[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 56 (Thursday, March 27, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1892-S1894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, right now, we have a couple of 
billionaires running our country straight into the ground and who seem 
to have skipped American history because President Trump and Elon Musk 
don't seem to care much about our Constitution, including the part that 
says quite clearly:

       The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, 
     Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for 
     the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.

  It continues:

       No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in 
     Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.

  Well, their lack of interest in that section of the Constitution 
doesn't make it any less real at all. You don't have to take my word 
for it; it is right down the street at the National Archives. You can 
go read it yourself. I would invite our billionaire ``co-Presidents'' 
to go take a look. Stand in line with the schoolkids who are on trips. 
Read up on the separation of powers. You can even explain to the 
students there why you are gutting the Department of Education while 
you are at it.
  Just in case Trump and Musk struggle as much with reading 
comprehension as history, let me translate for you what the 
Constitution says. Congress--that is us, everyone elected here--has the 
power of the purse. Presidents don't write laws; they execute them. 
That has been true for every spending bill this body has ever passed, 
including the House Republicans' yearlong CR.
  The basic fact that Congress has the power of the purse is something 
Republicans and Democrats agree on, and it

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won't change no matter what Trump or Russ Vought or Elon Musk claims. 
Their legal theories are plain outlandish, and so are their facts. If 
you listen to them, they argue that Presidents have been impounding 
funds routinely. That is wrong. The opposite is true. Presidents have 
traditionally followed the law and followed the legal directives in 
spending bills.
  When Nixon tried to block just a fraction of the amount of funding 
Trump is now blocking, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act on a 
truly overwhelming bipartisan basis. In fact, it cleared this Senate 
unanimously.
  So while the Constitution may be the first word on Congress's power 
of the purse, this foundational principle has been affirmed time and 
again by the courts and by Congress. The law affirms what we have long 
known--Presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of the spending 
laws to follow--and it lays out a clear procedure for the President to 
propose to Congress either delaying or rescinding funding.
  The Impoundment Control Act is still the law of the land. The 
Constitution is still the foundation of this democracy. Congress still 
has the power of the purse, and for some of the House Republicans who 
seem to have forgotten, that power is a critical part of how all of 
us--how we fight for our constituents.
  As lawmakers, we allocate funding to solve problems, to make lives 
better, to make our country safer with things like new bridges to 
safely get to work or with affordable healthcare or childcare, with 
clean drinking water, with a strong national defense, with personnel 
who keep planes flying safely overhead and keep toxins out of our food 
supply, and so much more.
  When Congress passes legislation to make all of those priorities real 
and the President signs it into law, it needs to be followed. That is 
how it works in this democracy.
  You don't like the law, come to win the votes in Congress and change 
it. But I am here today on the floor because we all know too well this 
President is not doing that. He and the richest man in the world are 
defying our laws. They are hurting our constituents, and they are 
seeking to enrich themselves in that process.
  For over 2 months now, President Trump has been illegally choking off 
huge chunks of funding. We are talking about hundreds of billions of 
dollars--holding up investments in everything from new roads and 
bridges to cheaper energy, to stronger national security.
  Back in my home State of Washington, the reports keep rolling in 
about how President Trump is causing havoc by illegally blocking funds.
  Last week, I heard from a lumber company that is struggling to cover 
a loan, given its Federal grant for solar power has now been frozen for 
months.
  Earlier this week, my office heard about a terminated Spokane project 
focused on environmental restoration, stormwater management, and 
millions of dollars being canceled for Tribal public health efforts in 
my State alone.
  I have no doubt the fallout will continue next week because Trump 
keeps freezing more funding, ripping up more contracts, and ignoring 
our laws. It has to end.
  All of us--every one of us--wants a better working, more efficient 
government that delivers for people. But what Trump and Musk are doing 
has nothing to do with efficiency or with helping people. They are 
breaking the law and ripping the rug out from underneath families and 
American businesses, all while working overtime to pass more tax breaks 
for billionaires like themselves. This lawlessness has to end.
  I am hopeful, in this Chamber, we get back to regular order and pass 
actual bipartisan bills, full-year bills. We cannot let what happened 
with House Republicans' awful CR happen ever again. We have got to 
ensure that our constituents--our constituents, each and every one of 
us--have their voices heard by getting a full-year spending bill 
reflecting current needs and getting it across the finish line. And 
those bills need to be bipartisan. That is the bare minimum, and it is 
not too much to ask.
  I have worked with Republicans for years--for years--on bipartisan 
spending bills. During my time as Appropriations chair, I worked with 
Senator Collins from the other side of the aisle and our colleagues on 
the committee on both sides of the aisle to hammer out strong, 
bipartisan bills 2 years in a row--bills that passed out of our 
committee in overwhelming bipartisan votes, many of them unanimously. 
So I know well it is absolutely possible to work together, and it is 
worthwhile.
  Is it easy? Of course not. But you look at the bills we wrote 
together, and you look at the disaster of a bill that House Republicans 
wrote on their own, and the difference is night and day.
  I am not just talking about the difference in huge, painful cuts from 
the House Republican bill. I am also talking about the huge 
incompetence House Republicans displayed.
  They wrote a bill that slashed DC's own budget by $1 billion for no 
reason. The Senate has now passed a bill to fix the inexcusable cut to 
DC's own funds--their own funds. But if the House does not act quickly 
now to pass the Senate bill and fix that mistake, House Republicans 
will force DC to fire teachers, to fire police officers, and more, by 
the way, without saving taxpayers a dime.
  That is just one--one--of the many glaring issues with the House 
Republicans' partisan CR, which I spoke about at length when I cast my 
vote against it. And I stand proudly by that vote today.
  Republicans should not write a bill without me and expect me just to 
vote for it. That is not how this ever works. We should not accept a 
false choice of accepting House Republicans' poison pills or facing a 
shutdown; otherwise, that poison is only going to get more bitter each 
time.
  The choice we have to talk about instead is this: Will we work 
together in a bipartisan way to fund the government and invest in the 
places that we represent or will House Republicans cut us out, go on 
their own, and cause a shutdown?
  We have to start looking ahead to fiscal year 2026 and working on 
those bipartisan funding bills. I am focused on making sure that what 
happened earlier this month absolutely does not happen again because 
let me be absolutely clear: If Republicans draft another funding bill 
in September with zero Democratic input and that bill fails to pass the 
Senate because Democrats do not vote for it, that is on Republicans. 
That is Republicans forcing a shutdown. Period.
  I represent nearly 8 million people in the State of Washington. I am 
not offering up my vote in exchange for nothing--and, actually, in the 
case of House Republicans' CR, worse than nothing, given how it will 
now be used against Democrats.
  So I am absolutely not going to stop making this point. Democrats 
should not offer up our votes in exchange for exactly nothing. I will 
be making that argument loud and clear for everyone to hear.
  We need to be focused on negotiating bipartisan bills that give our 
communities strong investments instead of devastating cuts. We need to 
ensure that our constituents have a voice in this process.
  Colleagues, understand this: Passing full-year, bipartisan spending 
bills, that is my top priority--those spending bills that carry the 
full authority of Congress on how we spend taxpayer dollars, that carry 
forward the priorities our constituents tell us about. That is my top 
priority. That is the most important guardrail we can place on an 
administration that looks to punish people they disagree with and strip 
funding from priorities like Army Corps dam repairs or public 
transportation projects or from public schools and universities.
  As we write those bills, we need transparency. We need to understand 
the reality on the ground of what this administration and DOGE are 
actually doing. Who is calling the shots over there? What programs are 
functional at this point? Where do we have enough staff to even carry 
out the mission of specific Agencies or to faithfully follow 
congressional intent?
  We need a hearing with Elon Musk and whoever else is running DOGE. We 
need hearings with Department heads. Whatever form it takes, we need 
answers on what has been going on; we need an end to the lawlessness 
that is happening; and we need transparency that is sorely lacking.
  I don't know when that became controversial. Isn't DOGE supposed to 
be

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all about accountability? Isn't it supposed to be all about 
transparency?
  So let's get to it. Let's show the American people exactly what Trump 
is doing. What is the problem with that?
  After all, it is not like it is meant to be a secret. Project 2025 
was a public playbook, and it is clear they are following it to the 
letter.
  Before he returned as OMB Director, Russ Vought made clear he wanted 
to ignore our laws and ``Impound, Baby, Impound!'' That is a direct 
quote from the general counsel, by the way. He said it, ``Impound, 
Baby, Impound!''
  I even asked him about it directly: Will you follow our laws or just 
toss them out in the dumpster? And he wouldn't give us a straight yes. 
He wouldn't, why? Because he already laid out his plans in black and 
white. His plan: Break the law, block funds that Congress passed, dare 
the courts to stop him. And, shocker, the guy who made it clear he is 
willing to go break laws and block funding is breaking laws, and he is 
blocking funding.
  President Trump and Musk have made their intentions just as clear, 
not just ignoring our laws but ignoring court orders to uphold our laws 
and attacking our judges and our judicial system every time they don't 
get their way.
  Just this week, we saw new, blatantly illegal acts from the Trump 
administration. First, OMB removed a website that provides transparency 
by displaying how it directs Agencies to apportion--or spend--Federal 
funding. That website is not optional. It is in the statute. And OMB 
was complying with a requirement that was passed by us, by Congress.
  This is a cut-and-dry case. OMB must publish the Agency's legally 
binding budget decisions. We passed that language on a bipartisan basis 
because our constituents deserve transparency, and they deserve 
accountability for how their money is being spent.
  But the only thing transparent about this administration is how 
transparently illegal their actions are because the same day they 
illegally shut down and shut the American people out of seeing what 
they are doing, they also blocked funding that House Republicans 
continued in their own CR and that the President Trump himself actually 
just signed into law.
  Trump wants to illegally cherry-pick what gets funding that we passed 
and what gets left in the dust. Well, for one thing, that is straight 
up against the law--open-and-shut case; for another, it fundamentally 
erodes our democracy, the trust that people and businesses and local 
and State governments across the country place in the Federal 
Government, and, of course, our ability to negotiate bipartisan deals 
here in Congress. And let's not lose sight of the fact that it is bad 
for our country, and it is bad for our constituents.
  There is a reason we passed the emergency funds. But President Trump 
is choking off critical investments to combat the flow of fentanyl. He 
is slashing support for U.S. national security initiatives. He is 
weakening the competitiveness of U.S. business. He is setting back 
next-generation weather forecasting and more.
  That still is not all because the very next day, we learned he wants 
to illegally freeze tens of millions of dollars in title X funding. 
That is a program with a long bipartisan history that helps women get 
cancer screenings, get birth control, pregnancy tests, prevent and 
treat STIs.
  Last time, President Trump tried to do that through rulemaking, but 
now that he is throwing the law out the window entirely, he thinks he 
can do it with the stroke of a pen.
  I have to underscore, these are just the most recent examples. 
Everything I just talked about happened just this week. This is the 
latest in a long trail of devastation they have left behind in this 
ongoing parade of lawbreaking because, as I mentioned, President Trump 
is still--is still--blocking hundreds of billions of dollars in 
investments we secured for our constituents.
  President Trump and Musk illegally shuttered USAID. They are 
illegally gutting the Department of Education. They are trying to 
dramatically slash medical research funding with restrictions that are 
in direct defiance of bipartisan language that I actually worked to 
negotiate with my Republican colleagues.
  I could go on all day describing the damage caused by these moves and 
the many other funds that are now illegally being blocked, but I think 
the pattern is clear. They said they were going to cut funding, 
regardless of the consequences, regardless of the laws, regardless of 
the Constitution, and that is exactly what they are doing.
  We here in Congress can't bury our heads in the sand while Trump, 
Musk, and Vought try to snatch away our power--our power, Democrats and 
Republicans--of the purse.
  I will continue to use every tool I have as a Senator. I will use my 
voice. I will use my vote and more to stop this lawlessness, to stop 
the cuts that hurt my constituents, and to write and pass bills that 
actually help people.
  So I really hope our Republican colleagues will work with us to craft 
bipartisan funding bills and to conduct basic oversight to provide 
accountability because it absolutely matters that we not just pass 
strong bipartisan funding laws but that the laws we pass are actually 
followed, that our constituents--every one of our constituents--
actually have a say in how their tax dollars are spent, and that 
Congress maintains the power of the purse. And I will keep continuing 
to press all of my colleagues to stand with me on this.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.