Bob Menendez

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, first of all, let me congratulate my colleague from Florida on the most recent historic launch. There is no one who has been a greater advocate for America's space program than Senator Nelson. I appreciate his leadership as well on this issue, which goes all the way from Florida, across the entire Atlantic and, of course, the Pacific as well. I rise in strong opposition to the Trump administration's offshore drilling plan. I am here to speak on behalf of New Jersey's shore businesses--the restaurants, the bait-and-tackle shops, and the bed- and-breakfasts that depend on clean beaches to succeed. Their businesses are the lifeblood of the Jersey Shore. Their voices deserve to be heard. Their livelihoods are on the line. Yet this administration remains solely focused on what is good for Big Oil's bottom line, never mind the consequences for our economy, the health of the planet, or our vibrant coastal communities. The Interior Department's offshore drilling plan reads like a wish list for oil industry executives. Clearly, the Trump administration didn't consult my constituents when drafting this plan. By the way, we had already gone through a 5-year plan, so there were supposed to be 5 years before we revisited this, and now we are back at it again. They didn't consult the shop owners in Asbury Park or the fishermen in Belford or the innkeepers in Cape May, because if they had, they would have learned that our shoreline is an economic powerhouse for our State. Each year, New Jersey's tourism industry generates $44 billion in economic activity, directly and indirectly supporting nearly 10 percent of the State's workforce. Likewise, our seafood industry supports over 31,000 jobs, and we are home to one of America's largest saltwater recreational fisheries, supporting over 16,000 jobs. Together, the homes and businesses along the Jersey Shore encompass almost $800 billion in property values. All of this adds up to a simple reality: Clean coasts are vital to the economic security of millions of New Jerseyans. The same holds true for towns up and down the Atlantic shoreline. Yet the Trump administration plans to ignore the concern of the communities that have the most to lose. They ignore the more than 120 municipalities, the 1,200 elected officials, the 41,000 businesses, and the 500,000 fishing families from up and down the east coast who voiced their opposition the last time oil and gas drilling was being considered. They ignore concerns from the Pentagon and NASA about disruptions to their operations from drilling in the Atlantic. They ignore the opposition of my west coast colleagues to drilling in the Pacific. They ignore the Department of the Interior's own finding that the Arctic drilling comes with a 75-percent chance of an oilspill in a treacherous and challenging environment. Simply put, the Trump drilling plan ignores everyone except Big Oil. What is happening here is a dream scenario for the oil industry, but it is a nightmare for our shore communities. It is a gift to corporate polluters at the expense of our coastal economies. By the way, I love these commercials that I see that talk about American energy independence. As you have heard my colleague Senator Wyden say before, we are now an exporter of oil. Well, how is it that you are exporting oil? You are drilling it here in the continental waters of the United States, but you are exporting it abroad for others to use. It seems to me that if you are drilling on Federal lands and waters, you should keep it here for domestic energy consumption to keep the price down and to keep energy security. That is real energy security, not having Big Oil drill here and then export it all over the world so that they can make a profit. I don't know how that makes us more energy secure here at home. Make no mistake--this administration's massive expansion of offshore drilling is just the beginning. They are also working to dismantle minimal safety standards for offshore drilling. That is right. The Trump administration not only wants more offshore drilling, it also wants to permit more dangerous offshore drilling. The Interior Department reportedly seeks to weaken the well control rule--the critical safety standards put in place after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, which taught us something: If you drill, you will spill. If you drill, you will spill. At some point, that will happen. During Superstorm Sandy, which took place along the east coast of the Atlantic, imagine if we had oil rigs off the shore of New Jersey. We would have had spills. We would have had spills. So instead of saving lives and saving our environment and the economic consequences that flow from that, the Trump administration's actions aim to save the industry $90 million. During his Senate confirmation, Secretary Zinke promised to ``work with rather than against local communities in the states.'' Well, it sure feels as though he is working against New Jersey. The Secretary has shown no concern for the Jersey Shore communities that would be devastated by an oilspill--the shuttered businesses, the destroyed industries, the massive job losses, and the birthright of every New Jerseyan to go to the Jersey Shore and enjoy its pristine beaches. That is why it is all the more baffling that Secretary Zinke recently said that after hearing from concerned Florida businesses and public officials, he would consider exempting the State from the disastrous Trump drilling plan. When asked about the decision, the Secretary said that ``local voices count.'' Well, I am happy if that is what is going to happen for Florida, but guess what--if it is good enough for Mar-a-Lago, it certainly should be good enough for the Jersey Shore. That is why every Member of the New Jersey congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats alike, recently joined me on a letter inviting Secretary Zinke to visit the Jersey Shore. We would be happy to have him meet with community leaders, business owners, and families who depend on clean coasts. If he wants to focus on the economics of oil drilling, I suggest he start with the thousands of people who would be out of a job if oil starts washing up on our beaches. The Secretary needs to hear from constituents of mine like Charles from Tom's River, who recently wrote to say: We already have some shoreline concerns, thanks to Super Storm Sandy. We definitely don't need another threat to our economy. Jeanne from New Brunswick wrote: Tourism is a major New Jersey business. Our beaches are pristine and must be protected. He needs to hear from any of the thousands of New Jerseyans who have signed my COAST Anti-Drilling Act citizen petition to permanently ban drilling in the whole Atlantic Ocean. The Jersey Shore is a national treasure, home to generations of family vacations, successful small businesses, and vibrant coastal communities that are visited by people from across the Atlantic coast, Canadians who come down and spend their money at our shore, and so many others. That may not mean anything to ExxonMobil or BP. It may not mean anything to President Trump or Secretary Zinke. But it means something to me. That is why we are here today to give voice to New Jerseyans who have gone unheard. We will not stand silent while this administration tries to auction the Jersey Shore off to the highest bidder--not without a fight. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor to voice my concerns about the nomination of Alex Azar to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The American people deserve a Secretary of Health and Human Services who actually believes in the agency's work and mission, which is to help America's families, children, and seniors lead healthier and more productive lives. Nothing in Mr. Azar's record gives me any reason to believe he will do anything other than advance the Trump administration's mission to take healthcare coverage away from millions of Americans and leave everyone else with higher costs. Instead of working to help more families get the care they need, I fear he will devote most of his time to imposing a harmful, rightwing ideology on patients, on women, and on families. Mr. Azar will continue the Trump administration's reckless assault on the reproductive rights of women; he will support the far right's relentless war on science- and evidence-based health policy; and he will put the needs of powerful special interests ahead of patients and families. It is hard to believe the Trump administration has only been in office a year because already it has broken so many of the promises the American people were fed on the campaign trail. During his campaign, President Trump promised he would replace the Affordable Care Act with something truly great, something way better, but under President Trump's watch, things have only gotten worse. Premiums are up, deductibles are up, and for the first time since 2012, the number of Americans with healthcare coverage has gone down. Now, this is no accident. It is the result of the Trump administration's relentless assault on the Affordable Care Act. That is right. Thanks to this administration's deliberate efforts to sow chaos in our health insurance markets, and subsidies that reduce sky-high deductibles, and give consumers less time to shop for insurance, 3.5 million fewer Americans have coverage compared to 1 year ago. In my State, the number of New Jerseyans enrolled in the marketplace dropped by 5 percent. Mr. Azar says the Affordable Care Act is ``circling [down] the drain,'' when the reality is, Republicans have done their best to drown it. The Trump administration has no plan to help the growing number of Americans without coverage, and Mr. Azar has offered no solutions to protect their health and financial security. In fact, he believes the paltry tax credits Republicans propose in their Affordable Care Act alternative to buy insurance are too generous--too generous. If I said that to any one of my constituents, they would laugh in my face. Nothing in Mr. Azar's record gives me any confidence that he will change course. That is because, like former Secretary Tom Price, Mr. Azar lives in an alternative universe, where health insurers will suddenly put the well-being of patients ahead of their stock prices; that if we just scrap the Affordable Care Act, the free market will magically begin covering the sick, caring for families, and protecting our seniors. Well, we know that is patently false. We already tried letting health insurance companies run the show, and it didn't work because, in America, healthcare doesn't ever go on sale. If it did, people would be banging down doors like Best Buy on black Friday to schedule their heart surgeries and cancer treatments. Mr. Azar seems to forget that we need commonsense protections to ensure Americans with preexisting conditions have access to coverage; that before the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies routinely denied coverage for cancer survivors and people with chronic challenges like MS; that children with preexisting conditions like asthma or heart murmurs were blacklisted by insurers for life; that thousands of people were bankrupted by medical bills each and every year, and women were charged higher premiums for the same exact insurance policies as men. Mr. Azar seems to forget that before programs like Medicare and Medicaid, seniors who worked hard their entire lives languished without care and lived in abject poverty. Do we really want to see seniors backsliding into poverty in 2018? Now, I know Mr. Azar is a very wealthy man--it almost seems to be a prerequisite in order to serve in the Trump Cabinet--but I encourage him to try to imagine what it is like to work a low-wage job that doesn't provide healthcare benefits and what it is like for parents in New Jersey to go to work every day knowing they are one illness or injury away from ruining their family's financial future. These men and women are among the 11 million Americans who depend on the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, including well over half a million in New Jersey alone. Yet Mr. Azar believes he has a mandate to turn programs like Medicare into vouchers that shortchange seniors. He supports turning Medicaid into a block program, which is a way of ultimately dramatically cutting the program and a fancy way of saying States should be allowed to block millions of people from getting the care they need--no matter how much money they make, what ZIP Code they come from, or what healthcare challenges they face. The American people deserve a Secretary of Health and Human Services who is prepared not only to defend these stalwart programs but is committed to building on their success. After a year of higher costs, less coverage, and empty promises by the Trump administration, the American people want Congress to turn the page. We have the chance to do that by rejecting Mr. Azar's nomination. It is time we demanded the administration nominate a leader who is truly devoted to helping all Americans get the care they need no matter how much money they make, what Zip Codes they come from, or what healthcare challenges they face. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

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

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor to express my concerns over the nomination of Sam Brownback to serve as Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom at the State Department. I do not take my vote against a former colleague's nomination lightly nor do I question Governor Brownback's devotion to his own faith. Indeed, as a person of faith myself, I admire it. I firmly believe, however, that anyone seeking to represent the United States of America must actively champion the rights of all people to worship freely and without fear. The right to religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution, and it is a value that we must champion at home and abroad. Having devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey--a State enriched by incredible diversity--I believe religious freedom is part of what makes America exceptional. Even in the 21st century, we live in a world where governments and nonstate actors still use religion as a tool of oppression. They cloak their authoritarianism in the guise of divine inspiration, using their faith to justify the persecution of anyone they choose. The U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom must commit to defending the rights of all religious minorities around the world-- Christians and Muslims, Jews and Sikhs, Hindus and Baha'i. Unfortunately, Governor Brownback's career has been defined by a lack of tolerance for those who do not share his own beliefs. I fear he will focus solely on protecting Christian minorities, while we must acknowledge publicly that people of all faiths are persecuted and demand equal representation. Additionally, his own personal record on important issues gives me concerns. Consider his troublesome record on protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals. I was deeply disturbed that when pressed during his confirmation hearing, Governor Brownback could not even bring himself to muster a resounding ``no''--that it is never acceptable for a government to imprison or execute an individual based on their sexual orientation. Condemning such horrific human rights abuses should never be a heavy lift for anyone who seeks to represent our Nation on the global stage. I cannot in good faith support the confirmation of someone as Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom who does not believe that all individuals are created equally in God's image. During his hearing, Governor Brownback also declined to say whether political leaders should be able to use religion to deny women access to healthcare and deprive them of their basic human rights. His silence spoke volumes. At a time when the Trump administration continues to expand the scope of the global gag rule to the effect of preventing healthcare workers from doing their jobs and providing lifesaving care, we need a leader who recognizes that women's rights are human rights and who knows that the oppression of women by religious zealots is a hallmark of despotism. During his time as Governor and here in the Senate, Mr. Brownback often used religion to push policies that undermine the rights of women to access healthcare, control their own bodies, and determine their own destinies. As much as I know the people of Kansas wish to see Governor Brownback sent abroad and out of their State, I cannot support his confirmation today. In these uncertain times, in a world rife with challenges, our Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom must be a champion for people of all faiths and a warrior for the human dignity of all of God's children. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, here we are on a Sunday evening with the government technically already shut down, a year basically after President Trump said: What we need is ``a good shutdown.'' I didn't say that. My colleagues in the Democratic caucus didn't say that. President Trump said that: What we need is ``a good shutdown.'' So a year later, I would just simply say that Republicans, who control the House of Representatives and the Senate, listened to President Trump and they gave him a shutdown because of their unwillingness to compromise. Now, there is no such thing as a good shutdown. I think we universally recognize that. I know that my colleague who just spoke before me suggested that it is not the President who appropriates. That is true. He is very right, but what is true is that it is the President who has to sign something. While he doesn't tell you what he is for, it is very difficult to figure out what you are going to send him that he will sign. That is why I have heard the majority leader in some interviews say: Well, when we know what President Trump is for, speaking about one topic, then we will figure out what we can send him. That is part of the problem. The President is intimately involved in this process, and to suggest that he isn't goes against even his own views. How many short-term extensions--that is what we are talking about here. People at home may hear ``continuing resolution.'' That is basically a short-term extension of what Republicans ask for before they sit down and do the homework that is necessary--the hard work, the tough decisions. This is government on life support, lurching from one short-term continuation of money to another short-term continuation of money, to another short-term continuation of money. When I hear my colleagues speak, I guess they miss the fact that not one, not two, not three, but four Republican Senators also voted not to continue the short-term funding resolutions because they understand that we need to get the hard work of the Nation done. Four Republican Senators joined with the Democrats to say enough is enough. It is a bipartisan view that enough is enough. Let's remember how we got here. If you understand how we got here, then maybe you can figure out how we move forward. Funding for the Federal Government lapsed at the end of last September. By October 1, we should have had this in place. But instead of performing their basic responsibility to govern, my Republican colleagues spent the fall of 2017 gorging on tax cuts for the wealthy. That is right. The Republican majority in both Houses of Congress spent October, November, and December on a joyride of pure ecstasy, showering giant corporations with trillion-dollar tax cuts, lowering rates for wealthy CEOs, and saddling working families with permanent tax increases. Now Republicans are finally coming down off their high and realizing they forgot to do the hard work of governing, of having the appropriations for the government on a long-term basis. But governing requires making tough decisions. It requires long-term planning. It requires making compromises in service of the greater good. But instead of charting a real course forward, for our military, for our veterans, for our health centers, for our disaster-stricken communities--I believe, when we say ``This is the United States of America,'' that I vote for funding for States and communities far outside of New Jersey because we are all in this together. Yet that hasn't been done. Yes, for Dreamers as well. What they keep asking for is a short-term extension after a short- term extension. Any school district, any city, any agency or business in America would run itself into ruin if it effectively tried 2-, 3-, or 4-week increments. This is not the first continuing resolution to keep the government open. It is not the second one. I voted for the first two because I said: Well, you know, let's give them some time. It is not the third one. We are looking at the fourth one. They have the gall to accuse Democrats--who don't control the House, don't control the Senate, don't control the White House--of shutting down the government. I have been in Congress a long time now, and only in Washington, when one party has control of both Chambers and the President of the United States and they fail to do their jobs, can you suggest that it is the minority party that is responsible. It boggles the imagination. Yes, there is a 60-vote requirement here. But if you know you don't have the 60 votes, including the four Republican Senators who voted with many of us who want to have a full funding of the government, then you come and you negotiate so that we can get to a point where we can have that full funding. But, no, you just want to stick on the floor whatever you want and jam it, and then say: You either vote for this or you are going to be responsible for closing down the government. That is not democracy. The last time I checked, this is not Cuba; it is the United States of America. The American people aren't stupid. They know it is no coincidence that the Federal Government has shut down after they spent a year watching in horror as this undisciplined, dysfunctional White House tarnishes the image of the United States globally. They know, as Harry Truman once said, that the buck stops with the President. They know that the buck stops with President Trump today. As a matter of fact, it was President Trump, as a private citizen, when he was commenting about the last time the government had this challenge, who said that it was President Obama who was responsible, that he was the leader and should have brought everyone into the Oval Office, sat them down, and worked it out. Well, where is he? He has been hiding. He certainly hasn't called everyone in to work it out. Now, in the face of this entirely predictable situation, the majority is presenting us with another short-term sham of kicking the ball down the road, so they can kick the can even further down the road and refuse to make a real commitment to America's military, America's health centers, America's disaster-stricken communities, America's children, and, yes, America's Dreamers. I can't believe that they would accuse Democrats of playing politics with healthcare for 9 million children, when back in September-- September of last year--the Senate Finance Committee passed unanimously my bipartisan bill, with Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Brown, to fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program for 5 years. There are those of us who wanted a much longer extension. There are clear studies which say that if we reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program for a decade, we could save tens of millions of dollars in doing so. But we went for the 5 years. The Children's Health Insurance Program--that is exactly what CHIP is all about. It is ``Children's Health Insurance Program,'' which doesn't stand for a bargaining chip. But that is exactly what Republicans have used it for, ever since its funding lapsed last September. We could have had CHIP passed last September. But, no, they were too busy doing tax cuts--no budget, no appropriations, no children's health insurance. Do my colleagues in the majority realize how transparent they have made their motives? They didn't want to give the Children's Health Insurance Program an up-or-down vote on the floor because they wanted to save it as a bargaining chip to get Democratic votes for another short-term sham. Keep in mind, this short-term continuing resolution neglects other major priorities, like disaster relief for Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and California. I keep hearing Leader McConnell talk about reopening the government to serve all Americans, but this short-term CR doesn't do squat for the 3\1/2\ million American citizens living in Puerto Rico who are crying out for help. None of us would have accepted what they are in the midst of. Many still are without lights, still without electricity months after. Nor does this short-term sham provide any long-term certainty for the Pentagon--for the Nation's defense--which needs to be able to commit to contracts and purchase the equipment our men and women in uniform depend on to protect this country from those who would do us harm. Our military leaders agree, we cannot protect the Nation on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis. It is insane. Let's reopen the government right now with a short-term continuing resolution that keeps everyone here in Washington--the President, the leadership, both parties of both Houses, and Members to get the job done--so we can actually do our jobs and hash out a plan to keep our Armed Forces fully funded and prepare for today's challenges. In fact, it was Dana White, the spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense, who recently called these short-term CRs ``wasteful and destructive.'' She went on to say: ``We need a fully-funded FY18 budget or face ramifications on our military.'' That is the chief spokesperson for the Secretary of Defense. I think it is worth pointing out that I voted against the ridiculous sequestration that Republicans forced upon President Obama in 2011, after threatening to default on the full faith and credit of the United States, which has us in this predicament. The predicament that I constantly hear about our defense budget being under this sword, this limitation, was created by something Republicans pushed--to sequester funds from going beyond a certain cap. I voted against that because I knew that arbitrary caps on government spending and military readiness would not do justice to this country or the priorities of the American people. Yet some of my Republican colleagues are demanding a repeal of sequestration only for our defense agencies. I am all in for a strong national defense but not at the expense of what makes this Nation worthy of fighting for and dying for--like the lifesaving research underway at the National Institutes of Health, which is seeking groundbreaking discoveries to cure the diseases that many of our families face, the Alzheimer's that took my mother's life, the Parkinson's of my neighbor, the challenges of cancer that so many of our families have, the protection provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the education funding we provide to public schools throughout the country, the beautiful national parks that are the envy of the world and the national treasure of the United States. Congress has a responsibility to make smart investments in our people and our communities, like funding for our community health centers that so many hard-working people across the country depend on for access to care. I know that some of my far-right Republican colleagues are offended by the mere concept of publicly funded community centers. They don't see the critical value of these health centers offered to our communities. These are places where doctors and health providers serve every patient who walks through the door, regardless of whether they have private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or no coverage at all--all takers, providing quality healthcare. That doesn't change the reality that our communities depend on these health centers, and, therefore, they depend on us to provide the funding. That is not in this CR. I would also like to remind my Republican colleagues and President Trump to own up to the rotten reality that they are all talk and no action on the opioid crisis that has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans in recent years. They want to gut Medicaid, and they have even--some, not all--but some have even gone so far as to blame Medicaid--blame Medicaid--for the opioid crisis, as if that makes any sense. I invite my Republican colleagues to come home to New Jersey with me and meet some of the Americans who credit Medicaid with getting their lives back on track and addiction-free. Again, whether we are talking about community health centers or the opioid crisis or the pensions of our workers--people who have worked a lifetime, worked really hard, and through no actions of their own, find their pensions in jeopardy after having worked a lifetime--this doesn't do anything to help them in that regard. That is one of the reasons we want a full funding of the government, to meet that challenge, as well. Instead of dealing with the challenges that face Americans in their lives every day, whether they are wondering about the state of their pensions while trying to pay for their kids' soaring tuition bills, struggling to make ends meet with staggering paychecks that have barely budged in decades, helping ailing parents who need long-term care, caring for their young children when their employers provide no family leave--I can go on and on, but the bottom line is, none of these challenges get any attention from my Republican colleagues here in the House and the Senate, in terms of this budget. They spent the first half of 2017--last year--in a relentless effort to strip millions of Americans of their healthcare coverage. It was relentless. Then, when the American people spoke out and beat back Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they gave up, and they set their sights on corporate tax cuts. They let funding for the Federal Government lapse in September and decided not to do anything about it. They had bigger fish to fry in their borrowing trillions from China and padding the pockets of a bunch of corporate fat cats. That is where they spent their time and energy--tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent. Guess what President Trump's strategy is to distract the American people from his party's failure to govern. It is by fanning the flames of fear and bigotry. I was incredibly disappointed to see the ad released by the President's reelection campaign yesterday that accused the Democrats of sympathizing with violent criminals, but I cannot say I am surprised. The fact is, whenever President Trump's own failures of leadership reflect negatively on him, he responds in the same way--with more racism, more xenophobia, more White nationalism. I am not here to politicize the grief victims of violent crimes and their families have endured. We shouldn't let ourselves fall into the same traps of fear and division he seeks to set. Instead of that, we should be having an honest and bipartisan conversation about how we protect the 800,000 Dreamers who are lawfully living across this Nation. Let's remember who created this crisis. It was President Trump who shut down DACA for no reason other than for political retribution. It is up to Congress to fix the problem, but Republicans didn't let us fix it in October or November or December of last year. Now it is nearly February, and DACA ends on March 4. When I hear Leader McConnell say there is no rush, no urgency--that it doesn't expire until March 4-- tell that to the 16,000 young people who have lost their status already. Tell that to the 122 Dreamers who lose their status each and every day. Tell that to the thousands of American children who are now living with the fear that their parents will be taken away. That is right. Nearly 25 percent of DACA recipients have started families of their own. Is this the party of family values that refuses to take action to keep families together? That is what I thought was their core element-- keeping families together. We presented the President with a real bipartisan compromise that protected the 800,000 Dreamers from deportation, embraced the call for more merit-based immigration, and gave billions of dollars to the President's border security priorities. They are hard choices. I didn't like some of them, but I agreed to them. It was what the President asked for. Yet how can we strike a deal with someone who will not take yes for an answer, who continues to betray his own instincts in order to satisfy the most far-right elements of his party? How are we supposed to believe the Republicans who say they want to do right by America's Dreamers when, with every chance they have to do something about it, they don't? Likewise, how are we supposed to believe they are going to start treating their responsibility to govern seriously when they cannot keep the government's lights on for more than a couple of weeks at a time? The Republicans keep asking for short-term extensions when they have had months to chart a real course forward for our domestic and defense spending priorities. The majority has spent all of its time trying to strip healthcare away, then saddling our grandchildren with debt and padding the pockets of the rich and powerful. Make no mistake, the Democrats are willing to work across the aisle. I have on many occasions--on foreign policy; on the children's health insurance, which is legislation that passed the Finance Committee and had seven Republicans on it; and on many other things, including immigration. I was part of the Gang of 8--four Republicans, four Democrats. I was part of the Gang of 6--three Republicans, three Democrats. We are ready to help our colleagues in the Republican majority finally answer the hard questions and come up with solutions that fully fund the U.S. Government. What we don't want is yet another month in which the Congress perpetuates the mindless sequestration caps that hamper our military readiness and our long-term success. We don't want yet another month in which we fail to deliver relief to our communities that are struggling with addiction amidst the opioid crisis. We don't want another month of kicking the can down the road on disaster relief that Americans in California, in Florida, in Texas, and Puerto Rico deserve so desperately. We don't want another month without long-term commitments to our men and women in uniform, our veterans, our health centers, our workers, our children. Simply put, we don't want the Trump shutdown. Let's reopen the government with a short CR that keeps everyone at the negotiating table in Washington working on a long-term bill that reflects the priorities of the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I come to the floor on the verge of what could be a government shutdown. I have listened to my colleagues throughout the day suggest-- particularly on the other side of the aisle--that this is only about Dreamers. Dreamers should be able to realize their dream. I have been as passionate as anyone about believing that these young people, who only know one flag, the flag of the United States, its stars and stripes; who only sing one national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner; and who only know one country, the United States of America, have, and should have, the opportunity to ultimately realize their dream. They responded to the Federal Government's requests that they come forward, register themselves, give us all types of information, trust us, and they did. Now the government must respond to them, but what is going on here is beyond Dreamers. This is the Federal Government hurtling from short-term funding resolution to short-term funding resolution instead of having the appropriate appropriations pass when they were due last October--last October--instead of working to pass the necessary appropriations to keep the government not just operating but to do it efficiently, on an annual basis, so our institutions can appropriately plan and so we can save money instead of spending more money because of what it costs for short-term preparations. Our Republican colleagues were busy, yes, but they were busy in October and November and December not preparing for the government's needs but to have a drive in ecstasy toward tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country and large corporations on the backs of middle class and working families. That is what they spent their time on. Then they come and say: Oh, but it is urgent that we do this now. You had months in which you did nothing--nothing. Now, I must say to my friends--and I have heard many of them who are budget hawks and deficits hawks--this is no way to run a government, much less the greatest country on the face of the Earth. Who wants to dictate to countries about being responsible, when we want to give them assistance or we are trying to get them to do trade things, and this is the image we send to the world? Now, only in Washington--I have been here a while. Only in Washington could Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the President of the United States at the White House, try to blame a Democratic minority for their failure to govern. Let's be clear why we are here today. Instead of providing our military, our first responders, our healthcare centers, and all of our Federal agencies with the long-term funding they need to efficiently and effectively serve the American people, Senate Republicans want to pass yet another--another--another stop-gap, woefully insufficient, short- term continuing resolution. In fairness, I tried to give my Republican colleagues the benefit of the doubt. I voted for the first continuing resolution. I voted for the second continuing resolution, but enough is enough. I got my start in local government. I was a member of a school board, and I was a mayor, and then I served in the State legislature. Let me just say, there is no place from my past experience that you could do what we do here. You needed to have a budget done on time. Maybe you might lapse a day--what would have been for us last October--but you couldn't get beyond that. You couldn't do that in the State legislature for the State budget, couldn't do it on the city council, couldn't do it on the school board. Families can't do it in their own lives. We shouldn't do it on behalf of the 320-some-odd million people who call America home. Now, the CR--this continuing resolution to keep the government open one more time, for the fourth time; not the first time, not the second time, not the third time but the fourth time because we are all basically about tax cuts for the wealthy but not taking care of everybody in terms of government funding--kicks the can down the road again without making the necessary investments into our communities. It continues the chaos and the dysfunction that has defined the last year of Republican control. It doesn't fund community health centers, something I am so proud of in my home State of New Jersey--federally qualified health centers. They take everybody who comes through the door--all taken. You have insurance? Great. You don't have insurance? We will take care of you. You have Medicaid or Medicare? Fine. Bottom line, a system that delivers quality healthcare. This doesn't do it. It leaves them in the lurch out there. The CR doesn't set budget numbers to fund national security or domestic investment priorities. We talk about our national defense-- and, yes, I am one of those who is willing to plus-up national defense--but guess what, the nondefense side of the budget is about homeland security, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Treasury Department, the National Institutes of Health that protects us in terms of illnesses, the CDC--all of these elements are in the domestic discretionary side of the budget so they are important, too, but we don't fund budget numbers that allow the national security or domestic investment priorities to take place. I heard Leader McConnell say last night that the CR is about helping all Americans. Well, I will tell you, it doesn't do squat for the 3.5 million Americans who call Puerto Rico their home and who are suffering in an appalling human catastrophe in the wake of devastating storms. It doesn't adequately assist communities in Texas and Florida and Western States that are ravaged by fires that are still waiting for Congress to act on disaster relief. Even the Secretary of Defense's spokesperson said we have been working under a continuing resolution for 3 years now. Our current CR expires tomorrow. This is wasteful. This is the Secretary of Defense's spokesperson: This is wasteful and destructive. We need a fully funded fiscal year 2018 budget or face ramifications for our military. I would add that these young people--many of them who wear the uniform of the United States and are willing to risk their lives and die for the country that seems to want to reject them--they deserve an opportunity to have a resolution at last. Let me just say, I know the President has said that maybe the country needs--would benefit from a good shutdown. I don't ever think there is a good shutdown. I know, in the past, when President Obama was in the White House, then Mr. Trump said: Oh, it is the President who is the leader. It is the President who has to bring everybody into the room. It is the President who has to get people to come to a conclusion. Well, you showed up late in the game--very late in the game--the final hours. Finally, I think all of us who have been around either this institution or the Congress know that you need 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. I have compromised many times on foreign policy. I compromised with my colleagues to try to achieve a solution for the DACA legislation. There were hard choices to be made and things I don't like, but I compromised. Let me tell you something. Sixty votes, you don't even have your 60 votes. Two of our Republican colleagues have said--I understand why because they don't want to keep kicking the can down the road: No, we are not going to vote for this. One of our colleagues is infirm, not here. So they are not anywhere even near their numbers. So that means, when you need 60 and you are far from it, that you have to engage in a negotiation and a compromise. It is not just stick it and accept it because when that happens, then we are on the dangerous path that when this short-term resolution doesn't solve itself--if we agree to a month--then ultimately we will have another CR, and maybe we will like even less what is in that CR. Maybe there will be language that we will find particularly problematic. Maybe there will even be numbers we don't care for. The point is, if you know you need 60, you don't wait until the final hours to try to come to a negotiation. I would rather live a day on my feet than a life on my knees, in defense of the 9 million people who call New Jersey home, to make sure they get what they need, not what I am shafted to try to have to accept. So I personally am for a very short-term resolution that makes leadership and the White House and all of us, as far as I am concerned, stay here working to achieve what the American people deserve, which is a full funding of their government--no more short-term lurching from crisis to crisis. This is an opportunity to take care of those Americans who have been hurt in hurricanes and storms and fires and the people of Puerto Rico; an opportunity to give Dreamers their dream; an opportunity to fund our public health centers; an opportunity to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program not for 6 years but for a decade. We have seen study after study that says we could save millions if we funded it over a decade. Why should we not save millions? This is an opportunity to deal with the pensions that people who worked a lifetime and, through no fault of their own, now find themselves possibly shortchanged. Let's help them retire with the dignity they deserve. This is an opportunity to make sure the National Institutes of Health--which is doing ground-breaking research on the Alzheimer's that took my mother's life, on the Parkinson's that affects our neighbors, on the diseases that affect our people, but you can't do long-term trials if you don't know what your funding is going to be. The list goes on and on. The people of America deserve far better than what they are getting, and I reject the proposition that you can just stick it to us and suggest that we have to accept it. You create the crisis and then you want us to accept it. Well, it is time to get the job done on behalf of the American people. That is why some of us will not support a longer term funding resolution, because all it will do is get us right back to where we are today. The American people deserve much more than that. They deserve that, and there is no reason we can't deliver that. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, let me start off by thanking my colleague from Colorado, who got here earlier than I and is giving me the opportunity to move ahead. My daughter is in town. I would like to see her, but this is important, and I appreciate his courtesy. I am thankful for Senator Durbin. As someone who has been involved in immigration reform for the better part of the 26 years that I have been in the House and the Senate, his passion on this singular issue within the overall immigration question is unquestionable in how we take care of these young people--young people who, in every respect except for birth, are Americans. It has been extraordinary. It couldn't have a better champion, and I appreciate that. To my friend and colleague Lindsey Graham, I appreciate his courage because it is not one of those things he really has to tackle. I appreciate his understanding of the institution as to how to get there and his knowledge in bringing people together. I don't always like what I hear from him, but by the same token, he doesn't always like what he hears from me, particularly on this issue. Nonetheless, he is an extraordinary American. To the rest of my colleagues and certainly Senator Bennet, who was part of the Gang of 8, when we went through this a couple of years ago, it passed in this very same body with 68 votes--comprehensive immigration reform. Unfortunately, it just languished in the House of Representatives or we wouldn't be talking about any of this, largely, today. We would be well on our path to border security, well on our path to future flows, well on our path to what immigration would look like in the future, and, of course, a pathway for all of those who have worked hard in this country and obeyed the law in every other respect. To Senator Flake, who was part of that group, I really appreciate him. We don't always agree on everything. On foreign policy, we have a disagreement or two, but on this, we have been locked in laser-like. I appreciate his willingness, especially in the final year he has decided to serve here, to take on this challenge. Look, we are about working on finding common ground on some of the most pressing immigration issues that really go to so many things-- national security, the national economy. I cannot secure America if I don't know who is here to pursue the American dream versus who is here to do it harm. For that, one has to bring people out of the shadows and into the light and have them go through criminal background checks to know. I cannot thrust that economy even beyond--into warp drive unless we have everybody fully participating in an open, above-the-ground economy. One of the most urgent of these issues is the uncertainty faced by 800,000 Dreamers across America who qualify for protective status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which we call DACA. It is no secret that I deeply disagree with the President's decision to end DACA. In my view, nothing good could come out of a decision that jeopardizes the lives of 800,000 DACA recipients, including 22,000 in my home State of New Jersey who are living lawfully under DACA and working and studying across our country. This is a program for which I advocated with the previous administration, with President Obama. Congressman Gutierrez and I and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were there and actually gave him legal memos written by attorneys from across the country--experts in this field--as to why we thought he had the power to do what he did. I still think that is true. Regardless of that point, we are beyond that. DACA was never a perfect program, nor was it a replacement for truly comprehensive immigration reform--an effort to which I remain committed today, as I was in 2013 when we passed those historic reforms to our immigration system--the greatest pass in the Senate since the days of President Ronald Reagan. DACA still did tremendous good for this country. It allowed 800,000 upstanding, undocumented, bright young people who came to this country as children, through no decision of their own, to come out of the shadows, step into the light, and pursue their dreams without fear of deportation, without fear that the knock at the door was not a member of their family coming back home from work or their neighbor but an immigration agent. When we talk about Dreamers, we are talking about young men and women who have grown up in America in every sense of the word. The only country they know as home is the United States of America. The only flag they pledge allegiance to is that red, white, and blue with the stars, the flag of the United States. The only national anthem they know and want to sing is ``The Star-Spangled Banner.'' The only country they know is America. They are not undocumented immigrants, they are undocumented Americans who have proven themselves to be a great asset to this Nation. Dreamers are studying in our colleges, they are playing on our sports teams, they are teaching in our schools, and they are wearing, as Senator Graham talked about our military and the need to respond to the economics of our military needs--many of these young people are wearing the uniform of the United States, putting themselves at risk to defend the only country they know. They are innovating in our economy, enriching our communities, and otherwise obeying our laws, and most of all loving this country because it is their country too. Yet the administration has slapped an arbitrary expiration date on their dream. In doing so, the President created a national emergency and one that only Congress can solve. So this is what I and the Gang of 6 set out to do. Is this proposal ideal to me, the son of immigrants representing one of the most diverse States in the Nation? I can tell you, absolutely not. Is it ideal for my friend Lindsey or Senator Flake? I would expect they would say no, but that is the reality of compromise. That is what governing is all about. It is about making tough decisions in order to advance the greater good. This deal is not ideal to any of us, but it is acceptable to all of us. If more of our colleagues join us, I believe it will be ultimately acceptable to the President as well. Despite the mixed messages sent by the administration, I have to believe, in order to keep on going, the President meant what he said when he called our Dreamers remarkable kids. I have to believe the many times I heard him speak about the Dreamers with compassion, about treating these bright young people with heart, I have to believe that when I sat around that conference table with my colleagues at the White House, the President meant what he said when he spoke of an immigration system that encourages people to do a good job and to have a resolution that is one of love. Well, I will tell all of my colleagues what I told President Trump that day, once the cameras turned off and we had the room to ourselves. I told him he had the political capital to spend; that President Nixon was the ultimate anti-Communist, yet he was the one who opened up China; that President Reagan was the most antitax Republican ever elected, yet he ultimately saw the need to increase rates. No one questions this President's harsh views on immigration, which is precisely why he has the opportunity to do something big. During last week's bipartisan summit, the President said that if Democrats and Republicans reached a deal, he would sign it. He told us to develop a proposal, one that resolved the DACA challenge and protected America's Dreamers and addressed tough issues like border security, family reunification, and diversity visas. He gave us that charge, and we came together and ran with it. A lot of hours were spent--many more by our staff--hashing out the issues in search of common ground, and finally we arrived at an agreement that I believe Congress can and must send to the President's desk before it is too late. Now, let me be clear. Striking this deal was no picnic. To my Republican colleagues who say this bill isn't tough enough, I encourage you to take a closer look. Look at the hard choices I had to make as the most senior Hispanic American in the U.S. Congress, as the son of immigrants whose parents' thirst for freedom brought them to these shores, as the senior Senator for New Jersey, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse States in the Nation. Never could I have imagined, for instance, accepting fundamental changes to the Diversity Visa Program because diversity, in my view, is one of America's great strengths, and New Jersey is living proof. In my State, it is hard to find any community that hasn't been touched in a positive way by the Diversity Visa Program. I remind my colleagues, every night in the darkest corners of the world, there are people who pray with all of their might for the opportunity to win a diversity visa--which, by the way, you have to pass all of the background checks, criminal and otherwise, in order to still come to this country. It isn't a grab bag. You still have to go through a series of background checks. They aren't even looking to win $1 million, but they want to win a one-in-a-million chance to come to America. I have never supported building a wall at our southern border--any type--even when the President told us that Mexico was going to pay for it, but the President must know this proposal includes billions of dollars for his border security priorities, from barrier construction and development to southwest border technology acquisition. Then, of course, there are the restrictions on family reunification. I don't believe in this chain migration. When you want to dehumanize people, you talk about chain migration, family reunification, but whatever you call it, the restrictions of family reunification are what our Republican counterparts insisted upon--new limits on what some divisively call chain migration. For example, legal permanent residents in the United States will no longer be able to sponsor their adult children to join them in America. That is a big deal. For me, this was a tough decision as it imposes a limitation on our legal system of family immigration, one I only accepted after we secured other measures to streamline reunification for spouses and young children. That is not the only hard choice we had to make when it came to family. Yes, this legislation gives Dreamers the opportunity to earn a 12-year path to citizenship, but the price we pay for that earned pathway to citizenship is that we provide no such path for the parents who brought the Dreamers here illegally. As a result, Dreamers will not be able to petition for their parents, but their parents will be eligible for temporary legal status and work permits. That is an incredibly difficult choice for me, but we did it. Ultimately, I accepted it because it keeps families together, which I have always thought both parties were always about--family values, the family unit, the family as the center of American life. So this proposal protects parents from deportation. It leaves open the possibility to fight another day to provide a pathway for parents to earn citizenship. The President spoke of taking heat for a compromise on Dreamers. Let me tell you this, as the most senior Hispanic American in Congress, I will get a whole lot--and have already--of heat on these concessions, but I will gladly take that heat in order to protect Dreamers who deserve to stay in the only home--the only home--and the only country they have ever known. Look, we all know there will be voices on the far left and voices on the far right that say this deal makes too many compromises. To my friends in the immigration advocacy community as well as my Democratic colleagues, I remind you that legislating is the art of the possible-- something I know we don't necessarily always get into our psyche, and hopefully it will not be for much longer, but we are in the minority in both Chambers of Congress. The opposing party occupies the White House. We may not enjoy that reality--I certainly don't--but it is the reality nonetheless. In this reality, sometimes stopping something bad from happening is our best shot at making something good happen. The best we can do is to stop something bad from happening in order to try to make something happen, but, eventually, to make that something happen, we are going to have to have a compromise that brings others to this effort as well as we have here tonight. Without it, we fail the 800,000 Dreamers counting on us to reach the finish line. To my Republican colleagues, I ask you to remember the tough concessions we had to make so Dreamers have a chance to earn citizenship in the countries they know and love. In short, this deal was negotiated in good faith, with both sides making tough decisions in service of the greater good. What good could be greater than keeping American families together? Consider the fact that 25 percent of DACA recipients are the parents of a U.S.-born child. I refuse to believe we are a country that tears young mothers and fathers away from American children to send them back to countries they don't even know. Let me close by reminding us that we all, I am sure, held celebrations on Monday for remembering the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. It was he who said: We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. My friends, the fierce urgency of now, as my colleagues have talked about, is confronting us yet again. We cannot let the clock run out on the American dream, we cannot keep tearing families apart, and we cannot pass up this opportunity to make history right. Let's honor Dr. King's legacy by treating this crisis with the urgency it deserves. Join us, and together we can send this legislation to the President's desk without delay. There is no time left to spare. If we want America's Dreamers to have a future in this country, we must act as if tomorrow were today. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank my colleagues. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise today as brave citizens in Iran are taking to the streets to exercise their fundamental right to freely express their opinions and protest against their government. As a democracy founded on core values, including the freedom of speech, equal rights under the law, and basic human dignity, the United States must always stand up for those peacefully advocating for these principles. For decades America has championed these principles, not only because they are right but because they promote our interests. We know that nations whose governments respect human rights and freedom of expression, that uphold the rule of law, and that protect the civil rights and liberties of their people serve as America's most reliable allies, most strategic security relationships, and most prosperous economic partners. Our enduring belief in democratic values compels all of us to stand up, not as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans, and to support citizens around the world courageously protesting the regimes that oppress them. We stand with those who speak out, and even risk their own lives, to make their voices heard in the struggle against oppression, inequality, and injustice. The fact that today's protests in Iran are against a regime that engages in activity that directly threatens our Nation, our allies, and our security interests is a separate matter. Iran's leaders may try to blame the protests on outside forces, but in reality this unrest is homegrown. The Iranians marching in Tehran know exactly who is to blame for the hardship, inequality, and oppression they face in their daily lives. It is the regime itself. For those who have closely followed the developments in Iran for years, it is no surprise to learn that the regime continues to disregard the basic rights of its citizens. The regime has proven that it has no moral qualms with forcing the innocent to suffer. Already security forces are responsible for the deaths of more than 20 Iranian protesters. They have detained and imprisoned hundreds of people who are simply speaking their minds. Of course, these abuses are just one example of the consistently odious behavior we have witnessed from Iran in recent years. This is a regime that has proven that it is more interested in building ballistic missiles than building bridges, that believes money is better spent on terrorist networks in Lebanon and Syria than on schools and hospitals for the Iranian people, that any revenue generated by Iran's international energy deals go directly into the pockets of those fomenting discord in the region and not into the hands of Iranian citizens trying to feed their families, and that will continue to engage in malign activity that isolates it from the community of nations, directly at the expense of the Iranian people. For these reasons and many more, I sincerely hope that the international community lives up to its responsibility to support all those who are protesting this repressive regime. However, words go only so far. The United States must continue to lead international efforts to counter the Iranian regime's destabilizing behavior overseas. Unfortunately, this administration has yet to take the lead. We hear plenty of bluster from this President, but threatening tweets do not constitute policy nor can they hold Iran culpable. Putting a nation ``on notice'' means nothing if there are no policies put in place. We need a real strategy that addresses Iran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East, whether it is the regime's continued support for terrorist networks, illegal ballistic missile development, or human rights abuses and political interference in other countries. These threats are what compelled me to work with my colleagues across the aisle last year to pass the Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act, a bill to hold Iran accountable for its ongoing support for terrorism, ballistic missile proliferation, and human rights abuses. This legislation passed the Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 98 to 2. Ultimately, it served as the base text of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which addressed a wide range of hostile behavior from not just Iran but from Russia and North Korea as well. This bill calls for the administration to develop a comprehensive regional strategy to deter conventional and asymmetric threats. We are fast approaching the deadline for that strategy. More importantly, however, we have heard the President say for more than a year that he was going to develop a plan to hold Iran accountable. Thus far, we have seen nothing more than tough talk. The reality is that this administration has yet to fully implement critical provisions of this law that could substantively counter Iran's nefarious behavior. The bill gives the President the authority to target human rights abusers, including those complicit in the ongoing repression of protesters, but he has yet to use that authority. The bill also authorizes the President to go after those individuals and entities that are violating international arms embargoes, exporting hateful ideologies and weapons across the region and fomenting violence and chaos against innocent civilians in Syria and Yemen, but he has yet to go after these actors. While the administration designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under terrorism authority--something I applaud--it has not effectively targeted actors associated with the IRGC. All of my colleagues know that I was deeply skeptical and strongly opposed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. I voted against the JCPOA precisely because I thought it was a mistake to roll back sanctions on Iran without the total dismantlement of its nuclear infrastructure. However, refusing to certify Iran's compliance with a deeply flawed deal, as the President did in October, does little to address its shortcomings. The President's move in October was a hollow attempt to fulfill a campaign promise while continuing to let Iran enjoy the benefits of the JCPOA and continue its non-nuclear malign activities throughout the region. Furthermore, this decision was carried without a clear path forward and without specific proposals that could have garnered critical international support. At the end of the day, the Trump administration's actions may have actually left the United States with less leverage to address Iran's far-reaching, nefarious behavior in the Middle East, whether it be its support for terrorism, its human rights abuses, or its illegal ballistic missile development. None of these critical security challenges are addressed simply by not certifying the JCPOA, nor does it move us toward a comprehensive international strategy for the nuclear program Iran plans to resume immediately following this agreement's expiration. In short, the President's own lack of policy has squandered whatever leverage he may have hoped to gain. Furthermore, the President has severely disadvantaged himself by gutting the very instruments in his national security apparatus that should be taking the lead on Iran and all foreign policy matters. As an architect of the sanctions networks that crippled Iran's economy and forced its leaders to negotiate with the international community, I know how essential our diplomatic arsenal is to confronting Iran. The President, however, seems committed to hollowing out those agencies and offices that are in the best position to advance our diplomatic interests. The Trump administration, for example, has shuttered the office of sanctions policy at the State Department. The Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department is now woefully understaffed. As the President publicly talks about supporting democracy, his administration has scrapped funding for human rights and democracy programs and even removed the word ``democracy'' from USAID's mission statement. Meanwhile, Iran continues to increase its presence in Iraq, to maintain support for the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and to take credit for Bashar al-Assad's murderous grip on power in Syria. The United States must be willing to work with its allies if we are serious about holding Iran accountable. We should be corralling our allies in Europe to begin treating all of Hezbollah's entities as terrorist organizations. We should be moving our allies toward the development of a comprehensive international strategy for addressing Iran's nuclear ambitions once the JCPOA expires. Finally, this administration must prioritize the release of American citizens unjustly arrested and detained in Iran. Today, Princeton University student Xiyue Wang, a scholar from one of the most renowned academic institutions in the world, in my home State of New Jersey, remains in prison under ridiculous charges of espionage. Similarly, Siamak Namazi, a former student of Rutgers University in New Jersey, remains in prison, along with his father, a former UNICEF employee. And Robert Levinson remains missing after more than 10 years. In short, this President's approach toward Iran thus far has been a disjointed mix of campaign promises, bluster, and confusing signals to our allies--not a serious consideration of how to effectively confront an existing and growing threat. So, as we approach a legally mandated deadline for the President to present Congress and the American people with a sound policy to confront a real threat, I call on the President to make use of our incredible national security establishment, to consult experts who can help formulate a strong, sound policy capable of confronting Iran's destabilizing behavior in the Middle East, and to implement a strategy that will effectively confront Iran's continued support for international terrorism, its belligerent ballistic missile tests, and its ongoing public and brutal abuses of human rights within its own borders and around the world. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, across the country, families are decorating their Christmas trees. They are singing along to holiday playlists. They are searching for that perfect gift for the ones they love. They are making travel plans to see their families. The holidays are a time for joy and togetherness, a time for faith and family, a time for gratitude and hope. The holidays are not a time for fear. Yet, without action, Congress may leave hundreds of thousands of families across America in fear this holiday season. I am referring, of course, to the 800,000 Dreamers across America whose lives have been thrown into jeopardy by the administration's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or DACA. DACA is a program that made it possible for 800,000 undocumented youth across this country--including 22,000 in my home State of New Jersey--to come out of the shadows, to step into the light, and to follow their dreams without fear of deportation. It has been months since this administration decided to end DACA. Despite what some of my Republican colleagues say, the consequences of this cruel and reckless decision are not some distant threat; more than 11,000 Dreamers have already lost their DACA protections and work permits. So to anyone who thinks we have until March of next year to take action, you are surely mistaken. For these young people who grew up in the United States, who know no other home or country, who today live in fear of deportation, the crisis is here, and the crisis is now. Ending DACA has created a national emergency that is playing out in our communities each and every day. Tens of thousands of DACA recipients are likely to lose their status on or before March 5. So what exactly are we waiting for, and why wait at all? There is no legitimate reason for the President to have ended DACA--a crisis that was avoidable. Now it is here, and it is our job to fix it. President Trump essentially told Congress: The ball is in your court. Well, today I want to know from my colleagues: When are we going to take our shot? If we have the votes--and I believe we have the votes-- isn't it time that we held a vote? We know there is overwhelming support from the American people, Republicans and Democrats alike, for America's Dreamers. It is not fake news. Poll after poll, from Quinnipiac, to the Washington Post, to even FOX News, shows that the American people want a solution, and we know there is solid support for the Dream Act here in the Senate. I have seen my colleagues share the photos of the Dreamers they meet. They post the stories about these brave, young people fighting to stay in the country they know and love. But they deserve more than an Instagram post or a friendly tweet; they deserve action. Every day that goes by, more and more Dreamers find themselves in danger of being sent back to countries they simply don't know or even remember. Let's take a moment to remember exactly whose lives we are talking about when we talk about Dreamers. In my mind, we are talking about the ``motherhood and apple pie'' of the immigrant community and the question of immigration. We are talking about young people brought here as children through no choice of their own. Every child who is a Dreamer is someone who knows only the United States of America as their country. The only flag they pledge allegiance to is the flag of the United States of America. The only national anthem they know is the ``Star-Spangled Banner.'' These children grew up in America and are American in every sense of the word except on paper. Dreamers are studying in our colleges, playing on our sports teams, serving in uniform in our military, risking their lives on behalf of what they consider to be their country, growing our economy, obeying our laws, and most of all, loving our country, too, because it is their country as well. They aren't undocumented aliens; they are Americans who happen to be undocumented. And that includes 22,000 Dreamers in my home State of New Jersey, promising students like Sara Mora, whom you see pictured here on the floor. Sara grew up in Hillside, NJ. Her parents brought her to this country from Costa Rica at the age of 3. She was 3 years old. As Sara recently wrote in the Star Ledger, ``New Jersey has been my home for as long as I can remember.'' Today, she is a hard-working college student, thanks to DACA. That is how she was able to get a work permit, find a job, and work her way through Union County College. Sara was preparing her applications to transfer to Seton Hall University and earn her 4-year degree when the Trump administration announced the end of DACA. Now, Sara says, her future is one ``big question mark. Without DACA, I'll go back to zero--no driver's license, no job, no possibility of paying for my education. I'll have to wake up fearing deportation every day.'' When will we accept some responsibility and recognize that it is our inaction here in the Senate that contributes to Sara's fear every day? Take Adriana Gonzalez of Toms River, NJ. As the Asbury Park Press recently wrote, Adriana is ``a flute player, a student ambassador, a girl who would play soccer with special needs children.'' Like most Dreamers, Adriana isn't known by her peers as an undocumented immigrant; she is known as a smart young woman with a bright future and something to contribute to her community. How about Reiniero Amaya of Elizabeth, NJ. He is studying civil engineering at Fairleigh Dickinson University. I can't think of anything more backward than deporting a hard-working student who dreams of becoming a civil engineer. We need civil engineers. We give people from different parts of the world permits to come to the United States to do these engineering jobs that we don't have enough domestic people to do. Here is a young man who grew up in America, who is American in every respect, and who is, in essence, pursuing a career path that would inure to the national economic interest. His story is just one more reminder that our country can't afford to lose America's Dreamers. They have so much to offer to our communities and our economy. In fact, ending DACA is projected to cost New Jersey's economy over $1.5 billion annually and reduce the overall economy of the United States by $460 billion over the next decade. DACA gave Dreamers like Reiniero the freedom to pursue his dreams. But it also gave him a sense of security. He recently wrote this on northjersey.com: The day I received my work permit and my Social Security card was the day I finally felt proud of who I am. I felt recognized. I felt safe. That sense of belonging, of acceptance, and of safety was ripped away by the President's decision to end DACA. So long as Congress fails to act, we are complicit in prolonging the very real fear that 800,000 Dreamers feel today--the fear that the knock on the door is not your family or neighbor but an immigration agent ready to whisk you away from your family; the fear that we see when these young people who believed in our government came forth, went through a criminal background check, gave all their information, and gave information on their family, all under the guise that they thought it was going to be confidential. Now all of that is at risk. The willingness of DACA recipients to share their stories speaks volumes about their integrity, their courage, and the trust they put in us as elected officials. I am reminded of Psalm 56:3: ``When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.'' Well, Dreamers like Sara, Adriana, and Reiniero put their trust in the United States of America when they applied for DACA. They came out of the shadows. They registered with the Department of Homeland Security. They passed criminal background checks. They handed over personal details about themselves and their families to authorities they had been forced to hide for their entire lives. DACA recipients went through all of this to get a 2-year renewable work permit and the promise of protection from deportation. That is the limited bargain they made, and the administration has eviscerated that limited promise and struck fear in the hearts of all of these families. So I ask my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--was their faith, their trust, their belief in the U.S. Government's word a monumental mistake? Were they wrong to believe that we could put partisan politics aside and come together and do the right thing in this case? Will the Senate go home for the holidays without lifting a finger to make sure these promising young students feel safe in their homes, in their schools, in their communities? They have become an integral part of our American family, and many are starting families of their own. In fact, 25 percent of DACA recipients have U.S.-born children. Do we really want these young mothers and fathers to be torn from their children and sent back to the country that they never called home? Do we not have an obligation to protect American children from the trauma of losing a parent? Do we not have a moral responsibility to keep families together? Isn't that one of the basic concepts that we have? Will we sit idly by with the implementation of the administration's policy, which says: Whether you are selling drugs in your streets-- which I am all for deporting--or earning A's in our classrooms or serving in our military, everyone is fair game for deportation. No one is safe, not even children who know no other home. That is a wrong policy. That is not law and order. That is fear and chaos. So where is our compassion and our sense of urgency? How many more Dreamers have to lose their DACA status before we stand up and do what is right? The time for temporary fixes is over. The time for empty gestures is over. The time for heartfelt words is over. It is time for us to stand up for these young people, and it is time for us to act. It is time for us--Democrats and Republicans--to use whatever legislative vehicle is necessary to pass the Dream Act. Whether it is a continuing resolution or a straight vote here on the floor, it is time for us to get this done. Let's put an end to the fear and uncertainty hanging over so many families this holiday season. Let's summon our collective compassion. Let's pass the Dream Act. Let's do it now. Let Congress not go home for the holidays unless we have a solution to this question. For me, it is a moral imperative that these young people, who know no other country but the United States and who are Americans in every other sense of the word, not have to live this holiday season in the fear that a knock on the door is from someone other than a family member or their neighbor. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I am here to support the motion offered by Senator Cantwell, to speak out against a tax bill that is nothing short of highway robbery on New Jerseyans. This tax plan is about one thing. It is about cutting taxes for wealthy corporations and asking working families to pay for it. It is especially bad for middle-class families in New Jersey, New York, Washington, Maryland, and other high-earning States that make bold investments in education, that drive the most innovation, that generate the most Federal revenue. Don't let the Republicans fool you if they airdrop an amendment at the last minute that throws a few crumbs at New Jersey families and call it a victory. Carve-outs, caps, and exceptions are nothing but gimmicks meant to distract the public from what is really going on. No matter how you slice it, gutting or even limiting the State and local tax deduction is a direct assault on middle-class families in America's highest earning, most economically productive States. By gutting the SALT deduction, Republicans will literally force millions of middle- class families across America to pay taxes on their taxes. In 2015 alone, nearly 1.8 million New Jersey households deducted a combined $32 billion in State, local, and property taxes from their Federal tax bill. These families aren't living large. They are middle- class folks who had to work hard for every dollar they have. In fact, IRS data shows that more than 85 percent of taxpayers who claim the SALT deduction make under $200,000 a year and over half make under $100,000 a year. So it is wrong to ask millions of Americans who had to fight their way into the middle class to pay more just so big corporations can pay less, and rubbing salt in their wounds is the fact that Republicans let corporations keep on deducting their State and local taxes on top of the huge tax cuts lavished on them by this tax plan. If deducting State and local taxes is so important for big corporations that make billions of dollars each year, Republicans should understand why it is so important for middle-class families in cities and suburbs across America. That is why I am offering this motion with Senator Cantwell to send the bill back to committee to fix this fatal flaw and restore the SALT deduction. If it is good enough for huge corporations, it should be good enough for middle-class families. I have heard many of my Republican colleagues complain about the SALT deduction as if it is some subsidy for States like New Jersey, and that hypocrisy is just amazing to me. Far from subsidizing successful States like New Jersey or New York, the SALT deduction actually benefits the entire Nation, which is able to share in the economic rewards created by the high-powered economies of States like New Jersey, and now Republicans want to take even more. Well, we are sick and tired of it, and we want our money back. I will make a deal with any Republican from a taker State. Since you are so opposed to subsiding other States, how about you take all of the extra Federal dollars you receive beyond what you pay and transfer it back to donor States like New Jersey? Sound like a deal? I don't think so. Each and every year, States like New Jersey, New York, and Virginia generate billions of dollars in Federal revenue that go to Americans in less productive, lower income States that are more reliant, more dependent on Federal spending. They are America's economic powerhouses, America's donor States, precisely because they invest in public education, law enforcement, mass transit, infrastructure, and economic opportunity for all. It is no surprise that everyone from the Fraternal Order of Police to the American Hospital Association, to AARP support keeping the State and local tax deduction. Taking it away is a direct threat to the funding States need to educate our kids, keep cops on the beat, equip first responders and firefighters, and provide healthcare to the most vulnerable--all this just to give big corporations big tax cuts. If multinational corporations get to keep deducting their State and local taxes, there is no reason to stop millions of middle-class Americans from doing the same. Make no mistake, any reduction in the State and local tax deduction is a direct assault on America's highest earning, most innovative, most economically productive States. Guess what. All Americans will lose out when America's economic powerhouse States aren't so powerful anymore. I urge my colleagues to stop punishing success, stop interfering in State government decisions, and join me in protecting the SALT deduction. Vote for the motion to recommit. I yield the floor

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senators Cantwell, Van Hollen, Cardin, and Booker.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I have a motion to commit at the desk.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise once again to stand up for the good people of New Jersey and other States to offer a motion to restore the State and local tax, or SALT, deduction. Ending the SALT deduction will subject millions of middle-class families to double taxation, but that is not all. It will also set the stage for huge cuts to education, law enforcement, infrastructure, public health, and other critical services. But don't take my word for it. Listen to the teachers and police officers, the doctors and nurses and firefighters. The National Education Association opposes it because it will hurt our public schools. The Fraternal Order of Police and the National Sheriffs' Association oppose it because it will make our streets less safe. The American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association oppose it because people will lose access to healthcare. The AARP opposes it because it will lead to cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and hurt our seniors. Even the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce opposes it because it will hinder investments in the infrastructure that businesses need in order to compete. My motion to commit would restore the SALT deduction if these all too predictable consequences happen. A corporate tax cut cannot build a road, care for a senior, teach a child, or help keep our streets safe. If corporations can keep the State and local tax deduction, so should middle-class families. We cannot afford to roll the dice and risk these investments in the middle class. I urge the adoption of the motion to commit, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, this tax bill is truly astounding. Only in Washington--only in Washington--could Republicans borrow $1 trillion from China to fund massive tax cuts for big corporations and still need to raise taxes on millions of Americans in order to pay for it. Look, I understand my Republican friends are in a pickle. They need to give President Trump a win. The problem is that this White House is asking them to pass a tax plan built on the most unpopular policies in America, and I think my colleagues know it. They know that after all the American people have been through--the financial crisis, the great recession, decades of wage stagnation, soaring education, housing and healthcare costs--after all of this hardship, cutting taxes for corporations, taking healthcare away from 13 million people, and raising taxes on the middle class aren't exactly a recipe for winning the hearts of voters, let alone a strategy for building a more dynamic, inclusive, and prosperous economy for all Americans. So, yes, Republicans are in a tough spot. They know that if we had a sensible campaign finance system, policies this disastrous would spell disaster for them in 2018. That is why they designed a tax bill that has nothing to do with simplifying our Tax Code and nothing to do with growing the wages of American workers. I appreciate my friend from Alaska talking about growth. I am all for growth. But first of all, I want to see growth in American wages, and it is really hard to have growth when you take $1 trillion, or more, and add it to the debt of the next generation and think that you are going to have growth when you are saddling them with greater and greater debt. This bill has nothing to do with creating jobs and everything to do with pleasing corporate special interests that fund their campaigns. That is what brings us here today. That is how Senate Republicans are on the verge of trying to pass massive tax cuts for corporations that will be permanent. They don't have to worry about it. They will be permanent--paid for, however, by raising taxes on working families and saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions in debt. I know some at home might wonder: How does the GOP get away with parading this bill around as a middle-class tax cut? It is because they are using smoke and mirrors to dupe you into thinking you are getting something of a tax cut. These so-called deficit hawks passed a budget that gives themselves permission to add $1.5 trillion to the national debt by 2026--only a short 9 years from now--so long, however, as they don't add a dime to our deficit the year after, in 2027. Isn't it nice if you can be at home and give yourself permission to go ahead and add an enormous amount of debt and not worry about it? That is what they do. Here is the problem. It is damn near impossible to permanently slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent without hiking taxes on millions of average people. I call it inconvenient math. That is why Republicans offer some families tiny, temporary--I underline ``temporary''--tax relief without owning up to the fact that Cinderella's chariot turns into a pumpkin really fast. By 2019, Americans who make under $30,000 a year will be financially worse off under this plan. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 a year will be worse off. By 2027, anyone earning less than $75,000 a year will get hit. I will admit, they found some pretty clever ways to pull off this con job. First, they end the State and local tax deduction and force millions of hard-working middle-class families in States like New Jersey to pay taxes twice on the same money. These families aren't high rollers. In fact, 83 percent of New Jerseyans who claim the State and local tax deduction make under $200,000 a year. As a matter of fact, nearly half of them make under $100,000 a year. I will say it again. Ending the State and local tax deduction is like one giant hit job on middle-class families in States like New Jersey. My constituents can't afford to subsidize the rest of the country any more than they already do. Speaking about some of these comments early, earlier this evening, the junior Senator from Pennsylvania said on the Senate floor that the State and local tax deduction is a subsidy to States like New York and New Jersey. He said: ``I don't know how it could be possibly fair to force my constituent who lives in, say, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, why they should pay more in income taxes to subsidize somebody who gets to live in a multimillion-dollar condo in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.'' That hypocrisy is amazing to me. Far from subsidizing successful States like New Jersey and New York, there are States that are actually taker States. They get more than they send to the Federal Treasury. In fact, according to the Rockefeller Foundation, on average, each resident of Pennsylvania takes nearly $1,500 per year in Federal benefits more than they pay in Federal taxes. Even if the Rockefeller Foundation is wrong, let me read part of a letter sent by some of the very county executives and elected officials who represent Dauphin County. Here is part of a letter they sent to their representatives: As county elected executives representing Pennsylvania's counties, we are writing to express our deep concerns with proposals to eliminate deductions for State and local taxes as the primary funding offset for Federal tax reform. They go on to say: Across the State--meaning Pennsylvania--more than 1.8 million households claimed the State and local tax deduction for a total of $32.24 billion. We are particularly concerned that the loss of the State and local tax deduction will harm middle-class homeowners and overall property values. Without the State and local tax deduction, our taxpayers, Pennsylvania taxpayers, would be doubly taxed. Such a policy is contrary--I am reading from their letter--to the intentions of our Founding Fathers and overturns the precedent set in the Civil War income tax imposed by President Lincoln and again in the original Federal Tax Code of 1913. There is strong rationale why the State and local taxes are included as one of the original six Federal tax deductions. Simply put, the State and local tax deduction is not a special loophole but instead a core principle of fiscal federalism that should be preserved. That is the letter. There is more. It is signed by a series of individuals who are elected representatives in Pennsylvania, including those who represent Dauphin County. Every year, successful blue-chip States like New Jersey, New York, and Virginia contribute billions of dollars in tax revenue that goes to Americans in less productive, lower income States. Now Republicans are trying to take even more. We are sick and tired of it, and we want our money back. In fact, I will make a deal with you. Since you claim to not support States subsidizing other States, how about you send all of the Federal tax dollars you receive above and beyond what all of your taxpayers paid to the Federal Government and you transfer that back to my State of New Jersey? I will make that deal with you right now. Sound like a deal? I didn't think so. Here is another thing that really ticks me off. It is the sneaky, secret tax hikes Republicans buried in this bill that bilk billions of dollars from Americans' paychecks in the next two decades. Again, we know why they have to do it. Even after borrowing $2 trillion from China, there is no way to pay for permanent corporate tax cuts without taking a bigger cut from American workers. Boy, have they found a sneaky way to do it. It is the most complicated, convoluted, boring tax increase in history, but, boy, it takes $500 billion out of American paychecks and sends it straight into the coffers of multinational corporations. That is really something to be proud of. It is called the Chained CPI. It seems like a tiny tweak to how the government measures the cost of living. It is something we call inflation. Here is the thing about inflation. Ask any American walking down the street if their wages have kept pace with rising costs, and they will laugh in your face. They will tell you that their incomes have barely budged, while everything from the cost of milk to college tuition gets more expensive every year. What if the government pretended that the rising costs weren't such a hardship? That is what we call the Chained CPI tax increase. Don't take it from me; take it from a Republican tax hero, Grover Norquist. Here is what he had to say about this very provision, Chained CPI, in 2013. He said: This is one of those things invented by people who are trying to raise taxes and pretend they're not. If you change the law to get more money, that's a tax increase--doesn't matter how you do it or what you call it. We all expect to pay a little more in taxes if we get a big raise at work. Now Republicans want you to pay more in taxes even if you don't get a raise. Each year, more of your income, under this provision, will be taxed in higher brackets, at the very same time your deductions and tax credits slowly lose their value. It is a clever way for the government to shave a bit more off your paycheck every year, even if your income hasn't risen in years. It is a Republican tax on wage stagnation and a Republican tax on the millennial generation. That is right--millennials are just now entering their prime earning years, and apparently they haven't had it hard enough, not after the great recession, not after drowning them in student loan debt. That is what Congress really is doing--stick it to the millennials so that the Koch brothers can get a nice tax cut. The American people deserve to know the big lie at the heart of the Trump tax plan. The meager tax cuts for families are written in disappearing ink, while the sneaky tax hikes are carved into stone. It is the Republican majority's dirty little secret--the secret that even after borrowing $2 trillion from China, they can't permanently cut taxes for corporations without hiking taxes on millions of middle-class Americans and millions more who dream of becoming middle class. We have heard this all before--wild claims about tax cuts for the rich trickling down to working families. The truth is, they never do. I was in the House of Representatives when Congress passed the Bush tax cuts. I opposed taking the historic surplus that President Clinton had created to be used by President Bush--which he inherited and squandered it on tax cuts, 27 percent of which went to the top 1 percent of Americans. That is chump change compared to the 60-plus percent that goes to the wealthy in the Trump tax plan. By 2027, Americans who make $40,000 to $50,000 a year will pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while those who make millions get a $5.8 billion cut--pretty close. Americans making $40,000 to $50,000 a year pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes. Those who make millions get a $5.8 billion cut. There you have it. Republicans are A-OK with wealth redistribution so long as it is taking it from working families and giving it to the richest 1 percent. That 60-percent number doesn't include the death blow this plan delivers to the Affordable Care Act, the financial cost to families when 13 million Americans lose their healthcare coverage and everyone else gets saddled with higher premiums. Meanwhile, some Republicans are openly admitting that this tax bill will be the first shot fired in their race to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office--the nonpartisan scoring division for the Congress--already said that these tax cuts will trigger huge, multibillion-dollar cuts to Medicare. And that is not the only way this bill screws over America's seniors. According to the AARP, 5.2 million seniors will face higher taxes in the next decade. Think about that--asking seniors who have given this country a lifetime of hard work to pay for corporate tax cuts. We know what corporations do with those tax cuts. During the Bush tax holiday in 2005, the Republicans promised big gains for workers, but corporations didn't bring the billions of dollars they stashed offshore back home so they could build new factories or create millions of new jobs or pay their workers better wages. The lion's share of that windfall went to just two things: higher pay for CEOs and kickbacks for their investors on Wall Street. I am not sure why White House adviser Gary Cohn seemed so surprised the other day when so few CEOs who were before him said that they used the tax cuts to invest in American jobs. He asked for a show of hands. Only a couple raised their hands. Does anyone actually believe things will be different this time? Of course not. How do we know? It is because, unlike my Republican friends in Congress, corporations cannot lie to their shareholders about what they plan to do with $1 trillion in tax cuts. Their CEOs are openly admitting this windfall will go straight to Wall Street. That is why I have been pushing for changes to this tax bill that would take away these big corporate tax cuts if workers don't see bigger paychecks. Of course, that is not what Republicans have in mind. This tax plan has nothing to do with helping hard-working families get ahead in New Jersey and across America. It is not about helping folks who have good jobs but still live paycheck to paycheck. It is about one thing--cutting taxes permanently for big corporations that are raking in record profits and just straight-out refusing to pay their workers decent wages. It is about cutting taxes for trust fund kids who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. It is about paving the way for massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. It is about bankrupting States of the resources they need to invest in education, in infrastructure, in public health, and in creating the growth for opportunity for all. These are the backward priorities of this legislation--tax cuts for big corporations and wealthy campaign donors that are paid for by taking bigger cuts out of workers' paychecks and saddling our grandchildren, like my granddaughter, Evangelina, with $2 trillion in debt. The only people who will come out on top from this legislation are those who are already sitting at the very top. So much for draining the swamp. This is about as mucky as it gets. I hope my colleagues come to their senses and put the brakes on this terrible tax bill. We can have tax reform--tax reform that is bipartisan, tax reform that can be permanent, tax reform that creates stability, tax reform that creates growth not just for companies but growth for American workers' wages, and that creates a better economy for all. This deal is a bad deal for the American people, and they deserve much better. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor today painfully aware of the many reasons to oppose this reckless, wasteful Republican tax plan. It is a shame because I still believe we need smart tax reform that puts working families and small businesses first and that prepares America to compete in the 21st century, but that is not what we will be voting on this week. We are voting on the Trump tax plan this week--a plan Republicans hope to ram through the Senate with a simple majority vote, 51 votes. With 51 votes, Republicans will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families and those working to join the middle class. With 51 votes, Republicans will hand huge tax cuts to big corporations with no strings attached and no guarantees that workers will see higher wages. With 51 votes, they will take healthcare coverage away from 13 million Americans and hike premiums for everyone else. With 51 votes, they will saddle our children and our grandchildren--like my new grandchild--with another $1.5 trillion in debt. Now, any one of these reasons is reason enough to oppose the Trump tax plan, but, for me, as the senior Senator from New Jersey--a State of nearly 9 million people, a State with the eighth most productive economy in America--I cannot and will not support a tax bill that reads like one giant hit job on New Jersey's middle class. Just how bad is the Trump tax plan for New Jersey? Well, take the House version--which is a bill so awful that 11 out of 12 Members of Congress from New Jersey voted against it, many of them Republicans-- take that plan and make it worse in the Senate. The Senate bill is worse because it totally eliminates the State and local tax deduction, otherwise known as the SALT deduction. Even President Trump's external economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, recently said ending the SALT deduction will hurt ``a lot of different people,'' and a lot of these people who will get hurt live in States like New Jersey. In 2015 alone, nearly 1.8 million New Jersey households deducted a combined $17 billion in State and local taxes from their Federal tax bills, and over 1.5 million New Jersey homeowners with sky-high property taxes deducted nearly $15 billion that same year. These taxpayers aren't high rollers. They are middle-class families who had to work hard to achieve the American dream. In fact, tax data tells us that 83 percent of New Jerseyans who claim the State and local tax deduction make under $200,000 a year, and about half of those make under $100,000 a year. So the families who get hurt live in every corner of our State--from Ocean County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.3 billion, to Burlington County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.37 billion, to Passaic County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.16 billion in deductions. That is wrong. It is just plain wrong to ask these hard- working families--folks who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who had to work hard for every dollar they have, who had to fight their way into the middle class--it is wrong to ask them to pay more just so big corporations pay less, and do so permanently, and those born to multimillion-dollar inheritances pay nothing at all. Ending the State and local tax deduction will literally force New Jersey families to pay taxes twice on the same money, and rubbing salt in their wounds is the fact that Republicans let corporations keep on deducting their State and local taxes on top of the huge tax cuts lavished on them by the Trump tax plan. If protecting the State and local tax deduction is so important for big corporations that make billions of dollars a year, surely my Republican colleagues can imagine how important it is for a middle- class family in a State like New Jersey to keep it. Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of Congress treating States like New Jersey as America's piggy bank. My constituents already pay too much in taxes. New Jerseyans can't afford to subsidize the rest of America more than we already do. Yet Republicans now want to dig even deeper into the wallets of New Jersey's middle class with the Trump tax plan. To borrow an old phrase as you come into New Jersey from the Lower Trenton Bridge: ``What New Jersey makes, the GOP takes.'' Some have speculated that this tax bill was designed to punish Americans who live in so-called blue States. Certainly, I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past an administration as cynical as this one to punish States that voted against Trump in the 2016 election, but ultimately this isn't about red States or blue States. It is time we start calling these States what they really are. These aren't blue States. They are America's blue-chip States. They are America's innovation States, America's economic powerhouse States. States like New Jersey are home to millions of makers, not takers, and we are proud of it, but our success didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen by accident. New Jersey's success is predicated on our priorities and our investments. New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in public schools and higher education so New Jerseyans continue driving innovation in fields like biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine. New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in mass transit and infrastructure so workers can commute to high-paying jobs, whether in New York City or Philadelphia or in the financial district in places like Jersey City and Hoboken, and family and friends in nearby States can easily travel to the Jersey Shore. New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in public health and law enforcement because we are stronger when we have safe communities and a healthy workforce. In fact, the Fraternal Order of Police says ending the State and local tax deduction will hurt States' ability to ``recruit the men and women that keep us safe.'' That is their quote. In short, New Jersey is a donor State. We see the States ranked by their deduction, their per capita income, their education rank. There is a correlation. It is a donor State because we believe in opening the doors of opportunity to as many people as possible. That is how a small State like New Jersey continues to punch above its weight economically to the benefit of all Americans and especially the Americans who live in less productive States that are more reliant on Federal spending. For more than a century, the State and local tax deduction has encouraged States to invest in education and infrastructure and opportunity for all. It is ironic that Republicans, who talk so much about supporting the States, want to single out those like New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts that invest in the middle class. That is why Senator Cantwell and I will be introducing an amendment to protect the State and local property tax deduction, and I hope a majority of our colleagues see the value in that. For as long as I can remember, I heard my colleagues on the Republican side talk about protecting--not punishing--success. No matter how you slice it, ending, limiting, or capping State and local tax deduction is a massive tax on the success of States like New Jersey. The Trump tax plan will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families across America, not in a few years, not in a decade-- immediately. I refuse to support a tax bill that enriches the few at the expense of the many, that saddles our children with trillions of debt, that sets the stage for Republican cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security because when that debt rises, the next thing we will hear is we have to deal with the entitlements--but not entitlements given to corporations permanently--and that punishes the success of millions of hard-working, middle-class families in States like New Jersey. That is not something I am willing to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 277, on the nomination of Joseph Otting, of Nevada, to be Comptroller of the Currency. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 278, on the motion to invoke cloture on Donald C. Coggins, Jr., of South Carolina, to be United States district judge for the District of South Carolina. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 279, on the motion to invoke cloture on Dabney Langhorne Friedrich, of California, to be United States district judge for the District of Columbia. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 280, on the nomination of Donald C. Coggins, Jr., of South Carolina, to be United States district judge for the District of South Carolina. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 274, on the nomination of Mark T. Esper, of Virginia, to be Secretary of the Army. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 275, on the nomination of David G. Zatezalo, of West Virginia, to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 276, on the motion to invoke cloture on Joseph Otting, of Nevada, to be Comptroller of the Currency. Had I been present, I would have voted nay.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 272, on the nomination of Steven Gill Bradbury, of Virginia, to be general counsel of the Department of Transportation. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 273, on the motion to invoke cloture on David G. Zatezalo to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 270, on the nomination of Derek Kan, of California, to be Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 271, on the motion to invoke cloture on Steven Gill Bradbury, of Virginia, to be general counsel of the Department of Transportation. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 268, on the nomination of William L. Wehrum, of Delaware, to be an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 269, on the motion to invoke cloture on Derek Kan, of California, to be Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy. Had I been present, I would have voted nay.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 266, on the nomination of Peter B. Robb, of Vermont, to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 267, on the motion to invoke cloture on William L. Wehrum, of Delaware, to be an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Had I been present, I would have voted nay.

Mr. MENENDEZ

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 262, on the nomination of John H. Gibson, of Texas, to be Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense. Had I been present, I would have voted yea. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 263, on the motion to invoke cloture on Steven Andrew Engel, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Attorney General. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 264, on the nomination of Steven Andrew Engel, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Attorney General. Had I been present, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was unavailable for rollcall vote No. 265, on the motion to invoke cloture on Peter B. Robb, of Vermont, to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Had I been present, I would have voted nay.