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Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, I will bet a lot of folks watching tonight cannot believe that we are here, talking about the Office of Management and Budget. The Office of Management and Budget--there is nothing more bureaucratic sounding in this whole city, and that says something. It is not an office Arizonans should really have to think about, let alone see their Senators debate for hours.

Think of this: Think of this office as our government's financial planner. They keep track of spending for everything from veterans' benefits to disaster relief for communities. When Flagstaff gets hit by flooding or North Scottsdale gets hit by a major wildfire, this is the office that signs off on Federal relief. Every single Federal Agency must go through the Office of Management and Budget to access the dollars that Congress writes into law for the work they do for the American people.

When it is working right, this is the office that helps build the Federal budget and then makes sure it gets executed according to the law, but that is the problem. Under this administration, it is not working right, and it is not following the law.

We saw this a week ago when this office tried to illegally freeze all Federal grants. In the most reckless, incompetent action we have seen yet from this administration, they issued a two-page memo--two pages-- that said:

Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.

This effort is now temporarily blocked by the courts, but it created a mess all over the country, and it still isn't fixed.

We had Head Start Programs in Arizona that nearly had to lay off staff and turn families away because they didn't get the payments they were promised. I had Arizona community health centers in my office today that just had a frozen payment come through, but it was more than a week late.

Are there places where we need to make Federal spending more efficient and effective? Of course there are, and I am willing to get together with anyone who wants to make our government work better, who wants to save taxpayer dollars, and who wants to improve people's lives. But that is not what the Trump administration is trying to do here because their endgame is not efficiency; it is not being more responsible with taxpayer dollars. The endgame of all of this is giving rich people another massive tax break on the backs of hard-working Americans.

The endgame of all of this--and, folks, we have heard a lot about this from Elon Musk over the last few weeks, about unelected, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats. Elon Musk is himself a billionaire and an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat who is illegally shutting down Federal Agencies that make Americans safer and more prosperous.

Today, we are debating someone whose very reason for getting picked for this job is that he wants to break the law and be an unaccountable bureaucrat. We know this because Russell Vought has had this job before. When he was picked for this the last time, he told Congress he would follow the law. He said he wouldn't delay or refuse to spend money that was appropriated by Congress. He said he would follow a law that was passed by Republicans and Democrats in 1974 in response to Richard Nixon trying to abuse the powers of his office. He said he would follow that law. He lied.

He held up critical funds to support Ukraine. This was in 2019, before Russia invaded Ukraine. An independent government watchdog found that this broke the law.

Then again, after Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged Puerto Rico and Congress passed aid to help communities recover, Vought broke the law again by blocking the funds. Congress passed them again, but do you know what he did? Russell Vought blocked those funds once again.

This is what an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat looks like-- Russell Vought.

Agree with these programs or disagree with them--Congress, Republicans and Democrats, voted for them. If folks don't like it, they can vote out their Members of Congress. That is what accountability means. It is not up to this guy to decide. But now it is very clear what he believes because after he left this job the last time, he went a step further. He has said plainly that the law he broke was unconstitutional and that the next time he gets in there, he doesn't think he has to follow it.

He wrote about this in his playbook, Project 2025. Do you remember that?

Now, I evaluate each and every nominee based on whether they have the experience and are committed to doing the job. Nothing disqualifies someone faster, in my mind, then when they say ahead of time that they plan to break the law. He has said that. That means he will try to singlehandedly gut the programs he and President Trump disagree with.

But what are they? Well, he spelled it out himself in budgets he has written.

He wants to cut housing support by 43 percent, including completely eliminating the largest source of housing assistance for Arizonans, and that is going to put working families on the streets.

He wants to end the expansion of Medicaid that has extended coverage to 600,000 Arizonans through a program called AHCCCS. That means more Arizonans without health insurance and unable to get the care they need. Also on the list are student loans, food assistance, and so much more.

Russell Vought wants to make it harder to afford a place to live, harder to afford health insurance, harder to afford college, and harder to afford to put food on your table. For anybody listening, do any of those things matter to you?

If he gets this job, there won't be any debate on the Senate floor about these cuts. We won't be able to have a conversation about how to make housing assistance more effective for working families. There won't be bipartisan hearings about where we can cut waste and fraud out of programs to save money and focus where it is needed. Nope. He is just going to try to stop funding these things on his own. He said he would do that. He said he is going to break the law. He has told everybody that.

That is why President Trump picked him for the job in the first place because, remember, none of this is about efficiency. None of this is about looking out for everyday Americans. This is about billionaires paving the way to get another tax cut for themselves and for their corporations and to do so on the backs of you, hard-working Americans.

Folks, we have been here before. The first time around, President Trump signed a tax giveaway that he said was going to grow the economy and help working people, but that is not what happened. In the years since that tax bill was passed, we have seen a massive transfer of wealth to the richest Americans. That is part of the reason why Elon Musk is now worth more than $400 billion. More big profitable corporations are now paying nothing in Federal income tax. Zero.

The plan is to double down on tax breaks for the rich while, behind closed doors, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats like Russell Vought and Elon Musk, they gut programs that help working families. I couldn't think of a more backward way for the Federal Government to operate.

We are supposed to be here to make government work for the American people. And I will sit down with anybody to make that happen. But the plan seems to be to break the Federal Government in order to help rich people, and I can't get on board with that.

I want to yield the balance of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Merkley.

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