The Watchdog Act

Mr. President, Friday marked the first anniversary of the so-called American Rescue Plan, which is the Democrats' partisan $1.9 trillion spending spree. Fittingly, the anniversary arrived just 1 day after the release of February's inflation numbers which marked the worst inflation since January of 1982.

Why do I say ``fittingly''?

Well, because the anniversary of the American Rescue Plan is basically the anniversary of our inflation crisis. While it is true that supply chain issues and the reopening of economies after COVID shutdowns created certain inflationary pressures, a big part of the reason for our current inflation crisis is Democrats' decision to pass the American Rescue Plan last March.

The definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, and that is exactly the situation Democrats helped create with their so-called American Rescue Plan. Democrats came into office mere weeks after Congress had passed a fifth--fifth--bipartisan COVID relief bill totaling almost $1 trillion and meeting, essentially, all current pressing COVID needs. Our economy was well on its way to a healthy recovery, and the majority of States had the money they needed to deal with the pandemic. In short, it was abundantly clear that we were not in immediate need of trillions more in government spending.

But that didn't stop Democrats. Now that they were in charge, they were eager to take advantage of the COVID crisis to begin implementing their Big Government vision. So in the name of COVID relief, they pushed through a massive partisan $1.9 trillion spending piece of legislation filled with unnecessary spending and handouts to Democratic interest groups. Less than 9 percent of that $1.9 trillion spending bill was earmarked for actually combating COVID. The rest went to priorities like a $350 billion slush fund for States, a bailout for union pensions, rental assistance far in excess of anything that was needed, and the list goes on.

Despite being billed as essential COVID relief, a substantial portion of the money appropriated will not be spent until 2022 or later; and despite the pressing need for workers to fill the millions of available job openings, Democrats created incentives for Americans to stay on unemployment instead of returning to work by extending enhanced unemployment benefits until September of 2021, long after they were likely to be needed. So the end result of all this was entirely predictable.

Democrats flooded the economy with unnecessary government money, and the economy overheated as a result. And you don't have to take my word for it. Here is what Steve Rattner, who served in the Obama administration, had to say in November:

The original sin was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March. The bill--almost completely unfunded--sought to counter the effects of the COVID pandemic by focusing on demand-side stimulus rather than on investment. That has contributed materially to today's inflation levels.

Let me repeat that. This, according to Steve Rattner, who worked in the Obama administration, about inflation--talked about the legislation passed last year by the Democrats. He said that this ``has contributed materially to today's inflation levels.''

Or, as another former Obama administration member put it:

The United States has had much more inflation than almost

any other advanced economy in the world.

That was Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and former Obama administration economic adviser.

He went on to say:

The difference comes because the United States stimulus is

in a category of its own.

That, again, from another former Obama administration economist, Jason Furman.

Inflation started to rise almost as soon as the ink was dry on the American Rescue Plan, and it just keeps rising. February's 7.9 percent inflation marks the worst inflation since January of 1982--January of 1982--40 years ago.

And Americans are struggling. Just going to the grocery store is taking up a larger and larger portion of the American paycheck. Ground beef is up 13 percent; eggs are up 11 percent; citrus fruits are up 16 percent; chicken is up 13 percent; milk, up 11 percent; bacon and related products are up 18 percent; and on and on and on.

In fact, one American quoted in the New York Times noted that bacon is now as expensive as filet mignon used to be. Ordinary goods are starting to feel like luxury objects as more and more families struggle to afford basic grocery items.

A Washington Post columnist noted that a number of the price increases recorded for February were the highest annual increases ever recorded for those items, including an 8.4-percent increase in the price of baby food and an 11-percent increase in the cost of lunch meat.

In a speech to House Democrats last week, the President suggested that he was ``sick of'' people saying that Democrats' reckless spending had helped cause our inflation crisis. This is what the President said last week--President Biden:

[T]he American people think the reason for inflation is the

government is spending more money. Simply not true.

Well, there are a lot of economists who would disagree with him, including the two Democratic economists I have already quoted. And President Biden himself actually admitted in November that his stimulus checks helped increase the demand fueling inflation. I am sorry that President Biden is sick of having people point this out.

But you know who else is sick and tired of things? The American people. They are sick and tired of facing massive price increases everywhere they look. They are sick of increasingly having to live paycheck to paycheck as they wonder just how much further their grocery prices are going to go up. They are sick of wondering if they will be able to pay all of next month's bills.

And whether President Biden likes it or not, his so-called American Rescue Plan is responsible for a substantial part of the economic distress that Americans are now experiencing. And while President Biden may be sick of it, we need to keep talking about this because the President is still--still--trying to double down on the spending strategy that helped create this inflation crisis in the first place. Just 2 weeks ago in the State of the Union Address, the President discussed inflation and outlined his hopes for massive new amounts of government spending, spending that would unquestionably take an already bad inflation situation and make it even worse.

It is nice that the President and congressional Democrats are now talking about our inflation crisis, but it would be even nicer if they would realize that it was their spending that helped trigger this crisis in the first place; otherwise, we will continue to see Democrats push for ever bigger increases in government spending with correspondingly devastating price increases for American families.

The American Rescue Plan was a bad deal for Americans. Let's hope that Democrats do not have the chance to double down on this legislation and make our current inflation crisis even worse.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, there are very few things that possess the power to change the course of history almost instantaneously. Information is one.

Consider, right now, citizens in Ukraine are holding one of the most ruthless, autocratic, and powerful men in the world, Vladimir Putin, accountable for his barbaric assault on their country with their firsthand accounts being live-streamed from behind the battle lines.

Putin is attempting to censor coverage of the bloody conflict by threatening to jail journalists and Russian citizens who dare use the word ``war'' to describe his unprovoked attack.

Even the United Nations instructed its staff not to refer to Russia's military assault on Ukraine as a ``war'' or ``invasion.'' Yet, every day, Ukrainians are bypassing this blockade of information and exposing the Russian tyrant's atrocities in real time by sharing images of civilians standing up to the heavily armed Russian invaders, the innocent victims and destruction caused by the bombing, and captured Russian soldiers in tears testifying that they were lied to and misled into attacking a peaceful country.

As a result, the people of Ukraine have rallied the world, including many Russians, behind their courageous struggle to preserve freedom and democracy against the largest military assault in Europe since World War II.

This is the power of information.

Authoritarians like Putin cannot hide their dirty deeds in the dark as long as light can be shined to expose the truth. It should serve as a reminder to every single American how important it is that we uphold and defend the fundamental principles of our Nation that make us so great--in particular, our First Amendment.

We should never take these American freedoms for granted. That is why it is important we celebrate the freedom of information every year during Sunshine Week. With widespread distrust in government and the media and Big Tech controlling what facts and opinions can even be shared, it has become increasingly important that each one of us has the power to access facts, unfiltered.

To arm us with information, over the past half century, a number of important laws have been passed by Congress to increase openness in government and give our citizens a right to know. These include the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, which allows access to government documents, and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which provides a detailed accounting of how, where, why, and by whom taxpayer dollars are being spent.

To demonstrate the importance of these laws, let me give you a relatively simple example with potentially profound implications.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I teamed up with my friends at the White Coat Waste Project to use a combination of these transparency laws to follow a trail of U.S. taxpayer dollars to China's state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they were being used to pay for dangerous research on coronaviruses. The world is now demanding to know if these studies could have been the source of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down our planet for the past 2 years and claimed the lives of millions around the globe.

Regretfully, we still don't know the whole truth because communist China refuses to cooperate and is, instead, destroying evidence and coercing investigators to dismiss any suggestion that the virus might have escaped from the lab. Even many within the free press of our own country, the scientific community, and Big Tech fell for the Communist misinformation campaign, smearing anyone who even suggested the lab could have been the source of the outbreak as spreading ``conspiracy theories.''

We refused to be intimidated by this Communist Party's propaganda and continued our search for the truth. We followed the science and the money and discovered the world was being told a story that was very much different from what was transpiring behind those closed doors.

Thanks, in part, to a transparency law requiring the disclosure of details on projects paid for by U.S. taxpayers, we knew NIH was funding a group

called EcoHealth to conduct experiments on coronaviruses that were obtained from bats in China and that they were doing so in collaboration with the now-infamous Wuhan Institute.

The White Coat Waste Project then used FOIA to obtain internal NIH emails, which revealed the Agency was funding controversial gain-of- function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute in 2016. They also revealed Dr. Fauci was told as early as January 2020 that COVID-19 looked engineered.

Was this project, paid for with your tax dollars, somehow related to the release of the COVID-19 pandemic, which just happened to begin in the vicinity of the lab in Wuhan?

EcoHealth might know the truth or even provide some clues, but the group's president refuses to answer questions. In fact, he organized a disinformation campaign to discredit scientists who dared to ask that question.

EcoHealth also evaded a number of Federal transparency laws requiring the disclosure of how our tax dollars are being spent. As a result, we still aren't even entirely sure how much of our money was sunk into subsidizing the unsafe, state-run lab in communist China.

Folks, we really deserve the answers, and if EcoHealth won't cooperate voluntarily, then that information will be obtained with subpoenas when Republicans are back in control of Congress. You can mark my words.

This troubling situation demonstrates both the power and the shortcomings of transparency laws. Armed with information, citizens can uphold the government and make it accountable and expose malfeasance but only if the laws are followed, and, right now, many of these laws are all bark and no bite.

So what can a civic-minded Iowan do to get answers from inside the DC beltway bureaucracy?

Well, you know what they say: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

That is why I have introduced the Watchdog Act, which will establish within the White House a new Director of Openness--yes, you have got it, D-O-G--Director of Openness in Government, who will be the taxpayers' best friend. This top dog will hound our government bureaucrats to fetch the facts for our taxpayers. Agencies that would not provide information in a complete and timely manner would be dogged until they do.

In contrast to Russia, where the government controls and censors information, my bill creates a transparency czar to open government and spread information.

Folks, we can't have gatekeepers of truth in a free society. That is why, under my bill, those who censor information, rather than those who share it, will be held accountable.

The best way to restore trust in our public institutions and to discredit misinformation campaigns is by shining a light on what is really going on in Washington, and with the Sun now setting an hour later every day, we are all reminded what a big difference a little bit of sunshine can make.

Mr. President, there are very few things that possess the power to change the course of history almost instantaneously. Information is one.

Consider, right now, citizens in Ukraine are holding one of the most ruthless, autocratic, and powerful men in the world, Vladimir Putin, accountable for his barbaric assault on their country with their firsthand accounts being live-streamed from behind the battle lines.

Putin is attempting to censor coverage of the bloody conflict by threatening to jail journalists and Russian citizens who dare use the word ``war'' to describe his unprovoked attack.

Even the United Nations instructed its staff not to refer to Russia's military assault on Ukraine as a ``war'' or ``invasion.'' Yet, every day, Ukrainians are bypassing this blockade of information and exposing the Russian tyrant's atrocities in real time by sharing images of civilians standing up to the heavily armed Russian invaders, the innocent victims and destruction caused by the bombing, and captured Russian soldiers in tears testifying that they were lied to and misled into attacking a peaceful country.

As a result, the people of Ukraine have rallied the world, including many Russians, behind their courageous struggle to preserve freedom and democracy against the largest military assault in Europe since World War II.

This is the power of information.

Authoritarians like Putin cannot hide their dirty deeds in the dark as long as light can be shined to expose the truth. It should serve as a reminder to every single American how important it is that we uphold and defend the fundamental principles of our Nation that make us so great--in particular, our First Amendment.

We should never take these American freedoms for granted. That is why it is important we celebrate the freedom of information every year during Sunshine Week. With widespread distrust in government and the media and Big Tech controlling what facts and opinions can even be shared, it has become increasingly important that each one of us has the power to access facts, unfiltered.

To arm us with information, over the past half century, a number of important laws have been passed by Congress to increase openness in government and give our citizens a right to know. These include the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, which allows access to government documents, and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which provides a detailed accounting of how, where, why, and by whom taxpayer dollars are being spent.

To demonstrate the importance of these laws, let me give you a relatively simple example with potentially profound implications.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I teamed up with my friends at the White Coat Waste Project to use a combination of these transparency laws to follow a trail of U.S. taxpayer dollars to China's state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they were being used to pay for dangerous research on coronaviruses. The world is now demanding to know if these studies could have been the source of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down our planet for the past 2 years and claimed the lives of millions around the globe.

Regretfully, we still don't know the whole truth because communist China refuses to cooperate and is, instead, destroying evidence and coercing investigators to dismiss any suggestion that the virus might have escaped from the lab. Even many within the free press of our own country, the scientific community, and Big Tech fell for the Communist misinformation campaign, smearing anyone who even suggested the lab could have been the source of the outbreak as spreading ``conspiracy theories.''

We refused to be intimidated by this Communist Party's propaganda and continued our search for the truth. We followed the science and the money and discovered the world was being told a story that was very much different from what was transpiring behind those closed doors.

Thanks, in part, to a transparency law requiring the disclosure of details on projects paid for by U.S. taxpayers, we knew NIH was funding a group

called EcoHealth to conduct experiments on coronaviruses that were obtained from bats in China and that they were doing so in collaboration with the now-infamous Wuhan Institute.

The White Coat Waste Project then used FOIA to obtain internal NIH emails, which revealed the Agency was funding controversial gain-of- function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute in 2016. They also revealed Dr. Fauci was told as early as January 2020 that COVID-19 looked engineered.

Was this project, paid for with your tax dollars, somehow related to the release of the COVID-19 pandemic, which just happened to begin in the vicinity of the lab in Wuhan?

EcoHealth might know the truth or even provide some clues, but the group's president refuses to answer questions. In fact, he organized a disinformation campaign to discredit scientists who dared to ask that question.

EcoHealth also evaded a number of Federal transparency laws requiring the disclosure of how our tax dollars are being spent. As a result, we still aren't even entirely sure how much of our money was sunk into subsidizing the unsafe, state-run lab in communist China.

Folks, we really deserve the answers, and if EcoHealth won't cooperate voluntarily, then that information will be obtained with subpoenas when Republicans are back in control of Congress. You can mark my words.

This troubling situation demonstrates both the power and the shortcomings of transparency laws. Armed with information, citizens can uphold the government and make it accountable and expose malfeasance but only if the laws are followed, and, right now, many of these laws are all bark and no bite.

So what can a civic-minded Iowan do to get answers from inside the DC beltway bureaucracy?

Well, you know what they say: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

That is why I have introduced the Watchdog Act, which will establish within the White House a new Director of Openness--yes, you have got it, D-O-G--Director of Openness in Government, who will be the taxpayers' best friend. This top dog will hound our government bureaucrats to fetch the facts for our taxpayers. Agencies that would not provide information in a complete and timely manner would be dogged until they do.

In contrast to Russia, where the government controls and censors information, my bill creates a transparency czar to open government and spread information.

Folks, we can't have gatekeepers of truth in a free society. That is why, under my bill, those who censor information, rather than those who share it, will be held accountable.

The best way to restore trust in our public institutions and to discredit misinformation campaigns is by shining a light on what is really going on in Washington, and with the Sun now setting an hour later every day, we are all reminded what a big difference a little bit of sunshine can make.

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

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.