TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS

TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S436-S438] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me this evening is Mr. Nick Ayers, who is one of my colleagues in my office on whose judgment, counsel, and advice I rely regularly. As you know, on any given day, the halls of the Senate office buildings and the Capitol itself are teaming with people. We have a lot of visitors, which is a great thing. We have a lot of staff members, very able. We, obviously, have a hundred Senators, and we have many, many, many--did I mention many?--members of the press. And today many of those folks--not the tourists, not the members of the public, our visitors, our people who are visiting us--but some staff members, some Senators, and some members of the media have been catatonic--catatonic. They have been foaming at the mouth, and it all has to do with a simple memorandum issued by the Office of Management and Budget dealing with spending, and I want to talk about that for a few minutes and try to put it in perspective. I thought about starting my talk today off by saying: If it weren't for double standards around this place, there wouldn't be any standards at all. And, actually, that is true, but that is [[Page S437]] too cynical for the point I want to make today. The point I want to make today is that, in Congress, we are headed for a multiple-vehicle pileup--a multiple-vehicle pileup, which I will describe in a moment. And it is going to be messy, and dealing with it is going to be messy, and we have got to deal with it in accordance with the Constitution and our law, as passed by Congress. But we are also going to have to try to do some things a different way, and it is not going to be altogether pretty. Now, we can all debate--I haven't met a dummy yet in the U.S. Senate. Some people would disagree with that, but that has been my experience. Every single Member of this body is very clever, and they can get us bogged down in procedure and debate forever about how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin. And all of that is important. I have done that myself before. But we are also dealing with reality. Did I mention we are dealing with a multiple-vehicle pileup? I remember back when President Obama was President. He repeatedly refused to enforce laws that he didn't like. When certain provisions--I remember it like it was yesterday--when certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act proved to be controversial--it was law, but some of those provisions of law that he passed were controversial. I will give you an example of a mandate that large employers provide insurance to their employees or else pay a big penalty. President Obama just unilaterally delayed implementation; said: I am not going to enforce it. Nobody went catatonic around here. Nobody started foaming at the mouth. Maybe everybody had taken their meds that day. I don't know. But there was no hue and cry, like we have heard today as a result of that OMB memorandum. I remember also when Congress took up the issue, at President Obama's suggestion, of Dreamers. Remember the DREAM Act? Congress wouldn't pass it. Dreamers are children brought to the United States of America illegally by their parents who have come here illegally. But the children are children; they don't know better. President Obama proposed the DREAM Act. Congress didn't pass it. So President Obama just ignored the law. He protected them from deportation through Executive action. It is called the 2012 Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals Program. It broke the law. Nobody around here foamed at the mouth. Nobody around here went catatonic, including but not limited to the media. I remember when President Biden did a very similar thing. He sought to preserve and fortify DACA, as we called it. And he also took a number of steps unilaterally to weaken immigration enforcement. We know that. That is why the border under President Biden was an open, bleeding wound. He didn't--he refused to follow the law. Nobody foamed at the mouth around here. Members of the press didn't become catatonic. I don't remember anyone, Democrat or Republican, calling for President Obama's impeachment after a Federal court criticized his administration for spending money unlawfully. You remember that? President Obama decided to pay subsidies to health insurers in 2014, decided to give them money. There is just one problem: Congress hadn't appropriated the money. The GOP House, the Republican-controlled House, sued him. A Federal judge ruled against President Obama. But the money was spent. I remember when the GAO concluded that the Obama Health and Human Services Department in 2016 illegally spent money--Congress didn't appropriate it--by paying insurers instead of sending the money to the Department of Treasury. Nobody around here foamed at the mouth, including members of the press. Nobody around here went catatonic. Now, I didn't come here today to debate the ``take Care'' clause of the U.S. Constitution. We are all familiar with it. The President has a constitutional duty to ``take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'' That is the law. It is in our Constitution, bigger than Dallas, right there. And I believe in it. I didn't come here today to debate it. I didn't come here today to debate the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which the courts have ruled to be constitutional, which says that Congress gets to appropriate the money and the President has to spend it. I don't want to get into all of that. But I guess my point, in light of this OMB memorandum--which I will talk about in a moment. My point is that having embraced nonenforcement when they like the results under President Biden and President Obama, my Democratic friends have very little standing--in fact, none, zero, zilch, nada--no standing to complain when President Trump employs the same legal theory for different purposes. I am not saying--I am not suggesting that we ought to follow the rule: Two wrongs don't make it right, but they do make it even. I am just gently suggesting that maybe I should have started this speech with: If it weren't for double standards around this place, there wouldn't be any standards at all. Let me say it again. I support the ``take Care'' clause in the Constitution, and I can read the law. I know a lawbook from a J.Crew catalog. I know what the Impoundment Act says, and I can read the court opinions holding that it is constitutional. Why am I talking about all this stuff? As you know, since he has been President--I don't know, a week, 10 days--President Trump has issued about a squillion Executive orders. I think it is the most Executive orders issued by a President in this short period of time, in the history of ever. I am still trying to read them. And most of his Executive orders--this is a general statement, but I think it is fairly accurate--intend, as is his right, to reverse many of the policies implemented by President Biden. I think it was yesterday that the Office of Management and Budget, under President Trump--under an Acting Director--issued a memorandum. And the memorandum went out to all Agencies of the Federal Government, and it said: Look, you have seen the President's Executive orders changing Federal policy, which he has the right to issue. So hold up spending any money--OBM said to the various Agencies--that would implement President Biden's policies as have been changed by President Trump. And OMB was very careful in its initial memorandum and in its explanation later to say: Look, we are not talking about direct payments to people. We are not talking about Medicaid. We are not talking about Medicare. We are not talking about Social Security. We are not talking about SNAP benefits. Very careful. Well, people around here, today, have been screaming like they are part of a prison riot: Oh, my God, the President is not following the law--like this had not happened before. Again, I am not saying that two wrongs don't make it right, but they do make it even. I am just trying to give you a little context for this. My good friend Senator Schumer--and he is my good friend. I went on a trip with Chuck to China. I don't want to personalize this about Chuck. Let me put it another way. Some of my Democratic friends have and some of my friends in the media have been running around like a 5-year-old in a Batman T-shirt screaming that the world is coming to an end and the Impoundment Act is being violated and the ``take Care'' clause of the Constitution has been thrown into the garbage bin, as if this sort of hesitation to spend money has never happened before in Washington, DC. Why is the Trump administration doing this? Look, I don't know. I don't talk to the Trump administration every day. People have a multitude of reasons for doing what they do. But I can see what is going on and what is going to be going on over the next 6 months to a year. Did I mention we are headed to a multiple-vehicle pileup? Here is the problem. We have to extend the tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. We don't have a choice. Like it or hate it, if we don't extend those tax cuts when they expire shortly, taxes are going to go up $4.3 trillion on the American people--not $4.3 million, not $4.3 billion; $4.3 trillion. And 60 percent of that tax increase is going to impact middle-class and lower income Americans. And that is just a natural fact. If we don't extend those tax cuts, it is going to drive [[Page S438]] our GDP and our economy on a journey to the center of the Earth. Even my Democratic friends know those tax cuts have to be extended. But we have other things we have to do too. We are deficit spending. We are spending money around here like it was pond water, like it was ditch water. I don't want to blame i