Jon Husted

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I would like to suggest that I go through this again about what is actually in this amendment because it was just misrepresented. This isn't the SAVE America Act. This is, frankly, me listening to the minority leader, what he said, and how he supports--he doesn't object to photo ID. So all that is in this amendment is five forms of photo ID that people can list to vote, which people have. I ask the American people: Do you have a driver's license? Do you have a State ID? Do you have a passport? Do you have a military or veterans ID? Do you have a Tribal ID? Because every American has one of those things or has access to it. In Ohio, we will pay for you to have a free State ID. That is all this asks. Show one of those five forms of identification. And then the misrepresentation about what this does on mail-in ballots, clearly some people don't know how it works. I can explain to you how it works. When you have a mail-in ballot process, you have the ballot. You have the mail-in envelope. You have two envelopes. You have the mail-in envelope. Then you have a security envelope inside, in which your ballot is contained. You put the information, whether that is a photo of your passport or the last four digits of your Social Security, on the outside of that envelope where no one can see your ballot. It validates that the ballot inside is legit, that it is from a qualified registered voter. They remove that information and put the ballots on the other side in the presence of both a Democrat and a Republican, and then the ballots are counted. That is how it works, not that misrepresentation. The problem is this is too simple. It is simple photo ID. You either believe that we need to know who is voting or you don't. And this simple amendment accomplishes that. The misrepresentation of how it works needed to be corrected. I ask unanimous consent that the previous scheduled roll call votes begin immediately.

Mr. HUSTED

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HUSTED. Madam President, I have been here for a little while this afternoon, this evening, and have listened to a lot of the concerns of my colleagues, and I believe I have something tonight that will provide some common ground that, hopefully, we can all support. I come to this conversation having been twice elected and entrusted as the chief elections officer of the State of Ohio, as being elected their secretary of state. I oversaw elections: presidential elections in 2012 and 2016, as well as midterm elections in 2014 and 2018, and many primaries, local elections, special elections, ballot initiatives, on and on and on. I know my election law. I know my election administration, and I believe Ohio is the gold standard for how to run an election. I made my mission clear in that role to make Ohio a place where it was easy to vote and hard to cheat. And many other States do it right; many other States do it right. They have voter ID laws. They properly maintain the voter rolls. However, other States do not do that. I enforced voter roll maintenance, the voter roll maintenance standards in all 88 counties, to make sure that no one could nefariously or accidentally cast a ballot, and this standard was upheld in the case before the U.S. Supreme Court of Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute. And I can tell you, it is a chore to make sure that only legally registered citizens are on the voter rolls because there are millions of people in this country who can get driver's licenses, who get Social Security numbers, who are not citizens of the United States of America. They may be here on a visa, a green card, a refugee, someone here on a TPS--temporary protected status. They all get the things that you need to register to vote in many States. And when you are in a swing State, you have lots of outside groups that just want to register everybody because they get paid more and more and more the more people they register, even if those people are not legally allowed to be on the voter rolls. It is an important responsibility. I also launched an annual voter fraud and suppression report, which was a postmortem on each election cycle, and we found cases every election of fraud and attempted fraud, even with all those safeguards in place. It was rare, but it was real. It was out there. And you may say: Well, what is the big deal? It is a few hundred here, a few hundred there. We had 200 elections during my tenure. When you add up the local elections that were decided by 1 vote or tied-- local elections, township trustees, political officials--every vote counts; every vote matters. Ohio then implemented a required photo ID law at the polls, and with these reforms, there has been no evidence of voter suppression. In fact, with all of these measures in place, in the 2024 Presidential election, it produced the second highest turnout that we have had in the past four Presidential elections. And it is not surprising that people don't find it hard to produce an ID when they come to vote because it happens in their lives every single day. I know, for me, in the last week, I have had to provide an ID to enter a government building, an ID to rent a car, an ID to stay at a hotel. But many other things we commonly do in life, whether that is someone going to the local store to buy alcohol or tobacco, you name it, lots of reasons that people have to supply IDs. They are very accustomed to doing it. They do it all the time. So when they show up at the polls and ask for an ID, they already had it with them because they probably were already asked for it once that day. And in Ohio--and I know other States do this and are perfectly capable of doing it--if you don't have an ID, the State of Ohio will get you one free of charge at the DMV. So when we talk about the SAVE America Act, it is trying to solve a simple problem--at least the provision I am here to talk about tonight--that we need to make sure that we know who is coming to the polls to cast their vote because election integrity matters. But there are 14 States that do not have voter ID laws, even though 80 percent of Americans think it is a good idea. This is one of those issues that, whether you talk to Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, they say: Yes, photo ID makes sense. It is just kind of common sense that we would want to know who is voting when we cast a ballot to elect Presidents and Senators and Governors. And, like I said, I have tried to listen. I heard my Democrat colleagues say that they don't oppose photo ID laws. I heard Senator Schumer say our objection as Democrats is not to a photo ID. I heard Senator Fetterman say he supports a photo ID law. And I guess if I can quote him: If GOP wants real reform over a show vote--put out a clean, standalone bill, and I'm AYE. Well, that is what I am doing tonight. The voter, under this legislation, could present a photo ID of any of the following: a State- issued driver's license that includes a photo and an expiration date, State ID that has a photo of the individual and an expiration date, a valid U.S. passport, a valid military ID, or a valid ID issued by a Tribal government that includes a photo of the individual and an expiration date. Pretty simple. Not complicated. Easy to do. It is proven effective because many States already do it. We certainly do it in Ohio. I will add that it is also easier to administer when you have a photo ID and you are an election official because we have our neighbors show up every 2 or 4 years to work at the polls. They might be young children, young adults. We know we let high school students participate in that in Ohio. It might be a senior citizen. It could be anybody that decides they are going to give of their day to go sit at the polls and check in voters. When you have a photo ID, it is simple. You just look at it or you slide it through the card reader and the voter's information pops up and you know which precinct they are from, which ballot they have, and whether they are legally allowed to vote. Rather than trying to do it the old way, the bureaucratic way of having to look through poll books and making every poll worker who works there once every 2 or 4 years become a signature-reading expert to try to determine whether or not somebody is truly allowed to vote in that precinct and they are who they say they are. So I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle realize or really do support a photo ID law because this legislation is the simple, easy, proven way to do it. So showing a photo ID is common sense. The American people support it by an 80-20 margin. And as I have been saying for more than a decade and a half, it is possible to make it both easy to vote and hard to cheat, and we should make that a national standard with the photo ID law that is easy to implement and is proven effective. Passing voter ID requirements is common sense and passing this provision that I offer tonight as part of the SAVE America Act is right for election integrity and it is the right thing to do for voter confidence and I urge a ``yes'' vote. So now, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4155, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. And I recognize, Madam President, that I have some colleagues here that may want to offer something. Madam President, let me withdraw that request and allow my colleagues to speak.

Mr. HUSTED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4155, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. HUSTED. Reserving the right to object, I want to address some of the points that were made by the Senator from Oregon. There were a lot of points made about citizenship. The amendment that I am proposing has nothing to do with citizenship; it has to do with photo ID--five simple ways that have been proven successful in many States to determine if the person showing up to vote is, indeed, the person who is registered to vote. It is that simple. Five. Five forms of identification that everyone has access to. This particular amendment is not about citizenship; it is about photo ID. Secondly, I want to address the issue about protecting the secrecy of the ballot. Let me also say that there are no birth certificate requirements in this particular amendment I have. Then I want to talk about the secrecy of the ballot. Let me explain the administration of how elections officials make sure the ballot that is being mailed in is, indeed, a legitimate vote. There are two envelopes. The first envelope is the security envelope. That envelope determines if the individual is eligible, in which they could put their--inside that envelope put their copy of their photo ID or their Social Security number on the form you would have them fill out. The second envelope contains the actual ballot. What happens once that ballot is received is that two elections officials in the State of Ohio--one Republican and one Democrat--look at it, they validate the integrity of the envelope that was received with the ballot, and then remove that, separate all the identification over here, and put the secure ballot that has been validated as legal into another box, which is then loaded in the machines and later counted on election night. The secrecy of the vote is in no way jeopardized by that process. How do I know? We have been using it for years. It has never been a problem, and we have a Democrat and a Republican right there with their eyes on it making sure that happens. Now, to the substance of the gentleman's amendment, there are many reasons that I could object to this, but I will take one, because this is the Freedom to Vote by Mail Act. It is a very large amendment in which it authorizes unsolicited mail-in ballots--let me repeat: unsolicited mail-in ballots--meaning I didn't ask for it; you just sent me a ballot. Why is this wrong? I will give you a couple of examples. In Wood County, where Bowling Green State University is in Ohio, at one point in time, we had more registered voters than there were people in the county. You say: How could that happen? Because Bowling Green State University is there, and every 4 years when you are a swing State, people really, really try to get every single student to register to vote on that campus. So over years, according to the National Voting Rights Act, you cannot remove somebody for being an inactive voter, meaning just because I didn't show up and vote, I am on the voter rolls; you can't remove me. Well, I want to just give you a reason why they might still be on the rolls--because when they graduate from college, they don't think to call the Wood County Board of Elections and remove themselves from the rolls; they just stay on there. According to Federal law, you just can't remove them for being inactive for at least 6 years, and you have to go through a series of verifications, which is what I did in Ohio and was part and parcel to the Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, a process that was approved. So in States that don't do that, which there are many that don't, what you have are people that may attend the University of Oregon; they may be from Columbus, OH; they may graduate from college and live in an apartment on campus; and when they move back to Ohio, you wouldn't know the difference. They are still on the rolls, and you are sending them a ballot--and they are not even legally allowed to vote in that State-- because you can't remove them from the rolls without going through a 6- year process. That is the Federal law. That is why we have so many people--so many ballots in States that do unsolicited absentee balloting with ballots floating around out there, and they are not supposed to be sent. The person they are being sent to is not legally allowed to vote because they may very well be registered in another State, and you wouldn't even know it. So on that basis, Madam President, I object.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I come today to request a pause in the political discourse of this Chamber for a moment of reflection. As those both in this Chamber and across the Nation know, last Thursday, March 12, 2026, an American KC-135 refueling aircraft went down in western Iraq. The crash claimed the lives of the aircraft's six crew members. I would like to take a moment of the Senate's time this evening to honor three of Ohio's favorite sons, the airmen who were serving in the Ohio National Guard with the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus. And listening to my colleague Senator Lankford, I will say this, quote a passage from John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for his friends. Let me first speak of one of Ohio's favorite sons, Capt. Curtis J. Angst. He was 30 years old from Wilmington, OH. He was a KC-135 pilot with 10 years of military service. He graduated from Wilmington High School in 2014 and enlisted in Ohio's Air National Guard a year later. He earned a degree in aerospace engineering in 2020 from the University of Cincinnati. His family states that his commitment to his country was matched only by his devotion to his wife Mary and his passion for music, traveling, and the outdoors. His family stated: Those who knew Curtis remember his steady kindness and the joy he carried with him everywhere he went. His constant smile and instantly recognizable laugh made people feel welcome, valued, and part of something bigger. Another family member described Captain Angst's life as one defined by service, generosity, and a genuine love for people. The Air Force says he logged 880 flight hours, 67 of which were in combat. He was promoted to captain just last November. He earned multiple honors, including the Air and Space Achievement Medal and the Meritorious Unit Award. He will be missed by his wife Mary, his parents, and many more friends and family. MSgt Tyler Simmons. You see them all pictured here. There is Curtis. Here is Tyler. MSgt Tyler Simmons was 28 years old from Columbus, OH. He was a 2015 graduate of Eastmoor Academy on Columbus's East Side, where he was his high school's quarterback. He loved football and was a loyal fan of Texas Christian University, TCU. His service began in April 2018. His father said that Master Sergeant Simmons loved airplanes and always had plans for joining the Air Force. His unit commander reports that Master Sergeant Simmons has been posthumously promoted from tech sergeant to master sergeant. He was a musician and played both the viola and violin in his high school. Amazing talent. His family says he loved to roller skate. Tyler loved his family but was particularly fond of his grandmother Bernice, who, at 85 years old, is described as his confidante and workout buddy. Tyler's smile could light up any room. His strong presence would fill it, his family says. His mother said he loved serving in the military and that he was born for it. We mourn today alongside Master Sergeant Simmons' entire family. You see him pictured there. You can see his smile. You can tell what they mean when they talk about his smile. The third individual I would like to honor is Capt. Seth Koval. He was 38 years old from Mooresville, IN, and he was an aircraft commander with 19 years of service to our country. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in aviation operations from Purdue University in 2011. He was a KC-135R Stratotanker instructor pilot. You see Captain Koval there. Captain Koval first enlisted in 2006 as a machinist with Indiana's National Guard 122nd Fighter Wing and transferred to the Ohio National Guard, which we welcomed and loved to have him, in 2017. He flew a total of 2,076 hours, 443 of those in combat. His wife said he grew up dreaming of being a pilot, a dream that his hard work made come true. He was a man of devout faith in Jesus. He was a man of devout faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He was described as loving, generous, selfless, kindhearted, smart, devoted and a fixer of all things and a real outdoorsman. His loss is one mourned by many but most of all by his wife Heather, his son, and countless other close family members and friends of Capt. Seth Koval. You see our three heroes right there. These servicemembers, alongside their three other brothers and sisters in arms, gave the last full measure of devotion to their country last week. I thank my colleagues for hearing their stories this evening, for honoring their service, for celebrating their lives, and for mourning their loss alongside a grateful nation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate observe a moment of silence in remembrance of Capt. Curtis Angst, MSgt Tyler Simmons, and Capt. Seth Koval.

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, may God bless these servicemembers and their families. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

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

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, as we approach the March for Life, an annual celebration of life held in cities across America, I want to share what choosing life means to me and, for the many others who share my similar story, what it means to them. When my birth mother became pregnant with me, she faced an incredibly difficult choice--a choice that I know thousands of women across our Nation are facing even as I speak today. Her husband had passed away, and she was already raising two young boys. After starting a new relationship, she found herself pregnant with me. Money was tight. She had little support. And she soon found herself being pressured to have an abortion. Over the years, I have reflected on just how tough and courageous that decision must have been for her. I always try to think about what it would have been like to have been in her shoes and how difficult that must have been. Fortunately, she chose life and the path of adoption for me, which was just an amazing blessing. After a brief stay in foster care, I received the greatest blessing of my life. I was adopted by my loving parents, Jim and Judy Husted. I spoke with my mom and dad last night. My dad is amazing, and he is about to turn 88 years old. He and my mom have always given me the gift of unconditional love--the greatest gift any parent could give to their child. I share my story because I want women to know this: You are not alone. Others have walked the road that you are on, if you find yourself pregnant and without the support you need--you think you need--to make it, and there is a grateful child, one day, who will, hopefully, tell you that. You don't have to walk that road by yourself. There is support out there for you. In Ohio alone, women have access to nearly 200 pregnancy help centers and maternity homes that serve expectant mothers. I have visited many of them. They want you to go see them, if you are in need, if you are scared, if you need someone to talk to. They are there to help, not to pressure, not to judge but to provide love, care, and support. Many of the women who staff these pregnancy resource centers have faced the very same challenges that you are facing right now. I know that my birth mother somehow found her way to Catholic Social Services and had that support. I hope, if you are struggling and you feel that aloneness out there, that you know there are people out there who want to help and that you won't feel alone. I know being alone in a tough situation is the worst thing that you could possibly feel, but there are people out there who want to help you. So, as we prepare for another March for Life this year, I hope we can remember a few simple truths. First, the March for Life reminds the country that this cause is ever-present; that laws may change but that culture only changes when people are willing to stand up publicly and peacefully for the cause of life. Second, unborn children cannot march. They cannot vote. They cannot advocate for themselves. They rely on you to do that. So thank you for continuing to be a voice for them. And, third, the pro-life movement is not just about opposing abortion. It is about supporting mothers, families, and children with real help and real hope. The March for Life shines the national spotlight on that lifesaving work that people at pregnancy resource centers and places like that are doing across our country every single day. So, as I reflect on my own good fortune and the courageous strength of my birth mother and the gratitude I have for my mom and dad, who adopted me and gave me a great life--full of love, full of support--and as we prepare for the March for Life, I hope that we will remember those sacrifices, will remember the challenges, and do all we can to support those expectant mothers and the children of our Nation. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story, and may God bless America.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, healthcare is the No. 1 driver of inflation in the 21st century. When we talk about affordability, healthcare is the biggest driver of our costs rising in this century. And the fact of the matter is that the Affordable Care Act is really the ``Unaffordable Care Act,'' and it has made it less affordable. That fact is indisputable. I have been in the Senate for less than a year; and I didn't create this problem, but I am here working to be part of the solution. In just a moment, I will ask for unanimous consent to pass my bill, S. 3391, the Accountability for Better Care Act. My proposal represents a good-faith offer on a short-term basis to extend enhanced premium credits for 2 years. I will repeat that: This would extend enhanced premium credits for 2 years but with reforms that will reduce fraud, lower premiums, and protect longstanding conscience rights for millions of Americans. That is what it does. Before I explain what this commonsense proposal does in more detail, I think that it is equally important to express why it is important, why I am on the floor today--because I will tell you, over the past few weeks, I have been visiting and getting calls and talking with Ohioans who are very concerned about their rising premium payments. I was in a meeting recently with a pastor. He and his wife are attempting to renew their policy under the ACA. He makes a little over $80,000 a year, and he is going to see his premiums rise by over $10,000 next year. I had another conversation with a small business owner who indicated, with premiums and deductibles, that it will take more than 30 percent of his salary to afford healthcare. These are just a few examples of the millions of Ohioans and Americans that are worried. That is why we have got to take action. It is long past time to do so. One action we can take today, as part of this legislation, is to address the fraudulent enrollees under the program, though. It has existed for 4 years, and we know that it has cost taxpayers $27 billion each year. That is a lot of money. There is a lot of fraud going on in the country right now, and we certainly can't stand by and watch it happen by renewing premium subsidies and not do anything to eliminate the fraud. We know it is happening, so it is important, if we are going to extend the tax credits, that we fix the problem. We could do this by requiring everyone receiving a premium tax credit to pay something toward their health insurance that will help realign the incentives and reduce fraud. I offer a modest solution to this. It requires simply $5--$5--on a monthly basis to enroll so that we can combat fraud, so we can know there is an actual person on the other side of this policy that the insurance companies sign people up for so that we can eliminate the rampant fraud. And to put this in perspective, a $5 request is simply 16 cents a day to get affordable healthcare provided for, largely, by the taxpayers of this country. That is a pretty great deal for the people who would be enrolled. Requiring this minimum premium will also make certain that Americans cannot be enrolled without their knowledge because we know that there have been convictions around this country for unscrupulous brokers that sign people up under the ACA enhanced premiums. There have been prosecutions and convictions. We know it is fraud. We can fix it simply by asking people to pay a little bit in return for their largely free healthcare. We also know that insurers raise premiums on the ACA silver plans in order to address the cost-sharing reductions for low-income individuals. We know this process as silver loading. In my bill, we will fund the cost-sharing reductions so that we can end the practice of silver loading--the games that insurance companies have been playing. This would lower premiums in the long run by 10 to 20 percent for lower income individuals and save the taxpayers between $5 billion and $10 billion. It is an important reform to the tax credits. Finally, my bill maintains household premium contributions for most people making up to 400 percent of the Federal poverty level, and it also places an income cap on the ACA tax credit for households up to 600 percent of the Federal poverty line. That is $192,000 for a family of four--because we know, under the old system, people making $20 an hour would subsidize the premiums for people making a million dollars a year. No one thinks that is right; I can't imagine anyone does. So we fixed that. These premium contributions are gradually increased as individuals earn more wages up to that income cap. This will reduce the sharp cliff that many of these families are facing because of the design of the credits that currently exist and are about to expire. I hear constantly from Ohioans that they are worried about their out- of-pocket costs due to failures with ObamaCare. We know it doesn't work; colleagues on the floor have detailed why. My bill creates a soft landing to protect Ohioans and Americans from steep rises in their premiums created by the failure--the structural failure of the ObamaCare system. I have long said that I believe that there is a way forward with this proposal; that we can protect families from punishing premium costs and address the underlying fraud in the ACA and to do so in a balanced and thoughtful way. I came to the floor just a couple of weeks ago and outlined this framework in a proposal I called ``Fraud, Freeze, and Fix.'' Well, today, this is the manifestation of that as represented by the Accountability for Better Care Act. I appeal to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that have stated that their goal is to extend the Biden-era COVID bonuses. If that is true, they should support this bill because it does that. That is what it does, but it also gives Congress a runway to fix and address the drivers of high costs of healthcare. I will conclude this, finally. To my Democrat colleagues, there was a 43-day government shutdown that was ostensibly--it was ostensibly supposed to be about extending the ACA subsidies. Well, this is your opportunity to take yes for an answer because we are extending the ACA subsidies. You get your wish, and we get the accountability we need. And for these reasons, I ask unanimous consent that, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3391 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be made laid and upon the table.

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's thoughts. I haven't been here for years. I didn't create this. I haven't been here for years trying to undermine ObamaCare. I have been here for less than a year. And this isn't unserious; I am very serious. This represents a compromise. My Democrat colleagues want an extension of the ACA tax credits; I am offering that. All I am asking for in return is that we eliminate the fraud--the kind of fraud that we had in Minneapolis going on right now where we don't have proper oversight of our generous taxpayer-supported programs. I will just say specifically, though, that the proposal I am offering is more generous than the original ACA Program on tax credits, and it has nothing to do with women's rights because it doesn't ban any of it. It just says that the taxpayers don't pay for it, which has been, since the 1970s, the way this institution has operated as it relates to the Hyde amendment. The time to work on it was last June. We offered something on CSRs last June, but it was objected to by the Democrats under the Byrd rule. It was offered. Cost-share reductions--we offered it last June, but my Democrat colleagues objected to it. Yes, I agree, there are only 5 days, maybe longer if we want to spend a little time. And time is of the essence, so that is why we shouldn't waste any more of it. We should pass this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, as I said on this floor many times, the government shutdown had many victims: air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and many other public servants, and, of course, the American people themselves who were the most affected by this. Thankfully, the bill passed in this Chamber last week put that chaos behind us. But that wasn't all that it did. In some small way, the difficult time proved that we can work together to do tangible things to reduce healthcare costs in this country. As a matter of fact, I worked on a bipartisan basis to introduce the SMART OTC Act, which became law as part of the government reopening. It was a good part of that reopening. The bill aims to make lowering the cost of over-the-counter drugs more accessible to patients by eliminating the redtape at the FDA. We know that when you can take a prescription drug and make it an over-the-counter drug, prices go down. In fact, on average, in cases where we have been able to do this, it reduces prices from 30 to 95 percent. It was an important part of that provision and an example of a way, on a bipartisan basis, we can get some of these kinds of things done. It is an example of how we can attack affordability with commonsense reforms without adding the debt burden to future generations. I am proud to have worked on that bill to make things better for Ohioans and the entire country. But the shutdown is finally over. I want to thank my Republican colleagues and the Democrats who joined us to help end it. Unfortunately, 40 others chose a different path, and we wasted 43 days from focusing on issues like growing the economy and making things more affordable. I have been in the Senate less than a year. I wasn't here when Congress passed ObamaCare or the Biden COVID subsidies that have been used to prop up the ACA exchanges. But I want to be part of the solution. I didn't create the problem, but I am here to be part of the solution. We owe it to the American people to honestly assess the problem before we cast a vote on it. Healthcare costs are rising. The ACA exchange system is too expensive and too complicated, and it has failed to reduce the underlying cost of healthcare. It has failed. The truth is, healthcare inflation is the No. 1 driver of inflation in the 21st century. Just look at this chart. It shows at the beginning of the century, all inflation and healthcare inflation were about the same. But if you look here around the time that ObamaCare was enacted and went into law, you see the disparity growing. Medical care, medical costs, healthcare costs began to spike and rise. It was not a solution for healthcare costs and making healthcare more affordable. As a matter of fact, the ACA made care less affordable. And this problem will not be solved by pouring more taxpayer dollars into the coffers of big insurance companies, which has been the path of how ObamaCare has been operated since its enactment. Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett once said of higher education financing: Higher education is not underfunded. It is under- accountable and under-productive. That is the same that we can now say of the ``Unaffordable Care Act.'' But I believe there is a way forward on the issue that can protect families from punishing premium costs and cut costs driving inflation, and we can do so without putting another $350 billion on the national credit card for a program we know is dysfunctional. If we want to lower the cost of care, we must deliver reforms that put patients in charge, and I believe we can earn bipartisan support with a straightforward and responsible framework focused on what I call the ``fraud, freeze, and fix'' approach--the ``fraud, freeze, and fix'' approach. You do this paired with a short extension of the premium subsidies, and we can address the shortcomings of the ACA, lower healthcare costs, and provide the American people with something we can actually implement. Now, I want to explain what I mean by fraud, freeze, and fix. First of all, let's deal with fraud. The COVID-era zero-premium subsidies that were created created a cottage industry for abuse. Much of the explosion of fraudulent enrollees is attributable to zero-dollar premiums, which were created in 2021. These plans are fully subsidized by the taxpayers and have created incentives to enroll individuals without their knowledge. This is how it works. Brokers are enrolling people who never asked for the coverage, one. Two, insurance companies get paid. Three, brokers get a commission. And, four, taxpayers get the bill. There have been criminal convictions in many States across this country where this fraud is actually being perpetrated, and it needs to be fixed. Hard-working taxpayers have footed the bill for almost $35 billion to insurers who enrolled people who did not use the plan a single time. And we know why--because not all, but some of those people, were enrolled fraudulently. Requiring everyone receiving a premium tax credit to pay a small amount--at least a small amount--toward their health insurance will help realign the incentives and reduce fraud. It won't be allowable if we construct the program like that. It will make certain that Americans cannot be enrolled in plans without their knowledge or consent. It is an important step if we want to move forward in helping to advance a solution. The second part is the freeze part. We need to limit the subsidies to where they are right now so it doesn't become a growing burden for the American taxpayer. The ACA required insurers to lower deductibles, copays, and out-of- pocket costs for enrollees making between 100 percent and 250 percent of the poverty line. However, in 2017, a Federal court ruled that the cost-sharing reduction payments violated the appropriations clause. But insurers are still required to lower the costs, but this results in artificially high premiums. Additionally, because the premium tax credits are calculated against the second lowest cost silver plan, silver loading also supercharged the Federal subsidy spending of this. It created a system that got gamed, but we can fix it. If we appropriate the cost-sharing reductions, we can lower premiums by 10 to 20 percent, while also delivering savings to the taxpayer. Freeze it and fix it. That is the freeze part, one of the ways that we cannot put America in a bigger burden and bury the cost to the taxpayers, and we can also lower premiums by saving money. And then, finally, is the fix portion. This is the most important part because subsidies do not lower costs. They transfer the burden. The fix involves how we actually do reforms that lower the costs. There are several bipartisan healthcare initiatives that address lowering the price of healthcare for our constituents. Many--``many'' may be an overstatement, but there are several bills right now that I know have bipartisan support that will lower costs that we can accomplish. For example, price transparency is one of the most bipartisan ideas in this Chamber. It gives patients, employers, and small businesses the power to see what the prices are and then compare them and decide whether or not they can find a better deal for what they are paying. Transparency exposes inflated costs, sparks competition, and makes the other reforms that we are talking about actually work because we can price shop and we can find out whether or not we are being ripped off by what we are paying. Another example that I know there is bipartisan support for is PBM reform. There has been a bipartisan appetite to lower the cost of prescription drugs by addressing the role that the middlemen play in increasing these costs: bipartisan PBM reform, something we know can reduce costs. And 340B reform, where both Republicans and Democrats have raised concerns about the 340B program, which is no longer efficient or serving its intended goal of supporting patients and healthcare providers who serve vulnerable populations, like our rural communities. These are just some of the reforms that have bipartisan support. The list goes on. You can easily find them. We need to do them. It will help drive down the actual costs of healthcare in this country. Transparency, where I started with this, is a necessary step in the idea of an HSA expansion that President Trump has proposed, where we send money to consumers rather than to the insurance companies. You have to have transparency if you expect people to shop. This will achieve the intended goal of creating consumer choice, and it would protect families from premium shock, and it would protect the Federal budget. There are two things we need to do: protect families from the inflationary costs that the ACA has created, but also protect the taxpayer. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and we won't get out of it simply by writing bigger checks. If this debate ends with one side saying extend everything and the other side saying we oppose everything, nothing will get done, and we will have failed the American people. But we have a chance. What I outlined right there, I know there is bipartisan support for. And there is more, but that is a start: fraud, freeze, and fix. We have a chance right now to do better, help families afford coverage, pass bipartisan reforms to cut costs, and refuse to add another $350 billion to the national debt. I am the newest Member of the U.S. Senate. I wasn't here when Congress created this problem, but these ideas are part of the solution. If anyone in this Chamber is willing to work together, let's go. It is time to do it. The time is now. The American people deserve nothing less. Let's get ready to get the job done. Time was wasted during the government shutdown. There is an urgent need to address these issues. Let's go. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, it is day 39--day 39--of the shutdown. Some of us are here working over the weekend. I want to thank all the staff, all the people who work here at the Capitol who are not getting paid. We genuinely appreciate your dedicated public service, putting your jobs and the country first. Thank you. Appreciate that. I know that there are a number of people across the country that are probably pretty ``peeved-off'' today--there, we will use that word-- pretty upset about how this government shutdown is affecting them. I am sure many of them got turned away at the airports, receiving emails, finding out that their flights are canceled, their plans for work, for family are canceled. And for what? A senseless government shutdown. I know that there are a lot of people who are struggling. They don't know when it is going to end. They haven't been paid in over a month. They have questions. The Members of this body, we ask each other: When is this going to end? None of us knows. Imagine the people out there across the country who have lives that they are trying to figure out. They have no idea when this is coming to an end. I feel for them. And then people who struggle the most, people of low income who don't know where their SNAP benefits stand, whether this will go on for another week or another 3 years since it is about standing up to Donald Trump, whatever, however long that will take to, I guess, share that lesson. But 14 times I have voted, as have many of my colleagues, to keep the government open, solve this problem, move ahead. Soon, I believe, we will be having the opportunity to vote a 15th time. This one may be a little different, to extend a clean CR that would run until the end of January, along with, perhaps, some of the appropriations bills that have already passed this Chamber on a bipartisan basis. Perhaps the 15th time we could convince 5 more of our Democrat colleagues to go along with us, but I always choose to be an optimist. I saw the minority leader on the floor earlier today. They, in their proposal, allegedly, even though we haven't seen the written, they say they have a clean CR. We have a clean CR. They have a clean CR with one exception, a demand, an impediment, as it has become, of the extension of the Biden COVID bonuses. That is the difference between what we have offered and what they have offered. And really what it serves as, it has over the past 4 years, Democrats implemented this. They set the expiration date for 2025, but it was a COVID bonus. It was supposed to be temporary. But really what it was, was a bailout of a failed ObamaCare system. But that is what they are holding out under. Let me tell you what that is, what that means, what is inside of it, why the American people should have concerns about it. Healthcare inflation in this country is double of what consumer inflation has been since ObamaCare got enacted. In the 21st century, healthcare is the No. 1 driver of inflation in this country. So I hope we want to get at the costs and the cause of what is affecting the unaffordability of healthcare in this country. Healthcare has increased since ObamaCare started by 6 percent a year while overall inflation has been 3 percent or less. But I want to dig in a little bit over the impediment, the impediment of the Biden COVID bonuses. First of all, the way they are structured, there is massive fraud, with zero premiums and an incentive--because the money goes directly to the insurance companies--is to sign up people, phantom enrollees. No one knows who they are, where they are. The premiums go right to the insurance companies, not to the individual. And what has that done for insurance companies? Well, you can see here. This is what ObamaCare and the COVID bonuses have done for the insurance companies: Record profits. Record profits. During this period, while we have seen the stock performance of health insurance companies go up by 600 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial has gone up by 300 percent. Double--the insurance companies have doubled what the rest of the American economy has done. The other part of these subsidies that are problematic is that there are no income caps. We are not targeting these resources to people who are struggling to pay. We are giving them to everyone that wants them. So I have listened to my colleagues, the gentleman chairman of our HELP Committee Dr. Cassidy. He has talked about this at length. I have heard others talk about that there is a bipartisan way to do this. There is a thoughtful way to make sure that these efforts are focused on consumers and not on the insurance companies. So there are valid disagreements and substantive disagreements about why the Biden COVID bonuses are bad. But that absolves nobody--no one--of the responsibility to continue to work on resolving the inflationary costs of healthcare to the American consumer that have come since ObamaCare was implemented. I wasn't here for it. I have no pride in ownership, but I do want to fix it. I didn't create the problem, but I do care about making sure that people can afford healthcare. I want that to happen. I want to make sure that everybody has access to good, solid healthcare coverage. And we can do that. But we don't need to shut down the government to keep working on it, and that is the point. We both have proposed clean CRs, take out the stuff that we disagree on, keep working on it, pay the American people, pay the people who work here, get the flights going, and then let's get back to work on doing what we should have been doing for the last 39 days, which is having some constructive discussions about how we fix ObamaCare, how we drive down the cost of healthcare in this country, and how we make it affordable again for the American people. We will have that chance here over the weekend. I hope we will take advantage of it. I hope we will reopen the government and begin serving the American people while we continue the very important conversation of how we eliminate the fraud, of how we make healthcare more affordable. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Madam President, as you well know, I am the new guy here. In the past, I watched government shutdowns from afar. They never made sense to me. And now I am seeing one up close, and I can confirm that government shutdowns are senseless. And this one seems to be one of the most senseless ones of all. But what is it about? Why, for 38 days, would the government be shut down? Well, I know this, on day one, I sat in this Chamber, listened to the majority leader John Thune explain to our Democrat colleagues: Open the government, and we will negotiate on any priorities you want to discuss. So that has been, those have been the ground rules from day one. It sounded fair to me. It seems like that is a fair way to do it, but, apparently, that was not good enough for my Democrat colleagues. Some of them said that the shutdown was necessary to provide leverage to get the policies they wanted to, and they needed to stand up to President Trump. Well, congratulations. Congratulations for setting the record for the longest government shutdown in American history. Hope you are proud. But it came at an enormously expensive price, very, very high price, and who is paying that high price? It came at the expense of your constituents, that is who. That is who is paying the price for the government shutdown. And the reality is this, though. President Trump was elected, overwhelmingly, by the majority of Americans just a year ago. He will be in office for 3 more years. I know that for many of my colleagues, they don't like that prospect, but that is reality. That is how we do this in America, we elect Presidents every 4 years, and he was elected, overwhelmingly, by the American people. So I certainly hope, in standing up to him, you do not intend to keep the government shut down for 3 more years, for the process that you are using to gain leverage through your record-long government shutdown is at the price of the American people. They are the ones that are suffering from this, not the people in this Chamber--the American people. They are the collateral damage for your leverage. That is who is paying the price for the political gain. And who are the they? Who are the ``they'' that are paying this price? Well, they are SNAP beneficiaries who don't know if they will be able to afford food. They are the TSA agents and air traffic controllers who are missing paychecks, some of them having to take other jobs. Probably some of them will soon need to resign because they won't be getting a paycheck, and they will need to find some way to put food on the table. And what is the result of that? Flights being canceled. It is disrupting lives of American people all around the country. That is the price of trying to gain leverage. Congratulations. The Capitol Police that protect this place and all of you, they are part of paying the price for this. They are going unpaid while they still remain on the job. The staff in this Chamber, the staff that serves all of you to keep the floor open, to keep the clocks running on time, they pay the price. They are going without pay. I talked to a small business owner the other day who can't get their loan from the SBA. Small business owners are paying the price. And when they pay the price, so do their employees. In my own State of Ohio, 8,000 civilian employees were furloughed from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the people that protect our country. They are paying the price for your leverage. These are real people, not bargaining chips. They have real jobs. They have important things they do to serve our country. They are not bargaining chips for your political leverage. Republicans have voted time and time again to reopen government, cleanly, responsibly, and without games--the same thing that we asked you to do. I have voted 14 times. My colleagues and I on this side of the aisle have voted 14 times to reopen the government. It is not unprecedented to pass a clean CR to reopen the government. In fact, during the Biden administration, when Republicans didn't run this Chamber, they compromised with Democrats and voted 13 times to pass a clean CR to keep the government open, the same thing we have asked you to do 14 times, and you said no. There is a way forward right now though. We can pass a funding bill today--today--get workers paid, keep America running, and then pair it with the firm commitment that has been given to debate and vote on the policies that divide us. That is how grownups govern, by the way. That is how grownups are supposed to do this. We don't always get our way. We debate it; we fight for our values; and we vote. And sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose. That is what the majority leader of this body John Thune, who is a man of his word, has said he would do. My Democrat colleagues say they don't want to give up their leverage in funding government until all of their demands are met. But let's be abundantly clear, it is not Republicans. It is not Republicans that you are hurting with this strategy. It is the American people, the American taxpayer, the American taxpayer that is paying for a government that is not serving them. They are the ones. They are the ones that your strategy is hurting. And I say this with all sincerity. I want to offer a perspective because, yes, I am fired up about this. I am frustrated by it. I think it is wrong, but I want to fix it. So I want to offer this perspective. If leverage was your goal, you got as much leverage now as you are ever going to get. It is never going to get better than this. The shutdown has lasted 38 days. Do you really think you will have more leverage after 48 days or 58 days? You won't. It is just a matter of how much more suffering you will cause until it comes to an end. When will enough be enough? How much suffering must occur before you decide to vote with us to open up the government? I am not asking you to abandon your principles. I would never do that. Everybody here stands on their principles. They argue. They fight for what they want. I would never ask you to abandon your principles. If you want to defend Biden's COVID-era bonuses that prop up a broken ObamaCare system, then keep fighting, if that is what you believe. It is not working. You can propose your own legislation--which I would prefer that you propose some bipartisan legislation that the majority leader of this Chamber, I believe, will take up to vote. It is time for you to take yes for an answer to work with us to solve these problems. I wasn't here, neither was the Presiding Officer, when all the ObamaCare legislation was passed, nor was I here when the Democrats voted to set an expiration date of 2025 for the subsidies that they now say they want to renew. They set the expiration date. But I am here now. I want to fix it. I want to get some results. But those policies, those ObamaCare policies, have contributed to increasing healthcare costs that are the biggest driver of inflation in the 21st century. Look at this chart. This is the cost of consumer goods, services, that have increased from 2000 to 2024. Hospital service is No. 1, medical services on this chart. Healthcare inflation is the most dramatic form of inflation that this Nation has experienced in the 21st century, and it is due to ObamaCare policies. Those are the facts, and that is the reality. I didn't create the problem. Many people in this Chamber didn't create the problem. But I want to help solve the problem. I want to reduce the cost of healthcare. When the government shutdown ends, I am happy to be one of the people that works on solving the problem that others created. We want to fix this. We want people to be able to afford healthcare, but the way we do that is to drive down the costs. I want to work with anyone in this Chamber that will change that, to eliminate the fraud that has filled up this ACA system, to target the benefits to those who truly need them, and to create an insurance market that doesn't rely on endless taxpayer subsidies--create something that works, reduce the cost of providing healthcare in this country. And I say this: For the love of God and country, stop making the American people suffer while we wait to do this. Bring it to an end. Open the government. Let's work together to reduce the cost of healthcare and make it more affordable, because the truth is, you have no more leverage today than you did on day one. In fact, you have less, because there is less time to negotiate the items you claim to care about. There is less time today to negotiate it than when this all started. So it is a matter of urgency. Let's get this done. Let's get the government open, and let's get to work. It is the longest government shutdown in American history. We can't change what happened in the past 38 days, but we can change the future. We can end this today. Right now, today, we can end this. Let's get back to work. The American people expect their leaders to solve problems, not to stage them, not to create them, which is what has happened during this government shutdown. It is long past time to reopen the government, to restore trust, and to prove that the Senators in this Chamber can lead. That is the question that needs to be resolved, and it needs to be resolved today. It is time to reopen the government. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, today I would like to recognize His All- Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's visit to Washington, DC. His All-Holiness is visiting our Nation's Capital in conjunction with his acceptance of the prestigious Templeton Prize, an award which has been received by faith leaders including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Greek Orthodox community in Ohio and across the country take great pride in this recognition of their faith leader's global influence.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Honda Anna Engine Plant in Ohio. The Anna Engine Plant is Honda's largest auto engine plant in the world. Since opening on July 22, 1985, the Honda Anna Engine Plant has built more than 32.5 million engines. Over the past four decades, the Honda Anna Engine Plant has expanded from a 200,000 square-foot facility with 94 production associates to a 2.8 million-square-foot facility employing 2,900 people. The Honda Anna Engine Plant remains an industry leader in engine development and production, and I thank them for their dedicated work to Ohio.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the facts about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That was my first reconciliation process as a new U.S. Senator. It was a great experience. I very much enjoyed the 36 hours straight of no sleep. I think that was a record for me. But we got a lot accomplished. I want to share with you and the people of Ohio about why I believe it is a good bill and I supported it, because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it is known, is uniquely tailored to support Ohio workers and families. I really believe that it serves them well. And the facts support it. First of all, I think it is important to reflect on why it was necessary. The budget law that we passed extended the 2017 tax cuts, which were going to expire. They needed to be renewed. It also made important investments in national defense and border security. But if we failed to pass it, we would have seen a $4 trillion tax hike on the American people, something that would have been devastating to their pocketbooks and our economy. I believe that people and States do a good job spending the money that they have. I believe that people will spend smarter when they have more money in their pockets rather than putting that money in the control of the Federal Government. I come to this conclusion based on both my life experiences and 25 years of State government in Ohio. It is from that perspective I want to focus on what I believe the One Big Beautiful Bill means in real-world terms for Ohio families, workers, and taxpayers. The BBB results in more take-home pay for Ohioans, more money in their pockets. More take-home pay means independence. Government dependency means less independence. That is why this bill focuses on really allowing workers to keep more of the money they earn. Let's dig into this a bit. The tax cuts that were cemented for workers and job creators will leave the average Ohio household with an estimated $7,000 more in take-home pay. And more specifically, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates the bill will increase take-home pay for the average family with two kids in Ohio between $6,900 a family up to $11,700 per family. That is more aftertax wages--taxes going down, wages going up, more money in your pockets. That is what it means. We made no taxes on tips and no taxes on overtime a reality. Ohioans work hard, and that is a change that they can feel legitimately in their pockets. I was on a telephone townhall last night. One of the ladies who called in said: Hey, I want you to know my husband is a line worker. He works a lot of overtime for the utility company, and that eliminating tax on overtime pay will mean a lot to our family--more take-home pay. I understood that. It is another aspect of the bill that is very important for working people. We increased the child tax credit up to $2,200 per child. If we had failed to do this, it would have dropped down to $1,000. It is now up to $2,200 per child. That benefit alone will serve 1.3 million Ohio families. It is good for them. It is good for families with children who are trying to make ends meet. It is just another part of this bill that makes life easier for them. We also made the standard deduction permanent--$31,500 for couples and $15,700 for single filers. Who does that affect? Just 5.3 million Ohioans who will benefit from that increase. We also remembered Ohio's seniors by expanding their annual deduction to $6,000. I know I heard from many Ohio seniors, as this bill was traveling through the process, who said: Hey, do this for us. It is tough for many seniors who are on fixed incomes who trying to make ends meet and pay property taxes. Every little bit helps, and we helped those senior citizens by increasing their annual deduction. We need to remember what would have happened to workers and families if we had failed. It is always the other side of every piece of legislation: OK. What is in it? Well, what would happen if we didn't get the job done? Well, that would have meant, for the average American family of four earning $80,000 a year, that they would have owed an additional $1,700 in taxes. The savings delivered for the Ohio household--an average Ohio household--is even bigger. For Ohioans, it will be $2,140. It is a big flip between what you would have lost and what you are now getting in return, what you are saving. Our work is creating more Ohio jobs. It is always on the top of my mind. I have always believed that if you have a good job and if you have a good economy, you can pay your mortgage, buy a car, and save for your future. Frankly, that is just part of the American dream. So when we are creating jobs, we are creating opportunity. We are creating that pathway for the American dream, and we do this in the bill. I am going to brag about Ohio for a minute, if the Presiding Officer would allow me, because recently we were named the fifth best State in the country to do business. I know we compete against States around this country and around the world, and Ohio has come a long way from the 39th worst State to the 5th best in the Nation. I was very proud to take part of that when I was Lieutenant Governor and speaker of the house. That is good for our State, but what about our entire country? How do we make it so that businesses are going to perform better? Particularly for small businesses, what did we do in the bill? A 20-percent small business tax deduction. It all adds up. Small businesses have to make tough choices, and when you have this predictability--when you know you are going to get, instead of a tax increase, a tax cut--then you start to think: OK. I don't have to close the doors. I might be able to hire a new person. Those benefits that I was worried about, as to whether I could provide healthcare or not, I can do that now. All of that benefits them when businesses have the predictability and they know that their tax bills are not going to go up but that they are going to go down. Almost all of Ohio's businesses are organized as small businesses, and they will be able to get access to this. That is 842,000 Ohio job creators who would have lost that deduction if we had not passed the bill. It is estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill alone is projected to create 1.2 million new U.S. jobs a year over the next decade. Those numbers can fluctuate, but the bottom line is that it is good for job creation, it is good for America, it is good for the American workforce, and it is good for the American worker. I want to talk about manufacturing for a minute. We talk about ``made in America'' and that we want to do more ``made in America.'' Well, I always said this about Ohio: You can't do ``made in America'' without doing ``made in Ohio'' because we are literally part of the American supply chain. So what is good for manufacturing is good for the State of Ohio. To that end, we made sure that this legislation gave job creators the freedom to immediately expense investments in new factories, capital investments in machinery and equipment and in research and development. No, that is not something the average person sees directly, but it is something that the employer does; it is something that the employer knows--that they now have predictability in how to allocate their capital, that they can afford to invest in new machinery and equipment. When you invest in new machinery and equipment, what does it do? It makes you more competitive on a global stage. It puts you in a position that you can hire people, compete, open new markets, and improve the quality of the product you have so that you not only can outcompete your competitors but you can win and create jobs. This is a big boon for States like Ohio. It helps our manufacturing culture, and it is important. Another piece of this, another piece of the Big Beautiful Bill that a lot of people might not know about is something that I care a lot about. For decades of my life, I have been working on issues surrounding workforce development. How do we help people get the skills they need to compete for the jobs of today and tomorrow to earn higher pay? to have job security? In many cases, we want to do this without having the cost of going to college. We want to help people earn the credentials that lead to jobs without their having the cost or the debt that oftentimes college creates. Well, in this bill, we allow for Pell grants to be used for workforce credentials to land good jobs. I know I have something here that I received from the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and some college trustees or some community college trustees who talk about how it will help them expand workforce programs to the people of our State. It is a good, positive change that we made in allowing Pell grants to be used for workforce credentials, not just for college. It also will help families from an educational point at the K- through-12 level. We talked about Pell grants at the postsecondary level; let's talk about the K-through-12 level. One of the things I did when I was the speaker of the house in Ohio is to create the EdChoice Scholarship. At the time, it was 4,000 students. Now it is over 100,000 students who can go to schools of their choice using that program. But I know it is still not enough. We can still do more to support families who want, with their own wisdom and freedom, to be able to choose a place to send their children because, frankly, there is not a decision that you make as a parent or as a guardian about the future of your child, frankly, that may be more important than the school they attend. It may be for an academic reason, it may be for a workforce reason, but it could be for a values reason that you want your child to attend a particular school. It could be for a safety reason. This creates a school choice tax credit that will help create more scholarship opportunities for parents and children to attend the school of their choice. Then, finally--something that is very near and dear to me--the Big Beautiful Bill supports Ohio families and vulnerable children by making the adoption tax credit partially refundable up to $5,000. As an adoptee, as somebody who started my life in a foster home, this is important to me. For a child who is looking for the support of a forever family--now we have made it just a little bit easier for them to find that family and to support that family. It is a really important component of the bill. Every little bit helps when you are trying to support a family. Now I want to talk a little bit about things that are being said about the bill that just aren't true as it relates to my State. I want to start with Medicaid. There are some whoppers of a lie being told about Medicaid right now. Frankly, it is bothersome because I believe, in many cases, these lies are being used to scare some of the most vulnerable people in our society--pregnant mothers, children living in poverty, people with disabilities, the elderly. I want you to know you are protected. You are protected. This bill supports strengthening Medicaid to make sure those services are there for you--the people the program was originally designed to serve. I want you to know that Ohioans will have access to more healthcare resources because of the Big Beautiful Bill than ever before. Let me explain this because there is a lot of misinformation out there. Some people are scared, and they deserve to know the truth about it. This package is sending more Medicaid dollars and more support to rural hospitals in Ohio than ever before. That is a fact. Ohio has historically been one of the more responsible States in its approach to Medicaid. We haven't maxed out some of the tools that States have available to them to draw down funding on Medicaid. That means that Ohio taxpayers have been subsidizing States like California, which has been drawing down the maximum amount of Federal dollars and, frankly, has been using them to pay for healthcare for people who aren't even citizens of the United States--in many cases, even for illegal immigrants. That should not be the priority of the American taxpayer and certainly not the priority for the Ohio taxpayer, and this budget bill levels the playing field in that respect. I am going to give you a little more detail on it because I think this is important. Not only do I want to share with you the facts about how Medicaid is being supported but how. First, in Ohio, the State government--the Governor and the legislature--raised the provider tax, which they were allowed to do under this bill. In doing so, they are going to be able to draw down 60 percent more Medicaid funding as a result of that provision. What does that mean practically for Ohio hospitals? It means, for most hospitals in Ohio, they will receive 24 percent more reimbursement than they did the previous year. As a result, Ohio will be, frankly, taking in more Medicaid money than ever to serve those populations. Those are facts. I have received numerous pieces of communications from hospitals around the State of Ohio. This is one from four rural hospitals thanking Senator Moreno and myself for what is in the bill, what is in the Big Beautiful Bill, because it is helping them in those rural hospitals make ends meet. That doesn't even include the third priority that we worked on, which is a rural health transformation fund that makes available $50 billion over the next 5 years to support rural hospitals. Ohio is going to receive its first windfall from that amount of money--$1.3 billion--for our rural hospitals, and it is going to help because I know they struggle from time to time. Sometimes their business model does not work as well as it does in a more heavily populated area. But it is important that we know those facts to be true and that the scare tactics are wrong. People who have depended on Medicaid should know it is going to be there for them. Nationally, even though Ohio will be getting an additional amount of funding for Medicaid, the whole country--every State--will be receiving additional funding because the Medicaid budget increases by 3 percent a year long into the future. Changes like these are significant. But I want Ohioans to know that they are protected and that their hard-earned money that they have been using to fund Medicaid will no longer go to things that I know they don't approve of, which is paying for healthcare services for people who are in this country illegally. I know that according to CMS, of all the projected Federal taxpayer losses under the provider tax that happen across the country, 95 percent of those losses come from four States: California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and New York, which have been maxing out the credit card of this country through the way that they operate their Medicaid Programs. Every State does it differently. Some States are more responsible than others. We need to have a system that protects the long-term interests of our Medicaid Program. Ohio shouldn't be punished for their bad policies, and this bill levels that playing field. I want to reemphasize that Medicaid for children living in poverty, those with disabilities, caretakers, and elderly Ohioans is protected. Don't be scared by the lies. The truth is that no one that Medicaid was designed to serve will see benefit cuts. You may have heard people say: Well, some folks are going to lose their benefits. I want to share some facts on this. It was in the Wall Street Journal, I believe, today. It shows that we have 2.8 million people-- 2.8 million people--in this country who are dually enrolled in Medicaid; meaning, they are in one State and another, which means: What are we doing? We are paying Medicaid premiums for the same individual in multiple States. It is a waste of money. Frankly, it is hard to believe that this has not been cracked down on before, because this money that we are talking about is hard-earned tax dollars in a country that has a $37 trillion national debt, and here we see it wasted in this program. Not to mention that there is a high number of people on the program who are not even eligible, further jeopardizing the long- term sustainability of the program. Then, finally, I want to talk about something I have been working on for quite a while. I know when the Federal Government, under ObamaCare, put in place the Medicaid expansion provision, it provided free healthcare, provided free benefits, generously provided by the hard- working people of this Nation, for healthy adults who are able-bodied who didn't have children. This bill says that if you are a healthy adult who is able-bodied, without young children, that now you are going to have to work 20 hours a week in return for your benefits. That seems to be a pretty reasonable request. It is part of the social contract that if you can contribute to your own success in life, that you should do that. People of this country are generous and good-hearted and they want to make sure that people in need have access to healthcare. But if you are capable of working, and you just refuse to do so, now, you are going to have to start doing something in return for those benefits. And that means you can get an education, committing 20 hours a week to your education. You can volunteer at the library, cleaning up trash in your local park; or you can get a job and start to build your career and start to contribute to your own independence in life. That is a simple request that most people in this country support. I know Ohioans support it--that if you are going to receive generous, free healthcare from your neighbor, that you should do something in return if you are capable of doing it. In this Big Beautiful Bill we now have that standard in place for the people of this country. I also want to add that in the bill we made communities across this country and Ohio much safer by securing the border--big investments in making sure that we secure the southern border, we don't let drugs and people who are not legally allowed to be in this country come across. But we also did it at the northern border. Ohio has a northern border, Lake Erie. There is money in there to prevent some of the things that we have seen even at our northern border. But this failure at our southern border has led to millions of people coming into this country illegally, people like Luis Naula-Candelario. Earlier this year, he was arrested in Ohio. He was a criminal alien from Ecuador. He was not legally allowed to be in this country. He was wanted in his home country for murder. He was living in Pickerington, OH, not far from the city of Columbus. We have people all across this country who are here illegally, and there is money in this bill to find them, arrest them, and deport them, particularly those who have committed crimes either in their home country or in ours. And this will help support law enforcement to protect more communities around our Nation and, certainly, in our State. The Big Beautiful Bill keeps America strong by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Ohio manufacturers that produce the next generation of weapons. Also, our national security is supported in this bill. Our defense industry has done its part throughout the course of American history to defeat enemies around the globe, but every generation faces a new threat. We face threats from China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. Ohio is a manufacturing State. We are the heart of it all, but we are the heart of defense manufacturing in many ways. This bill will help our State defend America and defend American interests. I actually toured, recently, a company in Ohio, late last year, that makes the bunker-busting bombs that were dropped in the very successful endeavor into Iran recently by our brave Air Force pilots and crew. That 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, along with many other weapons, is manufactured in our State. We are very proud to have a State that makes so many things that help preserve and maintain our freedom. Last but not least, we are also safeguarding our future by making sure that we are lowering our deficit. I will say, I was concerned, as the bill moved through the process, about what was being said about it, about how it was going to exacerbate and add to our deficit, because we were hearing a lot of people quoting the Congressional Budget Office, saying that it was going to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt. But when it was all said and done and the Congressional Budget Office reviewed the law, the final assessment is that it actually reduces the deficit by $366 billion--good news. Right now, the U.S. taxpayer is shelling out $1 trillion a year to pay interest on our debt, which also drives up our inflation. To help pay for our current debt and the benefits we protect, we need laws, we need legislators, we need leaders who are going to make sure that this is top of mind. I have been and intend to be someone who thinks about those issues. So while it is good news that we did not increase the deficit and that we brought it down mildly, modestly, there is still more work to do. I don't want to leave by saying that this is good enough. There is more work to do to preserve the future for our children and grandchildren by acting in a fiscally responsible way. Ohio's interests drove my work and support for this bill from start to finish, and it is clear that it will lead to more jobs, lower taxes, higher wages, and more freedom and prosperity for Ohioans, and that means that they can live their lives with more confidence and certainty for everyone who calls our State home. I know my colleagues will have many different takes on this bill, but this is what it does for my State. It is a good bill that supports Ohio workers. It is pro-growth, it is pro-family, and it is pro-Ohio. I know that the working people of our State will benefit from what we accomplished in the passage of this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 332, submitted earlier today.

Mr. HUSTED. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1316 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. HUSTED. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I have nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Welch.

Mr. HUSTED

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 23; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 121, H.R. 3944, postcloture; that the postcloture time expire at 2 p.m. and the Senate vote on the motion to proceed; further, notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motions filed on Monday, July 21, ripen following the vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3944; finally, that at 11 a.m., the Senate execute the order with respect to the Roth and Hurley nominations in the order listed.