[Pages S46-S60]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LAKEN RILEY ACT--Motion To Proceed

Recognition of the Minority Leader

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.

119th Congress

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, President-elect Donald Trump comes
to the Capitol to meet with Senate Republicans. We expect they will
talk about their first order of business when they assume full control
of government.
And what is the Republicans' first order of business going to be?
Will it be helping working people as Donald Trump promised on the
campaign trail? Will it be increasing paychecks or strengthening
workers' rights or making healthcare more affordable? Will it be
investing in more American manufacturing jobs, like Democrats did 3
years ago?
No, no--and, again, no. Donald Trump and Republicans promised to
fight for working Americans, but their actions already tell a different
story.
Before even entering office, Donald Trump is working with Republicans
to give very wealthy people and megacorporations another round of
trillion-dollar tax cuts. At the same time that Americans are
struggling with inadequate childcare and not

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enough healthcare and the inability to buy a home, these Republicans
are talking about helping the megacorporations and wealthy people get
tax cuts.
Many of them are saying: Let's cut Social Security. Let's cut
Medicare. Let's cut healthcare. Let's cut the ability of a first-time
homeowner to buy a home, to pay for it.
So instead of working in a bipartisan way to put the needs of working
Americans first, Republicans are getting ready to use the
reconciliation process to reward the richest Americans and give more
tax breaks to America's biggest corporations.
It is obscene enough that Republicans want to make tax cuts for the
ultrarich their first agenda item, but it gets worse when you remember
they already cut taxes for those same people just a few years ago, and
we all saw what a disaster it was.
The last time Donald Trump and Republicans cut taxes for the rich,
they claimed it would trickle down to the working people, to the middle
class. It most certainly did not. Republicans promised that the average
household would see $4,000 extra per year, but, in fact, real median
wages grew less than half of a half of a percent--less than half of a
half of a percent--in the 2 years following these tax cuts. Executive
pay and bonuses, meanwhile, soared to record highs. Stock buybacks,
which only reward shareholders, hit a record in 2018.
After the Trump tax cuts went into effect, the highest income earners
in America paid less, effectively, in taxes than the working class for
the first time ever. Imagine that. The highest income earners paid
less, effectively, in taxes than the working class for the first time
ever after the first Trump tax cut, and Republicans want to repeat that
performance?
According to one study by economists at the University of California,
the richest 400 families paid a lower tax rate than the bottom half of
U.S. households in 2018. The richest 400 families paid a lower rate
than the bottom half of U.S. households in 2018--paid a lesser amount,
I believe.
There is nothing--nothing--pro-worker about cutting taxes for the
wealthiest people in America, but that is precisely what Republicans
are preparing to do as one of their first orders of business. They are
not debating whether they should do it, just what is the best way to do
it--one bill; two bills; choose your poison.
We already see a clear difference between the way Republicans are
preparing to govern and how Democrats governed when we had the
majority. We put bipartisanship first. We never made party-line votes
the only part of our main agenda, as Republicans seem prepared to do.
Let's not forget--in the first year of the Democrats' majority, one
of our signature bills was a bipartisan effort to rebuild America's
roads, bridges, and highways, to put people to work, and fix our
infrastructure. That is putting workers first.
In 2022, Democrats led a bipartisan effort to bring manufacturing
back to our shores, to make America the world leader in microchip
production once again, to plant the seeds for good-paying tech jobs at
America's heartland. That is putting workers first.
In 2023, we even led a bipartisan effort to fix our immigration
system with the strongest--the strongest--border security bill in over
a decade. That was a bipartisan bill. We were hours away from voting on
the bill here in the Senate before Donald Trump killed it for no other
reason than a cynical political game.
So it is troubling that so far, we have seen little indication from
the Republican majority that they are interested in continuing the
bipartisan streak of the last 4 years or that they are really
interested in helping the working people of America in any way.
Instead, Republicans seem ready to use their majority to go back to the
same old GOP playbook: tax cuts for the ultrarich, trickle-down
fantasies, and turning their backs on working Americans whom they
promised to fight for.

Nominations

Mr. President, now on nominations, every time a new administration
begins, one of the most important things the Senate does is carefully
evaluate, consider, and vote on the President's Cabinet nominees.
Strong nominees only come from a strong vetting process here in the
Senate.
I have been very clear where Democrats stand. We need thorough
background investigations, we need hearings where both sides can
prepare to ask strong questions, and we need a vote here on the floor.
In other words, we expect regular order. It is deeply troubling, then,
to see our Republican colleagues already beginning to shun regular
order.
Yesterday, the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources noticed a hearing for Governor Doug Burgum to serve as the
next Secretary of the Interior without minority consent, as has long
been the standard practice. Senate Democrats on the committee expressed
reasonable objections to proceeding to this hearing because the
committee had not yet received basic information on Governor Burgum's
background.
What are Republicans trying to hide by rushing this and other
nominees through committee? It is very reasonable to wait a little, get
additional background information so both sides can be ready for the
hearing. Why the rush? Are Republicans trying to hide the fact that
maybe some of Donald Trump's nominees are not qualified for the
positions they seek? Are Republicans trying to cover for nominees who
will turn their backs on working Americans and use Agencies like the
Department of the Interior to help giant polluters and Big Business?
The American people should know if Cabinet nominees will push
policies that kill good-paying clean energy jobs created under
President Biden. These are good-paying jobs that support communities in
red States and blue States. Repealing these jobs would be profoundly
anti-worker and might cause many to lose their jobs.
Americans deserve to know what kind of people are going to serve in
President Trump's Cabinet. They need assurances that these nominees
will fight for them, will cut costs, and hold the big corporations
accountable.
When Republicans try to rush nominees through the process, the
American people have to wonder what are Republicans trying to hide.

Gulf of Mexico

Mr. President, now finally, I want to make a brief comment about the
President-elect's press conference yesterday.
Donald Trump throws out a lot of strange and rather random ideas on a
regular basis. He did it yesterday when suggesting we rename the Gulf
of Mexico the ``Gulf of America.''
Well, let me say this: I would agree working with Donald Trump on
renaming the Gulf of Mexico only if he first agrees to work with us on
an actual plan to lower costs for Americans. That is what the American
people want us to focus on first, not on renaming bodies of water.
Our priorities--our Democratic priorities--are so much more closely
aligned with the concerns of the American people than Donald Trump's
seem to be.
The incoming President knows he has a tall task ahead of him. He
spent years on the campaign trail making outlandish promises he won't
be able to keep. In fact, he is getting ready to do the opposite of
what he promised by cutting taxes for the very, very wealthy.
Donald Trump is in over his head, so he is doing what he always does
in times like this: distract America with crazy ideas.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico may be a zany new idea, but it isn't
going to help people save money at the grocery store; it is not going
to make trips to the pharmacy more affordable; it is not going to help
anyone find a good-paying job. Donald Trump says these things because
it will get him attention and make him sound like a tough guy.
If Donald Trump wants to rename an ocean to sound more patriotic, I
would say we will help him on one condition and only on one condition:
Let's come up with a real plan first--not a concept of a plan--to lower
prices for Americans. Let's do that first. Then Donald Trump can have
his fun.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.

Biden Administration

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, 2 months ago, the American people gave
Republicans a clear mandate. It is a

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mandate to get America back on track. Senate Republicans won 53 seats.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans are in the majority. And
President Trump won a historic victory. He won all seven of the
battleground States, and he won the popular vote. The victory was
decisive. Starting this week, Republicans are going to begin to deliver
on the mandate.
You just heard the minority leader in the Senate talk about what
Republicans are going to do to help the American people. I want to talk
about that because I want to contrast it to what the outgoing President
is doing right now in his final days in office.
The Democrat President who is leaving is trying to put in place
leftwing, dangerous policies--policies that have been rejected by the
American voters and policies that are going to make it more expensive
for American voters to live their lives. These policies will make
America less safe, less prosperous, and more vulnerable. These aren't
policies the American people voted for.
It seems that the lameduck President is working overtime to undermine
the American values and the demands and the wishes of the American
people. The outgoing President has actually had his administration sign
contracts with government unions so government workers have the right
to stay home from work, maybe pretending that they are working, while
still getting paid for a job that they are supposed to be doing.
To make matters worse, this past Monday, Joe Biden banned American
energy production on 625 million acres of Federal waters. The Democrat
leader says: Well, we need to do things to lower prices for the
American people. That is not going to do it. That is going to make it
more expensive for the American people when they use energy to heat
their home and to drive their vehicles.
Joe Biden and the Democrats are using an obscure law to sabotage
American energy independence and American energy production. In the
process of doing this, all in the name of the environment and climate,
they are going to make it much harder for the American people to make
ends meet at the end of the month.
In my home State of Wyoming, the Biden administration issued a
midnight rule that limits agriculture production and oil and gas
leasing in Wyoming on public lands. He did this over the objections of
the people of Wyoming. This is one more insult from this outgoing
administration to the families and the workers in my home State.
So it is not surprising that Joe Biden continues to do more damage as
he shuffles out the door. Under his administration, punishing
regulations have replaced common sense. His war on American energy
independence has hurt us strategically and has caused prices to go up
dramatically. On the whole, he has been the most anti-American energy
President in the history of this country.
Sadly, there are plenty more examples of malicious sabotage by this
lameduck President. In December, what did we learn? We learned that the
Biden administration was selling off materials purchased to build the
wall at our southern border. It sold the materials for pennies on the
dollar. Bidding began at $5. This is vindictive and an illegal
violation of U.S. law.
Joe Biden and Democrats let more than 10 million illegal immigrants
cross our border illegally into our country. Among them, we know, were
over 300 individuals on the Terror Watchlist.
So this morning, when the Democrat leader says ``What are the
Republicans doing? What are you starting out doing?'' Well, this week,
we are going to be voting on the Laken Riley bill. She was a young
woman--an innocent young woman--murdered by an illegal immigrant who
came across into this country illegally. She was murdered. It is a bill
that has been sponsored and cosponsored by every Republican in the
Senate, and now I am happy to report that there are several Democrats
who have also signed on to that legislation.
We are now talking about something that should have been done in a
bipartisan way earlier, but we have an opportunity this week to get a
bill passed in the Senate that is absolutely bipartisan and would make
a huge difference in trying to protect American citizens from illegal
immigrants who are in this country. We are talking about a group of at
least 10 million, some of whom are members of criminal cartels, drug
dealers, people on the Terrorist Watchlist. Yet, by Joe Biden's actions
of selling off materials that taxpayers have paid for--pennies on the
dollar--he is now making it harder and more expensive for President
Trump to do the job at the border that he was elected to do and for
which Joe Biden and his party were rejected at the ballot box.
This week, we also see that Joe Biden is rushing to release
terrorists from American custody. One week after the New Orleans
terrorist attack, this President has set free 11 terrorists from
Guantanamo Bay--terrorists connected to the 9/11 attacks on America.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Joe Biden wants to
give back a dangerous terrorist and close friend of Osama bin Laden.
Here at home, we are seeing another type of Joe Biden jailbreak. Last
month, the President pardoned 39 convicts and commuted the sentences of
nearly 1,500 more--more commutations in a single day than the last
three Presidents combined. These people are hardened criminals. They
include murderers, child abusers, fraudsters, con artists, and corrupt
public officials.
This ugly action was a disregard for the victims, for their families,
and for the facts, and a slap in the face of every law-abiding citizen.
This abuse of power undermines our justice system and the power of the
Presidency.
This week, Joe Biden continued his march of shame by giving America's
highest civilian honor to George Soros. Soros is a pro-crime activist.
He is a supporter--an active supporter--of defunding the police. George
Soros spent $50 million to elect soft-on-crime prosecutors, including
the partisan New York City district attorney Alvin Bragg. Biden
rewarded Soros for funding the lawyers who launched the legal attacks
against his political opponent, President Trump.
In his final days in office now, Joe Biden is making America less
safe, less prosperous, and more vulnerable. This is the opposite of
what the American people voted for in November.
There was a column in the opinion page of yesterday's Washington Post
Magazine. This is a reflection, an opinion of individuals on what
legacy there is going to be for Joe Biden. Presidents are concerned
about their legacy. This is by Matt Bai, called ``Biden's legacy: A
bridge to nowhere.'' And pulled out on the big line is: Joe Biden
``will be chiefly remembered . . . as a man who didn't know when to
leave''--``a man who didn't know when to leave.'' Joe Biden's shelf
life has expired. It is time for him to go.
In our first days in office, Republicans have started to get America
back on track. Working with President Trump, we will put our focus on
what the American people care about: stopping the chaos at the border,
taking the handcuffs off of American energy production, and putting the
safety and the security and the future of all Americans first.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.

Remembering Jimmy Carter

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for many Presidents, their legacy is
written and sealed by their actions in office--their post-Presidency
activities nothing but fodder for the tabloids and a footnote in
history books--but not for Jimmy Carter.
I remember the last days of the Carter Presidency. After 444 painful
days of sustained and frustrating efforts to release American hostages
being held in Tehran, we witnessed their welcome, but cynically timed,
release on the last day of our Nation's peaceful transfer of power from
President Carter to President Reagan.
President Carter's main goal had been to make sure that every hostage
returned home alive. On that score, he succeeded.
Leaving office at 56 years of age and passing away at the end of last
month at 100, President Jimmy Carter had the longest post-Presidency in
our Nation's history, and he certainly made it count. The same faith,
empathy, and desire to help others that motivated him to run for office
compelled him to continue improving the world after he left office. Not
content with a rocking-

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chair retirement, President Carter devoted himself to human rights,
conflict resolution, election monitoring, healthcare, affordable
housing, and so much more.
He was a humble man in a world of politics where humility is often
the first casualty. But there is no doubt that in corners of the globe
near and far, Jimmy Carter left his mark. A public servant can ask for
no greater legacy.
As our 39th President lies in state in the U.S. Capitol, just a few
steps away from this Chamber, before he is laid to final rest, it is a
time for paying respects and reflecting. President Carter's legacy
tasks each one of us with looking inward and asking: How can I use my
place in life to do more good for more people?
Today, I send my thoughts to all those who knew, loved, or were
inspired by President Carter. Our Nation and world are better off
because of his service. May he rest in peace.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

119th Congress

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, with the new session of the Senate and a
new majority in the House and the Senate--actually, the House had the
majority but the Senate has a new majority--and President Trump in the
White House, one of the first things that Members of the Senate had to
do is to choose which committees to serve on.
I have been proud to serve on the Senate Judiciary, Finance, and
Intelligence Committee in previous Congresses. This Congress, I will be
joining the Budget Committee for the 119th Congress. I was particularly
interested in joining the Budget Committee because one of the biggest
challenges we have is to get our budget under control. With approaching
$36 trillion in debt, we are paying more interest on the national debt
than we are on defense. At a time when President Trump asked NATO to up
their investment in their own defense to up to 5 percent of GDP, we
stand about 2.7 percent of GPD here at home.
Clearly, we need to rightsize our spending and our debt and
reprioritize what it is we are trying to do here. National security, I
believe, is the preeminent responsibility of the U.S. Congress.
We will have the opportunity to pass a budget with reconciliation
instructions. I am not sure how much the American people care about the
process. We care about the process because we have to deal with it. But
the first thing we do have to do is pass a budget. That is something we
haven't done since 2017. I remember in 2017, right after President
Trump was sworn or even before he was sworn into office, we passed a
budget resolution from which we got the ability to then pass the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act, one of the most significant tax reform bills in 25
years.
But we got that budget passed before President Trump even took office
because, as a resolution between the House and the Senate, it doesn't
require a Presidential signature. It is already January 8. We have 12
days until President Trump puts his hand on the Bible and is sworn into
his second term of office, and we don't have any time to waste.
The reason why a budget is so important is for a variety of reasons.
But one reason is because it allows us to pass budgetary legislation
using the majority threshold, which would allow Republicans alone--
hopefully, Democrats will join us, but with 53 Republicans and
everybody on the same page, hopefully, we will be able to pass
legislation addressing our budgetary challenges.
We do have unique rules here in the Senate. One is called the Byrd
rule, which tries to make sure we don't use the reconciliation process
and the budgetary process to pass substantive legislation as opposed to
budgetary legislation. That is something we are going to have to work
out with the House because I know the House has different rules. They
don't have any constraint on the types of things that they can do using
reconciliation like the Senate does. But that is the reason why it is
so important for the House and the Senate to get on the same page.
There is some discussion here on Capitol Hill about whether we want
to pass one budget or two budgets or more--actually, even one budget
with multiple reconciliation bills. Frankly, I don't think the process
is as important as it is to get the job done. We need to save the
American people a multitrillion-dollar tax increase which will occur
unless we can renew the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act.
As I indicated earlier, we need to deal with our rising debt and our
funding for our national security purposes. The goal, of course, for
national security funding is to establish deterrence and to deter--
whether it is Iran that has aspirations for nuclear weapons that has
created so much havoc and misery in the Middle East; whether it is
North Korea that is testing hypersonic missiles along with nuclear
weapons; or whether it is Russia, which has aspirations to restore the
former Soviet Union or Russian Empire currently by the means of taking
Ukraine back. Then, there is China, which--as the Presiding Officer
knows with all of his experience in Asia--is a huge challenge for the
United States.
President Xi has stated he wants the People's Liberation Army to be
prepared by 2027 to take Taiwan by whatever means necessary. We are not
ready, and we have to be ready to maintain and reestablish deterrence
so that does not happen; so that President Xi wakes up day after day
and he says to himself, ``Not today.'' And tomorrow he wakes up and
says, ``Not today.''
That is what deterrence is about.
And we, again, need to deal with our budgetary challenges because we
are not spending the amount of money we need to spend on defense and
deterrence, nor are we spending the money we do spend in, I believe,
the wisest and most appropriate manner given the current circumstances.
So whether we pursue a single reconciliation bill or multiple bills,
we can't lose sight of the goal, and that is to pass President Trump's
agenda for the American people. That is what the November 5 election
was all about. And we are in lockstep with President Trump, I believe--
the majority in the House and the Senate--to accomplish that goal. But
we can't do it unless we work closely together, which is why we need to
be on the same page.
We need to quickly arrive at that agreement so we can act swiftly to
implement the solutions that will help improve the day-to-day lives of
our constituents, the people we represent--in my case, 31 million
people in the State of Texas. President Biden's policies have been a
disaster for my State and for the American people. Texans have been
suffering under open borders and high prices for the last 4 years.
Those who run businesses are facing burdensome regulations from the
out-of-control regulatory regime.
On top of this, as I mentioned, if Republicans fail to act swiftly to
extend the expiring tax cuts, 62 percent of taxpayers will experience a
tax increase--62 percent. We can't let that happen. It would be insult
to injury on top of a 40-year-high inflation for the American people to
have to experience a tax cut increase if we are unsuccessful.
So while we have important conversations and healthy debates over
what budget reconciliation ends up looking like, we need to keep our
eye on the prize in order to deliver on these critical priorities for
the American people.
Now, in addition to border security, abundant American energy,
regulatory reform, permitting reform, and avoiding this multitrillion-
dollar tax increase, there is one more thing that I would like my
colleagues to remember as we deliberate the contents of this package.
I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deal with
some of the biggest challenges that face America, and we can't squander
that opportunity. We have to address not only our discretionary
spending, which is about 28 percent of what the Federal Government
spends each year, but also our mandatory spending programs outside of
Social Security and Medicare. We are not going to touch Social Security
or Medicare absent some bipartisan agreement.

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But there is still about $700 billion of mandatory spending that the
Federal Government spends each year that is, essentially, on autopilot.
We can address these mandatory spending programs by implementing
commonsense reforms to programs like SNAP--otherwise known as food
stamps--that have grown unchecked for years. By simply reducing payment
errors for the SNAP payments, for example, we could save an estimated
$100 billion.
By implementing a real work requirement for means-tested programs
like Congress did back during the Clinton Presidency, we could save an
incredible amount of money for the American people and help ease
inflation so that the Federal Reserve can bring down interest rates. Or
we could repeal the controversial 2021 Thrifty Food Plan that would
save as much as $300 billion.
We are talking about real money.
But it is not just programs that got plus-ups during the pandemic.
Let's take a look, for example, at the IRS. By rescinding the remaining
unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds that were directed to the IRS
during the Democrats' massive spending spree, we could save an
additional $40 billion.
Now, think about that for a minute. We could save taxpayers $40
billion just by sending less money to the Agency when it comes to
process their tax payments. That seems like a no-brainer if I ever
heard of one. This money has not been spent.
If there are other demands in the future that Congress needs to
address, then we are prepared to act on those. But to simply leave $40
billion unspent and act as if there is nothing we can do about it at a
time of sky-high inflation and reckless spending, I think would be
irresponsible on our part.
Here is another idea. By repealing Davis-Bacon, a law that requires
Federal construction projects that are carried out that applies to them
that requires payment of a prevailing wage--which isn't necessarily a
market wage at the location you are talking about--the Department of
Transportation alone could save $400 million.
Turning to our Federal workforce. Our Federal workforce does, by and
large, great work. They do important work on behalf of the American
people. But by reforming the pension system for Federal employees to
bring the benefit calculation in line with the private sector standard,
the government could save $5 billion over the next decade. We could
reform the structure of the Federal employee health benefit program and
save an additional $18 billion.
These are just a few examples of what I would call low-hanging fruit
of the opportunities for us to save taxpayer money and to begin to
reverse the reckless spending policies of the last 4 years. These are
just some examples of the longer list that could save taxpayers as much
as $1 trillion over the next 10-year period.
And, of course, I think we ought to put it all on the table--the
money we spend through discretionary spending, the money we spend
through mandatory programs, the money that is spent through the tax
code. The child tax credit and the earned income tax credit alone
represent $200 billion in spending. And this is using the tax code to
basically create or supplement our welfare system because it is a
refundable tax credit, which means people get a check--get cold, hard
cash--using the tax code.
We need to restore the Tax Code to its original purpose and not
hijack it for purposes of expanding the welfare state. We can have
healthy debates about what the priorities should be. I think the child
tax credit is very important, and we can talk about the appropriate
levels of all of these various programs, including those included in
the Tax Code. But we have to start somewhere, and we have to start
soon.
Little things do add up. Over the past 4 years, families back home in
Texas have had to reevaluate their budgets. So why shouldn't the
Federal Government have to make the hard choices that folks back home
are making on a daily and weekly basis? They have had to tighten their
belts as a result of high inflation and the highest interest rates that
we have had in a long time, which have eaten away at their monthly
incomes. They have figured it out, and we can figure it out here, too,
for the American people and for the Federal Government.
I think it is only fair that the U.S. Congress, which holds the purse
strings for the U.S. Government as a whole, should have to do the same
thing that families all across Texas, all across Tennessee, and all
across the country are having to do on a regular basis. It doesn't seem
fair to me to have the folks back home have to make these tough choices
while the Congress has been spending away under Democratic majority
control and with President Biden in the White House.
This is another reason I am excited about the great work the
Republicans are going to do on the DOGE Caucus, the Department of
Government Efficiency, alongside our friend Elon Musk and his partner
in crime Vivek Ramaswamy. I say that tongue in cheek, Mr. President.
But they have volunteered their efforts and raised the visibility and
profile of some of the massive inefficiency in Federal spending in a
way that, I think, will be able to galvanize the attention of the
American people and enable us to get the political courage to do what
we need to do to cut out waste, fraud, and abuse.
This Republican-led Congress can make an impact in reducing our
spending, and I know we are all excited about the opportunities to do
so. We are chomping at the bit. We just need to all get on the same
page so we can get down to work. So I would urge all of my colleagues
to remember budget reconciliation not only allows us to allocate
resources to places like the southern border, which have been flatout
ignored by the Biden administration, but it is also a tool to reduce
spending--inefficient, wasteful spending--and to right-size our
priorities.
You know, budgets are all about priorities. We have things we must
have; we have things we would like to have; and we have things we want
but that we can't afford. Those are decisions families have to make on
a regular basis and so do small businesses all across the country. Why
not the Federal Government? There is no good reason the Federal
Government shouldn't have to operate under the same rules.
While we can notch some big wins in the coming weeks, we need to eat
our spinach too. You know, we have been kicking a lot of these issues
down the road until now, when we have run out of road. So it is up to
us, the elected Representatives of the American people. This is our
responsibility. It is not always going to be fun. It is not necessarily
always going to be popular, but I believe that, if we explain to the
American people the necessity of doing what I have been talking about
here, they will understand it, and they will respect it and accept it.
After all, this is something I propose that we do--that we have to do--
because of what the American people told us that they want, which is a
change in direction for the country, in their vote of November 5 of
this last year.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

Birthright Citizenship

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I spoke on the Senate floor on December 11
about birthright citizenship--the guarantee contained in the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that all persons born in the United
States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are deemed citizens.
I reviewed the legal history of this provision, the legal guarantee
designed to erase the horrible legacy of slavery that had been embodied
in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. It was a desire to correct that
decision that led to the inclusion of this definition of citizenship in
the 14th Amendment.
I also rebutted, during that speech, too, common misconceptions:
first, that children born in the United States to parents from other
countries are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States--
that has been ruled false by the Supreme Court since the late 1890s--
and, second, a claim often made by the President-elect that the United
States is unique in the world in guaranteeing citizenship to all who
are born within this country. Indeed, as I will discuss in a few
minutes, the United States did, in fact, lead the way in guaranteeing
birthright citizenship in the 1860s, but in doing so, it has led to a
global movement that many other countries have decided to embrace.
I believe the constitutional basis for birthright citizenship is
clear, and those challenging the notion are mounting an argument with
no legal

[[Page S51]]

basis. But, today, I want to move beyond the legal history and talk
about the good that birthright citizenship brings to our Nation.
Children born in America to immigrant parents from all corners of the
world and from all social conditions have been an enormous benefit to
our country and, indeed, to my Commonwealth of Virginia. More than 47
million people living in the United States were born in another
country, and another 16 million American children were born here to
immigrant parents. Currently, more than 25 percent of all American
children live in a household where at least one of their parents is an
immigrant.

How has immigration affected American society? Let's use one
example--crime. The statistics are compelling and longstanding that
immigration does not increase crime. Instead, the evidence is strong
that crime has decreased as immigration has increased. In 1980,
immigrants made up 6.2 percent of the American population--45 years
ago. By 2022, the percentage had more than doubled, with immigrants now
making up nearly 14 percent of the American population.
What happened to crime during that period as the percentage of
immigrants in the United States doubled? During this time, the crime
rate in this country--as measured by crimes committed per 100,000
people--had fallen by 60 percent. So, again, as the portion of our
population that is immigrant has more than doubled, the crime rate in
our country has fallen by more than 60 percent.
A recent study conducted by scholars at Northwestern University
pulled crime data from the United States going back 150 years, and
during that 150-year period, they were able to reach a uniform
conclusion that immigrants during this 150-year period have always been
incarcerated at lower rates than native-born Americans.
Another recent study commissioned by the National Institute of
Justice, within the DOJ, looked at all crimes committed in Texas from
2012 to 2018 and found that undocumented immigrants--the earlier
statistics I have been giving are about immigrants generally, but this
study in Texas found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less
than half of the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent crimes
and drug crimes and at less than a quarter of the rate of native-born
citizens for property crimes.
Immigration is a plus for the American economy. Immigrant households
generated more than $236 billion in income in 2022 and paid nearly $66
billion in local, State, and Federal taxes. The Congressional Budget
Office estimates that immigration flows to the United States that are
projected would likely increase the American gross domestic product by
nearly $9 trillion between now and 2034.
And I know, because of the background of the President, this next
statistic will not surprise you: More than 45 percent of Fortune 500
companies in America were started by immigrants or by the children of
immigrants. This is not just a relic of the past; it sticks to today.
In 2023, 17 percent of new businesses that were started in America
during that year were started by immigrants, and another 17 percent
were started by the children of immigrants. Fully, 34 percent of new
businesses in 2023 were started by immigrants or by the children of
immigrants.
So it is clear to me--the great-grandson of seven Irish immigrants
and a Scottish immigrant whose dad was Scottish and mother was Irish--
that, throughout our history, immigrants have tremendously benefited
this Nation, and that is not something that is suddenly turning from a
positive to a negative.
In Virginia, for example, when I was born, in 1958, about 1 out of
100 Virginians had been born in another country. Today, it is more like
1 out of 8, and that has coincided during my lifetime with Virginia
moving from bottom quarter per capita income among American States to
top quarter, and that movement has been significantly advanced by
talented people from around the world deciding that they wanted to make
Virginia their home.
Enough of the statistics. How about some stories? Children of
immigrants have made powerful contributions to the very essence of
America.
Where would American fashion be without people like Ralph Lauren, who
just got a Presidential medal--born Ralph Lifshitz, in the Bronx, to
parents who had emigrated from Poland?
Where would American politics be without people like Kamala Harris,
born in California to parents who had emigrated from Jamaica and India;
or Marco Rubio, born in Florida to parents who had emigrated from Cuba;
or Nikki Haley, born in South Carolina to parents who had emigrated
from the Punjab region of India; or General and former Secretary of
State Colin Powell, born in New York to parents who had emigrated from
Jamaica?
Where would American sports be without people like figure skater
Michelle Kwan, born in California to parents who had emigrated from
Hong Kong; or baseball legend Alex Rodriguez, born in Manhattan to
parents who had emigrated from the Dominican Republic?
Where would American acting be without people like Renee Zellweger,
born in Texas to parents who had emigrated from Switzerland and Norway;
or Bruce Lee, born in California to parents who had emigrated from Hong
Kong and Shanghai?
Where would American business be without people like ketchup magnate
Henry Heinz, born in Pittsburgh to parents who had emigrated from
Germany; or outdoor gear entrepreneur Eddie Bauer, born in Washington
State to parents who had emigrated from Russia; or cosmetics titan
Estee Lauder, born in Queens to parents who had emigrated from Hungary
and Slovakia; or entertainment executive David Geffen, born in Brooklyn
to parents who had emigrated from Mandatory Palestine?
Where would American music be without people like Frank Sinatra, born
in New York to Italian immigrants; or George Gershwin, the child of
Russian immigrants?
All of these Americans were born here to immigrant parents, some of
whose immigration status was unclear at the time of their births and
some of whose parents were clearly undocumented. And that is the point
of birthright citizenship. When America is at its best, the status of
our parents doesn't limit our ability to contribute to our community,
and that is part of the genius of our Nation.
I believe birthright citizenship--put into our Constitution in the
1860s to rectify the sin of slavery and the egregious Dred Scott
decision--has really been a blessing to our country, and it has
actually inspired a global movement, especially among nations in the
Americas, to guarantee citizenship to all born within their borders.
There are slightly more than three dozen nations in the world that
guarantee birthright citizenship, predominantly in the Americas. And
why did it catch hold in the Americas? We called ourselves the New
World. That was a phrase we often kind of used for the United States
and the Americas to contrast it with an old world--mostly nations in
Europe--that tended to lock you in a social status based on who your
parents were. That was a reality that was pretty common when the
English arrived in Jamestown in 1607 or at Plymouth Rock in 1619.
As Europeans and others were coming to the United States before we
declared our independence in 1776, it was fairly common for people to
be locked into the status to which they were born, and that is why so
many of our ancestors wanted to come to the United States--because they
would not be locked into a social status based upon their parents'
social status or have to look into a future where their own kids and
grandkids and great-grandkids would be locked into a status. So the
United States, in the 14th Amendment, decided to embrace a definitively
new-world concept that, if you are born in this country, you are a U.S.
citizen. It doesn't matter who your parents are, and you have the same
opportunities and responsibilities as anyone born in this country. It
is part of the genius of this country.

I could tell thousands of stories like the ones that I have shared. I
plan to speak more on this topic in the months to come because I am
going to vigorously defend the constitutional principle of American
birthright citizenship against any who would try to dilute it or tear
it down.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.

[[Page S52]]

Legislative Accomplishments

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, last week I joined one-third of this
Chamber in taking the oath of office so that we could start a new term
of Congress and celebrate what it means to be able to say: This is our
new start. We have got 2 years. Let's see what we are going to do with
this Congress.
While taking that oath to support and to defend the Constitution and
to defend our freedoms, I really felt and thought about what an honor
it is to represent the people of the great State of Tennessee.
Over the last 6 years, I have fought vigorously to bring the voice of
the people of Tennessee to this Chamber to make certain that their
thoughts and their wishes and their values were brought forward and
that we made the effort to defend faith, family, freedom, hope, and
opportunity, not only for Tennesseans but for all Americans.
I will tell you, we were able to get so much done over the last 6
years. Much of it was done by working with colleagues across the aisle,
by taking these great ideas from Tennessee, bringing them here, and
saying: How do we distill this so that it becomes a policy that is
going to positively impact and make better the lives of Tennesseans and
all Americans?
In Tennessee, we have a lot of veterans, and there are two provisions
that I was able to shepherd through and get signed into law. One is the
VA Veteran Caregivers Act. And, of course, as our veterans have
returned from wars, as caregivers from their families have stepped up
to assist them, there were some--basically, some gaps that needed to be
filled in. We did that.
We also passed legislation, Strengthening VA Cybersecurity Act. I was
so pleased that that got signed into law to make certain that the
identities and the healthcare information, the benefit information of
our veterans, is going to be protected. In Tennessee, we have a big
military presence. Fort Campbell primarily sits in Tennessee. We have
the Naval station over in Millington, right outside of Memphis. We have
Oak Ridge National Lab. The Air Force has the Arnold Engineering
Development in Tullahoma.
And I was successful in pushing forward to end President Biden's
COVID mandate--COVID vaccine mandate--on our military communities.
In addition to achieving that, every year, Mr. President, you and I
have worked tirelessly together to make certain that our military
assets--our National Guard, our Active Duty--were well covered in the
NDAA.
There has also been a foreign policy issue, a couple of them, that I
have paid attention to. One is strengthening our ties with Israel and
standing with our allies like Taiwan and assisting them as we stand up
to what I call the ``axis of evil''--Russia, China, Iran, and North
Korea.
One of the bipartisan measures that I brought forward after China
took control of Hong Kong was to make certain that we supported
internet freedom and that we blocked the export of crowd-control
equipment to China and China-controlled Hong Kong and barred the FAA
from buying drones from the U.S. adversaries. These provisions became
law, and they strengthened our national security.
We also fought to end the modern-day slavery of human trafficking,
especially with my bipartisan REPORT Act and the Project Safe Childhood
Act. Both of those were signed into law last year; and standing up for
women with the Speak Out Act--Senator Gillibrand and I worked
diligently on that--and the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commemorative
Coin Act. And also, Senator Baldwin and I just got across the finish
line the Women's Suffrage National Monument Location Act. I will tell
you, so many people were absolutely shocked to find out that there has
never been a monument in this city that recognized women's suffrage.
We have also worked to confirm judges to the Federal bench, including
Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Of course, we all know that that led to the
overturning of the Roe decision and the Chevron decision--two decisions
that will impact our Nation.
We worked with the first Trump administration to protect life and to
bar Federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood.
And, Mr. President, you and I have put endless hours into making
certain that we secured relief for communities in Tennessee and across
the southeast that have been adversely impacted by Hurricane Helene.
There is so much more that we have done.
But we have turned the page now, and we are looking at how do we use
these 2 years, this 119th Congress that is in front of us.
We know that the American people have spoken. At the very top of
their list is securing that southern border--getting that border under
control, ending illegal entry into this country. The American people
know, you cannot have--you will never have--national security without a
secure border.
Every law enforcement officer I talk with in Tennessee says we can't
get our arms around gangs, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and crime
in our communities until that southern border is secured. So
legislation that I am working diligently on to get passed is my CLEAR
Act, which many of our colleagues in this Chamber have heard me talk
about for years. Basically, this codifies the 287(g) Program. It would
ensure that our State and local law enforcement officials can apprehend
and detain criminal illegal aliens and make certain that ICE deports
them and that ICE reimburses that local law enforcement agency.
With all the harm that has been caused by sanctuary cities, this
legislation would end Federal funds going into those entities. It
should be a top priority of this Congress.
We also need to lower costs and make life more affordable. We all
know about the economy, taxes, inflation, affordability--another of the
top issues for the American people. And they want us to hold this
government accountable for what they have done to push inflation
forward.
It means that we need to make permanent the 2017 Trump tax cuts. That
created the strongest economy in decades, and it truly spurred new
investment in Tennessee and across the country.
It also means slashing this out-of-control spending and making
certain that we rein in this lawless bureaucracy that makes life worse
for so many Tennesseans and Americans.
President Trump is tackling this problem. He is doing it with the
Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which will be led by Elon
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
With my DOGE Acts, Congress can play a crucial role in ensuring their
reforms last beyond the Trump administration.
You know, the American people want us to change how the Federal
Government does business, get the spending under control, and get rid
of the bloat that is in the Federal Government.
I think we should concentrate on this to the point that we ``DOGE''
every single Federal Agency and turn ``DOGE'' into a verb, a term of
action.
Another goal at the top of the agenda--and this is a goal that
Senator Blumenthal and I share. We have now worked 4 years on holding
Big Tech accountable with the Kids Online Safety Act and ensuring that
parents have the tools they need to protect their children in the
virtual space.
This is just a sample of all the work that is in front of us. But the
list of things we can do to empower American workers and taxpayers and
businesses and families and farmers goes on and on.
I am looking forward to a new administration as we aggressively
tackle these issues: expanding access to quality healthcare, especially
for our vets and especially in rural America; defending female athletes
in women sports from the radical left's agenda and celebrating the
accomplishment of female athletes. We should pass my American Girls in
Sports Day on October 10 of each and every year and celebrate our
female athletes; we should end the surge of violent crime in cities
across this country; and when it comes to supporting Tennessee's
creative community with the American Music Tourism Act, the No FAKES
Act, which is AI protections, and the HITS Act for our recording
artists. Each and every one of these have a place on our agenda for the
119th Congress.
Before we can do any of this, we need to make certain that we confirm
each of President Trump's nominees, make certain that he has his team
in place, and that his Cabinet is in place so that they can carry out
the mandate that

[[Page S53]]

was sent by the American people, which is: No more business as usual;
secure the border; make certain that we get the cost of living down, we
get inflation down; expand and extend those tax cuts; and be certain
that, once again, our allies know they are an ally and our enemies fear
us on the global stage.
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. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Oklahoma.

Department of Government Efficiency

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I don't even know how many times I have
come to the floor of this Senate to be able to talk about government
efficiency. It is not a shock for me to be able to come back here again
today and to say: Let's talk about this. I don't know a single one of
the great 4 million Oklahomans that if I went to their house today,
knocked on their door, and said: Is the Federal Government the most
efficient body in the country, that they would say yes.
This should not be a partisan issue that government should be more
efficient. Every single dollar that is spent was taken from an American
in tax dollars or was borrowed so that their children would have to pay
for it. This should be a straightforward issue.
Every single year I put out a ``Federal Fumble Report,'' and I will
put one out in a month or so. And when we release that report, everyone
nods their heads and says: Yes, those are areas of inefficiency. And
year after year, I highlight things like Federal tax dollars that were
spent paying for a drag show in Ecuador.
If the nice folks in Ecuador want to have drag shows, why are my
folks in Oklahoma being forced to pay for them?
I highlighted things like we did a research study in Ghana to be able
to determine whether helmets made people on bikes in Ghana safer. By
the way, I could go ahead and tell you that today without spending any
Federal tax dollars. Yes, they will make it safer, but why were the
folks in Oklahoma being forced pay for the study in Ghana to be able to
study head injuries on folks on bikes and whether they should wear a
helmet.
The folks in Oklahoma paid for a study that came out as a book that
was analyzing humans and chimpanzees in Sierra Leone and the effects of
climate change on them. Again, I am sure there are nice folks in Sierra
Leone that are very interested in that. Why are my folks in Oklahoma
being forced to pay for that?
I could go one after another after another on things that we have
studied over the years, but let me tell you what happens. When we
highlight these things and a little sunshine hits them, suddenly people
start backing up, and Agencies stop funding some of these things that
everyone nodded their head and said: Where did that crazy thing come
from?
So because of the reports that we put out, we are not paying for
helmet studies in Ghana anymore. We are not paying for drag shows in
Ecuador anymore. We are no longer paying for the study on the Russian
wine industry that Americans used to pay for. We are no longer funding
the 3D puppets that we once paid for. We have been able to put sunshine
on those things, and those things have stopped.
The challenge is, how do we actually set this into a process so that
we are not having to play Whac-A-Mole all the time to be able to take
down one after another after another.
The people of my State, they don't want to pay for those things. They
want to pay for border security and they want to pay for good schools
and they want to have good roads. They want to have lower gas prices.
Those are the things that they want.
So how do we actually get to that? Well, I could outline right now
$170 billion in wasteful spending in the Federal Government just today,
simple things that most Americans would agree on. We spend $8 billion a
year just for Federal buildings to lease them or to do maintenance for
them--$8 billion a year. Currently, most of those buildings, because we
have so many Federal employees that are teleworking, most of those
buildings are 25 percent full. We are spending $8 billion a year on
buildings that are mostly empty. Most businesses in America would say
that is a waste of money. I am going to find a way to do that less,
except the Federal Government doesn't do that. We just continue to be
able to lease empty office space and maintain empty office space.

That should not be a partisan issue. That should be an issue
everybody in this body looks at and says: There is something that we
could do to be able to make this better. Let's be more efficient.
Starting with the new Trump administration, they have launched a new
initiative that folks have made fun of, DOGE, the Department of
Government Efficiency. And I am fascinated by the number of people that
step out and they make fun of this initiative, to say: This Department
of Government Efficiency--and then I ask them the simple question: Do
you know a way the government could be more efficient? And people will
say: Well, yeah, should we do that? Yes is the answer.
So the very simple statement is: If we find duplication in
government, why don't we highlight it and then eliminate it? If we find
areas where there are tax regulations that actually don't make sense
that actually slow the economy down rather than actually encourage
economic development in the country, why don't we fix that? If we find
areas of permitting, where permitting actually prevents government
growth rather than accelerates the growth of our economy, why don't we
go after that?
Where there is waste in Agencies, where there are empty Federal
buildings, where there are Federal projects that really should be done
by the State or local government, why don't we make those changes?
That is what this whole concept is about--the Department of
Government Efficiency--is to actually create a mechanism to say: Let's
stop talking about it and highlighting it a little bit at a time. Let's
actually work to be able to make this better in the days ahead.
I am very pleased that a whole group of colleagues are passionate
about this as well. They are coming to the floor today to be able to
highlight some of these areas of inefficiency and to say: Yes,
absolutely. I see it as well.
Because while I do ``Federal Fumbles'' every single year, I continue
to also say to all of my colleagues: We should not be the only office
doing this, and thankfully we are not. There are multiple offices that
their staff are also looking for areas of government efficiency. And
for the first time in a long time, we have built enough momentum to
say: Let's get these done. Let's not just show them so we embarrass
Agencies not to do it next year; let's actually set a process in place.
So today I have invited multiple colleagues, including my colleague
sitting at the dais today, to be able to find a moment in their very
busy schedules to be able to come and highlight areas where the
government can be more efficient, where we can be more effective at
protecting taxpayer dollars, and where we can stop throwing American's
dollars out the door for things that everyone would recognize as
wasteful.
When we have almost $2 trillion in debt, it is definitely the moment
for us to say: Let's work on being even more efficient in the days
ahead because we desperately need that.
So, with that, I yield the floor to my colleague from West Virginia
who has been very outspoken in trying to be able to protect taxpayer
dollars in West Virginia and for the Nation and to try to make ways to
make this more effective in the days ahead.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. CAPITO. I want to thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his
leadership on this. We are just getting started here. So I am very
excited, as I know all of us are, to embark on a serious mission of not
just government waste but pulling in our government spending to make it
make sense and more toward a balanced budget.

California Wildfires

Mr. President, before I begin, I would like to say a few words about
the tragedy unfolding on the west coast. I

[[Page S54]]

know many of us have been looking at the television and watching the
structure fires and heard from friends who have children there or are
themselves there, and I think it is just unimaginable. So I just want
to let them know in California that we are praying for them and their
families, for their safety, and that hopefully this will all come under
control sooner than later.
But I have seen this on the TV, and I would say it from this podium,
that I urge all residents, if you are told to evacuate, don't waste any
time. It sounds like quick and fast evacuations are smart and are being
advised. So please be super careful as we move through this tragedy.
You know, Americans are resilient people, but the Californians and
the Los Angelenos are being asked for a lot right now, so it is really
tough.

Department of Government Efficiency

Mr. President, so today I am going to speak about an issue that
weighs heavily on the American worker and taxpayer, and this is the
waste, fraud, and abuse rampant in our Federal Government. When I say
``heavy,'' I mean really heavy, really heavy, because billions of hard-
earned taxpayer dollars are at stake here.
Under President Biden, wasteful government spending has just spiraled
out of control, harming our hard-working Americans and their
livelihood. Each misspent dollar represents a missed opportunity for
our neighbors, our communities, our families.
But that is going to end with this incoming administration and, I
think, the control of the House and the Senate. In the 119th Congress,
Federal spending comes with a promissory note of accountability to the
American people. No more spendthrift bureaucrats getting out of line.
No more blank checks or wild excesses. The American people have had
enough and rightfully so. They are ready for the government to work for
them.
Republicans are proud to have the Department of Government
Efficiency, better known as DOGE. I remember I probably heard DOGE,
what, about a month ago? I am wondering, What is this? I know that Elon
and Vivek are both very busy men. So I want to thank them especially
for conceiving this idea and dedicating their time and energy and
gathering other folks' help to eliminating government waste.
Like a one-two punch, Congress and the DOGE Commission will identify
and address the most flagrant abuses of the Federal bureaucracy. DOGE
will provide the ideas from these two men, and Congress will bring the
constitutional oversight and legislative authority.
We plan to hit the ground running, really, on day one of the Trump
administration, to take aim at the worst excesses left over.
When it comes to wasteful government spending in the jurisdiction of
my committee, which is the Environment and Public Works Committee--I am
very thrilled, as of yesterday's meeting, to become the new chairman
there--look no further than the groundwork we laid last year through
the investigations of my committee. We worked on looking at the
spending in the massive, bloated, ill-conceived Inflation Reduction
Act. The so-called IRA, which was a bill passed with only Democrat
votes, authorized billions of dollars in new handouts from EPA to the
Democrat-aligned groups.
Recently, an EPA employee actually admitted that its current grant-
making process--that means between now and January 20, when President
Trump takes over--he equated it to being akin to ``throwing gold bars
off the Titanic.'' That should send chills to every American taxpayer--
``throwing gold bars off the Titanic.'' We have reached unprecedented
levels of waste, fraud, and abuse.
The American people rejected this kind of reckless governance in
November through their voice at the ballot box. Bureaucrats are
desperately--right now, as we speak--writing checks because come
January 20, they know President Trump will take the checkbook away and
ask for accountability.
My committee already issued a clear warning to the EPA in a letter in
December. We demanded to know who is getting these gold bars that are
being thrown off the Titanic and in what amounts. Most importantly, we
want a clear paper trail so the bureaucrats at the EPA can't bury
wasteful spending on the way out the door.
The committee has already uncovered handouts to groups that are anti-
American, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-police, and anti-border
security. That is it--not a dollar more. For example, of the $3 billion
of the IRA dedicated to the new environmental and climate justice block
grant program through the IRA, the EPA announced over the last several
months that it would give $50 million to Climate Justice Alliance, $50
million to the New York Immigration Coalition, and $100 million to the
NDN Collective. The Climate Justice Alliance promotes wildly anti-
Semitic rhetoric. The New York Immigration Coalition advocates for
radical open border policies. Most egregiously--remember, this is the
one getting $100 million--the NDN Collective goes as far as to call
America an evil country.
Let me be clear. These groups should not and will not receive one
dime of taxpayer dollars. The American people should be outraged, as I
am--I think you can tell my voice is getting a little bit louder here--
at the abuse of their tax dollars. These funds were meant to benefit
them, not to prop up radical political groups or line the pockets of
bureaucrats with questionable priorities. Taxpayer dollars should never
go to organizations that hate America or our values. It is pretty
simple when you put it like that.
To those who say that there is no alternative, that government is and
always will be wasteful, I say look to the State of West Virginia. My
home State consistently generates large budget surpluses, demonstrating
that we can protect our values and our interests without recklessly
spending the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.
I think it is time to bring some good old West Virginia thrift to the
bureaucracy in Washington, DC. Many of our States are operating under
the same parameters. With the President, the House, the Senate, and the
DOGE Commission all on the same page, working together, we are poised
to do just that. If we are to spend taxpayers' dollars, I do not
believe there is an article I role for unlimited government spending;
it must be in the furtherance of the benefit of our Nation. The
American taxpayers deserve a government that respects their hard-earned
dollars.
The relationship between the government and its citizens has been
frayed by years of neglect, waste, and distrust. Mending this
relationship will not happen overnight. It is a long process. It is a
process Republicans are prepared to take, to embrace, and undertake. We
will end the reckless spending spree, we will put an end to
bureaucratic waste, and we will aim to ensure that every dollar that
leaves the Federal Treasury is used in service to the American people.
This is our commitment to rebuild trust, to prioritize the needs of the
people, and to ensure that the government serves them, not the other
way around.
Thank you, my fellow Senator. I appreciate it, and I look forward to
working with all of us here on this very important issue.
Mr. LANKFORD. I am especially grateful for all the work you have
done.
Mr. President, I would like to introduce a fellow colleague, Senator
Joni Ernst from Iowa. She is the founder of the DOGE Caucus and has
been the one who has been very passionate about trying to find the
waste in government. I ask that she be recognized to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, thank you to my colleague from Oklahoma,
Senator James Lankford, for arranging today's event.
Mr. President, a winter storm shut down the Nation's Capital this
week, but did anyone notice? Essential government employees showed up
to do their jobs while the others enjoyed days off.
My telework report revealed that just 6 percent of workers report in-
person full time, and these bureaucrats are doing anything but working.
This is sadly just more business as usual. However, it is a fitting
prelude to a much bigger storm that is headed this way that will sweep
over this city and forever alter the way it operates. I am, of course,
talking about the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

[[Page S55]]

Headed up by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE is putting
Washington on notice. Henceforward, every cent being spent will now be
scrutinized. All regulations must be justified and continually
rejustified using data and outcomes, not just ideology. And the
government works for the people, not the other way around.
To support these efforts, I am honored to be chairing the Senate DOGE
Caucus and working to downsize the government, which is why my
colleagues and I stand here today. For that, I again want to thank
Senator Lankford, a founding member of the caucus, author of his
``Federal Fumbles,'' and a true hero to taxpayers, for organizing
today's discussion.
It is a rare occasion for this many Senators to assemble on the
Senate floor to call for spending cuts. In fact, since my fellow Iowans
sent me to the Senate 10 years ago to make the porkers squeal, it has
been a very, very lonely fight.
In this era of political polarization, Democrats and Republicans
still come together in agreement over one issue: living high off the
hog. When faced with proposals to trim the fat from Washington's
budget, Members of Congress from both parties act like Goldilocks--it
is always too little or too big and never just right. But the real
``make-believe'' of this fairytale is that it is impossible to cut
spending without causing pain.
Most Americans aren't even benefiting in any meaningful way from the
hundreds of billions of dollars hidden in our Federal budget. In fact,
Washington's out-of-control spending has been fanning the flames of
inflation over the past 4 years, increasing everyday costs for families
all across the country.
There is no time to wait for DOGE to get to work because even being a
lameduck isn't slowing down Biden's reckless spending. Biden's binge-
buying bureaucrats are being ordered to work overtime, including
weekends, to get billions of dollars out the door as quickly as
possible before President-elect Trump takes office.
At the same time, the outgoing administration is cutting collective
bargaining deals with government employee unions, giving bureaucrats
the right to stay home from work until--get this--2029--conveniently
after President Trump's term. If Federal employees don't want to come
back to work, well, you know what, DOGE and I are happy to make that
dream come true.
My New Year's resolution is to put Washington back to work and on a
diet. This week, I am reintroducing my bills to drain the swamp by
relocating Federal Agencies and bureaucrats outside Washington. I am
also putting forward a plan with $2 trillion in potential savings.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in
the Record.

United States Senate,

Washington, DC, November 25, 2024.
Mr. Elon Musk and Mr. Vivek Ramaswamy
Co-Chairmen, Department of Government Efficiency.
Dear Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy: Thank you for stepping up
to take on the challenge of saving taxpayers from
Washington's out-of-control spending that put our nation $36
trillion in debt. Your mission could not be more urgent, and
there's no team better suited to lead the effort.
My fellow Iowans sent me to the Senate ten years ago to
make the porkers squeal. It's been a very lonely fight. In
this era of political polarization, Democrats and Republicans
always come together in agreement over one issue: living high
off the hog.
When faced with proposals to trim the fat from Washington's
budget, members of Congress from both parties act like
Goldilocks. It's too little or too big, always too hard, and
never just right. But the real ``make-believe'' of this fairy
tale is that it's impossible to reduce Washington's budget
without causing pain. Most Americans aren't even benefitting
in any meaningful way from hundreds of billions of dollars
being wasted.
While you're seeking ``super high-IQ small-government
revolutionaries'' for ``unglamorous cost-cutting,'' all
that's really needed is a little common sense. If you can't
find waste in Washington, there can only be one reason: you
didn't look.
With $3 billion of interest being added to our national
debt every day, the longer we delay tackling the problem, the
further away the finish line gets.
To give you a head start, here are a trillion dollars'
worth of ideas for trimming the fat and reducing red ink:

Vacant Buildings

Maintaining and leasing government office buildings costs
$8 billion every year. Another $7.7 billion is spent for the
energy to keep them running. Yet, with the federal workforce
still largely working from home, not a single headquarters of
a major government agency or department in the nation's
capital is even half full. Billions more are being spent
buying brand new furnishings for the abandoned offices. The
government also owns 7,697 vacant buildings and another 2,265
that are partially empty. An additional $14 million is being
spent leasing underutilized space and nearly $1 million more
for its maintenance. Consolidating office space reduces costs
and auctioning off unneeded properties brings in revenues.

Audit the IRS

Americans are paying the salaries and benefits for
thousands of federal employees who aren't paying their own
taxes. I audited the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and found
more than 5,800 employees and contractors of the tax
collection agency owe almost $50 million. As a result, many
are now in payment plans, but 860 still haven't paid their
overdue taxes. Tax evasion isn't just a problem at the IRS
either. Government-wide, there are nearly 150,000 tax cheats
owing $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes.

Biden's Billion Dollar Boondoggles

President Biden's so-called infrastructure program provided
$7.5 billion to build a nationwide network of electric
vehicle (EV) charging stations and $42 billion to expand
broadband. Three years later, just 17 EV stations are
completed and not a single person--not one--has been
connected to the internet yet. It's time to pull the plug.
The Biden administration also paid hundreds of billions of
COVID relief dollars to fraudsters. A U.S. attorney calls it
``the biggest fraud in a generation.'' Some swindlers who
uploaded pictures of Barbie dolls as photo identification on
the applications were even approved to receive money. But the
Biden administration is being lax recollecting the cash and
time is running out. The Special Inspector General for
Pandemic Recovery investigating the grift expires in March,
unless Congress extends its mission until every penny is
returned.

Golden State Gravy Trains Taking Taxpayers for a Ride

Just three California gravy trains are on track to burn
through billions of dollars:
The California High-Speed Train is costing about $ 1.8
million a day to build and won't be completed for another
decade. The current cost estimate to complete the project is
$128 billion--nearly $100 billion more than the original
price tag! President Trump previously canceled federal
funding for the project, but President Biden restored the
money.
The price tag of Nancy Pelosi's six-mile subway extension
from San Francisco to Silicon Valley is $9.3 billion, more
than $1.5 billion per mile.
The 1.3-mile extension of San Francisco's Caltrain rail
service is one of the costliest transit projects in the world
with a price tag of $6.7 billion, or $5.15 billion per mile.
Going a billion dollars over budget isn't a rounding error,
it's a train wreck.

Christmas in September

In Washington, Christmas comes in September when binge
buying bureaucrats go hog wild fulfilling their own wish
lists. That's because the federal government's authority to
spend money left over at the end of a fiscal year expires at
midnight on September 30. In the rush to use it before they
lose it, $53 billion was recently spent in a single week! The
September spending sprees of the past included impulse
purchases on $4.6 million of lobster tail and crab and $2.1
million for games and toys, including nearly $12,000 for a
foosball table. For the sake of taxpayers, DOGE needs to be
the Grinch.

Welfare for Politicians

The Presidential Election Campaign Fund provides welfare
checks for politicians with presidential aspirations. It
hasn't supported a winning candidate in two decades. This
year the program paid out more than $1 million to Mike
Pence's campaign and $380,000 to Green Party candidate Jill
Stein. More than $16.6 million is currently available for
funding the future aspirations of fringe candidates destined
for failure.

Bad Pennies

The government is losing money making money, paying more
than three cents to produce a penny and more than 11 cents
for a nickel. That makes no cents when simply changing the
composition of the coins could save more than $50 million a
year.

Trillion Dollar Secret Slush Funds

This past year, Biden's bureaucrats claimed the Department
of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration ran
out of money needed to assist veterans and pay for emergency
disaster recovery efforts. Yet, Washington always finds money
when it comes to paying for pet projects, and some accounts
are flush with cash. There's still billions of dollars of
unspent COVID relief dollars, for example. Most of us feel
lucky when we find a $20 bill in our pocket or some change in
the couch. Well, Washington ended the last fiscal year with
trillions of dollars left unspent, $1.6 trillion of which
isn't even obligated for any specific purpose yet. With
trillions of dollars stashed away in secret slush funds, why
is Washington borrowing any more money?

Bogus Bonuses

Federal employees and government contractors are being
rewarded with financial

[[Page S56]]

bonuses for poor performance resulting in delays and cost
overruns.
The Pentagon is paying millions of dollars in unearned
bonuses, including $10.6 million to a contractor that created
``a life and safety concern'' for airmen by failing to
provide the necessary parts for jets.
The VA misspent $10.8 million on bonuses for the
department's senior execs from the PACT Act, passed to care
for veterans exposed to toxic substances. As a result of the
VA's mismanagement, the program went bankrupt, forcing
Congress to pass an emergency bailout bill.
NASA is paying out-of-this-world bonuses totaling more than
$500 million to the contractors of the next manned moon
mission, which is billions of dollars over budget and years
behind schedule as a result of poor performance. Houston, we
have a problem. Taxpayers were promised the moon but are
instead getting stuck with a ``moondoggle.''

silly science

Remember when America could actually land a man on the
moon? Most Americans weren't even born when the last
astronaut stepped foot on the moon. Today, we're spending
billions on science and NASA can't even return our astronauts
trapped on the International Space Station to Earth. American
science is unmatched. We transformed the world with the
creation of the internet, and SpaceX is aiming beyond the
moon. The question is what are we learning from the billions
of taxpayer dollars Washington is spending on research and
development?
The National Science Foundation is discovering the answers
to questions like:
How fast can a shrimp run on a treadmill? (66 feet per
minute)
Where does it hurt the most to be stung by a bee? (in the
nostril)
What were viewers' facial reactions to the Trump/Clinton
presidential debate? (men looked angry and women appeared
sad, especially when Clinton spoke)
Which tastes better, water from a bottle or out of the
toilet? (both were rated about the same)
Does recycling make men seem less manly? (yes)
How long does it take for a panda to poop? (about 12
seconds)
What word are Republican members of Congress more likely to
tweet than Democrats? (freedom)
Can elephants solve puzzles? (yes)
Not to be outdone, the National Institutes of Health spent
tax dollars researching:
To live a longer, healthier life, what political party
should you join? (Republican)
Are pampered cats less likely to poop outside the
litterbox? (yes)
Is pizza as addictive as drugs? (yes)
Do pigeons gamble? (you bet)
Does this sour cream and onion flavored potato chip look
like Elvis? (yes, but judge for yourself)
These might be fun to ask contestants on a game show, but
the real question is: why are taxpayers supporting any of
these studies?

Unemployment for Millionaires

Nearly 15,000 millionaires collect $213.3 million in
unemployment payments in a single year. An old regulation
left over from the Great Society-era requires the benefits be
made available when someone loses a job, even if the
recipient is still making a million dollars or more in other
income. Most of the hardworking Americans picking up the
costs aren't bringing home anywhere near that amount, even if
they're working two jobs. The million-dollar question is: why
is Washington forcing middle class Americans to finance the
lifestyles of jobless millionaires?

government swag

Federal agencies collectively spend $1.5 billion every year
on public relations and propaganda. This includes koozies,
key chains, coloring books, snuggies, and costumed mascots.
Let's bag the swag.

every cloud has a silver lining

Consolidating agencies' cloud computing software licenses
could save $750 million every year.

china's mad scientists

The entire world knows Dr. Fauci funded risky research on
coronaviruses in China's Wuhan Institute of Virology with
taxpayer dollars. My investigations discovered millions more
sent to other institutions and labs in the communist country
for secretive risky research.

united nations overpayments

The United Nations (U.N.) charges the U.S. higher
membership dues than any other country and then Washington
voluntarily contributes $15 billion in additional
contributions. U.N. staff helped plan and execute Hamas'
terrorist attack on Israel in which American citizens were
murdered and taken hostage. And a 2024 U.N. migrant plan
promotes cash handouts for migrants to cover travel expenses
and includes a map with a red line leading right to the U.S.
border. Our tax dollars to the U.N. are subsidizing threats
to our own national security!

defenceless spending

It's time to declare war on waste at Department of Defense
(DoD). The Pentagon has never passed an audit and is unable
to fully account for its budget. By its own estimates, DoD
wastes $125 billion on bloated bureaucracy and inefficiency.
DoD could save $527 million just by streamlining the
duplication and unnecessary overlap within its storage and
distribution centers. DoD overpayments are legendary and the
department is still overpaying nearly $1 million for spare
parts. This includes a nearly 8,000 percent mark-up for a
soap dispenser than the shelf price and $1,220 for a coffee
cup.

remove ineligible recipients of federal employees health benefits

The Federal Employees Health Benefits program is spending
almost $1 billion a year paying the bills of individuals who
aren't even eligible for the coverage. Over 12 years, the
program covered more than $100,000 in claims for just two
ineligible enrollees.

paid to do nothing

While millions of Americans are working two or more jobs to
make ends meet, some federal employees aren't working at all.
Dozens of Department of Energy employees with nothing to do
spend the workday napping or playing chess, dominoes, and
cards. Hundreds of other federal employees spend years with
no work assignments while on paid administrative leave,
costing more than $31 million in salary payments a year.
Congress passed a law to fix this problem years ago, but it's
still not enacted. Put them to work or send them home for
good!

stop giving away the farm

Your call for budget cutting crusaders asks for individuals
willing to work 80+ hours a week. Those type of hours aren't
unusual for our nation's farmers and ranchers. No one works
harder and every single American depends on the fruits of
their labors. So nothing bugs me more than when the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) gives away farm aid to pay
for pet projects, like subsidizing cricket farms or teaching
pigs to play video games, that do nothing to support
agriculture.

snap back inaccurate snap payments

Nearly $1 billion of ineligible Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are being paid every
month, according to USDA's own estimates. Tens of thousands
of recipients enrolled in the program do not even qualify for
the assistance and double dippers are getting second helpings
from multiple states. Fixing these bureaucratic blunders
would save more than $10 billion a year.

reducing duplication and improving performance

More than $200 billion in financial benefits could be
achieved by implementing the thousands of outstanding
recommendations made by Congress' nonpartisan watchdog
agency, the Government Accountability Office. We may not
agree with every suggestion, but GAO always puts taxpayers'
best interest first.

require commonsense project management principles

For every $1 billion Washington spends. $102 million is
wasted as projects go over budget, are delayed, or fail to
meet projected goals. Implementing the most basic management
systems--like establishing scopes and goals--could have saved
taxpayers $688.5 billion from the $6.75 trillion the federal
government spent this past year.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I will be
providing many more recommendations soon. My team and I are
ready to help you make some prime cuts.
Sincerely,
Joni K. Ernst,
United States Senator.

Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, my proposal includes selling off thousands
of vacant and underutilized buildings; auditing the IRS to fire the
thousands of employees who owe tens of millions of dollars in unpaid
taxes; pulling the plug on Biden's billion-dollar boondoggles for gravy
trains that never leave the station and electric vehicle stations that
aren't charging up anything but debt; bagging the swag and propaganda
promoting government programs and Agencies at a cost of $1.5 billion a
year; and changing the composition of coins so we stop losing money
making money. In fact, there is no better example of the cost of
government inefficiency. Washington spends 3 cents to produce a penny
and 11 cents to produce a nickel. That makes no sense. A penny here, a
nickel there--eventually, these examples all add up to millions,
billions, and eventually, trillions.
The bottom line is that if you can't find waste in Washington, there
can only be one reason: You didn't look.
Well, folks, I spent the last decade looking while just about
everyone else seems to have been looking the other way--until now.
While this is a personal issue for me, it should not be a partisan
issue. After all, every American benefits from a more efficient
government, and everyone loses when tax dollars are wasted.
I have worked across the aisle on a number of issues to make
Washington more transparent and accountable, so I would invite anyone
in this body and everyone who may be watching at home who has ideas to
join this conversation and our movement because DOGE is inevitable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mullin). The Senator from Nebraska.

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Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, I rise today to compliment my esteemed
colleague from Iowa, who is the founding member of the DOGE Caucus, as
well as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for their effort to be able to
create the Department of Government Efficiency.
This is something that is near and dear to my heart because as
Governor of Nebraska, this is what we did. We focused on how we could
drive efficiency through our State operations.
Now, if you want to think about the big argument between Republicans
and Democrats on a really macro scale--what it is--it comes down to
what should government properly do. What should be the size and scope
of government? Well, there are actually things we agree that government
should do between Republicans and Democrats; and for those things, we
should do them really, really well. All too often, government fails
because it is not properly managed, because we don't do a good job; and
when we don't do a good job, we end up wasting taxpayers' dollars.
As the Governor of Nebraska, this is one of the things I focused on
to be able to do a better job on--take my private sector experiences,
in coming from the business world, and applying them to the running of
State government. We showed that the things you do in the private
sector will work in running the public sector as well.
In the State of Nebraska, we implemented Lean Six Sigma. Lean Six
Sigma is a process improvement methodology. There are a number of them
out there, and this is the one we chose. What it does is you break down
an operation; you count what the steps are and what the steps, you
know, should be; you get the frontline people engaged--the people
actually doing the work involved in looking at those steps; and see if
you can cut the waste in the number of steps and everything else so
that you can make the process more efficient. That is how you can do a
better job of actually providing services while reducing costs at the
same time.
That is the thing. Every time you get to government, they say: Oh, we
want to cut expenses, blah, blah, blah. Oh, you are going to cut
services.
No. No. No.
In the private sector, you can't go to your customers and say: Well,
I am going to reduce your prices, but I am going to also reduce your
service, because your customers will go someplace else. It doesn't work
that way. So the private sector figures out how to do a better job of
providing services while reducing their expenses. We can do the same
thing in government. In the private sector, you have competition that
is going to drive inefficient businesses out. In the government sector,
it is going to require people like Elon, Vivek, and the Senators here
in this room to be able to drive that through our government Agencies
to get that efficiency.
I want to talk a little bit about what we did, because it was very
effective. I mentioned that you measure the steps. You count how many
steps there are, and see where the overlaps are. One area we did it was
in air construction permits. We had 190 steps that it took to issue
that permit. We cut that down to 22 steps. By doing that--sorry. It was
110 steps that we cut down to 22. By doing that, we cut it down from
190 days to be able to issue that permit to 65 days. Now, we can't
change any of the environmental regulations. That was just a better job
of issuing those permits. And, when you free up your teammates' time
because they are not wasting time on all those extra steps, they can do
more work--they are more productive--and can focus on things that are
going to be more important--for example, more difficult permits.
We used this in a variety of ways, and we showed lots of improvement.
For example, in our economic assistance line in August of 2014, it was
taking about 23 minutes to answer that phone call. We set a goal of
setting 5 minutes or less to answer those phone calls for those people
who were calling in seeking our assistance. We hit that goal all the
way up until the pandemic.
It was taking us 40 days to issue SNAP applications--food stamps.
Again, if you are one of those families in need and it is taking 40
days to process that application, what is that saying about how we
think about it? We set a goal of getting applications done in 10 days.
We hit that all the way up until we hit the pandemic. Then, even when
we got out of compliance--when we started going above 10 days--we knew
we were above it, and we took the steps to start getting that number
back down again.
We were able to do it in a variety of other ways; like, for example,
with the Department of Motor Vehicles, getting you your driver's
license. In our Centers of Excellence, we were able to get that from 22
minutes down to 8 minutes in getting people in and out the door.
With our Green Sheets, which is what we used in our Department of
Transportation to be able to make sure that our contractors were doing
the right things with regard to the environment or antiquities or
whatever--making sure they were following all the rules--we were able
to cut that from 16 days down to 3 days so that those contractors could
get into the field faster and get our projects moving faster.
Here is another one: We would issue reimbursement checks to families
with children who have special needs. Often, these special needs
children will have to have specialized care. Families will have to
travel to that hospital to go get that. They would get reimbursed for
those expenses, but it was taking us 13 to 15 days to reimburse those
expenses. Well, what is wrong with that? That is over a 2-week pay
period. Those families had to float those costs from one paycheck to
the next paycheck. You know and I know that a lot of families live
paycheck to paycheck, so that put a financial burden on those families
with kids with special needs. We were able to cut that time down to 2
days to be able to make sure we could get those expense checks back to
those families in need so that they wouldn't have to float that and
experience that financial hardship from one payment to the next.
Well, what did we have to do to do that? We had to get everybody on
board--our entire team. At the end of the day, in the State of
Nebraska, we trained over 30,000 of our teammates in the Lean Six Sigma
process. There were wipeouts kind of in the introductory one. Over
6,200 of our mid-level managers in the yellow belts, the next level up.
We trained 248 executive green belts. Those are the upper level
executives--again, more training. Then we trained nine black belts.
Those are the folks who oversee the whole program.
By implementing all of that, we were able to save over 900,000 hours
of our teammates' time. We did over 1,000 different projects. We saved
$115 million in hard savings. Because of those processes, for example,
we were able to reduce the square footage that we were occupying as the
State of Nebraska by 60,000. It was 60,000 square feet we took off our
rolls; we reduced our employment by 3\1/2\ percent; and we were able to
control spending.
Before I became Governor, our budget was growing at 6\1/2\ percent a
year. I would say that was not sustainable. We were able to, on
average, while I was Governor, keep that growth of our budget to 2.8
percent a year--just 2.8 percent a year on average. I might just
contrast that to what we are doing here in the Federal Government right
now. In 2019, we spent $4.4 trillion. In 2024, that was closer to $6.8
trillion, $6.9 trillion. That is, roughly, a 55-percent increase in
just 5 years. Folks, that is not sustainable.
That is why what this Department of Government Efficiency, the DOGE,
and what this incoming administration are going to do is so important.
We have got to be able to get our spending under control. It is a risk
to our country. We have got to get this under control, and we can do
it. We can do a better job of providing services and keeping our
expenses down just like the private sector does by leveraging tools
like Lean Six Sigma, just like the private sector does.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, as you know, most every January, hard-
working families across this country gather together at their kitchen
tables, and they work on a budget. Then, once a month, they try to
balance their checkbooks, making a budget, balancing the checkbooks.
Congress seems to be incapable of doing either of these. That is why,
today, this country faces a national debt of over $36 trillion--$36

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trillion. I believe that debt is the greatest threat we have to our
long-term national security and to the future of America in so many
ways.

First, we need to look at how we got here. How did we get to $36
trillion in national debt? I think many of us feel it has been driven
by Federal waste, by fraud, and gross mismanagement.
Now, last year's Federal deficit--I want you to think about this. We
are talking about the deficit now. We have a national debt of $36
trillion. We have a deficit each year. So in this last fiscal year, the
Federal Government took in $5 trillion, but we spent $7 trillion. Let
me say it again. We took in $5 trillion, but we managed to spend $7
trillion. That is pretty simple math for a deficit of some $2 trillion.
This last year, we eclipsed a new benchmark. The Federal Government
spent more on interest payments--on interest alone--on the debt than it
did on funding the national defense or Medicare. Let me say it again.
We spent more on making an interest payment than we did on national
defense or Medicare. No matter what your priorities are--whether it is
schools, roads, and bridges, or maybe you think we need more military--
when we are spending $1 trillion a year as a nation on interest, lots
of things are going to go unaccomplished.
The American people have clearly spoken as 77 million people elected
Donald J. Trump to be the President and, with them, his priorities in
that we deal with the bureaucratic inefficiencies, the overregulation,
and a government that prioritizes beltway politics over the heartland,
all without any transparency or accountability.
So what am I talking about?
The Pentagon can't account for $824 billion. Improper Federal
payments in 2023 were $236 billion. The pandemic relief lost to fraud
and abuse was $200 billion. Right there together, just those three
items alone, add up to $1.2 trillion of waste, fraud, and
mismanagement.
We take a peek again at 2023 and the Biden-Harris administration's
open border policies. Think about the costs of taking on these 10
million--maybe more--illegal immigrants. It is at least $150 billion.
Our Department of Education spent over $1 billion in promoting DEI
initiatives in schools. Let me say it again--$1 billion in promoting
the DEI initiatives in schools, but our kids can't read and write and
do math.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Government adds $6 billion of debt daily. So we
are at $6 billion. By the time you wake up in the morning, go to bed,
and wake up the next day, we have added another $6 billion of debt. The
total debt now, as I said earlier, is over $36 trillion. Again, we are
making an interest payment of $1 trillion each year.
So this is where DOGE comes in. What can DOGE do here? I am proud to
be one of the founding members. I appreciate Senator Ernst's leadership
on this. I am committed to addressing this crisis and to reforming the
Federal Government to operate with the efficiency and accountability
that Americans deserve.
To address this spending crisis, we need a plan, and we need
accountability. We have some simple reforms that we can make on day one
that slash the spending and disrupt the unaccounted-for blank check
spending that we are seeing out of this Federal Government. So here are
just a few examples, and I have been sharing these with people who are
coming into this new administration.
If this were a business, the first thing I would do when I would have
seen that we had spent $2 trillion more than we had taken in--the first
thing I would do is I would freeze Federal employees. I would not hire
any more Federal employees.
Next, I would require all Federal employees to return to their
offices to work. You know, maybe only 1 out of 10, maybe 2 out of 10
Federal employees in DC are actually back in the office working.
Next, I would decentralize the Federal Government. There are many
functions of the Federal Government that could be better and less
costly if we would move them out of this environment.
Next, I would implement term limits for political appointees as well
as long-term employees.
I think there are opportunities for Agency consolidations. We can
modernize the IT system. We are spending 80 percent of $100 billion
annually on an outdated IT system here in the Federal Government. The
opportunities that we would save financially with regulatory reform are
infinite. We could roll back energy mandates, EPA limits, methane
emission rules. We could expand Federal land leasing for oil and gas
production.
Next, I would talk about cutting subsidy waste--getting rid of some
of the tax credits. For instance, taxpayer-funded electric vehicle
subsidies could be done away with. Why in the world are we giving tax
credits to foreign entities? So we have foreign countries, foreign
entities that are benefiting from some of these tax credits as well.
Our grant oversight is just pitiful in the spending of money. With
the NGO research grants, we don't know who is spending it and where it
is going. Then we are funding billions of dollars on gain-of-function
research and teaching China how to develop weapons against Americans.
The biodefense program for the NIAID is spending over $2 billion
annually, again, to help communist China develop bioweapons against
Americans. We need more research accountability.
There are opportunities for education reform. Then, with the taxation
and IRS reform, we could rescind the $80 billion for IRS funding under
the IRA act as well. Certainly, simplifying tax laws would be a great
opportunity as well.
Those are just a few. That is just a handful of the ideas that we
have passed on to DOGE and to President Trump's team, and we look
forward to working with them. I think it is enough said. Enough is
enough. It is time for Federal Agencies and unelected bureaucrats to
remember that we the people sign their checks and that DOGE is
absolutely committed to restoring accountability and putting the
Federal Government back on the path to serving the American people.
These solutions will give beltway bureaucrats fits--it will give them
heartburn--but these reforms will finally put the Federal Government on
notice and on a path to start working like a business.
I will close with this. DOGE can help us identify and prioritize
waste. So DOGE is going to help us identify and prioritize the waste,
the fraud, and the mismanagement, but it is up to Congress to put their
gloves on, roll up their sleeves, and get the work done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the grave threat
that the administrative state poses to our country and what we can do
to stop it.
I want to thank the Senator from Oklahoma for sort of leading the
effort here today to talk about this and to air this out on the Senate
floor. Quite frankly, one of my big surprises, I think, in my first 2
years here in the U.S. Senate, is how little we actually talk about
this and how little time we have spent addressing this.
So many of the conversations that happen inside the beltway here are
so detached from the conversations that I have back home in Missouri.
Quite frankly, the people whom I talk to who work hard every day can't
believe the waste that happens here. They can't believe we spend
millions of dollars on drag shows and DEI trainings in countries
halfway around the world. If they knew more about it, my guess is it
would be an even bigger topic of conversation; there would be more
outrage. I think that is part of what the table setting is going to be
over the next 6 months or so here, which is to identify these things,
talk about them, highlight them, and do something about it.
Last year, when I gave my inaugural speech on the Senate floor, I
talked about how the administrative state was one of the biggest
threats to our to Republic. Nameless, faceless bureaucrats who are
accountable to nobody, promulgate rules and regulations that deeply
impact everyday Americans every day.
The EPA can promulgate a rule that devastates farmers. A farm that
has been in a family for generations can be under water just like that,
and they don't even know whom to talk to about it.
Ranchers are impacted.
None of these folks are ultimately ever held accountable. You don't
know

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their name. Their title is ambiguous, and they are in an Agency you
have never heard of.
The Loper Bright case that the Supreme Court just recently heard
dealt a significant blow to the power of the administrative state. It
involved NOAA, which was attempting to force fishermen in that case to
pay out of their own pocket for Federal observers on their own boats.
There are many, many more examples than just this particular case, but
this one made it to the Supreme Court. They had an impactful decision.
Real Americans--real Americans--have been impacted by this bloated
bureaucratic mess that has developed over the decades.
While the administrative state is still a great threat to our
country, the good news is that President Trump will soon occupy the
White House. DOGE will soon get to work, and we can finally have some
real momentum to dismantle the administrative state once and for all,
returning the power back to the people.
You see, the difference is, when the Senator from Oklahoma gets
elected or I get elected, the folks get a say. They can send us back or
they can send us home. If you want to ban gas stoves, we should have to
vote on that. My guess is, it would receive very few votes. But if you
have got a bureaucrat that is not even in an office anymore--because
only 6 percent of them are actually in the office--making these kinds
of decisions, you lose every sense of accountability, and our
representative form of government is ultimately undermined.
To ensure that President Trump and DOGE hit the ground running,
yesterday, I introduced two bills that are a critical one-two punch in
dismantling the administrative state.
The first bill is called the ERASER Act, which prohibits any Agency
from issuing a rule unless the same Agency has repealed at least three
rules. Additionally, the bill prohibits an Agency from issuing a major
rule unless the Agency has repealed three or more rules and the cost of
the new major rule is less than or equal to the cost of the rule that
is being repealed.
This would make Agencies think twice before promulgating new
regulations, and because Agencies are addicted to the power that comes
from regulating Americans, it could have the added benefit of stripping
many regulations from the books altogether and freeing Americans from
the bonds of overregulation.
The second bill is called the Separation of Powers Restoration Act,
which builds on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Loper Bright case and
the tearing down of the Chevron deference that we have lived with for
decades. This bill would enact a stricter standard of review. No longer
can Agencies expect the courts to just side with their interpretation
of the statute, like they could when the Chevron deference was in
place.
This bill would institute a de novo standard of review. Under a de
novo standard of review, courts will weigh the merits of the arguments
without deference--without deference standards--to either side, placing
American citizens and businesses, either caught on the wrong side of
regulatory enforcement action or challenging the validity in the first
place, on equal footing in a court with that Agency. This is a critical
effort, which will strip power away from the unelected bureaucrats and
put the power back in the hands of Americans.
I look forward to working hand in hand with the Trump administration,
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and my colleagues in the DOGE Caucus to
finally reform and dismantle the administrative state, shrink the size
of the Federal Government, reinstitute fiscal sanity here in
Washington, and stop these Agencies from burdening American citizens
with onerous regulatory schemes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, as this body knows well, for the past
hour, we have had multiple colleagues who have come to this floor to be
able to talk about how do we make the government more efficient. They
have been talking about, out loud, what they are working in their
offices on, what their staff are working on, and what we plan to be
able to implement. This is a public conversation, but there is a lot of
private, behind-the-scenes work because the focus is not just what we
talk about. It is what we actually get done.
There are a lot of areas of government efficiency that need to get
done. This is a target-rich environment. Literally, you can pull out of
this building and look in any direction you want to any number of
Agencies and get started there.
But the focus that we need to have as a body is not what we do to
talk about government waste but what are we going to do to get it done.
We are looking forward to President Trump's inauguration in a week
and a half. We are looking forward to beginning to implement both on
the executive branch and through legislative action real changes that
can actually get our government toward more efficiency.
Now, I have to warn everybody: It is going to take a while because
there is a lot to get done. But the good news is, we are not just
talking about it; we are actually going to get something started.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The Senator from Kansas.

Remembering Olen Mitchell

Mr. MORAN. Madam President, this afternoon I rise here on the Senate
floor to recognize a fellow Kansan, to honor the life of a soldier, a
servant, a great man, Olen Mitchell.
While Olen was born in Oklahoma, Kansas is the place he called home,
and we are honored to call him our own.
Growing up in Western Kansas teaches you a lot about discipline,
service, and hard work, and I know that Olen's time in Elkhart and
Hutchinson, KS, taught him valuable lessons. The values he learned in
Western Kansas provided him with a love of country and taught him to
love his neighbors as himself. His character was further defined
alongside thousands of other young men like him who fought in World War
II.

Olen received a Purple Heart after being shot 2 weeks before D-Day in
1944 during his service in Italy. Even after being injured, he
continued his service to his country in the military police. After his
service, Olen received a Bronze Star, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and
several other medals and service ribbons.
In June of last year, I had the opportunity to call Olen on the 80th
anniversary of D-Day while he was visiting Normandy and seeing the
beaches of France. It was my honor to thank him for his service during
World War II and let him know how much of a privilege it was to know
him and his story.
The ``greatest generation'' has left a permanent impact on the world,
and that is why the loss of another World War II veteran is cause for
mourning in this Nation and around the globe. We remember not only
their grit, sacrifice, and bravery but also their kindness, their
dedication, and their humility, which has changed communities across
America, and changing those communities changed America.
Olen embodied the compassion, kindness, and courage we all remember,
and he changed the Hutchinson community for the better. I know every
time I was in Hutchinson, I had the opportunity to be with him. It was
just a great experience for me, but you could also tell that those
around us admired and respected him. He was a pillar in the community
and so often involved in everything good.
Occasionally, he would drive me in the Fourth of July parades, and
you could tell how the community responded not to the U.S. Senator
going down Main Street but about how good it was for them to see their
friend Olen.
He was a loving husband who was married for 68 years until his wife
passed away. Olen was also an uncle, a great-uncle, and a great-great
uncle. Three generations of family and loved ones had an exemplary role
model as an inspirational figure who showed them kindness, love, and
devotion.
A few times a year, veterans visit Washington, DC, on Honor Flights,
and Olen visited our Capital in 2014--10 years ago. Meeting veterans
during these visits brought me, certainly, great joy, and I am always
moved by the veterans who see for themselves the memorial built to
honor their comrades and themselves.
My own father was able to see the World War II Memorial. Before he
saw it, I called him to tell him about it. So I am at the World War II
Memorial

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with my flip phone. I call my dad at home in Kansas to tell him I love
him, I respect him, and I thank him for his service. I told this story
before. My dad then calls me back and says: Gerald, you left me a
voicemail, but I didn't understand it. Would you repeat it?
Olen is no longer in a position in which I can tell him what I told
my dad, nor is my dad. So on behalf of all of us and communicated to
Olen and all of his comrades, we today again say: We love you. We
respect you. We thank you for your service.
After Olen's passing, the Kansas Honor Flight Foundation shared in
their post that ``Heaven needed a hero just in time for Christmas.''
Olen is a hero to his country, to his family, to his loved ones, and to
his community. His story will not be and should not be forgotten, and
the State of Kansas, our country, and the world are forever grateful
for his life of service and dedication.
Olen, thank you for your life of service. Thank you for your
friendship. Thank you for being such a great member of a great family.
I yield the floor.

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