[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 209 (Thursday, December 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8191-S8192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE REPUBLICAN-LED SENATE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Finally, Mr. President, since this is the last time I 
might be able to address this Chamber before the end of the year--let's 
hope so--I would like to look back at what the Senate has accomplished 
this year. The long and short of it, though, is that the Senate has not 
accomplished much to be proud of.
  Despite winning only a slim majority in the last election--a 
condition that made this year ripe for cooperation between the 
parties--the Republicans used their power not to seek consensus or 
bipartisanship but, rather, to try to jam through a partisan agenda.
  My friend the majority leader once promised that if he were ever 
given the majority, he would return the body to regular order. He 
cautioned against the Senate becoming an ``assembly line for one 
party's partisan legislative agenda.'' That is what Mitch McConnell 
said a few years ago. Sadly, that is exactly what the Senate has become 
under his leadership this year. For a man who professed to love the 
Senate and relish bipartisanship, this is probably the most partisan 
Senate that I have served in in all the years I have been here, and we 
have departed from regular order and the customs of the Senate in ways 
never seen before. For what end? Well, this Chamber, under Republican 
leadership, has devoted itself to furthering the interests of the 
wealthy and powerful, while ignoring or harming the interests of the 
middle class and working America.

[[Page S8192]]

  Republicans will argue that they had a great year, pointing to three 
things--Judge Gorsuch, the use of the Congressional Review Act to roll 
back regulations, and their tax bill. All three of those things help 
the rich and they will help corporations, but they won't help the 
middle class.
  Senate Republicans engaged in historic obstruction to keep a Supreme 
Court seat open so the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society could 
pick a Justice who would rule on the side of corporations instead of 
people.
  Senate Republicans jammed through Congressional Review Act bills that 
rolled back protections for women, students, and workers, while lifting 
requirements placed on bad actors in the big oil, gas, mining, and gun 
industries.
  They capped the year by passing a tax bill that provides huge tax 
breaks for the rich and biggest corporations, while providing crumbs 
and even tax hikes for the middle class.
  They tried for months to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would 
send costs soaring for millions of Americans and cause millions more to 
lose coverage.
  They failed to fully authorize CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance 
Program, and failed to rebuild our infrastructure, despite the 
President's promises.
  The stock market is up, but wages are flat or nearly flat. The 
President and Republicans promised that they would stop outsourcing, 
and that hasn't happened. Even companies the President said he would 
personally save have sent jobs to Mexico, leaving families in the 
Midwest and across the country without the income they need this 
holiday season.
  Time and time again, the middle class was an afterthought or simply 
forgotten by Senate Republicans and President Trump. That has been the 
story of the year. Republicans haven't accomplished much, but what they 
have accomplished has only benefited the wealthy and well connected.
  The Senate's record this year has exposed the faux populism at the 
center of President Trump's political identity. Although he rode into 
office promising to help the forgotten man and woman, those are exactly 
the people he has forgotten, abandoning them in favor of wealthy 
special interests. Populism, unfortunately, under President Trump, has 
been traded for plutocracy.
  The millions of Americans in 2016 who were frustrated at a Washington 
that didn't work for them feel more frustrated today, and the millions 
of working men and women who voted for President Trump--many of them 
are already feeling betrayed.
  We hope that the future will be different and that our Republican 
friends realize that their legislative and political goals are better 
served by bipartisanship and compromise rather than gridlock and 
strife. If they do, we are willing and ready to work with them, but if 
they don't, voters will have a chance to move our country in a 
dramatically different direction in 2018. We are already seeing a 
yearning for that new direction in elections in Virginia, New Jersey, 
Tennessee, and even in deep red Alabama. If the Republicans continue to 
hurt the middle class and give handouts to big corporations and the 
wealthy, they are in for a reckoning next November.
  I yield the floor, and I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for his 
courtesy.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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