[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 95 (Thursday, June 1, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1857-S1868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, 
    UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF 
 EDUCATION RELATING TO ``WAIVERS AND MODIFICATIONS OF FEDERAL STUDENT 
                            LOANS''--Resumed

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.J. Res. 45, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 45) providing for 
     congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United 
     States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of 
     Education relating to ``Waivers and Modifications of Federal 
     Student Loans''.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.


                       Fiscal Responsibility Act

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, last night, a large majority of both 
Democrats and Republicans in the House passed bipartisan legislation to 
protect the U.S. economy, protect American families, and eliminate the 
threat of a first-ever default.
  The bill is now in the Senate where we begin the process today of 
passing this legislation as soon as possible. The Senate will stay in 
session until we send a bill avoiding default to President Biden's 
desk. We will keep working until the job is done.
  Time is a luxury the Senate does not have if we want to prevent 
default. June 5 is less than 4 days away. At this point, any needless 
delay or last-minute holdups would be an unnecessary and even dangerous 
risk, and any change to this bill that forces us to send it back to the 
House would be entirely unacceptable. It would almost guarantee 
default.
  So, again, the Senate will stay in session until we send a bill 
avoiding default to the President's desk, and we will keep working 
until the job is done.
  The vast majority of Senators recognize that passing this bill is 
supremely important. It is about preserving the full faith and credit 
of the United States. There is no good reason--none--to bring this 
process down to the wire, no good reason to bring this process down to 
the wire, and that, too, is dangerous and risky.
  So, today, I hope we see a genuine desire to keep this process moving 
quickly. I hope we see nothing even approaching brinksmanship. The 
country cannot afford that right now. Instead, I hope we see bipartisan 
cooperation.
  Bipartisanship is always the best way to avoid default and get this 
bill over the finish line. We have said it over and over again. 
Bipartisanship is what prevented default under President Trump; it is 
what prevented default under President Biden; and it is what will 
prevent default in this case too. Partisanship and hostage-taking, 
meanwhile, were never going to win the day.
  Let me say this. Last night's House vote was a resounding affirmation 
of bipartisanship, which I hope bodes well for quick movement here in 
the Senate. Large majorities from both sides came together to produce 
last night's 314--314--``yes'' votes. Two-thirds of Republicans voted 
for it, and more than two-thirds of Democrats voted for it. I thank my 
House colleagues on both sides of the aisle who fulfilled their duty to 
prevent a catastrophic default.
  We need that same spirit of bipartisanship that governed the House 
vote to continue here in the Senate this morning. I hope that very soon 
we can finish the job of putting the default in our rearview mirror. 
This is the best thing we can do right now for our economy and for 
American families.
  I am optimistic the Senate is going to get this done, but it will 
take one

[[Page S1858]]

more concerted, focused, and bipartisan push to get us over the finish 
line.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Republican leader is recognized.


                       Fiscal Responsibility Act

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last night, an overwhelming majority 
of our House colleagues voted to pass the agreement Speaker McCarthy 
reached with President Biden. In doing so, they took an urgent and 
important step in the right direction for the health of our economy and 
the future of our country.
  The Fiscal Responsibility Act avoids the catastrophic consequences of 
a default on our Nation's debt, and just as importantly, it makes the 
most serious headway in years toward curbing Washington Democrats' 
reckless spending addiction. The bill that the House just passed has 
the potential to cut Federal spending by $1.5 trillion. Now the Senate 
has the chance to make that important progress a reality.
  Madam President, remember where we were just a few months ago. After 
2 years of reckless spending and painful, runaway inflation, the 
American people elected a Republican House majority to serve as a check 
on Washington Democrats' power. It was clear from the outset that 
preserving the full faith and credit of the United States was going to 
come down to an agreement that could pass both the people's House and 
earn the President's signature--in other words, direct negotiations 
between Speaker McCarthy and President Biden just like I have said for 
months--for months.
  So, back in February, Speaker McCarthy got right to work. He made it 
clear to the President he was ready to take serious steps, not only to 
avoid crisis in the near term but to put government spending on a more 
sustainable path for the long term.
  Unfortunately, it took President Biden months to accept this basic 
reality, but when the President finally came to the table, House 
Republicans worked hard to secure as many serious spending reforms as 
possible, considering that we were in a divided government, and they 
produced a deal that moves every key Republican priority in the right 
direction.
  The Speaker's agreement cuts domestic discretionary spending while 
increasing support for veterans and the Armed Forces. It locks in 
promising reforms to infrastructure permitting. It claws back unspent 
COVID emergency funds. It slashes bloated spending at the IRS. It ties 
future executive branch regulations to new spending cuts.
  The deal the House passed last night is a promising step toward 
fiscal sanity. Ah, but make no mistake, there is much more work to be 
done. The fight to reel in wasteful spending is far from over.
  Our obligation to provide for the common defense is especially 
urgent. For years, Republicans have led significant investments in 
improving the readiness of our Armed Forces and modernizing their 
capabilities to face down emerging threats, but since President Biden 
took office, Republicans have had to fight year after year to ensure we 
meet the needs of our military.
  Fortunately, we have secured bipartisan recognition that President 
Biden's budget requests have underfunded our national defense. This was 
especially true last year when Republicans secured a substantial, real-
dollar increase to defense funding and ended Democrats' artificial 
demands for parity with nondefense discretionary spending. This bought 
our military valuable time, but it was hardly a silver bullet.
  As I said yesterday, President Biden's refusal to let the defense 
portion of this agreement exceed his insufficient budget request is 
certainly disappointing.
  So while the coming votes are an important step in the right 
direction, we cannot--cannot--neglect our fundamental obligation to 
address the Nation's most pressing national security challenges. 
Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine continues. Iran's state 
sponsorship of terrorism against Americans and our partners continues. 
North Korea's destabilizing nuclear proliferation continues. China's 
growing challenge to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific continues 
as well.
  So the Senate cannot afford to neglect its obligation to America's 
men and women in uniform. Our urgent work to help them defend our 
Nation, support our allies, and safeguard our interests remains 
unfinished, and so does our work to bring more of Washington Democrats' 
reckless liberal spending to heel.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Tribute to Jerry Oster

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, before I begin, I would like to take just a 
moment this morning to recognize a pillar of the South Dakota press 
corps who has served at WNAX in Yankton, SD, for an incredible 47 
years. His name is Jerry Oster, and he truly is an institution on the 
media landscape in South Dakota.
  Jerry joined WNAX as news director in September of 1976, and he has 
become one of the most familiar and beloved voices on the airwaves in 
South Dakota.
  I have had many great conversations with Jerry over the years on air 
and off, and I can say for certain that his departure will leave a very 
big hole in the South Dakota radio scene. But he has more than earned 
his retirement, and I know that he will relish getting to spend more 
time with his wife Cheryl--herself just recently retired from an 
amazing 43 years with Farm Credit Services of America--and with his 
sons and their wives and his six grandchildren.
  Jerry, congratulations on an incredible and award-winning career, and 
enjoy some well-deserved rest.


                              H.J. Res. 45

  Mr. President, last August, mere days after he had signed a bill that 
would supposedly reduce the deficit by $238 billion, President Biden 
announced a student loan giveaway that is said to cost taxpayers nearly 
a trillion dollars over the next decade. In a Presidency distinguished 
by bad economic decisions, this was a particularly notable one.
  There are two main parts to the President's scheme. There is the 
outright forgiveness of $10,000 in Federal student debt--or $20,000 for 
Pell grant recipients--which is set to cost American taxpayers 
somewhere in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. Then there is 
the President's radical revamp of the income-driven repayment system, 
which will bring total cost for the President's plan somewhere close to 
a trillion dollars.
  There are a number of obvious problems with the President's plan for 
forgiving student debt. I say ``forgiving student debt,'' but it is 
more like transferring the cost of student debt for the relatively 
small percentage of taxpayers in this country with student debt to 
American taxpayers as a whole. It is something of a slap in the face to 
Americans who chose more affordable college options or worked their way 
through school to avoid taking on student loans or whose parents 
scrimped and saved to put them through college.
  It is also a slap in the face to members of the military who signed 
up to serve this country and earned GI bill benefits to help with 
tuition or training. Not to mention that negating this popular benefit 
could drag down recruitment and retention.
  And, of course, it is deeply unfair to ask the many Americans who 
worked hard to pay off their loans or who never pursued college in the 
first place to take on the burden of student debt for individuals who 
took out loans for college or graduate school and agreed to pay them 
back.
  And let's remember, we are asking taxpayers, at large, to foot the 
bill for student loan cancellation for Americans who enjoy greater 
long-term earning potential than many of the Americans who will be 
helping to shoulder the burden for their debts.

[[Page S1859]]

  The President's student loan giveaway isn't a government handout for 
the needy; it is a government handout that will be disproportionately 
beneficial to Americans who are better off. It is ironic coming from 
someone who claims he wants to build the economy from the bottom up and 
the middle out. The President's student loan giveaway is decidedly more 
top-down, let's face it.
  And speaking of the economy, Americans continue to struggle with the 
effects of the Democrat-driven inflation crisis that has beset our 
economy for most of the President's administration. Prices are up 16 
percent on average since the President took office, and we are nowhere 
near getting back to the target inflation rate of 2 percent.
  What is the President's student loan plan almost guaranteed to do? In 
the words of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 
where the President's own Treasury Secretary served on the board, the 
President's student loan giveaway will ``meaningfully boost 
inflation''--``meaningfully boost inflation.''
  I have talked about the forgiveness part of the President's plan and 
how fundamentally unfair it is, but that is only half of the 
President's student loan giveaway. The other half is just as 
problematic because it sets up a system in which the majority of 
Federal borrowers will never fully repay their loans. The Urban 
Institute, a left-of-center think tank, estimates that just 22 percent 
of those with bachelor's degrees enrolled in the President's new 
income-driven repayment program would repay their loans in full--22 
percent--and many individuals would never be required to repay a penny.
  And who will be footing the bill for all those student loan dollars 
that aren't repaid? Well, you guessed it--the American taxpayers.
  Needless to say, the President's income-driven repayment plan will 
not only fail to curtail student borrowing, it will actually encourage 
it. If you can reasonably expect that you won't have to fully pay back 
your loans, you are much more likely to feel free to borrow and to 
borrow liberally.
  And, of course, neither the President's outright student loan 
forgiveness nor his forgiveness masquerading as income-driven repayment 
will do anything to address the problem of soaring college costs. In 
fact, the President's student loan giveaway is likely to make the 
problem worse.
  You only have to look at what happened when Democrats forced through 
their $7,500 tax credit for Americans who purchased electric vehicles. 
Car manufacturers, not surprisingly, raised their prices by a similar 
amount. Similarly, if colleges can expect that the Federal Government 
will pick up a sizable part of the tab for their students' education, 
they are extremely unlikely to feel any pressing need to cut costs or 
to stop tuition hikes. If anything, colleges might further increase 
tuition and fees.
  Currently, the outcome of the forgiveness portion of the President's 
student loan giveaway is unclear. The President's legal authority for 
this action is dubious, and his ability to unilaterally forgive student 
loans has been challenged in the Supreme Court, with a decision 
expected within weeks.
  And, today, the Senate looks likely to pass a resolution that would 
block the forgiveness part of the President's proposal. Unfortunately, 
the President is guaranteed to veto the measure, and there are not 
enough Democrats in the House and Senate willing to override his veto. 
Apparently, the possibility of garnering votes from Americans with 
student debt is reason enough for Democrats to ignore the blatantly 
regressive nature of the President's student loan giveaway--and the 
fact that it will almost unquestionably worsen the problem of rising 
college costs, not to mention the fact that it will drive up inflation 
and balloon the deficit.
  I haven't even mentioned the third part of the President's student 
loan legacy, which is the COVID-era student loan repayment pause that 
President Biden has extended six times during his Presidency with no 
reasonable justification. That pause, which has been in place for 3 
years now, costs taxpayers $5 billion per month. Fortunately, this 
pause is guaranteed to end thanks to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the 
legislation Speaker McCarthy and President Biden agreed on to raise the 
debt ceiling. But while the end of the pause is a victory for 
taxpayers, the savings that will result pale in comparison to the 
tremendous costs of the President's student loan giveaway. And if the 
Supreme Court doesn't overturn the forgiveness portion of the 
President's student loan giveaway, American taxpayers will be stuck 
with the full nearly trillion-dollar bill. It will be one more negative 
economic legacy from Democrats and the Biden administration.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to urge all of my 
colleagues to vote against this Republican bill that would undo 
President Biden's student debt relief plan and rip away relief 
borrowers across the country are counting on.
  It is hard to overstate how badly the student debt crisis has 
strained our borrowers and our families nationwide, and this crisis has 
been a drag on our whole country and our economy. It is holding people 
back from starting families or starting a business or buying a home--
or, in many cases, just making ends meet.
  The student debt relief President Biden announced last fall is life-
changing for so many borrowers. Under his plan, tens of millions of 
people who are struggling with student debt will finally see their 
balances go down, and millions will have their debt wiped out entirely.
  Before Republican interests sued to deny borrowers this life-changing 
relief, putting the President's plan on pause, over 26 million people 
across all 50 States had already applied for or were automatically 
eligible for that relief.
  And let's be clear. This relief is targeted to reach those who need 
it the most. Ninety percent of the relief will go to borrowers earning 
less than $75,000 a year. That is such a big deal.
  I have heard from so many people across my State who were so grateful 
and relieved to have a glimmer of hope finally, to see a light at the 
end of the tunnel, and now Republicans want to snuff it out. They are 
trying to deny relief to borrowers in court and now here in Congress 
too. That is what we are voting on today.
  To the hard-working people in America who are counting on the student 
debt relief, listen up. Republicans are willing to do anything and 
everything to prevent you from living a life without crushing debt.
  And let's be clear. This Republican bill wouldn't only rip away 
relief borrowers who qualify under the President's plan are counting 
on. This CRA that we are going to vote on could impact the pause on 
loan payments and cause major problems for borrowers who have received 
relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven 
repayment programs.
  That means these Republican efforts could create the perfect storm 
for more than 260,000 public service workers who have already earned 
that relief. Borrowers who thought they were done paying their loans 
may have to pay more interest or additional payments. Think about that.
  You know who we are talking about: nurses and teachers and 
firefighters and medical researchers. Seriously, these are the people 
who keep America going. The cold, hard reality is that if Republicans 
get their way and pass this into law, people across the country would 
have relief that they have counted on snatched away from them, plans 
they have made upended, less money in their pockets, and monthly 
payments not just abruptly restarted but maybe even abruptly jacked up 
hundreds of dollars. That is what Republicans are voting for. It is 
chaos and hardship for borrowers and families across this country.
  Mr. President, I can't speak for everyone, but I came here to make 
people's lives better. I didn't come here to punish them for this 
broken student loan system that they got stuck with. I cannot overstate 
how arcane and complicated and how broken our current student loan 
system is, and millions of Americans find themselves unfairly bogged 
down with massive debt, so often through no fault of their own.
  Myself and all six brothers and sisters of mine got through college

[[Page S1860]]

thanks to Federal loans and aid programs. I know how much of a 
difference the President's plan for debt relief will make for people. I 
know President Biden did the right thing here for borrowers and for our 
economy. This is not a handout. It is a hand up that will benefit 
everyone.
  So I urge my colleagues today to vote against this resolution that 
would needlessly hurt millions of hard-working Americans, and let's 
work together then to fix this broken student loan system in this 
country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the harmful CRA 
resolution that would cause tens of millions of hard-working Americans 
to see their monthly budgets get even further squeezed, making it 
harder to pay their bills or afford basic necessities.
  I rise to defend one of the largest efforts to close the racial 
wealth gap in our Nation's history.
  As we debate student debt relief, it would be remarkably tone deaf 
for this body to spend an entire debate on the life-changing student 
debt forgiveness plan without acknowledging who it is that is at the 
decision-making table and who is not.
  Most people consider this body, the U.S. Senate, as being 
deliberative. Many Members take pride in this being the most 
deliberative body in the world. While we may be deliberative, we are 
clearly far from diverse--at least far from reflecting the diversity of 
our great Nation.
  Most Members of this body are decades removed from when they earned 
their undergraduate degrees. And many are at least years, if not, years 
and years removed from even having to sit down to plan how they would 
pay for their kids' college education.
  So before we even get into the merits of President Biden's plan to 
uplift millions of hard-working Americans, I urge my colleagues to step 
outside the Senate for a moment. Let's step outside the Senate and step 
into the homes of working-class and middle-class families across the 
country who see skyrocketing rates of tuition and wonder if college 
just isn't for people like them anymore. Step into the family room of 
parents praying that scholarships might make a college degree possible 
for their children or talk to the student who is just as smart, just as 
hard-working as anybody else but because of student loans and higher 
interest rates, sees the door to higher education as closed to them.
  We live in a nation where the dreams of too many are determined by 
their parents' paycheck. And in 2023, that means working- and middle-
class families--with a disproportionate burden on communities of color, 
by the way--have to risk dangerous levels of debt just for a chance at 
achieving their American dream.
  I remember what it felt like filling out financial aid forms and 
facing the brutal reality that when I was looking forward to attending 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the cost of tuition alone 
was bigger than my dad's W-2. I was only able to make it through 
because of Pell grants, scholarships, work study, and, yes, student 
loans, which took years to pay off.
  So I know the real weight of student debt. And I also know what it is 
like to start thinking ahead to prepare my own son's college education.
  And as it turns out, President Biden's plan is not just good for 
everybody; I mentioned earlier that it is a part of helping address the 
racial wealth gap in America. One statistic alone, his plan would mean 
almost half of Latino borrowers would see their entire debt forgiven. 
That is not just liberating. That is a wise investment for all of us.
  The increased relief for Pell grants that is part of the plan would 
uplift communities of color and cut into the racial wealth gap in 
America. Two more statistics that are worth noting: Almost 71 percent 
of Black undergraduate borrowers and 65 percent of Latino students 
receive this grant.
  The President's plan will mean that a generation of students would be 
able to begin their careers and build a life without the weight of 
student debt holding them back.
  In California alone, it would bring relief to over 3.5 million 
eligible borrowers, an undeniable boost to our economy and to families 
throughout the State.
  Let me underscore something else about this CRA. It is not just about 
what it threatens prospectively. If this program is overturned, if this 
resolution were to pass, 43 million Federal student loan borrowers 
would have to pay back months of payments and interest that had been 
relieved, forcing Americans into delinquency or worse: default.
  Republicans seem determined to prevent relief to tens of millions of 
Americans, despite the fact that 90 percent of the relief would go to 
those earning less than $75,000 a year.
  In one fell swoop, it would cause unthinkable confusion and chaos for 
Federal student loan borrowers and make clear that, once again, 
Republicans view the American dream as a premium and higher education 
as a luxury, only for the wealthiest, only for those who can afford it.
  I refuse to accept that fate. I urge my colleagues to see the real 
cost of today's CRA on working families. I assure you that the real 
impact won't fall on the wealthy families. It will be the working 
families of California and across the country whose lives will be 
fundamentally altered should we fail them today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.


                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is a historic day in the annals of 
the U.S. Senate because we are faced with a critical role as to whether 
we can pass the bipartisan compromise on spending or default on our 
debt for the first time in history, whether we will fail as a nation 
for the first time ever--ever--to pay our bills.
  There is a strange construction in the law where we can vote in the 
Senate and in the House for spending, send it to the President, who 
signs it into law, go back to our States and districts and announce in 
press conferences that we have millions of dollars coming home--Federal 
dollars--back home to our States and districts and take credit for it 
and then not face the reality that the money appropriated actually adds 
to our national debt.
  The debt ceiling is the mortgage of the United States, which needs to 
be expanded as we spend money. So we reached a point where we have a 
deadline--first June 1 and now June 5--of doing something in Congress 
to extend the Nation's mortgage or default on that mortgage and debts 
for the first time in history.
  There was a ferocious negotiation that went on for weeks. It was 
precipitated by the threat of one person on Capitol Hill, Speaker Kevin 
McCarthy, who said: I am willing to risk defaulting on America's debt. 
All the other leaders, including the Republican leader in the Senate 
and the Democratic leader, said that is unthinkable; we would pay a 
price for that for generations to come. The reputation of the United 
States, the value of the U.S. dollar would be in danger because of such 
a careless and reckless act.
  So negotiation was underway for the last few weeks; an agreement was 
reached to Speaker McCarthy's satisfaction; and it passed the U.S. 
House of Representatives yesterday.
  Now it is our turn in the Senate. We have taken a look at this 
agreement. First, let me say the premise is this. Defaulting on our 
national debt is unacceptable, unthinkable. We cannot let it occur.
  So as painful as some of the decisions that will come from this 
agreement reached, they are virtually, at this point, inevitable to 
avoid default on our debt.
  There is one I want to zero in on because it means so much to 
everyone in this Nation--and most people don't realize that it has been 
part of the debate and negotiation in this compromise--and that is the 
question of America's commitment to medical research.
  The National Institutes of Health is the preeminent medical research 
institution in the world--in the world. When it comes to discovering 
cures for diseases, new medications, it is the National Institutes of 
Health and the

[[Page S1861]]

Food and Drug Administration which are charged with that 
responsibility, and we lead the world in research. I am such a fan of 
this Agency that I can speak for a long time about what they are doing.
  But suffice it to say, if you or a member of your family have a 
diagnosis from a doctor that scares you to death, one of your first 
questions is, Doctor, is there anything we can do? Is there a medicine? 
Is there a surgery? Is there anything we can do?
  Some of us have asked that question and we pray that the answer is 
yes and we pray that it leads us back to the NIH and all the work they 
put in.
  So here is what we face with the budget agreement that passed the 
House, now headed to the Senate. We asked the experts on the budget to 
tell us what is going to happen to the budget of the National 
Institutes of Health--the preeminent medical Agency in the world--as a 
result of Speaker McCarthy's demand that we cut spending. What will 
happen is this. We face this prospect almost with certainty. We are 
going to see a cut in the NIH spending for the first time in 10 years. 
For 10 years, we have consistently increased research funds, and they 
paid off. Finding that vaccine for COVID as quickly as we did was no 
accident. It was planned through medical research. And it saved so many 
thousands of lives here in the United States and beyond.
  So here we face, for the first time in 10 years, a cut in the budget 
of the National Institutes of Health. How much of a cut? At least $500 
million--$500 million.
  And I stepped back, and I thought to myself, you mean, we are going 
to cut medical research? That was Speaker McCarthy's idea of fiscal 
conservatism? That, to me, is mindless. It may have some political goal 
in mind, and I don't know what it might be, but to cut that makes no 
sense.
  And let me suggest that my colleagues want to cut wasteful spending 
in Federal Government, and there is plenty of it. I know one obvious 
place to start. This projected cut of $500 million happens to match 
almost exactly the amount of money we waste each year maintaining an 
offshore military prison that only serves to violate our fundamental 
values and undermine the rule of law. You probably know what I am 
referring to: Guantanamo. In the 21 years since Guantanamo first 
opened, American taxpayers have wasted more the $7 billion on that 
facility--$7 billion. This $7 billion monument to bureaucracy and 
failed policy costs us $500 million a year to maintain now, the same 
amount we are cutting from medical research to maintain Guantanamo Bay.

  You say to yourself, well, if it keeps us safe, it is worth it. How 
many detainees are being held by the United States of America today at 
the Guantanamo facility? Thirty. Thirty for $500 million a year. That 
is almost $17 million per year, per prisoner. Florence, CO, has a 
maximum-security prison for the United States of America. To maintain 
those prisoners in that maximum-security facility is around $30,000 a 
year. When it comes to Guantanamo, maintaining a facility for 30 of 
these detainees is costing us $17 million per detainee.
  You know who called that a crazy idea? None other than former 
President Donald Trump.
  For what great purpose are American taxpayers paying more than half a 
billion dollars every year to keep Guantanamo open? Is it to keep 
America safe, to detain convicted terrorists and threats to America? 
Guess again. Because right now, 16 of the 30 remaining detainees--more 
than half of them--have already been approved for release. That means 
we are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year to detain men 
who should have already been released. What is more, there are 10 other 
detainees who are still awaiting trials in the facility's dysfunctional 
military commissions.
  How can we possibly explain to the world--let alone to our own 
citizens--that we have detained people for over 20 years and never 
charged them with a crime? The trial against five men charged in 
relation to 9/11 has not even begun, more than 2 decades since the 
attack on the United States.
  And those who follow the military commissions the closest can tell 
you that these trials, let alone any convictions that might come down 
on appeal, are nowhere in sight. There is not even a plan.
  Former Bush administration Solicitor General Ted Olson has a special 
level of expertise and interest in this issue. Ted also was chosen by 
the Bush administration to argue their cases before the Supreme Court. 
He is a respected lawyer in Washington, DC. Sadly, on 9/11, 2001, Ted 
Olson's wife died when a plane crashed into the Pentagon. She was a 
passenger. So he has a special interest in this matter and a special 
level of expertise.
  Here is what he wrote about the idea of trials by military 
commissions of detainees at Guantanamo. He said they were ``doomed from 
the start.'' He is calling for the Biden administration to negotiate 
guilty pleas with all the 9/11 defendants. To state the obvious, we are 
failing the victims of 9/11 and their families by continuing the 
Guantanamo charade. These military commissions, which were supposed to 
be the court of law trying the detainees, have not or are unlikely to 
ever deliver justice.
  In December of 2021, I chaired a hearing in the Senate Judiciary 
Committee on Guantanamo. One of our witnesses was Colleen Kelly, a 
nurse practitioner from the Bronx, mother of three. She testified about 
losing her younger brother Bill on 9/11. He was in the North Tower when 
the first plane crashed. Colleen described the pain of waiting--waiting 
almost 20 years after Bill's death, year after year after year--for 
something to happen.
  In March, I received a letter from a young woman named Leila Murphy. 
She was 3 years old when her father Brian died on 9/11. For nearly 22 
years, Leila Murphy has waited for a trial that has never come. In her 
letter to me, she pleaded with our government to bring this process to 
an end by securing guilty pleas from defendants in the 9/11 cases.
  Leila, Colleen, and Ted Olson are not alone in calling on the Biden 
administration to finally deliver a shred of justice to the victims of 
9/11 and their loved ones through guilty pleas. Just last week, Leila 
and several of the children and grandchildren of the victims who died 
on 9/11 wrote to the President. Here is what they said. They implored 
him to salvage ``whatever justice can still be had for the parents and 
grandparents we lost . . . [do] not let [this] drag on any longer,'' 
these survivors begged.
  The signers in that letter included three daughters of New York 
firefighter Douglas Miller. He was among the more than 340 firefighters 
in New York who were killed when the towers collapsed. If you have seen 
the programs dedicated to these men and women, you cannot forget the 
bravery they demonstrated that day.
  At the time of Mr. Miller's death, his daughters were just children. 
His firstborn Elizabeth was 7; Rachel was 6; Katie was 4. He and his 
wife Laurie had been sweethearts since high school. In their letter, 
Mr. Miller's daughters and other signers expressed how hopeful they 
felt last year when the 9/11 prosecution team began negotiations to 
finally obtain guilty pleas from defendants. They considered it a 
breakthrough that would finally bring closure; that would finally 
provide answers they had sought for more than 20 years.
  But their hopes were crushed when the prosecution team recently 
indicated they are now going to start to open the pretrial litigation 
again. That was devastating news for these children, like Mr. Miller's 
daughters. In their letter, they wrote:

       The thought of going back to endless courtroom proceedings, 
     when more than 10 years of litigation did not lead to trial, 
     is painful.

  Returning to pretrial purgatory will not deliver justice to the loved 
ones that lost the people that they cared for so much. The only way to 
do this is by securing guilty pleas in the 9/11 cases.
  And let's be honest, this will not be the full measure of justice 
these families deserve. Sadly--sadly--this is no longer possible. 
Because these families were robbed of true justice when the 
administration at the time decided to torture and abuse detainees in 
our Nation's custody and throw them into an untested legal black hole 
rather than trusting America's time-honored system of justice.

  As Ted Olson wrote a few months ago:


[[Page S1862]]


  

       Nothing will bring back the thousands whose lives were so 
     cruelly taken that September day. But we must face reality 
     and bring this process to an end. The American legal system 
     must move on by closing the book on the military commissions 
     and securing guilty pleas.

  The Biden administration must complete the interagency process to 
review the terms of the plea deals without further delay. Securing 
guilty pleas from the detainees who had been charged with a crime will 
bring us one step closer to ending the shameful chapter of Guantanamo.
  These men will then serve out their sentences--some for the rest of 
their lives.
  When it comes to the detainees who had not been charged, they should 
be released. That means the State Department must find countries who 
will take the 16 men for the approved transfer. It is not an easy 
assignment, but it is one that is inevitable.
  The United States is a Nation of laws. When we indefinitely detain 
people who have never been charged with a crime and who have been 
deemed safe to release, we are betraying our own basic constitutional 
values. And autocrats abroad point to the history of abuse and 
detention without charge or trial to justify their own human rights 
abuses. If you want to stand for liberty and the rule of law, be honest 
with the American people.
  Guantanamo Bay is a blight on our national conscience, and it has 
been for a long period of time. It is time for us to accept reality. It 
is not only a waste--tremendous waste--of taxpayer dollars, but it is 
an injustice that must end.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


                              H.J. Res. 45

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in opposition 
to a cruel and misguided attack on millions of student loan borrowers 
in New Jersey and across the country. I understand that some of my 
colleagues are intent on overturning President Biden's signature 
policies no matter the cost or the consequence. But to overturn his 
landmark student debt relief program just to score political points, to 
force borrowers to pay back their loans with interest and stick it to 
the administration, well, that, to me, is just cruelty for the sake of 
cruelty.
  How else can you describe a proposal that would strip away one of the 
most important economic lifelines borrowers have relied on? Other than 
cruel, what else can you call a resolution that rips away benefits for 
up to 43 million Americans who stand to benefit from President Biden's 
relief plan?
  I remind my colleagues that the pause on student loan repayments has 
saved borrowers an average of over $233 per month, an amount that is 
particularly crucial for our Nation's teachers, nurses, police 
officers, and firefighters who rely on the Public Service Loan 
Forgiveness program.
  For a moment, I would like to focus on the impact this resolution has 
on them, because for these public service employees, $233 can mean the 
difference between making it to the end of the month or not. Make no 
mistake. Repealing this relief especially hurts public sector workers 
all across the country--the very people who go to work every day to 
care for us, protect us, educate our kids and keep us safe.
  Is this body really trying to claw back benefits from thousands of 
everyday heroes in our communities? Is this really what my colleagues 
set out to do?
  For years, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program has enjoyed 
bipartisan support because it is essential to the promise of America. 
After all, if you take out loans in support of an education for a 
career benefiting others, then you deserve to see your balance forgiven 
after 120 payments or 10 years, as outlined under the law.
  For many individuals, the economic challenges of COVID and the 
reforms that occurred as a result were the first time that they were 
able to enjoy the program's benefits. This harmful proposal erases that 
progress and, once again, imposes the burden of debt on hard-working 
teachers, nurses, police officers, and firefighters. This proposal is a 
slap in the face to them and to their shot at the American dream--full 
stop.
  It is a slap in the face for Public Service Loan Forgiveness 
borrowers and for the full universe of Americans who stand to benefit 
from student loan relief, which is why I encourage all of my colleagues 
to ask themselves: Is this vote--this misguided proposal--the kind of 
message you feel proud to send? When the history books are written 
about this moment in time, do you want to stand on the side of the 43 
million Americans who have played by the rules and stand to benefit 
from long overdue student loan forgiveness, or do you want to stand on 
the side of those who punish hard-working Americans for trying to get 
ahead? That, to me, is the stark moral decision that is before this 
Chamber.
  With your vote, you can choose to support the borrowers you represent 
by rejecting this plan, or you can blindside them, rolling back nearly 
8 months of interest benefits they have earned and deserve.
  In no uncertain terms, this resolution increases the yoke of student 
loan debt and sets up borrowers to fail. That is not something that I 
want to vote for, and it is not something that any Member of this 
Chamber should want to vote for. I urge my colleagues to vote no.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, Senator Cotton will be here in a second. A 
group of us are going to speak about this budget deal.
  If you believe that the No. 1 job of the Federal Government is to 
defend this Nation, then we have made a serious mistake in this bill.
  I have heard House leaders suggest this bill fully funds the 
military. For that to be true, you would have to believe that the 
military is OK if you cut their budget $42 billion below inflation. The 
party of Ronald Reagan would never allow inflation to reduce defense 
capabilities.
  This bill, the top-line number, locks in fewer ships for the Navy at 
a time China is going to expand dramatically. In 2024 and 2025, we are 
going to cap spending at a level that we cannot expand the Navy, and in 
the same period of time, China is going to go from 310 ships over a 10-
year period to 440. There is less money for the Marines, less money for 
the Army, and fewer ships for the Navy at a time of great conflict.
  There is not a penny in this bill to help Ukraine defeat Putin. They 
are going on the offensive as I speak, and we need to send a clear 
message to Putin: When it comes to your invasion of Ukraine, we are 
going to support the Ukrainians to ensure your loss.
  If we don't do that, then we are going to snatch defeat out of the 
jaws of victory.
  Senator Cotton--I am going to yield to him. He has a time problem. 
But we are going to take some time here to explain to you why those of 
us who believe that the No. 1 job of the Federal Government is to 
defend the Nation--that that concept has been abandoned and that we are 
going to insist and fight until we find a way to rectify some of this 
harm. OK.
  With that, I will yield to my good friend from Mississippi.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. I can assure my friend from South Carolina that when 
Senator Cotton reaches the floor, I will yield to him because he is 
time-constrained.
  What I want to say is what I have been saying all along this year 
since the Biden budget came out. The world is in the most dangerous 
situation we have seen since World War II, and this Biden budget, which 
is now enshrined in this debt ceiling bill, is woefully inadequate. It 
amounts to a cut in defense capability. It sounds like an increase. You 
can call it an increase. But inflation is running at 7 percent, and so 
we will have to increase defense spending by that much simply to keep 
up with what we did last year, and we would have to increase by several 
billions more in order to give us the capability we need to prevent war 
in the Pacific. So I just have to say that the

[[Page S1863]]

fact that this is being called a victory by some people on our side of 
the aisle is absolutely inaccurate.
  Pundits around the country have called this budget amount inadequate, 
and now, for some reason, because it is part of an agreement the 
Speaker has made, it is being applauded. The numbers don't lie.
  I will tell you this. I will say this to my friends. We have 3 or 4 
years to get ready for the time when Xi Jinping, the dictator 
President-for-life in communist China, says he wants to be ready for a 
war against the United States, a war to take over the island of Taiwan.
  The decisions we make today can be implemented--if we have the 
resolve to do them--by 2027, but we need to make those decisions this 
year. We don't need to put them off until next year, and we certainly 
don't need to say we are going to go with the Biden cuts in readiness 
and do 1 percent more next year. That is woefully inadequate.
  Let me say this before I yield to my friend from Alaska. It is easy 
to hide in the budget--one sentence, and then I will yield to my friend 
from Arkansas.
  It is easy to hide inadequacies in a defense budget. People still get 
their Social Security checks. They still get their paychecks. When it 
comes home to roost for us is when a conflict breaks out.
  We weren't ready for World War II, and when the flag went up and we 
were in a war, suddenly we were way, way behind. We were ready under 
President Reagan, and we had peace under President Reagan. When we are 
ready, we have the ability to avoid conflict, and this budget simply 
does not do that.
  I will yield the floor and let my friend from Arkansas seek 
recognition.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, after weeks of negotiating with an 
obstinate and capricious President, the House of Representatives passed 
legislation yesterday raising the debt ceiling and establishing budget 
caps for the next 2 years. Both Democrats and Republicans compromised 
in these negotiations, and, like every piece of compromise legislation, 
there are good parts and bad parts of this bill.
  I want to commend Speaker McCarthy for a number of commonsense 
victories. This bill improves the environmental review process for 
infrastructure projects, cuts funding for President Biden's army of IRS 
agents, and saves American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by 
clawing back unused COVID funds.
  Now, the bill doesn't go as far as I might like. It reduces domestic 
spending to last year's levels, which is better than even more spending 
and taxes, as the Democrats proposed, but I think domestic spending 
could return to prepandemic levels. COVID emergency legislation was 
just that--an emergency compelled by Chinese communist lies. It 
shouldn't reset the Federal Government's budget in perpetuity. But, 
again, I sympathize with the Speaker's constraints of a small House 
majority and negotiating with a Democratic Party that seems to 
prioritize welfare for grown men who won't work over our military.
  As I have noted, there are some victories in this bill, and it 
prevents default.
  Unfortunately, this bill poses a mortal risk to our national security 
by cutting our defense budget, which I cannot support, as grave dangers 
gather on the horizon.
  The bill's supporters contend that it raises defense spending by 3.2 
percent compared to last year. That is true at face value, but 
inflation was 6 percent last year. When you get a 3-percent raise but 
prices go up by 6 percent, even a small child could tell you that your 
money won't go as far and your family will have to tighten their belt. 
And it gets worse next year, when the defense budget will grow by only 
1 percent. Who thinks Joe Biden will get inflation to prepandemic 
levels? Even if he did, inflation would grow at least twice as fast as 
the defense budget, causing even more real cuts to defense.
  Worst of all, this bill contains an automatic 1 percent sequester 
based off last year's budget. That means that domestic spending will go 
up, and defense spending will go down if the sequester kicks in. Let me 
repeat that. If the sequester takes effect, Democrats will get more 
welfare spending, while defense gets cut. Who thinks the Democratic 
leader will be dissatisfied with this result? More to the point, who 
thinks he won't use the threat of sequester to extort even higher 
levels of welfare spending?
  These three provisions--a cut this year in real dollars, a worse cut 
in real dollars for 2025, and the automatic sequester based on last 
year's spending bills--conspire to threaten devastating cuts to the 
defense budget at a time when we can least afford it.
  The bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission Report recommends 
a real increase to defense spending of between 3 and 5 percent annually 
over inflation. This bill would cut real spending by more than 5 
percent in 2 years, effectively slashing tens of billions of dollars 
from defense.
  How bad is this defense gap? If we continued our recent bipartisan 
custom of increasing the defense budget from President Biden's 
irresponsible budget proposals, we could afford four additional Ford-
class aircraft carriers, 500 F-35 fighter jets, more than 91,000 
Stinger missiles, or half a million Javelin anti-tank missiles--all 
vital to our defense and to the defense of Ukraine and Taiwan.
  While we surrender our lead and erode our military edge our enemies 
are catching up. Last year, Russia increased its real military spending 
over inflation by 1 percent; China increased its real spending by over 
6 percent; and Iran increased its real spending by over 8 percent. The 
United States reduced our real spending by over 3 percent, and this 
bill, as I have said, would only make matters worse.
  For years, Washington has gotten defense spending backward. The 
budget shouldn't shape our defense needs. Indeed, it cannot shape our 
defense needs. Our defense needs have to shape our budget.
  China doesn't become less aggressive or Russia less revanchist or 
Iran less extreme because our military has shrunk. In fact, the 
opposite is true; they grow more ambitious and dangerous.
  The defense budget should rise and fall with the dangers confronting 
our Nation, and I do not believe those dangers are receding. Who here 
believes the world here is safer or more stable than it was a year ago 
or 2 years ago? On the contrary, America is in greater danger than at 
any time in my life. Iran is rushing toward a nuclear bomb; Russia has 
unleashed the largest European invasion since the Second World War; and 
China is plotting the conquest of Taiwan. Our military stockpiles are 
depleted and our defense supply chains are broken or strained. At the 
same time, our border defenses have effectively collapsed, and cartel 
members, criminal aliens, and possibly even terrorists are pouring into 
our country. We need a military to match this perilous moment. After 
all, protecting the safety and security of our people is our first and 
most fundamental responsibility.
  We cannot shortchange the military today without grave risks 
tomorrow. The weapons we buy this year will be the ones we field in 
2027, the time by which China will be at its greatest relative strength 
compared to the United States and when war is most likely.
  Now, I know that holding firm on defense priorities isn't always 
easy. As I said, there are parts of this bill that I support, but I 
cannot support the bill because it does not adequately fund our 
military given the threats we face.
  Supporters of the bill contend that the situation isn't as bad as I 
make it out to be. Their arguments don't hold up under scrutiny. Some 
claim that we could still get more defense funding through a 
supplemental bill or some other backdoor funding mechanism. But these 
same hollow promises were made when Congress passed the Budget Control 
Act of 2011, which devastated our military under President Obama. I ran 
for the Senate, in part, to reverse that disaster, and I won't vote for 
a new disaster with the same promises.
  And as I have explained, the sequester in this bill actually produces 
more domestic spending than the bill's core provisions, which 
encourages irresponsible Democrats to trigger sequester.
  Others have claimed that we can find efficiencies in the Pentagon to 
make up the difference. I don't disagree that there is fat to trim in 
some places in our military, but no serious person thinks that it is 
enough to make up for

[[Page S1864]]

tens of billions of dollars in cuts. Moreover, this claim assumes the 
Biden administration will put our readiness ahead of social 
engineering. Color me skeptical on that one when they start looking for 
efficiencies.
  Still, other supporters have shrugged and deployed the commonly used 
but rarely persuasive argument that the bill may be bad, but there is 
no alternative, and it is too late anyway. But it was and it remains 
our job to craft an alternative.
  We hear a lot that things that add votes to these big bills get in 
and things that subtract votes don't. Again, we know, from recent 
experience the last two National Defense Authorization Acts, that a 
higher defense number gets nearly 400 votes in the House and more than 
80 votes in the Senate. The first thing--the first thing--that should 
have been settled in these negotiations was a larger defense budget. 
Democrats have no argument against that recent history, and it is 
indisputable that increases to Joe Biden's defense budgets garner large 
bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate.
  So why wasn't it the first thing settled? I don't know, but the 
result is that a Congress with a Republican House and a Democratic 
Senate have now produced a defense budget worse in real terms than 
either defense budget produced by a unified Democratic Congress. I 
cannot vote for that curious result. If it takes a short-term increase 
in the debt ceiling to go back to the drawing board, so be it.
  Before we vote, I would also ask all my fellow Senators a simple 
question: Do you feel more safe or less safe than you did a year ago? 
If you feel more safe, by all means, vote to slash our defense budget. 
But if not--and in your heart of hearts you know you don't--join me in 
demanding that we do what it takes to protect our Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I just want to compliment Senator Cotton for reminding us 
what the job in Congress is, defending the Nation, and the odd outcome 
here is that at a time of growing conflict, we are reducing the Navy.
  There are 296 ships in the Navy today. Under this budget, by 2025, 
there will be 286. If we continue with the Biden budget, there will be 
290. The Chinese Navy today is 340. By 2025, they will have 400, and by 
2030 they will have 440. This budget locks in a smaller U.S. Navy at a 
time the Chinese Navy is growing dramatically.
  There is not a penny in this budget to help beat Putin. The Navy is 
smaller. The Army is smaller. The Marine Corps is smaller. This is not 
a threat-based budget. This is a budget of political compromise where 
people have lost sight of what the country needs.
  We need safety and security.
  To my House colleagues, I can't believe you did this.
  To the Speaker, I know you have got a tough job. I like you, but the 
party of Ronald Reagan is dying. Don't tell me that a defense budget 
that is $42 billion below inflation fully funds the military.
  Don't tell me that we can confront and challenge China. Everybody in 
this body is patting themselves on the back that we see China as the 
most existential threat to America. You are right. We did the CHIPS 
Act. We are doing things to help our economy combat China. At the 
moment of decision when it came to the military, this budget is a win 
for China. Please don't go home and say this is fully funded because it 
is not. Please stop talking about confronting China when you are 
dismantling the American Navy.
  How does this end? Senator Cotton is right. We will be here until 
Tuesday, until I get commitments that we are going to rectify some of 
these problems. The ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, 
Susan Collins, has been steadfastly in the camp of fiscal 
responsibility and national security. This deal has taken the 
Appropriations Committee out of the game.

  The CR, which kicks in, cuts defense and increases nondefense, making 
it really hard for me to believe that we are actually going to do our 
appropriations job.
  So what I want to do is, I want a commitment from the leaders of this 
body that we are not pulling the plug on Ukraine. There is not a penny 
in this bill for future efforts to help Ukraine defeat Russia, and they 
are going to gain on the battlefield in the coming days.
  And it is just not about Ukraine. I want a commitment that we will 
have a supplemental to make us better able to deal with China. I want a 
commitment that we are not going to weaken our position in the Mideast. 
There is a report out today that Iran is planning to attack our troops 
in Syria to drive us out.
  We are expending weapons that need to be replenished. Our military is 
weakening by the day. This budget that we are about to pass makes every 
problem worse.
  I want to end the war in Ukraine by defeating Putin. If you don't, he 
keeps going and we are going to have a conflict between NATO and Russia 
and our troops will be involved. And if you don't send a clear signal 
now, China will see this as an opportunity to leap into Taiwan.
  So to the Members of this body, we are staying here as long as it 
takes to get some commitment that we are going to reverse this debacle 
sooner rather than later.
  With that, I will yield to my good friend from Alaska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes 
for my remarks as well as 10 minutes for Senator Wicker and Senator 
Collins' remarks before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I think my colleagues are making the 
really important point of the national security implications of the 
bill that we are looking at and voting on. And I agree with what my 
colleagues have already said. Speaker McCarthy had a difficult job. I 
think there is a lot in this debt agreement that is important, that is 
positive. But the one thing we are not doing here--and, by the way, it 
is the most important thing we do as U.S. Senators--is have a strategy 
for the national defense of our Nation during an incredibly dangerous 
time globally. We are not doing that.
  We need a strategy. Already, my good friend from South Carolina 
mentioned some ideas. I am going to touch on those, but let's just 
reiterate. The Presiding Officer sits on the Armed Services Committee. 
Many of us do. We get witness after witness, including the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense, saying this is the most 
dangerous time since any period in history since World War II. That is 
the consensus. Not a lot of people would disagree with that. 
Authoritarian dictators, with an immense appetite for conquest, are on 
the march, and yet what does this budget agreement do? It cuts defense 
spending significantly, as already mentioned.
  Now, some people will say: Well, look at the top line. We never had a 
higher top line--$800-plus billion. As the Presiding Officer knows, the 
actual real measure of how serious we are as a country isn't the top 
line. Because of inflation over the years it is hard to compare.
  The real measure of how serious we are, in terms of what we are 
putting toward defense--what the No. 1 priority of the U.S. Congress 
should be, in my view--is what percentage of our national wealth we are 
dedicating to defense. This budget will take us, in the next 2 years, 
with the cut this year, an inflation-adjusted cut of 4 to 5 percent, 
and a nominal increase next year of 1 percent, which would be about a 
5- to 6-percent cut--it will take us below the 3 percent of GDP number 
for defense for the first time since 1999, during the peace dividend 
era of the Clinton administration. So we will be below 3 percent of 
GDP.
  When you look at different periods of American history, the Korean 
war, we were at almost 15 percent; Vietnam, 8 percent; Cold War Reagan 
buildup, almost 6 percent; Iraq, Afghanistan, War on Terror, 4.5 
percent, we are going to be going below 3 percent. It hasn't happened 
since 1999, and before that it has almost never happened in the history 
of the country, at least in the 20th century.
  Here is the most important point: In 1999, the threats to our Nation 
weren't nearly as dramatic and serious as they are today, and nobody 
disagrees with that.
  So what this budget does is it just accepts the Biden defense budget, 
which,

[[Page S1865]]

as Senator Graham has already mentioned, shrinks the Army, shrinks the 
Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps. That is what it does: less ships, not 
more ships; smaller number of soldiers and marines, not more. So 
accepting the Biden defense budget is actually something new during the 
Biden administration.
  What do I mean by that? As Senator Cotton mentioned, the last two 
previous Biden budgets came in, in anemic numbers, and in a bipartisan 
way--a strong bipartisan way, by the way--Democrats and Republicans 
significantly plussed-up those budget numbers. Last year, it was a $45 
billion increase to the weak Biden budget on the Armed Services 
Committee that every single Senator on the committee voted for, except 
one. That is about as bipartisan as you can get. The year before, it 
was a $25 billion plus-up. And as many people know, we were already 
discussing, in a bipartisan way on the Armed Services Committee, 
another significant plus-up to this Biden budget. So Democrats and 
Republicans knew it was weak and not sufficient to meet the challenges 
of today.
  But what happened? The music stopped, and now all of a sudden we are 
accepting the Biden budget. I know Democrat Senators who think that is 
wrong. They think that is wrong.
  One amendment I am going to offer, as we are debating this, is to do 
something very simple. It is to look at the Biden Pentagon's priority 
list--their unfunded priority list--that this President and his 
Secretary of Defense put forward. It is $18 billion, which the Armed 
Services Committee, in a bipartisan way, was already getting ready to 
agree to move forward and fund. I am going to ask my colleagues to fund 
it. At a minimum, let's fund it. We are not going to bust out of the 
top line of this agreement. We will just take that $18.4 billion and 
move it from the $80 billion IRS account and put it to the Pentagon. It 
is pretty simple. It should be 100 to 0.
  Do we want more Navy ships, more marines, or more IRS agents during 
this very dangerous time? I think the answer is pretty clear. I think 
the American people know the answer.
  Senator Cotton already mentioned this idea that the Speaker has 
talked about. We need more efficiencies in the Pentagon. I couldn't 
agree more. By the way, the Navy leadership right now--we need a lot 
more efficiencies out of that place. You have a Navy Secretary who is 
more focused on getting his climate plan out before his shipbuilding 
plan. The priorities of the Department of the Navy right now are 
remarkably misaligned with real-world challenges.
  What are those real-world challenges?
  I think the Presiding Officer was there when we had a briefing from 
some of our top Intelligence Agency officials. It was a classified 
briefing, and I asked him if this number was classified. They told me 
no. They came out and said the real Chinese budget, in terms of the 
military, is probably close to about $700 billion. That is a big 
budget. As Senator Cotton mentioned, they are increasing in real terms 
6, 7, 8 percent--cranking out ships, cranking out fifth-generation 
aircraft.
  And we are going to cut the budget this year and dramatically cut it 
next year and go under 3 percent of the GDP in one of the most 
dangerous times since the end of World War II?
  As Senator Cotton also mentioned, the National Defense Strategy 
Commission, which the Congress authorized a number of years ago to look 
at the serious national security threats facing our country, came back 
to the Armed Services Committee 2 years ago and said: What we need to 
do to address these serious national security challenges from China, 
from Russia, from Iran is to have 3 to 5 percent real GDP--or real 
growth--on the defense budget.
  That was broadly accepted by Democrats and Republicans. As a matter 
of fact, I think one of the members of that national security 
commission is now the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Biden 
administration.
  But we are not even close. We are going backward.
  Then Senator Graham's point about a supplemental to get Leader 
Schumer and the President to say ``we are going to have a supplemental 
for deterring authoritarian aggression'' is going to be critical. I 
would say the vast majority of my colleagues here--Democrats and 
Republicans--would support that. We need a serious, robust defense 
budget to deter war. If the young men and women who volunteer to serve 
in our military are asked to go fight a war, we need a strong budget so 
that they can come home victorious and not come home in body bags.
  This is deadly serious business, and we are not putting enough 
attention to it. It is one of the No. 1 things in the U.S. 
Constitution: that we need to provide for the common defense, to raise 
and support an Army, and to provide and maintain a Navy. That is our 
job, and we are not doing it. With this budget, this rushed budget, we 
need to get serious, and, hopefully, in the next few days, we can do 
that as we debate this agreement.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, my colleagues today have all had the same 
concern. That is, while we recognize the need to address the debt limit 
that our country is now up against, we also recognize that the defense 
of our country is a critical and necessary part of our responsibility 
as well.
  The concern that many of us have with the proposal right now is that, 
in order to raise the debt limit, part of it has a series of conditions 
with regard to what happens to the dollars that it takes to actually 
defend our country for the next 2 years. We want to be able to raise 
the debt limit--we recognize that--but we also have to address the need 
for the defense of our country.
  Why should we, as a part of the negotiation, be required to look at a 
reduction--a reduction--in the amount of dollars necessary for our 
young men and women to be able to defend our country?
  Within the provisions of this bill, there is a reduction of up to 1 
percent of the existing budget if we don't do an appropriations 
process. Yet, in order to do the appropriations process, we have to 
have 12 separate bills. The 12 separate bills all have to be passed. 
Now, the U.S. Senate is not known for necessarily doing anything on 
time. Yet here we come up to the end of the fiscal year in October, and 
we haven't seen appropriations bills on the floor yet.
  What we need to be able to do, rather than to have a 1-percent 
reduction in defense, is to have an agreement that we will at least 
allow the appropriations bills to go from the Appropriations Committee 
to the floor of the Senate so that we can address them up or down, with 
the appropriate amendments on them, and have a full discussion but do 
it in a timely fashion.
  So, No. 1, let's address the debt limit, but let's not penalize our 
ability to defend our country--or, perhaps, more appropriately say, 
let's not limit the ability of our young men and women in uniform to 
defend our country.
  My colleagues have done a great job of explaining what happens here 
if we don't do our job correctly with regard to this particular bill. 
No. 1, if we go to a continuing resolution, our defense budget goes 
down; but, No. 2, under the provisions of this bill, the nondefense 
portions of this budget could actually go up. So there is an 
incentive--an unfair incentive--built into this to spend more on 
domestic programs and to spend less to defend our country, which is our 
primary responsibility.
  How do we fix it at this late stage of the game?
  No. 1, there are supplementals that are absolutely necessary. We have 
aggressive authoritarians throughout the world who are right now 
looking to see whether or not we are prepared to support our allies and 
those individuals who are on the front lines. This is specifically in 
Ukraine, specifically looking, as well, in the South Pacific, and 
looking at Taiwan and doing our best to turn Taiwan into a porcupine to 
make it much less of a possibility that China will invade Taiwan.
  The other piece of this, along with that, is that we have to do an 
appropriations process where we actually get a chance to look at the 
Defense bill and our other appropriations bills in a timely fashion so 
that we do not have a continuing resolution in which the defense of our 
country loses ground,

[[Page S1866]]

making it more vulnerable or our country more vulnerable and a more 
challenging job for the young men and women who wear the uniform of 
this country.
  With that, I just want to say thank you to my colleagues who have 
laid out some great numbers for all of us and who clearly have laid out 
a path forward: a commitment by leadership that the appropriations 
process be completed in a timely fashion and a recognition that 
supplemental funding will be necessary to confront aggressive 
authoritarians throughout the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield my time to our next speaker, who 
is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, but I just want 
to say one thing before she speaks.
  The Chief of Naval Operations said we need 373 ships manned and 150 
unmanned platforms to deal with the threats we face around the world. 
We have 296 today. Under this budget deal, we will go to 286 by 2025. 
What does it take to get 373? The CNO of the Navy said, to get 373 
ships, you have got to spend 5 percent above inflation for a sustained 
period of time. This bill is 2 percent below inflation. So we are 
undercutting the ability of the Navy to build the ships we need to 
defend America.
  With that, I yield to Senator Collins.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, shortly, the Senate will consider the 
debt ceiling package that passed the House last night by a strong vote.
  I commend the Speaker for his hard work and his negotiations to 
prevent what would be a disastrous default, with catastrophic 
consequences for our economy, for the people who rely on important 
government programs, and for America's standing in the world. 
Nevertheless, there are two issues in this package that are very 
problematic.
  The first, as you have heard from my colleagues, is the completely 
inadequate top-line number for our national defense.
  The second is a harmful provision that would go into effect if any 1 
of the 12 appropriations bills has not been signed into law. It would 
trigger an automatic, meat-ax, indiscriminate, across-the-board cut in 
our already inadequate defense budget and in the domestic discretionary 
nondefense funding. This would happen automatically if, in fact, all 12 
appropriations bills have not been passed.
  Now let me address both of those issues and offer to my colleagues 
what I believe are solutions.
  The first is the inadequacy of the defense budget. As my colleagues 
have very well described, the defense budget submitted by President 
Biden and included as the top line in this package is insufficient to 
the task of fully implementing the national defense strategy at a time 
when we face serious and growing threats around the world.
  As my friends and colleagues from South Carolina and Alaska and 
others have already described, this budget request would actually 
shrink the size of our Navy. We would end up with a fleet of 291 ships. 
Those are 6 ships fewer than today's fleet of 297 ships, and it is 
further--further--away from the Chief of Naval Operations' requirement, 
which is informed by scenarios involving China, for example. Meanwhile, 
what is China doing? China has the largest navy in the world now, and 
it is growing to 400 ships in the next 2 years.
  The story is very similar if you look at the Air Force's tactical 
aircraft. So we have a real problem.
  Let me give you another example. It is an example that all of us can 
relate to who fill our cars with gas or seek to heat our homes.
  This budget request falls woefully short in funding the fuel costs of 
our military. The Government Accountability Office says the DOD's fuel 
costs are likely to be 20 percent higher than the amount of money that 
is included in the President's budget.
  I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, 
what the result would be, and he says it very clearly: It would 
translate into 20 percent fewer flying hours and steaming days, which 
would harm our military's training and readiness. So that is a very 
concrete area where the President's budget is clearly not going to be 
adequate.
  Second is the harmful provision with the automatic 1 percent cut 
across the board. Think about this, if you are the Secretary of 
Defense. Let's say the Department of Defense appropriations bill is 
signed into law before the start of the fiscal year in October, as I 
hope that it will be, and I am working hard. It doesn't matter. Let's 
say the leg branch appropriations bill isn't signed into law by January 
1 of next year. An order goes out that has to be implemented by April 
30 which would cut every account across the board by 1 percent. How 
does that make sense? Think how harmful that would be. How in the world 
is the military going to enter into contracts if it doesn't know what 
its budget is going to be, despite the fact that its appropriations 
bill has been signed into law, but because of this threat hanging over 
the Department.
  So what do we do? I don't want to see our country default for the 
first time in history. I do believe that would have catastrophic 
consequences. But we need to fix these problems.
  The first problem of an inadequate defense budget could be addressed 
and remedied by having an emergency defense supplemental. That is what 
we need to do. That is what I would ask the administration and my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to commit to because we know 
that this budget is not adequate to the global threats that we face.
  We know that it does nothing to deter Russian aggression in Ukraine. 
We know that it is not adequate to the challenge that we face from 
China. An emergency supplemental must be coming our way to remedy the 
first problem.
  What should we do about the second problem, the threat of this 1 
percent indiscriminate meat ax cut across the board? We need to pass 
each and every one of the 12 appropriations bills on time before the 
start of the fiscal year. In order to do that, I am working very hard 
with the chair of the committee, Senator Murray. But we need a 
commitment from the Senate majority leader that he will provide us with 
floor time. We will do our utmost to get every single one of the 12 
appropriations bills marked up and reported out of the Appropriations 
Committee. But then I am asking the Senate majority leader to commit to 
bringing each of those bills to the Senate floor, either singly or 
individually or as minibuses, as we used to do, where we would pair a 
couple of the bills together. But it is essential. I would implore the 
Democratic leader to provide the commitment that he will bring each of 
the appropriations bills to the Senate floor so that we can avoid the 
threat of this indiscriminate, across-the-board cut.
  I believe that is the path forward for us: an emergency defense 
supplemental to make up for the woefully inadequate budget that has 
been submitted by this administration for the Department of Defense for 
our national security; and, second, to prevent the 1 percent cut from 
ever being triggered, a commitment that all of the appropriations bills 
will be brought on time to the Senate floor.
  Then, it seems to me, we can proceed with this package and avoid a 
catastrophic default for our country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I want to echo what Senator Collins just suggested. How 
do you begin to turn this debacle around? You admit you have got a 
problem. It is pretty hard to quit drinking if you don't admit you have 
got a drinking problem.
  So what she is suggesting is that we acknowledge the obvious, that 
this bill, on the defense side, is inadequate to the threats we face, 
that a bill that funds the Pentagon below inflation at a time of great 
threat is not fully funding. She is trying to get us to wake up to the 
reality that if we don't speak about defeating Putin now, then the 
Ukrainians, who are on the offense, will be undercut.
  I will never let this happen again, as long as I am here, to let 
people negotiate behind closed doors and not tell

[[Page S1867]]

me what they are doing on defense. I blame myself for not being more 
involved and more active, because in my wildest dreams I never believed 
that the Republican Party would take the Biden budget that they have 
attacked for a year and celebrate it as fully funding. I know who I am 
dealing with now.

  Here is what Reagan told the Russians: Trust but verify. I will 
never, ever trust again, because you have got an ``R'' behind your 
name, that you are going to be the party of Ronald Reagan. You have to 
prove that to me. So, as we go forward, the game will change.
  Why is she asking for this to be done? If we don't commit to an 
orderly appropriations process, it gets worse for the Defense 
Department.
  To the people who wrote this bill, I would not let you buy me a car.
  The provisions of sequestration--for lack of a better word--the 
continuing resolution, if we don't do our legislative business, 
increases nondefense spending and decreases defense spending. I thought 
we were Republicans. Who came up with that great idea?
  The top line is inadequate. The CR is devastating. And what bothers 
me the most is that we would put the Department of Defense in this 
position.
  We are playing with the lives of men and women in the military, their 
ability to defend themselves, as some chess game in Washington. Well, 
this is checkers, at best.
  The fact that you would punish the military because we can't do our 
job as politicians is a pretty sad moment for me. But people in this 
body, on my side of the aisle, have drafted a bill that would punish 
the military even more if we fail to do our basic job. That cannot be 
the way of the future.
  So I will insist, or we will be here until Tuesday, and I will make 
an amendment to avoid default for 90 days or however many days it takes 
to get this right. I don't want us to default on the debt, but we are 
not leaving town until we find a way to stop some of this madness. You 
are not going to be able to blame me for default because I am ready to 
raise the debt ceiling right now for 90 days, no strings attached, to 
give us a chance to stop this insane approach to national security.
  I am supposed to talk to the President of Ukraine this afternoon. I 
would like to be able to tell him something: Oh, by the way, you have 
done a hell of a job with the money we have given you. Not one soldier 
has died. The weapons used by Ukraine have punished the Russian 
military. They are weakened and bloodied.
  They are about to take back territory. He is wondering, well, what 
does this mean for the future? I want to try to be able to tell him 
that I have got an assurance from this body that we are not going to 
leave you hanging.
  It is in our interest to beat Putin. I don't like war more than 
anybody else, but if Putin gets away with invading Ukraine, there goes 
Taiwan. And if you don't get that, you are just out of touch. They have 
a chance to evict Russia from Ukrainian territory. They need more 
military help, not American soldiers.
  If Putin loses, it is a deterrence for China. If Putin doesn't lose, 
he will keep grabbing territory until we have a war between Russia and 
NATO. This is a big, big deal.
  Iran is coming up with a plan, apparently, to drive us out of the 
Mideast. That just came out today.
  China is building. As Senator Collins said, they are going from 340 
ships to 440 ships by 2030. We are going from 296 to 290. That can't be 
the response to China.
  You cannot say with a straight face that this military budget is a 
counter to Chinese aggression, that it adequately allows us to defeat 
Putin. You cannot say with a straight face that this budget represents 
the threats America faces.
  A military budget should be based on threats, not political deals to 
avoid default. Nobody wants to default. We are not going to default. 
But I am tired of having default hanging over my head as a reason to 
neuter the military at a time we need it the most.
  To the American public, you would suffer if we defaulted. I get it. 
If this budget is the end of the discussion and we don't fix it, your 
sons and daughters are going to have more war, not less. You are going 
to send a signal to all the bad guys that we are all talk. And what you 
will be doing is putting the world on a course of sustained conflict 
rather than deterrence.
  The last time people did this was in the 1930s. They wanted to 
believe that Hitler wasn't serious about killing all the Jews, that 
they only wanted some land, that he really didn't want to take over the 
world. He wrote a book, and nobody believed him.
  The Iranian Ayatollah speaks every day: I will destroy the state of 
Israel; that we are infidels, and he is going to drive us out of the 
region.
  China openly confronts our planes--400 feet yesterday. They are 
testing us every day.
  The bottom line, folks, is we are not leaving until we get a path to 
fix this problem. Senator Susan Collins, my good friend from Maine, 
gave us that path. If you want to go home, fix it.
  I yield the floor.


                              H.J. Res. 45

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, if you are one of the over 43 million 
Americans with Federal student loan debt, today's Republican measure 
attacking debt relief is a slap in the face. Even a casual examination 
of today's CRA shows that is a cruel measure.
  This is what Republicans are proposing: They not only want to 
sabotage President Biden's student debt relief, they not only want to 
put a stop to future payment pauses, Republicans actually want to ask 
for payments and interest retroactively--from September to December of 
last year.
  That is right; if you are a student loan borrower and were told that 
you didn't have to worry about payments last fall, you could be back on 
the hook if Republicans get their way. This Republican bill is a 
student debt bait-and-switch, penalizing borrowers by an average of 
$1,500 in extra payments.
  And there is another twist in the knife: If you are a first 
responder, an educator, a member of the military, or any sort of 
employee in the public sector, the Republican bill could jeopardize 
your eligibility for the public service loan forgiveness program. We 
should be in the business of helping Americans saddled with student 
loan debt, not making their problems worse as this measure would do. I 
will vote no.


                          Vote on H.J. Res. 45

  The joint resolution was ordered to a third reading and was read the 
third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the 
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
  Ms. HASSAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There has been a request for the yeas and 
nays.
  Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) 
and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 46, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 135 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Braun
     Britt
     Budd
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Mullin
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sinema
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Vance
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--46

     Baldwin
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Fetterman
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Van Hollen
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

[[Page S1868]]


  


                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bennet
     Warner
       
  The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 45) was passed.
  (Mr. PETERS assumed the Chair.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The majority leader.

                          ____________________