Fiscal State of the Nation Resolution

It is good to be back. Thank you for the inquiries about my well-being.

To all my colleagues, I appreciate the good wishes and the phone calls and the food.

I made it. I think the worst is behind me.

I want to reinforce a simple message: If you haven't been vaccinated regarding the COVID problem, get vaccinated. I have been vaccinated, and I got COVID anyway; a couple of really bad days, but I am doing better and I feel on the mend. And I am confident that, if I hadn't had the vaccine, it would have been a lot worse.

So in my State, about 50 percent of the people are still unvaccinated. Just for your own good and the good of our State, I would urge you to consider getting vaccinated. I think the vaccine is safe, and it works. I am glad I had it. And the sooner we can get to herd immunity through vaccinations and other means, the better off we will be.

To all my colleagues and people back home, thank you for the kind words and inquiries.

We are back at work, and I am glad I was able to make this debate. I think this debate is worth having. We just passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The Presiding Officer, Senator Sinema, from Arizona, was one of the architects of the bill.

Congratulations.

I voted for it because it made sense to me. We have been talking about infrastructure here for 5 or 10 years. In this $1 trillion package, 550 of new spending, which I believe will be paid for, goes into ports, roads, and bridges, and rural broadband; and 19 Republicans voted for it.

I am hoping we can make it reality and get it to President Biden's desk because I think infrastructure is much-needed, and we were finding bipartisanship in that space.

Now we are moving on to something completely different--I dare say radical. Right after the majority was seized by the Democratic Party, they pushed through a $1.9 trillion package that had a lot of talk about COVID--but most of it wasn't related to COVID as we know it-- after we had worked together on $4 trillion of spending.

Now, this budget resolution is proposing $3\1/2\ trillion of additional spending, and we will talk about how that affects you, the public, here in a minute. But the first thing I want you to know is it is not $3\1/2\ trillion. That is not accurate.

When you look at the increase in public debt and the authorization of new discretionary spending, it is at least $4.2 trillion. So it is not $3\1/2\ trillion; it is over $4 trillion. The first thing you have to do is be honest with the product you are selling. This will cost well over $4 trillion if fully implemented.

What else does this bill do that people in this body need to know about?

It changes the rule regarding emergency spending. Right now, we can spend, through an emergency, basically, unlimited money and not have to worry about offsets and all that good stuff because there is truly an emergency. But you need 60 votes to declare

something an emergency. This budget resolution will change that rule so that a simple majority of Senators can determine anything they would like to be an emergency and spend without any accountability.

I think that is a bad idea for the body because anything you can do, we can do, and it really is an assault on the idea of minority rights. I think it is the biggest blow to the institution yet. It is buried in this bill, but it eliminates the 60-vote requirement to declare items emergency spending, replace it with a simple majority, allowing a majority--a single party--to spend without restriction in the name of emergency.

So to my friends on the other side, you need to look at what is in this bill, and I hope you will find that to be an unacceptable change to the U.S. Senate because, when it comes to spending, it guts the idea that the minority matters because all you have to do, if this budget resolution is implemented the way they have written it, is to declare something an emergency, get 50 votes, and spend. Very bad idea. We are going to try to change that, and we are hoping we can find some bipartisan support.

Let me tell you about this bill. I am going to ask some questions. On the immigration side, Senator Sanders said that this bill creates millions of new green cards for people here illegally.

So here is a question: If we told the world that in the budget reconciliation we are going to increase millions of green cards for people here illegally, do you think that would entice more people to come here illegally?

Here is what I think. I think that is the dumbest idea I could think of. In the middle of an invasion of this country by illegal immigrants, the Democratic Party, through budget reconciliation, is going to authorize millions of new green cards for people here illegally. It is in your document. Senator Sanders admitted that.

Here is what is happening as I speak: These statements are being translated into Spanish and every other language, and human traffickers all over the world are going to let the word get out that, Hey, the Senate is about to increase the number of green cards available for illegal immigrants; why don't you go and get in line?

Nobody has asked the Border Patrol: How do you think this would affect our illegal immigration problem?

Have you spent 15 minutes talking to anybody at the border about what this policy change would do to a broken immigration system?

I guarantee you haven't, because if you talked to anybody with common sense on the border, they would tell you the last thing you need to do right now is incentivize more illegal immigration by allocating green cards to people who are here already illegally

What has happened in the last 6 months?

A 262-percent increase compared to last year.

Does any Democrat have any idea what is happening here? Have any of you come to the floor to explain to the American people what the hell is going on at the border?

You don't have a clue; you don't care.

The same people who are writing this budget resolution to spend $4 trillion on liberal wish lists are the same people in charge of the border. They haven't asked one Border Patrol professional the effect of this bill on a broken immigration system.

We have had 1.2 million people come to the country illegally already. Let's compare that to last year--a 262-percent increase.

Illegal crossings by unaccompanied minors have surged 186 percent compared to last year. Why? The Biden administration has kept the COVID deportation title 42 law in place, but it has made exception by unaccompanied minors. If you are a certain age, you can stay. Guess what. The human traffickers have found that out, and word is out all over the Northern Triangle countries--but, really, the world.

And we have had a 186-percent increase in unaccompanied minors because of policy changes made by the Biden administration. Twenty- seven percent of unaccompanied minors recently deported tested positive for COVID-19.

How many of the unaccompanied minors have been released into the country? Of the 1.2 million people who have come here illegally: How many of them have been released? How many have them been tested? How many are positive for COVID?

Nobody knows these numbers because nobody seems to have a clue of what to do about it.

So what are the trends?

Look at this chart. Look at 2020 compared to `18, `19, and `20--an explosion of illegal immigrants, 1.2 million, almost. Year to date, in 2020, we had 458,000. A 260-percent increase in illegal crossings at the border because the Biden administration did away with the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy.

So asylum claims went through the roof. We are allowing unaccompanied children to stay as an exception to title 42, along with families. And guess what. You have an explosion of illegal immigrant crossings in this country.

If you pass this budget resolution the way Senator Sanders described, you are going to throw jet fuel on this. This number will go through the friggin' roof.

Every human trafficker in the world is going to get the word out throughout the world that they are increasing the number of green cards made available to illegal immigrants to America: Come now, the time is right.

What a dangerous idea, but it is part of this grand, new vision for America. Let me tell you about this vision for America: open borders; dropping people by the thousands off into the interior of the United States, not adequately tested; enticing young people to take a very dangerous journey; destroying all of the gains we had; stopping a wall that was almost built. That is the vision being created by the budget resolution and then some.

The idea of increasing green cards for illegal immigrants already here will make these numbers explode beyond what they already exploded. Only God knows.

Has anyone told you the price at the pump? Has anybody mentioned to you on the other side what is the cost of this bill when we implement change reforms to you as a consumer?

Senator Markey, who is a very passionate believer in climate change, said the Green New Deal is part of the DNA of this bill.

Senator Sanders is an avowed socialist, one of the most honest people in this building. Senator Sanders' vision for the last 20 and 30 years is in this budget resolution. This budget resolution is a dream for those who want to socialize America; it is a nightmare for working people.

How much have gas prices gone up in the last 6 months?

A dollar.

Here is what I think: If you implement the provisions of this budget resolution regarding climate change, you are declaring war on the internal combustion engine; you are going to shut out coal-fired plants in rural America.

The question I have for my Democratic colleagues: How much will gas prices go up if this bill becomes reality? How much will your heating bill go up because you shut down supply? How has there been an increase of a dollar at the pump? Policy matters.

I dare say that, if this bill is ever implemented, you are going to double gas prices.

I hope you are listening out there, America. If they implement this radical transformation of our energy economy, you are going to have a dramatic increase of gas prices and heating prices.

This is the worst thought-out idea I have ever seen. They are just throwing every liberal idea and hope it sticks to the wall, and their whole reason for being on the left is in this bill.

There is a border-adjusted carbon tax proposal floating around out there. What does that mean to you? What the hell is a border-adjusted carbon tax?

The best I can understand is it is going to be a tax on products coming into the country because the way the product was made is not sufficiently green enough. So they are going to charge for that product, put a tax on it at the border. Guess what. That is going to increase the cost of whatever good we are talking about.

And where do you think that cost goes?

It goes to you.

This is the most inflationary idea I have ever seen. We have had 5.4- percent increase in inflation recently, wiping out all the gains in the economy.

How could that be?

You are spending money like drunken sailors. And if this bill ever becomes law, if it is ever implemented and there is a border-adjusted carbon tax, it is going to be passed onto the consumer.

If you are on a fixed income, this whole idea is a nightmare for you because your gas prices are going to go up, your heating bill is going to go up, and all of the things that they are going to make for free will create an inflationary effect.

The size of the government is going to increase dramatically. Interest rates will have to go up. So if you own a home, you drive a car, you breathe air, get ready for more taxes and more spending.

All I can say is that I believe in climate change, and I would like to have a rational approach to solving the problem. But this is not rational; this is partisan. And this $4.2 trillion bill--it is not three and a half--is going to lead a wave of illegal immigration, the likes of which you have never seen before; a 262-percent increase in the last 6 months. If this bill, this idea, ever becomes reality, you can double that. If this bill ever becomes reality, a dollar increase in gas prices is going to be the good old days.

If they shut down all the coal-fired plants without any way to replace them, other than a bunch of BS, good luck with the heating bill.

They are going to change your country. It is going to be more like Venezuela and less like America.

This idea that it is going to be paid for by taxing the rich is a bunch of BS. If you took the entire wealth of the 1 percent, including their cars and their dogs, it is less than half of what we need to deal with the entitlement problems we already have.

And you are growing exponentially the size of government--more government to pay for. Eventually interest rates are going to have to go up.

You are putting in motion, I think, the demise of America as we know it. You are putting in motion a government that nobody's grandchild could ever afford to pay. You are putting in motion the destruction of energy independence. You have declared war on the fossil fuel industry in this country, and you have not done a damn thing about China, India, Russia, or Iran.

The bottom line here is, if you believe in energy independence, then you need to vote against this budget resolution because we will lose it. If you believe that inflation is the death blow to the middle class, you need to vote against this budget resolution. If you don't know how much gas prices are going to be increased, they owe you an answer.

So I am going to ask this question for the next 15 hours: Do you have any idea, if all this becomes reality, how much increase at the pump will be affected by the average consumer the next year? How much will our heating bills go up? As to the border-adjusted carbon tax, will it be inflationary? Where does the money go from the tax? Who gets it? Little details like this.

All I can say is that everybody has a dream in America. There is the American dream and the American socialist dream for America. This budget resolution sets in motion an assault on free enterprise, the destruction of energy independence, incentivizing illegal immigration at a time we can afford it the least.

If you don't believe these things, then you haven't read what is in this blueprint. Have you ever asked yourself the question: What the hell has happened in the last 6 months; why are we up $1 a gallon at the pump? Because they declared a war on fossil fuels made in America.

Why do we have a 262-percent increase in illegal immigration? Because they changed all the policies that worked at the border.

Why is inflation rising? Because the fiscal policies of the Biden administration and our friends on the left are driving up prices.

The worst is yet to come. If this budget resolution becomes a reality, God help the American middle class. We will be less energy independent. Our money will go not nearly as far.

You are going to have to automatically raise taxes if you intend to pay for this monstrosity. And some Democrats say it has to be paid for. There is no way in hell to pay for this bill unless you fundamentally raise taxes across the board--at a time when we are struggling to get back on our feet.

This is why we have elections. In 2022, this idea will be on the ballot. My goal and my Republican colleagues' is to fight like hell to stop the increase at the pump, stop the increase of the heating bills, and to stop an invasion in our country by illegal immigrants all driven by bad policy choices.

But everything they have done in the last 6 months pales in comparison with what they are going to do to this country if this budget resolution ever becomes a reality.

Yes, sir, we are going to have one hell of a fight. I don't know how long we are going to be here, but as long as it takes. America is worth fighting for. And America, we know, is at risk with this budget resolution.

Thank you.

I yield the remaining Republican time on the resolution.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the duration of the Senate's consideration of S. Con. Res. 14, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2021, the majority and the Republican managers of the resolution, while seated or standing at the managers' desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and other data communications from text displayed on wireless personal digital assistant devices and tablet devices.

I further ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor during consideration of the budget resolution; further, that the staff be permitted to make technical and conforming changes to the resolution, if necessary, consistent with the amendments adopted during Senate consideration, including calculating the associated change in the net interest function and incorporating the effect of such adopted amendments on the budgetary aggregates for Federal revenues, the amount by which the Federal revenue should be changed, new budget authority, budget outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the public.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided, prior to each vote during consideration of S. Con. Res. 14.

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking President Biden and Majority Leader Schumer for their leadership in the arduous process which has gotten us to where we are right now.

I do understand that many of my Republican colleagues are in a bit of shock. They are in a bit of shock now. They are finding it hard to believe that the President and the Democratic Caucus are prepared to go forward in addressing the long, neglected needs of working families and not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors. That is not the way things usually happen around here.

Usually, it is the big money interests, the campaign contributors, and the lobbyists who call the tunes. But not today. Today, we move this country in a very different direction.

The American people are sick and tired of growing income and wealth inequality in our country, where two people now own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent, where the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and where 45 percent of all new income has gone to the top 1 percent since 2009.

In other words, the people on top are doing phenomenally well.

Meanwhile, while the very rich have become much richer, the gross unfairness of our current tax system has allowed, in a given year, some of the wealthiest people in our country and some of the largest and most profitable corporations to not pay a nickel in a given year in Federal income tax--not one penny.

Well, that is about to change. The American people want a government which represents all of us and not just the few. And this legislation is going to ask the wealthiest people in our country to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can address the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor.

And despite what some of my Republican colleagues may be saying, no one in America who makes less than $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in Federal taxes. In fact, what we are looking at in this budget proposal is a historic tax cut for working families and the middle class.

Further, and importantly, at a time when California is on fire, when Oregon is on fire, when Greece is burning, and when countries throughout the world are experiencing unprecedented drought, which will clearly impact food production, this legislation begins the process of combating climate change so that our kids and grandchildren can live in a country and on a planet which is healthy and habitable. It would be immoral and an absolute dereliction of our responsibilities as elected officials to do anything less. We cannot ignore climate change any longer. Now is the time for our great country to lead the world out of this existential crisis.

And, by the way, as we address the long neglected needs of working families and as we combat climate change, we are going to create millions of good-paying jobs, many of them union jobs.

Let me very briefly take this opportunity to describe some of what is in this budget proposal. First, we are going to address the disgrace of the United States having the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. This is the wealthiest country on Earth, and we should not have millions of our children living in poverty.

This budget is going to provide the long-awaited-for help that working parents all over this country desperately need, and when we do that, we will substantially reduce childhood poverty in America. And we are going to do that by extending the child tax credit so that families continue to receive monthly direct payments of up to $300 per child.

We began that process in the American Rescue Plan. It has been enormously successful in Vermont and all over this country as parents finally get the help that they need to raise their kids, and, in fact, it has helped reduce childhood poverty in our country by 61 percent. And we are going to extend those child tax credits.

Further, we are going to help working parents by addressing the crisis in childcare by making sure that no working family in our country pays more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. And all over this country, in talking to parents in Vermont and elsewhere, people are paying 20 percent, 25 percent of their income for childcare so that they can go to work. That makes no sense at all. Under our proposal, no working family will pay more than 7 percent. And when we do that, when we make childcare more affordable and accessible, it will allow over a million women who are now home with their kids to reenter the workforce and improve our economy.

Further, in terms of addressing the needs of our working parents and their kids, we will expand public education by providing universal pre- K to every 3- and 4-year-old in the country.

This budget proposal is going to end the international disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave as a right. Somebody who is sick today should not be forced to go to work and maybe, by expanding their illness by contagion,

make other people sick. Parents should be able to stay home with their sick children. When a woman has a baby, she should not be forced back into work a week after giving birth simply because she has no income to stay home.

Yes, in America, we will join every other major country and guarantee paid family and medical leave.

We will begin to address the crisis in higher education by making community colleges in America tuition-free, and this will give millions of young people and working people the opportunity to get the education they need to acquire the skills so they can go out and get the good- paying jobs that are out there. It will also give people the opportunity to transfer the 2 years of credits earned at a community college to a 4-year school. Now, I hope in years to come we will go further, but 2 years of free community college is no small thing.

This budget proposal begins the process of taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by requiring that Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. It is not acceptable to me and to the American people that we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Medicare must negotiate prescription drug prices, and this budget sets the stage for that to happen.

And we will use the savings acquired by negotiating prescription drug prices in Medicare by expanding Medicare. We are going to use those savings to expand Medicare to cover the dental care, the hearing aids, and the eyeglasses that seniors desperately need. This is the wealthiest country on Earth, and yet we have millions of senior citizens who lack teeth in their mouth. They need dentures; they can't afford to get them. They need hearing aids in order to communicate with their grandkids; can't afford to do that. They need a decent pair of glasses; can't afford that.

And in terms of healthcare, we will also substantially increase the number of doctors, nurses, and dentists who practice in underserved areas and expand the Community Health Centers Program into new areas as well.

This budget proposal will combat homelessness in America and address the reality that nearly 18 million households are paying over 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing through an unprecedented investment in affordable housing. We will ensure, further, that people in an aging society--we are getting older as a society, and we will ensure that those people can receive the healthcare they need in their own homes instead of being forced into expensive and inadequate nursing homes and that the workers who provide that important care to the elderly and the disabled are not forced to exist on starvation wages. This is such important work and such emotionally draining work; those folks deserve a decent paycheck.

We will bring undocumented people out of the shadows and provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those very brave workers who have courageously kept our economy going in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

As I mentioned earlier, we will take on the existential threat of climate change by transforming our energy system toward renewable energy and energy efficiency. Among many other provisions in terms of climate change, we will establish a Civilian Climate Corps which will give hundreds of thousands of young people good-paying jobs and educational benefits as they roll up their sleeves and get to work to help us save the planet.

This budget proposal will make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions in America.

My Republican colleagues are upset that we are using the reconciliation process and only 50 votes to pass this budget. They are very upset about that. But let us be clear. This idea of using reconciliation is certainly not a new idea. When Republicans controlled the Senate, they used reconciliation to pass trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations.

When Republicans controlled the Senate, they used reconciliation to make climate change worse by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

When Republicans controlled the Senate, they tried to use reconciliation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw 32 million Americans off of the healthcare they had.

Well, today, it is true we will also use reconciliation, but we will do it in a different way. We will use it to help the working families of our country and not just the wealthy and the powerful.

It is no great secret that millions of Americans are giving up on democracy, are moving toward authoritarianism, and are losing faith in their government. Many of those people are working longer hours for lower wages; they can't afford healthcare; they can't afford to send their kids to college; and they worry very much about the future of their kids and the future of this country.

This legislation will not only provide enormous support-- unprecedented in recent American history--to the children in our country, to the parents in our country, to the elderly people in our country, to the working families of our country, but it will also, I hope, restore the faith of the American people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us and not just the few.

Thank you.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments, that they be reported by number, and that the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed with no amendments in order prior to a vote: Barrasso No. 3055, Carper No. 3330, Thune No. 3106, and Cortez Masto No. 3317.

I yield the majority's remaining time on the resolution.

Madam President, Mr. Barrasso's amendment is interesting, when he talks about the Green New Deal. The only problem is what he is talking about has nothing to do with the Green New Deal.

Despite what Senator Barrasso says, the Green New Deal would not ship jobs overseas. In fact, it will create millions of good-paying jobs in the United States of America. It will not raise electricity prices. It will not make the United States dependent on dirty sources of energy from other countries.

In case the Senator from Wyoming has missed it, Oregon is burning, California is burning, Greece is burning. There is a drought hitting virtually every country on Earth. News flash: Climate change is real and the United States and other countries have got to address it.

Madam President, as a supporter of the Green New Deal, I have no problem voting for this amendment because it has nothing to do with the Green New Deal.

Vote on Amendment No. 3055

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Cortez Masto amendment the following amendments be in order and that the amendments be reported by number with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Lummis, No. 3104; Hassan- Young, No. 3278, Crapo, No. 3099; Wyden, No. 3365; Cramer, No. 3105; Scott, No. 3073; and Rubio, No. 3097

Mr. President, I would urge my Republican colleagues to read the recent IPCC report. And if they did, they would find that it is now unequivocal that climate change is caused by human activity.

We are seeing what climate change is doing with our own eyes. We can no longer be blind to this reality. We are seeing the intensity and the increase in forest fires. We are seeing more extreme weather disturbances. We are seeing rising sea levels that will soon threaten the habitability of great American cities like Miami, New York, and Charleston. We are seeing the acidification of the oceans that threaten fishing and marine life. And we are seeing an increase in disease.

We have got to move away from fossil fuel. We have got to end fracking.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 3105

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Rubio amendment, the following amendments be in order; that the amendments be reported by number, with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Shelby, No. 3293; Grassley, No. 3251; Wyden, No. 3569; Mr. Tuberville, No. 3113; Ms. Klobuchar, No. 3731.

We yield back our time.

Mr. President, we are going to now do 10-minute votes. The Members should be warned. Stay in your seats. We are not holding the vote open.

Not exactly, says Gary, but close enough. You know who runs the show around here. All right, for 10 minutes or as close as we can come to it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments in the order listed and that the amendments be reported by number and that the amendments alternate with a Democratic amendment when one is available to be called up: Kennedy, No. 782, SBA/riots; Paul, No. 441, roads; Lee, No. 770, oil and gas on Federal lands; Cruz, No. 811, employment-based visas; Scott, No. 872, border security; Capito, No. 655, navigable waters; Lankford, No. 837, State and local/religion.

This is not the last list, my colleagues. There are another 10. So if we stay in our chairs, we might make it by sunrise, but we really have to cooperate here. Those are the ones we have so far.

Mr. President, we all want to finish this process. If we all stay in our seats, we could avoid the recount and save a bunch of minutes for each vote. I would urge and plead with every Member to stay in their seat so we can get this done as quickly as possible.

I yield the floor.

(Chorus of Hear! Hear!)

Vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, upon disposition of the Lankford amendment, No. 837, it be in order to call up the following amendments in the order listed, the amendments be reported by number, and the amendments alternate with a Democratic amendment when one is available to be called up: Crapo No. 55, Hoeven No. 887, Portman No. 816, Romney No. 803, and Lee No. 253.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments in the order listed, the amendments be reported by number, and the amendments alternate with a Democratic amendment when one is available.

We are not doing the Lee amendment. He withdrew it. Kudos to Mr. Lee.

We have Cruz No. 871, Murkowski No. 806, Sullivan No. 461, Rubio No. 651, and Sanders No. 804.

Mr. President, before we go to the amendment, please sit in your--we are getting closer to the end. When everyone was in their seats, it took us only 5 minutes to do these. Could people please resume sitting in their seats.

Mr. President, I am about to offer a substitute amendment that is the last step we need to ensure that the House can move forward expeditiously and help bring the bold relief the American people so need.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up amendment No. 888, and that if the amendment is agreed to, it be in order to call up the McConnell amendment; thereto, notwithstanding adoption of the Schumer-Sanders amendment 888, that these be the only amendments remaining in order.

I call up my amendment No. 888 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, thank you so much for being part of this first big step to putting our country back on the road to recovery. We very much appreciate your being here.

Just a brief word. I am so thankful that our caucus stayed together in unity. We had no choice, given the problems facing America and the desire to move forward, and we have moved forward. Many bipartisan amendments were adopted, so this was a bipartisan activity. In fact, the first amendment, which will help the restaurants, was done by Senators Sinema and Wicker.

But we cannot underscore enough how much help America needs during this awful crisis, and we cannot miss the point that we still have a long way

to go. This was a giant first step, a step in concord, and we are so grateful that President Biden put together a plan, with input from so many of us--both sides of the aisle--to bring America back, to overcome this horrible crisis and then move America forward so that America can once again feel the hope and opportunity that has been so, so much part of this land but that we seem to have lost over the last 4 years and particularly with the pandemic.

So we will keep working as hard as we can to pass this legislation through the House, through the Senate, as we go through the reconciliation process and hopefully put it on the President's desk.

A month ago today, two Senators from Georgia, two Democratic Senators, were elected, and just a month from that day, we have taken a giant step to begin to fulfill our promise to the American people that a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, and President Biden will have their backs and move them forward during this awful crisis.

Madam President, in this ragtag, middle-of-the-night procedure, the Senator from Utah asks a basic question: What if my freedom conflicts with your freedom? Specifically, what if my freedom of religious belief says that I don't have to sell my home to an African American? What if my religious belief says that I don't have to pay women the same thing as men who work for me? What if my religious belief says that I can discriminate against a person because of their sexual orientation?

I read the Senator's amendment as saying the answer is obvious: religion prevails.

I don't think it is that simple. It is not that simple in this building or across the street in the Supreme Court.

If we are dealing with the fundamental question of discrimination based on religious belief, we all want to make certain that we acknowledge and respect religious belief, but we also feel pretty strongly about the rights of individuals when it comes to their gender, their identity, their sexual orientation, their color, the fact that they may be disabled.

Arguing that religious belief would allow me to discriminate with impunity is a pretty large question to assert at this time of night.

I hope my colleagues will join me in opposing this Lee amendment.

Mr. President, the Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices. That is up to Congress. Congress has a long history of altering the makeup of the Court. The number of Justices changed six times before we arrived at the number nine. This amendment chooses to ignore the history.

For the record, there is exactly one living Senator who has effectively changed the size of the Supreme Court. He is Senator McConnell, who shrank the Court to eight seats for nearly a year, in the last year of the Obama Presidency, by refusing to fill the Scalia vacancy. Now President Biden has established a bipartisan commission to study Supreme Court reform. Let them do their work.

Point of Order

Mr. President, come to think of it, should we be changing the Senate rules in the budget resolution? I think not.

In fact, Mr. President, as a result, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment is not germane to the underlying resolution. Therefore, it violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, the solution sounds so simple, and it is simply wrong. May I give you an example?

Barring additional green cards for hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers stuck in the backlog won't help American workers since these immigrants are already working here. In fact, it would hurt American workers by creating an incentive to hire more guest workers who can be paid lower wages.

This is not the approach we need for coronavirus immigration reform.

Point of Order

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment is not germane to the underlying resolution. Therefore, it violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

In the course of the last year, more than 425,000 Americans died. We all know the story, and we know it personally.

Elected officials at every level have been called on to respond to this pandemic. Mayors and Governors have had to make critical public health choices they didn't believe they would ever face in their professional lives. They had to decide whether certain businesses would be opened or closed, when to open and close schools, whether or not they would have churches that would be open. It was a myriad of opportunities to make the right decision or the wrong decision.

Some of them learned the hard way. Some were courageous; some were not. Some listened to the scientific community and some ignored it. But I believe most of them tried to do their best.

Sadly, when it was all said and done, many made wrong decisions in terms of when to open and how many people to allow in certain places. It was just a fact of life--a novel coronavirus--and they were trying to respond to infection and death.

Sadly, what the Senator from Oklahoma is charging is if there was a discrimination against a church in the process--

The people in the community would be penalized to receive less Federal funds because of the decision the Governor had made.

The Senator from Florida is asking us to lock in the relationship with Remain in Mexico and the Migrant Protection Protocols. The new President, Joe Biden, is in the process of reviewing that at the very moment. The question is whether we are going to adopt the Rubio amendment and tie his hands to accept the outcome.

Allow this President, elected by a large majority of the American people, a chance to lead and to respond to a real challenge. Vote no on the Rubio amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 651

Madam President, Senate Democrats take a backseat to no one in standing up for family farmers, ranchers, and small businesses. In fact, President Biden has made it clear that any changes to stepped- up basis will provide durable protection for family farmers, ranchers, and small businesses.

Speaking for myself, Senator Cortez Masto and Senator Tester, we are following through on that Biden pledge because it is both fair and common sense.

Now, capital gains reform is about ensuring that the wealthiest pay their fair share. On our watch, multibillionaires cannot plant a few tomatoes and call themselves a family farmer.

I will vote for the Thune amendment as well as the important Cortez Masto-Tester-Wyden amendment that will be taken up next.

Vote on Amendment No. 3106

Colleagues, a decade of Republican budget cuts to the IRS has resulted in rampant tax cheating at the top. Tax enforcement is going to require new resources and new tools to crack down on the high- flying tax cheats.

The Crapo amendment would, for all practical purposes, preserve the status quo--the status quo that has contributed to the trillion-dollar tax cap mushrooming and growing bigger.

This amendment would make it harder to root out tax cheating, and it is unfair to working Americans who pay their taxes automatically out of each paycheck.

Shortly--and we are going to reject the Crapo amendment--I will offer an alternative that will protect the little guy without forfeiting the chance to go after the big tax cheats, the wealthiest.

I urge the vote.

Vote on Amendment No. 3099

I call up my amendment No. 3365 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, the IRS Commissioner told the Senate Finance Committee that, in his judgment, the tax gap--the difference between taxes paid and taxes owed--is as much as $1 trillion a year. Current tax gap estimates likely miss a large number of the high flyers who clearly are driving this tax gap up and up.

Taxpayers acting to conceal this income from tax authorities are going to have a much tougher time if the Congress requires that financial institutions take practical and reasonable steps to require that financial institutions report on financial accounts.

Our interest on our side is to go after the big guys who generate significant inflows and outflows of cash and other assets, and we do it in a way that protects privacy and sensitive taxpayer and small business tax information. And this privacy issue has been one of the most important issues in my time in public service. And we are going to make sure that you can get the high flyers, the wealthy tax cheats, without forfeiting the rights of the little guy.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, colleagues, our tax bill will be progressive, even though my friend from Iowa told you just the opposite.

Now, the 2017 Trump tax laws specifically targeted families in the middle with tax hikes to pay for some of the handouts that Republican colleagues wanted to give corporations and the megawealthy.

Over here, on our side, we want to fix that mistake, but my friend from Iowa is offering an amendment to lock in those tax hikes on families in the middle.

Democrats are proposing very substantial tax cuts for working-class folks, for the middle class, and what we are going to be doing in our tax bill is working to make the Tax Code more progressive by ensuring that the megawealthy pay their fair share.

I mean, we have all seen--and this has been documented for quite some time--and my colleague from Iowa knows that we have exposed these mega- IRAs that billionaires have.

So I just hope my colleagues will reject the Grassley amendment, and when we do, I will offer what is truly a progressive alternative.