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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, we are 50 days into Donald Trump's second term, and the American economy is already in free fall; prices are soaring, stocks are plummeting, and people are panicking about a recession. None of this was inevitable. All of this is Trump's own making.

This week after Trump couldn't categorically rule out that his policies would lead to a recession, Nasdaq had its worst day in years while the Dow Jones dropped a whopping 1,300 points. But it is not just the stock market that is taking a hit; it is regular people everywhere.

Consumer confidence is down by 7 points--7 points in 50 days--since Trump took office, and spending has dropped for the first time in 2 years. The dollar is weaker, hiring is slowing, interest rates are unlikely to come down, and the GDP is expected to shrink this quarter for the first time in 3 years.

You know, usually Presidents get too much blame or too much credit for the state of the economy but not this time. Trump is going out of his way to plunge the economy into chaos and make life harder for everyone. Whether you are buying groceries or trading stocks or hoping to retire next month, you are getting hit.

When the Commerce Secretary was asked yesterday about a potential recession, he said: ``It's worth it.''

``It's worth it.''

They actually think a recession would be worth it. And if the economic numbers coming in are bad, if they show that the economy is shrinking or the costs are rising, their solution is to cook the books to make them seem better because when the data is bad, change it. Everybody knows that.

Instead of getting to work on lowering prices on day one, like he said he would, the President has spent his days plotting the rebirth of a gilded age with tariffs and tax cuts. That was a time when the rich got richer while everyone else got screwed.

Trump tells a different story.

We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That's when we were a tariff country. . . . We were a very wealthy country, and we're going to be [that way again].

So I just want to make clear, yes, I am a partisan. Yes, I think Donald Trump is screwing up the economy. But it is really important for us to understand they actually do have a theory of the case, and that is the golden age from 1870 to 1913. I didn't say that; the President said that. I didn't say ``Hey, these guys think a recession is worth it.'' They said a recession is worth it.

It is true that in the gilded age, some people were very wealthy then. Robber barons and business tycoons built enormous empires on the backs of working people, who had little to show for it. Profits boomed. Billionaires emerged. Regular people suffered in tenements and on factory floors, and poverty was everywhere. But the gilded age is exactly what the President is trying to recreate.

Whether it is tariffs on our largest trading partners that will jack up the price of our food or our homes or our cars or mass layoffs of the people who inspect our food or keep the skies safe or care for our veterans or the tax cuts for the richest people to ever exist, funded by slashing regular people's healthcare and hard-earned retirement savings, all of this is about taking money from people who don't have enough and handing it over to people who already have more than anyone has ever had.

Whether you voted for Trump or not, whether you believed he would be good on the economy or not, whatever sort of side of the political, tribal, ideological, partisan, algorithmic divide that we are all experiencing in our little filter bubbles on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter and wherever else we get our disaggregated information, this economy sucks. People are paying too much.

It is the intentional policy of the President's economic team to recreate a time when--until just about 50 days ago, everybody agreed we should never go back to that time. Kids working on factory floors, people working 70 hours and not able to feed their family, unprecedented disparity between the extremely wealthy and everybody else--that is what they are explicitly going for.

This is not me putting spin on the ball. That is what they are saying. That is what the Commerce Secretary is saying. That is what the Treasury Secretary is saying. That is what the President of the United States is saying. This is their plan, and it is going according to plan.

These people have the ability to short things and ride the volatility and monetize all of the craziness and make side deals and do crypto and park their assets here and there. They make money no matter what. But if you are retiring next month with a 401(k) or an IRA or a 403(b), you just got screwed. Trillions of dollars of wealth were eliminated.

And the President sprang into action. Why? For what purpose? To help his buddy sell cars on the White House lawn. I don't have a preference for electric cars or nonelectric cars. I don't care. That is fine. But what a weird thing to spring into action about when everybody is getting kicked in the face economically except his buddies.

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