[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S438-S439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, if it weren't for a judge's temporary 
administrative stay, we would still be in the middle of Trump's 
pointless and illegal shutdown right now. Federal funding for a whole 
host of things would be frozen, meaning people all over the country who 
count on the Federal Government wouldn't get help.
  All of us--all 100 of us--got calls from back home, saying: What the 
heck is going on?
  VA home loans are being shut down. The Medicaid portal is being shut 
down. The Head Start portal is being shut down. Construction projects 
are being shut down. All because the Trump administration believes that 
it doesn't have to follow the appropriations law.
  Now, lots of us disagree about the size and the scope of the 
government. Lots of people vote no on the appropriations law. Fine. But 
once it is the law, the legislative branch sends it to the President of 
the United States. The President either signs it or vetoes it. In this 
case, President Biden signed the appropriations law.
  There is no provision in the statute and there is no provision in the 
Constitution that permits a President to pick and choose the spending 
that he prefers. That just doesn't exist in the law.
  The article I branch has one most foundational power in terms of the 
three branches of government being separate and coequal. ``Coequal'' is 
kind of a funny way of saying it, but it is important to think of these 
three branches as in constant struggle against each other for power. 
Our power is the power of the purse. Our power is the power to enact 
appropriations bills, to determine the level of Federal spending on 
various programs.
  But what the Trump White House did today was announce by fiat: We are 
not going to fund disaster relief. We are not going to fund public 
housing. We are not going to fund rural health care or foster care or 
opioid treatment or highway and rail projects or wildfire containment 
or cancer research or clean energy initiatives--all of it gone in an 
instant and, in this case, only for an instant because Donald Trump 
woke up yesterday and decided he no longer wanted to fund some of the 
most basic things that the Federal Government supports.
  Again, this really isn't about arguing about the merits of each 
individual

[[Page S439]]

program, although I don't know who is against allowing highway repairs 
to continue. I don't know who is against allowing Medicaid-funded 
nursing homes to continue. I don't know who is against allowing someone 
who has been waiting for their VA home loan to be able to close on that 
loan. But it is really not about that. It is about a more basic 
question, which is, Are we a nation of laws? Are we going to allow 
ourselves to turn into a monarchy?
  I want to harken back to something I mentioned earlier today. The 
White House Press Secretary was asked about a specific program, and she 
said: Well, they should talk to Russell Vought.
  Russell Vought is the nominee to be the OMB Director, the Office of 
Management and Budget.
  There are a couple of things wrong with this. First of all, it is not 
his call whether or not to spend the money; the Congress already 
decided that. Second of all, even more creepy than that, this guy has 
not been confirmed. He is not a government employee. He is not in 
charge of anything. And we are supposed to, like, petition this person 
to beg him to follow the law.
  This is the beginning of a long battle over a couple of most basic 
questions. First, are we going to allow this administration to just 
cause pain all across the country--every State, every county, school 
lunches, VA loans, construction projects? You name it. Are we going to 
allow this President to just do this because he feels like it?
  The second question is not about the projects themselves or the 
programs themselves or even the people they help it is about who are we 
as a Congress.
  When we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the 
United States, is that just the thing we do before they give us the pen 
and the pin that say ``United States Senator''? You know, you stand 
right there, and you swear yourself in. They give you a little pen that 
says ``United States Senator.'' You look at it, and you go: I am a U.S. 
Senator. But the important part wasn't when they gave you your election 
certificate. It wasn't when they handed you your pen. It wasn't when 
they give you this pin here that says ``United States Senate.'' It is 
when you swear that oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the 
United States of America. And the Constitution and laws of the United 
States of America make it very, very clear: We are not a constitutional 
monarchy; we are a democracy.
  What the court did today is important because it stopped a lot of 
pain all the way across the country--personal economic pain, family 
economic pain, macroeconomic pain from shutting down construction 
projects and business operations and all the rest of it. But it is more 
foundational than that.
  We have to establish some boundaries here that go beyond our partisan 
boundaries. We have to establish that enough is enough; that you might 
have your view about the size and the scope of the Federal Government 
and you might have your view about the previous President or the 
previous election campaign, but the law is the law here, and we are not 
going to allow any President, any administration, at any time to 
disobey the law in this flagrant of a fashion.
  One final thought. There will be a Democratic President at some 
point, and if this becomes the precedent, I promise you, if you are a 
U.S. Senator on the Republican side, you are going to hate this. You 
are going to hate the idea that a progressive President can reach into 
the defense budget or the VA budget or the Department of Commerce's 
budget and just say: You know what, I don't want to fund that. I am 
going to plus-up this and defund that.
  That is not the way the Federal system is supposed to work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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