There was a lot of talk in Washington this week about the Senate Trumpcare bill. Thousands of Delawareans made your voices heard by calling and writing my office, with 20 times more callers opposed to the bill than supportive of it.

It was because of your efforts – and the efforts of Americans across the country – that the Senate didn’t have enough votes to pass the bill this time. 

But we have to remember that this fight is not over. The Senate will be back after July 4, and instead of working in a bipartisan way to make constructive improvements to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there’s a good chance some version of the Senate Trumpcare bill will get a vote instead. 

We have to stay engaged and keep fighting because this “health care” bill isn’t about health or care. The Senate Trumpcare bill is essentially a tax cut for the wealthiest handful of Americans paid for by massive cuts to health care services for everyone else.

Don’t take my word for it. On Monday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its assessment of the Senate Trumpcare bill. CBO found that this bill would kick 15 million Americans off of their health insurance next year, with 22 million Americans losing coverage by 2026, while giving the wealthiest Americans more than $500 billion in tax cuts over 10 years. A review of the Senate Trumpcare bill by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that it would give Americans who make more than $5 million a tax cut of almost $250,000. 

Where does all the money come from for these tax cuts? In large part, it’s from taking back the money that’s been used to give millions of Americans access to health care – often for the first time.

Gustavo, a self-employed barber in Newark, is one of the thousands of Delawareans who now has health insurance for the first time in his life because of the Affordable Care Act. Before the ACA, Gustavo’s heart condition made it prohibitively expensive for him to afford health insurance or the surgery he needs to treat his heart condition. Today, as long as he budgets carefully, Gustavo is able to afford insurance and get the treatment he needs.

My staff and I have heard from countless Delawareans who’ve found themselves in situations like Gustavo’s – living with a preexisting condition that made it either impossible or too expensive to afford health insurance. These Delawareans are among the millions across our country who’ve gained health insurance because of the ACA – and who would lose that coverage under the Senate Trumpcare bill.

In recent days, I’ve been visited by patients, nurses, doctors, advocacy groups, and hospitals from up and down our state who make it crystal clear that the Medicaid cuts in the Senate Trumpcare bill would be devastating for seniors, children, students, and more. Across the United States, Medicaid covers or helps cover nearly half of all births and more than 60 percent of nursing home residents. In Delaware, Medicaid covers 84,000 children, which is almost half of our total Medicaid population, and almost 60 percent of nursing home care. 

These are the Americans whose Medicaid coverage would be cut by hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for new tax cuts for the rich. 

That’s not all. Trumpcare would also cut tax credits for Americans purchasing health care on the individual market, meaning they would see their monthly health care costs get even more expensive. If the Senate Trumpcare bill were to become law, average deductibles would almost double, and premiums would go way up. Rather than addressing the high premiums that some Delawareans face because of a lack of competition in the marketplace, the Senate Trumpcare bill would make it even more expensive. 

That’s in part because Trumpcare would allow insurers to charge older people up to five times more for their premiums, compared to a three-to-one limit today. For example, a 60-year-old Delawarean making $42,000 a year would be forced to pay $12,610 more in premiums every year under the Senate Trumpcare bill for the same coverage they’re getting right now. 

It gets worse. Even for those who manage to find a health care plan they could afford, most people would pay far more than they would under the Affordable Care Act – while getting far worse coverage. 

That’s because the Senate Trumpcare bill allows states to gut the ACA’s essential health benefit requirements, which mandate that all insurance plans cover basic services like emergency care, maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, pediatric services, hospitalization, and mental health and substance use disorder services (in other words, the reasons many people purchase health insurance in the first place). In the middle of an opioid epidemic that took the lives of more than 300 Delawareans last year, the Senate Trumpcare bill threatens to make the epidemic that much worse. 

More than 150 million Americans, including nearly 500,000 Delawareans, already get their health insurance through an employer. Because the Senate Trumpcare bill allows states to eliminate the essential health benefit requirements that the ACA put in place, under this bill many employer-sponsored insurance plans would provide less coverage and shift more out-of-pocket costs to families. 

While Senate Republicans may claim that their bill covers pre-existing conditions, insurance under this bill would be worth far less since it wouldn’t cover what you need to treat your pre-existing condition.

The Senate Trumpcare bill would impact almost every single American. Unless you’re one of the wealthiest Americans in the country looking for another tax break, that impact won’t be good for your health or your wallet. 

Since I came to the U.S. Senate, I’ve heard countless stories of lives saved by the ACA. But I’ve also heard that some individuals and small business owners in Delaware are frustrated by increased costs they’ve seen under the ACA. That’s why I’ve been trying to work with Republicans to fix the parts of the Affordable Care Act that need fixing, from increasing tax cuts for small business that help them offer insurance to their employees, to finding new ways to increase marketplace competition and bring down premiums and deductibles for individuals and families. 

But instead of trying to find areas of agreement that build on the ACA’s progress, the Senate Trumpcare bill throws out the entire law and replaces it with bigger tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for on the backs of the most vulnerable among us.

That’s why we have to defeat the Senate Trumpcare bill.

In the days and weeks to come, I hope all Delawareans will stay active, stay engaged, and stay the course against this cruel and cynical bill. This fight is not yet over. 

In an era of rapid technological change and an increasingly global economy, investments in research and development are crucial for spurring economic growth and sustaining competitiveness. Yet, across the U.S. federal government, scientists are playing a decreasing role in the policymaking that supports this investment, often being pushed out by a political agenda that is stridently antiscience. Meanwhile, Americans are becoming more distrustful of democratic institutions, the scientific method, and basic facts—three core beliefs on which the research enterprise depends. The United States remains the unquestioned global leader in science and innovation, but given a White House that disregards the value of science and an American public that questions the very concept of scientific consensus, sustaining the U.S. commitment to science won’t happen without a fight.

Many Americans take for granted the ways in which the United States supports its scientists, but that hasn’t always been the case. Before 1940, the United States had only 13 Nobel laureates in science. Since World War II, however, the country has won over 180 scientific Nobel Prizes, far more than any other nation. That’s not a direct proxy for achievement, but it reflects a fundamental change in the way Americans understand the value of research. This transformation didn’t happen by accident. Immigration laws have allowed aspiring scientists from around the world to study and innovate in the United States. Long-term, sustained investments in research and development have been supported by a network of universities, national laboratories, and federal research institutions such as the National Institutes of Health. Strong intellectual property laws have evolved to protect groundbreaking ideas. These efforts haven’t just won Nobel Prizes. Federal investments in diverse scientific and human capital have unleashed economic growth, created tens of millions of jobs, and returned taxpayer money invested many times over. 

Now that Congress has reconvened to continue work on urgent foreign policy challenges — from the North Korean nuclear threat to our continued role in Afghanistan to the challenge of a rising China — we hope Republicans and Democrats will support funding for diplomacy and development as vital tools of national security.

More than 70 years ago, in the wake of the horrors of World War II, President Harry Truman addressed a United Nations Conference in San Francisco. He challenged Americans and our international partners “to rise above personal interests, and adhere to those lofty principles, which benefit all mankind.”

After witnessing the destruction of two world wars, the rise of fascism and the horrors of genocide, Truman and the country sought a new world order rooted in international institutions and fashioned by rules shared across nations. He considered this necessary to promote global stability, foster shared prosperity and uphold individual dignity — and to avoid another major conflict that would ultimately “crush all civilization.”

The State Department and our development programs are not partisan initiatives but rather a united, national effort to ensure peace abroad and project American beliefs to the world. All Americans benefit from this greater stability and prosperity.

Americans again are facing challenging times, but we must avoid the temptation to turn away from the world. If we’re to succeed in a challenging global environment at inspiring others through the power of our example, we have to provide robust funding for the State Department and USAID. Without the tools of diplomacy and development, we run the risk of ceding the moral high ground that generations of Americans have fought so hard to secure.   

Imagine going to a restaurant, eating a meal, getting the check, and then simply refusing to pay the bill. You wouldn’t do that, because it’s not only wrong, it’s irresponsible, and the restaurant would never have you back again.

Unfortunately, though, that’s essentially what Congress threatens to do every few years now, but instead of a dinner check, it’s our national debt – the bills we already owe as a country – that Congress threatens to just walk away from.

Refusing to pay our national bills beyond the arbitrary ‘ceiling’ set by Congress could create a catastrophe for our economy, cause havoc in our financial markets, and likely result in the loss of trillions of dollars in the household wealth of Americans, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

But, for some reason, Congress seems to seriously consider ditching the bill every few years.

Later this year, the United States will once again reach our arbitrary debt limit, and Congress will have to act to pay our bills and keep our economy on track. I’m very concerned, though, that we could once again flirt with disaster through partisan brinksmanship and threaten to default on our nation’s obligations.

We cannot let that happen. 

Instead, we should work together to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly and address our national debt without coming anywhere close to threatening default. 

That’s why I’ve introduced the End the Threat of Default Act, a bill that would get rid of the debt ceiling, eliminate the risk of a potentially disastrous default, and encourage Republicans and Democrats to work together to spend taxpayer dollars more responsibly.

We’ve seen that debt ceiling showdowns in Congress are significantly destructive to our economy. In 2011, the brinksmanship over the debt limit led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history, increased the U.S. Treasury’s borrowing costs by as much as $1.7 billion, and brought along “sequestration,” one of the worst fiscal policies of the last 30 years. 

It’s important to remember that raising or eliminating the debt limit has nothing to do with new federal spending. Our national debt – the money we all collectively owe – is the product of the spending decisions Congress has already made each year to fund our military, operate our schools, maintain roads and bridges, and much more. 

We can and should be more responsible and strategic when it comes to new spending, and the impact of each year’s budget on the debt, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have to pay the money we already owe. 

If you care, like I do, about our annual deficit and growing national debt, eliminating the debt ceiling just makes sense. By eliminating needless, partisan fights over money we’ve already spent, we could focus our attention on the annual spending process, when Congress decides how much to spend each year and on what to spend it.

This idea isn’t mine alone, either. Economists and policymakers agree that we should repeal the debt ceiling.

In 2013, the University of Chicago’s survey of economists found that 84% agreed that “a separate debt ceiling that has to be increased periodically creates unneeded uncertainty and can potentially lead to worse fiscal outcomes.” Even President Trump has reportedly indicated that he agrees we should get rid of the debt ceiling.

Finally, repealing the debt ceiling isn’t just good for our country; it would also specifically help Delaware. 

We are a state that employs thousands of men and women in the financial services sector, which relies heavily on stable, predictable financial markets. Throwing our national and global financial systems into chaos would impact all 50 states, but especially Delaware’s important financial services sector.  

The Delawareans I talk with every day are frustrated by much of what’s happening in Washington, and they’re concerned that too often, Congress is doing more harm than good. Dangerous political showdowns over the debt ceiling are a perfect example of politicians doing exactly that.

We need to address our national debt in a sensible, bipartisan way, but gambling with an economic disaster in the name of deficit reduction is not leadership, it’s playing politics with the full faith and credit of the United States.

We can do better than that.

Senator Jeff Flake is a conservative Republican from Arizona. I’m a Democrat from Delaware. We have opposed each other on nearly every vote for as long as we’ve served in the Senate. So his announcement on Tuesday that he won’t seek re-election in 2018 should be great news for me. 

That’s one way to look at it — the senator is nothing more than my political opponent, someone whose loss is my gain.

But that’s not at all how I see things. I may disagree with Mr. Flake on policy, but I consider him an honorable man, a loyal friend and a valued colleague. His retirement is deeply troubling to me because he represents a principled and patriotic Republican Party, one that has long championed strong American leadership around the world, and one I now fear is falling apart. 

That should scare all Americans. It sure scares me.

How did Mr. Flake, who served in Congress since 2003 and has been in the Senate since 2013, become such an outsider in his own party that he wouldn’t seek re-election after only one term? Over the past year, right-wing populists have mocked his principled independence, donors have funded his primary opponent and President Trump, hardly a conservative and only recently a Republican, has openly wished for his defeat.

It’s no secret that our tax system is outdated, overly complicated, and full of loopholes, and anyone in Washington can tell you that tax reform – especially bipartisan tax reform – isn’t easy.  But we – a progressive Democrat from Delaware and a conservative Republican from Texas – believe that we can work together on common sense tax reforms, and we’ve found an unlikely place to start: the energy sector.

Almost everyone agrees that the United States needs to increase domestic energy production, and a number of Democrats and Republicans alike have argued for an “all of the above” energy strategy.  Unfortunately, our broken tax system is getting in the way, but we have an idea to fix that: we can level the tax playing field for domestic energy projects, from fossil fuels to the latest clean energy technologies, with the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act, which we introduced this week along with our bipartisan colleagues, Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), as well as members of both parties representing a diverse set of districts and states from across the country.

For three decades, the federal government has supported certain energy industries and projects with an innovative provision in the tax code that allows energy companies to form something called a master limited partnership, or MLP. An MLP is essentially a limited partnership that enables business and individual projects to get access to capital at a lower cost than traditional funding approaches, making them highly attractive to private investment. MLPs are taxed as a partnership, but its ownership interests are traded like corporate stock on a market, and they’ve been highly successful in supporting energy infrastructure all around the country.

Read the full op-ed here.

As you may have heard in the newspaper or on TV, the conventional wisdom in Washington, DC is that bipartisan tax reform is too hard. According to the skeptics, the parties are simply too far apart to come together to make our tax system better for working Americans. 

I disagree. 

Back in 1986, the conventional wisdom was the same. Even though our tax system was broken then, too, the skeptics assured us that it couldn’t be fixed.  

But then, something unexpected happened: Republican President Ronald Reagan, Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, and members of Congress from both parties worked together to get the job done. 

Even though fixing the tax code was complicated, their approach was simple. They knew they had strong disagreements, but they held lengthy public debates, compromised on both sides of the aisle, and eventually passed a major tax reform bill that was bipartisan and did not add to our deficits and national debt. 

Now, thirty-one years later, our tax code is once again in need of a major overhaul. Our tax system is complicated and full of loopholes, our business tax laws are making us less competitive, and the middle class is overdue for a tax cut. 

Unfortunately, this time around, Republicans in Congress and the White House are taking the exact opposite approach that President Reagan and congressional leaders took the last time we passed real tax reform.

I think that’s a big mistake.