Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to use an oversized visual poster to be displayed during my remarks.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wyden be added as a cosponsor to my resolution, S.J. Res. 54.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ari Rabin- Havt be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I get around my own State of Vermont a lot. In fact, I get around the country a lot. I hear from a lot of people and I talk to a lot of people about what is on their minds. Needless to say, in these very complicated and difficult times, there is a lot the American people are concerned about. They are concerned about gun violence, and they want strong legislation to be passed as soon as possible to protect their kids and the American people. Overwhelmingly, they want legislation--over 80 percent of the American people in poll after poll--want legislation to protect the 1.8 million young people who are eligible for the DACA Program. That is what people talk about. People talk about the high cost of healthcare, and they talk about the fact that they cannot afford prescription drugs because the drug companies are ripping us off every single day. They talk about climate change and their fear about what kind of planet we are going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren if we don't transform our energy system away from fossil fuel. The people I talk to in Vermont and throughout the country talk about our crumbling infrastructure. They talk about the need for decent-paying jobs. They talk about the high cost of a college education. I just talked to a teacher the other day in Wisconsin. She had tears in our eyes because she cannot afford to send her own daughter to college. I talk, every day it seems, to people who graduate from college, $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 in debt, and they wonder how that debt will impact the rest of their lives. I talk to people in Vermont and around the country about the childcare crisis that we have and about the lack of affordable housing and about a million other issues that are on the minds of people in Arizona, in Vermont, and all across this country. But I can honestly say that I have not heard one person come up to me and say: Bernie, we have to deregulate 25 of the largest banks in this country with cumulative assets of $3.5 trillion. No one has ever come up to me and said that is a major priority for the American people. No one has ever suggested to me that instead of talking this week about and moving forward on gun safety legislation or the DACA issue or the high cost of prescription drugs, we should be here on the floor of the U.S. Senate talking about the needs of some of the largest banks in this country. But that is precisely what the Senate will be discussing this week and probably next week as well. If you want to know why the American people, in very, very strong numbers, hold the U.S. Congress in contempt, it is precisely because we have a Republican leadership that does exactly the opposite of what the American people want. And it is not just not dealing with the DACA issue or dealing with the gun violence issue. Over the last year, despite the overwhelming objections of the American people, Republican leadership tried to throw some 32 million Americans off of health insurance. Thank God we were able to beat that back. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the American people do not believe that the Koch brothers and other billionaires should receive massive tax breaks. That is exactly what the Republican leadership provided. And on and on it goes. The needs of the middle class and working families are ignored while the needs of the wealthy and powerful, including Wall Street, are addressed. Today, my Republican colleagues, along with some Democrats, tell us that what we should be doing right now is spending our time on deregulating some of the largest banks in America. How absurd is that? Not gun violence, not the DACA crisis, not the high cost of prescription drugs, not 30 million people without health insurance, but deregulating some of the largest banks in America. Are our memories so short that we learned nothing from the 2008 Wall Street crash? Have we learned nothing from the savings and loan disaster of the early 1990s or the thievery of Wells Fargo over the last couple of years or the dishonesty of Equifax or the accounting fraud at Enron and Arthur Anderson or the failure of long-term capital management or the billions of dollars in fines that financial institution after financial institution has paid out for illegal or deceptive activities? Just 10 years ago, as a result of the greed and the recklessness and the illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The official unemployment rate shot up to 10 percent and the real unemployment rate jumped to over 17 percent. At the height of the financial crisis, more than 27 million Americans were unemployed, underemployed, or stopped working altogether because they could not find employment. Fifteen million families, as a result of that financial crisis, lost their homes to foreclosure as more and more people could not afford to pay their mortgages. Thousands of Americans set up tent cities in Sacramento, Fresno, Tampa Bay, and Reno because they had no place left to live. As a result of the illegal behavior of Wall Street, American households lost over $13 trillion in savings, which shattered retirement dreams, wiped out life savings, and made it impossible for parents to send their kids to college. That is what Wall Street did 10 years ago. Against my strong opposition then, Congress and the Federal Reserve provided the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world to these huge banks because they were too big to fail. But now, 10 years later, hoping that we forget all about that, these large financial institutions are back again. How pathetic is that? Just yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office told us that the legislation we are debating today will ``increase the likelihood that a large financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion would fail.'' That is from the CBO. In other words, this legislation makes it more likely that we will see another financial crisis and makes it more likely that there will be another huge taxpayer bailout and massive dislocation of our economy. Under this bill, large banks with assets of up to $250 billion will no longer have to submit comprehensive plans on winding down if they fail. They will no longer have to hold sufficient capital in case their loans go bad. And they may never have to undergo a stress test to find out if they are adequately prepared to withstand an economic downturn. Further, this legislation makes it easier for financial institutions to offer bogus subprime mortgages that caused so many Americans to suffer during the 2008 financial crisis. This legislation makes it easier for large banks to steer African Americans, Hispanics, and the elderly into mortgages with high interest rates and hidden fees. This legislation deregulates foreign banks like Deutsche Bank--a bank that in January of 2017 agreed to a $7.2 billion settlement for selling toxic mortgages during the financial crisis. This legislation guts the Volker rule, allowing banks all over this country to gamble with the bank deposits of their customers on risky derivative schemes that were at the heart of the financial meltdown. Let us be very clear. The major banks that we are deregulating in this bill were forced to pay over $49 billion in fines for a wide variety of fraudulent and deceptive activity. These very same banks received a taxpayer bailout of $47 billion from the Treasury and trillions in financial assistance from the Federal Reserve. Many of these banks, it should be pointed out, like Wall Street in general, have enjoyed record-breaking profits over the last 2 years. They are not coming here because they are losing money. Over the last 2 years, most of these banks have done very, very well. So how does it happen that Congress finds itself worrying about the needs of huge financial institutions but ignores the concerns of ordinary Americans? The answer, as I think most Americans understand, has everything to do with following the money. Follow the money. Since the 1990s, the financial sector has given more than $3.2 billion in campaign contributions and last year alone spent over $200 million on lobbying. If you want to hear about the corruption of the American political system, here it is. Since the 1990s, the financial sector has given more than $3.2 billion in campaign contributions and last year alone spent over $200 million on lobbying. That is why Congress will be spending day after day trying to make life easier for these large financial institutions, while at the same time ignoring the needs of working families. No, we can't get a bill on the floor of the Senate that will lower the cost of prescription drugs. We can't do that. The American people overwhelmingly want us to act on gun violence. We can't do that. We are not able to protect the 1.8 million young people who are eligible for the DACA Program. We can't do that. But we can spend a week or two worrying about the needs of some of the largest financial institutions in this country. And that is why the American people are disgusted with what goes on in Washington, DC. I have a radical idea, and that is that maybe--just maybe--instead of listening to the lobbyists here in DC, maybe we should listen to the American people, who believe that we should strengthen, not weaken, Wall Street regulations. Believe it or not--of course we are not going to hear any discussion of this at all--believe it or not, the four largest banks in America are, on average, 80 percent bigger today than they were before we bailed them out because they were too big to fail. Incredibly, the six largest banks in America--this is wealth. This is power. This is who owns America. The six largest banks in America have over $10 trillion in assets--six banks, $10 trillion--equivalent to 54 percent of the GDP of this Nation. The six largest banks hold more than half of all credit card debt, control over 90 percent of all bank derivatives, underwrite a third of all mortgages, and control over 40 percent of all bank deposits. If any of these financial institutions were to get into financial trouble again, there is no doubt in my mind that once again the taxpayers of this country would be asked to bail them out--except this time, the bailout might be even larger than it was in 2008. Now is not the time to be talking about deregulating large financial institutions--quite the contrary. If a financial institution is too big to fail, in my view, it is too big to exist. Now is the time to take on the greed and power of Wall Street and break up the largest financial institutions in this country, and I will be introducing an amendment to this bill to do just that. I understand fully, as the American people do, the power of Wall Street and the huge amounts of money they spend on campaign contributions and lobbying. That should not, however, intimidate us. Now is the time for us to have the courage to stand up to these very wealthy and powerful institutions, defeat this legislation, and support the needs of the American people.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, there should be no issue of more importance to Members of Congress than the issue of war and peace and when it is appropriate to send the young people of our country into harm's way, knowing that some of them will not return home alive. It goes without saying that every armed conflict the United States of America is engaged in must be consistent with the Constitution of the United States and be lawful. Let's make no mistake about it--article I, section 8 of the Constitution states in no uncertain terms that ``Congress shall have the power to . . . declare war.'' The Founding Fathers gave the power to declare war to Congress because Congress is that body most accountable to the people. For far too long, Congress--under Democratic and Republican administrations--has abdicated its constitutional role in authorizing war. The time is long overdue for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority. If you think that a military intervention makes sense, then let's have that debate on the floors of the Senate and the House and cast a vote. But that is not what we have been seeing for a number of years. What Senator Lee and Senator Murphy and I are doing with privileged resolution S.J. Res. 54 is demanding that Congress once again take its constitutional responsibility for war and peace seriously. I thank Senators Durbin, Warren, and Booker for coming on board that resolution. I hope this bipartisan resolution will gain more and more support in the coming days. Many Americans are unaware that the people of Yemen are suffering today in a devastating civil war, with Saudi Arabia and their allies on one side and Houthi rebels on the other. In November of last year, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator said that Yemen was on the brink of ``the largest famine the world has seen for many decades.'' So far, at least 10,000 civilians have died, 3 million have been displaced, and over 40,000 have been wounded in this war. Fifteen million people lack access to clean water and sanitation. More than 20 million people in Yemen--over two-thirds of that country's population--need some kind of humanitarian support, with nearly 10 million in acute need of assistance. More than 1 million suspected cholera cases have been reported--1 million cholera cases have been reported--representing potentially the worst cholera outbreak in world history. Many Americans probably are not aware that U.S. forces have been actively engaged in support of the Saudis in this terrible war, providing intelligence and aerial refueling of planes whose bombs have killed thousands of people and made this crisis far worse. We believe--and I speak for Senator Lee and Senator Murphy--that as Congress has not declared war or authorized military force in this conflict, U.S. involvement in Yemen is unconstitutional and unauthorized, and U.S. military support of the Saudi coalition must end. Without congressional authorization, our engagement in this war should be restricted to providing desperately needed humanitarian aid and diplomatic efforts to put an end to this terrible conflict. That is why yesterday we introduced a joint resolution pursuant to the 1973 War Powers Resolution calling for an end to U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. The War Powers Resolution defines the introduction of U.S. Armed Forces to include ``the assignment of members of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.'' That is from the War Powers Resolution. Assisting with targeting intelligence and refueling warplanes as they bomb those targets clearly meets this definition. This is not a partisan issue. Support for the Saudi intervention in Yemen began under a Democratic President and has continued under a Republican one. Senator Lee is a conservative Republican. I am a progressive Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. In November of last year--and it is important that Members of the Senate hear this--the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 366 to 30, passed a nonbinding resolution stating that U.S. involvement in the Yemen civil war is unauthorized. Every Member of the Democratic leadership voted for this. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi voted for it. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer voted for it. The ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, voted for it, as did the Republican chairman of that committee, Ed Royce. Here is the bottom line: If the President or Members of Congress believe that support for this war is in the U.S. interest and that we should be involved in it, then let them come to the floor of the House and Senate, make their case, and then let's have a vote. I believe we have become far too comfortable with the United States engaging in military interventions all over the world. We have now been in Afghanistan for nearly 17 years--the longest war in American history. Our troops are now in Syria under what I believe are questionable authorities, and the administration has indicated that it may broaden that military mission even more. The time is long overdue for Congress to reassert its constitutional role in determining when and where our country goes to war. I am very proud to be working with Senators Lee, Murphy, and others on this vitally important issue. Thank you very much

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this morning, I had the opportunity to meet with some extraordinary young people. These were students from Parkland, FL, who attend the school where the mass shooting took place 2 weeks ago. What was amazingly impressive about these young people is that in the midst of their grief, in the midst of the unbelievably traumatic experience that they went through in seeing their best friends being shot and wounded in cold blood and their teachers killed, they resolved not just to mourn and grieve for their friends and neighbors; they resolved to stand up and fight back and come to Washington, go to Tallahassee, FL, and go around the country to do everything they can to make certain that no more children--no more young people--are mowed down and slaughtered in schools. Nobody thinks that the issue of gun safety is going to be an easy issue to solve. There are literally hundreds of millions of guns throughout this country, and there are 5 million assault weapons throughout this country today. Tragically, there are many thousands of people, I expect in every State in this country, who are walking our streets and are at their wits end emotionally, who are suicidal, who are homicidal. Many of those people have access to guns and guns of mass destruction. I think that in some respects, the slaughter at the high school in Parkland, FL, was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. Several months ago, the American people were stunned to see some very sick person in Las Vegas break a window and start mowing down people. He killed some 58 Americans and wounded 500 people within a period of a few minutes. That was on top of Sandy Hook. It was on top of so many gun slaughters that, I think, what has finally happened--maybe because of the extraordinary efforts of these young people from Parkland--the American people are saying that enough is enough, that we have a difficult problem. We may not be able to solve it completely overnight, but we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to make certain that no more children--no more people in this country--are mowed down by some sick person with a weapon. That is not just I who is talking, and it is not just the young people from the high school in Florida. It is pretty much what the American people want. Let me refer the Presiding Officer to a few polls that were conducted fairly recently. A Quinnipiac poll was done on February 20, just a week ago. This is what that poll showed. It showed that 97 percent of the American people support universal background checks, which is not a radical idea. What the American people are saying and what gun owners are saying is that we should keep guns out of the hands of people who are not responsible and should not own guns. Universal background checks are almost universally supported by the American people. In that same Quinnipiac poll, 83 percent of the American people indicated support for a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases. You don't want somebody who is angry, who is upset, or who had something terrible happen to go running to a gun store, buying a gun, and then going out and using it. There are 75 percent who, basically, want the Congress to address the issue of gun violence and to start taking action. There are 67 percent of the people polled by Quinnipiac who support a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. They believe and I believe that assault weapons are designed as military weapons to kill human beings. That is what those weapons are designed to do. I believe and have believed for 30 years--and a majority of the American people believe--that we should end the sale and distribution of those weapons. That was in a Quinnipiac poll. According to a CNN poll that was done more recently, just a few days ago on February 25, 70 percent of the American people want stricter gun laws. This is the highest number that CNN has registered since way back when the Brady Bill passed, in 1993. According to CNN, 87 percent support laws to prevent convicted felons and the mentally ill from owning guns. There are 71 percent who support banning anyone under the age of 21 from buying a gun. There are 63 percent who support a ban on the sale and possession of high-capacity magazines. There are 57 percent who support an assault weapons ban, and 56 percent say that stricter gun laws would reduce gun-related deaths. We have a difficult issue which is not going to be solved overnight, and nobody thinks that it will. Yet the American people are demanding that we have the courage to stand up to the NRA and finally take some action that will move us in the right direction. Let me just suggest some of the ways I believe we should go forward in a bipartisan way. Once again, the American people believe and I believe in universal background checks. That means, among other things, ending the so-called gun show loophole, because background checks don't mean anything if somebody can go to a gun show or on the internet and buy weapons without undergoing any background check. Overwhelmingly, the American people say that before somebody is able to purchase a gun, we need to know: Is the person a killer? Is he a person who has engaged in domestic violence? Is he somebody who has a history of mental health problems? If that is the case, that person should not be buying a gun. I think serious gun safety legislation must include addressing the so-called straw man purchases. This is a provision by which people can legally go to gun shops, buy the weapons that they want, but then they are going to sell those weapons or distribute those weapons to people who should not be owning those weapons and who could not have purchased those weapons on their own. I have indicated it is my view that we should ban assault weapons in this country--weapons that are designed for no other purpose but to kill human beings. Furthermore, I think it is clear that we are a nation that is facing a mental health crisis. I know that in my office--and I expect in the offices of other Senators--we get calls all of the time from people who say: I am worried about my husband. I am worried about my brother. He is at his wits end. I don't know what he is going to do to himself or what he is going to do to somebody else. We have been searching for mental health treatment, but we cannot find anything that is available now or that we can afford. I believe we should be moving forward to pass legislation which says that Americans who suffer today from mental health crises should be able to get the mental healthcare they need now, not 2 months from now, because 2 months from now may be too late. We also need to address the fact that, every year, women are being killed by their husbands or their boyfriends and that if somebody is a stalker, if somebody is convicted of domestic violence, if somebody is under a restraining order, we should be clear that that person should not be owning a gun. This is just some of what I think needs to be done. We are at a moment when the American people have had it up to here. They do not want to turn on their TVs tomorrow or next week or next month and see the horrible, unspeakable things that we have seen in schools throughout this country. At this particular moment in history, I hope that in a bipartisan way we can come together and do what the American people want us to do, which is to pass commonsense gun safety legislation that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, let me begin by congratulating Chloe Kim, a first-generation American who won an Olympic Gold Medal for the United States in the women's halfpipe snowboarding event this week. Her father, Jong Jin Kim emigrated from South Korea to the United States in 1982, became a dishwasher at a fast-food restaurant, studied engineering at El Camino College after working those low-skilled jobs, and then became an engineer. He left his engineering job to support his daughter's snowboarding ambitions so he could drive her 5\1/2\ hours to the mountain for training. Congratulations to Chloe and to her entire family. You make the United States proud. Madam President, the whole debate we are now undertaking over immigration and the Dreamers has become somewhat personal for me because it has reminded me, in a very strong way, that I and my brother are first-generation Americans. We are the sons of an immigrant who came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket, a young man who was a high school dropout, who did not know one word of English, and who had no particular trade. A few years ago, my brother and I and our families went to the small town where he came from, and it just stunned me, the kind of courage he showed and millions of other people show leaving their homeland to come to a very different world, in many cases, without money, without knowledge of the language. My father immigrated to this country because the town where he lived in Poland was incredibly poor. There was no economic opportunity for him. People there struggled to put food on the table for their families. Hunger was a real issue in that area. My father came to this country to avoid the violence and bloodshed of World War I, which came to his part of the world in a ferocious manner, and he came to this country to escape the religious bigotry that existed then because he was Jewish. My father lived in this country until his death in 1962. He never made a lot of money. He was a paint salesman. My father was not a political person, but it turned out that without talking much about it, he was the proudest American you ever saw, and he was so proud of this country because he was deeply grateful that the United States had welcomed him in and allowed him opportunities that would have been absolutely unthinkable from where he came. The truth is, immigration is not just my story. It is not just the story of one young man coming from Poland who managed to see two of his kids go to college and one of his sons become a U.S. Senator. It is not just my family's story. It is the story of my wife's family who came from Ireland, and it is the story of tens of millions of American families who came from every single part of this world. In September of 2017, President Trump precipitated the current crisis we are dealing with by revoking President Obama's DACA Executive order. If President Trump believed that Executive order was unconstitutional and it needed legislation, he could have come to Congress for a legislative solution without holding 800,000 young people hostage by revoking their DACA status. President Trump chose not to do that. He chose to provoke the crisis we are experiencing today. That is a crisis we have to deal with in the Senate, and we have to deal with it now. Let us be very clear about the nature of this crisis because some people say: Well, it is really not imminent. It is not something we have to worry about now. Those people are wrong. As a result of Trump's decision, 122 people every day are now losing their legal status, and within a couple of years, hundreds of thousands of these young people will have lost their legal protection and be subject to deportation. The situation we are in right now, as a result of Trump's action, means, if we do not immediately protect the legal status of some 800,000 Dreamers--young people who were brought to this country at the age of 1 or 3 or 6--young people who have known no other home but the United States of America--let us be clear that if we do not act and act soon, these hundreds of thousands of young people could be subject to deportation. That means they could be arrested outside their home, where they have lived for virtually their entire life, and suddenly be placed in a jail. They could be pulled out of a classroom where they are teaching, and there are some 20,000 DACA recipients who are now teaching in schools all over this country. If we do not act and act now, there could be agents going into those schools, pulling those teachers right out and arresting them and subjecting them to deportation. Insane as it may sound, I suppose the 900 DACA recipients who now serve in the U.S. military today could find themselves in the position of being arrested and deported from the country they are putting their lives on the line to defend. Some people say: Well, that is far-fetched. Well, I am not so sure. It could happen. How insane is that? That is where we are today, and that is what could happen if we do not do the right thing and this week pass legislation in the Senate to protect the Dreamers. We have a moral responsibility to stand up for the Dreamers and their families and to prevent what will be an indelible moral stain on our country if we fail to act. I do not want to see what the history books will be saying about this Congress if we allow 800,000 young people to be subjected to deportation, to live in incredible fear and anxiety. Here is the very good news for the Dreamers. It is actually news that a couple of years ago, I would not have believed to be possible. The overwhelming majority of American people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--absolutely agree we must provide legal protection for the Dreamers and that we should provide them with a path toward citizenship. That is not Bernie Sanders talking, that is what the American people are saying in poll after poll. Just recently, a January 20 CBS News poll found that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans, 87 percent, favor allowing young immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children to remain in the United States--87 percent in Iowa, in Vermont, and in every State in this country. There is strong support for legal status for the Dreamers and a path toward citizenship. On January 11, a Quinnipiac poll found that 86 percent of American voters, including 76 percent of Republicans, say they want the Dreamers to remain in this country. On February 5, in a Monmouth poll, when asked about Dreamers' status, nearly three out of four Americans support allowing these young people to automatically become U.S. citizens as long as they don't have a criminal record. In other words, the votes that are going to be cast hopefully today, maybe tomorrow, are not profiles in courage. They are not Members of the Senate coming up and saying: Against all the odds, I believe I am going to vote for what is right. This is what the overwhelming majority of the American people want. Maybe, just maybe, it might be appropriate to do what the American people want rather than what a handful of xenophobic extremists want. Maybe we should listen to the American people--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--who understand it would be a morally atrocious thing to allow these young people to be deported. When I think, from a political perspective, about 80, 85, 90 percent of the American people supporting anything in a nation which is as divided as we are today, this is really extraordinary. You can't get 80 percent of the American people to agree on what their favorite ice cream is, but we have 80 percent of the American people who are saying, do not turn your back on these young people who have lived in this country for virtually their entire lives. We have to act and act soon in the Senate, and there is good legislation that would allow us to do that. In the House, the good news is, there is now bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Congressman Hurd and Congressman Aguilar, which will provide protection for Dreamers and a path toward citizenship. My understanding is, bipartisan legislation now has majority support. I urge, in the strongest terms possible, that Speaker Ryan allow democracy to prevail in the House, allow the vote to take place. If you have a majority of Members of the House, in a bipartisan way, who support legislation, allow that legislation to come to the floor. Let the Members vote their will, and if that occurs, I think the Dreamers legislation will prevail. Madam President, we all understand that there is a need for serious debate and legislation regarding comprehensive immigration reform. This is a difficult issue, an issue where there are differences of opinion. There are a whole lot of aspects to it. How do we provide a path toward citizenship for the 11 million people in this country who are currently undocumented but who are working hard, who are raising their kids, who are obeying the law? What should the overall immigration policy of our country be? How many people should be allowed to enter this country every year? Where should they come from? All of this is very, very important and needs to be seriously debated, but that debate and that legislation is not going to be taking place in a 2-day period. It is going to need some serious time, some hearings, some committee work before the Congress is prepared to vote on comprehensive immigration reform, and it will not and cannot happen today, tomorrow, or this week. Our focus now, as a result of Trump's decision in September, must be on protecting the Dreamers and their families and on the issue of border security. There will be important legislation coming to the floor of the Senate today or maybe tomorrow, and I would hope that we could do the right thing, do the moral thing, and do something that history will look back on as very positive legislation. Let's go forward. Let's pass the Dreamers bill. Let's deal with border security, and then, in the near future, let us deal with comprehensive immigration reform. I yield the floor. (The Acting President pro tempore assumed the Chair.)

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate more finalists in this year's State of the Union Essay Contest and, as I did with the finalists I recognized yesterday, I ask that their essays be printed in the Record. The material follows: maisie newbury, middlebury union high school, junior ``Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'' The Great Gatsby, page 1. This was one of my father's favorite quotes when I was growing up. He always cautioned me to think before I spoke or better yet, ``think before you think.'' While some might call this inauthentic, my father called it sensible. I am not blind to the privilege I possess. Though, living in the big house atop the hill with my two healthy, living parents in the sheltered town of Weybridge, Vermont, it would be an easy thing to forget--if it weren't for my brother, Robbie. Robbie does not talk much. He cannot read. He cannot write. He has ``Severe, Regressive Autism,'' a developmental disorder that inhibits his literacy and communication skills. When I was younger, my parents explained to me that the world looked different to Robbie. It was louder, brighter and so much bigger. Living with Robbie, I am constantly reminded of my privilege. Every time I speak, run, ski, read, write . . . I'm doing something that he cannot. All the things I do on a daily basis are insurmountable obstacles to him. Yet, even without these luxuries, my brother smiles and laughs--he enjoys his life and his experience because he owns it. No one should be allowed to take that from him. Yet, my brother's access to the care he needs has decreased immensely in the last year. His weekly appointments with his occupational therapist, which used to be covered by insurance, are now unaffordable as my parents must continue supporting him in their retirement. Learning this, I was upset. How could something so fundamental be removed from our insurance policy without a second thought? In our society, mental health challenges are often dismissed as illegitimate and fixable. Words like psycho, idiot and lunatic, are thrown around as diminutive insults rather than seen as impactful and potentially harmful. Because of this, mental healthcare is considered a luxury rather than a necessity, and therefore not something that should be covered by insurance. The union we live in does not value mental healthcare simply because society does not. This issue starts with us. I cannot stay silent and watch my parents sacrifice my brother's future stability and independence in order to be able to support him in the long run; nor can I do this alone. I know that until society begins placing value on the lives of people like Robbie, no one will--especially not large- scale insurance providers. However, I believe that there are other people like me who, if we band together, can create a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens ready to take on the world. For, unlike my brother, my privilege has given me a voice, and it is my duty to use it to fight for him. I owe him that much. jackson noel, milton high school, senior With a nation as large as the United States there is a constant stream of issues and problems that require addressing. This means that the most important issues are those that involve the largest portion of the United States population. In that way, the biggest issue that the United States should currently focus on is making sure that every American can afford and has access to health care. Every American should have the right to health care, as wealth should not determine quality of life. Health care is an incredibly important aspect of everyone's lives as it allows them to live without worrying about not having access to critical care and treatment to thrive. In this way, the solution to this problem is the maintaining and constant adjusting of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ``ACA'', to best suit and assist the American people. The benefit of the Affordable Care Act is deceptively simple in that more Americans would be able to afford and hold onto healthcare. This means that they would be able to live a better life and be better functioning members of society. The Affordable Care Act has proven to be a legitimate solution since it has been enacted under the Obama administration. According to the New York Times, the number of Americans without healthcare is ``down by 25 percent.'' This shows that the Affordable Care Act is effective at achieving its goals. There are many people who believe that the United States government should play no role in health care; this is a flawed perspective. The goal is insure as many American citizens as possible it makes the most sense to have defined government regulation. One belief is that there should be a free market for health insurance, allowing companies to compete to provide the best system to benefit the people. There are many problems with a free market health care system that stops it from being helpful and most useful for the American people. A free market is not designed to allow for everyone to have insurance, but rather people who can afford it having better access. This is not beneficial on the national scale and leads to a large imbalance of power. There are also numerous flaws in the current American approach to health care. For one, even when someone is insured there are upfront fees and payments before insurance kicks in. This means that someone who is insured might not be able to pay these fees causing them to be financially burdened by bills even with insurance. Universal government health care has proven to be a sufficient solution to the problem of health care. For example, Switzerland has universal health care and a per capita health expenditures of $1,879, compared to America's $4,160. Meaning that the United States is spending more money on less. Making sure that this is available and maintained under the Trump administration is important in the path towards accessible health insurance. No one should ever die because they cannot afford treatment. hope petraro, montpelier high school, sophomore Commitment to democracy is the founding principal of the United States of America-embedded in the fabric of our Nation, the crown jewel of our proverbial crown. A constitutional federal republic, with a system of checks and balances, is an assurance to constituents that they each have a seat at the table. Yet in practice, this has proven to be nothing but a promising facade. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and ``money in politics'' are not a threat to our democracy--they define American democracy. The disproportionate influence of wealthy individuals and corporations in elections and in the legislative process has muddled an honest definition of democracy in our Nation while simultaneously becoming it. However, America's commitment to tried-and-true methods does not necessitate lack of reception to positive change. Campaigns will always include campaign financing, as the distribution of information to voters is dependent upon systems that require funding. In addition, campaign contributions, whether by individuals or corporations, can rightfully be considered an exercise of the First Amendment right to free speech. However, refusal to set donation limits violates the grounds of equality upon which such freedom of speech is conducted, and can arguably censor and repress the speech of the less wealthy as it greatly diminishes their relative influence. Unfortunately, Citizens United and the subsequent SpeechNow allow donors to make unlimited donations to super PACS. This includes money donated by foreign entities, possibly anonymously as ``dark money''. Moreover, these expenditures aren't verifiably independent from candidates. Collusion between super PACs, often created by associates of candidates and candidates themselves, is rarely, if ever, regulated. In addition, it is hypocritical to argue, in the name of free speech, that donors can contribute an unlimited amount to expenditures but that those expenditures must remain independent. Citizens United, SpeechNow, and the additional McCutcheon rulings have nearly neutralized the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, adding a somewhat plutocratic influence upon the electoral process and American democracy as a whole. This issue is multi-partisan. According to Gallup Poll, the greatest majority of Americans cite dissatisfaction with the government and poor leadership as our Nation's most important issue. A September 2015 Bloomberg poll found that about 80 percent of Republicans and Democrats alike oppose Citizens United. This overarching dissatisfaction can be ameliorated by working to keep elections in the hands of the American people. Political groups, such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and ALEC, were able to influence elections before Citizens United, SpeechNow, and McCutcheon, and are able to influence the legislative process, respectively. However, it's important for Americans to avoid demoralization, understanding that the first step to achieving a republic free of corruption rests in truly democratic elections. A true democracy can be achieved by restoring the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, strengthening campaign-finance regulations, and supporting public campaign-financing initiatives. We, the American people, must decide our destiny, and our elections should remind each American that their voices prevail. zoe prue, champlain valley union high school, junior The United States is distinguished by the values that are deeply embedded in our culture and economy. Americans place emphasis on individual initiative and self-created success. These ideas are evident in the Constitution, its amendments, and various institutions. Their derivation is best seen in a famous phrase written in the Declaration of Independence, ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Captured in these seven words are the ubiquitous values of our Nation. Our focus on individually created prosperity is manifested by capitalism and the free market. However, these are not conducive to always guaranteeing protections like health care for our most vulnerable citizens. In America, there are families stymied in an unrelenting cycle of poverty, and they are incapable of rising out of the cycle for a myriad of factors. For example, access to education and vocational training, discrimination--especially for marginalized communities--higher incarceration rates, low salaries/wages, and lack of jobs. Impoverished people have difficulties paying for the bare minimums like housing, food, and heat. Consequently, families rarely find any spare money to spend on healthcare. This is an issue because, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 15 million children in the United States live below the federal poverty line. There are millions of children who do not receive regular physical check-ups, necessary optometry appointments, or dental care. Children and adolescents are suffering from health problems that impact their quality of life. Many treatable ailments require simple fixes such as glasses to see the board, fillings for painful cavities, medicine for illnesses, or inhalers for asthma. It is within our capacity to fix these problems, so why are we not? We should be concerned about the health of our Nation's citizens as it is one of the most important issues facing the U.S. today. There is an inescapable need for affordable and accessible health care for the American public. The lasting impacts of affordable healthcare would be monumental. When we invest in the health and livelihoods of the next generation of Americans, we are investing in the next generation of our workforce. Healthier people results in more able workers, who by extension, are able to support their own families. It is one of the best methods to combatting the poverty cycle. We characterize our Nation by our belief in individualism and independence. However, when we see a system that is relentlessly unforgiving towards people in poverty, the most productive conclusion to come to is that we have to start taking care of our neighbors. The cycle disempowers them; it strips them of the ability to pay for necessities like healthcare. This is why affordable healthcare needs to be obtainable for all Americans. Instead of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, it should be expanded upon. The government should fund programs to offer reasonably priced healthcare to Americans. Doing so would create a lasting solution to poor citizens being unable to access health care. The quality of life for millions of Americans would be improved. ethan schmitt, rutland high school, sophomore I am the grandson of a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. I support the United States Constitution and all of its amendments. Despite this, I believe that the way our country's officials have interpreted the Second Amendment has created the foundation for many mass shootings, which have claimed the lives of countless innocent civilians. A price cannot be assigned for the lives lost due to this awfully dangerous policy of our country; every time another person dies due to homicide, another family is torn apart. Many children have been killed, particularly in church and school shootings. And even in cases where there are children who haven't been physically impacted by the mass shootings, they may have lost a loved one which will take a toll on them mentally and emotionally for the rest of their lives. The universal definition of the term mass shooting is when four or more people are injured or killed in a single event at the same time and location. According to The Guardian, there have been 1,516 mass shootings in the past 1,735 days before October 1, 2017, the date of the mass shooting that took place at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. A total of 1,719 people have died as a result of these mass shootings, while an additional 6,510 were injured. The gun at the forefront of these mass shootings was the semi-automatic rifle, which has the ability to shoot a round, and automatically reload with another round that is fired with an additional pull of the trigger. Despite the National Rifle Association's attempts to defend such a weapon as a gun mostly used for hunting purposes, there is no need for this hazardous assault weapon in order to successfully hunt. In addition, devices known as bump stocks are used to simulate the speed of fire similar to that of an automatic weapon for a semi-automatic weapon. An automatic weapon has the ability to fire multiple rounds of ammunition by only pulling the trigger of a gun once, and are more commonly known as machine guns. The American people have been prohibited from the use of these weapons with the passing of the National Firearms Act in 1934. However, bump stocks have not been banned, and the result of this have been conflicts such as the mass shooting in Las Vegas where the gunman successfully attached these devices to 23 of his semi- automatic rifles, and used them to kill 58 people, which resulted in the most devastating shooting in U.S. history. The solution to this mass shooting epidemic is clear. Congress must use rationality and act as a bipartisan group to pass a bill which regulates the use of semi-automatic weapons and bump stocks which have both been used with frequency in a multitude of mass shootings across the United States. American citizens have the right to bear arms, but not with weapons that have no purpose in hunting, target practice, or even self-defense. elizabeth toensing, champlain valley union high school, junior On a summer Saturday morning, I was driving into Burlington. At a stop light, I looked over at a church to my right. A man, in his early twenties was sitting on the steps. He was shivering ferociously, yelling at God, and begging for help. His tremors were not from cold. He was shaking from withdrawal. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead and soaked his shirt. His body was unable to handle the side effects of withdrawal. He was a heroin addict. This homeless man with torn clothing, could not access a treatment center. His last-ditch effort was to sit on the steps of a church and pray, scream, for a miracle. A miracle is ``a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.'' Miracles are meant for things we cannot control, not things we can control like making help available for drug addicts. By funding public drug rehabilitation centers, we can help drug addicts to recover from their addictions. No addicts can do it alone and adequate support is the only way to help with these problems. An analysis from Blue Cross Blue Shield found that from 2010 to 2016, the number of people diagnosed with an addiction to opioids climbed 493 percent. Yet, at the same time, there was only a 65 percent increase in the number of people getting medication-assisted treatment to manage their addiction. Why do we allow the drug abuse problem to skyrocket well beyond treatment resources? Perhaps it is because drug treatment centers come at a cost. They can range from $20,000-$60,000 for a 30-90 day inpatient stay. No wonder 77.7 percent of addicts cannot afford it. But for society, the costs go well beyond treatment. The opioid crisis in America is increasing by the day and with it comes increased deaths and suffering. Some suggest creating injection sites to supervise heroin users to help with the growing death toll. But this is a short term fix. Rehab is a long-term fix and gives opioid abusers a chance to reclaim normal lives. Making rehabilitation centers more accessible to financially strapped addicts will help the opioid epidemic. Reducing or eliminating the financial blockades to treatment that exist for nearly 80 percent of addicts will answer the prayers of an increasing number of victims of this plague. Affordable rehabilitation centers will eliminate the need for miracles. ella whitman, champlain valley union high school, junior When my high school principal told us that there were only three rules we had to follow I was shocked. How can you sum up every expectation that must be demanded of a young adult into three things? He went on to inform us that we must take care of ourselves, take care of each other, and the place. While thinking about these three guidelines it became apparent that achieving them can be challenging at times but the step to do it is simple; you must respect all things. Looking at our Nation today it is clear that lack of respect creates the most conflict in our Nation. Our negligence to respect each other's bodies, opinions, ethnicities, races, backgrounds and beliefs leads us to discrimination, hatred and prejudice. We see endless examples in our lives today. The lack of respect for one another's opinion is vividly apparent in politics today. The Pew Research Center recently reported how the partisan divide on our Nation's politics is increasing. A study concluded, ``The shares of Republicans and Democrats who express very unfavorable opinions of the opposing party have increased dramatically since the 1990's, but have changed little in recent years.'' This is alarming because if we as people cannot see others perspective, we will not be able to collaborate or work with one another to collectively strengthen our Nation. By respecting others' opinions we can gain insight and also learn their specific needs. Not only is respect lacking towards each other's opinions, but to others wellbeing as we have recently seen millions of women come forward with stories of sexual abuse. Not only in our Nation's history but in present day, women are treated as objects. Just within the last twenty four hours, additional notable people have come forward with their previous stories of harassment such as Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence and Molly Ringwald, not to mention the 12 million others who have also shared their own stories on Facebook. Looking back, maybe our principal had a point. To function not only as a school, but as a community or even a nation we must have respect. To advance our Nation from its biggest struggles and alleviate the consequences that come with it, each person must learn how to see out of another's eyes. Each person must treat one another with dignity. Respect is important to our country because it allows us to adjoin together as one. Our Nation was created upon respect and embracing one another for their differences. Each person's difference allows us to be the unique nation we are today. We must embrace and respect every opinion that each one of us has, every talent each one of us possesses and every person each one of us is. name withheld upon request, burlington school district, senior The biggest issue we face in America today is that we neglect our incarcerated population. I'm part of the juvenile incarcerated population, and as a resident I don't feel like I'm getting the appropriate treatment I need. I was already here once and the skills I learned were not enough to keep me from coming back. Incarcerated people need to be given the opportunity and resources to identify what gets them in trouble and to work on their problems. If a person has a history of violent behaviors and is incarcerated because of his behaviors, he shouldn't be doing groups on drugs and alcohol. Instead he should be focusing his time and attention on working to better his violent behaviors so he can be successful when he gets out. Another issue is that there are many young people in the system who do not need to be. There are almost 7,000 youth behind bars for ``technical violations'' of their probation. Also, about 600 youth are behind bars for ``status offense,'' which are behaviors that are not law violations for adults, such as running away, truancy, and incorrigibility. There are another 840,000 people on parole and about 3.7 million people on probation. I would like to see better support for these people who come out of jail. If previously incarcerated people relapse for certain types of offenses like drug and alcohol offenses, breaking curfew, or violating probation, they should be given opportunities to fix that before it becomes a pattern, rather than being thrown back in jail. I also think they should have more adult programs like juveniles have such as short or longterm programs away from their environment. A placement that juveniles go to after being released from a locked facility is called a step down. Laraway is an example of this, where a juvenile can go and be allowed back in the community. They are given the opportunity and supports to help them find a job and enroll back in school. I hope that policymakers and the public carefully consider better treatment within locked facilities and alternatives to incarceration for people who are not a threat to public safety. We should ask whether legitimate social goals are served by maintaining the status quo.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, it is no secret that our country faces a major healthcare crisis and, in fact, a dysfunctional healthcare system. We have some 30 million people who have no health insurance, and that number is going to go up in the coming year. We have even more people who are underinsured, with high deductibles and copayments. Our people pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, which means that millions of people who go to the doctor to get a prescription are simply unable to afford the bill. In fact, the description of that is the definition of a dysfunctional, failing healthcare system. In the midst of all of that, there is another particular crisis dealing with primary healthcare, and that is that even when people do have health insurance in many parts of our country, they are finding it very hard to go to a doctor and to get in to a doctor to treat the ailments that they have. We fall behind many other countries in terms of our lack of emphasis on primary healthcare, which should be the heart and soul of any strong healthcare system. The bottom line is that when you get sick, you should be able to get to the doctor when you need to and not have to wait weeks and months in order to do so. In the midst of a failing primary healthcare system, there is one very strong bright spot, and that is that for many decades now, in every State in this country, we have had community health centers run by the people themselves--democratically run--addressing the healthcare needs of those given communities. Today, in America, we have about 27 million people--27 million men, women, and children--who are accessing community health centers. In my own State of Vermont, one out of four Vermonters gets their primary healthcare through a community health center. These centers do more than provide primary healthcare. They also provide dental care, an issue that is too often ignored when we talk about the healthcare crisis. They provide mental health counseling, which is more important now than perhaps it has ever been because of the opioid and heroin epidemic our country is experiencing. Equally important, they provide low-cost prescription drugs at a time when so many Americans cannot afford the medicines they need. That is what community health centers do, and they do it well, and they do it cost effectively. To my mind, there is no question but that there is strong bipartisan support here in the Senate and in the House for community health centers. Yet now we have gone over 4 months into the 2018 fiscal year, and we still have not reauthorized funding for community health centers. Frankly, I do not understand how it happens that when we have strong bipartisan support in the House and the Senate for programs that are working extremely well in every State in this country, the Republican leadership still has not reauthorized the community health center program. There is good bipartisan legislation right here in the Senate that has, I think, the support of virtually everybody in the Democratic caucus. Seven or eight Republicans are supporting it. It is the Blunt-Stabenow bill. It is a 5-year extension of community health centers reauthorization with a modest increase in the budget. If that bill came to the floor today, my guess is that it would get 70, 80 votes--maybe even more. We have gone 4 months into the fiscal year, and we still have not seen that bill reauthorized. What is happening all over this country is that community health centers, which often struggle with recruitment and retention, are finding it harder than ever to retain the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff they need because applicants are looking around and saying: Why should I work at a community health center if I don't even know if it is going to be there next year? Why should I stay at a community health center if I can get a better job offer and I don't know if this community health center will be funded? As a result of 4 months of inaction, community health centers all over this country are hurting. I say enough is enough. Right now, as soon as possible, we need to reauthorize the community health center program for at least 5 years, and we need to make sure there is adequate funding so that they can continue to do the excellent work they are doing all over this country. Opioid Epidemic Mr. President, there is another issue that I would like to briefly touch upon. There has been a lot of discussion--appropriately so--about the opioid epidemic that is sweeping the United States. We have lost some 63,000 Americans as a result of opioid overdoses in 2016 alone. Families by the millions are being impacted. I was in Brattleboro, VT, a few weeks ago, and they talked to me about what is happening to the children whose parents are addicted to opioids. They need to find foster homes for those children. This is clearly an epidemic that has to be dealt with. We have to increase funding for prevention to make sure young people don't get swept up into the epidemic and also for treatment for those people who are addicted. There is an issue that we have not touched upon enough, and that is holding the drug companies responsible and accountable for the products they brought into the market. As some people may recall, in April of 1994, the CEOs of the seven largest tobacco companies testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in a historic hearing. What that hearing was about was, under oath, demanding to know what the executives from the tobacco industry knew and when they knew it. Did they know that their product was addictive? Did they know that tobacco caused cancer, heart disease, and other medical problems? They were asked to hold their hands up and under oath tell the committee what they knew. I think it is now appropriate for the Senate to do the same with those drug companies that are producing opioids. I think we need to know what the drug companies knew in terms of the addictive qualities of those drugs. There is some evidence out there that suggests that drug companies, in fact, did know that the product they were selling was in fact addictive, but they forgot to tell the doctors--and certainly not the patients. It is one thing for somebody to do something in ignorance, not knowing the impact of what you produce. That happens all the time. It is something very different if, in fact, the manufacturer of a product understands that the product causes addiction, that the product causes death. We need to get to the root of that issue. We need to know what the drug companies knew and when they knew that. I would hope very much that in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which has jurisdiction over this issue, we could bring the executives of those drug companies that produce these opioids before us, because not only are we talking about 60,000 people a year dying as a result of overdoses, but what we are talking about also is the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars in healthcare and law enforcement associated with opioid addiction. I hope that we can move forward and have those executives come before us and tell us under oath what they knew and when they knew it, because I think the time is long overdue for us to hold them accountable. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, last week I entered into the Record the winning essays in my office's eighth annual State of the Union Essay Contest. I would like to congratulate the other finalists in this year's contest and likewise ask that their essays be printed in the Record. The essays follow, in alphabetical order according to the finalists' names. The material follows:

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States. I would like to congratulate the almost 600 students who participated this year. It is truly heartening to see so many young people engaged in finding solutions for the problems that face our country. To my mind, this is what democracy is all about. A volunteer panel of Vermont teachers reviewed the essays and chose Marjorie ``Maggie'' Parker as this year's winner. Maggie, a sophomore at Woodstock Union High School, focused on the need to prevent hate crimes, particularly against members of the LGBT community. Alaura Rich, a senior at St. Johnsbury Academy, was the second place winner. Alaura wrote about the prohibitive cost of a college education at a time when the United States needs to have the best educated workforce in the world. Oliver Minshall, a junior at Hanover High School, was the third place winner, having written about addressing income inequality and creating a more equitable and sustainable economy. I am very proud to ask to have printed in the Record the essays submitted by Maggie, Alaura, and Oliver. The material follows:

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I come before my colleagues in the Senate to urge in the strongest possible terms that the Republican leadership here accept its responsibility and not allow the Government of the United States of America to shut down. Republicans control the Senate. They control the U.S. House. And a Republican is in the White House. Please do not shut the government down. A government shutdown will be extremely distressing and difficult for millions of people in every State in our country who utilize government services. A government shutdown will be extremely painful for millions of Federal employees who depend upon their paychecks to provide for their families. A government shutdown will make it much more difficult for U.S. military personnel, the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to defend us, to do their jobs. The American people do not want a government shutdown. I do not want a government shutdown, and I believe that most of my Republican colleagues do not want a government shutdown. It is imperative that President Trump understand that despite what he said in May, that statement is wrong. When he said our country needs a good shutdown, that is wrong. Our country does not need a good shutdown. What we need is an annual budget that addresses the many needs of the American people. Just last night, this is what a spokesperson from the Pentagon stated: We have been working under a Continuing Resolution for three years now. Our current CR expires tomorrow, 19 Jan. This is wasteful and destructive. We need a fully-funded FY18 budget or face ramifications on our military. This afternoon, I say to Senator McConnell, the Republican leader here in the Senate: Please do not shut the government down. You know, Senator McConnell, the political reality as well as anybody in our country. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to pass this budget agreement. You don't have 60 votes. Please, sit down with Democrats, and start negotiating in good faith. Please, do not shut the government down. More and more Democrats are sick and tired of kicking the can down the road, tired of our not addressing the major crises that are facing this country, tired of running a $4 trillion operation, which is what the U.S. Government is, on a month-to-month basis. Yet it is not just the Democrats who are demanding that we finally have an annual budget. It is the Republicans as well. My understanding--what I have heard from the news media--is that there are now five Republicans who are prepared to vote against this continuing resolution and even more who have voiced deep concerns about the lack of an annual budget. They know and I know that just passing another temporary budget is totally irresponsible and is abdicating the job that we were elected to do. What the American people understand--what every businessperson in this country understands, what every family in America understands--is that you cannot run a government, given the many crises that we face, on a month-to-month basis. We cannot continue to abdicate our responsibility. Finally, we must address the problems that are facing the American people. Last night, the Pentagon told us correctly--and I state again that this is what was said: ``We need a fully-funded FY18 budget or face ramifications on our military.'' Let's not forget that we are 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year. There are 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone, and the Republican leadership here has still not given us an annual budget. It is not just the military that faces a crisis situation because of the lack of an annual budget. Today, 27 million Americans get their primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs through the community health center program. In my State of Vermont, one out of four Vermonters gets his primary healthcare through a community health center. There are 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone since the beginning of this fiscal year, and the Republicans have not yet reauthorized funding for the community health center program, which is now facing a severe crisis in terms of recruiting and retaining the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff it needs to maintain the quality of service it must maintain. What doctor or what nurse is going to go to a community health center when he or she doesn't even know if that facility is going to receive funding? There are 27 million Americans who depend upon community health centers. As I understand it--and I am glad--the Republicans are now prepared to reauthorize the CHIP program. There are 9 million kids who need that program. In the 3\1/2\ months that have come and gone, finally, they are talking about reauthorizing CHIP. That is good, but you cannot forget the community health centers. The community health center program in this country is 50 years old. It was developed in the 1960s. It is supported by virtually every Democrat and, I think, the vast majority of the Republicans. Yet it has not been reauthorized. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed and addressed now. On Veterans Day, everybody here goes running all over the country, giving great speeches about how much they love the veterans, but the Veterans Health Administration cannot continue to provide decent, quality care to those of our veterans who put their lives on the line to defend us when they have over 30,000 vacancies. In Vermont and around the country, the VA provides good, quality care, but you cannot provide care in a timely manner when you have 30,000 vacancies at the VA. This issue cannot be kicked down the road. It must be addressed now, not next year. As everybody knows, in Louisiana and in Vermont and all over this country, there is a horrible, horrific opioid and heroin epidemic that is sweeping this country. It has hit my State of Vermont hard. It has hit States all over America. Last year, 60,000 people in our country died as a result of opioid or heroin overdoses. We need to help State governments, local communities, families, and police departments to address the opioid and heroin epidemic. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It must be addressed now, not through a continuing resolution that absolutely ignores this crisis. It must be addressed now. Last year, unbelievably, some 10,000 people with disabilities died while awaiting decisions for the applications they made to the Social Security Administration for their disability benefits to be approved. People with disabilities apply for benefits. They wait, they wait, and they wait. Last year, 10,000 people with disabilities died while waiting for decisions. Many of them died because the Social Security Administration is, today, grossly underfunded, understaffed, and simply not able to deal with the volume of claims they have received. It is not just people with disabilities. In my State of Vermont--I hear this every day--there are older Americans who are not getting the quality of service they need from the Social Security Administration. Our job is to adequately fund the Social Security Administration so it can protect the needs of senior citizens and people with disabilities in our country. This is a crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed now, and this continuing resolution, which I presume we are going to vote on later today, does not deal with it. Mr. President, 1\1/2\ million Americans are in danger of seeing their pensions cut by up to 60 percent. These are truckdrivers, construction workers, machinists, and others who have worked their entire careers with the expectation that they would receive a decent pension when they retired. We have a responsibility to protect the pensions of these hard-working Americans and keep the promises that were made to them. This is another crisis that cannot be kicked down the road. It has to be addressed now, and the continuing resolution that is going to come before us has not one word to say about that. Then we have a child care crisis in this country. Millions of working families can't find quality, affordable child care. We have a student debt crisis in this country--40 million people, many of them deeply in debt, unable to get on with their lives for the crime of having gone to college. That is a crisis that we have to deal with. We have an infrastructure crisis in this country. All over America, roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants are collapsing. How do we continue to ignore those crises? At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the rich are getting richer and everybody else is getting poorer, our job in Congress is not just to give tax breaks to billionaires. Our job is not just to try to throw 32 million Americans off the health insurance they have or deny the reality of climate change or to end net neutrality or make racist comments about countries throughout the world. Our job is to represent the needs of ordinary Americans. We cannot continue to ignore these problems. We cannot continue to kick the can down the road. Once again, I say to the majority leader: Let us begin to negotiate in good faith. Let us reach decisions that will improve life for the American people, not simply ignore their needs. When we talk about the crises facing this country, we are also talking about a crisis precipitated by President Trump in September of last year. As a result of President Trump's rescinding of President Obama's Executive order on DACA, some 800,000 young people in our country are today living in fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. If we do not act--and act now--it is possible that many of these young people will lose their legal status and be subjected to the possibility of deportation. This must not be allowed to happen. This issue to my mind is one of the great moral issues of our time. These young people, who were brought into this country, some at 2 years of age, 3 years, 5 years of age, are people who have lived virtually their entire lives in the United States of America. They are working, they are in school, they are in the military, and 20,000 of these young DACA people are now teaching in schools throughout the country. It would be one of the cruelest acts in modern American history or our history in general if we said to these young people, who know no other country but the United States of America, that they could be deported from our shores. It would be an unspeakable crime, and we must not allow that to happen. That is not just the opinion of Senator Bernie Sanders; that is the overwhelming point of view of the American people, of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. A poll just came out last night from CBS. The poll showed that 87 percent of the American people believe that we should protect the legal status of the Dreamers--87 percent--and that poll is consistent with poll after poll after poll. The people of the United States across the political spectrum are saying that we cannot turn our backs on these Dreamers. The vast majority of people believe we must provide a path toward citizenship. There is now bipartisan legislation that has been written by Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, and others, and I say to Senator McConnell: If 87 percent of the American people think we should provide legal status to the Dreamers, let us do our job. Let us pass this legislation. This is not a profile in courage. This is what the American people want, and let us do what the American people want. As we well know, terrible, terrible hurricanes struck Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands months and months ago, and people there are still suffering. Many people in Puerto Rico today still do not have electricity. Then there are devastating wildfires and mud slides that have taken place in California. How long does it take for this Congress to respond to the crises facing our fellow Americans? What I say is, we were elected to do our jobs in representing the American people. That is what we are paid to do. We cannot run a government on a month-to-month basis. Senator McConnell does not have the 60 votes he needs, and now is the time for him to sit down with the Democratic leadership and negotiate a serious agreement on the budget situation, on parity between defense and nondefense spending. Negotiate a serious agreement on DACA, providing legal status and a path toward citizenship for our 800,000 young people; negotiate a serious agreement on disaster relief. The truth of the matter is, we can do it. We can do it. The differences of opinion are not that wide, but we cannot do it and will not do it unless we finally sit down and start negotiating in a serious manner. That is what I implore Senator McConnell to do. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment. If the Congress does not get its act together by tomorrow, there will be a government shutdown. A government shutdown will be extraordinarily destructive to the people of our country, millions of whom depend upon government services. It will be destructive to millions of Federal employees who keep their families going with a paycheck from the government. It will be destructive to the U.S. Armed Forces, men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us. So it seems to me that we have to do everything we can to prevent a government shutdown. As everyone knows, we have a Republican Party that controls the U.S. Senate, a Republican Party that controls the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Republican who is in the White House, President Trump. We are now 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, and the Republican Party has yet to give us an annual budget. The U.S. Government is a $3 trillion operation. There is no business in this country of any size that can run week to week, month to month. We need an annual budget, and now the Republicans are coming back, asking for a fourth continuing resolution. You cannot run a government like that. It is unfair to the American people, unfair to the Armed Forces, unfair to all of us. Three and a half months have gone in the fiscal year; yet the Children's Health Insurance Program has not been reauthorized. This is a program that has existed for decades with bipartisan support. How can we not reauthorize the CHIP Program? Three and a half months of the fiscal year have come and gone, and we have not reauthorized the Community Health Center Program, which provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, low-cost prescription drugs to 27 million Americans in every State in this country. If legislation were brought to the floor of the Senate today, the Blunt-Stabenow bill reauthorizing the community health centers, I suspect, would get 70, 75 votes; yet Republicans, after 3\1/2\ months, have not been able to reauthorize the CHIP Program or the Community Health Center Program. When we talk about the budget process, we are talking about three major issues; there are more, but there are three major issues. No. 1, will we continue to have parity in spending between defense spending and nondefense spending? Since 2011, in four different budgets, there has been a bipartisan agreement that for every dollar spent on defense is a dollar you will spend on the needs of a struggling middle class, millions of people who are struggling every day to keep their heads above water economically--a dollar here, a dollar there. That has been agreed upon on four separate occasions, but several weeks ago, the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: We want to do away with that parity. We want to be able to spend more on the military and less on the needs of working families. We have a middle class that is shrinking. We have people all over this country working two or three jobs. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any other major country on Earth. We have millions of elderly people who can't make it on $12,000 or $13,000 a year. We have a crisis sweeping the Nation, hitting my State of Vermont very hard. We have infrastructure that is crumbling. We cannot ignore the needs of the working families of this country and spend huge amounts of money only on the military. Some of the things we have to do as we come together, as we must, for a bipartisan agreement is, of course, reauthorize CHIP and, of course, reauthorize the Community Health Center Program. The Stabenow-Blunt bill has nine Republican cosponsors. Every Democrat will support it. We have the votes. Let's do it. We have to deal with the pension issue. One and a half million American workers are about to lose 50 to 60 percent of the pensions they were promised by the U.S. Government. That cannot be allowed to happen. We have to stand with those workers. I went to a meeting earlier today dealing with the Social Security Administration. The Social Security Administration provides a process-- the administrative arm makes sure that the elderly, disabled, and people who get Social Security benefits get those benefits in a timely manner. For years now, Republicans have underfunded that administration, and today there are simply not enough employees to do the work that has to be done. Amazingly enough, over at the House they are talking about massive cuts to the Social Security Administration on top of all the cuts they have already received. The Washington Post wrote an article a few weeks ago--unbelievable-- and what they said is that over the last year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities who had applied for Social Security benefits died while waiting for those claims to be processed. They were not processed in a timely manner because the Social Security Administration does not have the workers it needs and has been significantly underfunded. For the sake of the senior citizens of our country, for the sake of the disabled, any budget agreement when we have parity must supply sufficient amounts of money for the Social Security Administration so that they can do their work. Every Veterans Day, every Member of this body talks about how much they love veterans. The Veterans' Administration today has 30,000 vacancies, which means that our veterans are not getting the quality and timely care that they must be able to receive. We have to start filling those vacancies. Any budget agreement must include increased funding for the VA. In my State of Vermont and all over this country, there are millions of young people who went to college, went to graduate school, and have left school deeply in debt. Because of high interest rates, some of those people now owe more money today after paying off, year after year, their debts than they did when they took out the debt. We have to address the debt crisis facing some 40 million Americans. In Vermont and all over this country, if you are a working person, what do you do if you have a 3-year-old or a 2-year-old? Well, you look for decent, quality childcare. But all over this country it is extremely difficult to find that quality childcare. Any serious budget agreement we reach must include increased funding for childcare so that working people in this country know, when they leave their kid at a center, that child will receive quality care at a cost that is affordable. Every dollar we invest in early childhood education is a dollar very, very well spent. All over this country, in this, the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world, we have infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants--which is crumbling. In many parts of rural America, including the State of Vermont, we do not have high-quality, affordable broadband or cell phone service. How do you maintain a community, how do you bring business into a community, how do kids do their homework if you don't have decent broadband or cell phone service? We have to invest in rural America and make certain that every community in this country has broadband and the kind of infrastructure that it needs in order to prosper. One of the tragedies taking place in this country today is resulting, unbelievably, in a lowered life expectancy rate here in the United States of America. Our life expectancy rate is actually in decline, and one of the reasons for that is the tragic opioid and heroin epidemic, which claimed some 60,000 lives last year. We cannot ignore that problem. We have to invest in prevention. We have to invest in treatment. We have to help States all over this country and the families who are struggling with this issue. My point is, we need parity, not for some abstract, inside-the- beltway reason; we need parity in spending because we need more in this country than just a strong military. We need a strong middle class. We need a strong working class. We cannot turn our backs on tens of millions of people who are struggling. The second issue that we have to deal with here in the Congress is the issue of DACA and the need for clean Dreamers legislation. In September, President Trump initiated a very serious crisis. What he did is rescind President Obama's Executive order providing legal status through DACA to 800,000 young people. These are young people who were raised in the United States of America. These are young people who today are working. They are in school; they are in the military. This is the only home they have ever known. This is the only country that any of them or many of them can even remember. The idea of simply doing away with the legal status that they have, subjecting them to deportation, subjecting them to being taken away from the only country they have ever known and loved is literally beyond comprehension and unspeakable. In September, when Trump initiated this process by rescinding Obama's Executive order on DACA, he said to the Congress, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You fix it. Get legislation. Well, there are people right now--Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, and others--who are working on legislation, which doesn't go as far as I would like it to go, but they are working on serious legislation in the House. The vast majority of Democrats and many Republicans understand that we cannot turn our backs on these young people. That is not just what we feel here in the House and in the Senate; it is what the American people want. Poll after poll shows that 70, 75, 80 percent of the American people say: Provide these 800,000 young people with legal status. Provide them with a path toward citizenship. Very few people think that we should turn our backs on these young people, let DACA expire, and subject them to deportation. Let us do what the American people want us to do, and let us pass a strong Dreamers Act. Last but not least, we had some terrible hurricanes some months ago. They brought a lot of disaster to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Months have gone by, and we have yet to pass the kind of disaster relief that communities in those States and territories desperately need. We cannot continue to kick the can down the road. We cannot continue to run a $3 trillion government on a month-by-month basis. It is unfair to everybody. We have to sit down and negotiate a serious budget agreement. And what Republicans must understand is that, yes, they have a 51-to-49 majority here in the Senate, but you need 60 votes to pass this type of legislation. You need 60 votes, and that means you cannot do it alone. You cannot give the Democratic caucus a fait accompli and expect Democrats to say: Oh, yes, sir, we are going to follow you. This requires bipartisan discussion on the parity issue and domestic spending and bipartisan discussion on DACA. We have a strong majority of Members of the Senate who support a Dreamers piece of legislation and a path toward citizenship. We have a strong majority of the American people and a strong majority of Members of the Senate who want disaster relief. This should not be a difficult problem. The American people want a resolution, and they want it done in a bipartisan way. Let's do it. Let's not kick the can down the road. Republicans must understand that they must negotiate in a bipartisan way. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of nearly 800,000 Dreamers, young people who were brought to this country as children who today are living in fear and uncertainty. As a result of the Trump administration's decision to end the DACA Program, these young people are at risk of losing their legal status and, in fact, face deportation from the only home that most of them have ever known, and that home is the United States of America. This is one of the great moral issues of our time, and it is an issue that must be dealt with now as part of the budget negotiations. It cannot be kicked down the road any longer. We must pass the Dream Act now as part of the current budget negotiations. In the last 6 years since the DACA Program was established, these young people--again, people who were brought to this country as infants, in many cases--were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. For the first time in their lives, they could walk the streets of this country without fear, without worrying about being arrested, without worrying about being deported. Think about what it means to live in this country every single day knowing that, at any moment, you could be arrested or deported. What DACA finally did is to give these 800,000 young people a legal status and a protection so they could go out and work, so they could go to school, and so they could serve in the U.S. military without fear. As we all know, tragically, on September 5, 2017, President Trump announced the end of the DACA Program through Executive order. President Obama had established it through Executive order, and President Trump ended it through Executive order. In his announcement, President Trump noted: I look forward to working with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to finally address all of these issues. As I have said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion, but through the lawful democratic process. It is now time for Congress to act. That is Donald Trump. The President was right. It is time for Congress to act. It is time for Congress to not kick the can down the road. Our Republican President, Mr. Trump, told the Republican-led Congress to get to work on a DACA fix, and I say today to the Republican leadership: Let's do it. Let's do it now. That is what President Trump asked you to do. Listen to him, and let's do it--not next month, not in March, but right now--as part of the budget agreement. People are working on this issue now. We can come to a consensus. We can pass the Dream Act if there is a political will to do it. Let us also be very clear. Despite what some have said, this is an urgent matter that must be addressed now. Since President Trump rescinded the DACA Program in September, more than 15,000 Dreamers have already lost their DACA status and are now subject to deportation. Each day the Congress does not act, 122 people lose their DACA protections, and 851 people each and every week. This is a matter of urgency, and we have to act accordingly. But I want to assure my Republican colleagues that not only is this the right thing to do from a moral perspective and from an economic perspective, but it is also exactly what the American people want. Nobody here is asking anybody in the Senate to rise up and to be extraordinarily brave and courageous. Why don't you just do what the American people want us to do? No profiles in courage are needed now. Poll after poll has shown that the overwhelming majority of the American people want to provide legal status to the Dreamers and to protect them from deportation. From a political perspective, this is not a difficult decision. A Washington Post-ABC poll from September 2017, a few months ago, found that 86 percent of Americans support allowing Dreamers to stay in the United States. So 86 percent of the American people support providing legal status to Dreamers. This is not a tough political decision. Another recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac found that 77 percent of voters and 65 percent of Republicans support legislation to protect Dreamers and provide them an opportunity to work, to go to school, and to pursue a pathway to citizenship. Another poll conducted by CNN last month found that by an 83-percent to 13-percent margin, Americans support efforts to allow Dreamers to remain in the United States instead of facing potential deportation. Only 15 percent believed that Dreamers should be deported. Passing the Dream Act is also in our national security interests. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently noted: The United States faces extraordinary security challenges that are placing growing pressure on our Armed Forces. That is why we need legislation that will provide a pathway to citizenship for those immigrants who, among other attributes, are serving or have served in the military, whether they are in America legally or were brought here illegally as children. That is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In addition, just last week three former Secretaries of Homeland Security wrote to House and Senate leadership expressing both their strong support for a DACA fix and for the urgency of acting now. Secretaries Chertoff, Napolitano, and Johnson warned of the need for Congress to act immediately and emphasized how the agency needs time to implement a new program. Without it, they caution that the delay will sow uncertainty in the business community and drive undocumented individuals further into the shadows, with immediate deportation looming for tens of thousands every single month. Let us be very clear that when we talk about the DACA Program and when we talk about these young people receiving legal status, these young people are vetted, they pay a fee, and the vast majority of them are now at jobs important to our economy. They are in school or they are in the military. In order to get DACA status, they could not be convicted of a felony or a significant misdemeanor or pose a threat to national security or public safety. As almost everybody recognizes, these are fine young people whom we should be very proud of and should not be talking about deporting them. DACA gave these young people a shot at the American dream, and having been given that opportunity, they seized it and they are excelling and contributing to our country--to their country--in so many ways. With 91 percent of DACA recipients in the workforce, they play an important role in our economy. Many hundreds of Dreamers have taken up the call to serve in our Armed Forces. Can my colleagues imagine a young Dreamer now serving in the Armed Forces, putting his or her life on the line to defend this country, and then reading about Members of Congress who think we should deport them? How outrageous is that? Furthermore, there are some 20,000 DACA recipients who are currently teaching in our schools. We desperately need good teachers, and 20,000 DACA recipients are doing just that. Yet, because of President Trump's cruel decision to rescind the DACA Program, as well as the Republican-controlled Congress's failure to act, these young people's lives and livelihoods have been thrown into chaos and uncertainty. It is our job to enact a legislative fix now. The President has called for a fix. The vast majority of the people of this country want to see a fix. A fix is important to our national security. It is the right thing to do. Let us do it. I am, however, very concerned that President Trump is using the 800,000 Dreamers as a bargaining chip to force the taxpayers of this country to pay for an $18 billion wall. Now, some may remember that during his campaign for President, Donald Trump told the American people that it was the Mexican Government that would be paying for the wall. Well, it turns out that it didn't quite work out that way, and now it is the taxpayers of this country who are supposed to pay for a wall. Let me be as clear as I can be. We cannot and we must not hold the lives of 800,000 young Dreamers hostage in order to fund a wall that the vast majority of the American people oppose. We cannot and we must not allow Donald Trump to shut down the government to fund this wall, but that, it appears, may very well be--for whatever reason--what Donald Trump wants. Let me remind my colleagues what Donald Trump said last August at a rally in Arizona, the Presiding Officer's home State: ``Believe me, if we have to close down our government, we're building that wall.'' August 22, 2017, Donald J. Trump. Now, I do not know why Donald Trump may be pushing for a government shutdown. Maybe he thinks it will work well for him or work well for the Republican Party politically. I have no idea, but I do know that the idea of a government shutdown is a very bad idea. Maybe Republicans will gain from it, maybe Democrats will politically gain from it. I do not have a clue. What I do know is, the American people will lose from a government shutdown, and, in a bipartisan manner, we must do everything we can to prevent that shutdown. A shutdown would harm tens of millions of Americans who would be unable to access vital government services; it would disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands, or more, Federal employees who depend upon a check to provide for their families; and, in fact, it would endanger members of the U.S. military who are putting their lives on the line to defend our country. The U.S. Congress has a responsibility to the American people to prevent a government shutdown and to work in a bipartisan manner to reach a budget agreement that is fair and that addresses the very serious problems facing not only DACA recipients but the working people of our country. So I say to my Republican colleagues, you control the White House, you control the U.S. House, and you control the U.S. Senate. You have a responsibility to govern. For President Trump and the Republican leadership to allow DACA to expire without a new program in place is not only a failure to govern, it is an act of extraordinary cruelty. We know President Trump wants to build a wall, I guess somewhat like the Great Wall of China. The problem is, building walls may have made sense in the 14th century, but I would inform the President that technology has somewhat changed since then, and our job is to provide strong border security in the most cost-effective way we can, and that way is not building a wall. Ironically, while the President wants to spend $18 billion to build a wall, he is taking money away from other far more important and effective border security measures. Let me quote from an article that appeared in today's New York Times: The Trump administration would cut or delay funding for border surveillance, radar technology, patrol boats and customs agents in its upcoming spending plan to curb illegal immigration--all proven security measures that officials and experts have said are more effective than building a wall along the Mexican border. The wall also has become a bargaining chip in negotiations with Congress as lawmakers seek to prevent nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from being deported. But security experts said the president's focus on a border wall ignores the constantly evolving nature of terrorism immigration and drug trafficking. In other words, if we want strong border security, if we want to keep people out of this country who should not be coming into this country, if we want to keep drugs out of this country, building a wall is not the most cost-effective way. It may have been a great idea in the 14th century in China when they built their Great Wall, but it is not a great idea in 2018, in the United States of America. So let me just conclude by saying, we are at a very important moment in history. If we do not do the right thing, if we do not do the moral thing, if we allow some 800,000 young people--people who have spent virtually their entire lives in this country, who know no other country, who see the United States of America as their home--if we betray them, if we take away their legal status, if we allow them to be deported, this will be a moral stain on this country that will never ever be wiped out. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, despite Donald Trump's assertion last May that ``our country needs a good shutdown,'' the truth is, shutting down the government is a serious and dangerous action that we must do everything possible to prevent. Shutting down the government would impact tens of millions of our fellow Americans who would be unable to access government services. It would severely impact Federal employees who would not get the paychecks they expected. It would also have a very significant impact on our Armed Forces. In other words, we must do everything we can to prevent a government shutdown, which is exactly what will happen if a budget agreement is not reached by January 19, when the short-term continuing resolution expires. I am very disappointed, therefore, that the Republican Party, which controls the White House, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate, is pushing us closer and closer to a very dangerous government shutdown. The Republican leadership in Congress and the White House must not allow this shutdown to take place. They have to compromise. They cannot get it all. As everyone knows, in 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act. The centerpiece of that bipartisan legislation was that there would be parity in defense and nondefense spending. That agreement continued in the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. All of these bills provided equal amounts of funding for defense and nondefense purposes. Any future effort to increase the Budget Control Act caps must continue to adhere to this principle of parity. In other words, we have had a bipartisan agreement now for 6 years that has continued on four separate budgets. But now, threatening us with a government shutdown, the Republicans want to break that agreement. I was very disturbed to hear Senate Majority Leader McConnell on the floor yesterday say: Since fiscal year 2013, defense cuts have outpaced domestic spending cuts by $85 billion. To fix this, we need to set aside the arbitrary notion that defense spending be matched equally by new nondefense spending. There is no reason why funding for our national security and our servicemembers should be limited by an arbitrary political formula that bears no relationship to actual need. That was Senator McConnell on the floor yesterday. Unfortunately, what Senator McConnell said was inaccurate and misleading. His statement conveniently ignored the fact that mandatory spending on domestic programs like Medicare have been severely cut over this time period. He also ignored the fact that during this period, the Defense Department has also received tens and tens of billions of dollars in funding through the Overseas Contingency Operations funding, which is not capped at all. If you include the Overseas Contingency Operations funding, the reality is that overall defense spending has gone up, not down, over this time period, while nondefense discretionary spending has been severely cut. Further, Senator McConnell ignores a very, very important reality; that is, nondefense discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP is now at a 40-year low. This longstanding agreement regarding parity for defense and nondefense spending is not some kind of inside-the-beltway, esoteric issue. It is an issue that will impact tens of millions of working families in this country who, today, are struggling to keep their heads above water. Over the last 40 years, while the middle class of our country has been shrinking, the people on top--the top 1 percent--have been doing phenomenally well. The actions of the Republican Congress in the last year have only made a bad situation, an unfair situation, even worse. In the United States today, some 28 million Americans have no health insurance. Yet, over the last year, the Republicans have attempted to throw an additional 32 million people off of the healthcare they have, including proposed cuts for Medicaid by up to $1 trillion over a 10- year period. Tragically, the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of nearly any major country in the industrialized world. Instead of doing all that we can to end childhood poverty in this country, the Republicans have proposed to once again make a horrific situation even worse by cutting nutrition programs for children, cutting the WIC Program for low-income pregnant women, cutting the Head Start Program, after-school programs, and funding for public education. There are millions of senior citizens in this country who can barely make it, and I sometimes wonder how in God's Name they do make it on $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year in Social Security. How do you keep your house warm, how do you buy the food you need, how do you buy the prescription drugs you need to stay alive on $13,000 or $14,000 a year? There are millions of senior citizens in this country in that position. Yet, despite that reality, over the last year we have had to fight off one Republican effort after another to cut Social Security COLAs, to raise the retirement age, or to even privatize this life-or-death program. Further, the Republicans have proposed massive cuts to LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is keeping people warm in Vermont today when the weather goes below zero. All over this country, millions of people, often senior citizens, depend on this program. Yet President Trump, in his budget, proposes to wipe it out completely. Republican leaders are also proposing cuts to the Meals on Wheels program, senior housing programs, and Medicare. Today, in a highly competitive global economy, when we need to have the best educated workforce in the world, when the new jobs that are being created require a higher education, hundreds of thousands of bright young students desperately want to get a college education, but they are unable to do so because their families lack the income. But Republicans, incredibly, want to make that situation even worse by proposing massive cuts in the budget they recently passed to Pell grants--the major source of funding to help low-income young people get a college education--and other financial assistance programs for college. In my view, we should be making public colleges and universities tuition-free. Republicans today are proposing to make it harder for our young people to get the higher education they need. During this budget process, when the Republicans want to expand military spending by some $100 billion--$100 billion--over the next 2 years, by far the largest increase in military spending in American history, we will not turn our backs on working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. The U.S. Government must do more than greatly expand military spending and give tax breaks to billionaires. Our job is to protect the working families of this country, and that is what the new budget must do. That means we must have parity between defense and nondefense spending. That is why this budget--the proposed budget--that we are working on now must address the many crises facing the working families of the United States. That is what the American people want, and that is what we must deliver. Among many other things that must be included in the new budget that we are working on is full funding for community health centers, which provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs to some 27 million Americans in every State in our country. It has been more than 3 months since funding for community health centers has lapsed. Our Nation's 1,400 community health centers in roughly 10,000 communities throughout this country are deeply worried right now as to when they will get the funding they need. I just spoke to the leadership of community health centers in Vermont the other day. They have had a longstanding problem--as have community health centers all across this country--in retention and attracting new doctors and nurses into their programs. What we are seeing now is a situation where many people who might want to work at a community health center are saying: Why would I want to go there when the Republicans are delaying funding for this vitally important program? If we do not act soon, 70 percent of the funding for community health centers will be cut and 2,800 health centers will close their doors. Community health centers must be funded at the levels contained in the bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this year. I congratulate Senator Blunt and Senator Stabenow for their bipartisan work on this issue, and there are a number of other Republicans who are cosponsoring that legislation. We could pass it tomorrow if it were on the floor of the Senate. Let us do that. The offsets to the prevention program of the Affordable Care Act that were included in the December 21 agreement are unacceptable, and they must not be repeated. The Blunt-Stabenow bill has nine Republican cosponsors. This bill represents a modest 5-percent increase in funding at a cost of just $2 billion over 5 years--the very least we can do to address the major crisis of primary healthcare in America, especially in rural America. As you know, Federal funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program expired on September 30, 2017. If the CHIP program is not reauthorized, 9 million children in working families will lose their health insurance. Can you imagine that we have a Congress prepared and acting to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country, but somehow or another they have not gotten around to reauthorize and re- fund the Children's Health Insurance Program? That must be done immediately and, once again, without regressive offsets which take money from other health insurance programs. We must keep our promises on pensions. If Congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in multi-employer pension plans could be cut by up to 60 percent. We must not rescind the promise we made to 1.5 million workers. We must expand Social Security services for seniors. Since 2010, Congress has cut Social Security's operating budget by 16 percent, and Republicans want to cut it another 4 percent this year. These budget cuts have resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 employees, the closing of 64 field offices, and reduced hours in many others. In Vermont, one field office has seen its staffing cut by 30 percent. According to a recent Washington Post article, 10,000 people died in the past year while they waited for decisions on Social Security disability benefits. We need to increase the funding for these vital services by at least $1.4 billion just to bring staffing back up to where it was in 2010. We need to keep our promises to our veterans, the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our country. Right now, we have tens of thousands of vacancies in the VA. Those vacancies must be filled. Veterans must be able to get high-quality, timely healthcare. We must fight the opioid and heroin epidemic that is sweeping this country. All over America, we are seeing tens of thousands of people, often young people, overdosing on opioids and heroin. States and communities all over this country need the resources for prevention and treatment. That is an issue that cannot be delayed. It has to be dealt with now. Everybody knows that in the last several months, we have seen disastrous hurricanes impact Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In Puerto Rico today, there continue to be many people who still do not have electricity. We must pass disaster relief right now that is adequate and that treats Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands just as we will treat Texas and Florida. We cannot continue to delay given the enormous suffering that is existing in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands. Very briefly, let me touch on another issue of enormous consequence which simply cannot be ignored. On September 5, 2017, President Trump announced that he would be rescinding President Obama's Executive order on DACA. That decision means that some 800,000 young people who have known the United States of America as their only home--this is where they grew up; this is where they went to school--are on the verge of losing their legal status in terms of education, in terms of employment, and in terms of serving in the military if that program is not reestablished. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, these young people live in a constant fear of being deported. Since the President's announcement in September, more than 11,000 people have lost the protections under DACA, with there being approximately 22,000 set to lose their legal protections by the March 5, 2018, deadline. Any spending agreement must address the fear and uncertainty that has been unnecessarily caused by the administration's reckless actions, and a clean Dream Act must be signed into law as part of the budget negotiations. Protecting the Dreamers and moving these young people toward citizenship is not some kind of wild and radical idea; it is precisely what the American people want. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 77 percent of the American people support providing legal protections to the Dreamers. This is an issue that must be dealt with, and it must be dealt with now. When history looks back on this period, I do not want it to see a U.S. Congress that worked overtime to protect billionaires and large corporations and a Congress that turned its back on working families and the children and the sick and the poor. I do not want history to look back on this period and say that Members of Congress thought it appropriate to spend $100 billion more on the military but were not concerned about veterans who did not get the healthcare they needed or some 800,000 young people who are now frightened that they will lose their legal status. As the U.S. Senate, we must get our priorities right, and we need a budget that deals not only with military spending but with the needs of the middle class and working families of this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for as much time as I need to complete my remarks.

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

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I understand that my Republican colleagues and President Trump are busy celebrating the passage of the tax bill that was voted on at 1:30 in the morning. They are very excited, and they are very happy about it. I understand that. I guess, if one is a billionaire like President Trump or is a wealthy campaign contributor, you do have a whole lot to celebrate. Maybe, if you are 1 of the 6,000 lobbyists here in Washington, DC, who helped to write the bill, you are celebrating a lot today. Yet, if you are one of the vast majority of the American people who is in the middle class, you should not be celebrating today. In fact, you should be pretty nervous. The passage of this legislation marks a great victory for the Koch brothers and other wealthy campaign contributors who will see, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, huge tax breaks for themselves. In other words, the wealthiest people will become much wealthier. Meanwhile, the deficit--what is owed by our kids and our grandchildren--will increase by $1.5 trillion as a result of this bill. The largest and most profitable corporations--companies like Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, and General Electric--despite record breaking profits, are going to see very, very large tax breaks to the tune of many billions of dollars. Now, at a time when the very wealthy are becoming much richer, tens of millions of American families are struggling to keep their heads above water economically. There are 40 million Americans who are living in poverty. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center tells us that in terms of this legislation, 83 percent of the tax benefits will go to the top 1 percent by the end of the decade, who are already doing phenomenally well, and that 60 percent of the benefits will go to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. Meanwhile, at the end of 10 years, some 92 million middle-class households will be paying more in taxes. On top of all of that, as the only Nation--major country--on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people, this bill will result in 13 million Americans losing their health insurance. I understand the President was really excited about this. Hey, what a great day. There are 13 million more Americans who are losing their health insurance when we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people. In the ending of the individual mandate, what all of the experts tell us is that our healthcare premiums will go up. If you are an average person out there, your healthcare premiums will very likely go up as a result of this legislation. Meanwhile, starting next year--I am not talking about 10 years from now--some 8 million middle-class families will pay more in taxes. Doesn't it say a lot about Republican priorities when they make permanent the tax breaks for corporations; yet they make temporary the tax breaks for working families, which will expire in 8 years? Furthermore, I would hope that every American is listening closely to what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is talking about. I have to give Ryan credit for being pretty honest about the intentions of the Republican Party. Just this morning, he was on ABC, saying what he has said for quite a while, and that is that the Republican plan is a two- step approach. Step No. 1 is passing the legislation that passed last night here and today in the House. Step No. 2 is, having run up a deficit of $1.5 trillion, they are now going to come back and offset that deficit by making massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. According to Ryan, they have a two-step program. Step No. 1 is to give massive tax breaks to the rich and large corporations and to run up the deficit by $1.5 trillion. Step No. 2 is to offset that deficit by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. How unspeakable and outrageous is this plan? How much does it go against what the American people want? This gives huge tax breaks to billionaires--to the Trump family, to the Koch brothers--and then pays for those tax breaks by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. There are millions of senior citizens and people with disabilities in Vermont and all across this country who, today, are struggling to buy food, to heat their homes, and to buy the prescription drugs that they need because they are trying to survive on $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year in Social Security. There are people who have worked their entire lives and have exhausted themselves as they approach retirement. Do not tell those people who live on $12,000, $13,000 a year in Social Security that you are going to cut their benefits through a Chained CPI or by some other mechanism in order to give tax breaks to billionaires. How outrageous that would be. Don't tell older workers--many of them with health problems after their having worked 20, 30, 40 years--that you are going to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to Microsoft, Pfizer, or General Electric, but then you are going to ask them to work more years in order to be eligible for Medicare. I understand that every Member of the Congress would like to go home for the holiday season, and so would I. This is the time of year during which Vermont is very, very beautiful. The truth is that it would really be unconscionable for us to leave Washington after giving tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations while we ignore the enormous problems that are facing the middle class and working families of our country. When Donald Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, the DACA Program, nearly 800,000 lives were thrown into chaos and uncertainty. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, hundreds of thousands of young people today are living in terrible fear and anxiety about losing the legal status they currently have in the only country they have ever known. These are young people who grew up in the United States, went to school in the United States, are working in the United States, and are in our military. This is their home. It would be unspeakable to take away their legal status and subject them to deportation. Since the President's announcement in September, more than 11,000 people have already lost their protections under DACA, with approximately 22,000 set to lose their legal protections by the March 5, 2018, deadline. These are hundreds of thousands of wonderful young people. We cannot turn our backs on them. We must deal with DACA before we leave for the holiday break. Any end-of-the-year spending agreement must address the fear and uncertainty caused by the administration's reckless actions, and a clean Dream Act must be signed into law. This is not just what Bernie Sanders wants; this is what the American people in overwhelming numbers want. A Quinnipiac poll came out just the other day in which 77 percent of the American people supported maintaining legal status for these young people and allowing them to move forward toward citizenship--77 percent--and that is consistent with other polls that have been taken. A vast majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents understand that it would be incredibly cruel and harmful to our country in so many ways to deny legal status to the Dreamers. We cannot turn our backs on the Dreamers. We must address their crisis right now. It has been almost 3 months since funding for community health centers has lapsed. Our Nation's 1,400 community health centers serve more than 27 million people in roughly 10,000 communities throughout the country. In my home State of Vermont, one out of four Vermonters gets their primary healthcare, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs, and mental health counseling at a community health center. How does it happen that the Republican leadership can spend months on a bill to give tax breaks to billionaires but not address the lack of funding, the reauthorization of the Community Health Centers Program or the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare to 9 million children? In this country, there are 1.5 million workers and retirees in multi- employer pension plans who could see the pensions that they worked for over their entire lives cut by up to 60 percent. People were promised these pensions a few years ago, and in a disastrous act, Congress took away that promise, and working people could lose the pensions they were promised by up to 60 percent cuts in those pensions. Congress needs to act before the end of the year to make sure that no one in America in a multi-employer pension plan will see their pension cut. Those are real issues impacting real people, but there are more. There was an article recently in the Washington Post, and it said that because of major cuts to the Social Security Administration, people with disabilities are not getting their claims processed in a timely manner. The result was that in 1 year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities died before they got their claims processed. What the Republicans have been very active on is making sure that the Social Security Administration does not get the funding it needs, which means that it is harder for people who have retired and people who have disabilities to get the information they need or the claims that they have processed in a timely manner. We must make sure that every senior and person with a disability gets treated with dignity. We have to restore adequate funding to the Social Security Administration. One of the great outrages that currently is taking place in this country and really is quite beyond belief is that at a time when we live in a competitive global economy and when we need the best educated workforce in the world to be able to do the new jobs that are being created, which require more education, we have over 40 million people in our country who have left college or graduate school in debt and sometimes deeply in debt. I am talking about people I have met who have gone to medical school or dental school and are $300,000 or $400,000 in debt. People graduate college $100,000 or $150,000 in debt. This is a crisis that is impacting millions of people. It is impacting our entire economy. It is an issue that must be addressed. Maybe, just maybe, before we give tax breaks to billionaires, we might want to significantly lower the debt burden so many people in this country have in their student debt. This is the year 2017, soon to be 2018. This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Yet there are communities in Vermont, Utah, and communities all over this country that do not have adequate broadband service. How does a business start up in a community if that community does not have rapid broadband or good cell phone service? The answer is, it doesn't. It can't. That is one of the reasons why rural America is hurting so badly. We must invest in rural infrastructure to make sure every community in this country has quality, affordable broadband. There is an opioid epidemic sweeping this country, impacting Vermont, my neighboring State of New Hampshire, West Virginia, Kentucky, and all parts of this country are seeing people dying from overdoses from opioids and heroin. This is an epidemic that must be addressed. We can't simply walk out of here and leave people all across the country without the resources they need to treat people who are addicted and to prevent our young people from becoming addicts. We need to invest in treatment and prevention for the opioid epidemic. As we speak, there are over 30,000 vacancies in the Veterans' Administration. That means that we have to make sure every veteran in this country who goes to the VA gets the quality and timely healthcare he or she needs. We can't turn our backs on the veterans. We have to invest in the VA. The bottom line is that, as much as all of us would like to get out of Washington and go home, we simply cannot turn our backs on tens of millions of working people and people in the middle class. It is not good enough to pass tax breaks for billionaires and then leave town. So I hope the Republican leadership will immediately bring to this floor the legislation that we need to address the many crises facing the middle class of this country. With that Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Let me translate that into English. In other words, as I understand what the Senator is saying, billionaire campaign contributors could then legally put money into churches, which would then do the political work that they otherwise would have been doing.