Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Internal Revenue Service Relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting By Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales''

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, no one wants a shutdown--well, actually, no one except Elon Musk, who recently said that sounds great, or Donald Trump or Russ Vought.

That is why I have been at the table this entire time ready to pass a bill that protects key investments and makes sure that Congress-- Congress, not Donald Trump or Elon Musk--decides whether or not our public schools or our lifesaving cancer research gets funded.

Unfortunately, Republican leadership told their Members last week to walk away from the negotiating table--which raises the risk of a shutdown--in an attempt to pass a clean yearlong continuing resolution that would actually give Trump and Musk exactly what they want, fewer restraints and more power over Federal spending so they can pick winners and losers as they see fit, which would hurt all of our constituents.

Nonetheless, I am urging Republican leadership to come back to the table, if they are willing to do that, and work with us on full-year funding bills, the type of work we do together every year and prevent a shutdown while we do that.

We cannot stand by and accept a yearlong power grab CR that would help Elon take a chain saw to programs that families rely on like yours or keeps our Agencies together, that keep our communities safe.

We actually have a job to do here, Republicans and Democrats, to be a voice for our constituents, to advocate for the funding they need, and to get support back to our communities.

I heard my House Republican colleagues say they will not restrict a Republican President's powers. I want to be clear. What I am asking for is to work together to make sure, as we write and negotiate these full- year spending bills, that our laws get followed. I welcome and I want everyone to know I am open to any and all ideas about how we can work together to do that.

I am confident we can get this done. I am ready to pass a short-term CR immediately to take down the risk of a shutdown so that we can finish our negotiations and write our full-year spending bills, which is our job to do. Today, on a topic I believe appropriators actually on both sides of the aisle would agree with, we need far more information and transparency and accountability from the Trump administration in order to write these bills because here is one big problem: How are we supposed to fund the government when many of our Agencies today are not responding to our questions and we have no picture--clear picture--of what is actually or who is actually in charge of many of our Agencies?

It is clear as day there have been a lot of dramatic changes made across the government. Agencies are being illegally shuttered; workers are being fired by the thousands--again, often in direct violation of laws we have passed--and hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal programs and grants have been frozen, unfrozen, and frozen again. We have had contracts that have been recklessly canceled, some accidentally and then restarted, not to mention the workers who were fired and rehired.

It is incredibly chaotic, and it makes it much harder to write our legislation that actually responds to these latest developments when programs are switching on and off again like a 2-year-old who is playing with a light switch and when the number of people and programs illegally terminated remains unclear. It is much more difficult to write funding bills for Department programs when we have no idea what the Department is actually doing or what the actual plan is for next year or if it is actually they or, perhaps, DOGE making the plans in the first place. We are seeing decisions made and reversed and made and ignored--made by people who have no authority to make them, and yet they are seemingly being implemented.

It is not just the whirlwind of decisions that is causing this chaos; it is the complete lack of transparency and accountability surrounding these decisions from Trump and Musk that makes it all but impossible to get a straight answer.

When we have questions that urgently need answers, like: Why has this energy program been frozen or when will the NIH grants start up again or which VA contracts have actually been scrapped or how many workers have been pushed out? then it helps if we know who is actually in charge.

When our constituents have problems that require solutions quickly or they will have to close a business or lay people off or lose their family farms, then it matters that we can get the right person on the phone to get things resolved.

Yet, when there is information we urgently need so we can write our funding bills and avoid a shutdown, like Agencies' priorities or unexpected challenges or just the basic nuts and bolts of stuff--to say nothing of the information we need to address the very extraordinary circumstances and decisions of the past few weeks--it is totally unclear who we should actually be talking to if we want answers that actually reflect the reality of what is happening. It is totally unclear who is actually making these decisions and who is actually in charge. Appropriators have now sent over 30 letters to Agencies since January 20, asking just to understand Agency actions, and that is to say nothing of the efforts from me and my staff to get answers to our emails and our calls, but the answers have been few and very far between.

What is more, just because we hear something from someone who should know and just because we hear from someone who should be in charge, we have found that it does not mean it is actually true. There has been more than one time in the past few weeks when we have been told one thing only to see the reality is entirely different. Like, for example, when the OMB funding freeze was implemented and we were told it wouldn't affect Head Start, except that it did affect Head Start. Providers in my State were locked out of that payment system for days even after the funding freeze itself was rescinded.

It seems like the only thing that has been consistent about the last few weeks is that every time there has been chaos, every time I see actions that fly in the face of laws we have passed--not to mention common sense--or contradict what I have heard from Agency leaders, DOGE has been at the center of it. We have seen DOGE absolutely trample the authority of Congress and other Federal Agencies, including officials Congress confirmed.

For example, while Secretary Rubio instituted a recklessly broad and illegal freeze of all foreign assistance funding, he publicly announced exceptions for a limited set of programs, including lifesaving aid, the basic idea being that we probably shouldn't let HIV spread rampant, and we probably shouldn't let food grown right here in America rot in ports while children starve. Causing mass death through pointless negligence is not really a good strategy for bolstering our global reputation. It is cruel, and it is self-defeating.

So, as Secretary of State, he made the exception, but DOGE had other plans, because on the rare occasion that what was left of USAID staff who had not been sidelined was able to clear these payments through the Agency's interim leadership--surprise--DOGE staffers would veto those payments anyway. Keep in mind, we know about this not because DOGE disclosed it or State disclosed it. We know only because of reporting.

That is not how this works. Congress and the American people we represent should not be out of the loop, especially given the serious stakes here and the serious questions that remain, like: On what authority did they veto those payments? Whose orders did they use to overrule the Secretary?

I, for one, would very much like to know, because while the Secretary is guilty of plenty of attacks on his workforce and programs, it certainly seems like the Secretary of State got steamrolled on numerous occasions without even knowing it. If that is the case, who are we supposed to talk to with questions about States' funding needs--the Secretary or the two DOGE minions who actually have their hands directly on the levers of power here?

And let's not forget about what happened at Treasury. DOGE wanted access to our most secure systems. Agency officials told them no, and then the Agency officials were told they are fired. That sent a chilling message to our Federal workers: You stand up to DOGE at your own peril.

It is not just Treasury. DOGE has been worming its way into Department after Department, making a beeline for the most sensitive systems, including ones storing my constituents' sensitive financial data, and bulldozing over anyone who stands in their way for any reason. We don't even know who all of these people are or whether they even have security clearances. They have even had people fired for denying them access to classified material beyond their security levels. That is how completely unchecked their power has become. We have incredibly little insight into what they are actually doing with those sensitive systems. We have seen DOGE claim they can only view some data. That is already deeply concerning, but there are also plenty of indications they have been given more power at times. They are interested in tinkering around with some of these systems, too, or are unaccountably blocking payments like we saw at USAID.

Let's talk about the Defense Department because, first, Secretary Hegseth was saying he wanted to revive the ``warrior spirit'' at the Department, but now he is telling employees to reply to DOGE's weekly emails. He is firing thousands of defense personnel, and he is asking every corner of DOD to propose major cuts.

So, as an appropriator trying to write full-year bills that fund our military, which is it--major increases or major cuts? And who do I ask about Department needs? Is it up to the Secretary or up to DOGE? Who at DOGE is even steering this ship? We need to know this kind of thing, and we really needed to, like, know yesterday because we have a deadline coming up for funding the military.

We have some serious questions for whoever is in charge about how the administration is approaching things. When I say ``whoever is in charge,'' I don't mean who is in charge on paper, because it seems like there is a big disconnect. I mean, Who is actually making decisions and driving actions at our Agencies and at DOGE for that matter?

Look. First, Elon was running DOGE with Vivek. Then it was just Elon. Then it supposedly wasn't Elon at all, but then Elon kept right on posting about hiring decisions like someone in charge and rehiring an individual who resigned after their blatant racism came to light. He kept right on doing press availabilities with the President in the Oval Office to discuss his work at DOGE like someone in charge. So it sure looks like Elon is still the head of DOGE. Even after we were all finally told, with great supposed certainty, that DOGE was actually being run by another person no one had ever mentioned, we then promptly learned, oh, she is on vacation, and the very next day, we saw Elon briefing the Cabinet on what he is doing at DOGE.

If that all seems confusing or contradictory, I don't think it is an accident as much as a smokescreen--one that seems designed to hide the obvious fact that Elon Musk is the one who is calling the shots at DOGE. All of us here in Congress really need to know that because he is the richest man in the world, with billions, actually, in government contracts on the line. He is, apparently, in charge of his own conflicts of interest. And we are just supposed to trust him? Has he recused himself from a single decision? We haven't heard anything about that.

As a steward of taxpayer dollars who wants to make sure the bills we write are implemented to help my constituents, not Elon Musk's bottom line, I would like to know: Did the owner of SpaceX recuse himself from decisions gutting NASA? Did the owner of Tesla interfere at all in the funding freezes that hurt his competition in the electric vehicle market? Does the guy who posted criticizing of Verizon's work for FAA and pitching his own company's Starlink as an alternative have anything to do with the reports the government may reverse course now on the Verizon contract? Did the guy selling satellite internet have any role in halting funds that were helping my constituents have access to broadband?

What about all of the watchdogs who have been fired--people reviewing Neuralink devices at the FDA? people at the Agency that reviews the safety of Tesla's self-driving cars? or the inspector general looking into Elon's connections to foreign governments?

Despite what Musk likes to pretend, it is not in the slightest bit transparent for him alone to be deciding what he hides and what he shares about his role in government, nor is it transparent when DOGE is posting updates that are often completely inaccurate--from getting basic math wrong to getting wrong basic timelines of what Trump did versus Biden to not understanding how our contracts work and counting the same cuts over and over and over again. They aren't being transparent. They are muddying up the waters with falsehoods and disinformation and making it that much harder for us to write meaningful funding bills in the next few days.

I mean, if DOGE doesn't even know what programs they have cut and how much they have cut, how are we supposed to understand how these decisions hurt our constituents? How are we supposed to write legislation that rejects the cuts we find harmful or even aligns if there are areas of agreement?

We need real answers from DOGE, and we need them as soon as possible. So, once again, I am requesting that Elon Musk come before Congress for a hearing in order to be held accountable to the American people. Tell us: What exactly are you doing? Why are you firing Federal employees whose salaries are covered by fees, not by taxpayer dollars? Why are you firing our veterans by the thousands who are doing work to support our communities? Why are you planning to fire the people who make sure seniors get their Social Security checks? Who are the people who work for you? How were they vetted? What are your long-term plans for this Agency? Based on what authority are you overruling our Secretaries, directing Federal workers, and ignoring the laws we have passed here in Congress?

America is waiting. We are losing valuable time. Congress and the American people deserve answers, and we need them to do their jobs.

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