[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 144 (Wednesday, September 3, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5995-S6000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2026--Motion to 
                           Proceed--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.


                       One Big Beautiful Bill Act

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, over the August recess, I traveled across 
Illinois and found out what folks were thinking. There was one answer I 
heard more than any other; it was a concern about the healthcare cuts 
contained in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. You remember that was 
the Trump budget that passed the Senate here with a party-line vote.
  Their concerns, I think, are justified. This bill will cut Medicaid 
by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It will cause up to 17 million 
people to lose their healthcare.
  I just learned this afternoon that premiums paid for dental insurance 
are likely to go up as much as 90 percent because of the big beautiful 
Trump budget bill--90 percent. It is likely that 4 million Americans 
will lose dental insurance on top of the health insurance losses I just 
mentioned.
  This means millions of Americans will no longer be able to afford 
prescriptions, hospital visits, surgeries. It is going to take its toll 
on America's population, and it won't just be the uninsured who are 
affected. I have heard from hospitals across my State that these 
healthcare cuts will force them to close.
  Republicans tried to use the August recess to convince Americans that 
these cuts are worth it because they will see big tax breaks and 
economic growth, but they are wrong. Working families making less than 
$35,000 a year will see a tax break of $150 a year--$3 a week. Most of 
the tax breaks will go to billionaires making much more money, like 
Elon Musk who could see tax breaks of more than $300,000--$6,000 in tax 
cuts a week. And $3 a week for working families at the low end; $6,000 
a week for the richest people in Illinois and the Nation.
  Republicans claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. And over 
the next decade, this big beautiful Trump budget law will add a 
whopping $3.4 trillion to the national debt. This President is going to 
take the prize again. In his first term in office, in 4 years, he added 
more debt to the U.S. Treasury than any President in history. Now he is 
going to break his own record.
  That means that while corporations and the ultrawealthy receive 
giveaways, working families will see higher inflation and prices due to 
this foolish trade war the President has initiated. Combined with 
healthcare cuts, working-class families are going to be the losers.
  You know what I think? Instead of playing golf one day, the President 
should spend a day with real families in America. Most families now are 
preparing for the school year to start. Last month, students across 
Illinois returned to the classroom for the start of the school year. 
New school year comes with a new list of school supplies--backpacks, 
binders, notebooks, pens, pencils, tech, and more. For working 
families, especially those with several children, and for the teachers 
who go above and beyond by dipping into their own pockets to help the 
kids, that tab can add up quickly.
  But thanks to Donald Trump's numerous trade wars, families and 
teachers are actually feeling the squeeze in households across America. 
That is because prices on school supplies have risen under Donald Trump 
by more than 12 percent, $73 million compared to last year.
  Donald Trump campaigned on lowering costs on day one. Remember when 
he said that over and over again? And he promised his tariffs would 
somehow liberate American taxpayers. In reality, his misguided tariff 
wars left fear, uncertainty, and higher prices for American consumers.

  You wonder how he comes up with these numbers for tariffs. It sounds 
like it is a free association every morning: Should it be 25? Maybe 50. 
Let's try 40. No, let's do 35.
  This uncertainty is leading to chaos across the world. It is not just 
school supplies; costs are up across the board on nearly all everyday 
products. I will show you. I go to my local supermarket in Springfield 
to make sure that I am in touch with what real prices are for at least 
a number of food items. Fresh vegetables are up more than 16 percent 
since June. Coffee is up nearly 30 percent. A carton of eggs is more 
expensive than it was last year. That is not all. The cost to repair 
your car, heat or cool your home, pay for formula, diapers, clothes for 
your kids--all up thanks to this President's policies.
  American businesses Trump claims to be helping cannot plan because of 
the chaotic tariffs and their jarring impact on supply chains.
  President Trump's reckless tariffs--the highest rates in nearly a 
century--are projected to cost American families thousands of dollars. 
These tariffs are sales taxes that consumers across America have to 
pay. That is not liberation; that is a tax increase on every American 
family, and that is the President's plan.
  But the impact of these tariffs stretches beyond prices. It is also 
hitting American manufacturing. The uncertainty of Trump's tariffs has 
frozen the job market, driving investment away from U.S. factories and 
workers. Under this administration, the United States is set to lose 
another $500 billion by 2029 in manufacturing investment. Remember, 
these tariffs were supposed to create new manufacturing. We are still 
waiting. That hurts longtime manufacturing powerhouses like the cities 
of Peoria, Decatur, and Rockford that I represent. They rely on good-
paying manufacturing jobs to foster local business groups, support 
families, and drive innovation.
  Now, some targeted tariffs in areas where there is unfair foreign 
competition can be warranted, but that is not what is happening. What 
we have is chaos. Everyone knows the sloppy approach by this 
administration is bad for the American people and yet another example 
of Executive overreach by the President, which is why the courts have 
ruled these tariffs are illegal. But instead of respecting the courts, 
President Trump has doubled down.
  On a Truth Social post, he said:

       Without Tariffs . . . our Country would be completely 
     destroyed, and our military power would be instantly 
     obliterated.

  That quote is from the President. The problem is, these tariffs, as 
we have shown, are already destroying the economy.
  On the issue of military readiness and foreign policy, imagine what 
happened this week. The leaders of China, Russia, India, and North 
Korea all decided to have a summit meeting in China to announce some 
new arrangement where they were going to work together. Donald Trump 
has brought our adversaries together in a way I never dreamed was 
possible.
  Trump's tariffs are reshaping the global order in a dangerous and 
unprecedented way. Just last week, Vladimir Putin of Russia and 
President Xi of China--our biggest adversaries--were seen smiling with 
Prime Minister Modi during this trilateral meeting. President Trump's 
tariff policies pushed India away from us and toward our rivals. 
Tariffs were ``supposed'' to strengthen our hand; instead, they are 
weakening our position around the globe. These tariffs mean higher 
prices, less opportunity, and a weaker standing abroad.

[[Page S5996]]

  It is time to put American families and workers first and reverse 
course on this failed policy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, over the last few weeks, I have spoken 
with countless Tennesseans who are really appreciating the One Big 
Beautiful Bill because they are learning of the impact that it is going 
to have on their families, on their businesses, and on their 
pocketbooks. Tennesseans are telling me--once we talk about this bill, 
they are telling me how this law will help them make their business 
more successful, their community better, and will indeed end up leaving 
more cash in their pocketbook.
  Thanks to the law, Tennessee families will save an average of $2,600 
next year on taxes and see a take-home pay increase of as much as 
$10,000. This is going to give some much needed relief after 4 years of 
Bidenflation.
  Over the August work period, it was absolutely wonderful. I met with 
restaurant businesses and servers, and they talked about the law's 
reduction on taxes on tips and overtime and how that is going to help 
them keep more money in their pocket.
  Going from one side of the State to the other, I heard from seniors 
who are talking about how they are going to be able to lower their tax 
burden. That is because we have the $6,000 bonus deduction per senior, 
per year. When you are a couple, married filing jointly, that $12,000 
bonus deduction for our Nation's seniors is basically going to remove 
the income tax from most of the Social Security payments for about 88 
percent of our Nation's seniors.
  Millions of hard-working families are planning for the future thanks 
to the law's enhanced child tax credit and expanded childcare access, 
and we have done this through the employer-provided childcare tax 
credit.
  I appreciate my colleagues in Senate Finance working with me as we 
sought to get that into the legislation, as we sought to put in place 
the bonus deduction for seniors. These are things that are really going 
to serve so many Tennesseans so very well.
  We had meetings with chambers and met with many in the business 
community. Hearing from so many of these small business owners, what 
they wanted to talk about was how, after the 2017 law was passed, they 
started hiring staff and growing that business. Now they are able to 
continue to keep this staff, to purchase new equipment, and to invest 
in their communities.
  By making these tax cuts, the 2017 tax cuts, permanent, the estimate 
is that we will be protecting about 100,000 jobs in Tennessee. Much of 
this is because of the bonus depreciation, that 100 percent bonus 
depreciation deduction, immediate expensing of research and 
development, interest deduction, and 199A for passthroughs. These 
companies are looking at how they grow. They are looking forward to 
this growth.
  I also had the opportunity, whether I was at the State fair or 
meeting with some members of the ag community or the Farm Bureau--we 
talked about the provision that we have in the law that raises the 
estate tax exemption to $15 million or $30 million for a couple. What 
this does is to allow these family farms, generational operations, to 
be passed on to the next generation so that that legacy of farming and 
hard work can continue.
  We know that for small businesses and so many of our Nation's small 
business entrepreneurs, they have worked hard. They have built a 
business. They have built a manufacturing firm. And to know that they 
can pass it on to the next generation without fear of that generation 
having to sell the business in order to pay the tax.
  This provision--raising that death tax or estate tax exemption--is 
going to prohibit double taxation. There are about 2 million family 
farms that this is going to affect, and we know they are appreciative 
of this.
  For our military communities in Tennessee--and we have some wonderful 
military communities. We have Fort Campbell, which is primarily in 
Tennessee. We have Millington Air Naval Station. We have Arnold 
Engineering. We have the National Guard. We have such a strong presence 
in our State. This legislation, the Big Beautiful Bill, has $150 
billion in a boost to our national defense funding. This is a way we 
can push forward with modernization and make certain that we remain the 
strongest lethal fighting force on the face of the Earth.
  There is also funding for the Golden Dome missile defense system. 
This we are beginning to see a good bit of work in when you talk about 
the low Earth orbit satellites and beginning to build out this Golden 
Dome defense system to protect our country.
  In addition to this, we have provisions in there for our military 
families to strengthen healthcare and childcare and improve housing and 
education for our servicemember families.
  For 4 years under President Biden, Tennesseans suffered because of 
his anti-America energy policies. This sent the cost of electricity and 
gas soaring. So the Big Beautiful Bill ends these far-left mandates and 
regulations and provides made-in-America tax breaks to support energy 
production right here at home.
  You know, Mr. President, when I talk to Tennesseans, they want us to 
be energy independent. They don't want us having to depend on other 
countries to be able to get oil and gas. They don't want us to have to 
import that. They want energy independence.

  President Trump's pro-energy policy and this agenda is the reason why 
over this Labor Day weekend, our gas prices at the pump were at the 
lowest level that they have been in 5 years--the lowest level. This is 
something that people were noticing. They could feel that impact in 
their pocketbook.
  The border and border security is vitally important to Tennesseans, 
and this legislation in the Big Beautiful Bill that is now a law has 
$75 billion in funding to hire additional ICE agents. And we have seen 
the results that have taken place--the Homeland Security being out 
there, working with law enforcement, conducting raids, apprehending 
these criminal illegal aliens.
  People have wanted to see this done. You know, Mr. President, I have 
not talked to one single person who has said: I want MS-13, I want Tren 
de Aragua living in my neighborhood. We want them buying a house here. 
We want them setting up shop here. But what they do say is this: Thank 
goodness MS-13, Tren de Aragua, and these other violent gangs are being 
apprehended and they are being deported. That is what the Trump 
administration is doing, and it is exactly what the American people 
want to see done.
  We also have provisions in the big beautiful law that will go back to 
building the wall and securing the southern border so we never have an 
open border like we had during the Biden years, where people are 
running across that border--as many as 160,000 a month. That is a 
population size larger than most cities in Tennessee.
  There is also some money in this that is going to deal with 
transportation. Everybody knows that infrastructure is vitally 
important, and I want to touch on what is happening with aviation 
there. This is important to Tennessee.
  The Nashville International Airport, in June, welcomed more than 2.4 
million travelers. That was an alltime-high number. And that number, we 
know, is going to continue to grow. So the bill provides $12.5 billion 
to modernize our Nation's air traffic control system. That is going to 
help improve safety, speed, and efficiency. And we are appreciative 
that Secretary Duffy is putting his attention on how you modernize this 
system so it is more safe, secure, and efficient.
  One of the provisions that I had the opportunity to work on was the 
Rural Health Transformation Program. In Tennessee, we have 95 counties; 
78 of those 95 counties are deemed rural. And this Rural Health 
Transformation fund is a $50 billion fund. It is there to strengthen 
access to healthcare in rural areas.
  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Dr. Oz, who is our 
leader at CMS, has launched a web page for this program. It is going to 
reward innovation. Part of the money is going to be a payment to these 
hospitals, the other part--that $25 billion--is going to be, How do you 
innovate? Here is the money to innovate. How do you increase access?
  And our rural hospitals and health clinics who are working on this 
issue can go to CMS.gov, and they can pull down the information for how 
to apply

[[Page S5997]]

for these grants; how to make certain that they are using the resources 
that are there; learning more about this program and how it is going to 
be able to help them increase access to healthcare; how they can focus 
on workforce development and retention; and how they can look at 
innovative new processes and use technology.
  We are looking forward to good results coming from that because 
smart, good people who are focused on delivering healthcare are going 
to have the opportunity to apply for these grants and to focus on how 
they make healthcare more accessible in these rural areas.
  As you can see, there is so much in here that is a positive that will 
improve the lives of so many Tennesseans. And as I said, they are 
beginning to see it in their pocketbooks. They are seeing it at the gas 
pump. They know that their taxes--we have made those tax breaks 
permanent. And they know this is going to benefit their communities 
because you will see businesses grow, and you will see businesses 
hiring new workers.
  I think that as people have celebrated Labor Day, they know that this 
is the time where they have a President in the White House who is 
putting them first. He is putting them and their future and the future 
for their kids--he is putting that first, and he is pushing forward 
with making certain that America and all of our States, our communities 
are going to be safe, secure, and prosperous.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  NOAA

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this is a photograph of the alien from 
the movie ``Alien.''
  This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw 
frozen shrimp being sent to the United States by other countries. Now, 
let me tell you what I am talking about.
  In late August, the FDA found that raw frozen shrimp from Indonesia 
was being sold in Walmart--specifically, in Walmart stores in Alabama, 
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, 
Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia--was being sold 
under the Walmart label called the Great Value label. If you eat it, 
how could you end up looking like the alien in ``Alien''? Because the 
shrimp was radioactive. I kid you not. It had a radioactive isotope in 
it called cesium-137. It will kill you. Even if it doesn't turn you 
into the alien if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you will grow an 
extra ear.
  That was bad enough. Obviously, the FDA issued a recall. A few days 
later, it happened again. The FDA and NOAA, which I will talk about in 
a second, found that there were 26,460 packages of shrimp cocktail and 
18,000 bags of frozen cooked shrimp being sold, once again, at Walmart 
and at Krogers throughout the United States containing the same 
radioactive isotope.
  How could this happen in America? This is unconscionable. I will tell 
you how, because that shrimp, that shrimp from other countries, which 
don't abide by the same rules that we abide by in America, which, if 
you eat it, may turn you into an alien or, at a minimum, will cause you 
to grow an extra ear, is not being inspected. It is supposed to be. It 
is supposed to be inspected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Association--we call it NOAA--as part of the Department of Commerce.
  And, yes, they are inspecting some of it, about 1 percent; on a good 
day, 2 percent. The United Kingdom inspects 50 percent of the farmed 
seafood coming into its nation. Even China does a better job than the 
United States of America. This is unconscionable. There is no excuse 
for it. There is no excuse for it.
  This shrimp--and I am not just picking on Indonesia; it is other 
countries. This shrimp is grown in conditions that you can't possibly 
imagine: dirty water. They shoot the shrimp full of antibiotics.
  I confess, I didn't know they were shooting them full of this 
radioactive isotope. But the normal antibiotics that they put in these 
foreign shrimp are bad enough that if you eat enough of the foreign 
shrimp, you become resistant to certain bacteria here in America 
because the antibiotics don't work on it anymore because you have eaten 
so many shrimp that contains the antibiotics. This is unconscionable, 
and it should not be happening in the United States of America.

  Now, I am biased. I believe in homegrown Louisiana shrimp, fresh out 
of the gulf, not radioactive. But I understand that some stores prefer 
to buy foreign shrimp because it is cheaper. Now we know why: The damn 
stuff is radioactive.
  NOAA needs to do a better job of inspecting the shrimp that is sold 
from other countries that don't abide by the same standards we do to 
the consumers of the United States of America.


                                  Iran

  This second topic, Mr. President, I want to touch on real briefly.
  We haven't heard much about Iran lately. Iran has been busy, though. 
Just recently, Australia expelled Iran's Ambassador, and they 
designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is part of 
Iran, as a terrorist organization. Why is that? Because people 
connected with Iran firebombed a Melbourne synagogue, and then, a few 
months later, they struck a kosher deli in Sydney, Australia. Iran is 
still there, and it is still spreading terrorism.
  Iran has also been in the news just recently. The United Kingdom and 
France and Germany have announced that they are going to trigger 
snapback sanctions on Iran. What do I mean by that? You will recall 
that, in 2015, President Obama made a deal with Iran. We called it the 
JCPOA. And the JCPOA just said to Iran: If you will stop moving toward 
a nuclear weapon, we--meaning the United States of America and the 
other countries that are part of the United Nations--will remove the 
sanctions that we had placed on Iran for trying to develop a nuclear 
weapon.
  So Iran said: Pinky promise, we will stop building a nuclear weapon. 
You remove the sanctions.
  President Obama agreed. He was naive. We removed the sanctions. The 
United Nations removed the sanctions. The United Kingdom, Germany, and 
France removed the sanctions. And, of course, the Ayatollah and Iran 
continued to develop a weapon.
  Just because we have destroyed--``we'' meaning the United States of 
America--many of Iran's facilities to make that weapon does not mean 
that the issue has been resolved. Iran has refused to come to the 
table, even still, to negotiate a settlement, a new JCPOA. And as a 
result--and I am very proud of them--the United Kingdom and Germany and 
France have said: OK. We are going to reimplement those sanctions that 
we agreed to take off of Iran when they signed the first nuclear deal, 
which Iran welched on almost immediately. And, again, I want to thank 
our friends in Europe. They supposedly are going to reimplement those 
sanctions at the end of this month, and I hope they do.
  Of course, my preference would be to have Iran come to the table 
again before then and sit down with the United States and other members 
of the United Nations and resolve this issue of them having a nuclear 
weapon, but I don't expect that to happen.
  So I know I have said it, but I want to say it again. Thank you, 
United Kingdom and Germany and France, for doing this, but we need to 
talk about the rest of the story. The sanctions, which will be on 
Iranian banking, on Iranian shipping, oil, and arms are only part of 
the story. These are U.N. sanctions. But just because the sanctions 
have been brought back on Iran, that doesn't mean that they will be 
enforced.
  Now, these are United Nations sanctions on shipping and banking and 
oil and arms, so normally there would be a United Nations committee to 
enforce the sanctions. I hope there is, but I doubt it because I think 
that Russia and China are going to block a United Nations committee to 
enforce the sanctions.
  What is my point? My point is that just because Europe and, of 
course, the United States of America have agreed to reimpose those 
sanctions, we have still got to enforce them. We have still got to 
enforce them. And the United States needs to take the lead on doing

[[Page S5998]]

that. Joining with the United Kingdom and with Germany and with France, 
we need to make sure that the world understands that these sanctions 
are real and that we, as part of the West, are going to enforce them.
  This is important. I don't want to see this get lost in our 
discussion about the importance of the Ukraine situation and other 
issues of national security. I don't want this to get lost. What you 
allow is what will continue. What you allow is what will continue. And 
unless you have an opium habit, you know that is just a principle we 
all have to learn the hard way.
  So I am hoping that the President and our friends in Europe will take 
the lead and not only snap back these sanctions but then enforce them. 
And unfortunately--I wish we didn't have to do it because I feel for 
the Iranian people. I don't feel any sympathy for the Ayatollah. We are 
just going to have to choke him to death.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, all of us are back from being at home for 
the past 30 days. In my visit in Vermont, my time in Vermont visiting 
with Vermonters, one issue that came up over and over again is 
incredible concern about healthcare.
  The cost of healthcare is beyond affordability, and this is really an 
existential moment for our healthcare system.
  Let me just talk about that in general but also with respect to the 
impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Under that legislation, 45,000 
Vermonters are going to lose healthcare, literally lose it altogether. 
More than 26,000 Vermonters will lose access to premium subsidies which 
make the Affordable Care Act plans more affordable.
  Just let me give an example that I found shocking. A family of four 
in Vermont who makes $82,000 a year--right now, their premium is about 
$7,000 under the Affordable Care Act. That premium will increase by 
$23,600.
  So the premium will then be $30,648. They have done nothing. They 
have done nothing, and they have no control over what the healthcare 
expense will be. But their premium, when they wake up on January 1, is 
going to go up $23,600, and that is on income of $82,000. And, by the 
way, Vermont does not have high income.
  And in that respect, I know you are concerned about your folks in 
West Virginia.
  That is not affordable. It just isn't affordable, and the citizens 
have no control over what those costs are. They just have to pay the 
bill.
  The other thing that is happening is that our rural hospitals, they 
are going to lose $1.7 billion because of lost revenue. All those folks 
that lose Medicaid coverage are going to show up and get care. And our 
community hospitals, they will provide care for folks who are sick. But 
if they don't get paid, they can only do that so long before they go 
out of business.
  And our rural hospitals are like the rural hospitals in West 
Virginia. They are like the rural hospitals all around the country. 
They are operating on a very thin financial margin. They are in great 
jeopardy. So we are going to have rural hospitals that close.
  The other issue, we are all concerned about substance use disorder. 
Because of the cuts in Medicaid, about 8,000 Vermonters are at risk of 
losing access to the treatment that has been very effective. For the 
first time in years, the numbers of deaths has been going down, not up. 
And much of that is attributable to the fact that services were 
available to people who wanted them, needed them, and took advantage of 
them.
  You know, this is not me talking. This is Vermonters talking. I had a 
healthcare listening session. And the thing that folks, just as I 
mentioned, were really concerned about, worried about, is healthcare. 
And it was everyday care, care for their kids, care and access to 
healthcare, including care for new mothers and women who are giving 
birth. And we are in the process of having one of our hospitals, for 
financial reasons, have to shut down, a much utilized and much revered 
birthing center.
  So my view is we should repeal the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. 
It is not a working-families tax plan. I mean, unless you mean taxes 
are what we do when we increase the premiums that our families have to 
pay.
  My view, we should absolutely be passing policies that help working 
families, and I have got bipartisan bills to do that. But we can't move 
forward without addressing these real threats to our healthcare system. 
And the repeal of healthcare provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill--
that is what we have to do.
  My longtime preference is that we have a healthcare system that 
covers everybody--regardless of age, regardless of income. It is what 
every other nation does. What we have is a system that is kind of a 
single-payer system in a variety of ways you can have it. But what we 
have is a system where we try to control costs by literally taking 
healthcare insurance away from people, as if taking away their 
healthcare insurance means they won't get sick. They are going to get 
sick.
  We have got to support Medicare and Medicaid. We need to extend the 
Affordable Care Act's premium tax credits so those Vermont families and 
families in every State across the country--red State, blue State--
don't get hammered with these multithousand-dollar premium increases.
  I serve on the Finance Committee, and tomorrow I am grateful to 
Chairman Crapo for inviting Secretary Kennedy in to report on 
``progress in the healthcare system.''
  I don't have that view of his tenure. My view, Secretary Kennedy has 
undermined, severely, vaccine research and vaccine delivery. My view, 
his policies have undermined rural health. My view, Secretary Kennedy 
should resign.
  We need a healthcare Secretary and a White House that is actually 
committed to practical ways to lower cost of healthcare, and we need 
leadership that cares about the very real and very painful structural 
issues that are making our healthcare system unaffordable and 
inefficient and out of reach for so many people. And that is true 
whether you are a lower income person who gets Medicaid benefits, you 
are a senior who gets your well-earned Medicare benefits, you are a 
private family trying to buy your own healthcare, or you are an 
employer where you really care about your workers--you want to provide 
employer-sponsored healthcare but you are getting hammered with these 
10-, 15-, 25-percent premium increases.
  Healthcare is an essential concern of every single American family, 
and the concern is that it costs too much, access is too difficult, and 
the provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill have set us back. They 
have not moved us ahead.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                              Golden Dome

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, President Donald Trump's so-called Golden 
Dome for America is the latest reincarnation of President Ronald 
Reagan's ``Star Wars'' fantasy: thousands of space-based missile 
interceptors supposedly capable of stopping a missile strike from any 
adversary anywhere in the world.
  President Trump suggests it could protect the United States from a 
nuclear attack. But in reality, the Golden Dome is fool's gold. It will 
make us poor, less secure, and more isolated. It is a gold-plated 
boondoggle that will enrich defense contractors and ignite a new 
nuclear arms race.
  The Golden Dome is a trillion-dollar mistake in the making. It will 
be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than wasting any 
missiles. It is a defense contractor's dream and a taxpayer's 
nightmare.
  The potential costs are astronomical. The nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office estimated that even a limited system against just two--
two--incoming missiles, let's just say from the Soviet Union--would 
require 2,000 space-based interceptors and can cost as much as $542 
billion. The American

[[Page S5999]]

Physical Society estimated that to counter a larger attack of 10 
missiles, we would need a system of 40,000 interceptors, costing about 
$1 trillion. And a system to defend against hundreds of incoming 
missiles from Russia or China would cost trillions more.
  As Senator Tim Sheehy from Montana said, the system ``will likely 
cost in the trillions, if and when, Golden Dome is completed.''
  President Trump has pitched this Golden Dome as a $175 billion 
project and, so far, Congress has approved $25 billion as part of the 
reconciliation bill, plus billions more in the Defense authorization 
bill. And that is just a drop in the bucket. But by the way, the bucket 
has a hole in the bottom. So this money is just going in and going to 
waste.
  They want to add trillions more to something that won't work; it will 
make us more vulnerable; the Soviets and the Chinese will be 
responding; and it is just going to cost more money with less 
protection for the security of the American people.
  Even worse, experts say that Trump's Golden Dome would be ineffective 
and alarmingly easy to defeat. And these are three main reasons why it 
would be easy to defeat: First, space-based interceptors, like all 
satellites, would be sitting ducks for anti-satellite weapons. Russia 
and China already have anti-satellite weapons they could use to attack 
our space-based interceptors. And Russia is reportedly developing a 
nuclear weapon that could be deployed in orbit around the planet and 
detonated in space to destroy satellites.
  We cannot count on space-based interceptors to protect us because in 
a crisis, one of the first things Moscow and Beijing would do is to 
destroy them. And we just saw Putin and President Xi shaking hands this 
past week--just shaking hands.
  Second, Moscow and Beijing have already started to develop new 
systems to get around U.S. defenses, including Russia's nuclear-powered 
cruise missile and China's fractional orbit bombardment system. 
Whatever new space-based defense system we deploy, there is a cheaper 
way for our adversaries to get around it.
  Third, Golden Dome would be no match for our adversaries who could 
overwhelm the system by simply building more and cheaper missiles.
  If we build a system to stop 500 missiles, they will field 600 
missiles. In fact, the Golden Dome would push Russia and China to do 
exactly that--expand their arsenals, reject arms control treaties, and 
plunge the world into a terrifying new nuclear arms race.
  Instead of making America safer, we would be inviting a catastrophe, 
not just for the United States but for the entire world. That is 
particularly true given that the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms 
control treaty, New START, will expire in just 6 months, leaving us 
with no limits on Washington and Moscow's nuclear arsenals for the 
first time in 50 years--no limits on either country. And China wants to 
move to catch up fast.

  Who benefits? Not the American people, not our troops, not our 
allies. The real winners are defense contractors. SpaceX, for example, 
led by Elon Musk, is a frontrunner for Golden Dome contracts.
  Meanwhile, even if the system could work in theory, we can't trust 
the Trump administration to build it. The Pentagon is gutting its 
independent testing office, the very entity that tells us whether these 
high-priced systems actually work. The office was targeted specifically 
to limit scrutiny over Golden Dome because, according to one official, 
the program has ``to be successful for Mr. Trump.'' So it is going to 
be in darkness. We won't actually know what is going on because they 
have to get it done for Mr. Trump.
  But that just leads to problems because, ultimately, overconfidence 
breeds hubris and hubris breeds disaster. That is what they are setting 
up. That is not national security; that is corruption, pure and simple.
  History should have taught us this lesson. We have seen this movie 
before. The original Reagan-era ``Star Wars'' program burned through 
$400 billion without producing an effective defense for our country. 
Forty years later, despite decades of research, technology still can't 
deliver on the fantasy of a perfect missile shield. Golden Dome is just 
``Star Wars'' with a brandnew name but a much higher pricetag for the 
American taxpayer with the same limited security for our people.
  What is worse, it violates decades of bipartisan policy. Since 1999, 
Congress has agreed that U.S. missile defenses should only be designed 
to stop limited threats, like those from North Korea, not the much 
larger nuclear arsenals of major powers like Russia and China.
  Golden Dome blows up that carefully drawn line with no plan, no 
strategy, no regard for the consequences because we shouldn't be 
kidding ourselves, Russia and China will move. It is only going to make 
the world more dangerous because the system Donald Trump wants to build 
will not work.
  Golden Dome is science fiction, not effective missile defense system. 
Systems like Israel's Iron Dome have proven useful against short-range 
conventional rockets. But deploying weapons in space to counter 
hundreds of strategic nuclear missiles is not only impractical, it is 
dangerous.
  Republicans already increased defense spending by $150 billion in 
Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. It is not beautiful, though, to trigger a 
nuclear arms race. It is not beautiful to have paranoia be built into 
the Russians and Chinese that have been building even more and more 
nuclear weapons themselves. That is not beautiful for the American 
people; that is bad for the American people.
  GOP really stands for ``Grotesquely Overfunded Pentagon,'' without 
any effective weapons in their defenses ultimately emanating.
  Instead of chasing an impossible dream that risks bankrupting us and 
destabilizing the world, we should be investing in what actually works: 
diplomacy, arms control, smart defense. Think of what we could do with 
$1 trillion instead of wasting it on Golden Dome: fund up to 2,500 new 
hospitals in the United States--at $60 million apiece, we could have 
2,500 new hospitals; forgive the loans of nearly 4 million students--
average student debt is $37,850; cancel medical debt for 68 million 
Americans--$2,200 a person or at least 230 billion across 100 million 
Americans. We could get that done. We could help people pay their 
medical bills. We could build 650,000 affordable housing units in our 
Nation with that trillion dollars that we are going to waste in outer 
space. We could build 60,000 new wind turbines to have our electricity 
come from offshore wind, onshore wind to power our vehicles and the 
homes which we have in our country. We could provide 37.5 billion meals 
to school kids across our country. We could fund universal pre-K for 
the next decade. Congressional Research Service reports from 2021 said 
it would cost $109 billion over a decade to feed all the kids in 
America that need food.
  We need to fund education, not annihilation; Medicaid not missiles.
  It is time Republicans understand the reality that national security 
also means health, housing, and financial security. But no, the 
Republicans and Donald Trump want to spend more on a ``Star Wars'' 
missile defense and the nuclear arsenal, among many other things.
  We have seen this Republican playbook before. They claim we must cut 
spending on education, on healthcare--like Medicaid and the Affordable 
Care Act--on housing, on foreign aid, on climate solutions, but when it 
comes to defense contractors, they open the purse strings, pouring 
billions of dollars into the pockets of their well-connected friends.
  It is just shameful that they want to cut Medicaid, Medicare, wind, 
solar, Pell grants for kids to go to school and then say unlimited 
funding for the Defense Department for a Golden Dome in outer space 
that is not going to work.
  President Trump says his Golden Dome will ``complete the job'' Reagan 
started. Well, it is not going to complete the job; it is just going to 
start the same job all over again because it never worked for Ronald 
Reagan. What it will really do is bury arms control negotiations 
between the United States and Russia and the Soviet Union. It will 
balloon the deficit. It will boost the bottom line to billionaires and 
make our country less safe.
  That is why I am offering my ``Golden Dome is Fool's Gold'' amendment 
to the Defense authorization bill to be considered out here on the 
Senate floor. No taxpayer dollars should be spent on space-based 
interceptors until

[[Page S6000]]

the Secretary of Defense submits to Congress: One, a plan describing 
Golden Dome and how much it will really cost; two, a certification by 
the President that Golden Dome won't start a new arms race with Russia 
and China; three, a written commitment from the Pentagon's testing 
office that will have the resources it needs to provide effective 
oversight of a space-based interceptor program; four, an independent 
technical review by the National Academy of Sciences on the military 
and cost effectiveness of Golden Dome.

  Before we waste a trillion dollars on an outdated idea that history 
tells us is a fool's errand, we owe it to the American taxpayers to 
have a plan, to know how much it will cost, and to ensure that it will 
work. How can anyone oppose this? Anyone who does is not serious about 
protecting our country. They are selling you fool's gold.
  Sadly, we listened to another fool before. We paid $400 billion for 
Reagan's Star Wars fantasy and got nothing. Are we really going to buy 
into that same program again?
  This is dangerous spending: nuclear weapons we don't need and missile 
defenses that don't defend but will provoke others into building more 
nukes and aiming them directly at us. Real security means investing in 
our hospitals, our pharmacies, our community health centers, our 
schools, our communities, our climate change response, to a real threat 
to America and a real threat to the planet--climate change. That is 
what we should be doing.
  Real security means funding public schools, hot meals for students so 
they can learn and grow.
  Real security means tackling the climate crisis head-on--building a 
clean energy future here at home and breaking the grip of the fossil 
fuel companies that they have over the Trump administration.
  The doomsday that Americans fear in the 21st century isn't being 
vaporized by a nuclear bomb. It is the doomsday diagnosis of cancer, 
that is what people are afraid of at home as the Trump administration 
slashes NIH funding for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for 
diabetes. That is what people are afraid of. That is where the real 
security is that people want in their homes, where the cures for these 
diseases are being found--not an evisceration of mRNA research to find 
a cure for cancer and other diseases.
  This medical debt that people are running up, the rent payment that 
people have to make, the loan payments, the grocery bills, electricity 
bills--that is what we should be focused on here. That is the real 
security that people are calling upon the Senate to provide for them.
  So let's finally put people before the Pentagon, nurseries before 
nukes, buses before bombs. Let's not trade real security for a 
tarnished gold illusion. We must put a stop to this reckless plan 
before it launches America into the next unwinnable nuclear arms race.
  When those Russian missiles are coming across the North Pole aimed at 
the United States, the least that we should be able to say is that we 
tried, we really tried to end the nuclear arms race.
  That is not what the Golden Dome is going to accomplish. It is going 
to accomplish just the opposite. It is going to make that nuclear war 
more likely. It is going to make the Soviet Union and China more 
paranoid and bring us closer to that day when we see that catastrophic 
set of mushroom clouds exploding, not just in the United States but all 
across the planet.
  This is the time, this is the place, we are the people here on the 
Senate floor who have to make the decision to kill this idea before it 
winds up killing millions of Americans and others around the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.

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