Peter Welch
Senator for Vermont · Democratic · United States
“foreign service officers who stood up for the rule of law and democracy in Guatemala, were summarily replaced by U.S. Embassy appointees who reportedly urged members of Guatemala's Congress to support a rightwing candidate tainted by corruption for a seat on the constitutional court, or risk losing their U.S. visas.”
“foreign service officers who stood up for the rule of law and democracy in Guatemala, were summarily replaced by U.S. Embassy appointees who reportedly urged members of Guatemala's Congress to support a rightwing candidate tainted by corruption for a seat on the constitutional court, or risk losing their U.S. visas.”
“[[Page S4103]] To the country's credit, Arevalo was inaugurated on January 15, 2024, and for the first time in decades, Guatemala has a President who is not beholden to the corrupt forces that have exploited political power for their own enrichment and used Guatemala's armed forces and police to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, and e…”
“[[Page S4103]] To the country's credit, Arevalo was inaugurated on January 15, 2024, and for the first time in decades, Guatemala has a President who is not beholden to the corrupt forces that have exploited political power for their own enrichment and used Guatemala's armed forces and police to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, and e…”
“The appropriate role of the United States in Guatemala, as in the rest of Latin America, is to support the people there by improving their lives through free and fair elections, equitable economic opportunities, and access to justice that conforms to international protections of due process. Too often, U.S.”
“The appropriate role of the United States in Guatemala, as in the rest of Latin America, is to support the people there by improving their lives through free and fair elections, equitable economic opportunities, and access to justice that conforms to international protections of due process. Too often, U.S.”
The complete record
Every one of 223 lines we hold for Peter Welch, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 5.
“Do you know Bessent? Do you know the President? Oh, and by the way, if you contributed a couple million dollars to the inauguration, you probably do know them and they give out the phone number. That is absolutely outrageous. People work hard. They produce a good product. They give good service. Shouldn't they be entitled to the reward for the labor that they have done; whereas, what we are seeing now is that if you are connected, you can be rewarded regardless of how good your product is or how lousy your service is. That is offensive-- and should be--to every single one of us here, and that is absolutely what is happening in the White House.”
“It was going to increase the cost of iPhones. Well, no problem. Tim Cook was at the inauguration, sitting on the throne of honor, and he had the telephone number, made the call, and the tariffs on iPhones vanished. You know that snow globe manufacturer that I mentioned from Vermont? She does not have Howard Lutnick's phone number. She does not have Scott Bessent's phone number. She does not have President Trump's phone number. She is out of luck. So now, with these tariffs and the way they are being implemented without any congressional engagement whatsoever, we are turning our economy from one where it is based on a good product, really good service, where you compete in the marketplace and if your product is better and your service is better, you succeed, to an economy that is more based on access. Do you know Lutnick?”
“The tariffs on Colombia have resulted in this: A container that cost $700 last month--that container now costs $13,000. How do you deal with that? A hit to the margin is--no business can absorb that. Vermont is also home to one of two businesses in the world that produce these unique snow globes, and they have been in business for 25 years. It is a modest business, but it is one that was created by a Vermont entrepreneur, and it has been really successful. They are going to have to close their doors at the end of the summer with these increased tariffs, basically, on China. A second point that I think is relevant to these tariffs is the arbitrariness of their implementation and the arbitrariness of how and who is affected. We have a situation where we supposedly have these tariffs on China. Apple Computer, quite understandably, was upset.”
“Canada, by the way, happens to be our biggest trading partner, and 34 States have Canada as their major trading partner. In these tariffs--in Canada, we are a 2.1 billion import partner with Canada--20 percent tariff. China--a lot of input from China that our manufacturers use--54 percent tariff, plus who knows how many more tariffs depending on the day and how President Trump feels when he wakes up. Trinidad and Tobago: 81 million, 10 percent tariff. Germany: 75 million. Mexico: 77 million. Very frustratingly for all of us, the sweeping global tariff order unnecessarily increases prices and taxes on countries that have trade surpluses with America. I recently heard from a Vermonter who imports coffee and has a niche business that has become extremely successful.”
“Those costs are going to be increased, especially with the expected retaliatory tariffs that are imposed on us by countries subject to the arbitrary action of President Trump. Farmers are really hit hard. Most of our farmers in Vermont import their fertilizer from Canada. There is about a 25-percent increase that they are going to be paying. And these are farmers, as the Presiding Officer knows, that operate on the thinnest of margins in the most uncertain of activities, subject to weather and price fluctuations and so many other things that make our farmers courageous entrepreneurs. But why add 25 percent to the cost of fertilizer when that input cost is already so high? It is mind-boggling to think that this is a voluntary action by the President.”
“Third, it is having a negative impact on trade and on our economy already. Today's information about the gross domestic product shrinkage is evidence in and of itself. In Vermont, Trump's tariffs are estimated to cost Vermont households more than $1 billion. More than 18,000 Vermonters work in industries that are targeted by retaliatory tariffs, but virtually every Vermonter is going to be impacted by increased costs--inflation--as a result of the tariffs. As an example, food, fuel, energy--all of these things are going to be impacted and really affect people in their day-to-day and month-to- month budgets. We get a lot of our electricity, a lot of our home heating fuel, and a lot of our petroleum from Canada, especially in the northern part of our State.”
“Mr. President, I want to support everything that my colleague, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, just said about these tariffs. I want to make two points about the tariffs--one, the tariffs themselves, and then second, the congressional failure to assert its own authority on policies that it has the constitutional responsibility for when our failure results in economic pain and insecurity for the American people. First of all, the tariffs. When the history of this decision is written, President Trump's imposition of these wild and reckless tariffs is going to be seen as one of the greatest economic blunders in a century. It is that bad. What is happening in Vermont is happening in every State across this country. First of all, these tariffs are a tax. Second, they are paid for by consumers, by manufacturers, and by producers.”
“When is it we will say ``no more'' to an Executive pushing his weight around with private law firms, private employers, with our universities, and telling them unless they do it his way, they will pay an enormous price in lost governmental funding or access to things that they need? Mr. President, in my view, 100 days of giving a lot of rope and a lot of license to the Executive is 100 days too many, but it is not too late for us, as Congress, to stand up for the separation of powers, the balance of powers, and the prerogatives of the United States Senate and the United States Congress. I yield the floor. [[Page S2636]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.”
“You have got an administration that has now weaponized the Justice Department, the FCC, governmental entities where, yes, they have a very important responsibility to enforce the rules and regulations but where their targets are cherry-picked for political reasons. And that is very damaging to the long-term well-being of our country and our democracy. It is time for this Congress to make an assessment of our obligation to the citizens we represent. When is enough enough? When has the Executive gone too far? When is it that all of us should heed the pleas of the businesses, the enterprises in each of our States about this chaotic, very destructive tariff policy?”
“And who knows what conditions the President imposes on whoever it is he is going to give the benefit of his capacity to make an exception for you or for your business. That is called corruption. And the worst thing that we can do is to inject, as a material factor in the way the economy works, a corruption that is based on your ability to get special treatment because you have made campaign contributions, because you have made certain other concessions, because you looked the other way. That is what is happening right now. You have got an administration that, in the name of waste, fraud, and abuse, is destroying institutions. You have got an administration that, based on an assertion that tariffs will make us rich, is causing inflation, causing enormous business uncertainty, and is, ultimately, going to lead us into a recession.”
“But if you are a farmer in Vermont, if you are a snowboard manufacturer in Vermont and you don't have Secretary Bessent's telephone number on speed dial or the President's, you don't get to make that call, and you will have to live with that enormous impact on your cost structure and on what you have to charge customers and see your market evaporate. It is as though the President is transforming the economy we have had that has been based on competition--you succeed if you have the best product and the best service--into an economy that is based on access. Do you have the Treasury Secretary's telephone number so you can make your case? Do you have the President's number so you can make your case?”
“You know, the fact that the President won't acknowledge so many failures of just--for beginning the tariff policy, and what we are seeing in this economy that is now revolving around this question of tariffs and on whom will they be imposed--what you are seeing is that if you are Apple computer and you are at the inauguration, you can call up the Treasury Secretary, you can call up the President, and you can point out that these tariffs are going to have an enormously negative impact on Apple.”
“It is important not just because democracy is a form of government we are taught as young people to revere and to be proud of, that we have this oldest democracy in the world; it is because democracy is the tool by which the citizens in Utah and the citizens in Vermont who may have very different points of view on a whole number of important issues have that right to have a seat at the table to have a discussion about, How do you resolve these differences? And if we don't stand up for that, it means there is going to be a small circle of well-connected people around President Trump who make all those decisions and make it from the framework of what is best for them as opposed to what is best for all of us. That is the real threat here. That is happening.”
“It is this arbitrary use of power beyond enforcing the law but having the Trump vision of what he wants be the law. And this brings me to the point that the Minority Whip was making: You know, this is not just a question for each of us as a Member of the U.S. Senate to decide, When has the Executive overreached? It is about the obligation we have in both parties to uphold the constitutional system of checks and balances. As many people have said, James Madison made the clear point that absolute power is the biggest threat. And if it is in any single branch, it has the capacity to bring down the entire structure of democracy. Now why is that important?”
“What sense does it make that because of his vendetta about higher education, that instead of addressing those concerns and having discussions, he literally takes away billions of dollars of research that has gone not just to Harvard, our oldest institution, but the University of Alabama, the University of North Carolina where you have people who, to our benefit, have dedicated their lives to scientific research; that because the United States Government has provided support for research and development--we have had cures for terrible diseases--but if they don't do what Donald Trump says, he will take away grants that actually have legally been transferred to these academic institutions--destroying research--destroying research and development.”
“You know, what business is it of Donald Trump what the hiring practices are of an individual private corporation or firm? It is the business to enforce the law, but it is not his business to be able to tell a law firm: We will take contracts away. It is not his business to be able to tell a law firm: Since you had somebody who represented the government in a case against Trump or some Trump person or ally, we are going to punish you and not allow you, in fact, into a court building or to get access to the secure information that is necessary to defend somebody who is in court. This is a complete overreach and extension by the President, essentially to impose his own will--not enforce the law--but to enforce his will as he arbitrarily wishes.”
“Musk, is proceeding is to literally take that food away and take that medicine away rather than deliver it. So that is not at all on the level. There is not, here, an effort to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse. There is an effort here, essentially, to destroy these institutions that have served this country. And I just want to state very clearly that those of us who are appalled by this conduct are all in favor of looking at every program, from SNAP to the Pentagon: How can we do it better? How can we get more for less? How can we get the most out of the folks who are serving in those organizations? But that is not what is going on. Then there is the next step: the overreach of power; a lawless, in my view--absolutely lawless--abuse of Executive authority.”
“And the impact of this on these USAID workers who have dedicated their lives to being a representative of our country, doing something beneficial in other countries? They just got the termination notice that they haven't been doing a good job. Obviously, not on the level. But when I think about the cruelty of the way in which this was done; that in those warehouses where food is stored, the local population who is hired and paid to take the food from the warehouse and deliver it to where those starving children needed the food were fired. And we literally have food rotting in warehouses rather than nourishing families' children. The same is true with medicine. We won't deliver it. It is over there. It is where it is needed. It can be delivered. But the way in which the Trump administration, with Mr.”
“And I see we have the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee here who knows this better than anyone else. It is like 1 percent of our budget. It creates, first of all, the alleviation of enormous suffering among many people who are absolutely starving, [[Page S2635]] among many people who need medicine, among many people who need water to help with agriculture, to be able to feed themselves. It is something that had bipartisan support in this Senate Chamber, with many of my Republican colleagues--your colleagues--leading the way for America to make a contribution as the greatest and most wealthy Nation in the world. That was just shut down, literally. Notices went out: You are fired. Notices went out: Your program is terminated. Notices went out: Turn the ship around and bring the food back.”
“Jen Kimmich, cofounder of The Alchemist Brewery: We don't know how they're going to affect us, we just know they're going to affect us. John Lacy, CEO of Burton Snowboards, one of the global enterprises founded in Vermont by Jake Burton and Donna Carpenter: How can you navigate the playbook if you don't know what the rules of the [road] are? It is a fair question, and it is a question that the administration, President Trump, feels he has no obligation to answer. So this goes on and on. You have got the economic issues, the tariffs. You have the attack on the institutions. USAID is a good example, and it is a vulnerable target because there is a lot of misinformation about USAID. A lot of folks think it is about 25 percent of our budget.”
“They apply to this part but not that part. No possibility of anybody making a plan in order to run their business. But across the board--and, by the way, these are folks who came in and are affected by the tariffs. They are not Republicans or Democrats or Independents; they are really folks just trying to make a living. And they may have their political preferences, but what they are talking about is the real-world impact of these crackpot tariffs that are on again and off again with the President. But some of the folks who spoke: Small business owner Jason Levinthal, founder of J Skis, said: This is essentially a tax on the consumer. Something the administration won't acknowledge itself. Mimi Buttenheim, President of Mad River Distillers: Tariffs radically affect our manufacturing arm by raising the price of raw materials.”
“The tariffs are going to be seen by historians as the absolute worst economic blunder in the last 100 years. Whether you are a farmer in Vermont or in Utah or in the Dakotas, these tariffs are hammering you. Most of our farmers in the northern part of the country, we import our fertilizer and we import, in many cases, grain to feed our animals from Canada. This tariff is going to hammer farmers who are already contending with what farmers every year have to contend with: very tight margins, the will of the weather. This is having a real impact on them. In Vermont, we had roundtables with people from various industries and asked: How are these tariffs going to affect you? No. 1, what tariffs? What are they today? Supposedly they were 25 percent yesterday. Then they are suspended. Then they are back on.”
“What DOGE did was essentially get the personnel list and then send out emails to every fifth or sixth person saying: You are fired because you did a lousy job. So it is not at all on the level. It is not at all on the level. And as a result, the real goal becomes revealed. It is not to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. It is, say, to eliminate USAID. It is to eliminate the Department of Education. It is to eliminate the Social Security response team. That is what is going on. And the challenge for us--and this is bipartisan--is whether we, as an independent branch of government, want to look at what is before our very eyes and address it or simply ignore it. Let's take the other so-called plan that is going to make us rich, more revenue than we can ever deal with. And that, of course, is the tariffs.”
“Mr. President, I totally support the comments of the minority whip. It is 100 days, and it is time to assess. Whatever you may say about President Trump and the stated goals, there is an obligation to act functionally to achieve those goals. Stating you want an outcome is a long way from implementing a plan and executing a plan to achieve it. And there is no plan. There is absolutely no plan. Let's talk first about DOGE. DOGE is about, supposedly, getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. Now, there is not a single Member of this Congress who is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse, but if you are going to do that, you look at a Department: What is its goal? How is it achieving it? Where is it coming up short? You do an assessment, and you do a plan.”
“We have to take ownership of what it is we did. We have to meet our commitments to people who helped us in our efforts in Afghanistan. This must be an opportunity to expedite--expedite--the resettlement to the United States of these Afghan refugees who trusted in us and whose lives are very much at risk.”
“But despite that, despite that court order, the Trump administration issued termination orders to refugee resettlement agencies in States around this country. Again, this is going to affect these folks who work for our government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. We owe them. There is no justification for us to abandon them. I am really concerned about the administration's, what I see as an increasingly brazen flaunting of court orders. I think all of us in Congress should condemn any deviation from abiding by court orders by the administration. I hope the administration's review of the refugee admissions is not another pretext review like we had supposedly of the USAID Programs. It cannot be an excuse to manufacture a false justification for abandoning the victims of our nation-building debacle.”
“President Trump and Secretary Rubio provided, literally, no credible explanation and justification, in clear violation of Congress's intent, with the destruction of these USAID Programs. But by abandoning thousands of Afghans who do face persecution if forced to return, we reinforce those doubts. And by doing so, we encourage those who have long seen the United States as a world leader and as a partner to look for more reliable partners elsewhere. That is bad for our national security. President Trump's January 20 Executive order triggered a 90-day review of our Refugee Admissions Programs. In February, a Federal court did issue a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the implementation of the order.”
“has reported what we knew would happen--at least 200 killings of former Afghan officials and members of the Afghan Army who were trained and equipped by the United States. The Taliban, of course, has also reneged on its pledge to uphold the rights of women, including allowing girls to attend school. Today, the situation that faces Afghan women and girls is literally no better, regrettably, than under the Taliban before the U.S. occupation. The Trump administration's termination of USAID's assistance programs in more than 100 countries, including Afghanistan, without any meaningful review, has caused people everywhere to doubt that they can rely on the United States. We are putting our reputation in jeopardy.”
“These men continue to stand with the United States, working in our communities, paying taxes, and growing our economy. We owe it to them, the Afghans who made it here, and to our honor to bring their families to join them. Yet there are alarming reports that President Trump plans to ban admission to the United States for citizens of [[Page S2502]] 11 countries, including Afghanistan--here is the part that is so terrifying--with no exception for Afghans and their families who qualify for the special immigrant visas or are awaiting evacuation. That is really unconscionable. Although the Taliban leadership issued a so-called general amnesty for former officials in the U.S.-backed government more than 3 years ago, the reality is that the U.N.”
“This is an obligation we have to those folks who, as a result of the collapse in Kabul, were in serious physical jeopardy. It now is 3\1/2\ years later, and I am not aware of a single evacuation or reunification of family members of these men. They are here or elsewhere, and their families are still in Afghanistan. These refugees, as I stated and will state again because it is the heart of the matter and the heart of the obligation, they worked with our government, they worked with our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers, and we have abandoned our partners when they need us. Some are still waiting on the SIV processing, others on their green cards, and most on the broken promise of reunification. This is really shameful.”
“But spending literally hundreds of billions of dollars to try to transform a country of warring clans, led by corrupt and ruthless warlords with no history of democracy, was doomed to fail. Yet we did do that. And millions of Afghans believed in us, and they shared our vision for that country. And many of them served us, acting as interpreters for the U.S. military or faithfully serving our intelligence Agencies. And these men, some of whom now live in Vermont, risked their lives for us, something that our soldiers take very seriously and have expressed immense gratitude for. Thousands were rushed to the airport in the first frantic days of the evacuation. When they got there--and some who got out--they were told to leave their wives and their children behind and that their families would join them in the United States within 1 year.”
“But since January 20, as a result of the President's order, the father and his family have remained in hiding, preparing for the worst as the son is continuing to pay rent on an apartment that was to be available for his father. You know, this is really shameful. These are folks who were there for us and our soldiers and our diplomats and our intelligence officers. And the situation for this family is typical of the situation for so many Afghan families who served us. I have long believed that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was a terrible mistake. Tracking down Osama Bin Laden and the other members of al-Qaida responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks was justifiable and was necessary.”
“For over a year, my office has tried to help an Afghan man, now in Vermont, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. This man is working to support fellow Afghans in finding employment for Afghans in Vermont. This man's father served as a Deputy Minister of Justice supporting U.S. rule of law projects. Since 2021, the father and his family have been hiding in a third country, knowing they would face arrest and persecution if they are deported back to Afghanistan. Then, in December 2024, after years of waiting, they were finally cleared to fly to the United States. He thought his father was coming home. The son had already signed the lease for an apartment and was paying the rent for this to happen.”
“Congress failed by not providing the necessary funds and authority to streamline the resettlement process. And then, regrettably, in one of President Trump's first Executive orders, signed on January 20, he made the situation exponentially worse by suspending admission to the United States of Afghan refugees. And now Pakistan has threatened to deport them back to Afghanistan where many of them would face the risk of arrest and, literally, execution. Today, thousands of Afghan refugees are facing total abandonment by the U.S. Government, and this is despite the fact that they completed or they have nearly completed the laborious and time-consuming process of obtaining the necessary security and medical clearances for themselves and their families. I would like to share one example.”
“They have been indispensable in helping us meet our obligation to support the Afghans who helped our soldiers. That is our obligation. But, ultimately, the resettlement is the responsibility of the Federal Government. In the end, the Biden administration did fall short in its promises to the Afghan refugee population. This population of refugees exists, I state again, because of their work with and for our government, for our soldiers, for our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. We have abandoned our partners in their time of need. One of the things, the screening process for these refugees became hopelessly bureaucratic, opaque, and fraught with inexplicable delays, including the processing of long-delayed special immigrant visas for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission. Many of them were interpreters.”
“These refugees worked with and for our government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. Some of these refugees have made it safely to the United States, thanks to the determined persistence of humanitarian organizations, including one in Vermont, the Vermont Afghan Alliance, and the outstanding work of Molly Gray and her staff. These organizations have advocated for refugees ceaselessly. They have not forgotten what those refugees did for our soldiers in Afghanistan. And these organizations have helped arrange for the practical needs that refugees face--housing, employment, and other social services--upon their arrival in the United States. I so appreciate the work of the Vermont Afghan Alliance and the many other refugee assistance organizations around the country, including in your State, Mr. President.”
“Mr. President, it has been 3\1/2\ years since August 30, 2021, when the last American forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was, by any objective measure, a total fiasco. However, the Biden administration does deserve some credit for evacuating at least 120,000 Afghans in those chaotic days after the Taliban overran Kabul. It was one of the largest--if not the largest-- humanitarian airlifts in history. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Afghans and their families remain stranded in Afghanistan and other countries, especially Pakistan. Many of these people had worked for our government or participated in programs funded by the United States, in women's rights, in education, judicial and economic reform, in counternarcotics, and many other areas.”
“I hope we come to our senses here, and we just start with the proposition that whatever it is we do, whatever tax policy we believe is in the best interest of the American people, we start with the commitment that however we implement that policy, it will do no harm to the children in your community and mine, to the folks in nursing homes in your community and mine. We will do no harm. That, Mr. President, is why it is so essential that we defeat this proposal. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.”
“Senate, at this moment, that is making the decision that we are going to give tax cuts to people who don't need them, haven't asked for them, but whose political supporters here are demanding them on their behalf and give tax cuts to corporations that have had record profits at the expense of taking away the healthcare that families in your community and mine totally depend on. This is wrong. This is wrong. The most elemental thing that a family needs is some security if they have a child or they have an elderly parent. They are not going to leave them out on the street and kick them aside. That is what is being proposed in this bill. That is what is being proposed.”
“It is amazing that a person, a family, they have the bad luck of having a disabled child, but they have the good heart that they can love that child as though it is the best child in the whole wide world. That is how they are. That is how Americans are. They accept what God gives them, and they love that child. But it makes a difference whether they can live their life if they have Medicaid that helps get that wheelchair, that may help them with a van so they can go out as a family. That is literally what we are talking about. This is real. This is consequential. This is not about polls and who is ahead and who is up and who is down. This is about a society, through the U.S.”
“It is not going to be reinvested in the economy to improve the well-being of our society through education or childcare or family leave. But then we have the pretense that would be fiscally responsible and ``pay for'' the tax cut, but the way we are going to pay for the tax cut is taking away healthcare from people who desperately need it and can't afford it. That is what is up here. That is the question. It is not rhetoric. It is not about political principles. This is about day in and day out survival for many American families who have absolutely no capacity financially to take care of a parent who is now in a nursing home or a parent--parents of a disabled child whose only lifeline to be able to care for that child is Medicaid. Folks with a disabled child, as we know, it is an incredible challenge for them, and they meet it.”
“It won't in any way have an impact on how they live their life day-to-day. It won't have any impact on their ability to put money aside for their kids to go to college. It won't have any impact on their ability to put money in a trust fund so their children and their grandchildren can live with total economic security. It will have no impact on that. It will certainly have no impact on the improvement of our economy because that money won't be spent or saved rather than invested in the childcare that working families need. It won't be invested in the family leave that a parent needs when a spouse or a child becomes sick. It will have absolutely no impact on that. So the question for us is, Why would we design a bill that is going to give a tax cut to folks that don't need it--in some cases, haven't even asked for it.”
“But we have got to be candid with one another and with the American people that the tax cut that the majority is proposing, more than half of it is going to go to billionaires, multimillionaires, and to very, very profitable multinational corporations. In the design of the ``pay-for,'' $800 billion is going to be taken away from the healthcare that provides essential healthcare to kids and to seniors and to disabled people. So this is not really a question of, Are you for a tax cut? We all are. It is not really a question of, Are you for Medicaid? We all are. It is a question of the specific bill that is being proposed, which is a tax cut that is designed to lower taxes for very wealthy people who won't notice one way or the other at all whether they do or don't get yet another tax cut. They won't know it. It won't affect them.”
“Or that tax cut can be designed so it goes to folks who have really been riding the wave of the financialization of the economy, folks who have become billionaires--God bless them--multinational corporations that have extremely strong balance sheets and really strong profits, companies that already saw a tax cut in the last tax bill that has exceeded what they even asked for. So the question that is really before this Congress has to be put in very concrete terms. It is not, Are you for a tax cut? It is not, Are you for Medicaid? Because probably every single one of us on both sides of the aisle would say yes to a tax cut, and we would say yes to Medicaid.”
“We have millions of taxpayers in this country with all different incomes, and that includes everyone from folks who are making 7 or 8 bucks an hour to $15 an hour, to middle-class families maybe with two folks working--a firefighter maybe and a teacher--might be making $150,000, and they have a couple of kids, still trying at the end of each month to pay the bills, put aside a little money for college, put a little money aside, hopefully, for a 2-week vacation at some point.”
“And in fact, in the House version of the reconciliation bill, the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I served when I was in the House and has jurisdiction over Medicaid, was instructed in that resolution to come up with about $800 billion in savings. What is the purpose of those savings? It is not to lower the national debt. It is not to invest in research and development. It is not to provide universal affordable childcare for a family in medical need-- things that I think all of us absolutely need. [[Page S2269]] It is to fund a tax cut. Literally, it is to fund a tax cut. So then the question becomes: tax cut for whom?”
“There is not anybody on either side of the aisle that doesn't want to do the best we can, not just for our kids but for the kids that live in our community; that want to do the best we can, not just for our parents but for all the parents that live in a community; that want to do the best for all folks who are disabled and need the special requirements that go along with life with a significant disability. But here is where there is a difference: The tax bill that is being proposed that will lower taxes is going to be paid for, in significant part, by drastic cuts to the Medicaid budget, maybe up to $800 billion.”
“So this is important to families, to kids, to seniors. It is part of our healthcare system. And what is of concern, I think, to all of us--and I really want to emphasize I think it is all of us, not the Democrats versus the Republicans--is wanting to have a healthcare system that is going to be there when people need it, that people are not denied access to healthcare because they are poor kids, that they are not denied access to nursing home care because they have run out of their lifesavings. We want to make certain that the healthcare needs of our children and our seniors, disabled children, disabled adults--we want to make sure those healthcare needs are met. We have to do that. It is the mark of a functioning and caring society.”
“Mr. President, I am really delighted to be here with my colleagues Senator Klobuchar and Senator Warnock. I know it is an incredibly important issue for all of America. It is not a red State, blue State situation. It is about something that is near and dear to the heart of the Presiding Officer, the doctor from Kansas: That is healthcare. Healthcare is in jeopardy, particularly Medicaid. Medicaid is healthcare. It is healthcare for kids. It is healthcare for many low- income seniors. It is healthcare for 80 to 90 million Americans. It is healthcare for folks who must live in nursing homes. They are at that stage in life where what keeps them alive and allows their kids to visit are Medicaid paid-for nursing homes. In fact, in Vermont, two out of three of our seniors who are in nursing homes are there only because of Medicaid.”
“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 promoting land access and credit access for young and beginning farmers and ranchers 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. ______”