[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 200 (Monday, December 1, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8415-S8416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, on another matter, we have only three 
scheduled workweeks before Christmas. Compared to what the Senate had 
left on its plate last year, I think a great deal of praise is in order 
for our leadership--Senator Thune and Senate Republicans generally--for 
getting so much done in the last 11 months.
  We started the year off with an impressive clip, confirming President 
Trump's Cabinet at a record speed. We successfully passed a 
reconciliation package, which will extend President Trump's tax cuts 
for working families, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill or the 
Working Families Tax Cuts Act, which contains far more than just tax 
relief for the American people. We passed our first draft of the 
National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate.
  In addition to these impressive accomplishments, the Senate has also 
passed the first tranche of government funding bills and a continuing 
resolution to keep the lights on through January. While it may seem odd 
to commend Congress for just doing its job, this has become a notable 
achievement because it means we will not be here on Christmas Eve 
voting on a massive omnibus spending package. That, unfortunately, has 
happened too often in the past.
  Suffice it to say, the first year of the 119th Congress, led by 
Republicans, has been far more productive than recent years, but now we 
have more work to do because we are not quite finished. We have a few 
more tasks to complete before Saint Nick comes to fill up our 
stockings.
  First and foremost, we need to finish the National Defense 
Authorization Act. This is a must-pass piece of legislation. It is 
absolutely critical to providing the men and women who protect this 
country with the finances and the resources and the training they need 
in order to do their job.
  The House and the Senate have passed their own respective versions, 
which means now, the task is for a conference between those two 
versions to reconcile any differences and pass that version in both 
Chambers. Then the final version, of course, as we all know, can go to 
President Trump.
  As part of the process to finalize the NDAA this year, I remain 
adamant in my provisions to address outbound foreign investments that 
they be included in the final version.
  We all know that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest national 
security threat--not just to the region but globally--at this time. 
What many of us did not fully appreciate is how American investors are 
directly supporting the Chinese economy and the Chinese military 
through outbound investments to the tune of billions of dollars.
  The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission noted that the 
United States is ``the most important single source of investment to 
semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI in China.'' In other words, 
we are funding our principal competitor, and that competitor is not 
only an economic competitor but is vying for hegemony in the Indo-
Pacific and threatening a military conflict to take Taiwan any day, 
week, or month in the future.
  So why in the world would we engage in willful blindness, not knowing 
what American investors are doing to help prop up the Chinese economy 
and the Chinese military?
  Failure to address outbound investment transparency is to pretend 
that national security doesn't matter. And we don't have any more time 
to procrastinate. The best time to act on this was years ago when my 
initial outbound investment legislation was proposed and passed as part 
of the Senate NDAA, but now, we need to finish the job we started back 
then in this year's NDAA.
  The last item on our plate, in addition to securing our national 
defense, is to address our Nation's healthcare. The so-called 
Affordable Care Act--better known as ObamaCare--was as dubiously named 
as the Inflation Reduction Act, which did not reduce inflation, just 
like the Affordable Care Act did not make healthcare affordable.
  When ObamaCare was crafted, debated, and passed, Democrats refused to 
work with Republicans to make it a bipartisan law.
  So this failed experiment in ObamaCare that is now proposing 18 
percent premium increases in places like the State of Texas this 
upcoming year has been a complete failure.
  President Obama said that if you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor; he said that if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep 
your healthcare plan; and he also said that it would reduce healthcare 
costs by an average of $2,500 per American consumer--none of which has 
proven to be true. Democrats preferred to write the bill all by 
themselves and then misrepresent to the American people about their 
being able to keep their doctor or existing insurance plans.
  ObamaCare was a massive failure that left Americans disappointed and 
our healthcare system virtually bankrupt. Ignoring this reality, 
Democrats came back for more during the COVID pandemic, using a 
national healthcare crisis as an opportunity to serve up more of the 
same bad recipe for our healthcare needs.
  Of course, we all know the Senate's secret sauce is deliberation and 
debate. That is what we are supposed to do. The Senate is a forum where 
colleagues

[[Page S8416]]

who may have different party affiliations and different ideas about how 
we should solve problems can come together to try to build consensus 
and to work through our differences to arrive at a policy framework 
that gets at least 60 percent support in this body. The result of that 
process is a product that has been stress-tested by Members on both 
sides and one that works out better in the long-term for the American 
people.
  But with the COVID-era enhanced ObamaCare credits set to expire 
according to a timetable set by Democrats since no Republican voted for 
it in the first place--instead of working through the regular order to 
come up with a bipartisan solution, the Senate Democrats have chosen to 
play hardball. They shut down the government, denying paychecks to 
millions of Americans, in an attempt to beat Republicans into accepting 
their terms unilaterally. This is simply not the way the Senate is 
supposed to work.
  The Democrats' use of a government shutdown as a tactic to get what 
they wanted--to extend this failed policy in ObamaCare--is a shameful 
tactic, but now that the shutdown is over, Democrats have an 
opportunity to reconsider and do the right thing.
  President Trump has already given us some great ideas about how to 
accomplish this and made the point, which I think is an important one, 
that rather than send the money to insurance companies that have, by 
the way, done very, very well and made a lot of money, let's send the 
money directly to the consumer so they can choose what suits their 
needs the best.
  There are many good ideas that have been circulated. Senator Bill 
Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana and a member of the Finance 
Committee, has put forward a framework based on the administration's 
proposals--bypassing the insurance companies and sending the money 
directly to the consumer. I know others who have a lot of experience in 
the healthcare field, like Senator Rick Scott of Florida, have 
introduced legislation as well. So there are a lot of great ideas out 
there.
  We know that ObamaCare itself has failed and is unsustainable in its 
current form, so we have a lot of work to do and not much time to get 
it done. The goal, of course, is to make sure that everybody in America 
can get access to healthcare and to make sure we don't bankrupt the 
country in the meantime.
  So all these ideas are a solid step in the right direction toward 
righting the wrongs of ObamaCare and ensuring we put dollars in the 
hands of the consumer or American families rather than in the coffers 
of insurance companies and insurance company executives.
  But to actually solve the healthcare challenges that this country 
faces, we need to have a robust debate between our Members, and I hope 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will approach this 
discussion in good faith. Based on history, I am not overly confident 
that will happen, but I remain hopeful.
  So I look forward to working with all of our colleagues, as well as 
President Trump, to come up with the right solution for healthcare that 
actually relieves the burden of rising health costs on American 
families, primarily caused by the abomination known as ObamaCare.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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