Grew spiritually and fiscally. On shilohs 29th anniversary the mortgage note was burned under the theme, burning to build. There was more building to come. The Martin Luther king jr. Family life center was dedicated in 1993. In 2001, reverend patterson will a building to serve the youth and disadvantaged. They are well known for the Youth Mentoring Program called young lyons of alaska. He he celebrates the diversity of our communities. In 2015, reverend patterson was the keynote speaker at the dinning day ceremony, and at that ceremony he warned his audience that dr. Kings dream is at kisk of dying. He said it is at risk if we keep holding ours selves back. He said stop waiting for miracles. Believe in yourself to make society better. Each of us can do our part by loving and respecting others. This is one example of his powerful voice. His sermons were always inspiring. It explains why he is regarded as a pastors pastor, growing not only his congregates but also the ministers who will follow in his footsteps and one who has joined in the congregation at shiloh on numerous occasions, i can attest there was never a sunday that i did not leave feeling inspired by the words of dr. Patterson. They dont call the appreciation festivities for reverend patterson a retirement ceremony, they are calling it a transition, probably because nobody believes that reverend Alonzo Patterson has any intention of pursuing a life of leisure. Leadership runs in Alonzo Pattersons ndaa d. N. A. We take comfort in the fact that his contributions are far from november. November marks a transi not a retirement transition, not a retirement. I would like toking thank dr. Alonzo patterson and his lovely wife shirley for their good works and thank them in advance for their continued leadership. Mr. President , i know that i have occupied a little bit of time here on the floor thb afternoon with a wide range of floor this afternoon with a wide range of topics with the tragedies that face many of our Indigenous Women to recognizing a prominent leader of the alaska community. Now i would like to share a little bit of alaskas history as a as we see a transition and in aviation and transportation. Its really the end of an era in my home state. On october 18, just a few days from now, Alaska Airlines will fly the final run of the uniquely alaskan comby plane before updating the fleet. So, okay, shes going to make a floor speech about an airplane . Yes, im going to make a floor speech about an airplane. Because this combe is a special boeing 737400 can carry 1,400 cargo and passengers. It is a combe because it has passengers and cargo. It was designed for the special challenges of a very large state and over their life span they have delivered every imaginable thing via airplane in alaska. Youve all heard me talk about the size of our state, the sheer size of the state presents logistical hurdles unlike any place else. I keep saying, were onefifth the size of the country, 80 of our communities are not connected by road, but when you think about how how we move around in our state, a postage stamp placed in the middle of an average sheet of paper represents an area that a person can reach in alaska by coastline, river, rail, or railroad. The rest you have to fly. You have to fly everywhere. It only makes sense to try to efficiently deliver people and good around alaska. So Alaska Airlines is looking to serve it is a recognition they need to figure out how to move people and freight and they reconfigured four aircraft to do that. What makes these planes so special what makes the planes so special is that they can carry up to four large cargo containers. Well call them iglo os. These igloos. And they load into the front portion of the aircraft right behind the where the pilots are. Theres a simple divider and the passengers so you you load the cargo up front, the passengers come up the back through a set of steps just like we used to do in the prejetway times. So when you get in the aircraft, you load from the back but your first say 17 rows of a traditional aircraft would be occupied by the cargo. And if you have more argueo, if youre cargo, if youre flying fish from cordova south or if youre flying your eye did rod doings ididarod dogs, have you flexibility you have flexibility to move back and forth many they have flown from the oil fields in prudo, and most famously, in the milkrun area. The milk run got its name because Alaska Airlines literally delivers the milk to the communities along the way as well as other food stuff, all manners of goods and passengers. Something that if youre from southeast, wele all know we all know about the milk run. We all complain that it takes about five hours to get from anchorage down to juneau, if you have to go through cordova and make stops, and thats just the way it is. You bounce down from cordova, catchacan, you run into your sports teams, families coming and going, but these are the workhorses that are not only moving the passengers, they are moving the groceries, the mail, the medicine. They are moving it all. Now, when i say that it moves everything, you we built up a little bit of history about how how things move around. Weve moved cows, weve moved cars. The picture that i like best was moving the herd of santas rain deer. They needed to move the deer so you you haul them in the front, situate them, and close it off and youve got passengers in the back. So whether youre moving deer or transporting an injured eagle or letting, again, all of those sled dogs hitch a ride back to anchorage after they made the 1,000 mile trip to nome, thats what we do. But what the com pe plan is the different parameters. If you are going to move goods, if youre going to move passengers, youre on an airplane. Whether it is essential air services, bypass mail, air freight, these are the backbones of commerce. This is this is our interstate. Its the interstate in the air. So whether were shipping our our wildcaught sustainably managed salmon that people around the world love to eat, we ship that out, we ship in the toothpaste, the loves of bread, and what we need and thanks to the compe we have been able to do that with regular, Reliable Service where the weather would chase off more. Is this a smaller aircraft. The size of the compe allows them to land than smaller propeller planes. As i mentioned, its kind of a bittersweet time for for some of us who have grownup around these aircraft as we as we think about the only in alaska type things, it is encouraging to know that this development of of retiring the compe planes, the proposal is to replace them with separate fullsized passenger and cargo planes. It is as a result of increased demand for goods and passengers, so we need more space on planes to deliver both. So if updating the fleet means that we need we get more business in alaska, i suppose thats a good thing for all. But there are there are many of us that are going to be bidding fond farewell come october 18 which is the last scheduled flight for the combe. It is also alaska day in our state. Id like to thank Alaska Airlines and those who fly these these great planes and do so safe mily and safely and provide a level of service and have done so for so long. I thank them for so many years of service. With that, mr. President , i would suggest the absence of a quorum and thank the president. The presiding officer the clerk should call the roll. Quorum call mr. Schatz mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from hawaii. Mr. Schatz thank you, mr. President. I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. Schatz thank you, mr. President. Heres whats happening with socalled tax reform. Tonight the Budget Committee is voting on a budget resolution that does two things. First it sets the spending limit for everything in the government, environment, defense, education, health care, so on. Second it includes something called reconciliation instructions that basically directs all of the committees to report back with legislation that either increases for decreases the federal deficit by a certain amount. This time around heres what they are doing they are asking the Senate Finance committee to draft legislation to increase the deficit by 1. 5 trillion. Again, this is going to pass on a partyline vote with republicans prevailing to increase the deficit by 1. 5 trillion. This is what will start the tax reform process. But thats not all. Republicans have not given up on decimating our Health Care System. They are still trying to cut medicaid, and this time medicare. And they are going to use this tax bill. They are going to cut 473 billion from medicare at a time when our population is getting older and many seniors are already struggling. They are also going to cut 1 trillion from medicaid. This is the program that pay ps for one out of every two births in this country. It helps millions of families who have loved ones in nursing home care. Last week they tried to pass a Health Care Bill that cuts taxes. Now they are trying to pass a tax cut bill that cuts health care. Their proposal will actually increase the deficit by 4 trillion thats 12 zeros, 4 trillion. Heres what we could do with 4 trillion. We could completely rebuild half of the airports in the United States, we could put 20 Million People through four years of college, we could pay off the debt for every student loan. Instead the United States is going to be in the red by 4 trillion, but after they cut 1 trillion from medicaid and half a trillion from medicare, the party that has railed against the federal debt and deficit will still have add 2. 5 trillion to the deficit, and this is all so they can give tax cuts to the richest people in the United States. I promise you, i understand that both parties are sometimes guilty of exaggerating, sometimes both parties are guilty of relying on talking points and relying on charkt coutures of the characatures on the other side, but you couldnt do that. This is a characature of what people say republicans are all about, which is to shred the social safety net and provide tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. They are going to cut the Corporate Tax rate from 35 to 20 and they are going to cut tax rates across the board, but the people who will actually benefit will be the people at the top. The tax policy center, which is a nonpartisan highly respected group has crunched the numbers. They found in ten years 80 of the benefits of this 4 trillion tax bill will go to 1 of americans. 80 of 4 trillion go to 1 of americans, and remember what is happening. Were borrowing a huge chunk of this and whatever is not borrowed comes out of medicare and medicaid. And so the programs that pay for women to give birth in a hospital or for elderly people to get health care will be decimated and the wealthiest americans are going to pay less in taxes. This is bad policy, not just for the people who work hard but for the whole economy. I want to give you a specific example. Again, both parties rely on talking points, both parties accuse each other of having the wrong set of ideas, but we have an example of what happens when you do this. This bill is actually modeled after what they did in the state of kansas. The State Government eliminated one of its business taxes telling people it would help the states economy. Instead the economy slowed down which left them with even lower tax revenues, they had to cut Government Programs like education and now people dont want to send their kids to kansas schools anymore because they dont have the resources to educate their children. This is not the path that everybody should follow. Everyone needs to pay their fair share, including corporations and those benefiting from the system and making millions of dollars every year, but in this proposal they are the ones getting all the tax breaks. Companies already have huge tax breaks. Some corporations end up paying zero in federal income tax every april 15 even though they are making a healthy profit. They have teams of lawyers and accountants that help them dodge paying even a penny to the federal government. Thats why Corporate Income taxes make up less than 10 of all of the revenue to the federal treasury. Meanwhile at least 30 of the middle class will pay more if the republicans succeed with their tax reform package. Think about this, 30 of the middle class will see a tax increase in their tax cut bill. Why . Because they have to find some money to subsidize their tax cuts for the richest people. Some of the money is found by borrowing, some of the money is found by cuts to medicare and medicaid, and some of the money is found by increasing taxes on the middle class. One out of every two households with children one out of every two households with children will see their taxes go up under this plan. Increasing taxes for these people while decreasing them for big corporations is not a plan for economic growth. Weve heard over and over that republicans do not want it to add to the deficit i. Deficit. I dont either, but this is literally what they are voting to do tonight. Again, this is not a talking point, this is not a sort of rhetorical flourish. The bill itself provides for 1. 5 trillion worth of deficit spending and its not deficit spending on the military and its not deficit spending on disaster response, and its not deficit spending on medicare, medicaid, sews or any of Social Security or any of the safetynet programs. It is deficit spending for the purpose of a tax cut, 80 of which is going to 1 of the country. This is not conservative. This is certainly not fiscally conservative and it will not help us to grow the economy. Its no surprise that this policy is bad because the process has been so bad. With health care they ignored the regular order, they obliterated the committee process, they ignored the democrats, they ignored the way the United States senate is supposed to work and they failed. One republican senator says he wont vote for anything that adds one penny to the deficit, another republican senator said he wont do anything that doesnt cut taxes for everybody. It already doesnt meet that test. Members of congress on both sides of the aisle promised not to cut medicare or medicaid. It violates all of those problems. If you didnt like a. C. A. Repeal because it cuts medicaid. Guess what. This cuts medicaid more. If you made a promise to your voters not to cut medicare, you should be aware that this bill provides for a half trillion in cuts to cuts in medicare. And if you are railing against debt and deficits, is this the this is the biggest budget buster i have ever seen in my short fiveyear career in the United States senate. The president of the United States promised not to cut medicare during the campaign and the senior senator from arizona has called for the regular order. This violates every procedural and policy principle that has been articulated on this senate floor since ive been here. I do not see a way forward on this legislation when it has been conceived in a purely partisan way. It will only take us deeper into dysfunction. And so for the sake of the senate, lets stop going down this path. Lets restore the regular order and Work Together on a bipartisan tax reform process. I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk should call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Sullivan mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from alaska. Mr. Sullivan mr. President , i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Sullivan mr. President , nearly every week ive been coming down to the senate floor to recognize someone in my state who has made a difference for alaska, really has made a difference for all americans. Its my favorite part of the week to actually come down to do this, talk about alaska to my colleagues in the senate, to the folks in the gallery, to the press, to the American People watching. Its what i refer to is our time to talk about the alaskan of the week. And as many watching on the floor and those of you who have visited our great state, you know alaskans think its the most beautiful place in the world. Natural wonders everywhere. We had a beautiful summer. Resilient, warm hearted, fiercely independent but accepting people. And we have challenges in alaska just like the rest of the country, but the heart of my state is kind, generous people, full of different cultures, different backgrounds. And we celebrate. Most people dont know this by anchorage, alas carks my home alaska, my hometown. Its probably the most diverse culturally, ethnically diverse city in the country. And we have places of worship all over the city and the state that reflect that diversity, that great diversity of alaska and america. One of the stalwarts of our Faith Community for the past 47 years has been pastor Alonzo Patterson of the shiloh mis mishyear Baptist MissionaryBaptist Church and he is our alaskan of the week. Every sunday he fills his church with spirit, joy, gospel music punk yated by a punctuated by amens that float through the church, down the street, and work their way into our community and into our hearts. Thats what hes been doing 47 years. For decades those sermons have inspired countless alaskans to help feed the hungry, provide homes for those without, and strive to create a more just country, a more just state, a more just society, a more just community. Mr. President , let me tell you a little bit about pastor patterson. He was born in wilson, louisiana, and raised in new orleans. Like a lot of alaskans, thousands of alaskans, he joined the military, made his way up to fair banks, alaska, in the 1960s where he found and built the core run ya corinthian Baptist Church. In 1970 he was called to shiloh in anchorage, one of the few African American churches in anchorage. He