[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 120 (Monday, July 14, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4329-S4331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, time flies these days, but it was just 
over a week ago when the House and the Senate passed what President 
Trump called the One Big Beautiful Bill, just in time for him to sign 
it before the deadline that he himself requested of July 4th.
  This comes after naysayers and the media said it couldn't be done--
simply, that the Speaker didn't have the votes with the razor-thin 
margins, and that, here in the Senate, we would not be able to get the 
majority vote we needed to pass this bill into law. But we did. To all 
those detractors and Debbie Downers, it looked like this pessimism was 
completely unwarranted.
  Now that the Republicans have proven their critics wrong by 
accomplishing what they insisted had to be done in order to avoid a tax 
increase on millions of Americans, our colleagues across the aisle do 
what they do best, and that is criticize what we have done, which they 
themselves were unwilling to do. But having offered no positive 
alternative, all they can do is what they have learned to do, which is 
to oppose each and every thing that President Trump and Republicans 
propose.
  Ever since the Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law, and even when 
lawmakers were working hard to make it over the finish line, our 
Democratic colleagues said that they found political gold in this bill 
and that this would be the pathway for them to win back the majority in 
the House of Representatives in 2026. And, of course, the mainstream 
media have parroted their party line, claiming that this bill will end 
up being unpopular.
  They have done everything from describing this as not the Big 
Beautiful Bill but as the ``Big Ugly Bill'' and claiming that somehow 
it benefits only a fraction of the American people at the top 1 percent 
and accusing us of fiscal irresponsibility, while they claim that 
somehow the most vulnerable among us have become even more vulnerable. 
None of these accusations are true.
  Of course, again, our Democratic colleagues could have worked with us 
to pass a bipartisan piece of legislation but chose not to do so. They 
have no positive policy proposals or vision for what America should be 
doing. At a time when we are confronting a multitrillion-dollar tax 
increase, all they can do is criticize and, of course, reflexively 
oppose each and every thing that President Trump is for.
  But I think it is important to point out what we were able to 
accomplish in this bill and why it was so important that we were 
successful. This legislation prevents hard-working taxpayers from 
facing the largest tax hike in American history.
  After 4 years of the Biden administration, we saw 40-year-high 
inflation. The cost of everything has gone up because of massive 
overspending during the 4 years of the Biden-Harris administration. 
Taxpayers have already sustained a cut in their standard of living 
through this hidden tax called inflation. So the last thing they needed 
or they deserved was a massive tax increase on top of this 40-year-high 
inflation, where everything, on average, is, let's say, an estimate of 
20 percent more expensive than it was before the Biden administration.
  In addition to preventing that multitrillion-dollar tax increase, we 
made these tax provisions permanent, preventing future Congresses from 
allowing that tax increase to take effect. We also provided additional 
benefits to working parents by making sure that their child tax credit 
wasn't cut in half.
  And, of course, the President promised no tax on tips and no tax on 
overtime for millions of middle-class families. We felt it was 
important--and I know the President did--to keep his promise.
  In Texas, the Big Beautiful Bill will save my constituents an average 
of $3,000 next year. That is real money to most Texas families.
  The other allegation by Democrats is that somehow this bill was not 
fiscally responsible. Well, we are $36 trillion-plus in debt. But, 
again, here is another example of where our Democratic colleagues have 
nothing to say about how we address these problems, other than: Let's 
raise taxes on the American people.
  According to the Wall Street Journal, about 62 percent of taxpayers 
would see their taxes go up if Democrats had their way and the 
temporary tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had expired.
  But it is important for us to begin to chip away at that national 
debt. I have said, time and time again, that we are spending more money 
on interest on the national debt than we are on defense, which is an 
unsustainable trajectory in a very dangerous world. I have been an 
advocate of looking at ways to trim mandatory spending programs, and 
the Big Beautiful Bill does just that.
  I think what most people don't fully understand, including Members of 
Congress, is that the Federal Government spends roughly $6.5 trillion a 
year. We appropriate about a third of that during the appropriations 
process, but the rest of it is on autopilot. It is mandatory spending 
programs that Congress does not appropriate on an annual basis. But 
once we turn it on, it continues until it is changed--usually never--
and it goes up more and more each year with cost-of-living provisions.
  Then there is the Tax Code itself, which is used sometimes for what 
is called tax expenditures. So we needed to look at ways to begin to 
reform some of the mandatory spending programs, if we were going to 
have a prayer at reducing the national debt, even by a little, as a 
first step.
  While this bill was not perfect--and, certainly, no piece of 
legislation ever is--it did make important reforms that will help us 
bend the curve of our debt trajectory.
  For example--and Democrats opposed this--we implemented work 
requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents to receive 
means-tested programs like Medicaid.

  So let's back up a little bit.
  Means-tested programs have income requirements. If you go above that 
threshold, you don't qualify. If you fall below it, you do. But 
Democrats have succeeded in making sure that able-bodied adults were 
receiving massive benefits under safety net programs, even though they 
were able to work and provide for their families and should have been 
working.
  In fact, our healthcare system had gotten so out of whack that more 
money was going to able-bodied adults than to the disabled, to pregnant 
women, and to children under the Medicaid Program. Our bill fixed that.
  Are work requirements for able-bodied adults some sort of radical 
conservative or Republican idea? Not if you look at the polling, which 
says that 62

[[Page S4330]]

percent of Americans, which is a bipartisan number, support work 
requirements for able-bodied adults for means-tested programs.
  I am, frankly, surprised it is only 62 percent. It is only common 
sense that people who can work should work. It is actually better for 
them. Work provides dignity and a sense of self-worth. The idea that we 
should continue to subsidize people playing video games, sitting on 
their couch at home, is beyond the pale. I think, certainly, the 
American taxpayer deserves better than to spend their hard-earned money 
on people who can and should be working.
  Then I offered an amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill that sort of, I 
think, cast the position of Democrats versus Republicans in a very 
clear light. My amendment would have penalized States for giving 
Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants who were charged or convicted 
of serious crimes like murder, human trafficking, child abuse, or child 
pornography. Forty-three Democrats voted against that.
  Turning it the other way around, that means 43 Democrats were for 
providing government benefits to illegal immigrants who were charged or 
convicted of very serious crimes.
  You really can't make this stuff up. It is stranger than fiction.
  Our colleagues across the aisle showed their true colors by voting 
for taxpayers to continue paying for government handouts to folks who 
shouldn't really be in this country in the first place, but for the 
open border policies of the Biden administration.
  One accusation I find particularly ironic from our friends across the 
aisle has been this idea that we have somehow added redtape to Medicaid 
by requiring recipients to verify their eligibility for the program two 
times a year.
  People come in and out of the Medicaid Program based on that means 
testing, based on their earnings threshold. So checking periodically to 
make sure that people still qualify strikes me as making good sense.
  But when Republicans talk about cutting redtape, we are talking about 
ways we can get government out of the way of our small businesses and 
our entrepreneurs so that our economy can grow and so that people can 
create wealth for themselves and their families and their 
beneficiaries. We are talking about reducing the government's footprint 
so that the magic of American innovation can take place, unstifled by 
unnecessary regulations.
  This bill will allow America to return to being the land of 
opportunity, where hard-working men and women who have a dream for a 
better life can build a business to support themselves and their 
families and have something to pass on to the next generation and, at 
the same time, to provide jobs for people who want to work and provide 
for their families.
  So eligibility verification for those receiving means-tested 
government benefits is not simply redtape. It is a perfectly reasonable 
requirement, when someone is receiving a government benefit, to prove 
that you actually are eligible according to the law.
  This will also help us safeguard our safety net for those who are 
truly among the most vulnerable and to root out waste, fraud, and 
abuse.
  There is no evidence that anything that the bill did or will do will 
reduce things like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
weather forecasting. Yet we hear Democrats claiming that somehow this 
bill is responsible for things like the terrible flooding that occurred 
in Texas on July 4. There is simply no evidence of that. Yet that 
doesn't stop them and some of the press from parroting these false 
claims that some of the provisions of the bill, which was just signed 
on July 4, somehow had that effect.
  Now, our Democratic colleagues are simply unreconciled to the fact 
that last November, voters gave Republicans a mandate. President Trump 
won the electoral vote, the popular vote, and every single swing State, 
and Republicans won the majorities in both Houses--in the Senate and in 
the House of Representatives. And passing the Big Beautiful Bill was an 
important step in keeping our promises to the American people and 
advancing President Trump's legislative agenda.
  But there is more. In addition to extending President Trump's tax 
cuts, a critical part of his campaign was to restore security to the 
U.S.-Mexico border and to end the rampage of criminal activity that 
went unchecked during the Biden administration. So in addition to 
spending reforms and tax cuts, the Big Beautiful Bill made good on his 
promise--and my promise and the promise of many of us--to take steps to 
secure our southern border and to protect and to support, once again, 
law enforcement rather than to make it impossible for them to do their 
job.
  In Texas, Governor Abbott and the State spent billions of dollars on 
something called Operation Lone Star, which is a fill-the-gap program 
that the State implemented because the Biden administration refused to 
secure the border, which is a Federal Government responsibility. And 
the Federal Government should have funded that effort but did not.
  The Big Beautiful Bill includes provisions to reimburse States like 
Texas for their efforts to do the Federal Government's job but one that 
the Federal Government simply refused to do under the Biden-Harris 
administration. I think reimbursement of that funding is only fair, and 
I am glad the Senate and the House have now made that a provision of 
this legislation.
  This legislation will also fulfill President Trump's pledge to make 
our cities and streets safe again through provisions that bolster our 
Nation's border security and law enforcement efforts.
  Over at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the Big 
Beautiful Bill will provide additional funding to hire, retain, and 
train personnel who will carry out the President's immigration agenda--
something that he was elected on. And people repudiated the position of 
the Biden-Harris administration, which essentially was one of no 
controls.
  The hard-working men and women in law enforcement at ICE will receive 
performance and signing bonuses as well as recruitment, hiring, and 
onboarding costs for those personnel. The bill provides resources for 
ICE and Federal law enforcement training upgrades as well as fleet 
modernization. These are important elements of actually enforcing our 
immigration laws.
  It will support enforcement and removal operations so that criminal 
aliens who entered the country during the Biden administration can be 
removed.
  In addition to the criminals, there are roughly 1\1/2\ million people 
who have pursued some relief in the form of asylum but have been denied 
any sort of relief from immigration laws and who have been ordered 
removed from the country but have simply stayed in the United States 
and defied being repatriated. Well, that is now going to change under 
the Trump administration.
  Our bill also allocates funding for the Department of Justice to 
combat drug trafficking and illegal drug use as well as to investigate 
and prosecute crimes related to illegal immigration.
  These provisions will help keep America safer by shoring up law 
enforcement across the board to right the wrongs of the previous 
administration.
  During the last 4 years, Texas, because of our 1,200-mile common 
border with Mexico, has particularly suffered under President Biden and 
DHS Secretary Mayorkas's reckless open border policies. This 
legislation is an important step in correcting the previous 
administration's costly and in some cases deadly errors.
  Last November, the voters voted to turn the page on the failed 
policies of the Biden administration, and passing this bill was a 
critical step in reversing those policies. This bill will put more 
money in taxpayers' pockets and allow us to avoid the largest tax 
increase in American history. It will strengthen our border and support 
law enforcement.
  I was disheartened and disappointed but not surprised, frankly, that 
our Democratic colleagues voted to block the bill, preferring instead--
I assume, since they offered no viable alternative--to foist that large 
tax increase on the American people, which would have amounted to a 
$2.6 trillion tax hike on households earning less than $400,000 a year. 
I am glad they did not prevail, and I am sure those taxpayers agree. 
Next April, when tax season rolls around, I am confident taxpayers will 
agree and will be thanking the Grand Old Party for this One Big 
Beautiful Bill.

[[Page S4331]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

                          ____________________