[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 19, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2353-S2354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am glad to join Senator Kaine on the 
floor today in support of his resolution. I have admittedly lost count 
on how many of these resolutions we have brought before the body. This 
must be our seventh, eighth, or ninth. That is extraordinary, 
duplicative, redundant, but necessary because, at least in my time in 
the Senate, never before has this country engaged in such a 
significant, consequential, deadly, and costly military operation 
overseas without the consent of the people and without the consent of 
Congress.
  The Founding Fathers were really intentional in lodging the warmaking 
power not in the executive branch but in the legislative branch. There 
are few questions we confront that are more serious than about when we 
send our men and women to die overseas, when we decide to expend such a 
sizable amount of our hard-earned taxpayers' money on military 
operations. And it should not--it cannot--be simply one individual who 
makes those decisions. It has to be all of us.
  So these are increasingly heartbreaking motions to make because it 
shouldn't be up to the minority party. The majority, who asked for the 
consent of the governed to lead this Senate, should do their 
responsibility under the Constitution and have a full debate on an 
authorization for military force.
  Here is my guess: It would not pass. If Leader Thune brought an 
authorization for military force against Iran here in the Senate, it 
would not pass. I don't think it would even get 50 votes. It might not 
get 40 votes. It would fail, and the President would not have the 
authorization to continue these operations.
  I am going to just talk about two, I think, important topics that I 
have yet to address on the floor. The first is the consequences of 
spending this much money on a war that is making us less safe. I have 
made this case before on the floor, and I won't go into it again, but 
this war is not making us any safer. This war is jeopardizing our 
security around the world. But at what cost?
  In hearings last week, the administration suggested that the cost of 
the war is about $29 billion. To most military experts, that just 
didn't pass the straight-face test, the smell test. In fact, one group 
of experts actually did an accounting based upon what they know of the 
costs of an engagement like this, which has largely been an air 
campaign but has required a massive deployment of forces into the 
region. They said it looks to be about $15 billion in mobilization, 
administration, and combat cost, general operations costs; $41 billion 
when you look at all of the weapons that have been expended; about $12 
billion in losses, damages, destroyed assets. And we are learning that 
there is a really extensive amount of damage that has been done to our 
fixed resources in the region. Then we probably spent another $3 
billion or so supporting our partners in the region. That is about $72 
billion that has been spent just in the first 70, 80 days of war.
  And I get it. Even, I think, for my colleagues, you kind of lose the 
value of money when you are in this place and allocating tens or 
hundreds of billions of dollars on a regular basis for the operations 
of the Federal Government. And for my constituents, they even lose 
track of what is a big number anymore at the Federal Government.
  What does $72 billion mean? Well, let me give you a little bit of 
context. What is the entire operations budget for the National Park 
System on an annual basis? Is it $71 billion? No. Is it

[[Page S2354]]

half that? No. Is it 10? No. The entire operations budget for the 
National Park System is $2 billion, just to give you kind of a sense of 
what we are talking about here. In 2\1/2\ months of war, we have spent 
$70 billion. The National Park System needs about $2 billion to 
operate. Their entire budget of deferred maintenance--if you wanted to 
fix everything that is broken in the National Park Service, how much 
would it cost? It would cost $33 billion. So half of what we have spent 
on the Iran war could fix up every national park in the country to tip-
top shape.
  How much do we spend on elementary education--elementary, middle, and 
secondary education? Every year, about $33 billion. So if you took the 
amount of money we spent on the Iran war and dedicated it all to K-
through-12 education, we would triple the amount of money that our 
elementary, middle, and high schools get in this country. What an 
important investment that would be. What would it mean to your child's 
elementary school to have triple the amount of Federal funding? That 
would mean that you could reduce class sizes, you could hire more 
paraprofessionals. Urban school districts could hire guidance 
counselors and social workers for the first time. New school buildings 
would go up. Leaks would be fixed.
  How about medical research? The total budget of NIH and CDC? About 
$60 billion. So if we had taken this money that we have spent in just 
2\1/2\ months of war and applied it to medical research, we would 
double--double--this year's budget for medical research. If you doubled 
the NIH and CDC budget this year, I guarantee you we would cure at 
least one disease; we would find a treatment years ahead of schedule; 
we would save lives, thousands of lives. But, instead, we are spending 
this money on a war that is making us less safe and driving up costs 
for millions of Americans.
  Again, I am just telling you the cost to the government of this war. 
Of course, we are seeing billions of dollars being spent by businesses, 
by farms, by consumers because gas prices are out of control. This 
week, they will probably hit $5 a gallon in Connecticut. That will put 
a lot of my small businesses out of business if gas prices remain at $5 
through this summer. There will be lots of families in my State--who 
for the first 60 days were probably able to manage that extra cost--who 
are going to have to cancel a week or two or three of summer camp for 
their kids this summer because they are going to have to make a choice 
as to whether I fill up my tank to get to work or whether my kids get 
to go to basketball camp. Those are the decisions that families are 
going to make.
  The second thing, very briefly, I want to talk about is another cost. 
The President is not spending his time right now trying to end this 
war. Reports are that the President has become bored of the Iran war, 
and that is why we are in a stalemate. Nothing is changing. Nothing is 
happening. We are blockading the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians are 
blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Peace negotiations are stuck. And so 
day, after day, after day, grocery prices climb, gas prices climb, and 
the reports suggest it is because President Trump has lost interest in 
the war.
  What is he interested in? Well, we found out this week. Instead of 
spending his last several weeks trying to end the war and bring down 
costs, the President has been engineering a novel, new corruption 
scheme to pad his pockets and his supporters' pockets. We learned this 
week that the President is settling a lawsuit that he lodged against 
himself for $1.7 billion. The President sued himself. He sued the IRS--
but essentially he was suing himself--and then he settled with himself 
for $1.7 billion to be deposited into a slush fund that the President 
can use at his discretion to reward his political supporters.
  We found out just hours ago that in that settlement is included a 
provision that stops the IRS from auditing the President or his family. 
So instead of ending the Iran war, instead of trying to do something 
about these spiraling prices and costs that are being borne by families 
and the Federal Government, the President has spent the last few weeks 
reaching his hand into the Treasury, stealing from the American people 
$1.7 billion to be put into a slush fund that he controls, to reward 
his political supporters, and securing an agreement with the IRS that 
no matter how much fraud or illegality he and his family and his 
business entities engaged in, they are getting off scot-free. Everybody 
else in this country plays by the rules, can be audited by the IRS, and 
is subject to the Tax Code. The President, as of today, is no longer 
subject to the Tax Code. His past fraud, his past illegality has been 
immunized, and he is getting $1.7 billion of your money to give away to 
his political supporters.
  That is why the war is still happening. That is why these costs--
right now, likely $70 billion to the taxpayer, billions more in 
increased costs--that is why they continue to go up and up and up--
because the President has become bored by the war. He doesn't pay the 
cost of the war. In fact, every day, he gets richer because, instead of 
ending the war, he is spending his time finding new, novel, and corrupt 
ways to reach his hand into the Federal Treasury and get paid by the 
taxpayers of this country.
  I am glad that we are getting closer to 50 votes. I imagine that when 
we come back from recess, after many of my Republican colleagues have 
heard about the misery that is being visited on this economy because of 
these high prices, we will reach enough votes to pass this resolution. 
But we will not stop bringing these measures before the Senate until 
that day comes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

                          ____________________