[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S436-S438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me this evening is Mr. Nick Ayers, 
who is one of my colleagues in my office on whose judgment, counsel, 
and advice I rely regularly.
  As you know, on any given day, the halls of the Senate office 
buildings and the Capitol itself are teaming with people. We have a lot 
of visitors, which is a great thing. We have a lot of staff members, 
very able. We, obviously, have a hundred Senators, and we have many, 
many, many--did I mention many?--members of the press.
  And today many of those folks--not the tourists, not the members of 
the public, our visitors, our people who are visiting us--but some 
staff members, some Senators, and some members of the media have been 
catatonic--catatonic. They have been foaming at the mouth, and it all 
has to do with a simple memorandum issued by the Office of Management 
and Budget dealing with spending, and I want to talk about that for a 
few minutes and try to put it in perspective.
  I thought about starting my talk today off by saying: If it weren't 
for double standards around this place, there wouldn't be any standards 
at all. And, actually, that is true, but that is

[[Page S437]]

too cynical for the point I want to make today.
  The point I want to make today is that, in Congress, we are headed 
for a multiple-vehicle pileup--a multiple-vehicle pileup, which I will 
describe in a moment. And it is going to be messy, and dealing with it 
is going to be messy, and we have got to deal with it in accordance 
with the Constitution and our law, as passed by Congress.
  But we are also going to have to try to do some things a different 
way, and it is not going to be altogether pretty.
  Now, we can all debate--I haven't met a dummy yet in the U.S. Senate. 
Some people would disagree with that, but that has been my experience. 
Every single Member of this body is very clever, and they can get us 
bogged down in procedure and debate forever about how many lawyers can 
dance on the head of a pin. And all of that is important. I have done 
that myself before. But we are also dealing with reality.
  Did I mention we are dealing with a multiple-vehicle pileup?
  I remember back when President Obama was President. He repeatedly 
refused to enforce laws that he didn't like. When certain provisions--I 
remember it like it was yesterday--when certain provisions of the 
Affordable Care Act proved to be controversial--it was law, but some of 
those provisions of law that he passed were controversial. I will give 
you an example of a mandate that large employers provide insurance to 
their employees or else pay a big penalty. President Obama just 
unilaterally delayed implementation; said: I am not going to enforce 
it.
  Nobody went catatonic around here. Nobody started foaming at the 
mouth. Maybe everybody had taken their meds that day. I don't know. But 
there was no hue and cry, like we have heard today as a result of that 
OMB memorandum.
  I remember also when Congress took up the issue, at President Obama's 
suggestion, of Dreamers. Remember the DREAM Act? Congress wouldn't pass 
it. Dreamers are children brought to the United States of America 
illegally by their parents who have come here illegally. But the 
children are children; they don't know better.
  President Obama proposed the DREAM Act. Congress didn't pass it. So 
President Obama just ignored the law. He protected them from 
deportation through Executive action. It is called the 2012 Deferred 
Action For Childhood Arrivals Program.
  It broke the law. Nobody around here foamed at the mouth. Nobody 
around here went catatonic, including but not limited to the media.
  I remember when President Biden did a very similar thing. He sought 
to preserve and fortify DACA, as we called it. And he also took a 
number of steps unilaterally to weaken immigration enforcement.
  We know that. That is why the border under President Biden was an 
open, bleeding wound. He didn't--he refused to follow the law. Nobody 
foamed at the mouth around here. Members of the press didn't become 
catatonic.
  I don't remember anyone, Democrat or Republican, calling for 
President Obama's impeachment after a Federal court criticized his 
administration for spending money unlawfully. You remember that? 
President Obama decided to pay subsidies to health insurers in 2014, 
decided to give them money. There is just one problem: Congress hadn't 
appropriated the money. The GOP House, the Republican-controlled House, 
sued him. A Federal judge ruled against President Obama. But the money 
was spent.
  I remember when the GAO concluded that the Obama Health and Human 
Services Department in 2016 illegally spent money--Congress didn't 
appropriate it--by paying insurers instead of sending the money to the 
Department of Treasury.
  Nobody around here foamed at the mouth, including members of the 
press. Nobody around here went catatonic.
  Now, I didn't come here today to debate the ``take Care'' clause of 
the U.S. Constitution. We are all familiar with it. The President has a 
constitutional duty to ``take Care that the Laws be faithfully 
executed.'' That is the law. It is in our Constitution, bigger than 
Dallas, right there. And I believe in it. I didn't come here today to 
debate it.
  I didn't come here today to debate the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, 
which the courts have ruled to be constitutional, which says that 
Congress gets to appropriate the money and the President has to spend 
it. I don't want to get into all of that.
  But I guess my point, in light of this OMB memorandum--which I will 
talk about in a moment. My point is that having embraced nonenforcement 
when they like the results under President Biden and President Obama, 
my Democratic friends have very little standing--in fact, none, zero, 
zilch, nada--no standing to complain when President Trump employs the 
same legal theory for different purposes. I am not saying--I am not 
suggesting that we ought to follow the rule: Two wrongs don't make it 
right, but they do make it even.

  I am just gently suggesting that maybe I should have started this 
speech with: If it weren't for double standards around this place, 
there wouldn't be any standards at all.
  Let me say it again. I support the ``take Care'' clause in the 
Constitution, and I can read the law. I know a lawbook from a J.Crew 
catalog. I know what the Impoundment Act says, and I can read the court 
opinions holding that it is constitutional.
  Why am I talking about all this stuff? As you know, since he has been 
President--I don't know, a week, 10 days--President Trump has issued 
about a squillion Executive orders. I think it is the most Executive 
orders issued by a President in this short period of time, in the 
history of ever. I am still trying to read them.
  And most of his Executive orders--this is a general statement, but I 
think it is fairly accurate--intend, as is his right, to reverse many 
of the policies implemented by President Biden.
  I think it was yesterday that the Office of Management and Budget, 
under President Trump--under an Acting Director--issued a memorandum. 
And the memorandum went out to all Agencies of the Federal Government, 
and it said: Look, you have seen the President's Executive orders 
changing Federal policy, which he has the right to issue. So hold up 
spending any money--OBM said to the various Agencies--that would 
implement President Biden's policies as have been changed by President 
Trump.
  And OMB was very careful in its initial memorandum and in its 
explanation later to say: Look, we are not talking about direct 
payments to people. We are not talking about Medicaid. We are not 
talking about Medicare. We are not talking about Social Security. We 
are not talking about SNAP benefits. Very careful.
  Well, people around here, today, have been screaming like they are 
part of a prison riot: Oh, my God, the President is not following the 
law--like this had not happened before.
  Again, I am not saying that two wrongs don't make it right, but they 
do make it even. I am just trying to give you a little context for 
this.
  My good friend Senator Schumer--and he is my good friend. I went on a 
trip with Chuck to China. I don't want to personalize this about Chuck. 
Let me put it another way. Some of my Democratic friends have and some 
of my friends in the media have been running around like a 5-year-old 
in a Batman T-shirt screaming that the world is coming to an end and 
the Impoundment Act is being violated and the ``take Care'' clause of 
the Constitution has been thrown into the garbage bin, as if this sort 
of hesitation to spend money has never happened before in Washington, 
DC.
  Why is the Trump administration doing this? Look, I don't know. I 
don't talk to the Trump administration every day. People have a 
multitude of reasons for doing what they do. But I can see what is 
going on and what is going to be going on over the next 6 months to a 
year.
  Did I mention we are headed to a multiple-vehicle pileup?
  Here is the problem. We have to extend the tax cuts from the Tax Cuts 
and Jobs Act of 2017. We don't have a choice. Like it or hate it, if we 
don't extend those tax cuts when they expire shortly, taxes are going 
to go up $4.3 trillion on the American people--not $4.3 million, not 
$4.3 billion; $4.3 trillion. And 60 percent of that tax increase is 
going to impact middle-class and lower income Americans. And that is 
just a natural fact. If we don't extend those tax cuts, it is going to 
drive

[[Page S438]]

our GDP and our economy on a journey to the center of the Earth. Even 
my Democratic friends know those tax cuts have to be extended.
  But we have other things we have to do too. We are deficit spending. 
We are spending money around here like it was pond water, like it was 
ditch water.
  I don't want to blame it all on President Biden. But if the shoe 
fits, wear it, Cinderella.
  This is what President Biden spent. He didn't spend this from tax 
revenues; he borrowed it: $1.9 trillion on the American Rescue Plan; 
$1.2 trillion on the Green New Deal, which they called an 
infrastructure act; $1 trillion on the Inflation Reduction Act; the 
Chips Act, where we gave money to some of the biggest companies in 
America--Big Tech--because they said they needed it. We gave them $280 
billion for semiconductor manufacturing.
  It was just announced yesterday: China just kicked our ass on 
artificial intelligence.
  I don't know if I can say ``ass'' on the Senate floor, but by God, I 
just did.
  They did--I don't know how else to describe it--after we spent $280 
billion? This is just under President Biden--$4.380 trillion on money 
we didn't have.
  We are deficit spending every nanosecond. I don't know how many 
millions we have had to borrow since I have been talking. We are taking 
in about $4.5 trillion, give or take. We are spending about $6.5 
trillion.
  When we deficit spend, that money doesn't fall from Heaven. We thank 
Heaven for it, but we have to borrow it, and we have to pay it back. 
And those annual deficits--daily deficits, monthly deficits--roll over 
into national debt, and we have $36 trillion worth of national debt. We 
are going to run out of digits. That is the most debt we have ever had, 
well over 100 percent of GDP.
  So we have to renew the tax cuts, which is going to cause short-
term--before it stimulates the economy--short-term loss of revenue. And 
we have to stop the deficit spending, and we have to reduce our debt.
  But there is more. There is more.
  We have to increase defense spending because President Xi is working 
with President Putin, who is working with the Ayatollah in Iran. And 
their goal is to have Putin dominate Eastern and Central Europe, to 
have Iran dominate the Middle East, to have China dominate the Indo-
Pacific and the South China Sea and be free to roam in Sub-Saharan 
Africa and Latin America and South America.

  I don't want America to be the world's policeman, but I don't want 
President Xi or President Putin or the Ayatollah in Iran to be the 
world's policemen either. Weakness invites the wolves, and we have to 
start spending more money on defense.
  You don't have to be Einstein's cousin to figure out that all the 
things that I just described that we have to do in the next year to 6 
months could be called competing interests--tax cuts, stop deficit 
spending, reduce the debt, but find more money for defense. Something 
has to give.
  All this is a long-winded way of saying we are going to have to 
reduce spending. We are going to have to do it. The numbers are the 
numbers. Since 2019, the American population has grown 2 percent. We 
are not having babies. Two percent--and that is after all the illegal 
immigration.
  Do you know what has happened to our budget? It has gone up 55 
percent.
  I know we had a pandemic. We had to save the economy. Two percent 
growth in population and a 55-percent increase in spending. Yes, we 
have had inflation. We didn't have 55-percent worth of inflation.
  We are going to have to be able to afford tax cuts and more defense 
spending and to pay down deficits and to pay down debt. We are going to 
have to reduce spending to prepandemic levels.
  And that is what this OBM memorandum today, which temporarily held up 
the spending of some money, consistent with President Trump's Executive 
orders, was the first baby step toward. That is what this is all about. 
That is what it is all about. The world is not going to spin off its 
axis.
  Again, I support the ``take Care'' clause of the Constitution. I 
understand what the Impoundment Act says, but this is reality. And this 
is what we have to solve over the next year. And we are going to have 
to solve it together because the debt is $36 trillion. Our population 
is 355 million people. That is 102 grand per man, woman, and child, and 
it has increased. And we are about to extend the tax cuts and start 
spending more on defense.
  There is a lot of excitement around here about the reconciliation 
bill or bills. I am excited about it. You can write this down and take 
it home to Mama: Those reconciliation bills, which we have to pass to 
get through this multiple-vehicle pileup that I just described, are 
going to contain substantial spending cuts. They are. Because you know 
what? If they don't, that reconciliation bill or bills will never pass 
the U.S. Senate. And I know it will not pass the U.S. House of 
Representatives. Then we will have failed to do what we told the 
American people that we were going to do, which is to get the Federal 
Government right-sized, to put the high prices behind us by growing out 
of them, by stimulating the economy and increasing wages, by making 
energy cheaper, by paying down our debt. And that is what is going on.
  I hope all the folks today will go home and take off their Batman T-
shirts, wash them. They are probably a little sweaty. I hope everybody 
will go home--those who drink, have a cocktail, take their meds, and 
put this all in perspective. That is what that OBM memorandum was all 
about.
  I am going to say this one final time because maybe some members of 
the media are listening. I am not advocating to ignore the 
Constitution. I am not advocating to ignore the impoundment laws of 
this Congress. What I am saying is: If you don't believe we are going 
to have to cut spending substantially in order to get out of this mess 
that has been created, then you shouldn't be driving it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The Senator from Hawaii.

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