[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1510-S1511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before I get into the substance of my 
remarks, I was listening to our Republican leader talking about 
compromise--not that he ever engaged in very much of it when he was 
leader last year--but compromise requires something to compromise over. 
We have nothing from the administration, nothing on infrastructure, 
nothing on trade, nothing even on ACA.
  You want to sit down and talk? Let's see what your plans are. See if 
you can get your own act together before you are pointing the finger at 
Democrats.
  The President's speech--let me say this: This President's speech was 
detached from this President's reality. The President, in this speech 
and in so many others, talks like a populist. He talks to the working 
people of America and promises them things. When he governs, it is 
nothing like that at all. He is favoring the very powerful special 
interests, making their lives easier, and putting more burdens on the 
backs of the middle class and people trying to get to the middle class.
  A metaphor for this was his speech at the inauguration. He gave a 
speech--also aimed at the working people--and within an hour after 
that, he signed an Executive order that helped the banks and added 
about $500 to the mortgage of every new homeowner.
  You can't just talk the talk, Mr. President. You have to walk the 
walk. On issue after issue, we haven't seen anything--or negative 
things for the working class.
  We heard about infrastructure. A month ago, the Democrats put 
together an infrastructure plan of $1 trillion. It was a strong plan. 
It has a lot of support throughout the country.
  Where is the President's infrastructure plan? We haven't heard a peep 
about it. Some of his White House folks leaked that we will not get to 
infrastructure until next year. Mentioning it in a speech--
infrastructure--is not going to employ a single new worker.
  What about trade? The President talked about trade, putting America 
first. My views tend to be closer to President Trump's than they were 
to President Bush's or President Obama's on trade. Again, what we hear 
in the speech and what the President actually does are contradictory.
  Throughout his campaign, the President took an issue near and dear to 
my heart and to the heart of Senator Graham of South Carolina--China 
manipulating its currency. He had said over and over again in the 
campaign: On the first day I am President, I will sign an Executive 
order that labels China a currency manipulator.
  They are. We know they manipulate their currency, and it has cost 
America hundreds of thousands, if not millions of good-paying jobs and 
caused a load of wealth to flow from our country to theirs.
  This one didn't require congressional approval. This one didn't 
require a single Democrat to join in. All the President had to do was 
sign the order. We are now 40 days into this administration. Not only 
has he still not signed the order, but he is saying he may back off.
  Last night, the President talked about research, wiping out rare 
diseases. Yet with the budget they proposed, given that they want to 
slash domestic discretionary spending by tens of billions of dollars 
and exempt veterans and Homeland Security, there is no alternative to 
the fact that the President in his budget, at the same time he is 
talking about medical research, is going to slash it.
  Education. He talked about the great issue of education. The same 
thing: His budget is going to slash education to smithereens, hurting 
our students, hurting our teachers, hurting our schools.
  Perhaps the most hypocritical of all was draining the swamp. That was 
one of the President's main themes when he was President-elect: Drain 
the swamp. Look who is in his Cabinet. His Secretary of Treasury, his 
Secretary of Commerce, and his NEC adviser are from Wall Street.
  Is this the same man who said that we are going to go after Wall 
Street if we get elected? Wall Street is running the economic show. The 
Cabinet is filled with bankers. The Cabinet is filled with 
billionaires, not people who feel for the average American. In fact, if 
you add up the net wealth of his Cabinet, it has more wealth than one-
third of the American people total--close to 100 million people. That 
is cleaning the swamp? Give me a break.
  The problem with the President's speech is very simple: His actions 
don't match his words. His words in the campaign are not matched by his 
actions. His words in his inaugural speech are not matched by his 
actions, nor are his words in his speech last night.
  It was so funny that he spoke to a bunch of cosmopolitan news 
anchors, and he mentioned that maybe he will change his views on 
immigration. The media got into a buzz about that. Then, the speech he 
gave was one of the most virulently anti-immigrant speeches that we 
have heard any President ever give. He is saying one thing, doing 
another.
  It is not the hypocrisy that bugs us, although it is there. It is the 
fact that he is not helping middle-class America. It is the fact that 
he is not making it easier for more people to travel and get into the 
middle class because he seems to have governed from the hard, hard 
right. The hard right is very far away from where the average American 
is.
  Mr. Mulvaney's idea of a budget--maybe 10 percent of America, mostly 
ideologues, would support it. It is even far away from where the 
average Republican is. Yesterday, when the President proposed his 
budget, we had one of my colleagues on the Republican side saying it is 
dead on arrival. We had the majority leader saying that you can't cut 
the State Department foreign aid in half. He is far over, and that is 
hurting him and hurting us, hurting the American people.
  The first 40 days have been a pretty rough 40 days for President 
Trump. It hasn't worked out very well. Why? It is not because he hasn't 
given a few good speeches. It is because he is governing from the hard 
right. He is governing far away from what the American people want. He 
is governing way off to the extreme.
  A speech isn't going to change that. A speech isn't going to create 
one job or one infrastructure plan or one trade law that makes our 
trade laws, which need to be changed, fairer. No, no, it takes action. 
Unfortunately, when the President takes action, it is quite the 
opposite of what he says in the speech on the issues that affect the 
middle-class and working-class people.
  If President Trump does not change how he governs--how he governs, 
not what speeches he gives--in the near future, then these 40 days, 
which have been of tumult, of contradiction, of turning one's back on 
the working class, will be 6 months and then will be a year and then 
will be 2 years.
  The problem with the Presidency does not lie in the speeches the 
President gives, even though I might object

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to a lot of the things he puts in them. It lies in how he governs, and 
he is not governing well. He is not governing down the middle. He is 
not governing in a way that lends itself to compromise. We Democrats 
will continue to hold the President accountable. That is our job. That 
is what the Constitution says we should do, and we will continue until 
we see the President change his course in governing. No speech is going 
to change that or affect that.

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