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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Americans are worried that the money in their pockets will not cover the increasing costs of gas and groceries and housing or healthcare. Meanwhile, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is worried that the money in Americans' pockets doesn't currently have his face or his signature on it.

You know, in 2020, Congress passed a law to produce new coins to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. In that law, we wrote that the coins should be emblematic of our 250th anniversary--the U.S. semiquincentennial celebration of 250 years of the vision of a democratic Republic--of a government by and for the people; of our values as a free people, with the rights of free speech and free assembly and free expression. Well, certainly, this we know--that the symbol of putting a sitting President or leader on a coin is not a symbol of a democratic Republic; it is a symbol of an authoritarian strongman.

If we turn the clock back to the year 44 BC, Julius Caesar was Emperor and he decided to have a coin with his face on it. He was the first to do so. It was a radical departure from Roman tradition, and it alarmed the Senate. It was viewed widely as a blatant display of personal power--of personal authoritarian power. And if you missed the point, on the backside of this coin, it had the words ``dictator perpetuo''--``dictator in perpetuity'' or ``dictator forever.'' That is what it represents to put your face on a coin.

Then, at the time our Nation was founded--and, again, we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of that vision--King George III put his face on a coin, on the silver sixpence, and it was viewed, as it was with Julius Caesar and the Emperors who followed him, as an expression of authoritarian personal power.

Does our Constitution provide for an authoritarian structure of government, where power flows down from the King to the people? I think not. It flows up from the people through elections.

That is why putting your face on a coin just is absolutely wrong and why it violates the very premise of the law that created the permission to have this 250th anniversary coin. The design that Trump has come up with--that of a fake gold coin with his face on it--violates the law that we passed. It is widely out of sync with the values of our Nation. It is widely out of sync with our history and our best traditions. So these coins should never be made, and, if made, they should never be distributed.

It is part of a long list of this authoritarian, would-be strongman, dictator President, who is trying to stamp his name onto every public place available. He is renaming the Kennedy Center for himself; renaming the U.S. Institute of Peace for himself; hanging ``Dear Leader''-sized, North Korean-style banners on the sides of the buildings here in Washington, DC; putting his face onto passports; putting his face onto the national park passes; naming a class of warships after himself; insisting that it be his signature, not the Treasury Secretary's signature on the currency; planning to build a massive triumphal arch to himself--and let's not forget: tearing down the ``People's House''--the East Wing of the White House--to build his gold-plated, billion-dollar ballroom boondoggle.

I say to my colleagues, whether they sit to the left of the aisle or to the right of the aisle, didn't we take the same oath to the same Constitution? Didn't we pledge ourselves to sustaining a democratic Republic, not a strongman state?

So I urge you: Join together--Ds and Rs together--to defend our Constitution; to defend the vision of a government by and for the people.

If we want to turn to the opinion of George Washington 250 years ago, what was his opinion? He was strongly opposed to having his portrait put on coins. Why? Because he considered it a King-like act, completely out of sync with the vision of the Nation we were founding.

Washington's example has endured. It has endured for 250 years until now. Well, my colleagues may say that there was one exception--one exception in 1926--when there was a coin of George Washington, and behind him, there was the outline of a face of President Calvin Coolidge, but it wasn't Calvin Coolidge on the coin. It wasn't his portrait; he wasn't alone; and you would have to be really knowledgeable to know that that outline hanging in the background happened to be of Calvin Coolidge.

Well, this is quite different. This is a full-on, Caesar-style, King George III-style, self-ego amplification that just doesn't fit with the United States of America. So Congress should immediately pass the Change Corruption Act, which I have introduced with Senator Cortez Masto, so as to ban all coins from featuring the image or signature of the sitting U.S. President or living former Presidents--aimed at the principle involved, not aimed simply at President Trump.

You know, families need foundations to thrive, foundations like healthcare, housing, education, and good-paying jobs. What they don't need is to have President Trump's face on fake gold Trump bucks. Instead of putting his face on our money, like a King, let's ask our President to focus on putting money back in the pockets of working Americans. Let's honor 250 years of government by and for the people. Let's prohibit this Caesar-esque-, King George III-, Louis XIV-style of displaying authoritarianism. Let's pass the Change Corruption Act.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I so enjoy working with my colleague from Wyoming. But I did notice that her speech had nothing to do with my point that sitting Presidents don't belong on coins because it is an authoritarian symbol.

And I also noticed that her description of the bill passed last year involved changing the name of it. Trump called it the Big Beautiful Bill. And it became widely ridiculed because it cut nutrition, and it cut healthcare to fund tax breaks for the very richest Americans.

It had nothing to do with working Americans. In fact, when you take the impact of the healthcare cuts and the nutrition cuts, the little, smallest crumbs on the table that were sprinkled to the less affluent Americans don't make up for the cuts to healthcare and nutrition. So they come out the losers. It was a ``families lose and megamillionaires win'' bill, and I am happy to debate that all day long.

I realize they renamed it because it was such a horrific attack on ordinary people and, quite frankly, an embarrassment.

So I do support my colleague's vision of fighting for families. But to fight for families, we don't need legislation that is ``families lose and billionaires win.'' We need legislation that is ``families thrive and the affluent, they pay their fair share.'' Their marginal tax as a percent of their income is a tiny fraction of what the working American pays.

You know, in any sane system, the richest Americans would pay a higher percent of their income in taxes, not a lower percent.

But these are disagreements that I am sure we will continue to debate. And I know my colleague is not planning to run for reelection and won't be here next year. I am going to miss that a great deal. But we still have time and several other things that we are working on together, and maybe that is a topic we will switch to in our next conversation.

Thank you.

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