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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it seems like a long time ago that we had the general election on November 5. It seems like a lot of water under the bridge, over the transom, whatever your metaphor might be, but we do know with clarity that this election was a referendum on the policies of the Biden administration and on the direction that they had chosen for the country.

And the vast majority of Americans believed, according to public opinion polls, that the country was heading in the wrong direction. And so if you think about it, one of the great strengths of democracy in our great Republic is when people feel like the country is heading in the wrong direction, they have the power to change it, and, indeed, they did by electing President Trump and Republican majorities in the House and Senate on November 5.

Over the last 4 years, we know that people in my State of Texas and across the country have been living under the burden of high prices and high interest rates, almost exclusively caused by reckless, excessive spending by the Federal Government.

I had a chance to question Russ Vought who will be the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he confirmed what Milton Friedman told us a long time ago; that inflation is almost exclusively the consequence of excess Federal spending.

And when you think about the gasoline that the Biden administration poured on the fire of inflation and what it did to decrease the standard of living for people in my State and across the country, it is a tragedy.

And then the Federal Reserve, of course, doing their job, trying to figure out how do you damp down inflation using the tools that they have. They raise interest rates, and, of course, everything became more expensive from home mortgage to buying a car. If you are a farmer or rancher, the cost of the inputs into your next crop are higher because of the cost of borrowing.

So I couldn't be more excited about President Trump's administration and this new direction for the country, what he called a new golden age of prosperity.

So I was thrilled also to happen to meet with and get to know some of the people that I did not know in his Cabinet. Fortunately, the President wisely chose three Texans in his Cabinet, people I know well. I had the opportunity to introduce Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture this morning before the Agriculture Committee, but I didn't know all of the people that will serve in President Trump's Cabinet, so it was great to get to know them and a little bit about their background. People like Scott Bessent, nominated to head up his team at the Department of Treasury, a very important Cabinet post; Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce; and Russ Vought, who I mentioned a moment ago, who will lead for the second time the Office of Management and Budget.

These three gentlemen bring a wealth of experience and expertise, and I have no doubt that America will be better off with them at the helm assisting President Trump during his administration.

As I mentioned, Howard Lutnick was one of the individuals I got to know a little bit better who has been tapped for Secretary of Commerce, and, of course, Mr. Lutnick is well-known in financial circles, having been a fabulously successful businessman and investor. He has successfully led organizations in the financial service industries for decades.

And at first glance, people may assume, well, this is just another rich guy serving in the Trump Cabinet, but there is much more to the story about Howard Lutnick than initially meets the eye, and I just want to tell that story just briefly.

Howard and his wife have four children, and he, quite literally, would not be with us today if it weren't for his family. On September 11, 2001, in New York, where they live, it was the first day of school--of kindergarten for his son, Kyle. And Howard, like a good father, decided he was going to take his son to school.

And so he was planning to go a little bit late to his office at Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald, his business, his company, was located in the World Trade Center, and we all remember the tragic story of 9/11, what happened that day. More than two-thirds of Cantor Fitzgerald's employees--Howard Lutnick's company--including his own brother, were killed that day.

Howard told me in my office, he said: These were my friends. He said:

I have always made a point of hiring people, working with people who I know personally and can trust.

And so his friends, his employees, two-thirds of them, including his brother, were killed that day. It is hard to fathom what a profound loss that must be.

As anybody can imagine, this company, now having lost two-thirds of its employees, was in a vulnerable state, and many people expected it to close shop.

Yet in the midst of this personal tragedy, with the future uncertain, Howard picked up the pieces and rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald. This is a man unlike most men, a person of heroic character. There is no doubt in my mind that Howard Lutnick will be well-suited to help rebuild the American economy and help put the country back on track.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Lutnick basically gave a significant portion of Cantor Fitzgerald to his employees, something he was not obligated to do, in order to get them back on the right track.

In addition to Mr. Lutnick, President Trump has tapped other impressive individuals to lead his economic agenda. Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Scott Bessent in the Senate Finance Committee in which I serve. One of the issues we discussed during the hearing was something we all care about, which is the threat of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Bessent named China as one of America's biggest challenges, which should come as no surprise to anyone here in the Senate. We all know, for example, that Chinese fentanyl is the No. 1 cause of death for young people in America between the age of 18 and 45. We all know that China is conducting joint military operations with Russia and continues to assert excessive and illegal maritime boundary claims in the South China Sea, threatening a regional conflict that may not be confined to a region.

President Xi, the President of the People's Republic of China and the head of the Chinese Communist Party, has signaled his plans to invade Taiwan by 2027. That is just 2 years away.

And, of course, one of the reasons China has been able to become such a threat economically and from a military standpoint to the United States is U.S. investments in that country.

Mr. Bessent rightly noted last week that China has one of the most unbalanced economies in the history of the world, and they are using their surpluses to fund their military machine to modernize and threaten the peace, not only in the Indo-Pacific but more broadly. I am glad Mr. Bessent shares this very serious concern of mine. It shouldn't be a secret to anybody in the Senate that I have been working on this issue for some time now.

Back in 2023, the Senate voted 91 to 6 to adopt my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have required transparency for outbound investments; that is, American investors investing in China. But then, unfortunately, that provision did not make its way into the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act. We came very close to passing provisions to address outbound investment in the continuing resolution at the end of the year, but, of course, that continuing resolution was loaded down with a whole lot of other last-minute provisions and collapsed under its own weight. So I am hopeful--and I am actually optimistic--we will get it done this year. But the fact of the matter is we are running out of time.

It is unfathomable to me that the U.S. Government, including our intelligence Agencies and our military, would be blind to the economic threat and the military threat of massive U.S. investment into China.

We know China does not respect any firewall or dividing line between the military and businesses. They actually have a law, a military- civilian fusion law, which requires companies in China to share their technology, their data, with the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party. It is unfathomable to me that the United States would continue this process without regard to what the potential consequences might be. It is no exaggeration to say that it could well be investments from the United States into the People's Republic of China that allow them not only to build their economy but their military as well and threaten regional and world peace.

And as one of our colleagues, a former U.S. Marine, said: And end up nose to nose, gun to gun, with Marines when President Xi decides to invade Taiwan, if that day occurs.

So I was very pleased that Mr. Bessent agreed with me about the necessity of transparency for policymakers to understand exactly what is going on, especially in industries like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced semiconductors.

Mr. Bessent is going to be a great partner because he understands how the economy works and how it is intertwined with our national security.

Finally, I had the pleasure of speaking once again to Russ Vought, who was formerly the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a job he held previously under President Trump during his first administration. Mr. Vought led the OMB then, and so he has had extensive experience to build on in President Trump's second term.

At yesterday's hearing, we had a chance to talk about the government's spending problem. We have approaching a $37 trillion debt. The Federal Government spends roughly $6.75 trillion a year. And while we talk about it on a regular basis, Congress has yet to do anything significant to deal with that mounting debt. And right now, we are paying more for interest on the national debt than we are on our own defense and national security. It is unsustainable.

Years ago, ADM Mike Mullen, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said ``the biggest threat to our national security is our debt.'' At the time I thought, Well, that is kind of an interesting comment. But what he said then has become actually true. We can't spend more as we need to do on our national security to reestablish deterrence, to prevent us from having to fight in wars--which is the goal of our military strength--if we can't afford it. And with the mounting demands of interest on the national debt, this is simply unsustainable.

I believe we have a historic opportunity with President Trump's second term and with Republicans in the majority in the House and the Senate to look at mandatory spending programs. Unfortunately, without bipartisan support--which we are, frankly, not going to get--we can't look at salvaging or saving Medicare and Social Security, but we can look at the hundreds of billions of dollars in mandatory spending programs that are on autopilot and that have been growing at 5, 6, 7, 8 percent a year. And surely we can find some savings on those mandatory spending programs.

Just like most families and most businesses, if you think about how much money you have coming in the door, you say: Well, we have got certain things that we need, we must have--food, shelter, and the like. You have other things, maybe, that you would like--maybe a new TV, a new car, whatever. And then you have things that you simply can't afford. That is what every family in America has to do. That is what every business has to do, but not the Federal Government. Well, it is about time that we do exactly that.

And, it is also important to get spending under control to ease the historically high inflation, which has robbed every man, woman, and child in America with a hidden tax, reducing their standard of living. That comes, in large part, from excessive Federal Government spending.

And then we talked about commonsense things, which I am really happy that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency and President Trump have talked about, things like getting Federal employees back in the office in person. What a novel concept.

And, of course, reinstating work requirements for able-bodied adults to get them back in the workforce. We have a lot of means-tested programs, that means based on your income. But if you have an able- bodied individual who is capable of working and providing for their family, why should the taxpayers have to pick up the tab? So getting able-bodied men and women back in the workforce and off of these means- tested programs is really important.

There is no secret that the American people were profoundly disappointed at the Biden administration's handling of the U.S. economy, but I have no doubt that with President Trump, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, and Russ Vought on President Trump's team, we will be in good shape to get the economy and our national security back on track and usher in not only a new age of American prosperity, but also to reestablish the sort of deterrence that will prevent the young men and women in this country from ever having to fight wars that could simply be prevented by reestablishing that deterrence.

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