[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 112 (Saturday, June 28, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3610-S3611]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in strong 
opposition to the recently revealed Senate congressional budget bill. I 
will note that this is a 940-page bill that was just put out there at 
midnight. For me, that was a moment because, one, I realized that 
nothing has changed in terms of the proposal--it has actually added to 
the debt--and, two, from about $3.4 trillion to one analysis says $4 
trillion, and it actually adds more Medicaid cuts, another $100 
billion, up to $900 billion in Medicaid cuts. Those are the top lines, 
and I don't think anyone has had the time to look at every single 
detail of that bill, but to me it meant something else. That meant that 
I knew I was going to stay here, along with my colleague Senator Smith, 
because we have a job to do that is really important on this budget.
  But it was hard to not go home and grieve for one of my very good and 
beloved friends Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, whose funeral was 
held today in our State. And I would have been there in person. Because 
of the gravity of the legislation we are considering today, I was able 
to watch it online.
  One of the things that I most remember and will always remember from 
that funeral, in addition to the beauty of it, in addition to the trees 
and the bushes that awaited the guests outside because Melissa loved 
the beauty of the world and cared a lot about the world around her, but 
it was the words of our archbishop, Archbishop Hebda. It was a very 
religious service, full mass. My husband got to be there and take part 
in that mass.
  But Archbishop said at the close of the ceremony, he quoted the new 
Pope, Pope Leo, who recently said that politics is one of the greatest 
forms of charity. Melissa always believed that. She believed that in 
how she lived her life and got things done for people. Whether it was 
school lunches or better paid family leave or more fairness for people 
in our State, she believed that to her core, and her husband did too.
  When their kids wrote just a few days after their parents were 
murdered by a madman, their two kids in their twenties--one is going to 
get married in December, his fiancee was there, Melissa was planning 
the wedding--they asked people to make the world just a little bit 
better. They said: Plant a tree, pet a dog--hopefully, a golden 
retriever--because they loved dogs so much, do something small or big.
  So I figure that is what we are going to be doing the next few days, 
and this is big. But it is something that is going to make a difference 
to people in this country if we don't do something about this bill 
right now.
  What does this bill do? It kicks 16 million people off their 
healthcare--16 million people off their healthcare--in order to finance 
tax cuts for the wealthiest, in order to give multimillionaires a 
$400,000 tax cut? That doesn't make the world a better place.
  Adding $4 trillion in debt--a trillion of it is interest, which is 
going to make mortgage rates go up. It is going to make it harder for 
young people to be able, maybe, to get their first house or pay their 
rent. It is putting it on their backs. It is putting it on their 
shoulders.
  That is why I don't see this as a Big Beautiful Bill, I see this as a 
``Big Beautiful Betrayal'' of the hard-working people of this country.
  Why are our colleagues scrambling to get this done in 2 days? Just 
because the President sets a deadline and says: Jump, and they say: How 
high?
  Why are they always rubberstamping things that they don't actually 
believe in? We still know this newest draft, the 940 pages that no one 
has really read--we know that the bill still rips away healthcare for 
millions of Americans and closes hundreds of rural hospitals. It still 
shifts costs to States and threatens food assistance for families 
across the country. It still adds trillions of dollars to the Federal 
debt.
  People in this country, the more they hear about this, the more they 
don't like it. A FOX News poll recently, 60 percent of the people don't 
like it; 2 to 1 people say: This isn't going to help me; it is going to 
help wealthy people.
  People on Medicaid, they don't want to lose access to healthcare. One 
out of two people in assisted living are actually on Medicaid. You 
know, when my dad was in assisted living, he had some savings. He was 
married three times so a lot of that money had gone away. Better to 
talk about another time. But I knew the exact day that that savings was 
going to run out. I knew the exact savings day because I was going to 
move him over to a Catholic Charities place that actually took Medicaid 
because that was the day that his Medicaid would kick in. And it gave 
me some solace, even though he was in a place that didn't take 
Medicaid, that I had a plan for him. I had a place for him to go. He 
worked hard his whole life. Grew up in a hardscrabble mine. He deserved 
to have the end of his life be a life of dignity.
  This is not what the American people voted for. When I get out to 
rural Minnesota--I visit all of 87 counties every single year. I have 
done 49 so far. So I have been in a lot of our rural counties

[[Page S3611]]

in the last 6 months. They are scared to death of what this is going to 
do to rural hospitals because the debt is so huge in this bill, it 
actually triggers some rules on Medicare that will cut $500 billion in 
Medicare, in addition to the Medicaid cuts I already laid out, which 
are now up to $900 billion. That is devastating for rural hospitals. It 
is projected 300 rural hospitals will close. This is the lifeline--the 
lifeline--for people in rural America.
  When they get something, a very, very serious illness, yes, they will 
go to another hospital in maybe a bigger area, bigger town, metro area, 
but when they need emergency care, unless they are going to get a 
helicopter coming in to get them or they break a leg--and there are a 
lot of people working outside in rural areas, farming, logging, you 
name it--they need to have a local hospital there. They need to have 
local doctors there.
  There is no avoiding the facts: 16 million people cut off healthcare, 
closing over 300 rural hospitals and 500 nursing homes across the 
country.
  Republicans want to say the updated text will help rural providers 
with additional funding, but the bill is now making over $900 billion 
in cuts instead of the $800 billion when it comes to healthcare.
  I have heard from a working mom of two whose parents rely on Medicaid 
for healthcare. She told me she doesn't think it is fair to shift the 
cost of care to families like hers to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. 
Duh. She said we need to draw the line and say this is enough.
  I have heard from so many people across my State about the food 
assistance cuts: 4 million people off of food assistance. Do you know 
who are the majority--vast majority--of people on food assistance? 
Veterans, seniors, people with little kids, old people. Those are the 
people on food assistance.
  Grocery stores, in rural areas, you may have one grocery store in a 
town, more likely in a county, more likely in four counties. They are 
operating already--many of them are independent groceries--on thin 
margins. You make these kinds of cuts, you make these kinds of cuts to 
SNAP, the results are going to be that you are going to lose these 
grocery stores.
  As ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, I have heard over and 
over again from farmers who are already facing headwinds--the Trump 
tariffs--they don't have markets now that they had markets before; the 
cuts to the international food assistance that we were always so proud 
of in this country, that was other organizations buying American 
farmers' food; the input costs; what is happening with avian flu and 
other things, and now you add this? This is food that is produced by 
American farmers when you cut $200 billion, as the Senate bill does, 
from the SNAP program.
  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the 
Senate bill would end SNAP for 2.9 million Americans, including over 
nearly a million seniors and 270,000 veterans. The bill passed by the 
House would add $3.4 trillion, as I noted, to the national debt, and 
this Senate bill is now up to $4 trillion. And it uses this funky 
budgeting, which let me just explain an easy way, it is called baseline 
budgeting.
  Everyone that looks at this from the outside says this is a $4 
trillion debt adder, but they use something where they say: OK, let's 
say--the Washington Post did this today. You go to a movie and you buy 
a movie ticket. Let's say it is $10. Then you get some popcorn. And you 
do that one week because you want to see that ``F1`` movie, the new 
movie. Then, 2 weeks later, you go and you want to see it again, but 
you get some popcorn for $5--small popcorn for $5. OK.
  Instead of saying, ``You are paying your 10 bucks for the ticket and 
your 5 bucks for the popcorn,'' they say, ``Oh, it is only 5 bucks 
because that is how much it went up over the last few weeks.'' That is 
the funky budgeting. That is the joke. That is the faux budgeting that 
is going on, on the other side.
  So $4 trillion in 10 years--that is what it costs. This is not what 
Americans voted for.
  The President promised to lower costs and stand up for the middle 
class. This bill does the opposite. It raises costs. It takes from 
working people to pad the pockets of the wealthy, and that is why this 
bill is so unpopular.
  Whether it is a mom from Louisiana whose son has Down syndrome and 
counts on Medicaid or a busdriver from Kansas, like the one I met, who 
uses SNAP to feed her kids, the American people are speaking out 
against this bill.
  We will have the weekend to fight this bill, and I think people, in 
the middle of the summer, maybe they are not tuned in, but they better 
tune in because we should be protecting healthcare, not taking it away; 
defending food assistance, not raising grocery costs. We should not be 
giving tax breaks to the wealthy. We should be helping out the middle 
class and hard-working Americans.
  That is what our job should be. It is not what this bill is.
  I yield the floor.

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