00:00Senator from Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. President. I am so pleased that we're going to move forward
00:06today on the rescission package that has come over to us from the House. As I talk to Tennesseans,
00:14one of the number one things they talk about is the debt. What are we doing to stop the out-of-control
00:22spending and to get this national debt under control? And after you look at what happened
00:30with COVID and with the Joe Biden years, we are sitting at $37 trillion in debt. So last
00:41November, the American people voted to make a change on how this country is running. One
00:48of the things they wanted to see changed was out-of-control reckless spending. Now, if you look at this
00:58debt and where it stands right now, and you say, how much am I as an American citizen responsible
01:08for, each and every citizen in this country would be holding $108,000 in debt. Think about
01:20that. All of our citizens, each and every one of us, whether you're the dad, the mom, the
01:30children, each and every citizen bears the burden of $108,000 in our nation's debt. One of the things
01:44that came up this weekend when I was at home and somebody was asking about the rescission package
01:50and when we were going to get this done and start making some of the cuts, start making the doge
01:57cuts. And this was a veteran. And they pointed out that they were aware that we are spending more
02:07money to pay the interest on our debt than we are spending to fund the U.S. military. Think about
02:21that. Think about what that message is that goes to other countries as they are looking at what we're
02:33spending on national defense compared to what we're spending on our debt. What does that say about the
02:41priorities that we have as a nation? So, Tennesseans know that the path we're on with
02:51this spending is not sustainable. We can't continue this. When you look at where we were with
03:02our debt when George Bush was president and you were at about 10 and a half trillion dollars when
03:11he left the Oval Office and Barack Obama and Joe Biden come in and they double that number. You had
03:19president Trump's first term and COVID hit and then the out of control spending by the Biden White House. That
03:31is how you end up at 37 trillion dollars and it should concern everyone. And Mr. President, I guess we're
03:39learning the auto pin was signing a lot of those sales receipts over at the White House. The point is we have
03:48this debt. Now, the good thing is that when the American people voted to get this spending under control
03:56last November, they sent President Donald Trump back to the White House, back to the Oval Office. And yes,
04:05indeed, he has gotten busy looking at how we spend the taxpayer money. He has spent time looking at the resources
04:17at the resources that we have and how we utilize those resources. And indeed, they have targeted 190
04:27billion dollars in this year's budget documents for waste, fraud and abuse and for removing those programs
04:37those programs to yield that savings to the American people. And I think the American people see this as a
04:47victory for them and for their pocketbook. Hardworking taxpayers want to keep more of their money. They don't want to be
04:56sending it to D.C. for programs that have outlived their usefulness, programs they've never heard of, programs that they don't want. So we have the opportunity now to go in and claw back some of that money, draw a red line right through the middle of those programs in that budget document.
05:24And make these savings permanent. Should we do that? Absolutely. We should be doing that. And that is why you are seeing Republicans here in the Senate choose to move forward on the rescission package that will save $9 billion out of this year's budget. And you know, as you think about it,
05:52budgets are 10 year windows. So you're not going to see that those items next year or the next or the next. So you're going to compound those savings $9 billion each year in that 10 year budget, those savings mount up. And it is what the American people are wanting to see us do to get rid of some of this reckless
06:22spending. Now, Mr. President, there are some good examples of programs that we are going to draw that red line through those programs and eliminate them from this budget document. There's $1.1 billion for the corporation of public broadcasting. Now, this is the organization that funds NPR and PBS. And what we know, think about
06:52NPR, they have been pushing a left wing ideology using the taxpayers money for years. And my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Kennedy, talked some about Catherine Mayer, who is NPR CEO, and the things that she has had to say about President Trump.
07:17And she has called him all sorts of names. Now, she is not somebody that's neutral. And she is not somebody that wants to give you a point and a counterpoint. She has an opinion and she is using your tax dollars to spread her opinion far and wide. One of the things that they did ahead of the 2020
07:462020 election, NPR refused to cover the revelations about Hunter Biden's laptop and his overseas business deals. And Mr. President, at that time, NPR's leadership had this to say, and I quote them,
08:10We don't want to waste the listeners. We don't want to waste the listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions. End quote. Now, that was their opinion. They're entitled to that opinion. But they are not entitled to take the taxpayers hard earned money and spend it to push their opinion. As we now know, they were wrong.
08:39They were wrong. They were wrong. Now, the rescissions package that is coming before us also cuts billions of dollars in foreign aid spending that really does nothing to promote American values and interest around the globe.
09:00Here's a few of these things. There is a $4 million item for sedentary migrants in Colombia. That is their term. That is the line item. $4 million for sedentary migrants in Colombia.
09:23There's $3 million for an Iraqi version of Sesame Street. There's $1 million for voter ID efforts in Haiti. $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda. $6 million for net zero cities. That means no carbon emissions. Net zero
09:53zero cities in Mexico. And $2.1 million for climate resilience in Asia, Latin America and Africa. I could stand here for hours and go through some of the ridiculous, absurd items that are listed.
10:15And the amounts of money that are listed. And the amounts of your money that you have earned and you've sent to Washington, D.C. to be spent on God knows what.
10:29So it is important, Mr. President, that we look at this. And yes, we're going to make reductions in spending in the appropriations process. But you know what? Doing these cuts helps to push this forward.
10:51You know, there is also some money in this rescission package that is going to be removed from some of these international organizations that work against our interests.
11:06Now, all during COVID, we heard about the World Health Organization and how the World Health Organization was covering up for China and they were going to be certain that they covered for China and we would not know the truth about what happened with COVID.
11:26So in this document, we are going to remove $135 million from the World Health Organization and from the U.N. Human Rights Council, $8 million.
11:43The reason to do this, they support dictators, they support repressive regimes, and they are demonizing our ally, Israel.
11:53These are wise decisions to be made about how we spend their money. And you know what? It is common sense. As I've had Tennesseans say to me, it is about time that we start to make these reductions.
12:13We know that Tennesseans support these cuts. The American people support these cuts. This is about fiscal responsibility. It is about thinking about our kids and our grandkids and what kind of country are they going to inherit?
12:32What are we going to leave for them? You know, running up this kind of debt, I think it's so important to remember what Admiral Mullen, who was then Chief of Staff over at the Pentagon, said in July of 2010.
12:54And Mr. President, he was asked, what keeps you up at night? What do you think is the biggest threat?
13:02His reply to that reporter, significant.
13:07He said, the greatest threat to our nation, to our freedom, is our nation's debt.
13:16It is time for us to stop the out of control spending. It is time for us to begin to turn this around and reduce what the federal government spends.
13:33Mr. Chairman, I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.
