Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, moments ago I asked this body to take up and pass two commonsense pieces of legislation in response to the terrorist attack in Paris. The first, the Expatriate Terrorist Act, is legislation I introduced over a year ago--attempted to pass over a year ago--and that the Democratic Party blocked. That legislation provides that any American citizen who goes and joins ISIS, who takes up arms against America and attempts to wage jihad, by doing so, forfeits his or her U.S. citizenship. Existing Federal law provides for grounds of revocation of citizenship, and this piece of legislation would add joining terrorist groups such as ISIS to those grounds. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has just objected to passing that commonsense legislation. As a consequence, and because of that objection, it means that Americans--and the estimates are it could be up to or over 100 Americans--who have gone and joined ISIS right now are waging jihad against America. As a consequence of that objection, it means those ISIS terrorists can come back to America using a U.S. passport and wage jihad against this country--attempt to murder innocent men and women in this country using a U.S. passport. That is, I believe, a profound mistake. The second piece of legislation I just asked this body to pass and the Democrats just objected to is legislation that would stop President Obama and Hillary Clinton's plan to bring in tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to the United States in light of the declaration of war from ISIS, in light of the horrific terrorist attack and in light of the admissions from the Director of the FBI, Director Comey-- who I might note President Obama appointed--who said the administration cannot vet these refugees to determine whether or not they are ISIS terrorists. Indeed, he said since they do not have the data on which of the Syrian refugees are involved with ISIS terrorism, they can query the database, but with no information in the database, he said they can query over and over again until the cows come home, but they do not have the information. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party, the Democratic Senators in this body have chosen to stand with President Obama and his absurd political correctness, his unwillingness even to utter the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' The President refuses to say the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' Hillary Clinton refuses to say the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' Not only do they refuse to say the words, but they are supporting a policy of bringing tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees into this country knowing full well we cannot vet them to determine who is coming here to wage jihad. That is a profound threat to this country, and I hope we will stand as one. This ought to be an area of bipartisan agreement. I would note that the legislation I introduced includes an exception for persecuted minorities facing genocide--Christians, Yazidis, small minorities facing genocide. In response to my acknowledging genocide as a different circumstance, President Obama, 2 days ago in Turkey, attacked me directly. He said it was un-American to want to protect this country from terrorists and to want to help persecuted Christians. Then yesterday, President Obama attacked me again from Manila, saying it was offensive that I, and so many millions of other Americans, want to keep our children safe. Mr. President, it is neither un-American nor offensive to believe in the rule of law, to believe in standing up to radical Islamic terrorism. And it is an astonishing statement that so many Democratic Senators choose to stand with a President who will not confront radical Islamic terrorism. Indeed, just this week Secretary Kerry rationalized the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo saying it was understandable why they attacked Charlie Hebdo. We should not be acting as apologists for radical Islamic terrorists. The very first obligation of the Commander in Chief is to keep this Nation safe. And I will say that any official responsible for bringing people in when they do not know if they are radical Islamic terrorists will bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions. ISIS has been plain. They intend to murder as many Americans as possible and they intend to carry out terror attacks here, such as that which happened in Paris. This commonsense legislation would have helped protect this Nation, but I am sorry to say the Democratic Party is objecting to it. I believe we should put America first, protecting America first. Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle are blocking that effort. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont spoke against overheated rhetoric and in the very next breath accused me of being anti-American, echoing the attack President Obama gave standing on the soil of Turkey. Let me say that speaking the truth is not terrorism. My Democratic friends invoked their Irish and Italian grandparents. Well, when my Irish and Italian grandparents came to this country, they did not pose a terrorist threat because they were not seeking to murder innocent citizens. When my Cuban father came as a refugee, he was not a terrorist threat seeking to murder innocent citizens. This is an example of the Democratic Party's refusal to acknowledge the qualitative difference. Perhaps if they cannot see it, they can hear it, because in 2009 the Obama administration released Abu al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. As he was being released, Abu al-Baghdadi turned to Army COL Kenneth King and said: See you in New York. ISIS intends to murder Americans, and if the Democratic Party cannot distinguish between ISIS terrorists and Irish and Italian and Jewish and Cuban immigrants, then they are ignoring reality. I would note that the Expatriate Terrorist Act is very, very similar to legislation that was introduced in 2010 by Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Scott Brown, both of whom apparently, under the view of the Senator from Vermont, are un-American as well. I would note that at the time, then-Senator Hillary Clinton said about legislation virtually identical to my legislation: United States citizenship is a privilege. It is not a right. People who are serving foreign powers--or in this case foreign terrorists--are clearly in violation of the oath which they swore when they became citizens. Yet President Obama and the Senator from Vermont apparently now consider Hillary Clinton's statement to be un-American. It is the essence of being American to say the Commander in Chief should protect the safety and security of this country. I would note that the assistant Democratic leader invoked President Hollande in France. President Hollande said he would support stripping French citizenship. We should protect ourselves every bit as much as the other nations on Earth.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after I promulgate two unanimous consent requests, the remaining time between now and 11 a.m. be equally divided between myself and the assistant Democratic leader.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 247 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRUZ. I will be happy to.

Mr. CRUZ. I would note the senior Senator from California characterized Kate's Law--and this is a verbatim quote--as ``going overboard and punishing everyone.'' Kate's Law is targeted only to aggravated felons. It is only murderers and rapists and other violent criminals--those who have committed aggravated felonies and have reentered the country illegally. So what the Democratic Party has attempted to do, what the Democratic leader has attempted to do is to suggest that incarcerating illegal immigrants who are murderers and rapists is somehow maligning or impugning immigrants. To the contrary, it is targeting violent criminals. I do not believe the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules, like my father did, are in any way swept into a law that is targeting aggravated felons. Aggravated felons is a discreet category. Had Kate's Law passed 5 years ago, Kate Steinle would still be alive today.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I would note with regard to Kate's Law, the senior Senator from California just said that going overboard and punishing everyone is not something we should do. This is reprising the same thing the Democratic leader said--that somehow incarcerating aggravated felons is punishing everybody. As the son of an immigrant, I take offense at the suggestion from the Democratic Party that every immigrant is somehow an aggravated felon. Incarcerating murderers and rapists is not punishing everybody.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, you know I will tell you it is sad that the Democratic leader chooses to stand with violent criminal illegal aliens instead of American citizens, but even sadder is that he impugns legal immigrants. When the Democratic leader suggests that incarcerating aggravated felons, murderers, and rapists who illegally enter the country is somehow a slight to immigrants--I am the son of an immigrant who came legally from Cuba. There is no one in this Chamber who will stand and fight harder for legal immigrants than I will. For the Democratic leader to cynically suggest that somehow immigrants should be lumped into the same bucket as murderers and rapists, it demonstrates the cynicism of the modern Democratic Party, it demonstrates just how out of touch the modern Democratic Party is. You know who does not agree with the Democratic leader? The voters of San Francisco--I would venture to say almost all of whom consider themselves Democrats. Yet they just voted out the sheriff for saying basically the same thing the Democratic leader did, for saying that the Democratic Party stands with violent felon illegal immigrants instead of the American citizens. Let's listen to what the Democratic leader just said: Gosh, it would cost too much to incarcerate aggravated felons who illegally reenter the country. If it costs too much to lock up murderers, rapists, kidnappers, then you know what, we need to spend the money it needs to lock up every single murderer we can. I am sorry the Democratic Party does not want to spend the money to lock up murderers, and instead apparently it is cheaper to lose our sons and daughters. I think we have the resources to lock up murderers. There should be no confusion where the parties stand. The Democratic leader suggested that locking up aggravated felons is somehow disrespectful to immigrants. With all respect, as the son of an immigrant, I believe immigrants who come here legally, who are not criminals, should be treated markedly different from murderers and rapists. Yet the Democratic Party chooses to stand with the murderers, rapists, and violent criminals. That is unfortunate, indeed. Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 224 Mr. President, I would now like to turn to a second matter. This is a matter I have raised a number of times on the Senate floor and intend to continue raising. It is the matter of the human rights abuses in the People's Republic of China. I would like to talk about some specific examples, starting with the one-child policy. I want to talk to you about Feng Jianmei. PRC officials forced Feng Jianmei, who was 7 months pregnant with her second daughter, to undergo an abortion. While her husband Deng Jiyuan was at work, five family planning officials abducted Ms. Feng on June 2, 2012. When she could not pay the fine of 40,000 RMB, they restrained her and forcibly aborted her daughter. As her husband recounted, ``At the hospital, they held her down. They covered her head with a pillowcase. She could not do anything because they were restraining her.'' The so-called ``medics'' forced her to ``sign'' an abortion consent form by inking her thumb and pressing it against the paper. Then they proceeded to inject toxins into the brain of her unborn daughter. After the injection, Jianmei suffered excruciating contractions until 3 a.m. on June 4. Then, having received no anesthesia, she gave birth to her deceased child. Jianmei said: I could feel the baby jumping around inside me all the time, but then she went still. It was much more painful than my first childbirth. The baby was lifeless. She was all purple and blue. In an act of heartlessness that is difficult to comprehend, the so- called doctors who performed this abortion left the lifeless body of Feng's 7-month-old baby on her bed beside her, leaving a bereaved mother with nothing but the sight of what could have been. Feng Jianmei's father-in-law rushed to the hospital, but family planning officials prevented him from seeing Jianmei until after the abortion. After seeing her mother for the first time after her forced abortion, Feng's elder daughter innocently inquired, ``What happened to your tummy? Where did the baby go?'' Reggie Littlejohn, a world-renowned human rights activist who broke this story in the United States, stated in the wake of this tragic story: ``This is an outrage. No legitimate government would commit or tolerate such an act.'' China is among the leading nations in suicide rates. It is the only nation where more women commit suicide than men. A large contributing factor to this morose distinction is the totalitarian one-child policy. Another example is the crackdown on lawyers. When the United States engages with China in any sort of bilateral negotiation or agreement, we have to understand that the rule of law is not a reality in the PRC. Despite laws duly passed by the National People's Congress, and a supposed Constitution, the reality since 1949 remains unchanged: China has a ``rule of the party''--the Communist Party--and it is ready to punish anyone who challenges its violation of the law within the legal system. The latest example is human rights lawyer Pu Zhiquiang. In early May 2014, Pu attended a small, private seminar where the participants discussed the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the party's violent suppression of students. Pu was a student leader during the infamous 1989 protests, so marking the auspicious occasion was no doubt of personal importance to him. The following month Pu was arrested and charged with ``illegally obtaining personal information of citizens'' and ``picking quarrels and provoking trouble.'' As the year progressed, PRC authorities added additional charges ``inciting splittism'' and ``inciting ethnic hatred.'' In May 2015, a Beijing court officially indicted Pu on two of these charges, and he remains in custody today. While legal officials cited Pu's criticisms of the PRC's treatment of the Uighur ethnic minorities, his real offenses were taking cases and representing victims of forced eviction and shining a light on China's labor camps. His defendants included a who's who of China's prominent political dissidents, including Liu Xiaobo--a brave, selfless action that undoubtedly painted a target on Pu's back. Prior to his arrest, the PRC praised Pu as a paragon of social justice. The state-run China Newsweek magazine named Mr. Pu the most influential person in promoting the rule of law in 2013. This is a microcosm of life in authoritarian China: Compliance with the party and compliance with the law are often at odds, and the party always wins. In the past year, Beijing has detained and jailed hundreds of activists standing for the rule of law, ideals the party ostensibly espouses. Words are one thing; public embarrassment of public officials is quite another. Xi Jinping and his cohorts cannot abide the erosion of their credibility or anything that would threaten their legitimacy. A third example is Pastor Zhang Shaojie. Under President Xi, the atheist Communist Party of China has targeted Christianity for special oppression. Using a campaign in Zhejiang--a province which President Xi ran earlier in his career--to forcibly remove crosses from churches, in some cases, the PRC has gone on to bulldoze entire churches and to arrest pastors and congregants for standing boldly for their faith. Persecution of Christianity is not confined to Zhejiang. One such victim of this crackdown is Pastor Zhang Shaojie. On July 24, 2014, the Nanle County People's Court, ignoring domestic and international due process provisions, sentenced Pastor Zhang Shaojie to 12 years in prison on a count of ``fraud'' and ``gathering a crowd to disrupt public order.'' Again, arrest charges in China do not reflect reality. Prior to his arrest, Pastor Zhang was defending the rights of his church in regard to the land they had purchased. Pastor Zhang and his parishioners traveled to Beijing three times in November 2013 seeking resolution of the land dispute. Maybe this is what the People's Court meant by ``fraud.'' According to his congregants, the minister also had a ministry of helping victims of legal injustice seek restitution. Perhaps this is what the Communist Party referred to in its charge of ``disrupting public order.'' The following month, the Puyang Municipality Intermediate People's Court rejected Zhang's appeal. In October, the Nanle County Court threatened to auction off Zhang's house to pay for a court-ordered fine, ordering Zhang's family to leave the house by October 26. In response, Zhang's mother physically stood between the Chinese officials and her home, holding gasoline in one hand and a lighter in the other. It is a sad reflection of China's supposed progress on human rights when a citizen feels her only recourse against a dictatorial regime is the threat of self-immolation. His sister, having been detained, along with several of Pastor Zhang's parishioners, suffered in one of China's most infamous black prisons for 1\1/2\ years. Her words, penned in this letter, require no substitute: I am Zhang Cuijian, one of the Nanle County Christian Church members detained in 2013. When my brother was kidnapped, I went with other church members to the public security bureau for information about his detention. Unexpectedly, I became the target of arrest, as well as more than a dozen other church members. We became prisoners who were unprepared and innocent. The prison was hell on earth; no other words can describe it. In prison, I was very grateful. I truly felt that God was with me, even though I suffered punishment in prison. I had a thankful heart; I had joy from God. I deeply know my true and living God. While my body suffered, my heart was free. God let me learn different life lessons. I know that the more persecution I endure, the greater the blessing. In America, we should stand with victims of oppression. In America, we should stand with Christians being persecuted by the brutal Communist totalitarian dictatorship. In America, we should stand for women's rights. Women being forced to have abortions are horrific acts of brutality. They are inhumane. They are contrary not only to American values but to human rights across the globe, and they are carried out as a matter of policy in the People's Republic of China. When it comes to Chinese oppression, when it comes to Communist oppression, this is not an abstract or academic matter for me. My family has been tortured at the hands of Communists in Cuba. My father was imprisoned and tortured by Batista in Cuba, and my aunt was imprisoned and tortured by Castro's Communist goons in Cuba. Communist oppression is real, and we have a powerful example of what America could do. When the Soviet Union was in power, this body renamed the street in front of the Soviet Embassy ``Sakharov Plaza.'' Renaming that was done by President Reagan. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley introduced the resolution in this body. Every day the Soviet officials had to write on the address of their Embassy: ``Sakharov Plaza,'' honoring the imprisoned dissident. This resolution is to use the same power of moral clarity, the same power of shaming, and the same power of speaking the truth to shine a light on the oppression in China. When Senator Grassley took the lead with Sakharov Plaza, that helped shame the Soviet Union into changing their conduct. We should use the same moral authority with respect to the People's Republic of China. My resolution is cosponsored by Senator Rubio, Senator Toomey, and Senator Sasse. It was on a path to being unanimously approved in this body. Every Republican had signed off on it and initially every Democrat had as well. Yet moments before it was about to pass the Senate, unfortunately the senior Senator from California decided to come to the floor and object. After objecting, after blocking its passage, Senator Feinstein put out a press release, a press release with which I agree emphatically. Senator Feinstein observed, powerfully, that ``we urgently request the Chinese government to allow Liu Xia to seek medical treatment abroad and release Liu Xiabo, the world's only jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate.'' Senator Feinstein was exactly right. If anything should bring us together in bipartisan agreement, it should be against the Communist Party's wrongful imprisonment and oppression of a Nobel Peace laureate. Yet sadly, each time I have attempted to follow the successful pattern of Sakharov Plaza, to rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy ``Liu Xiabo Plaza,'' the senior Senator from California stood and objected. For the life of me I cannot understand why any Member of this body would choose to stand with Communist Party oppressors against dissidents, against human rights, against women's rights, against the rights of those standing to speak for freedom. Yes, we have to negotiate with the Chinese. Yes, we have to talk to them. Just like in the Cold War, we negotiated at Reykjavik with Gorbachev, but we did it from moral authority and truth. If we are afraid of even embarrassing the Communist Party, if their conduct doesn't embarrass them, we shouldn't shy away from speaking the truth. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 224. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, our country does many things well, but our government in Washington often fails the people whom it exists to protect. One of the best examples is the Obama administration's failure to enforce our Nation's immigration laws, despite the American people's continued demands that the Federal Government follow its duty to do so. It is worth noting that just yesterday the voters of San Francisco voted to replace the sheriff who had defended the sanctuary city policy. That is a striking statement of where the American people are on this issue. Unfortunately, the Democrats in the Nation's Capitol refuse to listen to the American people. Just 2 weeks ago, Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would have imposed a 5-year minimum mandatory sentence on criminal aliens who have illegally reentered the country. This issue is too important to give up and this fight is far from over. That is why I intend to call up Kate's Law for its urgent and immediate passage in the Senate. This bill is named in honor of Kate Steinle, who died tragically in the arms of her father on a San Francisco pier after being fatally shot by an illegal alien who had been deported from the United States multiple times. When it comes to stopping sanctuary cities and protecting our safety, we need governing, we need leadership, and we need elected officials in Washington to listen to the people we are elected to represent. We need to actually fix the problem. Enough hot air, let's demonstrate we can come together and solve this problem. This ought to be a clear choice. With whom do you stand? Do you stand with violent criminal illegal aliens or do you stand with American citizens? Do you stand with our sons and daughters and those at risk of violent crime? I hope my colleagues in the Senate will come together and stand in bipartisan support that we stand with the American people. I will note that Bill O'Reilly has been tremendous, calling over and over again on leaders of this body simply to pass Kate's Law. This is not a partisan issue, at least it should not be. We should stand with American citizens. I am reminded of the heartbreaking words of Kate Steinle as she lay in her father's arms. She simply said: ``Dad, help me.'' Well, we have an opportunity to determine if we are willing to listen to her dying words, if we are willing to stand with her. I would note, by the way, this should not be a red State-blue State issue. For the people of San Francisco to throw out of office the sheriff responsible for the policies that led directly to Kate Steinle's murder indicates that even in the bluest of blue cities and the bluest of blue States, the American people are tired of politicians standing with violent criminal illegal aliens. This should bring us together. We should stand together and say we will protect the American citizens. I will tell you, the Obama administration's record on this is shocking. In 2013, the Obama administration released from detention roughly 36,000 convicted criminal aliens who were awaiting the outcomes of deportation proceedings. These criminal aliens were responsible for 193 homicide convictions. They were responsible for 426 sexual assault convictions. They were responsible for 303 kidnapping convictions. They were responsible for 1,075 aggravated assault convictions. They were responsible for 16,070 drunk driving convictions. On top of that, the Obama administration had another 68,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions whom the Federal Government encountered but never even bothered to take into custody for deportation. That is over 104,000 criminal illegal aliens the Obama administration is responsible for releasing to the public. I ask my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle how you look in the eyes of a father or mother who has lost their loved one because of a violent criminal illegal alien, who has murdered, who has raped, who has assaulted, who has kidnapped, who has brutalized your child? We are responsible for the consequences of our actions. Kate's Law is commonsense legislation. It is legislation that says: If a criminal illegal alien who is an aggravated felon--who is the worst of the worst--illegally reenters this country, comes in a second time, that criminal illegal alien will face a mandatory minimum of 5 years in prison. If Kate's Law had been passed 5 years ago, Kate Steinle would still be alive. That means every Democrat who stands up and blocks Kate's Law needs to be prepared to explain why standing with violent criminal illegal aliens is more important than protecting American citizens. I am proud to have joining me as cosponsors of Kate's Law Senator Grassley, Senator Vitter, Senator Rubio, and Senator Perdue. They are all coming together in what should be bipartisan leadership to protect the American citizens. Mr. President, accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2193; further, that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. CRUZ. With respect, I would note that the only overreaching rhetoric that has been heard on this floor has come from the Democratic leader, suggesting somehow that targeting violent criminals is targeting all immigrants. It is worth noting that Kate's Law addresses only aggravated felons. So the suggestion of the senior Senator from California that we should not assume aggravated felons are criminals is a statement that, on its face, makes no sense. They are by definition. It is only the violent criminals--the aggravated felons--that this is targeted to. I will say I am encouraged, though, that the senior Senator from California stated she would become interested in the Judiciary Committee taking this up. As she noted, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is here. There is unanimous support on the Republican side of the aisle, and it would truly be significant if the senior Senator from California were willing to join with Republicans in targeting actual aggravated felons, which is what Kate's Law does. The Senator from California says she doesn't want overheated rhetoric. The rhetoric has been coming from the Democratic side. What I have been saying is we should not be releasing violent criminal illegal aliens. That is a commonsense proposition that the overwhelming majority of the American people agree with. Let me also make a point about the objection of the senior Senator from California--for the third time now--to my effort to stand up to Communist Chinese oppression. It is one thing for Members of this body to give a good speech, to send a letter, and to put out a press release. That is something Washington does a lot. It is something we are really quite good at. It is another thing to act. We should be acting. We should be leading. Now, the Senator suggested this would be counterproductive. I would note that the senior Senator from California did not address the fact that when we followed the exact same strategy in the 1980s under President Reagan, with Senator Grassley's leadership, in renaming the street in front of the Soviet Embassy Sakharov Plaza, it had a very positive effect. Now, the Soviets didn't like it. They howled mightily. But the heat and light and attention of world scrutiny helped to change their behavior and helped to win the Cold War. To Liu Xiaobo, to Liu Xia, to all the human rights dissidents imprisoned in China, to the mothers who faced forcible abortions, I hope my words penetrate the dark prisons in which they are sitting. I hope my words serve as light and encouragement to each of them. I think back to when my father and my aunt were in Cuban prisons, and how much I would have liked leadership in the United States to shine a light of hope and encouragement. Some months ago, I met with Natan Sharansky in Jerusalem. He described how, in the dark of a Soviet gulag, President Ronald Reagan's words shined into that darkness and prisoners passed from cell to cell: Did you hear what President Reagan said? Evil empire, ash heap of history, tear down this wall. Those words, that moral clarity, that American leadership for human rights changed the world. If we stand together, we can do the same thing with regard to China. As much as I hope my words penetrate those cells, I pray the words and actions of the senior Senator from California do not penetrate those cells. It saddens me that, in the face of unspeakable brutality and evil, the Democratic Senator chooses to align herself with the Communist Party dictators rather than a Nobel Peace laureate. My hope is that time and reflection will cause the senior Senator from California to recognize that we should be united in a bipartisan manner in support of human rights. It is my hope that we stand together. I intend to continue to submit this resolution over and over and over, because every time the light is shined on the grotesque evil of what China is doing, we are vindicating our values of who we are as Americans. It is my hope, as I speak out to the Chinese American citizens in California, in Texas, and across this country, that their voices are heard by their senior Senator from California, that the Chinese American citizens ask their senior Senator: Why is it that you are standing and defending the Communist Government in China for its human rights abuses? That is not a question I would want to answer to my constituents whom I am charged with representing. It is my hope that all of us say: Listen, we can disagree on all sorts of political matters. We can disagree on marginal tax rates. But when it comes to forced abortions, when it comes to imprisoning and mistreating and torturing political prisoners, including a Nobel Peace laureate, the United States Senate stands in unanimity, 100 to nothing. That is my hope--that, in time, truth will prevail. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order. Thereupon, the Senate, at 10:07 p.m., adjourned until Friday, October 30, 2015, at 12:01 a.m.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, for many months I have been speaking about what I call the Washington cartel. The Washington cartel consists of career politicians in both parties who get in bed with lobbyists and special interests in Washington and grow and grow and grow government. I believe the Washington cartel is the source of the volcanic frustration Americans face across this country, and it is difficult to find a better illustration of the Washington cartel than the charade we are engaged in this evening. This deal we are here to vote on is both shockingly bad on the merits and it is also a manifestation of the bipartisan corruption that suffuses Washington, DC. What are the terms of this budget deal? Well, in short, what the House of Representatives has passed, and what the Senate is expected to pass shortly, is a bill that adds $85 billion in spending increases-- $85 billion to our national debt, $85 billion to your children and my children that they are somehow expected to pay. I don't know about your kids, but my girls don't have $85 billion lying around in their rooms. This bill is put together in a way only Washington could love. The spending increases, when do they occur? Surprise to nobody, $37 billion in 2016, $36 billion in 2017, and $12 billion in 2018. But we were told, fear not; there are some spending cuts to offset them. And wonderfully, miraculously, ostensibly there are supposed to be a few spending cuts in 2020, then 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. At the very end, 10 years from now--when my daughter Caroline will be getting ready to graduate high school, she is 7 now--we are told $33 billion will be cut in 2025. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn and I have some beachfront property in Arizona. Nobody in this Chamber believes that. Nobody in the House of Representatives believes that. No member of the press believes that. Everyone understands this is a lie. It is an agreed-to lie by everyone. We will spend now for a promise that 10 years hence we will magically cut spending that will never ever, ever occur. That is on the face of it, but beyond that it is worth thinking about just how much $85 billion is. It is more than the Senate negotiated with the House when Harry Reid was majority leader. When Harry Reid was majority leader the Ryan-Murray budget agreement--which was a flawed agreement and an agreement I voted against--increased spending by $63 billion over 2 years. So what does it say that a supposedly Republican majority of the Senate negotiates a bigger spending bill than Harry Reid and the Democrats? When Harry Reid and the Democrats were in charge of this body they jacked up spending and our debt $63 billion. When the Republicans take charge, whoo baby, we can do it better--some $85 billion. Not only that, this deal is not content with spending increases. It also takes the debt ceiling and essentially hands President Obama a blank credit card. It says to the President: You can add whatever debt you like for the remainder of your term with no constraint from this body. We are abdicating any and all congressional authority over the debt that is bankrupting our kids and grandkids. Now the Presiding Officer and I both campaigned telling the citizens of Nebraska and the citizens of Texas that if we were elected we would fight with every breath in our body to stop the spending and debt that is bankrupting our kids and grandkids. How, pray tell, does handing President Obama a blank credit card for the remainder of his tenure do anything to follow those commitments? Let me note that for the remaining 15 months we are going to see a binge from this President that makes the preceding 6\1/2\ years pale. For 6\1/2\ years we have seen an assault on rule of law, an assault on our constitutional rights, a retreat from the world stage, all of which I think will pale compared to what is coming in the next 15 months. In the next 15 months abroad, I have said before, we are essentially in a Hobbesian state of nature, where the enemies of America have made the judgment that the Commander in Chief is not a credible threat, so they are limited only by the limits of their own strength. It is like ``Lord of the Flies.'' On the regulatory side, we are seeing a press on every front to go after economic freedom--to destroy small businesses, to destroy jobs, to destroy our constitutional liberties. When it comes to spending, I shudder to think what President Obama for the next 15 months will do with a blank credit card that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Republican majority in the Senate are preparing to send him. American Express has a whole series of credit cards. It has the green card, the introductory card. I remember when I was a freshman in college--I was 17 years old. I got an application for an American Express card. I was really excited. I got an AmEx when I was 17. It was a green card. Now, if you spend more and you spend more, eventually you can upgrade to a gold card, then you can upgrade to a platinum card, and then you can actually upgrade to a black card above that. Well, I have to say, a multi-trillion-dollar Presidential card has to be an extraordinary card. I assume it is encrusted in diamonds and glows in the dark. That is what the Republican majorities have just given President Obama--a diamond encrusted, glow-in-the-dark AmEx card, and it has a special feature. The President gets to spend it now, and they do not even send him the bill. They send the bill to your kids and my kids. It is a pretty nifty card. You don't have to pay for it. You get to spend it, and it is somebody else's problem. Not only is this bill spending us deeper and deeper into a hole, it is chock-full of gimmicks. These are gimmicks that everyone writing them knew were there. For example, it contains a spending gimmick that targets single-employer pension plans while ignoring the oncoming union multi-employer pension plan funding tsunami. Beyond that, this bill also addresses ObamaCare. But what does it do? It provides a targeted ObamaCare fix for big business--those with more than 200 employees. By repealing the law's automatic enrollment provision, which requires employers to automatically enroll new full- time employees in one of the company's health plans unless the employee opts out. What does it say that the Congress of the United States exists to provide a special exemption for giant corporations but turns a blind eye, turns a deaf ear to the small businesses being driven out of business over and over and over again by ObamaCare? What does it say? If you are a giant corporation in America, if you have armies of lobbyists, then fear not, the Washington cartel is here for you--a special carve-out, no doubt just as soon as you hand over your campaign contribution. For the small business we are facing a time unique in recorded history, where more small businesses are going out of business than are being created. For as long as they have kept records, that has never been true until recent years under the Obama economy. Why does that matter? That matters because over two-thirds of all new jobs come from small businesses. When you hammer small businesses, you end up getting the stagnation, the misery, the malaise we have right now. When you hammer small businesses, you have young people coming out of school who can't find jobs, who have student loans up to their eyeballs but can't find a job. When you hammer small businesses, you have people like my father, who in the 1950s was a teenage immigrant washing dishes, unable to find a job. What does it say that Congress will pass a special exemption for giant corporations, but for the single moms, for the teenage immigrants, for the young African-American teenagers struggling to achieve a better life there is no answer to their plight? To some 6 million Americans who had their health insurance canceled and their doctors canceled because of ObamaCare, there is no answer to their plight. To the millions of Americans who have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket so they can no longer afford them, there is no answer to their plight. But fear not, the cartel is here for the giant corporations. Let us be abundantly clear. The cartel is not a partisan phenomenon. It is not just the Democrats--although it is most assuredly the Democrats--but there are far too many Republicans as well who are card- carrying cartel members who, when the K Street lobbyists summon action, snap to attention. Look at what else this deal does. This deal additionally takes $150 billion the next 3 years from the Social Security trust fund and moves it to the disability insurance fund. I would advise all Members of this body the next time you are home and visiting with a senior, the next time the topic of Social Security comes up, if you vote for this deal tonight, be sure to say: Ma'am, just so you know, I voted to take $150 billion out of your Social Security. Because that is what they are doing. That is what they are doing. They are saying to seniors: Well, there is a little bit of money here, and we are going to take it and move it over here. Why? Because actually fixing the disability program, reforming the program would be too difficult. Stepping forward to address the fraud in that program would be too difficult. Stepping forward to put in place work incentives to help people with disabilities find meaningful work, even if it is not everything they are capable of--a great many people with disabilities are capable of meaningful work--reforming that program to help people work to provide for their families makes a difference in people's lives, but that isn't easy. That is hard work. That is actually what we were elected to do. It is far easier just to raid the Social Security trust fund, far easier to pull $150 billion from our seniors and reallocate it and do nothing, zero, to fix the underlying problem. The deal also sells 58 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is always interesting to see the Federal Government selling off Federal assets. I have argued for a long time that we should be selling off Federal land, far too much of which in this country is owned by the Federal Government. I am not talking about national parks, which are a treasure that should be preserved; I am talking about the vast amounts of land that are held, utterly nonproductive, by the Federal Government. So it is a good thing that this bill is selling some assets, but it is interesting, No. 1, that they estimate that will yield $5 billion because they estimate it will be selling at $86 a barrel. I have to say, representing the State of Texas, if you know how to sell oil today at $86 a barrel, you are truly a magician because it is selling at about half that right now. But when it comes to budget trickery, just make up a number and put it in there. As I said before, on this chart everyone knows it is a lie. Nobody believes it is true. It is a game. It is the Washington game. I would note that in selling 58 million barrels of oil, they are not using that revenue to pay down our national debt. If they are actually selling assets, we would think it would go to something at home. If you sell an asset and have a massive credit card debt, the prudent thing to do would be to use the revenue from that asset to pay down that credit card debt. Oh, no. It is just more and more spending. A group called the Conservative Action Project consists of the CEOs of over 100 organizations representing all of the major elements of the conservative movement, the economic, social, and national security conservatives. They sent a letter to this body. The letter reads as follows: The latest budget deal negotiated by the White House and outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, the bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, proposes increasing spending by $85 billion over the next three fiscal years. What the deal doesn't include are meaningful accountability measures that ensure responsible spending levels. The deal would allow Treasury unfettered borrowing power until 2017 in exchange for theoretical budget cuts down the road. The included offsets are spending gimmicks, at best. According to budget analyses from the Congressional Budget Office and The Heritage Foundation, the deal would result in spending increase of $85 billion over the next three years, while significant spending cuts would not take place for another ten years--until 2025. Furthermore, we cannot reasonably expect that a future Congress will abide by these measures. Moreover, the busting of the caps presently is proof that the gimmicks which promise reform later are hollow. This ``bipartisan deal'' indicates a dangerous trend that has become commonplace in Washington--rather than hard questions about spending, the Congress is choosing to eliminate the possibility of those conversations or votes for the next two years. Furthermore, the deal represents total surrender on important conserve principles, while capitulating to every demand of the White House. It is this sort of irresponsible spending that has resulted in a national debt of over 18 trillion dollars. For the first time in nearly six years, Republicans have control of both Houses of Congress and a real chance to send responsible budget reforms to the President's desk. A responsible alternative would acknowledge the importance of appropriating funds for government operations while simultaneously addressing our statutory debt limit and staying within the budget caps. Instead, lawmakers have forgone the chance at meaningful reforms and instead are digging us deeper into the mire of debt our nation has already accrued. In potentially the most egregious portion of the deal, the Overseas Contingency Operation or ``OCO'' fund, which is dubious in and of itself, is typically designated for efforts to support troops on the ground in emergency situations, is turned over to a slush-fund for non-defense spending. We oppose the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 not only because it fails to curtail spending, but it prevents future reform for an entire two years. Lawmakers should reject this deal, and attach earnest, meaningful reform to any hike of the debt limit. It is signed by former Attorney General Edwin Meese, the Honorable Becky Norton Dunlop, and dozens of respected conservative leaders across this country, across the full spectrum of the conservative movement--across fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, national security conservatives, all united, the conservative movement. Many of the people who worked very hard to elect us to this body, many of the people who worked very hard to give us a Republican majority in the Senate are now all speaking in unison saying: What in the heck are you doing? Some of them may be using stronger language than that. This bill we are voting on was not cooked up overnight. This wasn't a slap-dash on a Post-it last night. This represents days or weeks or months of negotiations. This represents the cartel in all of its glory because this is the combined work product of John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid. The entire time Republican leaders have been promising ``We are going to do something on the budget; we are going to rein in the President,'' they have been in the backroom negotiating to fund every single thing President Obama did. I am reminded that it wasn't too long ago that we saw El Chapo dug out of his prison cell. One of the first things you realized when El Chapo was dug out is that tunnel wasn't dug overnight; the drug cartels spent many weeks or months digging that tunnel. Well, our leadership, the leadership of the Washington cartel, has spent many weeks and months breaking El Chapo out on the American people, digging us deeper into debt. It is contrary to the promises our leaders have made. In August of 2014, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was quoted as saying: So in the House and Senate, we own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what's called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We're going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board. . . . All across the federal government, we're going to go after them. Let me ask, have we done any of that--any of that at all? Now wait, leadership might come back and say: Well, sure. We have appropriations bills. There are riders. But the Democrats are filibustering. Everyone understands why the Democrats are filibustering appropriations bills. When Republican leadership begins the negotiation by peremptorily surrendering, by saying, ``We are going to fund everything, 100 percent of what you want,'' what rational Democrat would ever agree to allow an appropriations bill to go forward? I am reminded of a football game. In a football game, if the coach comes out at the beginning of the game when the coin is being flipped and forfeits, we know the results in 100 percent of those games. In 100 percent of those games, that team will lose. Sadly, that team is the American people because it is Republican leadership that goes out and forfeits at the coin toss over and over again. That was in 2014. In 2015, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed ``some big fights over funding the bureaucracy,'' saying that his party would use spending bills now being written in the GOP-controlled Congress to extract policy concessions from President Barack Obama. Where are those policy concessions? Where are those fights? I don't recall seeing any fights. Actually, that is not fair. There are fights--fights against conservatives; fights against efforts to rein in the Obama administration; fights against efforts to stop the spending; fights against efforts to turn around our debt. On that, Republican leadership fights ferociously. But where are the promised fights against the Obama agenda, on anything? Name one concession. Let's go back to the substance of this deal. One of the things this deal does is it utterly makes a mockery of the Budget Control Act. It abrogates the budget caps. It wasn't too long ago that Republican leadership was touting the Budget Control Act as one of the greatest successes of Republican leadership. Indeed, when asked ``Well, why does it matter to have Republicans in control?'' typically the answer would be ``Look at the Budget Control Act.'' Here is another quote from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Politicians regularly come to Washington promising fiscal responsibility, but too often they can't agree to cut spending when it counts, and that is why the Budget Control Act is such a big deal. Mind you, a big deal that right now the Republican Congress is abrogating. Since Congress passed the BCA with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 2011, Washington has actually reduced the level of government spending for 2 years running. That is the first time this has happened since the Korean war. Leader McConnell continuing: The BCA savings are such a big deal, in fact, that the President campaigned on it endlessly in 2012. Yet the lone fiscal accomplishment supposedly of the Republican majority, this deal throws overboard. They didn't have much to point to, but they had this one: We have the budget caps. Guess what. We don't have those either. Then there is the debt ceiling. In 2011, then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell talked about what the debt ceiling should be used for. This is a quote from an op-ed he wrote: What Republicans want is simple: We want to cut spending now. Does this do this? No. We want to cap runaway spending in the future-- Does this do this? No-- and we want to save our entitlements and our country from bankruptcy by requiring the nation to balance its budget. Again, this does not do this. We want to finally get our economy growing again at a pace that will lead to significant job growth. Well, surely there are some pro-growth measures in this. No. That wasn't an isolated statement. Earlier in 2011, Leader McConnell explained that ``no president--in the near future, maybe in the distant future--is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction.'' That was 4 years ago. Why is it that the Republican leadership is giving President Obama trillions in more debt without any--let's go back to Leader McConnell's words--``re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction''? That was a clear promise made to the American people, and this deal makes that promise a mockery. It makes it an utter mockery. Instead, Republican leadership is taking the lead to remove the debt ceiling from Barack Obama. He will never have to worry about it again. Why do these matter? Why do we have these fights? To understand why, we have to understand the dynamics of Congress today. In Congress today, there are essentially three types of spending bills. No. 1, there are show votes. Show votes are a particular favorite of leadership. Show votes are anything, frankly, that men and women who are elected care about. They will tee up a show vote. We have had show votes on Planned Parenthood. We have had show votes on the Iran nuclear deal. We have had show votes on amnesty. Show votes are designed for all the Republicans to vote one way, all the Democrats to vote the other, and for us to lose. Show votes are a game of political posture. Leadership is happy to give show votes. Frankly, leadership is irked that the men and women who elected us are not satisfied with show votes anymore. There was a time when politicians in Washington could look down at our constituents and say: They don't understand what is going on. If we give them a show vote, they will be satisfied with that. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the floor: The electorate has gotten much more sophisticated, much more educated, and much more informed. With the advent of the Internet, with the advent of social media, people can now tell a show vote. A vote that is designed to lose from day one, that is an exercise in political theater, in Kabuki theater, is not, in fact, honoring the commitments made to the men and women who elected us. There is a second type of legislation which is simply a collective spending bill that pays off the Washington cartel, pays off the lobbyists, and that can often get bipartisan agreement. If you are giving money to giant corporations, it is amazing how many Democrats and Republicans can come together to say: Hey, these corporations write campaign checks; we are all for that. The pesky taxpayers don't know enough to fight against this. We can keep them in the dark, so let's keep robbing the single moms waiting tables to take her paycheck and give it to the giant corporation. That stinks. Do you want to know why America is mad? That is it right there, the legalized looting that occurs in this city every day. Then there is a third type of vote. That is the must-pass legislation. I would note that this year in the Senate there are a number of Senate freshmen. Senate leadership has done what Senate leadership always does, which is wrap their arms around Senate freshmen and bring them into the bosom. One of the things I am hoping Senate freshmen observe firsthand--I have not been here much longer than Senate freshmen, but one of the things you quickly realize is the only fights that have any chance of actually changing law, the only fights that have any chance of actually changing policy are must-pass bills. If you want to do more than a show vote, if you want to actually fix a problem, if you want to actually address a wrong, you either fight on the must-pass votes or you do nothing. Those are the choices. Leadership knows that must-pass votes are typically one of three things: They are continuing resolutions, they are Omnibus appropriations bills, or they are debt ceiling increases. If you look historically at how Congress has reined in a recalcitrant President, it has been through continuing resolutions, Omnibus appropriations, or debt ceiling increases. If leadership foreswears using any of them, we will not use any must-pass legislation to do anything. Do you know what that means? That means Congress in the United States has become all but irrelevant. That is what leadership has done. It is all captured in one innocuous little statement: no shutdowns. That is what leadership has promised. We are going to have no shutdowns. Listen, to most folks that sounds like a very reasonable proposition. In the private sector, you generally don't shut a business down. Saying we are not going to shut things down seems very commonsensical, but here is the problem. When you are dealing with zealots and when you are dealing with ideologues and you tell them if they do the following, I will surrender--if you tell them ``if you say the word `zucchini,' I will give in,'' we all know what will happen. Immediately they will begin saying ``zucchini, zucchini, zucchini.'' That is Washington today. Republican leadership in both Chambers has told President Obama we will never ever allow a shutdown because, Lord knows, the last time we had a shutdown, it resulted in us winning nine Senate seats, taking control of the Senate, retiring Harry Reid as majority leader, winning the largest majority in the House, and, goodness gracious, we don't want that to happen again. Once Republican leadership tells Obama we will never ever allow a shutdown, then suddenly the President has a little furry rabbit's foot in his pocket. On any issue, any fight, any topic that comes up whatsoever, all the President has to do is whisper quietly in the wind ``shutdown'' and Republican leadership runs to the hills. It is a wonderful negotiating tactic. Why is this happening? Because President Obama whispered ``shutdown,'' and leadership said, ``We surrender.'' If you are not willing to fight on any must-pass legislation, we will not win anything. Leadership responds, though, that it is not reasonable. You cannot win. You can never win a fight on must-pass legislation. The problem with that is history is to the contrary. As John Adams famously said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' Of the last 55 times Congress has raised the debt ceiling, it has attached meaningful conditions to that 28 times. It has historically proven the most effective leverage Congress has. When leadership says--and by the way, when press outlets echo leadership in saying that it is hopeless, nothing can be done, do not fight on these issues, they never seem to address the reality of history that is directly to the contrary. Gramm-Rudman, one of the most significant spending restraints in modern times, came from the debt ceiling. If Congress wasn't willing to fight on the debt ceiling, you would have no Gramm-Rudman. Yet leadership might respond: OK. Fine. Historically that was true but not with Barack Obama, not with Harry Reid. This current incarnation of Democrats--they are too partisan, they are too extreme, they are too zealous, and it will never work with them. The only problem is that is not true either. Indeed, what we are talking about right now--the Budget Control Act-- came from the debt ceiling. The newly elected majority in the House of Representatives used the debt ceiling to extract the Budget Control Act from President Obama, which until just recently leadership hailed as their greatest fiscal success in modern times. If the tool that yielded their greatest fiscal success was the debt ceiling, why would leadership say we will never use it again? It is like the San Francisco 49ers of great saying that we are never going to again allow Joe Montana to throw to Jerry Rice. That worked too well-- never again. If you discover a tool that works, who in their right mind would say we will take off the field forever the tool that has proven most successful in reining in the President? I don't know if anyone in their right mind would, but that is in fact what congressional Republican leadership has done. This debt ceiling is kicked down the road until the end of the Obama Presidency. I would note that when Speaker Boehner announced his resignation on that day, I predicted this outcome. On that day, within minutes of Speaker Boehner announcing his resignation, I stated publicly that what this means is that he has cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to raise the debt ceiling and to fund the entirety of Obama's agenda for the next 2 years. It was interesting. When I said that, there were those in the media who criticized me: Oh, you don't know that. Why are you so cynical? Why would you say such a thing? I would say such a thing because I understand how the Washington cartel operates, how it is not two parties, but it is in fact one party--the party of Washington. I mentioned that this deal took months to negotiate. We are seeing the fruits of it right here. This is exactly what I predicted the day John Boehner resigned. Why? Because that then freed the Speaker to pass this through the House of Representatives. How many Democrats do you think voted for this? I will tell you. It was every single one of them. One hundred percent of House Democrats who voted, voted for this, and 79 Republicans voted for it--a handful, a small minority of Republicans. So how did this pass the House? With all the Democrats, House leadership, and a handful of Republicans. How is it likely to pass this body? Every Democrat will vote for it. Republican leadership will vote for it, and they will get some of the Republicans. That pattern--a lameduck Speaker of the House cutting a deal with a lameduck President to add $85 billion to our national debt and to give away any and all leverage for the Obama administration--that is what this deal means. It is worth understanding. This deal means Republican majorities in Congress will extract nothing of significance from President Obama. This deal means that Republican leadership has fully surrendered. It is interesting. They call it clearing the decks. That is a uniquely Washington term. You recall back in December the trillion- dollar CRomnibus bill. The very first thing we did after winning majority in both Houses was also called clearing the decks. Boy, these decks need a lot of clearing. I have to say, these chairs get rearranged like they are on the deck of the Titanic, and no one addresses the fact that the ship of the United States is headed toward the iceberg. With $18 trillion in debt that the party of Washington, the Washington cartel, has created--and it is complicit and growing--the only people losing are our kids and their kids and the future of this country and the future of the free world. That is all that is being lost. But, hey, there are cocktail parties in Washington this week. Lobbyists are hosting them. They are writing checks. If we actually stood up to that, that would be difficult. There is a reason so many politicians talk about standing up to Washington. Yet so few actually do it because it is far easier to take the path of least resistance. It is far easier to go along to get along. It is far easier simply to agree, to be agreeable, to get along. Why can't you get along with the politicians who are bankrupting your children and my children? Do you know what? I don't make it a habit to acquiesce to people who are doing enormous damage to this country. That is what we are seeing. What could have been done instead? Imagine a hypothetical. Imagine we had Republican leadership that wanted to fight on something, on anything. For Pete's sake, at this point, I think most voters would say: Give me something that matters and fight on that, whatever it is. They are so frustrated. How can it be that we won majorities in both Houses and there is nothing, nothing that matters to the people that we are willing to fight on? Do I think the continuing resolution or the debt ceiling could have magically transformed this country? Do I think we could have done fundamental, wholesale reforms? Probably not. That would have taken truly inspired leadership. That may be asking too much. If we couldn't have solved every problem, is the alternative really that we could have solved nothing? Is the alternative really that we had to give Obama everything and do nothing to fix the problems? Let me suggest seven things this deal could have included. How about the Default Prevention Act? It is legislation Pat Toomey introduced. He also calls it the Full Faith and Credit Act. Every time we have a debt ceiling fight, the Democrats scaremonger. They say: If you don't raise the debt ceiling, America will default on its debt. Let's be clear. That is a blatant lie. They know it is a lie. I will note that when Barack Obama was Senator Obama, he voted against George W. Bush raising the debt ceiling. He said it was unpatriotic to raise the debt ceiling. That is when the debt was about half of what it is now. Everyone who votes here later tonight, you should remember that Senator Obama said that if you are voting to raise this debt ceiling, what you are doing is unpatriotic. Those are the words of a young Barack Obama, but there is reason it is a lie. Every month's Federal revenue is about $200 billion. Interest on the debt runs between $30 billion and $40 billion a month, which means in any given month there are ample revenues to service the debt. No responsible President would ever allow a default on the debt. Indeed, what a responsible President should do is stand up at the very outset and say: Let me be clear. Under no circumstances will the United States ever, ever default on its debt. That is what a responsible President would do. Sadly, that means that is not what President Obama has done. Instead, what he does consistently when we approach a debt ceiling is to threaten to default on the debt if we don't give him a blank credit card. What does the Default Prevention Act do? It says that in the event the debt ceiling is not raised, we will always, always, always service our debt. We will never ever, ever, ever default on the debt. I recognize that there are some skilled demagogues in Washington, but how exactly does the Democratic Party demagogue Republicans for risking a default on the debt in order to pass legislation preventing defaults on the debt? That is some slick talking. But you know what. The Republican leadership didn't want to do that, because if we did that, then when we face the next debt ceiling, conservatives would expect us to say: OK, let's use this leverage to fight for something, and they don't want to fight for something. The Democratic scaremongering is useful because they are working to meet the same priorities. If you pass the Default Prevention Act, then suddenly some spines might stiffen and people might be prepared to fight, and that is a nightmare to leadership--that we would actually fight. So, no, no, no, no, we will not attach the Default Prevention Act. How about another one--shutdowns? Senator Portman has legislation preventing government shutdowns. There is one promise that Republican leadership has made that is carved in stone, and that is that we will never, ever, ever, ever allow a shutdown. So if there was anything on Earth to attach to this deal, it would be that. Senator Portman's legislation says: In the event a continuing resolution isn't passed, in the event that appropriations expire, funding will continue, but it will gradually ratchet down slowly over time. If we pass that bill, there will never ever, ever again be a government shutdown. Gosh, if I listened to the rhetoric of leadership, I would think they would want to pass that bill. Why isn't it in this? The answer is simple: Because if it were in this, Members of this body would actually expect us to stand up and fight for something. Instead, leadership wants to be able to tell the freshmen--the new Members of the Senate-- that a shutdown is terrible. It is the worst thing in the world. So we can't fight for anything; so you must acquiesce in everything that Obama wants. If we actually passed legislation prohibiting shutdowns, that scaremongering would be taken off the table. Democrats don't want that because Democrats support shutdowns. If we look at the last shutdown over ObamaCare--revisionist history aside, because the media loves doing revisionist history--Republicans voted over and over and over to fund the government, and it was Harry Reid and Barack Obama who shut down the government. Reporters scoff at that when they hear it without ever acknowledging that Harry Reid very publicly said: Gosh, we think shutdowns help Democrats politically. Why is it a difficult proposition? If the leader of the Democratic Party says that we think a shutdown is politically beneficial, why is it difficult to understand that they are the ones forcing a shutdown? The last thing Democrats want is to take shutdowns off the table. The dirty little secret--the mendacity in this body--is that the Republican leadership doesn't want that either. They don't want us standing and resisting anything because it is not two parties; it is one party. What else could we have done? How about growth? Remember Mitch McConnell's comments about economic growth? Why doesn't this bill have a provision lifting the ban on crude oil exports? That would produce economic growth across this country. It is a no-brainer economically. Is this in there? No. Did we try? No. Maybe it was brought up behind closed doors, and the Democrats laughed and said no and we surrendered. I don't know. It doesn't matter because leadership is not willing to fight for it. If you are not willing to fight for it, it won't happen. What else could we have done? We could have repealed the waters of the United States rule, one of the most crushing rules that is hammering farmers and ranchers and poses an immense threat to jobs across this country. By the way, there is even some bipartisan opposition to it in this body. But fear not, next week we have a show vote on the waters of the United States bill scheduled. Leadership is very happy. We will have a show vote. We will get to vote, and it will fail. Every farmer and rancher that is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs because of this rule should rest assured that our show vote will allow us to pretend to be with them. Why not attach to this a provision rescinding the waters of the United States? Because that would actually prompt a fight. How about another option on the spending side? How about putting in a work requirement for welfare? In the mid-1990s, welfare reform was one of the most successful policy reforms in modern times. It moved millions people off of welfare and into work, out of poverty and into the middle class. It lifted their spirits, their hopes, their dreams. It provided the dignity of work. It provided children with homes that were more stable, had more future and more opportunity. We could have added that to this. Is that here? No. Why? Because President Obama would fight it. It is contrary to his big government agenda to expect anyone receiving welfare to work or look for work. By the way, let me say as an aside, that you are not helping anyone when you make them dependent on government. You are not doing them a favor when you sap them of the dignity and self-respect of going to work. Arthur Brooks has a wonderful new book out. One of the things that he talks about is the happiness that comes from going to work and working hard, the dignity that comes from looking your kids in the eyes and having a job. The Democrats are not helping the people they trap with dependency; they are hurting them profoundly. I have said many times that when my dad was a teenage immigrant in the 1950s, washing dishes and making 50 cents an hour, and he couldn't speak English, thank God some well- meaning liberal didn't come put his arm around him and say: Let me take care of you. Let me make you dependent on government. Let me give you a check. Let me sap your dignity and self-respect. It would have been the most destructive thing you could have done to my father. We could have fought that fight. But did we do that? No. What about adding a provision of Internet tax freedom--permanently? The Internet will be tax free in perpetuity. I tried to bring that up numerous times. The Democrats can be expected to routinely block it. Why? Because they want to threaten taxing the Internet. That is some money. Ain't nothing politicians in Washington like more than a chance to get their grubby little hands on our dollars and our freedom. How precisely did we lose this fight if in the course of this we simply attached permanent Internet tax freedom to this fight? Are Republicans really that lousy at political battle that we fear the President would shut down the government, blame us, and we would collapse in ignominy because we fought for Internet tax freedom? Holy cow--if we are that bad at this, why are we doing this? I have one other option. How about auditing the Federal Reserve? That is something else that has bipartisan support, something else that would address the effects of debasing the currency. One of the effects of debasing the currency is seniors, people who saved their whole lives are seeing their savings devalue. They are people who are struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. Single moms are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Those are seven things we could have added to this. By the way, I would note that when leadership says, ``Gosh, you are being unrealistic to expect us to fight,'' I didn't say any one of those is a must-have. I gave a choice of seven. Is it really the case that we could have fought for nothing? Is that really the case? That is what leadership tells us. No, nothing pro-growth, nothing limiting spending, nothing addressing any of the promises we make--that is the position of leadership. I ask my Republican colleagues to name one thing President Obama is unhappy with regarding this deal. There is an old line that if it is a good negotiation, both sides are unhappy, both sides will have given something. Name one thing that President Obama is unhappy with. What did we get in return? Name one thing. The answers to both questions are exactly the same--nothing. The fact is, President Obama has already told us what he thinks of this deal. Just this week he stated: ``I'm pretty happy about the budget deal because it reflects our values.'' Whose values are those? He is right. This budget deal reflects the Obama values. Who negotiated this budget deal? That would be Republican leadership. What does it say that Republican leadership's budget deal gives President Obama everything he wants because it reflects Obama's values? This is why the American people are so frustrated. We keep winning elections and nothing changes. In 2009, we were told that if only you had a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, then things would be different. We rose up, and millions of us in 2010 won a majority. And very little changed. Then we were told the problem was the Senate--Harry Reid and the Senate. If only we had a Republican majority in the Senate, then things would be different. In 2014, millions of Americans rose up again, and we won another historic tidal wave victory. We won nine Senate seats and retired Harry Reid as the majority leader. The Presiding Officer and I have been here 10 months. Is there one single accomplishment we can point to that the Republican majority has given to the men and women who elected us? Mind you, there are things we have accomplished. It just wasn't anything we promised the men and women back home. One of the things I discovered as a freshman is how often leadership would effectively pat you on the head and say: Now, son, that is what you tell the folks back home. We don't actually do it. You don't expect us to actually do those things. A few weeks back, I was meeting with a number of House Republicans. I suggested to them to go back to their districts and convene a townhall and set up a whiteboard and just ask their constituents: What should be the top priorities of Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress? Make a list. If you make a list of 20 things from your constituents-- the Presiding Officer is from Nebraska and I am from Texas--I guarantee you that of those 20 things at least 18 of them will be nowhere on the leadership's priority list. They are simply not what majorities are endeavoring to do. The second thing I suggested to the House Republicans was to go down to K Street and assemble the biggest lobbyists in Washington. Take out that same whiteboard and ask them: What are your top priorities? Write a list of 20 things, and 18 of them will be leadership's priorities. That is the divide. People ask me: Is it that leadership is unwilling to fight? Is it that they are not very good? Do they not know how to fight? Sadly, it is worse than that. They know how to fight. They are actually quite capable of it. They are willing to fight. It is whom they are fighting for. Washington is working, but it is just not working for the American people. It is working for the giant corporations, it is working for the lobbyists, and it is working for the rich and powerful. Six of the 10 wealthiest counties in America are in and around Washington, DC. That is whom the Washington cartel works for. That is the basic divide. Indeed, as we look back over the last 10 months, one is left with the conclusion--and a rather shocking conclusion--that Majority Leader McConnell has proven to be the most effective Democratic leader in modern times. Now, that is, in the parlance of Washington, a surprising statement. Let's take a moment to review the statistics. Between January and September 30 of this year, there have been a total of 269 rollcall votes. In the same time period in the prior Congress under Harry Reid, there were 211 rollcall votes. Let's look at the differences, and in particular, I want to focus on the total number of times a majority of Democrats voted aye, a majority of Republicans voted no, and the measure passed. Now, if someone is an effective Democratic leader, you would expect them to be able pass legislation when a majority of Democrats support it and a majority of Republicans oppose it. Indeed, if you are a partisan Democrat, that would be almost the definition of an effective Democratic leader. Nineteen times in the last 9 months, this so-called Republican majority has passed legislation and has had a vote succeed where a majority of Democrats supported it and a majority of Republicans opposed it. One example we can look to is DHS funding--funding for the Department of Homeland Security when President Obama issued his lawless and unconstitutional Executive amnesty. Republicans across the country campaigned, promising to stop it. The Presiding Officer and I campaigned together in his home State of Nebraska. I spent 2 months in the year 2014 campaigning with Republican Senate candidates all over this country. I think for those 2 months before that election I slept in my own bed about 5 days. Over and over again, Republican Senate candidates said: If you give us a majority in the Senate, we will stop this unconstitutional amnesty. I have to tell my colleagues I shared with Republican leadership, How about we honor that commitment. The response from leadership was, I didn't say that. I can tell my colleagues Senate candidates across this country did because I was standing next to them when they said it. What happened? When we voted, all 45 Democrats voted aye; 100 percent of them. That is impressive for a leader to get 100 percent unanimity among his party. Notice I said ``his party.'' There is a reason I said that. Right now, sadly, the majority leader Mitch McConnell is the most effective Democratic leader we have seen in modern times. One hundred percent of the Democrats were united. How about Republicans? Well, 31 voted no and 23 voted yes. So under this majority leader, the Democrats had their way and a majority of Republicans lost. Surely that is an outlier. Yes, the President was behaving lawlessly. Yes, he was behaving unconstitutionally. Yes, indeed, he was behaving, in his own terms, like an emperor. Let me note calling a President an emperor, that is fairly overheated rhetoric, but it is not my rhetoric, it is President Obama's. President Obama was asked by activists, could he decree amnesty unilaterally, and he said: I don't have the constitutional authority to do so. I am not an emperor. Those are Barack Obama's words: I am not an emperor. Just months later, magically, that same power he said he didn't have under the Constitution--just months before a Presidential election--it materialized. Suddenly, the man who said ``I am not an emperor'' apparently became an emperor, in his own assessment. Yet what did the Republican majority in the Senate do? It joined with 100 percent of the Democrats to overrule a majority of the Republicans in funding President Obama's lawless amnesty, acting as an emperor. The Presiding Officer and I both sat through a Republican lunch a couple of weeks ago where our colleagues were quite puzzled why approval of the Republican majority is at such low levels. They couldn't understand why right now Republicans in Congress have a 10- percent lower approval rating than we had in the middle of the shutdown. They were utterly befuddled by this. I am going to suggest a very easy reason. When our leader acts like an effective Democratic leader, the people who elected us, their heads explode. Surely one might say this is an isolated example. Well, let's look at the next example, yet another example, the Bennet climate change amendment. This climate change amendment said climate change is real, it is manmade, it is a national security threat, and we need to act to stop it. Listen, let me say something on global warming. I am the son of two mathematicians and scientists. I believe we should be driven by the scientific evidence. Sadly, the far left is not interested in science or evidence, they are interested in politics and political power. So when it comes to global warming, they do not want to confront the inconvenient truth, as Al Gore might put it, that the satellite data demonstrates there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 18 years. They get very angry when we point that out. We had an amendment on that. How many Democrats voted for it? Oh, look, again, 46, 100 percent, every single Democrat. How many Republicans voted against it? Forty-seven and just seven Republicans voted for it. Yet it passed. That is an impressive victory for a Democratic leader. We just have 46 Democrats. For a Democratic leader to get a win with just 46 Democrats, that is impressive. That is what the current majority leader did. He produced a win, ran over the wishes of 47 Republicans. Let's use another example: a motion to waive the budget rules on H.R. 2. This was the so-called doc fix. The doc fix has been a perennial challenge in Congress. It is part of Medicare that assumed unreasonable cuts in doctor reimbursement rates. For a time, it served a purpose. It actually allowed Washington politicians to shake down the doctors election after election after election to write checks. So for a time the Washington cartel liked the doc fix, but it came time to get rid of it, and getting rid of it was a good thing. Here is the problem. When we got rid of it, we didn't pay for it. We just put it on a credit card. We didn't do the hard work of figuring out how to pay for it, we just accepted more debt. Well, but at least it is not that much more debt. Well, unfortunately, it is. This so-called doc fix will spend more than $200 billion and add more than $140 billion to our deficits over the first 10 years and more than $500 billion to our Nation's deficits over 20 years--$500 billion. Look, even in the world of Washington, $500 billion is real money, but surely it is unreasonable to expect anyone to figure out how to pay for a doc fix. It is interesting that since 2004 Congress has passed periodic doc fixes, and since 2004 doc fixes have been fully offset 94 percent of the time--and 98 percent of the time if we count some of the budget gimmicks. If we count the gimmicks, it is 98 percent of the time. Just this time, $500 billion, no, we are not going to offset that. We are just going to put it on the credit part. After all, Obama has a platinum-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark AmEx. We will put it on your kids and my kids. What does that irresponsible profligate spending do? Well, how many Democrats voted for it? There is a surprise, every single one of them: 46 Democrats. The Republicans: 29 Republicans vote no, 25 vote yes. Now, for a Democratic leader, what a great victory. A Democratic leader, with just 46 Democrats, added $500 billion in spending without paying for it. Holy cow. I don't recall Harry Reid ever being able to campaign saying: Give me a Democratic majority and I will add $500 billion in spending without paying for it. This is an accomplishment the prior Democratic leader, Harry Reid, was not able to achieve. Yet the current majority leader got this win for the Democrats. Let's look at the next example: Confirmation of the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch. I serve on the Judiciary Committee. I participated in multiple hearings where Ms. Lynch over and over again refused to acknowledge any limits on President Obama's authority whatsoever. When Ms. Lynch was asked how she would differ from Eric Holder, who has been the most lawless and partisan Attorney General this Nation has ever seen, she said: No way whatsoever. When pressed repeatedly if she could articulate even a single limit on the authority of this President, who has since implicitly declared himself an emperor, she refused to articulate even a single limit. When asked if she would appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the IRS for wrongfully targeting citizens because of their free speech, because of their political views--mind you, something that when Richard Nixon tried to do it, the career professionals at the IRS refused. Richard Nixon was rightly denounced in bipartisan terms for attempting to use the IRS to target his political enemies. When the Obama administration not only attempted but succeeded in doing so, no one has been held to account. Instead, the Holder Justice Department, appointed and charged with the investigation a major Democratic donor who has given over $6,000 to President Obama and the Democrats. There is a Yiddish word for that, ``chutzpah.'' When you appoint a major Obama donor to be in charge of the investigation as to whether the Obama administration is targeting the political opponents of the President, miraculous, miraculous, the results we just saw: a whitewash, everyone was exonerated. Mistakes were made, we were told. It was rather classic. They used the same passive tense, passive voice as in the Watergate scandal: Mistakes were made. Yes, mistakes were made. Well, Ms. Lynch told us, no, she would not appoint a special prosecutor. Now, a number of Members of this body, a number of Republicans voted to confirm Eric Holder. That may or may not have been a mistake. I was not here at that time. I did not have the opportunity to examine his record prior to his being appointed Attorney General. I can understand those who voted yes. Prior to becoming Attorney General, Eric Holder had built a reputation, by and large, as a law-and-order prosecutor, and so we can understand Senators who would believe that his tenure as U.S. attorney, his tenure as Deputy Attorney General might suggest he would not be partisan in laws. With Ms. Lynch it was qualitatively different. With Ms. Lynch she told us she would do the very same thing. I suspect that quite a few people on this side of the aisle have given speeches about the IRS target. No one should be surprised the Department of Justice has now exonerated everyone, because, you know what, we confirmed the Attorney General who basically told us she would do that. I would note, by the way, the majority leader had complete and unilateral authority. If we hadn't taken up this nomination, she would not have been confirmed. Indeed, when President Obama put in place his illegal Executive amnesty, I publicly called on the soon-to-be majority leader. If the President violates the checks and balances of the Constitution, if the President usurps the authority of Congress, if the President ignores our immigration laws, then the majority leader should have responded and said the Senate will not confirm any Obama nominees, executive or judicial, other than vital national security positions, unless and until the President rescinds his illegal amnesty. Now, that would have been strong medicine, to be sure. That is a serious pushback. It happens to be an authority directly given to the Congress by the Constitution as a check and balance. How do we get an imperial Presidency? We get an imperial Presidency when the other branches of the government lie down and hand over their authority. Nothing prevented the majority leader from doing so, other than that violates the norms of the Washington cartel, and so instead it was the majority leader who brought this up for a vote. And what happened? Sadly, there is no drama or suspense anymore in looking to what happened. With the Democrats, all 46 Democrats voted to confirm Loretta Lynch--all 46--and 34 Republicans voted no. Yet she is confirmed, and the lawlessness continues at the Department of Justice. I have to say for a Democratic leader, it is not clear to me Harry Reid could have gotten this done. Harry Reid, in charge of this floor, with just 46 Democrats, it is not clear to me at all he could have gotten this done, but I have to say, Leader McConnell has proven to be a very effective Democratic leader. With just 46 Democrats, the outcome is exactly what Harry Reid and the Democrats would want. Is this not a curious state of affairs? Why is a Republican majority leader fighting to accomplish the priorities of the Democratic minority? We will look at one other example, the Export-Import Bank. Now, President Obama, when he was Senator Obama, described this as a classic example of corporate welfare. Over $100 billion in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees going to a handful of giant corporations, predominantly. Yet as we talked about before, if there is one thing the Washington cartel is good at, it is corporate welfare. The Export-Import Bank, how many Democrats? Here is a shot: Only 42 Democrats, not 100 percent. We had one, I believe it was Bernie Sanders. I will commend Senator Sanders for standing up against this corporate welfare. On that, he and I are on exactly the same page. Yet 42 Democrats, just 22 Republicans in favor of this corporate welfare; 28 Republicans voted no. Yet what happens? It passes. Now, it is not at all clear that Harry Reid, as Democratic leader with just 42 Democrats--it is not at all clear he could have gotten this done, but Leader McConnell, once again, is a very effective Democratic leader. And I would note one of Speaker Boehner's parting farewells was to tee up the Export-Import Bank in the House of Representatives. It expired this summer. We talked before about how the Budget Control Act was one of the few victories Republican majorities could point to. Actually, the expiration of the Ex-Im Bank is another one. An example of over $100 billion of taxpayer loan guarantees to a handful of giant corporations, and it expired. What does it say that in the period of 2 weeks Republican majorities in both Houses are working to undo not one but both of the only two meaningful victories the Republican majorities have produced? And, mind you, for the same reason--because the cartel demands it, because the giant corporations want it, and because they want checks. What does that say? What does that say, indeed. Well, if you want to know what it says, we can look to the previous Democratic leader, Harry Reid, who tweeted out: I commend Senate majority leader for setting up a vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. This bill is critically important for U.S. businesses. Set aside how rich it is for the Democrats to be claiming to be fighting for U.S. businesses. Any time they say that, what they mean is cronies, because when Washington, particularly under the Obama administration, fights for U.S. businesses, it is giant corporations and not the little guys. Over and over and over again it is those who employ armies of lobbyists and lawyers and accountants who get favors from Washington, because when Washington is handing out favors, it empowers politicians. Ayn Rand wrote in ``Atlas Shrugged'' about how productive members of society, business owners, would be forced to go to parasitical politicians--although some suggest that is a redundant phrase--to go to parasitical politicians on bended knee begging for special dispensation. When you are standing for business, it means giant corporations that pay little to no taxes because they have tax loopholes carved in. It never means the mom and pop, it never means the little guy, it never means the Sabina Lovings of the world. Who is Sabina Loving? Sabina Loving is a woman who testified before the Senate in a hearing I chaired a couple of weeks ago. Sabina Loving is an African-American woman, a single mom who started a small tax preparation company on the South Side of Chicago. The Obama IRS put in place new rules regulating tax preparation authority, rules for which they had no legal authority. In fact, they used a statute called the Dead Horse Act as their justification for regulating tax returns. The Obama IRS regulation exempted lawyers, it exempted high-priced accountants, it exempted the rich and powerful, the giant accounting firms, but Ms. Loving, who started this business on the South Side of Chicago, was facing thousands of costs--costs she felt that would drive her out of business. Ms. Loving sued the IRS and Ms. Loving won. If you want a historic and incredible story of a single mom standing up against Big Government and the lawless regulations of the Obama IRS-- well, you know what. Sabina Loving has no lobbyists in Washington. The Washington cartel doesn't listen to the Sabina Lovings. It listens to the rich and powerful corporations that write checks to both parties because it is one party, the party of Washington. That is the sad reality of where we are. You want to know why the American people are frustrated. You want to know why they are ticked off. You want to know why they cannot understand. It is not that we keep losing elections. That would be frustrating, but you could understand. We have to do a better job. We have to motivate people. We have to convince people. We have to get a message that resonates. We keep winning and the people we elect don't do what they said they would do. By the way, to leave the Ex-Im Bank unauthorized all Congress had to do was do nothing. If there is one thing the U.S. Congress is good at doing, it is doing nothing. Yet the phrase that gets repeated so often--Washington is broken--is actually not true. Washington is working. It is just not working for the American people. It is working for the cartel, it is working for the lobbyists, the giant corporations, and those with power and influence in the Obama administration. This deal is a classic example of the Washington cartel. I would note, by the way, today we have a new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. I congratulate Paul Ryan on his speakership. I hope we see bold, principled leadership from the new Speaker. One of the things Speaker Ryan articulated was the Ryan rule, that under Speaker Ryan they would not bring to the floor of the House any bill that didn't have majority support among the Republican conference. I ask the Presiding Officer: Why doesn't Majority Leader Mitch McConnell articulate a similar rule for the U.S. Senate? If the Ryan rule is good enough for the U.S. House, why is the Ryan rule not good enough for the U.S. Senate? In every one of the examples I just gave were a majority of Democrats--in fact typically unanimous Democrats--beat a majority of Republicans. Every one of those would never have come to the floor if the Senate followed the Ryan rule. How about that for a meaningful reform; that if the majority leader disputes the characterization that he is the most effective Democratic leader modern times has seen, how about the majority leader promulgate a similar rule to the Ryan rule, that we will not bring to the Senate floor something that does not have majority support from Republicans. That would be a sensible reform. Sadly, I think the odds of it happening are not significant. Here is the reality that the American people understand and it frustrates them. The cartel is all one happy home. The lameduck Speaker on his way out will no doubt land in a plush easy chair in the Washington cartel, will soon be making millions of dollars living off the cartel. The lameduck President when he moves on, like Bill Clinton before him, will make hundreds of millions of dollars. The cartel operates as one. In the Senate we have one leadership team. It is the McConnell-Reid leadership team, and in the House we have had the Boehner-Pelosi leadership team. They operate in complete harmony in Washington. That frustration is what is driving the growing and growing rage of the American people every day. The truth is Republican leadership does not spend time thinking, How do we beat President Obama? How do we beat Harry Reid? How do we beat Nancy Pelosi? How do we change any of these disastrous policies that are hurting millions of Americans? Instead, leadership spends all their time thinking, How do we beat the conservatives in the House? How do we crush this freedom caucus--these crazy radicals who actually believe we do what we said we would do. What a shocking, revolutionary, radical statement for Washington, DC, that elected officials actually do what we told our constituents we would do. Republican leadership with recent deals on Planned Parenthood-- Republican leadership led the fight to fund Planned Parenthood. Indeed, their press team went to the press and said: Isn't it great, we boxed out conservatives. We played the procedural game so there was nothing conservatives could do to stop $500 million in taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. What does it say when I said Majority Leader McConnell is the most effective Democratic leader we have seen in modern times? You know what. Harry Reid didn't spend that much time thinking about how to beat Republicans. Leader McConnell spends more time focused on how to defeat conservatives than Harry Reid ever did. That is the problem. It is our own leadership that cooks up deals. Why do you think we are voting at 1 o'clock in the morning? Is that an accident? It is by design, 1 o'clock in the morning. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Pay no attention to another $85 billion in debt. Pay no attention to the fact that it is the Republican majority giving a blank credit card to Barack Obama. Votes at 1 in the morning, Republican leadership hopes no one notices, so right after we vote on it we can run out, get on planes, and fly home to our constituents, and say: We have to stop the debt. I shudder to think for anyone standing too close to a politician who says we have to stop the debt after voting for this, the lightning strike that may hit them--the mendacity of this city. Leadership always counsels prudence and reasonableness. How is it prudent to continue bankrupting this Nation? How is it prudent to have gone from $10 trillion to over $18 trillion in debt? How is it prudent to stay with languishing economic growth. From 2008 to today, the economy has grown on average 1.2 percent a year. That is prudent? How is it prudent to watch as your children and my children's future is washed away? How is that reasonable? How is that pragmatic? Why are we not instead trying to fix these problems and not even just fix them all, not even solve everything with a perfect magical bow-- because leadership plays this game: ``You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.'' Where is the good? Leadership's position is we can't do anything. Leadership's position is that with Republican majorities in both Houses, we should spend more--$85 billion--than we did with a Democratic majority, $63 billion. Leadership will harumph us about expectations. You shouldn't set unreasonable expectations. Gosh, it seems to me it was leadership who said if we had a Republican majority in the Senate then we would fight. On what are we willing to fight? We may have some more show votes. By the way, we just had a show vote on sanctuary cities and Kate's Law. Why wasn't Kate's Law attached to this bill? Why wasn't sanctuary cities attached to this bill? Because that was something we actually campaigned on and we promised our constituents and the Democrats wouldn't like that. Remember my question: What in this is Barack Obama unhappy about? Nothing. Because leadership's position is we can do nothing. If we can do nothing then it makes one wonder what was all the fuss about winning the majority? I don't believe we can win every fight. I don't believe we can magically transform everything--at least not without winning the Presidency--but surely the alternative is not we can do nothing. Is there not a reasonable middle ground that we can accomplish something? I would note the last time we had Republican majorities in Congress and a Democratic President was Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House and Bill Clinton as President. We accomplished a great deal. We accomplished welfare reform. We balanced the budget. What have these Republican majorities done? Made the problem worse. As a result, with apologies to the late great journalist Michael Kelly, I want to sum up my views as simply saying I believe. I believe. I believe what Republican leadership tells us. I believe that every time the mainstream media echoes, leadership listens. Of course it is right that we cannot set expectations too high. We cannot promise too much. We cannot be expected to deliver on any of our promises. I believed Republican leadership when they said if only we had a Republican majority in the House, then we would stand and fight. After winning the House in 2010, I believed the leadership, that if only we had a Republican majority in the Senate also, then we would stand and fight. Today I believe Republican leadership that if only we had 60 votes in the Senate, then we would stand and fight. And if we were to get 60 votes, I will believe Republican leadership when they tell us, that if only we had 67 votes in the Senate, then we will finally stand up and fight. I believe that there is no way Congress could do anything whatsoever to stop ObamaCare or even to try to provide meaningful relief to millions who are hurt by that failed law every day. I believe that Congress has no power to do anything about the President's unconstitutional Executive amnesty or sanctuary cities or anything else that might secure our borders. I believe that Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress can do nothing meaningful on spending or the debt or tax reform or regulatory reform, that we can do nothing to rein in the EPA or CFPB, no matter how many millions of jobs they kill. I believe that Congress must acquiesce to the Obama administration's declaring the Internet to be a regulated public utility and the administration's attempt to give away control of the Internet to an international cartel of stakeholders, including Russia and China. I believe that Congress can do nothing--absolutely nothing--to stop this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. Yes, it will send over $100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, who chants ``Death to America'' in front of mobs burning American and Israeli flags, and even though it threatens the security of Israel and potentially the lives of millions of Americans. I believe that Congress has the constitutional power of the purse, but I believe Congress can still do nothing whatsoever to protect the American citizens. I believe that Congress can do nothing to protect religious liberty or free speech, that Congress must quietly accept an IRS that targets citizens for exercising their constitutional rights and a President who ignores Federal law and Federal judges who disregard the text of the Constitution. I believed Republican leadership when they promised the American people that if only we had congressional majorities, we would fight ObamaCare and amnesty and lawlessness. And today, I believe Republican leadership when they say: Of course we cannot and will not do any of that. It was unreasonable for anyone to have believed those promises in the first place. I believe that anytime President Obama threatens a shutdown, Republican leadership is exactly right to surrender and fund all of Obama's Big Government priorities, to fund ObamaCare and amnesty and Planned Parenthood and the Iranian nuclear deal. Otherwise, Obama might shut down the government and it would be our fault. So we must do whatever he demands no matter what. I believe that it is unreasonable--radical even--to expect Congress to do any of the things we promised the voters on the campaign trail. I believe that when a Republican Speaker joins with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats to fund all of Obama's priorities, that it is the Republican Freedom Caucus who are the crazy ones saying we should stand for something. I believe that when the Republican Senate majority leader publicly promises there is no secret deal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and then 1 month later contorts procedural rules to force through the deal that he had claimed did not exist, that it is not his public lie that matters but, rather, it is the junior Senator who has violated decorum by pointing it out, out loud. I believe that the only thing we can expect Republican majorities to do is expand government, reauthorize corporate welfare, and grow the debt. That is called governing--always said one octave lower in Washington. Governing is measured by how many bills you pass, and one cannot govern without agreeing with Democrats across the board. If we pass a lot of bills, even if they do nothing to address the debt or bring back jobs or economic growth and even if they actually expand Washington power and make the problem worse, then I believe we should celebrate. I believe that Democrats can never be forced to compromise on anything, that it is always unreasonable to ever try to win a political battle with them, and so it must always be the Republicans who agree to the Democrat's Big Government priorities. I believe the only way Republicans can win is to continue making these same mistakes over and over and over again. Of course, I do sometimes wonder why it matters if we have Republican majorities in Congress. After all, leadership has told me that they cannot accomplish anything different from the Democrats, that it is an unreasonable demand to expect them to fight Obama on anything. Since it is only the crazy ``kamikaze caucus'' who thinks we can fight Obama on any issue, anything whatsoever, I believe that leadership is right to fight on nothing, to pass the very same bills filled with pork and corporate welfare, the Export-Import Bank, ObamaCare funding, and amnesty, and confirm the very same Attorney General the Democrats would have confirmed. I do wonder sometimes, as Hillary Clinton would have put it, what difference does it make? But then I put aside such foolish thoughts. Instead, I believe.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, on October 15, 2015, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy released the following statement marking the 5-year anniversary of the arrest of Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo: This week marks the five-year anniversary that Liu Xia was placed under house arrest in China. She has never been charged with a crime and remains confined to her apartment because her husband, respected democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Over the past five years, Liu Xia's health has sharply deteriorated. She suffers from anxiety, depression, severe back pain and had a heart attack last year. Her repeated requests to leave the country for medical treatment have been denied. We urgently request the Chinese government allow Liu Xia to seek medical treatment abroad and release Liu Xiaobo, the world's only jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Such action would be a welcome humanitarian gesture. I could not agree more with the very wise sentiments expressed by Senator Feinstein and Senator Leahy. That is exactly right. The United States should speak with one voice in support of human rights and against the disgrace that China has jailed this Nobel Peace Prize laureate. My resolution, following in the tradition of legislation that renamed the street in front of the Soviet Embassy in honor of the heroic Russian dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov in 1984, would do the same, it would rename the street in front of the People's Republic of China Embassy to be ``Liu Xiaobo Plaza'' after the equally heroic Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate who had been brutally imprisoned by the PRC since 2009 for peacefully advocating for basic political freedom. I would note that the original legislation naming the street in front of the Soviet Embassy in honor of Mr. Sakharov was introduced by my colleague the senior Senator from Iowa who is on the floor with me today to support me in this request. As I noted when I first asked unanimous consent for this legislation on September 24 on the eve of President Xi's visit to Washington, I, for one, think as Americans we should not be troubled by embarrassing Communist oppressors, and this issue is not abstract to me. My family, like Dr. Liu, has been imprisoned by repressive regimes. My father as a teenager was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. He had his nose broken. He had his teeth shattered. He lay in the blood and grime of a prison cell. In Cuba, my aunt--my Tia Sonia--was a few years later imprisoned and tortured by Castro--my father by Batista, my aunt by Castro--imprisoned and tortured by an oppressive Communist regime. The United States has a long history of standing with dissidents and speaking out for human rights. When this body acted to rename the street in front of the Soviet Embassy ``Sakharov Plaza,'' that was a powerful statement that helped bring condemnation of the world on the Soviet Union's repressive human rights record. We should show the same bipartisan unanimity with regard to Communist China, standing together with a wrongfully imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate. We should say to the wrongfully imprisoned dissidents across the world: America hears you and we stand with you. Some years ago I visited with Natan Sharansky in Jerusalem. He described how the prisoners in the Soviet gulag would pass notes from cell to cell: Did you hear what President Reagan said? Evil empire, ash heap of history, tear down this wall. What this body does makes a difference. What this country does makes a difference, and we should not forget our core values. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 224; I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I intend to continue pressing this resolution because I believe we have a moral imperative to speak for freedom. It is one thing to put out press releases, it is another thing to act. I agree with every word in the press release that was issued by Senator Feinstein and Senator Leahy, and my request is simply to put action to those words. I tell you, when I visit with Chinese Americans in my State of Texas, I don't want to have to look them in the eyes and tell them I stood with the Chinese Communist Government, the oppressors, instead of standing with Dr. Liu, instead of standing with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, for fear of embarrassing their oppressors. There are few things more powerful than embarrassment, than public sunshine. When Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate and said ``Tear down this wall,'' he didn't listen to the voice of timidity say: Now that is going to embarrass the Soviets. I would note in the White House that the staffers repeatedly crossed out that line of his speech. They said: No, no, no, no, no. That will upset the Soviets. That will set us back diplomatically--the exact same argument, sadly, the senior Senator from California just presented. And each time President Reagan wrote that line back in with his own hand, explaining to those staffers: You don't understand, that is the entire point of giving the speech. That is why I am there because when we speak the truth, the truth has power. This body--Democratic Senators in this body and Republican Senators in this body--should not be aiding and abetting the oppression of the Chinese Government. We should be standing and speaking for truth and for freedom, and we should be following the pattern that was successfully demonstrated by Senator Grassley in introducing the resolution naming ``Sakharov Plaza'' in front of the Soviet Embassy. With that, I yield to my colleague, the senior Senator from Iowa.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, the American people have demanded for years that the Federal Government faithfully enforce our Nation's immigration laws. Americans are tired of seeing their laws flouted and their communities plagued by the horrible crimes that typically accompany illegal immigration. But for too long, the pleas of the American people on this issue have gone unheeded here in Washington. See, when it comes to the problem of illegal immigration, the political class and the business class--our Nation's elites--are of one mind. They promise robust enforcement at some point in the future but only on the condition that the American people accept a pathway to citizenship now for the millions of illegal immigrants who are already in this country. Not wanting to be swindled, the American people wisely rejected this deal, which the Washington class calls ``comprehensive immigration reform.'' Of course, the elites don't like this one bit. So instead, they have taken matters into their own hands. They bend or ignore the law to make it more difficult for immigration enforcement officers to do their job. We have seen this repeatedly with the Obama administration. President Obama has illegally granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants with no statutory authorization whatsoever, even though, before his reelection, the President assured the American people he couldn't do so without an act of Congress. As President Obama said, when asked whether he could grant amnesty, ``I am not an emperor.'' Well, I agree with President Obama. But yet, just a few months after saying he couldn't do this because he was not an emperor, apparently he discovered he was an emperor, because he did precisely what he acknowledged he lacked the constitutional authority to do. Although the administration today claims to be focusing its resources on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, it has adopted a policy where many illegal immigrants that the administration deems to be low-priority criminals will not be detained and deported but will be released back into our communities. Remarkably, in the year 2013 the Obama administration released from detention roughly 36,000 convicted criminal aliens who were actually awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings. These criminal aliens were responsible for 193 homicide convictions. They were responsible for 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions, 1,075 aggravated assault convictions, and 16,070 drunk driving convictions. All of this was on top of the additional 68,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions that the Federal Government encountered in 2013 but never took into custody for deportation. Dwell on those numbers for a moment. In 1 year, the Obama administration releases over 104,000 criminal illegal aliens, people who have come into this country illegally who have additional criminal convictions--murderers, rapists, thieves, drunk drivers. One wonders what the administration says to the mother of a child lost to a murderer released by the Obama administration because they will not enforce the laws. One wonders what the Obama administration says to the child of a man killed by a drunk driver released by the Obama administration because they will not enforce our immigration laws. While this administration's refusal to enforce the laws is bad enough, the scandalously poor enforcement of our immigration laws is made much, much worse by the lawless actions of the roughly 340 so- called sanctuary jurisdictions across the country. Although these jurisdictions are more than happy--eager, even--to take Federal taxpayer dollars, they go out of their way to obstruct and impede Federal immigration enforcement by adopting policies that prohibit their law enforcement officers from cooperating with Federal officers. Some of the jurisdictions even refuse to honor requests from the Federal Government to temporarily hold a criminal alien until Federal officers can take custody of the individual. Not only are these sanctuary policies an affront to the rule of law, but they are extremely dangerous. According to a recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies, between January 1 and September 30, 2014--just a 9-month period-- sanctuary jurisdictions released 9,295 alien offenders who the Federal Government was seeking to deport. That is roughly 1,000 offenders a month that sanctuary jurisdictions released to the people. Now, of those 9,295, 62 percent had prior criminal histories or other public safety issues. Amazingly, to underscore just how dangerous this is to the citizenry, 2,320 of those criminal offenders were rearrested within the 9-month period for committing new crimes after they had already been released by the sanctuary jurisdiction. If that doesn't embody lawlessness, it is difficult to imagine what does--jurisdictions that are releasing over and over criminal illegal aliens, many of them violent criminal illegal aliens, and exposing the citizens who live at home to additional public safety risk, to additional terrorist risk. This same study found that the Federal Government was unable to reapprehend the vast majority of the alien offenders released by the sanctuary jurisdictions--69 percent as of last year. Even Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has admitted that these sanctuary policies are ``unacceptable.'' ``It is counterproductive to public safety,'' he said, ``to have this level of resistance to working with our immigration enforcement personnel.'' I am thrilled to hear the Secretary of Homeland Security say so out loud. I assume that means that the Obama administration will be supporting the legislation before this body. After all, the Secretary of Homeland Security says it is ``unacceptable,'' and that ``it is counterproductive to public safety.'' Yet, sadly, the Obama administration is not supporting the legislation before this body. Indeed, it has taken the tragic and terrible death of Kate Steinle to galvanize action here in Washington. Kate died in the arms of her father on a San Francisco pier after being fatally shot by an illegal alien who had several felony convictions and had been deported from the United States multiple times. Her death is heartbreaking. In the Senate Judiciary Committee we had the opportunity to hear from Kate Steinle's family. The heartbreak is even more appalling because Kate's killer had been released from custody and not turned over to the Federal Government to be deported because of San Francisco's sanctuary policy. The city of San Francisco is proudly a sanctuary city. They say to illegal immigrants across the country and across the world: Come to San Francisco. We will protect you from Federal immigration laws. We, the elected democratic leaders of this city, welcome illegal immigrants, including violent criminal illegal immigrants such as the murderer who took Kate Steinle's life. These policies are inexcusable. They are a threat to the public safety of the American people, and they need to end. That is why I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors of the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, which strips certain Federal funds, especially community development block grants, from jurisdictions that maintain these lawless policies. If these jurisdictions insist on making it more difficult to remove criminal aliens from our communities, then these Federal dollars should go instead to jurisdictions that will actually cooperate with the Federal Government, that are willing to enforce the law rather than aid and abet the criminals. It makes no sense to continue sending Federal money to local governments that intentionally make it more difficult and costly for the Federal Government to do its job. But this bill doesn't just address sanctuary jurisdictions. It also addresses the problem of illegal immigrants who, like Kate Steinle's killer, are deported but illegally reenter the country, which is a felony. This class of illegal aliens has a special disregard and disdain for our Nation's laws, and too often these offenders also have serious rap sheets. In 2012, just over a quarter of the illegal aliens apprehended by Border Patrol had prior deportation orders. That is an astounding 99,420 illegal aliens. Of the illegal reentry offenders who were actually prosecuted in fiscal year 2014--that is just 16,556 offenders--a fraction of those committed a felony. The majority of those who were prosecuted had extensive or recent criminal histories, and many were dangerous criminals. Even though the majority of offenders had serious criminal records, the average prison sentence was just 17 months, down from an average of 22 months in 2008. In fact, more than a quarter of illegal reentry offenders received a sentence below the guidelines range because the government sponsored the low sentence. Because we are failing to adequately deter illegal aliens who have already been deported from illegally reentering the country, I introduced Kate's Law in the Senate. I wish to thank Senators Vitter and Grassley for working with me to incorporate elements of Kate's Law into this bill. I also wish to recognize and thank all of the original cosponsors who joined me in this bill--Senators Barrasso, Cornyn, Isakson, Johnson, Perdue, Rubio, Sullivan, and Toomey. Because of this bill, any illegal alien who illegally reenters the United States and has a prior aggravated felony conviction or two prior illegal reentry convictions will face a mandatory sentence of 5 years in prison. We must send the message that defiance of our laws will no longer be tolerated, whether it is by the sanctuary cities themselves or by the illegal reentry offenders who they harbor. The problem of illegal immigration in this country will never be solved until we demonstrate to the American people that we are serious about securing the border and enforcing our immigration laws and until we have a President who is willing to and, in fact, committed to actually enforcing the laws and securing the borders. This bill is just a small step, but at least it is a step in the right direction. Yet there will be two consequences from the vote this afternoon. First, it will be an opportunity for our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle to declare to the country on whose side they stand. When they are campaigning for reelection, more than a few Democratic Senators tell the voters they support securing the borders. More than a few Democratic Senators tell the voters: Of course we shouldn't be releasing criminal illegal aliens. More than a few Democratic Senators claim to have no responsibility for the 104,000 criminal illegal aliens released by the Obama administration in the year 2013. These Senators claim to have no responsibility for the murder of Kate Steinle, invited to San Francisco by that city's sanctuary city policy. This vote today will be a moment of clarity. No Democratic Senator will be able to go and tell his or her constituents: I oppose sanctuary cities. I support securing the border if they vote today in favor of sending Federal taxpayer funds to subsidize the lawlessness of sanctuary cities. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from families who had lost loved ones to violent criminal illegal aliens--one after the other after the other. We heard about children who were sexually abused and murdered by violent illegal aliens. We heard from family members who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers illegally in this country. During the hearing, I asked the senior Obama administration official for immigration enforcement how she could look into the eyes of those family members and justify releasing murderers, rapists, and drunk drivers over and over and over again. Indeed, at that hearing I asked the head of immigration enforcement for the Obama administration: How many murderers did the Obama administration release this week? Her answer: I don't know. I asked her: How many rapists did the Obama administration release this week? Her answer: I don't know. How many drunk drivers? I don't know. None of us should be satisfied with that answer or with a President and administration that refuse to enforce the laws and are willfully and repeatedly releasing violent criminal illegal aliens into our communities and endangering the lives of our families and children. This vote today is a simple decision for every Democratic Senator: With whom do you stand? Do you stand with the violent criminal illegal aliens who are being released over and over again? Because mind you, a vote no is to say the next time the next murderer--like Kate Steinle's murderer--comes in, we should not enforce the laws, and we shouldn't have a mandatory 5-year prison sentence. Instead, we should continue sanctuary cities that welcome and embrace him until perhaps it is our family members who lose their lives. It is my hope that in this moment of clarity the Democratic members of this body will decide they stand with the American people and not with the violent criminal illegal aliens. It is worth noting, by the way, the standard rhetorical device that so many Democratic Senators use is to say: Well, not all immigrants are criminals. Well, of course they are not. I am the son of an immigrant who came legally to this country 58 years ago. We are a nation of immigrants, of men and women fleeing oppression and seeking freedom, but this bill doesn't deal with all immigrants. It deals with one specific subset of immigrants: criminal illegal aliens. It deals with those who come to this country illegally and also have additional criminal convictions, whether it is homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, battery, or drunk driving. If it is the Democrats' position for partisan reasons that they would rather stand with violent criminal illegal aliens, that is a sad testament on where one of the two major political parties in this country stands today. I suspect the voters who elect them would be more than a little surprised at how that jibes with the rhetoric they use on the campaign trail. If, as many observers predict, Democratic Senators choose to value partisan loyalty to the Obama White House over protecting the lives of the children who will be murdered by violent criminal illegal aliens in sanctuary cities if this body does not act, and if they vote on a party-line vote, as many observers have predicted, that will provide a moment of clarity. I will also suggest that it underscores the need for Republican leadership to bring this issue up again--and not in the context where Democrats can blithely block it and obstruct any meaningful reforms to protect our safety, secure the border, enforce the law, and stop violent illegal criminal aliens from threatening our safety--in the context of a must-pass bill and attach it to legislation that will actually pass in law. I am very glad we are voting on this bill this week. That is a good and positive step. It is one of the few things in the last 10 months we have voted on that actually responds to the concerns of the men and women who elected us. I salute leadership for bringing up this vote, but if a party-line vote blocks it, then the next step is not simply to have a vote. The next step is to attach this legislation to must-pass legislation and to actually fix the problem. Leadership loves to speak of what they call governing, and in Washington governing is always set at least an octave lower. Well, when it comes to stopping sanctuary cities and protecting our safety, we need some governing. We need to actually fix the problem rather than have a show vote. My first entreaty is to my Democratic friends across the aisle. Regardless of areas where we differ on partisan politics, this should be an easy vote. Do you stand with the men and women of your State or do you stand with violent criminal illegal aliens? We will find out in just a couple of hours. My second entreaty is to Republican leadership. If Democrats are partisans first rather than protecting the men and women they represent, then it is up to Republican leadership to attach this to a must-pass bill and actually pass it into law and solve the problem--not to talk about it, but to do it. It is my hope that is what all of us do together. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, my thoughts and prayers are with the Israeli people who are enduring a new escalation of Palestinian terrorism. Last Thursday evening, a mother and father were murdered in front of their four children ages 9, 7, 4, and 4 months when Hamas terrorists opened fire on their car. A few days later, another Jewish family was walking in the Old City of Jerusalem after praying at the Western Wall when a Palestinian terrorist went on a stabbing attack. He murdered the father, along with another courageous man who rushed to the scene to the family's aid. Both men leave behind their wives and nine children. In addition to the four murdered, many more Israelis have been seriously wounded from car-ramming, rock-throwing, and brutal knife and screwdriver stabbing attacks in what appears to be a fresh horror--an epidemic of low-tech, brutal attacks by militants who are acting on their own initiative. These attacks have been incubated by the continued incitement and glorification of violence by the Palestinian leadership, most recently by President Mahmoud Abbas during his address at the United Nations General Assembly. He still has yet to categorically condemn these attacks. It is long past time for the United States and the international community to hold the Palestinians accountable for their incitement and support for terrorism, including through the financial payment to Palestinian terrorists who are jailed in Israel for committing acts of terrorism. In yet another stark reminder of how closely our nations are connected in this fight, the father murdered last Thursday, Eitam Henkin, was a dual Israeli-American citizen. The terrorist who killed him did not care, as his sole intent was to kill Jews, not to engage in a political process. There is no moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorism and the obligation of Israel to act in defense of its people. To the Israeli people, especially those who are victims of terrorism and their families: I proudly stand in solidarity with you during this challenging time.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I move to table the McConnell amendment No. 2690 for the purpose of offering my own amendment No. 2701, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time be extended. The Democrats are objecting to my speaking further, and both the Democrats and Republican leadership are objecting to the American people speaking further. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, there is a reason the American people are fed up with Washington. There is a reason the American people are frustrated. The frustration is not simply mild or passing or ephemeral; it is volcanic. Over and over again, the American people go to the ballot box. Over and over again, the American people rise and say: The direction we are going does not make sense; we want change. Over and over again, the American people win elections--in 2010, a tidal wave election; in 2014, a tidal wave election. Yet nothing changes in Washington. I would like to share with the Presiding Officer and the American people the real story of what is happening in Washington, why it is that our leaders cannot stop bankrupting this country, cannot stop the assault on our constitutional rights, cannot stop America's retreat from leadership in the world. It is a very simple dynamic when you have two sides allegedly in a political battle, one side that is relentlessly, unshakably committed to its principles and the other side that reflectively surrenders at the outset. The outcome is foreordained. I will give President Obama and the Senate Democrats credit. They believe in principles of Big Government. They believe in this relentless assault on our constitutional rights. They are willing to crawl over broken glass with a knife in between their teeth to fight for those principles. Unfortunately, leadership on my side of the aisle does not demonstrate the same commitment to principles. How is it, you might wonder, that a preemptive surrender is put in place? Well, it all begins with a relatively innocuous statement: There shall be no shutdowns. That is a statement leadership in both Houses-- Republican leadership in both Houses has said: We are not going to shut the government down. You can understand--to folks in the private sector, folks at home, that sounds pretty reasonable, except here is the reality in Washington. In today's Washington, there are three kinds of votes. No. 1, there are show votes--votes that are brought up largely to placate the voters, where the outcome is foreordained, where most Republicans will vote one way and most Democrats will vote the other. Republicans will lose, and the conservatives who elected Republican majorities in both Houses are supposed to be thrilled that they have been patted on the head and given their show vote that was destined to lose. We had a vote like that in recent weeks on Planned Parenthood. Leadership told us: You should be thrilled. We voted on it. What else do you want? We voted on it in a context where it would never happen. Indeed, it did not. The second kind of vote is a vote that simply grows government, dramatically expands spending, and expands corporate welfare. Those votes pass because you get a bipartisan coalition of Republican leadership and Democrats, both of whom are convinced that career politicians will get reelected if they keep growing and growing government and in particular handing out corporate welfare to giant corporations. Oh boy. If you have the lobbyists on K Street pushing for something, you can get 60, 70, 80 in this Chamber because Republican leadership loves it and Democrats are always willing to grow government. Then there is the third kind of vote--votes on must-pass legislation. In an era when one side--the Democratic Party--is adamantly committed to continuing down this path that is causing so many millions of Americans to hurt, must-pass votes are the only votes that have real consequence in this Chamber. They typically fall into one of three categories: either a continuing resolution, an omnibus appropriations bill, or a debt ceiling increase. All of those three are deemed must- pass votes. If you actually want to change law, those are the only hopes of doing so. But, as I mentioned before, you have one side who has preemptively surrendered. Republican leadership has said they will never ever shut down the government, and suddenly President Obama understands the easy key to winning every battle: He simply has to utter the word ``shutdown'' and Republican leadership runs to the hills. So President Obama demands of Congress: Fund every bit of ObamaCare--100 percent of it--and do nothing, zero, for the millions of Americans who are hurting, millions of Americans who have lost their jobs, who have lost their health care, who have lost their doctors, who have been forced into part-time work, the millions of young people who have seen their premiums skyrocket. President Obama: You can do nothing for the people who are hurting. Senate Democrats say: We don't care about the people who are hurting. We will do nothing for them. Here is the kicker. President Obama promises: If you try to do anything on ObamaCare, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the entire Federal Government and shut it down. Republican leadership compliantly says: OK. Fine. We will fund ObamaCare. President Obama then understands he has got a pretty good trump card here he can pull out at any time. So next he says: OK. Republicans, fund my unconstitutional Executive amnesty. It is contrary to law. It is flouting Federal immigration law. But you, Republicans, fund it anyway or else, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the entire Federal Government and shut it down. Republican leadership says at the outset: OK. We will fund amnesty. Now we turn to Planned Parenthood. Barack Obama--this will surprise no one--says: Fund 100 percent of Planned Parenthood with taxpayer money. Mind you, Planned Parenthood is a private organization. It is not even part of the government. But it happens to be politically favored by President Obama and the Democrats. Planned Parenthood is also the subject of multiple criminal investigations for being caught on tape apparently carrying out a pattern of ongoing felonies. In ordinary times, the proposition that we should not be sending your or my Federal taxpayer money to fund a private organization that is under multiple criminal investigations-- that ought to be a 100-to-0 vote. But, as I mentioned before, Barack Obama is absolutely committed to his partisan objectives. He is like the Terminator. He never stops. He never gives up. He moves forward and forward and forward. So what does he say? If you don't fund this one private organization that is not part of the government, that is under multiple criminal investigations, I, Barack Obama, will veto funding for the entire Federal Government and shut it down. What does Republican leadership say? Well, it will surprise no one. Republican leadership says: We surrender. We will fund Planned Parenthood. You know, President Obama has negotiated a catastrophic nuclear deal with Iran. Republican leadership goes on television all the time and rightly says: This is a catastrophic deal. The consequences are that it is the single greatest national security threat to America. Millions of Americans could die. I would suggest that if we actually believed the words that are coming out of our mouths, then we would be willing to use any and all constitutional authority given the Congress to stop a catastrophic deal that sends over $100 billion to Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet President Obama says he will veto the entire budget if we do, and, to the surprise of nobody, Republican leadership surrenders. You know, I will draw an analogy. It is as if at a football game, the beginning of the football game the two team captains go out to flip the coin. One team's coach walks out and says: We forfeit. They do it game after game after game right at the coin flip. Leadership says: We forfeit. We surrender. We, Republicans, will fund every single Big Government liberal priority of the Democrats. If an NFL team did that over 16 games, we know what their record would be; it would be 0 and 16. You know, I am pretty sure the fans who bought tickets and who went to the game would be pretty ticked off as they watched their coach forfeit over and over again. You want to understand the volcanic frustration with Washington? It is that Republican leadership in both Houses will not fight for a single priority we promised the voters we would fight for when we were campaigning less than a year ago. You know, this past week was a big news week in Washington. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, announced he was going to resign, and there was lots of speculation in the media as to why the Speaker of the House resigned. I am going to tell you why he resigned. It is actually a direct manifestation of this disconnect between the voters back home and Republican leadership. Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell promised there will be no shutdown. Therefore, they will fund every single priority of Barack Obama. We are right now voting on what is called a clean CR. I would note it is clean only in the parlance of Washington, because what does it do? It funds 100 percent of ObamaCare, 100 percent of Executive amnesty. It funds all of Planned Parenthood, and it funds the Iranian nuclear deal. It is essentially a blank check to Barack Obama. That is not very clean to me. That actually sounds like a very dirty funding bill, funding priorities that are doing enormous damage. In the Senate the votes were always there for a dirty CR, a CR that funded all of Barack Obama's priorities. The Democrats will all vote for it--heck, of course they will. They have the other side funding their priorities. Of course, every Democrat will vote for that over and over and over and twice on Sunday. The simple reality on the Republican side is when leadership joins with the Democrats, about half of the Republican caucus is happy to move over to that side of the aisle. So the votes were always preordained. The motion I made just a moment ago was a motion to table the tree. You remember filling the tree. It is something we heard a lot about in the previous Congress. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, did it all the time. Senators on this side of the aisle stood over and over and said: It is abuse of process. In fact, we even campaigned with our leadership saying: We are going to have an open amendment process. Yet what has happened here is that Majority Leader McConnell has taken a page out of Leader Reid's playbook and filled the tree. I moved to table the tree, and what you then saw was leadership denying a second. What does ``denying a second'' mean? Denying a recorded vote. Why is that important? When you are breaking the commitments you have made to the men and women who have elected you, the most painful thing in the world is accountability. When you are misleading the men and women who showed up to vote for you, you don't want sunshine making clear that you voted no. A recorded vote means each Senator's name is on it. Now, why did I move to table the tree? Simply to add the amendment that I had, which, No. 1, would have said that not one penny goes to Planned Parenthood, and No. 2, not one penny goes to implementing this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal unless and until they comply with Federal law--the administration complies with Federal law--and hands over the full deal, including the side agreements with Iran. What you saw was that Republican leadership desperately does not want a vote on that. Tomorrow I intend to make that motion again. And when I make that motion again, I would encourage those watching to see which Senators are here to give a second or not and to vote yea or nay. I would note that when you deny a second, which is truly an unprecedented procedural trick--it used to be that was a courtesy that was afforded to all Senators. Indeed, in the opposing party routinely over and over when a Democrat or Republican asked for a second, everyone raised their hand. But leadership has discovered: We can do this in the dark of the night. But I would encourage those watching to see, No. 1, when this motion is offered again, who shows up to offer a second and who either doesn't raise his hand or just doesn't come to the floor. One of the ways you avoid accountability is you are somehow somewhere else doing something very important instead of actually showing up for the battle that is waging right here and now. But I would also encourage people to watch very carefully what happens after that. After that you have a voice vote. A voice vote is still a vote. Let's be clear. Standing on the floor, there were two Senators--Senator Lee and I--who voted aye, who voted to table the tree and take up the amendment barring funding for Planned Parenthood and barring funding for this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. The remaining Senators on the Republican side--Leader McConnell, Whip Cornyn, Senator Alexander, and Senator Cotton--those four Senators loudly voted no. It is still a vote, even though it is not a recorded vote. It is a vote on the Senate floor. So why did Speaker Boehner resign? Well, I mentioned to you that the votes were always cooked here. The Democrats plus Republican leadership and the votes they bring with them ensure plenty of votes for a dirty CR, a CR that funds ObamaCare, that funds amnesty, that funds Planned Parenthood, that funds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. But the House was always the bulwark. The Presiding Officer will remember in 2013 when we had a fight over ObamaCare. The Presiding Officer was serving in the House at the time. In that fight we never had the votes in the Senate. Actually, the Senate was under control of the Democrats. They were going to do everything they could to defend ObamaCare regardless of the millions of people who were hurt. But the House was the bulwark in that fight, and in particular there was a core of 40 or 50 strong, principled conservatives who cared deeply about honoring the commitments they made to the men and women who elected them. That was always the strength we had in that fight. You know, it has been interesting reading some of the press coverage, speculating that there would be some magic parliamentary trick that would somehow stop this corrupt deal. Well, in the Senate there are no magic parliamentary tricks. When you have the Democrats plus Republican leadership and a chunk of the Republicans, those votes can roll over any parliamentary trick you might use. Even with the Blood Moon we just had, there are no mystical powers that allow you to roll over them. But in the House we still have those 30, 40, 50 strong conservatives. So how is it that Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell could promise there will never, ever be a shutdown? Because, I believe, Speaker Boehner has decided to cut a deal with Leader Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats, that this dirty CR is going to be passed out of the Senate and is going to go to the House. The Speaker is going to take it up on the floor and pass it with all the Democrats--just as Leader McConnell did--and a handful of Republicans who will go with Republican leadership. A very significant percentage of Republicans will vote no. But here is the problem: Speaker Boehner has done that more than once. In this instance, there were too many Republicans who were tired of seeing their leadership lead the Democrats rather than lead the Republican Party. I believe if Speaker Boehner had done that--had passed a dirty CR funding Planned Parenthood, funding this Iranian nuclear deal--he would have lost his speakership. A Member of the House had introduced a motion to vacate the Chair because House Republicans were fed up with their leader not leading--at least not leading their party, leading the Democratic Party. So Speaker Boehner faced a conundrum. If he did what he and Leader McConnell promised, which is to fund all of Barack Obama's priorities, he would have lost his job. And so what did he do? He announced that he is resigning as Speaker and resigning as a Member of Congress. That is unsurprising, but it also telegraphs the deal that he has just cut. It is a deal to surrender and join with the Democrats. Notice he said he is going to stay a month. He is going to stay a month in order to join with the Democrats and fund Barack Obama's priorities. Now let's talk about some of the substantive issues that we ought to be talking about. Let's start with Planned Parenthood. In the past couple of months, a series of videos have come out about Planned Parenthood. To some of the people watching this, you may never have seen the videos. Why is that? Because the mainstream media has engaged in a virtual media blackout on them: ABC, NBC, CBS, the last thing they want to do is show these videos. If you watch FOX News, you can see the videos. But the mainstream media, in the great tradition of Pravda, wants to make sure the citizenry doesn't see what is in these videos. I would encourage every American--Republican or Democrat--regardless of where you fall on the right to life, even--and, in fact, especially--if you consider yourself pro-choice--to just watch these videos. Go online and watch them and ask yourself: Are these my values? Is this what I believe? These videos show senior officials from Planned Parenthood laughing, sipping chardonnay and callously harvesting and selling the body parts of unborn children over and over and over. One senior official was caught on video laughing and saying she hopes she sells enough body parts of unborn children to buy herself a Lamborghini. Again, I would suggest to just ask yourself: Are these my values? In another video a lab tech describes a little baby boy--unborn, aborted, about 2 pounds, his heart still beating. She was instructed to insert scissors under his chin to cut open the face of this little boy and harvest his brain because the brain was valuable. Planned Parenthood could sell the brain. This is something out of ``Brave New World.'' These are human beings. That little boy had a heart that was still beating, had a brain that was being harvested. He had a soul given to him by God Almighty. He was made in the image of God. We are now a nation that harvests the body parts of little baby boys and girls. It is the very definition of inhumanity to treat children like agriculture, to be grown and killed for their body parts, to be sold for profit. There is a reason that the media and the Democrats don't want these videos shown, because anyone watching these videos will be horrified. But they are not just horrific; they are also prima facie evidence of criminal activity. There are multiple Federal statutes--criminal statutes--that Planned Parenthood appears to be violating, perhaps on a daily basis. The first and most direct is a prohibition on selling the body parts of unborn children for a profit. Federal criminal law makes that a felony with up to 10 years of jail time. Now these videos show them very clearly selling body parts. They also show them bartering a price. They will argue it wasn't for a profit. But you watch these videos. You watch the undercover buyer saying: How much will you give me for them? And you see the Planned Parenthood official saying: Well, how much can I get? I don't want to bargain against myself. On its face, that is evidence of bargaining for a profit. If you want the highest price you can get, it is not tied to your costs. It is tied to whatever dollars, whatever revenue you can bring in. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the country. As another one of these videos reflects, it is a volume business--Planned Parenthood--taking the lives of unborn children and then selling them-- apparently for profit. It is also a Federal criminal offense to alter the means of an abortion for the purpose of harvesting the organs of the unborn child. That is a separate criminal offense. On video after video, you see Planned Parenthood officials saying: OK. What parts would you like? We can perform a different abortion depending on what parts you want us to harvest. On the videos they essentially admit to this crime. They are filmed in the act. There is the third criminal offense that provides that you cannot harvest the organs of an unborn child without informed consent from the mother. Yet again these videos seem to indicate that Planned Parenthood treats informed consent as a technicality that is sometimes complied with and sometimes ignored. Now, I will say as an aside that ordinarily, when a national organization is caught on film committing a pattern of felonies, the next steps are predictable: The Department of Justice opens an investigation; the FBI shows up and seizes their records. Everything on those videos suggests those felonies are still occurring today. What does it say about the Obama Justice Department that no one on the face of the planet believes there is any chance the Justice Department would even begin to investigate Planned Parenthood? What does it say about the most lawless partisan Department of Justice that there is this group that is a political ally of the President, so that is apparently all that matters. If it is an ally of the President, it doesn't matter that they are videotaped committing a felony. The Department of Justice will not even look at it. I am an alumnus of the U.S. Department of Justice. I was an Associate Deputy Attorney General. I spent much of my adult life working in law enforcement. The Department of Justice has a long, distinguished record of remaining outside of partisan politics, of staying above the partisan fray, of being blind to party or ideology and simply enforcing the law and the Constitution. I am sorry to say that under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, the Department of Justice has completely besmirched that tradition. No one remotely believes the Obama Justice Department will even begin to investigate this pattern of felonies. You don't see Democrats suggesting it. No one in the media suggests it. And by the way, if this were a Republican administration and the entity that admitted to a pattern of felonies was a private entity that supported Republicans, you would see on CBS, NBC, and ABC an indictment clock every night. You would see the anchors saying: When will this investigation be opened? When will they be indicted? Instead, the media pretends these videos don't exist. In the face of what appears to be a national criminal enterprise, we are faced here with a much simpler question: Will we continue to pay for it? Will we continue to pay for it with your and my tax dollars? Will we send $500 million a year to a private organization to use to fund this ongoing criminal organization? What is the position of the Democrats? Hear no evil, see no evil. They do not care. What Democrat do you see calling for the enforcement of criminal laws against Planned Parenthood? What Democrat do you hear saying, at a minimum, let's not send taxpayer money to fund this? Not one. Not a single Democrat stood up and said that. Let me ask you, Mr. President, what happens if Planned Parenthood gets indicted? Because even though the U.S. Department of Justice under President Obama has become little more than a partisan arm of the Democratic National Committee, there are State and local prosecutors who are investigating Planned Parenthood right now. If Planned Parenthood is indicted, will the Democrats maintain their wall of silence and say: We are going to continue to fund them under indictment. By all indications, that answer is yes. We haven't heard a single Democrat say: Well, if they are indicted, then we will stop. The response from our leadership is that we can't win this fight. That is their response. They say: Well, we can't win the Planned Parenthood fight. Why? Because we don't have 60 votes; because we don't have 67 votes. If that is the standard, then the Republican leadership standard is that we will do only what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi approve of. That is what it means. You want to understand why the American people are frustrated? We were told: If only we had a Republican House of Representatives, then things would be different. In 2010, millions of us rose up in incredible numbers and won an historic tidal wave election. The Presiding Officer was a youth pastor, called to minister, yet he stood up and said: My country is in crisis. I am going to step forward and serve. The 2010 election was historic, yet very little changed. Then we were told: OK. We have a House of Representatives, but the problem is the Senate. As long as Harry Reid is majority leader, we can't do anything. Over and over again Washington gray beards would go on television, and in gravelly tones they would say: You cannot govern with one-half of one-third of government. The House of Representatives is not enough, but if we had the Senate, then things would be different. The problem is Harry Reid. The Presiding Officer will recall during the fight over ObamaCare a number of Members of this body--Republicans--said: No, no, no, no. We can't fight on ObamaCare. We have to wait until we have a Republican Senate to fight. So the American people obliged. In 2014, millions of us rose up for the second tidal wave election in a period of 4 years. We won nine Senate seats. We retired Harry Reid as majority leader. We won the largest majority in the House of Representatives since the 1920s. It has been now over 9 months since we have had Republican majorities in both Houses, and I ask: What exactly have those Republican majorities accomplished? I have asked that question all over the country in townhalls. I have never been at a townhall where the response, spontaneous, was not absolutely nothing. That is true in every State I visit. And sadly, my response over and over again is: You know, it's worse than that. I wish the answer were absolutely nothing. It would have been better if the Republican majorities had done absolutely nothing because what, in fact, have they done? Well, the very first thing that happened, right after that election in November, is we came back to Washington, and Republican leadership joined up with Harry Reid and the Democrats and passed a trillion dollar CR omnibus bill that was filled with pork, corporate welfare, and grew government, grew the debt. Then Republican leadership took the lead in funding ObamaCare. Then Republican leadership took the lead in funding Executive amnesty. Then Republican leadership took the lead in funding Planned Parenthood. And then, astonishingly, Republican leadership took the lead in confirming Loretta Lynch as Attorney General. Now, I ask: Which one of those decisions is one iota different from what would have happened with Harry Reid and the Democrats in charge of this Chamber? Those decisions are identical. And I would note, by the way, with Loretta Lynch, the Republican majority could have defeated that nomination. The Senate majority leader could have done so. She looked at the Senate Judiciary Committee, and she looked at the Senate, and when asked how she would differ from Eric Holder's Justice Department--the most lawless and partisan Justice Department we would ever see--and she said: No way whatsoever. When asked to point to a single instance in which she would be willing to stand up to President Obama to stop his lawlessness, to stop his abuse of power, she could not identify any circumstance in which she would ever stand up to the President who appointed her. Attorneys general from both parties have done that, for centuries. Now, with Eric Holder, the Senate could be forgiven because his lawlessness manifested primarily after he was confirmed. With Loretta Lynch, she told us beforehand. She looked us in the eyes and said: Hey, I am going to do exactly what my predecessor has done. And Republican leadership confirmed her anyway. Is it any wonder the American people are frustrated out of their minds? We keep winning elections, and the people we put in office don't do what they said they would do. Now, some people across the country ask me: Is Republican leadership just not very capable? Are they not that competent or are they unwilling to fight? Mr. President, it is neither. They are actually quite competent, and they are willing to fight. The question becomes what they are fighting for. There is a disconnect right now. If you or I go to our home State and to any gathering of citizens and we put up a white board and we ask the citizens in the room to give the top priorities they think Republican majorities in Congress should be focusing on, and we wrote the 20 priorities that came from the citizens of Oklahoma or the citizens of Texas or, for that matter, the citizens of any of the 50 States, those top 20 priorities--at least 18 of them--would appear nowhere on the leadership's priority list. On the other hand, if you drive just down the street in Washington to K Street--K Street is the street in Washington where the lobbyists primarily reside, where their offices are--and you get a gathering of corporate lobbyists that represent giant corporations and ask them their top priorities, the list that comes out will not just bear passing similarity but will be identical to the priorities of the Republican leadership. That's the disconnect. Do you know why we are not here fighting on this? Because not giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood is not among the priorities of the lobbyists on K Street, so leadership is not interested in doing it. That is the disconnect. Leadership does know how to fight. Just a couple of months ago, in dealing with the Export-Import Bank, we saw leadership in both Chambers go to extraordinary lengths with Herculean procedural steps to reauthorize a classic example of corporate welfare--hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer-guaranteed loans to giant corporations. Now, for that, leadership is incentivized because those corporations hire lobbyists and those lobbyists distribute checks, typically by the wheelbarrow. There is no incentive greater in this body than getting reelected, and the view of leadership is that you get reelected by raking in the cash. How do you think we have gotten an $18 trillion national debt? Because the way you reach bipartisan compromise in this body today, in the broken world of Washington, is you grow and grow and grow government, and you sit around in a room and say: I will spend for your priority, your priority, your priority--another trillion dollars and we are done. The only people to lose are your children and mine. The only people to lose are the next generations who find themselves mired deeper and deeper and deeper in debt. I think of my little girls Caroline and Catherine. They are 7 and 4. If we don't stop what we are doing, your children and my children will face a debt so crushing they will not be able to spend in the future for the priorities of the future--for their needs, for their wants, for whatever crises come up that the next generation confronts. They will spend their whole lives simply working to pay off the debts racked up by their deadbeat parents and grandparents. No generation in history has ever done this to their children and grandchildren. Our parents didn't do it to us. Their parents didn't do it to them. The reason is the corruption of this town, and it boils down to a simple proposition: The Democrats are willing to do anything to push their priorities, and the Republicans, the leadership, are not listening to the men and women who elected us. But it is actually an even deeper problem than that. On the Democratic side, the major donors that fund the Democratic Party, they don't despise their base. The billionaires who write the giant checks that fund President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrats on that side of the aisle don't despise the radical gay rights movement or the radical environmentalist movement or all the people who knock on doors and get Democrats elected. The simple reality is a very large percentage of the Republican donors actively despise our base--actively despise the men and women who showed up and voted you and me into office. I can tell you, when you sit down and talk with a New York billionaire Republican donor--and I have talked with quite a few New York billionaire Republican donors, California Republican donors--their questions start out as follows. First of all, you have to come out for gay marriage, you need to be pro-choice, and you need to support amnesty. That is where the Republican donors are. You wonder why Republicans will not fight on any of these issues? Because the people writing the checks agree with the Democrats. Now mind you, the people who show up at the polls who elected you and me and who elected this Republican majority--far too many of the Republican donors look down on those voters as a bunch of ignorant hicks and rubes. It is why leadership likes show votes. It wasn't too long ago when the Washington cartel was able to mask it all with a show vote or two, and they told the rubes back home: See, we voted on it; we just don't have the votes. When I was first elected to this body, many times I heard more senior Senators saying some variation of the following: Now, Ted, that is what you tell folks back home. You don't actually do it. Here is what has changed. The voters have gotten more informed. They now understand the difference between show votes and a real vote. They understand the vote we had 1 week ago on Planned Parenthood was designed to lose, to placate those silly folks who think we shouldn't be sending taxpayer funds to a criminal organization that is selling the body parts of unborn children. But on the actual vote that could change policy, leadership has no interest in fighting whatsoever. In the past couple of weeks, one of my colleagues sent me a letter that really embodied the leadership message. This letter said: ``Explain to me how you get 67 votes to defund Planned Parenthood. If you can't produce 67 votes, I won't support it.'' If that is our standard, then we should all be honest with the men and women who elected us: We do not have 67 Republican votes in this Chamber, and there is no realistic prospect of our getting 67 votes any time in the foreseeable future. If the standard is, unless we get 67 votes, Republican leadership will support no policy issue, then each of us when we run should tell the voters: If you vote for me, I will support whatever policy agenda Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi decide because that is my standard. If I don't have 67 votes--do you ever recall Harry Reid and the Democrats saying: How can we get Republican votes? No. Their side is absolutely committed to their principles. You don't see them holding back at all. If the standard is, how do we get 67 votes, name one thing that leadership will fight for. Well, the answer I mentioned, the three types of votes are they will fight for big government, they will fight to grow government, and they will fight to expand corporate welfare. Well, that can indeed get 67 votes. But I have never been to a townhall once where citizens said to me: The problem is we don't have enough corporate welfare. I need more subsidies for Big Business. If 100 percent of the agenda of Republican leadership is more subsidies for Big Business, what the heck are we doing in the Senate in the first place? That certainly wasn't why I ran, and I know it wasn't why you ran either. You don't have to win every fight, you don't have to fight every fight, but you do have to stand for something. Let's look beyond Planned Parenthood for a minute. Let's look to Iran. Of all the decisions the Obama administration has made, there may be none more damaging than this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. If this deal goes through, there will be three consequences: No. 1, the Obama administration will become, quite literally, the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorists. Now, when I said that a couple months ago, President Obama got very, very upset. He said it was ridiculous that I would say such a thing, but despite attacking me directly, President Obama didn't actually endeavor to refute the substance of what I said. So let's review the facts: Fact No. 1, Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. That fact is undisputed even by this administration. Fact No. 2, if this deal goes through, over $100 billion will go directly to Iran to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Fact No. 3, if that happens, billions of those dollars will go to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to radical Islamic terrorists across the globe who will use those billions to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, and to murder Europeans. It is worth remembering, 14 years ago this month, the horrific terrorist attack that was carried out on September 11. Osama bin Laden hated America, but he never had billions of dollars. He never had $100 billion. The Ayatollah Khamenei hates America every bit as much as Osama bin Laden did, and this administration is giving him control of over $100 billion. Imagine what bin Laden could have done. Look at the damage he did with 19 terrorists carrying box cutters. Now imagine that same zealotry with billions of dollars behind it. The consequences of this deal could easily be another terrorist attack that dwarfs September 11 in scale, that kills far more than the roughly 3,000 lives that were snuffed out. Who in their right mind would send over $100 billion to a theocratic zealot who chants ``Death to America''? A second consequence of his catastrophic deal is that we are abandoning four hostages--four American hostages--in Iranian jails: Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen whose wife Naghmeh lives in Idaho. I have visited with Naghmeh many times. Pastor Saeed has two little kids who desperately want their daddy to come home. Pastor Saeed was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the crime of preaching the Gospel. Just last week was the 3-year anniversary of Pastor Saeed's imprisonment. Reports are that he is being horribly mistreated, that his health is failing, and yet President Obama cannot bring himself to utter the words ``Pastor Saeed Abedini''--$100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, and Pastor Saeed Abedini remains in prison. Also in prison is Amir Hekmati, an American marine the President has abandoned. Also in prison is Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter--I note to the reporters in the Gallery, a colleague of yours--abandoned by President Obama in an Iranian prison, thrown in jail for doing his job, reporting on the news--and Robert Levinson, whose whereabouts remain unknown. Why is the President refusing to even utter their names? The third consequence of this deal is this deal will only accelerate Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The administration claims the deal will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Why? Because they promised not to do it. We have learned from Iran, they break their promises over and over and over again. And what we do know is that they will have an extra $100 billion to develop nuclear weapons. Now, I will say the administration laughingly suggested: Well, they will use that on infrastructure, to rebuild their roads, to rebuild their energy industry. Right now they are sending vast sums to Hamas and Hezbollah, funding terrorism across the world, and they have those same infrastructure needs. With another $100 billion, you don't think they are going to funnel an awful lot of it to developing nuclear weapons? I would point out, it is not by accident that the Ayatollah Khamenei refers to Israel as the Little Satan and America as the Great Satan. This is the one threat on the face of the Earth that poses a real possibility of millions of Americans being murdered in the flash of an eye. Everything I am saying the Republican leadership has said over and over again. Yet Republican leadership refuses to enforce the terms of the Iran review legislation--Federal law that the administration is defying by not handing over the entire deal. I have laid out a clear path, a detailed path that leadership can follow to stop this deal, and leadership refuses to do so. Instead, we had a show vote that was designed to lose, and it did exactly what we expected. The Democrats, by and large, put party loyalty above the national security of this country, above standing with our friend and ally the nation of Israel, above protecting the lives of millions of Americans. If we truly believed what so many of us have said, that this poses the risk of murdering millions of Americans, is there any higher priority? The most powerful constitutional tool Congress has is the power of the purse. If we had the ability to stop this deal--and we don't--and millions of Americans die, how do we explain that to the men and women who elected us? I am not advocating that we fight willy-nilly. I am advocating that we fight on things that matter. Don't give $500 million to Planned Parenthood, a corrupt organization that is taking the lives of vast numbers of unborn children and selling their body parts, in a criminal conspiracy, directly contrary to Federal law. Don't give $100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei, who seeks to murder millions. In both instances, those are defending life. Yet Republican leadership is not willing to lift a finger. If only all the people who might be murdered by a nuclear weapon could create a PAC in Washington and hire some lobbyists, maybe leadership would listen to them. But the truckdriver at home, the waitress at home, the schoolteacher at home, the pastor, the police officer, the working men and women--the Washington cartel does not listen to them. I will note where this deal is headed. In December, when this dirty continuing resolution expires, leadership is already foreshadowing that they plan to bust the budget caps. Why? We talked about it at the beginning. Barack Obama has discovered that when he says the word ``shutdown,'' the Republican leadership screams, surrenders, and runs to the hills. Obama, understanding that quite well, says: If you don't bust the budget caps, I will shut the government down. In this bizarre process, Republican leadership will blame whatever Obama does on other Republicans. You noticed how much energy leader McConnell devotes to attacking conservatives? You notice how much energy Speaker Boehner devotes to attacking conservatives? Just yesterday the Speaker of the House went on national television, and on national television he directed an obscene epithet at me personally. He is welcome to insult whomever he likes. I don't intend to reciprocate. But when has leadership ever shown that level of venom, that level of animosity to President Obama and the Democrats who are bankrupting this country, who are destroying the Constitution, who are endangering the future of our children and grandchildren, who are retreating from leadership and the world, and who have created an environment that has led to the rise of radical Islamic terrorists? One of the dynamics we have seen in fight after fight is that Harry Reid and the Democrats sit back and laugh. Why? Because it is Republican leadership that leads the onslaught, attacking conservatives, saying: No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop ObamaCare. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop amnesty. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop Planned Parenthood. No, you can't, and we will not do anything to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. If Republican leadership really believes we can accomplish nothing, then why does it matter if you have a Republican House or Senate? Every 2 years come October, November, we tell the voters it matters intensely. To paraphrase the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make if the standard for Republican leadership is, anything that gets 67 votes we will support. That means Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi remain the de facto leaders of the Senate and the House. I would note, by the way, if leadership goes through with their suggestion to bust the budget caps, they will have done something astonishing. Historically, the three legs of the conservative stool have been fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and national security conservatives. Between Planned Parenthood, Iran, and the budget caps, leadership will have managed to abandon all three. No wonder the American people are frustrated. No wonder the American people do not understand why leadership isn't listening to them.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.