Raphael Warnock

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise tonight in strong opposition to this awful, and, frankly, immoral budget. Recently, I was appointed to the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate, and the reason why I wanted to serve on that committee is because I wanted to get a chance to shape the Nation's budget. As I thought about all of the things that I have fought for long before I came to the Senate, access to healthcare, access to learning and early education for all of our children, ensuring that people could retire with dignity--as I thought about the things that I cared about, I wanted to serve in a place where I might have an impact on our Nation's budget. And that is because, for me, a budget is not just a fiscal document, it is a moral document. It is not just numbers and figures. It is not just dollars and cents. Show me your budget, and I will show you who you think counts and who doesn't. Show me your budget, and I will show you what you think matters and what doesn't. Show me your budget, and I will show you your priorities. Jesus said: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And I have to say that if this budget that is being proposed were an EKG, it would suggest that the U.S. Congress has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery. Why else would you propose, among other things, to cut up to $880 billion from Medicaid? I could talk about many aspects of this budget tonight, but I will just stick with Medicaid, programs that provide healthcare to the most vulnerable citizens, the children, to the severely disabled, to seniors in nursing homes. In fact, 71 percent of all Medicaid enrollees in Georgia are children--71 percent. And I think it is important to underscore that because sometimes when we use these terms ``Medicaid,'' there may be folks at home wondering, well, who are we talking about? Who are these people? Well, 71 percent of them are your children. And so this budget is dangerous. It is cynical. It is wrong-headed. I believe in addressing waste and fraud and abuse, and I would sign up quickly to deal with that in our government. But there isn't enough waste, fraud, and abuse to cut $880 billion out of Medicaid. And that is not just me saying that. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the proposed GOP budget would require cuts to the Medicaid people rely on. So don't be fooled. Don't be tricked by the funny math, by the games to cover up what is really happening here. And if I were them, I would be ashamed of it and trying to hide it too. But they can't hide from the fact that they are about to take healthcare away from children. It is really that simple. And so why? Why are we cutting access to healthcare? A human right to 1.3 million children in Georgia, quarter of a million Georgian seniors, over 37 million kids nationwide, 9.3 million seniors nationwide--why should they go to bed tonight wondering if the Congress is getting ready to pull the rug out from under them? Well, the answer is, sadly, very simple: to pay for tax cuts to the richest of the rich, all while adding $5 trillion to the Nation's debt. Think about that. A plan that would cut healthcare to our most vulnerable citizens, including children living in the dawn of life and elders living in the twilight of life, while adding $5 trillion to the Nation's debt, $37 trillion potentially over 30 years, and so we are taking healthcare for children and then burdening them with the consequences of this terrible decision. And so I rise tonight just to say that America is better than this. This is not who we are at our core. And the data demonstrates that the people--the people at home, ordinary folks don't want this. This is symptomatic of the ways in which the people's voices have been squeezed out of their democracy and the folks who are sent here to represent them are representing other interests. And that is why every Sunday I return to my pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I am blessed to stand there. I am the preacher, but it is good to be in that atmosphere. It reminds me what ordinary people look like and their concerns and their needs. And sometimes, when I stand in that pulpit, I am reminded that Martin Luther King, Jr., who was copastor, said that of all the injustices, inequality in healthcare is the most shocking and the most inhumane. It is the honor of my life to be able to stand there and preach every Sunday. The Gospel tells us about a man who healed the sick, even those with preexisting conditions, and never billed them for his services. And that is why I am a Matthew 25 Christian. My work is informed by the words of that Gospel. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. And some asked the Master, when were You hungry? Lord, when were You thirsty? When were You a stranger? When were You sick? And the answer came: Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it also unto me. This is not for me simply a policy argument; it is a moral discussion. It is about who we are fundamentally. What is the character of our Nation? To center the 41 percent of Georgia children who rely on Medicaid, I think that is what keeping the faith looks like; to center the exhausted mom who is working multiple, unpredictable jobs but still needs Medicaid to get the healthcare she needs--many of the folks who need Medicaid go to work every day. In Georgia, 600,000 folks who are in the Medicaid gap, all of this talk about work requirements, the overwhelming majority of those folks go to work every day or they are in school or they are taking care of a disabled person. Keeping the faith means centering the Georgia seniors who rely on Medicaid to cover the cost of living in a nursing home. That is why in 2017, years before I knew I would even run for political office, let alone serve in the Senate, I came to this building, but I came as a faith leader. I came with other faith leaders across various religious traditions and people who claim no particular faith tradition but people of moral courage. And we gathered in the Rotunda, and they were discussing, back then another reconciliation bill. And, once again, that bill would cut the social safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance. And so we came here to bear witness to who we are at our best as a nation. And as we gathered in the Rotunda, the Capitol Police gathered, and we were singing, and we were praying. And they said: Sorry, you can't sing, and you can't pray in the Rotunda. I thought to myself somebody needed to pray. And they said: Respectfully, we will give you three warnings, and if you don't move, we will have to arrest you. What they didn't understand was that I had already been arrested. My mind and my imagination had been arrested by the words of Dr. King who taught us that the true measure of a person is not where he or she stands in moments of comfort and convenience but in moments of challenge and controversy. We are tied in a single garment of destiny, caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, and whatever affects one affects all indirectly. My mind had already been arrested. My moral imagination had been arrested. And so that felt like a small price to pay. And so I call on the people who are at home to call your Senator, call your Congress person, tell them that this is not right, it is not fair, it is not true to our highest values. There are some 2,000 verses in the Scripture that tell us how to treat people who are in need, how to treat the poor; and maybe that is why faith leaders all across the State of Georgia have been reaching out to me in advance of this debate. Atlanta Bishop Jack Lumanog from the Anglican Diocese of St. Ignatius Loyola reached out to me earlier this month, and here are some excerpts from the letter he sent to me. He said: I am grateful to be one of your constituents in Georgia and to write to a fellow pastor whose voice carries both moral authority and legislative power in this defining moment for our nation. However, I write to you today with a heavy heart, deeply troubled by the state of our nation. As a faith leader, I am increasingly concerned for the most vulnerable among us--those who rely on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. These vital programs appear to be next in line for cuts by DOGE that could threaten the well-being of millions. Scripture-- He says-- reminds us that ``whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'' It is our moral duty to advocate for the dignity and security of those who depend on these essential safety nets. We cannot allow them to be dismissed amid political and economic maneuvering by unelected bureaucrats like Elon Musk, who have placated the legislature and judiciary while wielding outsized influence over public policy, all while bypassing democratic accountability. Please be assured of my prayers for you and your leadership during this critical moment in our nation's history. May you find strength in your faith and courage in your convictions as you continue to fight for justice and righteousness. Thank you, Bishop Lumanog. You are not alone in your witness. Earlier in the year, the three largest Catholic organizations in the country-- the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, and Catholic Charities USA--urged lawmakers to protect and strengthen Medicaid as a matter of faith. They wrote: The Catholic Church teaches that human life is sacred, and all people have inherent dignity and worth. As Catholic bishops and organizations that provide health care and social services on behalf of the church, we firmly believe that all people have the right to those necessities needed to live, found a family and flourish. As you address reconciliation priorities, we urge you to prioritize those most in need and working families and protect the Medicaid program. We are hearing from a range of faith leaders because they understand that the acid test of someone's faith is the depth of their commitment to the most marginalized members of the human family. Nearly 2 million people in Georgia are enrolled in Medicaid; that is one in five Georgians. And 1.3 million children in Georgia are enrolled in Medicaid; that is over 40 percent of every Georgia child, two in every five children. A quarter of a million Georgia seniors rely on Medicaid, including those living in nursing homes, that is around one in seven Georgia seniors. And they are united in opposition to cuts to Medicaid. I hear their stories all the time. I want to just share a couple of them with you. Bristeria was excited to learn that she would be expecting her first child, but her initial excitement quickly gave way to fear and anxiety as her pregnancy proved to be most difficult. During the pregnancy, doctors needed to perform an emergency operation, followed by an unexpected C-section delivery. And at the time of her pregnancy, Bristeria was working a part-time job that did not offer health benefits. Through family, friends, and coworkers, she discovered that she was eligible for Medicaid, which ultimately provided critical assistance in covering the cost of the care she needed through delivery. She was both relieved and grateful that a difficult pregnancy ended in the birth of a healthy baby boy. Now she is the proud mother of two. She works full time as a deputy county clerk. She is now enrolled in an employer-provided health plan. But she remains forever grateful that Medicaid was there for her when she needed it. It provided a temporary safety net amid a challenging pregnancy, and now her life is much better because of it. Naomi enrolled in Medicaid after she lost her job when pregnant with her son Noah. Noah was born prematurely at just 26 weeks and lives with chronic and medically complex conditions that require round-the-clock care. Noah's Medicaid coverage is provided through a combination of innovative programs, including Georgia's Right from the Start initiative for comprehensive health services and the Katie Beckett waiver program for children with complex medical needs. All over our country, there are children like Noah. His mom says: If we didn't have Medicaid, we would be in dire straits. Elisabeth from Ellijay, GA, says: Our lives depend on prescription medications [and] accessibilities. . . . Please, help us. Losing Medicaid would hurt disabled people or even potentially kill us without access to our medication. . . . When it comes to politics or access to healthcare, disabled people are often left out and no one thinks of the consequences of taking away the things that help us. We live in forced poverty already and Medicaid is essential. Please think of us and be a voice for those who can't speak out. Finally, when Cindy was 17 years old--Cindy from Atlanta--she was a star athlete and a great student preparing to go to college and enroll in ROTC. Her parents, who are refugees from Vietnam, moved to the United States to give her a better life, and she wanted to make them proud. But when she started feeling exhausted all the time and noticed swelling in her lymph nodes, she knew something was wrong. And after several visits to various doctors and the hospital, she was diagnosed with stage II non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Obviously, that was devastating news for her and for her family, but they were at least grateful that Medicaid would cover all the treatment Cindy needed to survive. And just after Thanksgiving, her senior year in high school, Cindy started chemotherapy. Each session lasted 3\1/2\ hours, and she had to do them every other week for 6 months. She went to classes as much as she could, took the SAT, and continued her plans to go to college. She went to her senior prom, even though it was just 2 days after her chemotherapy. But now Cindy is 30 years old. She is cancer free. She is fascinated by all things aerospace, and she formed a group at her school to advocate for a new major in the field. She says: When I was 17, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Because of Medicaid, I was able to catch my cancer early, and today, I'm cancer-free. I'm following my dreams of becoming an aerospace engineer, and I'm living proof that Medicaid saves lives. That is really the heart of it: Medicaid saves lives. And so I wanted to share these stories tonight because these are the stories of ordinary people. These are the stories of the folks who will not be able to stand on the Senate floor, but they need a voice. These are their stories. But in a real sense, these are our stories because, as Dr. King said: We are ``tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one . . . affects all indirectly.'' We got to know this very well over the last few years, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A deadly airborne disease meant that if my neighbor was sick, I was potentially imperiled. That doesn't make my neighbor my enemy. That simply means I had an investment in my neighbor's health. My neighbor's healthcare was good for my health. And so that is the spirit with which we ought to be addressing something as sacred as crafting a nation's budget. I need other people's children to be OK for my children to be OK. I need people with disabilities to be OK for my children to be OK. I need seniors at nursing homes to be OK for all of us to be OK. I need children with cerebral palsy to be OK for my children to be OK. We need to look into each other's eyes and into the eyes of other people's children, and see our own. So over the next few days, this body will be voting on a budget, and I submit that the budget says a whole lot about the body. It is a moral EKG, and the question is: Are we well or do we have a heart condition? I submit that, for all of our challenges, we suffer not from a poverty of resources but a poverty of moral imagination. We are bigger, better, and stronger when our reach is wide and when we dare to build a nation that embraces all of our children. God gives us strength, grace, and moral courage to get it right. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. Will the Senator from New Jersey yield for a question?

Mr. WARNOCK. Good morning, and let me just say, Cory Booker, how very, very proud I am of you. It is a real honor to serve in this body. I know that all of my colleagues who are here agree that it is an honor for the people of your State to say that when we take stock of all the issues that we wrestle with, as we look into the eyes of our children and consider what we want for them, and into the eyes of our aging parents as they deal with the blessings and the burdens of getting older, since all of us can't go to Washington, we are going to send you. And we are going to trust that, in rooms of power where decisions are being made, you are going to center the people and not yourself. You are going to be thinking about ordinary people. And so Cory Booker, I want to thank you for holding vigil. As I prepare to ask you a question, I just want to thank you for holding vigil for this country all night. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that when he marched with Dr. King, he felt like his legs were praying. So in a very real sense, your legs have been praying as you have been standing on this floor all night. And thank you for praying not just with your lips but with your legs for a nation in need of healing. I just got off a prayer call that I do every Tuesday morning at 7:14 a.m. That is 2 Chronicles 7:14: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin, and will heal the land. The Nation needs healing. We need spiritual healing. We need moral healing. But, literally, there are people all across our country who need healing, who need healthcare. So that is why I was so proud to come to this Senate after being arrested in the Rotunda a few years before that, proud to join you in the Senate, proud that we were able to pass, just a couple of months after I got here, the American Rescue Plan, which did so much incredible work. In that American Rescue Plan, there was the expanded child tax credit, which literally cut child poverty more than 40 percent in our country. I wish we could get it extended. One of the other things we did was we lowered Georgians' and Americans' healthcare premiums by hundreds of dollars on average. We passed a tax cut--and that is so relevant in this moment because that is what this body is prepared to do, I guess, in the next few days--pass the tax cut, but that tax cut is literally going to be for the richest of the rich, the wealthiest among us. But we passed a tax cut that brought healthcare into reach for tens of thousands of Georgians and millions of Americans in the American Rescue Plan. These tax credits are so critical that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the number of Americans without healthcare would grow by 3.8 million people in just 1 year if the premium subsidies were allowed to expire. Forgive me for my phone ringing. My 8-year-old and 6-year-old are calling me. They are not impressed with what I am doing.

Mr. WARNOCK. They are not impressed. But we know that this would impact thousands of Georgians who have only recently been able to receive healthcare. We passed in that American Rescue Plan these tax credits, which put healthcare in reach, and now they are set to expire if we don't do our work. That is why what you are doing, Cory Booker, is holy work. It is within a political context, but this is holy work. If these tax credits are allowed to expire, a 45-year-old in Georgia with $62,000 in annual income would see premiums go up by $1,414 a year. A 60-year-old couple in Georgia with an $82,000 annual income would see premiums go up by a staggering $18,157 a year. Think about that. Nearly one-third of Americans have less than $500 in savings in their bank account. Imagine the healthcare costs for a 60-year-old couple going up by more than $18,000. A health insurance premium hike like this would be more than an inconvenience. It wouldn't just be a nuisance. It is literally the difference between having healthcare coverage and not having healthcare coverage. So I am thinking about people like that. I am thinking about my constituent Cassie Cox from Bainbridge, GA. She wasn't able to afford healthcare on the Affordable Care Act marketplace until the premium tax credit brought healthcare into reach. Shortly after she became insured, she severely cut her hand, which landed her in the emergency room with 35 stitches. With insurance, it still cost her about $300. Had it not been for the tax credits that allowed her to get healthcare, she could have been in financial ruin. She is one of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians at risk of losing their coverage if these tax credits are allowed to expire, if we don't do our work, if we are more focused on the wealthiest of the wealthy rather than the concerns of ordinary people. Senator Booker, should Democrats and Republicans come together to extend the premium tax credit for hard-working folks in New Jersey and in Georgia? What do you think?

Mr. WARNOCK. The bald-headed caucus.

Mr. WARNOCK. Right. Right. I am a Matthew 25 Christian.

Mr. WARNOCK. It is a long chapter, but in the section we are talking about, in Matthew 25, Jesus says: I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was sick.

Mr. WARNOCK. I was in prison, and you came to visit me. And someone asked: Lord, when were You sick? When were You in prison? When were You an undocumented immigrant?

Mr. WARNOCK. And the answer comes: In as much as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it also unto me. Another part of that text says: And when you don't do it for the least of these, you don't do it for me. The Scripture says that the one who gives to the poor renders to the Lord. This is holy work.

Mr. WARNOCK. Will the Senator from New Jersey yield for a question?

Mr. WARNOCK. You know, this is the reason why every Sunday and every weekend, when I leave here, I return not only to Georgia, but I return to my pulpit. Some folks ask: Why do you continue to lead Ebenezer Church? I return to my pulpit every Sunday because, notwithstanding wonderful people like you, I don't want to spend all my time talking to politicians. I am afraid I might accidentally become one. So I want to connect and check in with ordinary folks because I was focused on this healthcare issue long before I came to the Congress. Dr. King said that of all injustices, inequality in healthcare is ``the most shocking and the most inhumane.''

Mr. WARNOCK. ``The most shocking and most inhumane.'' It is the reason why, as a pastor, inspired by Dr. King, leading the congregation that Dr. King led--way back in 2014, when the Affordable Care Act was passed, were you here? You came after.

Mr. WARNOCK. You came right after that. I got arrested in the Governor's office in Georgia, fighting for healthcare.

Mr. WARNOCK. I got a long record, brother, but, also, good trouble.

Mr. WARNOCK. Good trouble. We had a 1960 sit-in in the Governor's office. Waves of us got arrested. They arrested one wave. Then another wave came, and another wave came. We were trying to get Georgia to expand Medicaid.

Mr. WARNOCK. We passed the Affordable Care Act here, but Georgia was digging in its heals, and said: No, we are not going to expand Medicaid. So when I got here, Senator Klobuchar, I made it a priority of mine to get incentives for Georgia to expand Medicaid. And you remember, I went to our caucus and I said: Look, Georgia and about 9--then 10-- other States have not expanded. They should have done it a long time ago. Let's see if we can make it even easier for them. As a freshman Senator, I was able to convince our caucus to give $14.5 billion for nonexpansion States, which includes $2 billion just for Georgia to incentivize Medicaid expansion. Why? So that working people in the gap, people who literally go to work every day, can get healthcare. Georgians left at $2 billion sitting on the table and almost 600,000 Georgians in the gap. The Governor's plan has literally enrolled a whopping 6,500 people in healthcare, but we got nearly 600,000 people in the gap. This is not theoretical stuff. Every time I talk about this, I have to talk about Heather Payne, because Heather Payne is a resident of Dalton, GA. She spent her career taking care of others. She is a traveling nurse. Heather worked throughout COVID as an ER and labor and delivery nurse, yet, often, she did not have healthcare coverage herself because she fell into the healthcare coverage gap. Sometimes she had health insurance coverage; sometimes she didn't. She made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but the only coverage options available to her were unaffordable, costing anywhere between $500 and $1,000 a month. And so about 2\1/2\ years ago, Heather Payne, a traveling nurse, noticed that something was wrong in her body. And even though she noticed that something was wrong, Senator Klobuchar, she literally had to wait for months before she could see a doctor, to save up her money. And then she finally went and saw a neurologist who said: Do you know what? You have actually had a series of small strokes. And even after getting that diagnosis, she had to put off serious medical procedures because she cannot work as an ER nurse anymore and is still waiting to get approved for disability so she can get Medicaid coverage. And so this nurse, who has spent her whole life healing other people, can't get healthcare. I think it is wrong that in the richest country on Earth, we don't want to lower the cost of healthcare for people who are working hard in our communities every day, literally keeping us healthy. I am going to ask you another softball question, Senator Booker. Should people like my friend Heather Payne have access to affordable healthcare?

Mr. WARNOCK. In the first few months of the Trump administration, it has been clear that this administration is not working for--

Mr. WARNOCK. The administration is working for the billionaires. They are working for people like Elon Musk. Healthcare is a human right. Healthcare is basic. And while we are speaking about health, we have got to cheer on our Federal workers who are keeping us healthy. And there are folks in this administration who say that they want to make them the villains. That is what Russell Vought said, that ``when they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work,'' our Federal workers, ``because they are increasingly viewed,'' he said, ``as the villains.'' I have got news for Russell Vought. The people who staff our VA hospitals are not villains. The people who keep our food safe and our water clean are not villains. The people who keep our military bases operating are not villains. And so we stand with them in this moment because they are keeping all of us healthy. And so in closing--and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says in closing--let me say that, again, you are doing holy work here, brother, by holding this floor. You are literally holding vigil for our Nation. We are beset by the politics of fear. The scripture tells us that perfect love casts out all fear. We are witnessing, again, this ugly game, the politics of us and them.

Mr. WARNOCK. And there are a lot of folks who, because so much of what has been going on in our Nation across Republican and Democratic administrations--let's be honest--has not been working for ordinary people. And the gap between the haves and the have-nots has gotten larger and larger. And when people are vulnerable, sometimes they give in to the politics of fear, somebody telling them that they have got all the answers. And so we saw this in this last cycle; we are seeing it in this moment in our country--the politics of us and them. And sadly, hard- working, working-class people are waking up this morning, and they are discovering that they thought they were in the ``us,'' and they are discovering that they are in the ``them.'' That the ``them'' is larger than they thought. And so we have got to hold vigil for each other, for workers, for women, for immigrants, for immigrant families, for our sisters and our brothers, red, yellow, brown, Black, and White; for the aging who need Social Security; for the working poor who need Medicaid; for those who are seeking asylum and they just need a dignified path; for those who have been working here for years and they need a dignified path to citizenship. We have got to hold vigil for each other. And so thank you for this work. This is not the end, but the beginning. The struggle continues. Dr. King said that the true measure of a person is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy. So thank you for praying for this Nation with your lips and with your legs. I am going to ask you one last question. Do you intend to keep praying?

Mr. WARNOCK. Got it, got it. I am going to ordain this man.

Mr. WARNOCK. Right.

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. Madam President, today, I pay tribute to the University of Georgia School of Social Work for its 60th anniversary and to Deans Charles A. Stewart (1964-1995), Bonnie Yegidis (1995-2003), Maurice Daniels (2005-2016), Anna Scheyett (2016-2021), and its current dean, Philip Hong (2022-present). For six decades, the School of Social Work has advanced the University of Georgia's teaching, research, and service mission. It has conferred more than 9,000 degrees in social work and nonprofit management and leadership while strengthening the University of Georgia's academic excellence by preparing culturally responsive practitioners and scholars to be leaders in addressing social problems and promoting social justice, locally and globally, through teaching, research, and service. Throughout its history, the University of Georgia School of Social Work has positively impacted the State of Georgia, our Nation, and our world. It established a Center for Social Justice, Human, and Civil Rights; an Institute for Nonprofit Organizations; and a Center on Human Trafficking Research and Outreach, each of which has worked to address practices and policies which affect equal access to resources, international human and civil rights, and the well-being of all populations. It was the first school in Georgia to offer bachelor's, doctorate, and part-time master's degrees in social work; first to offer a master's degree in nonprofit management and leadership; and first to offer dual degrees in social work and law, and social work and public health. Today, the University of Georgia School of Social Work continues its 60-year legacy of building a better world for all by seeking socially innovative solutions to create meaningful change. Its faculty are actively involved in issues such as child safety and family well-being, civil rights and social justice, community health and well-being, culturally informed practice, health and behavioral health prevention and intervention, human trafficking and human rights, social economic policy and development, trauma and violence prevention, and many more. Its students contribute countless internship hours to institutions across Georgia. And alumni of its Athens and Gwinnett campuses, as well as its online program, are engaged in meaningful careers in service to the well-being of our society. On the 60th anniversary of the University of Georgia School of Social Work, I would like to congratulate and thank its faculty, staff, and students--both past and present--for the contributions and impact that it has come to represent in the State of Georgia, nationally, and globally.

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise tonight in strong opposition to the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. It is no overstatement for me to say that it is hard for me to imagine a nominee less qualified that would actually be presented for the job of HHS Secretary. Robert F. Kennedy, not only does he not pass muster, this is not even close. I still can't believe we are even having this discussion. He is a conspiracy theorist who is so focused on his conspiracy theory. When you think of what we need the HHS Secretary to do, Robert F. Kennedy is a hazard to our health. Certainly, we can do better than this. He is just manifestly unqualified. I don't know how else to put it. This is not a partisan exercise for me. In fact, some of the nominees that have been presented, I voted for some of them. But I can't vote for Robert F. Kennedy. Not only is he a hazard to our health, not only is he manifestly unqualified, it is clear that he will be a rubberstamp for Washington Republicans and their attempts to raise healthcare costs for hundreds of thousands of Georgians. He is a threat to public health and the thousands of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees who work tirelessly every single day to keep us safe. He has enforced the administration's gag order that is literally keeping medical professionals from sharing information to get diseases like bird flu under control, cancer researchers from doing their important, lifesaving work--who among us has not been touched in some way by cancer?--doctors and their ability and hospitals from accessing resources to lower the maternal mortality rate, which is abysmally high in this country, particularly in a State like Georgia. I will be voting no on Mr. Kennedy's nomination to lead HHS, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to somehow find a way to do the right thing and vote no with me. Mr. Kennedy won't work to lower Georgians' healthcare costs or increase access to healthcare for my constituents who are caught right now in a healthcare coverage gap. I was so proud that, in my first few months in the Senate, I was able to play a critical role in passing the American Rescue Plan which, among other things, lowered Georgians' healthcare premiums by hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. It is, quite frankly, the kind of thing that makes this job worth it for me, being able to help ordinary folks. That tax cut literally helped bring healthcare into reach for tens of thousands of Georgians and millions of Americans. These tax cuts are so critical that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the number of Americans without healthcare would grow by 3.8 million in just 1 year--in just 1 year, 3.8 million, without healthcare--if the premium subsidies that we now enjoy were allowed to expire. We know that that would impact thousands of Georgians who have only recently been able to receive healthcare coverage. If these tax credits are allowed to expire, a 45-year-old in Georgia with $62,000 annual income would see premiums go up by $1,414 a year. A 60-year-old couple in Georgia with an $82,000 annual income would see their premiums go up by a staggering $18,157 a year. Can you imagine someone making $82,000 a year--a 60-year-old couple--and all of a sudden, their health insurance for the year goes up by more than $18,000? We know what that is. That is the difference between having healthcare coverage and not having it at all. Nearly one-third of Americans have less than $500 in savings in their bank account, and so these folks don't have that kind of extra dough. They don't have that kind of extra cash on hand to pay for something that is vitally necessary, and we don't know--we never know--when we will really need our health insurance. And so every single day, as we watch the games that Washington politicians play--for me, this is no game. I often say that if we would center ordinary people, we have a chance at getting the public policy right. If we will center people rather than politics, we might manage to get the right policy. And so as these debates rage on, as nominees like this come before us, I am thinking about people like my constituent Cassie Cox. She is from Bainbridge, GA. She wasn't able to afford healthcare on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace until the premium tax credit brought healthcare into reach. And shortly after she became insured, she severely cut her hand, landing her in the emergency room with 35 stitches. With insurance, it still cost her about $300, but she could figure out how to get that dough. Had it not been for the tax credits that allowed her to get healthcare, she could have been in financial ruin from a severe cut of the hand, something that could happen to any one of us at any time. She is one of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians at risk of losing their coverage if these tax credits are allowed to expire. And so I ask the nominee for HHS: What do you think about those? Mr. Kennedy told me when I met him privately in my office that he wanted to work with President Trump to lower healthcare premiums. I said, Good. That is why I was deeply troubled when I questioned Mr. Kennedy on his support for these tax credits in his hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee. I asked him: Yes or no, Mr. Kennedy, are you aware that the premium subsidies that help save Georgians an average of $531 a month are set to expire at the end of the year? He said, yes, he is aware. And I asked him, yes or no, if he supports Congress extending these tax credits which lower Americans' premiums--something he told me was a priority for him. Suddenly, Mr. Kennedy could not give me a yes-or-no answer. I wonder why. He told me in private that he cared about healthcare. He said he was aware that these tax credits were set to expire at the end of the year. He said he wanted to lower healthcare costs. But when I asked him whether he would support Congress extending these tax credits, the crusader all of a sudden become a politician and couldn't give me a yes-or-no answer. That is not a good sign. It is a pretty simple question to the nominee to run the Federal Agency tasked with protecting the health of all Americans: Do you support lower healthcare premiums and keeping millions of people insured? That question apparently was a bit too challenging for Mr. Kennedy. So the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services cannot tell me if he supports preventing Georgians' healthcare costs from spiking and keeping people like Cassie Cox on her healthcare plan. I cannot support his nomination. I don't work for him. I don't work for the insurance companies. I work for Cassie Cox and other Georgians like her. We know that these subsidies, which expire this year, are at serious risk of not getting renewed. And if there is anybody in the Federal Government who ought to be advocating for the patients, advocating for public health, reminding the President of how important this is, surely it ought to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And so I am very concerned about this because, right now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are already starting to put together a tax bill that I would describe as Robin Hood in reverse. They want to take tax credits needed by ordinary, hard-working Georgians in order to give an unneeded tax cut to their wealthy friends. That is Robin Hood in reverse. It is bad public policy. It is bad for our health, and I would argue it is bad for our economy as we create the circumstances for having a workforce that will be sicker, less productive, less competitive on the global stage. Mr. Robert Kennedy, I am afraid, will similarly aid and abet this process. He will hold the door open for Washington Republicans while thousands of Georgians get kicked off their healthcare. For Cassie Cox and for the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who risk losing their healthcare coverage if premium tax credits are allowed to expire, I am voting no on Secretary Kennedy's nomination for HHS Secretary. But that is not the only reason I am voting no. You see, every Sunday I return home to Georgia to preach in the Ebenezer pulpit. Ebenezer Baptist Church is the spiritual home of Martin Luther King, Jr. Some folks ask me why I continue to hold that job. I return to Georgia and I return to my church every Sunday because I don't want to spend all my time talking to politicians. I am afraid I might accidentally become one. I serve in politics, but in a real sense, I tolerate politics so that I can do the important work for the people--work that I tried to do long before I came to the Senate. It was Martin Luther King, Jr., after all, copastor of our church, who said: Out of all the injustices--Dr. King said--of all the injustices, ``inequality in healthcare is the most shocking and the most inhumane.'' It was that conviction that inspired me in 2014--years before I decided to run for elected office--to protest State politicians in Georgia as they were refusing to expand Medicaid and close the healthcare coverage gap which would improve healthcare access for over 640,000 Georgians. We had just passed the Affordable Care Act. We were caught up in the throes of the debate around that policy. Georgia refused to expand Medicaid, leaving 640,000 Georgians in the healthcare coverage gap. I preach every Sunday morning in honor of one who spent much of his ministry, according to the Gospels, healing the sick, even those with preexisting conditions. That is what leprosy was, a preexisting condition. I could not preach the Gospel that I try to preach every Sunday and then allow Georgia politicians to leave hard-working Georgians in the cold when we literally had a prescription that could provide healing. So I and members of my pastoral staff and other volunteers, other activists, went to the office of the then-Governor of Georgia, and we staged a sit-in at the Governor's office. And when we were arrested and taken to the Fulton County Jail, another wave of protesters came in and sat down and took our place. I was here in the Senate again in 2017 protesting the fact that Washington Republicans were getting ready to pass a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans while cutting needed resources from the children's healthcare program, while refusing to accept the necessary levels of support for those facing food insecurity in the farm bill. So I was arrested in an act of civil disobedience that day also because I believe that healthcare is a human right. But it is also one of the reasons I decided to go and run for office myself, to move from agitated to legislative, to translate my protest into public policy. Perhaps I could get a few more tools to help the people that I have always advocated for. And so in my first few months in office, I made it a priority to sweeten the deal that further incentivized Georgia politicians to finally do the right thing and expand Medicaid. I thought to myself, if I could get additional resources in Federal legislation to further incentivize States like Georgia to expand Medicaid, surely, they will expand Medicaid. It only makes sense. Not only is it the right thing to do, it would be the smart thing to do. I remember standing up to Democrats, many of whom, unlike me, represent blue States. I am from Georgia, a purple State. Georgia had not elected Democratic Senators in years. I think they sent me and my friend Jon Ossoff to represent them in the Senate because they understand we are not focused on partisan politics; we are focused on the people we were sent here to represent. I remember standing up to Democrats in a Democratic caucus talking to many of my colleagues who represent blue States. And I began to make the case for Georgia, and they responded to me. They said: Why should we put more Federal dollars toward States that don't want to help their own constituents? Why should we reward Georgia for digging in its heels? I reminded them that the people of Georgia were literally being held hostage by their legislature. It was standing between them and access to healthcare. And maybe if we just sweetened the pot a little bit more, we could encourage the legislature to do the right thing, encourage the Governor to do the right thing. Sadly, after I was able to secure $14.5 billion for nonexpansion States, including $2 billion for Georgia alone, to just incentivize Medicaid expansion, they left that money on the table and 600,000 Georgians in the Medicaid coverage gap. Who were they working for? I work for Georgia. Thankfully, there are some folks who heard it, who heard the call, who responded. The incentives I secured led to North Carolina, for example, recently expanding Medicaid. Even the staunchest opponent of President Obama's signature law could not justify the overwhelming financial incentive to finally close the coverage gap. But Georgia politicians continued to dig in their heels more than a decade after the Affordable Care Act has become settled law. No matter where you are on this side of the debate, which side you are on in the debate about the Affordable Care Act, can you imagine Social Security in 40 States? Can you imagine Medicare or Medicaid in 40 States and whether you get it or not depends on which State you are in? Well, while craven politicians are still fighting the fights of more than a decade ago, literally millions of Americans, most of them hard- working Americans--it is the working poor. That is who we are talking about. They are in the healthcare coverage gap while politicians play the games that politicians play. It is shameful. It is immoral. It is unjustifiable. When I think about this, I often think about a woman that I met while doing my work named Heather Payne. I think of Heather from Dalton, GA, often, because here is a woman in the healthcare coverage gap. And guess what she does for a living? She is a traveling nurse. Think about that. She has committed her whole life to making sure that other people have the healthcare coverage that they need. Her job is healthcare. She worked throughout COVID as an ER and labor-and-delivery nurse. Yet she often did not have healthcare coverage herself because she fell into the healthcare coverage gap. That is who we are talking about, Heather the nurse. She made too much money to qualify for Medicaid--conventional Medicaid--but she could not afford coverage on the marketplace. So about 2\1/2\ years ago, Heather, who sometimes had healthcare coverage and sometimes she didn't because she was a traveling nurse--about 2\1/2\ years ago, she noticed something was wrong in her body. And even though she noticed that something was wrong and she was in pain and discomfort, she couldn't go immediately to see a doctor. She literally had to keep working through her pain, working through her discomfort, working through her uncertainty until she could save enough money out-of-pocket for a visit to a neurologist. By the time she got to a neurologist months later, the neurologist told her that she had already had a series of small strokes. Now, with the knowledge of what had happened to her, Heather had to continue putting off serious medical procedures because she could not work as an ER nurse anymore, and yet she was still waiting to get approval for disability so she could get Medicaid coverage. There are ways in which our system is broken and needs to be reformed. Think about that. Heather, despite spending her career providing lifesaving care to others, is not able to access healthcare herself because she cannot meet Georgia's work requirements rules. I don't see how anybody could think that is right. I think it is wrong that, in the richest country on the planet, we don't want to lower the cost of healthcare for people who work hard serving our community and, in Heather's case, literally keeping us healthy. And because I think about Heather quite often, I asked Robert Kennedy what does Heather need, because our Governor set up his own program with these work requirements that just create redtape. I said: Does Heather need monthly bureaucratic paperwork requirements to prove she is working when she is sick or does she need access to healthcare so she can finally get healthy and get back to work? Mr. Kennedy told me that she needed healthcare, not work requirements--right answer. But I found his answer interesting because this administration is not working to get Heather healthcare. In fact, they want to continue to allow Georgia to waste taxpayer dollars right now, implementing an expensive and flawed system of bureaucracy and redtape to put more obstacles between Georgians and the healthcare they desperately need. We have a program in Georgia right now that the Governor set up, rather than expanding Medicaid, and most of the money that they have gotten from the Federal Government, about 80 percent of it, is spent on administrative costs. And 18 months later, only a few thousand Georgians are signed up, while hundreds of thousands of Georgians are in the healthcare coverage gap. It is not right. It is not smart. I believe in hard work. My late father had a fierce work ethic. I watched him and my mother wake up early every morning, and they woke us up. My dad just had this saying: You didn't sleep late in this house. You didn't care if it was Saturday or Sunday. As a little kid, he would wake us up: Now, get ready. Put your shoes on. I said: Get ready for what? He said: I don't know. Just get up and get ready. Be ready for whatever. I believe in hard work. It was drilled in me. But an ER nurse who has been taking care of people for years, she doesn't need somebody to put a fire under her to get her to go to work. She needs to be able to get basic healthcare so she can get healthy and go back to work. So I was deeply disturbed when I kept asking Mr. Kennedy about this, and he kept changing his answer. He kept flip-flopping. He said at one point: States . . . [may] take different approaches to providing coverage to their citizens. I wonder what was going on. I think I know what. I think, already, he is trying his best to navigate the politics of the folks in the administration. We are not committed to the Heathers of this world. So if Mr. Kennedy can't decide if an ER nurse from Dalton, GA, who spent years saving other people's lives and now needs healthcare insurance to save her own life, deserves healthcare--if he can't decide that, then how in the world am I supposed to vote yes on his being the HHS Secretary? So for Heather and for the hundreds of thousands of Georgians in the healthcare coverage gap who need an HHS Secretary who will stand and advocate for them, my vote is no. Not only that, as a Senator from the great State of Georgia, I am very proud that I represent the Georgia-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, which was created nearly 80 years ago to prevent the spread of malaria across our country. The CDC does lifesaving work to control disease outbreaks, to ensure our food and our water are safe, to keep our brave servicemembers abroad safe, and to prevent leading causes of death, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. The CDC is one of those entities that, I think, is vastly underrated and underappreciated because we don't see, most of the time, the bad stuff that they have saved us from. It is hard to get credit for the bad stuff that you prevent from happening, but where in the world would we be without the CDC? I think we got a good glimpse of how important their work is as we were all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many other bugs like that out there. Thank goodness for their work, for the scientific method, for their discipline. The CDC employs 10,000 Georgians, and their work is so critical for every American. In addition to that, the CDC has a great economic impact on Georgia as well. For every one job at the CDC, three jobs are created. One job at the CDC creates three jobs in the Georgia economy. That is why students come from all over the world to study in Georgia research institutions--because of its proximity to the CDC. They come to Emory University. They come to Georgia Tech. They come to Morehouse College because it is near the CDC--the Morehouse School of Medicine. The Centers host over 125,000 visitors on their campus every year. The CDC invests hundreds of millions of dollars into Georgia organizations and institutions to partner on research. In fact, for every dollar the CDC spends, the Georgia economy sees $2 in growth--healthy people, a healthy economy. If the CDC were a business, it would be the seventh largest business in my State. So, last June, I visited the CDC, in carrying on the spirit of my predecessor in my seat, my friend, the late Republican Senator Johnny Isakson. Johnny Isakson was a good man. We didn't agree on everything, but he was just a good human being, and he was a fierce advocate for the CDC. I am honored to carry on that tradition in his memory because he understood, as do I, that the CDC, again, is saving us from so many bad things that we don't even see. There is a way in which, because of their work, we are blessed and privileged into cluelessness. He understood not just the economic benefits of the CDC but also the tremendous importance of investing in our public health. During the first Trump administration, Senator Isakson, a Republican, questioned all HHS nominees about how they would support the critical work of the CDC. Think about that in sharp contrast to what we are seeing on the other side of the aisle these days. Johnny Isakson would be questioning whoever was the nominee for the HHS: What do you think about the CDC? Because--imagine that--he actually believed in advice and consent. I don't know what we are witnessing in this moment, but we are hard- pressed to call this advice and consent between two coequal branches of government. Senator Isakson--a Republican Senator from Georgia--fought for the CDC to expand its scope of research into areas like preventing mass violence and mass shootings, pandemics; and because the CDC was equipped to expand this research, it turned Federal investments into cures and treatments and lives that are saved, not Republican lives, not Democratic lives--human lives. It is easy to get behind the work of the CDC. It ought to be. After all, look what the CDC has accomplished over the past 80 years because the Centers have been well-funded and have always received support on both sides of the aisle: eradicating smallpox globally; nearly eradicating polio, measles and mumps, which is responsible for saving the lives of at least 42,000 Americans; finding treatments and supporting preventive care for our HIV-positive brothers and sisters; creating an 18-percent drop in infections by helping hospitals implement safety standards that save 4,500 lives each year so you don't die of some bug in the hospital that kills you while you are trying to get well. You can thank the CDC for that. This is because the CDC has always been supported by both sides of the aisle. I saw that work up close when I visited the CDC last June. I spoke with researchers and medical professionals who were already working to address bird flu, which poses a danger to our poultry farmers and our grocery prices. Can I tell you? I spent time with those CDC workers. They are not the enemy as some have tried to paint these Federal workers in recent days--shameful. They didn't deserve to get a blanket memo encouraging them--whoever they are, no matter what job they hold--to just resign. They are the wall. They have been protecting us. They are the reason we are able to go to sleep at night and not even think about certain things. It is hard to get credit for saving people from the bad stuff they don't even see. I visited the insectary where the CDC was testing thousands of mosquitos for malaria to help prevent malaria deaths globally; to protect Americans traveling abroad and keep the disease from spreading to the United States. So it is concerning for anyone who cares about stopping the spread of deadly diseases to the United States to hear some of the past comments about the CDC from the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy, who would manage a budget--listen--of nearly $2 trillion--$2 trillion, including the CDC's budget, as comparing the CDC's work to Nazi death camps and sexual abusers in the Catholic Church. He said: Many of them belong in jail. So I asked Mr. Kennedy if he retracted those statements, and he denied making them at all. He said: No, I didn't say that. So I read him the transcripts of his remarks at the AutismOne conferences in 2013 and 2019, where he made these comments. In 2019, Mr. Kennedy said: It's the same reason we had a pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church. It's because people were able to convince themselves that the institution of the church was more important than these little boys and girls who were being raped. And everybody kept their mouth shut--the press, the prosecutors, the priest, the bishops, the monsignors, the Vatican. And even the parents of the kids just didn't want to believe it was happening or believed so much in the church they were unwilling to criticize it. And, you know, that is the perfect metaphor-- He said-- for what's happening to us. In 2013, at the same conference, he said: Is it hyperbole when I say these people should be in jail? They should be in jail, and the key should be thrown away. To me, this is like Nazi death camp. I mean, what happens? What happened to these kids? One in 31 boys in this country . . . their minds are being robbed from them. And look what it does to the families. I can't tell you why somebody would do something like that. I can't tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust. He is talking about the CDC. You can slice and dice these words all you want. The moment at which you put the CDC and Nazi death camps in the same statement and you are the Secretary nominee for HHS, Houston, Georgia, America, we have a problem, and that problem is Robert Kennedy. God help us if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cannot get past partisan politics and cannot find the courage to stand up to Donald Trump and say no to Robert Kennedy. So don't chastise me and ask me how in the world would I vote against him when, 18 months ago, he was a Democrat. That is not the game we are playing here. This is not about Democrat or Republican. And if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to abdicate their responsibility to seriously engage in advice and consent, that is their problem. I am not obligated to play along. We are voting against Robert Kennedy not out of some partisan impulse, not out of some sense of shirts versus skins. This is literally a matter of life and death. We are voting against him because he is manifestly unqualified, and anybody who is honest knows it is true. These are serious times. A few days ago, in the midst of all that we are facing, the Trump administration silenced the CDC from sharing public health notices and critical health data. That is literally their job. During the first week of the Trump administration, the White House gagged the CDC, preventing them from communicating all important public health information to anybody-- doctors, State health officials, parents--anybody. This impacted everything from cancer research data to updates on the bird flu, which was found in flocks of poultry in north Georgia just 3 weeks ago and is literally raising the cost of eggs. In addition to that, this order crippled their ability to combat maternal mortality. The American Cancer Society, an organization whose work we can all support, called on the Trump administration to ``restore access to comprehensive data, refrain from changes that would lead to incomplete future data collection and commit to ensure evidence-based science can proceed without additional bureaucracy or redtape.'' They said: Any restriction to gather and release these data could thwart our ability to address and reduce the cancer burden across all communities. That is the American Cancer Society. The Trump administration removed vast amounts of government datasets, resources, and web pages across the CDC to comply with the administration's shortsighted DEI Executive orders. How is an organization like CDC supposed to address the social determinants of health? This is keeping our best scientists and our researchers from their work to treat and cure cancer. Everybody has lost somebody to cancer, and everybody would like to see more progress in preventing and curing disease. So I would like Mr. Kennedy to explain to my constituents in Georgia how datasets that help cancer organizations work to eliminate cancer is somehow a problem that needs to be eliminated. Thankfully, these web pages have been temporarily restored, but that is only because it was ordered by a judge. I asked him: Yes or no, Mr. Kennedy, do you agree with the administration's gag order? He called it ``standard operating procedure.'' Well, I don't believe hindering cancer research is ``standard operating procedure.'' I fear this administration's attempt to dismantle the CDC is going to slow down desperately needed lifesaving research, and Mr. Kennedy will be there aiding and abetting that work. We have to address this issue of maternal mortality. This weekly update around the issues that pertain to our health is a critical resource for researchers, doctors, and public health professionals looking to combat our country's shamefully high maternal mortality rate. Shockingly, Georgia is one of the worst States for maternal mortality and maternal healthcare access. In fact, a Black woman in Georgia is three to four times as likely to die related to pregnancy and childbirth than her White sisters nationally. If you are a Black woman in Georgia, you are three to four times more likely to die even when you have the insurance, even when you have the income. Now, what happens if you have a Federal Government that doesn't even allow you to report those disparities? How do you address them? Shockingly, 89 percent of maternal deaths in Georgia are preventable. But these numbers represent women and their families, and they are more than statistics. When I think about our maternal mortality crisis, I think of Kira Johnson, a 39-year-old woman who flew planes and ran marathons and spoke several languages. More importantly, she was a human being. On April 12, 2016, Kira Johnson checked into a hospital with her husband Charles to give birth to their second child, Langston. Kira never returned home alive. She was literally lying on a hospital bed begging for care. She died from a hemorrhage approximately 12 hours after delivering Langston. Kira deserved better, and so did Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, and so do the mothers across the United States who are dying at disproportionately higher rates than other developed nations. Yet this administration is working to make a preventable crisis worse by gagging the Agencies tasked with helping medical professionals keep mothers alive. So for Georgia's incredibly dedicated scientists, researchers, and medical professionals; for Kira Johnson, Amber Thurman, Candi Miller, and their grieving families; for the thousands of women who died preventable deaths surrounding their pregnancies, I am voting no on Mr. Kennedy's nomination for HHS Secretary. Finally--and nobody believes a preacher when he says ``finally''--I am going to get out of the way so my colleague Mr. Welch from the great State of Vermont can continue this work. But, you know, the sad irony of this moment in which we are seeing an onslaught on anything that relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the sad irony of this attack on DEI is that the Trump administration, while attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion, is nominating a manifestly unqualified person to run the Department of Health and Human Services. So don't lecture me on diversity, equity, and inclusion and the virtues of a meritocracy while putting up the most unqualified person anybody can imagine to be in charge of the Nation's public health system. At the end of the day, Mr. Kennedy is a hazard to our health. He is a rubberstamp for the agenda to raise your healthcare costs so that they can line the pockets of their wealthy friends. He is busy chasing conspiracy theories, but he will spend no time chasing solutions to lower our healthcare costs. He apparently sees no problem gagging the CDC, even at the risk of raising egg costs, slowing cancer research, and exacerbating our shameful maternal mortality rates. So for Cassie Cox, for Heather Payne, for Atlanta's CDC employees, in memory of Kira Johnson and thousands of women who died of preventable maternal deaths, I am voting no on Robert F. Kennedy's nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. I call on all of my colleagues to join me in saying yes to our constituents and no to Robert Kennedy. I yield the floor.

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. As a proud alum of Head Start, on behalf of all of the families who are struggling for affordable childcare access, I proudly vote no.

Mr. WARNOCK

Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the nomination of Russell Vought to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. His leadership will only continue the disruption that is hurting Georgians in every corner of my State even as I speak. Over the past 2\1/2\ weeks, my State has been plagued by chaos and by confusion that has harmed Georgia families and Georgia workers and organizations serving their communities. We are witnessing right now a careless and heartless assault on Federal investments and a freeze of government funding that has already been appropriated by Congress to help Georgia seniors, veterans, students, and so many more. Let's be clear. These are funds that have already been appropriated. We have already gone through the legislative process. And somehow the President has created this new process in which he says: I don't care what Congress has done. I don't care what laws have been passed. It has to come back by me, through the OMB manager. This cannot stand. And I am afraid that these undemocratic antics will only continue if the Senate confirms Russell Vought to be head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought is one of the architects of Project 2025, which initially President Trump ran away from. You know a politician's program is really bad when he won't even admit that it is his program but, as soon as he is elected, surrounds himself by the very architects of the program he denied during the election was his. He has now nominated the very people who wrote the playbook for reshaping our entire democratic Republic into their dystopian image. This is radical. This is extreme. This is undemocratic. I dare say that the people of Georgia who elected me and the people of Georgia who elected Donald Trump did not vote for this. But, just as we warned, his dangerous plans are playing out in real time. This is exactly what they said they were going to do. Some didn't believe them. Even after they attempted to gaslight the American people into thinking otherwise, here we are in no time flat. Now, I believe in democracy. I often say that democracy is the political enactment of the spiritual idea, the notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine. And if we have a spark of the divine, if we were created in what theologians called the imago dei, the image of God, we all ought to have a voice in the direction of the country and our destiny within it. So I respect elections. They have consequences. I know, as a result of what happened on November 5, things will happen that I don't agree with. I am not mad about that. I will push and stand and speak about the direction I think the country should go in, but elections do have consequences. But people are tired of what happens here in Washington, DC. What all of us ought to be able to agree on is that once we have gone through the legislative process, that process of three coequal branches of government ought to be respected--I don't care if the President is a Republican or a Democrat. So there is no question that there is a lot of pain out there. The status quo was not and is not working for Americans, and that has been the case for a long time. Folks have seen wealth trickle up and pain trickle down, and they have seen an increasing disconnect between what they need from their government and what they are able to get from their government. We can't even get movement on the things that Americans on the left and the right agree on in this country. A FOX News poll reported--and you don't often hear me quote FOX News polls. A FOX News poll said that Americans on both sides of the aisle believe we ought to have background checks, but after one school shooting after another, after another, we can't get any movement on that in this Chamber. It suggests that somebody other than the people is trying to own the democracy, squeezing the voices of the people out of their own democracy. That is why what is happening right now is so deeply concerning, and if you are not concerned, you are not paying attention. Billionaires surrounding Donald Trump are trying to own the democracy. They are trying to move the vision of this country away from citizenship to ownership. Vought as OMB Director would be a disaster. He would be a disaster for the people who rely on crucial government programs to make life more affordable. I am thinking right now about the veterans that I serve in a military State. They are the best among us. They deserve the best from us. They have been imperiled by the actions of the last 2 weeks. I am thinking about families who need accessible childcare. This stunt that was pulled a few days ago is a disaster for communities who want well-funded law enforcement, thriving businesses, safe roads and bridges. And as they attack Federal workers, attack the government, they are trying to convince you that the government is some third entity outside of us. No. This is government for the people, by the people, of the people. Our democracy represents the highest of our aspirations, what we are trying to achieve together, and as we witness this assault, it is hitting Democrats and Republicans, blue States and red States, as the people's voices are being squeezed out of their democracy. Just last week, without even being confirmed, Vought orchestrated the effort to freeze Federal spending--as if this money is his money rather than our money, the people's money--throwing programs, from infrastructure upgrades, to Medicaid, to free school lunches, to support for homeless, veterans, into chaos. How dare you take funds that are needed by the veterans of Georgia and all across this State. Those who fight for us should not have to fight with us to get what they deserve. With the power of the OMB, he would enact even more harmful policies. If he is behaving with this kind of reckless disregard for the law right now, what do you think he will do if we confirm him? This is a dangerous disregard for the separation of powers that keeps our government in check and gives the people a voice through the people's House--a check on those who would recklessly exercise power. Vought has made it clear that he feels the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, can turn on and turn off any spending by the Federal Government, ignoring the requirement that Congress, being directly elected by the people, decide where your tax dollars can go. In 2024--listen, in 2024, he even published an article stating, ``We are living in a post-Constitutional time.'' That is dangerous rhetoric from a dangerous man. I beg to differ. I believe in my Constitution--hard fought and hard won. It is not a perfect document. We have had to amend it. Thank God for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the First Amendment. But he should explain what he means when he says we are living in a post-constitutional time. The Trump administration and its architects, including the nominee before us today, have a very simple playbook to shrink the Federal Government and to enrich themselves, even at the expense of the American people and their financial security. You are witnessing the unfolding of the kleptocratic designs that they have on our Republic. And God help us if we just stand by and allow it to happen. So what is their first step in getting that done? The Trump administration is telling civil servants like the people who inspect your food or monitor diseases like bird flu or care for veterans at the VA to accept a meager buyout or risk being fired, all while an unelected billionaire posing as co-President accesses your private data at the Treasury Department. Russell Vought said in 2023 that he wanted Federal workers ``to be traumatically affected.'' That is what he said about your neighbors, that he wants them to be traumatically affected. And ``when they wake up in the morning,'' he said, ``we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.'' They are saying the quiet part out loud. Well, I got news for Mr. Vought. The people who staff our VA hospitals are not villains. The people who keep our food safe--so much that we Americans don't even think about it--are not villains. The people who keep our water clean are not villains. The people who keep our military bases operating are not villains. A couple of days ago, my office started to receive a flood of calls from Federal employees. Friends of mine who do great work at the CDC and other places called me directly. Folks who do noble work every single day, out of a deep sense of patriotism, certainly not pay; out of a deep sense of commitment to the covenant we have with one another, in the wake of this assault, they began to call. These are folks who, in their moment of finding themselves attacked by dangerous and dystopian designs on our country--folks demanding that the workers just quit--well, to all the Federal workers listening right now, let me say to you that not only do they want you to quit, more importantly, they want you to surrender. And you must never, ever surrender. You must never give in to the forces that would weaponize despair so that they can have their way and create a country that we will not even recognize. This is the people's house. This is the people's democracy. And the people have to stand up and say: It belongs to us--even the people with whom we disagree--this is our house. Democracy is the framework in which we get to fight, in which we get to have the great arguments about guns and butter, about how to spend the budget. We get to have these robust family arguments, and they get rambunctious, from time to time, in order to avoid violence. That is the American way. What we are seeing over the last 2 weeks is its own kind of violence: the pardoning of those who attacked this house on January 6, the permission structure to do it again, the gaslighting, telling Federal workers who are working hard for you on one day: Don't come to work the next day. That is its own kind of violence, and it must be condemned by all Americans who believe in the covenant we have with one another. And so when we are talking about Federal workers, we are talking about hard-working folks I know. Don't allow them to turn these people into some vague and nebulous dark picture of somebody you don't recognize. These are your neighbors. These are the folks who are practicing medicine and nursing care in our VA hospitals. These are those who manage our Social Security payments. These are the folks who are keeping our military bases operating safely and efficiently, ensuring folks get their tax returns on time, helping Georgians navigate their student loans, keeping our airports operating safely, providing critical support for our children, assisting farmers with loans, protecting our public health system and our public schools, eradicating diseases that know no borders, protecting our clean air and water. These are your neighbors. These are your family members. These are not villains. Always be wary of politicians who tell us to be afraid of each other. They are the ones you should fear and be concerned about. These are people throughout Georgia, our Nation's Capital, and scattered across the country, dedicated to healthy and safe communities, helping to build that more perfect Union we claim to aspire to. And so to these public servants who quietly and nobly do the people's work day by day, know this: I appreciate you. We appreciate you. And we have got your back because, in so many ways, you have had ours. But these tens of thousands of Georgians are now living in fear that their ability to support themselves and their families are at risk. Just today, dozens of Georgians visited my Atlanta office, some of whom have already lost their jobs through the abrupt dismantling of USAID, and they are worried about how they will keep their lights on and take care of their children. A young woman came to my office yesterday, a single mother who works for USAID, doing noble work. It is indeed a humanitarian cause to care for the sick, the poor, the most marginalized members of the human family. It is that, to be sure, but it is national security. It is keeping us safe as Americans, and it is a smart investment. It is less than 1 percent of the budget--one-half of 1 percent. And for that we get programs like PEPFAR, a program that is perhaps the greatest humanitarian relief program in human history, saving millions of lives on the African continent, which pays dividends for us. These diseases know no borders. This young woman that I met yesterday came to my office, a single mother. She was doing her work one day, and then she went to the doctor, and the doctor saw something in her test that was concerning and said: I need you to come back in a couple of days and get some more tests. And in between those days, she got notice and lost her job and her health insurance. She deserves better than that. My mama taught me to treat people with respect, with human dignity, to know that when you look in the face of your neighbor, you see the image of God. Surely, people who have been working for us deserve better than that. So people are anxious. People are concerned. Know that you are valued, and that we will continue to stand and fight on your behalf. But not only are the careers of these Federal workers on the chopping block, so too is the Federal funding that helps all of our communities and local economies run smoothly. My constituents were deeply shaken by last week's Federal funding freeze. I received thousands of calls and emails, folks afraid of the freeze's unknown harm to their community. So let's peel back the curtain even more on what happened over the last few days. The Trump administration froze trillions of dollars in government spending to enact massive and disruptive funding cuts. These cuts are being orchestrated in part by Russell Vought, in partnership with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, the co-President--this unelected, unvetted bureaucrat who, by my best guess, appears to think that the livelihood of Georgians and Americans is some kind of startup he can tear apart. So if you want to get a sense of who President Trump is looking out for, look at who he is surrounding himself with. On that stage, when he was inaugurated, you saw them, some of the richest people in the world. They were the ones who had proximity. Well, proximity matters. You can tell a whole lot about the character of a person's public service based on the people who can get close to them, the folks who get to speak into their ear. If you want to know who Donald Trump is working for, look at who he is surrounding himself with, the likes of Elon Musk, the billionaire, the richest man in the world, who is now telling us--the rest of us-- that we need to tighten our belts--how quaint. President Trump isn't serving you; he is serving them. He is serving those in our country who are well-off and who don't play by the rules, and putting at risk basic programs that help folks send their kids to school, keep food affordable, and lower their energy bills. In fact, the other day, as a member of the Banking Committee, I asked President Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, who manages the finances for the entire U.S. Government, if in the administration's supposed quest to cut Federal spending and give it back to the American people, would he agree with allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans. If you are concerned about the Federal deficit, are you willing to let the tax cuts put in place by Trump during his first term to expire for the wealthiest of Americans? Perhaps, we can return to the tax policies that we had during the Bush administration, even if just by a dollar. And when I asked the nominee that question, now-Secretary Bessent, he said: No, we can't afford to allow those tax cuts to expire. I said: What about folks making over $400,000 a year? He said: No. I said: What about millionaires? He said: No. I said: Well, what about billionaires? No. So when Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies go looking for spending cuts, and they are focused on cutting government waste, they start by targeting the working class. They target the people who work the hardest and play by the rules. He said he couldn't cut taxes for billionaires because they are the job creators. What about the folks who just work on the job day-to-day? What about the folks who clean hospitals? who mop floors? who pick up our garbage? who do a day's work for an honest pay? Why is it that those at the top deserve so much more than those who are working at the bottom? those in the middle? hard-working Americans who play by the rules? Already we have seen Secretary Bessent give the world's richest man the keys to the kingdom, allowing him to prowl around in the sensitive data and systems of the Treasury Department. Whoever heard of any such thing as this? What is a billionaire doing with access to the system that handles Grandma's Social Security check? Look, I will work with anyone who is able to have a serious bipartisan conversation about how to best utilize government resources and taxpayer dollars. Working across the aisle to get good things done for Georgia has been a cornerstone of my service in the Senate over the past 4 years. I am listed as one of the most bipartisan Senators in the Senate. I have worked with Republicans many, many times. But right now, the playbook is obvious: Cut programs that you rely on and give the richest of the rich the money. Robin Hood in reverse: Steal from the poor; give to the rich. And as this plan unfolds at a breakneck pace, I think it is important that we remind people that Project 2025 aims, again, to shift our democracy from citizenship to ownership, to shift the President from citizen to owner. Donald Trump the real estate developer and his billionaire friends want to own the country. Last night, he suggested that we should own Gaza as well. Imagine that. Here is what else they have in store under Project 2025 and its leader Russell Vought: Increase costs for families by $4,000 a year by slapping a Trump sales tax on goods that families rely on like gas, food, clothing, medicine; cuts to Social Security and Medicare--hurting hundreds of thousands of Georgia seniors; elimination of Federal funding for K-12 education, impacting Georgians from the heart of Atlanta to our rural counties, all across our State; tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations while making working families foot the bill; gutting the Affordable Care Act, which will raise healthcare premiums and threaten coverage for hundreds and thousands of Georgians and millions across the country. Their program would end student debt relief that assures their student loan payments don't consume the entirety of their paychecks. Their plan would reverse provisions of a law I secured that is capping insulin at $35 for seniors and lowering prescription drug costs. And their program would eliminate Head Start, which provided me with an early childhood education when I was growing up in public housing in Savannah, GA. I stand tonight on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but I want you to know that you are looking at a Head Start kid. I know it works. This program that gives poor children a chance, which exposes them as preschoolers to literacy and a love of learning, which narrows the word gap between poor children and well-off children, and which puts them on the road to success. Head Start is a worthwhile investment. It is a recognition that God is an equal opportunity employer, that God creates genius and talent and possibility on all sides of the town, on both sides of the track, and you never know where the very person we need to do the work that needs to be done--we never know what ZIP code that kid will grow up in. And so we have to invest in Head Start. To cut it is shortsighted. But not only that, we have to invest in all of these programs that provide a childcare safety net. So mamas and daddies can go to work and children can be safe and thrive and be exposed to learning and literacy. And so I was deeply moved when I began to get calls from folks involved in providing childcare to our kids all across our State, childcare centers in neighborhoods--some forgotten--where people get up every day and go to work, and they do their best. I heard from Sweetie Pie's Learning Center in Macon, GA. They rely on Federal funding for childcare services, but this freeze meant that they missed their regular check that covers food costs, which left employees scrambling to make plans on how they could make ends meet while still caring for children in this community. I am thinking now about the folks I heard from at Learning Hive in Lawrenceville, another childcare center navigating this chaos--delayed payments for childcare and parent services. And if the freeze remained in effect, they would only have enough money to make payroll for 2 weeks--2 weeks until your child is without care. Think about that. As myself, a working father of two young children, I cannot imagine the stress and the confusion that that would bring to put food on the table, keep a roof over your heads, and make sure that your kids have a safe place to learn and play while you make it happen. I am thinking about the folks at Easterseals childcare center in Clarkston, who are counting on this funding also for fresh meals for children living at 100 percent below the Federal poverty level. These kids risk going hungry in the wealthiest nation on the planet. So let me be clear. Project 2025 is no longer theoretical. It is unfolding right before our very eyes in realtime. We are seeing these policies implemented every day, and the President, who claimed to disavow Project 2025, is putting its chief architect in charge of administering the Federal budget. But we must not give in. We must not give up. We must not let those who would weaponize despair win. For many, it is dark right now. But my faith teaches me that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overcomes it not. And so let me say that even in a time like this, I am incredibly and immeasurably blessed because I get to do this work. I get to wake up every single day thinking about what I can do for the people who gave me the great honor of representing them in the Nation's Capital. It is a great honor when the people of your State say: Since all of us can't go to that crazy place called Washington, DC, we are going to send you. And we are going to trust that in rooms of power where decisions are being made and deals are cut, you are always going to center the concerns of ordinary people. You are not going to forget about us. And so I am honored that people all across the State of Georgia, from Bartow to Brantley County, when they took stock in the hopes for their families and their children and their grandmothers and grandfathers, they said again and again: We want you to go to Washington to fight for us. I will tell you that, for me, that is a sacred covenant, not much unlike my first job: pastor. A promise to walk with the people even as you work for the people. And part of the reason that Georgians have again and again voted to send me to Washington is that they know that I will fight for them, but they also know why I will fight for them. As a pastor in the Senate, Georgians know that I bring the moral lessons from my pastoral work with me to the Capitol every single day. And so I am going to keep fighting. I am not going to stand by and allow folks to undo what we did to cap the costs of insulin. Why? Because as a pastor, I have spent countless days in hospital rooms. I have seen up close what diabetes untreated can do. I have seen the amputations. I have been there when folks have gotten the news that they have got to go on dialysis. When you need your insulin, you need your insulin. It is not a luxury; it is a requirement. And so that informs my fight. When I cast my vote to fund programs that range from supporting law enforcement to veterans, from making food and housing more affordable to ensuring every kid has a fair shot at making it on a college campus or a technical college--I see these votes as an extension of my pastoral work, my work to create what Dr. King called ``the Beloved Community,'' a world where everyone is cared for and all of God's children can thrive. It is an honor when the people send you here to represent ordinary people. And that is why I take such great offense to the illegal and immoral actions that I have seen over the last few days--to try and freeze Federal funds that center the needs of ordinary people for the purpose of enriching our country's wealthiest individuals. I am a Matthew 25 Christian: I was hungry, and you didn't feed me. I was sick and I was in prison, and you didn't visit me. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me. And then there are those who will ask the Master: Master, when were you hungry? When were you thirsty? When were you sick with a preexisting condition and nobody came to see about you? When were you in prison? When were you a stranger, an immigrant? The answer? Matthew 25 says: Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it also unto me. Representing the people is holy work. It is noble work. I return home to Georgia every weekend. I return to my pulpit every Sunday because I don't want to forget why I came here in the first place--to stand up for the very people Mr. Vought says are villains. We all know that Donald Trump has a history of bailing on debts and shorting people of what they are owed, but our government is supposed to step in to protect hard-working individuals from bad actors who seek to take advantage of people. Yet we are seeing those bad actors fill our government's most powerful positions, playing fast and loose with taxpayer dollars at the expense of ordinary people. This is not how the most powerful government in the world ought to serve its people. The reality is, this new level of Washington's dysfunction has real- world consequences that extend beyond Washington politicians. Georgia's economy does not stop just because Washington is exercising a kind of chaos. While we are trying to get our act together up here, guess what, farmers still need crop insurance, childcare workers and community health centers still need to make payroll, and our roads and our bridges and pipes still need repairs. When Federal investments are put in limbo, the stability of our States and local communities is also put in jeopardy. Let me be clear. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it will try this again and again and again. When they do, the business community will suffer and Georgians will be out of their jobs unless we stand up and say no. If this Federal funding freeze continues, as Russell Vought hopes, the impact will be felt hardest by those who can least afford it. It is easy in all the bluster of the beltway to forget who is actually bearing the brunt of Donald Trump's actions. Delays in funding are not just inconvenient; they create anxiety, instability, and they cost the jobs of our friends, our families, and our neighbors. To be very clear, this is all unconstitutional. So why are so many of our colleagues across the aisle surrendering their constitutional responsibility that their voters elected them to carry out? While my colleagues remain silent while this new administration breaks the law, they are sacrificing their duty to their constituents in service to one man occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Well, I don't work for him, and I don't work for some oligarch threatening to run for my seat or run somebody for my seat. I work for the people of Georgia. It is this obsession with power, it is this obsession with the next election that has left us in this place in which we find ourselves tonight. So it is up to us in this moment to stand up. I am listening to the people who sent me to represent them. I am thinking about those who do the work every single day. It is our job to respond to the call and the urgency of this moment. History will not treat us kindly if we are silent at a time like this. In closing--and nobody believes a preacher when he says ``in closing,'' but I think my colleague is ready--in closing, Senator, I was thinking the other day about the dark challenges that your people have been through. During the era of the Third Reich--and I am never quick to raise the specter of that ugly time--there was a pastor by the name of Martin Niemoller who, in the midst of the ugliness of that dark time, said: First they came for the Communists and I didn't speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. When they come for one of us, they come for all of us. Dr. King said: We are tied . . . in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Ironically and tragically, we learned from COVID-19--a deadly pandemic, airborne--that if my neighbor is sick, not only is she sick, I potentially am imperiled. That doesn't make my neighbor my enemy; that means that in my enlightened self-interest, I ought to be concerned about her healthcare, that I ought to want her to be covered so I can be covered. We are all in this together, so we must stand up in this defining moment and resist those who would have us be afraid of one another because of our differences, because of our diversity, and know that we are one people. That is the American way. I yield the floor.