Jeff Merkley
Senator for Oregon · Democratic · United States
“Mr. President, I am pleased to welcome Senator Armstrong from Oklahoma in his delivering his maiden speech. It is an important part of this institution, and I hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who weren't able to hear him in person will have a chance to listen to it and to get to know him during his stay here.”
“(b) Elements.--The cooperative framework shall include-- (1) support regional allies in the acquisition of Blue UAS components or systems from Taiwan in lieu of PRC-sourced components; and (2) fast-track Blue UAS certification for components co- developed or co-produced by Taiwan and regional allies. [[Page S2962]] SEC. 1286.”
“(b) Elements.--The cooperative framework shall include-- (1) support regional allies in the acquisition of Blue UAS components or systems from Taiwan in lieu of PRC-sourced components; and (2) fast-track Blue UAS certification for components co- developed or co-produced by Taiwan and regional allies. [[Page S2962]] SEC. 1286.”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2961-S2962] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 5865. Mr. MERKLEY (for himself and Mr.”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2961-S2962] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 5865. Mr. MERKLEY (for himself and Mr.”
“(b) Reporting.--Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter for three years, the Working Group shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees an unclassified report on its activities, including findings, recommendations, timelines, resource needs, and potential funding mechanisms,…”
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“But all that has changed here in the United States of America because students who are saying things the government doesn't like are being swept off the street and transported halfway across the country and held in prisons in preparation to deport them. This particular 1952 Red Scare McCarthyist law being used by the Secretary of State says an alien can be excluded if ``the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.'' ``[A] compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.'' How does a student expressing an opinion on a campus somewhere compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest? Does it compromise our foreign policy interests when I say I disagree with some foreign policy venture?”
“You know, many of us grew up hearing the phrase: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That is the conviction behind free speech. I don't like what you say. What you say even makes me angry. But I defend your right to say it. I defend your right to have that opinion because we live here in the United States of America, where we honor free speech. It is the freedom of the individual, and it is an important check on power that people can express it, can express it without having their documents canceled, without being arrested as they [[Page S2651]] leave a classroom, not being swept off to some prison halfway across the country because you say something the government doesn't like.”
“He has sought to end free speech in America, taking control of content at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums, canceling programs, firing employees, even scrubbing Federal websites simply because of words he doesn't like. But most egregiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using a 1952 Red Scare law--a McCarthyist law--to strip students and others of their visas and deport them, students like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University or Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University. Neither was accused of a crime. Both had simply exercised free speech. I think every Member here would have assumed that a student has the right to express their opinion on an issue because we are here in the United States of America.”
“But a week later, the White House was still excluding AP from the press pool. In yet another action against the press, Trump has silenced the Voice of America. The Voice of America was created to counter propaganda from authoritarian governments in the Second World War. The Voice of America has grown to be a powerful check on disinformation from authoritarian governments. It broadcasted in 40 languages, bringing facts to bear against that propaganda from those strong-man states. But now Trump has canceled that powerful counter to authoritarian governments around the world. He is attacking free speech as well as the free press. Like many of us here, I was in the House Chamber last month for Trump's State of the Union Address when he claimed to have ``brought free speech back to America.'' That is completely wrong. The opposite is true.”
“A reported possible source of that pressure is from Shari Redstone, Paramount's controlling shareholder, who is reportedly eager to settle this issue to secure the Trump administration's approval for the multibillion-dollar sale of Paramount to Skydance. Trump further pressured the press by playing favorites with access to White House events, barring the Associated Press from the White House press pool for continuing to use the name Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America. It is a style manual question, and Trump doesn't like that a free press can choose its own style. A judge ruled on April 8 that, under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalist, it cannot shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution, the court said, requires no less.”
“Trump hasn't just launched suits; he is succeeding in compromising our free press. ABC bent the knee, agreeing after Trump won and fearing for how Trump might misuse Presidential power, to pay Trump that $16 million to settle the case involving Stephanopoulos, even though Trump had, in the view of experts, little chance of prevailing in court. And last week, Bill Owens, the executive director of ``60 Minutes,'' resigned, citing encroachment of his journalistic independence in the face of mounting pressure from Paramount, CBS's parent company, again potentially for fear of the misuse of Executive power that would compromise the success of Paramount.”
“Benjamin Franklin wrote that ``whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.'' Apparently, President Trump was paying attention because he is seeking to overthrow the liberty of our Nation, and he is trying to subdue the freeness of speech. One of his tactics is to intimidate the free press by suing them. He sued the Des Moines Register for an inaccurate poll predicting he would lose Iowa. He sued CBS News for $10 million because he disliked its editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris on ``60 Minutes.'' And he sued ABC News because George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump had been found liable for ``rape'' when, in fact, he had been found liable not for ``rape'' but for ``sexual assault,'' under the detail of the law, in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.”
“One who is actually ruling on the law because the last thing Trump wants is a judge who honestly rules on the law. He wants subservience. This call for impeachment of a judge provoked a rebuke--a rare rebuke--from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said: Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. Calm language to address a massive constitutional violation. Over the last 100 days, Trump has brazenly signaled to the courts that they should not interfere with his management of the executive branch. A fourth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to attack the free press and free speech.”
“He is not honoring his oath to the Constitution. He ignored Federal Judge James Boasberg's order not to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, refusing to keep the planes on the ground or turn them around. He ignored the judge's order to provide details regarding the flights to El Salvador. And in a stunning stiff- arm to the Supreme Court, he refused to facilitate, after a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision saying he must do so, the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador despite the Court's order. In yet another confrontation with the Supreme Court, Vice President Vance claimed in February that ``judges aren't allowed'' to check Executive power. Then, in March, Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, calling him a ``crooked'' judge, a ``troublemaker and agitator.'' What in Trump's mind is a ``crooked'' judge?”
“That is what was done illegally in one weekend. A third Trump strategy for amassing Executive power is to attack the constitutional power of the courts. The Founders gave the courts the power to address ``all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution,'' and that power includes the ability to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. It includes the ability to invalidate Executive actions that violate the laws or violate the Constitution. But for the court's check--this crucial check on Executive misuse of power--to be effective, the President must follow the decisions of the court, and that is why the oath of office is so important. You are taking an oath to the Constitution that lays out this structure of accountability. But President Trump is stiff-arming the court. He is not honoring the Constitution.”
“Illegal defunding and dismantlement, done in one weekend, to an Agency that constituted only one-third of 1 percent of our national spending in 2024 could result in more deaths than World War I. Now you may say: Is this some crazy theory on the internet? It was a study put together by prestigious medical organizations, groups like the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the New York University Grossman School of Medicine--serious people, serious modeling, serious understanding of what USAID does around the world. And do you know what else his decision did? It created an enormous opportunity for China to move in and say, ``You can't count on the United States of America, but you can count on China,'' hugely undermining our standing and influence in the world.”
“Speaking the truth in this administration is a cause to be fired because the truth scares Donald Trump. He doesn't want the truth. He just wants [[Page S2650]] his power and everyone to be in line behind it. Another study estimates that shutting down USAID over 15 years could result in 25 million additional deaths worldwide. That is a hard number to digest--2 million more deaths from tuberculosis, 8 million more deaths from malaria, from malnutrition and other causes, and 15 million more deaths from AIDS, with PEPFAR shut down. And those 15 million deaths from AIDS generate 14 million additional orphans. Just let that sink in. One illegal decision in one weekend by Musk and Trump putting AID in the wood chipper could result in millions of deaths.”
“On February 3, Elon Musk posted that he and DOGE had ``spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.'' Musk was bragging that he and Trump had destroyed an Agency in a single weekend, in violation of the law. They fired almost all of USAID's employees and canceled more than 5,000 contracts, crippling America's delivery of lifesaving aid around the world and, I might add, crippling relationships that create soft power for the United States of America to accompany the hard power of our military. In February, a senior USAID official Nicholas Enrich estimated that a yearlong pause in AID's programs could cause between 71,000 to 166,000 additional deaths just from malaria, with huge increases in deaths from tuberculosis and infectious diseases like Ebola. Shortly after making these estimates, Enrich was fired.”
“To put a case before the Supreme Court so the Court could enhance the power of the President of the United States of America. It is that hope that they have for that deferential Court. Trump and his team have impounded funds for so much now. There are so many cases in the courts. Court ruling after court ruling are saying: This is illegal. You cannot do this. This is unconstitutional. But he just keeps doing it. Electric vehicle charging stations, impounded. Security systems to Ukraine, impounded. Program funds for sanctuary cities, impounded. Immigration lawyers for 26,000 unaccompanied children, impounded. But the most tragic example of impoundment is Trump's attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development.”
“And there is a good possibility, perhaps a probability, that the Republican-led House and Senate would have passed that rescission. A rescission formally undoes a law by Congress reconsidering it. But he deliberately--he, being Trump--deliberately chose the illegal path of impoundments, the unconstitutional path of impoundments in order to put a case before the Supreme Court so the Supreme Court could rule--Trump and Russ Vought hope--for the unitary executive theory of power, the vision of a strong-man rule in our Nation rather than government by the people. Note the parallel. Trump fired thousands and thousands of employees across this country. He could have done it legally through reductions in force, RIFs, but he chose to do it illegally. Why?”
“It violates the law, and it is unconstitutional, and it violates the separation of powers. You know, Nixon tried this. He impounded funds for the EPA for fiscal year 1973. The Supreme Court ruled, when this case finally reached it in Train v. City of New York, that impoundments violate article I of the Constitution, which so clearly--this Constitution so clearly gives the power of the purse to Congress. And when Congress passed the law in 1996 that gave the President a line-item veto on program funding, the Supreme Court ruled again, in Clinton v. City of New York, that Congress could not give to the President the power the Constitution reserves to this Chamber, to Congress. It is worth noting that Trump had a choice. Instead of illegally impounding funds, he could have sent a legal rescission request to Congress.”
“Vought's deliberate desire to break the law and violate the separation of powers caused me to label him the most dangerous man in America. He is a direct threat to the entire vision of our Constitution. I led a 30-hour debate here in this Chamber on his nomination to put a spotlight on him and on his ideas, but it was a party-line vote. Every one of my colleagues across the aisle looked to their loyalty to President Trump over their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. The second Trump strategy to expand the power of the President--the authoritarian power of the President--is to usurp Congress's article I power of the purse by impounding the funds that Congress has dedicated in law and long passed in the Senate and passed the House and signed by the President, impounding funds in those laws for specific programs. This is illegal.”
“He is an architect of Project 2025, and he is leading the Office of Management and Budget for Trump's second term. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, I interviewed him in my office before his nomination hearing, and he was very clear, very direct about his viewpoint. He is a proponent of the fringe unitary executive theory that says the President has complete authority over every element of the executive branch. The President, he believes, can ignore any detail in law passed by Congress and perhaps ignore any order by the courts that constrains how the President manages the executive branch. Vought anticipates that when Trump's lawbreaking reaches the Supreme Court, a deferential Court will legitimize his unitary executive theory and hand vast power to President Trump. Mr.”
“Trump violated the Antideficiency Act when Elon Musk and DOGE sent the ``fork in the road'' email to 2 million Federal employees, offering a buyout with pay through September 30, committing funds beyond the March 15 deadline that the law allowed. Trump violated the Privacy Act of 1974 when Trump, Musk, and DOGE accessed sensitive personal information from the computers of the Social Security Administration. Trump violated a 2018 law banning reductions in indirect costs covered by the National Institutes of Health research grants when he capped those rates at 15 percent. The mastermind behind this strategy of deliberately, willfully breaking the law, time and time and time again, is one man. His name is Russ Vought. Who is this man? He directed the Office of Management and Budget in the last year of Trump's first term.”
“Well, governing by Executive order is exactly what he has done, with 26 Executive orders on that first day and over 130 Executive orders and counting as of now. And many of those Executive orders directly violate laws on the books. He fired 17 inspectors general, violating a law that allows a President to fire an inspector general only for cause and with 30 days' notice to Congress. He fired members of the Boards that lead independent Agencies, violating the law that provides these members with established terms and says that they can only be fired for cause. Trump's targets have included Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission, and quite a few others.”
“The first strategy has been to willfully violate a host of Federal laws. One hundred days ago, on January 20, I sat in the Rotunda of the Capitol, just down this hallway, halfway between here and the House of Representatives, for Donald Trump's inaugural address. It was not a traditional address. A traditional address is when the President lays out a vision and says: Here in our democracy, I will be working with Congress to pass laws to provide a foundation to implement that vision. That is the way it works when power is divided between a court and an Executive and Congress. But instead, the speech that President Trump gave just down this hallway in the Rotunda didn't talk about working with Congress. It didn't talk about passing laws. He spoke only of governing by Executive order, as if he was already a King.”
“It could never happen here because our commitment to the separation of powers is too secure, our 250 years of dedication to a democratic republic too established for it to ever happen here. But the last 100 days have shown us that we were robbed. So tonight, I am ringing the alarm bells. The danger is clear. The danger is present. This crisis calls upon every patriot, every individual who cherishes a deliberative republic, every institution--whether it is Congress or the court or the people or the press or the university or the law firm--to use their heart and mind and sinew, their clout and their connections, to resist this authoritarian takeover and save our Republic. In only 100 days, Trump has aggressively pursued five strategies to advance his authoritarian powers.”
“To the first question--how bad is the constitutional crisis?--I summarize: worse than we could possibly have imagined. It is an authoritarian takeover, emboldened by a subservient majority in Congress, a deferential Supreme Court, and an aggressive, authoritarian President. We all know that strong republics can slide into corrupt strong-man states. Witness Venezuela. Witness Turkiye. Witness Hungary. It can happen gradually. It can happen suddenly that Congress becomes a rubberstamp, that the courts defer to an aggressive Executive, the press softens its criticisms, and other institutions tread ever so carefully. [[Page S2649]] However often we have witnessed this happening elsewhere, however, we always thought that it could never happen here, not in the United States of America.”
“Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's speech in laying this out. I am going to address another aspect of the first 100 days, which is about the phenomenal strategy of President Trump to undermine our Constitution; to undermine the separation of powers, the checks and balances, for the purpose of creating a strong-man state, which is also just an extraordinary, extraordinary experience to be living through. The first 100 days of the Trump administration have plunged our Nation into a constitutional crisis unparalleled since the Civil War. How bad is it, and how will we respond? How will this Chamber respond? How will the House respond? Our democratic Republic, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, is sliding into an unaccountable strong-man state.”
“In your knowledge of American history, has there ever been a Presidential first 100 days that showed this level of corruption that we are witnessing with this administration?”
“(a) Point of Order.--It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider any bill, joint resolution, motion, amendment, amendment between the Houses, or conference report that allows for discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity, with respect to public accommodations, education, Federal funding, employment, housing, credit, or jury service. (b) Waiver and Appeal.--Subsection (a) may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three- fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under subsection (a). ______”
“Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025)] [Senate] [Page S2259] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 1736. Mr. MERKLEY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution H. Con. Res. 14, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the appropriate place, insert the following: SEC. ___. POINT OF ORDER AGAINST LEGISLATION THAT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY.”
“The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution, and make adjustments to the pay-as-you-go ledger, for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions, or conference reports relating to access to health care, which may include legislation ensuring the preservation of the 90 percent Federal medical assistance percentage for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicaid through the expansion of Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over the period of the total of fiscal years 2025 through 2034. ______”
“Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025)] [Senate] [Page S2193] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 1312. Mr. MERKLEY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution H. Con. Res. 14, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the appropriate place, insert the following: SEC. ___. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND RELATING TO PROTECTING ACCESS TO MEDICAID.”
“We are going to stand up and say no to families lose and billionaires win. We are going to say no to magic math that lies to the American people about the cost of their bill, driven by massive tax cuts to the richest Americans. It is a simple request: honesty and integrity. We should not be engaging in a big lie, and Democrats will have no part of it. We are going to be honest about what every provision of the reconciliation bill costs. We are going to be determined to make sure that the Byrd rule stands. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.”
“And your spouse says: You know what, that is going to cost us another $24,000 in rent. And you say: No. I am using the Republican magic math. It won't cost a single dime because we will just pretend that a year ago we had planned to rent the apartment for a second year; and therefore, it is no more than we thought we would pay a year ago--except a year ago you said you were only going to rent the house for a year. In other words, it is a big lie. It is the very smoke and mirrors, the very gimmicks that Democrats and Republicans came together and stopped back in 1974. Fifty-one years ago, we said this game of lying to the public has to end. But tonight, my Republican colleagues are saying that game will continue if they have their way. Well, we say they must not have their way.”
“When the numbers really come out, we expect it to be higher, but $37 trillion more to the debt. That is a much bigger burden on the future. And what do the economists say about that bigger burden? They said it will increase interest rates that families have to pay on their mortgage and on their car loan since it will decrease the capital available to private industry and slow down our economy. [[Page S2163]] This magic math goes by the name of ``current policy baseline.'' It sounds very academic, but it is essentially the big lie. Consider this: You sign a contract to rent a home for a year, and renting that home costs $2,000 per month so you know you are going to have to pay $24,000 over the year. And at the end of the year, you say: You know what, I am going to renew that agreement to rent this apartment.”
“We even put that pillar into law specifically in 1985 in a bipartisan way. We wanted to emphasize how important that was. Just think about how much more important this process of deficit reduction, special rule of the reconciliation bill, is today than it was back in 1974. In 1974, the debt-to-GDP ratio: 23 percent. Tonight, in 2025, it is 100 percent. It is equal to the entire gross domestic product of the United States. In 1974, the annual deficit was about $6 billion. Today, it is $2 trillion. In 1974, total debt: $475 billion. Today, it is $37 trillion. Now, consider this: All of the debt run up over the last 249 years since the Declaration of Independence, right now, is just a little bit less than $37 trillion. In this single bill--this single bill-- Republicans are saying we will add $37 trillion more--at least that much.”
“When it comes back, every category--that is, every title--of the reconciliation bill, in every single year, by the Byrd rule, has to be deficit-neutral or decrease the deficit. So we will have that debate, but we will have that debate when the reconciliation bill comes back from committee to this floor because my Republican colleagues decided to postpone that debate by taking the scoring rule out of their proposed budget resolution and said: We will kick it down the road to the next stage. And, certainly, we will be here, fiercely defending the deficit- reducing vision of pillars 2 and 3--pillar 2: no deficit in any category or any title of the bill beyond year 10; and pillar 3: use honest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. That pillar has survived since 1974.”
“In that second pillar, no deficits beyond year 10; every category, every year has to be deficit-neutral or reduce the deficit. We can compare that to the law that has just been put forward--or the guidance that has just been put forward. We can look at year 11, the instructions that go in every category--year 12, year 13, year 20, year 100. It goes on forever, into the future, and the Republican bill guidance fails the Byrd test. Now, the Byrd test really gets applied in a second stage of the reconciliation process. We are in the budget resolution that sends instructions to committees. Those committees will send back specific revenue provisions: increase this revenue here, reduce it there, proceed to add this policy program, reduce this policy program.”
“He said: If this reconciliation bill does not find a way to end or offset its tax cuts in the years beyond 2002-- That is beyond 10 years-- would the bill violate the Byrd rule? And the Presiding Officer responded: Yes, it would. So the second pillar, no deficits in any category beyond 10 years, was preserved--until now. That was in 1996, and here we are, 29 years later. Now there is a goal to destroy the second and third pillars of the 1974 bill. I must say, this is extremely extraordinary and disturbing that my Republican colleagues, who run on fiscal responsibility, destroyed the first pillar of the special system to reduce deficits in 1996, and tonight, they are proposing to destroy the second and third pillars.”
“The first Budget Committee chair who passed the reconciliation bill consistent with decreasing deficits was South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings. He said: The whole idea of reconciliation--and I am giving you firsthand history: It is honest as the day is long--was to, by gosh, to cut back on the deficit. That is what it was for. So the Republicans blew up that pillar, all designed to reduce the deficits, and, instead, repurposed it for increasing the deficits. Pillar No. 1 drops. But, at the same time, the second pillar, that no increase in deficits could occur after 10 years, was sustained by the Chair sitting and presiding over the Senate, and that was Senator Daschle. Senator Daschle said--well, actually, he asked the question. He was asking the question of the Republican Chair.”
“We will repurpose the deficit- decreasing bill from 1974 and say that it can be used in order to actually increase deficits with tax cuts. And they succeeded. They had the votes. They repurposed the bill. They blew up the first pillar of those three pillars. That first pillar was the reconciliation process, this special process created in 1974 that can only be used to reduce deficits in the first 10 years. They blew it up and said: OK. Nuclear option. We have reinterpreted the rule. It can be used to increase deficits. Well, that was a huge, huge damage to the goal of reducing deficits, and deficits have gone up ever since. When that happened--when that happened--there was a big protest on the floor.”
“Some things happened then that, well, one maybe couldn't have foreseen. Maybe they could have. There was an effort to do a balanced budget amendment. It fell one vote short here in the Senate Chamber. It needed 67 votes; it only got 66. Then there was: We will do a line-item veto--and that was passed. But that gave the power to the President to strike down any line. The Supreme Court said: No, you can't do that. You can't delegate the power of the purse. The power of the purse belongs with Congress. So that fell. Then the Republican caucus in charge said: We are going to, instead, do a big tax bill giving enormous benefits to the richest Americans. Then they said: You know, the problem with that is the Democrats won't work with us. They won't give us 60 votes to do that. Oh, I know, they said, we will do a nuclear option.”
“But he, along with 99 other Senators, said: We will create one exception, and that exception will be to reduce the deficit. And it had these three pillars, which I will mention again. It has to reduce the deficit. The provisions of the bill have to reduce the deficit over the first 10 years. They have to be deficit-neutral in every category in each year after the first 10 years. And we have to use honest numbers. And to have those honest numbers, we will create the Congressional Budget Office, an impartial body. We will no longer use smoke and mirrors, pretend that things don't cost money when they do cost money. But then what happened? I will tell you. For 22 years, it worked pretty well. Then along comes the Gingrich revolution, the 1994 election. Now we have the 1995 through 1997 biennium.”
“That doesn't sound like much now, by our standards, when we are looking at $2 trillion per year, but it was a lot compared to the past. And folks said: Do you know what? That $5 billion per year over that 10 years exploded to an average of $20 billion a year in 1971 through 1973. Oh, my goodness, it quadrupled. We have got to get a handle on these deficits. We don't want to run up the debt--this fourfold increase in annual deficits adding to the debt. So Democrats and Republicans came together, and they passed the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act. It created a superhighway for this special effort to reduce deficits--a superhighway; a super, filibuster- free highway. Now, you all may remember Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Robert Byrd was always the fiercest defender of the filibuster.”
“[[Page S2162]] So my colleagues across the aisle, when we pointed this out, they said: Yes, we had better not do that. That is just wrong. OK. Thank you. Thank you for deciding not to put in a scoring rule that was completely wrong and designed to destroy the budget process. But now my colleagues across the aisle have said: We will use a different provision called section 312. We won't use the scoring rule. Instead, we are going to go in a different direction that says simply that the cost is what the chair of the Budget Committee says it is. Now, I want to turn back the clock a little bit. I want to turn back the clock and point out that there were core principles in that 1974 bill, and they were driven by growing bipartisan concern about deficits and debt. In the 1958 to 1968 decade, the average deficit was about $5 billion per year.”
“It is called a scoring rule, and that scoring rule will simply say that we are going to say this costs nothing, that there is no additional debt. A scoring rule has been used in the past. OK, it has been used in multiple years, but it was used to resolve little anomalies in tricky, little twists and changes in revenue bills or in policies' programs. It was always narrow. It always was honest about what it was trying to solve and explainable to the public. It was always consistent with the law, and it was always involving modest sums--modest by standards of the national budget. Certainly, now, this scoring rule that had been proposed by the Republicans, it was not bipartisan. It was not narrow. It was not improving the budget. It, in fact, was lying about the budgeting. It was not consistent with the law. And it was massive--$37 trillion.”
“Then it said we are going to use honest numbers. Before, there had been a lot of smoke and mirrors. There had been a lot of gimmicks. And people on both sides said: No, no, we don't want to do that. Democrats and Republicans said: Let's use honest numbers. Let's create a Congressional Budget Office to give us impartial numbers so we can be honest among ourselves, have a real debate about any given policy provision or any particular revenue provision, and we can be honest with the American people because, otherwise, we will just keep running up more and more deficits while pretending we are not. My Republican colleagues initially said: Do you know what? We will just put a clause into the budget resolution.”
“It is kind of like the situation where the king wears the magic robes--at least he thinks he is wearing magic robes, but he is actually walking down the street naked because he doesn't have magic robes--in this case, again, lying to the public about the cost. In the real world, you have real math. In this special new world under the Republican plan, you have the magic math. This was not the vision that was laid out back 51 years ago, in 1974, when the Senate created, along with the House, the Budget and Impoundment Control Act. That act had three pillars. The first pillar was that in a 10-year period, you have to decrease the deficit with the provisions that were in the bill. And then, every year after, in every category, it either has to be deficit-neutral or reduce the deficit according to the provisions that are in the bill.”
“And, third, they say: We will tell the American people it adds no new debt; passing this bill adds no new debt. That is quite a set of plans: slash programs for regular Americans, enrich the richest Americans, run up an additional $37 trillion in debt, and then lie to the American people and say it doesn't cost a thing. It has become clear, over the last 2 days, about how Republicans are going to justify this. They say they are going to use section 312-- section 312--of the law. Section 312, they say, says that the cost of a program or the impact of a revenue cut through a tax giveaway to the wealthy only costs what the budget chair says it costs. Just take the chair's word for it. This is the magic wand. It will add $37 trillion to the debt, but if the budget chair says it doesn't, then you just pretend it doesn't.”
“Madam President, families lose, and billionaires win. That is the Republican plan. It is a plan that slashes $1.5 to $2 trillion from programs that families depend on. And why? To fund tax cuts for the very richest Americans. But that is not all the bad news because there are additional tax cuts for the best and richest in the country--the richest Americans-- and those are unpaid for, and that means debt. How much more debt does this bill create? The current estimate--and the estimates keep going up--is $5.3 trillion of unpaid-for tax cuts over the next 10 years--$5.3 trillion--trillion with a ``t''--over the next 10 years. But that is not all. Their plan provides for $37 trillion--at least $37 trillion--in additional debt over the next 30 years. This is a phenomenal, phenomenal number.”