Upholding the Law at Our Border Act

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded

Madam President, I rise today to talk about legislation that we are going to be considering in this month of December, critically important legislation for the country. The name of this legislative proposal, which as many people know has passed the House of Representatives, is the Build Back Better Act, which will lower costs for families in ways that I, certainly, have never seen in the time I have been in the Senate. It will also cut taxes for families with children, especially, but for other families as well.

I wanted to start today by talking about a Pennsylvanian because I think

sometimes the only way that we can make sense of some of the policy that we are talking about is to talk about it in terms of its impact on individual Americans and in this case, my case, individual Pennsylvanians.

This is about a mom and her son from a town in Southeastern Pennsylvania, not far from the great city of Philadelphia, Downingtown, PA. Victoria Farrell. There is Victoria and her son Cole. Her son Cole was born with a mitochondrial disease. Cole faces health challenges every single day of his life.

Now, because of her son's condition, Victoria receives help from nurses day and night. Here is what Victoria said about the impact of those nurses on her son Cole and their lives together. She said those nurses are the ``keystone of our lives.'' Victoria also said that the nurses have ``become family.'' That is what these nurses mean to these families every day.

Now, in the case of Victoria and Cole and their family, home- and community-based services allow Cole to remain an active part of his community and to stay at home--to stay at home where he belongs, certainly where Victoria, as any mom, would want him to stay. She is able to have Cole at home instead of being at a place far from their home. These services keep their family together and strengthen their bonds, the bonds between a mother and her son and the bonds between and among other family members.

At its core, Build Back Better is about helping families. But in a particular way, Build Back Better is about caregiving and whether or not we are going to meet our obligations to invest in caregiving in ways that we have talked about a long time here in Washington but have never done. For far too long, our Nation has viewed caregiving as a personal problem for each family to solve on their own.

Caregiving is an economic issue. It is not just an issue for one family to solve. It is an economic issue that affects all of us. And if quality caregiving isn't provided to one family, we are all diminished by that failure. And that is why Build Back Better provides such an opportunity, such a bright opportunity to provide better caregiving.

Caregiving is an economic issue, and it is also a workforce issue. This is one of the problems that stands in the way, a real impediment to getting people back to work, especially in the grip of--and we hope soon in the aftermath of--the pandemic. Caregiving is about getting people back to work, and caregiving is about preparing the workforce of the future.

We know that the pandemic, as horrible as it has been--all of the death, all of the suffering, all of the suffering endured by families, either suffering by way of death or disease or suffering by way of job loss or loss of a small business--with all of that horror, a spotlight was put on some problems that, frankly, a lot of people knew about before, and we all may have pointed to or talked about, but the spotlight finally was imposed upon so many challenges. The spotlight on the Nation's caregiving crisis was one of the most pronounced spotlights that we saw in the whole pandemic.

American workers, but women in particular, are leaving the workforce. This is not out of choice. It is because they cannot find quality, affordable childcare or they can't find quality care for an aging parent or even the option of getting quality care for a parent, a loved one, in a home- or a community-based setting. Many parents can't find the care they need for a child with a disability. Many families don't have the same opportunities that Victoria and other moms have benefited from.

I am the first one to say that it was a great breakthrough when we got the infrastructure legislation passed. I could rattle off all the examples of how it would help Pennsylvania. I will just give you one. That bill we know is separate from Build Back Better, but we are going to be able to repair and replace a lot of bridges in our State. That is a good thing. We are going to have a lot of money to do that. But for some families, for some Pennsylvanians, that bridge to work won't simply be a physical bridge that connects that person to their work-- where they have to physically get to work--for other people, their bridge to work will be quality, affordable childcare. Too often because of where we are in America today, it is not their bridge to work; it is her bridge to work. Her bridge to work will literally be quality, affordable childcare. The physical bridge won't be enough. She is going to need--her family is going to need, for her to get back to work, quality, affordable childcare. Too many families don't have that today.

Her bridge to work also might be making sure or having the peace of mind to know that there is someone home with her mom providing quality care in her mom's home or in another setting. Her bridge to work might be care for a son or a daughter who has a disability or might have multiple disabilities. That is the peace of mind that every mother should have--every parent who is trying to get to work every day--the peace of mind that we can provide by making the right investments. So their bridge to work and her bridge to work is caregiving and so much else.

We also know that we can, in the midst of debating legislation about getting people back to work and lowering costs for families and, frankly, cutting taxes for families raising children--we can also lift up the workforce. The workforce is paid just $12 an hour doing work for all these people we claim to care about.

Every politician that any one of us know, every leading policy advocate will talk about how much we have to care for children, how much we have to invest in better caregiving for seniors and people with disabilities. But then there is no action or hasn't been action until this legislation to lift up the pay of the people who are providing that care. If we really care about those people, we will lift the pay of those taking care of them. You have to ask yourself in America: Who is taking care of the caregiver? We are not taking care of caregivers if they are making 12 bucks an hour to do the most difficult, heroic, and always essential work. We can do that as part of this legislation.

Let me go to some numbers because I think these are relevant. The numbers that I am talking about are waiting lists. You have people on waiting lists who are technically eligible for home- and community- based services, but they are waiting. They are not waiting days or weeks or months; many of them are waiting years on a waiting list. The latest number we saw--and I think this is a big understatement or undercount, but I will just go with the latest number we have--820,000 Americans on a waiting list. Here is the map of the United States. There are 820,000 older Americans and people with disabilities on waiting lists. They are on waiting lists for that section of Medicaid, Medicaid section 1915(c), home- and community-based services waivers. They are waiting for a waiver from their State to have the benefit that Medicaid would provide.

Now, if they were going to a nursing home, they wouldn't have to wait for any waiver. They would be granted that opportunity to have care in a nursing home. A lot of families choose that, and there is great care in those settings. But we should have a similar policy in place--and we don't, but we will, I hope, by the end of December--that doesn't have that waiver, I will just say, impediment or that step that these families are waiting for.

Here are some of the numbers across the country. You can see Pennsylvania. There are about 1,600 on the waiting list. That is a big number. Here are some bigger numbers. I have three for you, just three States that tell a big part of the story: Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Florida's waiting list is 70,000 people. Seventy thousand seniors and people with disabilities are waiting for services; Louisiana, 65,000 people are waiting; Texas, 385,000 people. They make up, obviously, the largest share of that 820,000-person waiting list.

So you have three States--just three States, those three--that comprise two-thirds of the waiting list in the United States of America. Those three States have something else in common. They are not just three States with big waiting lists--Texas, Louisiana, and Florida--but they are three States represented by Republican Senators, six to be exact, two in each State, as we know. Republican Senators represent these hundreds of thousands of Americans who are waiting for care.

I hope, when it comes time for voting--because that is how you demonstrate what you are for around here. It is great to give speeches, but it is how you vote that indicates what you support. I hope that when voting starts on Build Back Better, the Republican Senators from Louisiana, Texas, and Florida will vote in support of this legislation. The more important thing is they are voting to support those seniors and people with disabilities in their States on waiting lists.

We have some work to do when it comes to persuading some of our colleagues who today, we have no one on the record saying they are even willing to consider this legislation. We will see. There is still some time, still a couple of weeks for consideration.

I mention the home care workers making $12 an hour. These essential workers that I spoke of earlier are mostly women of color doing this back-breaking, heroic, essential work. They are long overdue for a raise. We have some work to do to make sure that we bring that to the attention of the American people.

I wanted to make one--tell one final story. Then we will move to some of our colleagues who are joining us here today. This story is particularly meaningful for me because I just happened to be with, in this case, Brandon and Lynn, and the person on the left side of this picture is the President of the United States. He just happened to be in his hometown of Scranton, PA, where I still live. We were talking about all of these issues under the broad heading of either infrastructure or the Build Back Better legislation, all the benefits that would come from passing these bills. At the time, there were individuals who were lined up in this old train station in Scranton greeting the President, in many cases, telling the President about their own families, their own struggles, their own challenges and how Build Back Better would help them.

At the very end of this long line, Brandon--right here sitting in a wheelchair--came right next to the President, and then Lynn, his caregiver, was right behind him. Brandon Kingsmore is his name and Lynn Weidner is his caregiver. I met Brandon months earlier--we were all doing Zoom calls, right--talking about issues in Zoom calls and other ways of getting the message out.

But I knew that the President had not met Brandon, and I knew that he had not met Lynn, and I knew that he had not heard their story, because it is a story of two people. It is someone who is a caregiver and someone who is the beneficiary of that caregiving, that heroic work.

So I knew that the event was about to end, and I knew that it would be wonderful for the President to greet Brandon and say hello, but sometimes at these things there is a greeting and an exchange of conversation and then people have to move on.

So just before the end of our greetings of people coming through the line, I leaned over to Brandon, because I knew his story, and I said, ``Brandon, before we go''--we were literally ready to head out the door--I said, ``Please tell the President what you told me about what Lynn means to you, what her caregiving means to you.''

And that is what it says right there. He was talking about the importance of the caregiving that Lynn provides to him, and I quoted him on the poster right here:

I would not be able to live the life I have.

And then he broadened it to all caregivers later on in his discussion with the President. He said: ``They''--meaning caregivers, ``They give us a substantial life.'' ``A substantial life.''

I think Brandon's words, more than any long speech, reminds us of our obligations. If we care about people with disabilities--truly care--if we care about seniors, if we care about those workers, like Lynn and tens of thousands of them across the country, we will pass this legislation because we can help all three and even a lot of other Americans. We can help seniors have opportunities to get care in their home. We can help people with disabilities get the care they need, either in their home or in a community setting, and we can help the workers to lift them up, to invest in them because we claim to value them by our statements year after year, decade after decade.

We have an opportunity with this legislation to give meaning and integrity to what Brandon said to the President of the United States.

The President of the United States has met a lot of people in his time as the U.S. Senator from Delaware, as Vice President, and now as President.

All of us know when the words spoken by one person in a setting like this has an impact on someone. And I knew Brandon's words had an impact on President Biden that day, and those words should be ringing in our ears, that these caregivers give someone like Brandon Kingsmore--in this case, it is Lynn who gives him this--a substantial life, that is a great American idea--that we are going to advance policy that is consistent with the values we claim to hold as Americans, that we really care about seniors, we really care about people with disabilities, and we really care about those who are providing that care.

So we will have more time a little later to cover some other topics, but I wanted to--if the Senator from Maine is prepared to speak--

We will come back to him because we have some other colleagues who are going to be here later.

I wanted to tell another story about another Pennsylvanian, Theo Braddy.

Now, Theo is another person I met because we were talking about these policies back home, and we had a lot of Zoom calls, and I hadn't heard Theo's story until--I guess the first time was June 2020.

And one of the points we have tried to make in this whole debate about quality, affordable childcare, care for seniors and people with disabilities, a whole range of caregiving issues we are trying to address and policies we are trying to advance, one of the refrains that so many of the advocates who have been traveling the country and knocking on doors and making the argument all across the country about why caregiving is important, they have been saying over and over again that care can't wait, that there should be an urgency to providing better caregiving.

So ``care can't wait'' is a pretty good way of expressing it. And when I think of Theo, I think of that phrase, ``care can't wait,'' because Theo has a story that a lot of families can identify with.

He is now a resident of south central Pennsylvania--Harrisburg, PA, our State capital. And he came before our Aging Committee back in June, and I heard his story then, and I have heard it more than once since then.

Theo was injured in a football game in the late 1970s. Theo and I happen to be the same age--I think almost exactly--and that is where his story really began, with that football injury. And as he was telling the story, I was thinking about myself. I was thinking: My goodness.

He was talking about high school, and I thought: All these years he has lived with that injury.

And this is what it means to him: He ultimately started talking about what it meant to him years later when he was sitting on the third floor of his apartment building. He said: ``Just looking out the window for weeks at a time.'' ``Looking out the window.''

And there are a lot of Americans who have a disability who are doing something very similar: looking out a window, hoping, praying maybe, waiting for a better day when they are not limited to that room and that one view of the world.

That is, for many of them, the full scope and full expanse of their world because they are limited to that one place. A lot of them want to get good care in their home or in the community where they can be close to the people they love and still be the beneficiary of good care.

So Theo talked about looking out that window for weeks at a time. Now, when he completed his physical rehabilitation, he was still not able to feed himself or push his manual wheelchair. So even despite some help, he still had a long way to go.

You know what changed his life?

Home- and community-based services.

Here is what Theo's life has been since receiving those home- and community-based services: He was able to obtain both his undergraduate and graduate degree. He has been a professor. He has been an advocate. He has, in essence, run businesses. He is, because he received those services, leading a full life.

He is one of our best advocates for this policy because he doesn't just talk about it in a personal way, he can talk about the mechanics of the policy. He can talk about the challenges that are in the way of so many people with disabilities.

So Theo has been able to, as he said, because of these services, ``live a full life.''

Sounds a lot like what Brandon said about, because of the care that Lynn provides to Brandon, he is able to lead--and so many others are able to lead--a life that is a ``substantial life.''

So these stories highlight why caregiving is an investment in that great American idea. A simple idea, but significant in the context of what we are talking about: the idea that we are going to have policy that is consistent with the values we claim to hold.

No one would say to us we have the--we have a value in America of advancing the cause of freedom--freedom here at home and freedom around the world. That is what America has stood for all these generations. No one would say that you only have to express that; you don't need a policy to advance it in furtherance of that goal of promoting freedom.

Same is true here. If we say we care about those Americans, we care about Brandon, we will help Brandon and Lynn providing this care.

We will care and advance policy that will benefit Theo. Thankfully, Theo has already received those kinds of benefits.

We will advance polices that will help mothers like Victoria have the peace of mind to know that her son Cole is going to get the care that he needs in the setting that she prefers and that anyone would prefer, that they have that choice.

I am going to turn to our colleagues in a moment.

I talked earlier about that bridge to work--her bridge to work, the bridge of quality, affordable childcare; her bridge to work being care for her mom and care for a son or a daughter who has a disability, or other bridges to work that allow her to get to work.

Well, this bill, fortunately, has so much in it that will lift up families in addition to caregiving, that in so many ways this bill can be a bridge to the future for families, can be a bridge to the future for workers.

Once again, I mean, we can't simply talk around here about having the best workforce in the world. We can't simply talk around here about outcompeting China or any country. We have to advance policy in furtherance of that goal, that value.

And that is one of the reasons why this bill is a bridge to the future. It keeps our promise--the promise we claim to make--or we do make and claim to uphold for families, for seniors, for people with disabilities--really, just for families across the country.

So I think, in a very real sense, this legislation will advance the cause of justice--the justice that comes with knowing that you can lead a full life. You can have a substantial life because you are an American, and we have expressed these common values and we have passed legislation and moved policy in furtherance consistent with and paying allegiance to those values.

So I want to thank our Democratic colleagues who are working on this bill with us as we just begin the debate over the next couple of weeks.

And I will turn first to the Senator from New York, who has been a great fighter for families all the years that she has been in the Senate. I know that because I remember when she got to the Senate. I was only here about 1 year--2 years, I guess, when Senator Gillibrand came to the Senate. And I want to thank her for her leadership and her strong voice for families and for caregiving.

I want to thank my colleague from New York, both for her remarks about paid leave and the compelling case that she made. Just as we were talking about earlier, paid leave is not only a care issue, it is an economic and workforce issue. I want to thank her for her advocacy and the fight she has waged. And, of course, I thank her for the wonderful comments about the majority leader's dad, who just passed away.

I will turn to my colleague from Maine next.

Senator King has been fighting battles on behalf of the people of Maine for a lot of years now, but I am particularly grateful for his most recent advocacy for home- and community-based services. He was one of a small group of Senators and staff that came together week after week after week on Zoom calls to talk strategy and to advance the policy. And I am grateful for Senator King's leadership and advocacy on home- and community-based services, as well as on so many other issues.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Maine.

I want to turn now to the chairman of the Finance Committee, the Senator from Oregon. Senator Wyden has been with us every step of the way in Build Back Better but, in my case, in working on home- and community-based services. This would not be possible without his leadership.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to add 5 more minutes to our time.

Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from Oregon.

The chairman of the Finance Committee had to work, obviously, not simply on the better care and better jobs provisions to the home- and community-based services provisions but so many others as well and also to work on the financing of the bill, so a big job to undertake.

I want to thank him for his continuing leadership and thank all my colleagues today for making the case for Build Back Better and in this case, one of the component parts, but mostly our discussion was about home- and community-based services. But there is so much more to talk about. We don't have time tonight to get to all of it.

I think what you heard from our colleagues--from Senator King, from Senator Gillibrand, from Senator Wyden, and I know the Presiding Officer shares these concerns and has made these issues a priority--we heard it right from the mouths of Americans, whether they live in Oregon or Maine or New York or Pennsylvania, wherever they live, and, I will remind our colleagues, all those folks on the waiting list in those three States I mentioned--Florida, Texas, and Louisiana, where two-thirds of the waiting list is, just three States.

When you hear Brandon talk about a substantial life that Lynn's caregiving

provides him; when you hear Theo Braddy talk about the life that he has because of home- and community-based services; when you heard Senator King talk about the savings--you want to pay $90,000 or $26,000 in terms of what taxpayers will pay over time in the case of 1 year's care, $90,000 versus $26,000. Twenty-six thousand is what they pay for home care.

So when you hear from individual Americans what these services mean; when you hear about the arguments we are making on cost and that this is an investment--this is an investment in America in furtherance of those values that we claim to hold. Senator King spoke so eloquently about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That says it all. That is what Brandon Kingsmore was talking about, that Lynn, his caregiver, allows him to have a shot at life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So we have a lot of work to do between here and there, between our advocacy and our work on a bill and passage, but we are going to get there because this kind of care can't wait any longer. The American people have been waiting for this for all the years that Senator Wyden has made the case when he was a slightly younger man, making the case with the Gray Panthers all across the State of Oregon. People have been waiting for a long time. It is about time we deliver.

Let's pass Build Back Better, not only because of home- and community-based services but for other reasons as well, which we will get to in the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, back in September, a small little Texas border town, Del Rio, TX, was thrown into the national spotlight. This is a small town on the U.S.-Mexico border of 35,000 people, and over the course of several days they had 15 to 20,000 Haitian migrants show up, camping out underneath a bridge.

Migrants huddled under the bridge to escape triple-digit temperatures. It is still hot in September in Texas. And they had minimal access to sanitation, food, and clean water. The images of this crisis looked like they were taken from a Third World country, not from the United States of America.

This massive surge should not have caught the Biden administration off guard. As a matter of fact, they should know that their policies have incentivized and encouraged this sort of influx of humanity across our border.

Border Patrol had been asking their leadership for more resources as far back as June, but come September, those resources weren't available; and despite the warnings, the Biden administration was completely unprepared.

So what is the Border Patrol supposed to do when you see this mass influx of humanity come across the border for which the administration is completely unprepared in a town that lacks the infrastructure to deal with this influx?

Well, the Border Patrol did what they needed to do. They were pulled off the front lines to provide humanitarian relief. But what that means is it leaves huge stretches of the border unprotected against illegal immigration or, perhaps even more dangerous, illegal drug smuggling coming across the border.

And the criminal organizations that operate these smuggling operations, whether they are migrants or they are drugs, they understand this. This is part of their game plan. But it is like they are playing three-dimensional chess while the U.S. Government is playing checkers. It is just not a fair fight or a fair matchup. But so far it has not, apparently, sunk into the Biden administration.

Fortunately, we did have some organizations, like the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, step up to feed, house, and arrange transportation for these migrants. You could imagine what the challenge was just to feed 15 to 20,000 people. There wasn't a Porta-Potty to be had for 300 miles after they consolidated there to deal with the sanitation issues alone.

If not for the dedicated Border Patrol agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the incredible community organizations in Del Rio, this crisis could have been much, much worse. As a matter of fact, the sector chief of the Del Rio Sector told me that the fact that they did not have a loss of life was a miracle.

I want to publicly express my gratitude to those who, in countless ways, went above and beyond the call of duty to mitigate this crisis the best they did. They don't receive the gratitude they deserve, but they need more than our gratitude. They need our help. After the makeshift camp under the bridge was cleared, the national news died down. The reporters and cameras went away, but the problem did not. It is not a question of ``if'' there will be a repetition of what we saw in Del Rio in September; it is a question of ``when'' because none of the reasons those 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian migrants have shown up has been fixed.

Last week, I visited Del Rio, and I met with leaders in the community who told me about the challenges they are facing. The new chief of the Border Patrol sector, whom I mentioned a moment ago, told me that, while there were 15,000 to 20,000 migrants in that one episode in September, they are still averaging about 1,000 migrant encounters a day. So, in about 2 weeks' time, they had the equivalent of what we saw last September in terms of the 15,000 to 20,000 migrants because they are still getting 1,000 people a day. Yet it doesn't command the attention of the news media and of the Nation like this incident in September did.

So things are not getting any better. Agents are still being diverted from their normal duties to care for migrants, including unaccompanied children, which leaves, again, vast swaths of the border unprotected through which drugs are run--drugs that last year alone took the lives of more than 100,000 American citizens, because the vast majority of fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and other illegal drugs come across our southwestern border.

The cartels understand, if you flood the zone and overwhelm the capacity of the local Border Patrol to deal with it, you are going to leave unprotected areas, and that is exactly the plan of these transnational criminal organizations.

I spoke with a group of about 30 Border Patrol agents at muster. That is when they show up for their shift, from one shift to the next, where they learn, sort of, what is the latest information they need to know before they go out on patrol. When they were asked to raise their hands if they would be working out in the field that day, patrolling the border, not a single hand was raised. That is because these 30 Border Patrol agents were going to be pushing paper and processing migrants instead of being out on the frontlines, protecting our country against illegal immigration and the influx of illegal drugs.

Again, the cartels understand this. This is part of their game plan, but, apparently, the Biden administration and the powers that be here in Washington, DC, are completely oblivious to what the push and pull factors are for illegal immigration and illegal drugs across our border.

These men and women of the Border Patrol are brave professionals, and they would normally be out on the frontlines, stopping dangerous people and substances from sneaking across the border, but now they are primarily tackling administrative duties--processing paperwork, watching children, transporting migrants--and trying to clean up the mess created by a failed border security policy by the Biden administration. This is a dangerous situation that puts our entire country at risk.

While these highly trained and dedicated agents are pushing paper, who knows what is coming across the border?

There is a clear and urgent need for Congress to take action to address this crisis in a meaningful and responsible way. Everybody, from Secretary Mayorkas on down, says that this is what is required under current policies. So my humble suggestion is those policies need to change, and that means only Congress can pass new laws to change those policies.

So far, our Democratic colleagues, especially the leadership, have shown zero interest in engaging at all on how to solve this problem. They have spent the bulk of this year trying to figure out how you could break the rules of the Senate to reform our entire immigration system by using the budget. This process wasn't designed to fast-track partisan legislation or to circumvent responsible policymaking. It is not a loophole that allows the majority party to do whatever it wants.

The Senate Parliamentarian has already confirmed several times that our Democratic colleagues cannot use this budget reconciliation process to grant citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants, but they keep coming back, and, for some reason, the very people who would benefit from these policies don't seem to hold our Democratic colleagues accountable for showing up empty-handed, notwithstanding their promises of help to people who are here in an undocumented status.

Our Democratic colleagues continue arguing among themselves about how much of the population should receive some form of legal status without their putting one ounce of thought or ounce of effort into how the population got so big in the first place. They are certainly not considering what we need to do to prevent the number of people living in the shadows from continuing to increase.

I have said repeatedly that there is a clear and urgent crisis on our southern border, and President Biden and his administration have proven to be either unwilling or incapable of addressing it. The numbers tell the tale. Last year, border crossings hit a record high--more than 1.7 million border crossings in a single year. That is a 30-year high. The backlog of immigration court cases has grown to nearly 1.5 million-- that is 1.5 million pending court cases before immigration judges--and the average wait time for a single case to be decided is more than 2\1/ 2\ years.

Congress has a duty to take action to create change in this broken system, and it can only be done in a bipartisan way. It is not too late for our friends on the other side of the aisle to work with us and to abandon this attempt to do an ``amnesty by partisan vote'' on a Budget Act. It is not too late for them to work with us to address the crisis at hand, and I have a suggestion about a good place to start.

Earlier this year, I introduced a bipartisan-bicameral bill with a fellow border State Senator, Ms. Sinema, called the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act. We have also been proud to work with two of our House colleagues, Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Blue Dog Democrat from Laredo--as the Presiding Officer knows in having been to Laredo recently--and Tony Gonzales, who represents the 23rd Congressional District, the largest contiguous congressional district to the U.S.- Mexico border. This legislation makes two modest but important changes to alleviate the strain on law enforcement and improve the way we process and care for these migrants.

One would establish four regional processing centers in high-traffic areas along the border. These would be, in effect, a one-stop shop for the various government Agencies involved in processing the migrants. Migrants can receive medical screenings, have their identities verified, and go through a criminal history check--all in one place. They can also begin the legal process of seeking asylum. They will complete their ``credible fear'' interviews, go through legal orientation, and receive the documents and information they need for their future court dates.

Right now, in the absence of regional processing centers, that all takes place wherever the bodies come across at a given location along the border. That is what takes the Border Patrol off the frontlines, opening up these huge gaps in our border security for illegal drugs to come across. So the very modest step of creating regional processing centers will at least help with that.

Second, our bill addresses staffing shortages that have made this situation even more challenging, and, indeed, that is the goal of these criminal organizations that move millions of migrants across our border. But it will require the hiring of hundreds of Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol processing coordinators so agents, like those I spoke of in Del Rio, can get back on the frontlines.

This legislation calls for 150 new immigration judges. Given the size of the backlog of the immigration docket, we need more help. We need 300 asylum officers, ICE litigation teams, and other personnel to help adjudicate asylum claims and work through the immigration court backlog.

But make no doubt about it. These criminal organizations are smart, they are well organized, and they understand the gaps and know how to exploit them. It is because they have become experts at exploiting the gaps, in the absence of any action by Congress, that what we have seen in this last year is going to continue into the foreseeable future. What we saw in Del Rio last September will be repeated at some point unless we change the way we handle these migrants.

These are commonsense reforms, like I said, that have received bicameral and bipartisan support, which, for 10 months, has completely bewildered the Biden administration. It is not a solution to every problem we are facing today, but it is a place to start. I would yield to anybody who has a better idea or to anybody who has any ideas at all, but, so far, all we hear from the Biden administration is crickets--pretending like the problem doesn't exist and will, hopefully, go away.

Meanwhile, the President's poll numbers, when it comes to the border and illegal immigration, continue to plummet. You would think self- interest alone and the political future of the Democratic Party and of this administration would cause them to wake up and decide: Hey, what we are doing now isn't working; so let's try something different.

Well, I hope that Senate Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate and who set the agenda both here on the floor and in committees, will consider the bipartisan-bicameral bill that Senator Sinema and Congressmen Cuellar and Gonzales and I have proposed.

Only the chairman of the committee--the Judiciary Committee--can actually set a hearing on a bill and schedule a markup where we can vote on it, where we can offer amendments and shape the bill according to the will of the Members of the Senate. So far, Senator Tillis from North Carolina and I have written a letter to Senator Durbin, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asking him to hold such a hearing and a markup. We are not suggesting we can dictate the outcome, because every member of the Judiciary Committee would be able to offer any additional suggestions or amendments that they might have, but we are asking him to get off the dime, to get out of neutral, and actually do something to help improve the broken situation at the border.

Senate committees used to be the usual place for debates on critical issues and legislation, but now it seems like the Democratic chairmen have ceded all of their power to the authors of the reckless tax-and- spending spree bill that has now passed the House. They complain about which policies were cut out of the latest bill without stopping to consider the fact that they could move these same policies through the normal committee process.

After the Parliamentarian confirmed that Democrats cannot grant legal status or citizenship through the budget process, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee professed to be deeply disappointed, but he wasn't surprised. He knows the rules as well as anybody else, and it seems disingenuous to me to say he was deeply disappointed in not being able to move immigration law changes through a partisan budget reconciliation process when he himself has the authority to schedule a markup and a hearing of a bill that would actually make things better. There is nothing that prevents Chairman Durbin from holding a hearing on these proposals in the Judiciary Committee this week.

Make no mistake. Republicans want the Judiciary Committee to start working on legislation to address the failures of our immigration system and not just the border crisis. As I suggested a moment ago, this summer, Senator Tillis from North Carolina and I asked the chairman of the committee to take up a targeted DACA bill, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, that only addresses the active DACA population.

We weren't holding these young people who have done nothing wrong but find themselves now in an unstable future because of the litigation that is still pending. We didn't ask for anything for that. We just asked that the Senate Judiciary Committee actually do its job by taking up a bill and voting on a piece of legislation and making it available for floor action.

Many of our Democratic colleagues have been promising the Dreamers, sometimes known as the DACA population--same difference. These are people who came across the border illegally as children, but in America we don't hold children responsible for the mistakes their parents make. There are many of us on our side of the aisle who would be happy to engage in a discussion and debate and vote on relief and a more stable future for these young people who, as I have said, did nothing wrong but now find themselves in a legal conundrum. These are the young men and women whose fate has hung in the balance of every court ruling for the last 10 years, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is advocating giving them legal status.

Now he has two Republican Senators asking him to bring up a bill that achieves that goal, but he refuses, even went so far as to say he was disappointed we asked him to do his job. Instead, he insists on tying the fate of these young people to the Democrats' impossible-to-pass mass legalization proposal.

Our Democratic colleagues seem to think this massive partisan bill is the only way they can prove to voters that they know how to govern, but they have got it backward.

In reality, Democrats' burning focus on this one reckless bill has kept them from achieving anything else, including immigration reform.

Our colleagues have done nothing to address the border crisis, so far have done nothing to fund the government, have done nothing to lift the debt ceiling, have done nothing to support our military, and have done nothing to meet the Senate's most basic responsibilities.

It is true that by virtue of a 50-50 Senate and a Democrat Vice President that our Democratic colleagues control the majority in this body and they control a majority in the House of Representatives and they have the White House. But one thing is for sure, this is a far cry from living up to our responsibilities to govern wisely and appropriately for the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, as I was home last week for Thanksgiving, traveling the State of Wyoming, talking to many folks, I heard a lot, got an earful from people about the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill that is being proposed and that Senator Schumer has said he wants to get passed before Christmas. Well, if that is the case, it is going to be a long December.

The people of Wyoming do not like this bill because they are finding out more and more about what is in it and how it is going to impact their lives. So I come to the floor today to talk about a couple of things that the American people have heard and the people in Wyoming have been tuned in to dramatically, and that is wanting to know what does it cost.

Just before Thanksgiving, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report about the cost of the bill, and the report confirmed what Republicans who had read through it have expected. It is jam-packed with phony accounting gimmicks, and it seems like the Democrats have used just about every trick in the book to deal with the true cost of the massive amounts of money the Democrats are trying to spend in this bill with one giveaway after another and, additionally, entitlements--new entitlements that the country cannot afford.

Even with all the gimmicks used, the spending is still hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt--not just hundreds of billions of dollars of spending, hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt. This is a violation of the speech that Joe Biden has given repeatedly, that his press people have said repeatedly, that the Speaker of the House has said repeatedly, because they continue to say and the President has said and the Secretary of the Treasury just yesterday said the cost of the bill would be zero. I can remember seeing President Biden on television saying the cost is zero, zero, zero. The budget office even says it is hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt.

But watching this unfold, as the President and the Democrats have tried to force this bill onto the American public, there have been three big lies coming out of the President's mouth repeatedly on this. One is, he said it would cost zero. The second, he said it wouldn't raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year. The third thing, he said it wouldn't add to inflation.

Well, the President has been wrong on all of those. Hundreds of billions of dollars onto the debt--hundreds of billions of dollars. It does raise taxes on the middle class. The budget analysts and the tax analysts who looked at this say at least one in three Americans in the middle-income areas will be paying more in taxes. And it will certainly increase inflation.

I would point out that the people at home are feeling the biting impacts of inflation. It is hitting their lives. It is hitting their pocketbooks. They noticed it over the Thanksgiving holiday. People in Wyoming are going to the gas station to fill up their truck, and it is $100--$100 dollars every time you fill up.

People drive great distances to work in Wyoming. I think we are the State that has the most miles driven, average, for any State over the course of a year, more miles driven in Wyoming by Wyoming residents, so we know what happens when gas prices go up a dollar and a quarter.

Prices are up at the store as well, up a dollar and a quarter at the grocery store. I don't know if you know that the Dollar Tree store has actually changed it to a dollar and a quarter for what they are charging for things.

That is what we are getting under this administration with its reckless positions and policies.

Yesterday, the Treasury Secretary, at the Banking Committee, said that this would not add to the debt. You know, the American people don't believe it. Poll after poll says the President is not being honest with them, in their opinion. That is what they are seeing, and the budget report confirms it. The American people do not want more debt, more taxes, and more spending which results in higher costs for them.

When the President said it wouldn't actually raise taxes on people making up to $400,000 a year, there are the direct taxes, which the budget analysts point out to us, but there are also the taxes that are going to be raised by the IRS fund, putting the American people under the microscope, because in this bill that the Democrats are proposing, it super-sizes the Internal Revenue Service to go after American taxpayers to try to squeeze more money out of honest people so they can spend it on things like five new entitlements for illegal immigrants. The bill would nearly double the size of the IRS, and the money is going to enforcement.

Now let's talk about some of the tax breaks that are in this. Who is going to benefit the most with tax cuts that are actually in the bill? Because the President says there are tax cuts in it. Well, there are. Nancy Pelosi's California--the millionaires there benefit a lot. People of New York benefit a lot. People of New Jersey benefit a lot. The millionaires in those three States will see significant cuts in their taxes, as middle-income people pay more, which gets us to the third big concern about what the President is continuing to say to the American people, which is where he says that it will not add to inflation.

People can see through this. They see what they are paying. They see that inflation is coming.

I would note that yesterday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve said that this idea about temporary inflation is wrong. Oh, no--here to stay. People get it, and they don't like it. They don't like it when they are thinking about what is going to happen if they are trying to shop for Christmas. Can they get what they want to buy, and what is it going to cost?

Well, the President has said that 17 Nobel laureates said the bill wouldn't add to inflation. But then his comments were fact-checked, as so many things we say are fact-checked, and what those economists, the Nobel economists, actually said was that it wouldn't add to inflation if the bill were fully paid for, and it is not, because the budget officials have pointed out that the bill is going to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt.

As I started this, I talked about the fact that I was home for Thanksgiving. Well, this Thanksgiving has been the most expensive ever for the American people, and people are now really worried about what is going to happen come Christmas.

The price of gas is at a 7-year high. Natural gas is at a 7-year high. It is getting colder. Winter is here. What is going to happen with heating costs?

Hard to believe that in just 10 months as President, Joe Biden has taken inflation to a 30-year high. According to one estimate, families are paying about $175 more each month because of inflation since President Biden took office. That is about a $2,000 bite out of the paychecks for every working American over a year.

Now, it is interesting, when you kind of dig into the meat of what is in this bill, the Democrats want to make energy even more expensive than it is now. So if we are at a 7-year high for the cost of gasoline and a 7-year high for the cost of natural gas, what is

going to happen when the new taxes and regulations on American energy go into effect at a time when President Biden is begging Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to sell it to us? It is a jackpot for Putin. That is what we have--Joe Biden's jackpot payday for Vladimir Putin at the expense of the American people. So there are families who are going to have to decide this winter whether they are going to be able to afford to eat or to heat their homes.

The Democrats' tax-and-spending bill is going to raise taxes across the board, and a lot of it is aimed at small businesses, mom-and-pop operations. What are they going to do with the taxes that come at them? Well, of course, they are going to pass them on to the customers. What is that going to do to the cost when the customer comes in? The cost is going to go up, and therefore you have inflation.

Another part of what the Democrats are proposing, which will make inflation worse, is they are going to increase government spending. More spending. More debt. More printing of money by the Federal Reserve. More dollars facing fewer goods. Prices will go up.

One of the things that we are starting to hear about as people learn more about it is the increased cost of childcare under the President's proposal, by about $13,000 per family. Look, this is already a huge expense for working families, but the bill could nearly double it. That is because it includes a Federal takeover of childcare in America.

In total, the bill would create more than 150 new government programs. It is interesting that it uses the words ``tax,'' ``fee,'' and ``penalty'' 637 times.

When the President said Build Back Better, I looked at this as a bill that is going to break the back of American families 637 times--tax, fee, penalty. From top to bottom, this bill is a laundry list of more taxes, more debt, more government control over our lives. The people of Wyoming do not like it and do not want it. This is not what the American people are asking for. They don't like its content; they don't like its cost; and the more they learn about it, the less they like it.

It is interesting because the day after the budget office came out with their report, the Democrats rushed the bill through the House, saying: We have got to get this through here before people see what is in it. Every Republican is united against it. Every Republican voted against it in the House, and actually, there was a Democrat who voted against it as well. So the opposition is bipartisan.

Now, the bill comes to the Senate. Here we are. I promise you it will hit a buzz saw of resistance from Republicans in this body.

So Democrats in the Senate have to make a decision. As people in our States struggle to pay for Christmas, the Democrats who are pushing this reckless proposal have to decide whether or not they want to ignore the suffering that has been created by this administration with increased prices, by causing prices to go up even higher as well as taxes to go up as well.

The American people know that President Biden has not been truthful with them about the bill--about what he has said about the cost, about what he has said about taxes, about what he has said about inflation. Poll after poll says they don't believe him because they know the bill is going to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt; they know it is going to raise taxes on the middle class; and they know it is going to make the pain of inflation even worse.

If Democrats pass this bill, everyone in this country will end up paying for it, one way or another.

The last thing the American people need for Christmas is higher taxes, more debt, and higher prices. The last thing the American people are asking for is this reckless tax and spending.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 3263 and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration. 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, the crisis at the U.S. southern border is raging out of control.

Last week, I traveled down to the southern border to hear from local leaders, law enforcement, and our brave Border Patrol agents in Yuma, AZ. I saw the border at night and during the daylight hours with Arizona Department of Homeland Security Director Tim Roemer, Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot, Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls, and County Supervisor Jonathan Lines. I got to talk with Border Patrol in Arizona and heard from them about how hard this job has become thanks to Joe Biden's radical open border policies.

Let me just say that these men and women who work at the Border Patrol are our absolute heroes. In Yuma, Border Patrol agents are encountering illegal immigrants every day, some of whom are dangerous criminals, traffickers, drug cartel members, or even terrorists. Others are families who have been victimized by the cartels. I encountered a family from Haiti while I was there. I watched them cross the border through a massive hole in the border wall caused by Joe Biden's decision not to complete the already paid-for wall--not to complete an already paid-for wall.

These families are victims of the cartels. Once in America, many of them live a life of indentured servitude and debilitating debt in which they have to send nearly all of their money back to the savage cartels. Many of the children are trafficked, made to pose as the children of people they don't know. We know that so many women and children who make this journey are brutally victimized and raped, but, still, the cartels push these families across the border. It is all just money to them, and Joe Biden's actions are making the cartels richer.

I saw it firsthand last week. Dozens of migrants crossed into our country right in front of me while I was in Yuma, and we could see the savage coyotes watching them from across the river. That is what our brave Border Patrol is up against each and every day. There are about 200 Border Patrol agents across the entire Yuma Sector, but that same area is seeing more than 700 illegal crossings every day.

It is sad how many of our Democrat colleagues don't give these brave agents the respect they deserve, and they certainly are not getting it from the White House. So I want to be clear here on the floor of the U.S. Senate: In America, we respect our Border Patrol, we respect law enforcement, and we are incredibly thankful for their hard work and for their bravery. This was not my first time visiting the border since being elected to the Senate, but it was definitely the worst I have ever seen it.

Secretary Mayorkas testified in the Homeland Security Committee that the border is closed. He said the border is closed. He is, maybe, the only person in America who is going to say that. No one in this country believes the border is closed, and it is clearly not. I saw it with my own eyes, and many of the Members of this Chamber have seen it also. Secretary Mayorkas has repeatedly lied to me and to other Members, and he must resign now.

Just this fiscal year, there have been 1.7 million illegal border crossings. That is the highest ever on record. That means that, by the end of this year, about 1 out of every 150 people in this country will have come here illegally--this year.

In Florida, we are an immigration State, and we are very proud of it. We love immigration. It has helped build our State, but it has to be legal.

Illegal immigration threatens our safety, undermines our legal process, and hurts those who are waiting to come here through legal channels. But under Biden's system of open borders and illegal immigration, we are seeing dangerous individuals trying to come into this country.

Of the 1.7 million people apprehended, which does not even include the getaways, we know that more than 10,000 have criminal records. Now, if you are not going to be apprehended and you try to get away, are you probably more inclined to have some past record that you don't want the Border Patrol or law enforcement to know about? There are 10,000 of the ones apprehended who have prior criminal records. Nearly 1,200 have prior convictions of assault or domestic violence. There are 2,100 who have prior drug convictions. Nearly 500 have prior sexual abuse offenses. And the Biden administration can't even tell us where they are. They can't tell us where any of these individuals are, anything about what has happened to them, if they are being held or if they have been deported--nothing.

I want to be clear: These are dangerous criminals who can harm our families--American families--and even one is too many.

Along with those border crossings, our Border Patrol agents have seized more than 11,000 pounds of fentanyl in the last year--11,000 pounds. That is four times as much as was confiscated in 2019. Now, let's think about this: 2 milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose--2 milligrams--and 1 pound is enough to kill nearly a quarter of a million people. If you do the math, just the amount the Border Patrol has confiscated this year is enough to kill 2.5 billion people. There are 100,000 Americans who have died of drug overdoses this year; 100,000 Americans are dead because of drug overdoses just this year. That is 1 out of every 3,000 Americans. It is hitting Florida and every community across this country. Floridians, like everyone in this country, want to live in safe communities where their families can thrive and prosper.

Where is Joe Biden? He is missing. He is hiding from the crisis he created. I heard him say recently that he hasn't had time to get to the border. He didn't have time to get to the border. Well, I hope he enjoyed his vacation in Nantucket last week and had plenty of ice cream.

What makes you even more angry is that, while drugs and illegal immigrants are flowing in, Secretary Mayorkas has the audacity to come to the Homeland Security Committee and tell us that the border is closed when it clearly is not. It is shameful, and Secretary Mayorkas should resign.

Simply holding Mayorkas accountable isn't going to solve this crisis. We need to do more to make sure our laws are being upheld. This crisis and the administration's refusal to do anything about it is why I have introduced the Upholding the Law at Our Border Act. This simple bill would require the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the vetting and processing of migrants apprehended along the southwest border and ensure that all laws are being upheld.

It is a simple question that the inspector general can and should answer: Is the Biden administration following all of the laws with respect to immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border?

My colleague said he wanted to change the immigration laws. In the meantime, you enforce the laws. When I was the Governor of Florida, I had to enforce all of the laws whether I liked them or not. That is exactly what the Border Patrol should be doing right now and what the Biden administration should be doing right now.

It is the kind of question everyone in this body should be interested in: Is the executive branch doing its job in following and enforcing the laws that the legislative branch has passed?

When the executive branch doesn't enforce those laws, they should be held accountable.

This was a simple bill to find out if the Department of Homeland Security is following all of the laws. It is pretty simple: Follow all of the laws in place as they relate to immigration and customs enforcement on our southern border. Yet my colleague objected to finding out just this basic information.

There is clearly a crisis on the border, and we all know it. Instead of ensuring that the laws that this body has passed are being enforced and doing something about the influx of drugs that are killing American citizens and traffickers coming into our country, my colleague wants to hear nothing about it.

There were 100,000 Americans who died of overdoses this last year. Every person who dies of an overdose impacts a family. It seems the Democrats in Washington would rather stick their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong.

I want to ask my Democratic colleagues: How do you explain 100,000 lives lost in drug overdoses to a parent who just lost a son or a daughter, and how do you explain Biden's decision to open our borders to our brave Border Patrol agents?

Our Border Patrol agents have no idea why these decisions are being made. I wonder if any of my Democratic colleagues has talked to a family who has lost a son or a daughter to a fentanyl overdose or has talked to a member of Border Patrol recently. Or do they just have to follow the lead of the ``open borders'' Biden, and they can never object to whatever Biden wants and can ignore our laws and our law enforcement?

We have already seen that Joe Biden's policies of open borders and amnesty have been a total disaster for our Nation. He has laid out the welcome mat for traffickers and cartel members and has ignored U.S. laws that are designed to keep American families safe--to keep American families safe--including not fully enforcing title 42.

It is clear that law enforcement in Yuma and across our southern border need help, and every day that Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas fail to provide it, they fail the American people. Secretary Mayorkas doesn't work for Joe Biden. He works for the American people, and he needs to do his job and secure this border.

It is a shameful decision to forsake the responsibility the American public has entrusted to Members of this body and to this executive branch. Enforce the law. It is a decision to stand against our Border Patrol agents and our law enforcement, who are putting their lives on the line every day to keep dangerous drugs and violent criminals from entering this country. That is their job, and they need help in doing it.

We can't let this stand any longer, because the American people deserve better than having 100,000 people, this last year, dying of drug overdoses.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator.

Madam President, I rise to join my colleagues in calling for the Build Back Better bill to include provisions that will solve the problems that working people are facing every day because of the magnitude of the problems caused by the COVID pandemic.

Paid leave is a perfect example of this. Today, nearly 8 in 10 workers in America don't have access to paid leave. Those numbers are even worse for lower wage workers, just 12 percent of whom had access to paid leave before the pandemic.

But we know nearly every single worker will need paid leave at some point in their lives, whether they are dealing with another pandemic or a personal emergency.

We have to recognize that workers are people first, people who get sick, have babies, adopt children, who need care for their children when they get sick, who have parents who will age and die.

They work to provide for those families, but providing for your family means, first and foremost, being able to care for that family member when they need you. Without paid leave, most people can't. They are forced to make the impossible choice of either providing for their family by going to work or leaving their job to meet that need. And nobody should have to make that choice between earning a living and providing for an urgent family need.

We send new mothers back to work when they are literally still bleeding, while they have stitches and they are still healing, before they can even recognize that they have postpartum depression. We force them to leave their infants when they are just days old. They can't nurse their infant. They can't bring them to work with them. They can't bond with them. They can't even put them in a childcare or a daycare center because most require an infant to be at least 6 weeks old.

Right now, many women get less time with their babies than dogs get before they are separated from their puppies. That is how we are valuing women workers right now, less than we value dogs.

This issue extends far beyond new moms. New dads should also be able to have time with their new children. Parents with sick children should be able to care for them without fear of losing their job. And workers who need to move a parent to a memory care facility or take them to chemotherapy or take them to doctors' appointments or nurse them when they are in very urgent care need--those are choices that families are making every day, and in this era of COVID, it is happening far more often. You shouldn't have to risk your job or professional future to meet those urgent needs. Without paid leave, far too many workers have to make that very choice and either risk losing their job or having to quit or not meeting that family need. It is inhumane.

Not having a paid leave program also leaves us vulnerable to future health crises. If we had paid leave in place before the pandemic, millions of people could have stayed home from work when they got sick, limiting the spread of COVID, or they could have stayed home with their children when they were forced to learn remotely, limiting the number of people who have lost or had to leave their jobs when a child had to stay home.

I heard from one New Yorker named Amir whose son's health and special needs were becoming significantly complex and required his or his spouse's full time attention around the clock for weeks. At a time of great stress, they were not only worrying about how they could best care for their son but also how they could maintain their livelihoods.

Luckily, they were able to turn to New York State's paid leave program. He told me it saved their family. They were able to focus on being good parents without harming their ability to earn a living and be good professionals.

Your ability to access that kind of support should not be dependent on where you live, but right now just nine States and DC have enacted paid leave legislation, leaving far too many Americans vulnerable. The numbers prove that paid leave keeps people employed, providing stability to their families and the companies they work for.

A study in the Journal of Population Economics found that women who take paid leave are 40 percent more likely to return to work after having a new child than those who don't take it. And, in general, workers who can take paid leave return to their job up to 97 percent of the time. That makes paid leave a good business investment. It helps ensure that the time and money companies invest into an employee doesn't walk out the door when the employee gets sick. Furthermore, when paid leave was implemented in California, nine out of ten employers said it either did not change or improved

their profitability, employee productivity, and morale, and many said it decreased turnover.

Major corporations already know that offering paid leave helps them attract and retain the best talent. By making this program universal, we can level the playing field and allow small businesses to compete with them and hire the best of the best. In fact, the same survey of California employers found that small businesses were actually more likely to report seeing no change or an improvement in their productivity and profitability when paid leave was implemented. So it is not surprising to see that 70 percent of small business owners and operators support the creation of a national paid leave program--70 percent of small business owners.

State programs have also shown us that the programs are not targets for fraud. In California, 91 percent of employers said that they were unaware of any instances where their employees abused the State leave program. And in a study of New Jersey employers, none were aware of any instances of employees abusing the State's paid leave program.

Creating a national paid leave program makes economic sense. Every year that we go without paid leave costs American workers and their families $22.6 billion in lost wages. That is $22.6 billion that could be going back into our economy, helping families get groceries, pay bills, buy homes, start families, and live their lives. And it is estimated that the mass exodus of women from the workforce during COVID could have long-term costs as high as $64.5 billion in lost wages and economic activity every single year.

We can stem those losses now if we take action.

I would also like to note, for those who are worried about the pricetag of this bill, that paid leave was included in the House version of the bill, which CBO found essentially pays for itself. There is a reason every industrialized nation in the world has this kind of system. It has paid leave because it works. Most of them offer far more leave than this bill would, and their economies are proof that it is net positive. We cannot be a global economic leader when we are not even in the game.

Beyond all of that, this is what the American people, the people who send us here, actually want. Seventy percent of all voters support paid leave, including 81 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans, who have said that paid family medical leave should be included in this reconciliation bill. This is an up-to-date survey. The bill is designed to help the American people, and this is what they are actually asking for.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the workplace. We shouldn't squander it.

To my colleagues who say we should not proceed on paid leave until we can do so in a bipartisan manner, I say the American people cannot wait for us to have the same conversation for another year that lead us to the same result--offers of a plan that is not universal or mandatory. A voluntary plan is not what the American people want or need. They need a plan that covers all workers for all life events.

There is good bipartisan work that can be done, and I will do that. But I believe this is a moment in time, if we want to have a universal plan that can cover low-wage and medium-wage workers in small States, in rural States, and in States that don't have their own paid leave plan.

This is that one chance--that one chance in a generation. It is now in this reconciliation bill. We should not miss this chance. We should include a national paid leave plan.

Remembering Abe Schumer

Madam President, I rise to include one additional thought into the Record, and it is to recognize the life of Abe Schumer, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's father and a lifelong New Yorker, who passed away on November 24, 2021, at the age of 98.

Abe grew up in Utica, NY, and most recently resided in Queens. He was a devoted husband to Selma, a wonderful parent to Chuck, Fran, and Robert, and a loving grandparent and great-grandparent.

Abe Schumer represented the values and service that he instilled in his son. He served in World War II in Burma as a radar operator in planes that flew over the Himalayan Mountains. As a child of the Depression, Abe knew what it meant to work hard and deal with financial struggles. When he returned to Brooklyn, NY, he took over a small exterminating business from his father in order to support his mother and younger brothers, and then his own wife and three children.

As Senator Schumer has said, Abe ``personified the greatest generation.''

We are thankful for Abe's devotion to his country and his family. Learning about Abe's background and life, it is clear where my friend and colleague Chuck got his devotion to family, his commitment to service, and his work ethic.

I send my deepest condolences to his wife of 72 years, Selma, and to his entire family. May his memory be a blessing.

With that, Madam President, I yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.

Build Back Better