[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 130 (Wednesday, July 31, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5212-S5214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Election Security

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, as those who are following on C-SPAN have 
probably noted, we are not overwhelmed with business on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate, nor have we been during the course of this year.
  We have considered several bills--you could count them on one hand--
including the Defense authorization bill, and, of course, the 
momentous, historic legislation 2 weeks ago, the tax treaty with 
Luxembourg, which had been pending before the U.S. Senate for 9 years. 
It finally made it to the floor of the Senate. That was the highlight 
of the week, as we have watched the U.S. Senate ignore some of the most 
important issues of our time.
  Let me tell you one that strikes at the heart of our democracy, which 
we should be focused on today and until it is resolved. Last week, 
former FBI Director and Special Counsel Bob Mueller testified before 
the House Judiciary Committee about his report on Russian interference 
in the 2016 election. The hearing clarified several important things. 
For example, President Trump loves to claim that the Mueller report 
completely exonerated him. Trump's tweets, one after another, talk 
about how he was exonerated by that report. Director Mueller made clear 
that is ``not what the report said.''
  When asked by the House Judiciary chairman ``Did you actually totally 
exonerate the President?'' Director Mueller answered ``no.''
  President Trump likes to say the Mueller investigation was a witch 
hunt. He has said that about 1,000 times. But the investigation 
actually led to 37 indictments and over $42 million in assets forfeited 
to the government. If this were a witch hunt, it certainly found a lot 
of wealthy witches.
  Some Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee tried to 
attack Director Mueller's credibility, but Mueller has a lifetime 
record of being a straight shooter, by-the-book investigator, and 
prosecutor. He did this country a service when he took on the role of 
special counsel.
  One thing Director Mueller tried to remind the American people of is 
the reason the investigation was necessary. He said:

       Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of 
     challenges to our democracy. The Russian government's effort 
     to interfere in our election is among the most serious.

  Mueller went on to say: ``This deserves the attention of every 
American.''
  One of the most important takeaways from the Mueller report is that 
Russia did successfully attack our democracy in 2016. Page 1 of the 
Mueller report says: ``The Russian Government interfered in the 2016 
presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.''
  The report detailed numerous examples, including an ``intelligence-
gathering mission'' that employees of the Internet Research Agency, 
known as the IRA, took in June of 2014.
  The IRA was the Russian troll farm that waged information warfare 
against the 2016 election by using stolen identities, fake social media 
accounts, and fake campaign events.
  The Mueller report and the earlier indictment of several IRA 
employees noted that two of the Russians arrived in the United States 
for a 3-week trip ``for the purpose of collecting intelligence to 
inform the [IRA's] operations.''
  The report also detailed the Russians' attack on my own home State 
board of elections. In July 2016, the Illinois State board of elections 
discovered that it was the target of a malicious, month-long cyber 
attack that enabled the intruder to access confidential voter 
information and view the registration data of approximately 76,000 
voters in my State of Illinois.
  These efforts to influence the election and attack campaign 
organizations and State and local election administrators and vendors 
continue to this day. What are we going to do about it?
  What has been the response so far of the U.S. Senate, the body sworn 
to uphold the Constitution and to protect against enemies, foreign and 
domestic? Nothing. We are too busy with the trade treaty with 
Luxembourg to deal with Russian interference in our elections. In the 
face of Russia's threat to our elections, this Senate has been quiet as 
a graveyard.
  Let's start in 2016. Top officials from the administration's national 
security and intelligence community came and warned congressional 
leadership of Russia's ongoing attack on our elections, rightly asking 
for a bipartisan statement to tell Russian dictator Putin to stop. What 
was Senate Majority Leader McConnell's response to this obvious request 
to protect our Nation? He said: No thanks. I am not going to do it.
  History will no doubt look back in infamy at that decision.
  What about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a historically 
recognized body with key jurisdiction over Russian attacks on the 
United States? That committee did not even conduct an investigation 
into Russia's actions in the last Congress.

[[Page S5213]]

  Republicans were silent when Trump repeatedly accepted Russian 
dictator Vladimir Putin's brazen denials over American intelligence 
experts and all of the evidence to the contrary.
  They were silent again after the Mueller report's devastating 
findings of Russian interference. And they were silent when President 
Trump subsequently said he would gladly accept election help from a 
foreign power again.
  Now look at the current Congress. Several bipartisan bills have been 
introduced to respond to this Russian threat, including the Election 
Security Act. This is a critical, comprehensive bill that would provide 
States with much needed resources and establish a robust Federal effort 
to protect our democracy.
  Unfortunately, Republican Senate Leader McConnell is blocking all 
efforts to bring this important legislation to the floor for a debate 
and vote. This legislation could thwart Russian interference in the 
2020 election. Senator McConnell refuses to bring it to the floor.
  I end with the questions I have asked before here on the floor: How 
can the party of Ronald Reagan continue to sit by while this President 
pursues policies aligned with the former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin? Why 
didn't the first bills in this new Senate under Republican control deal 
with this threat to the election process in our democracy? Why isn't 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holding urgent hearings on these 
stunning dalliances between an American President and a Russian 
dictator? Why isn't the Senate Foreign Relations Committee moving 
bipartisan legislation that would protect U.S. membership in NATO?
  Quite frankly, we barely do anything in this legislative graveyard of 
the Senate under Republican control. You would think we would at least 
focus, on a bipartisan basis, on making certain that the outcome of the 
next election is not influenced by a foreign power, whether it is 
Russia or some other malicious force in the world today.
  But because it bruises the President's ego and it may invoke a nasty 
tweet, the Republican-controlled Senate prefers to do nothing. It is 
time for the Republican majority to stop protecting President Trump at 
all costs.
  There reaches a point when the Senate Republican leadership needs to 
put the country before fear of the President's tweets.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.


                     Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, can you hear it? Can you hear the somber 
notes, the feet shuffling, and the solemn tones? Can you hear it? It is 
a dirge, a funeral march, and it is the death of a movement--a once 
proud movement with hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the 
National Mall. It is the death and it is the last gasp of a movement in 
America that was concerned with our national debt.
  Today is the final nail in the coffin. The tea party is no more. The 
budget deal today allows unlimited borrowing for nearly 2 years--
unlimited, no limits--and the government will borrow what they wish 
without limit for 2 years. It abolishes all spending caps. Adoption of 
this deal marks the death of the tea party movement in America. Fiscal 
conservatives--those who remain--should be in mourning for Congress. 
Both parties have deserted you.
  The national debt now stands at $22 trillion. This year, we will add 
over $1.2 trillion. We are approaching record deficits, and neither 
party cares. Both parties have deserted, have absolutely and utterly 
deserted America and have shown no care and no understanding and no 
sympathy for the burden of debt they are leaving the taxpayers, the 
young, the next generation, and the future of our country.
  The very underpinnings of our country are being eroded and threatened 
by this debt. The interest on this debt will be over $400 billion next 
year--precisely, $455 billion. Interest will surpass all welfare 
spending in the next 2 years. Interest on the debt will surpass defense 
spending by 2025.
  Social Security is $7 trillion in debt. Medicare is over $30 trillion 
in debt. Yet a parade of candidates on national television last night 
said they want to double and triple the government's expenditures where 
the government is already trillions of dollars short. Whose fault is 
this? Both parties.
  The media completely doesn't get it. The media says: Oh, there is not 
enough compromise in Washington. That is exactly the opposite of the 
truth. There is too much compromise in Washington. There is always an 
agreement to spend more money. There is always an agreement to spend 
money we don't have. There is always an agreement to borrow your kids' 
and your grandkids' money and to put this country further at risk.
  Admiral Mullen put it this way. He said the most significant threat 
to our national security is our debt. Yet all around me on my side of 
the aisle are those who clamor and say: Our military is hollowed out 
and can't complete its mission. Well, perhaps the mission is too big 
for the budget. Maybe it is not a problem of having enough money; maybe 
it is a problem of making our mission to be everything to everyone 
around the world, to have spent $50 billion a year building roads and 
bridges in Afghanistan for the last 20 years and to continue that 
forever.
  When the President put forward a proposal, a thought that we might 
try to end and to declare victory in Afghanistan, this body--both 
parties rose up as one, and the vast majority said it would be 
precipitous to leave Afghanistan after 19 years.
  This is the problem. It isn't acrimony. It isn't both parties 
fighting each other. It is both parties agreeing to increase the debt. 
They increase the debt for different reasons, but the only way they get 
theirs--``give me mine, give me mine'' is what both sides say. The 
right wants for the military. Yet we spend more on the military than 
the next 10 countries combined. We spend more on the military--the 
United States spends more than all of NATO combined. All of the NATO 
countries combined spend less than we do on the military.
  People say we are hollowed out and we can't complete our mission. 
Well, maybe the mission is too big. It isn't that the budget is too 
small; it is that the mission is too big. Maybe we don't need to have 
troops in 50 of 55 African countries. Maybe we need to rethink our 
mission. Maybe the mission of the military should be to defend our 
country, not to intervene in every civil war around the world.
  Admiral Mullen said the most significant threat to our national 
security is our debt. Yet we are piling on more debt, saying we need 
more military. Maybe we need to discuss the mission of our military. We 
are piling on more debt, some in the name of national security. Yet I 
think it weakens us with every moment.
  The vote today will be on a 2-year debt ceiling with no limits. The 
details do matter. Raising the debt ceiling with no limits would be 
like telling your kid: OK, you can have a credit card, but there will 
be no limits on what you spend. Just spend it on whatever you want, in 
whatever amount, and in 2 years, I will just pay the bill for you.
  Nobody would do that with their family money, and no country should 
act that way. We can't keep going on like this.
  Where are all the fiscal conservatives? What happened to the tea 
party movement, which was bipartisan and was concerned citizens rising 
up and saying: I don't want something from government. What I want is a 
government that is responsible, a government that spends what comes in, 
a government that doesn't keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing 
and putting us further at risk.
  What happened to that movement? That movement elected some of these 
people. You heard these people. Don't you remember, when President 
Obama was President, the Republicans all clamoring and saying 
``trillion-dollar deficits'' for multiple years. Every year, they would 
say: President Obama wants to spend and borrow and spend and borrow. I 
heard it in my State. I heard it from the very people who today will 
vote for this monstrosity.
  Some of them will actually vote for my amendment to give themselves 
cover. They will say: Oh, yeah, I was for the Paul amendment. But then 
they are also going to vote for the deal that will bankrupt our 
country. What happened to these people? They all thought debt was bad 
when it was President Obama's debt, but they are

[[Page S5214]]

not ecumenical, and they are not very much into self-examination. They 
are not interested in the debt now that Republicans are complicit.

  But before we make this about Republicans, remember that there is not 
a Democrat in Washington who cares about the debt. The difference 
between the parties is that the Democrats are honest. They are very 
honest. They don't care about the debt. Look, they are all over the 
stage, falling all over themselves, trying to give free healthcare to 
illegal aliens. They are all on the stage trying to talk about giving 
Medicare for All when we can't even afford the Medicare for Some. So 
Democrats don't care. The country should know that Democrats do not 
care about the debt. But here is the problem: The only opposition party 
we have in the country is the Republican Party, and they don't care 
either. They just come home, and they are dishonest and tell you they 
care, and then they vote for a monstrosity.
  Today's vote will be a vote for a monstrosity, an abomination, the 
ability to borrow money for over 2 years until guess what intervenes. 
Why are we going to wait 2 years with no limits on borrowing? There is 
this little thing called an election. They don't want to be in public 
voting to raise the debt ceiling an unlimited amount or a vast amount 
again, so they are putting it off to beyond the election. Both parties 
are complicit, though. Nobody wants to vote on this again.
  People talk about draining the swamp. You can't drain the swamp 
unless you are willing to cut the size and scope of government. That is 
the swamp. The swamp is this morass that is millions of people up here 
organized to involve themselves in the economy. Most of them could 
disappear from government, and no one would notice. The only thing you 
would notice is less money coming to Washington and more money 
remaining in the States.
  It is a little bit of what happened with the tax cut. But in addition 
to the tax cut returning to people their own money, we should also quit 
spending money we don't have up here. During the tax cut, I, for one, 
said: You have to cut spending. I offered amendments during the tax cut 
to cut spending. Do you know what happened? I got four votes. Four 
people in the Senate cared about the debt on that particular vote.
  After we passed the tax cut, there is a provision that says there 
will be automatic spending cuts if the taxes were to bring in less 
revenue. Guess what. I forced a vote to keep that rule in place. I got 
nine votes because most people don't care.
  No Democrat cares about the debt. The Republicans falsely tell you 
they care, and the vast majority will vote for this monstrosity today.
  Today, I will offer an alternative. Some say: Well, you conservatives 
won't vote to raise the debt ceiling at all, and we will go bankrupt, 
there will be turmoil in the markets, and it will be a disaster. So 
what I am offering for conservatives today is that we will raise the 
debt ceiling under a couple of conditions. We will raise the debt 
ceiling if you adopt, in advance, significant spending cuts, caps on 
spending, and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  See, here is the road, and here is, I guess, the beginning and the 
end of the dishonesty around here. If we had a vote today, we would 
have some people saying: Why don't we vote on the balanced budget 
amendment?
  We all love to vote for it. We don't really mean it. We don't really 
care about balancing the budget. We are not for it because we are Big 
Government Republicans. But we love to vote for the balanced budget 
amendment because I can go home and tell people: Yeah, I voted for the 
really crazy, monstrous budget deal to expand the debt, but I also 
voted for the balanced budget amendment.
  Well, here is our deal. We don't want to vote on the balanced budget 
amendment; we want adoption of the balanced budget amendment. So if you 
will cut spending, if you will cap spending, and if you will pass a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, I will vote to raise the 
debt ceiling--but only if those things are done.
  People say: Well, if we don't raise the debt ceiling without any 
reform, the country--the markets will go into turmoil. Well, guess 
what. We bring in $3 trillion, and we spend $4 trillion. What does that 
mean? We can pay for $3 trillion on a daily basis without borrowing. So 
if tomorrow we didn't raise the debt ceiling, what would happen? We 
would spend $3 trillion. Every Social Security check could go out, 
every soldier could be paid, and everybody on Medicare could be taken 
care of. That is probably about it, to tell you the truth, because we 
spend too much damn money. We spend money we don't have. But you could 
provide the essentials to people--Social Security, Medicare, pay our 
soldiers, and maybe a few other things--if you just spent what came in.
  Isn't that what we should do? Isn't that what responsible people do? 
Does any American family routinely spend a third--25 percent more than 
comes in? Does anybody spend $4 for every $3 that comes in? Nobody does 
that. Nobody in their right mind does that, but your government does 
it. And who is at fault? Both parties. They are complicit. They scratch 
each other's backs. They both are terrible on the deficit. Both parties 
are bad. Both parties are ruining our country.
  My amendment is called cut, cap, and balance--cuts spending, puts 
caps back in place that they can't exceed, and says that if we vote now 
on a balanced budget amendment and if it passes and if it is sent to 
the States, then we would raise the debt ceiling.
  Most people around here don't want any linkage. It is not that they 
will just complain that my budgetary reforms are too harsh; they will 
complain that they don't want any. So there won't be any alternative. 
There won't be someone saying: Well, those are too much, and we would 
rather have just a little bit. No, they don't want any restraint. The 
budget monstrosity, the deal, the abomination we will vote on today 
will have no limits--no dollar limits.
  I was arguing this last week on another particular issue, and from 
across the country, I got reamed by the leftwing mob who says: Why are 
you doing is this? Why couldn't you do it on another matter?
  We do it on every matter. Those of us who are fiscally conservative 
are saying that we shouldn't spend money we don't have. I am doing it 
again this week, saying that we should not spend money we don't have, 
that it is irresponsible, and that we are eroding the very foundation 
that has made America great.
  I will vote against this budget deal. I will present cut, cap, and 
balance. Cut, cap, and balance is a responsible way to raise the debt 
ceiling by cutting spending, capping spending, and also passing a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I hope my colleagues 
will consider that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The Senator from South Dakota.