[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 159 (Monday, September 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6816-S6822]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Government Funding
Mr. President, we are on the verge of a shutdown, and the question is
why. And there are a couple of reasons, because, in my view, we should
never have a shutdown, and it is an indication of a breakdown in the
constitutional process and the failure of the Executive and the
legislative branch to do their job.
As with any kind of shutdown, the conversation focuses on who is to
blame. I don't particularly want to talk about who is to blame because
I know who will suffer. The people who will suffer are the people that
the Presiding Officer represents in Nebraska; they are the people I
represent in Vermont. But I do think it is important to give some
history of how this happened and what is at stake, and I say that
hoping that at the end of the day, which will be tomorrow, we do not
have a shutdown, we do not turn the lights off on government.
We have had brinkmanship before, but before, we have had situations
where, as we approach the midnight hour, the policy differences--that
were vast--between Republicans and Democrats were being discussed by
Democrats and Republicans, and that discussion was often at the behest
and insistence of the Executive, playing a proper role to get us to
talk and resolve those differences. This time, it is different. We have
an Executive who said that his party should not even speak to
Democrats--not even speak to Democrats.
So I will just ask the commonsense question a Vermonter would ask:
Peter, if you disagree with somebody and you won't talk to them, how
will you resolve the disagreement?
And that is what has happened.
The second thing is--and I want to say this to my Republican
colleagues--we have an Executive who pays no respect to the role that
the legislative branch of this government plays in the affairs of this
country.
We passed a budget with Republican and Democratic support, and we
have an Executive who said he didn't care what it is we passed; he was
going to do what he wanted, under the aggressive, caustic leadership of
Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget. And
what Republicans and Democrats in this body agreed to spend, the
Executive refused to spend, froze the funding; whether it was foreign
aid or healthcare, he could decide.
That is a total and complete violation of the constitutional
separation of powers. To the extent that this body--Congress--puts its
head in the sand and disregards the assault on our authority by the
Executive, we have relinquished our authority. More importantly, we
have relinquished our duty. We have relinquished our duty to the people
we represent to stand up for the constitutional separation of powers
and to bear the responsibility that we have to make decisions about
taxing and spending.
There is another reason why we can't just kick the can down the road.
There is, in this country, an affordability crisis. People can't afford
homes, and they definitely cannot afford healthcare. Folks are
terrified at the likelihood of a person they love in their family
getting sick if they don't have insurance.
What is about to happen if we don't act before this shutdown is that
folks who are getting their healthcare through the Affordable Care Act,
who are paying a significant portion of their income for that
healthcare but can only afford it because of the subsidies--not because
they want to have subsidies but because the healthcare system is so
expensive--ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act. Those folks in the
Presiding Officer's State and mine are going to lose their healthcare,
and that is a reason we cannot condone a resolution that does not
include protecting people's healthcare across this country, all those
folks who are dependent on the Affordable Care Act for them to be able
to have security that if their partner or if their child needs
healthcare, they will have access to healthcare. That is the urgency of
this. That is what makes it different.
We have an Executive who has told the Congress and the Republicans in
Congress: Don't talk to the Democrats.
Disgraceful.
More than that, we have a situation where the people all of us
represent will lose their healthcare if we don't resolve that now--
right now--because they are starting to hear about the premium
increases that will make it completely unaffordable for them to have
access to healthcare.
When we get into a political situation, my Republican colleagues ask
me: Peter, why would you want to have a shutdown?--which I don't want,
by the way. But you know what, it is a fair question.
But there is a fair question I can ask of my Republican colleagues:
Why do you want to have a resolution where the people we all represent
are going to lose their healthcare? That is a fair question for us to
ask you.
My belief is that there is no answer for that question because it is
within our power right now--today, tonight--to make certain that folks
who are on the Affordable Care Act will continue to have access to
healthcare. It is up to us to solve that problem.
Let me just talk specifically about that and what it means to folks.
If we don't act, in Florida, a 30-percent increase; Kentucky, a 32-
percent increase; Louisiana, a 32-percent increase; Alabama, a 34-
percent increase; West Virginia, a 35-percent increase; Texas, 39
percent; Tennessee, 41; South Carolina, 50.
We have wicked-high healthcare premiums in Vermont, and we may have
the worst situation. Let me give an example. I know the Presiding
Officer, as a former Governor, is totally sensitive to this. I know the
Presiding Officer is.
A family where you have two folks working and they are making a
little over $100,000--they can get the ObamaCare healthcare for about
$7,500. Their premium is going to increase by $2,300. That is not their
fault. They have no control over that. They can't shop around. But what
they know is they have a child, maybe a child with disabilities, and
what they know is they love that child. They know they love their
family. They know, as responsible adults, they want to make sure that
if those kids or if their partner needs healthcare, they will have it.
If we fail to act, we are saying: You are on your own. It is
complicated. It is political.
That is so unacceptable, and that is what we are talking about.
The blame game is: Why are you in favor of a shutdown?
I am not in favor of a shutdown.
I think the more profound question for each of us--Republican,
Democrat, Independent--is, Is it within your power to continue
healthcare for the Americans whom we represent? And the answer to that,
we all know, is yes, it is within our power.
Now, we may have to stand up to an Executive who doesn't particularly
care about that. But we do. We do. And if we do, we must act. So that
is what is at stake here.
When we step back from the politics and the blame game and the
shutdown showdown activities that are becoming ever more prominent here
and just ask ourselves, as U.S. Senators, all of us
[[Page S6817]]
who represent people who are working-class, some are wealthy, some are
disabled, all kinds of people, and we care about them. But can we
really say we care about them if we let them lose their healthcare? My
answer to that is no.
So I am ready to do whatever it takes to continue access to
healthcare. And the people who want healthcare--it is about the love
they have for the people in their lives; it is not about getting some
political advantage with the outcome of this debate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Donald Trump is powerful, but he is not
all-powerful. It is true that he is trying to consolidate power in
illegal and dangerous ways, but it is also true that he is often
failing to do that because of public opinion, because of markets,
because of institutions, and because of the law itself.
I want to give a couple of recent examples. Two weeks ago, shortly
after Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr threatened to punish ABC
if it didn't suspend Jimmy Kimmel's show, the network announced that it
was taking the show off the air indefinitely. So at first, the public
coercion seemed to work. Brendan Carr had said, point blank:
We can do this the easy way or [we can do this] the hard
way.
And the network caved. But a swift and searing backlash quickly
followed. Consumers revolted. People began canceling their
subscriptions.
Disney's market cap fell by close to $6.5 billion in a matter of
days. Artists, advertisers, and employees spoke out. Even Republicans
in the Senate denounced the move.
My Senate colleague Ted Cruz called it ``dangerous as hell":
I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put
itself in the position of saying we're going to decide what
speech we like and what speech we don't, and we're going to
threaten to take you off [the] air if we don't like what
you're saying.
Criticizing your own party's administration is hard. I understand
that. But this is not about whether you are left or right or whether
you thought Jimmy Kimmel's comment was insensitive or not. It is about
the basic question of ``Are we allowed to speak freely in the country
without fear that the government is going to come after us?'' because,
if not, that is not the America that any of us recognize.
Here is another example. Last week, Trump installed a loyalist with
no experience as prosecutor as the interim U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, and within days, the office indicted
former FBI Director James Comey on charges without much evidence at
all.
And the case is so absurd that they couldn't even get a single career
prosecutor to take it on. So, instead, the newly installed interim U.S.
attorney had to sign and present the indictment herself in a highly
unusual move. One of the charges was rejected by the grand jury almost
immediately.
Now, why does that matter? It is, without a doubt, a dark day for the
country when the President of the United States uses the Justice
Department to prosecute political opponents. But legal experts widely
expect this case to fail before it even gets to trial. And that, too,
will be a reminder that while this President is powerful, he is not
all-powerful. This isn't a free-for-all. He doesn't get to just do
whatever he wants.
That brings me to this debate about government funding. Democrats are
out of power, but we are not powerless, and our price is not that high.
We have been asking Republicans, for over a month, to sit down and
negotiate. I have been here 13\1/2\ years. We have never passed an
appropriations bill without negotiation.
But Trump literally told his party: ``Don't even bother dealing with
them.'' And so it took them until today, on the eve of a shutdown, for
a meeting.
And the House is out of town. The House adjourned until after the
funding deadline expires. They were going to come back on October 1,
which is already 24 hours too late. Now they are thinking October 7.
If you are serious about a deal, if you are serious about keeping the
government open, why are you not in the U.S. Capitol?
Russ Vought, in July, the OMB Director, said: You know, the
appropriations process should be less bipartisan.
The person in charge of the Federal Government in the executive
branch is pretty explicit. He says: The appropriations process should
not involve Democrats at all.
The only way to keep the government open is for both parties to
negotiate a bipartisan agreement. If the Republicans want to listen to
Donald Trump and say, ``Don't even bother dealing with the Democrats,''
then there is a very old adage and an iron law in politics, which is:
If you don't ask for the vote, you do not get the vote.
We are ready to work together to keep this government open, and I
want everybody to understand what we are fighting for--what we are
fighting for. Tens of millions of Americans are getting letters in the
mail, and they don't know they are on the Affordable Care Act exchange.
What the hell is that anyway? They just sign up for healthcare on a
website, right? You don't know if you are on Obamacare or some hybrid
thing or employer or this or that. You just get a letter from your
insurer, and they say: If you want to reenroll in your healthcare plan,
here is how much it will be. It is usually like a small increase, year
over year, to cover inflation.
So now they are going to get a letter that literally says: Your
subsidies are gone, and your new price is x. The average increase is
going to be hundreds of dollars per person per month. Add to that that
we are hearing in some States, and maybe as a result of some job owning
with the administration, they are waiting to send those letters. They
are waiting to send those letters. Why? Because they are hoping we are
going to resolve this ACA tax credit thing, and they don't want to eat,
politically speaking, the fact that a bunch of people, tens of millions
of people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents, nonvoters, but zero
noncitizens--zero noncitizens--you are not eligible to be on the
exchange if you are a noncitizen--are going to get a letter saying: You
know it is going to be $3,000 or $4,000 more per year.
Like, go talk to a regular person. Some of us know regular people who
are on that exchange and know: I just can't do it--$300 dollars more
per month. And, by the way, if you get that letter in December and your
first payment is due on January 1, you are extra screwed.
So I understand that the White House understands how big of a
political liability this is because people are really going to get
hurt. And now it is a question of sort of people wanting to not behave
as though they are giving in.
But let's be adults here. There is a crisis that is about to happen
to tens of millions of Americans, and we have an opportunity to fix it,
and there is bipartisan desire to fix it. And Leader Thune and Speaker
Johnson's view is: Nah, we will deal with that later. And Donald Trump
was saying: Why don't we deal with that next year?
By next year, all of the rates are locked in, and people will be
paying $300 or $400 or $500 more per person per month.
We can fix this, and we should.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today because we
have a choice here, and the Democratic leaders in both the Senate and
the House just went to the White House. They had a long meeting. I am
glad that meeting happened. I hope something will come out of it.
But the President has repeatedly said: Well, we don't need Democratic
votes. Well, we can do this on our own.
The problem is the more he says that, the more the American people
are saying: What about me?
``What about me?'' says the farmer whose soybean market is dried up,
whom I met with last week. ``What about me?'' says the mom coming out
of the grocery store and looking at her bill or the student thinking
``I can't afford this electricity bill'' or everyone that is starting
to look at these healthcare numbers, looking at the insurance premiums,
looking at the fact that this administration has not stood up for them
on healthcare?
So if they would open their eyes right now and see what is going on
out
[[Page S6818]]
there or maybe go to those 13 rural counties that I just visited in
Minnesota, maybe they would see that this is a moment where people are
expecting the President and congressional Republicans to work with us
on these unfolding crises.
The tariffs may be decided in the courts or the Congress can decide
enough is enough, but this healthcare crisis--that is on this body to
do something right now. The President has sadly made his position
clear. He would rather shut down the government than work with
congressional Democrats to address this skyrocketing healthcare cost
crisis.
So our colleagues, many of whom I work with every day, they can
decide: Are they going to rubberstamp what he does or are they going
try to work with us?
So one of the things that one of the farmers said to me last week, at
one of my meetings, is this: Between my entire market drying up--in
Minnesota, 60 percent of our soybeans are exported to other countries;
of course, China hasn't purchased a bushel since this President came
in--and the cost of fertilizer going up because of the tariffs on
potash out of Canada--and even then, though they were reduced, it is
still a major driver--between the issues with visas and not having
enough workers--he described it, as he looked at the healthcare policy
and what is happening there, since about 28 percent of our farmers are
on the Affordable Care Act because they are individual businessowners--
he said it is the perfect storm of ugly.
I think that is a good way to describe it. So what do you do when
there is a storm--a perfect storm of ugly--coming at you? Do you go out
there with an umbrella and say, well, maybe we can look at this in a
month or two?
You don't have that luxury. The American people don't have that
luxury. This is not a December thing. This is not a January thing. This
is a now thing.
So I hope our colleagues will see it as the opportunity that it is,
and that is to finally do something to help the people that are facing
this.
NBC recently reported on one family that currently pays $278 a month
for health insurance, thanks to the healthcare tax credit. If
Republicans in Congress and the President let this expire, this
family's premiums could soar to $1,800 a month, an increase of $1,500 a
month.
The estimate is that nationally it will be a 75-percent increase in
premiums. In rural, it will be double. I was actually surprised at our
rural hospitals--of course, they are concerned about the Medicaid
cuts--that the $500 billion in Medicare cuts that is coming at them,
because of the fact that the debt was increased so much in that bill
with the tax cuts for the wealthy that it triggered an automatic $500
billion of Medicare costs.
All of that is worrisome, but maybe I just hadn't thought it through.
The Affordable Care Act premium increases, without any tax credits,
really concern them. Why? Because so many of their people that are
going into their hospitals in rural areas are either on Medicaid or
they are on what we call in Minnesota MNsure, their policy through the
Affordable Care Act.
Those people won't be able to afford double--no way--because they are
already in that perfect storm of ugly. So then they aren't going to
have insurance, and they are going to show up in their emergency rooms,
in these midsize towns, with no insurance. So they said this could make
a major, major difference for them.
Our legislation would have kept the lights on. Our bill, it got more
votes than the Republican bill. I would like to point that out. A whole
bunch of people didn't even show up for the vote that we just had a
week ago, and our proposal that did something about healthcare--to
restore people's healthcare--actually got more votes than the
Republican proposal.
So we want people to work with us and prevent millions of Americans
from losing their healthcare. This is our opportunity to show why we
came here to begin with, and that is to stand up for our constituents.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, for the past 6 or so months, I have been
crisscrossing the State of Wisconsin, listening to families, small
business owners, parents, caregivers, doctors, nurses, and neighbors
about what good, affordable healthcare means to them. And the
overwhelming consensus, as you might expect, was that having healthcare
you can rely on and afford means everything.
I know this exact feeling. When I was just 9 years old, I had a very
serious childhood illness, similar to spinal meningitis. That wasn't
the exact diagnosis. But I was in the hospital for 3 months, and even
though I was able to make a full recovery, my family was then not able
to find any health insurance to cover me, not at any price, because I
had been labeled as a child with a preexisting health condition.
You see, back then, insurance companies were under no obligation to
cover people who had been sick or were sick. So people with preexisting
health conditions, like diabetes or a cancer diagnosis, so often went
uninsured. That kind of experience, being hospitalized for months and
then not being able to get health insurance, it is not an experience
that one forgets.
So when we have these debates about healthcare policy, I know that it
is not just a high-minded conceptual idea. It is real. The consequences
are real, and the people behind the stories are real.
And over the past few months, I have been able to hear those real
stories. I heard stories from families who were sometimes unable to put
into words what it would mean if their Medicaid were stripped away.
I heard from Evan in Madison, WI. Evan is on Medicaid. We call it
Badger Care in the State of Wisconsin. Evan has undergone two brain
surgeries and subsequent radiation over the past 10 years to treat
brain tumors. Thankfully, he has Medicaid to help cover this care, but
his ability to stay healthy means that he needs medication. He wrote to
me and said that without Medicaid, ``I won't be able to afford my
medication that literally gives me the ability to go out and be a part
of my community.''
I also heard from Ashley from De Pere, WI. She told me how Medicaid
was essential for her 15-year-old daughter with disabilities. Medicaid
has allowed her to modify her home so her daughter can safely get
around and also allowed the family to get a wheelchair-accessible van
so her daughter can get to school and get to the doctor and just be a
kid and experience the world.
These are the Americans who are now living in fear that their
Medicaid is on track to be terminated because my Republican colleagues
jammed through a partisan bill that cuts Medicaid to the bone and will
kick more than 10 million Americans off their healthcare. As always, I
would be remiss if I did not say that was all in service to giving huge
tax breaks to big, profitable corporations and the ultrawealthy.
This is the damage that I am hearing about from the people I work
for, and, sadly, the stories from folks who are worried their
healthcare is on the line don't end there. Twenty-four million
Americans get their healthcare from the Affordable Care Act, and they
are waiting right now for that dreaded letter in the mail letting them
know that their premium costs are about to skyrocket. For the 22
million who receive enhanced premium tax credits, their costs will go
up on average by 75 percent. Four million of these Americans are going
to get that letter and realize that they cannot afford healthcare at
all anymore.
This, of course, is because my Republican colleagues refuse to pass
our bill to extend the enhanced premium tax credits and make them
permanent, which allow millions of Americans to get affordable
healthcare through the ACA.
I heard from some of those families and small business owners last
week. They are just dreading what they are about to find out and what
the future holds for them.
Take Kim, who owns a bakery in the Fox Valley. Last week, she laid
out how if Republicans refuse to extend these tax breaks, she is not
only worried about how she will be able to afford her healthcare but
also that increased costs on the exchange will mean that employees may
quit working for her to go work for a big company that offers
insurance. And, of course, she is worried that her customers will
inevitably be left with less
[[Page S6819]]
in their pockets to come by and patronize her store.
I also heard from Keith in Marathon County, who runs his own
insurance business. He knows this issue inside out, and Keith laid out
some staggering figures for me of what he is staring down. If
Republicans don't join me in extending these premium tax credits and
making them permanent, Keith's premiums will go from less than $740 per
month to more than $2,300 per month just to get insurance for his
family. That is a staggering increase.
It is no exaggeration to say that the American people are staring
down a healthcare crisis. We have a healthcare system in crisis. And I
want to be clear that it is 100 percent manufactured by my Republican
colleagues.
But do you know what? This is still avoidable. It is still avoidable.
I am hearing my constituents sounding the alarm, so I am here to do the
same. I got the memo that they don't want to have Medicaid gutted, they
don't want to have their Affordable Care Act tax credits taken away,
and they don't want their costs to skyrocket.
The people I work for have been crystal clear about what they expect
and demand of Congress: Work together to lower costs and give them the
opportunity for their hard work to let them save and to let them get
ahead.
So that is my position. We need to lower the costs of healthcare, not
take it away from families. I simply refuse to just go along to get
along because the people I represent are truly struggling, and the
solution is right in front of us.
That brings us to today. The path to keep the government open and
stop healthcare costs from rising for millions is on the table. The
whole idea of a shutdown is totally avoidable. If Republicans refuse to
see what is right in front of them, then a shutdown is on them. And
Wisconsinites will know exactly who to thank when they get that dreaded
letter and their healthcare costs skyrocket or they see it simply
stripped away.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the House of Representatives is not coming
back into session, reportedly, until next week. The government is
shutting down tomorrow night, and the Republican House of
Representatives isn't here, and they aren't coming back until the
government has been shut down--reportedly for days. That tells you all
you need to know about who is responsible for a potential shutdown of
the government. Republicans care so little about funding the government
that they aren't even showing up.
President Trump doesn't care either. He boycotted even meeting with
Democrats until 24 hours before the shutdown was to begin. He was
watching golf or posting on social media--basically anything except
trying to negotiate, to do the job of government.
I wish Republicans were trying to keep the government open instead of
trying to shut it down, but what I really want is for Republicans to
open their eyes and see what is happening at an increasing pace to our
democracy.
What I want and what I think is necessary at this moment is for any
budget that we write to put the health of our democracy first. In fact,
as I have watched the events of the past few weeks play out, with
political enemies being systematically hunted by this administration, I
think that we all have a moral obligation to only support a budget that
at the very least puts the brakes on the President's lawlessness.
Right now, our democracy is in grave peril, and there is no better
example of this than the events that played out last week over the
indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
The President has made it clear that he wants to put his political
enemies in jail as retribution for the charges brought against him. He
does not care about whether there are grounds for these charges; he
just wants charges. So he instructed Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney in
Virginia, a Republican, to bring charges against James Comey, but
Seibert refused for a simple reason: There was no evidence that James
Comey had done anything illegal. So Trump fired Siebert, and he
appointed his personal lawyer, who has never set foot in a courtroom,
as the new U.S. attorney simply because he knew she would follow
orders.
Every career prosecutor in the office recommended she refuse to bring
the charges--again, because there were no charges to be brought--but
she did it anyway, as instructed. Not a single other lawyer in the
office would sign the indictment--virtually unprecedented in a case
like this.
Trump cheered the indictment, and then he warned that there would be
more charges brought against others that had vocally opposed his
policies.
That is not all that happened in the last 2 weeks. Trump ordered the
FCC to issue threats to TV stations that did not remove one of his
primary late night critics, Jimmy Kimmel, from the airwaves. He
announced new military deployments to additional cities. He began a
process to harass and arrest leaders of prominent political groups that
oppose his Presidency, threatening at least one funder of groups that
oppose his policies, George Soros, with arrest simply for supporting
opposition to Trump.
Much of this, though not all of it, has happened in the wake of the
brutal, horrific murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His
assassination was abhorrent, and it was and still is a moment for all
of us to consider what we can do to stamp out political violence and
violence of all kinds. But his murder does not justify the dizzying
campaign of political repression that has been carried out--often in
his name--since. To exploit his murder to crush dissent or to censor
speech is unacceptable.
This brings me back to the debate over the expiring budget. I join
with my colleagues in wanting this new budget to at the very least
postpone the healthcare insurance increases that are coming for
millions of Americans and that are going to ruin people's lives in this
country--75 percent increases for people, who are going to make this
awful decision about whether they should continue to pay their
premiums, whether they should put food on their table for their kids,
or whether they should risk going without insurance.
I think that is a pretty reasonable ask. Just don't increase costs on
families when it comes to healthcare at a time when the cost of
everything else is going up because of President Trump's insane
economic policies.
But let me ask you this as well: Why would we not also simply say
that any budget we pass should stop the worst of the lawlessness? Stop
the deployments to our cities. Stop the witch hunt of Comey and Soros
and Senator Schiff. Stop using the FCC to censor speech. Stop
unconstitutionally ignoring the budget and spending only money that the
President wants to spend.
To me, this is simple: We should not willingly pay the bills for the
most serious assault on political freedom since the Civil War--an
assault that may collapse American democracy as we know it.
Now, I know my Republican friends think this is hyperbole, that our
fear for our democracy is just fearmongering, just politics. I swear it
is not.
Our Republican colleagues know why Comey and Senator Schiff and Soros
are being targeted. They know that the President just picked the people
that give him the hardest time and told his folks to come up with
charges.
My Republican colleagues know the impact that this has on people who
want to politically and peacefully oppose the President but now won't
do that because they fear for their freedom. Republicans know this.
They should not defend it.
Republicans know that it is wrong to sit down and agree to a budget
and then cheer the President when he refuses to spend the money in blue
States or on the priorities that got Democrats to sit down at the table
to begin with. Republicans know that is not fair play. They shouldn't
defend it.
Republicans know that using the FCC to crack down on speech that the
President doesn't agree with is wrong. They know, as Senator Cruz
pointed out, that is a slippery slope we may never get off.
I want to find agreement with the Republicans on stopping these
premiums from going up. I do. I think that is really important for
people in this country. And I think it is OK to admit that this is an
odd arrangement that we have in American Government
[[Page S6820]]
today, where the minority party in the Senate, so long as it has 40
Members, is kind of in a coalition government with the majority party
because the budget can't pass without bipartisan agreement. But the
majority party has an obligation to honor and fight for a basic set of
protections for our democracy, and when it doesn't, it really stops
being a good-faith negotiating partner.
How do Republicans expect us to vote for a budget that funds a
government that is lawlessly pursuing Democrats, that is arresting and
harassing our members and our allies, that is deploying the Army and
masked officers to our cities?
We are at a moment of decision for this country. Right now,
Republicans aren't even trying to keep the government open. They are
not even here.
They are not even here. They are rooting for a shutdown.
But if we are going to keep the government open, why can't we all
agree that it should only be a government that respects our democracy,
that is not corrupt, that doesn't treat people and places that oppose
President Trump as enemies deserving of indictment or military
deployment. That also seems like a pretty minimalist ask.
So it is decision time: Is this Senate going to fund the destruction
of our democracy or are we going to do what is necessary to stand up
for basic American values?
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague
from Connecticut and to build on some of the arguments that he has made
so well. We are here because our democracy is in crisis. It is not some
potential catastrophe on the horizon that is distant or hypothetical.
It is real. It is now because of the lawlessness and recklessness of
this administration.
And it is the result of a contempt for the law, for legal norms that,
seemingly, is boundless. We have seen it in the Jimmy Kimmel episode
where the FCC Chair said, in mobster-like language: They can do it the
hard way or the easy way.
``You have a nice restaurant there. It would be a shame if anything
happened to it.'' I prosecuted mob cases. That is the kind of language
we see from organized crime.
And it was shown in the indictment of James Comey, a document signed
only by the U.S. attorney, not by any career official, and after only
14 members of the 23 people on that Grand Jury voted to do it on two of
the counts, rejecting a third.
All of this kind of procedure is so highly extraordinary. As a former
prosecutor, it would be an embarrassment. But this administration is
beyond shame when it comes to lawlessness.
And we have seen it in immigration, in healthcare, in education, in
the VA, where countless people have been illegally fired, some of them
hired back.
And that is why we are insisting that there be a guarantee that the
President will follow the law when we pass a budget. It is not a
hypothetical danger that he will disobey it. In fact, he has ordered
rescissions, impoundments, clawbacks. If we pass a law, we have to be
sure the President will follow it. Otherwise, there really isn't any
point to this branch of government.
And so I say to my Republican colleagues, as a matter of your self-
respect, as a matter of protecting this institution, you should agree
with us that there must be a guarantee that the rule of law will
prevail.
And I say to my constituents in Connecticut: We are going to stand up
for you to save your healthcare because you can't wait to get sick. You
don't choose to get sick on November 22 or January 3 when it is
convenient for Donald Trump and the Republican majority.
You need to know, when there is open enrollment on November 1,
whether or not your insurance will be affordable for you. You need to
know whether those subsidies will make it affordable for you because
otherwise you won't be able to buy insurance through the ACA. In fact,
90 percent of all people in Connecticut who buy insurance through the
ACA marketplace receive some kind of subsidy, and their insurance
premiums will skyrocket by 75 percent if that subsidy is ended. They
need to know now, when open enrollment starts, whether those subsidies
will be there for them.
And it will affect insurance premiums for everyone if we fail to
extend those subsidies as part of this continuing resolution now. Why?
Because healthier people who see their insurance premiums rise by 20
percent--right now, they are projected to rise at least 18 percent for
everyone because that is the cost of this failure to extend the
subsidies. The healthier people are going to say: I am not bothering. I
won't need it.
The sicker people may try to buy it, and the insurance companies will
have to cover illnesses, more of them, with fewer premiums, and they
will have to charge more to everyone to cover it.
So this failure to do the right thing has impacts for everyone who
seeks healthcare and tries to buy insurance to pay for it.
The Republican proposal is an abject failure when it comes to
ensuring that the American people don't pay more for healthcare. And I
heard from constituents just over this past weekend as I went to the
Durham Fair, as I went to the mum parade in Bristol, as I went to
Norwalk and Stamford and Milford, all around the State, people asking
me: What will happen to my health insurance? What will happen to my
healthcare?
Nothing is more important than health, and we are saving healthcare
for the American people by insisting that this extension of government
funding include a reversal of the cruel and stupid ``Big Blatant
Betrayal''--it is not a Big Beautiful Bill, the ``Big Blatant
Betrayal'' that failed to extend those healthcare subsidies--and insist
that whatever bill that is passed be obeyed by the President.
The ACA premium tax credits have protected millions of Americans from
those higher healthcare costs, and they have reduced the numbers of
Americans without health insurance coverage. They have provided robust
choices for consumers and provided stability for healthcare providers,
especially in rural areas.
And I have heard from those providers who are as worried as their
patients about what will happen to this program.
What the Republicans are doing is cruel. It is unnecessary. There is
a straightforward, simple solution. It should not be a partisan issue.
Republicans know we have to extend those subsidies. Why not now? That
is the mystery to the American people.
And there will be no credit for a shutdown. The American people know
that we are not seeking it. We hope to avoid it. It will be on
Republicans who have refused to come to the table. House Republicans
have refused even to come to town, come back to go into session, and
they are having discussions, reportedly, about whether they can have
fundraisers during the shutdown if there is one.
So we need some wiser heads and stronger conscience to prevail, and I
am hopeful there is still time to reach that kind of agreement.
I choose to stand with working families, and I urge my Republicans to
do the same.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, millions of Americans better check their
mailbox over the next week or two. There is some bad news. Letters are
being sent by health insurance companies that are trying to give some
kind of a warning to these families about what is going to happen to
their health insurance premiums because of the big beautiful Trump
budget bill.
One family in Illinois tells the story, Leighanne Safford and her
husband Lorry. Right now, Leighanne and Lorry pay $278 a month for
health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. But starting January 1,
their monthly premiums--now get this--jump from $278 a month to $1,800
a month, a 550-percent increase--$1,500 more coming out of the
paychecks of Lorry and Leighanne.
Why is this happening? Because we have a system, or had a system,
that provided subsidies and tax credits to working families so that
they could afford their health insurance. However, in the big beautiful
budget bill of Donald Trump--passed with every Republican voting for
it, every Democrat voting against it--these subsidies and credits
started to disappear.
[[Page S6821]]
Thanks to President Biden and a Democratic Congress, those credits
were there for families that they could count on. Because of the
Republican decision with President Trump to give tax breaks to the
wealthiest people in America, they cut back on the premium assistance
that was available to the Safford family.
These credits had opened the door to millions of working and middle-
class Americans like Leighanne and Lorry to be able to afford quality
health insurance.
Now they have got to make a choice. This is a lot of money--$1,500 a
month. Millions of Americans will decide: Are we going to cut back on
essentials like food and dental or switch to a higher deductible plan,
more money out-of-pocket if anybody gets sick? Leighanne said:
Right now, we're making a decision based on . . . being
relatively healthy. But, as we all know, with health, it can
change any day.
That is the same bind that millions of Americans are going to face
because of the Republican decision to give a tax break to the
wealthiest people in America.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 4 million
American families are going to lose their health insurance if
Congressional Republicans allow these subsidies to expire, and that is
what is going to happen if we don't change, including more than 100,000
in my State of Illinois.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can extend these tax credits and
still fund government.
I remember a time in this Chamber when Democrats and Republicans came
together on a bipartisan basis when real family challenges existed and
tried to solve the problem. We just don't have that spirit here
anymore. They have decided on the Republican side, we are going to give
tax breaks to these wealthy people, even at the expense of working
families.
And we have a President hell-bent on abusing his power and a
Republican Congress that refuses to disagree with him.
Earlier this year, President Trump and Republicans in Congress signed
into law this Big Beautiful Bill. It cuts nearly a trillion dollars
from programs like Medicaid. What is Medicaid important for? Limited-
income families and retired individuals.
This big beautiful Republican budget bill cuts nearly a trillion
dollars from Medicaid and $300 billion from the Food Stamp Program, now
known as SNAP.
As a result of their bill, the Republican bill, more than 10 million
Americans will lose their health coverage.
Ever had a child who was sick and no health insurance? I have. You
will never forget it as long as you live.
This is separate from 4 million others who stand to lose their health
coverage if the Republicans continue to block our efforts with the ACA
tax credits. It seems Republicans in Congress are fine adding more than
3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years to pay for those
tax cuts, but they draw the line at extending healthcare to millions of
hard-working Americans.
The math is clear. Republicans don't have the votes to force this
extreme agenda. Government requires input from both sides. We are
taking a stand for this family and millions more just like them. When
they get the jolt of the news of where their health insurance premium
is going to go, where do they turn? I hope they can turn to Congress
and Members of the Senate who actually care for working families. If we
refuse to do the job, Leighanne and Lorry are going to pay the price.
Let's be clear, Democrats stand ready to negotiate on a fair
bipartisan basis. The only reason we are staring at this shutdown is
because Republicans have refused to come to the table.
There was a meeting at the White House today. Don't let it be the
last one. Let's come together and fix this healthcare problem for
working families.
The President on FOX News said last week: Don't even bother dealing
with the Democrats.
Well, the President is wrong. We are in this together. We need to
solve this problem together. If the government shuts down, it will be
because of President Trump walking away from a major challenge facing
working families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, one of the things I have had the most
trouble understanding in the time that I have been in the Senate has
been Republicans' bizarre fascination with attacking healthcare
systems, with taking healthcare coverage away from Americans. It came
to a boil in the ``Beautiful for Billionaires'' bill--which cut about a
trillion dollars out of Medicaid--and, in a hidden fashion through
sequester, cut about half a trillion dollars out of Medicare and then
attacks the Affordable Care Act, which so many Americans rely on to be
able to afford their health insurance.
I represent Rhode Island. Rhode Island is probably going to lose up
to $5 billion in Federal Medicaid funding. The Medicare cuts would be
probably about half of that. And the Affordable Care Act is going to
hit about 40,000 Rhode Islanders who will see their insurance premiums
explode. And that is going to happen soon.
This is a healthcare crisis that Republicans have created, and we
would like to try to protect the American public in all of this. These
are not going to be small increases in people's bills. We are talking
about an 85-percent increase in already expensive health insurance
premiums, as much as $1,200 a year for a middle-class family.
Let me give you just an example of what this looks like in real life.
I have a constituent named Carla. Carla is 60 years old. She is
retired. She was a mental health counselor, which is noble work but
doesn't make you rich. She gets $60,000 in annual income, mostly from
her 401(k). She doesn't yet qualify for Medicare, so she got insurance
from the Rhode Island State health insurance marketplace.
She has a family history of heart disease. She has hypertension. When
the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act expire at the end of the
year, Carla's monthly premium will go from $427 a month to $904 a
month. That is more than double. That is a $477 per month increase to
the expenses of a woman whose total income is only $60,000 a year.
We ought to be able to solve this. All we are asking for is serious
negotiations to address the Republican healthcare crisis or, I guess,
if they refuse, the Republican government shutdown. It is very much up
to Republicans where we go from here. All the reports are that the
meeting between the President and congressional leaders went badly; no
progress was made at all.
It is really up to the Republicans. Will they really choose to shut
down the U.S. Government just to indulge their bizarre fascination with
taking healthcare away from Americans? Aren't we better than that?
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, we are just a day away from a government
shutdown because President Trump and Republicans would rather shut down
the government than work with us to keep healthcare premiums from
spiking for American families. We are watching the same pattern repeat
itself again in Washington: partisan politics and dysfunction hurting
hard-working families.
This fight is about healthcare. It is about what happens to families
in Arizona if tax credits that reduce their healthcare premiums expire.
It is about costs going up for people who are already feeling squeezed
by inflation and Trump's tariffs driving up the prices of everything
from groceries to back-to-school supplies.
And it is not complicated. If these tax credits expire, working
families in my State will see their monthly premiums spike when they go
to sign up for a new plan in just a few weeks. I have heard from
Arizonans who are now saving hundreds of dollars every month because of
these credits. Ending them would be a gut punch. For some, it would
mean losing their coverage altogether.
It is pretty simple. We should extend them, and that is what we are
proposing. Let's not forget who holds the cards: Donald Trump and my
Republican colleagues. They are the ones saying no--not just to
Democrats, not just to us, but to families in Arizona and across the
country.
[[Page S6822]]
But instead of working with us to lower costs and avoid a shutdown,
Donald Trump has refused to even sit down and talk about it for weeks
until just today, barely 24 hours before the deadline. He would rather
watch the country inch closer to a shutdown than to try to figure out
solutions.
It is going to be everyday Americans who pay the price, your
constituents and mine. In Arizona, more than 379,000 people have
reduced premiums through these tax credits. It lowers their premium by
an average of about $475 every single month. So if those tax credits
are allowed to expire, that means their healthcare premiums for next
year go up as much as 55 percent. That is hundreds of dollars every
single month.
And that blows a huge hole in the family budget. It means canceled
family trips. It means not being able to sign your kid up to a sports
league. It means taking on more shifts just to cover this added cost.
And for a lot of folks, what this means is they will not be able to
afford health insurance at all.
The estimate is that more than 109,000 people in Arizona alone would
be unable to afford coverage. In the richest country in the history of
the world, there is no reason why somebody who is working full time
shouldn't be able to afford basic health insurance. No one should be
one accident or one unexpected illness away from financial ruin. No one
should be unable to take their kid to a doctor when they get sick.
But here we are because of Donald Trump and Republicans. This would
hurt even harder in rural Arizona and small towns--places like Cochise,
Apache, Navajo, and Santa Cruz Counties where there are fewer large
employers who offer health benefits. But these are counties with higher
poverty rates. It will hurt families across Arizona who finally--
finally--got access to care and now they are being told that it may
disappear.
It doesn't have to be this way. There is still time to extend the
premium tax credits and protect families from higher costs while
keeping the Federal Government open and serving Americans.
Mr. President, we can do this. We just have to be willing to sit down
and work to figure it out. I know I am.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. JOHNSON. We are behind schedule, so I ask unanimous consent to
speak for up to 25 minutes before taking the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.