[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 33 (Wednesday, February 19, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1020-S1023]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. President, the price of just about everything is going up right 
now. Anyone that has been to the grocery store in the past few weeks 
knows how hard it is to find a dozen eggs. Since the President was 
inaugurated, the price of eggs has gone up by 15 percent, which is the 
single biggest monthly increase in 10 years.
  The price of coffee is up 25 percent since the start of the year, and 
everything from gas to housing to car insurance is getting more 
expensive.
  But I don't want people to worry because Republicans are on it. 
Donald Trump knows that the main thing people elected him to do is 
lower prices, and, rest assured, he is working day and night to fix it. 
Everybody knows that the best way to lower costs for individual 
Americans is to cut taxes for billionaires. Everybody knows that. If 
eggs are 8 bucks where you are living, obviously, cut taxes for 
billionaires. If coffee is increasingly expensive, cut taxes for 
billionaires.
  That is the very first thing that Republicans in the new Congress 
have decided to do is cut taxes for the richest people to ever exist, 
and they are going to do it by making regular people pay.
  Now, that might sound like a partisan accusation, and, of course, on 
some level, it is. But if you are sitting at home listening to the 
chatter about one big, beautiful bill or two bills, and you are 
wondering what it all means, here is what they are doing. They want to 
cut taxes for billionaires to the tune of about $4.5 trillion--$4.5 
trillion.
  And because they already blew up the Federal deficit in 2017 and 
because there are some House Republicans and maybe some Senate 
Republicans who won't vote for a package that increases the deficit, 
they actually need to find some savings elsewhere.
  It is very hard to find $4.5 trillion worth of savings. So what are 
they doing? They are having to cut programs and services that help 
people on a daily basis, hundreds of billions of dollars in Social 
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act subsidies, and 
food assistance.
  They are slashing funding for cancer research and disaster recovery 
and schools and national parks and VA clinics. They are laying off 
thousands of employees at Federal Agencies, one-third of whom are 
veterans.
  And to be clear, this is not for the holy grail of efficiency. Food 
is rotting at the dock. Medicine is rotting. The National Park Service 
is already backed up. Normally, it takes 1 minute to get into a 
national park. In a lot of places--it is cold outside--it is taking 90 
minutes to get into national parks. That is not efficiency.
  They are laying off probationary people, but let's be clear what 
``probationary'' means. It does mean new hires. It also means anybody 
who is getting a promotion. Someone who has performed well, the U.S. 
Government says: You are so good, we want you to do something even more 
important. So then you get put into this probationary category, and 
then you get laid off.

[[Page S1021]]

  Why? Why? Because they need to find $4.5 trillion worth of savings. 
That is what is going on.
  As we speak, there are multiple outbreaks of diseases and illnesses 
within the United States. We are in the middle of the worst flu season 
in a decade, 13,000 Americans dead. Norovirus cases have skyrocketed by 
340 percent this winter, and there have been 68 cases of the bird flu 
nationwide, not to mention that if you can find eggs at all, they are 
sometimes $8 or $10 for a dozen.
  In Texas, 58 people--mostly children--have gotten measles, and that 
is to say nothing of Ebola and Marburg virus in eastern Africa. But 
don't worry. Trump is on it. And by ``on it,'' I mean he is laying off 
the very people who are responding to these crises.
  We learned yesterday that after DOGE fired officials at the 
Department of Agriculture who were working on containing the bird flu, 
they had to quickly backtrack to try to rehire them. Sometimes, they 
don't have these people's email addresses. Sorry, would you please come 
back? I don't know how to find you.
  This is not efficiency. This is an arson job so they can generate 
savings so they can shovel $4.5 trillion to the people on that stage at 
inauguration. That is what this is.
  We are less than 2 months into the year, and we have already had four 
major deadly aviation disasters, including one right here in Washington 
over the Potomac. And Trump is firing hundreds of FAA employees, people 
who have jobs like maintenance mechanics, information specialists, 
safety assistants.
  They actually asked a bunch of air traffic controllers to quit. We 
are short air traffic controllers. We have been short air traffic 
controllers for 6 or 7 years. As a matter of fact, when I was the 
chairman of the relevant committee, we worked on a bipartisan basis to 
put a lot of money behind hiring more air traffic controllers.
  Now, you can be a conservative and think the government should be 
smaller or you can be a liberal and think the government should be 
bigger. I assume nobody thinks we should lay off air traffic 
controllers.
  And if we are going to do that, it should be because something else 
even more urgent than air traffic control is at stake. But let's 
understand what is at stake. What is at stake is $4.5 trillion in tax 
cuts for the wealthiest people to ever walk this planet.
  We are less than a month away from the March 14 funding deadline to 
keep the government open, and we don't even have topline numbers yet, 
let alone full committee bills. We are nowhere near a defense bill. But 
the only thing that Republicans are focused on right now, immediately, 
urgently, is cutting taxes for billionaires.
  People are dying because of the flu and the bird flu? Let's cut taxes 
for billionaires. Airplanes are falling out of the sky? Let's cut taxes 
for billionaires.
  People are losing their homes in wildfires in Los Angeles and floods 
in Kentucky? Let's cut taxes for billionaires. Families can't afford 
their healthcare or housing no matter how hard they work? Let's cut 
taxes for billionaires.
  Kids are falling behind in school, with a third of eighth graders 
lacking basic reading skills? Let's cut taxes for billionaires. Trump 
is illegally cutting funding for pediatric cancer research and disease 
prevention? Let's cut taxes for billionaires.
  Thousands of National Park Service workers fired? I know what we 
should do. Why don't we shovel a bunch of money to a bunch of 
billionaires?
  Millions of people--millions of people--are on the verge of 
starvation, disease, and death because Trump suddenly and illegally 
suspended one of our primary arms of foreign policy: USAID. What is 
their solution? Not to exert any pressure on the State Department or 
the OMB or the President himself, let's cut taxes for billionaires. 
Anything and everything comes down to this. Why? Because it is the main 
thing they think about.
  There are so many smart people on the other side of the aisle, so 
many people who have accomplished so much in their careers, and they 
are lighting it on fire for this man. The solution to every problem big 
or small, domestic or global, complex or simple is to cut taxes for 
billionaires.
  This is their project. This is their reason for being. Whatever else 
has motivated them to run for office in the first place, this is the 
first thing they are doing, instead of a bunch of other stuff.
  It doesn't have to be like this. You can be a Republican and give 
them their Cabinet and their judges and Justices, but, my God, stand up 
for this place. Why would you run for office and then just remove your 
frontal lobe and do whatever this man thinks?
  It doesn't matter how much harm comes to your hospitals or your 
schools or your roads or the one-third of Federal workers who are 
veterans, the solution always is to cut taxes for billionaires.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, you know, it was just 30 days ago that 
President Trump took the oath of office just down the hall here in the 
Rotunda. Thirty days later, he continues to betray the promises that he 
made to the American people when he was on the campaign trail.
  He promised he would focus on reducing prices and costs that the 
American people have to bear. In fact, costs are going up. He promised 
to fight for working Americans, the forgotten Americans, but with the 
help of the richest man in the world Elon Musk, he is actually going 
about cutting very important public services to the American people in 
order to make way for and pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest in this 
country--people like Elon Musk.
  I come to the Senate floor today because we are in the process of 
setting up the framework in which that is going to happen. Republicans 
are bringing to the floor--probably tomorrow--a budget resolution that 
will set in motion that process of providing tax cuts for the very 
wealthy at the expense of other Americans.
  That is a great betrayal by the Trump administration. But before I 
talk about that great betrayal by Donald Trump, I want to talk about 
another betrayal that is going on as we speak, and that is his betrayal 
of the Ukrainian people and everybody who yearns for and fights for 
freedom and democracy around the world.
  What we are witnessing is not ``America first''; we are witnessing 
``America in retreat.''
  The Ukrainian people, for over 3 years now, have been fighting 
against the brutal onslaught by Vladimir Putin. They are fighting to 
protect their sovereignty, their way of life. President Trump is 
throwing the Ukrainian people under the bus and at the same time 
betraying people who fight for freedom around the world.
  You know, Donald Trump likes to pick on people he perceives as 
weaker. We all know that he made fun of people with disabilities. He 
likes to pick on people who have differences. But when it comes to 
other bullies, he is a weak, weak person. He backs down. And that is 
what we are witnessing with respect to Vladimir Putin--Donald Trump is 
backing down.
  In fact, he just today blamed the Ukrainians and President Zelenskyy 
for Putin's attack on the Ukrainian people. In fact, he called 
Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy, a dictator, when it is Vladimir Putin 
that is the dictator and launched the assault on the Ukrainian people.
  We should all be ashamed--ashamed, Mr. President. I met with 
President Zelenskyy at the Munich Conference over the weekend, along 
with many of my Senate colleagues, a bipartisan delegation. All of us, 
Republicans and Democrats, said to President Zelenskyy: You have our 
continued support. The Ukrainian people have our continued support.
  But at that same conference, we saw Vice President Vance not even 
talk about the threat from Putin and our support for the Ukrainian 
people. In fact, we heard him lecture the people from Europe and others 
around the world gathered at that conference about their ``weak 
democracy'' and say that really what they needed to do was kowtow to 
the farthest right parties in Germany, neo-fascist parties in Germany, 
and then, after saying that, he went out and met with them. That is now 
the U.S. foreign policy in action, and all of us on a bipartisan basis 
should be standing up and saying that is wrong.

[[Page S1022]]

  Yet the Secretary of Treasury arrived to extort Zelenskyy, saying: 
Unless you give us half of your rare mineral reserves to pay for past 
support, you don't get any additional support from the American people.
  Imagine if during World War II, FDR had said to Churchill and our 
other allies: Hey, we are no longer going to support you in the fight 
against fascism, Nazis, and Hitler unless you sign over now half of 
your natural resources.
  This is a shameful moment for the United States. We have stood up for 
freedom, we have stood up for democracy, we have stood up for the rule 
of law, and now, President Trump is throwing Ukraine and freedom-loving 
people around the world under the bus.
  So I say to our NATO allies and other allies around the world and 
partners who believe in the rule of law and believe in democracy: You 
are going to have to carry this mantle for now.
  A lot of people say: Oh, that is just President Trump saying these 
things. Watch what he does, not what he says.
  What an American President says matters, and when President Trump 
talks about abandoning Ukraine and how President Zelenskyy is the 
dictator and how Ukraine started the war, not Putin, that is throwing 
Ukraine and our NATO allies under the bus.
  So our European allies, our European NATO friends--they are going to 
have to step up and clearly carry that mantle, and I really urge my 
Senate Republican colleagues to do so at this moment.
  You know, it was Donald Trump who, in speaking about Americans who 
lost their lives in combat, said, ``They are losers and suckers.'' That 
is what the now President of the United States said about Americans who 
sacrificed their lives for our country. Folks may also recall that is 
what he said about our former colleague Senator McCain because he was 
taken prisoner.
  So I really hope that those in this Senate, in both parties, will 
stand up and stand up for the principles the United States has stood up 
for--not perfectly, far from perfectly, but what we have stood up for 
since World War II and in that postwar period where we helped construct 
many of the institutions that helped set the rules of the road in the 
globe today.
  Now, here at home, we are also experiencing a betrayal. You know, I 
just was earlier today at a rally in front of the Department of Health 
and Human Services. It was a rally to protect the public health and 
specifically to help protect medical research that is conducted at the 
National Institutes of Health and at institutions around our country, 
colleges and universities and other places where they do the research 
that leads to treatments and cures that save lives in America.
  It is pretty simple: When you start slashing funds for the NIH and 
its programs and when you start slashing the research team at NIH, it 
means more Americans will die prematurely of disease; it means more 
Americans will suffer for lack of treatments. Yet, that is what we saw 
the Trump administration do recently.
  Fortunately, a Federal court has put a stay on those illegal actions, 
these actions to just unilaterally try to cut important public 
investments in medical research.
  So let's not sugarcoat it. The consequence of doing that is very 
serious. They do important research in cancer, in Alzheimer's, heart 
disease, diabetes, and other diseases, diseases that plague probably 
every American family, and rare diseases. Firing NIH employees and 
canceling important grants and reducing support for medical research 
will mean more Americans will die early.
  So what is going on? Well, it is the great betrayal because the 
reason we are seeing these efforts to slash important public 
investments across the board and to cut important positions in Federal 
Agencies is because they want to make room for a big tax cut for 
wealthy people.
  You can see that the person that Donald Trump, President Trump, has 
chosen to do his dirty work is Elon Musk, the richest person in the 
world, who is in the process of conducting illegal raids on various 
government Agencies. And I say ``illegal raids''--I have never seen the 
courts so busy. I mean, courts are issuing temporary restraining orders 
because there is a lot of lawbreaking going on. We have to fight this 
in the courts, and we have to fight it here, and the American people 
are fighting it around the country.
  This is the most corrupt bargain in American history. Elon Musk paid 
$280 million--$280 million--to help elect Donald Trump, and Donald 
Trump has now turned the keys to the Federal Government over to Elon 
Musk. And make no mistake, this has nothing--nothing--to do with 
government efficiency. We all welcome any effort to make the Federal 
Government more efficient. But this has nothing to do with that, and 
this has everything to do with helping the Federal Government serve the 
already powerful at the expense of working Americans and to clear that 
way--make cuts to pay for tax cuts for the very, very wealthy.
  You know, during the Presidential campaign, Candidate Trump talked 
about reducing prices, lowering costs for American families. When he 
was asked about Project 2025, he said: I don't know what that is. I 
don't know who those people are.
  But as soon as he was sworn in down the hall here, he went about 
implementing Project 2025. Now, why, on the campaign trail, would he 
say he knows nothing about it? He knew it was very unpopular. That, 
however, is exactly what he is implementing right now. In fact, the 
person he installed in the White House as the head of Office of 
Management and Budget was Russ Vought. He is the author of Project 
2025.

  And just a reminder to our colleagues, OMB is like the command and 
control center for the entire U.S. Federal budget. So President Trump 
put the author of Project 2025 in the cockpit for the Federal budget 
and has Elon Musk running and doing the dirty work at Federal Agencies 
around the country.
  If this were about government efficiency, you wouldn't start out by 
firing all the inspectors general. The inspectors general job is to be 
independent watchdogs. Their job is to look out for waste, fraud, and 
abuse. So if you want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, you don't 
start by firing the inspectors general. In fact, that is what you would 
do if you wanted to have people look the other way or not see when 
people were committing waste, fraud, and abuse.
  In fact, that is exactly what is happening now because if you look at 
what Elon Musk and his cronies are doing, they are going into Federal 
Agencies and taking and reviewing and have access to the most sensitive 
personal information of the American people. They did it at the 
Department of Treasury--Social Security numbers, bank accounts.
  The acting head of the Social Security Administration, a career 
official, just quit because she said it was inappropriate to turn over 
sensitive Social Security Administration information to Elon Musk and 
the DOGE boys.
  We have seen that in other Agencies, too, where career Federal civil 
servants whose loyalty is to the country are resigning rather than 
follow illegal orders. I commend them for not following illegal orders.
  If this were about efficiency, why would the Trump administration 
tell the employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stay 
home and not work? They continue to get paid, but they don't do their 
jobs. That is what they have been ordered. Why?
  The CFPB is a Bureau that helps protect American consumers against 
people who are engaged in fraud and con artists and cheats. They have 
gone after a lot of powerful people, a lot of powerful organizations. 
And they have returned over $1 billion to the American people--dollars 
that hard-working Americans were cheated out of. They went and got them 
back for them.
  Yet here comes Trump in the name of ``efficiency,'' telling people to 
no longer do their work, even though they are being paid for it. And 
their work is to go after fraudsters and cheats.
  I think we know what is going on here. What is going on here is we 
have Elon Musk trying to create a government that helps the already 
powerful and cuts services that benefit every American--like what 
happened to the Veterans' Administration, the Social Security 
Administration, and, yes, NIH when it comes to medical research, to 
help clear the way for tax cuts for very wealthy people. That is what 
is going on here.

[[Page S1023]]