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Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the nomination of Russell Vought to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. His leadership will only continue the disruption that is hurting Georgians in every corner of my State even as I speak.

Over the past 2\1/2\ weeks, my State has been plagued by chaos and by confusion that has harmed Georgia families and Georgia workers and organizations serving their communities.

We are witnessing right now a careless and heartless assault on Federal investments and a freeze of government funding that has already been appropriated by Congress to help Georgia seniors, veterans, students, and so many more.

Let's be clear. These are funds that have already been appropriated. We have already gone through the legislative process. And somehow the President has created this new process in which he says: I don't care what Congress has done. I don't care what laws have been passed. It has to come back by me, through the OMB manager.

This cannot stand. And I am afraid that these undemocratic antics will only continue if the Senate confirms Russell Vought to be head of the Office of Management and Budget.

Vought is one of the architects of Project 2025, which initially President Trump ran away from. You know a politician's program is really bad when he won't even admit that it is his program but, as soon as he is elected, surrounds himself by the very architects of the program he denied during the election was his.

He has now nominated the very people who wrote the playbook for reshaping our entire democratic Republic into their dystopian image. This is radical. This is extreme. This is undemocratic.

I dare say that the people of Georgia who elected me and the people of Georgia who elected Donald Trump did not vote for this. But, just as we warned, his dangerous plans are playing out in real time. This is exactly what they said they were going to do. Some didn't believe them. Even after they attempted to gaslight the American people into thinking otherwise, here we are in no time flat.

Now, I believe in democracy. I often say that democracy is the political enactment of the spiritual idea, the notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine. And if we have a spark of the divine, if we were created in what theologians called the imago dei, the image of God, we all ought to have a voice in the direction of the country and our destiny within it.

So I respect elections. They have consequences. I know, as a result of what happened on November 5, things will happen that I don't agree with. I am not mad about that. I will push and stand and speak about the direction I think the country should go in, but elections do have consequences.

But people are tired of what happens here in Washington, DC. What all of us ought to be able to agree on is that once we have gone through the legislative process, that process of three coequal branches of government ought to be respected--I don't care if the President is a Republican or a Democrat.

So there is no question that there is a lot of pain out there. The status quo was not and is not working for Americans, and that has been the case for a long time. Folks have seen wealth trickle up and pain trickle down, and they have seen an increasing disconnect between what they need from their government and what they are able to get from their government. We can't even get movement on the things that Americans on the left and the right agree on in this country.

A FOX News poll reported--and you don't often hear me quote FOX News polls. A FOX News poll said that Americans on both sides of the aisle believe we ought to have background checks, but after one school shooting after another, after another, we can't get any movement on that in this Chamber. It suggests that somebody other than the people is trying to own the democracy, squeezing the voices of the people out of their own democracy.

That is why what is happening right now is so deeply concerning, and if you are not concerned, you are not paying attention. Billionaires surrounding Donald Trump are trying to own the democracy. They are trying to move the vision of this country away from citizenship to ownership.

Vought as OMB Director would be a disaster. He would be a disaster for the people who rely on crucial government programs to make life more affordable.

I am thinking right now about the veterans that I serve in a military State. They are the best among us. They deserve the best from us. They have been imperiled by the actions of the last 2 weeks. I am thinking about families who need accessible childcare.

This stunt that was pulled a few days ago is a disaster for communities who want well-funded law enforcement, thriving businesses, safe roads and bridges. And as they attack Federal workers, attack the government, they are trying to convince you that the government is some third entity outside of us. No. This is government for the people, by the people, of the people. Our democracy represents the highest of our aspirations, what we are trying to achieve together, and as we witness this assault, it is hitting Democrats and Republicans, blue States and red States, as the people's voices are being squeezed out of their democracy.

Just last week, without even being confirmed, Vought orchestrated the effort to freeze Federal spending--as if this money is his money rather than our money, the people's money--throwing programs, from infrastructure upgrades, to Medicaid, to free school lunches, to support for homeless, veterans, into chaos. How dare you take funds that are needed by the veterans of Georgia and all across this State. Those who fight for us should not have to fight with us to get what they deserve.

With the power of the OMB, he would enact even more harmful policies. If he is behaving with this kind of reckless disregard for the law right now, what do you think he will do if we confirm him?

This is a dangerous disregard for the separation of powers that keeps our government in check and gives the people a voice through the people's House--a check on those who would recklessly exercise power.

Vought has made it clear that he feels the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, can turn on and turn off any spending by the Federal Government, ignoring the requirement that Congress, being directly elected by the people, decide where your tax dollars can go.

In 2024--listen, in 2024, he even published an article stating, ``We are living in a post-Constitutional time.'' That is dangerous rhetoric from a dangerous man.

I beg to differ. I believe in my Constitution--hard fought and hard won. It is not a perfect document. We have had to amend it. Thank God for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the First Amendment.

But he should explain what he means when he says we are living in a post-constitutional time. The Trump administration and its architects, including the nominee before us today, have a very simple playbook to shrink the Federal Government and to enrich themselves, even at the expense of the American people and their financial security. You are witnessing the unfolding of the kleptocratic designs that they have on our Republic.

And God help us if we just stand by and allow it to happen.

So what is their first step in getting that done? The Trump administration is telling civil servants like the people who inspect your food or monitor diseases like bird flu or care for veterans at the VA to accept a meager buyout or risk being fired, all while an unelected billionaire posing as co-President accesses your private data at the Treasury Department.

Russell Vought said in 2023 that he wanted Federal workers ``to be traumatically affected.'' That is what he said about your neighbors, that he wants them to be traumatically affected. And ``when they wake up in the morning,'' he said, ``we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.''

They are saying the quiet part out loud. Well, I got news for Mr. Vought. The people who staff our VA hospitals are not villains. The people who keep our food safe--so much that we Americans don't even think about it--are not villains. The people who keep our water clean are not villains. The people who keep our military bases operating are not villains.

A couple of days ago, my office started to receive a flood of calls from Federal employees. Friends of mine who do great work at the CDC and other places called me directly. Folks who do noble work every single day, out of a deep sense of patriotism, certainly not pay; out of a deep sense of commitment to the covenant we have with one another, in the wake of this assault, they began to call.

These are folks who, in their moment of finding themselves attacked by dangerous and dystopian designs on our country--folks demanding that the workers just quit--well, to all the Federal workers listening right now, let me say to you that not only do they want you to quit, more importantly, they want you to surrender. And you must never, ever surrender. You must never give in to the forces that would weaponize despair so that they can have their way and create a country that we will not even recognize.

This is the people's house. This is the people's democracy. And the people have to stand up and say: It belongs to us--even the people with whom we disagree--this is our house.

Democracy is the framework in which we get to fight, in which we get to have the great arguments about guns and butter, about how to spend the budget. We get to have these robust family arguments, and they get rambunctious, from time to time, in order to avoid violence. That is the American way.

What we are seeing over the last 2 weeks is its own kind of violence: the pardoning of those who attacked this house on January 6, the permission structure to do it again, the gaslighting, telling Federal workers who are working hard for you on one day: Don't come to work the next day. That is its own kind of violence, and it must be condemned by all Americans who believe in the covenant we have with one another.

And so when we are talking about Federal workers, we are talking about hard-working folks I know. Don't allow them to turn these people into some vague and nebulous dark picture of somebody you don't recognize. These are your neighbors. These are the folks who are practicing medicine and nursing care in our VA hospitals. These are those who manage our Social Security payments. These are the folks who are keeping our military bases operating safely and efficiently, ensuring folks get their tax returns on time, helping Georgians navigate their student loans, keeping our airports operating safely, providing critical support for our children, assisting farmers with loans, protecting our public health system and our public schools, eradicating diseases that know no borders, protecting our clean air and water.

These are your neighbors. These are your family members. These are not villains.

Always be wary of politicians who tell us to be afraid of each other. They are the ones you should fear and be concerned about.

These are people throughout Georgia, our Nation's Capital, and scattered across the country, dedicated to healthy and safe communities, helping to build that more perfect Union we claim to aspire to.

And so to these public servants who quietly and nobly do the people's work day by day, know this: I appreciate you. We appreciate you. And we have got your back because, in so many ways, you have had ours.

But these tens of thousands of Georgians are now living in fear that their ability to support themselves and their families are at risk. Just today, dozens of Georgians visited my Atlanta office, some of whom have already lost their jobs through the abrupt dismantling of USAID, and they are worried about how they will keep their lights on and take care of their children.

A young woman came to my office yesterday, a single mother who works for USAID, doing noble work. It is indeed a humanitarian cause to care for the sick, the poor, the most marginalized members of the human family.

It is that, to be sure, but it is national security.

It is keeping us safe as Americans, and it is a smart investment. It is less than 1 percent of the budget--one-half of 1 percent. And for that we get programs like PEPFAR, a program that is perhaps the greatest humanitarian relief program in human history, saving millions of lives on the African continent, which pays dividends for us. These diseases know no borders.

This young woman that I met yesterday came to my office, a single mother. She was doing her work one day, and then she went to the doctor, and the doctor saw something in her test that was concerning and said: I need you to come back in a couple of days and get some more tests. And in between those days, she got notice and lost her job and her health insurance.

She deserves better than that. My mama taught me to treat people with respect, with human dignity, to know that when you look in the face of your neighbor, you see the image of God. Surely, people who have been working for us deserve better than that.

So people are anxious. People are concerned. Know that you are valued, and that we will continue to stand and fight on your behalf. But not only are the careers of these Federal workers on the chopping block, so too is the Federal funding that helps all of our communities and local economies run smoothly.

My constituents were deeply shaken by last week's Federal funding freeze. I received thousands of calls and emails, folks afraid of the freeze's unknown harm to their community.

So let's peel back the curtain even more on what happened over the last few days. The Trump administration froze trillions of dollars in government spending to enact massive and disruptive funding cuts. These cuts are being orchestrated in part by Russell Vought, in partnership with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, the co-President--this unelected, unvetted bureaucrat who, by my best guess, appears to think that the livelihood of Georgians and Americans is some kind of startup he can tear apart.

So if you want to get a sense of who President Trump is looking out for, look at who he is surrounding himself with. On that stage, when he was inaugurated, you saw them, some of the richest people in the world. They were the ones who had proximity.

Well, proximity matters. You can tell a whole lot about the character of a person's public service based on the people who can get close to them, the folks who get to speak into their ear.

If you want to know who Donald Trump is working for, look at who he is surrounding himself with, the likes of Elon Musk, the billionaire, the richest man in the world, who is now telling us--the rest of us-- that we need to tighten our belts--how quaint.

President Trump isn't serving you; he is serving them. He is serving those in our country who are well-off and who don't play by the rules, and putting at risk basic programs that help folks send their kids to school, keep food affordable, and lower their energy bills.

In fact, the other day, as a member of the Banking Committee, I asked President Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, who manages the finances for the entire U.S. Government, if in the administration's supposed quest to cut Federal spending and give it back to the American people, would he agree with allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans. If you are concerned about the Federal deficit, are you willing to let the tax cuts put in place by Trump during his first term to expire for the wealthiest of Americans? Perhaps, we can return to the tax policies that we had during the Bush administration, even if just by a dollar.

And when I asked the nominee that question, now-Secretary Bessent, he said: No, we can't afford to allow those tax cuts to expire.

I said: What about folks making over $400,000 a year?

He said: No.

I said: What about millionaires?

He said: No.

I said: Well, what about billionaires?

No.

So when Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies go looking for spending cuts, and they are focused on cutting government waste, they start by targeting the working class. They target the people who work the hardest and play by the rules. He said he couldn't cut taxes for billionaires because they are the job creators. What about the folks who just work on the job day-to-day? What about the folks who clean hospitals? who mop floors? who pick up our garbage? who do a day's work for an honest pay?

Why is it that those at the top deserve so much more than those who are working at the bottom? those in the middle? hard-working Americans who play by the rules?

Already we have seen Secretary Bessent give the world's richest man the keys to the kingdom, allowing him to prowl around in the sensitive data and systems of the Treasury Department. Whoever heard of any such thing as this? What is a billionaire doing with access to the system that handles Grandma's Social Security check?

Look, I will work with anyone who is able to have a serious bipartisan conversation about how to best utilize government resources and taxpayer dollars. Working across the aisle to get good things done for Georgia has been a cornerstone of my service in the Senate over the past 4 years. I am listed as one of the most bipartisan Senators in the Senate. I have worked with Republicans many, many times.

But right now, the playbook is obvious: Cut programs that you rely on and give the richest of the rich the money. Robin Hood in reverse: Steal from the poor; give to the rich.

And as this plan unfolds at a breakneck pace, I think it is important that we remind people that Project 2025 aims, again, to shift our democracy from citizenship to ownership, to shift the President from citizen to owner. Donald Trump the real estate developer and his billionaire friends want to own the country.

Last night, he suggested that we should own Gaza as well. Imagine that.

Here is what else they have in store under Project 2025 and its leader Russell Vought: Increase costs for families by $4,000 a year by slapping a Trump sales tax on goods that families rely on like gas, food, clothing, medicine; cuts to Social Security and Medicare--hurting hundreds of thousands of Georgia seniors; elimination of Federal funding for K-12 education, impacting Georgians from the heart of Atlanta to our rural counties, all across our State; tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations while making working families foot the bill; gutting the Affordable Care Act, which will raise healthcare premiums and threaten coverage for hundreds and thousands of Georgians and millions across the country.

Their program would end student debt relief that assures their student loan payments don't consume the entirety of their paychecks. Their plan would reverse provisions of a law I secured that is capping insulin at $35 for seniors and lowering prescription drug costs.

And their program would eliminate Head Start, which provided me with an early childhood education when I was growing up in public housing in Savannah, GA. I stand tonight on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but I want you to know that you are looking at a Head Start kid. I know it works. This program that gives poor children a chance, which exposes them as preschoolers to literacy and a love of learning, which narrows the word gap between poor children and well-off children, and which puts them on the road to success. Head Start is a worthwhile investment. It is a recognition that God is an equal opportunity employer, that God creates genius and talent and possibility on all sides of the town, on both sides of the track, and you never know where the very person we need to do the work that needs to be done--we never know what ZIP code that kid will grow up in. And so we have to invest in Head Start. To cut it is shortsighted.

But not only that, we have to invest in all of these programs that provide a childcare safety net. So mamas and daddies can go to work and children can be safe and thrive and be exposed to learning and literacy.

And so I was deeply moved when I began to get calls from folks involved in providing childcare to our kids all across our State, childcare centers in neighborhoods--some forgotten--where people get up every day and go to work, and they do their best. I heard from Sweetie Pie's Learning Center in Macon, GA. They rely on Federal funding for childcare services, but this freeze meant that they missed their regular check that covers food costs, which left employees scrambling to make plans on how they could make ends meet while still caring for children in this community.

I am thinking now about the folks I heard from at Learning Hive in Lawrenceville, another childcare center navigating this chaos--delayed payments for childcare and parent services. And if the freeze remained in effect, they would only have enough money to make payroll for 2 weeks--2 weeks until your child is without care.

Think about that. As myself, a working father of two young children, I cannot imagine the stress and the confusion that that would bring to put food on the table, keep a roof over your heads, and make sure that your kids have a safe place to learn and play while you make it happen.

I am thinking about the folks at Easterseals childcare center in Clarkston, who are counting on this funding also for fresh meals for children living at 100 percent below the Federal poverty level. These kids risk going hungry in the wealthiest nation on the planet.

So let me be clear. Project 2025 is no longer theoretical. It is unfolding right before our very eyes in realtime. We are seeing these policies implemented every day, and the President, who claimed to disavow Project 2025, is putting its chief architect in charge of administering the Federal budget.

But we must not give in. We must not give up. We must not let those who would weaponize despair win. For many, it is dark right now. But my faith teaches me that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overcomes it not. And so let me say that even in a time like this, I am incredibly and immeasurably blessed because I get to do this work. I get to wake up every single day thinking about what I can do for the people who gave me the great honor of representing them in the Nation's Capital.

It is a great honor when the people of your State say: Since all of us can't go to that crazy place called Washington, DC, we are going to send you. And we are going to trust that in rooms of power where decisions are being made and deals are cut, you are always going to center the concerns of ordinary people. You are not going to forget about us.

And so I am honored that people all across the State of Georgia, from Bartow to Brantley County, when they took stock in the hopes for their families and their children and their grandmothers and grandfathers, they said again and again: We want you to go to Washington to fight for us.

I will tell you that, for me, that is a sacred covenant, not much unlike my first job: pastor. A promise to walk with the people even as you work for the people. And part of the reason that Georgians have again and again voted to send me to Washington is that they know that I will fight for them, but they also know why I will fight for them.

As a pastor in the Senate, Georgians know that I bring the moral lessons from my pastoral work with me to the Capitol every single day.

And so I am going to keep fighting. I am not going to stand by and allow folks to undo what we did to cap the costs of insulin. Why? Because as a pastor, I have spent countless days in hospital rooms. I have seen up close what diabetes untreated can do. I have seen the amputations. I have been there when folks have gotten the news that they have got to go on dialysis. When you need your insulin, you need your insulin. It is not a luxury; it is a requirement.

And so that informs my fight. When I cast my vote to fund programs that range from supporting law enforcement to veterans, from making food and housing more affordable to ensuring every kid has a fair shot at making it on a college campus or a technical college--I see these votes as an extension of my pastoral work, my work to create what Dr. King called ``the Beloved Community,'' a world where everyone is cared for and all of God's children can thrive. It is an honor when the people send you here to represent ordinary people.

And that is why I take such great offense to the illegal and immoral actions that I have seen over the last few days--to try and freeze Federal funds that center the needs of ordinary people for the purpose of enriching our country's wealthiest individuals. I am a Matthew 25 Christian: I was hungry, and you didn't feed me. I was sick and I was in prison, and you didn't visit me. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me.

And then there are those who will ask the Master: Master, when were you hungry? When were you thirsty? When were you sick with a preexisting condition and nobody came to see about you? When were you in prison? When were you a stranger, an immigrant?

The answer? Matthew 25 says: Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it also unto me.

Representing the people is holy work. It is noble work.

I return home to Georgia every weekend. I return to my pulpit every Sunday because I don't want to forget why I came here in the first place--to stand up for the very people Mr. Vought says are villains.

We all know that Donald Trump has a history of bailing on debts and shorting people of what they are owed, but our government is supposed to step in to protect hard-working individuals from bad actors who seek to take advantage of people. Yet we are seeing those bad actors fill our government's most powerful positions, playing fast and loose with taxpayer dollars at the expense of ordinary people. This is not how the most powerful government in the world ought to serve its people.

The reality is, this new level of Washington's dysfunction has real- world consequences that extend beyond Washington politicians. Georgia's economy does not stop just because Washington is exercising a kind of chaos. While we are trying to get our act together up here, guess what, farmers still need crop insurance, childcare workers and community health centers still need to make payroll, and our roads and our bridges and pipes still need repairs. When Federal investments are put in limbo, the stability of our States and local communities is also put in jeopardy.

Let me be clear. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it will try this again and again and again. When they do, the business community will suffer and Georgians will be out of their jobs unless we stand up and say no.

If this Federal funding freeze continues, as Russell Vought hopes, the impact will be felt hardest by those who can least afford it. It is easy in all the bluster of the beltway to forget who is actually bearing the brunt of Donald Trump's actions. Delays in funding are not just inconvenient; they create anxiety, instability, and they cost the jobs of our friends, our families, and our neighbors.

To be very clear, this is all unconstitutional. So why are so many of our colleagues across the aisle surrendering their constitutional responsibility that their voters elected them to carry out? While my colleagues remain silent while this new administration breaks the law, they are sacrificing their duty to their constituents in service to one man occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Well, I don't work for him, and I don't work for some oligarch threatening to run for my seat or run somebody for my seat. I work for the people of Georgia. It is this obsession with power, it is this obsession with the next election that has left us in this place in which we find ourselves tonight.

So it is up to us in this moment to stand up. I am listening to the people who sent me to represent them. I am thinking about those who do the work every single day. It is our job to respond to the call and the urgency of this moment. History will not treat us kindly if we are silent at a time like this.

In closing--and nobody believes a preacher when he says ``in closing,'' but I think my colleague is ready--in closing, Senator, I was thinking the other day about the dark challenges that your people have been through.

During the era of the Third Reich--and I am never quick to raise the specter of that ugly time--there was a pastor by the name of Martin Niemoller who, in the midst of the ugliness of that dark time, said:

First they came for the Communists and I didn't speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

When they come for one of us, they come for all of us.

Dr. King said:

We are tied . . . in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Ironically and tragically, we learned from COVID-19--a deadly pandemic, airborne--that if my neighbor is sick, not only is she sick, I potentially am imperiled. That doesn't make my neighbor my enemy; that means that in my enlightened self-interest, I ought to be concerned about her healthcare, that I ought to want her to be covered so I can be covered.

We are all in this together, so we must stand up in this defining moment and resist those who would have us be afraid of one another because of our differences, because of our diversity, and know that we are one people. That is the American way.

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