[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 31, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S511-S513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



               Priorities of the Republican-Led Congress

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, every year around this time, House and 
Senate Republicans get together for a joint conference to share ideas 
and develop our action plan for the year. Last week, we gathered in 
Philadelphia for this year's conference, and we had a very productive 
session. All of us came back energized and ready to achieve big things 
for the American people.
  In November, the American people elected Republican majorities in the 
House and Senate and a Republican President. That was a tremendous show 
of trust, and Republicans know it. We are committed to living up to 
that trust by delivering on the promises we have made.
  The last few years have been tough for American workers. Job creation 
has been sluggish. Wages have been stagnant. Economic growth has lagged 
far behind the pace of other recoveries, and opportunities for workers 
have been few and far between. It is no surprise that so many hard-
working Americans feel as if they have been left behind. For millions 
of American workers discouraged over the past 8 years, I want to say 
this: We hear you. Republicans hear you, and we are going to act.
  Republicans have outlined an agenda focused on growing our economy, 
creating jobs, increasing wages, and lifting the burdens that the Obama 
administration has placed on the American people.
  One big issue that we will tackle this year is repealing and 
replacing ObamaCare. Seven years ago, ObamaCare was sold to the 
American people with a lot of promises. The law was going to reduce 
premiums for families. It was going to fix problems with our health 
care system without hurting anyone who was happy with their health 
coverage. If you like your health plan, you will be able to keep it, 
people were told. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep 
your doctor, people were told. Well, as everyone knows, every one of 
these promises was broken.
  Premiums for families continue to rise. Millions of Americans lost 
the coverage that they liked. Americans regularly discovered they 
couldn't keep their doctors, and their choice of replacement was often 
limited. These broken promises were just the tip of the iceberg. The 
law hasn't just failed to live up to its promises; it is actively 
collapsing, and the status quo is unsustainable. Premiums on the 
exchanges are soaring. Deductibles regularly run into the thousands of 
dollars. In fact, for 2017, the average deductible for a bronze level 
ObamaCare plan is rising from $5,731 to $6,092. With deductibles like 
that, it is no wonder that some Americans can't actually afford to use 
their ObamaCare insurance.
  The problems on the exchanges are not limited to soaring costs. 
Insurers are pulling out of the exchanges right and left, and health 
care choices are rapidly dwindling. Narrow provider networks are the 
order of the day. One-third of American counties have just one choice 
of health insurer on the exchange. One-third of American counties have 
one option--one option. Tell me that is not a monopoly. This is not the 
health care reform that the American people were looking for.
  Republicans are committed to replacing ObamaCare with real health 
care reform that focuses on personalized patient-centered health care. 
One massive problem with ObamaCare is that it puts Washington in charge 
of health care decisions that should be made at a much lower level. Any 
ObamaCare reform that Republicans pass will focus on fixing this. We 
are going to move control from Washington and give it back to States 
and individuals. Health care issues don't have one-size-fits-all 
solutions. It is time to stop acting as if they do. States should have 
power to innovate and embrace health care solutions that work for the 
individual employers in their State, and individuals should be able to 
make health care decisions in consultation with their doctors, not 
Washington, DC.
  Another thing we are going to focus on is breaking down the ObamaCare 
barriers that have artificially restricted choice. As I said earlier, 
ObamaCare has defaulted to a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes 
to health care. That means many Americans have found themselves paying 
for health care that they don't need and don't want. We need much more 
flexibility in insurance plans. A thriving health care system would 
offer a wide variety of choices that would allow Americans to pick a 
plan that is tailored to their specific needs. We also need to give 
Americans tools to better manage their health care and to control 
costs. Of course, any reform plan

[[Page S512]]

has to make sure that employers have the tools they need to provide 
employees with affordable health care coverage.
  Mr. President, another priority of the Republican-led Congress will 
be regulatory reform. While some government regulations are necessary, 
every administration has to remember that regulations have 
consequences. The more resources individuals and businesses spend 
complying with regulations, the less they have available to focus on 
the growth and innovation that drive our economy and create new 
opportunities for American workers.
  Unfortunately, the Obama administration chose to spend the last 8 
years loading employers with burdensome regulations. According to the 
American Action Forum, the Obama administration was responsible for 
implementing more than 675 major regulations that cost the American 
economy more than $800 billion. Given those numbers, it is no surprise 
that the Obama economy left businesses with fewer resources to dedicate 
to growing and creating jobs. Repealing burdensome regulations is one 
of the most important things we can do to get our economy healthy 
again. That is going to be a Republican priority.
  Mr. President, another big thing we can do to make America 
competitive again is to reform our outdated Tax Code. That will also be 
a Republican priority this year.
  Right now, the Congressional Budget Office is projecting that our 
economy will grow by an average of just 2 percent over the next 10 
years. If we can increase that growth by just 1 percent, we would see 
average incomes rise by $4,200. Just get the growth rate from an 
average of 2 percent, which is what the CBO is projecting for the next 
10 years, to 3 percent, and incomes go up by $4,200. We would see an 
additional 1.2 million jobs created in our economy, and we would see 
much faster increases in the standard of living.
  So many younger Americans today are finding that they are not able to 
enjoy the same standard of living that was enjoyed by their parents 
because of a sluggish economy that is growing in that 1-percent to 2-
percent range. One of the ways to achieve that kind of growth, to get 
back to a 3- to 4-percent growth in our economy, is to reform our 
broken Tax Code.
  The current Tax Code is costly, complex, and frequently unfair. Some 
corporations benefit from special rules, deductions, and credits, while 
others are forced to pay the highest corporate tax rates in the 
developed world. More and more American companies are focusing their 
business operations overseas because the tax situation is so much 
better abroad. That means American jobs are going overseas with them. 
Instead of pushing employees out of the country, we should bring our 
Nation's tax rates in line with those of other countries to keep more 
jobs here in the United States.
  We should make our whole Tax Code flatter, fairer, and less complex. 
Our Tax Code should work for all taxpayers, not just a privileged few. 
A simpler, flatter, and fairer Tax Code will make U.S. businesses more 
competitive in the global economy, and it will help businesses create 
new good-paying jobs for American workers. It will jump-start our 
economy and ensure long-term economic growth.
  Finally, Mr. President, Republicans in the Senate have another 
important trust to uphold this year, and that is confirming a new 
Supreme Court Justice. We are committed to confirming a well-qualified 
nominee with the right temperament to sit on the Court and have the 
proper understanding of the role of the Court in our country. Supreme 
Court Justices are umpires. They call balls and strikes; they don't 
write the rules of the game. The job of a Supreme Court Justice is to 
interpret the law and the Constitution, not rewrite the law based on 
his or her personal opinions.
  Democrats have spent a lot of time talking about the need for nine 
Justices on the Supreme Court. Republicans trust that they will follow 
through on their statements by working with us to confirm the 
President's nominee.
  To every American who voted for change in November, to every American 
frustrated with the sluggish economy and a lack of opportunity, I want 
to say again that we hear you. The Republicans hear you. We are not 
going to let you down. We will spend the 115th Congress fighting for 
your priorities, and we will not rest until every American has access 
to a future of security, hope, and opportunity.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, what is the issue before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Tillerson nomination.
  Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil has been nominated to be 
our Secretary of State. We are going through a procedural 30 hours of 
debate, moving to that issue. As we can tell, many speeches are being 
given on the floor on a lot of different topics, but the underlying 
order of business is the next Secretary of State of the United States 
of America. His nomination comes to us at a particularly challenging 
time. We live in a dangerous world. We know that. We learned it on 9/
11, and we learn it every day when men and women in uniform are risking 
and sometimes sacrificing their lives for this great Nation.
  We also live in a complicated moment in time with the changeover in 
Presidents and clearly a changeover in foreign policy. We note that in 
the first 12 days--the first 12 days of the Trump Presidency--how many 
serious foreign policy issues have arisen, some the creation of the new 
President of the United States.
  It is customary, it is traditional, for the President of the United 
States to make one of his first major visits to Mexico, or Mexico to 
the United States. The reason, of course, is they are our third largest 
trading partner, and in so many different areas, we work together 
closely with Mexico. We certainly work together with them on issues of 
security, issues of terrorism and narcotics and trade issues that go 
on, on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this new President Trump is off to 
a rocky start with the President of Mexico, to the point where the 
President of Mexico canceled his visit to the United States.
  Strong statements were made during the campaign by President Trump 
about building a wall and the Mexicans will pay for it. How many times 
did we hear that? Over and over again, the Mexican Government has said: 
We will never pay for it. So that standoff over a campaign threat or 
promise is at this moment inhibiting a relationship which traditionally 
has been strong for generations.
  Secondly, since being elected President of the United States, 
President Trump has said that NATO is obsolete. NATO is the alliance 
created after World War II to protect Europe against aggression from 
outside, particularly from the Soviet Union. Since the fall of the 
Soviet Union, NATO has expanded to include many other countries--the 
Baltics, for example, and Poland. As a result, these countries have 
become dependent on NATO for their security.
  The theory behind NATO is very basic. If one of our NATO allies is 
attacked, we will all defend. So we can understand why a small country 
like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, even Poland, realizing that they are 
vulnerable to Russian attack, count on NATO. When the President of the 
United States says that NATO is obsolete, people living in those 
countries wonder: What about tomorrow? What happens tomorrow if 
Vladimir Putin, who has been guilty of aggression in Georgia, as well 
as Ukraine, decides to pick a Baltic country next?
  So the uncertainty created by President Trump's statement on NATO is 
one that haunts us to this moment.
  But the one that is really overwhelming over the last few days is 
President Trump's Executive order when it came to refugees and 
immigration. The story of refugees in the United States does not have a 
good start. Going back to World War II, a man named Breckinridge Long 
was in charge of immigration into the United States during that war. He 
worked in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. Sadly, his view on 
refugees was harsh, and as a result, the United States was caught up 
many times denying access to the safety of the United States to people 
who were vulnerable to persecution and genocide. The most noteworthy 
example was the

[[Page S513]]

SS St. Louis in 1939, which brought 900 people from Nazi Germany to the 
United States to escape the Holocaust. They were turned away. They were 
forced back into Europe, and hundreds died as a result of it. That was 
the policy of the day.
  When Robert Wagner, the Senator from New York, asked that we allow 
10,000 German children to come into the United States to escape the 
Holocaust, that measure was defeated in committee in the U.S. Senate--
children coming to the United States.
  After World War II, when we saw 6 million Jews killed in the 
Holocaust and so many others whose lives were compromised and lost, we 
decided to change the U.S. approach when it came to refugees. Instead 
of pushing back against them, we began to embrace them. And do you know 
what has happened since? We developed a reputation around the world as 
the safe place to be, the country that cared. Ask over 600,000 Cubans 
who came to the U.S. shores to escape Castro's regime. Remember, at 
that time, Castro had allied with the Soviet Union, our mortal enemy of 
the Cold War. Yet, without vetting--without extreme vetting--we said to 
these Cubans: You are welcome to be safe in the United States, and they 
came in the thousands. Are they an important part of America? You bet 
they are, and there are three Cuban-American U.S. Senators to prove it.
  Today, a question has been raised by the Trump regime as to what our 
view is going to be toward refugees in the future. Thank goodness we 
didn't raise it with Cuba, nor did we raise it when Jews in the Soviet 
Union were facing persecution. They asked for a chance to come to the 
United States. Synagogues and communities across the United States 
opened their arms and gave them a chance, and over 100,000 came to our 
shores. We are better for it. We really have demonstrated that our 
ideals and values as a nation apply to those who came to our shores.
  The list goes on and on, from Yugoslavia to Viet Nam, to Somalia, and 
many other places where the United States has shown that we are a 
caring nation. Now comes this new President who says: It is America 
first; we are going to redefine this refugee policy.
  Well, this redefinition of America around the world is something that 
many of us believe is just plain wrong. These Executive orders were 
issued by President Trump without consultation with even his own 
Cabinet members who have been appointed. Those in the area of national 
security, for example, weren't consulted before these Executive orders 
went into effect. When I talked to the Department of Homeland Security 
and Customs and Border Protection, it turns out they were given 
instructions at the last minute as to how to treat passengers coming 
into international terminals over the weekend.
  I know what happened at O'Hare. Over 130 people were stopped and 
detained and questioned, and some were never allowed to board planes in 
other countries, and some were returned to those countries. It was 
chaotic. It didn't show basic competency in running a government, and 
it was fundamentally unfair.

  Let me say it wasn't just a matter of an uncomfortable situation. It 
wasn't just a situation of people being inconvenienced. One of our 
priorities when it comes to refugees, even from those seven countries 
that President Trump noted, were those who were in desperate medical 
conditions. So when the President said: I just wanted a pause--a pause 
for these seven countries--let me ask what we think that pause means to 
that 9-year-old Somali child in an Ethiopian refugee camp with a 
congenital heart disease that can't be treated anymore in that camp and 
who was finally going to get to come for medical care in the United 
States. That pause by President Trump could be deadly. A 1-year-old 
Sudanese boy with cancer. A Somali boy with a severe intestinal 
disorder living in a camp that doesn't even have medical facilities. A 
pause. We will get it together. We will get back to you later. That is 
the kind of human condition that is being affected by these orders 
issued by our new President. Is it any wonder that so many people 
around the world have reacted?
  First, they should react when it comes to our security. Do we know 
how many terrorist refugees have come from these seven countries on the 
list? None. Not one. Not one Syrian refugee has engaged in terrorist 
activities in the United States. If you watched ``60 Minutes'' over the 
weekend, you will understand why.
  This is not an easy ask. You don't just hold up your hand and say: I 
am ready to go to the United States. You first submit your name to the 
U.N. Commission on Refugees. Then we cull the list to find the ones we 
might consider in the United States, and that is about 1 percent. Then 
we put them through a vetting process that can go on for 2 years--2 
years of being interrogated, investigated, examined, watched, and 
challenged. Then, finally, after those years, they may have a chance to 
come to the United States.
  So now we are going to move to extreme vetting? What is that going to 
be--trial by fire? What is left? We are doing the very best. The fact 
that there has not been one refugee from any of these countries engaged 
in terrorism is an indication that we have a good process that is 
stronger than any nation on Earth. Yet the President has said we are 
going to stop these refugees from coming indefinitely from Syria and 
for months from these other six countries.
  Then he made a statement on a Christian broadcasting show that he was 
on that really went far over the line. During the course of the 
campaign, he said repeatedly: This will be a Muslim ban. Then he said: 
They told me to stop saying ``Muslim ban,'' so he stopped for a while.
  It turns out that Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, said: 
Well, he called me in and said, How do I put together something legal 
that is a Muslim ban? I think Mayor Giuliani may have been speaking out 
of school, but it is an indication of what was really going on in the 
Trump campaign and this administration.
  On this Christian broadcasting show, the President was explicit that 
he would give priority to Christians because he believes they would be 
persecuted in those countries. That flies in the face of some 
fundamentals in this country--the fundamentals of our Constitution--
because we have said that when it comes to religion, this government 
shall not favor any religion. Here we have the President of the United 
States on a television show saying the opposite.
  It is being challenged in court, at least to some extent. It has been 
slowed down by retraining orders issued by Federal courts and judges 
around this country.
  Last night, the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, said that in 
good conscience, she could not defend President Trump's decisions in 
these Executive orders. For that act of courage, she was fired. I am 
sure she expected it. But I want to say that for a woman who has given 
her life--20 years of it, at least--as a prosecutor and who had an 
exemplary career at the Department of Justice, my hat goes off to her. 
I think she did what she thought was right and faced the consequences. 
History will prove her right and this decision by the administration 
wrong.
  So now we have Rex Tillerson, who wants to be Secretary of State of 
the United States of America. How would you like to take over that job 
tomorrow in light of what I have just mentioned--the Executive orders 
issued by the President without consultation with the Department of 
State; judging NATO to be obsolete in his Twitter; and then having a 
relationship with Mexico where the President is cancelling trips to the 
United States, not to mention other things said about China and other 
countries. It is an awesome challenge. It is a challenge that we have 
to ask whether Mr. Tillerson is prepared for. He has had 40 years of 
success with ExxonMobil, starting as a production engineer and going to 
the top of the company. Now the question is, Is he ready to give up his 
loyalty to a company and to have a loyalty to a country even if the 
decisions he has to make as Secretary of State may be inconsistent with 
the best business policy for that company?
  I am going to yield the floor. I see my colleague from the State of 
Wyoming is here. I believe this will be ongoing, so I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.