Senator Portman: (3:40 p.m.)

• Spoke on Republican economic policy.
  • "In fact, the Congressional Budget Office which is the nonpartisan group up here that tells us what our growth numbers are likely to look like and tells us what they actually are, the Congressional Budget Office said last year that they believed economic growth this year, calendar year 2018 would be 2%. Pretty discouraging really. With 2% growth you're not going to see the growth and wage increase we all want. That was before the tax legislation was passed. They also predicted that employment would increase by an average of 107,000 jobs per month. Again, not bad but not something to write home about. Now our economy is up and going and it's moving toward its full potential. Shortly after tax reform passed, C.B.O. changed its estimate."
• Spoke on the opioid crisis.
  • "And that's the next step that we must take. Back in 2016 Congress started to get more engaged in this issue. We called the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and I were the coauthors. Today we're able to announce grants to Ohio to ensure some of the gaps are filled where people get addicted, overdosed, NARCAN is applied, the miracle drug that reverses the effects of that overdose and yet they go back to the community. We don't want that. We want to get them into treatment. These grants will help."

Senator Brown: (4:19 p.m.)

• Spoke in tribute to Ohio's Blue Ribbon schools.
  • "The school reopened as a public magnet school a decade ago with a class of 11 kindergarteners under the leadership of our neighbor Jody Nash. Over the past ten years under Principal Nash and now under current principal Dave Costa, there are 250 students. The school expanded to add seventh and eighth grade. Core subjects are taught in Spanish, helping the students learn a second language from a young age many these students don't just excel in Spanish, it is consistently ranked a top school and got high marks for serving students from diverse backgrounds."