bill against limiting action against iran for live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. black, will open the senate with prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, you store up blessings for all who honor you. lord, if angels must veil their faces in your presence, shouldn't we mere mortals embrace reverential awe. today, empower our senators to be strong and courageous as they make loyalty to you their highest priority. smile on them with your blessings, for you are the author and finisher of our salvation. lord, grant that our lawmakers may know what is conducive for your glory. today, we lift our hearts in ceaseless praise to you, our strong deliverer. we pray in your magnificent 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. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i'd like to speak for one minute as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: today i pay tribute to a remarkable iowan. she's one of the long-term-serving -- one of the longest-serving number columnists in america. she has an ongoing work ethic having never missed a deadline in over 70 years. her weekly commentary blanketed her community in southwest iowa for seven decades. now get this. at age 100 years young, evelyn berkby, mother, farmer's wife, radio commentator, better yet radio homemaker for kma radio, columnist and author, is now retiring at 100 years young. her readers will miss her byline and story telling. her neighborly columns about ordinary life in rural america brought extraordinary joy to generations of iowans. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary. andrew lynn brasher of alabama to be united states circuit judge for the 11th circuit. mr. mcconnell: mr. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: this afternoon my staff and i are continuing to monitor widespread flooding across southeastern kentucky. heavy rainfall damaged homes, businesses, and infrastructure in those counties. our governor declared a state of emergency and mobilized a full-scale response for areas in need. i'm particularly grateful to the first responders who evacuated many kentuckians from harm's way. they have helped to keep the situation from becoming even worse. many roads remained closed and hundreds of residents are still without running water. worse still more rain is in the forecast in the coming days. the crisis, unfortunately, is not over. my office stands ready to work with local state and federal officials to help families and communities however we can as kentuckians endure the remaining flooding and begin the recovery process. now, mr. president, on a totally unrelated matter. as the impeachment trial ended last week, i offered preliminary thanks to a few individuals whose outstanding service helped the institution fulfill this unique and challenging responsibility. rising to the occasion for just the third time in the senate history took an effort from hardworking and dedicated people. i'd like to take a little bit of time this afternoon to share some senate gratitude that often goes unexpressed. after i named some key individuals and offices within the senate, i will submit a fuller list for the record. first, thanks to the senate sergeant at arms, mike stinger and his entire team especially the tremendous efforts of our deputy sergeant at arms, jen her hemmingway and becky shaft and carly flick, christie beale, and bob shelton of capitol an chamber operations and, of course grace ridge weighed and her remarkable capitol facilities team. and many other offices had to go far above and beyond their normal duties. the executive office, doorkeepers, press gallery directors, printing and graphics, the counsel, the recording studio, the appointments desk, the switchboard, and the chief information officer. thanks, of course to the secretary of the senate, julie adams and all of those vital senate offices. in particular, i have to single out our parliamentarian elizabeth mcdonough and leigh hidle brand and the parliamentary clerk. this expert team of experts sacrificed nights, weekends and holidays to ensure this institution was ready to navigate little chartered waters, follow frequently -- infrequently used terms. we so grateful. many others made huge contributions as well. the offices of the legislative clerk, the official reporters of debates, the journal clerk, aptions service -- aptions captioning services, the senate security, curators office, and the office of printing and document services. thanks also to the architect of the capitol's team for making sure that our physical plant was up to snub. to chairman roy blunt and the rules committee and to the office of senate legal counsel and the government publishing office. as i mentioned last week we are hugely grateful to the capitol police, senate pages, and the chief justice of the united states, john roberts, and his staff. i'd like to recognize aaron sayinger vaughn on -- sager vaughn on the staff of senator schumer and all of the officers on both sides, particularly the staff assistants whose days became busier. before i conclude, i need to thank several more players, specific loin the republican side and in my own office. thanks to chairman lindsey graham's staff on the judiciary committee who pored enormous work into this process, thickly brendon chestnut and gabby mishalak. to chairman grassley's team on senate finance and to our majority whip, senator thune and the whip office. i'm enormously grateful to laura dove, the secretary for the majority for literally working around the clock to listen carefully to our members and map out the complex strategy for the senate to fulfill our duty. laura sat on the dais for this trial lake her father -- like her father who served as senate parliamentarian. huge thanks are due to robert duncan, the assistant secretary and chris tuck, megan mercer, noel ringer, katherine foster, brian canfield and abigail baker. we could not have done this without you. and last, and certainly not least, i need to thank my own staff, working for senate leadership tends to mean there is no normal. there is no easy day. call it an occupational hazard. but even by those standards the past several months have required extraordinary efforts from my tall end team -- talented team. andrew ferguson became an expert on pievment and offered -- impeachment every night and offered guidance through every single stage of the process. thanks to robert carman and jim neil and erica suarz, and doug andres and scott slopeman and especially the crack research team of robert utsi and david pullman. thanks to sarah fairchild, alexander jeng jenkins and victoria abraham. thanks to my kentucky office team led by phil maximfor continuing their riewcial work while -- crucial work while washington was consumed by impeachment. most of all i need to thank my staff's fearless leader, the chief of policy, my deputy chief of staff of operations are for her enormous efforts day and night. and my chief of staff. as everyone i rely on sharon's wisdom and impeccable judgment every single day. i cannot thank her enough. with that, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the lower comprehensive list of individuals to thank appear in the record at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, the impeachment process that has consumed our country over the last several months is finally at an end. every member of this chamber has spent dozens of hours, if not more, studying the precedence, listening to the house managers and the president's legal team as they present their arts, including the testimony of 13 witnesses whose sworn testimony was presented during the senate trial. in the end, the majority of the senators agreed that president trump should be acquitted of the charges brought by the house. no matter how each senator voted or felt about the end result, i can hope that we would all agree on one thing, and that is it's time to move forward. impeachment has paralyzed the work of congress for far too long and we can't continue to allow the divisions and the partisan games that are associated with it that prevented us from doing the jobs we were sent here to do. we are nine months away from the next election. i think it's somewhere around 267 days, if i'm not mistaken. that's where the american people will clues their next president. until -- choose the next president. until then our constituents expect us to use the remainder of our time to find consensus where and when we can and make progress on issues they care most about. for my constituents in texas, the number one item is prescription drug prices. i continue to hear from my constituents who are burdened and downright frustrated by rising costs at the pharmacy. one of the reasons that's true is under the affordable care act, deductibles have risen, cosponsors -- copays have ballooned. all of the negotiated deals between the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the prescription pharmacy benefit managers, none of that directly goes into the pocket. that savings of the consumer. so increased deductibles with expanded copay, my constituents, and i dare say all of our constituents, are feeling more of that coming out of their pocket. well, medications that people have been taking for years just keep getting more and more expensive with no explanation behind the increase. to me the number one example of that is insulin. i support the role of our patent system to protect research and development of life-saving and innovative drugs that people get a period of exclusivity, the companies that bring them into the market so they can recoop their costs and perhaps make a profit. but there's simply no explanation for a drug like insulin that's been on the market for so long. for people to see $1,200 and higher copays as we heard in a senate finance committee hearing. a mother talked about her young son who was leaving the nest so to speak but he was unable to meet the $1,200 copay. he was deferring decisions in his life like buying a house, or perhaps even getting married because of the burden of that copay. we must do better, particularly on drugs that have been on the market for a long, long time, like insulin that are so important to treating conditions like diabetes. but perhaps the single most -- well, it's really the most common concern i hear about is a drug called humira. and that's perhaps because it's the most widely prescribed drug in the world. this drug is a miracle drug to be sure. it treats arthritis and a number of other immunodeficiency conditions and it's been available for 15 years. now, you typically think of an expensive drug as being one, as i said, freshly on the market, which is just -- has just completed costly research and development. but a drug that's been around 15 years, can it be still protected by those patents even though it was supposed to expire years earlier? well, apparently it can. smart lawyers with pharmaceutical manufacturers have figured a way to impose what is known as patent thickets. in other words, they can request and get issued so many different patents that they literally can prolong the period in which a drug manufacturer can claim exclusive right to the sales of that drug. abv the company that makes humira have figured this out. they gamed the patent system so no drug comes to market and are the sole provider of this widely used drug. their playbook involves an intricate maze which will make it impossible for a competitor to come to market. here's the best evidence of that. today there are five companies who compete with humira in europe, but all are blocked -- their drugs, their competing drugs being sold here in america until 2023. that's as a result of this patent thicketting gamesmanship. the smart lawyers at abvee have effectively found loopholes to create and maintain a monopoly. unfortunately this isn't the only example of anticompetitive behavior in the pharmaceutical industry. another of my constituents have also told me about their experience with a drug called knew men today -- numenda which is used by patients with alzheimer's, a devastating disease. like other new drugs, it began with an exclusivity period where they were the sole provider. but when that period came to a close or was coming to a close, the drug maker switched from a twice daily to a once daily dose. believe it or not that triggers a new patent application. that move itself prevented pharmacists from being able to switch patients to a lower-cost generic even though it's just as effective so the company could continue to reap enormous profits basically by just changing from twice a day to once a day application. the enemy here is not our patent system. it's the abuse of the patent system by some pharmaceutical companies. again, not all pharmaceutical companies but some in ways that directly harm the people we represent, the american people. earlier this year i introduced a bill with my friend, the democratic senator from connecticut, richard blumenthal to take aim at some of these corrupt practices. our bill strikes the delicate balance between protecting the innovation while increasing competition. and when it passes, it will be a win for every american who's felt the pain of -- whose has felt the pain of sticker shock. we know it doesn't more than good policy to get a law around here. it takes bipartisan. it comes broad consensus support to get the green light from the appropriate committees and to pass them through both houses of the senate. well, you would think a bill like this that is bipartisan has broad support, passed unanimously out of yeek and reduces federal spending would be a piece of cake to pass. but they haven't been in the senate during this period of our divisiveness. the senior senator from new york, the democratic leader, has refused to let this bill passed without a broadway scale production of other unrelated legislation. back in november i came to the floor to ask that this bill be passed by unanimous consent. again, since it had passed unanimously out of the judiciary committee and we had hot lined the bill to see if there were any other objections in the senate and found none. well, in the month that followed after the senior senator from new york objected to passing that bill, i didn't hear a single word from a senator who had concerns about it. but when i came to the floor to ask that the bill be passed again, the senior senator from new york, the democratic leader, blocked it again. he doesn't think it's bad policy. in fact he admitted it's a good bill. he's not objecting to it because it is somehow a partisan bill that hasn't gone through the regular order or would increase the national debt. as i said, none of these things are true of this legislation. the only reason the senior senator from new york, the democratic leader, objected to this bill is because he's engaging in the kind of politics and gamesmanship that really gives washington, d.c. a bad name. it is true that mine like a third of the senate, senator's name will be on the ballot in november and senator schumer apparently is willing to punish his constituents in new york state by not allowing this bill to pass because he wants to make sure that nobody whose name that's on the ballot who happens to be a republican can claim any sort of advantage by getting a win legislatively. well, unfortunately while he's playing those sort of politics and games, his own constituents are being harmed and the american people are being deprived of the benefits of this bipartisan legislation. we saw this mentality during the president's impeachment trial, too. we saw how the democratic leader staged vote after vote not because he felt like he had a shot at getting a conviction of president trump and a removal but strictly to make senators whose names were going to be on the ballot in 2020 look bad. he wanted to get the best 30-second tv spot he could possibly get against all republican senators running in 2020. he knew he was going to lose on the main impeachment vote so he focused on the one thing that has eluded him for many years and that is his as per ration to become the next majority leader. and now in his bid to become the next majority leader, our colleague from new york is blocking a bill that would bring down drug prices not only in the state of texas but in new york as well and every other state around the country. i wonder what the senator's constituents in new york are telling him about blocking bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit them. this is at the same time they're trying to figure out how do they pay the higher copay or deductible for their prescriptions at the pharmacy. we're not even a month and a half into the new year and drug prices are already on the rise with an average increase of 6%. humira which i mentioned earlier has already gone 7.4%. so it's clear to me that this problem is not going to go away and the time to act is now. i would encourage the democratic leader to stop blocking the bill that his conference member, senator blumenthal of connecticut and i have introduced so we can address these rising costs and provide much-needed relief for our constituents. mr. president, my constituents have asked me what does congress intend to do between now and the election, and i usually mention, well, we can deal with prescription drugs. we can help bring down the out-of-pocket costs. hopefully we can pass a highway infrastructure bill that we're working on, one that passed unanimously out of the environment and public works committee under the leadership of senators barrasso and carper. but the third thing i think west ought to be able to do and really it's a shame it's taken this long to act is we need to take actions to confront the rising health care risks associated with e cigarettes -- e-cigarettes. in december i visited the university of tbs, north texas health science center no fort worth to learn about the danger of e-cigarettes, particularly among adolescents. i heard from a young texan named anna kerry who used to be among the many students at her high school using the e-cigarettes. like so many young people across the country, she became addicted. that's the point. e-cigarettes are not harmless. they deliver nicotine which is an addictive drug into your body and that's the point of the e-cigarette. the one thing it does -- one advantage it does have over tobacco is you don't have to burn it which also produces carcinogenic byproducts of combustion. like so many people in the country, anna became addicted and it didn't take her long to experience severe health consequences as a result of the use of this product. the once act of a 16-year-old became extremely lethargic and would experience random and severe chest pain. she was admitted to cook children's hospital in fort worth and diagnosed with chemical-induced human money ya in both her lungs. she said that was her wake-up call. anna quit using e-cigarettes and i'm glad to report she's made a full recovery. others have not been so lucky. she now shares her story in an effort to raise awareness and prevent other young people her age from going down the same path. but we can't let young people like anna lead this fight alone. we need to do more in washington to do our job. this has been a high priority for members on both sides of the aisle and one of our colleagues on the help committee, the health, education, labor and pensions committee continues to work to address this health challenge. the most effective way to prevent adolescents from facing the harmful consequences of these devices is to stop them from getting addicted in the first place. a recent survey found that one-third of underage e-cigarette users bought them over the internet where it's easy to skirt the age requirements. that has to change. it's already changed for tobacco. we just want to apply the same standard to e-cigarettes. i've introduced a bill with the senator from california senator feinstein to protect our children from becoming addicted to the nicotine produced by e-cigarettes and i hope we'll be able to make progress on this legislation soon. as i said, e-cigarettes and tobacco are on totally different playing fields which it comes to online purchases. for traditional cigarettes, there's clear guardrails in place to prevent minors from using online purchases to skirt the age requirements. at the time of delivery, the buyer has to show -- has to sign and show an i.d. proving their age which just makes sense. you're required to show an i.d. when you purchase cigarettes at a gas station or convenience store and online purchases should be the same. but in the case of e-cigarettes it is different. anyone no matter how old or young can go online and buy e-cigarettes and have them delivered to their front door without the legal requirement of an i.d. and you'd better believe that too many young people are taking advantage of that loophole without really fully understanding the dangers they are subjecting themselves to. a recent survey found that about a third of underage e-cigarette users bought them online. this legislation would change that. it wouldn't add additional requirements. it would simply apply the same requirements for the online sale of traditional cigarettes to e-cigarettes. as i said this bill has broad bipartisan support as you think it would. so i'm hopeful we can pass it and get to to the president's desk soon. with impeachment in the rearview mirror, the hope the senate can come together and cross these critical items off of our to-do business and our constituents the american people will benefit. we've got a lot of work to do and a lot of work that we can and should get done between now and the election in november. so i hope we'll be able to make some progress. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. hawley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hawley: mr. president, it is my privilege to rise and congratulate the kansas city chiefs on their victory over the 49ers in super bowl liv, last week. with their vick tricks the chiefs won their second super bowl championship. i would just note someone who was born just about ten years after that first super bowl vick tricks i have literally been waiting my whole life for this. and, man, it's pretty darn good. this victory was andy reed -- that's the head coach -- his 222nd career win and of course his first super bowl title in his hall of fame career. they were led by pat trick mahomes, the quarterback. mohames completed 26 of 42 passes for 286 yards and two touchdowns. he rushed nine times and was named the game's most valuable player. mahomes is the youngest player in the history of the nfl to win both the mvp awarned a super bowl title. it was the culmination of an historic play-off run full of memorable moments, none more iconic than the scam per down the sideline for a touchdown to take the lead against the tennessee tit titans in the a.f.c. championship game. everyone on this team did their part. runningback dame on-williams had one touchdown plus four catches for 29 yards and a touchdown. tight end travis kelsey added six receptions for 43 yards and one touchdown, wide receiver tyree kill had 105 yards including the crucial 44-yard reception on third down with fewer than seven minutes remaining in the forum quarter. and wide receiver sammy watkins added another five catches for 98 yards. the defense and special teams did their part, too. bashad led the chiefs with seven tackles and within interception. chris jones was a disruptive force batting down three passes from 49ers quarterback. defensive end frank clark sacked the quarterback with fewer than two minutes remaining to seal the victory. and harry son but theker was perfect making one field goal and four extra points. the entire chief's roster contributed to this historic victory and i'm going to ask that all of their names be listed in a statement that i will submit for the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hawley: no if i could, just a -- now if i could, just a word about the hunt family, who own the chiefs. lamar hunt founded the chiefs more than six decades ago and helped shape the national football league, including by coining the phrase super bowl. those were his words. it was his idea. and his legacy continues today with clark and hunt who are remarkable people. the entire hunt family deserves great credit for their unwavering commitment to kansas city and the chiefs organization which they lead with tremendous integrity and honor. so congratulations to the kansas city chiefs, to their employees, to the hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of loyal fans out there, to chairman and chief executive officer clark hunt, to president mark donovan, coach reed and his staff, trainingers and equipment managers, all of whom contributed to this great victory. they've got people all over the world asking, how about those chiefs? thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: the democratic leader. the senate is in a quorum call. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, today president trump unveiled his budget proposal for fiscal 2021. for the third year in a row the president's budget puts a magnifying glass on the endemic pervasive had hypocrisy of this administration. he says one thing in the state of the union in and does the opposite. one week removed from the state of the union address, president trump's budget double crosses american workers and middle-class families he promised to help in that speech. let's take health care. candidate trump promised to protect the social safety net, programs like medicare and medicaid, unlike other republicans. once in office, president trump has proposed cutting, cutting medicare and medicaid every year he sent us a budget. once again the president proposed steep cuts to medicaid as well as onerous new qualification requirements, policies that will take coverage away from millions. medicaid affects poor people but it affects a whole lot of middle-class people whose parents are in nursing homes, nursing facilities and health care facilities. cuts, dramatic cuts to medicaid hurts large, large numbers of americans, both boor and middle class. on ton of that the budget proposes cutting funding for the department of health and human services by 9%, the department in charge of fighting the coronavirus. he's cutting the budget. the president stood in front of the nation and promised his administration would protect americans with preexisting conditions. it was a lie. when he said it, and his budget makes that very, very clear. if the president's budget became reality, hundreds of billions of dollars would see, would be taken away from health care services and tens of millions of americans would see their coverage disappear, including millions with preexisting conditions. there is one term that appears nowhere in the president's budget. it's called climate change, one of the greatest challenges of our time, the number-one threat facing our planet, climate change is not mentioned once among the hundreds of pages of the president's budget except it does propose cutting the environmental protection agency by 26%, more than a quarter. the earth is on fire. antarctica had a 64 degree record temperature this week, and what's the president's response? he douses the fire with weakened pollution regulations and then proposes cutting the fire department. he cares about the oil companies. lots of those big oil wildcatters send him tons of money. he doesn't care about the future of this globe, and we're leaving something awful to our children and grandchildren. going further in the president's budget, hundreds of billions would be slashed from federal housing assistance, student loan forgiveness, federal disability insurance, nutrition assistance to hungry families, long on the president's chopping block would see another round of severe cuts. food, food for children, they're poor, take it away. is that what this country stands for? is that what our judeo-christian tradition stands for? absolutely not. absolutely not. if you're an american struggling with student loan debt or health problems or housing costs or hunger, the president's budget says you're out of luck. meanwhile if you're a millionaire or a billionaire or a corporation or a big oil wildcater, the president's budget says you're in luck. and when it comes to taxes, the president thinks the tax cuts should be extended for an additional ten years. so so much for this deficit reduction that republican party used to stand for. now it's clear, a few years after the tax cuts the deficit is increasing. it hasn't produced dramatic increase in revenues everyone talked about. but let's do it for ten years. no republican should complain to democrats about deficit reduction when we're talking about things that matter to average middle-class people like medicare and medicaid, when the tax cuts are proposed for ten years. so the budget reveals once again where president trump's priorities will truly lie. not with the working americans he touts in his speeches but with the ultra rich, the corporate elites he rewards with his policies. it can't be disregarded soon enough. one more point, i said it the night of the president's state of the union, the truth serum will be his budget. let's see if the president is telling a little bit of the truth. the budget shows all the rhetoric is one way. the actual budget is another. how long will the american people stand for this man's hypocrisy, blatant, never seen it in a president, democrat or republican, before. now on whistle-blowers. in the aftermath of the president's impeachment trial, the president has begun dismissing members of the administration who testified in congress including lieutenant colonel, sanborn sondland. -- ambassador sondland. also eugene vindman for no other reason than he was the brother of alexander vindman. this morning senior advisor to the president kelly an conway said these were likely not the last of the firings. this was a textbook case of witness retaliation. not only retaliation against lieutenant colonel vindman, the none whistle-blower and others like him. it's shameful but also it's illegal. all federal employees have the legal right to make protected disclosures to congress anonomously and free from reprisals. even the founding fathers were concerned about whistle-blowers and protecting them. this country is being turned inside out, and too many people are going along. if something is going on wrong in government, don't we want to encourage government employees to bring that forward? don't we? well, not president trump, because he is the government. and what's good for him, or what he thinks is good for him, he thinks is good for america even when they diverge. so the rights of whistle-blowers are being challenged like never before, creating a chilling effect among those who in previous administrations might have come forward to expose abuses of power, waste and fraud. whistle-blowers save the taxpayers money. again, it used to be bipartisan. the senator from iowa, always been defending whistle-blowers, but all that goes away now that trump is president. without the courage of whistle-blowers and the role of inl specters general -- inspectors general, the american people would never have known how the president abused his power in ukraine. now the president is taking steps to punish anyone who came forward, out of spite and out of a desire to prevent future whistle-blowers from potentially reporting on the president's misconduct. make no mistake about it, the president's conducting a deliberate campaign to intimidate anyone who might blow the whistle on his conduct or the conduct of those under his direction. he feels this cannot be tolerated. so today i sent a letter to all 74 insectors general in the -- inspectors general in the executive branch requesting they immediately investigate any and all instances of retaliation against anyone who has made or in the future makes protected disclosures of presidential misconduct to congress or to an inspector general. members of the administration take an oath to protect and defend the constitution. some of them bravely step forward to tell the truth about the president's efforts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 elections. and for that, for telling the truth under oath, which the president didn't allow his allies to do, for these people doing their patriotic duty to their country, they're being summarily dismissed from their jobs by a vindictive president. our founders believed that truth was fundamental to good government, and indeed the survival of the republic. as the president takes steps to punish anyone in his administration who tells the truth, it's incumbent on the independent watchdogs in our government to protect whistle-blowers like lieutenant colonel vindman and others who put their lives and livelihoods on the line to protect our freedoms. i was glad to hear the chief of staff say that vindman within the military was protected. at least there's some honor left in this government. now about the nomination of mr. brasher. now that the impeachment trial of the president is over, leader mcconnell is wasting no time getting us back to seeing to what is his primarily goal, rubber-stamping unqualified and extreme judicial nominations. this week the senate will consider the nomination of andrew lynn brasher to the 11th circuit court of appeals. mr. brasher's primary qualification to sit on the federal bench seems to be the six and a half months, six and a half months he spent on the district court in alabama. let me repeat that. senate republicans installed brasher as district court judge less than seven months before moving to elevate him to an appellate court. never heard of anything like this. the senate majority is asking us to promote a candidate for circuit judge judgeship who has less than a year of experience as a judge. he's not just unqualified. maybe why they're promoting him so quickly is because they love the fact that his views are so wildly out of the mainstream. as alabama's solicitor general, brasher fought against women's reproductive rights that three-quarters of americans believe in, commonsense gun safety laws which 90% of americans believe in, and marriage equality, which a majority of americans believe in. and he employed far-fetched legal theories that were overruled by the courts, including justice scalia. mr. brasher shamefully spent his career defending voter suppression efforts. so less than one week after covering up the president's attempt to cheat in the next election, senate republicans are moving forward to reward a nominee who supports voter suppression. both actions smack of contempt for the democratic process and a blatant disregard for the franchise of american citizens, the thing many young men and women have died for throughout the centuries, the right to vote. mr. brasher's nomination to the circuit court is another disgrace, absolute disgrace to our federal judiciary. every senator should vote against him. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of andrew lynn brasher of alabama to be united states circuit judge for the 11th circuit, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of andrew lynn brasher of alabama to be united states circuit judge for the 11th circuit shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: has any member not voted. does any member wish to change their vote? on this vote the yeas are 46, the nays are 41. the motion's agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 at 2:00 -- at 2:15 p.m. tom r- tomorrow all time be considered expired and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, following disposition of the brasher nomination, the senate vote on the kindred, schelp, kness, and halpern nominations. that the confirmation votes occur wednesday, february 12, at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democratic leader. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session for a period morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i understand there it is a bill at the desk. i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: h.r. 5687, an act making emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending 2020. mr. mcconnell: i now ask for a second reading and in order to place the rule on the kald arrested under rule 14, i objected to my own requests. the presiding officer: objection have been heard, the bill will receive its second reading on the next legislative day. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m., further following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. further, following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the brasher nomination under the previous order. finally, i ask that the senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the senate stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of senator brown and senator enzi. the presiding officer: without objection. senator brown. mr. brown: i thank the republican leader, and thanks, mr. president. last month this body was trying, as we know, and failing, to hole the president accountable for betraying the american people. president trump went to davos while he was hobnobbing with the global elite in switzerland, he let slip his plan after his tax handout blew up the deficit. we know that deficits now thanks to this president's tax cut and my republican colleagues going along with this tax cut that went to the wealthy people in this country, the budget deficit has skyrocketed. we know all that. president trump wants to pay for it by cutting social security and medicare. he wants to pay for it by cutting social security and medicare. today we got president trump's budget. this document makes it clear how he wants to pay for the tax scam on the backs of working families and seniors. i want to start with one that is special -- of special interest in ohio. now we all know that -- that just in the last two or three years -- the last, well, starting soon after president trump was elected and then over about a year and a half period, the lordstown auto plant, 4,500 jobs shut down. president trump promised those workers -- he said don't -- he said, don't sell your homes. these jobs are coming back. this is going to work for us, and then the president did absolutely nothing. the third shift laid off, second shift laid off, first shift laid off and the plant closed. i've been working with senator portman, my republican colleague, and others, on getting somebody to come into that plant. it won't be the 4,500 good a.u.w. jobs. and there was a loan program that we were going to use and this company was going to use to make sure they could, if you will, reindustrialize part of the lordstown complex. well, the president's budget axed that loan program. we were counting on that as a way to get those jobs and now we can't count on that. there's that. and in addition to the cuts in medicare and social security, he's taking a sledgehammer to medicaid, food stamps, investments and infrastructure and support for rural communities and small towns. he wants to make it harder to clean up our drinking water and stop polluters at a time when one in four renters spends half of this their income in housing, he wants to make it harder to make families find and afford loans for a home. pretty much the only ones who escaped under scathed, mr. president, the only one the president's budget acts didn't hit, corporations and their wealthy unaccountable c.e.o.'s. to fund their tax cuts, again, the tax cuts two years ago, 70% of the tax cuts went to the wealthiest 1% of people in this country. president trump, to pay for those tax cuts that have exploded the federal budget deficit. you don't have to be an accountant to understand what happened to this deficit. president trump wants to ask more from families struggling to make ends meet, the family he promised to fight for, the family he betrays. he wants to ask more seniors and people with disability bs and students and kids who need health care, all to pay for this tax cam. president trump sold the tax cut for working people. the gig is up. we know people aren't seeing more money in their paycheckses. people see trump's tax scam for what it really was. a giveaway to corporations and the wealthiest, tiny sliver of the population. remember the promises the president made, his tax law would mean raises for workers. he said it over and over. i was in the president's cabinet with the president and a handful of senators from both parties. he promised with this tax bill before it passed, with this tax bill everybody will get a $4,000 raise, he said. well, not exactly true. he told workers last month the month after he signed the law, you're going to start -- last year, the month after he signed the law, you're going to start seeing a lot more money in your paycheck. one lie after another lie after another lie. instead of investing in workers, corporations bought back trillions, literally trillions of dollars in their own stock to line investors' pockets. meanwhile the deficit exploded. we know what the corporate crowd's plan always is to deal with the deficits. cut taxes, blow a hole in the deficit and then go back and pay for it with cuts to johnny socil security and medicare. they told us that's what they were going to do. right after president trump was elected "the wall street journal" ran an op-ed by martin feltstein who has built his career pushing tax cuts for his friends. guess how he wanted president trump to pay for his corporate giveaway. well, so much economic growth that it will pay for itself. the economic growth has been less in these three years of trump than they were the last three years of obama. but that's not the point. the point is he said it would pay for itself. well, martin didn't believe that. he knew, he said in this article it won't pay for itself. it will pay a little bit but he said the best way to do it is raise the social security retirement age. looks like president trump was listening to martin field diss stein. always comes back, mr. president, to whose side are you on. you stand with workers or corporations? you stand with insurance companies or you stand with patients. you stand with wall street or you stand with consumers. do you fight for wall street wealth or do you fight for the dignity of work? if you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work. the president promised to fight for american workers and their families. this budget he released today is the latest in a long line of broken promises and betrayals. i yield the floor. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senior senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i suspect i couldn't have come to the floor at a better time. the president's budget did come out today. it consists of a set of documents a foot high. in my opinion the whole pile should be replaced with a list from the president of what he thinks are pretty good ideas to do this year. i want to encourage people, including the senator from ohio, not to waste any time searching out the president's budget cuts. nobody has listened to the president in the 23 years that i've been here. congress doesn't pay attention to the president's budget exercise. i don't know why we put him through that. that's all it is. congress holds the purse strings, according to the constitution. congress is very protective of that constitutional authority. if you don't believe me, watch all the rhetoric that comes out on the president's budget. i'm hoping that i hear something positive on it but it's pretty hard to find anything positive with the funding situation that we're in. i do have to take issue with something that was just said here that the tax cuts and jobs act hasn't worked. it has worked. now, and a very important thing for everybody to know, the problem that we're in right now with our deficits doesn't have to do with the dollars that are coming in. the first year after the tax cuts and jobs act, we took in more revenue than ever before. more people had jobs. more people were paying taxes. companies were paying more tax taxes. they were doing more business. that results in more taxes. so that first year we got more money than we had ever had to spend before. the second year we had more money than the first year. we keep getting more money to spend. the problem is we have no control over our urge to spend. since c.b.o.'s long-term budget outlook, the congress has passed and the president has signed legislation that would add more than $2 trillion to our national debt over the next ten years. that's how we're spending. the increased spending caps from the bipartisan budget act of 2019 is responsible for one in seven tenth as trillion to the two and one-tenths trillion. it doesn't include interest costs but that's what we have to pay any time we have a debt. that one in seven tenths trillion dollars passed with no debate. there was a budget point of order. i established a budget point of order which takes 60 votes. i missed by four of being able to stop that. we can't spend that way. but that isn't the president's budget. that's our budget. over the next few days you will hear lots of complaints about the president's budget. seldom will anybody mention anything good and it's been that way for every president. you'll hear lots of terrible things about the president's budget. you won't hear anything positive. and the -- in the present political atmosphere, you probably won't learn anything from the comments. little of a positive nature is getting any coverage in washington these days. recently i went to a hearing on the dangers of youth vai vaping. it turned into a diatribe about president trump. presidents' budgets, regardless of what president, are a chance for members not in his party to beat up verbally on whoever is president. for that reason i didn't hold a hearing on president obama's last budget. if you want the animosity of -- and i won't be holding one on this president's budget for that reason. let me repeat that. because it turns into a diatribe against the president, i did not hold a hearing on president obama's last budget. and for that same reason, i'm not going to hold a hearing on this president's budget. if you want the animosity of a budget hearing, the house of representatives will have the office of management and budget, o.m.b., for a hearing this wednesday. you can take that in and get your dose of animosity if you want. it will be a chance for the house to ask loaded, venemous questions of the director. the budget process is not working. the only thing of real value in any president's budget is our history of spending. that's what's already been done. we ought to look at that. we ought to see the mistakes that we've made, the way we've piled up this debt. if congress for once could spend a portion of the scrutiny they give to the president's projected cuts and instead look at the history of our spending, we might be able to gain ground. yes, only cuts will be blasted, even though we never make cuts. we just keep spending. the official budget is done in the senate and separately in the house and is only official if the house and senate can reach agreement. when the two chambers of congress are opposite majorities, there's little chance for agreement. from history i can assure you cuts won't be made. i can also assure you that seldom does any program get as big of an increase as the participants request. but that's changing. there is no spending constraint. there is seldom an attempt to find money to cover the costs, especially on new services that are dreamed up. i will do a budget. i will ask the democrats to help put together a responsible budget working with republicans. that's really the only way it can work responsibly. what do i mean by responsibly? the budget committee only sets limits on spending. a lot of people think that we dig into every detail and decide how much everybody is going to get. no, we set limits in a broad number of categories. it's the appropriation committee that allocates the specific dollars. but we always wind up spending beyond the limits set by the budget. even if a budget can be agreed on. how can that happen? when a spending bill or spending idea comes to the senate floor, the bill technically needs 60 votes to pass. to bust the budget limits, also only takes 60 votes. so any idea of a spending bill that's already able to pass, it already has the votes to bust the budget and put us deeper into debt. congress also doesn't meet spending deadlines. if congress passes a continuing resolution which means we couldn't agree by the end of the fiscal year, the government stays open with permission to spend each month one twelve of what was allocated the previous year. that's what a continuing resolution does. it allows them to keep operating at what they had before. continuing resolutions continue until both sides are able to negotiate what they want. but the new method of compromise is you can have everything you want as long as you will let me have everything i want. what kind of negotiation is that? well, as i mentioned before, it's one in seven tenths trillion dollars in one vote with no debate. how would your christmas shopping for your family work under those circumstances where everybody could have whatever they wanted? and wouldn't it even be worse if you were spending someone else's money for those christmas presents? and what if it appeared to be an unlimited supply of money. how long would that last? of course, in a continuing resolution doesn't pass, the government shuts down. the employees are sent home. federal public places are shut down and closed to the public. when agreement is finally reached, the employees come back. they're paid for the time they were off. they're way behind in their work which hurts the economy when permits aren't released and other things. we also have to pay lots of overtime to catch up for the time they were off. there are several proposals out there that could stop shutdowns and put pressure on congress to get the spending job done on time. how long can we overspend? well, currently it's about the area of 2.5%. if people lose confidence in the federal government, we will have to pay a higher interest rate in order to get the money to cover the debt. and, yes, we have to pay the interest if we default on the interest, the country defaults. if that interest rate were to go from the current 2.5% to the normal 5%, we would only be able to pay for social security, medicare, and medicaid. you didn't hear me say anything about defense. you didn't hear me say anything about education. you didn't hear me say anything about infrastructure. you didn't hear me say anything except social security, medicaid, and medicare. that's what happens if people lose confidence in this, if they think we're overspending continually, and that we don't intend to get control over it. i will tell you a few other things that you might not be aware of. did you know most federal dollars are spent without congress ever voting on it a second time? those are called mandatory programs. once a program is approved in the mandatory category, that spending is never voted on again. worse yet, no one marredly ever looks at the -- hardly ever looks at the program to see that it does what it was supposed to do. nothing should be mandatory that doesn't have a source of revenue -- that's money -- sufficient to fund it into the future. you know what that would amount to if we had that kind of a rule on mandatory? social security no longer brings inasmuch money as we pay out. medicare doesn't bring in the money that we pay out. medicaid doesn't bring in the money that we pay out. in the mandatory programs, there are probably only about four that have a source of revenue to fund them. the rest all take money from the general fund, which means that the general fund doesn't really have any money for the discretionary things that we vote on; that big fight, you know, that we have once a year come october 1 to fund the rest of government, mostly defense is in that category. yeah, i don't get invited to speak many places. it's kind of depressing. but once the program is approved, mandatory spending is never voted on again, and no one looks at the freedom see what i.t. -- at the program to see what it's supposed to do. they still get their annual money, even though some of these programs have expired. they had an expiration date, and we went past the expiration date, which means the program shouldn't exist anymore. but it does. and we continue to fund it. not only at its previous expired level. we keep adding cost of living increases for it. yeah, it's probably needed, but what's the money really doing? no business would be in business if they didn't check even more than annually to see what's working effectively and eliminating those that aren't. we should be doing that task. when is the last time that you saw a program eliminated around here? i've been here 23 years. nope. then there's the problem of program duplication. when i got to washington, there were 119 preschool children's programs. those are really important. if you get kids to get the pre-learning that they need before they go to kindergarten, it makes a difference in the rest of their life. but 119 programs? senator kennedy and i worked together, merged quite a few of those, eliminated some -- so there are some programs that have gotten eliminated -- and we got that down to 45 programs. five would probably do the job. we did pass an amendment to a bill that said that those had to be gotten down to five programs and that all of them had to be under the department of education. the reason we weren't able to get below 45 is because we didn't have jurisdiction over those in health, education, labor, and pensions. those were all in other groups. you know, in the area of housing, we have 160 programs. 160 programs. and they're administered by 20 different agencies. so really nobody is in charge. so nobody is setting goals. nobody is checking to see if it's working. nobody is checking to see if the program over here in one of those 20 is the same as the program over here in another one of the 20, which would allow them to be merged. merging saves money. i mean, if you merge, you still only need one director instead of one, and you don't need all the assistants that there were. you only need the assistants for one program, and the money that would be stuck in washington can actually go to what we thought was going to get done. every merger results in savings. elimination results in more savings. how much would -- better would it be to move the money to where the results are? the proposed budget reform that senator whitehouse and i have worked on would provide for portfolio reviews. here's how that works. each committee would have to look at all of the programs of the type that would be in their constructionddiction if it wasn't -- in their jurisdiction if it wasn't handled by a bunch of other places and so would the other places have to look at the programs under their jurisdiction. if we could get that portfolio review, i think we could find those areas where we're doing it time after time. where we want the money is out there where the problem is. we think we're solving problems, but we're not solving problems. we're just hiring more people in d.c. now, we used to have a policy that the last person hired would be the first person fired, and that resulted in an increase in government, too. because as soon as you got hired, if you could expand your workload so you needed an assistant, now you weren't the first in line to be fired. and that's resulted in a lot of people working in washington. how about how much money actually makes it to the problem? we ought to see if the money makes it to the people or if we're just increasing that washington bureaucracy. over the next few weeks i'll be going into some detail on each of those problems with budgeting. i'll also be promoting the budget reforms that senator whitehouse and i and the budget committee have put out favorably. i think that that's the first budget provision in about the last two decades that's come out of the committee in a bipartisan way. now, i can tell you that the reforms that we've proposed won't solve all the problems. you can't take that big of a leap when you've got that big of a problem. but those reforms, while they won't solve the problem, should help it to make more noticeable what the solutions are. but we're having trouble getting that on the floor, too. what i really came to the floor for, though, with as to eliminate some of the concerns about the president's budget. i want people to know that they don't all have to fly to washington to make their case to the budget committee for their program. once the budget committee sets the parameters, then the detail comes into play with the appropriations committee. talk to your appropriators. they spend the money, the exact dollars. do your work there. but be sure your program is as effective as it can be. also, take a little look at how many similar federal programs there are. see if there can be a savings by merging, thus getting more money out in the field where you are, getting more money on the problem. once again, the president's budget came out today. it consists of a set of documents a foot high. in my opinion, the whole pile should be replaced with a list from the president of what he thinks are pretty good ideas to do this year. and hopefully there'd be a little piece in there, too, that says how you can pay for it. so don't waste any time searching out the president's budget program cuts. congress doesn't pay any attention to the president's budget exercise. it's all it is, an exercise. congress holds the purse springs, according to the constitution -- congress holds the purse strings, according to the constitution, and congress is very protective of that constitutional authority. now we need to do the work that goes with that authority. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until stands adjourned until cspan bernie sanders will be speaking. he's introduced by new york candidate for governor, cynthia nixon. this is just under an hour. >> no answer in the house. how are you