President Trump and the Republican leadership, as we just heard, are talking every day on television, at news conferences, telling the American people how this tax bill that was passed here at 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday--without…

Medicaid is a critical lifeline to provide care for victims of opioid abuse.

Talk is cheap; money is effective.

It's alarming and disappointing that from the start of the administration, the President has not made the necessary investments to tackle the opioid epidemic.

Last year drug overdoses claimed the lives of 64,000 people in this country.

We need a comprehensive plan to address all of these issues if we're going to get the opioid epidemic under control.

So here we have a nation today that has a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality--worse than at any time since the late 1920s. The top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and 62 percent…

Let me make two points as I wind down here. One, yesterday, I challenged my Republican colleagues, after this bill is passed, to tell us and tell the American people that when they rack up a deficit of $1.4 trillion, they are not going to…

I thank the Senator very much. I would just say, according to a number of independent studies, despite what President Trump and the Republican leadership are saying, the overwhelming bulk of the tax benefits in this legislation goes to the…

Thank you. Madam President, tonight is chapter 1 of the Republican Party Koch brothers plan. Tonight, the Republicans provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and to the largest corporations, while raising…

You have 62 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, by the end of the decade, my good friend, Senator Wyden from Oregon, there is no question but that tens of millions of middle-class Americans will be paying more in…

I would just say that I would be delighted to gut and destroy this legislation, but pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974--I am sorry.

Absolutely. That is absolutely what they will do. They will talk about saving Social Security; they will talk about entitlement reform. What they mean is cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, and cutting Medicaid. As the Senator has…

Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient…

let me conclude my remarks. I would urge my Republican colleagues to come down to the floor of the Senate and explain to the American people what section 14504 is about and who benefits from some $600 million in tax breaks over a 10- year…

I would like to enter into the Congressional Record the scores produced by the Congressional Budget Office for section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1618; and the score of section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1855. In…

could we have order, please? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. The Senator from Vermont.

as I think about what is going on here today, I think this is in many ways a historic day, a day that historians will look back on--December 1, 2017--and they will conclude that today is the day of one of the great robberies, of criminal…