Parental Consent for Vaccination Act

Mr. President, I will be speaking in a moment. I had planned to deliver my remarks prior to making a unanimous consent request, but in deference to my friend and colleague from Washington, I will be making the consent request first, and then proceed to my prepared remarks.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2847

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 2847, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. Further, 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 have come here to the Senate floor six times now to oppose President Biden's unconstitutional actions, using the Federal Government and using the Oval Office, in particular, in order to force Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Now, as I have said before, as I have said each and every time I have spoken on this issue, I am not opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine. I have been fully vaccinated, as has every member of my family, with my encouragement. I encouraged my family, I have encouraged friends, everyone I know, to get vaccinated.

I think the vaccine is a blessing, and it is one that has helped a lot of people. And I think it is one for which society, as a whole, has benefited.

I have had and recovered from COVID-19 before I got vaccinated, and I can tell you that contracting COVID is not an experience that I would like to repeat, and it is not an experience that I want others to have. That is why I have had the vaccine and why I have encouraged others to do the same.

I, nonetheless, raise my hand in this very Chamber each time I have been sworn into the office. Pursuant to the Constitution, I stood right there on those steps and I swore an oath to uphold and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

That inspired document limits the powers of government. It does so because government power is sacred. Government power is dangerous. Government power always involves the actual or threatened use of coercive force. It is what government is--the ability and the authority to use coercive force and to do so on an official basis through law. It is for that reason that the Constitution carefully contains the power of government and does so in a way that reflects its immense capacity for harm.

There are lots of other things that are useful that we have to be careful when handling. You know, fire, electricity, oxygen, water, these are all things that are necessary, that we depend upon, that we need; and things that, if left uncontrolled, can inflict all sorts of harm, can hurt people, can kill people, can destroy life and property.

So that is why the Constitution goes to great lengths to draw boundaries and assign authority not only to different branches of government, but also different levels of government. In fact, every single provision of the U.S. Constitution is itself a form of limitation on government power.

These protections were designed to prevent government from excessively burdening the American people, because we have seen over time the tendency of governments to abuse that power and, in particular, the tendency of governments to become abusive when there is a dangerous accumulation of power at the hands of a few.

Tragically, and under the direction of Senates and Houses of Representatives and White Houses of every conceivable partisan combination, we have strayed far from the design of our government--the design put in place by the Constitution, the very same Constitution to which we have all sworn an oath.

And as a result of that, Americans are now forced to work many months out of every year just to pay their Federal tax obligations only to be told after the fact, by the way, that is not nearly enough because we are now nearly $30 trillion in debt in closing.

The monetary printing presses are pumping out tsunamis of fiat currency that eats away at Americans' savings and earnings. Government regulations cost trillions of dollars a year as a hidden back door, invisible, and highly regressive tax on American productivity and on American development.

And this is a tax that is borne disproportionately by poor and middle-class Americans who find that everything they buy--goods and services alike--become more expensive. And we find that they also pay for it with diminished wages, unemployment, and underemployment.

Almost every aspect of American life is now inappropriately restricted, directed, or taxed by the Federal Government. President Biden's recent mandate adds yet another roadblock to millions of Americans just trying to get by, forcing them to choose between getting vaccinated on the one hand and having a job on the other hand.

What it is doing is it is saying: Look, you don't agree with the government position on this? Fine. You are going to lose your job. You are going to pay. You are going to lose your job. You are going to be rendered unemployed and effectively unemployable. Not only that, but we are going to do it in a way that many instances will render it basically impossible for you to recover unemployment benefits.

One of the things that is particularly devious about this one is that the mandate itself hasn't been issued, and yet it has been now a month and a half or so since President Biden gave the speech announcing his intention to create it.

Had he created it, we would at least know what we were dealing with. We would know the precise source of authority in the law that he was claiming. We would know the contours of how it would be enforced. We would know the contours of any exceptions to the mandate.

And because we would have an order, there would be something that people could challenge in court, where necessary. But as of right now, we have none of those things. We have only this Damoclean sword hanging over the American people, who are forced to guess.

And in the meantime, we have corporate America--we have employers with more than 99 workers, understandably, scrambling in an effort to get ahead of this thing because they know that the penalties for noncompliance with this are likely to be significant. So many of them are trying to get ahead of it so they are not caught flat-footed and unable to comply.

As a result, many of these have just tried to guess at what the mandate will say and adopted those policies, sometimes knowing that their policies might be more aggressive than what the Federal Government will require.

But in the meantime, this leaves no one accountable. The corporations have the Federal Government to blame. And the Federal Government responds by saying there is no policy yet; there is nothing to sue on yet; there is nothing for the Federal courts to enjoin as unlawful, as unconstitutional, as an improper exercise of Federal power generally-- keeping in mind that the Federal Government is one of few and defined powers, as James Madison described them in Federalist No. 45. The powers reserved for the States are numerous and indefinite. We flipped that on its head here. There is nothing that gives the Federal Government this power.

My friend and colleague from Washington moments ago made the argument that vaccines are nothing new and that vaccine requirements are nothing new. Well, you know, they are new when it comes to a general mandate issued by the Federal Government to do this. Yes, there have been mandates in the past, but insofar as they deal with the general population as opposed to military personnel or certain government workers. These are not Federal law issues. These have been State law issues. The Federal Government has no general police powers.

Even if there were power within the Federal Government to do this, which I assure you there is not, we know for certain that one person acting alone--even if that person is the President of the United States--has not the power to do this.

This is, I believe, perhaps the most egregious example of Presidential overreach, the most shameless executive branch power grab since President Harry Truman seized all steel mills in the United States in the 1950s in order to support the Korean war effort.

Now, President Truman did not get away with that. The Supreme Court appropriately struck that down as well outside Presidential powers. You see, nothing in the Constitution and nothing in Federal statute gave President Truman the power to seize steel mills simply because he deemed them an important part of the war effort.

Here, that hasn't happened. Here, that can't happen--at least not yet because we don't have an order. The President, after making this announcement about 6 weeks ago, hasn't had the decency to even tell us what the source of his authority is.

And I will let you in on a secret: He has none. He has not a single scintilla, not a shred of authority--not statutorily, not constitutionally--to do this. He does haven't the power to do it.

Now, lest you be deceived into thinking that this is an academic infringement of some esoteric liberty, it is not. Let's be honest about what we are doing here. We are telling hard-working American moms and dads: If you do not succumb, if you do not heel, if you don't obey the Presidential dictate at issue here, you are going to lose your job.

We are making them decide between getting a vaccine to which they may have a medical or a religious or some other legitimate exemption on the one hand and on the other hand becoming unemployed and unemployable. And in many instances, they are unable to even attain unemployment benefits because you know what a lot of these companies are doing--again, in order to get ahead of the mandate--they are adopting their own draconian and aggressive policies. They are already firing people. In some cases, they are not firing them. They are putting them on unpaid administrative leave, making it impossible for them to get unemployment. Is that really what we want to do?

Look, I understand the COVID-19 vaccine is a good thing. I consider it a medical miracle of sorts. What do you say to somebody whose religious beliefs make this an unacceptable choice for them? What do you say to someone with a genuinely serious medical condition, someone who has been told by his or her board-certified medical doctor, ``Don't get this vaccine. You, in your case, you shouldn't get it because of medical condition X, Y, or Z''? What do you say to that person? Do you really want to tell that person that them being brought to heel with the Federal directive issued by one person, in the absence of any statutory or constitutional authority to do that, that is more important; that is so compelling, that they have to be rendered unemployed, unemployable and ineligible, in many instances, even to collect unemployment? Is that really what we have sunk to? I hope not. I don't believe we have.

The American people know better. They know that is not how we resolve disputes in this country. It is certainly not how we treat religious minorities or people with medical conditions that make them have a different set of concerns than other people. That is not how we act.

By the way, it is also a good reason why we don't make law in this country through one person because, of course, Mr. President, a law like that would never pass. It would never pass here in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. It couldn't withstand that kind of scrutiny, not the way it has been laid out--not a chance.

Deep down, the President of the United States perhaps knows this. I can only assume--of course, I can't read another human being's subjective mindset--but I can only assume that he would have brought it to Congress and given us the opportunity to consider it and adopt it. He cut out the people's elected representatives, the people's elected lawmakers whose constitutional obligation and authority it is to make the law so we can only make assumptions from them.

But it is not as though he didn't have time to do it. Six weeks have elapsed since he made the announcement. Meanwhile, I am hearing from countless people across America, including 300 or so people from the State of Utah who are themselves being put in impossible positions.

Now, look, mind you, for most people, this isn't a big deal. Most people in America have chosen to get the vaccine, and I am glad they have, but there are a lot of people whose stories are heart-wrenching.

Just this week, I heard from a flight attendant who works with a major U.S. airline. She has religious beliefs that make her opposed to getting this vaccine or any vaccine. She is a hard-working employee. She has been a faithful flight attendant, and it is a job that she has loved and she has enjoyed throughout her entire adult professional career. It is a job that has benefited her and her family, allowed her to make a living, put food on the table. She is now being faced with this awful choice between, on the one hand, betraying her religious beliefs--which she is unwilling to do--and, on the other hand, losing a job which is her only means of earning a living, of feeding her family. How is this fair? How is this just? How is this constitutional? It is not.

Troublingly, there are now signs that the White House isn't satisfied with just making Americans who haven't received the vaccine unemployed and unemployable. The administration is reportedly also considering a medical mandate for interstate travel. Such a move would be deeply constitutionally concerning, but it would also revoke yet another freedom and make yet another group of American citizens solidly second class.

The privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, of course, protects the right to interstate travel. There is no precedent in our Nation's history of a requirement of this nature for interstate travel.

Even if those considerations were somehow untrue--they are not, but even if they were--Congress has certainly not granted such authority to the President of the United States to act unilaterally, nor would we ever.

A mandate requiring people to get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to have the privilege, the benefit, which is actually just a right, one that the American people ought to be able to rely on to travel interstate within the United States, is truly unthinkable.

But many of the Federal Government's actions over the last year have

shown Americans the real threat it poses to freedom and simply to common sense. Remember, this is the administration that has forced our 2-year-olds to wear masks for hours at a time on airplanes, buses, trains, and in bus depots, train stations, and airports--2-year-olds. For any parent out there or for anyone who has ever actually interacted with a 2-year-old human, you can certainly understand how absurd this is, especially when our peer nations have recognized there is no need to mask a 2-year-old.

But back to the mandate for a minute. If we think through this disturbing possibility of forced medical treatment as a condition precedent for visiting family in another State or traveling for business reasons or traveling for any reason at all from one State to another, the impacts are clear, and they are devastating. Businesses already hard-hit by the pandemic--the travel and hospitality sectors-- would, of course, be further strained; collateral damage, I suppose, on the part of those who would push such an oppressive move.

Individuals could be marooned in States or they couldn't work, couldn't go to restaurants, and couldn't leave. And the social capital built from face-to-face interactions would be further set back.

I believe vaccines are generally safe, and they help protect people from the harms of contracting COVID-19. I have in the past and I still now continue to encourage people to get the vaccine, but we must ask what ends this administration is willing to go to to cudgel Americans to this state-sponsored health edict.

I am personally uncomfortable with such sweeping mandates, but, more importantly, I am required by my oath to protect the Constitution of the United States to oppose this action. That is why I brought forward my latest iteration of my efforts against this unlawful, unconstitutional, and still inchoate mandate. My Let Me Travel America Act would clarify the law and prohibit the Federal Government from mandating that Americans receive shots against COVID-19 as a prerequisite for interstate travel.

I am grateful that my colleagues, Senators Tuberville, Braun, and Sullivan, have joined me as cosponsors of this bill.

This is a commonsense, practical, reasonable bill, one that would simply provide assurance and protection to millions of Americans whose rights are under attack.

Moments ago, I came here, and I asked unanimous consent that we pass this bill today with the understanding that I am going to continue to come back day after day, as long as it takes, to address what the President is doing.

The Senate had a chance to protect the American people from yet another unconstitutional overreach. It is disappointing to me, really, that my friend and colleague, the Senator from Washington, chose to object to its adoption.

This shouldn't be controversial. It is really not controversial among the American people. I guarantee you, you take a poll asking people should the Federal Government ever be able to tell you that you can't travel interstate unless you receive a particular medical treatment, there is no way the American people would think that is a good idea because it is not, because it is absurd, and because it violates everything that we believe in.

Now, my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Washington, made the point that such measures can't be enacted because, according to her, they supposedly undermine vaccine efforts. Do you know what undermines the vaccine effort? What undermines the vaccine effort is when you try to use the overpowering cudgel of coercive force, a type and a level of coercive force that no other entity on planet Earth can wield more strongly than the Federal Government--you use that cudgel to tell people who haven't gotten it yet: You must get this.

Look, a lot of people have been getting the vaccine. Yes, there are some holdouts, and they have their reasons for being holdouts. There are a lot of ways that you can convince someone to do something that they don't currently want to do. One of the things that is going to make it far less likely that they get the vaccine is for them to be told that they are being threatened with their jobs. It is not how you win. Even if it were that we could somehow chalk this up as a win here, that is not who we are; that is not how we play.

And this is unprecedented. Make no mistake, the Federal Government has never undertaken anything like this. States and political subdivisions of States--meaning cities, towns, counties, so forth-- States and their subdivisions have general police powers, meaning broad power to protect health, safety, and welfare; to protect life, liberty, and property in whatever manner they deem appropriate, subject, of course, to such limitations as may be placed on them either by their State Constitution or by the U.S. Constitution.

But States and their subdivisions have the ability to enact legislation like this--health, safety, welfare legislation--in a way that the Federal Government doesn't. We have to act pursuant to one of the enumerated powers in the Constitution.

I challenge anyone to identify what source of authority can fairly be said to give the Federal Government this kind of power. It doesn't exist. We have never exercised this power with respect to the U.S. population at large. It is a different thing entirely to point to vaccine requirements that we have had for certain Federal personnel, including our military servicemembers. We have never done anything like this. If we were to ever consider something like this at a Federal level, I would have grave concerns with it because I don't think it is the prerogative of the Federal Government.

But I can tell you one thing, I am darn certain we would never give one person the authority to impose such a mandate. No, that is not how our constitutional system works. There are a lot of reasons why we no longer fly the Union Jack. A lot of them had to do with what happens when you have a dangerous accumulation of power in the hands of a few. That is one of the reasons why we put in place a rigid set of requirements saying that before you change the legal status quo, before you pass a law, you have to run it through Congress. Any Federal law, assuming it is acting in an area within the Federal Government's power and authority and jurisdiction, it can't become law, Federal law, until you run it through the House, run the same language through the Senate. Then you present it to the President for an opportunity for veto, signature, or acquiescence. Without going through that process, you have not made a Federal law.

Look, Harry Truman's effort to seize the entire steel industry in the United States was unlawful. It was unconstitutional. And, mercifully, the courts were able to dispense of that in a relatively short period of time.

We don't even have the luxury of going to court in this instance because the President hasn't had the decency to show us his work, to tell us what he is actually doing.

Meanwhile, he is bullying corporate America to do his dirty work for him. Corporate America is dutifully complying in some cases, perhaps out of allegiance or a desire to appear compliant with the President's wishes; in other instances, just for more practical reasons. They don't want to be stuck with the heavy fines that may be levied against them if they are caught flat-footed and unprepared for what may be coming. So they are doing the President's dirty work for him. They are doing the firing, rendering people unemployed, unemployable, and in some cases ineligible even to receive unemployment.

Shame on him and shame on us if we don't call this out for what it is, which is an aggressive, unconstitutional, baseless power grab.

My friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, also pointed to what she referred to as tailored exemptions to the vaccine mandate.

What exemptions?

There is no mandate. There are no exemptions. Yeah, he has spoken in aspirational terms about certain exemptions that would be available, but corporate America doesn't know what they are. And so corporate America, acting on the advice of counsel, is understandably being very aggressive, erring on the side of firing more people and rendering more people unemployed and unemployable, and in many cases rendering them incapable of receiving unemployment.

So, no. No. Don't tell me these are tailored exemptions, when there aren't even exemptions. In order for it to be an exemption, you have got to have a mandate. There is no mandate. There is just the threatened use of the mandate that is making corporate America decide that it is in its best interest to do the President's dirty work for him, and in a way that protects him from being questioned on legal, meritorious grounds in court.

And if we can't muster the legislative will to defend that power which is rightfully ours--not ours in the sense that we personally own it, but it has been given to the people, the power to make sure that laws are passed only by their elected Representatives and Senators--we can't stand up for this, shame on us.

And if we can't stand up for even a further encroachment on that power and on the corresponding right that the American people have long come to depend upon, to be able to travel interstate without undue hindrance or interference from their government, it is a sad outcome, one that I can't countenance. That is why I am going to be back day after day, as long as it takes. The American people expect more. The American people deserve better.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2988 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further 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.

Madam President, I am here on the Senate floor today, for the eighth time now, to oppose President Biden's sweeping vaccine mandate. I have introduced a dozen bills to, one way or another, limit, clarify, or counteract this still unpublished mandate.

Now, make no mistake. I am opposed to the mandate categorically. I strongly dispute even the contention that one man--the President of the United States--has the authority to do this. He doesn't. I also fundamentally push back on the idea, the basic moral premise, that it is acceptable to put people in this position--to tell people that they have to choose between having a job and being able to put bread on the table for their children, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, accepting a medical procedure that they don't want either because of a religious objection or a specific medical condition or otherwise.

I am categorically opposed to this being done. It shouldn't be done through the Federal Government. It certainly shouldn't be done by one person, the President of the United States, who doesn't have the authority to do that.

And to highlight how concerned I am about this, I am coming down to the floor day after day to offer a different legislative proposal that, at a minimum, would make some of the effects of the mandate less severe, less painful, less cruel, less draconian.

Each time I have come to ask the Senate to pass what would, frankly, be uncontroversial measures--that should be uncontroversial--and each time I have done that, one of my colleagues or another from the other side of the aisle has objected.

This is unfortunate for a number of reasons. His mandate--which is still unavailable to be examined by the public, by the way--is already showing the terrible power that even the threat of a government-imposed vaccine mandate wields.

Businesses across the country are suspending, punishing, or firing employees who haven't had the COVID shot. Even without government enforcement, the mere threat, the mere talk of the possibility of a threat of the mandate is making it harder for everyday American families to put food on the table in increasingly difficult economic times, times fraught with uncertainty.

This isn't fair. This isn't right. Deep down, we know it.

Now, lest anyone try to dismiss the victims of this misguided and ill-founded effort, these aren't people you can just otherize. These aren't people you could just imagine to be someone you don't like, no.

These are mothers and fathers. They are our neighbors. They are people who, like far too many Americans these days, are just trying to get by. I am going to continue to fight this for them. I am going to continue to push back on this unlawful, misguided effort for them.

And, you know, in the meantime, it is important that we be very clear and that we be very consistent. In this effort, I have been supremely clear. I am not, in any way, shape, or form against the COVID-19 vaccine. I have been fully vaccinated. Every member of my family has been fully vaccinated with my encouragement. I encourage people all the time, and I repeat that encouragement this very moment from the U.S. Senate floor, that I encourage people to get vaccinated.

I see the development of these vaccines as a miracle; one that is helping, and has already helped, countless Americans to avoid the harms of COVID-19.

That doesn't undercut the fact that this mandate is pushing government and government control far beyond constitutional limits and into distinctively private decisions, decisions that belong to the American people and not to their government. It is why I am fighting against the mandate, and that is why I have come to the Senate floor eight times now, to help.

So, today, I offered up a bill that should have itself been supremely uncontroversial. It is a reaffirmation of parental rights that our government has respected and honored from the very beginning.

My Parental Consent for Vaccination Act would simply require that any COVID-19 vaccine mandate issued by the Federal Government must include a requirement that informed parental consent be provided before the shot is administered to a minor.

What would be controversial about that? On what planet would we not want to have parents involved in that decision? On what planet would it be OK to administer a shot to a child without parental notification and consent?

Allow me to put this in some context. Parental consent is required for field trips. Your child is going to the zoo or the park or anywhere else for a field trip, parental consent form. Parental consent forms are familiar to every parent and every child and every teacher in America. It is what we do. You are going to go on a field trip? You have got to have your consent form. No parental consent form, no field trip.

Parental consent is required for extracurricular activities, for sports, student government, club activities, all sorts of things.

Parental consent is required before most schools can administer a Tylenol to a child; and that is, after all, the right approach.

Despite what some candidates have said in recent political campaigns, parents are people who should be informed, and they should be involved in their children's education and in their health decisions.

There is good reason for this. Through thousands of years of human civilization, we have come to an understanding, quite appropriately, that parents are simply better equipped to make these decisions than are other people; certainly better than the impersonal arm of a government.

Parents are people who know their children. Parents are people who know their children's medical history. Parents also love their children. Parents have their children's best interests at heart when they make decisions regarding involving or affecting them.

Government cannot do any of these things like parents can--not in any way, shape, or form.

There is a good reason for this, and it is because government doesn't love their children. It is not that government categorically always means them harm. That is not it. Government isn't a person. It is not a being. Government doesn't have arms with which to embrace or shelter or protect their children. Government doesn't have a heart with which to love their children.

Government, when reduced to its core, when we really break it down to what it is, government is simply force--politically permissible, officially sanctioned, coercive force. It is violence or the threatened use of violence with a badge under the cover of official authority.

Now, we need government--we need government to protect life, liberty, and property. We need government to protect people from harm. But we have got to use it carefully. When we misapprehend what government is and we lose sight of this relationship between the people and the government, with the understanding that the government is there to serve the people and not the other way around, when we lose sight of the fact that government is just the official use of coercive force, when we start to revere it as some sort of benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient presence, bad things happen.

Because government, while necessary, is also dangerous; no less so than other things that are necessary, like water and like fire, like electricity, like wind, like oxygen. All these things, if not controlled, if not managed in one way or another, if not accounted for, can become dangerous and inevitably can prove deadly.

So thank Heaven above that Almighty God assigned primary care of children to parents and not to government. And thank Heaven above that Almighty God endowed each and every human being with these inalienable rights and with the understanding that government is there to serve and protect them and not the other way around.

Unfortunately, in some places, like right here in our Nation's Capital, the government seems almost to have completely lost the plot.

Right here in the District of Columbia, the DC Public Schools system is one in which minors can receive medical procedures without the school obtaining the consent of the parents or even informing the parents.

In other places across the Nation, this slippery slope is already leading governments to consider life-changing, school-provided medical procedures without parental notice or consent.

As a parent and, for that matter, as a human being, as a citizen of this country, this thought sends shivers down my spine, and not at all in a good way.

You see, while the Federal Government has almost no legitimate role in making decisions in our primary and secondary education systems, these are to be left for States and local governments. Very, very little role for the Federal Government to play in that area at all. It is an area that should be left to parents and students and teachers; and where government is involved, it nearly always is supposed to be State and local officials, not Federal ones.

With this bill, we make sure that the Federal Government doesn't endorse or, Heaven forbid, mandate this dangerous approach to medical decisions for minors. It is not something that we should do.

And so that is why I came here, to ask precisely that. I came here to ask that we provide assurances for parents and for children--once again, make no mistake, I am for the vaccine. I am categorically against the mandate. The mandate should not happen. The mandate is wrong. The mandate is without legal foundation. It is constitutionally indefensible, especially when exercised by one person at a level of government not equipped to deal with these things who are constitutionally authorized to do so.

But more than anything, the mandate is itself immoral. It is telling American moms and dads that they have to choose between getting a vaccine--even if to do so would cause significant problems for them because of a unique health condition, a religious objection or otherwise, they have got to choose between getting that unwanted vaccine on the one hand and losing their job on the other.

Are we really going to tell them that to honor their own personal autonomy, their own ability to decide what is best for them, we are going to order their employer to fire them, rendering them unemployed, for the time being unemployable?

And in some cases, because of the way some of these companies--in anticipation of the yet-to-be-announced mandate, some of these companies that have already started firing people are actually putting them on unpaid administrative leave, such that they can't even collect unemployment.

This is just mean. It is mean-spirited. So when you peel back all the layers of all the constitutional arguments, of which there are many, you are left with some policy arguments. But more than anything else, we are left with some basic moral arguments, arguments involving fundamental fairness. This is not who we are.

Look, when we disagree, we can be--we should be able to disagree without getting someone fired. But we should certainly be able to disagree without subjecting potentially hundreds of millions of people to unemployment based on a personal medical decision, one that may have profound health consequences or religious consequences to them personally.

I didn't think any of these things were all that controversial. I still don't believe they are. If any of us could talk to people at random from our home States, whether they are from communities or families or households that lean left or right or somewhere else, most people have a basic sense of fairness that transcends political ideology and partisan affiliation.

That basic shared sense of fundamental fairness is utterly at odds with doing this. We are better than this.

President Biden, you are better than this. President Biden, you and I don't agree on everything, but I know that you know, President Biden, that this isn't fair. Let's not do this to the people.

So all I was asking today in trying to pass this legislation is that we reaffirm our commitment to supporting parents in making decisions for their children. I tried to pass that uncontroversial measure, and it is a source of great disappointment and even some surprise that we couldn't even pass that. There has got to be something that is a bare minimum.

I appreciate the insights provided by my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, who, in objecting to the passage of this measure, shared her thoughts on why she opposes it. But I don't agree with her. Among the arguments she raised was a suggestion that under existing State laws, there are already ways of figuring out when, whether, and in what circumstances parental consent might be required. Now, this is--this is great.

I love federalism arguments. I am happy anytime someone raises a federalism argument. I think that is the kind of argument that doesn't get made nearly enough around here because it is kind of a watershed structural issue within the Constitution, one that outlines the difference between Federal power and State power.

You see, our constitutional Republic is one in which multiple layers of sovereignty exist. States and their subdivisions enjoy what we call general police powers, the power to enact legislation, generally, as States and their subdivisions deem appropriate for the protection of health, safety, and welfare. States, in the absence of an expressed U.S. constitutional prohibition or in the absence of some restriction in their State constitution--States are presumed to have general police powers. They may enact legislation as they deem fit to benefit their citizens.

We, as lawmakers in the Federal Government, have a narrower view. We have a narrower task. We have a narrower area of authority. We can't just enact something as Federal law simply because we think it is a good idea. We have to connect it to one of the enumerated powers made Federal by the Constitution. Most of those powers--not all of them but most of them--can be found in one portion of the Constitution written in relatively plain English nearly two and a half centuries ago, still easy to read today, still makes sense today--article I, section 8 makes that clear. We are in charge of national defense, regulating trade or commerce between the States and with foreign nations and with the Tribes; trademarks, copyrights and patents, bankruptcy laws, immigration laws, naturalization laws. There are a few others, but that is the basic gist of it--things that are distinctively national and designated as such by the Constitution. That is within our power. And everything else, as the 10th amendment reaffirms, stating again what the original Constitution made clear implicitly and was made explicitly in the 10th amendment, that powers not made Federal by the Constitution and not prohibited to the States by the Constitution ``are reserved [for] the States respectively, or to the people.''

That is no accident that they put that phrase in there in the 10th amendment, ``or to the people.''

When you reserve power to the States, you are, in a sense, reserving it for the people, and the people are the ultimate sovereigns. We are authorized to act as a Federal sovereign only in those narrow areas.

So I get back to the argument that my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, made moments ago. She referred to the existence of State laws delineating circumstances in which parental consent for a medical procedure, including a vaccine, might be acceptable or appropriate. I appreciate the federalism argument. We ought to have more of those. There are far too few of them here. The great irony here is that this focuses on the fact that we shouldn't be operating in this space in the first place.

To the degree that she is right, as she absolutely is to be focusing on the distinction between State power and Federal power, that same principle argues a fortiori in favor of us not deciding this on a national level. In other words, if it is true, as it is, that we ought to be focused on State law and what State law requires or allows or contemplates or permits, heavens, yes, let State law apply.

But you can't have it both ways. If you are going to make this Federal, as the President of the United States has purported to do, even though it isn't, then we not only may, I believe, we must weigh in. We must weigh in as the people's elected lawmakers. It is our job to make policy, and it is our job to decide when, whether, and to what extent Federal policy is unacceptable and needs to be curtailed. So, absolutely, the Senator from Washington

is absolutely right that we should be concerned about what State law says. And State law should be the beginning and the end of the inquiry here.

You see, this is what is different between this vaccine mandate and others that have been mandated in the past. We have never seen one that is Federal--not applied to the American population as a whole, not as to the general public. We have never seen one done federally, and there are good reasons for this. It isn't a Federal beast.

So my friend from Washington has expressed concern for not trampling on those laws. She couldn't be more right in the fact that we should respect State sovereignty and the sovereignty of the people. That is all the more reason why we should have passed S. 2988 today.

S. 2988 is yet another example of a simple modification, that if-- if--we are going to go down this road of a Federal vaccine mandate-- which we should not, but if we were going to, at bare minimum, we ought to be making this a decision that has to be done in consultation and with the approval of--not just the notice but also the consent of parents. That is not too much to ask.

The American people have been asked over and over again, especially over the last 18 months with the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been asked to settle. They have been asked to settle for this brooding omnipresence in Washington that tells them what to do. They have been asked to settle for multitrillion-dollar annual deficits. They have been asked to settle for limited freedoms.

The American people shouldn't have to settle for those things. They certainly shouldn't have to settle for a Federal Government acting without authority through one person who has the ability to take away one of the most sacred, one of the most fundamental, one of the most cherished God-given rights, which is the right to make decisions involving and uniquely affecting their own children.

For anyone within the sound of my voice or reading this, I implore you, don't settle--don't. Don't settle for multitrillion-dollar annual deficits. Expect Congress to start to care about the inflation that it is causing through reckless spending.

Don't settle for this brooding omnipresence of a Federal Government that is purporting to have the ability to dictate every aspect of your lives. No. Expect a government that operates within the space carved out by the Constitution. Don't settle for a government that knows no boundaries around its authority. Expect the government to respect its own limitations. It is time to expect more, and it is time to expect freedom.

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

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2997, which is at the desk. Further, 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.

Madam President, this time last year, we still didn't know how much longer this pandemic would last. We didn't know when the vaccine trials would be completed. Thankfully, by December, the vaccine had been approved and brought normalcy back to the lives of many Americans. The Trump administration worked with public and private partners, doctors and scientists across our country to develop a safe and effective vaccine in record time. It was a feat of science, and it was an example of what Americans can do when we are working together.

I had COVID, and I am grateful that I was able to get vaccinated. I hope that all Americans talk with their doctors and consider making the same decision. It is a personal decision every individual gets to make.

That is not how President Biden sees it. Lately, the Biden administration has decided to try and take this decision out of the hands of the American people. With this recently announced unconstitutional vaccine mandate for private businesses, King Biden again is saying that government knows best and has taken choice away from families in Florida and across the country.

That is not what the American people expect government to do. Government's role is to give Americans all the information and data it has so they can make the right decision for their individual family.

That is exactly what I did when I was Governor of Florida. In the face of life-threatening hurricanes, I made sure Florida families were informed. I went out and made sure everyone knew exactly what to expect and how dangerous the storm could be, but I didn't issue mandates because that is not what governments should do.

When I was Governor of Florida, we had the Zika healthcare crisis, which impacted newborns. Rather than placing mandates on pregnant women or restricting their travel to areas with local transmission of Zika, we simply informed Floridians, worked to be as transparent as possible, and offered free Zika testing to all pregnant women in Florida.

But, again, that is not the approach--that is not the approach--Joe Biden has decided to take. President Biden has decided that threatening corporations and businesses and misleading the American people is a better option.

It is dishonest and authoritarian, and it is no way to lead a nation. Americans should be free to make choices they feel are in the best interests of their own health and the health of their loved ones.

In December, President Biden promised he would not require Americans to be vaccinated or require that they carry vaccine passports. But here he is, less than 10 months into his Presidency, breaking promise after promise and going back on his word.

How can the American people believe anything he says? Americans are sick and tired of the government telling them what to do and are more than capable of making the right choices to protect themselves, their family, and their neighbors.

But even as there are some of us in this Chamber who disagree about national vaccine mandates for private businesses, I wanted to try to find some common ground. Food stamps, supplemental assistance for women, infants, and children, and free and reduced lunch programs are programs run through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and provide food to hungry families and are some of the most basic of programs our government provides to those in need.

For kids who are at school and who come from families who are struggling, I am saying you shouldn't have to be vaccinated in order to eat. Or for families who have trouble putting enough food on the table, I am saying you shouldn't have to be vaccinated to get groceries.

I wish--I hoped--my colleague would agree. I offered a simple bill to say that families who need food stamps and additional support for women, infants,

and children shouldn't have to be vaccinated in order to have a full stomach.

I was a poor kid growing up. My parents struggled to put food on the table, but my colleague is telling families like mine growing up that they don't care about their personal choices: If you want to be able to eat, you have to get a shot.

This is ridiculous. This is un-American. This is an attempt by President Biden to take over every aspect of your life. I am not going to stand for it. The American people are not going to stand for it.

I hope every household in America sees what happened on the floor today.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I want to talk about two things as we are waiting for Senator Wyden.

First, I have been hearing all across the State of Florida, people are really concerned about the Democratic proposal basically to look at everybody's bank accounts.

The latest is that the proposal will take it from looking at every $600 transaction or $600 account to $10,000. Well, if you look at it, almost everybody has a $10,000 account because what they are talking about is cumulative dollars.

So why does the IRS want to look at everybody's accounts?

It is for one reason. The one reason is to take more dollars out of somebody's pocket.

We can't let this happen. We have a right to privacy in this country. We should be able to not have to tell the government everything we buy. If you want to buy a sofa or anything, you shouldn't have to tell the Federal Government.

So I completely oppose this significant overreach by the Democrats trying to look into everybody's bank accounts, because that is exactly what it would do.

Supply Chain

Madam President, the second thing I want to talk about is the supply chain. We have a significant problem in the supply chain. Not only do we have a big problem, but if you look at what is going to happen with regard to the vaccine mandate, it is going to cause even more problems.

My dad was a truck driver. If he had to choose, he would have a tough choice if he wasn't comfortable, for whatever reason, getting the vaccine--and I took the vaccine and I had COVID--then he is going to lose his job, which is going to impact a lot of American families. It is going to cause the supply chain to be in worse shape, and it is going to cause even more inflation.

So with President Biden's recently announced unconstitutional vaccine mandates for private businesses, the President is saying government knows best and is taking choice away from families all across our country, but clearly my State of Florida.

That is not what the American people expect government to do. The government's role is to give people information. Give them the information and let them make good choices. They will make good choices.

My parents didn't have much of an education, but they could make good choices. They figured out what was good for our family.

These decisions should be up to individuals, not government. That's why I asked consent to pass S. 2997, and, unfortunately, the Senate Democrats objected. I hope we can find some common ground.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2998

Madam President, I hope everyone here believes you should not have to receive a vaccine in order to obtain a Social Security check or Social Security disability check. Forcing families to choose between receiving Social Security and choosing to get vaccinated is a terrible choice.

That is why I introduced legislation to protect Social Security recipients and ensure that Biden won't be able to strong-arm them into compliance with his unconstitutional mandate.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2998, which is at the desk. I further ask 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, well, clearly I am pretty shocked. By objecting to this bill, my colleague is suggesting that it is acceptable for the government to deny Social Security checks to American seniors and checks to those who are physically disabled because they have made a personal medical choice to not receive the vaccine.

This is not farfetched. The Biden administration is already doing it to companies, and people are out of a job. The Social Security system is meant to help those who have spent their lives working in this country, and disability checks are designed to help those who cannot work. These checks are not a tool for government to impose its will on the people, just as it shouldn't be the position of the Biden administration to require companies to enforce the vaccine mandate.

But if you are on Social Security or your parent is receiving Social Security checks, this is what my colleague is suggesting by blocking this legislation: Get the vaccine or go broke.

As we all know, prices are going up, and the Social Security Administration just announced a record cost-of-living increase in benefits to keep up with Biden's inflation crisis. Individuals dependent on Social Security still need to get gas and groceries to survive. By objecting to this simple bill, my colleague is comfortable offering an ultimatum: Get the vaccine or go broke. It is wrong--it is wrong to the core--and the American people know it.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2999

Mr. President, perhaps my colleague may agree with me on a different point--that vaccine mandates shouldn't be tied to participation in Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP. There are more than 60 million Americans on Medicare and more than 80 million Americans receiving Medicaid or CHIP assistance. These programs are important for ensuring that our families, our seniors, and our kids can stay healthy and have access to a doctor. No one should be deprived of healthcare because they have chosen not to receive the vaccine. It would be simply unethical to do so. It seems like pretty common sense.

My proposal would protect individuals on Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP from any overreaching vaccine mandates, like the President has done with

companies, and ensure that a personal medical decision does not strip them of the access to healthcare they need.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2999, which is at the desk. I further ask 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, first of all, let's remember that the President is requiring a vaccine mandate if you have a job. So there are people there who are going to lose their job because they, for whatever reason, are uncomfortable getting the vaccine. So this is not farfetched.

I thought my colleagues had gone too far by suggesting it would be acceptable for the government to tie vaccines to Social Security checks, but this is another level of insanity. My colleague is comfortable denying healthcare to someone because of their vaccine status. It is really quite ironic because for the past 10 years, we have had Democrats falsely claim Republicans want insurance companies to be able to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. But here we have it right here on the Senate floor--Democrats are doing exactly what they have falsely accused Republicans of. They want to be able to deny healthcare to Americans who have not received the vaccine.

Does anyone really think that denying healthcare to people who don't want to get the vaccine for whatever reason is truly in the best interest of public health? What do you do when someone is a bit hesitant on the vaccine? And we all have met people like that. For my Democratic colleagues, the answer is simple: Take away their healthcare.

Do you need to refill your arthritis prescription? It seems Democrats want to make sure that pharmacists charge you more unless you get the shot. Maybe it is time to get your physical. If you have been on Medicaid, you are left with two options: Either get the shot or go home because the Democrats don't want you to get your ears checked or your blood work completed unless you have met their standard of getting the shot.

Whether you like it or not, some people are not comfortable. It doesn't matter how poor you are; they are willing to strip you of your health insurance and take away your ability to get your prescriptions unless you get the vaccine.

The American people know these choices are wrong, and the fact that my colleagues stand by their decision I think is outrageous.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3000

Mr. President, now, hopefully, we can get to some common ground. I think our colleagues disagreed on some of these things, but let's see if we can find another one they will agree on, and that is access to housing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development provides a wide variety of housing programs meant to help individuals and families in need of a home and those who are struggling and down on their luck. They help with everything from loans to first-time home buyers to homeless shelters and housing assistance. More than 5 million people currently receive some kind of housing assistance from HUD.

I can't imagine anyone would think that the government should mandate vaccines for Americans who need to have basic access to housing or be able to limit, if you don't want to get the vaccine, your access to housing.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3000, which is at the desk. I further ask 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, well, first off, the Senator might not know I grew up in public housing, so I do have a little bit of knowledge about public housing, and we had public housing for my constituents as Governor of Florida. So I watched my friends struggle to make do.

Let's all remember that President Biden promised us that he would not require anybody to get the vaccine or require vaccine mandates, and that has clearly changed.

So, you know, my parents didn't have much of a formal education, but they worked hard, and they made the best choices they could with the information they had, and they focused on the well-being of our family. So it is baffling to me that my colleague might be willing to tell a family like mine that a vaccine was a precondition to have a roof over their head. I am surprised that Senate Democrats are willing to look in the eyes of struggling families and say: We can't help you unless you have been vaccinated first--which is actually going on right now when you are telling people in this country that if you don't get vaccinated, you lose your job. You will lose your job, so you will not be able to pay the rent; you will not be able to afford your house; you will not be able to afford to put food on the table. That is exactly what is going on. So this is not farfetched.

These HUD programs were not meant to be used to force somebody to get a vaccine. So I am shocked that my colleague would object.

My colleagues have objected to several proposals. All my proposals are designed to make sure that there is no government overreach. Why is this important? Because let's remember, Joe Biden promised he would not require anybody to get a vaccine, and he went back on that promise. I don't believe anybody sitting on this floor should ever be in a position to say that they are OK with somebody not getting in a government program because they haven't had a vaccine--food assistance, Social Security, healthcare, or housing, any of them.

Now, look, I want to be clear. I had COVID. I got the vaccine, and I hope every American will consider getting the vaccine. But it is a decision that every American gets to make. They should talk to their doctor and make a decision for their family, and our government should never be in a position to tell somebody to get a vaccine.

We can't give people an ultimatum to comply with unconstitutional mandates or go without anything--Social Security, healthcare, housing, food benefits, or a job--which is going on all across this country right now. It is a gross overreach by the Federal Government at a time when we need more information and more compassion, not mandates from an administration more focused on advancing its socialist agenda than looking out for every American.

So, unlike Joe Biden and Democrats in Washington, I don't believe the government knows best. I grew up in a family--and my parents didn't have much of an education, but they did the best they could for our family. They worked hard. They made choices to make sure we all stayed safe. They didn't rely on a government program other than to get information. They were trying to get good information from the government and make their own choices.

So with that, I am very disappointed that my colleagues would disagree.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Senator Crapo, for leading this effort to point out what is wrong with this $4.2-trillion reckless tax-and- spending spree. It is a massive government intrusion into the daily lives of American families.

Under their vision for America, there isn't any aspect of life in which the government shouldn't perform a leading role. From cradle to grave, childcare to healthcare, college to career, the Federal Government will be

there in your lives, shaping your every decision.

Their plans go well beyond shoring up the social safety net to prevent those in need from falling through the cracks. And everybody agrees that people that have needs, there is a role for government. But that doesn't include 320 million Americans.

No longer, then, will the Federal Government's primary role be about lending a helping hand so individuals can get back on their own feet. Instead, government would be the ultimate helicopter parent, constantly hovering, regardless of need.

Even wealthy households would be in line for generous handouts to procure Federal Government-approved childcare, send their kids to a Federal Government-structured preschool, purchase Federal Government- approved health insurance on the individual market, and obtain Federal Government-provided paid family leave.

Isn't that a staggering list of things that the Democrats are proposing in this 4.2 tax-and-spending spree they are pushing?

On the one hand, my Democratic colleagues rail against the wealthy paying too little tax. On the other hand, they want to shower the wealthy with government benefits, not to mention hand the wealthy, for instance, $12,500 to purchase a luxury electric car and make Federal taxpayers subsidize the State tax bills of millionaires.

Can you believe the inconsistency of their arguments?

Tax the wealthy; give to the wealthy. At the same time, Democrats have decided that the best way to crack down on billionaires evading taxes is to snoop on the middle class. You just heard Senator Crapo speak at length about that. Under their proposal, every American's bank account with $600, or even if it is $10,000, of annual taxations would be subject to the peering eyes of the IRS.

Democrats are betting the promise of free gifts will be too enticing for Americans to resist. However, Americans understand anything advertised as free comes with strings. Particularly, if it is free from the government, there is going to be strings attached. Those strings include higher taxes today and in the future and any loss of control over intimate family decisions.

Liberal Democrats, in their progressive bubble, are under the mistaken impression the general public is clamoring for evermore government programs. Now, in reality, Americans have long held a healthy skepticism of Big Government. A recent Gallup poll shows this continues to be true to this very day. According to Gallup--I think it was a weekend poll--nearly 80 percent of Americans say that they prefer lower taxes and less government, or would like to see no change in either. Only 19 percent said they wanted more taxes and more government.

President Clinton--up until 21 years ago, the President of the United States--understood this well when, in 1996, he declared in a State of Union message, ``the era of big government is over,'' and then worked with Republicans on comprehensive welfare reform.

Why can't those things go on today?

Hopefully, President Biden and Senate Democrats come to their senses and realize this before taking our Nation down the path of fiscal ruin. And I would define ``fiscal ruin'' by a Democrat by the name of Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration--and I think he also had some posts in the Obama administration--anyway, he told us in January, he told us in April, he told us in August, and I saw it again on television just last week: Spending all this money is feeding the fires of inflation like gasoline on that fire, and we ought to learn not to go through what we did in the seventies and eighties with inflation out of control.

Listen to that, fellow Democrats, today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I hear about rising costs of prescription drugs at nearly every one of my townhall meetings.

Three years ago, I began a bipartisan effort to lower prescription drug costs. Following our Finance Committee hearings at that time, we had a markup, and we had bipartisan negotiations. Senator Wyden, now chairman of the Finance Committee, and I introduced, at that time, the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act.

The bill caps yearly out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors at $3,100. It prevents drug costs from growing faster than the consumer price index on a yearly basis. It ends uncapped taxpayer-funded subsidies to Big Pharma. It creates more sunshine, more competition, and it even has oversight into the world of drug pricing. It brings meaningful reform while driving down costs. It has $72 billion in savings for seniors-- that is out-of-pocket costs to them--and $95 billion savings of taxpayers' money through Medicare.

An important goal that we accomplish in our bill is lowering drug costs without hurting innovation. We did this by keeping government out of the business of setting prices and indirectly keep the government out of your medicine cabinet.

Democrats have proposed the irresponsible idea of government dictating drug prices. They would do this by getting rid of the noninterference clause in the Part D part of Medicare. It is better known as so-called drug price negotiations, but it is not negotiation; it is dictating prices.

Eighteen years ago, I was the principle architect of the Medicare Part D Program. Adding a prescription drug benefit for seniors was the right thing to do then, and it is still the right thing to do, but it needed to be done in the right way, and that right way is for the patients.

In creating Part D, we enacted a very key policy: keeping the government out of the business of dictating drug prices. Governments don't negotiate; they dictate. Competition is the only thing that drives innovation, curbs costs, expands coverage, and improves outcomes.

The Congressional Budget Office has consistently stated that government negotiations of drug prices would not achieve greater savings than the current market-based system, unless you restrict the formulary or dictate the price through reference pricing based upon what socialist healthcare systems pay in other countries. That is the outcome. The government gets between you and your doctors prescribing.

Democrats propose so-called drug price negotiations in their reckless tax-and-spending spree to save hundreds of billions of dollars. Who is hurt by this policy? Of course, patients are.

The Democrats would have government dictate drug pricing based upon an international reference pricing index. Study after study has shown so-called drug pricing negotiations will reduce the number of new drugs produced. What your doctor wants to prescribe for you might not be on that formulary.

This policy would be devastating if one of those drugs was the cure for Alzheimer's or diabetes or cancer. I don't believe that is what Americans want.

While Democrats attempt to advance their partisan drug pricing scheme, I hope common sense will prevail, and we pass a bipartisan prescription drug bill. I have engaged with colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in a bicameral way. I did this so common sense would prevail, if we ever get to the point of Democrats realizing that the government dictating prices on an international basis of what the prices are in other countries will never get 60 votes here in the U.S. Senate.

All of the Republicans and Democrats I have contacted have expressed eagerness to find a solution to meaningfully lower prescription drug costs. Holding Big Pharma accountable has historically been a bipartisan effort.

Delivering new reforms to fight price hikes should be no different. Democrats should stop pursuing their reckless tax-and-spending spree that will hurt innovation and produce less cures. Instead, we should act by passing my bipartisan prescription drug bill.

I think maybe there is an inkling of good news coming from the Speaker of the House--and I have had a chance to visit with her at least three times in the last 2 years on this very subject about my bill--when she said that she didn't think--I don't know whether she referred to the number H.R. 3, but that is the bill that has their main effort on reducing prescription drugs--when she said that she didn't think that that would have the votes to get passed.

I hope there is some awakening to the fact that we need to do something and that this bipartisan approach is the answer.

Trump Investigation

Mr. President, today I would like to discuss the media's complete misrepresentation of the Republican report on Senator Durbin's Trump investigation, in which my staff participated according to Committee rules.

I gave an October 7 speech on this subject, and you wouldn't know that anybody read my speech based upon what has been reported on TV. But as I noted in that October 7 speech, Senator Durbin publicly released a Democratic staff report on his investigation. We Republicans did the same thing that very same day.

I came to the floor that same day to describe the Republican report. In so doing, I laid out what the available facts and evidence showed within the scope of the inquiry. That scope was from December 14, 2020, to January 3, 2021. But TV seemed to think we were talking about what happened on Capitol Hill on January 6.

The Durbin investigation ended on January 3--or events leading up to January 3. I say that date range yet again because many reporters have wrongly conflated this investigation with the January 6, 2021, events here on Capitol Hill. We know all the damage that was done to the Capitol that day.

So I want to repeat: The scope of the investigation stopped on January 3, not January 6, but you wouldn't know it from the TV reports.

I am not going to rehash my entire speech. I have incorporated it here by reference. However, I will note, yet again for the media, several key facts. This is not analysis, as I think TV was trying to do, just the facts.

Fact 1. Records indicate that President Trump's focus was on ``legitimate complaints and reports of crimes.'' And those words come from the transcript.

Fact 2. Witnesses testified that President Trump's main focus was making the Justice Department aware of the potential criminal allegations and to

ensure the Department did its job. Trump's focus then wasn't to direct or order specific investigative steps. And to that point, witnesses said that Trump's focus was on the American people--not himself or his campaign--being harmed by what he believed to be widespread election fraud.

Fact 3, these witnesses testified under 18 U.S.C. 1001, which makes it a crime to give false statements, that it was not unreasonable for President Trump to question what the Justice Department was doing to investigate election fraud and crime allegations.

In fact, one witness testified under 1001 that Trump had ``no impact''--those two words--on the Department's actions to investigate election allegations.

I would be remiss if I didn't also note that one witness testified under 1001 that the Justice Department was ``dragging their feet and maybe more to keep these investigations from going forward.''

Fact 4, my staff read former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, BJ Pak, a press release from the Biden administration where Biden set policy for the Justice Department by prohibiting it from using subpoenas for records of reporters in criminal leak investigations.

My staff then asked if any President has similar authority to set the Department's policy with respect to investigating and reviewing voter fraud and election crime allegations. This witness stated, ``I would agree that the President has that duty.''

And the last fact, 5, President Trump twice rejected firing Acting Attorney General Rosen, and twice rejected the notion of sending what is called the ``draft Clark letter.''

Now, after giving you those facts, accordingly, on the basis of this foundational evidence, with respect to the scope of this investigation from December 14, 2020, to January 3, 2021, President Trump sought and followed the advice and also the recommendations of his senior advisers. I note with specific emphasis the fact that he followed their advice and recommendations. This is a crucial fact.

The report is entitled ``In Their Own Words.'' It is based on actual witness evidence, not CNN-style partisan analysis. I encourage everyone to read the report and the transcripts and draw your own conclusions. That is how I always approached my investigations in the years that I have been in the U.S. Senate.

Now let's go to how my speech was reported on TV. Some on CNN have said that I showed ``fealty'' to Trump by stating the facts. They called these facts that I just recited ``delusional.'' I have never had a problem following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who is in power.

So I am going to refer to an investigation I did in the Trump administration, and it involved some people in the Trump--and close to President Trump.

I ran a transcribed interview on Donald Trump, Jr., during the Trump administration. That was done as part of my Trump-Russia investigation when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which focused on the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting.

I also subpoenaed Paul Manafort to appear at a hearing and provide testimony. Instead of publicly testifying, Manafort voluntarily agreed to an interview with my and then-Ranking Member Feinstein's staff. But as the ranking member's staff then refused to interview him and objected to my staff doing so without them there, that didn't move forward.

Notably, the committee never received any--when I was chairman during this investigation I am talking about, the committee never received any emails from the Democratic National Committee or the Clinton campaign, even though we repeatedly asked for them. Of course, the Democrats wouldn't support subpoenaing them, and you didn't hear a lot about that from the media--the double standard media. The Trump campaign produced records.

Just like there is a coverage vacuum, particularly by CNN, of Hunter Biden and James Biden and their connection with the communist Chinese Government, my and Senator Johnson's September 20 report on those financial connections and their potential criminality was attacked as Russian disinformation. Later on, Hunter Biden publicly admitted that he was under criminal investigation for financial matters. I don't hear much about that on CNN.

In my and Johnson's report, we made clear that based upon deep financial connections between the Biden family and foreign governments, Hunter Biden is a counterintelligence and extortion concern.

On that note, recently released emails have opened up the possibility that Joe Biden mixed bank accounts and funds with Hunter Biden. Other emails show that Joe Biden shared office space with individuals connected to the communist Chinese regime.

Of course, my and Senator Johnson's report was the first to prove that Hunter Biden, James Biden, and other family members had extensive financial and business relationships with individuals not just connected to the communist Chinese regime, but its intelligence and military services.

About that Grassley and Johnson report, POLITICO ran the off-base headline: ``GOP Senators' anti-Biden report repackages old claims.''

In contrast, one of their own reporters just very recently confirmed the authenticity of some of Hunter Biden's emails for a book that he was writing.

One Washington Post columnist said: ``Even after accepting disinformation from Russian agents, Johnson and Grassley couldn't come up with anything new or interesting on Hunter Biden.''

And NPR said about the New York Post Hunter Biden stories: ``We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions.''

Now, compare what I have said--how different Democrats and Republicans are treated; how investigations are done differently by Republicans and by Democrats--and then look at the state of journalism today. What I just said is so much for investigative journalism. Investigative journalism died without so much as a whimper.

The media's attack against the Republican Trump report is essentially an attack on witness testimony received by the committee. Time and again, many in the media have failed to meet the facts head-on in order to fit their own biased story line.

So I say to everybody, including journalists that don't want to do hard work: Read the testimony of those people that were taken on what went on between December 14 and January 3. Read what I say about it. Read what Senator Durbin says about it. But at least read the testimony if you are going to make comments distorting what I said on October 7. In other words, stop screwing up.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in the past few weeks, I have been working with my colleagues in the Senate to draw attention to the privacy concerns of requiring all financial institutions to report to the IRS on the inflows or outflows on every checking, loan, and investment account above a certain threshold.

Under the guise of closing the tax gap, Democrats have proposed to drastically expand the powers of the IRS and turn banks and credit unions into private investigators for law-abiding Americans. The proposal as it originally came out in the ``Green Book'' from the White House required that every single financial account--not just bank accounts, not just credit union accounts, but all financial accounts that have more than $600 worth of inflow or $600 worth of outflow in a given year would have to have that reported to the IRS.

We have been pointing this out to people across America now for several weeks, and the uproar is loud. The message has been getting heard obviously because now the administration and the IRS are saying: Well, we didn't really mean just everybody who has a $600 inflow or outflow of their account. We are willing to raise that to $10,000--so that you don't have to have the IRS snooping on your financial data in your financial accounts unless you have more than $10,000 worth of income or more than $10,000 worth of outflow in your account.

And they said: And we are not even going to count wages or interest or government benefits in that.

Well, let's see what that really means. Does that really reduce the scope of this spying on Americans' financial accounts, this dragnet, letting the IRS have access to everybody's account? How many people don't have $10,000 worth of income or outflow in their account?

Let me just give you a few data points. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average household in America--the average taxpayer in America spends about $61,000 a year. What do they spend that on? The average is housing, $20,000; transportation, $9,700; personal insurance and pensions, $7,296; healthcare, $4,968; groceries, $4,464; restaurants and other meals, $3,459; entertainment, $3,226; other, $2,030; cash contributions, $1,888; apparel and services, $1,866; education, $1,407; and personal care, $768--for a grand total of the average American running $61,224 through their personal accounts in a year.

So does raising the total to $10,000 really stop the IRS from accessing very many people's accounts? No. The IRS today, because of the pressure that we have been putting on them, said today: Well, you know, we already have data from everybody's account on their paychecks; and we already have data on their interest that they get on their various accounts, which has to be reported to us; and we already have data on Federal benefits, like the COVID payments that have been made to people. So we don't need to have those data points collected in this new, massive privacy violation. We can leave those out. But we need-- and this is what the IRS said today, trying to defend this: But we need to have access to the other sources of income that people have.

Now, in that very same document, the IRS said: Well, we are not going to audit anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year. Well, that wasn't what the Green Book said. They didn't say we will change our proposal to forbid us from auditing anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year. All they said was: Take our word for it. We promise. We will only audit rich, rich people who are billionaires.

Well, if that is really the position they are taking, then why don't they put it in the bill? Why don't they put it in the proposal? Why don't they put right in the proposal that they cannot, secretly or publicly, access the data of private individuals in their private accounts if they make less than $400,000 per year? It would be really simple, wouldn't it?

But the IRS didn't say that, and the reason they didn't say that is because that is not what they intend to do. Remember, they started out at $600. That tells you what they wanted. Now, they said: Well, we think we can get away with $10,000--because they know that still covers everybody.

Think of a family that doesn't spend more than $10,000--yeah, that spends less than $10,000 in a year in their financial accounts. Think of a small business in America that doesn't run more than $10,000 a year of income and expense through their accounts. It will pick up every small business in America; it will pick up, I think, every family in America; and nothing will be changed. The IRS will have data on every American's account.

Then they say: Well, OK, but it is only two numbers. It is just the total of your income and the total of your outflow.

Well, everybody can kind of intuitively tell that that doesn't make sense. What would they do with those two numbers? What they will do with those two numbers is use their algorithms to figure out which taxpayers to audit--or which taxpayers that they don't even need to audit; they will just send them a notice of deficiency and say: Well, we think you should owe more taxes, and this is what we think you should owe us.

And if the taxpayers don't comply, then the IRS can go ahead and audit them. And guess what happens when they audit them? They get access to every single transaction in their account.

I asked the IRS Commissioner about whether this proposal involved transactional data or just totals, and he said: Well, we already have access to their transactional data if we want it. That is not a direct quote, but that is the essence of what he said. And it is true. If they want to audit you, they can get access to your bank accounts already.

So the question is: Who are they going to audit? Now, today, those who are trying to defend this say: Well, we are only going to audit people who have, as they said, $10,000 worth of inflow or outflow, and we will even exclude wages, which are already reported, and we will exclude government benefits, which are already reported, and we will exclude interest, which is already reported, and we won't look into anybody's account if they make under $400,000.

Well, that is actually not true. They just said they wouldn't audit those accounts. How can they make the money they are trying to make out of this proposal if they don't?

Let's look at this in another perspective. We asked the Joint Committee on Taxation to tell us what they think the distribution of audits and tax collections would be from Americans in all income brackets of this proposal, and the Joint Committee on Taxation said: Well, you know, we can't tell you that because they haven't given enough detail on their proposal. So we can't tell you what their proposal is going to do because they haven't told us just the details of how their proposal is going to work.

But Joint Committee on Taxation did say: You know, what we can do is look at the tax gap, which this is supposedly aimed at addressing, and we can tell you where that tax gap falls among the various income cohorts. So we asked them to do that.

They indicated that the tax gap falls mostly in ineffective or less than accurate reporting on schedules C and schedule E. So they went through and they looked at this. So if you look at the Joint Committee on Taxation's report and the tax gap that is available for the IRS to go get, here is what would happen: 40 to 57 percent of the tax gap collections would come from taxpayers making $50,000 or less. If you add in up to $100,000, 65 to 78 percent of those making less than $100,000 would be part of the tax gap that they would be going after; 78 to 90 percent from those making less than $200,000; and only 4 to 9 percent would come from those making $500,000 or more.

So if you want to know what the IRS wanted, you can look at this data on the tax gap; you can look at the data on where the tax gap lies; and you can look at their very first proposal that was down as low as $600. And you know then what the IRS is seeking to get.

Americans should be outraged that the IRS is seeking to make banks, credit unions--I don't know--Venmo, PayPal, credit card companies, everybody who handles financial transactions, report to them, if you hit some level, whether it be $600 or $10,000 of either income or expenditure. And then the door is open. Then the IRS can use its algorithms and decide whether to do a deeper dive on you.

And if they use the data from the Internal Revenue Code and from the tax reporting that has already gone on, 90 percent or more will come from people making $200,000 or less. Or the IRS will have to forgo that; in which case, they will be trying to collect on only 4 to 9 percent, which is the people making over $500,000.

Either way you look at it, either they are going to be collecting money--and that is billions and billions of dollars--from people who make less than $400,000 and mostly less than $200,000 or $100,000--or they won't make the tax collections that they are claiming they are going to get to justify the spending they want to make in their spending spree, in this big tax-and-spending spree that they are trying to cram down through Congress.

Let's look at it from another way. Does Treasury envision gathering information on all of a--let's take a teacher. So if you have a teacher, does Treasury envision gathering information on all of the teacher's savings, checking, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo accounts and somehow expect financial institutions to crosscheck these transfers to see if the threshold has been tripped? And at which point must additional reporting be done?

It is very important to point out here: When I said earlier the White House and Treasury haven't really said what their plan is, it is because they don't want people to know what the real plan is.

There is a telling sentence in the Green Book, put out by the White House, about this plan. It says that broad powers will be given to Treasury Department to issue by rule and regulation the details of how they are going to utilize and access this data.

So if you have got a Treasury Department which has already proven it can't keep the data it has safe and that its data will be hacked; if you have a Treasury Department that has already proven that it will not avoid utilizing the data it has for political purposes, that it will not weaponize the data it collects to punish or try to diminish the effect and influence of people with different political points of view; if you already have an IRS that has proven that it will take those kinds of actions, and that it is available to be accessed for its private data to be hacked, what can Americans expect from that?

Again, those today who have talked about it said they have fixes that, as I see it, don't really fix the proposal because it has fundamental flaws. The IRS does not need to have access to the accounts of every American who spends more than $10,000 or every American who has income of over $10,000.

Industry has already spoken up about these changes that were proposed today. The American Bankers Association says that even with the modifications announced today, this proposal goes too far by forcing financial institutions to share with the IRS private financial data from millions of customers not suspected of cheating on their taxes.

The exclusion of payroll and Federal program beneficiaries does not address millions of other taxpayers who will be impacted by this proposal. Not every nonwage worker is a millionaire. How about self- employed hair stylists, convenience store owners, and farmers, just to name a few?

If enacted, this new proposal would still raise some of the same privacy concerns; increase tax preparation costs for individuals and small businesses; and create significant operational challenges, particularly for community banks. The list goes on.

Americans must speak up loudly and say ``no.''

When asked if she was going to put this in the next bill, Nancy Pelosi said: ``Yes, yes, yes, yes.''

Americans should say ``No, no, no, no.''

I yield to Senator Grassley.

Mr. President, that concludes the Finance Committee Members' discussion today.

I just want to thank Senator Grassley and Senator Young for joining me to help to continue to make the American people aware of what is going on here in Washington with this reckless tax-and-spending spree and this massive dragnet of IRS access into people's individual bank accounts and other financial accounts.

I hope Americans across the country will speak out loudly in opposition to these terrible ideas that are now being crammed down in both the House and the Senate.

I yield back our time.

I believe Senator Grassley is here to speak on other matters.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining time be yielded back.