[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 93 (Monday, June 2, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3159-S3160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Budget Resolution
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, before we left last week for the recess,
of course, the House did what it was supposed to do by passing
President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. This, of course, is the way we
are going to prevent a multitrillion-dollar tax increase on the
American people, something they can least afford on top of 4 years of
Bidenomics that resulted in a 20-percent increase in the cost of
everything because of runaway inflation.
But this is the vehicle that we will use not only to extend the
President's tax provisions but to prevent the largest tax increase in
American history and to do some other very important things that I am
going to talk about momentarily.
Those who follow Senate procedure, which have to be a very small
number of people in the United States, know that our job now is to work
with the Parliamentarian on what is known as the Byrd bath because the
rules that apply in the House are different than those that apply here
in the Senate. So the parties will be making their arguments to the
Parliamentarian on what survives the so-called Byrd bath, named after
Robert C. Byrd, the famous West Virginia Senator and parliamentary
expert. But that is a unique rule here in the Senate. So that is really
the next step for people who are watching at home, wondering what in
the world is happening up here in Washington, DC.
Reconciliation, which is the process we are going through, of course,
is a unique vehicle--maybe not unique. It is a special vehicle, though,
because it doesn't require 60 votes in the Senate to get legislation
passed. But the Byrd rule is in place to make sure that we don't use
this special vehicle to do things that otherwise would require 60 votes
and broader bipartisan support. So that is why it exists, and that is
why we will be going through that process.
But the budget resolution, of course, has instructed both the House
and the Senate committees to spend money in some instances--for
example, the Judiciary Committee in the House, Homeland Security, and
the Armed Services Committee--to actually spend money to bolster our
defense and border security--something that, if we did not do, we would
be in a world of hurt, even though, frankly, with President Trump now
in office, the border crossings have dropped precipitously, about 95
percent.
But still, both ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the
Department of Homeland Security need additional resources for detention
facilities and personnel, or else they will run out of money.
But one of the most important things that we need to do in this
budget reconciliation process is to finally--finally--come to grips
with our national debt. We are approaching $37 trillion in debt, which
is more money than any human being can actually imagine. But here is
something that I have always recalled that sort of brings it home to
me: We are now spending more money on interest on the national debt
than we are to defend our Nation, which is the No. 1 job of the Federal
Government.
Of course, as I have said many times from the floor and as any
Senator knows, the world is the most dangerous it has been at any time
since World War II. You look at what is happening in North Korea, with
North Korea providing troops to the Russians to defeat the Ukrainians.
You see, obviously, Iran enriching uranium and providing drones to
Russia for the battle in Ukraine. You see President Xi in the Indo-
Pacific, threatening to take Taiwan by 2027. And then you see what is
happening in the Middle East, with Hamas and Israel and the Iranian
proxies, whether it is the Houthis in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon or
Hamas in Gaza.
The world is a very, very dangerous place, and the fact of the matter
is, we are on an unsustainable course. We cannot protect the Nation,
and we cannot establish deterrents so that our young men and women
never have to fight in wars without making the appropriate investments
in our national security. And we simply cannot do that on the current
trajectory we are on and with the debt now approaching $37 trillion.
The fact of the matter is, we really haven't tried very hard in the
past.
And as the Presiding Officer knows, as a member of the Appropriations
Committee, the Appropriations Committee, which handles the amount of
money that we spend on an annual basis, only deals with about 28
percent of what the Federal Government spends. The rest of that money--
the 72 percent--comes from mandatory spending programs and things like
the Tax Code because the Tax Code has actually become a means whereby
we actually spend money, as well through tax credits and the like.
The Federal Government spends roughly $6.7 trillion a year, and we
are never going to balance the budget just looking at 28 percent of
Federal spending, which is what we do through discretionary spending.
And, now, that means this is our opportunity--maybe, a once-in-a-
generation opportunity--to begin to chip away at that national debt.
If anything should get our attention, the recent credit ratings from
Moody's underscores the importance of including these reforms in this
particular legislation. Moody's recently downgraded its rating of U.S.
credit from Aaa to Aa1, and they pointed to our national
[[Page S3160]]
debt, especially our growing entitlement spending, as a reason to lower
our credit rating.
Now, this is the United States of America, and we are seeing our
credit rating downgraded because Congress has not had the courage to
deal with this impending potential debt crisis. If we want the United
States to maintain its standing in the world, if we want to be able to
have the resources to defend the Nation and deter our adversaries, we
have to at least begin to get our fiscal house in order. And this
bill--the Big Beautiful Bill from the House--we are going to make it
even more beautiful here in the Senate, but it is going take 51
Senators having the courage to step up and do some hard things, like
deal with this debt trajectory. But the good news is that this is our
opportunity right now.
One avenue to achieving some of these savings that I want to talk
about today is implementing work requirements for able-bodied adults in
our means-tested programs. There are a number of them, including
Medicaid, food stamps--now known as SNAP--and nutrition programs in the
farm bill that have means testing. In other words, only if you are
within a certain level, otherwise known as poverty levels, you will get
the benefit of these taxpayer-supported programs. But if you make more
than that, then you will not qualify.
Unfortunately, now we have lapsed into the situation where many able-
bodied adults are simply living off the taxpayers and not providing
either for their families or their communities but, rather, are a drain
on the Tax Code and are helping to drive this national debt.
Now, this is something that I have been advocating for a number of
years, but I have to confess it is nothing new. Now, our Democratic
colleagues are accusing Republicans of slashing these programs, which,
of course, is not true because we haven't actually finished our work
yet.
But, first of all, implementing work requirements for means-tested
programs, as I said, is nothing new. Back during the era of President
Clinton's Presidency, Democrats agreed with Republicans that able-
bodied adults who received government benefits should be required to
work or, in this case, they need to be looking for work or they need to
provide some community service. They can't just sit on the couch at
home and play video games.
They shared--Democrats did, back then--our goal of incentivizing
individual responsibility, rather than encouraging people to fall into
the trap of long-term government dependency. Inspired by this goal,
President Clinton and then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich came
together to lead the effort to pass what is now known as the Welfare
Reform Act of 1996.
This legislation implemented work requirements to TANF, otherwise
known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and had remarkable
success in declining welfare caseloads, while increasing employment and
earnings among low-income individuals.
So why would we not resurrect this tried-and-true playbook from the
bipartisan era of 1996?
The U.S. Federal Government spends about a trillion dollars a year on
means-tested programs, and work requirements are one commonsense step
toward reforming this trajectory--again, which is adding to our
national debt.
Recent research from the Foundation for Government Accountability
found that more than 62 percent of able-bodied adults who received
Medicaid benefits do not work at all--62 percent, two out of three. As
a Nation, labor force participation--the number of people actually
looking for work and participating in work--has been on the decline
among working-age men, especially, for decades.
Between 1960 and 2023, the fraction of working-age men who were out
of the labor force increased from about 3 percent to 11 percent--3
percent to 11 percent. By 2024, that had increased to 22 percent. That
is a nearly 700-percent increase over the last six and a half decades.
A society with that large a number of prime-age workers sitting at
home, receiving government benefits, is not the sign of a healthy and
flourishing society. And the truth is, we simply can't afford it, even
if we wanted to, which, I daresay, we do not.
With our national debt now in excess of $36 trillion, there is no
better time to encourage these large numbers of disengaged adults to
jump back into the labor force. So I was happy to see that the House
bill included work requirements that go into effect in 2026, and I hope
the Senate will include this policy in our bill as well.
Suffice it to say that our standing in the world, our ability to lead
the world, and our ability, as I mentioned at the outset, to defend our
Nation, depends on our ability to get our fiscal house in order.
We have kicked the can down the road so long that we simply have run
out of road. While the reality of the situation means we will not, in
one fell swoop, actually balance the budget, this Big Beautiful Bill is
an opportunity, at the very least, to bend the curve of our debt
trajectory to begin that process.
At the end of the day, while we all have priorities we would like to
see in this bill, Republicans have to be united because we need 51
votes in a 53-vote Senate to get this bill done, and we all share, on
this side of the aisle, the same goal of implementing President Trump's
agenda. And he is certainly going to be encouraging us to get this
done. So failure is not an option.
If the President's tax cuts are not extended, the American people
will face the largest tax increase in American history. And 62 percent
of Americans will see a tax increase in 2026, and working parents will
see the child tax credit cut in half.
That means the average family of four in Texas or Alabama or anywhere
else in the country that earns $80,000 will face a $1,700 tax increase.
As I said at the outset, this would be on top of about a 20-percent
increase in just about everything as a result of the inflationary
policies of the Biden-Harris administration. So our constituents, the
American taxpayer, working families, simply cannot afford that sort of
tax increase on top of this 40-year-high inflation.
Back home in Texas, my constituents have seen their taxes increase on
average $3,000 next year. As I have traveled my State as I did during
the course of this most recent recess, my constituents have emphasized
to me time and time again how much they are depending on these tax cuts
being renewed, especially our small businesses that depended on the
2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to hire more staff, to purchase equipment
that they could then expense, and to provide additional benefits to
their employees.
And so all of these small businesses, which are the primary job-
creating engine in America would be hurt and would suffer increased
costs and have to cut somewhere in their business. So let's not let the
naysayers distract us from our goal.
The American people are depending on us to pass the President's
agenda through this One Big Beautiful Bill.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.