[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3029-S3030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Infrastructure

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this morning we had a meeting in Speaker 
Pelosi's office of the Democratic congressional leaders. It was in 
preparation for a meeting with President Trump.
  Three weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic 
leaders of the House and Senate, asked for a sit-down with the 
President in the Cabinet Room to discuss the infrastructure of the 
United States of America--the backbone of our economy, a part of 
America that, sadly, has been neglected for too many years.
  President Trump promised in his campaign there would be an 
infrastructure program--put America to work to build the roads, the 
bridges, and the airports, and I might say broadband and so many other 
things that need to be done--so that the strength of this economy would 
be there to entertain new business opportunities, to attract new jobs.
  We had this meeting 3 weeks ago, and it was amazing how well it went. 
I was sitting just a couple of seats removed from the President and 
heard an agreement in the room from the Democratic leaders and the 
President--$2 trillion, the President said. He rejected our offer of 
$1.5 trillion and said: No, make it $2 trillion that we will spend on 
our infrastructure.
  Everybody sat up straight in their chairs and said: Well, this 
President is serious.
  We said: Mr. President, will it be 80 percent Federal spending and 20 
percent local, the way it has always been?
  Yes.
  Can we include rural broadband in here so those of us who represent 
small towns--rural areas that don't have the benefit of broadband 
services--can get into the 21st century in terms of education and 
telemedicine and all of the things that brings?
  Yes.

[[Page S3030]]

  He signed up for all these things--$2 trillion, 80 percent Federal--
and the list was long of things that we were going to do together.
  We went into detail in that meeting 3 weeks ago with the President 
about some of the aspects of it. For example, the President said--and I 
think he has been quoted before--that he does not approve of public-
private partnership programs. He argues there is too much litigation. 
That is all right with me and for most of the people in the room. We 
didn't have to have that if the President didn't want to include it. So 
there was back and forth in this conversation.
  There was one element missing, and I remember Richard Neal--who is 
the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the critically 
important committee, the counterpart of Senate Finance--said to the 
President: Now, Mr. President, we have to pay for it. Two trillion 
dollars--how are we going to do that?
  And the President said: Wait. I am not going to say that at this 
meeting. I know you want me to blink first as to how we are going to 
pay for it. I am not going to get into that.
  There had been some proposals from Democrats of tax increases for 
wealthy people and corporations and such, but the President said: I 
won't to get into that today. Let's meet 3 weeks from now and talk 
about how we are going to do this, how we are going to pay for the $2 
trillion.
  So many of us sat down, Democrats--I hope Republicans, as well--and 
started thinking in positive terms about what this would mean for the 
economy. We can create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs across the 
United States, rebuild our infrastructure, and be ready to compete with 
countries like China and others that believe they are building faster 
and better than we are.
  The meeting was scheduled for today. We started this morning with a 
briefing. The Democrats sat together in Speaker Pelosi's office, about 
20 of us, and went through it and talked about what our presentation 
would be to the President and some ideas that we had to move forward.
  We accepted the President's invitation. We went to the White House, 
gathered in the waiting room there, and then we were invited into the 
Cabinet Room. We walked into the Cabinet Room, took our assigned seats, 
looked across the table, and there was the Secretary of the Treasury, 
people from the Office of Management and Budget. The President's 
daughter was there. There was quite a gathering of people getting ready 
for this high-powered meeting.
  We waited, and we waited, and then the door opened, and the President 
walked in. Without greeting anyone or sitting down he said: We are not 
going to have this meeting. We are not going to have this meeting 
because Congress continues to investigate me. I think we have had 
enough investigations, and until the investigations end, there will be 
no infrastructure bill.
  His statement went quite a bit beyond that, but I think that was a 
fair summary of his conclusion. He turned around and walked out.
  So the meeting that he had called, the meeting we responded to so 
that we could come up with an infrastructure program, ended right on 
the spot.
  The President then went out into what is known as the Rose Garden 
next to the White House and held a press conference with posters and 
signs saying: As long as Congress is investigating me, we won't be 
discussing issues like infrastructure.
  That is an unfortunate development--unfortunate for America, first, 
because this President and this Congress, regardless of party, have a 
responsibility to the American people to do the basics to make sure 
that we provide what Americans need, what cities need, what businesses 
need, what families need to grow the economy and create good-paying 
jobs.
  The President walked away from that this morning. So here we are at a 
point in history. I am not sure which way to turn. You see, every 
President would like to make this claim: I am not going to do business 
with Congress if you investigate me. But the bottom line is, every 
President is investigated. Their administration is investigated. That 
is what we do. That is what the U.S. Congress does. That is what 
happens in a democracy. No President can say: I am pulling down the 
shades, and I am closing the doors. You can't look at me, and you can't 
look at what we are doing, either in activities as individuals or as 
agencies.
  No. There is accountability in our government. This Congress, the 
Senate, the House--we appropriate the funds for the executive branch, 
and we investigate them as we appropriate the money. How are you 
spending the taxpayers' dollars? Are you wasting them? Is there 
corruption involved in it? We ask those questions not just of this 
President but of every President. That is the nature of democracy, of 
accountability, and this President can't get off the hook. He may be 
weary of investigations--and I can tell you that President Obama was 
weary of investigations, too, and President Bush before him--but that 
is the nature of accountability in a democracy. For this President to 
say: No more. It is out of bounds for us to be investigated, and I 
won't do anything necessary for the economy and future of this country 
as long as the investigation continues--that is a sad day in the 
history of this country. I hope cooler heads will prevail, but I am not 
sure they will.
  We have so much we need to do. Look at this empty Chamber here. My 
speech in this Chamber each day is basically what you are going to hear 
if you are a visitor to Washington, DC. You are not going to hear a 
debate on legislation. Wouldn't you like for this Chamber to be filled 
with Republicans and Democrats who are debating a bill right now on the 
high cost of prescription drugs? I would. And we certainly have the 
power and responsibility to manage that issue, but we don't do it. We 
have done virtually nothing in this Chamber for this entire year.
  Senator McConnell has one goal: fill up Federal judicial vacancies 
with lifetime appointees as fast and as often as possible. We have seen 
men and women come before us, clearly unqualified to be judges, who are 
being given lifetime appointments. Why? It is part of a plan--a 
political plan to fill the courts with judges friendly to the 
Republican point of view. And so we do nothing else. Nothing else.
  I have been here a few years, in the Senate and the House. There is 
an issue called disaster aid. I have seen 100 different variations. 
There will be some horrendous weather event--a fire, a drought, a 
flood--and we have responded time and again wherever it occurred. 
Without concern as to whether it was a red State or a blue State, we 
have come together as an American family and said: We will give you a 
helping hand.
  We have a disaster bill that has been pending here for weeks, if not 
months. We can't even reach an agreement on how to send disaster aid to 
areas that have been hit by flooding and tornados, and it is an 
indication of what the problem is right here. The Senate is not being 
the Senate. It is not legislating. And now the President announced this 
morning that he has gone fishing. He is not going to be around to 
discuss issues like the infrastructure of this country.
  What can we do about it? Well, you can appeal to your Members of 
Congress and tell them you are fed up with it, and I hope you do. That 
is what a democracy is about. But you can also make sure that you 
participate and vote in the next election. Ultimately, in a democracy, 
the American people have the last word at the polling place on election 
day. If you are satisfied with an empty Chamber doing nothing, ignoring 
infrastructure, delaying disaster aid, if you think that is a good 
thing for this country, I suppose you know how you should vote. But if 
you are fed up with it and looking for change, I hope people across 
this country will see what happened today as a call to arms--maybe, 
importantly, a call to the polls.