Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. We saw young artists, business people. You are this person who says these words over and over again, more than any Republican or Democrat: ``Buy American, buy American''; and created so many jobs in your State. We were in some packed restaurant. People packed not to see me as a special guest but to listen to your story. You are a trailblazer, too, in the Senate. You are doing things that our Founders did not expect, and you know that. And you want to stand up. I heard you in our caucus, I heard you in Schumer's leadership meeting stand up for people who are most marginalized, most looked down on, most talked about. I hear you, Tammy.

Mr. BOOKER. I won't respond to a question. I am going to read this for the 75th time. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. People give a ship.

Mr. BOOKER. Make them, too, yes.

Mr. BOOKER. We are in the top 5 in New Jersey.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes.

Mr. BOOKER. I love that you focused it there because that is who President Trump made promises to, in my State, that things are bad with this economy because it is not serving people who are working every day. He promised that he would make things better. I will make grocery prices go down--he said that. So people were expecting that is where he would focus. They didn't think he would focus on Greenland. They didn't think he would focus on the Gulf of Mexico. They didn't think he would focus on bullying Canada. They didn't think he would focus on turning his back on Ukraine. They didn't think he would focus on gutting the Department of Education and ending it. This is not the reason why people voted for him. They did something that Reverend Warnock calls--that vote is a sort of prayer. He says it is like a civic prayer: that I am putting a prayer out there that you will be who I hope you can be; you will be a blessing to my life and not a burden. But you are talking about the burdens that he is bringing. This economy, under 72 days, has not gotten better for working Americans. And they don't even see the President trying to make it better; they see what he is doing to make it worse. And one of the things is going to be these tariffs, which are going to raise costs on working Americans. Then we--what Chuck Schumer said to me is sounding like, it is going to just sail through--a plan that is going to blow trillions of dollars of holes to our budget, give trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest, and gut your Medicaid and gut your services for your grandparents in nursing homes. People believe. People put their trust. I don't blame them. They are my fellow Americans. They wanted for their families--they wanted an America that was more affordable. They wanted America to be first, prioritized. They wanted a safer America, a stronger America, a more prosperous America. I heard that. So when I am back home this weekend, I know that I am going to encounter a lot of folks who are workers in my State who are getting hurt. They want better. They want better from their government. So the burden upon us and each other is: What are we going to do? Are we going to do the same old thing over and over again or are we going to try to do things differently? Are we going to be willing to, again, get in good trouble, necessary trouble to try to save the soul of this Nation? I think my colleague, my dear sister, my prayer partner, my soul lifter--I thought I heard you say something?

Mr. BOOKER. Ah, yes, I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I am so grateful for the question from my friend--and that is the centering that we have been trying to do--which is, What are families around New Jersey and America thinking? As you said, the Department of Education--we read that earlier today--it doesn't dictate educational policy of the States, but it does do a lot to provide funding for special needs kids in the States. So I am already hearing from parents of kids with special needs regarding the impact it will have if those resources are cut, everything from programs that help young people afford college, to programs that I have worked with people that help schools afford advanced scientific equipment so the bright minds, the geniuses of our State and the country, can have the equipment they need. This administration is cutting things that are hurting families, and we are hearing from them. We are hearing from veterans. We are hearing from the elderly. We are hearing from people who are taking care of the elderly. We are hearing from people who run our hospitals. We are hearing from people who run our universities and who talk about the science funding and the cutting of Ph.D.s. We are hearing from people who rely on Medicare and Medicaid, who rely on Social Security. We are hearing from people that are appalled that their Nation bullies smaller nations like Canada or Greenland. We are hearing from people that are shocked at what they are doing to the most vulnerable people who come to our Nation, who have American children or an American spouse, who are being disappeared off of our streets, who have no criminal record. We are hearing from people that don't think it is right that a President should have a meme coin that allows him to enrich himself, to hawk his power and position for even greater wealth. So I have done everything I can, and I am going to do more--I still have a little gas in the tank--to elevate those voices, to elevate those voices.

Mr. BOOKER. Before I yield, because I just keep wanting to exercise this power that I might have for a little while longer and exercise it over a man that I have a real chip on my shoulder for--the Senator from Arizona. Yeah, he has been a military fighter pilot. He has been an astronaut. He has been out of this world. But what ticks me off, sir--I have said nice things about everybody else, but I am not saying them about you, sir, because when I go home through New Jersey and I walk through my airport--I was the Newark mayor--I see your big bald head up and a big, big picture of you saying ``New Jersey Hall of Fame, Mark Kelly.'' Who the heck am I? You are the Senator from Arizona, but yeah, yeah-- you are right, OK--he was a great, celebrated military veteran and astronaut who grew up in New Jersey, who went to high school in West Orange, whose parents were cops. So you have the accolades in my State, and I am proud of that. I am proud I get to serve with you. I still have the floor. Stop trying to speak. There are rules in this place. Don't make me sic the Parliamentarian or the Presiding Officer--thank you, sir. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BOOKER. Well, with that kind of deference, I now will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Where you overshadow me, literally.

Mr. BOOKER. I appreciate a New Jersey Hall of Fame member, the only one in the U.S. Senate--I appreciate his question. I appreciate the service of his parents, out there every day putting their heart and soul into serving the community in a dangerous job where you often see people at their worst. I said this earlier, James Baldwin said: Children are never good at listening to their elders, but they . . . never fail to imitate them. You are living up to the example your parents set in so many ways. Then you go and pull something off that really makes me jealous is you are one of the guys in the Senate that probably most married up. We are both are Jersey boys. We both grew up there in grade schools and high schools. We both know those teachers that did so much for us, that coached sports. They taught us. I am going back for a funeral for a great man in New Jersey, Ed Koehler, this weekend, who was one of the greater influences in my life in high school, and you know how much people invested themselves. I remember learning Little League from a guy that would come back from working at a gas station, a parent of another kid. I still remember his big thick hands teaching us how to hold a bat. This guy is working a job at a gas station and rushes home to teach his kid Little League and treated me--the only Black kid--like one of his own kids. Special communities, special heritage, special culture that we share--this is the Jersey culture. We got a chip on our shoulders. We are tough. We are strong. We are proud. And a lot of New Jersey is watching. Thousands of letters and emails and phone calls from all over New Jersey. Andy Kim and I are hearing from so many people, and they are afraid. They are angry. They are worried. They don't understand why they are going after our Social Security programs, cutting benefits by cutting so many employees and cutting the service people get. They don't understand why they are seeing veterans being laid off from their government jobs. They don't understand why Social Security is being called a Ponzi scheme. The President of the United States is making up lies. They don't understand why veterans and Medicaid and Medicare--there are so many things that are making people worry. I am hearing their letters, and they are praying we stop some of these things like $880 billion dollars' worth--and the question is, Why? Why are we doing this? We are doing this--and they are saying it is to extend or make permanent the Trump tax cuts, the overwhelming disproportionate benefit that went to the wealthiest amongst us, the wealthy corporations. So Trump's economy in the first 72 days is pretty bad because of his reckless chaotic behavior: Prices are up. Inflation is up. The stock market had its worst quarter in 2, 3 years. Consumer confidence is down. And now we are going to see tariffs tomorrow, which are going to further drive up prices, create more chaos. Trump squandered the progress we were making on the economy. He tanked the market, jacked the prices. Is it any surprise that Americans are feeling more pessimistic, as I said, with consumer confidence going down? And what is his first major legislative push? This is what we are talking about, my colleague, my friend, my fellow New Jerseyan: His first big legislative push in this body is not to help families. No plan to lower costs. That is what he said he would do. Is his first legislation coming here while lowering costs? No. Is it any relief for seniors? Is it some big idea like we did to lower prescription drug costs? No, that is not what he is doing. Is his first priority helping our veterans? What is his first priority? As I said, it is extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, a multitrillion dollar giveaway that slashed corporate taxes and overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and left the middle class with crumbs, relative crumbs. He and his allies promised that the benefits would trickle down to workers. That is what we heard. It would ``pay for itself,'' he said. But in 2022, the Fed and the Joint Committee on Taxation confirmed the truth: 90 percent of workers--90 percent of folks in our States saw no benefit. Now Trump and his GOP allies want to double down with even bigger tax cuts that will increase the deficit by over $4.5 trillion, a majority of which would go to the wealthiest people. Let me read what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities--how they described the plan. Here is a quote: Following a presidential campaign in which Donald Trump promised to improve the economic circumstances of working families, House Republicans are instead pushing to extend all expiring provisions of the costly 2017 tax law--which are heavily skewed to people with high incomes--and add new tax cuts on top. The Republican-controlled House passed a budget resolution on February 25 authorizing $4.5 trillion in tax cuts through 2034 and calling on committees to partially offset the cost with $2 trillion in cuts; these cuts will inevitably hit programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, which help millions of families afford essential needs. Are they cuts to the wealthiest? No. These cuts will inevitably hit programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, which help millions of families afford essential needs. Extending the expiring tax cuts for individuals and large estates would double down on the flaws in the 2017 law by: Giving the biggest benefits to the wealthy. Households with incomes in the top 5 percent, who have incomes over around $320,000, would receive roughly half of the benefits. So billionaires above that, altogether, they would receive roughly half of the benefits. Ballooning the deficit. Along with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush, the 2017 law has severely eroded our nation's revenue base. The House budget would compound the damage, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to deficits each year. Extending the 2017 tax cuts would cost $3.6 trillion through 2034. Failing to significantly boost economic growth, workers' earnings, or other benefits for workers [would not be seen.] The trickle-down benefits that proponents claimed the 2017 law would produce never materialized, and the law hasn't come close to paying for itself. As I heard on the Senate floor from my colleagues, they said: Oh, this is going to pay for itself; oh, this is going to pay for itself. Yet the House budget claims that extending the tax cuts would generate trillions in revenue--far more than any independent estimate. As in 2017, an alternative path is available. Congress should work toward creating a fairer federal tax system that raises more revenues from wealthy people and corporations and supports high-value investments that expand opportunity and promote shared prosperity. During the 2017 debate, Trump Administration officials and prominent proponents claimed the tax law would yield broadly shared benefits by boosting economic growth. President Trump's Council of Economic Advisers claimed the centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would ``very conservatively'' lead to a $4,000 boost in household income. What a lie. But research to date has failed to find evidence that the gains from the corporate rate cut trickled down to most workers. Surprise, surprise, surprise. A study by economists from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve Board found that workers below the 90th percentile of their firm's income scale--a group whose incomes were below roughly $114,000 in 2016--saw no change in earnings from the rate cut. Proponents' claims that the tax cuts would pay for themselves haven't panned out either. In fact, a study by economists from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Chicago, and the Treasury Department estimates that the law's total corporate tax cuts--the rate cut as well as full expensing for capital investments and international tax changes--reduced revenue by roughly 98 cents for every dollar of tax cuts, even after accounting for increases in economic activity due to those cuts. Similarly, proponents argued the law's 20 percent deduction for pass-through businesses (partnerships, S corporations, and sole proprietorships) would boost investment and create jobs. Then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for example, argued the deduction would ``be good for the economy; good for growth.'' But researchers have found no evidence that it provided any significant boost in economic activity and little evidence that it increased investment or broadly benefited workers, other than the owners themselves. Despite this underwhelming performance, the House Republican budget resolution assumes that enacting $4.5 trillion in new or extended tax cuts will produce enough additional economic growth to generate an extra $2.6 trillion in revenue through 2035. They think it is going to offset the tax cuts. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has derided this claim as ``fantasy math,'' noting that it is many times greater than even the most optimistic independent estimate. They lied to us, or at least just put out really expansive hope in the past, and none of it came true. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool the American people twice, well, we should not let it happen. This idea in this country that if you make the wealthiest more wealthy by giving them more tax cuts and deny services to our veterans, deny healthcare to our seniors, cut Social Security benefits, cut scientific research, cut programs that protect people's safety and security, that that is going to somehow help our Nation to prosper as a whole, you are kidding yourselves. We have the evidence. We have the analysis. And this is the crazy thing, as I heard from Chuck Schumer, the Republicans are now trying to hide the true cost of their billionaire tax cuts with accounting gimmicks. The New York Times interviewed budget experts from across the political spectrum to shed light on the Republicans' trickery. And this is the article I want to read. I know some people have questions, but I want to read this article because Schumer shook me. Shook me. So here is the New York Times. The title of the article is ``The Budget Trick the G.O.P Might Use to Make $4 Trillion Tax Cuts Look Free.'' How much does a tax cut cost? It depends on what you compare it to. Republicans in Congress trying to advance a giant bill that includes $4 trillion in tax cut extensions are considering a novel strategy that would make the extension appear to be free money. The trick: Budgeting with the assumption that current policies extend indefinitely into the future--even those with an expiration date, like the 2017 tax cuts set to end next year. It's the difference between making the extension appear to cost $4 trillion. Which is the true cost, or hiding it and saying it costs nothing. Using this ``current policy baseline'' wouldn't change the bill's real effect on deficits or debt. But it would make it easier to actually make the tax cuts lasting by sidestepping a rule governing budget reconciliation, the process Republicans are using to pass the bill. Yes, this sounds technical! That's why we've enlisted some of Washington's top budget veterans to explain this maneuver using a metaphor. Across the ideological spectrum, nearly all of the more than 20 experts we heard from disliked changing the baseline. And Chuck Schumer just came in here and said the Republicans have already decided they are going to do it. This is outrageous. But here the New York Times interviewed across the ideological spectrum, whole bunch of experts from the center, from the right, from the left, and let's hear what they are saying about this gimmick. ``If budget reconciliation is like taking the express lanes on a highway (there's extra rules and tolls, limited stops, but it gets you to where you want to go faster), using a current policy baseline for taxes is like slapping a fake license plate on your car.'' Zach Moller, Director of the economic program at Third Way, which describes itself as a ``center-left'' research group. They don't like this gimmick. They think it is fakery. Here is another person using an analogy: ``It's like taking an expensive week-long vacation and then assuming you can spend an extra $1,000 per day forever since you are no longer staying at the Plaza.'' Marc Goldwein, Senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that tends to be hawkish on deficits. Here is another person, Jessica Reidl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute--I have worked with them in the past--a conservative research group, and the chief economist for the former Republican Senator Ron Portman of Ohio. ``Last year, despite being deeply in debt, I bought a $100,000 sports car. So next year, buying another $100,000 car is not irresponsible because I am merely spending the same amount of money as the year before. And if I purchase ``only'' a $70,000 car, then I should be congratulated for reducing my annual spending by $30,000.'' A conservative think tank is basically calling this a hoax and a lie. Lying to yourself, that if I keep spending, spending, spending the same amount I kept spending, spending, spending to drive up the costs, then I am just doing the same thing I have done before, so it is not adding. Well, it is adding. There is no way to not call what the Republicans are trying to do a gimmick that is trying to hide the truth that they are going to add trillions of dollars to the deficits that we, that our children, that our children's children are going to have to pay for. The debt payments alone to service the debt are going to be bigger than any of the programs we think we should be investing in like science research or education or affordable childcare, or lowering prescription drug costs, or expanding the child tax credit. Things that we know if we invest in, we will get some returns. But, no, what they are investing in is bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest. Conservatives, independents, left-leaning folks all come to the same conclusion. Pretending $4 trillion in tax cuts will cost nothing may not be easy. Many Republican lawmakers who are concerned about the deficit are well-aware that the bill will increase the deficit by a lot. Here is the integrity call. One Republican in the House showed his integrity. One budget hawk named Massie said: I can't vote for this stuff. I am a budget hawk. I do not want to see increased deficits. He called it what it was. I saw him in an interview say, hey, hey, wait a minute, by your own numbers, Republican colleagues, you are driving up the deficit by trillions of dollars, and you are making the rich richer, and you are leaving future generations more bankrupt. So this article assumes that this was all going to be decided by the Senate Parliamentarian ``who advises legislators on Chamber rules.'' The Parliamentarian, I thought, ``could rule that the current policy baseline isn't allowed.'' Forcing the Republicans to have to make a choice, overruling or replacing my friend the Parliamentarian, somebody that on both sides of the aisle we respect, it is very rarely done. I have been here for 13 years. We have had the same Parliamentarian. But that doesn't mean Republicans won't try, this article assumes. And I guess they did try. They found a way around the Parliamentarian. They found a way around the rules of the Senate. They found a way around the ideals of reconciliation and the Byrd Rule. They are deciding the way we are going to do this is break the Senate and make up our own rules. This is how they are going to get a bill through that gives trillion dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest in our country who are doing very well. It is not hate on other Americans. I celebrate success, God bless you. But you don't need tax cuts, especially not that are going to be given to you on the backs of the poor, on the backs of our elders, on the backs of our children, on the backs of expectant mothers, on the backs of my mom's, your mom's Social Security. What does it say about our values and our priorities to allow that to happen? Who are we, America, if you don't think this is a moral moment where the character of our country is being tested? I tell you, the Senate has stopped crazy gimmicks like this before, but the persuasive power of Democratic Senators probably won't be enough. We, as a country, like these economists that are Republicans, that are Democrats, that are nonpartisan, who called out this budget gimmickry for what it is--when is it enough? When they came after journalists? When they came after colleges and universities, research and science? When they came after law firms who had the audacity to defend clients or to represent clients that were suing the President, who, God bless America, lost in civil courts, lost in criminal courts? When do you cross your line? We can't let this happen. It is not a right or left moment. It is a right or wrong moment. It is a moral moment in America. I have read Republican after Republican from Republican Governors to Republican mayor groups, from the Cato Institute to the Manhattan Institute to AEI, calling out this budget gimmickry for what it is, and the result will be the same, blowing up our Federal deficit to stratospheric, almost unimaginable levels. This is wrong every way you look at it. And if your values aren't fiscal conservativism, then vote with your integrity and vote against that. If your values are fiscal hawk and you hate deficit, then vote against the bill because it violates you. Don't make up some fantasy that this is going to pay for itself. The 2017 tax cuts didn't, and you are going to extend them and say, well, it is going to happen this time. Oh, don't worry about it. It is going to happen this time. No, it is not. Here is an article. ``Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big That It'll Weigh Down the Economy For Years.'' One of President Donald Trump's lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he's inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump's time in office. That's nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt, other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country. Every person, $23,500. The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war. In peacetimes, he is No. 3--not the reason you want to be like Lincoln. Economists agree that we needed massive deficit spending during the COVID-19 crisis to ward off an economic cataclysm, but federal finances under Trump had become dire even before the pandemic. That happened even though the economy was booming and unemployment was at historically low levels. By the Trump administration's own description, the pre-pandemic national debt level was already a ``crisis'' and a ``grave threat.'' To our Nation. The combination of Trump's 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar. So when the once-in-a-lifetime viral disaster slammed our country and we threw more than $3 trillion into COVID-19-related stimulus, there was no longer any margin for error. Our national debt has reached immense levels relative to our economy, nearly as high as it was at the end of World War II. But unlike 75 years ago, the massive financial overhang from Medicare and Social Security will make it dramatically more difficult to dig ourselves out of the debt ditch. Falling deeper into the red is the opposite of what Trump, the self-styled ``King of Debt,'' said would happen if he became president. In a March 31, 2016, interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post, Trump said he could pay down the national debt, then about $19 trillion, ``over a period of eight years'' by renegotiating trade deals and spurring economic growth. God, this man breaks his promises over and over. After he took office, Trump predicted that economic growth created by [his] 2017 tax cut, combined with the proceeds from the tariffs he imposed in 2017 on a wide range of goods from numerous countries, would help eliminate the budget deficit and let the U.S. begin to pay down its debt. On July 17, 2018, he told Sean Hannity of FOX News: ``We have $21 trillion in debt. When this [the 2017 tax cut] really kicks in, we'll start paying off the debt like it's water.'' That is Trump on FOX News lying. Nine days later, he tweeted, ``Because of Tariffs we will be able to start paying down large amounts of $21 trillion in debt that has been accumulated much by the Obama Administration.'' The guy can't help blaming Obama. That is not how it played out. Nothing he said came true. When Trump took office in January 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting that the Federal deficit would be 2% to 3% of our gross domestic product during Trump's term. Instead, the deficit reached nearly 4% of gross domestic product in 2018 and 4.6% in 2019. There were multiple culprits. Trump's tax cuts, especially the sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%-- Again, what is here--a lot of my colleagues were here. The big business groups were coming in and asking for 25 percent from 35 percent, and Trump said: No, you are asking me for 25. I am going to give you 21 percent, cut your taxes even more. It took a big bite out of Federal revenue. The CBO estimated in 2018 that the tax cut would increase deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years. Meanwhile, Trump's claim-- I wish the author wrote ``Trump's lie.'' But he says: Trump's claim that increased revenue from the tariffs would help eliminate (or at least reduce) our national debt hasn't panned out. Surprise, surprise. In 2018, Trump's administration began hiking tariffs on aluminum, steel, and many other products, launching what became a global trade war with China, the European Union, and other countries. The tariffs did bring in additional revenue. In fiscal year 2019, they netted about $71 billion, up about $36 billion from president Barack Obama's last year in office. But although $36 billion is a lot of money, it is less than 1/ 750th of the national debt. That $36 billion could have covered a bit more than three weeks of the interest on the national debt--that is, had the Trump administration not unilaterally decided to send a chunk of the tariff revenue to farmers affected by his [horrible] trade wars. Businesses that struggled as a result of the tariffs also paid fewer taxes, offsetting some of the increased tariff revenue. By early 2019, the national debt had climbed to $22 trillion. Trump's budget proposal for 2020 called it a ``grave threat to our economic and societal prosperity''-- He called his own damage that. --and asserted that the U.S. was experiencing a ``national debt crisis.'' However, that same budget proposal included substantial growth in the national debt. By the end of 2019, the debt had risen in our country to $23.2 trillion and more federal officials were sounding the alarm. ``Not since World War II has the country seen deficits during times of low unemployment that are as large as those that we project--nor, in the past century, has it experienced large deficits for as long as we project'' [said the CBO]. Weeks later, COVID-19 erupted and made the financial situation far worse. As of Dec. 31, 2020-- About a month left, 3 weeks left in his term. --the national debt had jumped to $27.75 trillion, up 39% from the $19.95 trillion when Trump was sworn in. He increased our deficit by 39 percent. The government ended its 2020 fiscal year with the portion of the national debt owed to investors, the metric favored by the CBO, at around 100% of GDP. The CBO had predicted less than a year earlier that it would take until 2030 to reach that approximate level of a debt. But not under Donald Trump. Including the trillions owed to various governmental trust funds. . . . Under his leadership, the total debt grew and grew and grew. It is now at about 130 percent of GDP. Where are the fiscal hawks? Normally, this is where we'd give Trump's versions of events. But we couldn't get anyone to give us Trump's side. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, referred us to the Office of Management and Budget, which is a branch of the White House. OMB didn't respond to our questions. Treasury directed us to comments made by OMB director Russell Vought in October, in which he predicted that as the pandemic eases and economic growth rebounds, the ``fiscal picture'' will improve. The OMB blamed legislators for deficits when Trump submitted his proposed 2021 budget: ``Unfortunately, the Congress continues to reject any efforts to restrain spending.'' It ain't me, he is saying, it is them. ``Instead, they have greatly continued to the continued ballooning of the Federal debts and deficits, putting the Nation's fiscal future at risk.'' Still, the deficit growth under Trump has been historic. . . . [T]he Tax Policy Center . . . has done a comparison of every American president using a metric called the ``primary deficit.'' They are saying Trump had the third biggest primary deficit growth, 5.2 percent of GDP. He is our biggest debt man. Deficits have ballooned under this President because of his tax scam, of his lies about his tax bill in 2017, none of which came true. It didn't pay for itself. It didn't close the deficits. It blew up our deficits. The benefits didn't go to working people. The benefits, as it says--over 90 percent would go to wealthy Americans and corporations. Even some Republicans have been calling out hypocrisy. One of our colleagues, Rand Paul, in 2018: ``I can't in all honesty,'' Rand Paul says, ``in all good faith just look the other way because my party is now complicit in these deficits.'' The other thing is there is a huge hypocrisy factor. Republicans lambasted President Obama to no end for trillion-dollar deficits, and now they have to put forward a multitrillion-dollar deficit. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former Chief of Staff, said in 2020: My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House. The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we're a lot less interested [in deficits] as a party. We don't care at this point. Here is a guy I mentioned numerous times. Thomas Massie, a Republican Member of the House, said earlier this year about Republicans: We have no plan whatsoever to balance the budget other than growth, but what they're proposing is [going] to make the deficit worse. This is what our President is trying to do, with the complicity of a lot of people who call themselves deficit hawks, who call themselves fiscal conservatives. They are going to try to blow it through here, gaming the system, creating some kind of scam to obscure the real cost of this. We--all them on the Republican side, us on the Democratic side--we all know the truth about these tax increases and what they are going to do, how much they are going to cost, but we are going to play a game, it looks like, here unless more Americans speak up. Republican and Democrat, people who know numbers, who know what we are doing to future generations in this country, this is wrong. And I say again that this is not right or left; it is right or wrong. This is a moral moment in America. What are we going to do? I am so glad my friend the Senator from Hawaii is here. I try to keep M&M's in my desk in case she wants to partake in New Jersey's State product. The M&M was invented in Newark. True. I give great trivia here. I am waiting for the Senator from Hawaii, my dear friend, to ask me a question. I have the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I will yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Thank you, Senator Hirono. I think I need somebody to say what WTF? To come from you is pretty giving and precious, and I am grateful. This rule of law is really important. It is part of this whole moment in American history that I keep calling the more moment--something beyond the normal, where we shouldn't respond in a normal fashion. This is a moment where judges rule in his favor, and he praises them. If you don't rule for him, he drags them and threatens them, so much so that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has to tell him to back up. If elected officials speak up, many of them fear as to what the consequences would be for them or their reelections if they speak against him. Lawyers decline, possibly, to represent people because they are worried that this President has already shown that if you represent the wrong people or represent, God forbid, people against him, he is going to try to shut down your law firm in ways that are against the rule of law that this country believes in. If journalists and media organizations don't report in a way that he likes or confirm his arbitrary name changes for the Gulf of Mexico, there is a punishment that he tries to dish out to try to make them come to submission. State and local governments literally can get extorted for their funding if they don't carry out his demands. Schools and universities that are starving for dollars and trying to invest them in research and science that will propel humanity to new heights--well, they could get targeted by this President if they don't do what he says. It feels like his ultimate goal is to create a country where you cannot trust the outcome of elections that he loses because he is going to tell you that if he lost that election, it is the Big Lie. It is wrong. I won. I won. I won. I won. I don't care what judge after judge, court after court says--I won. And if you don't believe me, if you don't say, ``The election I won,'' well, there will be consequences for that too. This is a President who, even as we have read people on both sides of the aisle, isn't respecting the Constitution and the separation of powers. He isn't respecting the rights that we hold precious. He isn't honoring what we call the rule of law. I want to go a little bit into this for a second. Let's talk about the separation of powers. There are many, many different cases right now, but we know that James Madison--the Founding Father who devised the basic framework for our Constitution--devoted some of the Federalist Papers to the ways the Constitution addresses the danger of concentrating too much power in one person or in one branch of government. Written in 1788, Madison's words still have resonance today. This is what he wrote in Federalist 487: The cumulation of all powers--legislative, executive and judiciary--in the same hands whether of one, a few, or many and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective--may justly be pronounced the very definition of ``tyranny.'' So what is this President trying to do? He is trying to jam this court decision that is not in his favor. Either the judge is corrupt and should be impeached or he is just going to deny the ruling or not follow it. Madison explained that the Constitution set up the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches to be separate and distinct and equal and bound together by checks and balances. It is agreed on all sides that the powers properly belonging to one of the branches ought not to be directly and completely administrated by either of the other branches. It is equally evident that none of them ought to possess directly or indirectly an overruling influence over the others in the administration of their executive respective powers. That is Federalist 48. I am nerdy enough to have a favorite Federalist Paper. I am going to read from my favorite one, Federalist 51: In order to lay a due foundation for the separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own, so constituted that each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consist in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means to resist the encroachments of the others. ``[T]o resist the encroachments of the others.'' We are not doing that in the Senate or in the House. Federalist 51 continues: It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. Here is the quote, folks. Here is the quote from our Founders: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. But our President is no angel. This is Federalist 51 continuing: In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control-- The government-- and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. They are talking about at great length our Founders and the separation of powers and the checks and balances of these institutions. Yet, for 72 days of this administration, has the Congress--article I, the people's House; the Senate, the deliberative body--have we once held this President to account? The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world have taken a battle ax to the Veterans' Administration, a battle ax to the Department of Education, a battle ax to the only Agency solely focused on protecting consumers against big banks and other factors that might abuse them, bringing it down. Congress established the Department of Education. Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Congress. But the President doesn't care. He is going to push as hard as he can against the principles of our Founders. And what will we do in this body? What will we do in the House of Representatives? Right now, the answer is nothing. Has Elon Musk--the unelected, un-Senate-confirmed billionaire and No. 1 campaign contributor of Donald Trump's, who has admitted he has made mistakes--on his website, he keeps taking down the mistakes. He keeps getting called out for them. He fires people from the FAA and then begs them to come back. He fires the people who protect us from nuclear accidents. ``Oh, wait, come back.'' Have we ever in the Senate or in the House called him in for one oversight hearing to account for what he is doing to address the fears of a nation? No. Separation of powers. Hey, we have hearings here all the time but not with Elon Musk. Do you know why? Do you know why I think why? Tell me I am a conspiracy theorist. Because what Elon Musk is doing to some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is threatening them. He is threatening to run primaries with what, to me, would be a quarter but to him is $100 million. I am going to drop $100 million against you in a primary if you step out of line or if you dare to say Hegseth is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense. We are going to drag you through X. We are going to awaken the mob to threaten you. Our Founders spoke so eloquently to protect against that kind of corruption, to protect against that kind of egregious tyrannical power that says: Only I can save this country. Give me all power. Let me be the strongman. We know who he respects on the global stage. I was stunned. I thought it was a joke during the election when he said his favorite leader is Viktor Orban, who has rolled back democratic principles, who has concentrated power. I see. Who does he choose to call a dictator--the man who was trying desperately to lead his country in defense against the authoritarian dictator and preserve his democracy or does he call the dictator a dictator? No. A simple test. Most high school students would simply pass it but no. He calls a hero a dictator. Do we have any conversations about that in the formal capacity, to talk about the Ukrainian war, which I know people on both sides of the aisle--Mazie Hirono brings up the separation of powers. Why is history's lesson so relevant today? Why do we study history? Did I learn that in high school that you study history so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past? You study history to gain inspiration and insight and courage against tough times. You study history to be inspired by heroes who stood up against despots, who sacrificed themselves. What is the lesson in history? How is it relevant to us today? Because the separation of powers between the branches of government has allowed our democracy to thrive for nearly 250 years. And now we have a person in power who is barely being checked. And if the courts check him, what he does to the courts-- In the 9 weeks or 10 weeks since Donald Trump was inaugurated, there have been more than 140 Federal lawsuits filed challenging his actions. I don't know if another President, in my lifetime, ever has had 140 Federal lawsuits in about 9 weeks. It is a staggering figure. We should consider it a staggering figure. He must be the most sued President in U.S. history. Somebody should fact check that. But at least in my lifetime, I don't remember Reagan; I don't remember Bush; I don't remember Obama or Clinton or Biden being dragged into court in the first 9 weeks so many times and losing case after case. He may have a record for the most lawsuits filed by a President himself because he is a guy who says he loves to sue folks. In support of the big lie, he did so many lawsuits and lost them all. The lawsuits against Trump and his administration are not frivolous. Federal judges, appointed by Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents alike, have found Trump's Executive actions illegal, temporarily pausing many of them too. Trump's Executive actions and the outcomes of these lawsuits have a direct effect on Americans. These lawsuits challenge Trump. Here are some of the examples, folks--and I am wondering where the American people stand on these lawsuits. It is not the people who are blindly loyal to him because they believe the lies that he so artfully, creatively, and convincingly tells, but just tell me where do you stand on these issues? Attacks on veterans who have served our country in the military and civil services--well, there are lawsuits challenging his right to attack our veterans. There are lawsuits challenging Trump on his attacks on government Agencies that protect your grandmother from online scams. I don't know where you stand--with the grandmas getting scammed, to defend them, or the President? Lawsuits against Trump because of his attacks on lawful American citizens born in this country and guarantee their citizenship under the U.S. Constitution. There are lawsuits against the President for withholding National Institutes of Health funds to support studies of horrific diseases like Alzheimer's and disrupting lifesaving medical research and ongoing clinical trials. Now, if you are a student of history, this is the problem, often, with lawsuits. Brown v. Board Education, we celebrate it as the wonderful case it was. But was it obeyed? No, it wasn't. I have a picture of Ruby Bridges in my office because it wasn't obeyed. The court didn't declare this and, suddenly, everybody said: Hey, let Black folks go to school with White folks. No. The President had to call in the National Guard to escort a little girl into a class. That is the problem with lawsuits. If you have a defiant executive leadership, they will defy them. These, where you stand? Do you stand with veterans? Do you stand with your grandmother against online scams? Do you stand with American citizens born in this country? Do you stand with withholding National Institutes of Health funding? It was clearly that. We know the majority of Americans are with that. But people are having to bring them to court to fight on these issues. So many cases being done. So many cases I have here before me. So many cases. I can read them all, but you all know many of them. They are stunning the press as he pushes, as Elon Musk pushes. They push the bounds of the authorities of the Constitution of the United States, and people are bringing lawsuits. But that is not enough. Martin Luther King didn't step down because of Thurgood Marshall's legal work. John Lewis didn't step down. Ella Baker didn't stop. Abraham Joshua Heschel didn't stop. The great Rabbi Joachim Prinz didn't stop. The people of the United States of America, more powerful than courts; the people of the United States of America, more powerful than the Constitution--I just said something controversial, so let me defend myself. I believe in the people. I believe in the words of the great Learned Hand. He said the like of what I just said, so let me read somebody far greater, far more vaunted than this Senator from New Jersey. Learned Hand served as a Federal judge from 1909 to 1951. He was nicknamed the 10th Justice of the Supreme Court for his many influential decisions. He wrote this speech about our Constitution, about our liberties, about the tyrants in every generation who have tried to subvert our democracy--some of them from this body, like the Red Scare that had so many Americans being unjustly fired, unjustly deported, unjustly jailed, that infringed on freedom of speech, freedom of expression. I am sorry. Every generation of Americans have seen demagogues rise to try to undermine what America stands for, and Learned Hand knew that. He had so much wisdom about our Constitution. We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedoms from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies [in our hearts] there it needs no constitution, no law, no court. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? Please, please, please, listen to what he writes next: What is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of us Americans? This is what he says next: It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned [in our country] to our sorrow. What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but [has] never quite [yet] forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. . . . And now in that spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and . . . America I ask you to rise and [say] with me [the] pledge of our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country. I now ask you to raise your hands and repeat after me this pledge. And he says the Pledge of Allegiance. He believed that the Constitution dies if the spirit of it dies in the hearts of men and women. I would tell you, this Constitution has saved my life. It made my life because people marched to make real on the promise of our democracy. People bled to make real on this democracy. When some people told us that this Constitution didn't apply to us, this body--this body, Republicans in America--stood up and said: No, President Johnson, we are going to do amendments. We saw the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment would guarantee my ancestors finally full citizenship in the United States of America and the protections of the Constitution. I am here in this body because of past generations that fought to uphold the Constitution, not because the Constitution was real to them but because they brought reality and hope and love and promise to the Constitution. They were Americans who said, like Langston Hughes: America never was America to me, but I swear this oath, America will be. They loved this country so much even when it didn't love them back. I am here because of that. I am the fourth Black person popularly elected to this body because of generations that believed so much in this document that they were going to make it real, if live in them. I quoted earlier today--it is worth quoting here again--the great Margaret Chase Smith, a U.S. Senator from Maine, a Republican in her famous ``Declaration of Consciences'' speech delivered on June 1, 1950. Thank you. Thank you, my good Senator friend Whitehouse because, Lord knows, I would have slipped and fallen on my tuchus and have ended this long filibuster because I fell to the floor. That is what you mean when your brother has your back. What did this Republican say in the time of tyranny in her times, in the time when the Constitution stopped living in people's hearts, where people believed that whipped up fears of others by demagogues, where people believed the fear that they heard again and again on the radio that we should fear other Americans, when people believed their fear justified them, inhibiting the greatness of the Constitution? What is that old saying from one of our great leaders of the past? If you are willing to give up your liberty in order to ensure your security, you will lose them both. So here was this courageous Republican, who, in a time that demagogues were whipping up fear, where First Amendment rights were being trampled, where people were being intimidated into silence, where people were afraid to go up against the big and the powerful and the rich, where people were being deported from our country, where Jews were being deported and accused of being communists as justification to take them out of the country because they didn't have permanent legal status--yes, that is our history. What did she stand up and say in the Senate, this Republican, putting her own career at risk to call out Senator McCarthy? She said: I don't believe the Republican Party is in any sense a party of fear. I do believe that the Republican Party has made an alliance, though, with the four horsemen of fear--the fear of communists, the fear of labor unions, the fear of the future, and the fear of progress. There are people fearmongering now. There are people trying to tell Americans to hate Americans. You are either with the great ``Dear Leader'' or you are endangering an enemy. And it is not just Democrats who are being drugged, there are other Republicans. I saw it happen. I saw it happen to one of our Vice President's daughters, a Congresswoman. I saw it happen to colleagues of mine like Jeff Flake, like John McCain, and like Corker, who stood up in this body and told the truth about dear leader, and they saw the consequences politically. You want to talk about where the Constitution lives and defending the Constitution? First make it real in your heart, like those women did before the amendment that granted them the right to vote, who loved this country so much. You want to know where the Constitution lives in your heart? I just met with extraordinary men and women who are Native Americans to this country, who were here before any of us. They love this country so much even with the sins against them. You want to know where the Constitution lives? Let it live in the hearts of all Americans now, and ask yourself: Is the leader of our country living the Constitution in his heart? Because, as Learned Hand said, it is not braggadocios; it is not mean; it is loving; it is kind; it is expansive. We are Americans. Our creed above the Presiding Officer says it all-- ``E Pluribus Unum''--trying to remind our country that despite racial difference, gender, besides Republican or Democrat, ethnics--you know all the lines that divide us are not nearly as strong as the ties that bind us. That is what ``e pluribus unum'' means. What about the pledge that Learned Hand read? Listen to the words. It says things. It says things in that pledge. It says that we are one nation under God, that we are indivisible and we pledge ourselves to liberty and justice not just to the people who agree with the President but for all. God bless my courageous colleagues who have spoken out in the past and suffered the consequences. Liberty and the Constitution live in their hearts. They put patriotism over politics. We are in this moral moment now. We are in this moral moment now. This is not right or left. Don't let them say this is a partisan shift; it is not. It is not left or right; it is right or wrong. America, this is a moral moment. Does the Constitution live in your heart?

Mr. BOOKER. Before I yield--I love this power trip. It is the only time in 13 years I have really felt this power. I don't have to let my colleagues speak. And I, first amongst us all, really love to speak. I just want to say thank you to Chris Murphy. I repeated this 10, 15 hours ago, but I just want to tell the story, and then I will let you go, Chris. Nine years ago on this floor, after the Pulse shooting, we called Chuck Schumer, Chris and I. I saw a moment and he saw a moment that we couldn't do business as usual. We just said: How can you have this mass shooting, yet another mass shooting, and this body just go on as business as usual? It is why I am standing here right now. And we agreed, with Chuck Schumer's help, that we would get control of the Senate. Chris Murphy went down to that desk, and I promised him: I will be with you. I will stand with you. I won't sit down. We will go as long as we possibly can. And he began a filibuster 9 years ago, and it lasted 15 hours. And he still had fuel in the tank; I know he did. I was a hurting guy. I told you my back was hurting, my feet were hurting. But we had a direct end when Mitch McConnell agreed to give us a vote on commonsense gun safety, which I think every American and most gun owners agree on--just universal background checks. It failed to get 60 votes in the Senate, but you stood and I stood with you. He said to me days ago: If you are going to do this, Brother, I will be your aide-de-camp this time. And you have been with me. You have been with me far past 15 hours. You have been with me for 23 hours 49 minutes. (Applause.) Although my cousin Pam in the Gallery--she has been here the same amount of time. All right. So I am going to yield my power. It is not going to go to my head. This is why we need separation of powers--checks on men. Men are not angels. I yield for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. I thank my colleague and my friend again. He and I talked about this, that I was challenged by my own constituents to do something different, challenged by my own constituents to do something, challenged by my own constituents to take risks. My staff here should get a lot of credit for making it thus far. I am not sitting down, but I am mindful of what you said about Strom Thurmond. I am mindful of that right now as I watch that clock tick for another 20 minutes. I am grateful for my staff. I am grateful for the Parliamentarians, the clerks. I am grateful for the Republican Presiding Officers. I don't know if I want to out Curtis on the note that he--I am sorry--the good Senator, the Presiding Officer--forgive me--on the note he sent me, but this is the kind of specialness in this place that I love. I want to tell a few connecting stories. I think some of my colleagues know a few of these, but I want to explain why I started this whole 24 hours talking about John Lewis and good trouble. Sixty years ago, when he was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he shook New Jersey as he shook the Nation. When Bloody Sunday happened, there was a White guy on the couch in New Jersey who was watching TV and was so shaken, this lawyer said: I have to go to Alabama. He realized he couldn't afford a plane ticket, so this man slumped back down on his couch. Then he said: At a moral moment in America, I am not going to let my inability to do everything undermine my determination to do something, to do something different. He got up and said: OK--it was a meager calculation, but it was different--I can afford 1 hour a month of pro bono work. He called around, and he found this woman named Lee Porter who was heading up an organization called the Fair Housing Council and said: Could you use a lawyer? She was like: Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Yes, we need some help. They worked together and they designed a sting operation where they would send Black families in areas of New Jersey that would not sell homes to Black people, where usually the best public schools were. If they were told the house was sold, they would send a White couple behind them to expose that the house was still for sale and expose all of this. Well, they had a lot of success getting things written about the severe housing discrimination in my State. He said that after about 5 years, 4 years: I got this case file of a Black family trying to move to New Jersey, and they were frustrated because every time they would look at homes in the places with the best public schools, which happened to be White communities, they said they couldn't find a home. So they did the sting operation. They sent the Black couple in. They were told this incredible house was not for sale. They loved the house. So that when the White couple went, they threw in a bid to see if it would be accepted. The bid was accepted. Papers were drawn up. On the day of the closing, the White couple did not show up. The Black man did--lawyer, Marty Friedman marched in, confronted the real estate agent. You would think 1969, a year after the Fair Housing Act, that he would capitulate, but he didn't. This real estate agent gets up so angry. He punches the lawyer in the face and sics a Doberman pinscher on the Black guy. They get out of there, shaken up, and they start writing letters back and forth. The good owners of the home found out what was going on. They were so aghast. They said: Let us sell the house directly to the Black family. The Black family moved in, and 43 years later, the baby from that family became the fourth popularly elected Black Senator in our country--me. I tell that story because I started with John Lewis 24 hours ago, and it was John Lewis and a bunch of marchers on the bridge that influenced the destiny of my life and my family's life. We are all interconnected. As King says: We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. But I want to tell you the second time John Lewis shook up my life. I was mayor of the city of Newark. I got called to be on a TV show. I got called by a guy named Skip Gates, who I love, admire. He calls me and he jazzes me up. He fills my ego. He just flatters me: Hey, I got this show called Finding Your Roots, Cory Booker. You are a rising star. You are this hotshot. We should feature you in this. I am like: Oh, great. Oh, don't say that, Skip, but OK. Yeah, of course. And then I said: OK. Who are you going to pair me with? I thought it was going to be another young, hotshot, up-and-coming politician in America. No. He goes: I am going to pair you with John Lewis, and my heart sank a little bit--actually maybe it was my ego that sank. My heart got excited. Because I know how these shows start. They start with biographies. So imagine the show starting: John Lewis; hero of the Civil Rights Movement, literally bled the southern soil red for freedom and justice. And then he goes to my biography: Cory Booker; riding his big-wheel in suburban New Jersey. The show was unbelievable; a mountain and boy. But I got to meet John Lewis. I got to tell him that story that he changed my life, and I didn't even know it--on a bridge in Alabama, changed the course of events in New Jersey that led to me. Third take on John Lewis, my colleagues know I got here in a special election in 2013. What all of my colleagues might not know is I came here with a broken heart. My mom and I came here with a broken heart because I was elected in October, sworn in in October, but also in October my dad died of Parkinson's. That is why I got choked up reading these letters of people with Parkinson's. So when we came down here, we were grieving. My dad was not with us. My mom lost her husband of nearly 50 years, and I am going to get sworn in. It is a big event, but my parents and my campaign decided: You know what we should do? Right before you get sworn in or brought over here to be escorted to the President and Vice President, that you should go and sit with John Lewis. So we went to John Lewis' office and a lot of my colleagues from the CBC, a lot of my colleagues from the House, a lot of my colleagues, like here, came over from the House, know his office. You walk into his office, and it looks like a civil rights museum except he is in all the pictures. And this is John Lewis--we who knew him--this was him, mountain of a man. He had already prepared eggs and grits, a good southern breakfast, and wouldn't let my mom and I get up. He serves us all, and he humbly is saying: This is why I marched. This is why I sacrificed for historic historymaking days like this. He told us how special this was for him. He told me he would be right here where my friends are sitting, watching me get sworn in and how proud he was going to be. In a sense, he stood in for my dad on this floor, and then, boom, I am Senator. I find colleagues and friends here. I find a lot of colleagues and friends in the CBC. At that point, I was the only African American in our caucus and found so many friends, so many heroes that are gone from the Senate now, who looked at me, adopted me, helped me. Dick Durbin, you were amazing in those early months. And this is the next time I meet John Lewis for a moment that changed my life. Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz, remember this moment. It was during the 2017 healthcare debate, when I didn't know how we were going to stop that bill from passing and taking away healthcare from 20 million Americans. But John Lewis: Hey, Cory, let's do something different. What you got in mind? I said: Well, John Lewis, I got this phone. It is very powerful. Let's do a Facebook live. So I open up Facebook live, we meet in between in the Capitol. He says: Where can we go to sit down for a place? My favorite place to sit, I watched Schoolhouse Rock so much, it is right on the steps of the Capitol. Let's just sit there and talk; Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz the first people out to sit with us. The time lapse--the time lapse is amazing. First two, three people. Then 10 people. Then 50 people. Then hundreds of people. I have it all coming because of the moral magnetism of this man, John Lewis. And he talked to people that night who were looking for, what can I do? I am just one person. And this guy in his 20s who is just one person and caused a heck of lot of good trouble, he told him: Don't lose faith, don't lose hope. Get angry, but let it fuel you. Be afraid, but know that is a necessary precondition to courage. He was amazing that night. I know my colleagues remember that. And then there was a next time. Oh, Brother Warnock, you are gonna love this one. The next time I was with John Lewis, Jimmy Carter had gotten a little sick, but then he got better, and he went back to teaching Sunday school. And I thought: This man is in his 90s. I need to go to Sunday school. So who do I know--there is a waiting line. It is like people sneak out all night. I might have been a little selfish. How do I know I can get in? I call John Lewis. I said: Hey, I got this great idea. Why don't we go to Jimmy Carter and watch him teach Sunday school? So I have the singular greatest road trip. I fly into Atlanta. We get into a car, and we drive all those hours to Plains, GA. Indeed, people were waiting outside, but it is John Lewis--come on in. We sit in the front row; I must be in the front row. We sit down, and then this marvelous incredible moment comes. Somebody comes and says: Congressman Lewis, Senator Booker, the President and First Lady would love to see you beforehand. This is my first time meeting President Jimmy Carter. But I walk in, I am sort of on the sidelines. These two men are hugging each other; me and the first lady. The two of them whisper for a second, and Jimmy Carter walks over to me and says: I hear you are thinking of running for President of the United States. He did something incredible. He says: I think you should run--and he pokes my heart--only if you run from here. The last time--of the powerful moments I have had in my life with that man, that so many of us have had those powerful moments, the last time happened because of a man named Michael Collins. I know people-- there are people in this room that got the same phone call that I got, that: It won't be long now, that John Lewis is going to pass very soon. He can't speak, but I know he would want you to have your moment to say goodbye to him. And what do I do? What do I do? Say goodbye to a man that is a legend in my life, a legend in our Nation? What do you do to say goodbye to him? I wasn't prepared. I can't say I said anything eloquent. Michael Collins, God bless you, man. You put the phone by his ear and you just gave me my time to have a conversation with the man that would soon die, a man that changed my life, that helped my family get into a neighborhood that loved me and cherished me. God love Harrington Park. The man that stood in for my father when heaven brought him home, the man that showed me on the steps of this Capitol how powerful the people are. It wasn't about him. It was about them. The man that brought me to see a President, flattered every Senator's ego telling them what they want to hear: Run for President. And so I said everything I could, but the last thing I said I remember very well. I said: I love you--I said: I love you, and I said: John, I know you are going to be in Heaven looking down on us, and I promise you--I promise you, John Lewis--that I will do everything possible, that we will do everything possible to make you proud. The Civil Rights generation is starting to be called home. The leaders are leaving us. We in the CBC have lost a lot of greats. I can't remember the--forget the promise I made to John Lewis with all that he gave me, with all that he gave his country, that I said we would make him proud. So this is one of those moments that John Lewis--he would not be sitting still. He would be calling me up and say: You still got that Facebook thing? I go: No, I don't really use Facebook anymore. But there is a thing called TikTok or--I don't know what John Lewis would say right now. I know what he said in 2017. But I will be honest with you. I don't know what he would say, but John Lewis would say something. He would do something. He wouldn't treat this moral moment like it was normal. John Lewis new what King said, that what we have to repent for, all of us here, we will have to repent for, is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of so- called bad people. What we have to repent for in our day and age is the appalling silence and the inaction of good people. This is our moral moment. This is when the most precious ideas of our country are being tested, where the Constitution and the question is being called: Where does the Constitution live, on paper or in our hearts? This is the moment. Generations get them. We are on a crossroads here, folks. Healthcare is on the balance. Veterans are on the balance. Priorities are on the balance. Where is our priorities, America? More tax cuts disproportionately going to the wealthy. Greater budget deficits in the trillions and trillions of dollars. Or are we going to do something different like John Lewis would call us to do? He would call us to get into good trouble, necessary trouble, save the soul of America. But you all know John: Don't hate each other. Don't let anybody pull you so low as to hate them. I said this about the presiding elder, different parties, but he showed me an act of kindness during this speech. He and I talked about energy policy. He has amazing ideas. I want to partner with him. Don't hate anybody. Did the folks in Birmingham--did Martin Luther King, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dorothy Cotton, James Bevel, did they bring bigger dogs and bigger fire hoses to match the sheriff's--Bull Connor-- thank you. I have been standing here a long time. They didn't do that. They were creative artists of activism. They called to the conscious of a country. They challenged our moral imagination, not to focus on hate but focus on what is possible in America if we redeem the dream, if we dream America anew. That generation in their 20s and their 30s, that is what they demanded. Martin Luther King didn't go to the March on Washington with a list of grievances against the racists in our country. He went there and called to the conscious of the country. He said he ``had a dream.'' That is what we need in our generation, a vision to redeem the dream to call our country together. Yes, there is a man in the White House who is the most powerful man in the land, and his partner is the richest man in the world. But as long as this is a democracy that we can still protect, the power of the people is greater than the people in power, if they use their powers. There is a great African American woman author once said: The most common way people give up their power is not realizing they have it in the first place. I have been calling out names, folks, to tell them they have power. I read the stories of DeAnna, of Wendy and Cassie, of Tonya, of Cameron, of Jeanne, of Susan, of Edna, Randi, of Dylan, of Theresa, of Pamela, of Sally and Mike, of Carole, Rosemari, Danielle, of Judith, of Elizabeth, of Sandra, Alicia, Maggie, Nybil, Laura, Michael, Robin, Mary, Allyson, Ash, Roseann, Kerry, Samantha P., Raphael, Will, Anthony, Sean, and so many more. I read their stories here because while we were elected, they are the power of our country. I have made mistakes. We all have. Both parties have a lot of mistakes to account for. The ballast of this country, what will anchor us to our ideals, what will call us to new heights, lift our heads, lift our hopes, what will call us to rise is each other. We need each other. We need a greater love in this country. We need a greater fight in this country. We need a greater determination. We can't act as if these are normal times. These people's stories that I read were calling out for help: Senator, help me. Someone, help me. I am in danger of losing my healthcare. Someone help me. I am a veteran. Look what happened to me. It is not fair. I fought for this country. Help me. Help me. I am worried about my Social Security, and the rural office I go to is being closed. Help, people calling out for help. And what do Americans do when people are calling out for help? They built an infrastructure. The greatest project ever, called the Underground Railroad, where Quakers, White folks joined with Black folks to shuttle people to freedom. What did they do when people were worried and fearful? They called people together from across their country. Let's have a conference. Let's go to Seneca Falls. What did they do when they faced violence? Oh, look at the people at Stonewall who stood up, who pushed back, who organized, who won. What do they do when the dogs are unleashed on us, when the firehose is unleashed on us? Look at what they did in Selma. I am getting close to a record, folks, but-- (Applause.) There is a room here in the Senate named after Strom Thurmond. To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up, that if I stood here maybe, maybe, just maybe I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand. I am not here though because of a speech. I am here despite his speech. I am here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful. (Applause.) I will remind you all these people that believe like me that we have got to redeem the dream, turn again to John Lewis because you all know the story, my colleagues, of when the man that beat him savagely, drew blood, cracked bones, decades later, when he was a Congressman, that man brought his grandson with him to ask for forgiveness from John Lewis. I heard about this story when I was in the car in Georgia with him. What did you do, John, this man who had so viciously beat you, wounded you, bruised you, battered you, what did you do when he came to ask you for forgiveness? What did you do? And the good Christian man, the man of faith, simply said: Every one of us needs mercy. Every one of us needs redemption. I forgave him. I hugged him. We wept. And I looked at the boy, this Nation needs you too. John--

Mr. BOOKER. Chuck Schumer, it is the only time in my life I could tell you no.

Mr. BOOKER. Chuck Schumer, I have yielded for a question, and you asked me did I know. I know now. (Applause.) I want to not quite wrap this up yet. I don't want to wrap this up yet. My mom's Senator--my mom has been watching. I know Catherine Cortez Masto has a podium in front of her. She could give me a rest. I would like to go a little further if we can, just a little further. I love, again, I know people are trying to train each other, in all of our media operations they give the worst images of the people of the other party, but I want to tell you one of the funny tweets my staff gave me is something Ted Cruz said around 1920 hours. He said: Maybe I should pull a fire alarm, he is going to break my record. I am going to pause in a moment, if she has a question for me, to Catherine Cortez Masto, because she is my mother. But I do want to just say again, two points, make if I can, one is how grateful I am to my staff. When we decided to do this many days ago-- (Applause.) When we decided to do this days ago, they were like, we have to do this, and we started preparing and working on this, and they did an extraordinary job. They were with me late nights, writing, writing, writing. I just feel guilty because they wrote about 10 books, and we didn't use all of them. There were really some stuff pulling from Republicans and Democrats, a critique of this moment. Pulling from Democrats and Republicans, Republican Governors that were saying: Do not cut Medicaid. States that know, as my colleagues do, that have a trigger; that if the Medicaid funding goes below 90 percent, that they stop the Medicaid expansion. My staff really worked hard to not make this just Democratic voices, to make it people in our country that Republicans and Democrats--you heard me mention in the speech, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, all people who are honest arbiters and were saying that what Trump is doing is wrong; that a budget like this that blows massive holes in our deficit, it will be something our children are trying to pay for. And what are they ultimately paying for that caused this big deficit? It is trillions of dollars of tax cuts that people like DOGE, multimillionaire, multibillionaire Musk will benefit from, but children won't. They did such a good job bringing together authorities on both sides of the aisle, I just want to thank them. I want to thank my cousin Pam and my family. Cousin Pam, like Chris Murphy, was here for the whole time. I want to thank Chris Murphy again. (Applause.) He never stopped telling me: We can do this, we can do this, we can do this, and said, I will stay with you. He has been with me on the floor. I hope you don't look as tired as I look because you look beat, man. Do I look that bad? All right. I want to go a little bit past this, and then I am going to deal with some of the biological urgencies. But I am going to wait here because I have the power, I have the floor, somebody has to ask me, perhaps from my mom's State, the way that is supposed to work.

Mr. BOOKER. My mom would be so upset with me, my Aunt Marilyn, Butch, my Aunt Shirley, all the people that are your constituents and not mine, they would be upset with me if I didn't yield to you for a question while retaining the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am really grateful you are in the Chair and grateful to be able to rise right now and speak. I want to say at the top that I have a tremendous love for this institution, and a lot of that is born from the people that are here-- from the pages I get to know in every class, to the folks that work the door, the clerks, the Parliamentarians. It is a special place, and a lot of people who are known here are not the ones that really keep this place functioning. I come in here days and I have good moods or bad moods but always find myself lifted when I walk onto this floor. It is a sacred civic space. It is extraordinary. And I am always aware of the weight of history when I walk in here. No matter a good day, bad day, whether I am in a rush or not, when I touch the Senate floor, I feel something really magnificent. I don't think that our Founders would have ever imagined a body like this with Black people on both sides of the aisle, with women serving here, with folks from many different backgrounds. We are in many ways doing what the Founders had envisioned, which was this idea of every generation making this a more perfect Union. But there have been times in this journey where our Union was in crisis and was in peril. There were times in this great American journey, over our 250 years, where so many heroes had to emerge, people that I have come to revere, like Joshua Chamberlain from Maine, who played such a pivotal role in the Battle of Gettysburg. What a noble soul he was. He would later go on to be Governor of his State and go on to do great things, but his heroism lay that in a time of crisis, he stood up. I know there are veterans in this body--I admire them so much--who have answered that call to serve our country and put their lives in sacrifice. There are people I admire that are heroes of mine that were suffragettes. There were people who fought as abolitionists. There are people more recently that I have come to lionize and admire because they did so much for this country--not with titles, not with high ranks or positions, but folks who, when this country was facing crossroads, was facing crises, they stood up. They spoke up. One of my greatest heroes of life was a man I got to serve with named John Lewis. I served with him while in this body. Every opportunity I had, I would ask him about the times when he was just a 20-something. He was the youngest person who was a feature speaker on the March on Washington. He was called the bravest man in the civil rights movement because he kept putting himself in harm's way to dramatize, to let folks know, to bring attention to the injustices in this world and to say very strongly that this--what was going on in our country--is not normal, that what is going on in our country is wrong. I stand on this floor as a U.S. Senator, but I revere people who never stood on this floor; people who, before they even got to their thirties and forties and fifties in life, were out there as great patriots fighting for this Nation. I rise today in an unusual manner, and I want to be clear and explain that. But I just want to tell you what John Lewis said. It is a quote so many people know. He really spoke not to Members of the Senate or the Congress; he was really speaking to Americans. He said: Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America. John Lewis died in 2020, in July, at a time that--it was Donald Trump's first term in office. He did what Congresspeople did, but he also did some really extraordinary things to fight for healthcare. My friend Chris Murphy knows about that. He was there when John Lewis did an open Facebook chat--not in this Chamber or the House Chamber; he sat on the steps, and people were there. I remember when he did a sit- in. They had to shut the cameras off him. He got in good trouble on the House side too. So I start tonight thinking about him. I have been thinking about him a lot during these last 71 days--``Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America,'' and I had to ask myself, if he is my hero, how am I living up to his words? I think Democrats and Republicans have made a lot of mistakes. No side has a monopoly on the truth. No side has been perfect servants of this country. But what has happened in the last 71 days is a patent demonstration of a time where John Lewis's call to everyone has, I think, become more urgent and more pressing. If I think it is a call for our country, I have to ask myself, how I am living these words? So tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the U.S. Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis. And I believe that not in a partisan sense because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office in pain, in fear, having their lives upended--so many of them identify themselves as Republicans. Indeed, in conversations from in this body, to in this building, to across my State, and recently in travel across the country, Republicans as well as Democrats are talking to me about what they feel is a sense of dread about a growing crisis or what they point to about what is going wrong. The bedrock commitments in our country that both sides rely on--that people from all backgrounds rely on--those bedrock commitments are being broken. Unnecessary hardships are being borne by Americans of all backgrounds. Institutions which are special in America, which are precious, which are unique in our country, are being recklessly--and I would even say unconstitutionally--affected, attacked, even shattered. In just 71 days, the President of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans' safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy, and even our aspirations as a people from our highest offices, a sense of common decency. These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such. John Lewis and so many heroes before us would say that this is the time to stand up, to speak up. This is the time to get in some good trouble, to get into necessary trouble. I can't allow this body to continue without doing something different, speaking out. The threats to American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more. We all must do more against them. But those 10 words--``If it is to be, it is up to me''--all of us have to think of those 10 words, those 10 two-letter words--``If it is to be, it is up to me''--because I believe generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question: Where were you? Where were you when our country was in crisis and when American people were asking for help: Help me. Help me. Did we speak up? When 73 million American seniors who rely on Social Security were to have that promise mocked, attacked, and then to have the services undermined, to be told ``There will be no one there to answer if you call for help''; when our seniors became afraid and worried and panicked because of the menacing words of their President, of the most wealthy person in the world, of Cabinet Secretaries, did we speak up? When the American economy, in 71 days--71 days--has been upended; when prices at the grocery store were skyrocketing and the stock market was plunging; when pension funds, 401(k)s were going down; when Americans were hurting and looking up; when the resounding answer to this question was no--are you better off economically than you were 71 days ago?--where were you? Did you speak up at a time when the President of the United States was launching trade wars against our closest allies, when he was firing regulators who investigate America's biggest banks and biggest corporations to stop them from taking advantage of the little guy or the little gal or my grandmother or your grandfather, dismantling the Agency that protects consumers from fraud--the only one whose sole purpose is to look out for them? Did you speak up when the President of the United States, in a way that is so crass and craven, peddled his own meme coin and made millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for his own bank account at a time so many are struggling economically? Did you speak up when the President of the United States did what amounts to a car commercial for the richest man in the world right in front of America's house, the White House? When the President tried to take healthcare away, where were you? Did you speak up? Threatening a program called Medicaid that helps people with disabilities, helps expectant mothers, helps millions upon millions of Americans. And why? Why? As a part of a larger plan to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest amongst us who have done the best over the last 20 years, for billionaires that seem so close to the President that they sat right on the dais at his inauguration and sit in his Cabinet meetings at the White House. Did you speak up when he gutted public education, slashed funds for pediatric cancer research, fired thousands of veterans who risked their lives for their country; when he abandoned our allies and our international commitments at a time when floods, fires, hurricanes, and droughts are devastating communities across this country; when countries all around the world are banning together to do something and he turned his back? Did you speak up when outbreaks of dangerous, infectious diseases are still a global threat, yet we have stopped engaging in the efforts necessary to meet those threats? Where were you when the American press was being censored; when international students were being disappeared from American streets without due process; when American universities were being intimidated into silence, challenging that fundamental idea of freedom of thought, freedom of expression; when the law firms that represent clients that may not be favored are attacked and attacked and attacked? Where were you? Did you speak up when they came for those firms? What about when the people who attacked the police officers who defended this building--an American democracy--on January 6; who just outside those doors put their lives on the line for us, and many of them would later die--where were you when the President pardoned them, celebrated them, and even talked of giving them money, people who savagely beat American police officers? Did you speak up when Americans from across the country were all speaking up, when more and more voices in this country were speaking up, saying: ``This is not right. This is un-American. This is not who we are. This is not America''? Did you speak up? So I rise tonight because I believe to be about what is normal right now when so much abnormal is happening that is unacceptable. I rise tonight because silence at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal of some of the greatest heroes of our Nation, because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that we brag about, that we talk about, that makes us special. At stake right now are some of our most basic American principles that so many Americans understand are worth fighting for, worth standing for, worth speaking up for--like, if you work hard your entire life and pay into Social Security, it should be there for you when you retire, and you should not have to question that those paychecks will arrive and that the government should strive to improve service to you, not brag about cutting it; basic American principles like, if you serve your Nation in the military, if you put your life in danger abroad, you will be respected and taken care of. You will be cherished and honored and not forced to worry that the Federal employees who provide you with care, many of whom were veterans themselves, will be fired or the benefits that you rely on will be denied or that your healthcare needs won't be met; basic American principles like your child will have access to a high-quality public education, that every child has a unique genius, even our children--beautiful children--with special needs; they have genius; and that our children can go to school and parents and teachers know that they will be safe there. Safe now are those basic American principles; that the people you elect to serve you in government will represent you and not to try to make themselves richer, not run some scam, and call you a sucker; the basic ideals of our Nation that everyone's rights will be equally protected, and everyone will be held accountable under the law. Right now, all of this--things that make our country different--are under attack. Our constituents are asking us to acknowledge this. Everywhere I travel now, I hear from Republicans and Independents and Democrats who are afraid, who are worried, who are angry. I think about John Lewis, who taught me that fear is not something to be shunned. It is almost a signpost that you are headed in the right direction. It is something that is a necessary precondition. You cannot have great fear without great courage. John Lewis would tell us that this is a time for great courage. He would tell us that anger is a fuel. It can consume you, debilitate you, or it can fuel you to put yourself in the service of others. I feel, if my friend were here, if my hero were here, he would tell us and try to teach us that this is a moment to know that despair is only possible if you don't meet it as an agent of hope. If John Lewis were here, he would look at me and say: What are you doing? What are we doing? So, tonight, I rise in an unusual way. I rise with the intention to stand here until I can stand no longer, until I am physically unable to stand anymore. I am going to speak up. I am going to try to cause some good trouble in this body I respect so much. I am going to try to cause what I believe is necessary trouble. I am going to try to honor the legacy that I know I have inherited as an American, the legacy I think about when I come to this floor and feel sometimes overwhelmed with all of the sacrifice and struggle that had to get me here: good people who caused good trouble in the face of slavery; good people who caused good trouble in the face of the denial of the right to vote; good people who caused good trouble in the cause of equal rights; good people who caused good trouble in the fight against hate; good people who caused good trouble in the fight against demagogues from McCarthyism to Father Coughlin, to big people who showed such small character when they tried to suppress others. I want to cause good trouble and prove worthy of those who came before. This is not normal. Listen to America. Listen to Americans. They seem to always be ahead of this body. They are rising up in State after State, not along partisan lines, but along an American line, not because they hate other Americans, but because they love America. What does love look like in public? It looks like justice, and there is so much injustice going on. I don't know how long I can stand, but I will stand and speak up. I want to start by reading some of these letters to try to give folks a flavor of what has happened in my office for 71 days. The calls we have gotten have gotten more and more and more numerous. I know I am not the only one because the calls became so numerous to the Senate as a whole that it locked up the lines. There are letters I am getting and emails I am getting. There are people taking scraps of paper and just writing their hearts out and sending them in to say: These are not ordinary times. These are painful times, frightening times, times when people question what is happening to America and worry that there are powerful people trying to fundamentally change our Nation in a way that will hurt people to the benefit of the powerful and the wealthy. I look at these letters like this one. I won't read the name, but they say: Hi, Senator Booker. Medicaid has saved my life many, many times. Without it, many people in America will die. Please, help us. It is underlined multiple times. Here is another scrap of paper on which somebody writes their heart out: Dear Senator Booker, when I got out of the Navy, I had mental illness. I needed psychiatric medicine to stop going in and out of the hospital. Because of Medicaid, I have medicine that has kept me out of the hospital for 18 years. Without Medicaid and my medicine, I will wind up in the hospital. Americans are telling me their most vulnerable pains. Their most terrified realities are now confronting them, rendering their pride and telling their truth. Here is another one: Dear Senator Booker, I am writing you today as a constituent. In addition to being a concerned citizen, I am a 25-year employee of the local board of education and a parent of a permanently disabled daughter who has just started receiving Medicaid. Even with her master's degree, my daughter is only able to work 19 hours a week. Therefore, insurance is not provided. Medicaid is a necessity to maintain her physical and emotional health and provide services to assist with her independence so she can continue to be a contributing member of society. By withdrawing funding for Medicaid, the policy would disrupt programs serving disabled and elderly people in New Jersey and throughout the country. And Medicaid is only one area which will potentially be affected by Donald Trump's funding freeze. Please protect Social Security and Medicare for the hard-working Americans who have earned it. Social Security isn't a ``handout.'' We have paid into it with every paycheck throughout our entire working lives, and the 66 million seniors relying on Medicare could have their healthcare put on hold or canceled. We deserve to know these programs will be there for us. If Federal grants are limited, medical and science research limited, including vaccines and disease prevention, they will all be severely impacted. The United States should be a world leader in healthcare and education and scientific advancement. This is an embarrassment to us as a country. It should not be possible in America for one single man--even an elected President--to stop funds which Congress has already allocated. I implore you to use your power as my Senator and a key member of our government to stand up for what is important to the people of your district. We want to go to work, take care of our families, and ensure all citizens have the health services they deserve. These latest orders are inappropriate, untenable, and illegal. As a Senator, please take action. Please take action to defend and protect these programs. Thank you for your time. Cory Booker, recently it has come to my attention that my students' rights in New Jersey are under threat from new legislation. This has caused distress and uncertainty in my classroom for my students who depend on funds from Medicaid. My students depend on consistency, and a lapse in their education and care would result in regression, trauma, and worse. I teach students in New Jersey who are supported by your legislature. I teach all abilities, meaning many of the students live with ADHD, autism, and other disorders that require extra care and attention. It is my life's mission to bring what I know to those who want to learn it. I love the job I do. I love that I get to spend time with those who need it most and deliver care and education. The job that I do helps my students live more independently and achieve richer and more fulfilling lives. I live out of State, but most of my students are from the State you help legislate. My students' rights are in trouble and need you to advocate for them. I urge you to continue to fight for Medicaid. Please work to oppose any and all cuts or caps to the Medicaid program. Dear Senator Booker, my name is--I am a registered voter in New Jersey. I am writing today to strongly urge you and your fellow policymakers to oppose all cuts to the Medicaid program as it is a lifeline for individuals with disabilities. Oppose all cuts or caps. I was a special education teacher for 30 years, and after I retired, I volunteered as a special education advocate for 10 years. I had the privilege of advocating for many disabled children and young adults who were receiving Medicaid services. Medicaid gave many of my clients the opportunity to participate in society by providing daily life skills for independence. Skills reinforced through Medicare programs include shopping, safety, job search, speech and language-- just to point out a few of the services provided by Medicaid. My clients require repetition of these skills to function in their daily lives. Without these programs provided by Medicaid, regression will occur, and learned skills will not be retained. Without Medicaid, this community will struggle, isolate, and lose any quality of life they have enjoyed since receiving Medicaid services. Medicaid has made a critical difference in the lives of my clients. Cutting and capping Medicaid will have devastating consequences for them and their family. Senator, there are 1.6 million New Jersey residents with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for access to vital care, resources, and essential medications needed to survive. Please support and fight for these vulnerable New Jersey citizens. Please take action to protect these vital programs provided by Medicaid. Thank you in advance for your anticipated efforts in my request of your support for our most vulnerable residents. I am going to rise tonight, as I said, and stay for as long as I physically can, and I am going to go through issue area after issue area after issue area and talk specifically to the concerns, the fears, the actions taken, to the hurts that are already being felt throughout America, elevating others' voices who don't have the privilege of standing in this body, honoring those Americans who, even though they don't have such a position, they are raising their voice. I will rise for as long as I can to honor them and raise mine. The first area I want to talk about is Medicaid, Medicare, and healthcare, as my constituent spoke to. I don't need to tell anyone the importance of healthcare to humanity. Without our health, we would not be able to do anything else. We would not be able to provide for our families, spend time with our loved ones, do all of the things that make life worth living. That is why I am going to stand here and explain to people what is going on and how our healthcare programs are at risk and being undermined. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are, right now, discussing how to cut these programs in a way of putting those savings either into tax cuts for the rich--I say ``either'' because they are going to be putting them into tax cuts for the rich, but those tax cuts, as we know, are still going to blow massive trillion-dollar holes in our deficits. They are trying to gut Medicaid and Medicare programs on which nearly a third of our country rely, all to pay for those tax cuts to billionaires and corporations. They are also dismantling the very institutions meant to safeguard our Nation's health and well-being. And this is not the first time. They tried this before during Trump's first administration when he unsuccessfully tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid, despite its popularity across the Nation, across the political aisle. He was going after something that wasn't left or right, that Americans were saying in the course of conviction that this is about right or wrong, and it is wrong to take away healthcare for millions of people. Let me explain, if I can, or speak to a few points from a recent report by Protect Our Care to explain what the administration is trying to do to our healthcare system. They want to slash almost a trillion dollars--about $850 billion--from Medicaid, forcing people to choose between healthcare and putting food on the table. In every State, hundreds of thousands of seniors, children, and working families could lose their health insurance, thanks to Republicans' plan to cut those hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. It would impose, they seek, burdensome work requirements for people on Medicaid. The last proposal coming from Republicans of that work requirement has one goal: to make it harder for people to qualify for Medicaid, to slash benefits, and deny up to 36 million people access to healthcare so they could fund, again, those tax breaks for the wealthiest, for corporations. Work requirements only increase the redtape of hard-working families already burdened by working multiple jobs, caring for children, and more. They are simply increasing the redtape working families have to go through to obtain affordable care. Their intention is also to hike premium costs. Millions of families who use private health insurance saved an average of $2,400 per year on their premiums, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act advanced premium tax cuts. But now the proposals Republicans are putting forth want to end these savings and raise costs for over 24 million Americans. The proposal wants to take away protections from people with preexisting conditions. The GOP plans to repeal and undermine the ACA; meaning, if they are successful, 135 million people with preexisting conditions like asthma, cancer, and diabetes would lose critical protections, and private insurers, insurance companies can charge them higher premiums. The efforts that they are discussing--Republicans are discussing-- would raise prescription drug prices. It would stop medical research and stop medical debt relief. Over the first 3 months of his administration, Donald Trump and Republican allies have increased the prices of prescription drugs-- including cancer and heart medications, as well as vital antibiotics-- delayed the implementation of a Biden administration rule that barred medical debt from showing up on credit reports, cut NIH grants, halted all studies and activities within the NIH relating in any capacity to the health of LGBTQ Americans, including active research programs, and President Trump violated court orders to halt funding freezes to organizations like the NIH. Republicans rejected legislation to cap insulin costs for millions of people with diabetes nationwide. Now they want to raise costs for seniors by repealing the cap for people who rely on Medicare. As many as one in four of the 7.5 million Americans depending on insulin are skipping or skimping on doses. I want to say that again. As many as one in four of the 7.5 million Americans depending on insulin are skipping or skimping on doses. This is a life-threatening practice. No one in this country should have to bear that. This week, we know Republicans in the Senate will make us vote on a budget that will, inevitably, intend to harm the strength of programs like Medicaid and vital health programs in general. Here is what a few organizations are saying about the impact of the budget that will soon be put on this floor, what impact it will have on our health systems. According to this nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan policy and research institute, this is what they write: The House Republican budget would require deep cuts to Medicaid, and recent statements from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie suggest the Affordable Care Act's . . . Medicaid expansion to adults with low incomes--which covers more than 20 million [Americans]--will be a prime target. Cutting Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars and focusing many of those cuts on the Medicaid expansion would lead millions of people to become uninsured. Eliminating Medicaid expansion was a key goal of Republicans' failed effort to repeal the ACA eight years ago, and Congress should once again reject efforts to undermine it. Recent Republican proposals such as reducing the federal matching rate for Medicaid expansion, repealing the 2021 Rescue Plan's incentive for new states to expand, or taking away Medicaid coverage from certain adult enrollees by imposing work requirements would leave expansion enrollees at risk. They could lose their coverage due to work requirements, or their state might drop their coverage due to a drastic increase in state costs. Twelve states-- Twelve American States-- have ``poison pill laws'' that would automatically end expansion coverage or require review of the coverage if the federal matching rate drops below 90 percent. In [those] states, expansion enrollees are at even greater risk. [Representative] Guthrie's recent statement confirms that [House] Republicans are eyeing proposals such as work requirements, a reduction in the federal matching rate, or a per capita cap on funding for the expansion group. This last option could shift . . . $72 billion and $190 billion in costs to states from 2026 to 2034-- Putting that burden from $72 billion to $190 billion on States-- increasing the state costs of expansion by 41 to 108 percent and [thus] jeopardizing [medical] coverage for millions. Forty states plus Washington, D.C. have adopted the Medicaid expansion-- Forty States, plus the District of Columbia have adopted the Medicaid expansion-- helping adults with low incomes become healthier and more financially secure. Health coverage through expansion improves people's access to-- Something that makes so much economic sense. It-- improves people's access to preventive and primary care, [it also] provides care for [people with] chronic illnesses, prevents premature deaths, and protects people from catastrophic out-of-pocket medical costs. Let me pull away from the nonpartisan group's remarks for a second because I saw this as a mayor. When you scrimp on regular treatment for people with chronic care, when you scrimp on preventing disease, it costs more to taxpayers. I saw that because folks would end up in my emergency rooms in Newark. And the care there is so much more expensive. For a taxpayer, you get a much better deal in helping someone treat their chronic disease. You get a much better deal in giving them regular access to doctors. But to cut that makes no sense. Not only are you cutting it to give, again, those larger tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, but you are cutting it, and you are just going to add more and more to the overall healthcare costs of our country and to the size of the debt. Let me go back to the text. Having health coverage also makes it easier for adults to work or . . . look for a job. Considering that Medicaid supports work and that 9 out of 10 Medicaid adults are already working, caring for family, attending school, or are ill or disabled, work requirements are unnecessary. [They are] burdensome. [They are more redtape and hassles.] Proposals to use work requirements as a way to take away Medicaid coverage from certain adults are just another way to undermine the Medicaid expansion. Attacks on the Medicaid expansion are often based on false claims that covering adults with low incomes takes away care from groups traditionally eligible for Medicaid. In reality, Medicaid expansion supports better outcomes for all groups, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities. Medicaid expansion has driven coverage gains for parents, which improves their access to care as well as [their] overall well-being [the overall well-being] of their children. Stepping away from the text, there is not a parent in America who knows that when you are sick, when you are being hurt by your chronic disease, it is harder to take care of children, and their well-being suffers. Back to the text: Expansion has also driven coverage gains among people with disabilities. People with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security [insurance] Income generally also qualify for Medicaid, but 2 out of 3 people with disabilities who participate in Medicaid qualify on another basis, meaning Medicaid expansion is an important path to coverage for those with low incomes. Medicaid expansion also supports hospitals and other health care providers by reducing their uncompensated care costs and improving their operating margins, especially [especially, especially] for rural and safety-net hospitals. If all states [in America] were to drop the Medicaid expansion in response to a decline in federal support, a recent analysis found that [the] provider revenues would fall by $80 billion and uncompensated care costs would increase by $19 billion in 2026 [alone]. That is the end of the article. This is not a hyperbole or scare tactic. These are real possibilities. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said there is no way to meet the Republican budget resolution dedicated cuts without cutting Medicaid or Medicare. (Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.) Tonight and into tomorrow morning, I am going to do everything I can to elevate the voices of Republicans because this is not intended to be a partisan speech. From the Cato Institute to the Wall Street Journal, to nonpartisan groups, to the Congressional Budget Office, everyone is pointing to what is happening as not normal, not what the President says it is, as something that is going to hurt Americans, something that is going to cost us more money in the long run--that someone is going to take people with disabilities and put them even more in the shadows and in the margins when they should be centralized and empowered, that what they are proposing is not just morally wrong; it actually adds to the fiscal crisis of our country. It will drive up healthcare costs in America. It will drive up chronic disease in America, an issue so important to me that I have been fighting for it since I got here, because America--this great Nation, this great land--is one of the leading countries on the planet Earth, in the Western World--in the leading democracies, I should say-- that has maternal mortality rates that are extraordinarily high. Forty-plus percent of our babies are born on Medicaid. Here is an article from NBC: ``Republicans can't meet their own budget target without cutting Medicare or Medicaid.'' House Republicans can't meet their own budget target that is necessary to pass President Donald Trump's legislative agenda without making significant cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, the official budget scorekeeper confirmed Wednesday. House Republicans adopted a budget blueprint last week that opens the door to pass Trump's policy priorities on immigration, energy and taxes. It instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending under its jurisdiction by $880 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan in-house think tank that referees the process, said that when Medicare is set aside, the total funding under the committee's jurisdiction is $8.8 trillion over 10 years. Medicaid accounts for $8.2 trillion of that, or 93%. When Medicare and Medicaid are excluded, the committee oversees a total of $581 billion in spending--much less than the $880 billion target--the CBO said. The letter outlining the figures was in response to a query by-- I will step away from the article for a second--by my friend and longtime New Jerseyan Representative Frank Pallone--he is the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee--and Brendan Boyle, a Democrat, of Pennsylvania, the ranking member of the Budget Committee. They asked the question. That leaves Republicans in a deep predicament. The budget resolution, adopted by the slimmest of margins in the narrowly divided House, was the delicate product of negotiations among conservative hard-liners who demand steep spending cuts and swing-district GOP lawmakers who say they don't want to slash funding for the health programs their constituents rely on. Off the article for a second, God bless you for caring about your constituents. Revising the target would mean upsetting one of those factions and potentially risking the support of key votes to pass the eventual budget reconciliation bill that advances Trump's agenda. Democrats have made protecting Medicaid a centerpiece of their attack on the party-line GOP agenda, accusing Trump of trying to cut health care for the working class to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. ``This letter from CBO confirms what we've been saying all along: the math doesn't work without devastating Medicaid cuts,'' Pallone said Wednesday in a statement. ``Republicans know their spin is a lie, and the truth is they have no problem taking health care away from millions of Americans so that the rich can get richer and pay less in taxes than they already do.'' You see--stepping away from this--they are saying we are going to make these cuts to balance the budget, but their budget blows a bigger hole in our deficit. If this is what Trump said, then why are they proposing to cut $880 billion from critical healthcare programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children's Health Insurance Program? You can't have it both ways. Donald Trump promised to make America healthy again, but gutting healthcare for millions of Americans-- gutting healthcare for millions of Americans--rolling back healthcare for millions of Americans, rolling back support for new mothers, slashing innovative cancer treatments--this doesn't help families. I love what Dr. King said. Martin Luther King famously stated: Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane. Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane. Paul Farmer--extraordinary leader, physician, anthropologist, renowned humanitarian, pioneer of global health--I read his book ``Mountains Beyond Mountains.'' In another one of his books, ``Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor,'' he wrote: If access to healthcare is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right? I think, in a country this wealthy, where we are seeing stratospheric wealth created here in individuals, we are seeing some of the richest people in the world, and yet we still are targeting--for tax breaks for them, we are targeting millions and millions of Americans who rely on things like Medicare. I started my speech with John Lewis. Let me quote him now. In 2012, he said: Healthcare is a right, and it is not a privilege, not just for some people but for all people. John Lewis was a visionary. So let me tell you a bit more about Medicaid. If you are watching, let me break it down and show just how critical it is for millions of Americans. Medicaid, right now, is in the crosshairs of many, many Republicans in Congress. It is on this precipice. It is not abstract policy. It is not just numbers in a line item in a budget. At stake, when we talk about Medicare, it is millions and millions of Americans' health. It goes to this question: How deeply do we care for one another? I love what our Founders said in the Declaration of Independence. At the very end of that, they say: ``We [must] mutually pledge''--pledging to each other--``our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Are we living up to that when we are saying we are going to take away healthcare from millions of Americans in order to have greater tax cuts? You see, people want to just say, ``Oh, it is a government program,'' as if that is a slur, when, really, it is something that we the people, in order to create a more perfect Union, created as a lifeline to tens of millions of Americans that, but for programs like this, would be succumbing to diseases, succumbing to ill health. And we as an entire country would suffer. Think about this not as that slur where they try to call this in ways that try to shift public opinion away from human beings, fellow Americans, our patriots. Think of it instead as a lifeline. It is the reason a child with asthma can breathe easier. It is the reason a senior can receive the care they need in a nursing home--our elders. It is the reason a low-income mother can take her child in for vaccinations or a person with a disability can live with dignity and independence. Congress is entertaining proposals now--conversations are being had in this building and in Senate and House office buildings about how we can gut programs. God, I wish somebody said: In a bipartisan way, let's come together and find healthcare savings. I offered that. I literally said to the now-Secretary of Health--I told stories about private sector folks who saved money by expanding access to food--to healthy, fresh food. Let's say that, because I know private sector companies that have bent their cost curves and saved money not by cutting healthcare but by giving people better access to nutritious, healthy foods. You are what you eat. We are not coming up with bipartisan proposals to save money, to create efficiencies, to do things that can make programs run better. Heck, when I was mayor, we were able to lower expenditures, create more efficiency, have more customer service. There are ways to do that. But no, this is folks coming with an ax to cut your healthcare or your neighbor's healthcare or your elder's healthcare. It is not a government program; it is a commitment we make to each other. In the greatest Nation on the planet Earth, we say we will take care of our children; we say we will take care of expectant mothers; we say we will take care of our own. But they passed that House budget resolution. Republicans who call themselves moderates or budget hawks, they all voted for it except for one, who had this crazy thing to do in Washington--to tell the truth. Massie said that, by their own numbers, this don't add up; what they are pushing on the American people, it is going to steal from the future generations by racking up trillions of debt. He stood on principle. They are not even doing what they are telling us they are going to do. And $880 billion in Medicaid funding cuts, that is not trimming the fat. It is not finding deficiencies. It is not a plan to cut out any possible corruption. It is to make children and expectant mothers and seniors and people with disabilities have a harder time accessing healthcare, which we already said--Martin Luther King said: Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane. Not bigotry, not poverty--two things he fought so nobly against--he said the most inhumane, the most unjust are what we are talking about here. Take away access to healthcare from children, take away access to healthcare from our elders, take away access to healthcare from people with chronic diseases. Why? Why? To cut the deficit? Well, there are some Republicans willing to tell the truth. It is not going to cut the deficit. It is to take from the poor and give it to the rich and powerful. Well, we know the rich and powerful will get bigger tax cuts. They are not shrinking the government, folks. They are creating bigger and bigger governmental obligations. And what do they mean when you look at 10 years out and have trillions and trillions and trillions of more? It means that future generations--or maybe 10 years from now--their debt payments are going to grow more and more and more, taking away more money that we have as a collective body, as Americans, to invest in scientific research, to invest in cutting-edge medical technology. So let's be clear. Let's be clear. Children from low-income families would lose access to routine checkups, vaccinations, and emergency care. Seniors who depend on Medicaid for long-term care, many of whom are already exhausting their life savings, would be left without options. People with disabilities who require constant medical attention, specialized equipment, and home-based services would face uncertainty and loss of those services. And let us not forget the low-income adults who gained coverage through Medicaid expansion, who worked hard every day. They got access to Medicaid through expansion under the Affordable Care Act. For them, this is not ideology. For them, this is not political philosophy. For them, this is life or death. It is about survival. These proposed cuts would also devastate the very infrastructure of our healthcare system. These proposed cuts would also devastate the very infrastructure of our healthcare system. I have heard this from hospitals--again, Republican and Democratic leaders in my State who know our hospitals are speaking to this injustice. Medicare provides nearly 19 percent of all hospital revenue. It allows rural hospitals already on the brink to keep their doors open--rural hospitals. It would take safety-net hospitals that serve uninsured and underinsured populations. Without Medicaid, with these cuts, these institutions would crumble. That is not rhetoric. I have talked to my safety-net hospital. I did an event, and I remember the fear in this hospital administrator's eyes who lives every day to help the poor, to help the uninsured. In many ways, we share a faith, and I know he believes he is answering the highest calling of his country and his faith to help those who come with nothing because when hospitals close and when Medicaid staff lose their jobs, tired communities lose access to care. Ambulances end up having to drive farther and farther. Wait times increase. Lives are at risk. The ripple effects are vast. Schools will suffer when children with disabilities lose access to Medicaid support services like physical therapy, transportation, and mental health support. Children's abilities to learn and thrive is compromised. Schools in rural areas where Medicaid often funds onsite nurses and telehealth programs, they would be stripped of essential support. What we are witnessing is--again, don't get caught in this Washington parlance. This is not a normal time. This is a threat to millions of Americans. It is not a budgetary proposal. It is like the metaphorical sword of Damocles. It is people all over this country who are beginning to see what this really means. It is an economic crisis that would be rolled upon States and rural areas and communities and cities. It is a moral crisis that speaks to the soul of our Nation. It is a deliberate, calculated--and being calculated right now--it is a deliberate and calculated attack on healthcare for Americans in order, again, to give tax cuts to the wealthy. If the enhanced Federal match for Medicaid is eliminated, one of the things on the chopping block: States would be forced to absorb the difference, an estimated $80 billion every year. That is a 29-percent increase in State-funded Medicare spending per resident. To fill those holes, States would be left with impossible choices. Either raise taxes or slash services; education, infrastructure, public safety. For them, they would have to figure out where to get the money from, or else they would be slashing services. It is an unholy choice. Cutting Medicare doesn't make us stronger. It will weaken our economy. It will raise healthcare costs for everyone and push millions of Americans into crises that will ripple and radiate through their lives, their families' lives, their work lives. Hospitals will pass unpaid bills onto insured patients. Healthcare premiums will rise. People will delay care, omit medications, and then show up in emergency rooms later, more sick, and therefore more expensive to treat. And in the end, who pays for it? Who pays for this moral failure, this financial failure? Who pays for it? We do, the American people. And who gets rich on this? Well, I know the last tax cut they wanted to extend to the people who make the most money off this system and these cuts because the tax cuts they will get will be billionaires. And working families in America, the people who are paying insurance rates--hurts; it is hard; it is difficult. The people who have high premiums, copays--it is the rest of us that pay. So I want to talk about the people at risk. There are nearly 12 million people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, our Nation's most vulnerable. They would lose critical wraparound services, services like long-term care, dental care, vision, and nonemergency transportation services that are not luxuries for these folks, but they are lifelines. A higher share, those with both Medicaid and Medicare, have cognitive impairments and conditions, impairments like Alzheimer's, and God, my father who had dementia. We are a well-off family. I saw the challenges, the resources, the drains, the physical challenges for his primary caregiver, my mother. Millions of Americans, though, would rely on Medicaid, and they would face devastating choices; to quit their jobs to provide full care-- full-time care--or leave their loved ones while they go off to work on a job without the support they need. When it comes to Alzheimer's and dementia, I know personally you cannot leave someone without the care. Nursing homes may be forced to shut their doors and cut staffing levels to dangerous lows. In fact, people who can't take care of their elders, they might be going to nursing homes, which again, increases costs for taxpayers. Home healthcare services, often the only thing keeping people and their communities out of institutions, that would disappear. This would be a crisis for elder care. This would be a crisis for disability services. What it is: When a nation isn't taking care of its elders, it is a crisis of our national character. Medicaid also plays a profound role in the success of children and their well-being. Nearly half of all children in the United States are covered by Medicaid and CHIP. Research shows that when children have access to care, they are more likely to stay in school, graduate, and earn more as adults. That is not surprising to people just to think it through. It is true. If kids have access to healthcare, they succeed more in life. Medicaid helps diagnose learning disorders, treat chronic conditions, and ensure children don't fall behind simply because they are born in poverty. It is essential to the American dream, that just because you are poor, it shouldn't affect your destiny. For us to be the America of which we speak, a child born in poverty shouldn't have their future cut off because they can't get the healthcare to empower them to thrive. Talk to any school district in any State in any county. Those resources are necessary to help children. Medicaid pays for nearly half of the births in the United States. The United States, as I said earlier, has a shameful distinction of a massive maternal health crisis. We have the highest rate of maternal deaths of any high-income nation. I am going to say that again: America has the highest rates of maternal deaths--women dying in childbirth or in the days after--of any nation. A majority of these maternal deaths take place during that postpartum period, the days after birth. For years, I fought for Medicaid to provide coverage for women for up to 1 year postpartum instead of just 60 days. In 2022's Congress, I was so happy that States had the option to expand Medicaid coverage for up to 1 year postpartum. It was one of the solutions to this maternal healthcare crisis that expert after expert after expert says: Just make sure those women who gave birth are not knocked off of healthcare after 2 months. As of this January, 49 States, plus the District of Columbia, have expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage past those 60 days. Hey, we are stepping in the right direction to show that we love our moms, we value those lifegivers that are mothers. We value them. But cutting Medicare means potentially eliminating the progress we made toward ending that maternal mortality crisis. There is just no justifying that in a nation this great and this wealthy. We talk so much about children and motherhood. All of us should be coming together about this maternal health crisis, but what is happening now, again, is the very program that has helped us to begin to address this is under attack. When we invest in Medicaid, we are investing in the future. Children will grow up to be healthier, and seniors will age with dignity in rural communities with limited access to healthcare and services and families who don't have to choose between a prescription and rent. This is about health, but I want to tell you, for all those doing the math at home, you cannot have a thriving economic engine without good healthcare. The two are incompatible. Widespread sickness, illness, and disease and people can't get their health issues covered, it takes away from our economic strength. In fact, just cutting Medicaid would cost jobs, nurse's aides, support staff, medical technicians. Entire communities depend on funding that Medicare provides. Cutting it would destabilize State budgets, force those impossible tradeoffs and widen the gap--widen the gap--between the richest in our country and the rest, a gap that is already widening at stunning rates. These cuts are not about efficiency. Don't let anybody tell you these cuts are about efficiency. I know a lot about making government more efficient. This is not about innovation. There are so many things that we as a country should be doing to deal with medical innovation. I will be the first to say: Republicans and Democrats have failed to step up to the 21st century and do things that really can create more efficiencies in our healthcare system. I really hope to see more bold thinkers about creating real efficiency. But what they are doing now is not about efficiency. It is not about innovation. It is not about the heart priorities of Americans who know everything that I am saying. The letters I have gotten, Republicans and Democrats and Independents in my State, scared people--they know what this is about. Republicans in New Jersey who run hospitals know what this is about. This should be a bipartisan strategy to how do we make our society more healthy and less dependent on healthcare. When it comes to healthcare, heck, let's not do the stupid things like cutting scientific and biosciences and the research that often leads to medical breakthroughs. Let's come together and figure out how to deliver services more efficiently. Making Americans healthier, I don't believe them. They are cutting access for kids to fresh and healthy foods. They are cutting school lunch resources. There is a way to do this that should be bringing the best ideas from both sides of the aisle to deal with these issues, but that is not what they are doing. Every data point, every story, hospitals from rural areas to urban areas, everyone is saying the same thing to illustrate the same point: Medicaid is critical to the health of some of the most vulnerable Americans. It is critical to our elders, to our children, to our mothers. It is a lifeline for more than 72 million people. With control of the Senate, the House, and the Presidency, Republicans have the opportunity to dream big. They have an opportunity to lead with a vision for better health in America, to come before the people and Congress and hearings and say: This is our vision for American health and well-being. We are going to show what some private companies did. They cut their healthcare costs and improved the health of their employees by providing better access to food. There are so many good ideas that I learned when I was mayor, from Republicans, from private sector people, but those aren't the ideas coming forward. The ideas coming forward are: Hey, let's just send to the Energy and Commerce Committee the mandate to cut $808 billion. Let's rush now. Let's rush now. Let's get it done before our narrow majority somehow gets undermined. Let's just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, and in the end, what is the result? Americans get sicker, driving up overall healthcare costs, all to give billionaires more of a tax cut. I know the character of so many of my friends in this body on both sides of the aisle. This is not who we are. It is not who we are. But God, there is no big vision, there is no big dream for healthcare. Instead of improving Medicaid and increasing funding, as 42 percent of Americans support, they want to make extraordinary cuts that will demolish the program. They are proposing that $880 billion cut from Medicaid, taking healthcare away from millions of Americans. They want to impose work requirements even though 90 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries are already working or cannot work for legitimate reasons. Arkansas actually tried this. I love case studies. They tried this in 2017, and the results were disastrous. People lost coverage that they shouldn't have, and employment didn't increase. Nationally, such requirements could put 36 million people at risk of losing their healthcare. They are proposing failed policies, not breakthrough ideas, not a bold vision that I know is in America's heart. This repeal that some folks are saying that they want to do to save money, the hatred for the previous President--they want to repeal Biden-era rules that made Medicaid and CHIP enrollment easier, less redtape, easier for seniors and children. Let's repeal that, they say. They want to end a rule requiring minimum staffing standards in nursing homes, including 24/7 access to registered nurses--one of the hardest, most underappreciated jobs in America. Let's give less access to these noble, noble professionals. They propose per capita caps that would upend Medicaid's financial model in every State, leaving States with less money to meet their residents' needs. In States that expanded Medicaid under the ACA, these cuts could jeopardize coverage for 20 million people who gained access. The budget that they are proposing would require deeper cuts. Speaker Johnson claims these changes are about rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse, but that is not what is happening, folks. What is happening is an assault on a program that provides dignity, health, and stability, economic growth, improved outcomes for kids, and more respect for our elders and care for the disabled. Nearly 2 million New Jerseyans, 2 million people in my State rely on Medicaid, and yet our State is slated to see cuts of up to $5.2 billion. Medicaid accounts for a quarter--more than a quarter--of New Jersey's State budget. Think about that. It accounts for more than a quarter of our State's budget. My State--one of the hardest working States that are out there--just their work requirement would put about 700,000 of my neighbors at risk of losing their healthcare. Medicaid covers about one-fifth of hospital spending. At University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey's only level I trauma center, more than $149 million in potential cuts loom. I know this hospital. I have been there when my officers have been injured. I have been there when my firefighters in Newark were injured. I have been there when heroic citizens are injured and brought there. It is our level I trauma center. People from all around our region are sent there. These emergency room workers are incredible. Heck, they have treated me coming out of an emergency. And they are facing $149 million in cuts. And their leadership, knowing how vital that hospital is, how that hospital stands in the breach between life and death, health and illness, they know what it would mean. We should be strengthening this program through innovations that come from people on both sides of the aisle. We should be coming together as a body and saying: OK, let's spitball this. Let's put up the best ideas in America to make things more efficient. Well, wait a minute, you mean if we treat chronic diseases with access to healthy food, we might actually be able to lower diabetes rates, lower hypertension rates, lower obesity rates? Well, that is one great way to make this investment happen. There is technology and innovation that are happening right now with our best scientists that could create better access to telehealth, that could create more efficiency in medical records, that could cut down on mistakes that are still made in medical care, like combining the wrong drugs or other challenges that drive up costs. There are systems that we could create that could create more transparency and eliminate more real fraud and go after the fraudsters themselves in a more efficient manner. There are so many things that we could do if we came together as a body. But what are we doing instead? Following our President that wants his tax cuts renewed. What did those tax cuts do the first time around? Most of the benefits went to the wealthiest people and corporations, and it drove trillions of dollars--the largest deficit growth that we have seen in a generation; rapacious, rapacious, misguided budgeting, creating bigger and bigger debt payments. I remind you that Clinton balanced the budget. Bush--the first President in American history that didn't call for the common sacrifice to go to war. We spent trillions of dollars in those foreign wars. And guess what he said. No common sacrifice. Only about 1 percent of our people will fight in those wars. I am going to give you a tax cut. Well, that makes no sense. You are going to drive up deficits that my children will have to pay for. Obama comes along, and at least he lowers deficit spending, but then Trump comes in and increases it by trillions of dollars on the backs of working Americans to give those benefits to the wealthiest. Now, Biden, who shrunk the deficit a bit--didn't eliminate it--still spent what any fiscally prudent person might say is really problematic. Let's not make this blindly partisan. But for anybody who would criticize Biden and follow Trump into what he is doing with this budget proposal that is going to slash healthcare for millions of Americans, increase the deficit by trillions and trillions of dollars, and make Elon Musk richer and richer--is that your solution? It violates our values. It violates our national character. It violates the highest principles put forth by the most noble people in American history. I stand today--and I will not sit down for hours and hours if God gives me the ability to stand here--because I want to be the voices of Americans. I want to share their voices in this body. I want it to echo in history. I want it to be recorded by these extraordinary people who stand here every day and record my words and my colleagues' words. I want it to be in the Congressional Record. I want DeAnna's story--DeAnna's daughter is disabled, and Medicaid provides her with lifesaving medications, medical equipment, orthotics, and multiple specialists for her rare disease diagnosis. She has life- threatening seizures and requires rescue procedures, medications, oxygen, CPR, and has nurses that accompany her to school and meet her medical needs during the day so that DeAnna can go to work. DeAnna is ``terrified''--she uses this word--she is ``terrified'' of her daughter losing her Medicaid. She is so afraid, she is literally talking openly about going to Canada and asking for asylum there so that her daughter has her healthcare needs met. That is outrageous to me, that an American who is fearful for their child would think about fleeing to Canada for better healthcare. Wendy and Cassie. Wendy is the mother, and she wrote about the threats that Medicaid cuts would pose to her daughter Cassie. Cassie is 32 years old. She has Rett syndrome--R-E-T-T--a rare neurological disorder that significantly impairs even basic motor functions, requiring the individual to have lifelong care and supervision. Without Medicaid funding, Cassie and Wendy would not be able to afford housing, the day program, and the prescriptions that she needs on a daily basis. Tonya and Cameron. God, Tonya uses Medicare and Medicaid to care for her son, her beloved child Cameron. Cameron is battling stage IV cancer and is confined to a wheelchair. Due to the severity of his illness, he cannot be without his cancer treatment and prescription medication. Medicare and Medicaid coverage are for them, they say, a matter of life and death for Cameron. Here is this amazing group in New Jersey, in Cherry Hill--amazing group--the Cherry Hill Free Clinic. Volunteers sustain the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, doctors who give up their own time because they are driven by the conviction that in America, we take care of each other, we love each other. When you say ``Love your neighbor,'' love requires sacrifice and service, and these doctors and professionals that volunteer their time at the Cherry Hill Clinic--I just want to tell you: God bless you. Thank you for living our American values and the values of your faith's traditions. The Cherry Hill Free Clinic provides free healthcare treatment and medication to low-income individuals not just in Cherry Hill but throughout New Jersey. Without the support of Medicare and Medicaid coverage for their patients, the free clinic would not be able to provide the extent of services and care their patients desperately need; they would not be able to be the source of light to so many people that are facing scary darkness. They think: That is not going to happen to me. That cancer diagnosis is not going to happen to me. That rare disease that affects the child--it is not going to happen to me. But when it does and they can't imagine how they will make ends meet, they find in the Cherry Hill Clinic doctors and medical professionals willing to step up. And they have been doing extraordinary things. It would make every American proud. And now they see what is coming from this Republican, from this Donald Trump proposal. Jeanne is an awesome soul. She is a disabled citizen. She relies on Medicaid coverage for her frequent hospitalizations. Without Medicaid, she would be unable to receive the critical care that she needs. God bless you, Jeanne. Susan writes to us. She is a disabled person who is confined to a wheelchair. Susan relies on Medicaid for her healthcare. Medicaid provides her wheelchair transportation to get her to her medical appointments. Without Medicaid, she would not have medical coverage or the transportation means to receive the essential healthcare. Edna. Edna. Edna is 98. God bless her--98. What a life. Now, as a 98- year-old, she has dementia. Her daughter is 78 years old. I can't imagine this moment when you realize at 78 that you can't any longer care for your 98-year-old mom due to her worsening dementia. Edna receives Medicaid coverage and is now able to have full-time care at a rehabilitation center for senior citizens. Her daughter, at 78 years old, is so grateful, so grateful to live in a country where her 98-year-old mom can be in a rehabilitation care center. But they know what savage cuts in Medicaid would do. Randi and Dylan. Randi enrolled her son Dylan in Medicaid. Dylan is 10. He is wheelchair-bound due to Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Dylan requires frequent medical care and daily heart medications to prevent the issues with his heart functioning. Randi relies on Medicaid to provide medical care for Dylan, whom Randi loves so much. Medicaid covers the costs and his critical prescription medications. And then there is Theresa, who recently lost her job, and required urgent medical assessments due to a medical issue that was discovered by her doctor. During what was a difficult time where you go to the doctor and the doctor discovers something that is so urgent you need immediate support, Theresa was without insurance and needed to receive care as instructed by her doctor. Due to her enrollment in Medicaid, she was able to receive the diagnostic testing that she needed. It is a good story, but stories like that have become more difficult if cuts are made. Pamela: Pamela writes that Medicaid is essential to her 22-year-old son's life. He has epilepsy, cerebral palsy, vision impairment, and too many other complex medical issues for Pam to list to us. Medicaid provides his health benefits and is his funding source to attend his day program and receive therapies. Private duty nursing comes to his home, and it pays for vital medications. She writes to me that ``Our private insurance is not enough to cover our son's complex medical needs. We would not be able to pay for his monthly prescription costs, nor the lengthy hospital stays when he is sick. We would not have the nursing hours to support his care to be able to continue to live at home, nor would we be able to leave home on weekdays and have a day program to attend.'' Pamela writes: As his parent, I need to take an early retirement from public school teaching to care for our son because the medical coverage he has just isn't enough. It doesn't provide for his transportation and his day programs. So she is leaving her job early. She writes--and she bolds this: Our disabled community members and their families deserve better. Medicaid provides for a bare minimum existence. And she has a message for the lies being told by too many. She says: There are no excesses here in my house. Sally and Mike: We rely on Medicaid for our two adult children with disabilities for long-term care, especially for my daughter who just finished her 2\1/2\-year chemo treatment regime. We will need it for monthly checkups and prevention of a relapse. We use the funding to provide the much-needed care she needs at home. We also have 90-plus-year-old parents who need Medicaid in order to survive. We are the real sandwich generation, caring for two adult children with special needs and two very elderly parents who couldn't survive on their own. Please do everything in your power to help fund and not cut Medicaid in any way. Thank you for your time and your commitment in helping the more vulnerable population. I mean, Sally and Mike, you are not alone. That sandwich generation, taking care of children and parents. You are taking care of adult children and 90-plus-year-old parents. I hear you. I hear you. Carole: My son Jason is 41 and autistic. He has severe behavioral issues. Medicaid has enabled my son to attend a day program 3 days a week. The program bills Medicaid for his participation. We would not have the financial resources to pay for my son's day program. Medicaid helps us to have our son living at home with his loved ones, not in a group home. We save the State money by taking care of him. Do not cut--do not cut--this vital program. Rosemari: Now, Rosemari says that she has an adult son, and that son has CP, a seizure disorder, cystic--this is where maybe I should have gone to medical school and not law school--cystic encephalomalacia. My cousin, the doctor is here. She would be able to help me if she was down here. But it is her son, her adult son is on the autism spectrum, yet he earned a BA--``yet he earned a BA on the autism spectrum and lives `independently' but with our support and works a part-time job.'' She put ``independently'' in quotes. If he loses his medical coverage, he would not be able to afford to live where he lives and, most importantly, will not be able to afford his meds. He has medications that would run $500 a month. We live with the anxiety. We live with the anxiety. We live with that anxiety that millions of Americans live with; that erodes them; that burns at their spirit. That anxiety that has put millions of Americans in bankruptcy. That anxiety. That anxiety that I can't afford my medications. That anxiety that I can't care for my children. That anxiety that I won't have the resources. That anxiety. We live with the anxiety of Medicaid cuts, every report about what House Republicans are doing. We support anything that can be done to maintain Medicaid. Please, Senator. Danielle, she writes: I am the oldest sibling to my two younger brothers, Matt and Christian, who have been living with a rare neuromuscular disease since they were diagnosed as babies. Throughout their lives, Matt and Chris, along with my parents and family, have fought to ensure that they have the best care possible, despite how unknown and underresearched their condition is. Taking Medicaid away from them would strip Matt and Christian of basic access to specialized care that they rely on and therefore strip them of their dignity and their independence. As someone who has had a front row seat watching two people I love suffer from a neuromuscular condition and as a human being who believes in the right to access medical care, I implore-- I implore; I implore-- our representatives and the Trump administration to consider the devastating impact that these cuts would have on people like my brothers. Slashing funds for an already underfunded program is not only the wrong target in the name of, quote, efficiency, but also a decision that would cement our Nation's treacherous path toward becoming a nation that does not seek-- Does not seek-- justice for all. Instead a nation that only serves those in power, only serves the powerful, only serves the wealthy. As your constituent affected by neuromuscular disease, I am concerned about the potential unintended consequences of the efforts to so-call reform Medicaid. Seventy-two million Americans rely on Medicaid for affordable accessible and State health coverage, including children, pregnant women, parents, seniors, and individuals with disabilities. Any effort to reform Medicaid should not inadvertently prevent patients from having access to the healthcare that they deserve. Danielle, I hear you. Judith: She goes right to the point. Please stop Trump. Please stop Trump now. He is going after Medicaid. I have an adult, severely autistic granddaughter who relies on Medicaid for her special needs program. She writes: A country is judged by how it meets the needs of the weakest people. Please stop him. I want to read your words again, Judith: A country is judged by how it meets the needs of its weakest people. A country is judged by how it meets the needs of the weakest people. Elizabeth writes: Medicaid helps me access healthcare and direct supports in my home, in my community. Cuts to Medicaid would mean I wouldn't have the services I need to live on my own with supports and would be forced to live in a more restrictive setting. Sandra writes: Medicaid has allowed my son's needs to be met at home and not in a group home. It has allowed my husband to participate in his caregiving, not a stranger. It has allowed him to be employed with the aid of a job coach. These are just a few things, in addition to healthcare, if the cuts to Medicaid happen--it goes away. Alicia: Medicaid provides healthcare and services to my developmentally disabled adult child. If Medicare funding is cut, my son will not have the healthcare they need and the programs to attend. Maggie: My 28-year-old son Will has Down's syndrome. He currently lives a full and active, inclusive life. His life is full. His life is active. He is in the community where he is cherished. He lives in the community. He is cherished. He has wonderful support staff and has lots of activities that keep him healthy and happy. His days include volunteering at a senior citizen center, working at the local gym, shopping, leisure activities, speech therapy. He does music therapy. We follow the self-direction model, which is work on my end, but I would not have it any other way. But if Medicare funding is cut, these cuts would impact his livelihood. Nybil: Without my Medicaid, I would not be able to be as mobile nor independent. Without Medicaid evaluating my physical disability, cerebral palsy, and related limitations and prescribing me an electric power wheelchair for daily independence and assistance with mobility and even pain management due to not being able to walk well. I am actually up for a new wheelchair this year, as it was allowable every 5 years for a new wheelchair prescription. Without my Medicaid, I would not have been properly diagnosed with things like sleep apnea in 2017. I now use a CPAP machine to force air into my body so I can sleep peacefully instead of gasping for air at night. Without my Medicaid, I would not be able to be fitted for a leg brace for my physical support and mobility, enabling me to actually stand up straight and walk without my wheelchair. Without my Medicaid, I would not be able to be a full-time employee, a full-time worker. Laura: Medicaid has provided my sister with benefits to help support her medical and mental health issues since she graduated high school. She is now 33 and living with me and my husband after being separated from our parents that are now in assisted living and nursing home arrangements. Wow. Susan has never worked or been married because of her mental disability, and she is dependent on her Medicaid benefits. Please keep these benefits in place for people like my sister who don't have much in their lives they can depend on. Laura, your sister is now living with you after being separated from your parents, who are now in a nursing home. I see you. Michael: I need Medicaid because it provides me the ability to get my anxiety medication and to afford my therapist. I use Medicaid for medical, dental, and visual visits. I wear glasses. Without Medicaid, I am unable to live or function in this world. Robin: Courtney is my 35-year-old daughter with severe disabilities. From 2009 to present, she has needed crucial surgeries, as well as medications and hospital stays. Medicaid has made the financial support for these procedures possible and to save her life. And I know, I can tell from her letter, that Robin loves her 35-year- old daughter Courtney. Mary: Medicaid is helping to improve my daughter's life through the services of the Division of Developmental Disabilities. Without it, she would be left to whittle away at home 7 days a week with no community interaction. She is learning prevocational skills in a manner that she is validated and viewed as a person with strengths. Thank you, Mary. Allison: I am my daughter's caregiver in New Jersey. Medicaid-funded programs allow her to remain an active part of our community at home with her family. If Medicaid is cut, we would lose our healthcare. It would be devastating. Gihan: My daughter has a disability. Through Medicaid, she receives a lot of services that help her improve and progress. Also, to help her stay active and social, she gets speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy. People come to our home to help her as well. If Medicaid cuts happen, she will stop all the services she receives, and her life will be threatened. Please, she must keep her Medicaid because, as a parent, I don't know what I can do with my daughter if that is happening. It will be so hard for her and us. Roseanne: Medicaid has supplied the nurses that take care of my disabled granddaughter that I am raising at home, instead of being sent to an institution. She will put her life at risk for a medical emergency or fatal injury without nurses here. Ash: My daughter takes speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy, and tutoring. So if that is all gone, she will stop progress, and she will be more disabled and will be unable to do anything by herself or live inadvertently. She needs a lot of help. And if these Medicaid cuts happen, I don't know what I will do with her, and it will make life so hard. These Americans are facing challenges that I can't imagine. And what is amazing about so many of them is they find the goodness and the decency of their neighbors, of people who are helping and supporting them, of people who do the jobs, the occupations that many Americans would find incredibly challenging--the occupational therapist, the physical therapist, the person who does the transportation, the nurses that take care of folks. It is a community of people out there that are trying to make our Nation stand for what we say we do. They are trying to show that we are a loving and caring and compassionate community. And what I love is that this is not partisan. I keep saying this over and over again for this whole time I can stand. I hope it is as many hours as possible. I am going to be bringing in the voices of Republicans and Democrats because it is not a partisan issue. Maybe it is in Congress, but the Republicans and Democrats of America don't want Medicaid cuts. They especially don't want them to benefit the richest amongst us, who don't need more help. God bless them. They are doing all right. And it is not going to solve our budget problems. Their budget proposal, as was said by the one lone Republican who voted against it because he is such a fiscal hawk--he said: If you just read their own numbers, this is a lie, a sham. It increases the deficit by trillions. Let me go to some Republicans. Joe Lombardo, the Governor of Nevada: An abrupt reduction in federal funding would not only disrupt care of those who rely on Medicaid, but would also destabilize public and private healthcare providers, leading to workforce reductions, service limitations, and financial strain on already overburdened health care facilities. The Governor of Nevada knows that my mom, my aunt, my uncle, my other aunt--they live in Nevada. My mom lives in a retirement community there. This Governor knows that that State would be hit so hard by a reduction of these services that it would be like an impact that ripples out throughout the State, raising costs, lowering care, hurting Americans, hurting Nevadans. My colleague Mike Rounds of South Dakota said: That is not a cost-cutting measure--that's a cost transfer. He said: And when you've got partnerships with the states, you shouldn't be doing that without having them involved in the discussion. I tell you, I have conversations with lots of my Republican colleagues, and I appreciate this quote from one of them. The Coalition of State Medical Associations writes: On behalf of 50 state medical associations and the District of Columbia, the hundreds of thousands of physicians we represent-- I am adding this. I am sure of both political parties and Independents. Back to what they write: --and the 80 million Medicaid patients we serve, we are united in urging the U.S. [Senate] . . . to protect Medicaid from the devastating $880 billion [cuts] . . . in spending reduction target in the House Budget Resolution. If these cuts are enacted millions of Medicaid patients will lose their coverage and we expect all Medicaid patients to lose some of their existing benefits-- ``All Medicaid patients''--``all Medicaid patients to lose some of their existing benefits''-- and access to essential healthcare services. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Children's Defense Fund, Children's Hospital Association, Family Voices National, First Focus Campaign for Children, March of Dimes, and National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners--they all came together to jointly write: By reducing vital support from Medicaid and CHIP, you would not just be cutting a budget line--you would be eliminating the health prospects of our children, leaving them without the care they need to grow into healthy adults.

Mr. BOOKER. I would yield specifically for a question, yes.

Mr. BOOKER. To my leader, Leader Schumer, I mean, that is the pain of these stories from the families that I read of the fear that they have to rely on these lifelines that are going to be cut and of the services that are going to be cut that are going to affect their beloved parents or their children with disabilities. When they ask the question, Why? Is it for a noble purpose? Is it for collective sacrifice? No. The answer that they have to stare at is that you are going to cut services for my vulnerable child or for my parents in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, in order to give tax cuts to the billionaires. Here is the insult added to that injury: It is also this lie that we are going to be focused on the fiscal strength of our Nation. They are going to give all those tax cuts away and give away healthcare benefits, and the results are going to be even bigger deficits. So people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump--billionaires, where most of these tax cuts will accrue to their benefit--will get more, more, more money. And if you were spending $100,000 a week for the rest of your life, you wouldn't get near the net worth of Elon Musk.

Mr. BOOKER. Yes. Yes.