Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. By the end of this week, the Senate must vote on the resolution to terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency.
There are three very clear reasons to vote to terminate. First, there is no factual basis of an emergency at the border. The President made that clear when he said he didn't need to do this. If we allow Presidents to declare emergencies for such nonemergency-type situations because they want to do it, we are headed down a very bad road.
Second, the emergency would cannibalize funds intended for our brave men and women in uniform in order to pay for the wall, including military construction, and maybe even military pay and pensions.
The bottom line is, we hear from the other side how we have to make sure we give our soldiers what they need. We completely agree, but all of a sudden, when there is this wall, we take it away from the soldiers; we take it away from military readiness. That is not a trade most Americans would make.
Third and most important is the danger to our Constitution. The emergency declaration is an injury to this great Constitution under which we live. It claims powers for the Presidency that were explicitly given to Congress. It distorts the separation of powers, and it sets a dangerous precedent for future Presidents.
The bottom line is, one of the things the Founding Fathers gave the most thought to was the balance of power and how to prevent an overpowerful and overleaning executive branch. That is why they gave Congress the power of the purse. Are we going to reverse 220 years of a balance of power because a President is demanding a wall that Congress couldn't get him, that Mexico couldn't pay for? It goes far beyond the wall, whether you are for or against it. It goes far beyond all these other issues. It goes to the very nature of our government, and it will set us on a path that historians will come back and look at as a very bad turning point for America.
Budget Proposal
Madam President, yesterday the Trump administration released its annual budget. These Trump budget requests have become so outlandish, so removed from reality, that even Republicans in Congress can't work with that budget and can't treat them seriously. They are essentially statements of principle from an administration that doesn't care about governing. What does it care about? What are its priorities? That is what they talked about because I bet they know not a single Republican would vote for the budget.
We looked at the budget and what it would mean for my home State of New York. The President's budget would cut millions of dollars from the Department of Justice programs that hire police officers, provide their equipment, and combat the opioid epidemic. The budget would cut millions from New York's educational programs that would help schools throughout our State, including those schools on military bases. It would hurt afterschool programs and STEM initiatives teaching our young people about science and math. The cuts to NIH would devastate New York's hospitals, particularly rural hospitals, and would cut back on our great medical research. We are all living longer and healthier, in part, because of the medical research done by NIH. Hardly anyone wants to cut that. The President did.
The cuts to Medicaid would affect 6.5 million New Yorkers who rely on it. I think that story can be repeated for just about every State. New York is a very diverse State, with large urban, rural, and suburban populations, and every one of them is hurt across the board from safety and security to education and healthcare, to infrastructure and economic development. The Trump budget would be a gut punch to New York's middle class. The same is true for the Nation.
Setting aside, for the moment, the humanity of these cuts, this budget reveals the depth of President Trump's hypocrisy on several of his signature issues. Donald Trump campaigned for President promising not to cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. In 2015, he tweeted:
I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.
Let's look at President Trump's budget. It cuts Medicare by $845 billion, cuts Medicaid by $1.5 trillion. I understand the challenges of the office sometimes prevent Presidents from achieving precisely what they campaigned on, but this is literally the opposite of what Donald Trump said in his campaign. No one is forcing his hand. He is proposing this.
Candidate Trump? No cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. President Trump? Cut those promises by more than $2 trillion.
This budget says: ``Promises kept.'' Balderdash--balderdash--when it comes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Promises kept? Donald Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicare or Medicaid. The budget slashes them brutally. How can they dare say ``promises kept'' on probably the most significant domestic-side programs we have when they slash them?
You don't even need a long memory to find out the hypocrisy of the President in this budget. Only a few months ago, the President spoke to the American Farm Bureau, promising a bright future for American farmers. Yet his administration proposed cutting the Department of Agriculture in the midst of implementing a new farm bill by 15 percent.
In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump called education the ``civil rights of our time.'' Yesterday, he proposed cutting the Department of Education by 12 percent. Promises kept? Balderdash.
One of the few bipartisan moments during the President's most recent State of the Union was when he pledged to ``defeat AIDS in America and beyond.'' The President's budget, however, cuts the program that seeks to eliminate AIDS around the globe by 22 percent. Promises kept? Balderdash.
Of course, the President famously promised Mexico would pay for the border wall. His budget asks the American taxpayers to shell out $8.6 billion for the wall. Promises kept? Balderdash.
On the cover of the President's budget are emblazoned the words ``Promises Kept.'' He must really believe no one will read beyond the cover page because this budget document is a list of broken promises by President Trump, one after the other. What he says to the public and what he puts out in his budget are in two different worlds. Promises kept? He said he wouldn't cut Medicare or Medicaid. He cuts them. Promises kept? He said he would bolster our farmers. He cuts the farm bill 15 percent. Promises kept? Mexico will pay for the wall--not in this budget. The American taxpayers pay for it.
It is just pathetic that in this world in which we live, a President can be so hypocritical and contradictory by saying one thing and then having his budget do the exact opposite.
I have a challenge to my friend Leader McConnell, another challenge, because he seems to duck about every issue we have. Put President Trump's budget on the floor of the Senate. You are putting the Green New Deal on the floor of the Senate. Put this budget on the floor of the Senate. Let's see if a single Republican votes for it.
Climate Change
Madam President, this morning, the President tweeted a quote from a guest on ``FOX & Friends'' who called climate change fake science. Here is the quote: ``There is no climate crisis, there's weather and climate all around the world, and in fact, carbon dioxide is the main building block of life.''
There is weather and climate all around the world. Really, the President endorsed that quote. Just about every scientist who has studied it knows climate change is the greatest challenge facing our planet. Anyone who lives with these dramatic changes in weather, whether it is through California wildfires, whether it is through floods in the Middle West and Upstate New York, whether it is Miami streets flooding near the coast over and over again, everyone knows things are changing dramatically. It is not just the normal cycle I lived through the first 50 years of my life. We all know it is happening, and what does the President do? Not only does he deny it--it is worse--he acts on it in the wrong direction.
He has rolled back commonsense environmental protections, opened up more Federal lands for oil and gas, and announced the United States would leave the Paris accord. In the budget, President Trump proposes to cut more than one-third of EPA's funding and cuts other programs that combat climate change. Communities across the country are staring climate change in the face. Ask any farmer. They will tell you their growing seasons have changed. They will tell you about record droughts. They will tell you in the Mountain West about rebuilding from devastating wildfires and homeowners along the coasts picking up the pieces after hurricanes and storms have ripped through their States. It is just shameful. It is embarrassing the President continues to deny science and peddles these lies--absolutely shameful. I hope my Republican colleagues will stand up to the President and call out this nonsense. So far they haven't been willing to contradict the President's lies about climate change. That needs to change.
We challenge our Republican friends to join the resolution by Senator Carper, myself, and others. It says three simple things: One, climate change is real. Do you believe that, all of my Republican friends? Can you answer yes or no? Two, it is caused by human activity. And, three, we need to do something to stop it, to stop the dramatic change in global warming.
Why are our Republican friends so silent on this? That is perhaps the major issue of our day. When history looks back, it is not going to look kindly on them. What are they afraid of--the oil industry? What are they afraid of--the facts? What are they afraid of--rightwing orthodoxy, often funded by the Koch brothers, who don't want to admit to climate change? It is a shame. It is a shame.
Buybacks
Madam President, on buybacks, I have come to the Senate floor several times over the past year to sound the alarm about the explosion of corporate stock buybacks. Corporate executives have been leaning on them more and more to satisfy shareholders who tend to be wealthy. The top 80 percent of all shares are owned by the top 10 percent of America; that is even including pension funds.
After the Trump tax bill, last year buybacks reached their highest recorded level--over $1 trillion in a single calendar year. That is not money going to workers. That is not money going to communities. That is not money going into research to make better products. That is simply going to the wealthy CEOs and shareholders without other real benefit to the country.
Based on an analysis of America's largest companies, for 466 of Standard & Poor's 500, the equivalent of 92 cents out of every dollar went to stock buybacks or dividends--92 percent. That has never happened before. Surely, there are more productive ways for corporations to allocate capital. Surely, those numbers suggest an overreliance, if not an obsession, with stock buybacks in an attempt to raise stock prices.
This unhealthy development is not good for the long-term interests of companies or for America. Just yesterday, a major American corporation saw its outlook downgrade because it is spending tens of billions of dollars on corporate stock buybacks at the expense of investment and research and development. But some just refuse to look at the plain facts.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal editorial board criticized Congress--Members of both parties, in fact--for even expressing concerns about the level of stock buybacks that we have seen recently.
Here is what the Journal editorial board wrote:
Repurchasing shares is simply one way a company can return cash to owners if it lacks better ideas for investment. Tax reform increased corporate cash flow by cutting tax rates and letting companies repatriate their cash held overseas.
First of all, it is notable that the Wall Street ed board basically admits that the Trump corporate tax cuts have fueled the explosion of stock buybacks. But, second, and more importantly, the Wall Street Journal makes no mention of the record amount that corporate America has announced in buybacks since the tax bill passed--$1 trillion--or the many things corporations could invest in with their spare cash.
One thing the Journal never talks about is how income distribution is getting worse and worse and how the wealthiest at the top own more and more of our wealth and our income while the middle class is more and more worried about the future and even about paying their bills now.
What about workers' wages? Wouldn't America be better off if workers were paid more? Income distribution is the worst it has been in decades. Why not reward workers for increases in productivity with higher wages? Productivity has gone up over the last decade--I think since about 2000--and workers haven't gotten that gain, even though they have produced a lot of it.
What about pension funds? Listen to this. There are large numbers of corporate America that have not met the obligation of their pension funds--what they promised the workers they would pay to them in their retirement--and, instead, are using the money for corporate buybacks. How many of the S&P 500 have underfunded pension plans but are still authorizing billions of dollars for share repurchases? I think America would like to know that. In my view, I believe corporate America would have a hard time refuting that it is unconscionable for corporations to buy back billions in stock while letting its pension fund wither, breaking a promise to its workers, many of whom have spent decades and decades and decades working hard for their company and looking forward to a retirement with an amount of money that will not make them rich but at least allows them to live decently.
The Wall Street Journal makes no mention of any of these options. They said that buybacks are simply ``one way a company can return cash to owners if it lacks better ideas for investment.''
Well, if that is the case, a lot of companies are willfully ignorant. When 92 percent of profits are going to buybacks and dividends, corporations must be trying really hard not to think about workers, pensions, or R&D. To think about the maldistribution of income, to think how wealth is agglomerating to the top--it is all bad for America, both economically and politically, in the long term.
I refuse--refuse--to accept that corporate America's sole responsibility is to maximize return for executives and wealthy shareholders. The American economy has to work for workers and communities. The Wall Street Journal just defends the status quo as things get worse and worse and worse in terms of middle-class workers' viability, getting gains from their productivity increases, and income distribution. It is a crisis in America.
No matter what the Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks, this topic deserves the Senate's attention. If they don't believe our solutions on buybacks are the answer, what is their solution to income maldistribution?
They said the tax cuts would work. I remember the President saying that every worker will get a $4,000 increase. Where is that? Almost all of that money is going to wealthy shareholders and corporate CEOs as the buyback mania, if you will--92 percent--continues.
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