Government Funding
Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, well, the shutdown melodrama continues. I love the smell of melodrama in the morning. It smells like the U.S. Senate. I said the other day that this shutdown is just further proof that human evolution is a slow, slow process. With this shutdown, what you are witnessing now is just further proof about why it took human beings thousands of years to learn how to stand upright. This shutdown is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid.
Some shutdowns are based on policy. Some shutdowns are based on politics. Some shutdowns are based on a combination of both. This one is pure. It is as pure as Ivory Snow.
This shutdown is based on politics. Let me tell you what is going on. I believe in the two-party system. Why? Because two parties create competition, and competition makes all of us better. It does. The Democratic Party--the opposite of my party, the Republican Party--the Democratic Party is competing within itself right now, and there is a distinct wing of the Democratic Party that is winning that competition. If I wanted to use a pejorative suppression, I would call it the loon wing of the party, the loon wing of the Democratic Party or you might call it the Bolshevik wing of the Democratic Party.
I think a more accurate description is to call it the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. I think that is fair. I am not saying that all of my Democratic friends are socialists, but there is clearly a wing of the Democratic Party that can only be described accurately as the socialist wing of the party. And that party is in ascendance. That party is in control.
My friend Senator Schumer is the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate. And he, of course, has instructed his colleagues to vote to shut down the government. And Senator Schumer has been criticized for that, and I understand. I don't agree with him. I think he made a mistake.
But I don't think Senator Schumer is the leader of this effort. I don't. I think Senator Schumer, like many of his colleagues, would like to be loved by everybody in the party, and he would like to be loved by the socialist wing of his party. And I do think that is part of what is motivating this shutdown. And that is why I say it is all about politics.
But I don't think Senator Schumer is the person in charge because Senator Schumer is not the leader of the socialist wing of his party. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is. She is running the show. It was no accident the other day when the Congresswoman let it slip. She said: If you really want to negotiate the end of this shutdown, come see me. Come see me.
And I think any fairminded person has to look right now and say that the two leading Members--the quarterback--the two leading Members of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party--the quarterback is Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, and her substitute is Senator Bernie Sanders. But I think it is the Congresswoman who is calling the shots.
I don't hate anybody. I have said that repeatedly, and I mean it. I like all of my colleagues. I look for grace wherever I can find it. When I say my prayers, I do, every single time--I ask God: Don't let me hate because it is hard sometimes. It is hard. But I do. I say: God, don't let me hate.
I certainly don't hate Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. I want to make that very clear. She has the right to her opinion. She has the right to try to have the socialists take over the Democratic Party. That is the American way. Ironically, I think what she is doing is anti-American, but she has the right as an American to do it, so I don't hate her.
But I judge her by her policy. She has her opinion, and I have mine. I have to judge her, candidly, by her policy. Here is what the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, led by Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez, has said to the American people and to the U.S. Congress and to the Republicans in Congress: If you, Republicans, don't agree to make the Federal Government $1.5 trillion--not million dollars, not billion dollars, $1.5 trillion--bigger, we are going to shut the government down.
Of course we said no. I am not going to vote for that. My mother didn't raise a fool. As I said before, if she did, it was one of my brothers. I am never going to vote for that.
Where do I come up with this figure of $1.5 trillion? Well, the first thing the socialists and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is asking us to do is to repeal the healthcare reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We just passed them. We just passed them. Here it is, subtitle B, Health, in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
We didn't cut Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill. In fact, under our bill, Medicaid is going to increase 2 percent a year over the next 10 years. What we did by reforming Medicaid, which Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wants us to reverse, we cut out the waste and the fraud.
For example, we found out that there are--no kidding, I am not just making this up--we found out that there are 2.8 million people on Medicaid who are double-dipping in America. They are either signing up for Medicaid in Louisiana and Mississippi double-dipping or signing up for Medicaid in Louisiana and they are signing up for the Affordable Care Act subsidies. That is called cheating.
Our bill would put an end to that, and it would save about $140 billion on ten years. The socialist wing of the Democratic Party and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wants us to reverse that.
The second thing we did in our healthcare reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill is to say you have to stop lying when you apply for Medicaid. Under President Obama, we had virtually no eligibility checks. People could walk in, and the Medicaid folks would say: How much do you make a year? They could say $30,000 a year, and they would say, OK, you qualify.
Now, I trust people. I have said it before on this floor. I play cards with my friends all the time. They are friends. I cut the cards anyway. We have found--for example, just in Louisiana, we did a statistical sample of the people on Medicaid in Louisiana. Our auditors found 1,600 people on Medicaid who were making $100,000 a year or more. That is cheating. So our bill put an end to that. Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party want us to put it back. They want us to let people cheat.
What else are the socialists asking for in this $1.5 trillion? Well, they are saying: We don't want people who can work to work.
We put a provision in our bill that the Congresswoman and the socialist wing of her party want us to take out that says: Look, if you are between the ages of 19 and 64 and you are able-bodied--we are not talking about a mother with a sick child in her arms--if you are able- bodied, if you are perfectly healthy, and if you don't have any dependent kids at home, then, if you qualify based on income, we will give you Medicaid. But you have to work. You have to work 20 hours a week or go to school 20 hours a week or do community service 20 hours a week because the free enterprise system--jobs--has done more to lift people out of poverty than all the social programs put together.
That is what is called a work requirement. What is wrong with that? Those who can work should work. Our welfare programs were meant to be bridges, not parking lots. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the socialist wing of her party want us to reverse all of that.
What else do they want us to do? Well, they are upset at us over the Affordable Care Act. Let me tell you what all this is about with the Affordable Care Act.
Under ObamaCare, if you are a low-income American, you are entitled to Medicaid. If you are a middle-income American, if you have a job, then chances are, you get insurance through your employer. Most people do. But if you are in the middle and if you make a little more money than the poverty level but you can't get insurance through your employer, we provide what is called the ObamaCare exchanges.
So when we talk about the ObamaCare subsidies, that is what we are talking about. It is about 24 million people, and it was meant for lower income people.
Up until 2019, it was all for low-income people. Then, in 2019, without any Republican votes, President Biden said: Look, we are in a pandemic. We are going to raise the limit. We are going to say that there are no income limits on ObamaCare--paid for by the taxpayer.
We have 24 million people on ObamaCare.
When they raised the limits, you could make any amount of money and still get a subsidy. That added about 1.6 million people on ObamaCare. ObamaCare was meant for people who make from roughly $30,000 a year to $130,000 a year for families of four. Now, because President Biden raised the cap, we have people making $600,000 a year, $150,000 a year, and families making $200,000 a year who are getting subsidies from the American taxpayer. Why? Because they said we needed it in the pandemic.
The pandemic is over, and that is why the Democrats, when they passed the bill, put in a provision that says that at the end of this year, those extra subsidies are going to end.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says: No. Until you agree to let them continue, to let anybody at any income level get subsidies, we are going to shut the government down.
That is their third demand, and that is part of the $1.5 trillion.
Finally, of course, the Congresswoman is saying: We want you to give half a trillion dollars--not $500,000, not half a billion dollars but half a trillion dollars--we want you to give half a trillion dollars to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because we like what they say.
Well, we just eliminated money for all forms of media.
Now, those are the demands. Those are the demands. I will just mention one more.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez got very, very upset, as did the socialist wing of her party, when the President sent over what is called a rescission package.
Basically, President Trump said: We want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is a waste.
We did, and that upset the Congresswoman. She is entitled to be upset if she wants to. But that really upset the socialist wing of the party.
So we took it out, and here is what they want us to put back in. We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia. We took that out.
The Congresswoman says: We are going to shut down the government until you put that back in.
We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda.
We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I am not making this up. It was in the budget under President Biden. We took it out.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the socialist wing--the loon wing of the Democratic Party--says: We are going to shut down the government until you put it back in.
I will just read you a few more that we took out that they are demanding we put back in.
There was $6 million for media organizations for the Palestinians; $833,000 for transgender people in Nepal; $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho; $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia; $4.2 million--we took it out, and the Congresswoman and the socialist wing of their party says we have to put that back in before they will open the government--$4.2 million for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people in the Western Balkans and Uganda.
I could spend the rest of the afternoon on this. We took all of that out. It upset Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, and it upset the socialist wing of her party. Now that wing of her party and the Congresswoman are threatening all other Democrats and saying: You have to shut the government down until we get what we want.
Part of what they want is to add this kind of stuff back into the bill. That is what this fight is all about.
We were in the process of negotiating a budget with our Democratic friends. We ran out of time. The cutoff was midnight Tuesday night. That is when--the clock struck midnight, and the budget ran out.
What we had asked for and what we are still asking for is, let's continue to negotiate--``we'' meaning the Republicans and the Democrats--for 6 more weeks and to try to agree on a budget. That is all we are asking. We are not asking for any additional appropriations, any conditions, any stipulations. All we are asking for is what we call a clean CR. All we are asking for is just to further negotiate.
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has done a stellar job in rising to the leadership of her party as a member of the socialist wing, and they are about to elect a socialist mayor of New York. I think Mr. Mamdani is going to win. They have said to our request--let's just continue the status quo for 6 more weeks--they said: We will give you 6 more weeks if you will give us $1.5 trillion.
That is what they are demanding, and that is why we are shut down.
Let me say it again. I don't hate anybody. This is America. I sure don't hate the Congresswoman. She is entitled to her opinion, but I am entitled to mine. She can criticize my policy positions, but I am entitled to criticize hers.
I am here to tell you, Mr. President, in front of God and country, based on her policy positions that she is demanding--based on her policy positions that she is demanding that I just outlined of $1.5 trillion of pure, unadulterated spending porn--based on that demand and based on her policy positions, the American people are looking at her and saying: This person has singlehandedly put an end to dumb blond jokes because that is the craziest thing I have ever heard.
Based on her policy positions--$1.5 trillion of this kind of spending porn--the American people are looking at the Congresswoman and saying: With respect, she must be bilingual--she must speak English and stupid.
And that is why we are not agreeing to it.
Now, I know every one of my Democratic colleagues, and I know more than half of them know better. They know what we are asking for is reasonable. I am just asking them to meet us halfway. We are not asking for any additional provisions, and they shouldn't ask for any additional provisions. Let's just open back up and continue to negotiate for 6 weeks. Don't be scared of the Congresswoman. Don't be scared of the socialist wing of your party.
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