[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 27 (Wednesday, February 15, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1210-S1216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come 
before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that following the remarks 
of Senators Schatz, Whitehouse, and Hirono, the Senate resume morning 
business and then stand adjourned under the previous order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the Senate is preparing to vote on 
Congressman Mick Mulvaney to lead the Office of Management and Budget. 
This nomination may seem like it doesn't deserve a lot of attention 
because we don't hear much outside of Washington about the OMB, the 
Office of Management and Budget. It is kind of a wonky, obscure office, 
with fewer than 500 staff members.
  At a time when there are so many looming questions about this 
Republic, about this administration, it is easy to overlook the 
Congressman's nomination, but it actually matters very much, 
particularly at this moment, and that is because the person who 
controls the budget, the person who has the final say on fiscal and 
financial priorities for the administration has immense power. This 
position controls the President's budget, and that means that this 
person can give the green light to programs and policies across the 
Federal Government or stop them in their tracks. And because he has a 
long track record as a legislator, Congressman Mulvaney has already 
shown what kind of decisionmaker he will be if he is in charge of the 
Office of Management and Budget, OMB.

  I will be blunt. His record and his ideas are worrisome. It should 
concern every Senator who is worried about some of the biggest issues 
facing Americans, from Social Security, to public health, to the basic, 
uninterrupted operations of the government itself. So this vote is a 
moment of truth. It will determine where we really stand on the issues 
that shape both individual lives and our country's future.
  Let me highlight just four issues to show why this person is the 
wrong person to run OMB.
  The first is Social Security. More than 80 years ago, President 
Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. In doing so, he 
created a national plan to provide economic security for American 
workers. Since then, Social Security has proven to be the most 
successful anti-poverty program in our history. Each year, it lifts 
more than 20 million Americans, including 1 million children, out of 
poverty.
  It is hard to imagine a world without Social Security, but I want 
everybody to understand that pre-Social Security, we had tens of 
millions of Americans--more than we do now--who would be in poverty 
upon retirement. So this program has actually reduced poverty among the 
elderly more than any other program could possibly have accomplished.
  Nowhere is Social Security more important than in Hawaii. More than 
200,000 people receive Social Security benefits. For more than one in 
four Hawaii seniors, Social Security is their only source of income. 
And the money just isn't enough; it is about $14,000 a year. Just to 
give folks an understanding of Hawaii, we are considered the second or 
third most expensive housing market in the United States. We are after 
New York and sometimes in second place or third place, depending on 
where San Francisco is, but we are one of the most expensive places to 
live in the United States. For one in four Social Security recipients, 
that is all they get--$1,200 a month. Usually that will cover your 
apartment. That will not cover your electricity, it won't cover your 
utilities, it won't cover your food or clothing, and it won't cover 
your healthcare.
  Today, most working households have little or no retirement assets at 
all, and many rely entirely on Social Security. This is partly because 
employer-provided pensions are becoming a thing of the past. So Social 
Security is more important than ever. It has become a pillar of our 
retirement system

[[Page S1211]]

that continues to work well. It is a universal guaranteed source of 
income that workers earn and depend on when they retire, but it is just 
not enough.
  I will just add that it is only in Washington, DC, where entertaining 
the idea of cutting Social Security is considered moderate or 
mainstream or conservative, even, or adult. I mean, there is this sense 
that the way we ought to fix the challenges we have fiscally as a 
country is to take it out of the hides of people who get $1,200 a month 
to live.
  Instead of strengthening the program, Mr. Mulvaney's ideas are very 
radical. He has said he wants to systematically alter Social Security 
by raising the retirement age to 70 years old. He wants to raise the 
retirement age to 70 years old. This is not an obscure person being 
appointed to an obscure post; this is a Member of Congress being 
appointed to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. We are 
going to vote on him tomorrow, and everybody who says they are for 
Social Security is about to vote for a person who wants to raise the 
Social Security retirement age to 70 years old.
  He has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. When he worked in the 
South Carolina State Senate, he voted to declare Social Security 
unconstitutional. Again, he voted to declare Social Security 
unconstitutional, and I predict he will get all of the Republican 
votes. And all of these folks who say they wanted to protect your 
Social Security, after they put Tom Price at the head of HHS, they are 
about to put someone who is dedicated to undermining the most 
successful anti-poverty program in American history.
  When asked in his confirmation hearing--because, look, you are a 
Member of Congress; you represent a certain constituency; you have 
certain views. Some people are able to sort of pivot from their role as 
a legislator, as a politician, and into a role as an appointee, a 
Secretary, a nominee. So when he was asked in this confirmation hearing 
if he would recommend that the President break a campaign promise to 
leave Social Security alone, the Congressman said that he would 
recommend that the President make cuts to the program. So this isn't 
something he has recanted; this is something he stands by--up until and 
including through his confirmation and his service at OMB.
  But why make cuts to the most successful anti-poverty program in 
American history? Why would we make cuts to a program that is financed 
by its own revenue stream and by law does not add $1 to the deficit? 
Why would we cut benefits now just because we may have to cut them in 
20 years? If we are going to change Social Security, let's do it in a 
way that expands benefits for generations to come. Let's lift the cap 
on taxable earnings. Let's remove the wage cap that unfairly shelters 
the highest earning Americans from paying into the Social Security 
trust fund that the majority of hard-working Americans do.
  Here is how it works. The cap is roughly $120,000. So you pay Social 
Security--almost everybody pays Social Security tax, up to $120,000 in 
income. That is mostly everybody, right. But if you make $120,000, all 
of that is taxed up to $120,000. If you make $70,000, it is taxed up to 
$70,000. If you make $120 million in income, your first $120,000 is 
taxed for Social Security purposes; everything else is taxed at zero 
for Social Security purposes.

  My view is that every dollar of income should be taxed for Social 
Security purposes, and that does two things: First, we are going to be 
in a position to increase benefits--not massively, but every little bit 
counts. Second, we will be able to increase the solvency of the Social 
Security trust fund to the year 2049.
  Most every family has a Social Security story, whether it is a 
grandmother who relies on the program's benefits to pay for groceries, 
a father who suffered a debilitating injury after decades of hard work 
and receives much needed Social Security disability benefits, or a 
widowed mother who relies on Social Security survivors benefits to 
bring up her children.
  In my own home, we have three generations living together--my wife 
Linda and me; our kids, Tyler and Mia; and Linda's parents, George and 
Ping Kwok. George Kwok lived the American dream. He ran a chop suey 
house, a Chinese restaurant in Honolulu, Kwok's Chop Suey, and worked 
hard all his life to give opportunities to his kids, until his eyes 
gave out. Like 200,000 seniors across Hawaii, he now relies on Social 
Security--SSDI--Social Security disability.
  I tell you about my family not because we are unique but because we 
are not, because we are like so many families in Hawaii and across the 
country. And with the number of retirees growing, we need to do 
everything we can to strengthen this program, not to weaken it.
  After a lifetime of hard work, seniors deserve to retire with the 
dignity and the benefits they have earned. This is a promise from the 
Federal Government. The current generation of Americans must keep our 
promises to seniors, but given his record, I am convinced that 
Congressman Mulvaney will try to do the opposite.
  The second issue I am concerned about is the basic operations of 
government. Whether you are a member of the military, a visitor to a 
national park, or a worker looking to retire in the near future, we all 
need for the government to fulfill its basic obligations. But 
Congressman Mulvaney voted to default on the U.S. debt several times, 
and he did it in the face of warnings from the U.S. Treasury that this 
would be unprecedented and catastrophic for our economy and that it 
could drive the world deep into another recession just as we were 
finally recovering from the last one.
  Think about how markets would react if the U.S. Government declared 
that it would not make good on its financial obligations. The stock 
markets would go crazy, and not in a good way. That would be terrible 
for the millions of people who invest their savings in the market for 
their retirement.
  The Congressman has also voted several times to shut down the Federal 
Government, all in the name of getting his way. I cannot emphasize 
enough how dangerous his approach to government is. It is one thing as 
a Member of the House Freedom Caucus, as a Member of the U.S. House of 
Representatives--there are 435; you can take positions--but it doesn't 
have quite the direct impact that the Office of Management and Budget 
does. He has put party and partisan views over some of the most 
fundamental and basic principles of our government. To close the 
government, to stop paying our bills, to make people across the planet 
question the full faith and credit of the United States is beyond 
comprehension.
  It should take a real crisis to pull Congress away from the 
negotiating table and all the challenges in front of us. But it 
actually wasn't a crisis that led the Congressman to vote to close our 
government; it was Planned Parenthood and the ACA. While we may 
disagree about the best approach on healthcare and even on reproductive 
choice and women's health, those disagreements should never get in the 
way of the U.S. Government going about its business. Yet Congressman 
Mulvaney's actions went against that basic principle.
  With respect to our Democratic institutions, the procedural violence 
that was done to the U.S. Congress is hard to overstate in this case. 
The idea that a faction of a party would demand concessions--and I 
think we remember this--would demand concessions in exchange for 
satisfying their infliction of pain on the United States is 
unbelievable. And why? Because we are all Americans here. We all want 
to do right by our country. So the idea that one party would be willing 
to inflict terrible pain on the country, or else, was so beyond the 
pale that there is no rule against it, there is no law against it. And 
do you know why there is no rule and no law against it? It is because 
nobody contemplated that a major political party would behave in such a 
way. The assumption has always been that elected leaders would find a 
better way to stand up for their strongly held beliefs than by 
threatening to bring the American economy to its knees. Up until the 
shutdown led by the Congressman, that had been a safe assumption.
  In 2011, Congress's delay in raising the debt limit forced the 
Department of Treasury to take what they call extraordinary measures to 
ensure that our government could pay its bills.

[[Page S1212]]

GAO estimates that this raised Treasury's borrowing costs by about $1.3 
billion in fiscal year 2011. That is $1.3 billion in added government 
costs just for coming close to defaulting. The Bipartisan Policy Center 
projects that the full cost of that crisis to the Federal Government 
alone--not to the private sector economy, just the Federal Government--
was around $20 billion over the maturity of that debt.
  There is nothing conservative about defaulting on what we owe. It 
cripples free markets. It is Russian roulette playing, with a bullet in 
every chamber. There is nothing conservative about that.
  When the government closed in 2013, we paid Federal workers to stay 
home. I want everybody to understand what we ended up doing. Listen, it 
wasn't their fault. These government employees are not the ones who 
screwed up; it was the Congress that screwed up. We paid dedicated 
Federal workers who want to do their jobs, not to do their jobs. We 
forced them to stay home and paid them anyway. I defy you to find a 
conservative outside of the Halls of Congress who finds that to be a 
conservative proposition. It is one thing to shut down the government 
for a couple of weeks and accrue the savings. I think that is inhumane, 
I think that is bananas, but at least you would save the money. These 
folks ended up paying all the money out and just forcing government 
workers to not do their jobs. This is not the left or right; this is 
upside down. We prevented Federal workers from doing their important 
work, like assisting small businesses and combating terrorism.
  Ultimately, the 2013 shutdown was a bad move for our economy and for 
our budget. It cost us money instead of saving us money. In just the 
first week, it cost the economy $1.6 billion in lost economic output, 
and it cost about $160 million a day on the private sector side.
  Worst of all, the Congressman has not seen the error of this. There 
were a lot of Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who--in 
the heat of the battle, you sort of think the other side is going to 
back off and listen. We all learn lessons. We all make mistakes. There 
are a lot of Republicans who went through that shutdown and said: We 
never want to do that to the country again. But Congressman Mulvaney 
has not seen the error of his ways. He still believes the government 
shutdown was a good idea, and he said so at the confirmation hearing.
  Senator McCaskill asked if he still thought the shutdown was the 
right way to go about things, and he answered yes. He answered yes. 
This kind of budget brinkmanship is not good for our government, to say 
the least, but it is certainly a bad fit for the person running the 
OMB.
  The third issue I want to talk about is the Congressman's rejection 
of the role of public health and science. If we look at some of the 
biggest issues our country faces, it is clear that we need an OMB 
Director who understands the value of science, research, and public 
health. But the Congressman has said that climate change is based on 
``questionable science'' and ``baseless claims.'' He has asked if we 
need government-funded research at all. These are not the views we 
should see from the person who directs the budget of the executive 
branch.
  In September of last year, Congressman Mulvaney posted a statement 
about Zika on Facebook. He said:

       I have received all sorts of email and Facebook comments 
     this week on Zika. Some people want me to pass a ``clean'' 
     bill (which I suppose means not paying for it with spending 
     reductions elsewhere.) Other folks want us to fund more 
     research if we can find a way to pay for it.
       No one has written me yet, though, to ask what might be the 
     best question: Do we really need government research at all? 
     Do we really need government funded research at all?

  In his statement, he goes on to ask questions that many have asked 
about what we are seeing in Brazil, as opposed to other countries 
affected by Zika. But that is exactly why you do the research. It is 
not for a Member of Congress to referee how much money should go to CDC 
and play amateur scientist. We have expert agencies. The CDC did an 
extraordinary job, not just on Zika but on Ebola. They have done 
extraordinary work over the decades in keeping people safe. If he is 
saying there are some scientific mysteries remaining around Zika, that 
is absolutely true. That is why we need to give the CDC and the 
National Institutes of Health money to try to figure this out. Those 
questions are the very reasons we need government-funded research, not 
an excuse to get rid of it.
  I want to be clear as to why this matters so much. I am not trying to 
catch him saying something that is a little off. There is a 
foundational, bipartisan consensus around public health research, and 
the person who has been nominated to run the Federal budget doesn't 
appear to believe in that research. This isn't just out of the 
political mainstream. People will die if he implements his point of 
view.
  Look at some of the diseases where government-funded research has had 
a significant impact on saving lives: Ebola, HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio, 
to name a few. We have made the advances we see today because the 
government stepped in and invested in the research, and that has to 
continue.
  Right around the time we debated funding for Zika, I visited the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, in Atlanta to learn 
more about their efforts to combat Zika, dengue, and other diseases. I 
left Atlanta feeling totally confident that the CDC will help our 
country with challenges like Zika. Millions of Americans are counting 
on the government to maintain that confidence. But that can happen only 
if CDC has the strongest funding possible so they can continue to do 
their good work.
  Taking money away from the Prevention and Public Health Fund would 
strip the CDC and other important agencies of the funds they need to 
protect our country from within and from without. That is what happened 
in Congress. The legislative branch did not fully step up to the plate 
and do its job in addressing Zika. Because of that, we forced the Obama 
administration to pull money from the CDC to address Ebola or from 
States to address other public health risks. Doing so disrupted public 
health infrastructure planning across the world that we still need to 
make sure that Ebola never ravages communities again.
  Regardless of your side of the aisle, we can all agree this is the 
one thing that government has to do; that is, to keep us physically 
safe. Investing in CDC and other agencies that protect our citizens 
from diseases shouldn't depend on your philosophy of government. Unless 
you believe in, literally, no government, this is money well spent. 
This is the kind of thing the government does. We cannot walk away from 
our country's legacy of funding good research that saves lives, but 
that is exactly what Congressman Mulvaney suggests we do.
  He has also made deeply disturbing comments about the science behind 
climate change. There can be no doubt that climate change is real, that 
it is caused by humans, and that we have a responsibility to take 
action. We ignore the science that shows us this at our own risk, and 
it is a risk our country cannot take.
  The fourth and final issue I want to touch upon is healthcare--
specifically, Medicare and Medicaid. I am a little worried that people 
feel reassured because of the rhetoric they heard last year from the 
President. He did reassure his voters that he was going to save 
Medicare and Medicaid and protect it from cuts. He promised several 
times that he wouldn't make any cuts whatsoever to Medicare and 
Medicaid. But when a Senator reminded Congressman Mulvaney about this 
during his confirmation hearing, he did not say he would support the 
administration's promises to the American people. He said that he would 
advise the President to break that promise. He said that he would 
advise President Trump to break his campaign promise and change 
Medicare and Medicaid. Why are we voting for this person? He said that 
he would advise the President to break the promise and change Medicare, 
Medicaid, and Social Security.
  He wants to cut Medicaid--a program that millions of people rely 
upon. More than 50 years ago, when Medicaid was created, Congress made 
a really smart decision and designed the program so that if and when 
healthcare costs rise or the economy starts to struggle, Medicaid would 
be there for the American people, no matter what. Now the counselor to 
the President says that as part of the ACA replacement plan, Medicaid 
will be converted to block grants.

[[Page S1213]]

  I worry a little bit about the phrasing ``block grants'' because that 
doesn't sound that bad. I used to work in the not-for-profit sector. I 
like grants, and I used to pursue Community Development Block Grants, 
Community Services Block Grants. I like grants; I like Medicaid. I am 
not sure whether ``block'' means anything positively or negatively, but 
I want everybody to understand what block-granting Medicaid means: It 
means cutting Medicaid. That is exactly what it means. It is a 
euphemism. People in this administration and people nominated to be 
part of this administration share that view, and they have a long 
history to back it up.
  The term ``block grants'' is a euphemism. It is not quite a lie, but 
it is a way to describe something so that you don't know what it is. 
They are calling it a block grant because they don't want to say they 
are cutting Medicaid. That is what they are doing; they are going to 
cut Medicaid, and these cuts will hurt millions of people. They will 
hurt working families.
  Everybody understands Medicaid is there for the economically 
indigent, in the case of an emergency. But the thing that people also 
don't realize--and that is a really important aspect of that program--
but it is also really important for nursing home care. That is not just 
an issue for people who are down on their luck financially or while 
they are young or while they are parents. When people get older, it is 
really difficult to afford nursing home care. For most people who are 
not extraordinarily wealthy, Medicaid is the way to handle nursing home 
care. It is reimbursable.
  I know that nursing home care in Hawaii costs $8,000, $9,000 a month. 
I don't know anybody who can run through $8,000, $9,000 a month for 
very long. I know a couple of people, but most people I know can't do 
that without Medicaid. Certainly, Medicaid is an issue that affects the 
very poor, but it also affects the rest of us. It affects people who 
aren't just lying on a pile of cash to take care of their grandmother 
or their mother or their father or their spouse when they are in their 
golden years.
  These cuts will hurt women who need Medicaid for maternal health 
services, as well as seniors and people with disabilities. These people 
have nowhere else to turn. Medicaid is their only option.
  Some people point to expanded local control as a reason to move 
forward with block grants. That is just nonsense. They are basically 
going to flatten out or cut the amount a State gets, and then they can 
sit there and divide up an increasingly smaller pie. I am not sure if 
that is even a euphemism. That is just nonsense. That will not help any 
State to meet their needs. That is why Republican Governors--anybody 
with responsibility for actually governing, delivering services to 
their constituents--don't want to cut Medicaid. They don't want to 
reduce Medicaid expansion under ACA, and they certainly don't want a 
block grant because they know what that will mean. Even if you are a 
fiscal conservative, if you are in charge of a State, you understand 
exactly what is going to happen to your constituents if Medicaid is 
cut.
  This is another instance of a party that promised not to touch 
Medicaid. But here we are, debating a nominee to lead the OMB who wants 
to make cuts to this program. This is a deal breaker for me and for 
many others, and it will be a disaster for millions of Americans. That 
is why today we have to stand up for seniors, for women, for children 
and fight any cuts to Medicaid. That starts with voting no on this 
nomination.
  I have heard about Congressman Mulvaney from hundreds of people from 
the State of Hawaii. I want to share a few of the messages that I have 
received from people in Hawaii.
  Here is what one man from Oahu wrote:

       As a researching scientist, I recognize the very 
     significant damage these appointees will have on US health 
     and competitiveness in the world.
       A break in research funding, or politically-directed and 
     censored research, impacts long term research. A brief hiatus 
     can result in many years set-back of programs and resulting 
     societal benefits.

  A woman from Volcano Village on the Big Island sent me this message:

       [This administration's] agenda lies in [the] nominees for 
     the department of Health and Human Services and the Office of 
     Management and Budget who have spent their congressional 
     careers trying to destroy [Social Security, Medicare, and 
     Medicaid].

  Another woman wrote me with this:

       [The] nominees for HHS and OMB are walking disasters for 
     the department they'd lead.
       Both have spent their congressional careers trying to 
     destroy [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid]. Oh, yes, 
     and the ACA/Obamacare, which has proven to be resoundingly 
     popular.

  We are hearing from so many people on these issues because they 
understand how this works. They understand that personnel is policy. 
You don't get to say you are for protecting Social Security, and then 
vote for someone who wants to eliminate Social Security as we know it. 
You don't get to say you are for protecting Medicare and Medicaid, and 
then vote for someone who has dedicated their career to eliminating or 
at least seriously undermining this program.
  If you want to increase the Social Security retirement age, then this 
is your nominee. If you aren't opposed to seeing our country go through 
a series of precipices with the shutdown of the Federal Government--
from the huge drops in the market to the closing of our National 
Parks--then this is your nominee. If you think Federal investments in 
public health, disease control, and prevention should be eliminated, 
then this is your nominee. If you want to see cuts to Medicare and 
Medicaid by 25 percent or more, then vote yes.
  But if, like me, you know that this is not the right approach to 
governing, that this is not how we should go about caring for our 
people and preparing for the future, then you need to vote no.
  At the end of the day, the leader of the Office of Management and 
Budget will need to understand how to build a budget for our country 
and make sure U.S. Government agencies have the resources they need to 
pursue the mission. This person will need to understand why diplomacy 
matters, why Medicare and Medicaid matter, why job training and 
education programs matter, and why financial and fiscal stability 
matters. Ultimately, he needs to know that government matters and that 
it can make a difference in people's lives. It determines how bright 
tomorrow can be for our kids and grandkids and how safe of a world we 
can create for them.
  Congressman Mulvaney does not have that record or a confirmation 
hearing record that can convince any of us that he understands the 
potential we all have--the obligation we have--to make the right 
investments that reflect who we are and the future that we want as a 
country. That is why I will be voting no on this confirmation, and I 
urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, the Director of the Office of Management 
and Budget, or OMB, is probably the most powerful Federal job that most 
Americans have never heard of. If you were to ask five out of five 
regular people whether they have even heard of the Office of Management 
and Budget, or its importance, I would say that probably five of them 
would say: I have never heard of it; what do they do?
  The Director of OMB has broad discretion to develop Federal 
regulations and to set spending priorities across the government--
spending priorities across the government. I think we should make sure 
that this person actually cares about service to the people of America.
  For example, if the Defense Department needs more resources for our 
troops, OMB has to sign off. If the Environmental Protection Agency 
wants to protect our communities from air and water pollution, OMB has 
to sign off. If the President wants to cut Social Security, Medicare, 
and Medicaid under the guise of ``saving money,'' the OMB Director is 
responsible for implementing the policy.
  Given the tremendous power invested in this position, the next OMB 
Director should, at a minimum, believe in the

[[Page S1214]]

central government functions he or she will be tasked to carry out. 
That is why I strongly oppose the nomination of Congressman Mike 
Mulvaney to serve as the next Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget.
  Congressman Mulvaney came to Washington at the very right fringe of 
the tea party wave in 2010. Since then, he has consistently pursued 
policies that would be disastrous for our economy, for the most 
vulnerable members of our society, and for America's seniors--our 
kupuna.
  Congressman Mulvaney has been one of the strongest proponents for 
privatizing and voucherizing Medicare and dismantling Medicaid during 
his time in Congress. In 2011, while explaining his support for the 
draconian, really terrible Republican budget that would have destroyed 
the social safety net and gutted funding for nearly every domestic 
program--nearly every domestic program and you can imagine the 
thousands and thousands of domestic programs people across the country 
are relying upon--Congressman Mulvaney said:

       Two nights ago, there was a group of Republicans in the 
     House of Representatives who voted to dramatically overhaul 
     Medicare and Medicaid and lightning did not strike us. If 
     that is not a sign that maybe things can be different around 
     here, I don't know what is. So I'm hoping that--I hope we 
     have that exact debate over the course of the next year.

  Let me be clear. Congressman Mulvaney was gloating over a bill that 
would be devastating to millions of seniors and Americans on Medicaid 
and Medicare. If confirmed, Congressman Mulvaney would not just be one 
extremist in the House of Representatives; he would be the person--the 
one person--responsible for developing, rolling out, and implementing 
the President's budget and his priorities.
  With this power, he would be in a position to fulfill his heart's 
desire--all of the things he worked on as a member of the tea party and 
a Member of the House of Representatives. He could destroy programs 
like Medicare and Social Security, which more than 200,000 seniors in 
Hawaii and tens of millions across the United States depend on every 
single day. There are things we can do to fight back.
  Last month, I fought alongside my friend and colleague from Indiana, 
Senator Joe Donnelly, to prevent Congressman Mulvaney and the Trump 
administration from using budget gimmicks to privatize Medicare and cut 
funding from Medicaid. While our amendment was defeated in a very close 
vote, I was encouraged that two of our Republican colleagues--Senator 
Dean Heller of Nevada and Senator Susan Collins of Maine--voted in 
favor of my amendment.
  This vote demonstrated that there is bipartisan opposition to 
balancing the budget on the backs of our seniors. This is exactly what 
Congressman Mulvaney wants to do. He has called Social Security a Ponzi 
scheme. Ponzi schemes are illegal, but he calls Social Security--a 
program that millions and millions of people throughout our country 
rely upon--a Ponzi scheme and supports raising the eligibility for it 
to 70 years old.
  When he was in the South Carolina legislature, he even supported a 
bill that said that Social Security was unconstitutional. I would say 
even the most conservative person would not deem Social Security to be 
unconstitutional, but that is the kind of position that Congressman 
Mulvaney takes. His positions on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social 
Security are enough to disqualify him from serving as OMB Director.
  We do not need an ideological flamethrower like Congressman Mulvaney 
at the helm of OMB. Sadly, there is more. Congressman Mulvaney is a 
debt limit denier. To demonstrate the point, I wish to read his 
response to a question he received from the Budget Committee:

       I do believe that defaulting on America's debts would have 
     grave worldwide economic consequences. I do not believe that 
     breaching the debt ceiling will automatically or inevitably 
     lead to that result.

  Not only is this statement wrong, but it contradicts itself. I was in 
the House in 2011 when Congressman Mulvaney and his colleagues played 
political games with the debt limit. I can tell you that the stock 
market did not agree with his assessment that there wouldn't be an 
immediate negative impact.
  Here is what happened over the course of a week. The stock market 
lost $1 trillion in value--$1 trillion in value. Standard & Poor's 
downgraded the U.S. credit for the first time in our country's history.
  The Government Accountability Office later found that the standoff 
increased our borrowing costs by $1.3 billion, which Congressman 
Mulvaney and his Republican allies were all too happy to pass along to 
the American taxpayers to pay.
  Congressman Mulvaney's record clearly demonstrates why he is unfit to 
serve as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He wants 
to balance the budget on the backs of seniors and other vulnerable 
communities. He believes in governing from fiscal crisis to fiscal 
crisis. It isn't even clear if he supports the mission of the 
department he has been nominated to lead.
  Congressman Mulvaney joins a list of nominees--many of them confirmed 
at this point, sadly--ranging from an Education Secretary who does not 
believe in public education to a Secretary of Health and Human Services 
who wants to basically dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, and Social 
Security not far behind.
  I ask my colleagues, when does this long list of nominees come to a 
stop? I say, at the very least, someone with the power of the Director 
of OMB is where we should be drawing the line, unless we want one who 
thinks that defaulting on our national debt is not a problem, unless we 
think that hurting millions and millions of seniors on Social Security 
and Medicare is not a problem.
  I feel as though Congressman Mulvaney perhaps has not encountered 
enough people in his time in public service who have come to him to 
share their stories of the devastation that would come into their lives 
if these safety net programs were not there for them. I feel as though 
maybe if they have come to talk to him, he hasn't listened very well.
  I encourage my colleagues to hold the line at this point and to 
oppose this nomination. Congressman Mulvaney is not the person for OMB.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we are considering the nomination of 
Congressman Mulvaney to become the Director of the Office of Management 
and Budget. In the context of the review of this nomination, there has 
been a lot of talk about Congressman Mulvaney being a ``straight 
shooter.'' I do appreciate his courtesy meeting with me and his 
participation in our Budget Committee confirmation hearing last month, 
but I have to say that his 6-year record in the House of 
Representatives makes it completely impossible for me to vote for him 
as our Nation's chief budget officer.
  He may be a straight shooter, but he shoots straight at the wrong 
targets. One of them is the credit of the United States of America. In 
the House of Representatives, Congressman Mulvaney repeatedly put our 
economy in jeopardy by voting to let the Federal Government default on 
its obligations. He had an opportunity after his nomination, when he 
came before the Budget Committee, to pivot to a more mainstream and 
responsible position, but he refused. In an answer to a prehearing 
question he said:

       I do believe that defaulting on America's debts would have 
     great worldwide consequences. I do not believe that breaching 
     the debt ceiling will automatically or inevitably lead to 
     that result.

  Well, if you breach the debt ceiling, and if you honor the debt 
ceiling law, that means that our government would not have the money to 
pay all of its bills. Something has to be defaulted on or the debt 
ceiling is a complete chimera.
  Mr. Mulvaney's completely unsupported faith that a default on some of 
our Nation's obligations might not have grave consequences ignores 
basic economics, and it ignores the guidance

[[Page S1215]]

of liberal and conservative economists and experts alike, including 
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Benjamin Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Janet Yellen, 
Jack Lew, and many, many others.
  In fact, many of my Republican colleagues in this room were gravely 
concerned about what happened if we blew through the debt ceiling, and 
that we perhaps had made a bet we would be unable to pay. To put it 
simply, lenders tend to charge more for riskier loans, and a borrower 
that won't pay all of its bills on time is riskier than one that does.
  Tom Donahue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not someone that I 
ordinarily cite favorably here in the Senate. He is an inveterate enemy 
on doing anything on climate change. He and I disagree on a great 
number of issues, but even Tom Donahue noted that a small increase in 
treasury rates, which would happen as the result of a default, ``would 
translate into hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every year.''
  A member of the self-styled ``shutdown caucus,'' Mr. Mulvaney chooses 
to ignore the fact that his fiscal brinkmanship has already cost the 
American people. Playing around with the debt ceiling and shutting down 
the government are not free exercises. According to the Wall Street 
firm Standard and Poor's, the 16-day government shutdown that the 
Congressman helped orchestrate in 2013 cost the American economy $24 
billion. That is shooting straight at our economy just to prove a 
political point. That is not the kind of straight shooter that we need. 
Of course, that doesn't even mention the unnecessary stress that the 
shutdown caused for millions of government contractors who weren't sure 
they would be paid. There is pain and there is damage from the reckless 
decisions that Congressman Mulvaney seems to make so easily.
  Congressman Mulvaney's blind faith is not limited to economics. He 
disregards science too. In response to questions I asked him at the 
hearing, he said he is not convinced by the evidence presented that 
climate change is at least partly driven by human activity. Well, he 
ought to take a little look at what is going on at his home State 
university, the University of South Carolina, which has the School of 
the Earth, Ocean, and Environment. It actually teaches climate change. 
The University of South Carolina doesn't just believe climate change; 
it teaches it. It has a faculty who are involved in teaching the 
students about what is happening in our atmosphere and in our oceans as 
a result of climate change.
  This is not all that complicated stuff. We have known since President 
Lincoln was riding around Washington in his top hat that greenhouse 
gases in the atmosphere would catch heat in the atmosphere and would 
warm the Earth. That was a scientist named Tyndall. This is not news; 
this is 150 years old. It is simple, elemental chemistry, what happens 
when you ramp up the level of CO2 in the atmosphere and how 
that works in the oceans. The CO2 gets absorbed by the 
oceans. The oceans, as a result of absorbing CO2, become 
more acidic. What we are seeing now is the acidification of the ocean 
in the experience of humankind--indeed, in probably like 100 times the 
experience of humankind. You have to go back 50 years to find a similar 
rate of acidification of the ocean.
  Well, Mr. Mulvaney represents South Carolina. South Carolina is a 
coastal State. It is an ocean State. The University of South Carolina 
studies its oceans. They know ocean acidification is happening. When 
the Congressman says that he is not convinced by the evidence 
presented, something other than being a straight shooter is going on.
  According to NASA, for instance, the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration--which, by the way, right now is driving a rover around 
on the surface of the planet Mars. So can we perhaps stipulate that the 
scientists at NASA know what they are talking about? No other country 
in the world, no other society in human history has had the capacity to 
launch from Earth a rover, fly it through space to Mars, land it safely 
on that other planet, and drive it around. We can do that. NASA 
scientists did that. So when NASA scientists say that ``multiple 
studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 
percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree 
climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due 
to human activity''--so essentially all the experts agree.
  His home State university, the University of South Carolina, teaches 
this. They don't just listen to it, they teach it. They understand what 
is going on. But Mulvaney says he is not convinced. What is it going to 
take to convince him? How can you be a straight shooter when you ignore 
this kind of certainty in science, particularly when around this 
building you see the circling menace of the fossil fuel industry always 
with its guns out, always trying to shoot down anybody who will 
disagree with them, always trying to pretend that climate change isn't 
real, always trying to defend a $700 billion-a-year subsidy that they 
get at the expense of the rest of America? And because, thanks to 
Citizens United, they have the capacity to spend enormous, unlimited 
amounts of money in politics, they can spend a great deal to protect 
that $700 billion in subsidies, and they do.
  So we do nothing about climate change here. You can't get a 
Republican to talk seriously about climate change here. The oceans are 
changing off of their States, and they won't talk about climate change 
here. Their universities are saying that climate change is real. Their 
universities are teaching that climate change is real. And they won't 
say one thing about climate change here. And this so-called straight 
shooter is going to go along with that racket rather than listen to his 
home State universities and to the scientists at NASA, who have put the 
rover on Mars? Give me a break.
  While this man claims to be a deficit hawk, I asked him if he was 
ready to take on the hundreds of billions of dollars that go out the 
back door of our economy in tax breaks, in wasteful tax loopholes, in 
tax benefits for special interests, and he wouldn't give me a straight 
answer to the question.
  From his record in the House, it appears pretty clear that Mr. 
Mulvaney would rather balance the budget by going after seniors, by 
going after Social Security, by going after Medicare, by going after 
the families who have children on Medicaid because their children have 
lifetime disabilities that require Medicaid support. Those are the 
targets. That is who this so-called straight shooter wants to shoot at. 
But as for, say, the tax benefit that lets billionaires depreciate 
their private jets faster than the airline can, oh, no, can't touch 
that. As for the tax loophole that lets carried interest Wall Street 
billionaires pay lower tax rates than their doormen, than their 
janitors, oh, no, can't possibly touch that. As for the subsidies we 
give through the Tax Code to the fossil fuel industry every year when 
they are the most lucrative corporations in the history of the planet, 
oh, no, we can't possibly do that. Let's go after the old folks. That 
is not being a straight shooter; that is shooting at the wrong people.
  Someone who is a straight shooter when it happens to agree with the 
politics that they like but is a flatout denier when it doesn't, that 
is not my idea of a straight shooter.
  Congressman Mulvaney is possessed by conservative ideology that I 
strongly believe is going to prevent him ever from working across party 
lines on the budget, on health care, or on other major issues that he 
will have to face at OMB. His counsel is likely to pull President Trump 
further out to the extremes, which already divide this country.
  And by the way, to all of those voters who voted for President Trump 
because he said that he was different from all the other Republican 
candidates; that he was different from the other 15 candidates because 
he wasn't going to hurt Social Security and he wasn't going to hurt 
Medicare; that he was different from all the others because he was 
going to protect Social Security and he was going to protect Medicare--
folks, I think you were sold a bill of goods because when you look at 
Congressman Price and when you look at Congressman Mulvaney and when 
you look at their records, you see the records of people who have 
targeted Social Security and targeted Medicare for years. They may be 
straight shooters, but they have Social Security and Medicare in the 
crosshairs. Those are not the right targets for us to be shooting

[[Page S1216]]

at in a tax system that is riddled with special interest loopholes and 
in a country that is so divided and where the poor and the elderly are 
struggling compared to the people who are at the very top, who have 
basically gathered all of the economic benefit of our growth since the 
great recession.
  So, for all of those reasons, I will be completely unable to support 
this person's confirmation. I am sorry because I would like to have 
seen the President make the slightest gesture in the direction of 
bipartisanship, the slightest gesture in the direction of compromise, 
the slightest gesture in the direction of reasonableness, but out of 
this White House, on the civilian Cabinet, we have seen nothing like 
that.
  It is a Cabinet that is completely controlled by rightwing ideology 
and appalling special interests. Usually, the special interests are the 
most dangerous and worst special interests that the agency has to 
regulate. Instead of accepting that as the agency's responsibility, he 
has brought that special interest in, brought the fox into the 
henhouse. If there was ever a fox in the OMB henhouse to take our 
Social Security folks and our Medicare folks and hurt them, it is this 
Congressman.
  I cannot accept his nomination. I will vote against it.
  I yield the floor.

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