[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 136 (Thursday, August 16, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5679-S5681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Republican Accomplishments

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today we will confirm two more appellate 
judges, bringing our total to 26 since the Trump administration began. 
This has been one of the hallmarks of the President and of our agenda, 
and it is critically important. So I thank the President, as well as 
all of our colleagues who have worked so hard to fill these vacancies 
on our Nation's courts.
  There have been many accomplishments this last year and a half, but 
perhaps the greatest has been the new, energized state of our economy. 
This is a direct, tangible impact on the quality of life of all 
Americans. The Declaration of Independence designates, among the 
unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. I like to think that by getting our foot off the neck of the 
economy, by repealing unnecessary overregulation, and by cutting taxes 
and letting people keep more of what they earn, we are pursuing those 
unalienable rights on behalf of the American people--certainly the 
pursuit of happiness.
  The Labor Department reported earlier this month that unemployment 
had fallen to 3.9 percent in July, which is close to the 18-year low 
that was achieved in May of this year. One of the highlights of the 
jobs report was that high school dropouts and others who struggled 
during the Obama-era recession are doing significantly better. Their 
unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent, the lowest since the government 
started collecting data on those without a high school diploma. Of 
course, this is pointed out particularly at a time when labor is in 
short supply; that is, there are a lot of good-paying jobs for which 
there are not trained workers who could qualify for those jobs. I think 
it makes it incumbent on us, at all levels of government--Federal, 
State, and local--to do more to help train workers so they qualify for 
these good, well-paying jobs that right now are going unfilled because 
of a shortage of trained workers. That is one of the imperatives, I 
believe, of a tight job market caused by a booming economy.
  The July report showed that the economy grew by 4.1 percent in the 
second quarter. That is an incredible number. The economy is literally 
on fire, and that is a good thing for the American people. All of this 
positive economic news is complemented by the tax reform package I 
mentioned a moment ago that we passed last December, which has become 
perhaps the biggest game changer of all, opening doors and offering new 
opportunities for American workers.
  In order to make the rates of taxation in America competitive 
globally, we lowered the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent. This is 
something that Democrats, like President Obama, as well as Republicans, 
have supported in the past, recognizing that we were chasing investment 
overseas and any earnings on investments overseas were not coming back 
to the United States to be invested here in workers and infrastructure. 
This was a self-inflicted wound that we have now cured. We also were 
successful in helping working families by doubling the child tax 
credit.
  One of the tangible benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that 
more than 700 companies have used the tax savings to benefit their 
employees as well as their customers. They have announced pay raises 
and 401(k) retirement match increases. Utility bills have been cut for 
seniors and those on fixed incomes, because when investor-owned 
utilities got their tax rates lowered, they had to lower rates that 
they charge on utility bills.
  This legislation has resulted in bonuses and other benefits for 
American workers, perhaps too numerous to mention, but it is worth 
mentioning because, unfortunately, in the fog that represents the news 
coverage that comes out of Washington, DC, sometimes these tangible 
benefits are overlooked. It is important for us to demonstrate that we 
are keeping faith with the American people--the people who sent us 
here--and we are doing the work of governing in a way that directly and 
tangibly benefits each of them--something, again, that gets lost in the 
fog that emanates here in Washington.
  But it is not just the economy that deserves mentioning. The 
judiciary is the third and coequal branch of government. I believe the 
confirmation of

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Federal judges is one of the most important things that we do here in 
the Senate. It is not something the House of Representatives has any 
role in. Under the Constitution, it is our responsibility to provide 
advice and consent on Federal judges, and who gets selected as a 
Federal judge and the judicial philosophy they have is one of the 
reasons why I believe President Trump won the election over Hillary 
Clinton. People understood, based on a list that the President made 
public before he was elected, the type of people he would be looking at 
to fill these judicial vacancies--judges who would faithfully interpret 
the Constitution and would say what the law is, not what their personal 
policy preferences might be or what they wish the law to be. That is 
our job, and that is the reason we run for election in the political 
branches of government--the executive and legislative branches.
  Judges were, in the words of Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist 
papers, called the least dangerous branch. By that he meant that their 
job was to figuratively call balls and strikes. In other words, they 
were not seen as policymakers, or else they never would have given 
judges lifetime tenure. They are insulated from politics. It is 
precisely because they are insulated from politics that they should 
perform the critical but limited role of interpreting the Constitution 
and laws as written.
  Of course, the most notable example of a judicial confirmation we 
have had during the last year and a half was the confirmation of Neil 
Gorsuch to fill the seat left by Justice Scalia. But now, on September 
4, Chairman Grassley on the Judiciary Committee has announced that we 
will begin the hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to succeed 
Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
  But it is not just the Supreme Court that is important. It is the 
courts below the Supreme Court that do the day-to-day work of the 
Federal judiciary, including the 26 appellate judges that I mentioned 
earlier. That includes Texans like Don Willett, Jim Ho, and Andy 
Oldham, all of whom now serve on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  Of course, we should mention the very talented district court judges 
whom we have confirmed as well--three of them from Texas. Karen 
Scholer, David Counts, and Fernando Rodriguez are three of those 
talented district court judges whom we have confirmed.
  Overall, we have confirmed more than 50 of President Trump's judicial 
nominations. Again, I believe this is one of the most important jobs we 
perform here in the Senate.
  Third on my list of accomplishments that I want to talk about today I 
alluded to a moment ago when I talked about the economy taking off. One 
of the most important things we have done since we have been here 
during the Trump administration is repealing overly burdensome, Obama-
era regulations through something called the Congressional Review Act. 
We have used this device 16 times to eliminate agency rules that were 
sometimes snuck in during the waning hours of the Obama administration.
  On top of that, we repealed the Independent Payment Advisory Board, 
or the IPAB, under ObamaCare. This will allow senior citizens and their 
families to take better control and greater control of their own 
healthcare decisions without being subjected to the whims of unelected 
bureaucrats. Also, we made ObamaCare voluntary by eliminating the 
individual mandate, which is a tax on middle-income and low-income 
people who couldn't afford to purchase the ObamaCare policies.
  ObamaCare's main problem was that it represented perhaps the most 
intrusive government mandate into the lives of the American people by 
saying: You don't have any choices anymore when it comes to your 
healthcare. You must buy this government-approved healthcare policy, 
and, by the way, it doesn't make any difference if it has coverage that 
you don't want or can't afford. You have to buy it. If you don't buy 
it, we are going to fine you.
  We have repealed that tax on low-income and middle-income Americans, 
and we truly have made healthcare more available by allowing a market 
to be created where people have choices. Kudos to our Secretary of 
Labor, Mr. Acosta, who worked with the administration to provide for 
access to healthcare policies across State lines, and the 
administration, the Health and Human Services Secretary, recently 
announced that people can buy policies on an annual basis that are 
subject to renewal that provide them greater choice and flexibility.

  This is part of creating a market, which is the best regulator of 
all, as opposed to government. People wonder why conservatives believe 
Big Government is a bad thing sometimes, and it is precisely because 
when government gets bigger, our freedoms shrink in proportion to that 
growth in the flow of the Federal Government.
  That is pretty important, repealing those regulations and eliminating 
the individual mandate. The fourth major accomplishment, I believe, is 
providing relief to America's community and midsized banks and credit 
unions, which have been hit hardest by some of the one-size-fits-all 
rulemaking approaches under the Dodd-Frank bill.
  Again, one of the problems about legislating and regulating in 
Washington, DC, is we live in a big and diverse country, and one-size-
fits-all doesn't work or, if it does, it often has collateral damage. 
In this case, while we were aiming at the excesses of Wall Street, 
small banks and credit unions were the collateral damage. What that 
meant is, consumers didn't get access to the credit they needed, small 
businesses didn't get access to the loans they needed in order to start 
a business or to grow a business.
  The next thing I want to mention, in terms of the accomplishments of 
the last year and a half, has to do with our commitments to 
servicemembers and our military as well as veterans. We have restored 
America's defense with the greatest investment in the military in 
decades, including the largest troop pay raise in nearly 10 years.
  If you think about all the things the Federal Government does, not 
all of them are equal. Some are more important than others. I would put 
at the top of the list providing for our common defense because it is 
that defense of our freedom and our liberty and our way of life that 
makes possible all of the other things we enjoy, the blessings of 
liberty we enjoy as Americans. Making sure our military is properly 
funded and that we take care of the troops who wear the uniform of the 
U.S. military is the most important job of the Federal Government.
  Then, it is important to keep our commitment to our veterans when 
they take off that uniform. We did that this year in passing the VA 
MISSION Act, which makes significant reforms to the Department of 
Veterans Affairs, strengthening the healthcare and community care 
options that are available to America's veterans.
  We are all aware of some of the scandals in the VA system, where 
veterans have had to travel hundreds of miles or wait months to get 
access to care. We have addressed that with the VA MISSION Act, which 
reinforces Veterans Choice. In other words, if you would rather go see 
a healthcare provider in your local community, if the wait is too long 
to be seen at a dedicated VA facility, or, if you have to go too far to 
get to a VA facility, you can get access to a local healthcare provider 
in your community, and the VA will pay for it. To me, that is a really 
important element of our veterans' healthcare system.
  Last, but certainly not least, is our sixth achievement of this last 
year and a half during the Trump administration and Republican 
majorities in both Houses. We have taken steps to rebuild and protect 
our local communities. We passed nearly $147 billion in disaster relief 
for storms like Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Texas 1 year ago 
this month.
  On top of that, we have enacted the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking 
Act, which provided resources to fight the rape kit backlog and improve 
school safety by a bill I sponsored called Fix NICS to make sure people 
who are illegally disqualified from purchasing or possessing firearms 
are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and prevented, if 
possible, from getting access to those firearms.
  These are just a handful of ways we are doing what we told the 
American people we would do if they would entrust us with the great 
privilege of being stewards of that public trust. We put money back in 
Americans' pockets. We have rolled back regulations that

[[Page S5681]]

have made their lives easier. We strengthened the military. We have 
given healthcare flexibility to our veterans. We have protected our 
communities from harm.
  Of course, there is more work that needs to be done. Just before the 
State work period concluded this last week, the Senate voted to proceed 
to a conference on the farm bill. This bill is of great importance to 
the people of my State. City dwellers may not fully appreciate it, but 
according to the 2012 census, agriculture employs one out of every 
seven working Texans. With 28 million Texans, that is a huge number of 
farmers and ranchers directly affected by what we do in the farm bill.
  What people don't realize, however, is that nutrition programs--not 
agriculture funding--account for almost 80 percent of the cost of the 
farm bill. This includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 
formerly known as food stamps.
  Although I was proud to support the Senate's version of the 
legislation, I was somewhat disappointed it did not include stronger 
reforms to some of these nutrition programs, including work 
requirements for people who are able-bodied or training requirements 
for people who need additional training or community service for people 
who can't work or don't want the training but at least provide some 
service to their local communities.
  I appreciate what the House has done to provide for those work 
requirements in the bill that my friend Chairman Conaway included in 
the House version. These reforms are not last-minute additions. There 
was a long, thorough process leading to the introduction of the House 
farm bill. Chairman Conaway held more than 20 hearings on these 
nutrition programs, including some during the Congress, and afterward 
he put together some very commonsense work requirements that were based 
on broad stakeholder input.
  During this record of low unemployment across the Nation, it is not 
unreasonable to try to use this opportunity, which comes only once 
every 5 years, to take a look and ensure our Federal dollars are being 
spent wisely, that able-bodied adults are getting the training they 
need in order to earn good pay, and that Federal assistance is only 
used to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves.
  A scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Strain, 
wrote about this recently. He wrote that the question of ``[w]hether 
there should be a mandatory work component in public policies designed 
to assist low-income households is in part a question of . . . 
economics,'' but it is also moral and philosophical as well.
  Whom should we expect to work in our society? Should a healthy person 
in the prime of their life who doesn't have young children at home be 
working--yes or no? In other words, does that person owe some share of 
his or her energy, ability, and intelligence to the rest of society 
from which we all benefit, including them? Some think it is nobody's 
business but the individual's whether they work or not and still 
receive these benefits, but I disagree with that.
  When the question involves Federal benefits that are paid for by all 
taxpayers, whether to work or not is no longer just a private, personal 
decision. We as a country have decided that part of our social contract 
with each other will be providing a safety net where needed, and that 
is important. The flip side is, to benefit from that safety net, there 
also ought to be certain obligations. In other words, you can't have 
rights without responsibilities. One of them should be to work, if you 
are able to do so.
  While I wish the members of the conference committee my best as they 
try to reach consensus on the farm bill, I encourage them to take 
another look at Chairman Conaway's ideas on work requirements. I hope 
my colleagues will be willing to revisit this issue in the conference 
committee on the farm bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.