Four is going to be one out of three in just a couple of years. Can we afford to short which change their education and the success of this country which demands that we do not . Just last thursday, this body joined me to unanimously pass my bipartisan resolution honoring hispanicserving institutions week, but its hard to take seriously our words of support for minorityserving institutions if we fail to back up those words with real action. Unfortunately, thats where we stand today, on the cusp of skipping town without voting to properly fund these institutions. Across america, 523 hispanicserving institutions in 25 states, the district of columbia and puerto rico serve more than two million hardworking latino and latina students who dream of a college education. I know this dream well. Indeed, my own story began at a hispanicserving institution. Even if that designation did not yet exist at the time. Ive was the first in my family to attend college and i did so at st. Peters college in jersey city, new jersey. Its because the professors at st. Peters recognized that not all children arrive at college with the same advantages or opportunities for upward mobility that im here today, one of four hispanic american senators. And its a story thats repeated not only in hispanicserving institutions but at hbcus and other m. S. I. s across the country that help students from underserved communities overcome the odds and reach their true potential. This isnt a democratic or republican issue. The house passed this bill by voice vote. It was such an easy vote that they didnt even require a roll call. Now, i understand it there are many other issues facing our Higher Education system, and i appreciate that. Im committed to working with my colleagues, particularly senator alexander and murray, the chairman and Ranking Member of the help committee to help create a system in this country that serves all of our students and prepares americas workforce to compete all around the world. But the fact is these minorityserving institutions face a funding cliff if we fail to act. Lets not make our students of color pay the price while we continue to debate the broader issues facing our Higher Education system. Lets pass that future act today. With that i yield back. The presiding officer the senator from tennessee. Mr. Alexander i appreciate the comments from the senator from new jersey. Just to be clear, the house bill for historically black and minorityserving institutions creates a new funding cliff. Its a shortterm patch for two years that creates a cliff after two years. Its supported by a budget gimmick that cant possible pat the senate. So what i have proposed is a permanent solution. Get rid of the cliff. A permanent solution that those institutions and those students can depend on. 255 million a year fully paid for. That is the proposal. Second, the United States department of education has written us a letter to congress and said no one is going to lose their money at the end of the month. The law expires but the money doesnt. Theres enough money to continue the program for another year. It shouldnt take us another year to work this out. And third, it is urgent to deal with historically black colleges but lets look at the students, not the colleges. Who goes to historically black colleges . Lowincome students often go there. And 20 million lowincome americans every year fill out this ridiculously complicated fasa, the application for student aid that is 108 questions which we agree on both sides of the aisle and have for several years could be limited to 17 to 30 questions. And the president of the southwest Community College in memphis, tennessee, which is almost all African American in terms of its students, tells me he loses 1,500 students a year, almost all African American, who are intimidated by this complicated fasa. So lets do both of these things, madam president , lets have a permanent solution for historically black colleges, and lets help the 20 million families who fill out this ridiculously complicated form every year because we agree on that. Theres no need to wait on that. We have republicans and democrats who agree on it. We could finish this up in a matter of a few weeks. No one is going to lose any money. Theres enough money for historically black colleges for a year and theres no excuse for creating a new cliff to replace the one that will occur in a year. I thank the president. I yield the floor. Mrs. Murray madam president . The presiding officer the senator from washington. Mrs. Murray i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mrs. Murray thank you, madam president. Madam president , i want to speak on the nomination that will occur before the senate shortly on the nomination of Eugene Scalia as secretary of labor. And i think its important to say that as President Trump continues relentlessly pursuing his antiworker agenda, now more than ever we need a secretary of labor who will stand up to the president and stand with working families, not someone like scalia who is an elite Corporate Lawyer who has made his career fighting for the biggest corporations and against workers. We need someone who will fight for Strong Health and safety protections, not someone who has crusaded to strike them down. We need someone who will hold companies accountable, not someone who uses his last position in the department of labor to undermine whistleblower protections and fought to get his corporate clients off the hook for workplace harassment and discrimination against workers with disabilities. We need someone who is going to fight for workers economic security, not someone whos helped Companies Get away with stealing their workers wages and denying overtime pay, and not someone who avoids committing to supporting to our efforts to raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour or close the pay gap. And certainly not someone who costs working families billions of dollars by fighting to strike down a crucial rule that made sure they could get retirement advice that was in their best interest. We need a secretary of labor, not a secretary of corporate interests. But at our confirmation hearing last week, scalia paid very clear thats exactly what he would be, by dodging, taking a stand for workers, and deferring to President Trumps antiworker agenda. Ive been deeply concerned about his awful record since day one. I strongly oppose his nomination. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Everyone needs to take a long, hard look at who mr. Scalia fights for and who he does not and think carefully about the message their vote will send to working families in our country. Thank you, madam president. I yield the floor. The presiding officer the senator from kentucky. Mr. Paul i call up my amendment 942 and ask it be reported by number. The presiding officer the clerk will report the amendment by number. The clerk the senator from kentucky, mr. Paul, popes an amendment numbered 94 proposes an amendment numbered 9342. Mr. Paul i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to complete my remarks before we begin the next vote. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Paul my amendment to this spending bill will be to cut 2 across the board so we could actually be responsible and try to balance our budget. Most people that i talked to at home or people who come up here who are seeking assistance from the federal government say, well, that doesnt sound too bad, 1 or 2 , we can deal with that. People come to me and say well, my group is doing this Great Research for this disease that affects all of these people. I say how much are you getting . 100 million. I say well, we have a trillion dollar deficit and everybody ought to try to spend what comes in rather than spending money we dont have. Does it make sense even for a good cause to borrow money from china to spend money we dont have . And most of them, even groups that live at the federal trough, groups that need and want, all they come for is federal money, well, thats not unreasonable. We got a hundred Million Dollars last year. Could you take 98 million for the good of the country . Instead of getting 100 million, could you take 98 million, 2 less in order to balance the budget, in order not to destroy the country with all of this debt . And interestingly, whether these groups are from the left, the right, the center, republican, democrat, independent, most of them look at me and nod their heads. Think the groups that receive federal money realize that this massive deficit that we have is destroying the country. Even the groups receiving it, are willing to cut 1 or 2 but you know whos not . The senate. The congress. They wont cut anything. So my bill today, my amendment to add a 2 cut to the spending will get 15 or 20 votes. Not one democrat will vote for this bill. You know what the democrats will say . Oh, the deficit, the deficit is because you cut taxes. This is something that is factually incorrect. We did cut taxes. But guess what . Revenue is up. This is a fact. We cut the tax rates but the economy is growing gang busters and revenue is up. Why do we have a massive deficit . Why are we breaking records . Why in february did we have more deficit added than at any time in our history . Why are we now about to bust a trillion dollars in deficit this year . Its spending. It isnt revenue. Revenue is up. We did cut tax rates and companies are growing like they havent grown in decades. The biggest problem in our country right now if you talk to businesses, they cant find enough people to work for them. Theres a labor shortage in our country. Its a great time to be a worker in our country. But this will not pass. My amendment wont pass because people are afraid that the public wont like them if they dont give them more money. Im afraid well destroy the country if we keep running more deficits. The deficit is growing 8 a year. Spending is only growing 4 , 5 a year. The deficit is growing more rapidly because weve accumulated so much. We have over a 22 trillion deficit. This year the interest is over 300 billion. But as it grows faster and faster, the interest will exceed what were spending on the military within about five years. And nobody is doing anything about it. Five years ago we passed spending caps. It was called the sequester. And it went on for a while and actually was reducing the deficit. But then you say whose fault is it that weve got this massive deficit, this massive spending . Is it republicans or is it democrats . The answer is yes. Both parties are fiscally responsible but it has nothing to do with taxes or revenue. Revenue is going up dramatically. It has to do with spending. And both parties are guilty of this. The republicans want unlimited military spending and the democrats want unlimited welfare spending and people say well, theres not enough compromise in washington. Absolutely untrue. Absolutely misreported by the media. Theres too much compromise here. The compromise is always to spend more money and to spend money we dont have. So the military gets their money unlimited and the welfare state gets unlimited spending. Republicans and democrats both join hands together and what happens around here on a daytoday basis is compromise to spend money we dont have, to borrow it from china, sometimes to send it back to china. You realize we send Economic Development aid to china. How ridiculous is that. But we send money all around the world. Many of these countries who get money dont like us. They hate us. They burn our flag in the street and yet we send them money. Were not even sending our own money. We borrowed it from china to send it out. I think this is a very reasonable proposal. Some will say its draconian but you know what . If they passed my amendment today and we cut spending by 2 , we would still be spending more money than we spent two years ago. We would be spending 19 billion more than two years ago. If we pass my 2 cut, the twopenny cut that im proposing, we would still be spending more money than the caps than the vast majority of the senate voted on five years ago. Why is the deficit burgeoning . Whose fault is it . Is it republicans . Is it democrats . The answer is yes. Both parties are asking are acting fiscally irresponsible. Has nothing to do with tax revenue and has everything to do with spending. People say the people want it but do the people want a bankrupt country . Do they want a country thats being eaten from the inside out . Do they want this reckless spending that some day will lead to a day of reckoning . No. I think we have to get our house in order. Get our budget in order. And i think we need to balance our budget. If my amendment were to pass, a 2 cut, how many families have had to deal with 2 less . How many businesses in bad times have to cut their budget by 2 . If the government were today to pass my amendment, 2 cut, that means you get 98 of everything theyre spending. Wed balance the budget within five years. Thats ostensibly what many republicans say theyre for. Weve had a vote for a balanced budget. Everybody lines up and all the republicans vote for a balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution that says the budget will balance within five years. But then when given the opportunity to vote for spending cuts, we lose half the republicans. The democrats dont care. They will not vote for spending cuts. But republicans at least profess to be for spending cuts. But yet when we offer a modest proposal like this, we lose half the republicans. There is a problem with deficits. Both parties share some guilt. What i have put forward today is an opportunity for senators to truly believe the deficit is a problem to try to restrain spending with a 2 cut across the board. I hope senators will consider voting for this amendment. Thank you, madam chairman, and i yield back the time. the presiding officer the question occurs on amendment 942. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . Seeing none, the ayes are 24, the nays are 73, and the amendment is not agreed to. Order in the chamber, please. The senate will come to order. The senate will come to order. The clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. The clerk calendar number 213, h. R. 4378, an act making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. The presiding officer the question occurs on passage of the bill. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change your vote . If not, the yeas are 82, the nays are 15. The 60vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed. Under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination, which the clerk will report. The clerk nomination, air force, the following named officer for appointment as vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and for appointment in the United States air force to the grade indicated well assigned, general john e. Hyten. The presiding officer under the previous order, the time until 1 30 p. M. Will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator for texas. Mr. Cruz mr. President , i rise today to give tribute to a great american, a great texan, a dear friend, and a 26year veteran of this institution who has dedicated her career to serving the needs of her fellow citizens. Her name is shea woodward hall. Shea has worked as the west Texas Regional director on my team for seven years. Shes now retiring. Shea started working in the senate in 1993 when she was hired by my predecessor, senator kay bailey hutchison. As west Texas Regional director, shea started with 89 counties this her region. By land area, thats bigger than some states. Shea could leave her office in abilene, drive seven hours north and still be in her region. Thats how much territory she was responsible for. Shea has always been willing to go the extra mile, literally. In her first three years working in the senate, shea put 75,000 miles on her car. In fact, shes put so many miles on her vehicles throughout the last 26 years that its probably for the best that she married a local car dealer in abilene. After 26 years, serving 89 counties in west texas, everyone knows shea and shea knows everyone, from every mayor to every county judge and sheriff to every state elected official, shea made it a point to know them all. In fact, when i traveled with shea in west texas, we would arrive at an event and there was no doubt who folks were happier to see, me or shea, and it sure wasnt me. Sheas also known in west texas for her rural tours. Therl legendary they are legendary. Sheas region spans from amarillo to lubbock to big spring to midland, odessa. On the last tour she planned, an ag tour, we started in lubbock with stops in mule shoe, fredonia and amarillo. If you know texas, thats one heck of a big loop. On one of the stops, i asked shea what we would be seeing that day, and she answered strippers. I was fairly puzzled at that response, and she quickly clarified cotton strippers. I was relieved. There are too many stories of shea helping people in west texas, but one of my favorite stories is about how shea helped bring the b1 bomber to texas. When the city of abilene and the air force base were working to secure lowlevel training routes for the b1 bomber, shea received some questions and some concerns from local ranchers who were afraid the noise would upset their cattle. Always the steady hand, shea responded with some west texas wisdom. Shed tell them that the lowlevel training routes were good for our National Security, that they would enhance the air force base as the premier b1 base in the country. And finally shed tell them that she hadnt received a single phone call from a cow protesting the noise. Well, im proud to say that because of her efforts and many others, those training routes remain, and texas is one of the homes today of the b1 bomber. Shea has become a Living Legend in west texas because no problem is too big and no problem is too small. She wants to help anyone and everyone who calls her with an issue. She often helped people in stressful situations, navigating the leviathan of Big Government on behal