congressional_record: CREC-2025-06-28-pt1-PgS3651
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| CREC-2025-06-28-pt1-PgS3651 | 2025-06-28 | 119 | 1 | LEGISLATIVE SESSION | SENATE | SENATE | SLEGISLATIVE | S3651 | S3663 | [{"name": "Thom Tillis", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Jeanne Shaheen", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Richard J. Durbin", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Tammy Baldwin", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Amy Klobuchar", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Jacky Rosen", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Chris Van Hollen", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Peter Welch", "role": "speaking"}, {"name": "Angus S. King Jr.", "role": "speaking"}] | [{"congress": "119", "type": "HR", "number": "1"}, {"congress": "119", "type": "HR", "number": "1"}] | 171 Cong. Rec. S3651 | Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 112 (Saturday, June 28, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 112 (Saturday, June 28, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S3651-S3663] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] LEGISLATIVE SESSION The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume legislative session. Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I also ask indulgence for one more minute. This is really easy. Yesterday was my 38th wedding anniversary. I have convinced Susan Tillis to stay married to me for 38 years. I wish I was going to be with her and a couple of dozen family members down at the beach, but I am doing my work here, and I am going to stay until it is done. I also want to wish my grandson--they are celebrating his second birthday today down there at that same beach house--happy birthday. God bless my family. I love you. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire. H.R. 1 Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am sorry to see my colleague Senator Tillis leave before I have a chance to tell him how much I am going to miss him. We have worked together on a number of things, including the Senate NATO Observer Group. He has been a great partner, an excellent Senator, and I am sorry to hear that he is not going to be staying in this body. But, Mr. President, I am really here on this floor to oppose the reconciliation bill that we are considering today. It would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single bill in our history. This legislation would take away healthcare for millions of Americans; it would cut food aid for millions more; it would raise household energy and healthcare bills; and it would add trillions to the debt, all to give the top, not just 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent of people who make more than $2.5 million a year an extra $250,000 a year. At a moment when Americans are struggling with the high cost of living, this bill will take money out of the pockets of working people, the average household making less than $50,000. That is 30 percent of Americans. So 30 percent of Americans will lose about $700 a year from this bill. Here are some of the ways that it hurts middle-class Americans, the people whom I am very proud to represent in New Hampshire: Somehow, the Senate took the bad bill--or what I thought was a bad bill--from the House, and they have made it much, much worse. This bill is the largest cut to healthcare in American history. In total, the bill proposes more than $1 trillion--$1 trillion--in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act--$930 billion of that is Medicaid alone. Because of these cuts, more than 300 rural [[Page S3652]] hospitals could close, more than 500 nursing homes could close. These are core programs and services that benefit seniors, children, veterans, people living with disabilities, and working families. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 17 million Americans, including 43,000 Granite Staters, would lose their health insurance. Over the past several weeks, the past couple of months, I have toured New Hampshire. I have heard from countless constituents who are deeply anxious about what this bill means for them and for their families. Again and again, they have said plainly, without Medicaid, without the Affordable Care Act, they would not be here today. I heard from Danielle in Dalton, northern New Hampshire. Danielle is a proud mother of three sons, two of whom have autism. Danielle's sons rely on Medicaid for their health coverage and for their home care. Danielle is not only their full-time caregiver; she receives a stipend from Medicaid to provide for their care. And thanks to Medicaid, both of her sons are able to work part-time, they are able to live at home with their mom, and they are able to remain active in the community. This bill would put all of that at risk. Danielle says her sons could have difficulty qualifying for Medicaid under these new rules, and losing Medicaid would be catastrophic for her family because it would likely force her sons out of work, out of her home, and into a group home or institution. So it is going to cost a lot more if that happens. Her boys are now contributing members of society, and this bill threatens not only their livelihood and their independence and their future, it threatens their dignity. I heard from Shawn in Claremont. Shawn shared with me his story of addiction to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin and his long road to recovery. After several near-death experiences, he found stability in a sober living home and enrolled in Medicaid. With access to treatment, he was able to hold a job and get his life back on track. He eventually opened his own sober living home, Hope 2 Freedom, where he now helps others suffering from addiction so that they can enroll in Medicaid and begin their own journey to sobriety. I heard from Karla in Exeter. Karla has twin 3-year-old boys, one of whom had serious medical complications at birth. Now, she always was able to have health insurance with her job, but as her family's medical bills piled up, she enrolled her son in Medicaid to ensure that he got the care that her family could not afford and her employer-sponsored health insurance wouldn't pay for. He still needs extensive care to this day, and losing her coverage would put her family into devastating medical debt. Probably the story I heard that touched me as much as any was from a man in Berlin, in northern New Hampshire. He had had a number of substance misuse issues, mental health challenges. He said: Without Medicaid, without the center--we were at a center where Medicaid helped pay to support people who needed help. He said: Without this, I would just give up; I would commit suicide because there would be nothing for me. These are just a handful of the countless stories I have heard these past few months. They are about real people. This bill isn't just words on a page; it is a direct attack on not only their health and their economic security but their very dignity, their ability to have fulfilling lives and to contribute back to their communities and to society. We owe them better than this. This bill would also make catastrophic cuts to food assistance that is provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. During this time of high food prices, of increasing food insecurity, it is particularly critical for families to be able to rely on SNAP to help them keep food on the table. One of the ways this bill cuts the program is by requiring States to pay higher costs. Now, as the former Governor of New Hampshire, I can tell you how much of a burden this is on our State's budget. And there are all kinds of provisions in this bill that are nothing but massive cost shifts to States, and this is one area. The bill puts food assistance at risk for families with teenage children as well as older adults, veterans, and individuals experiencing homelessness. In New Hampshire, an estimated 1,000 older adults could lose SNAP access. These cuts will mean increased hunger across the country. You know, we talk a lot about kitchen table issues here. Passing this bill is an explicit vote to take food off of families' kitchen tables. I heard from Rachel. She is a care coordinator at a behavioral health center in Claremont, which is in the western part of New Hampshire. She told me: SNAP is not just a program--it is a lifeline. For the parents I work with, it means being able to send their children to school with full stomachs and functioning minds. For caregivers struggling to make ends meet, it provides some peace of mind knowing there will be something on the table each night. And for children--many of whom are navigating mental health challenges--SNAP supports stability, dignity and health during formative years. Without SNAP, the strain on these already vulnerable families would increase exponentially. She goes on to say: SNAP is not a handout--it is a step forward for families working hard to survive and succeed against overwhelming odds. On the energy front, for families concerned about energy costs, this bill only offers more pain. In addition to cutting off tremendously successful incentives for electricity that are adding reliable, affordable, and clean energy to the grid at a record pace, this bill cuts off longstanding tax credits for consumers--for average, everyday Americans--to make energy-saving improvements to their homes or to add rooftop solar to take control of their own energy bills. After countless promises to lower people's energy bills, this legislation would do just the opposite. Last year, 2.3 million families took advantage of the home energy efficiency tax credit and cut an average $130 off of their yearly energy bills. Now, this may not sound like a lot to the Mar-a-Lago crowd, but it makes a big difference for families in New Hampshire who worry about how they are going to heat their homes. American households are expected to pay an extra $170 billion in energy bills over the next 10 years, thanks to the misplaced priorities in this bill. Add to that 1.5 million good jobs that are likely to go away, and it makes you wonder if supporters of this bill have actually read it or if they actually care about American energy dominance. And on taxes, this bill spends more than $4 trillion on tax cuts, including nearly $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the biggest corporations. But for taxpayers earning less than $30,000 a year, they would see an average tax increase. Let me say that again because I didn't say that quite right with the right emphasis: For taxpayers earning less than $30,000 a year, they would see an average tax increase in 2029. And these are the same families who are going to be harmed most by extreme cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Families making under $50,000 are likely to be worse off, and some could lose more than $1,500 a year under this bill. So if you add to that the effects of Trump's tariffs, which raise the cost of living for a typical family by $2,000 a year, this makes it even worse for families. So the bottom 80 percent of households, those making less than $175,000, will be worse off, on average, under this bill. Now, I have talked about how this bill makes families pay more for healthcare, for energy, and food in order to give more money to billionaires, but there are a few other things that people should know. First, because of the trillions of dollars this bill would add to the debt, interest rates are likely to go up. That adds more than $1,000 a year for a typical mortgage. This bill makes it harder for students to afford the cost of college, and it removes debt protections for students who have been defrauded by their schools. And this bill actually tries to prohibit States from regulating AI for the next 10 years, making it that much harder to keep our kids safe online and to protect jobs from being lost to the use of this technology. You know, I was first elected to the New Hampshire State Senate more [[Page S3653]] than 30 years ago. This bill that we are considering today would do more harm to more people than any other law I have seen in my entire time in public office. This bill makes having a family more expensive by raising the cost of energy, healthcare, and education. This bill takes food and healthcare away from seniors and families, and it does all of that--it does all of that--to give trillions of dollars more to corporations and to the wealthiest. And it explodes our deficit in the process. That is not what the people of New Hampshire are asking for, and it is not what Americans deserve. So, to my colleagues in the Senate, I say this: At a moment when Americans are feeling squeezed by the cost of living, we should be doing something about that. Instead of gutting healthcare to pay for tax cuts, we should be expanding access to affordable, quality care. Instead of turning our backs on working parents, we should be making housing more affordable. And we should ensure that every child has access to high quality, affordable early education. Instead of cutting nutrition programs, let's make sure that no child in America goes hungry. Instead of driving up food and energy prices, let's invest in the programs that help American families succeed. President Trump calls this the Big Beautiful Bill, but it is a big betrayal of the American people. There is nothing beautiful about taking away healthcare and food from working families to give more money to billionaires. So I intend to vote against this legislation, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois. Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I don't believe you can serve in the U.S. Senate without being, at least, an amateur student of history. You are overwhelmed in this Chamber, which is where the Senate has met since 1859, to reflect on all of the things that have occurred in the past, and you remember your own experience there as well. I certainly do. This is my 29th year of service in the Senate, and I think back this evening to some of the things which I have witnessed and that still stick with me. I can still see that door open and Ted Kennedy walk through it, summoned from his deathbed in Massachusetts to cast the deciding vote on the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. He wouldn't miss it, even if it meant he was going to die in the process. I think of that door over there, when President Trump, in his first term, tried to, basically, eliminate the Affordable Care Act, and it was saved at the last minute, at 2 in the morning, when John McCain came through those doors, stood in the well right by that table through the Republican side, and cast his vote no. He couldn't raise his arm, it had been damaged so badly when he served as a prisoner of war during Vietnam, but you knew how decisive his gesture was. And he saved healthcare for millions of Americans. There were other moments as well that I can reflect on, but the point I would like to get to is this: There was a speech a few minutes ago on the floor of the U.S. Senate which every Senator should have heard, particularly every Republican Senator. The Senator from North Carolina gave a speech--Senator Tillis--and explained why he decided to vote against this Republican budget plan, this reconciliation bill. He explained it in a thoughtful and comprehensive and convincing way. But before he made his decision, he turned to Republicans in the State and Democrats and a neutral third party to analyze the bill. He concluded, after that careful study, that this measure, the changes in Medicaid and Medicare and other health programs, would be a disaster for the State of North Carolina. He had made it clear before tonight that he was going to vote against this bill, and he made it clear this morning that he is preparing to retire from the Senate. I felt his statement was compelling, and I am sorry that there weren't other Members on the Republican side, at least one beyond the Presiding Officer, present to hear it. It is seldom that you hear a speech on the floor of the Senate that you know is so personal and so heartfelt and so meaningful as the statement made by Senator Tillis earlier. He made a decision, which will be widely reported, I am sure, and showed a level of political courage which is seldom seen in this Chamber. He basically said in a positive way that the President was wrong in believing that this wouldn't hurt ordinary people. This Republican measure, which is before us tonight and tomorrow is going to hurt a lot of people. We estimate that 16 million American families will lose their health insurance as a result of this measure that is on the floor today. I have said it before, but I want to repeat it. If you have ever been the father of a new baby with a serious medical problem and you have no health insurance, you will never forget that moment as long as you live. I know. I have been there. I went to the charity ward at Children's Hospital as a student of Georgetown Law School with my wife and baby. We waited in line to see which doctor would walk through the door and see my baby and save her life. You feel that you have let everyone down in the world at that point when you don't have health insurance when you need it so badly. It means so much to you. This bill is designed to take health insurance away from 11 million families in America. Eleven million families in America in a period of time will not have peace of mind that they have access to the best care because they will have lost their health insurance. What is it about Donald Trump taking away coverage of healthcare? Why has this become the trademark of the Donald Trump Republican Party? He did it in his first term. He tried to, but John McCain stopped him, and now he is trying to do it again. The question is whether Senator Tillis and his Republican colleagues can muster enough courage to step up and find four Republican Senators who will say: No. No. I am not going there. I don't want it on my conscious or my record that I took health insurance away from so many American people. Now, you may argue: Durbin you are a Democrat--and I am--and your arguments have to be tempered because you are so partisan, so political. Surely it isn't as bad as you just said it was. Well, let me read something to you. It is from a group called the American Cancer Society. I am sure you have heard of it. This is their Cancer Action Network, and it is a letter to the Senate from Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. Here is what she says about the measure that is pending before us now that we are being asked to vote on. It is from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network: History will be made with this vote. Congress has one last chance to stop this unprecedented attack on access to healthcare for millions of Americans, including cancer patients and survivors. Congress can say `no' to terminating health coverage for nearly 11 million people who will have no other affordable option available to them if this bill passes. Currently, 1 in 10 people with a history of cancer have Medicaid coverage, including 1 in 3 kids who are newly diagnosed with cancer. We know having quality health coverage is one of the most significant factors in whether someone survives a cancer diagnosis. Voting for this bill means voting to rip the chance of survival away from real people. She goes on to say: Simply put, this bill will mean more Americans are living sicker and dying sooner. Then she said: Lives are on the line. So if you are skeptical about anything that I say because of my partisan background, I understand. But for goodness' sake, when the American Cancer Society--they have such a definitive statement made that this measure we are being asked to vote on is going to harm innocent people--men, women, and children. That is a fact. I might add another short message we received from the Children's Hospital Association. Matthew Cook is their president and CEO, and here is what he says about this bill that is pending: The new version of the budget reconciliation bill is a crisis for children's health care, hospitals, and providers nationwide, and we ask Congress to oppose it as an act of support for America's children. The bill goes [[Page S3654]] much too far. . . . The bill amounts to fewer doctors and nurses to see your child, longer wait times, and sicker children. We know that the impacts of poor pediatric health care reverberate for a lifetime. That is from the Children's Hospital Association. Neither of these organizations is a partisan organization, and they have confirmed what Senator Tillis said earlier on behalf of the State of North Carolina and what those of us on this side of the aisle have been saying all along. Why would we risk the lives and well-being of so many children, so many American families? What is it about the trillion dollars which we will take out of the healthcare system in America that is so pressing, so demanding that we are willing to make these big risks? I will tell you what it is. It is the extension of tax breaks--tax breaks for the wealthiest people. Oh, Durbin, you Democrats always talk about billionaires and millionaires. It can't be true. Senator Angus King is here. He told me that he did an analysis of the actual tax breaks. If I remember correctly, if you do a cut-off of income at $400,000 a year and say anyone over that figure is not going to receive any tax break, you would reduce the cost of this tax program by 60 percent or more--60 percent or more. So when we talk about tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America, that is exactly what this is about. I want to give tax breaks, if we can, to working families that struggle paycheck to paycheck. For goodness' sake, a $346,000 tax cut for Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth? What are we thinking? I just want to make quick reference to two States that have an experience coming with this bill, which will be dramatic. One is Kansas. In Kansas, 360,000 individuals rely on Medicaid coverage. Fifty-six percent of them are children. But with this bill, 89,000 people in Kansas are going to lose their health insurance. In Kansas, Medicaid covers one-third of births and 58 percent of nursing home residents. What happens when Medicaid does not pay enough money to the nursing home to keep your mother in good care or your father or someone in your family? What do you do next? Well, you exhaust the savings that are available to your family. If that isn't enough, what is next? I don't know. When I grew up, as a kid, there was a spare bedroom in my grandparents' home for brothers and sisters who had no place else to go. I suppose that is going to happen to some families. Already, 28 rural hospitals in Kansas are at immediate risk of cloture. To think that this measure will have no impact on those families and those communities is just plain wrong. In the adjoining State of Missouri--I grew up across the river, the Mississippi River; I grew up in Illinois; I grew up across the river from St. Louis, MO--1.2 million individuals rely on Medicaid coverage. Fifty percent are children. With this bill, 250,000 people in Missouri are projected to lose their health insurance. Medicaid covers 40 percent of births in Missouri and 65 percent of nursing home residents. Already, 10 rural hospitals in Missouri are at immediate risk of closure. Mr. President, you know as well as I do what happens in smalltown America, rural America, when they close the hospital. It is devastating--not just because you don't have access to quality healthcare but because you just lost a major economic engine for that community. Try to attract a new business to that town after the hospital closes. Watch what you run into. It is that devastating. That is the reality of this approach. And why are we doing it? What is the national energy that calls on us to make this change? Tax breaks for the wealthiest people in the America. That is what is motivating the Republicans now. I want to close and just say thank you to Senator Tillis. He has shown extraordinary courage. The question is whether others will join him, whether four Republican Senators will step up and say: Enough. I have heard enough. I have seen enough. I believe this is wrong. There are ways we can help people who need a tax break rather than the wealthiest people that won't damage some of these families. Eleven million, 16 million--whatever the number turns out to be--will lose health insurance. I hope that we come to our senses and do it soon. I hope what Senator Tillis said on the floor will inspire Members of his own caucus to listen carefully, to know that he speaks the truth and has taken great political risk to say it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The Senator from Wisconsin. Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I am proud to join my midwestern colleagues today to draw attention to what will happen in our States if this bill were to come to pass. So I rise today on behalf of the 17 million Americans who are poised to have their healthcare terminated because of the Republicans' disastrous budget bill. While I am laser-focused on the nearly 260,000 Wisconsinites whose healthcare will be placed in jeopardy by this measure, I realize that so many Americans who reside in States that are represented by Republicans don't have a voice in this fight right now on this Senate floor. You know, I have traveled my State extensively, listening to people talk about how this bill would impact them and their families, and I have shared those stories, I have uplifted those stories, sometimes right here on the Senate floor and sometimes in other ways. I know that my Republican colleagues are getting the same influx of phone calls and letters that I am getting from parents of children with disabilities, from the elderly and folks who are working hard but just can't keep up. These are constituents who are downright scared that they will have the rug pulled out from under them. I know my Republican colleagues are hearing from their rural hospitals and their pediatricians who are clear about what this bill will mean for their ability to keep their doors open and to care for their patients. According to reports, my colleague from Kentucky even admitted as much behind closed doors last week, saying that ``I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid.'' But rather than committing to join us in this fight, he said ``They'll get over it'' and urged his colleagues to forge ahead with this bill. Well, if my Republican colleagues won't fight for these Americans, I think it is well past time that some of us do. That is why I am proud to be standing with my midwestern Democratic colleagues to do and say something about it. I am here to stand up for the over half a million midwestern Americans in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and the Dakotas whose healthcare is on the chopping block if Republicans jam through this terrible budget bill. In just those 6 States alone, over 340,000 Americans will lose their Affordable Care Act coverage, and over 225,000 Americans will be kicked off Medicaid if the Republicans get their bill and their way. In Iowa, over 100,000 Americans' care could be on the chopping block, including over 58,000 Americans whose families rely on Medicaid. When we talk about hundreds of thousands of people losing healthcare coverage, it can sometimes get lost that this actually means people, not numbers. The numbers we are talking about are people. They have faces, they have stories, they have families, and they matter. Take Patrick Kearns, a registered nurse in Iowa City at the VA Medical Center and father of two adult children with disabilities. He told the Des Moines Register: My children are not scamming the system. The idea that they're somehow gaming the system at the detriment to the rest of society, especially when people like Elon Musk are using words like `parasite' to describe my children--anger doesn't quite encompass how I feel. He continued: I just find it shocking that you would go after truly the most vulnerable people, as if they are somehow conducting fraud. These folks are barely surviving. In Kansas, where nearly 90,000 Americans' health coverage is at risk, including 18,000 Kansans on Medicaid, Kathy and Jacob shared the story of their adopted sister Mireya, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at just 4 weeks old--I am sorry--7 weeks old. Because of Medicaid, the family could afford at-home nursing services before their sister passed away in 2024. [[Page S3655]] Jacob told the Kansas Reflector: This is not right or left. This is truly a human right. Yes, we want to get rid of fraud. People using the support, that's not fraud. That's called helping people live their best life in the most respectful and dignified way possible. In Missouri, 250,000 Americans' care is on the chopping block, including over 100,000 with Medicaid. In the suburb of St. Louis, Sandra told the Kaiser Family Foundation Health News that she worries about her 20-year-old daughter Sarah and the 24-hour service she needs, including in-home nursing. Sandra said: I really and truly don't know what I would do if we lost the Medicaid home care. I have no plan whatsoever. It is not sustainable for anyone to do infinite, 24-hour care without dire physical health, mental health, and financial consequences, especially as we parents get into our elder years.'' In Nebraska, 74,000 people could lose coverage, including 26,000 Americans on Medicaid. Dr. Ann Anderson Berry, who works at Children's Hospital in Omaha, NE, told Nebraska Public Media that these cuts would greatly harm those in Nebraska's rural communities. According to Dr. Anderson Berry, ``this is not just a health care issue; it's a workforce issue, an education issue, an economic issue. Communities without access to safe childbirth cannot attract or retain young families. They struggle to grow, and they suffer generational consequences. Nebraska simply deserves better. Our rural families deserve better. Cutting Medicaid may save money on the spreadsheet, but it will cost lives in real communities and put the expensive burden of care back on our communities.'' In South Dakota, 31,000 Americans' insurance is at risk under this bill, including 12,000 Americans on Medicaid. Retired family physician Tom Dean, from Wessington Springs, shared his concerns about what the cuts to Medicaid will mean for nursing homes and the health of moms and babies. He told the South Dakota Searchlight: I'm really frightened about the impact it will have on nursing homes. . . . Medicaid is a major payer for prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care. . . . And that's a major concern, especially in rural areas. I know that my Republican colleagues are hearing these stories from their constituents, and we need to make sure that they can't ignore them. These stories and the people behind them make all the difference in this fight to protect Medicaid. I am proud to give them a voice in the Senate, as my Republican colleagues continue their crusade to rip away healthcare from 17 million Americans. The American people don't like this bill, and that includes Americans who live in red, blue, and purple States. We are going to keep ringing the alarm bells on behalf of Americans in every corner, in every part of this Nation and protect the critical coverage working families need and deserve. Lives depend upon it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleagues from Illinois and from Wisconsin. And you just heard from Senator Baldwin about the effects of this budget bill on the Midwest. I guess I would start by asking the same questions as our colleague Senator Tillis, who just announced he wasn't going to seek reelection, after the President threatened him with a primary, and after he took a vote and had the audacity to ask the questions that had to be asked about this bill. And you heard him today. He talked about how he had talked to the hospital association in his State, how he had talked to the Governor's Office, how he had gotten the actual data on the effects of Medicaid in North Carolina. And then he asked the question: How hard is it to see the impact of these proposals? And he asked: What is wrong with putting a little daylight on what is going on here? So that is what I am going to do in my few minutes here--put a little Midwestern daylight on what is going on here--and that is that, under this bill, 17 million people would be kicked off their healthcare because of the Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act changes. That was 16 million people until we got the updated numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. That is a nonpartisan group. It also drives $4 trillion in debt. It used to be $3.4. Now it is up to $4 trillion. And what will that mean? That will mean big time in the Midwest, where I have so many of my own constituents wanting to buy their first house. It is going to mean major increased interest rates. It is going to mean difficulty in buying all kinds of things for which you would take out loans or for small businesses--all for giving a bunch of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, $400,000 for multimillionaires. Our colleagues are going to raise costs and take healthcare and food away from millions of Americans. So my colleagues have talked about Senator Baldwin and Senator Durbin, and talked about the effects that this bill has in the Midwest when it comes to healthcare and the closing of the rural hospitals. The Midwest has a huge number of these rural hospitals. It is about half of them that would be forecast to close. She talked about the Medicaid cuts. So I am going to talk about a different piece of this, and this is the impact of cuts to food assistance. There is no avoiding the facts. Here they are. About a month ago, the House passed a budget bill, as you know, that cut nutrition assistance by nearly $300 million. It put the country on track to eliminate SNAP for 4 million Americans and reduce benefits for millions more. I was hopeful that we would go in another direction. And while there were some changes made by the Republicans on the Agriculture Committee that I appreciated, it still amounts to over $185 billion in cuts from the SNAP program. And let me remind you that the vast majority of people on SNAP are older Americans, people with kids, veterans, and people with disabilities. We were just out on the Senate steps with a number of those people and the groups that they represent and faith leaders, talking about this very subject. Why them? Why give tax cuts to the wealthy on their backs? We know that the impact of the ``Big Beautiful Betrayal of a Bill'' will be even more stark in the Midwest. In the Midwest, here are some examples. Americans use SNAP benefits-- nearly 155,000 people in Nebraska. And let's face it. That is not the biggest population State, but 155,000 Nebraskans use SNAP; about 190,000 people in Kansas; 260,000 people in Iowa; 660,000 people in Missouri; 700,000 people in the State of Wisconsin. Senator Baldwin just talked about the impact of healthcare there--but 700,000 people of my neighbors in Wisconsin. Nearly 1.5 million people in Michigan use SNAP. And in Minnesota, it is 450,000. So, yes, those people will be affected greatly by this faux shift to the States. And, unfortunately, while we tried to fight part of this-- the State shift--we were not able to get that changed, in the last few days. This means certain States. I am just going to give you some examples. Hundreds of millions of dollars are supposed to shift over to States in the Midwest. When 41 of the 50 States in our country have balanced budget amendments, what are they supposed to do? Cut infrastructure? Cut law enforcement? The majority of these cuts--and this is why this is such funny math-- are shifts to the States, and it is why Governors, especially in the Midwest, like Governor Kelly in the State of Kansas, who has been speaking out big time on this, why they are so concerned about the shift. In addition--and this is not something everyone thinks about when they think about SNAP, but we think about it big time in the Midwest-- it is farmers and grocers. Over a third of America's farmland is located in the Midwest. That includes more than 722,000 farm operations, which is more than one-third of farms nationwide. So why would farmers care about this? Well, they will lose revenue because Americans won't be able to buy their products. And that loss-- that is the SNAP program. Right? It buys food from America, just like international organizations were buying food from America with USAID. That has been cut. Or the Trump tariffs which dry up [[Page S3656]] markets in places all over the world because of retaliatory tariffs, that is hitting our farmers. Input costs, inflation, you name it. And now, this on top of it. In addition, this is going to be a big hit to our grocers. In many rural counties throughout the Midwest, their independent grocery store is the lone grocer in the county. So in 76 counties nationwide, they don't even have a single grocery store, and half of those are in the Midwest. I recently visited an employee-owned grocery store in rural Long Prairie, MN--population: 3,600. Businesses like that operate on tight margins, and they usually serve not just that county, as you can see from the numbers I just provided you, but the surrounding counties, or they may be the only ones in town. To businesses like that, the cuts to SNAP are pretty significant because that is sometimes the margin on which they are able to stay alive as a business. This would make it harder and harder and more expensive for those grocery stores. It could put them out of business. That is for sure. That is what the grocery stores believe. But it also hurts the individual people in their areas, because in the rural areas, you have an overwhelming number of seniors, you have got an overwhelming number of veterans, and you have just an overwhelming number of the people who are using these kinds of grocery store. So SNAP supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wages of these independent grocers, farm and other industries, including more than 1,700 jobs in Nebraska, more than 1,900 jobs in Kansas, more than 2,600 jobs in Iowa, more than 7,000 jobs in Missouri, more than 6,000 jobs in Wisconsin, more than 13,000 jobs in Michigan, more than 4,000 jobs in Minnesota. We know that from farmers and truckers to local grocers, for every dollar invested in SNAP about $1.50 of economic activity is generated nationwide. For many Midwesterners, this bill would make the difference between having a grocery store in their region or not. I mentioned the shift of billions of dollars of costs to States that will blow holes through the State budget. They won't be able to support it, and, sadly, our Republican colleagues know this, because 44 States--44 States--have this balanced budget rule, and they are going to be forced to choose between paying the cost for food and paying for critical services. That is why 23 Democratic Governors, all of them, just laid out in a letter to Congress that these cuts don't just increase State costs; they make it nearly impossible for States to effectively plan for these long-term budget impacts. Those are Governors from Kentucky, with Governor Beshear, to Arizona, with Governor Hobbs. Across the entire Nation, we heard from these Governors, not to mention the Governors such as Governor Pritzker in Illinois and Governor Walz in Minnesota and Governor Kelly in Kansas and Governor Whitmer in Michigan. Based on 2023 figures--ready for this?--the House and Senate version of this bill would shift--and it varies because the bills are different. But this is how much money we are talking about: between $16 million and $49 million onto the State of Nebraska, between $61 million and $101 million in costs onto Kansas. Imagine the budget. Suddenly, oh, you have got to do an extra $60 million. Too bad, you have a balanced budget amendment. Up to $26 million in costs onto Iowa, between $225 million and $376 million onto the State budget in Missouri, up to $68 million in costs onto Wisconsin, where Governor Evers was also a signatory of this letter. Between 456 and 761 million in costs onto Michigan and between 43 million and 128 million in costs onto Minnesota. And those numbers are on top--on top--of an increased administrative cost shift to States. It used to be 50-50; now it is 75-25. Hello, States. You with strapped budgets, we are now making you pay 75 percent of administrative costs, which would make it even harder for States to invest in the staff training and upgraded financial systems that would make the program more sound and reduce payment errors. It is not just the State budgets that will be affected. In many States, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, it is counties rather than the States that run the SNAP program. So I had a visit from some of the rural counties. And they--talk about living off a margin, a thin margin, trying to help their taxpayers trying to get this done, in States like Minnesota and Wisconsin that believe in strong local government--big surprise--our States and a number of other States with bigger rural areas have decided: We would rather have the counties do this. So now these cost shifts will go directly to these county governments. And you would not believe the numbers of what they would have to do to increase their taxes in these rural counties. They said: We can't do that. So if that happens, they will have to raise their local property taxes or cut county services. In the past, we have said that if you are raising kids or taking care of an older relative, we are going to help you feed your family, even if you don't have a job. This reconciliation bill would change that. It would withhold food assistance from families raising kids over the age of 13 and adults 55 and up if they don't meet the new requirements. The Senate bill also eliminates an existing exemption for veterans, homeless people, and former foster youth, an exemption my Republican colleagues supported in the Fiscal Responsibility Act just 2 years ago. So this is a shift among the party. The Republican party actually said this was a good idea to have exemptions for vets and homeless people and former foster youth. Not anymore. These are people who are already struggling, veterans who have sacrificed to serve our country. I believe that when our veterans signed up to serve, there was no waiting line. And when they are in this country and they need help with food or they need a job or they need a home, there shouldn't be a waiting line in the United States of America. So everyone that I have talked to about this, just as Senator Tillis was saying about Medicaid in North Carolina--and I spent time on this. I visit all 87 counties in my State every year. I am up to 49. So I have been able to talk to people who aren't political, who are Republicans, talk to people I just run into in rural grocery stores in the vegetable line. I mean, I have talked to a ton of people. And what they have said to the store managers, to the food shelf volunteers, to those that take SNAP: This isn't a good idea. That is what the public opinion polls say: FOX News poll, 60 percent of people say this bill is a bad idea; 2 to 1 say it is going to help wealthy people and not them. Well, they are right about that. This is a betrayal of the middle class, and it only takes four of our colleagues--and four in the House, by the way--to stand up and say: We need to rewrite this thing. Let's start over. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada. Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong opposition to the devastating and dangerous tax-and-spending bill that Senate Republicans are trying to jam through this weekend on a party line vote, a bill that will gut essential programs like Medicaid and SNAP just to pay for even more tax breaks for billionaires. So let's be clear about what is happening here. This ``Big Beautiful Betrayal,'' it isn't about fiscal discipline. It is fiscally reckless. It isn't about responsibility or doing what is best for average Americans. It is about misguided priorities. It is about giving more to the ultrawealthy on the backs of hard-working families. This bill will take away healthcare and food assistance from people and families who need it most just so DC Republicans can pay more for tax cuts for those who need them the least. DC Republicans want to have more tax cuts for those who need them the least. Once again, Republicans in Congress are putting the interests of the ultrawealthy above the needs of hard-working families, children with disabilities, seniors, and Americans who rely on Medicaid each and every day. Earlier this year, I held a roundtable in Las Vegas with Nevada families who [[Page S3657]] rely on Medicaid. For them, Medicaid is not just a talking point. They are not simply pay-fors in a budget bill. Medicaid is a lifeline. It literally keeps their children alive. I talked to people like Jessica, whose daughter Kay--well, she is 4 years old. She was born with Down syndrome and was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Jessica relies on Medicaid to help cover the cost of weekly physical, speech, and occupational therapies for Kay, all of which are responsible--well, they are helping her learn to walk, to use utensils, to write her own name. Imagine when her mother sees her write her own name. It is a proud moment. Kay also has a cardiologist, an endocrinologist to manage conditions related to her Down syndrome. Medicaid covers these doctors. It covers her insulin. It covers the insulin pump that allows Jessica to manage her daughter's diabetes around the clock, all because Kay can't communicate when her blood sugar is dangerously low or high. And Jessica said something at that roundtable I will never forget. She told me: I can't imagine losing Medicaid . . . obviously I'm going to have [to try] to give up something, because I'm not gonna let her go without insulin and the lifesaving care she needs. And I can't [even] imagine having to think about what I'd have to cut or what I'd have to do-- What I would have to do-- in order to pay for the lifesaving care that she needs and deserves. Kristy, another Nevada mom, was also at that roundtable. Her daughter Sadie is 13. She has been bravely battling an aggressive form of leukemia for the past 2 years. Since her diagnosis, Sadie has spent more than a year and a half in and out of the hospital undergoing treatment for her cancer--all covered, thankfully, by Medicaid. Sadie's father--well, he passed away during the COVID pandemic, sadly, and Kristy became Sadie's sole caregiver and sole provider. Medicaid is critical, and, simply put, it is lifesaving. So why are Republicans looking to cut it? So billionaires can get another tax break? So that Republican lawmakers can hand out trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to the wealthiest 1 percent while thousands of people lose access to lifesaving care? The cuts proposed to Medicaid--well, they are going to affect veterans and Nevadans with cancer who can't work and who will be kicked off their health insurance, the insurance that they need to stay alive. It will kick the family caregiver, who takes care of both her aging parents, maybe off her own coverage. The majority of adults on Medicaid already work, and Republicans are counting on savings from these hard-working Americans losing coverage, too, because of paperwork? Paperwork is just going to be so bureaucratic, so full of redtape. The goal is to make it so hard, so damn burdensome, that nobody can do it. No one can go to work, take care of their sick loved one, be sick themselves. They are hoping they drop off, even if they technically qualify. This is where they find their savings. Aren't we supposed to cut redtape and improve the lives of our constituents? And so this is just cruel. It is a lose-lose situation. People can't work because they have a life-threatening illness, or they are working and they miss the complicated new paperwork which people are hoping that they can't do so they will drop off; and that is where they will find the savings. They will lose their health insurance, and maybe they will drop off, and they will lose their life too. All for a tax break for the wealthiest, for the billionaire Cabinet of our current President. This is just shameful. This bill would also slash SNAP, as my colleagues before me have told you some of the statistics. SNAP, the nutrition program that helps nearly one in six Nevadans put food on the table. Most of these recipients are children. When they cut this program, you tell me what our families are supposed to do. You tell me what families are supposed to do when they cut food assistance. How are they going to put food on the table? What will they say to their hungry children? Sorry, kids. You have to go hungry so billionaires can get a tax break. This just can't be right. This just can't be right. And it doesn't stop there. This bill threatens thousands of good- paying union jobs in Nevada, across our country, by letting critical tax credits for solar, for wind projects expire before those projects can even get off the ground. You know, in Nevada, we have more solar jobs per capita, more than any other State in the Nation, and we have enough solar energy to power nearly 1.3 million homes. It is a growing, terrific industry in Nevada. We need all the energy we can get at an affordable price. And this bill--this bill is going to decimate this important and growing industry, not just in my State but in States across this country. And on top of that, Republicans have added an additional new tax on wind and solar projects. It just won't kill the industry. Like I said, it is going to raise prices on hard-working families, families who are already paying too much for their energy. I thought we were supposed to be lowering prices, creating opportunities, expanding and investing in our infrastructure and in our Nation. But this bill is going to add more taxes, slash products, and raise energy prices for hard-working families. And all of this is causing companies across the country to stall or cancel projects over the uncertainty of losing access to the tax credits. This means fewer jobs, less investment, and just more families wondering, actually, how they are going to make ends meet. And we are talking about an industry that supports nearly 280,000 American workers: electricians, technicians, construction crews. I could go on and on about all the jobs that are in our solar and wind industry. And we are pulling the rug right out from under them--right out from under them--and killing thousands, hundreds of thousands, of clean energy jobs. Again, I want to remind you that all of this is for one purpose and one purpose alone: to give tax breaks to billionaires. So anyone who supports this bill is not pro-worker. They are not looking out for underdogs, for hard-working families. They are just focused on making the rich, well, richer. And I am not going to stand by and let Nevada families lose access to their healthcare, to their food assistance, to their jobs--all so billionaires can pad their pockets. And I want to remind people what Democrats--what we did--when we used the reconciliation process. We expanded health insurance subsidies; and for the first time, we gave Medicare the authority to negotiate for lower drug prices for our seniors. We invested in our clean energy future. We cut costs for families, instead of cutting lifelines. And this DC Republican bill is extreme; it is cruel; and it is not what the American people want. People want lower costs. People want economic security. Parents want their kids to have care when they are sick and a fair shot to thrive. They don't want their future sold off to billionaires. So I say to my Republican colleagues: Please don't turn your backs. Please don't turn your backs on families who need you, who need this, the most. I want you to come look at my Nevada moms and my Nevada dads in the eyes and tell them they don't matter, that their children don't matter, that the lives of their kids don't matter because they won't get the care they need. And I shudder to think of the consequences. Please, come to Nevada. Sit with these parents and tell them that they don't matter. I don't know how you could face them and gut Medicaid to give billionaires a tax cut, but that is what you are about to do. The American people deserve better. And I will fight every single step of the way to make sure that they get it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina. Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I am going to be brief. I promise, Senator Van Hollen, I am going to be about 5 minutes. This is an easy one. No. 1, I probably should have said this earlier. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I completely disagree with the narrative of the billionaire tax. Folks, this is actually reducing or making sure we don't raise taxes on people like me who grew up in trailer [[Page S3658]] parks, didn't get my degree until I was 37, struggled to make ends meet. Those people benefit from that. I read the bill. I think most of you know I am detail-oriented. It is not what it seems. I also should have thanked Senator Crapo. He is a good friend, a great leader. I should have thanked him for the hard work he is doing. I got a little focused on the Medicaid failed baseline that is in the bill, but I should have started with that. Thanks to Mike Crapo and Senator Thune, whom I admire as our leader. I am here to talk about the production tax credit and the investment tax credit. It is another classic example where think tanks and people who haven't worked a day in business are setting policy in the White House without a clue about what they are potentially doing to our grid. A lot of people probably--I had Alex Weinstein, who is a self- described philosopher and expert in this area in my office--talking with three people, practitioners, that actually work in it. One is someone who specializes in power purchase agreements for large businesses. Walmart is one of the most sophisticated buyers of electrons in the world. They map out their power requirements years in advance. They want to make sure their food doesn't spoil and they have power running. They have already made several power purchase agreements with projects underway, folks. This bill is basically gutting it. Instead, everybody is high-fiving. What is amazing to me is the mark that we laid down the other day almost achieved the same level of cuts as the House bill, within $30 billion--within $30 billion. And instead of thinking that was progress, somebody got cute and decided to take away in construction and put it in service. Let me tell you why this is disingenuous. I was a partner at Pricewaterhouse and worked in utilities practice--large utilities, like TECO, Duke, Florida Progress, AEP. I know this industry. I understand baseload; I understand peaking; and I understand this technology, which is increasingly becoming viable because of storage as a part of augmenting baseload. Now, we have the Walmarts and all these data centers, and everything we wanted to bring back onshore putting in these power purchase agreements teed to these projects, like solar, in particular, like wind, and other innovative--renewable natural gas, methane, hydrogen. I can go on. But somebody, a self-described philosopher in a think tank that I admire a lot, but I realized, if you are a philosopher and in a think tank, you, by definition, have never worked in an operational role. You can't possibly understand what happens to this pipeline of power purchase agreements and the future of our grids. Here is what is going to happen. Wipe it clean. Put an excise tax in. Effectively throw the football into the end zone, spin it, walk away, do the party dance. And what you have done is create a blip in power service because there isn't going to be a gas-fired generator anytime soon. Folks, the generator is necessary to create power with gas--best case, 5 years from now. That is best case, 5 years from now. So you can't get that online and, at the same time, this whole pipeline is going down. So I want that philosopher to tell me that he understands how to plan out power over time and to let me know that when all these projects fail--some will make it, some will get subsidized, some will go bankrupt--so it won't be Armageddon, but it is going to be a problem. So they better get it right. It is another example, folks, when you rush a bill and don't think through the implementation, you don't get it right. I hope my colleagues recognize it is half-baked. It is another reason why we should go back to the House mark, get Medicaid right, so I can come onto the floor and tell my colleagues on the other side of the aisle why they are wrong on all the attributes of the House mark; why they are wrong on some of their characterizations of the tax bill; and why they will be wrong on an energy policy that makes sense. But I have to vote against the bill for my own party--that I have never parted from before--because we are rushing to an arbitrary deadline with people who have never worked a day in this industry. Maybe they philosophized and have written a few white papers on it but haven't gotten their hands dirty. This is another segment of the bill that needs to change. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland. Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, Donald Trump likes to call the bill that Republicans are trying to rush through this Senate the Big Beautiful Bill. Well, it is big all right. It took the Senate clerks nearly 16 hours to speed read through it. But it is only beautiful if you are a billionaire or otherwise very wealthy in America. For everybody else, this is a big ugly betrayal of a bill--betrayal because tax cuts for billionaires are coming at the expense of virtually everyone else. I agree with many of the things my colleague from North Carolina, Senator Tillis, just said. But I have also read the bill. If you look at the bill, the tax benefits overwhelmingly go to the very highest income earners in the United States of America. Fifty percent of those tax benefits go to just the top 5 percent. So this is a choice that is being made by Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress to give to billionaires additional tax handouts at the expense of the rest of the country. They are choosing to engage in a huge transfer of wealth from people who are working paycheck-to- paycheck to those who are living off their huge inheritances or gigantic stock portfolios. Americans are going to have to pay for the tax cuts for billionaires in many, many ways. Millions will lose access to healthcare. Others will no longer be able to put food on the table. Others will not be able to afford to pay heating bills on freezing nights. Virtually, every American will see their energy bills increase and their health insurance premiums go up. And every American is likely to face higher borrowing costs for their home mortgages or car loans--again, all so billionaires and very wealthy people can get big tax cuts. Let's look at some of the real hits to American families, starting with the attack on healthcare. Donald Trump said he would ``love and cherish'' Medicaid. He said the people won't be affected. That is a lie. What he loves are tax cuts for his billionaire buddies. Let's just take a look. This bill pays for over a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to people who make over $500,000 every year by cutting a trillion dollars of health benefits from those who rely on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Think about that tradeoff. Indeed, because of the cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in this bill, 12 million Americans will lose access to healthcare coverage. On top of that, another 5 million Americans will lose access to health coverage because Republicans refuse to extend the tax credits that millions of middle-class Americans use to purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act. So while extending tax cuts for the very wealthy, they are not extending the healthcare tax credits that middle-class Americans use to help afford health insurance. The result of these cuts and the refusal to extend those tax credits means that nearly 17 million of our fellow Americans will lose access to healthcare coverage. In my State of Maryland, that is 229,000 of my fellow Marylanders. And who are these Americans? Who are these Marylanders? They are babies and children. Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program cover 38 million children in America, 700,000 children in Maryland. Medicaid covers 40 percent of births in America, over 40 percent of births in Maryland. More mothers will die as a result of pregnancy- related deaths if this bill passes. I think we will also know Medicaid is especially important to helping people through the vulnerable stages of their lives. It covers one in four people with mental health or substance use disorders. It is the primary payer for long-term health services, covering 60 percent of nursing home residents. If even a fraction of those residents lose coverage, entire nursing homes can close, and those families will have to figure out how to care for their expelled loved ones. An analysis that was done estimates that as many as 500 nursing homes could close because they are on the cusp. [[Page S3659]] Rural hospitals are also especially vulnerable. It is estimated that up to 300 rural hospitals could close if this bill passes. Americans with disabilities, Medicaid is absolutely essential to their lives. It helps them receive home and community-based care so they don't have to choose between getting the care they need and being separated from their loved ones. A study by Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania predicts that this bill before the Senate will result in over 51,000 preventable deaths each year--preventable deaths. So, officially, the death certificates will say that somebody passed away because they had late-stage cancer. It was detected too late because they couldn't get the preventive care they needed or an accident occurred at a nursing home because there were not enough nurses on site. But those reasons, those conditions will have been set because this bill passed. And, again, making millions of Americans more vulnerable to pay for tax cuts for the ultrawealthy is unconscionable, but it is the choice being made in this bill. Now, 17 million people who will lose their health coverage is a very big number to wrap our heads around. So I want to read just a few stories of Marylanders who rely on Medicaid and who have been watching closely this whole effort that has unfolded on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I had a call from one of my constituents who has a son. Her son takes chemotherapy, and he relies on those chemotherapy treatments to sustain his life. She wrote to me that if he loses access to his health insurance, that it would be ``a death sentence.'' Another Marylander wrote to me about his autistic son who is still able to work but who depends entirely on Medicaid for support. He also said: Please don't let the Senate pass this bill. And the stories go on and on and on. Just the other day, Senator Alsobrooks and I had a telephone townhall. We had 12,000 Marylanders joining us. After that call, we received many more stories about people who would really be in desperate shape if they lost access to their health coverage. Now, on top of the 17 million Americans who stand to lose their health coverage, all other Americans are likely to see higher premiums because what happens when you have uncompensated care is more people go to the emergency rooms at the hospitals. Those hospitals can't just eat all of those additional costs, and at the end of the day, those additional costs cycle through the system in the form of higher premiums for others. We are already seeing that impact in Maryland as insurance companies today look at the possible liability they will have going forward as a result of this legislation. Beyond the 17 million who will lose access to affordable healthcare, you also have millions of Americans who are going to be hit as a result of the cuts to the food and nutrition programs, to the SNAP program. We are going to see a whopping 20 percent cut--$200 billion--to the SNAP program. Over 40 million Americans get some kind of help from that food and nutrition program, and over 3 million of them will lose their SNAP benefits entirely. Others will see rising costs. In Maryland, it is going to impact 684,000 people, most of whom are families with kids. In addition to 17 million Americans losing access to healthcare coverage and in addition to the 40 million Americans who will be impacted by cuts to food and nutrition programs, I want to just focus for a moment on another hit to American households. Some of us have discussed this on this Senate floor before, but it hasn't gotten as much attention, and it relates to the energy bills Americans pay, including their electric bills, because this bill will drive them up. It directly attacks the production of more clean energy, and less energy with rising demand means higher costs for households. I don't know if folks remember about a year ago when Donald Trump had a state dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where he begged 20 fossil fuel CEOs for campaign cash. It was reported on at the time. Well, he succeeded in raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations. Now we see the payoff in this bill to those powerful special interests, and that payoff comes in two forms. First, this bill gives big oil companies a new $1 billion tax break. As a result, some of the fossil fuel companies will pay zero dollars-- zero dollars--in Federal income tax. Second, this bill--and the Senator from North Carolina referred to some of the provisions that will have this impact. This bill sabotages the production of more clean energy. It does so by slashing production and investment tax credits for clean energy and scuttling new clean energy projects. It continues the Trump administration's baseless attacks on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is a program we established that will be a win, win, win for our environment, for our economy, and for family pocketbooks. By cutting these clean energy incentives and initiatives, this bill will reduce the overall amount of energy added to our electric grids by at least 50 percent by 2035. Think about that. So this bill is going to result in a dramatic reduction in the amount of new energy produced that goes on the electric grids. With less energy generated and higher demand, household energy costs and bills are going to go up. In fact, it is predicted that household electricity bills will go up by $110 on average as soon as next year and by up to $400 per year for families over the next decade. This will serve the interests of big oil and gas producers and utility companies that benefit from the higher prices that consumers will have to shell out. This will also do something else. It will surrender entirely the clean energy playing field to China, which already has a big head start on us in the area of clean energy deployment. So this is not America first; this is very much America in retreat. I don't often agree with Elon Musk, but he is absolutely right when he said just a few days ago that the latest Senate draft bill will ``destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country--utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.'' That is the Republican Senate bill--looking in the rearview mirror rather than ahead. Again, what is the driving purpose? What is the North Star of this bill? It is to give very, very wealthy people tax cuts at the expense of everybody else. Everything else is sacrificed. As a result of those tax cuts, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the highest income earners will get an average tax break of $255,000. The top one-tenth of 1 percent will get a tax break of $255,000. Individuals making over $1 million a year will get a $35,000 tax break. As I said earlier, almost 50 percent of all of the tax benefits, all of the tax moneys, will go to the top 5 percent of income earners. To make that happen, as I have said, everything else gets sacrificed--cuts to Medicaid, cuts to food and nutrition programs, cuts to clean energy that result in higher costs for consumers. But even after making all of those cuts and imposing all of that pain on so many Americans, this Republican bill is still going to add over $4 trillion to our deficit over the next 10 years and an estimated $35 trillion over the next 30 years. So despite paying for part of those additional costs through cuts to Medicaid and food and nutrition programs, they are going to blow the roof off of our deficits and debt. Make no mistake, when you do that, you cost every American because it will generate upward pressure on interest rates, which raises costs for Americans who want to take out a mortgage to buy a home or want to get a car loan or for small businesses. In fact, the Yale Budget Lab projects that the House-passed bill would add over $1,000 a year to the cost of a mortgage and over $800 a year to the cost of a small business loan. That is the House- passed bill. The Senate bill will be worse because the Senate bill adds about $1 trillion more to the deficit over 10 years than the House bill. I do want to just focus on a final aspect of the deficit and debt impact of the Senate Republican bill, and that is this very deliberate effort to use fraudulent accounting to hide the deficit impact of this bill from the American people. [[Page S3660]] Let me give you an example. Let's say you sign a contract to rent an apartment for $2,000 a month. You know that is going to cost you $24,000 for the full year. Now, at the end of the year, if you want to keep renting that apartment at that rate, any normal person would say: Well, that is going to cost them another $24,000. Senate Republicans want to tell the American people that the cost of continuing to rent that apartment for another year is zero--zero--because the amount of rent they have to pay in year 2 is the same rent they had to pay in year 1. In other words, Republicans want to say that because they have been giving billionaires and wealthy people tax cuts for 10 years, it will cost nothing to extend them for another 10 years. That is the so-called current policy baseline. In other words, if you just keep in place for another 10 years those same tax breaks for billionaires and others, we don't have to count the lost revenue, and we don't have to count the amount the deficit will increase as a result of that lost revenue. A third grader can see that this is bogus math. Let me read a colleague's statement, made this year by somebody. Here is what he said: Anybody that says current policy baseline [is the way to go] is engaging in intellectual and economic fraud. I wanted to make sure I got that quote correct because it was made by a Republican Congressman from Arizona, Congressman Schweikert. Here is another quote: This is fairy dust, and they're full of crap. And I'm gonna call them out on it. Who said that? Congressman Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas. I think it is worth quoting those Republican Members of Congress because while I dramatically disagree with what they did in their House bill, at least they used honest accounting. At least they didn't try to perpetrate this budget fraud that we are witnessing here in the U.S. Senate--a budget fraud that would, I dare say, make the Enron scammers blush. If you go through the numbers, it is dramatic. For example, an honest scoring of the bill shows that extending the individual tax rates from Trump 2017 will cost $2.2 trillion. That is what the House of Representatives said--$2.2 trillion. When you use the fraudulent budget math that Senate Republicans want to use, all of a sudden, that is $83 billion. If you look at the cost of extending key deductions for businesses, the House used accurate accounting; it comes to $820 billion over 10 years. Under the Senate plan, it is $6 billion. So I am not going to spend a ton of time going over this chart, but I do want to put it up here. This is from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The blue shade in each of these years shows what Senate Republicans say their bill will cost in each of those years. There is the so-called current policy baseline. This is what those House Republican Members called fraudulent accounting, and it is. If you add up all of those blue deficits over those 10 years, they claim it is $441 billion additional debt over 10 years. But if you use the honest accounting that we have always used in the U.S. Senate for the purposes of budget reconciliation, you get the full bar, including the orange numbers, which is $4.2 trillion in debt over those 10 years. I do want to point out to my colleagues something interesting because they have these dashed orange lines. What this is representing is that some of these costs from lost revenue in some of these out-years go down. That is because under this House Republican plan, the tax cuts for people with the no tax on tips--they go away. They vanish. They vanish right here in 2029. But the tax cuts for very wealthy people, for billionaires and others--they go on for the 10 years. In fact, they go on forever. The last point I want to make is, by letting them go on forever--the tax cuts for very wealthy people--Senate Republicans are violating the entire structure of the budget reconciliation process because when it was first devised, the entire purpose of it was to reduce our deficits and reduce the debt. Republican Senators are perverting the entire purpose of that special procedure that allows things to pass in the U.S. Senate with 51 votes and not having to secure the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. They are violating that entire structure. Again, why? Because they are hell-bent on making sure those tax cuts for very wealthy people go on forever--again, at the expense of everybody else. I will just close by pointing out that it wasn't that long ago that just down the hall here, in the Senate Rotunda, Donald Trump took the oath of office. He looked at the cameras, and he said he wanted a new golden age for America. But this is not a golden age for America. It is a gilded age for the wealthiest people in America, and those are the people he was really speaking to because they are the ones who were sitting behind him on Inauguration Day: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, the tech titans, the billionaire Cabinet--more billionaires than any Cabinet, by far, in American history. That is who this bill serves. It serves very wealthy and powerful people, and it does so at the expense of everybody else in America, in one form or another. And I hope--I hope--our Senate, on a bipartisan basis, will give it a big thumbs down. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Vermont. Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, never in my time in Congress have I seen a bill that does so much damage in so many ways to so many people in so many States and that will affect so many generations. The clerks have read the bill. It is now time for us to kill the bill. The point of reading the bill was to reveal that this bill has one goal, and that is to extend tax cuts to very wealthy Americans-- where the top 1 percent will get 60 percent of the benefit--and to make everyday Americans pay the price to fund those tax cuts. It is no wonder, right now, that two in three Americans oppose this bill. The question is, Will the U.S. Senate oppose this bill? Here are just a few ways that the President's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill will hurt Vermont. In Vermont, 11,500 people will lose their healthcare coverage under ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act. Twenty-one thousand Vermonters will lose Medicaid coverage and food nutrition programs that are so essential to the well-being of your citizens and mine. In Vermont, on the SNAP Program, 11 percent of our households use it, 65,000 people. A little over a third of households rely on the SNAP program, and they have kids. Nearly 3,000 veterans in Vermont rely on the SNAP program. By the way, we are talking about 6 bucks a day. Billions are going to be cut across the country. That is going to hurt Vermont, and it is going to hurt everyone. In Vermont, some homeowners, to save money on their energy bills, use the home energy efficiency upgrades that were made possible under the Inflation Reduction Act. Those are being ripped apart. Folks saved about $420 to $980 a year. That is real money for people living paycheck to paycheck. This bill scraps that. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good, we still have time to kill this bill, and we should kill this bill. We Democrats are united in opposition to this bill, but it is not only Democrats whose constituents are going to be hurt by this bill. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have an opportunity to make a choice. Read the bill and decide: Are you going to protect your constituents who are going to suffer the same afflictions as my constituents or are you going to defer to President Trump? The bad in this bill is going to inflict bipartisan pain. This is not aiming at red States or blue States. This is aimed at working-class and middle-class Americans. Just to give you an example, in West Virginia, a great State I visited, I went into a coal mine--the hardest working people ever, except maybe for Vermont dairy farmers. More than 76,000 people in West Virginia will lose access to healthcare because of this bill. And 278,000 West Virginians are going to lose access to the nutrition program, SNAP. In Tennessee, more than 295,000 people will lose access to healthcare--Medicaid--through this bill. And for SNAP, it means 758,000 Tennesseans lose their nutrition benefits. I just want to repeat here. This is the bipartisan infliction of pain. This is [[Page S3661]] real. This is real. And it is because of the tax cut largely directed to the very wealthy people. Is it worth inflicting that kind of pain on so many when the tax cut benefits so few? Let's talk more about what is in this bill, because the American people need to know what we are voting on. It makes major cuts, of course, as I have said, in Medicaid. But the immediate effect of those Medicaid cuts is it really threatens the financial stability and the viability of the community hospitals that are in all of our communities. Folks are going to show up to get care. Across the country, 17 million people will lose any reimbursement for Medicaid. So they will go to our community hospitals, and they will do what they do: They will provide care, even if they don't get paid. But they can only do that for so long. So those hospitals are literally threatening to go out of business in every single State. This bill cuts Medicaid by over $930 billion. So that ripple effect is going to hurt all of our hospitals, and, absolutely, some of those are going to close. By the way, that is going to result in a higher cost shift so that those employers who are doing everything they can to provide employer-sponsored healthcare for their employees are going to see their premiums spike badly. The bill is going to rip away food assistance programs that more than 42 million Americans need. That is $6 a day, as I mentioned, and that will be gone. This, by the way, has a real impact on our farmers. They put food on our tables. One of the things that our farmers are so proud of is they feed America, and they feed the world. And they have been able to supply the food that is then distributed through the SNAP program. It is going to undercut the revenue that they get for doing really good for a lot of people across our country. The bill takes us backward in our effort to expand energy production and fight climate change. The bill actually adds a tax on wind and solar. It takes away the incentives, and it adds a tax. Ninety-five percent of the new electric generation--and we need so much more of it--in the past few years has come from clean energy. If we don't have that going into production to provide energy, along with storage technology, the cost of electricity to the people you represent and the folks I respect in Vermont is going up. There is another aspect of this bill that just makes no sense being in this bill. It makes no sense being in any bill, particularly. It is a Republican-led bill that strips States of their right to pass laws to protect their consumers against AI threats and against social media threats. It imposes a moratorium for 10 years on any States taking any action. This affects Vermont directly. It affects every single one of our States. How, I ask, can one argue they are for State rights and then strip States of being able to act on behalf of their own citizens? This bill is a real threat to our economy. It is going to increase the debt, already about $35 trillion, by at least $3.3 trillion. And for what? Tax cuts to very, very wealthy people--very wealthy people-- multinational corporations that are having record profits, at the expense of healthcare, at the expense of our community hospitals, at the expense of our investments in clean energy, at the expense of our food and nutrition programs. Invest it in what? It is destructive. It is not productive. Inflation is going up under this bill. Just think of how much more we are going to pay in debt service--dead money. It is about $1 trillion. Home mortgages, folks, are going to be paying at least $1,000 more; small business loans, at least $1,000 more. Grocery prices are definitely going up for all Americans. There is an ugly aspect in this bill, as well, and it is that this bill is entirely in service of providing tax cuts largely to the very wealthy. The top 1 percent of income earners in this country will get 60 percent of the benefit. That is a couple hundred thousand people who will get immense tax breaks that exceed the so-called tax breaks that go to a couple hundred million Americans. And it is those in the 60- percent category who are going to be paying the higher prices for utilities, credit card debt, the cost of a car loan, rent, and groceries. So I say, let's come to our senses and not do something that is a massive escalation of the wealth transferred from the working class and the middle class to the very, very wealthy. Many of us have a number of amendments--and I do, too--to try to make the point that our job is to make things better for everyday working Americans, not inflict additional burdens on them. We have a job to do, and it is to strengthen this economy and provide more stability for our families in our communities. In this bill, we are doing exactly the opposite--aggravating income inequality, not mitigating it; accelerating climate change, rather than diminishing it--making life tougher for everyday families. I urge my colleagues to defeat this bill. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine. Mr. KING. Mr. President, this bill is a farce. Imagine a bunch of guys sitting around the table and saying: I have got a great idea. Let's give $32,000 worth of tax breaks to a millionaire, and we will pay for it by taking health insurance away from lower income and middle-income people. And to top it off, how about we cut food stamps-- we cut SNAP--we cut food aid to people? It is a joke. I would say it was a joke, except it is not the least bit funny. I have been in this business of public policy now for 20 years--8 years as Governor, 12 years in the U.S. Senate. I have never seen a bill this bad. I have never seen a bill that is this irresponsible, regressive, and downright cruel. The basic premise of the bill, as I said, is to cut benefits for the American people, particularly in the areas of healthcare and food, in exchange for tax cuts for the very wealthy. I know my colleagues are going to come to the floor, because I have had this discussion before, and they are going to say: Oh, no, this is a middle-class tax cut. This is going to cut taxes for people in the middle class. Well, here is a little suggestion of how to get out of this mess: If you cap the tax cuts at people making $400,000 a year--which is a pretty healthy income--the cost of this bill would drop by 60 percent, and you wouldn't have any need to cut Medicaid. By the way, there are Medicare cuts also built into this, and SNAP. So $400,000--in other words, we are for the middle-class tax cuts. That is OK. But just stop it at $400,000, and don't give the tax breaks to the people--a millionaire, under this bill, gets a $32,000 tax cut. A person making $5 million or $10 million gets a couple hundred thousand dollars of tax cut. I don't think they need it. They sure as hell don't need it as much as people need health insurance. So just to put a fine point on it, this bill is literally--and remember my $400,000 suggestion so we are taking care of the middle class. But with 60 percent of the cost above $400,000 in income, this bill is literally taking food out of the mouths of kids to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax break. Those are the facts. They are ugly. And like I say, if we were talking about this at random, sitting around at a lunch table, people would say: Well, that is a joke. That is ridiculous. Nobody would suggest that. But here we are. And several of my colleagues, including Senator Tillis from North Carolina, have pointed out there is no rush on this bill. We don't have to do this bill by July 4 or July 10. There is no rush. These tax cuts don't expire until the end of the year. Let's take our time and write a decent bill. Let's kill this bill. It would only take four or five Senators on the other side. We can kill this thing and start over and write a decent bill, on a bipartisan basis, and I think we would find agreement on middle-class tax cuts. But I think we can also do some things with expenditures that wouldn't be so bloody harmful. Medicaid. Let me start with hospitals. In Maine, I have talked to the hospitals. I have talked to the hospital association. I have talked to small hospitals, large hospitals. They are mostly running on a 1-, 2-, or 3-percent margin. The analysis is that this could cost us two to five of our rural hospitals. And when a rural hospital goes out, several things happen. One thing is the [[Page S3662]] economy of the town goes with it. In most of these small towns, the hospital is the major employer. So you are talking about the economics of those jobs in a small town that will make a huge difference in that local economy. The second thing that happens is a loss of services for everybody in town, not just the Medicaid people. If that hospital closes, everybody in town is going to have to drive another 30, 40, 50, 100 miles to get care, and they are going to have to not only--there may be closures; there will certainly be cutting of services. We already have a serious problem in Maine with obstetric services. We have a county with no obstetric services. That is only going to get worse under this bill. The hospitals are pleading with us to not do this. And again, do we really need to do this to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax break? It doesn't make any sense. Now, I have talked about hospitals, but let's talk about people. The analysis is that 60,000 people in Maine would lose their insurance coverage--40,000 under Medicaid, about 20,000 under the Affordable Care Act. We have had a lot of personal stories tonight. I want to tell a story about myself. When I worked here in the seventies, I had insurance. It was employer-supported insurance. We paid part of the premium. I had insurance as a junior staff member in this body 50 years ago. Because I had that insurance that covered a free checkup, I went in and had my first physical in 8 years, and I wouldn't have had that physical if the insurance hadn't covered it. I wouldn't have been able to spring for it. I had that physical, and the doctors found a little mole on my back. They took it out, and I didn't think much of it. And I went in a week later, and the doctor said: You better sit down, Angus. That was malignant melanoma. You are going to have to have some serious surgery. And a friend of mine who was a doctor said: Angus, here is my best advice. Let them be as radical as they want in that surgery. And I had the surgery, and here I am. If I hadn't had insurance, I wouldn't be here. And it has always haunted me that some young man in America that same year had malignant melanoma; he didn't have coverage; he didn't have insurance; he didn't get that checkup; and he died. That is wrong. That is immoral. So the idea of cutting health insurance from people is just--oh, well, they just won't have coverage for their doctors' visits. No. People die when they don't have health insurance. There is statistical analysis to bear that out. So this isn't any joke. And by the way, people say: Well, we are talking about fraud in Medicaid. Listen, at almost a trillion-dollar cut in Medicaid, 15 million people being cut off--40,000 in the State of Maine--that isn't fraud; that is cutting people who need the care. And I don't understand the obsession, and I never have--and I stood right there and watched John McCain cast that vote to save the Affordable Care Act, along with my colleague Susan Collins. I don't understand this obsession with taking health insurance away from people. I don't get it. Trying to take away the Affordable Care Act in 2017 or 2018 and now this. What is driving this? What is the cruelty to do this, to take health insurance away from people, knowing that it is going to cost them--it is hard to calculate the cost--up to and including losing their lives. OK. Let's talk about SNAP. Let's talk about SNAP. The average benefit for SNAP is $6 a day. You feed yourself on $6 a day. The average cost of a meal in the United States is about $10.50 a day, so we are already below cost, if you will. And here is what it means in my State. Twenty percent of the children in my State are food insecure, and we are talking about cutting SNAP and taking dollars away from those kids. And I was interested in that, and I thought: Oh, that is pretty bad. I am worried Maine is at 20 percent, 20 percent of our kids are food insecure. So I did a little research. In Arkansas, it is 24 percent of the kids who are food insecure; in Iowa, 17 percent; South Carolina, 14 percent; Michigan, 19 percent; Missouri, another 19 percent. That is one out of five kids are food insecure, and we are going to cut that food in order to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax cut. That is not only bad policy, it is downright immoral. OK. What is the other problem with this bill? There are so many. So many problems, so little time. It is irresponsible. It adds about $4 trillion to the deficit. And by the way, this current policy thing doesn't pass the straight-face test. A seventh grader knows that it is nonsense. If this bill doesn't pass, then there isn't a $4 trillion hit on the budget. If it passes, there is. And the thing that really gives a lie to this nonsense is, also in this bill is a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. If it is not really debt, then we don't need to increase the debt ceiling. It is a sham. Voodoo budgeting. So I don't want to hear any more from my colleagues about deficits. I don't want to hear any more crocodile tears about deficits. We are mortgaging our future. I hear all this drama about deficits from people who are voting for this bill to add $4 trillion to the deficit unnecessarily. There is a saying of a famous New Englander: Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words. Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words. Your actions are, you are adding to the deficit unnecessarily, so don't talk to me about deficits. Now, the first rule, if you are in a hole, is stop digging. And we are in a hole. We are in a hole. So you stop digging by not passing this bill or not passing it in the extreme form that it is to give the tax benefits--60 percent of the tax benefits--to people making over $400,000 a year. What has driven the deficit, if you go back and look over the last 20 years, there are three things: One was the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts--we had major tax cuts and then a war that we put on the credit card; the unpaid-for Trump tax cuts in 2017; and COVID. Now, COVID was an emergency. And the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and 2010, those were emergencies. That is where you run deficits. But you don't run deficits when times are good, and that is exactly what we are doing here. If you are in a hole, stop digging. By the way, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group, has said--and I haven't heard this mentioned--this bill will actually accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. There is a nice thing for you. It will make those funds go insolvent sooner than would otherwise be the case. Gutting the IRS. By the way, I have another suggestion for my colleagues. You want to find $600 billion a year? Enforce the tax laws against cheaters. That is the estimate: $600 billion a year is left on the table because cheaters, mostly high-income, are not paying the taxes they owe. The poor stiff that gets a 1040, he has to pay it. Everybody knows what he is making. But it is these people with the fancy lawyers and accountants--and I am not talking about tax avoidance here. I am talking about stone-cold tax evasion, $600 billion a year. That would be nice, instead of cutting Medicare and Medicaid and food stamps. Another piece of this bill that hasn't gotten much attention is ICE. The current budget of ICE is $9 billion a year. Under this, they are increasing it $75 billion over 4 years. That is an additional $18 billion a year. They are tripling the budget of ICE. They are tripling the budget. We are dangerously close to creating a Federal police force, which we have never had in this country, and we shouldn't have. And by the way, I have never in my life seen a law enforcement officer with a mask on. I don't get where that came from, a law enforcement officer wearing a mask. Where I come from, people that wear masks are not the good guys, and I don't understand that. But to triple this budget, you wonder where that is going to take this country. So let me go back to the beginning. All this damage to give a tax break to a guy who is making a million bucks. The chairman of the Finance Committee wasn't here, I think, when I said this. Mr. Chairman, if we limit the tax cuts to people making $400,000 and less, it will reduce the cost of this bill by 60 percent. It will ameliorate the need for any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. It would also minimize the hit on the debt and the deficit. [[Page S3663]] There is no rush to pass this bill. Let's kill it, give it a merciful death over the next 24 hours, and then start over writing a responsible bill to deal with the expiring tax cuts for the middle class and deal with issues within the Federal Government that should be addressed. But this bill is not the answer. It is a sham, and it is a shame, and it is embarrassing to even be debating this bill. It should have never come before us in this form. I hope that enough of my colleagues will see that this is an unnecessary damage to the citizens of this country and the citizens of their State. Every State's citizens are going to suffer, and this is something that we, in this body, can and should prevent. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho. ____________________ |