Budget Reconciliation

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, the folks in my State are working hard but finding it tough to get ahead.

Now, let's just look at the price of eggs. The Hickman's Family Farms is one of the top egg producers in the country, and they are the biggest in our State. They have millions of birds producing millions and millions of eggs that feed the State of Arizona and the country. Like so many of the other egg producers, they are getting decimated by bird flu. They have had to put down a lot of their hens--more than a million--because of this disease. The story is the same with egg producers across the country, and this is having a serious impact on family budgets.

The Safeway down the road from my house in Tucson is now charging $9.49 a dozen for eggs, and I can't remember ever seeing it this high. Some grocery stores are rationing eggs, only allowing customers to buy one or two cartons at a time. If you go to the Waffle House, you are paying a surcharge for each egg that you buy. Now, who has ever heard of such a thing?

Now, what I want to know is, where are Donald Trump and Elon Musk? Well, a few days ago, they accidentally fired a bunch of people at the Department of Agriculture whose job it is to stop this outbreak. The next question you may ask is: Why? Why would they do this? Why are Elon Musk and Donald Trump slashing and cutting so recklessly that they would fire the people working to stop bird flu?

Well, Mr. President, it is because of what is in front of us here in the Senate this week. They want to take the next steps toward a big tax giveaway for rich people, but they have to find some ways to pay for it. It is wrapped up in all this budget bureaucracy stuff, but here is the crux of it: making health coverage and food more expensive for working families--that is what is going to happen. Slashing essential government functions and services that keep Americans safe, cutting investments in high-speed internet and energy manufacturing that creates jobs, and at the same time, exploding our national debt--all of this is so that the richest people and corporations in America can pay less taxes.

Now, I am all for finding efficiencies in our budget and cutting bureaucracy. That is a smart thing to do. We need to get rid of the waste. We need to call out abuse. We need to root out fraud. We need a tax system that is fair and that makes sense, one that gives hard- working people a chance to get ahead, that spurs innovation. But that is not what this is. This is a handout for rich people paid for by you, the American taxpayer--paid for by your families and your children.

The richest of the rich billionaires, Elon Musk, is gutting the everyday programs that he doesn't agree with, and he is keeping the ones that cut checks to his businesses through big government contracts--all of this to pay for the tax cuts for him, for his companies, and for his billionaire friends.

We know this because we have seen this before. Last time around, in 2017, President Trump signed a similar tax giveaway. He made the corporate tax rate so low that it is now lower than the rate for a married couple making about $100,000 a year. Does that seem fair? It doesn't to me. And that is before you count the tax loopholes that corporations get and that your families do not.

Did those corporate CEOs pass those savings along to their workers? Of course, they didn't. They used it to enrich themselves and their shareholders, and it was all to benefit the richest people, people who didn't actually need any help.

But, Mr. President, don't take my word for this. Here is the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is a quote:

As this debate unfolds, policymakers and the public should understand that the 2017 Trump tax law was skewed to the rich.

I go on:

Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.

As a share of after-tax income, tax cuts at the top--for both households in the top 1 percent and the top 5 percent-- are more than triple--

Three times--three times-- the total value of the tax cuts received for people with incomes in the bottom 60 percent.

Trump administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would ``very conservatively'' lead to a $4,000 boost in household income. [However,] new research shows that workers who earned less than $114,000 on average in 2016 saw ``no change in earnings'' from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.

What this means, Mr. President, is that the rich got richer, and everybody else, they got left behind. That is just wrong. It also made it even tougher for hard-working families to get ahead.

Now, President Trump wants to do this all over again. Here is what an analyst from the same center, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, testified to Congress about his new plan:

Permanently extending the tax cuts would benefit households in the top 1 percent more than twice as much as those in the bottom 60 percent as a share of their incomes--providing a roughly $41,000 annual tax cut for the top 1 percent compared to $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, on average-- at a cost of around $300 billion per year.

Again, if you are in the top 1 percent, you are going to get $4,000, and all those people in the bottom 60 percent, what are they going to get? 500 bucks. That is it. Extend tax cuts for rich people and create new loopholes, and do it all by going after the kind of things that create great-paying jobs, that help working families, and that move our economy into the future.

We all understand that our economy is changing fast. We need the industries of the future to be based here in the United States, creating great-paying jobs that you can actually raise a family on, reducing our reliance on supply chains that cross an ocean. We have seen the benefit of that in Arizona, where we are a hub for everything from microchips to batteries.

I have spoken to workers who were stuck, who didn't know how to jump- start their career, who didn't know how to find that next job. They found opportunities, in some cases to enter an apprenticeship or skills program and get a good-paying job, the kind of job that you could actually raise a family on that does not require a 4-year degree.

Mr. President, I know in West Virginia there are so many folks that are looking for these opportunities. They are in my State. I know they are in yours. These are the folks that make things like solar panels and batteries and microchips that power our country, that power our economy. And these folks that get these jobs, they have pride that they are building these things here in the United States of America.

I will never forget about speaking to one woman whom I met on a Zoom call about jobs and about opportunity. She had trouble finding a job for over a year. She had three kids. She was having so much trouble supporting her kids, and then she found an email in her spam folder, of all places, and it encouraged her to apply for this thing called the Quick Start program at Estrella Mountain Community College. And in this program, she was going to learn how to be a microchip, semiconductor manufacturing technician.

Now, it was in her spam folder. So she was a little hesitant. But she called the phone number. She took a chance. She applied to this program, and she got in.

It was a 2-week program, and, at the end of it, she had a guarantee that she would get an interview with a semiconductor manufacturer.

Well, she did that interview. She got the job at Intel, and this job has changed not only her life but the life of her kids.

Now, Mr. President, that is a story that is being repeated over and over again in my State, in the semiconductor industry, and I am sure in West Virginia, where people are benefiting from these opportunities that we have created, not just in one industry but in multiple industries.

Mr. President, this could all come to a screeching halt if Elon Musk and Donald Trump use it to pay for their tax cuts for rich people. Just today, President Trump slashed staff that are making the CHIPS programs a success, and that is going to slow us down, and it is going to give China a chance to catch up.

We don't want that to happen. This is a national security issue for this country. We want to see the next generation of microchips developed, tested, and produced here in America, not in China.

Trump and Musk's actions make that harder. And they have set their sights on the very incentives that are making this happen, especially when it comes to clean energy manufacturing.

And what is that going to do, Mr. President? Well, here is what it is going to do. It is going to ship these jobs back overseas to other countries.

China and other countries are more than happy to fill this vacuum, and they will flood the market with cheap solar panels and cheap batteries.

Mr. President, who does that hurt? It hurts working Americans who depend on these jobs to support their families. And that is not just in Arizona or in blue States or blue cities. This will hurt communities in every corner of our country.

For example, listen to this. This is about Oklahoma. This is an article from this morning, and it is about something the Governor-- Governor Stitt--said about his State. In the article it says:

[Governor Stitt] has spearheaded a clean energy manufacturing boom in his State that has complimented Oklahoma's large oil and gas industry and a growing wind power sector that provides 40 percent of its electricity. But some of Trump's moves could undermine that progress, including his halt on leasing, permitting and approvals of wind projects, along with his effort to claw back funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure [bill].

[Governor] Stitt also said he doesn't--

He does not--

support Trump's call to repeal IRA clean energy tax credits that have drawn investments to GOP-led States like Oklahoma since companies have based their investments on these incentives. He said he plans to discuss Trump's wind and IRA policies in conversations this week with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who is expected to attend the Republican governors meeting.

This article went on. It continued and it said:

That was a deal that was cut.

This is what Stitt said. Governor Stitt said that of the IRA tax credits.

He said:

Congress has got to opine on this, but a deal is a deal, and you can't back out of some of those things.

So here you have a Republican Governor in the State of Oklahoma who is worried about clean energy jobs in his State being slashed--all of this so that President Trump can pay for tax cuts for rich people. It is that simple, and it is not going to end here. We are talking about trillions of dollars in tax cuts--trillions.

We have seen, over the past few weeks, that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are ready to put a halt to infrastructure projects. Here is how that has played out on the Hopi Nation in Arizona. This is reporting from just last week:

Timothy Nuvangyaoma, [he is] the chair of the Hopi Tribe in Arizona. [They] had applied for and received some $90 million in Federal funding for solar power projects, battery installations and microgrids, [that he] hoped [would] support . . . finally bringing power to the 30 percent of homes on the Hopi Nation that are not served by a local utility.

This is from the article:

He predicted on-site clean power would end blackouts in some areas that led to food spoiling and medical equipment blinking offline.

Now, President Donald Trump's broad funding freeze covering some of the Biden administration's clean energy spending has thrown tribal projects into limbo. As of Thursday morning, funding for the Hopi Tribe that had been approved remains suspended. Two awards--$4 million for a solar powered microgrid to run wells and pump water and $4 million for a battery project--had not been finalized before Trump's inauguration, meaning it's possible that they could be rescinded.

Also from this article, Mr. President, it says:

``We have real lives at stake. The funding freeze is truly having an impact on living, breathing individuals,'' [the Chairman] said in an interview.

And he said--and this is a quote:

I can't even think of a strong enough word, this is so important for us. We had part of a solution come our way, and now it's [been] taken away.

The chairman said--he went on, and he said, ``We have real lives at stake,'' but to Elon Musk and President Trump, that pales in comparison to cutting taxes for rich people.

Mr. President, we have always had highway projects in Arizona face uncertainty. But this week, they fired a tenth of the Forest Service workforce and froze hiring just ahead of what might be another devastating fire season. Firefighters--wildfire firefighters--got laid off.

And there are Colorado River water conservation projects that have had their funding frozen right now. And this is no small thing.

The Colorado River is a crucial water source for the American Southwest, supporting millions of people, vast agricultural lands, and industries across seven States.

But the impact is even broader than that. If you eat lettuce in the winter, chances are it came from Yuma, AZ, from a farm that uses water from the Colorado River.

We have been facing a severe long-term drought that has drained reservoirs along the river, with Lake Mead and Lake Powell falling to dangerously low levels. So there has been a series of agreements to keep more water in the reservoirs; that is going to buy us some time.

And during that time, Tribes, cities, farmers can invest in infrastructure that makes them more water efficient. But after Elon Musk and Donald Trump froze these programs, there is incredible uncertainty.

This is a system that depends on trust, and they just pulled the rug out from Arizona farmers, from Arizona businesses, from Arizona Tribes, from Arizona communities. It is a rug pull, and that puts the entire river system at risk. And for what? To pay for tax giveaways for rich people.

What else will they set their sights on? Well, Elon Musk and President Trump also froze funding for high-speed internet expansion. This is a bipartisan investment to bring internet access to every corner of our country. An internet connection is essential to nearly everything today from taking a class to booking a doctor's appointment to staying in touch with the news or your family. And you shouldn't need to live in a big city or in a suburb to have reliable internet, and expanding broadband creates great-paying local jobs.

Gutting American manufacturing and infrastructure to pay for tax giveaways for rich people and big corporations, it does not make our country better off. It just helps rich people get richer. It is pretty simple math. But it also kills jobs for hard-working Americans in the industries of the future, like clean energy.

And it also invites China to take those jobs back, take jobs from Americans who are just trying to get by. It doesn't help American families pay their grocery bills.

What the President is doing, what Elon Musk is doing, it is just wrong. We should be focused on the things that matter, lowering prices for people and solving real problems. Helping rich people get richer, that is not a real problem.

When I am at home in Arizona, you know what folks want us to be working on here? Cost of groceries, cost of healthcare, better-paying jobs, safer communities, better schools.

What you did not hear on that list was making sure rich people have more money in their pockets. I doubt a single person in my State would tell me that cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations should be at the top of the list. It should not be on the top of the Senate's list either.

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