[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 209 (Thursday, December 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8196-S8199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FAREWELL TO THE SENATE
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, this is my final speech on the floor of
the U.S. Senate. I have come to the floor many times, as we all have.
We come to the floor to cast our votes on bills and amendments. We come
here to discuss and debate the issues that are important to our States
and to the country. We introduce and explain legislation. We talk about
our States and what we learned on our latest visit to a community
health center, a farm, or a small business. What we don't talk about
all that often is the work of all the men and women on our staffs who
make all of this possible.
I have been fortunate to have had a dedicated, hard-working staff
both in Washington and in Minnesota, and I have no doubt that they will
go on to do great things and to serve our Nation well.
I am also very lucky to have a wonderful family who has stood by me
throughout the good times and the tough times of being a Senator. As
Senators, we have packed schedules. There are late nights. There are
difficult votes on divisive issues and a lot of time invested in better
understanding the challenges our constituents face every day. All too
often, that important work doesn't leave enough time for our families.
I am grateful for my wife, my children, and their spouses, who stood by
me and who have helped me to do my work effectively.
Finally, as I leave the Senate, I take great comfort in knowing that
my successor, Senator-designate Tina Smith, has a well-earned
reputation for being a smart, diligent, hard-working public servant,
and I have no doubt that Senator Smith will serve Minnesotans and all
Americans exceptionally well.
When most people think about politics, they think about arguments--
the arguments they have around the dinner table, the arguments they
have online, and most of all, the arguments we have here in Washington.
That is a big part of the reason why a lot of people just don't like
politics.
Often, the debate here in Washington can sometimes seem arcane and
tough to understand. Other times--especially in recent years--it can be
so bitter that it doesn't even feel like we are trying to resolve
anything, just venting our spleens at each other. I get that. I get why
people want us to stop arguing and start doing stuff.
But since I am leaving the Senate, I thought I would take a big risk
and say a few words in favor of arguments. After all, there is no
single magic solution that can bring all 100 of us together because
there is no one set of values that brought all of us here in the first
place. I think many of my colleagues have heard me talk about what
brought me to politics and what makes me a Democrat, and it is my wife
Fran.
When she was 17 months old, her father, a decorated World War II
veteran, died in a car accident, leaving her mom widowed at age 29 with
five kids. There was one sibling younger than Franni, Bootsie, who was
3 months old. Franni's family made it--barely, but they made it--thanks
to Social Security survivor benefits. Sometimes they had to turn the
heat off in the winter. This was in Portland, ME. Sometimes--often--
they were hungry because there wasn't enough food. But they made it.
Franni and her three sisters all went to college on combinations of
scholarships and Pell grants. At the time, a full Pell grant paid for
about 80 percent of a public college education, but today it only pays
about 35 percent.
When Bootsie went to high school, my mother-in-law got a GI loan for
$300 and went to college. She got three more loans, graduated from
college, and became an elementary school teacher. And because she
taught title I kids--poor kids--all her loans were forgiven.
My brother-in-law went into the Coast Guard and became an electrical
engineer.
Every member of Franni's family became a productive member of society
and a member of the middle class.
They tell you in this country to pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
but first you have to have the boots. The Federal Government, through
Social Security survivor benefits and Pell grants and the GI bill and
title I, gave my wife's family the boots. That is why I am a Democrat.
That is why I am a Democrat.
Over the years, I have heard Democrats and Republicans talk about
their own values, the things they believe brought them to politics, the
things that make them care about what happens here. I have learned so
much from listening to the arguments we have in this country and the
arguments we have here in this Chamber. I have learned from
Republicans. I have learned to respect but not always agree with their
opinions, and I have learned how their backgrounds can lead them to
reach, in good faith, a conclusion that I never could have imagined.
And, of course, I have learned so much from my fellow Democrats.
But the person I learned the most from is someone who isn't here. For
12 years, the seat I currently occupy was held by Paul Wellstone. As I
have said before, Paul was a tireless, passionate champion for working
families--for working families in Minnesota and across the Nation. He
fought for veterans, for farmers, and for those who simply needed a
voice.
Paul was my friend. Paul had a saying that I think perfectly
represents the values and the principles for which he fought. He used
to say: ``We all do better when we all do better.'' That was Paul's
creed. What Paul meant by that is that the whole country--the working
poor, the middle class, and the well off--the whole country does better
when each and every one of us is able to contribute to and participate
fairly in our economy and in our democracy.
I think Paul was right, but not everybody does. Some people's values
are different. Some people believe that those at the top are there for
a reason and that they shouldn't have to concern themselves with what
is going on in the lives of people who haven't been so lucky or even so
accomplished. Some people believe honestly--honestly, legitimately,
believe--that not everyone deserves to have the same standing in this
country. They believe that your standing as a citizen should depend, in
part, on where you were born or what you believe or whom you love or
what you do for a living. Some people believe that at some fundamental
level, we are all in this on our own. I don't agree with any of those
values, but I respect that some people hold them, and that is why
arguments matter.
When we argue, whether it is across the fence with your neighbor or
on a cable news show or here on the floor of the Senate, it can help us
sharpen our ability to articulate what we want and challenge us to
examine our own views with a more critical eye and help highlight the
choice for the American people, because, after all, in a democracy, the
people get to choose.
[[Page S8197]]
As I prepare to leave the Senate, I have been thinking a lot about my
values and Paul's values--the values we share with many of my
colleagues here in the Senate and many of the progressive activists I
have met and worked alongside of in Minnesota and around the country.
That is because, regrettably, the policies pursued by the Trump
administration and congressional Republicans today could not stand in a
starker contrast to the principles Paul championed and the values I
have fought for during my time here in the Senate.
The values being advanced by the President and his allies in Congress
simply don't represent my belief that our economy, our democracy, and
our country work best when they work for everyone. Indeed, the values
propelling the Republican agenda today are about consolidating
political and economic power in the hands of corporations and the very
wealthy.
Just take the tax bill Congress passed this week. At virtually each
and every step of the process, Republicans drafting this bill chose to
embrace the failed trickle-down policies of the past, crafting an
enormous--an enormous--giveaway that benefits their corporate campaign
backers and wealthy donors. For instance, according to the nonpartisan
Tax Policy Center, by 2027, 83 percent of the benefits in the
Republican tax bill will accrue to the top 1 percent of income earners;
that is, people who make more than $912,000 a year. Eighty-three
percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent. Do we really need any
other data point? Well, here is one: At the same time, the Republican
tax bill would increase taxes on 35 million low- and middle-income
families.
During his inaugural address, President Trump vowed that ``the
forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.''
But the Republican tax bill represents a slap in the face to those
forgotten men and women. I guess the President forgot about them.
Make no mistake, the Senate-passed version of the Republican tax bill
was deeply flawed, but when Republicans later attempted to reconcile
differences between the House and Senate bills--a process that took
place behind closed doors--even more favors were doled out to
Republican donors and to special interests. New rules were created to
give real estate developers like President Trump and his son-in-law the
ability to pay less tax on passthrough income. The top individual rate,
which applies to millionaires and billionaires, was cut to 37 percent--
a rate lower than either the House or Senate versions of the bill. And
provisions in the original bills that were designed to stop foreign
corporations from avoiding taxes by shifting their profits overseas--a
practice known as earnings stripping--were dropped altogether.
The problem in this country is not that the wealthy aren't doing well
enough. After all, the top 1 percent of the country's population
controls nearly 40 percent of its wealth. The problem is that too many
working families have been left out of the economic growth that the top
1 percent has enjoyed in recent years. But rather than use the tax
reform bill as an opportunity to help those working families,
Republicans have instead decided to shower corporations and wealthy
donors with tax breaks and special favors.
The tax bill didn't just come out of the blue--quite the contrary.
This tax bill comes on the heels of countless Republican attempts to
shred policies that offer protection to working families and the
environment. But corporations and wealthy donors who support my
Republican colleagues believe that these policies stand in the way of
their profits.
Take healthcare, for example. Despite President Trump's campaign
promise that ``We're going to have insurance for everybody,'' when his
administration attempted to deliver on that promise, House Republicans
devised and passed a bill that would have resulted in 23 million fewer
people having health insurance, including 14 million people who rely on
Medicaid. Facing unprecedented public outcry, Republican Senators
eventually proposed a narrower bill--one that didn't repeal and replace
the Affordable Care Act outright but instead undermined some of its
foundational provisions. But this narrower Senate bill still would have
left 16 million more Americans uninsured, all while spiking premiums by
20 percent, according to CBO.
The American people continued to fight, demanding that the Senate
kill the bill. Thanks to the incredibly hard work of organizers and
activists, including the American Medical Association and everyday
Americans, that is exactly what happened. Republican attempts to repeal
the ACA failed, but it seems my Republican colleagues have not learned
their lesson.
Finding themselves unable to sustain an open assault on the
Affordable Care Act, they instead included a measure in the tax bill
that will repeal an essential component of that law--the individual
mandate. As a result, 13 million fewer Americans will have health
insurance in the years to come. But that doesn't matter to President
Trump and his allies, who claim they need to repeal this central pillar
of ObamaCare in order to pay for the massive tax cuts that their
wealthy donors demand.
Those same wealthy donors also demand that Republicans turn a blind
eye to climate change--an existential threat to humanity. Climate
change is not just an environmental problem. Climate change stands to
affect virtually every aspect of our lives, posing a great threat to
public health, national security, our country's infrastructure, and our
economy. Circumstances require that we take immediate action in order
to protect the welfare of future generations.
Almost every Republican in Congress refuses to take the issue of
climate change seriously. They continue to deny the underlying evidence
and science behind it, even as Americans suffer the devastating
consequences of their denial. This year alone, hurricanes ravaged
Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and wildfires
raged across the West, most recently in Los Angeles.
We know that climate change makes these extreme weather events worse,
and this is just the beginning. What we are witnessing is the beginning
of a new normal--a new normal that this country simply cannot endure.
It doesn't have to be this way. It is possible to address climate
change while at the same time growing our economy and creating jobs.
During the Obama administration, the Federal Government increased
research and development investments in clean energy technology, both
through tax credits designed to incentivize investment and through the
energy title that I was proud to help write in the farm bill, which
allowed people in rural America to participate in the clean energy
revolution. Those investments paid off. Since 2009, the cost of wind
power has decreased by 66 percent, and the cost of solar power has
dropped by 85 percent. But we need to do more.
I championed an energy efficiency standard that would require
utilities to become more efficient. I led legislation to encourage
energy storage, a game changer that allows wind and solar to be used
when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. I pushed to
deploy distributed energy that makes our grid more resilient and
reliable.
Rather than join me and my Democratic colleagues in confronting the
challenge of climate change by driving innovation, Republicans ordered
a retreat. At the behest of the fossil fuel industry and other
corporate interests, Republicans have put forward nominees for key
environmental posts who cut their teeth defending corporate polluters,
not enforcing the laws that keep our air and water clean, and they have
pushed an agenda that guts funding for science and innovation. The
Republican strategy of denial and obfuscation isn't just an affront to
the government; it is an affront to common sense.
The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have never let
science or common sense stand in the way of ideology. Time and again,
they have acted to roll back evidence-based, commonsense protections
put in place to improve the lives of minority or marginalized
communities, including women and LGBT people.
For example, in October, the Trump administration announced a new
rule that guts a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires
health insurance plans to cover birth control free of charge--a policy
that has benefited more than 62 million American women.
[[Page S8198]]
The ability to access affordable reproductive healthcare has a powerful
effect on the choices that women and families make every day--choices
about whether to finish college, buy a home, or start a business.
Ensuring that women have access to contraception is vital to the
economic security of our families, and that is why I filed a brief in
support of the ACA's contraceptive coverage requirement when it was
challenged before the Supreme Court.
Despite the millions of women who have benefited from the policy, and
despite the science demonstrating that restricting access to
contraception has negative health consequences, the Trump
administration has eviscerated the policy.
In February, the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidelines
that instructed schools on how to protect transgender students under a
Federal law called title IX. LGBT students deserve to learn in an
environment free from discrimination, and they deserve to be treated
with dignity and respect. But far too often, LGBT kids, particularly
transgender kids, experience bullying and harassment. When that
happens, those students are deprived of an equal education. That is why
I led the Senate in calling on the Obama administration to issue those
guidelines back in 2015. Nonetheless, the Trump administration decided
to scrap that guidance--a callous and mean-spirited decision that sent
a terrible message to LGBT children and their parents and took away a
tool designed to protect our children. It is our responsibility, not
just as Senators but as adults--as adults--to protect our children, not
turn a blind eye when they face prejudice and cruelty.
Nothing that Republicans have done is more galling, nothing poses a
greater threat to the fabric of our democracy than their deliberate and
sustained attack on the right to vote. Let's start with the Supreme
Court's disastrous 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a 5-to-4
decision in which the Court's conservative Justices effectively gutted
the Voting Rights Act and eliminated a check on States with a history
of discrimination at the polls.
After the Shelby County decision, States swiftly began to enact harsh
restrictions on the right to vote, in many cases citing the myth of so-
called voter fraud as justification.
Take North Carolina, for example. Just a few months after Shelby
County, the State enacted one of the Nation's strictest voter ID laws.
Without any evidence, the State described the new restrictions as
necessary to prevent fraud. Without the protections of the Voting
Rights Act, those changes went into effect, keeping poor and minority
voters from casting a ballot.
When North Carolina's restrictions were eventually challenged in
court, the Fourth Circuit found that the primary purpose of the
restrictions wasn't to fight fraud but to make it harder for Black
people to vote. The court found that ``the new provisions target
African Americans with almost surgical precision.''
The fact that North Carolina's restrictions stand as a blatant
example of race discrimination is undeniable, but the strategy behind
adopting such harsh restrictions is even more insidious. The strategy
here is designed to ensure that voters who don't agree with their
candidates or their policies aren't able to vote against them.
Paul Wellstone's words are more important today than ever before:
``We all do better when we all do better.'' I believe that to my core.
But the policies pursued by President Trump and his allies are not
about lifting people out of poverty or about giving the politically
powerless a louder voice in our democracy. These policies are intended
to line the pockets of wealthy donors and to protect the power of those
who already wield outsized influence in our democracy. That is a far
cry from Paul's creed.
When I think about what has gone wrong here, when I reflect on how
this country has strayed so far from the values that I believe a
majority of Americans share, I have to say that I think there is
something wrong with the way we are arguing, and it started long before
2016. Lurking behind each of those issues isn't just a difference of
opinion or a difference of values. There is something far worse: a lie.
Take, for example, the Trump administration's efforts to suppress
votes. Shortly after winning the Presidential election, then President-
Elect Trump was confronted with the unpleasant fact that he lost the
popular vote. He tweeted: ``In addition to winning the Electoral
College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the
millions of people who voted illegally.''
Let's be clear. President Trump lost the popular vote by more than
2.8 million votes. What he claimed in that tweet was that nearly 3
million fraudulent votes were cast. In fact, he later claimed that
between 3 and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular
vote, citing no evidence.
There were 138 million votes cast in the 2016 Presidential election.
State election and law enforcement officials found virtually no
credible evidence of fraud, and no States--not one--recorded any
indication of widespread fraud--none. But that didn't stop the Trump
administration from quickly turning the President's tweets into policy.
The White House created a new commission to investigate the President's
wild and unsubstantiated claim--a commission led by Kansas Secretary of
State Kris Kobach, a rightwing extremist who has made a career out of
trafficking in the voter fraud myth and who was fined for repeatedly
lying to a Federal court in voter ID litigation. When Kobach was asked
whether he believed the President's claim that millions of people voted
illegally, he said: We may never know the answer to that question.
Really?
This episode could almost be considered funny if the ramifications
weren't so deadly serious. Kobach's voter fraud commission requested
sensitive information about voters--including names, dates of birth,
party registration, and voting history--from all 50 States. This is
information that could lay the groundwork for disenfranchising scores
of eligible voters, which is why more than 40 States refused to comply
with that request. At the same time, the Trump-Sessions Justice
Department quickly dropped legal challenges to discriminatory voting
practices in States, further signaling that protecting the right to
vote will no longer be a priority of the Justice Department. It is all
based on a lie--and not a lie President Trump came up with. Rightwing
conservatives have been raising a false alarm about so-called voter
fraud for years despite the fact that no credible evidence has ever
been produced to demonstrate that it is a real problem.
Or take the Trump administration's attacks on LGBT rights. Again and
again, lurking behind these polices are lies--the lie that advocates of
LGBT rights want to trample on people's religious freedom, the lie that
families led by a gay or a lesbian couple don't provide safe
environments for children, the lie that allowing transgender people to
use the appropriate bathroom opens the door to sexual assault.
President Trump didn't invent these lies, but he and his administration
proudly repeat them.
Or take the attacks on science, especially climate science. We now
have enough evidence to conclude that climate change is real, and it is
manmade. It is a threat to our Nation's security and is an existential
threat to the planet. Defense Secretary Mattis knows this; yet, for
years, so-called scientists who have been funded by industry have been
hard at work in casting doubt on the well-established scientific
consensus. Heck, a recent Washington Post report revealed that Trump
administration officials have prohibited the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention--our Nation's premier public health and research
institute--from using the terms ``evidence-based'' and ``science-
based'' in budget planning documents. President Trump didn't launch the
war on science, but now he is leading the charge.
Or take healthcare. President Trump promised that everyone would have
insurance, but an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office revealed that under the House Republican healthcare bill, 23
million fewer people would have had health insurance than are currently
covered today--23 million people. To add insult to injury, the House
bill would have hit the most vulnerable among us, and it would have hit
them the hardest.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, 14 million of the 23
million people who would have lost coverage
[[Page S8199]]
under the House Republicans' plan would have been Medicaid
beneficiaries.
That is right. Despite candidate Trump's assurances that
``everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken
care of now,'' the Republican bill would have cut funding to Medicaid--
a vital safety net program that ensures that our seniors, people with
disabilities, pregnant women, and families with children have access to
the healthcare they need. On top of that, the Republican plan would
have driven up the costs of premiums, with older and sicker people
having experienced the deepest increases.
Indeed, the healthcare debate has long been predicated on lies--lies
that ``well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does'' is
provide abortion services, the lie that women rely on birth control
only because they are sexually promiscuous, the lie that the Affordable
Care Act is collapsing under its own weight when, in fact, the Trump
administration and the Republicans here in Congress have been doing
everything they can do to sabotage it.
Then there is the tax debate. Over the last year, Republicans have
repeatedly claimed that they would advance policies that are designed
to benefit middle-class families, not the wealthy. President Trump
pledged not to forget the ``forgotten men and women of our country.''
Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury, promised that the
Republican tax plan would help the middle class. He vowed that any tax
cuts for upper income earners would be offset by getting rid of
deductions that benefit the wealthy. That is what he said, that ``there
will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.'' Again, 83 percent of
the benefits in the Republican tax bill go to the richest 1 percent.
What he said is not true.
Just the other day, the White House Press Secretary claimed that
President Trump, himself, will pay more because of this bill. We don't
know exactly what the effect will be on his personal finances because
the White House has refused to release his tax returns. They have
claimed in another lie that he cannot release them because they are
under audit. You can release tax returns while you are under audit.
What we do know is that tax breaks in the Republican bill for real
estate developers like President Trump and his family will save him
millions upon millions of dollars.
I could go on and on.
Before I came to the Senate, I was known as something of an obsessive
on the subject of honesty in public discourse, but as I leave the
Senate, I have to admit that it feels as though we are losing the war
on truth. Maybe it is already lost. If that is the case, if that is
what happens, then we have lost the ability to have the kinds of
arguments that have helped to build consensus--I see Lamar Alexander
here; we have done that on the HELP Committee; I thank the chairman for
when we have done that--or at least to have helped the American people
make informed choices about the issues that affect their lives.
So what is to be done? Who will stand up and fight for a more honest
debate--to insist that even though we have a different set of opinions,
we cannot honorably advance our competing agendas unless we use the
same set of facts? I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
will stand up for truth. The thing is, I have spent enough time with my
Republican friends over the last 8\1/2\ years to know that they are
motivated by values just like Democrats. I just hope that they will
fight for those values forthrightly.
At the end of the day, it is going to be up to the American people
just as it has always been. We will always have the democracy we
deserve, if not the government we want. It is going to take ordinary
Americans deciding to become more informed consumers of political news
and opinion and deciding that they are willing to be a part of the
argument themselves instead of, simply, tuning out all of the noise. If
they do, I know that we will get this country back on track.
In October, 15 years after we lost Paul, I took to the Senate floor
to remember him and to celebrate his life. Paul understood better than
anyone I know the meaning and the power of politics, and I think he
would have a lot to say about where we find ourselves today.
Paul said:
Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money.
Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning.
Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.
Even in the face of everything that is happening today, I still
believe in Paul's words: ``Politics is about the improvement of
people's lives.'' I know those words to be true because I know that the
American people still believe in justice and equality and opportunity,
and I see evidence of that every day.
I saw it in January when more than 4 million people across the United
States joined in the Women's March. They stood in solidarity with their
mothers and sisters and daughters and wives.
I saw it later that same month after President Trump issued an
Executive order that sought to ban travelers from Muslim-majority
countries from entering our country. Hundreds of lawyers responded to
the call to help. They rushed to airports and offered their services in
support of affected families.
I saw it in May when a transgender boy in Wisconsin who was
discriminated against by his school had the courage to take them to
court, and he won.
I saw it in September when tens of thousands of Americans mobilized
in opposition to attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and
succeeded in killing the bill.
I also saw it at the ballot box when voters in Virginia and Alabama
resisted the temptation to give in to anger and cynicism and, instead,
exercised their right to vote.
``Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.'' The American
people know that to be true, and they fill me with hope for our
country.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask for 3 minutes to talk about my
colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
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