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Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, also, with me today is Mr. Will McCarthy, one of my colleagues from my Senate office.

Today, we are going to start talking about and voting on the rescission package, and I want to talk about that for a few minutes.

As the Presiding Officer knows, under our Constitution, Congress passes a budget. We send that budget to the President of the United States, whoever that might be, and the President executes, or implements, our budget.

On occasion, under Federal statute, the President has the authority, after we have passed a budget in Congress, to look at the budget and say: You know, I don't need all this money to accomplish the goals that Congress established and instructed me to accomplish.

So the President can contact us and say: Congress, I would like you to rescind some of the spending in the budget that you sent to me.

It is called a rescission bill or a rescission package.

President Trump has sent us a rescission bill, or a rescission package, asking the U.S. Congress to cut the budget by roughly $9 billion, and that is what we are going to start voting on today.

Now, $9 billion is a lot of money--except when you compare it to the overall Federal budget. Nine billion dollars, despite the fact that it is a bucketload of money, is one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget--one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget. It gives you an idea of how big the Federal budget is.

I think most people--most adults, anyway--understand that in life, what you say doesn't really matter. What you say doesn't really matter. It is what you do that demonstrates what you believe. That is certainly true in politics, and that is certainly true in Washington, DC. Ignore what anybody in Washington, DC, says. Ignore it. If you want to understand their behavior, look at their behavior. In Washington, DC, as in life, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.

Now, President Trump--whether you voted for him or not and whether you like him or not--ran on a platform of reducing the size of government, and the people elected him. Since day one, the President, if you have paid attention to the news, has been working very hard to reduce government spending, and he has reduced a lot. He started out with the DOGE program, with Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, of course, has left, but the quest to reduce government spending--wasteful government spending, which I call spending porn--continues.

Every Republican in the U.S. Senate has voiced approval of what the President has done. Every Republican--every one of my colleagues, myself included--has said to the President: Attaboy, Mr. President. Go get `em. Keep issuing those Executive orders. Reduce the spending. We are spending too much money. We have got a $37 trillion debt. Keep going, Mr. President.

The President has, but he has been doing it through Executive order. There is only so much you can do through Executive order. An Executive order, issued by a President, expires when the President is no longer in office. The only way to permanently reduce spending is to have Congress act, and that is what the President is asking us to do in this rescission bill.

What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.

The rescission package that the President has sent over--we are going to start considering it today. And after listening in some cases for years but certainly for the last 100-plus days since President Trump has been in office--after listening to my Republican colleagues talk about the importance of reducing spending, it is gut check time. It is gut check time because what you do is what you believe, not what you say, and now my colleagues and I have an opportunity to really support the President.

Now, I don't know if this bill is going to pass. I do not know if it is going to pass. I mean, I have heard a lot of wailing and the gnashing of teeth and whining and that civilization is going to melt if we cut one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget. That is coming from some of my Democratic colleagues, and they are entitled to their point of view, but I want to put this in context.

After all of us on my side of the aisle have told the world that we need to reduce spending, if we vote against this rescission package and refuse to reduce spending by one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget, we ought to hide our heads in a bag. We ought to hide our heads in a bag.

What kind of spending is the President asking us to reduce, to eliminate? That is important because not all government spending is wasteful, but a lot of it is. That is why I call it spending porn. I am going to read you some of the appropriations that the President is asking us to eliminate from the current budget, and you be the judge. Let the American people decide.

The President is asking us to eliminate $5.1 million of taxpayer money in the American budget, the Federal budget, that is there to ``strengthen the resilience of queer global movements.''

The President is asking us to rescind $6 million for media organizations and civic life for Palestinians.

The President, in light of our $37 trillion budget deficit, is asking us to reduce spending--to reduce a program--in the amount of $3.9 million for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex population in the Western Balkans.

The President is suggesting that we eliminate a program of $1 million for voter ID programs in Haiti.

This is your money, folks.

The President is asking us to reduce the budget by $3 million which is appropriated for ``sexual reproductive health in Venezuela''; $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.

I didn't make this stuff up; it is in the budget.

There is $3 million for ``Sesame Street'' in Iraq; $833,000 for transgender people, sex workers, and their clients in Nepal; $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia and Belarus; $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes, cyber cafes, and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti.

How many Americans do you know think we should be spending their money to fund male prostitutes in Haiti? But there it is in our budget--bigger than Dallas--and the President is saying: Cut it out.

We have $6.2 million for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and $500,000 to buy Rwanda electric buses.

I love Rwanda. If they want electric buses, they have got a budget.

There is $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho; $300,000 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex advocacy in Uganda; $500,000 for biodiversity in Peru.

I could keep going. I could go the rest of the day and night.

I know what you are thinking: How in God's name--on God's green Earth--did this spending porn get in the Federal Government's budget? Why would Congress put it there?

Well, I am going to tell you why: We didn't. When we pass a budget, we pass budgets based on programs or agendas or line items. We don't put in there that we would like to spend $5.1 million on strengthening the resilience of queer global movements. We appropriate money by Agency or line item. For example, we might appropriate money for the Economic Support Fund or, if you look at our budget, you will see money appropriated for the United States Institute of Peace. If you look at our budget, you will see money that Congress has appropriated for migration and refugee assistance. Then this money goes to the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy takes the money that we have appropriated, for example, to the Economic Support Fund, and they decide to give it to their friends--usually nongovernmental organizations--to fund these nonsensical items that I just spent a few minutes reading.

Congress didn't vote to spend $3 million on sexual reproductive health in Venezuela; we voted for a program that the bureaucrats took and spent on sexual health, reproductive health, in Venezuela. That is not an excuse, but I get that question all the time: Why did Congress vote to do this? We didn't. The bureaucracy did. It is a giant, rogue beast.

The point is, Trump caught it, and his people caught it, and the President is saying: Get rid of it.

With all of these programs, this spending porn, we would be better off taking this money and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. We would be better off taking all of this money that I just talked about and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. At least taxpayers might have a chance of getting a return. That is how out of control this is. But if you listen to some of my colleagues, they say: Oh, my God. If we cut $9 billion--if we cut this spending porn-- civilization is going to melt.

There is one other thing in our budget that the President is asking us to cut. He is asking us to cut a little over $1 billion for what I will call public broadcasting. When I say ``public broadcasting,'' I am talking about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I am talking about the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS. I am talking about National Public Radio--NPR, as we call it.

We spend anywhere from $500 to $600 million a year on public broadcasting. Why do we do that? Well, we started doing it years ago-- at least 50 years ago--at a time when there were only three television stations and a few radio stations and newspapers. A lot of folks in rural areas didn't get the television stations. They didn't get any news at all. They might live far enough away from a major city that they didn't even have a daily newspaper.

So Congress said: You know, we want everybody to know what is going on in the world. We are going to start public broadcasting, and we are going to give them money every year, and they won't have to run ads because we are going to spend taxpayer money to give to these radio stations and television stations. That was 50 years ago.

Today, American people have access to all forms of media: streaming, cable TV, network TV, TikTok, Twitter, newspapers--those that are left. No one is in a news desert anymore. So why are we spending money on public broadcasting, $500 million a year?

The other factor is, it is undeniable that Public Broadcasting has become political. Unless you have been a huge disappointment to your parents, you understand if you listen to Public Broadcasting, that it is representing today one political point of view.

The president of NPR--no one would mistake her for Walter Cronkite, I can assure you--her name is Kathleen Maher. This is her position. She is supposed to be delivering the news objectively, but this is what she has said:

Trump is a deranged racist sociopath.

The president and CEO of NPR thinks that America is ``addicted to white supremacy.'' She has denounced the use of words ``boy'' and ``girl.'' She says that is ``erasing language for non-binary people.'' She contends that the United States was founded on the basis of ``black plunder and white democracy.'' That is who is running the show over there.

She is entitled to her beliefs. This is America. You are entitled to believe what you want.

NPR and PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are entitled to publish and broadcast what they publish, but not on the taxpayers' dime. When we owe $37 trillion--and we really owe that money--we have no business spending half a billion dollars a year, giving it to any form of media. We don't fund CNN. We don't fund FOX News. We don't fund newspapers. Why are we funding PBS and NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

All the President is saying: I don't want you to do that anymore, Congress. I don't want you to fund any form of media. PBS, for example, is right to publish what they want, but Congress shouldn't give them taxpayer money to do it. Let them go raise money in the private sector.

The President is right. The President is absolutely right.

That is all this rescission bill is going to do. It is going to bring a little bit of sanity back to our appropriations process.

I am going to end on this note. I am going to end as I began: What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.

I have been here 10 years. Every one of those 10 years, but especially in the last 100 days since President Trump was reelected and started talking about reducing spending, I have listened to all of my Republican colleagues encourage the President and say: That is great. We have got to reduce spending. We have got to reduce spending.

Well, here is your chance. Here is your chance. It is gut-check time. You either believe in reducing spending, or you don't. You either support spending porn, or you don't. We are going to find out who does and who doesn't here in about 3 or 4 hours.

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