Protecting Financial Privacy Act of 2021

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to conclude my remarks today.

Mr. President, I just listened to my colleague from Texas talk about what is going on at the border. I thought he made a lot of really good points, and I appreciate his willingness not just to talk about this issue and the crisis we have on our southern border but also to talk about solutions.

One of the solutions he talked about and I have heard about a lot recently--I am the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. In the last week, I have had the opportunity to speak with both the current Border Patrol Chief and also the recently retired Border Patrol Chief about what is happening on the border and the real- world problems that it is creating.

One thing they tell me is, just let us finish the small parts of the wall that haven't been completed because it is impossible for us to enforce the laws if you have these openings. Secondly, they said: Please let us complete the technology.

On both sides of this aisle, we have agreed, in the past, that, even if we disagree on having a fence along any parts of the border, including the urban areas, we will agree on the technology that ought to go with it.

They told me these stories that I had confirmed when I was down at the border earlier this year in that the technology that goes with it-- the remote sensing cameras, the remote sensors in the ground, and so on--were stopped as soon as the Biden administration came in even though they were already paid for. So it wasn't just stopping construction; it was, in effect, in my view, more important that they have actually stopped the technology that is needed to be able to protect the border.

Senator Cornyn talked about how he and Senator Sinema have worked on legislation to deal with some of these issues. I appreciate that because that is what is needed. We need to make some changes. We can't just continue to do what we are doing because we have over 200,000 people a month now coming over--unprecedented numbers. Usually, in the summer, those numbers go down a lot, but they have actually increased this summer.

We also need to fix a broken asylum system. This should not be a partisan issue.

It is obviously not working. People come to our border. They claim asylum. They are allowed to come into the United States. They are told, you know: Please go to an immigration office and check in, but 4 or 5 years until your immigration case is likely to be heard, sometimes longer.

Meanwhile, these folks are in the United States.

And then at the end of the process, even though those who end up going through the court system are self-selected because they are the folks who more likely--I think are more likely to have an asylum claim that is valid--but even when you go all the way through that process, guess what. Only 15 percent of those from countries like Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador--the so-called Northern Triangle countries--or other countries like Ecuador, only 15 percent are granted asylum by an immigration judge.

But, meanwhile, everybody is in the United States. And as I said earlier, the internal enforcement is not occurring, so people are literally not being told they have got to go back. And often, obviously, not identified because, after 4 or 5 years, many people are embedded in our community.

So the asylum system has become a pull factor, and we need to realize that.

I was in four countries in Latin America earlier this year--Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador--and I heard from every one of the Presidents in those countries, the same thing in different ways, but the same thing, which is: You guys are pulling our people to your southern border because the traffickers, the smugglers, the coyotes, who are making all this money, are coming to our families and saying: Hey, come to the border. Give me 10,000 bucks. I will take your kids there. I can get them into school in the interior of the United States, and they are right.

Their narrative might not be exactly right. I am sure they exaggerate. But as a whole, what they are saying is correct. In other words, our system is so broken that these people who are exploiting poor people all over Latin America and elsewhere now--all over the world they are starting to come through our border in bigger numbers-- are able to say: If you come with me, I will get you in.

That is because the asylum system is broken. So until we fix the asylum system, we can do everything else we are talking about--I don't think this is going to work.

And by the way, when I talk to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about this, when I talk to Secretary Mayorkas about it, they acknowledge this is broken. I mean, you have to.

The 13,000 Haitians that just came into our country, that walked in, were given a bus ticket or a plane ride and told: Here is an immigration office. Please check in.

My understanding is the vast majority of those people had applied for asylum, and we said: Come on in.

And in 4 or 5 years, their case may be heard. And if they come to that trial, many of them will be deemed, just as the Central Americans are deemed, to be economic refugees.

Look, if you or I were in Central America and knew we could better ourselves and our family and take care of our kids by coming to the United States, wouldn't we make the same decision?

But don't we also in the United States have an obligation to have an orderly, legal way to do that?

And we have one. We are the most generous country in the world in terms of taking in immigrants. And I am a strong supporter of the legal immigration system. But we have got to have a proper way to do it. It has got to be legal. Otherwise, again, people are going to be exploited.

This trip north is not a safe trip. It is a dangerous trip, and people die in the desert. These kids are not treated well. Many are assaulted.

I did a study on this when I was head of the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations. We did two reports. One

was on kids who were taken into HHS custody at the border, and then when they were sent out to their sponsors--because that is what happens. You go to the Border Patrol, then HHS, then you are sent out to sponsors.

You know who the sponsors were?

The very traffickers who had brought them up--in this case, from Guatemala--who were exploiting them.

And those same traffickers took those kids and took them to an egg farm, where they had to work 11, 12 hours a day, no school, paid little or nothing, living on bare mattresses underneath trailers.

Finally, luckily, a local law enforcement official figured out what was going on and was able to save these kids.

But that is not a system we should want in America. We should want a legal, orderly system that works for everybody. By the way, including the many, many people around the world who are waiting in line patiently to come to the United States through legal means.

So I hadn't meant to talk about this today, but I appreciate the fact that my colleague mentioned it. And I do think it is very important that, on a bipartisan basis, we put aside our political rhetoric on this and talk about solutions.

I think we should go back to a system where we are encouraging people to apply for asylum in their home country, and, second, to do it from third countries. If they are not comfortable doing it in their home country because they really are feeling persecuted for some reason, do it in a third country.

Those agreements were in place during the Trump administration. They were starting to work. They have now been ended. And then if you come to the border, have the adjudication be immediate. Let's spend the money to have the processing centers there at the border so people aren't waiting 4, 5, 6 years to go to their immigration hearing that they may or may not attend, as you can understand.

Instead say: You want to come as an asylee? Here is the system. Your adjudication is going to occur right now.

And for those who apply and are successful--which, again, is about 15 percent of people from the countries that are sending most of these migrants--then you would come in as an asylee and you would have the ability to be resettled legally and you would have the ability to work.

But if you are one of the 85 percent, you would be told: Sorry, you didn't make the standards. You have got to go back home, and you can apply legally, and here is the way you do it.

Wouldn't that make more sense for our country?

By the way, there is now a backlog of 1.3 million people waiting for these asylum hearings--1.3 million people. And it is growing every day.

Budget Reconciliation

Mr. President, I had planned today to talk about something else, which is the tax situation that we are facing with this new proposal from the Democrats.

You probably heard about the Build Back Better legislation, also sometimes called the reconciliation bill. It is in reconciliation because it wouldn't require any Republican votes, and Democrats are proposing to take this through Congress, much as they did in March with the $1.9 trillion legislation.

This is also called the $3.5 trillion bill, this Build Back Better. Actually, I would argue it is a lot more than 3.5 trillion when you look at the actual spending in it.

But let's focus on the tax side for a moment because that is how it is intended to be paid for.

The tax hikes, which would be the largest tax increases in America in at least 50 years, systematically dismantle a lot of the pro-growth and pro-job reforms that were put in place in 2017.

Why do I call them pro-growth and pro-jobs?

Because they worked. They helped Americans keep more of their hard- earned earnings. They helped businesses to be more successful, to hire more people and increase wages. And they are a big reason that, as of February of 2020--the month that we went into in this pandemic, as of February 2020--we had 19 straight months in this country of wage growth of over 3 percent per annum--19 straight months.

But what all of us should want--Republican, Democrat, all of us-- higher wages. And by the way, most of that wage growth went to lower- and middle-income Americans.

That is what we should want too, right?

That was happening. In fact, as of that point, we had the lowest poverty rate in the history of America. We started keeping track of it back in the fifties. It was the lowest poverty rate ever. This was just a year or so ago. This was before the pandemic hit.

We also had a 50-year low in unemployment--the lowest unemployment ever--for certain groups: Blacks, Hispanics, disabled, others.

So this is something that was an achievement, that met the standards that we talk about on both sides of the aisle--more economic opportunity, closing the wage gap, giving people a chance to come off the sidelines and get a job. Things were happening, and in large measure, because of these 2017 reforms.

And yet, in this proposal that is now being proposed, called the Build Back Better proposal, there are tax increases that dismantle much of the reform in 2017 that caused this economic growth.

U.S.-based corporations are going to have a really hard time competing now in the global economy again because it takes our tax rate back up to being the highest, depending on where they end up in terms of their rate--one of the highest or the highest rate in the entire world.

The average corporate tax rate under the Ways and Means proposal will be 32 percent again--back up into the thirties--instead of an average of 21 percent, plus about 5 points on the State average, which is about 26 percent.

So, again, it puts us in a position where we are not competitive with the rest of the world. That is why we changed it back in 2017. In fact, according to the International Tax Competitiveness Index, the Democrats' plan would cause the United States to drop steeply down the rankings from 21st in the world to 28th in the world among developing countries in terms of competitiveness of our Tax Code.

Once again, as happened too often before the 2017 reforms--and, by the way, has not happened since then--companies will choose to say: OK. I am out of here.

Because of the Tax Code and the tax changes that they want to make, companies will say, as they did before 2017, because of the tax laws: I can't be competitive as an American company. I am going to go be a company of some other country.

It is called inversions. Sounds bad, and it is. Nobody wanted inversions. Democrats, Republicans, we all hated them. Guess what. We stopped them. After the 2017 reforms, they stopped.

Miraculously, we had companies in Ohio that chose to do that. It was terrible. They chose to actually become foreign companies because our Tax Code was so uncompetitive. We can't let that happen again.

Small businesses, which make up about 99 percent of the business in America, and they account for about two-thirds of the jobs in America-- and, by the way, most of the job growth is in small businesses--are also hit hard by these tax increases.

The vast majority of small businesses are structured as what you call pass-throughs. In other words, they don't pay taxes at the company level; the individuals who own the company pay the taxes. That is the vast majority of companies in America.

So when you raise individual income taxes, guess what happens. You are socking it to not just the wealthy or whoever you are trying to sock it to; you are socking it to small business because that is, again, the vast majority of businesses in America, most of the employees. And that is how they are taxed, down to the individual level.

To make matters worse, the Biden administration seems intent on ending section 199A, which is a deduction we put in place on purpose to help small businesses kind of level the playing field between big businesses and small businesses. They are actually talking about getting rid of that deduction. So for small businesses listening today, be aware.

In all, the more successful pass-through companies should expect their Federal tax rate to rise from about 29.6 percent today to about 46.4 percent under the Democrats' new plan--46.4 percent taxation on small business.

How does that make sense?

So I think what is going to happen is you will see a lot of small businesses go out of business if this happens and certainly not be able to create new jobs and the opportunity that we saw during the 2018, 2019 time period.

But it is not just larger and small businesses that are going to feel the impact of these tax hikes. American workers and families will find themselves losing more of their hard-earned cash from all sides, thanks to the across-the-board tax increases, whether in estate taxes, capital gains taxes, retirement account taxes, the marriage tax, cigarette excise taxes--the list goes on and on.

It is no surprise, then, that contrary to what President Biden has repeatedly said, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation--they are the people up here on the Hill who tell us what the impact is of tax law changes. The Joint Committee on Taxation, analyzing this tax proposal that is out there already--this is the Democrat tax proposal of the Ways and Means Committee--they say a lot of taxpayers who make less than $400,000 a year are going to see higher taxes.

Some percentage of taxpayers in every bracket will see tax rates go up, even folks making between 40,000 and 50,000 a year, according to the distribution tables by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

More than one in three taxpayers making between $100,000 and $200,000 per year will be paying higher taxes in 2023--more than one in three. By 2031, more than three-quarters of those middle-class taxpayers will be paying higher taxes.

This is according to the Joint Committee. I encourage you to go on their website. Joint Committee on Taxation, JCT.org.

So even working-class families are going to end up paying some of the price of this spending spree in the form of higher taxes. But all of us have to pay an additional price in damage to our economy.

According to the Tax Foundation, the combined long-run effects of the tax hikes include a decline in our long-run gross domestic product of 0.98 percent. So about a 1-percent decline in our GDP--wow--a decline of the wage rate of about 0.68 percent, and a loss of 303,000 full-time jobs.

So this is the Tax Foundation analyzing what the effects of this would be in addition to what I have talked about in terms of the tax hikes.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has looked at this and said: Well, if you raise taxes on corporations, it is going to come primarily out of the pockets of the workers, and that is a lot of these middle-class families. But also it is going to reduce our economy. It is going to decline our wages. And it is going to result in a loss of over 300,000 full-time jobs.

That is the Tax Foundation.

So, to be honest, I am not exactly sure where the President got the notion he has been repeating lately that the price tag on this $3.5 trillion--maybe $5 trillion; I don't know; depending on how you look at the spending--is zero dollars. That is what he said. It is zero dollars.

Even by their own admission, the big tax hikes we are talking about here are not going to cover all the spending, No. 1. But more importantly, billions of dollars lost in economic growth, a significant decline in wages, and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost doesn't sound like zero to me; it sounds like a bad deal for the American people.

So, along with my Republican colleagues, we have to keep telling the American people what is in this tax proposal and urging people to learn more about how these new taxes are going to affect them, their businesses, and their communities, and weigh in with their representatives in Congress.

Why would the American people support tax hikes that are going to be bad for workers and bad for our businesses? We have a responsibility to our constituents to ensure that does not happen.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, over the last few months, the American people have watched in disbelief and then in anger as the Biden administration has completely fumbled the response to the border crisis.

In the spring, the biggest concerns were the thousands of children coming across the border. We lacked the facilities, the personnel, and the resources to provide proper care for those children, particularly in those kinds of numbers. At one point, one of the processing centers in Donna, TX, in the Rio Grande Valley was at 1,600 percent of capacity.

Then, in the summer, the scale and scope of the crisis grew. In addition to the thousands of unaccompanied children entering our country each month, the number of family units has skyrocketed.

I should pause to add, Mr. President, that the reason why the smugglers send in unaccompanied children is because they know they will simply be placed with sponsors in the interior of the country and most of them will fail to return to the immigration courts for their asylum hearing. So they will have been successfully placed in the United States, sometimes with relatives, sometimes with noncitizens, sometimes with foster families who don't know them at all. That is why the smugglers have been smuggling unaccompanied children.

But in August alone, more than 86,000 members of families--typically women with young children--have crossed the border. Now that we have reached the fall, the crisis has shifted once again.

I think what really grabbed people's attention was when they saw the little town of Del Rio, TX, with 15,000 Haitian migrants under a bridge in Del Rio, TX. First of all, they were shocked. They thought this was a Central American phenomenon or Mexican migrants. But the reality is, as Border Patrol will tell you and has told me, we literally have people coming from around the world across the southern border, including some countries of particular concern.

So the Haitians got people's attention and completely overwhelmed the border region and our capacity to deal with them. That is why 400 Border Patrol agents had to be shipped in from other parts of the border or from interior checkpoints, which means that those other locations were understaffed or perhaps had no staff at all. That, in turn, is an invitation to the drug smugglers to smuggle more drugs across the border.

I have mentioned time and time again this shocking number: 93,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. The vast majority of those drugs come across the southern border. So the cartels--these criminal organizations that smuggle people, drugs, and other contraband--they are pretty smart. They understand where the weaknesses are, where the gaps are both in our policy and in our physical ability to secure the border, and they play us just like a fiddle.

The individuals and families huddled under the Del Rio Bridge--they were

trying to escape triple-digit temperatures.

It is hot in August and September in Texas, and they had little, if any, access to food, clean water, or restrooms. It took a number of days before the Department of Homeland Security was able to remove them from what the New York Times described as squalid conditions--truly, Third World conditions.

Now, President Biden has said to the migrants: Don't come to the United States. But the fact is, what he says with his mouth, with his lips, is contradicted by all of his policies and all of his action and inaction.

Here, let me share a few headlines from the last several months: ``Overwhelmed Texas border community begins busing migrants to Austin''; ``Migrants freed without court notice--sometimes no paperwork''; ``Haitian migrants released in U.S. on `very, very large scale'.''

Folks beyond our borders are reading this. Friends and family in the United States are communicating with potential migrants who have come across. Certainly, the human smugglers--the coyotes--who get rich and are getting richer with every person they smuggle into the United States, are reading these headlines and watching cable TV and talking to people inside the heartland of our country. The message they see with their own eyes or they hear from others contradicts this lip service, really, that President Biden has been paying to border security.

Like I said, this is especially true among the cartels and criminal organizations that charge thousands of dollars a head to bring folks from literally anywhere around the world. It just gets a little more expensive. If you want to come from, let's say, the Middle East or if you want to come from, let's say, Iran or Afghanistan, it is a little more expensive than if you just want to come from Mexico or Central America, but you can do it because the same networks and criminal organizations run those networks in those countries around the world.

Last week, the Biden administration handed the cartels a big recruiting tool.

Let me read you another headline: ``U.S. Will No Longer Deport Illegal Immigrants Based on Undocumented Status Alone.''

That is what Secretary Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said: The U.S. Government will not enforce U.S. law.

As if we needed to add any more to the chaos and the crisis on the border, Secretary Mayorkas has provided explicit confirmation that the Department of Homeland Security will not enforce our immigration laws. His directive strongly discourages Immigration and Customs Enforcement from even carrying out their most basic duties.

I know it seems like a long time ago, but it wasn't that long ago when people said: ``Abolish the police.'' Before that, they said: ``Abolish ICE,'' Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But now they are, maybe, not so much intent on abolishing ICE as just telling them don't do your job. Don't enforce the very laws that we in Congress have made.

Considering the fact that the border czar, Vice President Harris, once compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan, we probably should have seen this coming. Liberal activists can throw out their ``Abolish ICE'' posters because the administration is, effectively, nullifying the Agency from the inside.

The reality of the situation, however inconvenient it may be, is that, by entering the United States illegally, migrants are breaking U.S. laws. We are fortunate, indeed, and grateful to the hard-working men and women of ICE and Customs and Border Protection, who are committed to enforcing our laws and keeping the American people safe, but they can't do it when they are told don't do your job or if the administration continues to denigrate these officers to try to shame them and to publicly criticize them for doing what we have asked them to do.

Secretary Mayorkas's decision not to enforce our immigration laws isn't an example of prosecutorial discretion, which is the usual excuse; it is a violation of his oath. The Department of Homeland Security is charged with safeguarding the American people, but it can't do it because of the direction of its own leadership--a member of President Biden's Cabinet.

There is nothing wrong with prioritizing the removal of the most dangerous criminals who are here illegally. Previous administrations have prioritized certain categories, like those suspected of terrorism or others who could be a threat to our national security or public safety, but there is a difference between prioritizing and exempting entire categories from enforcement altogether.

Under this new guidance from Secretary Mayorkas, ICE officers are discouraged from arresting or removing illegal immigrants unless they have been convicted of a serious crime. It is unclear, though, whether domestic violence meets this criteria. Certainly, other crimes don't. So it defies all common sense to ask our law enforcement officers--that is what ICE officers are; they are law enforcement officers--to turn a blind eye to illegal conduct and not do what they have sworn to do in a professional oath.

I am reminded of a controversial directive issued by another one of President Biden's nominees to enforce our Nation's laws. Rachael Rollins was nominated to serve as the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts and is currently the district attorney for Suffolk County--home to Boston. She is a current nominee from the Biden administration.

Shortly after taking office as the Suffolk County district attorney for the State and local office, she released a memo that outlined more than a dozen crimes that should be ignored by law enforcement. This was the district attorney, who was charged with enforcing the laws, saying to law enforcement: Ignore the laws.

According to Ms. Rollins, individuals who committed offenses like trespassing, shoplifting, larceny--that is stealing--wanton or malicious destruction of property or even possession with intent to distribute drugs should not be prosecuted.

Again, I have no issue with law enforcement using limited resources to address the biggest threats and to prioritize their prosecution decisions, but they cannot, I believe, consistent with their oaths, exempt wholesale classes of criminals from enforcement.

Under the Biden administration, we are already seeing a record-low number of deportations for people who violate our immigration laws. Back in April, as border crossings hit their highest level in 20 years, ICE removed the lowest number of illegal immigrants on record. There is no coincidence there. The guidance from Secretary Mayorkas sends an unequivocal message to the entire world that, if you want to come to the United States illegally, you will be able to stay as long as you don't get caught committing a murder or some other crime of a similar nature.

The administration has tried to claim that this will not serve as a pull factor. That is what the Border Patrol talks about with the push factors--poverty, violence, and maybe things like that which are the push factors for immigration--but they also talk about the pull factors, which are things that the migrants see and the smugglers see that will actually attract more illegal immigration to the United States. The administration has tried to claim that this refusal to enforce our immigration laws won't act as an additional pull factor because, they say, the order only applies to immigrants who entered the United States before November 2020.

But let's consider some of the other things that have been said. For example, Vice President Harris said migrants should not come to the United States because they will be turned back. That is clearly not happening. That is clearly not the case.

We were told that the Department of Homeland Security would use title 42, a public health law, to return the vast majority of Haitian migrants because, after all, while we are still dealing with the pandemic of COVID-19, these migrants, by and large, aren't vaccinated, and they are not tested for COVID-19 when they are released into the interior of the United States. You would think that would be a problem for the Biden administration, but Secretary Mayorkas just flat lied to the American people when he said what would happen to the migrants from Haiti. Some 13,000 migrants from that group have been released into the interior of the United States before even appearing in front of an immigration judge.

Clearly, that was a lie when he said they would be repatriated to their country of origin. So we have no reason to believe that things will be any different this time.

The President can't have it both ways. He can't say he is taking a tough stance on illegal immigration to appease one wing of the Democratic Party while implementing policies that just encourage more illegal immigration to appease the other wing.

The only way to address this crisis is to enforce our laws, not as the Biden administration wishes they were written. If we are going to have any hope of managing the current crisis and the additional crisis that will necessarily follow, deterrence is a key.

As the Border Patrol told me, there have to be consequences for illegal immigration. If there are no consequences, people are going to continue to come in greater and greater numbers.

Albert Einstein reportedly once said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Unless the administration backs up their ``do not come'' statements with actions which actually send the same message, we are going to continue down this very dangerous road.

What will need to happen next before the administration takes this crisis seriously? More than 200,000 border crossings during each of the last 2 months didn't get their attention nor did the group of 30,000 migrants in Del Rio, TX, in a matter of days. So you can't help but ask: How many more migrants will have to suffer before President Biden and Vice President Harris finally back up their empty statements with action?

We stand ready to help and to work on a bipartisan basis. As a matter of fact, Senator Sinema and I, along with our colleagues Henry Cuellar and Tony Gonzalez in the House, have a bipartisan-bicameral border solutions bill. It is not perfect, and it doesn't answer all the questions, but it is a good place to start. So far, we have heard nothing but crickets from the administration. Apparently, they don't care about the status quo and, so far, seem unwilling to do anything differently to correct it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Tuberville for leading this very important effort.

I want to be very clear. What President Biden is proposing here is as close to policy from communist China as we have seen in the United States. In oppressive regimes like Cuba and communist China, we have come to expect a surveillance state where the government has access to every part of a person's life. Now Joe Biden wants to bring that here to America.

Let me explain what the Biden administration and Democrats in Washington are proposing. Democrats want to open your bank account to Federal agents. Under Joe Biden's America, the Federal Government's authority would be vastly expanded so the IRS can get a look at any account over $600. The madness doesn't stop there. This new rule from Joe Biden would also require banks to report every transaction of $600 or more. Does anyone honestly think the Federal Government will keep your private information safe?

Want to buy a bed? Here comes the Federal Government. But say you want to buy a new shotgun. Hunting season is coming up. Again, here come the feds. How about giving money to your favorite charities; supporting a cause or a political candidate you care about; for childcare or paying for mental health counseling? Perhaps you are just selling off a little furniture and want to put your profits in a savings account. For every one of these transactions I have just described, the government is going to come take a look.

Every American should be disgusted and furious by this insane overreach of the Federal Government. Think about the private, personal information the government would have access to. It is incredibly intrusive, and Joe Biden wants to make it nearly limitless. Again, does anyone honestly think the Federal Government would keep your private information safe? I understand that families are angry. I have heard from more than 18,000 constituents over just the last 2 weeks about how disgusted they are with this plan.

Biden wants to expand the surveillance state of the Federal Government to target every American family. Ninety-five percent of American households have a bank account, and this policy will have impacts on every single one of those accountholders. But it is not just banks; Joe Biden is expanding the Federal surveillance state to monitor your finances across the board. They will be watching your local credit union and your PayPal and Venmo accounts. They will even be watching to see how you spend and earn cryptocurrency. This is an outrageous violation of Americans' privacy.

I think the Democrats are also hearing from their constituents. Recent reports say the President and Democrats in the House are looking at raising the threshold from $600 to $10,000. That would still hit many Americans families.

We are not just talking about checking accounts; this applies to savings, retirement, and investment accounts. You name it, the feds want to take a look.

Again, I am not describing something in Cuba or communist China; I am talking about what Joe Biden and the Democrats want to do right here in the U.S.A. I can't wait for my Democratic colleague to explain why President Biden is even proposing this. How can you possibly justify to the American people that the IRS should be snooping around in their bank, retirement, or investment accounts?

There is only one explanation, and it is simply terrifying. The Democrats want to control how you spend your money. Democrats want to control your expenditures, your charitable and

political giving, and your investments. The more power Democrats can grab from American families, the more control they think they will get over each and every American.

This all boils down to Joe Biden and the radical left bringing the American people under the thumb of his socialist tax-and-spend agenda. After all, how else is he going to be able to squeeze every last penny out of American families' bank accounts to pay for his socialist plans?

Here is how the Democratic Party works: They refuse to audit our Federal Agencies that year after year send billions in improper payments to the wrong people, which they rarely ever recover. They refuse to hold their government accountable for reckless waste and massive debt. But they want to put the magnifying glass on hard-working families who are just trying to live their dreams.

Under Biden's socialist regime, it is rules for thee but not for me. How is that different from communist China, where the government lives in opulence while their citizens live totally dependent on the government in poverty?

I will not stand for this outrageous plan. No American should tolerate this unprecedented overreach. I am proud to support Senator Tuberville's legislation and hope every one of my colleagues looks at this for what it is: communist China-style totalitarian surveillance.

I yield back to Senator Tuberville.

President Biden ran on a promise to be a unifying moderate. He promised to bring America together. On the campaign trail, he promised to ``shut down the virus, not the country.'' As we have seen with his vaccine management, the opposite has happened.

Joe Biden and Democrats in Washington have adopted an agenda of systemic socialism focused on expanding government and Federal control. In Joe Biden's America, the government knows better than the people, and President Biden has shown that he is eager to use government mandates to keep families in check.

President Biden's latest vaccine mandate for private companies tramples on the personal freedoms of Americans. This unconstitutional order will push more Americans out of the workforce, devastate our economy with product and service shortages that cripple supply chains, and throw America into a stagflation crisis not seen since the 1970s.

By forcing some working Americans to choose between keeping their jobs or doing what they believe is best for their health, Biden's mandate hurts the people he claims to help--workers, low-income Americans, and seniors on a fixed income, who will all be either hit with higher unemployment, higher prices, or a shortage of available goods.

When I think about the impact of burdensome government regulations, I think about my dad. My adopted father was a truckdriver. Anyone who has driven trucks or been close to someone in that line of work knows how demanding that job can be. It is hard work, and it is one of the most critical jobs in our country. Truckdrivers are like the offensive linemen of America's supply chain--often overlooked but absolutely essential to getting things moving. Our country is already experiencing a significant shortage of truckdrivers. We can't afford to lose any more.

Of course, trucking isn't the only industry that will be affected by Biden's unconstitutional mandate; nearly every sector is under the gun. In an economy where simply keeping shelves stocked is an everyday challenge, losing workers in almost any critical industry will have a catastrophic impact across our supply chains and drive prices even higher.

Just this week, a month and a half before Thanksgiving, Amazon began already giving Black Friday discounts on goods because they expect so many delays and shortages on goods. That means families who have to wait for holiday bonuses before they can go shopping are going to be facing ``out of stock'' signs online and in stores.

Joe Biden needs to answer this question: How is he going to fix this? How can Joe Biden guarantee that our supply chains won't completely crumble under his failed policies and mandates?

In fact, I urge President Biden to have Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo testify to the Commerce Committee on the shortages we are already seeing and the shortages that we anticipate.

Ensuring the stability of American supply chains requires the urgent attention of the Biden administration. As a member of the Commerce Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion, I know this testimony from Secretaries Buttigieg and Raimondo would be useful in understanding how this will be addressed.

We are already starting to see major supply issues. Seafood restaurants in Miami are seeing price increases of 50 to 60 percent on fish. Furniture stores in Florida are seeing wait times of 6 to 8 months before they can deliver certain products. Florida grocery stores are warning of product shortages as customers are starting to see empty shelves.

Small business owners and families aren't able to afford those kinds of drastic increases, but if President Biden has his way, those transportation difficulties are going to become even worse and prices will rise even higher. Right now, rising prices on everyday goods are forcing American families to make hard choices.

I have said it on this floor countless times, and I will say it again: Reckless government spending causes inflation. The reckless spending agenda of Joe Biden and Democrats here in Washington is having disastrous effects on families across our country.

We can never forget that, as inflation worsens and prices surge higher, it is the poorest Americans and those on fixed incomes who are hurt the most. There are single moms wondering if they can put an extra few gallons of gas in the car and still afford to put dinner on the table this week or moms like mine who took on odd jobs to make ends meet and watched the smallest price changes at the grocery store to make sure we could still get by.

If President Biden actually spoke with small and midsized employers and hard-working families instead of big banks and CEOs, he would learn that massive Federal mandates won't help us get our economy back on track. His Big Government mandates will only hurt us.

I want to be clear. I got the vaccine. I had COVID. And I encourage every American to talk with their doctor and consider doing the same. But getting the vaccine is a choice every American

gets to make for themselves. We can't give people an ultimatum to comply, quit, or get fired. It is a gross overreach by the Federal Government at a time when we need more jobs, not less; lower prices on everyday goods, not higher.

Unlike Joe Biden and Democrats in Washington, I don't believe that government knows better than the American people. My parents didn't have much of a formal education, but they worked hard and made the choices they felt were right for the health and well-being of our family. They relied on government to keep them informed, and they made their own choices. That is how government should work.

That is what I did when I was Governor of Florida. In 2016, Florida was faced with the Zika virus, which impacted newborns. Rather than placing mandates on pregnant women or restricting their travel to areas with local transmission of Zika, which we knew where they were, we simply informed Floridians. We worked to be as transparent as possible and offered free Zika testing to all pregnant women in Florida. That is how the Federal Government should deal with COVID. The government's role in public health is to inform and support, not mandate.

Our country has seen labor shortages caused by Democrats' failed policies of rewarding unemployment, paying people more to stay at home than to get back to work. Energy prices are surging, and inflation is raging. American families can't afford more of President's Biden's radical policy decisions that are inflicting lasting damage and driving our economy backwards.

Restoring and strengthening our supply chains is a critical step in getting the American economy rolling forward.

It is time for President Biden to acknowledge that massive, unconstitutional mandates on private companies won't do anything but hurt American business and throw gasoline on the already raging inflation crisis he has created.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

First, happy birthday. Is it your birthday?

As my colleague knows, the Census Bureau performs critically important functions to collect accurate and timely data. Unfortunately, I am concerned that this nominee will politicize the Census Bureau and will not perform his duties in a fair and unbiased fashion, which this position demands.

I cannot and will not consent to allowing this nominee to move forward in an expedited manner. We should take a vote so every Senator can get on the record with their support or opposition to this nominee. Therefore, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, President Biden announced his vague, still- unwritten mandate for the vaccine just almost a month ago. He said then, at the time of his announcement, that his ``patience was wearing thin.'' Those are his words, not mine. Yet, oddly, President Biden's administration is now in no particular rush to implement the rule. So almost a month has now elapsed, but there is still no rule and therefore no implementation of the rule. Perhaps President Biden and those who work with him are realizing what countless Americans already know: that the mandate was not well thought out.

First, neither the President of the United States specifically nor the Federal Government generally has the authority to issue a sweeping vaccine mandate of this nature. The Constitution doesn't empower the Federal Government and certainly not the President individually, acting in isolation, with the right, the authority, or the power to broadly dictate personal medical decisions for all Americans with the stroke of the Executive pen.

I spoke earlier this week and I also spoke last week about individuals with religious, moral, and medical reasons to forgo vaccinations. The President's mandate ignores their concerns and their rights.

Much of corporate America is already starting to fire unvaccinated workers despite the legitimate religious, moral, or health concerns that those workers might have. Some are even being charged fees for being married to an unvaccinated spouse. So it is not just their decisions but that of their spouses that are causing them to confront adverse action from their employer, all as a result of this mandate--a mandate which doesn't yet exist. Even though time was of the essence a month ago when it was issued, there is still no rule and still nothing to enforce, but people are starting to enforce what they think will be in the rule if and when it ever does get promulgated.

In recent days, I have heard from over 200 Utahns who are at risk of losing their jobs due to this mandate. They are scared of becoming not just unemployed but unemployable--unemployable, second-class outcasts due to the President's order.

Have we lost compassion? Have we lost all reason? Troublingly, it seems that these mandates aren't based in reason. The mandate completely ignores the millions of Americans who have previously contracted and recovered from COVID-19. These people have antibodies against the virus.

In other countries where significant research on natural immunity has been conducted, the results are compelling. A study conducted in Italy shows that natural immunity is more effective than vaccines at reducing risk of future infection. Another study of half a million people in Denmark has shown that natural immunity provides significant, lasting protection against infection. Finally, a study from three separate hospitals in Israel found that natural immunity from a previous COVID infection was ``27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.'' But the President's mandate announcement makes no mention of natural immunity--no mention whatsoever. Our entire national health apparatus seems to disregard the significant protection individuals have if they previously had and recovered from COVID.

Now, I believe the vaccines are generally safe and effective. I have been vaccinated. Every member of my family has been vaccinated, with my encouragement. I see these vaccines as a miracle, one that is helping to protect millions and millions of Americans--hundreds of millions of Americans, for that matter. But I also recognize that millions of Americans are already protected by their natural defenses because they contracted COVID, before the vaccines were available in many instances, and they have recovered and therefore have natural immunity. The science shows that this immunity is strong, that it is effective, and that it is widespread in America.

So I, today, am offering a bill that would require Federal Agencies to recognize, accept, truthfully characterize, and include natural immunity in any regulation. This bill does not say that vaccines are bad or unhelpful; it merely asks the Federal Government to respect widely available science.

I am glad to be joined in this effort by Senators Braun, Tuberville, and Sullivan as cosponsors.

The bill would allow us to keep Americans employed and help us beat

the pandemic in a smart way, in a reasoned, rational way, and in a compassionate way.

Now, I believe--in fact, I am quite confident that the mandate in its entirety will be struck down as unconstitutional, as having been issued outside the authority of the President of the United States. This simple bill wouldn't undo the whole thing, as I believe the courts are certain ultimately to do. This simple bill is narrow, and it would simply give peace of mind to Americans and employers by recognizing and upholding evidence-based realities concerning our natural defense to COVID. It is a commonsense proposal, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on HELP be discharged from further consideration of S. 2846 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the insight and the thoughtful attention paid to this matter by my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington.

I respectfully submit that we are not dealing with theatrics when it comes to hard-working Americans, including the more than 200 Utahns whom I have heard from just in the last 2 weeks, who are losing their jobs or are at immediate risk for doing so based on a decision forced upon them by an action that has been threatened but not taken and in no way legally articulated by the President of the United States.

These are not theatrics for those who are losing their jobs. That is just not an accurate portrayal, and it really is disrespectful to those who are enduring that. To them, these are not theatrics. To them, this is their ability to make a living.

As far as the characterization that these claims of natural immunity are one off, I have yet to see any study that refutes the studies I referenced a moment ago--not the one from Denmark, not the one from Italy, and not the one from Israel that shows the significant immunity benefits conferred by a previous COVID infection, one from which a person has fully recovered. In the case of at least two of those studies--the one from Italy and the one from Israel--the immunity is as strong if not stronger. In fact, the one from Israel concluded that it is 27 times more protective.

Yet we continue to hear efforts like this one today characterized as ``theatrics,'' characterized as ``nonsense ideas like this bill''-- bills that try, in the case of the bill that we are talking about today, to protect the employment rights and the personal decisions of Americans who have natural immunity or, as in previous bills, those who have a legitimate medical concern, especially where that concern is one that has been taken on the advice of a board-certified physician who has advised them, based on a preexisting medical condition, not to get it.

I also heard that the President has indicated that there would be exceptions. We don't know what those exceptions are. Many of those exceptions are not being honored by those segments of corporate America already moving to implement and enforce this vaccine mandate.

What is happening is that HR departments and general counsel's offices in large corporations--those with more than 99 employees--are understandably trying to get ahead of this so that they are not behind when the rule actually issues, so they won't run any risk of the aggressive, heavy fines with which they have already been threatened. So for that reason, many of them are trying to get ahead of it, and many of them are now using President Biden's speech about the yet-to- exist rule, and they are either threatening to fire or preparing to fire or in some cases already have fired people regardless of any exceptions that they think they ought to be entitled to. It is easier for the corporation, in some instances, perhaps, or maybe more convenient or maybe more in conformity with the liking of the individuals making the decision to do that, but it is not fair to the workers. It is especially not fair in light of the fact that all of these actions are being undertaken in response to a yet-to-exist rule promulgated by an executive branch Agency that has yet to act at the behest of the President of the United States--one person without statutory authority and without constitutional authority to do this. That is tragic.

Because he doesn't have the authority to do this, it shouldn't happen at all. At a minimum, we, as the lawmaking body within the Federal Government, have an obligation to take it down. Even if we can't take it all down or to stop it, we at least have an obligation to try to make its effects less draconian, less hurtful, and less harmful to individuals who, by no choice of their own and no fault of their own, aren't in a position to get this, whether because of religious convictions, natural immunity, or a health condition or something else.

It is tragic. We are better than this. We should be acting to protect Americans, not make them more vulnerable.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose, of course, the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill. I have been coming to the floor to talk about this--the wasted taxes, the spending, all of the sorts of things the Democrats are trying to do.

You know, right now, the Democrats are pushing a Big Government, socialist agenda. There can be no question about it. They want additional, permanent welfare programs. They want to--to me, this bankrupts current programs, like Medicare. It takes--it is very hard to think about this amount of spending without realizing the risk that it proves for Social Security. And, of course, the Democrats are proposing this big green new disaster.

For all this spending, what do they want to do?

Well, they want to raise taxes by trillions and trillions of dollars. But it is still not enough to pay for all of the spending that they want to do.

That is why Democrats are now working and pushing this backdoor tax increase. Democrats want to supersize the least accountable and most powerful Agency of the Federal Government. And that, of course, is the Internal Revenue Service.

Now, what we know about this Agency, the IRS, is that they have, time and time again, proven they can't be even trusted to properly secure data, when we look at the leaks that come out of the IRS.

But they are looking for more data and more information, private information, private business by American taxpayers.

Democrats are asking, in this $3.5 trillion bill, $80 billion of additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service. They want to give the IRS enough money and power to hire a full new army of bureaucrats.

President Biden's Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been very clear. She knows what she wants to do with some of the money. She wants to force banks to tell the IRS every time anyone writes or deposits a check above a certain amount in their banking account, checking account. And right now, the number that she is talking about is $600-- $600 for a check written or deposited. So every time someone pays the rent, deposits a paycheck, Democrats want the IRS to know about it.

Not enough to know that government knows how much people make; they want to know how much they spend. It is Big Brother initiative to squeeze every last penny out of working families.

I mean, why else would they want to go after every hard-working man and woman in America to find out this information?

As Americans find out about that, they are furious. They are smart enough to know that when Joe Biden first says we are only going to tax the billionaires--they are only going to tax the billionaires--why are they looking into the banking accounts and the checking accounts and the deposits and the withdrawals of people all across the country?

Because the tax man is coming for them as well when it comes to trying to pay for this massive tax-and-spending blowout.

So as more and more people find out about it, the more furious they become. I got a report again this morning, 488 more emails and letters into Wyoming Senate--Senator from Wyoming about that from my home State. I have received more calls, more emails, more letters from people from Wyoming on this one topic than on any one topic that I can recall in the time that I have been in the U.S. Senate.

And everyone calling and writing about it has the same position. It is not like, well, half of the people are for it and half of the people are against it. Everybody is against this. Everyone we have heard from--the 488 that I heard from within the last 24 hours--everyone is against this proposal. Thousands and thousands of emails.

I talked to Senator Lummis, the other Senator from Wyoming. Her inbox is completely full as well, all related to this topic. It is what I heard about in the grocery store this past weekend at home in Wyoming.

This new scheme will be terrible, and not just for the taxpayers. It is going be a heavy weight around the neck of the community banks and credit unions in Wyoming.

I talked to one of the bankers from Wyoming. She was in the grocery store getting food for the weekend. What did she--it was the only--it was the thing she wanted to talk about, is the fact they would have to hire three new employees to comply with all of the regulations coming out that would relate to trying to get this information from their bank to the IRS.

In addition, this would be quite an attack on our privacy. This Big Brother scheme would make bankers and credit union associates into de facto IRS agents.

And as this bank officer said to me, she said: Look, I don't want--I am not going to be working for the IRS. I work for my customers, my clients, the people of Wyoming. The last thing I want to do is be somebody reporting into the IRS.

This is what I am hearing from bankers all around the State of Wyoming. They don't want to be invading people's privacy. They don't want to become agents of the IRS.

People in Wyoming have a straightforward response to this administration, and it is this: Leave us alone. We don't need you looking over our shoulder, prying into our life and our activities.

If Democrats go forward with this Big Brother plan, the people all across this country will not stand for it. Many people in Wyoming will look for alternatives to traditional banks and credit unions because they don't want the IRS and the government and Big Brother to know their personal activities. They want to protect their privacy. They may find other places to put their money.

Look, that is going to devastate local banks, local credit unions, if people take their money out because they don't want the government boring into their data and their financial transactions.

It is going to happen in every State. Hard to believe the government would want to do that, but yet Secretary Yellen came to Capitol Hill, and that is what she is doing. She is still defending this indefensible idea; and I believe she is doing it because that is what Joe Biden, the President of the United States, is telling her to do as his Treasury Secretary.

So she went on television Tuesday--today is Thursday--2 days ago, essentially said it was no big deal. That is what the Treasury Secretary of the United States believes, that violating the individual privacy of individuals of this country is no big deal.

Last week, Senator Lummis from Wyoming questioned Secretary Yellen before the Banking Committee. Secretary Yellen, actually astonishingly, doubled down. She said, ``I think you misunderstand the proposal.'' She said, ``The IRS already has a wealth of information about individuals.''

Well, Madam Secretary, we understand that really well. We know you have a wealth of information about individual taxpayers. You know how much they make. You know how they make it. That is enough. If you have all this, you don't need more, but yet you are asking for more, and you want $80 billion for an army of IRS agents to be able to find it out. That is the problem. The IRS has so much information about us already.

Now, Senator Lummis did get Secretary Yellen to admit working families are not the ones skimping out on their taxes. Why else do we have this army of IRS agents looking into our taxes? Secretary Yellen didn't seem to care. She doubled down, still defending this massive invasion of privacy, and that is what it is. It is a huge invasion of privacy, and I contend that they want all this information so they can try to squeeze more money from people who the Secretary even admits are not trying to cheat on their taxes. They are trying to find ways to take more money out of their pocketbooks, when they are already feeling the big bite of Joe Biden's inflation at the gas pump and at the grocery store.

This Big Brother plan is reckless. It treats the American people like criminals. It turns the IRS into the judge, the jury, and the lord high executioner. This scheme shows how desperate Democrats are to get their hands on taxpayer money. Why? So they can spend more. They are so desperate for more spending that they are willing to spy on the American people to try to get more money to spend.

Watch and listen to the Democrats talk. There is a food fight going on, and the food fight is: How much more can we tax and how much more can we spend? It is a food fight between the really big spenders and the extremely big spenders. Look, Democrats think that Washington knows best. Now, the people of Wyoming know differently. We don't need Washington looking over our shoulders. It is time for Democrats to drop the entire plan, mind their own business, and stop demanding more money to spy on the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.