Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act

Mr. President, there are so many problems going on right now in the country. As I interact with people in Oklahoma, they are frustrated with where things are going with the economy. The rising inflation is literally inflation we have not seen for 40 years.

People who are 40 years old and younger have never experienced an economy like we are experiencing right now. But for those who lived during the time of Jimmy Carter, they all remember extremely well what it was like--what it was like to literally every single week when you go to the grocery store for prices to be higher, to be able to watch prices accelerate month after month after month.

The policies that have been put in place this year by the Biden administration and folks in this body have led directly to rampant inflation across our Nation and are causing a major problem.

The debt ceiling was voted on just days ago here in this body. It was $2\1/2\ trillion. That $2\1/2\ trillion has been set aside for the next 13 months or so.

There is an enormous gathering of debt. We continue to be able to see the inflation continue to rise. And in the middle of it is a conversation about this bill that is called Build Back Better.

Now, we haven't seen all the bill yet. It is 2,000-plus pages. But the pages change every week, and they have for weeks and weeks. We still have large sections of the bill that is being dropped out that just says: ``We will add in more information here later.''

But the sections that we do have, and that have been scored, there are major problems here. This is not just a Republican-Democrat conversation; this is the direction-of-the-country conversation. Is this really what we want to do and the direction that we want to go?

This bill--it was scored independently by CBO, looked at this bill and said if it looks out over 10 years with these policies in place, it would add $3 trillion more in debt.

Now, as it is written, with all the budget gimmicks and everything in it, they say: Well, it actually will only add $365 billion in debt-- though the White House continues to claim that it is all paid for; it is all paid for; it is free; it is free; it is free.

The more we dig into it, the more problems we see. Some of those are philosophical changes. This bill changes what has been entitlements in the past. Entitlements have been connected to actually work to incentivize people to be able to work, knowing that people don't grow out of poverty by constantly getting government benefits. You are trapped in poverty. Work is what actually helps people escape out of poverty.

That is what Bill Clinton talked about often, about changing welfare as we know it. This bill actually changes it back to welfare as we knew it and shifts back entitlements to say you don't have to actually be working to receive all these government benefits. In fact, this bill even says you don't even have to be an American citizen to receive all these benefits; that if you are illegally present in the country, you get thousands and thousands of dollars in government benefits. If you are not working, but you are able to work and you choose not to, you get thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in benefits.

I have to tell you, for the folks I know who leave for work at 6 a.m. and head to work, they are a little frustrated that their tax dollars are going to people still in bed, who are not engaging. But that is what this bill does;

it changes us from a situation where we incentivize work to we incentivize not working.

Part of that is in the child tax credit that is being discussed. I and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted to change the child tax credit for this year that was already in place, that already incentivizes work, that helps individuals with small children who need help. That has been in place in the Tax Code. In fact, Republicans also voted for that in the past with a work incentive.

That was changed in March of this year in a straight partisan vote. And it was done for a temporary basis because of COVID, to actually allocate dollars to families, regardless of if they are working or not during the time of COVID.

Now, the conversation is, that needs to be extended, not just through COVID but to just keep extending it, to take away the work requirements, to take away the requirement to be a citizen of the United States to receive these dollars, and to actually make it where you are getting a monthly check rather than just a tax incentive at the end of the year based on if you were working or not.

And the working requirement is not high. It is, literally, if you worked and earned $2,500 in a year, you qualify for the tax credit. But they take away even that requirement for your family.

The childcare piece has been interesting because I have heard a lot of my Democratic colleagues talk about, well, we are going to give free childcare to folks.

The problem is--a multitude of issues with this. One is, if you are a faith-based entity for childcare, you are excluded from this, which about half of the childcare facilities around the country are provided by churches and faith-based nonprofits--rural and urban areas, they are all cut out.

The other challenge is, while they talk about free childcare, free childcare, free childcare, a very liberal think tank just did the math on this, what it would mean for middle-class families who actually do childcare at that same facility. Middle-class families who are paying right now for childcare would, after this bill is put in place--they estimate that it would cost $13,000 more a year for childcare if you are not getting the subsidies.

So if you are getting the subsidies, it is free. If you are a dollar past the subsidies, you are going to pay $13,000 more a year for your childcare.

I hope you are tracking the cost of natural gas as it is raised because it is about to go up again. If this bill--what I call the ``Build Back Broke'' bill--passes, the cost of natural gas and the cost of heating across America will go up because there is a new fee on methane.

I could go on and on and on with the issues that are in this bill that are content, that are philosophical issues, that are issues that affect people who live in my State and will raise the cost for them.

Some people ask me: Who are the folks who actually like this bill?

Well, there are quite a few folks who like this bill. The folks who are in wealthy Democrat-run States, they love this bill because the wealthiest individuals in the highest tax States--and those are the blue States--the wealthiest individuals in the highest tax States, they get a huge tax break in this bill. For the wealthiest individuals, they get an $80,000-a-year cut in their taxes, what they call State and local taxes. So if you are in New York or New Jersey or Illinois or in California and you are in the top 1 percent, you get an $80,000 cut in your taxes. They like this bill.

Somebody else who likes this bill are the wealthy who actually buy electric vehicles--incredibly expensive, beautiful vehicles, many of them, but they get $12,500 off of their vehicle based on this bill.

The environmental activists love this bill because billions of dollars actually go directly to these environmental activist groups. Many who were active in the Biden campaign, they get additional billions of dollars coming in. In fact, there are billions of dollars to create a new Civilian Climate Corps--a group of young people who will travel around the country actually promoting environmentalism, paid for with Federal tax dollars. They like this bill. Unions like this bill because, currently, if you donate to a nonprofit, you are able to take some of that off of your taxes. But under this bill, that goes away, and it is replaced with if you pay union dues, you get to write this off your taxes. So unions definitely like this bill.

And the folks who really, really like this bill--reporters and journalists. Reporters and journalists love this bill. So some of them are not talking about the content of this bill. The reason I say that, because this bill pays half the salary for reporters and journalists all over the country. This bill puts in place that half the salary of reporters and journalists in every city and every community across America will get half of their salary paid for by the Federal tax dollars.

Let's see, government-paid reporters and journalists--what could go wrong with that?

There are a lot of issues in this bill. And as we talk through this bill, and as, thankfully, this bill is slowing down dramatically so that people are able to see the contents of this bill, I have more and more people who catch me and say: I have a major concern with this bill and, I have to tell you, I have had for months. And we continue to be able to speak out on issues that change the direction for our Nation that are actually built into this bill.

Christmas

Mr. President, it is the middle of December, and we are still hanging out in DC. We are actually past the date that we were supposed to not be here any longer, according to our official calendar, but there is work to be done. And we continue to be able to do the work. It is a contentious body and, at times, a contentious nation.

I was with a group of folks yesterday for an early morning breakfast. And as we prayed together, one of them looked at me and said: I need a little ``Prince of Peace'' right now.

So can I just for a moment in this Chamber pause and just do a quick reminder of what is coming over the next couple of weeks, not about the heat of battle in this room but where we are in this season?

Reading from the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah 9:6 says: For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders, and His Name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And there will be no end to the increase of this government or of his peace. It sounds like this in Luke, Chapter 2:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus,

that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was

the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each

to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the

city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is

called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of

David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged

to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days

were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to

her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid

Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the

inn.

In the same region there were shepherds staying out in the

fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an

angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory

of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly

frightened. But the angel said to them, ``Do not be afraid;

for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be

for all the people; for today in the city of David there has

been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will

be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and

lying in a manger.'' And suddenly there appeared with the

angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and

saying, ``Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace

among men with whom He is pleased.''

When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the

shepherds began saying to one another, ``Let's go straight to

Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which

the Lord has made known to us.'' So they came in a hurry and

found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in

the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the

statement which had been told them about this Child. And all

who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by

the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering

them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and

praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as

had been told to them.

A little peace on Earth will be helpful to this body and to our Nation on this day.

Merry Christmas to you.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is a pleasure, and I appreciate my friend, Senator Blunt.

I am here today to rise for the 10th time to talk about the rightwing scheme to capture our Supreme Court.

As the Presiding Officer knows, I have delivered a lot of speeches on the Senate floor, and a majority of them--279 of them, to be precise-- addressed climate change. These were my ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, many of which focused on the network of phony front groups and trade associations used by the fossil fuel industry to block any meaningful climate legislation.

That vast web of climate denial and climate obstruction is one of the main reasons that we are in the climate crisis we face today. I am here today to report that there is common technique behind that smelly climate denial operation and the rightwing donor operation to capture the Court.

They both rely on massive amounts of dark money. They both rely on a small number of ultrawealthy donors who supply that dark money. And they both rely on an armada of front groups and phony corporate entities, funded by those big donors, to hide their hands. At this point, it is, actually, depressingly, familiar.

But it is worse than just common technique. It is the same entities: the Koch operation, Americans for Prosperity, DonorsTrust, the Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The list goes on and on and on. These are the exact same players on both sides of the operation--on the climate-denying web and on the Court-capturing scheme.

My colleagues and I showed in a number of Web of Denial climate speeches how a few ultrawealthy, rightwing foundations, corporate trade groups, and so-called donor-advised funds supply the bulk of the dark money for modern-day climate denial.

Big oil companies used to do that directly, but they got burned and learned that it is bad for their public image, and I suspect they are hiding now behind those anonymizing entities and trade groups.

The big funding guns included the Koch network; the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the Searle Freedom Trust; the Sarah Scaife Foundation; Donors Capital; and DonorsTrust, which has been called the rightwing's ``dark money ATM.''

This is the Web of Denial graphic that we used in many of those Web of Denial speeches, and you will see these groups turning up over and over again. They are central in the web of climate denial.

Now, if you look at the big funders behind the scheme to capture the Court, you will see this--in my last scheme speech, I talked about the flotillas of amici curiae--or ``friends of the court''--who come in and orchestrate phalanxes to file briefs for the rightwing in cases of significance to the scheme's big donors. Well, it turns out that those funders also inhabit the web of denial.

This is an appendix that I filed in the case of Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--a case that was the rightwing's shot at weakening a consumer watchdog agency they hate. This appendix--a first of its kind in the Supreme Court, which was attached to my amicus brief--looked at some of the other amici who had filed briefs and cross-referenced where their funding had come from.

My point then was that the Court was not told that there was this huge overlap of funding. Each brief came in as if it were independent rather than part of an orchestrated cascade. So nearly every one of these groups is part of the web of denial: DonorsTrust, Donors Capital, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Searle Foundation.

But the overlay isn't just with the phony amicus flotillas that are orchestrated up at the Supreme Court; it is right in the cases themselves. Take the notorious anti-labor cases of Friedrichs and Janus. According to a trove of documents uncovered in 2016, legal groups funded by the Bradley Foundation brought those cases. They weren't just amici filing briefs; they were the litigating law group in those cases. The law group went out and found the plaintiffs-- plaintiffs of convenience, and they paid the plaintiffs' legal expenses. Those same donors, Bradley has shown in this, funded that whole boatload of amici who came in to support their also-funded group that was bringing the case on behalf of a nominal plaintiff. By the way, they funded a flotilla of amici in Janus. Seventeen Supreme Court amicus briefs came from groups funded by DonorsTrust, Donors Capital, and Bradley.

The front groups in those labor cases actually played a little bit of switcheroo amongst themselves. Think of the pea-and-shell game. The group that brought the case in Friedrichs became an amicus supporting the plaintiff in Janus. The group that brought the case in Janus had been an amicus supporting the plaintiff in Friedrichs. All of those groups--the ones that brought the two cases and the groups that chimed in as amici--were funded by the same organizations. It is a little bit like that pea-and-shell game except, if you know the parties, it is being played with transparent shells; but for some reason, the Court is incapable of noticing this scheme that is being pulled in plain view, in their presence.

Now, some front groups are invented shells--purpose built--just to hide whoever is behind them. Others are preexisting, captured, and co- opted. The key common characteristic, whether invented or captured and co-opted, is that they got to hide the donors. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the easy example of a captured and co-opted group.

According to the watchdog group InfluenceMap, the Chamber is one of the biggest climate obstructors in Washington.

Why?

The Chamber has lots of members who don't support climate obstruction, but someone--someone--gave the Chamber enough money to become a worst climate obstructor. And guess what. The Chamber is also a major player in the scheme. It is the biggest filer of scheme amicus briefs; it campaigned hard for all three of Trump's dark money-chosen Supreme Court Justices; and way back, it commissioned the Lewis Powell memo that launched the entire scheme.

Other major front groups serving both the web and the scheme include the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise.

Again, the common thread?

They all hide the donors so they can provide that vital screening, anonymizing function, which is key to the donors because they have to hide their identities and their motives in order to do their dark work.

On the scheme side, each one of these groups gets gobs of scheme dark money, helps hatch hot-house legal theories to present to scheme Justices, helps locate plaintiffs of convenience to bring cases for and/or joins the orchestrated flotillas of scheme amicus briefs. You see the same players over and over and over again, and how the Court manages not to notice or be curious is a mystery.

On the web side, each is also a central node in the web of denial. Here, for instance, is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Here is the Donors Trust, Donors Capital. Here is Koch-affiliated foundations. Here is Searle Freedom Trust. Here is the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. These groups pretty notoriously represent the interests of Big Business and rightwing donors, so you at least know that much, if not the specific identity of who is funding the brief. But some of the web-scheme overlay gets a little bit harder to unravel, so let's drill into one: the Independent Women's Forum.

This group was founded by rightwing donors in the very early days of the scheme to prop up the troubled nomination of Justice Thomas. It has accepted millions of dollars from a who's who of scheme and web-of- denial donors--Bradley, Scaife, Koch, Donors Trust. Its stated mission is to ``improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty,'' but its real mission is to pop up anytime its dark money donors want to trot out a front group purporting to represent women. In practice, that means they pop up everywhere. They popped up in a pending Second Amendment case before the Court. They popped up in the Americans for Prosperity Foundation case that granted a constitutional right to dark money, signed off on by the dark money Justices. They popped up in the Little Sisters of the Poor contraception case. They popped up in a challenge to the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Independent Women's Forum's work in that EPA case brings the overlay between the web and the scheme into focus.

In 2016, the forum joined the dark money amicus flotilla asking the Supreme Court to strike down the EPA's Clean Power Plan, along with other web-scheme front groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Texas Public Policy Institute, and other groups opposing the EPA. These parties asked the Robert Court to stop the Clean Power Plan before it went into effect. Just days before Antonin Scalia died and their 5-to-4 majority evaporated, the Republican Justices obliged.

This was ``shadow docket'' work, for those of you following the Texas abortion case ``shadow docket'' fiasco.

In the EPA case, for the first time, the Court stepped in to stay a regulation before it went into effect and before the lower court had a chance to weigh in.

By the way, it was a purely partisan decision, with all the Republicans behind it and none of the other Justices.

Fast-forward to today. The Trump administration replaced the Clean Power Plan in 2018 with a Trump do-nothing, polluter-friendly rule. When the Biden administration came in, it completely abandoned the Trump do-nothing, polluter-friendly rule, so right now, there is actually no regulation to challenge. But the scheme has replenished its dark money Court and supercharged it with a sixth Justice.

They are out to disable what they call the administrative state for the sake of their big donors, so they sued again, backed by familiar organizations--the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Texas Public Policy Institute, and other web-scheme groups--to ask, as they put it in their brief, that the Court ``finish what it started when it stayed the [Clean Power Plan].''

There is no regulation to challenge. Yet the Republicans on the Court took the case--so much for the ``case or controversy'' principle of the Constitution. Now the Court, I guess, is going to make decisions based on what might happen. Where I come from, that is called an advisory opinion, which our Court is not supposed to do under the separation of powers. But the Federalist Society six on the Court are out for big game. The prize is to bring down the ``regulatory state'' altogether, and where better than where it most helps the fossil fuel industry--the

industry lurking behind this web of denial and likely also working behind the dark money that put the last Justices on the Court and likely also lurking behind the dark money millions that fund the Republican election groups.

This Clean Power Plan challenge opens an avenue for scheme-appointed Justices to delight the donors behind both the scheme and the web. In the short term, it would hobble the EPA's ability to combat climate change--something very much sought by vested interests in the fossil fuel industry. Over the long term, it would accomplish rightwing donors' goal of kneecapping Federal Agency power across the board.

For Donors Trust, the Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Women's Forum, and dozens of other groups that link the web and the scheme, winning cases like this one means big wins for their big secret donors.

To go back to my early speeches about the scheme, they are following Lewis Powell's advice years ago to seize what he called the ``most important instrument for social, economic, and political change''--the Federal judiciary--and to control it with what he called ``an activist- minded Supreme Court.'' The scheme has captured the Court. The scheme's captured Court will deliver for the web. It is the same donors and organizations behind both, and it has got to be cleaned up because this is not how courts are supposed to work.

To be continued.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, the eyes of the world are on Russia as it stages a military buildup on the Ukrainian border. Russia could literally invade Ukraine at any time. And the United States and the international community need to take strong, decisive action to dissuade a Russian offensive from invading Ukraine. I was glad to see the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, denounce Russia's action earlier today, but clearly words are not enough. Statements of support are not enough to counter an invasion. The United States and our NATO allies must provide additional support to Ukraine as they defend their borders, and time is of the essence.

Senator Durbin, the Senator from Illinois, and I have introduced a resolution to provide complete clarity on the U.S. Senate's position on this imminent conflict. Our resolution affirms the unwavering support of the United States for a secure, democratic, and independent Ukraine, but it also asserts the need for action. Our resolution calls on the Biden administration to provide additional lethal aid to Ukraine to counter ongoing Russian aggression.

Senator Durbin and I have been proud to notch a long list of bipartisan cosponsors, and I hope the Senate will pass this resolution before we break at the end of the year.

Biden Administration

Madam President, on another matter, the first year of the Biden Presidency and the Democratic-majority controlled Congress is quickly coming to an end. Looking at everything that has happened so far this year, it is tough to imagine the American people are happy with how things are going.

President Biden raised all of our hopes and expectations during his inauguration, as he built his campaign and then spoke at his inauguration on a simple theme: unity. He talked about the need for people across the country to come together and empathize with one another and to work together. He promised to be a uniting force in Washington, DC, and pointed to his service in the U.S. Senate as evidence of his ability to work across the aisle to broker bipartisan deals.

Clearly, this message was welcomed by the American people. After all, they gave him the job in the first place. But just because voters picked a Democratic President doesn't mean they signed off on a radical transformation of our country. The American people elected a 50-50 Senate and lessened the Democratic majority in the House.

In short, Americans selected a President who promised to work across the aisle and a closely divided Congress--and gave us a closely divided Congress to ensure that he kept his word, but the American people have not gotten what they expected.

Right from the start, there were clear signs of where things were headed. At the beginning of the year, the two party leaders negotiated an organizing statement to determine how the 50-50 Senate would function. In light of the far-left's newfound obsession with eliminating the filibuster, Leader McConnell asked for assurances from Leader Schumer that the filibuster would remain intact. After all, it is not unreasonable to ask your negotiating partner to commit to not breaking the rules.

Even though Senator Schumer once said we should ``build a firewall around the legislative filibuster,'' he refused to agree to leave it alone, which was not very encouraging. Fortunately, two of our Democratic colleagues have committed to protect the filibuster, which ensures that there will be something that maybe is a little unnatural for human nature--to try to force us to work together to build consensus to do things like we did yesterday: pass the National Defense Authorization Act. That is not necessarily our first instinct.

But protecting the filibuster is important. It provides stability and continuity and predictability in our Nation's laws and to make sure that we don't add to the chaos by, every 2 years, after every election, reversing everything that had been done the previous 2 years.

We saw how tempted our Democratic colleagues were to use their newfound powers in the majority. That meant, unfortunately, forget working across the aisle or striking bipartisan deals--Senator Schumer made clear he wanted an easy path for purely partisan legislation.

The first item on his agenda was a $2 trillion liberal wish list unconvincingly disguised as pandemic relief. It included things like backdoor funding for Planned Parenthood, a blank check for mismanaged union pension systems, and money for climate justice. This had very, very little to do with COVID-19 and the pandemic, which is how it was sold.

The Democratic leader got a taste of partisan legislating and decided that he wanted more of it, so he tried to break the two Democratic Members on his side of the aisle who were protecting bipartisanship and consensus building. He lined up votes on some of our colleagues' most controversial bills, all of which were designed to fail. There was a bill that exploited the cause of pay fairness to line the pockets of trial lawyers. Unsurprisingly, it did not pass.

Senator Schumer forecasted votes on two bills that were so unpopular among Democrats that they didn't even make it to the Senate floor. One was to erode the American people's Second Amendment rights, and another would punish

schools and hospitals that refused to comply with ``woke'' social norms.

But without a doubt, the most dangerous legislation Democrats have pushed is to overhaul America's election system. The version of the bill we voted on this summer was so bad that I was surprised Democrats even had the gall to hold a vote on it.

The bill would have turned the bipartisan Federal Election Commission into a Democratic-controlled, partisan body. It would have seized States' constitutional authority to draw their own congressional districts, instead handing all the power to independent redistricting commissions. It would have federalized ballot harvesting--literally vacuuming up ballots and delivering them to a paid campaign staffer and political operatives who had a stake in the outcome of the election. The only thing it would have done for the people is decide the outcome of virtually every future election and--spoiler alert--make sure that Democrats would never lose.

If this bill weren't so dangerous, it would have been laughable. It is no surprise that the only bipartisan thing about this bill was the opposition. In both the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats joined together to defeat this bill.

Still, our Democratic colleagues refused to throw in the towel. They rewrote the bill, tried to rebrand it, and brought it up for another vote in October. Once again, it failed. The Democratic leader has said this partisan legislation will resurface again sometime before the end of next year, but I don't expect the outcome to change.

Of course, amid all the partisan jockeying, there has been a large, dark cloud looming overhead known as the Build Back Better--or, rather, I think more accurately, ``Build Back Bankrupt''--bill. This legislation would drive up the cost of childcare for families and cut healthcare for the uninsured. It would hurt our energy security and increase the already sky-high energy costs. It would put taxpayers on the hook for massive handouts to blue State millionaires, organized labor, trial lawyers, wealthy media corporations, and a host of powerful friends of the Democratic Party.

Our Democratic colleagues have used every trick in the book to make the price of this spending spree look as small as possible. One of our Democratic colleagues even acknowledged the disingenuous advertising.

Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Tax Committee have provided an honest score of the bill that passed the House and that has been proposed here in the Senate--one which ignores the gimmicks our colleagues initially tried to use. The Congressional Budget Office says that this bill would cost $4.9 trillion in the first 10 years alone--not zero, as President Biden has disingenuously claimed; not $1.75 trillion, as our Democratic colleagues have claimed; but $4.9 trillion, nearly triple the price Democrats have previously been willing to acknowledge. And deficits--money that would have to be repaid by the next generation and beyond--would increase by a staggering $3 trillion over the next decade.

As it turns out, spending trillions of dollars on unnecessary programs and dolling out handouts for the wealthy is not an easy sell. Senator Schumer apparently can't convince all 50 Democrats to vote for the bill.

While our colleagues have focused on these wholly partisan endeavors, they have ignored clear opportunities to work together in a bipartisan effort.

For example, Members of both parties agree that something must be done to bring down prescription drug prices for the American people. This was a major focus last Congress, and there are a range of bipartisan bills that support this goal, including one I have introduced with Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut. So far, we have made no progress for the American people on high prescription drug costs.

Then there is the crisis at the border. On President Biden's watch, annual border apprehensions have hit an alltime high. For most of the year, though, Democrats refused to acknowledge that any sort of problem actually existed at the southern border. They adopted the same rules as ``Fight Club''--they just didn't talk about it. Vice President Harris, named ``border czar'' by President Biden, didn't even visit the border until late last June, long after the humanitarian crisis had ballooned to unimaginable heights, and even then, she stayed away from the hardest hit sectors.

Senator Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, and I have introduced legislation with commonsense reforms to address the crisis, but the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Durbin, has declined to mark up the bill or even convene a hearing of the Judiciary Committee to investigate the border crisis and explore possible responses to it.

Democrats and Republicans have shown a willingness to work together to put DACA recipients on a strong legal footing. These are young people known as Dreamers but frequently referred to as DACA, deferred action on childhood arrival, which is the name of the administrative process used by the Obama administration to provide them some legal standing in which to stay in the country. But they have been embroiled in 10 years of unnecessary litigation, and they are uncertain about the outcome of their case. I think this is an area where we could work together to provide them some certainty and some finality.

There are other things we could and should be doing, like securing our most critical supply chains, encouraging innovation in the energy sector, and solving many of the challenges American families are facing every day. But rather than work across the aisle to address these bipartisan priorities, our colleagues have wasted a year on purely partisan exercises. Again, this is not what the American people thought they were getting when they elected Joe Biden President and when they gave the Senate a 50-50 split.

The 2020 election wasn't an invitation to codify a liberal wish list; it was a call to work together. And there is no better place for the work that can be done than in the U.S. Senate. There is a lot we can and should accomplish next year, but this sort of partisan, unilateral approach to governing has made that nearly impossible. You can only hope for better next year.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle got what they wanted, which was a Democratic majority, given the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President. They have been given the keys to the kingdom, and now, next year, we will see how long they can hold on to them, or perhaps they can change course and return to bipartisan legislating and consensus building for the benefit of the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Indiana. What he didn't have under that Christmas tree or in the stocking was a lump of coal because I guess a lump of coal is not something we would find in Build Back Better. Even though there is a lot of stuff in there that is really bad for our economy right now, bad for our families, bad for our workers. And when you think about it, right now, we are in a time of high inflation, supply chain difficulties, record levels of debt and deficit, and an uncertain economy due largely to the uncertainty regarding COVID and particularly this variant, the Omicron.

So this is not a time for us to be putting forward a massive new spending bill and a massive new tax increase on the American economy. In fact, it is the time for us to retrench a little bit and try to help to get back to where we were before COVID-19.

Remember, that was the time when after the 2017 tax reforms, we had a great economy, by any measure. And it was an opportunity time. It was the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country since we started keeping track in the 1950s.

As of February, just before going into the COVID-19 period, February 2020, we had 19 straight months of wage gain of over 3 percent. By the way, that was over inflation because inflation was so low. So people were feeling it. They were actually getting a wage increase. In my State of Ohio, that was the first time in probably a decade and a half.

Now, it is just the opposite. Wages are actually down when you take inflation into account. And inflation is high, as everyone feared because we have dumped so much on the demand side of the economy, and the supply side is restricted, in part, because of what has happened with COVID, and it creates this inflation. This was warned by not just Republicans like myself, but back in March, when President Biden and the Democrats put $1.9 trillion into this economy--the most ever, the biggest bill ever--it was Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, and NEC, National Economic Council, Chair under President Obama, who said: You know, this is going to stoke inflation. It is going to overheat the economy.

And that is exactly what it did.

So we have this high inflation. We have these record levels of debt and deficit. We are talking about extending the debt limit right now, and people think the number is going to be--just to extend it for about a year--over $2 trillion; meaning that we are spending so much more than we are taking in. And yet there is this discussion that somehow before Christmas we are going to put forward this Build Back Better legislation that we just talked about.

It is not building back America better. Unfortunately, it is building us worse off than we were and adding to inflation, adding to the supply chain difficulties, adding to the debt and deficits at record levels, and certainly doing nothing with regard to COVID-19.

So why would we do this? And certainly why would we do this now? It makes no sense. Well, because I guess there was a promise made that we are going to have this massive new spending and these massive new tax increases.

What is in there? Well, on the spending side, when you look at it, it is the largest spending bill ever put forward by the U.S. Congress, unless you believe that it is really only $1.7 trillion instead of two or three times that. In that case, it is the second biggest ever. But the analyses I have seen from the Penn Wharton study, from the Committee for a Responsible Budget, and from others said: You know, there are a lot of sunsets in there.

As an example, the child tax credit lasts for 1 year. Does anybody believe it only lasts for 1 year? That wouldn't be the history of this place. So it will continue.

So these sunsets are not going to be effective so the spending will continue to increase. The tax increases don't cover them so there will be a big gap accrued to the deficit, and the projections are it is more like $4\1/2\ trillion in spending. So it is the largest increase in the history of our country by far.

We are talking about doing this, again, at a time when already we have record levels of debt and deficit and high inflation and driven by COVID, a lot of uncertainty in our economy.

On the tax side, I could argue it is even worse because the tax increases are going to be hard on workers because they are taxes on businesses. What the Joint Committee on Taxation says--which is the nonpartisan group here in Congress that advises us--what CBO says, the Congressional Budget Office says, what other outside groups say is the same thing, which is when you tax these businesses, who gets taxed? Well, it is workers--lower wages, lower benefits.

Seventy percent of the benefit of our tax cuts in 2017 went to workers, and 70 percent of this increase in taxes will be coming out of workers' pockets. So it is a bad idea. But let's look a little deeper at what these taxes actually are. There is a 15-percent minimum tax--a new alternative minimum tax, which is always complicated for everybody to figure out what that is. But in this case, it is called the book tax.

Now, I don't know if this was on purpose or not. I assume it wasn't. But the book tax, as you apply it to our economy, will result in real damage to things that most people think are important like defined benefit plans, pension plans. Democrats and Republicans alike have supported defined benefit plans. I support them. Unfortunately, there aren't as many as there used to be. But there will be even fewer if this passes. Why? Because when you calculate your taxes under the book tax, you now have to take into account whatever your asset increase is in your pension. And if you are one of these companies caught up in this, you could well find yourself in a situation where, for the first time ever, you get no deduction for your contribution to your pension. Why would we do that? And then you are taxed on the asset increase, which may be caused by higher interest rates, may be caused by the market going up, but you get no benefit in your company, and your profits in your company may not be enough to pay those taxes.

Here is an example of this. There are some companies that have figured out this problem. By the way, there are some unions figuring it out, too, because a lot of union workers are caught up in this as well because they have defined benefit plans, typically. The company is saying: OK. If I make $100 million in profit and if I have a $2 billion or $1 billion increase in my pension assets and you apply a 15-percent tax to that, I am not going to have enough money to pay my taxes.

So what are they going to do? Well, they could declare bankruptcy. They could get a loan, which again hurts workers. So that, I hope, is an inadvertent part of this, but that is in this legislation.

Why do we want to hurt defined benefit plans?

I think it was an effort to say: OK. We are going to raise taxes, but we are going to do it in a sort of convoluted way so that it doesn't look like we are really raising taxes. But it is real taxes, and it is going to hurt, again, workers in America.

Another thing it would disqualify companies from doing is taking what is called bonus depreciation. All of us, I thought, were kind of supportive of that.

In 2017, that tax bill, this put in place where you can immediately write off expansion of plant equipment. Retailers love it, restaurants love it, and so do manufacturers. And they use it a lot. And those manufacturers are telling me: OK. Now, under the book tax, you have to go back to the regular depreciation so you are not writing things off that first year as you can now under bonus depreciation. Why would you want to do that right now, again, with all the economic uncertainty out there, with COVID, with inflation fears? We want to encourage people to expand plant equipment, and there are a lot of people hesitating. That is in this legislation.

Now let's talk quickly about the SALT provisions. We already know what that is because it has gotten a lot of play. But the State and local tax deduction means that in States like mine, Ohio, we are subsidizing high-tax States. So if you are from Missouri--Senator Blunt is here on the floor--or if you are from Ohio, by having a deduction for your State and local taxes at the Federal level, you are not only encouraging those States to continue to have high taxes and even have further taxes if you are being subsidized by Federal taxpayers, but it is unfair to those States that have done the responsible thing to try to keep taxes under control.

But in this legislation, Democrats say: No, we are going to increase this cap from 10,000 to 80,000 bucks a year; in other words, provide more help to the SALT beneficiaries. Guess what. There is an analysis out this week that says almost none of that benefit goes to Americans who are not in the top 10 percent of wage earners. Almost none of that benefit that is in this bill goes to people not in the top 10 percent. There is $285 billion devoted to this--$100 billion more than is devoted to the cornerstone social safety net program, the childcare credit in this bill. Over $100 billion more for this.

So how does this all shake out in terms of whom it is helping and whom it is hurting?

Well, here are what the numbers are. This is, again, the Joint Tax Committee, folks who are nonpartisan, looking at this. Almost 70 percent--almost 70 percent--of people who make $1 million or more a year are going to get a significant tax cut because of this legislation.

Think about that. It is about 68 percent-plus are going to get a significant tax cut if you make a million bucks a year. If you are a millionaire, you are going to do very well.

If you make between $500,000 and a million bucks a year, 90 percent will get a tax cut under this legislation.

But if you make $30,000 a year--only 30,000--only 30 percent of people who make $30,000 a year are going to get tax relief under this legislation, and that is just in the first year.

In the second year, it goes down below 30 percent to 12 percent; in the third year, 10 percent; and then it goes down to single digits. So the benefit is heavily skewed toward higher income Americans. Why would we do that? It just makes no sense. Are we worried about millionaires? But that is in this legislation.

So, again, I would say, Build Back Better? I don't think so. We were building pretty well when we had the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country, when we had the lowest unemployment rate ever for Blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, when we had 50-year lows in unemployment overall in our economy, when we had a situation where wages were going up--again, 19 straight months of 3 percent or more wage gains. It was real wage gains above inflation.

Let's get back to that. That is how you grow the opportunity economy. That is how you give people a chance. That is how you help everybody.

But let's not do this massive new spending bill that will cause more inflation, massive tax increases that are going to hurt the economy and hurt workers, especially coming into the holiday season. Let's instead do something that gives the American people the gifts they deserve.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, shortly, I am going to be making a unanimous consent request in regard to the confirmations of several nominations that are currently pending before the U.S. Senate.

My colleagues have been pointing out that these are unprecedented times with the number of Presidential nominations that have cleared our committee and cleared committees with overwhelming votes--in some cases, near unanimous votes--of people who are well qualified for the positions to which they have been nominated, but they cannot take their responsibilities, their oaths, until after we have confirmed them before the U.S. Senate.

So, for reasons unrelated to their qualifications or the need to have confirmed nominees in positions, we have seen individual objections to allowing these nominations to go forward--objections from Republican Members of the U.S. Senate. I say that because these are unprecedented. We have never seen mass numbers like we have seen in this Congress.

We have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to confirm Presidential nominations so that they can carry out the missions that we want them to carry out and the responsibilities that go with the reasons why we think it is important enough for the Senate to confirm those nominations. We then have a responsibility to take these nominations up in a timely way and act on them.

Secondly, when we have a confirmed person in position, we get greater accountability on the responsibilities of

that Agency. We have a person whom we can hold accountable because of the actions that we have taken in confirming that individual. Both are missing in regard to not having these confirmed positions.

I chair the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that deals with the management of the State Department, and I am going to be asking unanimous consent in regard to seven nominees who passed out of our committees a long time ago and have been pending in the Senate for months. There is no question as to the qualifications of the individuals, but they are not able to take on the responsibilities for why we decided it was important enough to have nominations with the confirmations of the Senate. That is just not right, and I think we need to point that out.

First, I want to just talk about the individuals, and then I will make my consent.

One is Adam Scheinman, as the Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, with the rank of Ambassador. The nomination has been pending before the full Senate since October 19-- for over 50 days.

Adam Scheinman is the Special Representative of the President for the Nuclear Nonproliferation, a position that is essential to national security as a U.S. Special Representative on the nuclear nonproliferation treaties and the support of activities to strengthen global nuclear nonproliferation regimes. Can you think of a more important position?

Mr. Scheinman is eminently qualified for the position to which he has been nominated, and there is no stated reason not to confirm his nomination.

The second is Jack Markell, to be Representative of the United States to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with the rank of Ambassador. Jack Markell is the nominee to be the Ambassador of the OECD, known as the heavy-weight multilateral organization in the area of anti-corruption and keeper of the OECD's anti-bribery convention, which is one of the most important international anti- corruption treaties. We all talk about our commitment to fight corruption, and yet we are holding back a confirmed ambassador to that position.

Jack Markell is a former Governor and is eminently qualified for the position to which he has been nominated. There is no reason why we should not confirm his nomination.

Marcela Escobari was appointed to be the Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. The Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean oversees all USAID activities in the region, including the 13 field offices for regional programs and 3 Washington, DC-based programs. Ms. Escobari served in the same position for which this nomination is being made under the Obama-Biden administration.

I must tell you, I was on a call with Senator Blunt yesterday with regard to Colombia, the need to up our game in regard to USAID activities in that one country and so many more.

Ms. Escobari is eminently qualified for the position to which she has been nominated. Indeed, she served in this position under the Obama- Biden administration, and she should be confirmed today.

Atul Gawande has been nominated as the Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, another USAID appointment. He would lead the U.S. international health, development, and humanitarian efforts worldwide.

Now, more than ever, we know we need a confirmed person in the USAID to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our leadership is desperately needed. We are asking lots of international questions today from the Biden administration. Wouldn't it be nice to have a confirmed ambassador who is responsible for this?

The nomination has been pending before the full Senate since September 29, for over 70 days.

Dr. Gawande is eminently qualified for the position to which he has been nominated. There is no good reason not to confirm him today.

Next will be Marcia Bernicat, as the Director General of the Foreign Service and Chair of the Board of the Foreign Service, Department of State.

The Director General of Foreign Service, who serves concurrently as the Director of Global Talent Management, is responsible for leading the GTM Bureau's mission of recruiting, retaining, and sustaining a diverse, talented, and inclusive Foreign Service and Civil Service workforce at the Department of State.

The position is critical in the modernization of the State Department and making sure the Department is attracting and training the necessary talent needed to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.

This nomination has been pending before the full Senate since September 13, over 86 days.

I recently held a hearing in the subcommittee on the retention and training of our State Department personnel. We had lots of questions, lots of good things we need to do. We need a confirmed administrator in order to have a person responsible to carry out the changes that we need in regard to the personnel at the State Department. There is no reason why she should not be confirmed without any further delay.

My next unanimous consent will be in regard to Julieta Valls Noyes to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Now, more than ever, with the administration dealing with a backlog that has been heightened by COVID and with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration needs to have a Senate-confirmed representative in place.

This nomination has been pending for over 50 days.

My colleagues on both sides of the aisle are questioning the State Department and asking what they are doing to get people out of Afghanistan. We are asking valid questions. There is no reason to hold up this nomination from the point of view of her qualifications.

We need this position filled in order to carry out our responsibility to those Afghans who are at risk today and migrants who are at risk around the world.

Lastly, I will be asking consent with regard to Anne Witkowsky, the nominee for Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations and Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization.

The Conflict and Stabilization Operation Bureau is responsible to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflicts that undermine U.S. national interests. We are putting our national security at risk without leadership in the Conflict and Stabilization Bureau to assess how the United States will engage in emerging conflicts.

We were trying to stop conflicts from happening. We all recognize that. The risk factors couldn't be greater around the world for conflict. We need to have a confirmed Assistant Secretary responsible for this portfolio in place immediately.

This nomination was reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on August 4. Her nomination has been awaiting confirmation for 126 days.

Dr. Witkowsky is fully qualified and should be confirmed without further delay.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Executive Calendar Nos. 323, 327, 328, 461, 462, and 528; that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's actions; and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I would be willing to modify to get those two nominations approved. I want to be clear. I have been told that there may be other objections on the other side of the aisle. I would like to get them done right now, if possible. I would modify my request to get these two nominations done.

I have been told that there is a Republican objection to the other two nominations.

Let me just conclude this part of the discussion by saying I understand that you have a right to demand a vote, but you are requiring us to file cloture, which means basically it is a filibuster. And under the Senate rules, that requires an intervening day; it requires a vote and debate on the cloture motion; then debate time. And there are only a certain number you can get done within a period of time while other ones are pending.

So the fact that we are not able to have a process to conclude these nominations is not the majority leader's fault. It is the fault of the massive objections that are being made en bloc to qualified individuals in regards to these appointments.

And I understand the gentleman's concerns, but the American people have a right to demand that there is an accountable person to deal with nonproliferation, that there is a confirmed nominee to deal with the remaining individuals that are in Afghanistan that we are trying to get out of Afghanistan. And by denying the confirmations of these appointments, we are denying the rights of Americans to have accountable people confirmed by the Senate in regards to all of these important subjects.

So, for all those reasons, I am disappointed. I will take back to my colleagues the offer in regards to the two individuals that the gentleman mentioned. And if we can clear those two, we will try to bring them back to the floor and get them cleared. So I appreciate that offer, and we will see what we can do about getting those two confirmed.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, let me first echo the comments of Senator McConnell, as well as Senator Schumer earlier, in wishing Sara Schwartzman the very best in her next undertaking.

Whatever the challenge may be, I hope the hours are better because I know that the sacrifices made by you and members of our staff because of our peculiar scheduling in the Senate have caused some strains and stress and pressure and hardship.

But thank you so much for making the Senate better with your service every single day.

Lithuania and Belarus

Madam President, I have tried to visualize this experience so many times: It was in July of 1911, and a ship arrived in Baltimore from Germany. A family came down the gangplank. One of the members of the family was my grandmother, and she brought her three children. One of them was a 2-year-old little girl--blonde-haired--named Ona, my mother.

How they managed to navigate their way through Baltimore and catch a train to East St. Louis, IL, I will never know because there were virtually none of them able to speak English, but they did. They arrived, and I grew up the son of a Lithuanian immigrant who was proud of what her family left behind and prouder still of what they found in this great country as Lithuanian Americans.

I have had a special attachment and interest in the Baltic States-- and particularly Lithuania--ever since. It has been my good fortune to follow their history from Soviet occupation and oppression to freedom and democracy today.

If you go on a search engine on your computer and type in the word ``fearless,'' don't be surprised if the map of Lithuania pops up. This small nation, 2.6 million in population, has done some remarkable things in history and remarkable still in modern history.

For half a century, millions lived under the tyranny and oppression of the Soviet Union. Before I was elected to public office, I went to visit Vilnius in Lithuania in 1978, and I saw Soviet rule firsthand. I am glad I did because it is such a sharp contrast to the Lithuania of today.

In the late 1980s, things began to change, particularly in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Who can forget when 2 million people--2 million people--joined hands across these three nations to form a 420-mile Baltic Chain of Freedom in August of 1989. Not long thereafter, in February of the following year, Lithuania held its first free elections since World War II, voting for the country's first post-war noncommunist government. Immediately thereafter, the new Parliament voted to make Lithuania the first occupied Soviet republic to declare independence. Lithuania's bold move was followed later that year by Latvia and Estonia.

These brave efforts culminated a year later in February of 1991 when the Lithuanian people voted for independence. Those brave Lithuanians 30 years ago, including my friend, music professor, and national leader Vytautas Landsbergis, led that country back to democracy.

That Lithuanian effort three decades ago is still alive today. As a vibrant and vital member of the European Union and NATO, this small and brave nation is standing firm against renewed Russian aggression and now Chinese economic intimidation and defending heroic efforts to end tyranny in Belarus. It is one of the most vocal countries on Earth in defending democratic values and norms. Is it because they have a nuclear stockpile? No. A massive army? No. They are just determined, principled people who are courageous.

Some years ago, I visited the Lithuanian town of Rukla, where U.S. and German forces were rotating through as part of the European Reassurance Initiative aimed at keeping the Baltic safe from Russian aggression. There was good reason for it. They knew they had to take seriously what Putin might do against them.

Russia, under Vladimir Putin, has undertaken regular military, cyber, and political efforts to destabilize Lithuania and the Baltic States, but Lithuania will not be bullied. And I am glad that in the just- passed National Defense Authorization Act, we reaffirmed our commitment to Baltic security in the amendment that I offered.

Lithuania is also standing firm against the giant nation of China, which is trying to cut off supplies and punish the Lithuanian economy simply because the Lithuanians have established trade ties with Taiwan. Yet again, Lithuania will not be bullied.

On Lithuania's immediate border, there is a heroic struggle to end the last dictator in Europe, Lukashenko in Belarus. Most of us remember last year when this Belarusian dictator, Lukashenko, once again, after the bogus election results were announced, proceeded to jail those who had the temerity to run against him in the election. That has become normal with this man. This dictator, if somebody shows the nerve to run against him, will announce that he has beaten them by 80 percent-plus and then put them in jail.

When popular social media personality Sergei Tikhanovsky found himself arbitrarily jailed, his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya courageously stepped in to run in his place. She probably won that election, but of course Lukashenko would never allow those results to be announced. So what did she do after the election, her husband in jail? She fled Belarus. Where did she go for safety for herself and her children? Lithuania. Not surprisingly, Lithuania. She found a welcoming nation next door, and she continues her struggle for a free and democratic Belarus out of Vilnius, Lithuania.

Belarus and Russia have retaliated against Lithuania with cruel and manufactured migrant flows and other intimidation, but once again, Lithuania will not be bullied.

Secretary of State Blinken understands the importance of this Lithuanian nation and continues to make sure they know they have friends in the United States. He recently hosted Lithuanian Foreign Minister and grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis at the State Department and then traveled to the Baltic States to reaffirm American solidarity.

Blinken said clearly at the State Department that Foreign Minister Landsbergis ``has been such a strong voice for democracy and human rights not just in Lithuania, but around the world.'' I couldn't agree more. I couldn't be more proud.

So let's use this 30th anniversary of Lithuanian independence to stand firm with our brave ally and recommit to our continued support for our Baltic allies through economic and security cooperation. Doing so will help ensure

the next 30 years of the longstanding U.S.-Baltic friendship are equally strong and fruitful.

In early 2011, a trip through these same Baltic countries gave me one more extraordinary experience in my Senate career. I went on a road trip from the free, democratic Lithuania back in time to the closed, totalitarian nation of Belarus. Crossing over that border was like driving onto a Hollywood movie set. I looked along the roads for telephone poles or evidence of electricity and found none. It looked like a bucolic, rural village, mile after mile after mile, indicating how economic development has still yet to arrive in Belarus.

You see, this last dictatorship of Europe held a Presidential election in December 2010, and I wanted to be there in 2011 to meet with the families of those who had the temerity to run against Lukashenko and were in jail. So I drove from Vilnius to Minsk to meet with those family members. They had been arrested by the security services of Belarus, which are still called the KGB.

It was a sobering meeting. Many tears were shed. Fortunately, over time, by working at it doggedly, we eventually saw the release of all the brave Belarusians who had been jailed at that time.

Yet, tragically, the Belarusian people found themselves in the same outrageous situation last year when Lukashenko jailed these candidates with the courage to run, including Sergei Tikhanovsky.

Some of you may have read the outstanding profile about his wife, Svetlana, in this month's New Yorker. It is entitled ``The Accidental Revolutionary Leading Belarus's Uprising.'' It describes how her campaign speeches galvanized boisterous crowds. She had a very simple message to the Belarusian people and the courage to say it. She said she was ``fed up with living in humiliation and fear'' in Belarus. Lukashenko, this mighty dictator, didn't even have the courage to debate this woman.

She likely won that election, as we know, but we will never know the official outcome because Lukashenko wouldn't allow it.

I was proud to host her last year with my Senate colleagues Senator Shaheen and Sullivan. And I am glad to see that President Biden met with her as well.

She is a brave woman, soldiering on, despite the fact that the Belarusians announced just a week ago that her husband has now been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Tragically, since Lukashenko stole that most recent election, he has continued to double down on his outrageous behavior, including forcing down a commercial airline in May to arrest the Belarusian activists and just this week, after months of closed hearings, that 18-year prison sentence for her husband.

Five other defendants, including another Presidential candidate and a journalist from Radio Free Europe, received an equally outrageous sentence from Lukashenko. What a waste; what an outright theft of the Belarusian people's future.

These people must be freed, and we must continue to support Ms. Tikhanovskaya's effort, and her husband, and the thousands upon thousands who peacefully protest on her behalf.

Lithuania

Madam President, this morning I was listening to the news, as I came in, on National Public Radio. And I will close by just noting that the most recent report led me to make this statement on the floor today.

It seems that the Lithuanians have been compelled to close their Embassy in Beijing. The Chinese Government will no longer promise the most basic tenet of ambassadorial representation: diplomatic immunity. They are still angry because this little country of 2.6 million people is establishing trade relations with Taiwan.

The Chinese have said they are cutting off all exports and imports to Lithuania, putting pressure on them for their political courage. It won't work, I might say, to Prime Minister Xi. These people are not going to be bullied or pushed around. They have shown an extraordinary amount of courage. And I hope all of the world, particularly their great allies here in the United States, understand that these Baltic States--and my mother's country of Lithuania--are standing up for values which we all treasure as Americans.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, Democrats' push to pass their tax-and- spending spree continues to throw into sharp relief the difference between Republicans' and Democrats' vision of government. And it is about a lot more than just the amount of money we want to spend. Of course, the amount of money we are spending matters, but it is also about what that money represents.

In general, more money means more government. And more government usually means less freedom. Republicans don't oppose Democrats' tax- and-spending spree just because it would cost a lot of money or drive up our national debt.

It would do both of those things, of course, with negative consequences for our economy and the prosperity of American families. And the negative economic consequences alone are sufficient reason to oppose Democrats' ``Build Back Bankrupt'' plan. But it is a lot more than just about excessive spending.

With their ``Build Back Bankrupt'' plan, Democrats envision a society which government is intimately involved in nearly every aspect of Americans' life--from, to quote a New York Times article, ``cradle to grave.'' And that is not a vision Republicans share, primarily because a government that is intimately involved in nearly every aspect of your life is a government that is going to exert control over your life. More government inevitably means more government control.

Take Democrats' childcare plan in their Build Back Better legislation. To hear Democrats talk about it, you might think this plan involves nothing more than cutting checks to American parents to help with their childcare bills, but that is not the case.

First, of course, Democrats take the opportunity to add a lot of new childcare mandates and regulations. According to one estimate, Democrats' childcare subsidy measure could drive up the cost of daycare by somewhere around $13,000 per child. Good luck working that into your family budget.

Democrats' government subsidy program is set up to favor certain kinds of childcare and childcare providers. It is set up to favor institutional childcare, rather than home care or other models like neighborhood co-ops, and it is set up to place religious providers at a disadvantage.

That is right. Despite the fact that a majority of working families who use center-based care opt for faith-based centers, Democrats' program is set up to put these providers at a disadvantage. It denies them facilities funding that is granted to secular providers.

And it would disqualify--I should say, it could disqualify many providers with traditional religious beliefs like those shared by millions upon millions of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim families around the country.

It could even disqualify a provider simply because the provider gave placement preference to families of its own faith. So if you are a Catholic Church with a childcare program and you give preference to families who attend your church, you could be accused of discrimination and disqualified from receiving government subsidies.

And if you are a parent who can't afford that program without those government subsidies--thanks to government mandates and regulations that have hiked up the childcare bill--you are out of luck. If you need those government subsidies, you will have to send your child to one of the providers the government prefers.

The childcare program in the Democrats' tax-and-spending spree provides a perfect example of what happens when government gets involved. And it is about a lot more than how much money the government is spending.

With government money comes government control. The decision is no longer just in the individual's hands. And the more substantial the government involvement, the larger the government's role in decision making is likely to be--whether the issue is childcare, healthcare, education, or anything else.

In his 1967 inaugural address as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan said:

Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one

generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of

inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by

each generation, for it comes only once to a people.

Freedom is a fragile thing.

Here in the United States, we have enjoyed an unprecedented degree of individual liberty--a liberty that it is very easy for us to take for granted. But that liberty is not guaranteed. It is something that must be fought for and protected.

And that doesn't involve simply safeguarding our liberty from external threats from foreign powers; it involves ensuring making sure that our government doesn't start to exceed its proper role.

The loss of freedom can come dramatically or it can come quietly through a steady increase of government encroachment.

And it is important to remember that freedom can be eroded or taken away by the well-meaning, and not just those who are actively hostile to it.

I believe that my Democrat colleagues likely do not see their ideas for dramatic government expansion as threatening Americans' personal freedom. The problem is that when you expand the reach of government, the diminishment of liberty is inevitable. Expand the reach of government into Americans' lives, and it is inevitable that you are going to transfer some of Americans' decision-making power over to politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

Democrats' tax-and-spending spree--and its major expansion of government--is far from the only threat to Americans' liberties that we are seeing from the Democratic Party.

I am increasingly disturbed by Democrats' tendency to play fast and loose with religious liberty and the First Amendment--whether that involves disadvantaging religious childcare providers, threatening individuals' right to live according to their conscience, questioning judges' fitness for office based on religious belief, or, as we learned recently from a courageous whistleblower FBI agent, even opening the door for the FBI to collect information on parents voicing their opposition to local school policies during school board meetings.

I am also disturbed by Democrats' clear belief that Americans should defer to government and Democrat-approved experts, as spectacularly evidenced in the Virginia Governor's race, which was unquestionably decided based partly on the Democrat candidate's repeatedly expressed belief that parents shouldn't be involved in the content of their children's education.

I am puzzled as to why Democrats are so convinced--so convinced--that Washington elites or Democrat-approved experts are better at making decisions than ordinary Americans.

As Ronald Reagan said in that same speech:

[I]t's hard to explain those among us who even today would

question the people's capacity for self-government. I've

often wondered if they will answer, those who subscribe to

that philosophy: if no one among us is capable of governing

himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone

else?

I believe that the American people are capable of governing themselves--of making their own decisions--and that they are actually generally going to be better at it than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington.

And I strongly oppose efforts to substitute the judgments of Washington bureaucrats--or Democrat politicians--for the judgment of individual Americans.

It states in the Declaration of Independence that governments are instituted to preserve our unalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Preserving liberty is a fundamental purpose of government, but, of course, before you can enjoy liberty, you have to enjoy the right to life. For a long time now, the Democratic Party has consistently denied the right to life to a whole segment of the American population: unborn Americans.

There is no better example of their aggressive pro-abortion extremism than the so-called Women's Health Protection Act the Democrats in the House passed in September. This legislation, which would more accurately be termed the ``Abortion on Demand Act,'' would eliminate almost every democratically passed State abortion restriction, no matter how mild. It would endanger the religious and conscience rights of doctors and nurses, and, of course, it ignores the clear position of the American people, a strong majority of whom support restrictions on abortion.

Apparently, Democrats are not content with joining repressive regimes like China and North Korea as one of a tiny handful of nations that allow elective abortion past 20 weeks of pregnancy. No, they want to remove even the mildest and most widely supported restrictions on abortion. That is yet another example of Democrats' tendency to think they know better than the American people.

The Republican vision--the conservative vision, the vision that I share--is a vision that foregrounds liberty, not government; that believes individuals acting freely generally tend to do a better job of making decisions than a small handful of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

We believe in government as a backstop, not Big Brother. A system of permanent government dependence erodes individual liberty, to say nothing of the ways in which it undermines prosperity, robs individuals of the purpose and pride that comes with work and achievement.

Government should create the conditions in which freedom, opportunity, and prosperity can flourish, not attempt to secure particular outcomes or to dictate the paths that Americans should take.

We are privileged to live in the freest country the world has ever known. It is not a privilege we can or should take for granted, and it is a privilege that we can all too easily lose. Our liberty is, as Ronald Reagan said, ever only one generation away from extinction.

I will continue to make safeguarding that liberty that we have been given one of my most cherished priorities, whether that involves fighting for the right to life of unborn Americans, opposing attempts to restrict religious liberty, or fighting against an expansion of government that would push out parents and put the government in the driver's seat on way too many issues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, after Watergate, Congress passed the Inspector General Act, creating independent watchdogs who would ensure integrity, transparency, and accountability for executive branch Agencies and officials.

Since then, inspectors general have played a vital role in exposing misconduct by administrations of both political parties. Over the years, IGs have proven indispensable--so much so that Congress has repeatedly expanded their ranks--originally 12 after the 1978 Inspector General Act, to now 74 separate, independent inspectors general in the Federal Government.

In 1988, Congress created several new inspectors general, including an inspector general for the Department of Justice. The IG oversees Justice Department components ranging from the FBI to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But there is a problem. There is a loophole. There is one clear omission when it comes to the authority of the inspector general. Listen. The Justice Department inspector general cannot investigate professional misconduct by Justice Department lawyers. Let me repeat that. The Justice Department inspector general cannot investigate misconduct by Justice Department lawyers.

This means the Department's independent inspector general cannot investigate allegations of misconduct by lawyers in the Department's National Security Division, Criminal Division, 93 offices of U.S. attorneys, or even the Attorney General himself.

Well, what does this result in?

All too often, Justice Department officials from the administrations of both political parties have escaped independent scrutiny by the inspector general.

The IG was unable to investigate, for example, discovery violations during the prosecution of our former colleague Ted Stevens. The inspector general was unable to investigate the unethical non- prosecution agreement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And absent approval by the Attorney General or his deputy, the inspector general cannot investigate professional misconduct by high-ranking Department of Justice political appointees.

This lawyer loophole, of all places, is unique to the Justice Department. The Department of Justice--I want this clear for the record--is the only, only, Agency in the Federal Government whose inspector general cannot investigate professional misconduct by Agency lawyers. I hope that is clear.

Inspectors general investigate the activity and conduct of lawyers in every other Federal Agency other than the Department of Justice. Instead, DOJ lawyers get special treatment. They aren't subject to the inspector general like every other Federal agency. Instead, they are under the supervision of the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, known as OPR.

Now, I don't dispute the skill or dedication of OPR. The problem is not their qualifications; it is their independence.

Listen to this. Unlike the inspector general, OPR reports to the Attorney General, who can control and even terminate investigations. This doesn't happen in any other Federal Agency. This creates an unfair double standard where every other DOJ employee is subject to inspector general scrutiny.

So if you are an FBI agent, the inspector general is going to be watching your conduct to make sure it is proper. Drug enforcement agents in the Department of Justice, subject to the inspector general; U.S. marshals, subject to the inspector general; Federal prison guards, inspector general. They can all be investigated by the independent inspector general, except for the lawyers. And it enables the appearance, if not the reality, of politicization in cases where the alleged misconduct involves high-ranking Department attorneys.

For years, literally decades across administrations, other Senators before us and Senator Lee and myself now have worked to close the lawyer loophole with our Inspector General Access Act. He advocated for this bill when Bill Barr was the Attorney General of President Trump. I am advocating for this bill when Merrick Garland is the Attorney General of President Biden.

You would be hard pressed to find a bill with broader-based bipartisan support. Our original cosponsors include--and he is here today on the floor--my colleague Senator Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee; Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Rubio, Klobuchar, Cruz, Coons, Blackburn, Blumenthal, and Hirono, to name a few.

Last year, we considered this bill in the Judiciary Committee and we reported it out of the committee after a debate, and the vote was 21 to 1 to bring this bill to the floor. Unfortunately, it didn't pass last year. It passed the House. It passed again this year in the House.

This broad support reflects a basic principle: No Attorney General from either political party should be insulated from independent scrutiny by the inspector general; and no Attorney General should have veto power over the inspector general's authority to investigate Department of Justice attorneys, whether that Attorney General is a Democrat or a Republican.

Mr. President, I would like at this point to yield to my colleague Senator Lee.

I thank the Senator from Utah for his cosponsorship of this bipartisan measure.

I want to yield at this point to the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I can't think of a single Member on either side of the aisle who has been as outspoken as Senator Grassley of Iowa on the role and the importance of inspectors general.

I yield the floor to Senator Grassley.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his spirited support of this effort. I am glad he used that classic example. Of all the hearings--and we have had many good ones and many important ones--in the Senate Judiciary Committee this year. The one we all remember is when the gymnasts came, the Olympic gymnasts came. These wonderful, young women came before us and summoned the courage to tell us about the abuse that took place by a man who purported to be a doctor, Larry Nassar.

Sitting next to them during the entire presentation was the head of the FBI, taking the medicine he should have taken, because the inspector general gave us a graphic report of how the agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation let those young women down. When they summoned the courage to come forward and tell the world what had happened to them, it was virtually ignored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Thank goodness the inspector general was there to be critical, to produce the evidence, and to make it clear to the American people that this conduct was disgusting and deplorable and unacceptable.

The inspector general was critical for the administration of justice. Why is it any different if, instead of an attorney who works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we are talking about an attorney who works in a U.S. Attorney's Office somewhere in the United States or in the Department of Justice itself? It shouldn't make a difference.

As Senator Grassley and Senator Lee have made clear, all we are asking for is the same level of accountability for attorneys in the Department of Justice that applies to every other Federal Agency. Why are we treating these attorneys any differently?

Senator Grassley makes the point--we are succumbing to bureaucratic deference at a time when we ought to have our eyes wide open, and wide open, we would see that this bill, which was extensively debated and discussed last year and reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Senator Graham by a vote of 21 to 1, wasn't called on the calendar. We are bringing it back this year in the same manner. The bill has not changed. We are bringing it back this year, and I believe now is the time for us to do what is right for the cause of justice.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 426 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon table.

I am disappointed by the objection by the Senator from Arkansas.

This has overwhelmingly bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate, and we had an opportunity to make history today and we missed that opportunity for the moment.

The suggestion that inspectors general are not up to the job of inspecting attorneys, I am afraid if you look at the fact that every other Federal Agency's lawyers are subject to review and scrutiny by the inspector general of their departments, it certainly says that particular observation is not accurate.

The argument that the Attorney General, because he is approved by the President directly and by Congress, should be the person to make this decision overlooks the obvious. Each inspector general goes through the approval process, the nomination process, and advise and consent of the Senate. So they are subject to the same level of scrutiny.

I might also add that what we are suggesting has been an evolution that I think really calls for this change that we have asked for in this measure. In the course of that evolution, in the year 2002, the inspector general's responsibilities were extended within the Department of Justice to apply to both the FBI and DEA agents who are involved, obviously, in significant law enforcement operations within the Department. The inspector general has handled that responsibility without jeopardizing any prosecutions. So I think that argument is certainly a weak argument when you look at the facts since 2002.

We will return with this. I am glad to have bipartisan support of Senators Lee and Grassley, who will have more to say on the subject.

I believe if we are going to apply this standard of IG responsibility for lawyers' activity across Federal Government, there is no reason to make an exception for the Department of Justice.

I yield the floor.