Vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . If not, the yeas are 74, the nays are 18. The motion is agreed to. Mr. Portman mr. President . The presiding officer the senator for ohio. Mr. Portman i would like to talk today about a couple topics. First i want to thank my colleagues on the Senate Commerce committee for approving legislation very recently to rename the nasa plumbrook station in ohio after a true american hero, the lateneal armstrong. I ask that it legislation be taken up and we get it passed. There is an identical bill in the house and we hope to get both of them to the president for his signature. It is a stateoftheart testing facility near sandusky, ohio. It is doing a lot of the testing right now both for nasa and some privatesector companies. It is part of the nasaglenn complex. It is an impressive operation. The one that is most impressive right now is the artifice project. This is to put astronauts
Their counterparts. Both of those motions are later this afternoon. And now live to the senate floor here on cspan2. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Eternal god, thank you for your sanctifying truth. Use our lawmakers to live your truth for the glory of your name. May your truth keep us from the things that can pollute our lives and dishonor you. Forgive us when we are reluctant to submit to you with our bodies, minds, and spirits. Make us all vessels of honor, prepared for every good work. We pray in your strong name. Amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Grassley mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from iowa. Mr. Grassley id like t
Mr. Rubio mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from florida. Mr. Rubio mr. President , i have a motion at the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk the senator from florida mr. Rubio, moves that the managers on the party on the part of the senate shall insist any conference report shall increase the refundable Child Tax Credit be increased to no more than 2,000 and benefit lowwage parents. Mr. Rubio mr. President , this has to do with the Child Tax Credit. We had a debate about it last week. I want to explain to everybody why its so important that we continue to focus on this. Irrespective of whether we agreed with the final outcome and the numbers were high enough in the senate bill, and i continue to believe that they were not, they are significantly better than the house position on this matter and i want to explain why. The loss of the personal exemption hits middle income families to the tune that has to be made up. Because of the last 15 years,
December 22 was sent to the president s desk. President trump just signed the bill after yesterdays praising congress with congressional leaders. Many republicans worry the shortterm thanks could give the democrats leverage. We are on capitol hill with the latest. Is this because the spending bill to get all next up with the tax reform bill . Sahil it is unlikely. They have to operate separately. He cant but the spending bill the reconciliation because he goes through different process. The debate will get mixed up with the tax bill now that republicans have cleared some space to work on that while giving themselves just two more weeks to negotiate a government funding bill. They half to get a deal with have to get a deal with democrats on spending levels, nondefense spending and defense spending. There are a bunch of military hawks that want to raise the dollar forel without dollar increases in domestic discretionary spending, which democrats are demanding. Yes, republican said given
Bitcoin is also said to be in a bubble. The price has gone up 20 fold. Betty forget about the equity markets and bond markets, which is going to be focused on bitcoin, right . That is the big distraction for traders right now. Bitcoin futures are for the first time trading on the cboe global index them a big milestone for the financial markets. I dont see a whole lot of movement at this point. Be an appears perhaps to opening price, but i cant confirm that right now. We are watching as these traits start coming in. , brokersthe traders are saying dont expect huge movements. This may be a slow burn coming thewhere we finally for first time, have these derivatives traded on bitcoin. Yvonne it could be a welcome slow burn given the volatility in bitcoin for much of this year. Levoss mentioned, the wink twins banking on this, they are saying it could have 24 growth in the future. Morehat it has become mainstream, it could provide perhaps more stability in cryptocurrency. On the other hand,