and it needs to be said over and 
over. The red line is mandatory spending. The blue line is 
discretionary spending. The blue line will be $1.6 trillion at the end 
of 10 more years. The red line will be $5.4 trillion at the end of 10 
more years. Ten years ago, the blue line was 1.1 and the red line was 
1.8. What do you think the problem is for the source of the Federal 
budget? You don't need a Ph.D. in mathematics to figure this out. It is 
not this line. It is not national defense; it is not biomedical 
research; it is not supercomputing; it is not the Army Corps of 
Engineers. It is this one line--entitlements. It is our fault for not 
having dealt with it, but we shouldn't beat our chest and pretend to 
balance the budget by decimating the work on that blue line. 
Discretionary spending is only 31 percent of the money. Mandatory 
spending is the rest of the funding. It will increase from 69 percent 
of

[[Page S5088]]

total spending to 78 percent in 2029. The spending on national parks, 
national defense, National Institutes of Health, and National Labs will 
be reduced to 22 percent. I don't believe we can properly defend our 
country, properly keep up our parks, stay first in the world in 
supercomputing, and expect to continue biomedical research that 
produces lifesaving miracles if we squeeze all the money out of the 
blue line and let it go up in the air on the red line.
  The United States is experiencing robust economic growth, and there 
is a lot of political talk in this Chamber but no one really disputes 
that. Our economy is growing and growing. We have not seen anything 
like it in a long time. There have been 6 million new jobs created just 
since President Trump was elected, with the lowest unemployment rate in 
50 years, at 3.7 percent.
  Before Congress passed the major tax reform in 31 years, our gross 
domestic product was projected to be a little less than 2 percent over 
the next 10 years. For the first quarter of 2019 this year, actual 
gross domestic product was a little over 3 percent. Higher GDP and 
lower unemployment leads to higher family incomes and more revenue for 
the Federal Government. More revenue for the Federal Government reduces 
the debt.
  I urge my colleagues to support this 2-year budget agreement. To 
those who are worried about the Federal debt, I am worried about it 
too. That is why Senator Corker and I put our bill in to reduce by a 
growth of $1 trillion over 10 years what is happening with this red 
line. If we want to talk about the Federal budget deficit, let's talk 
about where it really is. Let's talk about the red line, which has gone 
from $1.8 trillion 10 years ago and is projected by the Congressional 
Budget Office to go to $5.4 trillion 10 years from now.
  Let's not pretend we are balancing the Federal budget by focusing on 
the part of the Federal budget that is under control, the part that 
funds our military, national parks, biomedical research, and National 
Labs. For the last 10 years, it has gone up at about the rate of 
inflation, and for the next 10 years, according to the Congressional 
Budget Office--including this 2-year budget agreement which only 
affects the blue line, not the red line--it goes up at the rate of 
inflation. So I am proud to support it. I believe it is the right thing 
to do, and when the House sends us a chance to vote for it next week, I 
hope it gets a big vote from the U.S. Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me just take a few minutes here to 
share an idea that when we come back next week, we will be talking 
about the budget. We are going to be talking about making really 
difficult, very difficult decisions.
  I would state that we on the Senate Armed Services Committee have an 
advantage over some of the other people because one of the critical 
areas in the budget coming up is how we treat the military. I think it 
is important for people to understand that if you are a member of the 
Armed Services Committee, you are in a position to know something the 
other Members don't know. It may sound like someone is not doing their 
job, but that is not true at all.
  When you are on the Senate Armed Services Committee, there are 
hearings that take place. Starting in January, there are posture 
hearings. Posture hearings normally take about 6 hours a week. In 
posture hearings, we find out about matters that others just don't have 
time to find out about unless you are a member of the committee. If you 
are a member, you are sitting there for 3 hours a week.
  I don't say this critically of the previous administration because--I 
would say, in the Obama administration, the top priority was not 
defending America. In fact, he established something called parity. 
Parity meant that for every one dollar put into the military budget, we 
have to put one dollar into the nonmilitary budget. That had never 
happened before, at least it had not happened since World War II. At 
that time, it was established that national defense would be our 
priority. Every Democrat and every Republican President at that time 
all the way up until the Obama administration had defending America as 
the top priority.
  What happened during that administration was that we actually had a 
dramatic reduction. If you use constant dollars, that reduction took 
place between 2010 and 2015, using constant dollars. For this 
description, we used 2018 dollars. Going into 2010, it was about $794 
billion. Going into 2015, it was $586 billion or something like that. 
So there was about a 25-percent reduction in the defense budget in a 5-
year period. That had never happened before in the history of this 
country. Yet we suffered through, and we paid dearly for it.
  A lot of people are not aware of it, unless you are on the Armed 
Services Committee because we see it. When the current President came 
in, President Trump, his budget boosted that back up. Now we are 
talking about real dollars, and it was $700 billion in fiscal year 
2018. Then for fiscal year 2019 it was $716 billion.
  Now we are getting into where we are today in the current budget. We 
passed a defense authorization bill, and in it we actually came out 
agreeing that we had to get to $750 billion. Someone might ask why. We 
had something called the National Defense Commission report. It was a 
document that was a good document that talked about how we were going 
to need to appropriate because during the Obama administration we saw 
China and Russia become peer competitors in many areas. In fact, they 
ended up with some things better than ours. Let me give an example. 
Artillery during that period of time for both China and Russia had us 
outranged and outgunned. How many people know that? People assume 
America has the best of everything. Well, that was true up until this 
time.
  Air and defense, there were only two Active-Duty battalions with no 
new technological advancements. Nothing happened during that time. That 
allowed China and Russia to start creeping up and getting ahead of us.
  On nuclear triad modernization, we had no modernization increases at 
that time, but Russia and China did. In fact, China actually has today 
a nuclear triad, and Russia is actually building one. The U.S. defense 
against electronic warfare--we didn't have that kind of a defense. With 
Russia, you can remember what happened in Ukraine.
  Hypersonic weapons is the newest thing that people talk about. It is 
a type of weapon system that moves five times the speed of sound. It is 
the weapon system of the future. Prior to the past administration, 
prior to the Obama administration, we were ahead in our research on 
hypersonic weapons, but by the end of that time and up until this new 
administration came in, we were actually behind Russia and China. I 
only say that because we really took a hit.
  The only time--we have had three opportunities, one in fiscal year 
2018, one in fiscal year 2019, and then another on the budget we are 
going to be voting on this coming week. That was our opportunity to 
catch up.
  I would just say this: If you are on the Armed Services Committee, 
you have an obligation because you are in a unique position of knowing 
the efficiencies that we have. Others don't have that. Many of the 
Members take the time and they find out that they can get this done.
  But we are in a position where--General Dunford, as an example, said 
that we have lost our qualitative and our quantitative edge in 
artillery. We are actually outnumbered 5 to 1 by China and 10 to 1 by 
Russia. In air and missile defense, China and Russia have weapons that 
prevent access--we call them SAMs, surface-to-air missiles. Nuclear 
modernization--no real U.S. modernization took place during that time. 
We had some of our top people admitting that we had deficiencies, and 
we quickly tried to correct them.
  Along came fiscal year 2018. In fiscal year 2018, we got back up to a 
$700 billion budget, and we started working on things. We had the 
manual. It is a manual I normally bring down with me to the floor when 
we talk about this because this is something that everyone agreed on as 
the manual was put together. It was the NDS Commission report. It was 
put together by 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans--all experts in national 
defense--and everyone agreed that would be our blueprint to pull us out 
of where we were at that time, and it was working. We were on schedule 
to do it. We are currently on schedule with this budget.

[[Page S5089]]

  It says that while we are rebuilding our military, we should be 
anticipating that we have to increase our military spending by between 
3 percent and 5 percent over this period of time. That is a net 
increase. Well, the budget we came out with in the defense 
authorization bill was $750 billion, and it was a budget that almost 
gets us there but not quite.
  The President's budget agreement that came out the other day has a 
figure of $738 billion. That is very close to where we are supposed to 
be. It is a 2-year budget, and that is a good thing for the military. 
Those of us on the Defense Committee understand that. So that brings 
that $738 up to $740.5 billion for 2021, so it is very close to the 
$750 billion defense authorization.
  I only say that because that makes it more important for anyone who 
is serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee to be in a position 
to know what I just said. And that is something that most people don't 
know, and I don't believe that most of the Members of this body know, 
but those who are on the committee do know it. We have to keep in mind 
that this budget is going to be the only way that we are going to be 
able to do what needs to be done.
  This is the short version. I will come back and talk more this coming 
Monday and give a lot more details than I gave now. I will say this: I 
would encourage any member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to 
understand that they are in a position to know what the problem is, and 
a lot of other people do not know this. I would anticipate that members 
of the committee would be in that unique position to know and would be 
supporting a budget that gives us enough room to get back into position 
to recover from the losses that we took from the previous 
administration. That is what is at stake. That is what we are 
anticipating. I would anticipate that our members from the committee 
should be doing that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Yount). The Senator from Ohio.


                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am on the floor this afternoon to talk 
about an issue that I have come to this floor other times to speak 
about, and that is the drug crisis we face in this country. In fact, I 
am told that over the last 3 years, I have now come to the floor 58 
times to address this topic--to talk about the opioid crisis, talk 
about the new resurgence of crystal meth, and talk about what we can do 
about it.
  I will tell you, during those 3 years, we made a lot of progress, not 
just in talking about this issue but doing something about it. We put 
new policies in place at the Federal level for better prevention, 
better treatment, better longer term recovery, and to also help our 
first responders--specifically, to give them access to this miracle 
drug naloxone, which reverses the effect of overdose.
  Congress passed legislation, like the Comprehensive Addiction and 
Recovery Act, the Cures legislation, and the STOP Act. We have provided 
actually more than $4 billion of additional funding for these 
programs--particularly for treatment--over just the last few years. In 
Ohio alone, we have received $140 million through CARA and Cures since 
they were signed into law. That money has gone toward innovative, 
evidence-based programs that are actually making a difference. We had 
to do this because this crisis has gripped our country in the worst 
drug epidemic ever. More people are now dying every year from overdoses 
from these drugs than died in the entire Vietnam conflict, as an 
example. We have never seen anything quite this bad, so we responded, 
as we should have, at the national level to a national crisis.

  Working with States, localities, nonprofits, people out there in the 
trenches doing the hard work, we are beginning to make a difference. 
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control--CDC--issued a report with 
their latest statistics on overdose deaths. While drug overdose deaths 
are still way too high, they show we are actually seeing a reduction.
  By the way, this is the first time we have seen a reduction in opioid 
overdose deaths in more than 8 years. Think about that. Every year for 
8 years, we have seen increases in deaths, to the point that we had 
over 70,000 people a year dying of overdoses in 2017. In 2018--we now 
have the numbers in from CDC--it went from roughly 71,000 to roughly 
68,000. Again, that is way too high. No one should be satisfied with 
that. But after increases every year, to have a 4-percent decrease 
nationally shows that we are beginning to turn the tide. Let's keep 
doing what we are doing. We cannot pull back now. If we do, it will 
just go back up again. Actually, it is the first time since 1990, I am 
told, that nationwide overdoses from any kind of drugs--opioids and 
other things--have decreased in a calendar year. That is the first time 
since 1990.
  In Ohio, we did even better from 2017 to 2018. We had more than a 4-
percent drop; we actually had a 22-percent drop in Ohio. That is partly 
because my home State has been ground zero for this. Like West 
Virginia, Kentucky, and other States, we have been hit really hard. To 
go 22 percent below where we were the previous year is progress, and we 
should be proud of that. Still, we are seeing overdose rates that are 
way too high. Overall, around the country, 33 States had reductions.
  As I said earlier, the area where we made the most progress is in 
combating opioids, partly because of legislation we passed here. 
Particularly, we tried to address this issue of prescription drugs, 
heroin, and fentanyl.
  The Washington Post recently published a stunning analysis showing 
why it is so important that we continue to push back and how we got 
here. They showed that for the 6 years between 2006 and 2012, there was 
an absolutely unbelievably high number of shipments of prescription 
pain medications. Oxycodone and hydrocodone were the ones they focused 
on, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipments 
to pharmacies.
  In a single CVS pharmacy right outside of Cleveland, OH, more than 
6.4 million pills were delivered during that 6-year period. Think about 
that. In one small pharmacy, there were over 6 million pills. Overall, 
the Post found that over that period, more than 3.6 billion 
prescription pain pills were supplied to Ohio. That is ``billion'' with 
a ``b.'' That is an astounding number. That means that during those 6 
years, there were approximately 313 opioid prescription pain pills 
prescribed for every single man, woman, and child in Ohio. That is what 
we are talking about here.
  Obviously, this was used as a way for people to take these pills and 
spread them, not just in Ohio but in other places, causing immense harm 
because people got addicted to these pills and turned to heroin and 
fentanyl. Many of these people are people who not just have an 
addiction but end up having overdoses, and many of them died.
  This week, the largest civil trial in U.S. history will begin in my 
home State of Ohio. I think it is appropriate that it is in Ohio. This 
will consolidate cases from around the country. More than 2,000 cities, 
counties, Native American Tribes, and others will sue some of the 
biggest pharmaceutical companies and major distributors for their role 
in this drug crisis. The pharmaceutical companies and the distributors 
are going to be sued in court in Ohio through a consolidated case. This 
is the biggest civil trial, they say, in the history of our country.
  Two of the Ohio plaintiff counties--Cuyahoga and Summit--have been 
among the areas in my State that were hardest hit by opioids. No wonder 
they are part of this lawsuit. In 2016, the death rate from 
pharmaceuticals--opioids, painkillers--in Cuyahoga County was 3.26 
times the national average. In Summit County, so many people died from 
overdoses that a mobile morgue had to be created in order to help 
process the bodies. I was there in Summit County during that time 
period. They actually had to bring in a mobile unit to be able to deal 
with all the overdose deaths.
  The more we find out about the sheer number of pills these drug 
companies pumped into the United States--more than 76 billion overall 
during that period--the more it is clear that lawsuits like this are 
going to be necessary to get to the bottom of what happened and require 
these entities to help those who were affected by these pain pills. A 
lot of these people turned to other substances that were more 
accessible and less expensive, like heroin, but had

[[Page S5090]]

started with an addiction to pain medication. We are pushing back 
against the opioid pill industry that flourished for too long within 
our borders. That is a positive sign.
  While the CDC showed an overall decrease in overdose deaths, as I 
talked about earlier, there are some troubling trends that have 
continued.
  First, while the number of opioid overdose deaths fell, the number of 
overdose deaths fell related to synthetic opioids--specifically, cheap 
and dangerous fentanyl--actually rose. Heroin and prescription drugs 
went down, but actually, for the synthetic opioid--which is 50 times 
more powerful than heroin and unfortunately produced overseas and 
shipped into our country--those numbers actually rose. Fentanyl deaths 
actually rose. In fact, last year, more deaths were attributed to 
fentanyl than to heroin and prescription drugs combined.
  Fentanyl is the big new danger. There is overall progress, but 
fentanyl is getting worse. We had a report last week of a single kilo 
of fentanyl being seized in Middletown, OH, which is enough of the drug 
to kill more than half a million people. This was in our community, 
Middletown, OH. That is enough of the drug to kill more than half a 
million people.
  We are beginning to push back on fentanyl, as some of you know, 
through legislation, including the STOP Act, which got passed in this 
Chamber and in the House. This is doing a better job with keeping this 
poison from coming through our U.S. mail system, which is where most of 
it has been coming from. Our own postal system has been the conduit for 
this poison. Most of it is coming from one country--China. It is 
produced in chemical labs there by unscrupulous scientists and chemists 
and then sent through the mail.
  The 2019 audit by the inspector general of the Postal Service found 
that the Postal Service identified and pulled a package requested by 
Customs and Border Protection 88 percent of the time. This was an 
improvement from only 79 percent of the time the year before, in 2017, 
and only 67 percent of the time in 2016, but it is still not complying 
with the STOP Act. The STOP Act says 100 percent, not 88 percent.

  Again, why is that important?
  This stuff is getting in through the mail. If the U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection can identify these packages and screen them and pull 
them offline, less of that poison will come into our neighborhoods. It 
also raises the price of this product, which is part of the problem 
right now--that it is not just powerful and deadly but also 
inexpensive.
  Overall, it was said that the Postal Service missed a number of 
packages--12 percent--due to operational errors. We can't afford these 
operational errors. It is too important.
  We need to ensure that all packages that enter the United States have 
the kind of information we need to be able to track potentially harmful 
packages once they get inside our border. This is advance electronic 
data. It is not required everywhere, but it needs to be.
  The STOP Act requires the Postal Service to do that, including with 
100 percent of the packages coming in from China. It required it, by 
the way, by December 31 of last year. Yet the Postal Service just 
informed us on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which 
we did this work--where we investigated this over many, many months--
that it has only received data on 52.8 percent of all of our 
international packages and only 70.7 percent on those from China for 
2018. In March of this year, 2019, it was up to 57 percent and 78 
percent. Let's get to 100 percent from China. This legislation requires 
70 percent from other countries. There is no excuse for not meeting 
this. Again, it is the law of the land. So, while it is improving, the 
process is taking too long, and it has failed to meet the requirements 
in the STOP Act.
  The next big milestone, by the way, in the implementation of the law 
requires the Postal Service to begin refusing foreign shipments without 
there being the required advance electronic data that reads where it is 
from, what is in it, and where it is going. This is to apply to any 
package to be received after December 31, 2020. At the end of next 
year, if it is not providing the data, we will refuse the package.
  A lot of people have expressed concern about that to me. ``My gosh. 
This is going to stop international freight back and forth.'' No. It is 
going to require the Postal Service to do what it should be doing 
already, which is to require these shippers to do what they should be 
doing, and that is to provide the data. It is not hard, and it is not 
expensive. Again, most people are doing it. By the way, FedEx, DHL, and 
UPS--the private carriers--have done it for years. They have done it 
based on the law that passed after the 9/11 attacks. It is our post 
office that has not. Sometimes it has viewed this, apparently, as its 
having a competitive advantage in its not having to require that. Do 
you know what? It is too important to us and to the deaths that are 
occurring from fentanyl not to require that.
  We have to improve the screening in the mail, and we are, and we will 
continue to make progress on that. Of course, that is not all we have 
to do. More fentanyl is now coming from other places, particularly from 
across our southern border. This is very concerning because we have 
gaps on our southern border right now. They say that between 40 and 60 
percent of the Border Patrol agents are being pulled off the border to 
deal with the very real humanitarian crisis on the border.
  I was there a week ago last Friday, and I had an opportunity to speak 
to a number of Border Patrol agents who were processing individuals and 
dealing with the humanitarian needs of a surge of families and 
children, including those who were claiming asylum. We need to have 
these people attending to the humanitarian needs and processing these 
individuals. Yet I will tell you, when I talked to the Border Patrol 
agents about it, that was not where they wanted to be. They want to be 
doing their jobs because they know these drugs are coming in when they 
are not out there with a watchful eye on our border.
  Unfortunately, we are in a situation right now where we need more 
humanitarian aid, which we have finally provided, thank goodness. We 
also need more help on the border itself to be able to close some of 
these gaps. I want to be sure that we are, indeed, dealing with both 
issues. We can and should.
  The drug smugglers who are affiliated with Mexican cartels are pretty 
smart. They know where there are gaps. They take advantage of them and 
bring in more fentanyl. Last year, Customs and Border Protection seized 
about 1,800 pounds of fentanyl at the border. In the first half of this 
year alone, it seized more than 2,000 pounds of fentanyl. This year, we 
are headed toward apprehending double the fentanyl at the border. I 
will tell you we don't know how much is coming in. Nobody does.
  Because of these gaps and because of the Border Patrol's having been 
pulled off the border to deal with the very real crisis down there with 
regard to the humanitarian issue and the flux of people coming in, 
there are more gaps. The numbers of those shipments that have been 
apprehended have been bad enough--more than double this year. It has 
been enough fentanyl to kill millions of people, and it is probably 
worse than that.
  This fentanyl is increasingly being laced into other drugs by the 
cartels. The fentanyl makes you so likely to become addicted that they 
put it in other things, including crystal meth, including cocaine, 
including heroin. Individuals who consume anything right now that is a 
street drug might be unknowingly ingesting this incredibly toxic drug 
fentanyl also and risking their lives because of the overdose deaths 
that are associated with it.
  In Ohio, the number of overdose deaths attributed to fentanyl-laced 
cocaine and methamphetamines has increased dramatically. As an example, 
Columbus Public Health actually released a public alert just this week 
that urged anyone who uses drugs or knows someone who uses drugs to 
have naloxone, a miracle drug--some people call it Narcan--that 
reverses the effects of the overdose from opioids. They say you have to 
have this miracle drug on hand because of the fentanyl poisoning that 
is going on in Columbus. Already in 2019, 740 doses of Narcan have been 
issued in response to overdoses in one town alone, Toledo, OH.

[[Page S5091]]

  This issue of fentanyl is very real. It is affecting our communities 
in new ways, and we have to be able to respond flexibly to what is 
happening. It remains a dangerous threat.
  Also complicating the recovery process is the continued resurgence of 
psychostimulants, particularly crystal meth. Again, crystal meth is 
coming from--where?--across the border, from Mexico. You will probably 
remember that at one time in your communities, there was talk about 
meth labs. You may have seen some coverage of that, and you may have 
had some meth labs in your neighborhood. There are horrible 
environmental issues, obviously, in the producing of methamphetamines, 
which are so dangerous. Guess what. There are no more meth labs in your 
neighborhood. That is the good news. The bad news is, there are no meth 
labs because this stuff that comes in from Mexico is cheaper and more 
powerful, more devastating, and more damaging to our communities. So it 
is a concern.
  The latest CDC data on overdose deaths--particularly with regard to 
opioids--is very hopeful, but the overdose deaths by psychostimulants 
and cocaine continue to increase. That is because, again, fentanyl is 
being mixed into these psychostimulants. Methamphetamine deaths 
increased by nearly 30 percent, and 42 percent of all overdose deaths 
last year were directly attributable to cocaine, psychostimulants like 
meth, or both mixed together. That is the new problem, and we have to 
address it.
  As we have continued to fight opioid abuse, I recently introduced a 
bill, entitled ``Combating Meth and Cocaine Act,'' in order to address 
this resurgence and to be sure that here in Congress we are being 
flexible in responding to it and not waiting until we have another huge 
drug crisis here of a new way to mix drugs or a new resurgence of 
crystal meth. To date, grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act, 
which is now called the State opioid response grants, have been used to 
increase access to naloxone--again, a very important drug--as well as 
to long-term addiction treatment and support services. Yet, for all the 
good these grants have done, they can't be used to address the crisis 
beyond opioids, which ignores the underground reality, at least in my 
State and in so many other States.
  Earlier this year, for example, I participated in a roundtable 
discussion with leaders in Knox County, and I do this around the State 
on a regular basis. In Knox County, the prosecutor's office estimated 
that 80 to 90 percent of all drug incidents now involve crystal meth--
methamphetamines. They told me they have been able to use the State 
opioid response grants to help with the treatment and recovery services 
but that they are not effective with regard to meth because there is 
not an effective way to treat meth with drugs, as there is with 
opioids. There is not an effective way to use the Narcan with meth, as 
there is with opioids. So we need to be more flexible in providing 
these communities with the help they need to combat this new 
resurgence. Our legislation will allow the State opioid response grants 
to be used for programs that focus on methamphetamines and on cocaine 
usage. More flexibility is important.
  We know these funds are making a difference, so the bill will also 
reauthorize the State opioid response grants for 5 years, which will 
give some certainty by providing the $500 million annually that will be 
needed to ensure there will be a stable funding stream to go to these 
innovative programs in the States. This is a simple, commonsense 
change. It will allow State and local organizations the flexibility 
they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on 
addiction--opioids but also psychostimulants that are coming back with 
a vengeance.
  The latest data from the CDC is a promising sign that we can and will 
recover from the drug crisis if we continue to work to give those in 
need the help they need to get back on their feet. We also need to 
ensure that we don't rest on our laurels as cartels continue to 
innovate themselves and try different angles.
  There is so much money in this that these deadly drugs will continue 
to come unless we show the same kind of flexibility when responding. If 
they can, they are going to continue to send drugs through the postal 
system. They are going to continue to send them across the southern 
border. Fentanyl, cocaine, and meth have shown themselves to be 
continuing public health threats, and we have to keep working--all of 
us here on a bipartisan basis--to ensure that State and local 
governments get the resources they need to help stem the tide.
  The Federal Government has been a better partner over the past few 
years with our States, with our localities, and with our nonprofits 
that are there in the trenches, doing the hard work. We can't give up 
now. The numbers from the CDC are hopeful with regard to opioids, but 
that just means we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that we do 
not now back off. We cannot take our eye off the ball. We have to 
continue to focus on what we are doing and then add to that more 
flexible responses to the new resurgence of fentanyl being mixed with 
meth and crystal meth coming in directly from Mexico. This new drug 
reality is one that must be met with the same kind of innovative 
response we have responded with here in the last few years.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                            Economic Growth

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise after 10 years of being in the 
Senate and after having endured speech after speech after speech on 
this floor that has claimed the Republican Party is the party of fiscal 
discipline. It was politics that created something during the depths of 
the worst recession, called the tea party, which rallied all over 
America to stop what it said was runaway spending.
  When I arrived here, I actually believed that the Republican Party 
was a fiscally responsible party, that there was some principle behind 
it. I know better today. I was naive. It is all about politics.
  There have been five budget deals since 2013 between Majority Leader 
Mitch McConnell and whoever has happened to be in the White House. 
These deals were meant to overcome the idiocy of the across-the-board 
cuts that were created by the sequestration--which nobody in America 
understands but which are basically across-the-board cuts on spending--
that otherwise would have been investments in your family, maybe, or 
investments in our military. They were agreed to as part of a fiscal 
cliff deal in the dark of night, at 2 o'clock in the morning, by 
nobody--literally nobody--who had actually read the bill. Ever since 
then, politicians in Washington have been making deals to try to 
overcome it.
  When President Obama was President, this is how much money he was 
allowed to spend. Since Donald Trump has been President, this is the 
money that the Republicans have spent. This red is defense, and the 
blue is nondefense.
  Under President Obama the deals increased by an average of $33 
billion above the sequester. The two deals under Donald Trump increased 
spending by $154 billion, four times as much--four times as much--at a 
moment when the President is saying our economy is the best it has ever 
been in American history.
  The result of this is that under Donald Trump the deficit has 
increased by 15 percent each year. The deficit just between last year 
and this year is up by 23 percent as a result of the Republican 
majority in the Senate and Donald Trump.
  We are on track to run $1 trillion deficits every year as far as the 
eye can see. That is after 10 years of economic growth and unemployment 
below 4 percent.
  At no time in our history have deficits been this large outside of a 
major war or a recession, which brings me to my second slide.
  This is the annual spending growth around here. This is the annual 
spending growth around here of defense and nondefense. They are both in 
here.
  Under President Obama, in his first term, the spending went up by 3 
percent. We were in the worst recession since the Great Depression. He 
had to pass the Recovery Act. That is in this number. That is in this 
number. It was at the depths of the worst recession since the Great 
Depression. Three million Americans lost their homes, and 9 million 
Americans lost their jobs. We had a 10-percent unemployment rate--

[[Page S5092]]

not a 4-percent rate, not a 3 and change, but a 10-percent rate. In the 
name of fiscal responsibility, Republicans did nothing except berate 
the President for trying to save the economy and for what he was trying 
to do.
  I will come to that in a moment.
  This includes the Recovery Act. Overall growth--annual spending 
growth--grew by 3 percent during President Obama's first term. It fell 
by 2 percent during President Obama's second term.
  It has gone up by 4 percent during Trump's first term. It has 
increased more under this Republican President. Admittedly, he is not a 
conservative. It has grown more under this Republican President than it 
did when President Obama was trying to save the economy during the 
worst recession since the Great Depression. This 3 percent number 
includes the Recovery Act. The Republicans are now growing government 
spending by more than that--by more than that.
  Here is what they said when they wouldn't lift a finger during the 
depths of the worst recession. Congressman Mike Pence, before he was 
Vice President, said:

       We the people do not consent to runaway Federal spending. 
     We the people do not consent to the notion that we can borrow 
     and spend and bail our way back to a growing America.

  He said that to a tea party rally here in Washington, DC, that was 
here to stop runaway spending.
  Where are they today? It is worse today than it ever was under 
President Obama. It is far worse, not a little bit worse, because not 
included on this slide are the tax cuts that have never paid for 
themselves and are not paying for themselves here.
  Donald Trump and the Republicans have created $2 trillion of deficit 
spending because of the tax cuts and $2 trillion of deficit spending 
because of the spending.
  By the way, they are not actually spending this money, in a sense. 
They are borrowing all of it from our children. They have not paid for 
a dollar of it--not one dollar. They are borrowing it from the pages 
who are here. They are borrowing it from the children of cops, 
teachers, and firefighters--that is who they are borrowing it from--to 
give tax cuts to rich people, to make our economic inequality greater.
  Congressman Mick Mulvaney, now the President's Chief of Staff, 
talking about the Obama administration's budget at the time, said:

       It's hard to explain how detached from reality that is, to 
     think that the country can spend another $1.6 trillion when 
     it doesn't have the means. It means either you haven't been 
     paying attention or you don't care.

  He is the President's Chief of Staff. He is the President's Budget 
Director.
  If that was runaway spending, how is this not runaway spending?
  The junior Senator from Texas said:

       The debt is out of control. And, it is jeopardizing the 
     future for our kids. I have got two little kids who are 4 and 
     2.

  He lectured the President.

       And, the idea of handing them a $16 trillion debt, I think 
     is immoral.

  Really? What about $24 trillion? What about $30 trillion? Is that 
more moral than $16 trillion? Really?
  Now, former Speaker Paul Ryan said: ``We will end up with a Greece-
like situation on our hands.''
  ``A debt crisis is coming to the country.''
  That is what he said here.
  Admittedly, he left in the middle of a government shutdown, never to 
come back to Washington, DC--a fitting end to a decade of fiscal fights 
and shutdowns and government closures, all done in the name of fiscal 
responsibility, never actually achieving it and--never, ever actually 
achieving it--only for the opportunity to spend like this.
  I can't tell you the number of times I have heard about this on this 
floor:

       The debt and the deficit are just getting out of control, 
     and the administration is still pumping through billions and 
     trillions of new spending.

  Paul Ryan said:

       Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is 
     now a fiscal crisis. We cannot deny it; instead we must, as 
     Americans confront it responsibly. And that is exactly what 
     the Republicans pledged to do.

  That is exactly what the Republicans pledged to do. They immobilized 
our government. They shut it down over and over and over in the name of 
fiscal responsibility--no help to the economy or the next generation. 
That is the farthest thought from their mind.
  After years of obstruction in the name of fiscal responsibility, they 
nominated Donald Trump, who promised during the campaign to deliver a 
giant, beautiful, massive tax cut and borrowed all of the money for it 
from working people in this country.
  There was a mayor in Indiana who wrote a piece about that in the 
paper that I thought was so instructive.
  He said: That tax plan would be tantamount to my going to my city 
council and saying that I want to go borrow more money than we have 
ever borrowed before in the history of our town, and I am not going to 
use it to invest in roads or bridges or the sewers or anything else, 
and I am just going to take the money we borrowed that our kids are 
going to have to give back, and I am going to give it to the richest 
neighborhood in my town.
  He said they would have asked: What have you been smoking?
  He promised to pass ``one of the largest increases in national 
defense spending in American history'' and ``not touch Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid.''
  He said he would eliminate not only the deficit. This is Donald 
Trump, the candidate whom the Republicans voted for, whom FOX News, 
which is in theory the conservative channel, has supported like an 
organ of the State, with hosts who claim they are fiscally responsible. 
But he promised to eliminate not only the deficit but the entire 
national debt--that immoral debt of $16 trillion that is now climbing 
to $30 trillion.
  And the way he was going to do that was by ``vigorously eliminating 
waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, ending redundant 
government programs, and growing the economy,'' as well as by 
``renegotiating all of our [debt] deals.''
  He hasn't renegotiated one. He spent more time failing to get a deal 
with the leader of North Korea than trying to address this challenge.
  Donald Trump said:

       It can be done. . . . it will take place and it will go 
     relatively quickly. If you have the right people, like in the 
     agencies and the various people that do the balancing . . . 
     you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and 
     balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better 
     country.

  This is the President of the United States of America.
  That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous, but it is no more ridiculous 
than the history of the Republican Party, the supposedly fiscally 
conservative party--what a joke.
  Going back to 2001, the last time we had a surplus in America, Bill 
Clinton was President. He was a Democrat. He had a $5 trillion 
projected surplus over the decade--unimaginable today. It is 
unimaginable today, but politicians like us were having discussions 
about what to do with the surplus, what to do with abundance, how to 
make Social Security solvent, how to give the middle class a real tax 
cut, not a fake tax cut that is masquerading and covering up the tax 
cut for rich people.
  But we did none of that, and, instead, George Bush, who followed Bill 
Clinton, cut taxes in 2001. Almost all of the benefit went to wealthy 
people. He cut taxes in 2003, and both times it was just like Donald 
Trump said and the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said both times. 
They said: Oh, don't worry about it. They will pay for themselves.
  A lie, a lie, and the number is in the math. It is not about 
philosophy. This isn't about ideology. This is about the math, and 
everybody in America could see it because that is what produced the $16 
trillion that Paul Ryan said was so immoral, $8 trillion ago and on the 
way to $30 trillion in debt.
  By the way, it is important to know that when this Congress voted for 
those tax cuts in 2003 that were not paid for, the money was all 
borrowed by the sons and daughters of working people in America. We had 
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we didn't even have the decency 
while we had people at war to pay for those wars or to say to the 
American people: We need to pay for those wars. No, we are not going to 
pay for those wars, and we are going to borrow the money from America 
to give tax cuts to rich people.
  Then, President Bush, on top of that, seeking reelection, passed 
Medicare Part D, the drug program for seniors, and paid for none of 
that either. All

[[Page S5093]]

that money is from our children--all of it--and there has never been an 
effort to pay for it since.
  Then, because of their lax regulatory oversight of the housing 
market, the economy collapsed. The economy collapsed, and Barack Obama 
was handed not a $5 trillion surplus but a $1.2 trillion deficit from 
the Republicans, from George Bush. During the course of his Presidency, 
we had to weather the worst recession since the Great Depression. The 
worst it ever got around here was $1.5 trillion on the deficit, and the 
other side called him a Bolshevik and a Socialist. Well-meaning people 
from all over Wall Street and other places came down here and said: Fix 
the debt. Fix the debt.
  Where are they today? Where are they today?
  By the time he left, President Obama had cut the deficit by more than 
half--by more than half.
  Every one of these deals has been cut by Mitch McConnell, every 
single one. So it didn't surprise me at all this week that he was 
reported in the Washington Post to have said to the President that no 
politician has ever lost an election spending more money. No politician 
has ever lost an election spending more money, said the Republican 
majority leader to the President. I can't think of a more Bolshevik 
statement than that, to use terms that the other side has been using 
for 10 years. I can't think of a more irresponsible position than that 
when we are not in the depths of a recession, when 10 million people 
haven't lost their jobs, when the economy, according to the President, 
is the best economy we have ever had.
  This is the moment we should be securing our future. This is the 
moment we should be preparing for another foreign engagement. Because 
of these deals that have been led by Mitch McConnell, the Republican 
leader from Kentucky, when you add it all up, not only do we have this 
extraordinary deficit that we have never seen in the country's 
history--
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. But since 2001, we have cut taxes by $5 trillion. We 
borrowed all of that money from our children, and almost all of the 
benefit went to the wealthiest people in America. We spent $5.6 
trillion on wars in the Middle East. We didn't pay for a single dollar 
of it. That is $11 trillion, $12 trillion that we could have spent to 
fix every road and bridge in America, that could have fixed every 
single airport in America that needs it, that could have made Social 
Security solvent for my children's generation and for the other 
children of the people who came out here and said: We are here to 
immobilize the Democratic President in the name of fiscal 
responsibility. But now we know the level of their fiscal hypocrisy. It 
knows no end.
  If there is one benefit of this--if there is one benefit of this, the 
American people are--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BENNET. I yield the floor.

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