A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2021 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2022 through 2030.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to bring up the point that there must be equal attention to the dangers of extremism, whether it is extremism of the right or extremism of the left.

We have all been horrified by the senseless criminal acts that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of this year. A violent mob was able to overrun Capitol Police and quickly gain access to the area where a joint session of Congress was being held. Five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died as a result of this attack.

I hope that together, Republicans and Democrats, we can get to the bottom of what occurred on that day and ensure that it never happens again

In the spirit of collaboration, I must direct everyone's attention to something that has occurred to me, and that is the need to condemn all political violence regardless of ideology. Like many Americans, I have been deeply troubled by the rioting, looting, anti-police attacks, and deaths that have occurred this summer.

While many very legitimately protested the death of George Floyd in a peaceful manner, consistent with their rights under the First Amendment, thousands of others did not do it in a peaceful manner and probably did it for a lot of other reasons than just George Floyd's death. One of the most upsetting aspects of the violence of this summer has been how it has targeted innocent law enforcement officers. Over 700 officers were injured between May 27 and June 8, 2020. This number is likely underreported as nearly 300 of those injuries occurred only in New York City.

Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli testified at a hearing in front of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution that there had been 277 Federal officer injuries at the Federal courthouse in Portland, adding further to that total previously given to you. Officers were assaulted nightly there for months--slashed, hard objects thrown at them, struck with objects like hammers and baseball bats, even blinded by lasers.

In another offensive, 60 Secret Service officers were injured during a sustained attack on the White House, which caused then-President Trump to be taken to a secure bunker. The church across the street from the White House was lit on fire as part of that continued assault. Over 300 people were charged federally for their roles in these weeks and months of violence. Eighty of those charges related to the use of arson and explosives. Others involved assaults on officers and the destruction of government property.

However, the nationwide riots, which broke out in nearly every major city in the country, were predominantly State offenses. At least 14,000 people were arrested in 49 cities. At least 25 people died in violence related to the riots. Property Claim Services--a company that tracks insurance claims relating to riots and civil disorders--estimates that the insurance losses from the summer's civil unrest ``far outstrip'' all previous records to possibly exceed $2 billion.

It has been a relatively frequent sight at the summer's violent events to see individuals acting in coordination in all black bloc, holding the ``A'' symbol of antifa. An admitted antifa adherent in Portland murdered a conservative protester. Antifa supporters have been charged federally for promoting riots and using Molotov cocktails. While that violence has slackened now since President Biden's electoral victory was declared, it has far from abated. Antifa rioters attacked the Oregon Democratic Party's headquarters on inauguration day itself. The far left of this country continues to believe violence will get more attention for their causes even after a Democratic victory win for the White House.

Much of the violence of the summer was specifically investigated by the FBI as domestic terrorism. FBI Director Chris Wray provides statistics on domestic terrorism in his annual threats testimony. He has previously testified that 900 to 1,000 domestic terrorism investigations exist at any given time. There are also about 1,000-- what they call--homegrown violent extremism investigations. These are cases in which an entirely U.S.-based person without direct contact with a foreign terrorist organization is motivated by the global jihadist movement, and, of course, there are thousands more international terrorism investigations.

Former U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox testified in a subcommittee hearing that over 300 domestic terrorism cases were opened due to the violence just this past summer. This is a significant increase in the ordinary amount of domestic terrorism in the United States. That this violence occurred--and the facts and the figures that surround it-- should not be news to anyone. However, I must admit that I have been extremely surprised by the responses of Democratic Members to this violence.

For weeks and months, the most consistent response seemed to be to deny the violence was occurring at all. I saw Jerrold Nadler on TV--the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee--deny that antifa itself was real. In a nationally televised debate with then-President Trump, then- Candidate Joe Biden wrongly stated that antifa was only an ``idea.'' This is even after FBI Director Wray had already testified to Congress that antifa was absolutely a ``real thing'' and that the FBI had cases and investigations against those calling themselves ``antifa.''

It seems that some Democrats are living in a different world than those who have seen businesses boarded up, if not burned out, images of violence in the streets, and terrifying attacks on police officers. When the violence was admitted by those same people, it seemed to have been condone rather than condemned.

Now, Vice President Harris previously said:

They're not going to stop, and everyone, beware. [ . . . ]

And they should not, and we should not.

You have seen that quote many times on various TV channels. Our new Vice President did not disclaim the rioting and unrest and direct her followers only to lawful action.

Congresswoman Pressley stated: ``There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there is unrest in our lives.''

Speaker Pelosi famously said this on the widespread property damage. As you saw, when asked about it, she was quoted as saying: ``People will do what they do.'' That is a direct quote from

her, and you have seen that many times on television.

Now, that indifference that seems to be expressed in those and in a lot of other quotations we could give to the violence that our constituents were enduring was dramatically shattered when a violent riot came to this building itself. After that event, many Members of Congress asked why a more militarized force had not protected them from a group of then-President Trump supporters who had turned violent. Police officers were again considered heroes and protectors unlike last summer when they were attacked. The presence of National Guard members was all of a sudden welcomed rather than decried unlike last summer, in cities like Portland and Seattle, when mayors condemned, maybe, the President or the Federal Government, generally, for interfering and trying to bring peace to those cities.

Many of the people of this country would like to have such resources available to them to ensure their safety, like every weekend in Chicago when there are dozens of people hurt by shootings and a lot of people killed in that same weekend.

Since the day of the attack on the Capitol, I have heard much of a renewed focus among my Democratic colleagues on combating domestic terrorism and political violence, and there is nothing wrong with combating domestic terrorism and political violence. That is why my first words today were that there needs to be equal attention to the danger of terrorism, whether it is of the left or of the right. As I indicated in my words just stated, this is very much welcomed--any attention we can give to domestic terrorism and political violence--and I hope that we will be able to work together to keep Americans safe.

However, any work that we do in this area must be focused on preventing violence no matter what ideology is given to justify that violence. In fact, in a recent Department of Homeland Security bulletin, that bulletin noted the breadth of potential threats we may be facing after the Capitol riot, including domestic violent extremists ``motivated by a range of issues, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force'' as well as ``racial and ethnic tension'' and homegrown violent extremists ``inspired by foreign terrorist groups.''

The response that I have seen to the Capitol riot here in Congress has not given me hope that we are in agreement about combating this broad range of threats in the spirit of giving equal attention to the dangers of domestic terrorism or any kind of violation of law, whether it comes from the right or the left. I have seen that many Democratic Members of Congress seem to be discussing the need to combat White supremacism with reference to the Capitol riot. I am not going to find fault with anybody who talks about any race of any kind thinking they are supreme to anybody else because we are all individuals that God loves, and if we were to return that love, we wouldn't have a lot of problems in this country.

We must absolutely combat White supremacism, wherever it occurs, and we have a responsibility to understand the true factors that led to the attack on this building. I hope to learn more from law enforcement over the coming weeks and months about what the involvement of White supremacists or any other extremist was in this attack.

However, I am concerned that the use of the term may have a different purpose: to try to portray any supporters of former President Trump, who garnered over 74 million votes in the most recent election, as White supremacists.

Congresswoman Cori Bush stated on the House floor that former President Trump was a ``white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection.'' I hope everyone can agree that such rhetorical and inaccurate characterizations are dangerous.

More concerning seems to be the idea that violence committed by the far left or for left-leaning ideologies is in some way tolerable because of the left's assessment that the purpose of all that violence is somehow noble. However, right-leaning thought, whether accompanied by violence or not, is considered terroristic.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, whose credibility has been questioned, praised incoming President Biden's inaugural reference to defeating ``white supremacy'' and likened libertarians to ``religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists.''

It is hard to see how libertarian political philosophy, a mainstream conservative political ideology which is scarcely in any way associated with violence, is related to the other terms that Mr. Brennan lists, unless, of course, Mr. Brennan is simply referring to religious Americans as religious extremists, or those who believe in the rule of law rather than antifa rioting as ``authoritarians'' and ``fascists,'' or those who believe in having a functioning immigration system as somehow they seem to be bigots or racists or nativists.

In short, these are all terms that are applied regularly and unfairly to conservative Americans using peaceful means to argue for their ideas of religious freedom, law and order, and secure borders, and probably a lot of other things that they argue for. Congresswoman Jackie Speier was even more direct in a tweet, suggesting that all Republicans be labeled terrorists.

As a body, we may begin looking into domestic terrorism more generally. I look forward to so doing. I am sure all Members will share my commitment that the focus of our inquiry should be on all of the politically motivated violence we have seen in this country and not somehow just a subset of that politically motivated violence. The men and women of this Nation who have been affected by antifa and other leftwing extremists are entitled to much more than a cursory acknowledgment of that fact. Likewise, I hope no part of our effort will focus on demonizing the peaceful expression of ideas with which Democratic Members disagree.

I will be sharing the ideas that I have on this subject and these concerns that I have stated today directly with my friend, the incoming Senate Judiciary chairman, Senator Durbin. He will get a letter from me, and I look forward to working with Senator Durbin on the path forward.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, who has such a good insight into the impact of the Executive orders of the Biden administration on his State, very similar to my State. The concerns that he heard at home over the last 2 weeks are identical to the ones that I have heard in Wyoming the last 2 weekends.

It is day 15 today of the Biden administration, and on day 1, President Biden--and we listened as he spoke--promised to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, he said, and healing. Well, within his inaugural address, he said the words: ``With unity, we can do great things.''

The Senator from Oklahoma and I agreed with the President and the words that he spoke on inaugural day, but here we are just 2 weeks later, and it seems to me it was all just talk. So far, we haven't seen much bipartisanship from the Biden administration. President Biden has already issued more than 45 Executive actions, and that is more Executive actions in the first 2 weeks than Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton in their beginnings in office.

It is interesting because, as President Biden was rolling out one Executive order after another, even the liberal New York Times, which endorsed President Biden, had this lead headline. And this was Thursday, January 28, so this was a full week ago. It says: Ease up on Executive orders. The New York Times to President Biden: Ease up on Executive orders. When the New York Times has to call President Biden out on Executive overreach, you know that President Biden has abandoned the promises that he made during the campaign and that he made to us on inaugural day.

To just kind of go into the editorial and what they wrote, they said: ``Ease Up on the Executive actions, Joe.'' They said: ``[T]his is no way to make law.'' They said: ``These directives . . . are a flawed substitute for legislation.''

That is what we see the Biden administration adopting, a flawed substitute, as they say, for legislation.

They go on to say that on the campaign trail, President Biden touted his skills at making compromise. I saw that when I served with him in the Senate--before the Presiding Officer got here, but he and I served together in this body. I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chaired. He does have a history and a skill at finding compromise.

The New York Times went on to say that President ``Biden's legacy will depend on his ability to hammer out agreements with Congress.'' That is why we have three branches of government--the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary branch; all of the branches of government--and, as they say, the legacy will depend on his ability to hammer out agreements with Congress.

The problem isn't just how many Executive orders are being issued, as my friend and colleague from Oklahoma said; it is what is in them.

President Biden has already launched a full-scale attack on American energy. To me, this is the whole Green New Deal dressed up as Executive orders. In fact, a Congresswoman from Michigan who is part of the squad has been actually boasting about it. She said the principles and the values in the Green New Deal are in the Executive orders by President Biden. She went on to say that the Green New Deal pushed the President toward a much more aggressive approach.

I think her statement is accurate. President Biden has already shut down the Keystone Pipeline. He drew a big target on the back of American energy, and then he pulled the trigger, killed the Keystone Pipeline. Hundreds of American workers have already received pink slips. Thousands more will do so. And that will be soon. President Biden banned new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. Half of my State is Federal land, so we know how this works. If this President also keeps his promise to ban fracking, this could lead to a total of millions of Americans losing jobs over the next couple of years.

At a time when 10 million Americans are already unemployed, these figures are shocking. Yet Democrats aren't stopping there. Last week, the Democratic leader came to the floor, and he urged President Biden to go even further, to do even more--much more than was criticized by the New York Times. He said President Biden should declare a national emergency because of climate change--a national emergency, he said, the leader of the Democratic Party, on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Leader Schumer is admitting that this radical environmental agenda doesn't have bipartisan support. It doesn't seem to even have Presidential support to that level, but that is what Senator Schumer is calling for.

Apparently, Senator Schumer isn't just wanting to outsource energy jobs; he seems to want to outsource the work of the U.S. Senate as well. That is not what the American people sent us here to do. They didn't send us here to stand by and watch a President go with one Executive order after another, after another; they sent us here to get things done.

The truth is, despite what Leader Schumer says, there is actually bipartisan support for action on climate change. Just over a month ago, the Senate passed a bill called the USE IT Act, which I authored with Senator Carper. It came through the Environment and Public Works Committee, which I chaired. It was completely bipartisan. It came through the committee unanimously. It doesn't cost a

single American a job. It makes a difference with regard to climate. That is what the American people sent us here to do, to work together to find solutions that work, that don't hurt. Unfortunately, it is not the Biden approach. The Biden approach turns out to be more mandates, less energy production, and fewer American jobs.

Now we see President Biden pushing a $2 trillion spending bill. He says it is to help fight coronavirus. We just passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill about a month ago, signed into law, and as a result, our economy is actually doing better than expected.

Now President Biden, with his new bill, wants to send checks to families making in excess of $250,000 a year--a government check, paid for by taxpayers, added to the national debt. Families making over a quarter of a million dollars a year getting a check from the government when they have never missed a paycheck in the first place?

He also wants to give added bonuses for people who are out of work on unemployment. People who are out of work on unemployment need that unemployment but not with the added bonuses to the level that President Biden is pointing to. And I hear about it in Wyoming. I heard about it last week.

If we pass what President Biden is calling for, the average unemployed American would receive a little less than $800 a week total from the government, by their regular unemployment and by the enhance unemployment. That is equivalent to a job making $40,000 a year. People would, in many places, be paid more to not go back to work than they could earn if they went back to work. So the incentive is to keep them out of work. At the same time, we have ``Help Wanted'' signs up around the State of Wyoming.

President Biden's proposal also includes billions of dollars in spending unrelated to coronavirus--completely unrelated--which is something the American people don't understand. They understand we need to fight coronavirus. They understand we need to get people back to work. They understand we need to get kids back to school. But to add extraneous spending unrelated to coronavirus is something Americans don't understand.

Now, this bill includes a mandate from Washington, DC, a mandate to the small businesses all around the country--many of them struggling, many of them having a hard time making their payroll--and the Washington mandate is, you will double the amount of money that you pay right now if you are paying the current minimum wage--doubling the national minimum wage; a mandate from Washington on small business; nothing to do with coronavirus but a lot to do with making it that much harder for the small businesses in the small towns of Wyoming to make their payroll and to stay open.

Now, it makes common sense when you take a look at that impact--and even the Congressional Budget Office has looked at it, and they have come to the same conclusion that I have and that the people of Wyoming have: It is going to cost jobs. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost 1,300,000 jobs across America if President Biden has his way and forces a double of the minimum wage on small businesses of America.

Now, in exchange for that Federal mandate, the bill pays off States, big cities, blue States with a long history of bad behavior, to the tune of $350 billion. A study from JPMorgan just came out, and the study shows that State tax revenues barely dropped at all in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus. They dropped less than 1 percent. These States do not need $350 billion of additional Federal support. If the State needs a bailout, it is not because of coronavirus; it is because of a long history of mismanagement.

The Biden administration made this proposal without any meaningful discussions with Republicans at all. And the administration is even ignoring the Democrats. Vice President Harris recently went on television in West Virginia and in Arizona. Why? Not to put pressure on Republicans; to put pressure on Democrats--big story in the New York Times today--putting pressure on the two new Senators, Senator Sinema and--the Senators from Arizona--Senator Kelly, the newest elected Senator from Arizona, put on them to vote for the bill. She also went to West Virginia--Senator Manchin. Not only are they not talking to Republicans; now they are trying to pressure Democrats.

Let's face it. The Democrats are trying to cram this bill through Congress. That is what they are going to do with the vote-arama this week.

On Friday there was an article in the Washington Post. The headline is this: ``Biden, Democrats prepare to move beyond efforts to woo Republicans.'' I have to ask, what efforts? Haven't reached out in any serious way. As some of my colleagues have said, we have proven we can work together with coronavirus relief. We did it five times in the last year. We passed five different coronavirus relief bills, and the total relief was $4 trillion.

The article in the Post goes on and quotes Leader Schumer. He says that we must not repeat the mistakes of 2008 and 2009. He is referring to the fiscal crisis back then. Well, that response was then led by Vice President Joe Biden. Yes, there were plenty of mistakes. Leader Schumer seems to think that the mistake was that it was too bipartisan, and that is the wrong lesson. The mistake Congress made under Vice President Biden in 2009 was to spend huge sums of money, completely unrelated to solving the underlying problem. Yet that is what the Democrats seem to want to do once again. The last time the Democrats did that, we had the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. Do you know what got us out of that slow recovery? American energy, which President Biden is now trying to kill. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here.

So, on Monday, 10 Republican Senators went to the White House and made their own proposal on coronavirus relief. I really do hope the President listened because 2 weeks into this administration, the President's inaugural address is not something that is going to be remembered like John Kennedy's inaugural address was in 1960. This inaugural address is going to be remembered for empty rhetoric. President Biden has been trying to govern using a pen and a phone. Remember that from the Obama administration? I would say to President Biden: Time to just put down the pen and pick up the phone.

A Democratic politician famously said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. President Biden campaigned in moderation, but that is not the way he is governing. He is governing in partisanship. It is not what the American people are asking for. It is not what they voted for.

We have a 50-50 Senate. Democrats have a very narrow majority in the House. I would urge the administration to change course. This--if there is a mandate--is a mandate to move to the middle. I urge my Democratic colleagues to work with us on real coronavirus relief, on producing more American energy, and on creating more jobs across our country. Let us come together and get things done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to honor the life of a dear friend and a former colleague of mine, Jerry Ellig.

Some 2 weeks ago, at just 58 years old, Jerry passed away. Jerry and I met in June of 2001. We were both working in the George W. Bush administration. We were working together at the Federal Trade Commission. I had just been hired, at all of 30 years old, to run the Policy Planning Office, and Jerry was my Deputy.

I hadn't met Jerry. Our boss Tim Muris, the Chairman, had brought Jerry in beforehand. It is always a dangerous thing when somebody else hires your Deputy, but in this case, Tim did me an enormous favor. Jerry was a colleague of Tim's from George Mason University, a Ph.D. economist, a brilliant man, a lover of liberty. And Jerry and I, for the next 2 years, ran the Policy Planning Office together, and we became dear friends.

I don't know that I ever saw Jerry without a smile, without a twinkle in his eye. He always had a joyful spirit, a mischievous grin. And he believed in the power of truth. He became an economist because, I think, Jerry was born to be an economist. I have no doubt playing with his LEGOs as a child, he

thought about supply and demand and price elasticity. And he believed in the power of free markets.

One of the things that the Policy Planning Office did was something called competition advocacy. Now, the FTC statutory mandate is to defend the competition. There are some 75 Ph.D. economists on the full- time staff at the FTC. And Jerry and I, together, when various State legislatures or State regulatory bodies across the country were considering a particular bill that would have potentially anti- competitive effects--if those State legislatures or regulators asked for our input, the FTC would analyze the proposed bill, and we would file testimony, written testimony, oral testimony. Both Jerry and I testified multiple places. In fact, I went to my office and pulled out the binder of all the competition advocacy that we filed in our time together at the FTC on topic after topic after topic.

You know, there are a lot of bad ideas that government considers, bad ideas that come from special pleaders--someone who will benefit--but the harm to consumers is usually diffuse, harder to see, and much greater.

And what the FTC would do in competition advocacy is simply quantify the harm, simply provide truth and light and sunshine. It was incredible that when we would be asked to come in and present that testimony over and over and over again, the decision makers would choose not to adopt bad policies, simply when they understood, through careful empirical analysis, how that would hurt the consumers.

One area, in particular, that Jerry and I worked on quite a bit was e-commerce. We started an e-commerce task force. This was 20 years ago. E-commerce was in a much more nascent stage 20 years ago than it is today. We examined 10 different industries, every one of which there were barriers to entry. The existing bricks and mortar suppliers would go to their State regulators and seek to erect barriers to entry to stop new e-commerce entrants from competing and driving down prices.

Actually, much of the impetus for the entire e-commerce task force came from a white paper that the Presiding Officer will be interested to know where this white paper came from. It was the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democrat group that had written a white paper entitled ``Revenge of the Dissenter Mediated.'' And it talked about all these industries where e-commerce was benefiting consumers but entrenched interests were fighting against it.

Jerry and I, together at the FTC, we convened 3 days of public hearings of 10 different industries--contact lenses, telemedicine, education, funerals and caskets, wine.

It was interesting. At the end of the hearings, we prepared a series of reports. Every single industry panel--all 10 of the ones who testified--at least 1 of the witnesses said some variance of the following: You know, I have looked at the anti-competitive restraints in these other nine industries, and those are terrible. Those are clearly hurting consumers, but our industry is different.

One of the industries we looked at that Jerry took a particular passion for was wine. There were, at the time, extensive restrictions on direct shipment of wine--shipment across State lines, shipment to your home. It was heavily, heavily regulated, and the wholesalers did not want to see that change. We began studying and working on what would become a wine report. It is over 100 pages long of empirical study on what that was doing. We concluded that for consumers, it was driving up costs dramatically, not just a little bit but dramatically.

I will tell you, Jerry took great joy in traveling through Northern Virginia, going to wineries, sampling the wine--I will say, he enjoyed that process of it as well--but collecting empirical price data.

At the time, numerous arguments were raised as to why you should not allow the direct shipping of wine. One was that it would lead to minors drinking too much. I have to admit, Jerry and I laughed about that because I don't know that I have ever known a 15-year-old who wanted a nice, perky chardonnay. If you were dealing with home keg deliveries, that I will concede would raise an issue, but wine connoisseurs does not match any teenagers I have known.

But we decided, well, rather than argue about it theoretically, let's find out. So we sent a letter to the alcohol control boards in each of the States that allowed direct shipment. We asked them a very simple question: Have you seen any problem? Have you encountered any problems with underage drinking as a result of this policy? And lo and behold, they all wrote back and said: No, we haven't seen it at all. It hasn't produced any of that. All that cam together in a report detailing the harm to consumers that came from these restrictions.

I will tell you, just a couple of years later, the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case challenging those restrictions on the interstate sale of wine, striking them down, so that now you or I, if we want to order a bottle of wine for our home, we can go and do it on our phone and get it delivered at our home. The Supreme Court decision striking that down cited that wine report that Jerry and I had done more than a dozen times. As I said, Jerry believed in the power of truth, the power of facts, simply shining a light: This is hurting people.

Jerry also took joy in that project. You know, Jerry was a fan of tiki cocktails and mixology and all of tiki culture, for that matter. He would proudly wear Hawaiian shirts--loud Hawaiian shirts that his daughter Kat had picked out for him. And he would wear them with the smile and joy he brought every day.

He also made some of his own wine. For several years, Heidi and I enjoyed a bottle of cherry port that Jerry had made. He wasn't at risk of suddenly going into the winery business, but it was still, nonetheless, an enjoyable bottle of cherry port.

Another project Jerry undertook at the FTC was examining education and school choice. I sat down with Jerry and another Ph.D. economist at the FTC, and we talked about school choice. And I asked the two of them, Jerry and Ken, I said: Let's examine the arguments that are raised against school choice. The most significant argument raised against school choice is that school choice will destroy the public schools; that it will harm the public schools if you give low-income kids access to scholarships. We sat down and said: All right, let's treat that argument seriously. Let's not dismiss that out of hand. Let's treat it seriously because if it were true, I would oppose school choice. That is a serious reason to oppose it. Let's find out if it is true.

Jerry and Ken, as economists are want to do, they framed the problem more broadly. They said: What is the impact in a regulated monopoly or oligopoly when competition is introduced and, in particular, what is the impact on quality for the customers who remain with the incumbent providers, not the folks who go to the new entrants but the customers that just remain with the incumbent provider? They went through and they examined multiple other industries that had been regulated monopolies or oligopolies and for which there were abundant data.

They looked at telecom; they looked at airlines; they looked at surface freight transportation. And as they detailed in each instance, when competition came in, quality went up. Competition was good. They then examined every empirical study that had been done to date of school choice programs that had been implemented across the country. They found that, unsurprisingly, again, that competition was good-- something we have seen in the two decades since; that when kids get options and competition is brought in and scholarships are available, that the quality of education in struggling public schools gets better and better and better. That article was published: ``Competition and quality in deregulated industries: Lessons for the education debate.'' It is another example of how Jerry recognized that facts, that reason can be powerful.

When I left the FTC, Jerry went on to take over the Office of Policy Planning. He led that office of lawyers and economists who loved Jerry, loved his principles, loved his drive, loved his warmth, loved his humor. He was a professor for decades, beloved by his students.

He spent decades at Mercatus studying regulations, studying the impact of

overregulation, analyzing it. He just finished his tenure as the Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. He was a brilliant guy.

When he passed 2 weeks ago--an untimely death--talented economists from governments and the academy mourned Jerry, writing touching words. And in Discourse Magazine, published by the Mercatus Center, Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FTC, for whom Jerry worked as Chief Economist, wrote that he would always remember Jerry's warm smile.

Jerry would always start off the conversation with a warm

smile, which would put everyone at ease. He would then

explain in a collegial tone how he thought we should

proceed--wisdom that always informed our ultimate decisions.

Smiling and speaking gently are small things, perhaps; but at

a time when the currency of public policy discourse is too

often pounding the table, Jerry's approach was memorable.

He loved his work. He loved economics. He loved free markets. And he loved his family. Jerry was blessed with an incredible wife Sandy, who is a dear friend as well; their daughter Kat, whom they adore--an incredible loving, fun family. You know, when they were on road trips, Jerry would eat grilled cheese sandwiches made by his daughter in a toaster oven in the car because he loved Kat so much.

Jerry, like myself, is also a big fan of the movie ``The Princess Bride.'' Jerry's death so early is inconceivable.

God bless the memory of Dr. Jerry Ellig. God bless the Ellig family.

In Heaven, the lion lies down with the lamb and, Jerry, may there be no transaction costs and may the Coase theorem fully operate.

We love you, and we miss you, Jerry. God bless you.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, so as I understand it, some of the Senators will come in after I speak. I will talk 10 or 15 minutes, and then we will get on with the process of voting.

So, to the American people who may be watching, what is this all about? This is an effort by my Democratic colleagues, supported by President Biden, to pass $1.9 trillion in COVID relief through a budget process that requires only 50 votes. It goes around the idea of bipartisanship.

And I would say this: I think all of us would like unity. I think President Biden said all the right things in his inauguration. The question is, Are we going to do more than talk about unity?

I can understand having reconciliation used for ObamaCare or for taxes. You all did that. We did that. There are big philosophical differences. But this is the one area that there was bipartisanship up until recently. This is the

one area where the Congress has been able to work together across party lines, and that is providing relief to the American people who have been long-suffering under the COVID pandemic.

So I find it odd that if our goal is unity, we start with an issue that has been unified up until now. That is what is a bit perplexing because it is not like the Republican Party can't work with the Democratic Party to help the American people when it comes to COVID relief.

We had a Republican President, a Democratic-controlled House, and a Republican Senate for the last year. We have appropriated $4 trillion in COVID relief for the American people working together. So when there was divided government--a Republican President, a Democratic-controlled House, and a Republican-controlled Senate--we were able to achieve bipartisanship in large measure, dealing with a lot of money, because we saw the problem as something worthy of bipartisanship, necessary for bipartisanship, and COVID was affecting everybody, regardless of political persuasion.

Now we find ourselves early on in the Biden administration abandoning that model and going forward on a partisan effort to spend $1.9 trillion with one party alone without, really, input from the other party.

On March 5, 2020, we approved an $8 billion supplemental appropriation 96 to 1. In March, we were just beginning to understand the nature of the COVID problem. We shut the country down pretty much in March, and as things became more clear to us, we acted, I think, responsibly.

March 18, just a couple of weeks later, we approved, 98 to 8, a $355 billion package to help families that were affected by COVID. March 25, just about a week later, we spent $1.9 trillion in a COVID-relief package, which is a massive amount of money--one of the largest expenditures in the history of the country since World War II--96 to nothing.

So we are now talking about spending $1.9 trillion in February of 2021, and there seems to be no ability here to negotiate a package that could get another 90-plus votes because my Democratic colleagues have chosen the reconciliation route.

April 21, 2020, by voice vote, we spent $355 billion to add more money to the Paycheck Protection Act that Senator Collins and the Presiding Officer worked on to help businesses that had lost their customer base. September 30, we had $8 billion, 84 to 10. December 21, 2020, we did an omnibus bill of $1.4 trillion funding the government, and we had money for COVID in that package, about $900 billion. That passed 92 to 6. That was Christmas.

Here is what I want you to understand. We have, up to now, been able to work together to help the American people who have been suffering from COVID. We have appropriated, as I have just described, over $4 trillion, and as of this moment, $2.7 trillion has actually been allocated. So there is over $1.3 trillion that we haven't spent yet. Of the $900 billion we authorized to be spent, appropriated in December, only 20 percent of it has been spent.

So a lot of the money is yet to be spent, and now we are going to add $1.9 trillion on top of what we have done before all the money has been spent or most of it has been spent. We created a Federal Reserve program for midsize and larger businesses that had a $5.7 trillion cap on it, and we have done $2.6 trillion.

So I think people on our side really believe that we should learn more about how the money we have already appropriated is being spent and that a $15 minimum wage increase in a COVID package is a bad idea during a COVID economy, and that is what is in this package.

Most small businesses in South Carolina and throughout the country have been struggling to stay open due to lack of travel. And due to mandates at the State and local levels reducing the ability to have 100 percent occupancy in restaurants, tourism has really been hurt. The service sector has really been hurt. The food industry has really been hurt

Can you imagine the combined effect of having the government reduce your ability to earn money by restricting your business model and at the same time adding a mandate to your business of maybe increasing your wages by 50 percent, maybe 100 percent?

So this one-two punch will take out what is left of small businesses in the tourism sector and the restaurant business because what we have had to do--some people say we have done too much in restricting the ability of small businesses to earn a living, and that is having an effect on their ability to generate income. Now we are combining an increase in cost of increasing wages for every business in the country to $15 an hour over time. They can't absorb that.

A lot of us believe that is the wrong thing to do in a COVID economy. Maybe one day we can talk about a minimum wage increase when business can get back on its feet, but that is one of the reasons that you are going to find pretty much unified opposition on our side.

So I just want the American people to know, it is one thing to talk about unity, and it is another thing to seek it. And you picked the one issue that we have been able to find common ground. Why you did this, I don't know, but you have.

I appreciate President Biden sitting down with 10 Republicans who wanted to find an alternative. A lot of people believe that in this package the direct payments go to people who really are not going to spend the money because they haven't lost their jobs and are making over $150,000 or $200,000-plus as a couple and that we should target direct stimulus checks to people in the lower income areas who have suffered the most.

So there is a lot of concern about the nature of the $1.9 trillion package. Details do matter. But I will just say this: I can understand having a fight about healthcare and about taxes, but when it comes to COVID relief, we have been able, in the last year, to find bipartisanship for $4 trillion. And now we are abandoning that quest, and we are going to try to create a process--my Democratic colleagues are--to deal us all out on our side and pass a $1.9 trillion COVID package that I think in many ways misses the mark.

So to say that I am disappointed is an understatement. You have the right to do this. And during the campaign, we talked about what would happen if one party got in charge of everything. We predicted, on the Republican side, if you have a Democratic President, Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House, the liberal wish list is going to come roaring through the House and the Senate, trying to get on President Biden's desk.

To President Biden's credit, I think he ran a campaign that was more centrist, but now he has the chance, as President of the United States, to stand down this process and continue to talk with the Republicans. I think there are more than 10 who would like to find an alternative to a $1.9 trillion package that we think misses the mark and is being appropriated when we haven't spent most of the money we have already appropriated.

So this is the choice you make. This is the debate we are going to have. It is going to be a long day. It will go into the night. Let's try to keep good cheer about it. I understand that we all love the country, but these kinds of debates are important, and the choices you make as a party--we will have to accept responsibility for the choices that we all make.

And I would just urge my Democratic colleagues, this is one area where I have been relatively proud of the Congress. We have spent an enormous amount of money in a bipartisan fashion. Some of the most conservative Members of the Senate have been voting on pretty large amounts of money because, I think, generally speaking, it has been necessary. But now the vaccine is being distributed. Anything we can do to get it out faster to more people, great. Most of the money we have appropriated hasn't been spent. I would just ask that we slow down a bit.

Whatever we spend in the future needs to be more targeted. And the last thing you want to do in a COVID economy is increase the cost of doing business at a time when most businesses are barely hanging on in certain sectors of the economy.

So I look forward to working with Senator Sanders, trying to work through the amendments. This will be a long day, but, hopefully, it will be a fruitful day for the American people as you understand more about the differences that we have. And, eventually,

maybe we can find something in common.

If you asked me before the election: What are the two areas that bipartisanship would be easiest achieved, most likely to be achieved-- infrastructure, because we all have roads and bridges and ports, and COVID. So I was wrong about the COVID part, and time will tell if it matters at all.

With that, I will yield to my friend and colleague, the chairman of the committee, Senator Sanders.

Do it by voice vote?

Mr. President, I call up my amendment, No. 687.

Mr. President, the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy was put in place by the Trump administration after talks with Mexico about how to stem the flow of migrants from Central America who were seeking to come to the United States for economic reasons more times than not. Before the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy was adopted, migrants from the Northern Triangle countries traveled to the United States, seeking to turn themselves in and claim asylum whether they had valid claims or not. They would then be released into the United States and often did not return for their court dates.

If we end the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy for asylum seekers, it will lead to a run on our border and complicate efforts to reform the immigration system. Over 50,000 asylum seekers have been waiting in Mexico rather than in the United States, where they often disappear while waiting in the 1 million-person asylum case backlog. This was an important change that the Trump administration put in place, and it is a serious mistake to reverse it.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of this amendment, Senate amendment No. 687, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate is engaged in what I personally believe to be a disappointing exercise of, really, partisan political power at the expense of American taxpayers.

When it became clear that the Senate was going to be split 50-50--by the way, it doesn't get closer than that--there was a moment of hope, I think, on both sides that this would be the opportunity that we would all have to really begin to seek ways to find how we could work together and not have any 50-50 votes and not keep the Vice President busy in breaking ties on votes. So far, that hope appears to be a little bit short-lived.

We are supposedly voting to pass a budget right now that expresses the priorities of the Congress on how limited tax dollars should be allocated. Now, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that passing a budget--October, November, December--4 months into the calendar of the budget year probably isn't, technically, just to determine how you are going to allocate limited tax dollars. Frankly, there seems to be very little discussion in this budget about limited tax dollars. What we are really doing here is passing a budget that allows us to set up what, I think, is an ill-advised, partisan moment, where one side believes it can do whatever it wants to without the other side.

President Biden, when campaigning, said over and over again that he wanted to work with Republicans. I actually believe that is true. In his inaugural address, he said: ``We have never ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together.'' Now, the inaugural address was only a few days ago. Here we are, 2 weeks later, and the President and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to go forward, and the only way to go forward is to go forward their way. If that happens to be the way forward, it is going to be a long 4 years, and for the majority, it might be a pretty quick 2 years because I don't think that this is the message that people sent on election day-- that they wanted one side to be able to do whatever it wanted to do. We have the narrowest House majority in about 150 years, and the Senate majority--again, I will say--couldn't be closer than it is.

We haven't finished taking down the platform from the inauguration, and our colleagues are already forcing a one-sided endgame. Now, I would suggest that the endgame in this case really just sets the stage for the rest of the time we are going to be trying to work together, and I think we will look back and find out it didn't set the stage in a helpful way.

The plan is to muscle through a really partisan $1.9 trillion package that claims to be about COVID relief but covers really a number of totally unrelated things.

People have talked a lot about the fact that the minimum wage is there and whether it would meet the standard of reconciliation.

We haven't talked very much about the fact that the education money in the proposal that we are looking at for reconciliation doesn't include private schools, even private parochial schools. It doesn't include the schools that more than any other have done their best to stay open during the pandemic. It really breaks a pattern of recent years for all schools and post-World War II for higher education to where public schools was not the defining thing. The defining thing was, if you could qualify for government assistance, you were able to take it to any accredited institution that you wanted to.

Clean energy is in the COVID relief package. COVID relief is different from clean energy. It is certainly a debate worth having, but let's not suggest that it is COVID relief when it is not.

If one-half of the Senate is determined to impose its will on the other half without even working to find a real path forward, I think that is an unfortunate sign.

Democrats have said there is an urgent need for this COVID relief--so urgent we can't wait to have a real debate. You know, we just passed $900 billion in relief. Now we are beginning to talk about such big numbers here that suddenly $900 billion is sort of passed away as, well, that is not nearly enough. But the truth is, the $900 billion bill was just signed into law December 27. That was 5 weeks ago--$900 billion. Most of that money remains unspent, and suddenly we want to spend another $1.9 trillion. That is an aggressive pace even by the standards of some of my friends in the other half of this Chamber or the other half of Congress.

It really in so many ways is simply too soon to really know exactly what we need next. We haven't taken the time yet to get the other money out of the door. We haven't taken the time to see how it is going and whether the policies we planned are the policies that really work. We haven't taken the time to decide what else we might need to do.

But here is what we have done already: We have provided $8.75 billion to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for vaccine distribution. So far, they have released $3 billion of that money. So we are rushing with billions more when 5.75 of that 8.75 amount of money for vaccine distribution hasn't been released yet. With nearly $6 billion left in that fund, how do we know exactly how it is working or exactly how much we need? We seem to be sure that what we have isn't enough. I am not sure we even know that yet. But I have been an advocate in every one of the bills we have done for money for distribution of the vaccine, and I would love to see how the money that is out there works.

We need to be thinking about what to do next, but there was a time when debate was part of the Senate. Debate was very much part of the Senate when President Biden served in it. It should be part of the Senate now.

Frankly, if we debated and figured out a bipartisan plan, we would get that done quicker than reconciliation. It is going to be several weeks before we can have the vote that we could have had to provide part of this money right now. A significant amount of this money is agreed to, particularly the amount that does relate to vaccine purchase and vaccine distribution. The parts that relate to testing, the parts that relate to getting kids back to school--that could all be available in a couple of weeks. But it won't be a couple of weeks when we go through this process of reconciliation that I think my friends on the other side will find out is harder to do than they thought and substantially harder to do in a 50-50 Senate than it would be anywhere else.

You know, in December, we provided $82 billion for schools and for education. Elementary schools that were supposed to get almost $70 billion of that money to reopen haven't reopened. Many of them haven't had a chance to spend the money. In fact, many of the K-12 schools haven't even spent all the money they got in April. So money from April not yet being spent, and we are rushing to decide how much more money they need right now in these last few weeks of the school year.

Last week, Dr. Fauci said in an interview that it was the goal of President Biden to get K-8 students back to school in the nex 100 days, but at another event that same day, he said--maybe as truthfully as you could possibly be--it might not work out that way. We need to be really committed to getting kids back to school.

Now, there are more than a million people who have lost their jobs in education at the State and local level since the pandemic started. That is often given as the reason we need more State and local money. But many of that million-person number were the busdrivers, the cafeteria workers, the coaches, the support staff who, frankly--if you are not going to school, most districts have decided they shouldn't be paying that staff who is not part of what the school is doing right now. Those losses are not about loss of revenue; they are really about the loss of in-person school.

You know, I have served as the chairman of the Labor, Health, and Education Subcommittee in Appropriations. I am now the top Republican in that 50-50 committee. Last year, our subcommittee provided funding for schools that would help them address the pandemic and reopen. We provided money to develop and distribute vaccines and treatments. We provided money to continue critical funding for programs to address substance abuse and mental health and suicide and things that have been a real problem for an isolated, pandemic-bound population.

We need to do all of those things. I am more than happy to be part of that discussion. I want to help meet these

challenges. I have hope the administration understands that. I believe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle understand that. But we need to be sure that we know what we are doing before we commit another $1.9 trillion, as if that money is really--I am hearing occasionally-- not nearly enough. Two trillion more dollars after five bipartisan bills that produced real results, just kind of out of hand not nearly enough?

Now, that is easier to say because virtually nobody in this Chamber or in the country, including me, really has a concept of how much money $1.9 trillion is. So it is easy to say ``Well, it should be 2.9 or 3.9'' or ``Whatever it is, it is not enough'' because we really, I don't think, have a sense of how much it is.

We have had real success in developing vaccines. We need to have more success in getting out those vaccines.

I have not seen the administration or my colleagues on the other side of the aisle make the case yet as to why we need to spend the amount of money they are talking about spending. I have not seen anyone make the case of why it is good to start off this administration and this term of Congress in the most partisan, one-sided way possible before we have really had a chance to talk this out.

There are a lot of things here we agree on. There are a lot of things here that could be improved around the margins, but you have to have the willingness to talk about that before it goes forward.

I was glad to see the White House accepted the offer of 10 of our Republican colleagues to at least meet and talk about some bipartisan issues, but the unwillingness of the Democratic leader here to slow down this process made it clear that, really, there may not be that much interest in really trying to find a solution, but at least there was some interest in talking about trying to work together.

Bipartisanship is not something you do just for show. Compromise is not ``my way or the highway.'' Unity is not telling everyone else that the only option is to accept your side of the argument.

I hope my colleagues think better of this bipartisan exercise, come to the table, and explain what we really need and why we need it. If they don't, I hope we can still figure out how to recover and move forward in the only way a 50-50 Senate can move forward, and that is working every day to find things that more than 50 Members--and I would hope substantially more than 50 Members--of the U.S. Senate agree on and send those to the President and get our work done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to address the body today about the bill we are to take up and debate and advance this evening and about several different provisions that are of specific concern and interest to me, to the residents of the State of Delaware, and to our Nation.

Let me just remind all of us the moment that we are in. There are 26 million Americans who have been infected by COVID-19, a dread, deadly, global pandemic, and 445,000 Americans have been killed so far in this pandemic--far too many.

In my little home State of Delaware--just 900,000 people--we not too long ago passed 1,000 deaths, and, like many other States, we are racing to deliver vaccines and to address the economic and the human wreckage of this pandemic and the recession caused by the bungled mishandling of this pandemic by the now previous administration. I am encouraged because there is also a positive number: 34 million Americans have been vaccinated.

Delaware has been at the forefront of delivering vaccines quickly and safely, and now with President Biden and his team at the helm, they are pulling together the resources of our Nation--using the Defense Production Act to deliver needed PPE, testing capabilities, and vaccines to every corner of our country. They have a lot of work to do. They are behind because of some of the failures of the past, but I am excited by the promise of the future.

Yesterday, I had the honor of meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office for an hour first thing in the morning, and we talked about this pandemic and his plan, the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion in badly needed relief that will touch almost every American family and move us quickly out of this pandemic and back toward growth and security, health and

prosperity. And his determination, despite all the back-and-forth about numbers--his determination, at the very core of what we do, is to keep in mind the middle class of this country, the folks who have been overlooked, underserved, and most disadvantaged. He is passionate about seeing the ways in which this pandemic has revealed the deep inequities in our country and making sure of how we respond to educational needs, to housing needs, to transportation needs, and to healthcare needs, that we combat the profound inequalities of our society and Build Back Better.

As Senator Carper and I were sitting with President Biden, going over $1,400 checks and this many months of unemployment extension and this much for housing and homelessness or this much for transit, he said: Wait, wait. Just remember at the end of the day, keep in your mind's eye a family--a plumber and a teacher with two kids at home, one of them laid off, desperately trying to pay their rent, trying to figure out how to pay their bills, trying to figure out how they can keep a roof over their kids' heads. Remember the people we are trying to help and serve.

I am reminded of Mark from New Castle, who called my office to tell me he had been laid off, and he was desperately afraid, that he was struggling because he was fighting cancer, a health condition, and fighting homelessness, concerned about losing his home. Fighting housing and homelessness, combating homelessness and ensuring security of housing has got to be at the center of how we respond to this crisis.

Economist Mark Zandi says there is $57 billion in owed back rent unpaid. One of the best things we have done as a body is to extend the eviction moratorium that the CDC imposed last year. A key piece of the bill we are taking up and debating is to ensure that more Americans have an opportunity to safe, sanitary, decent, and affordable housing. Before this pandemic, more than 17 million American households spent more than half their money on rent or mortgage, unaffordable to any household--those 17 million households stretched to their limits. The pandemic has made the risk of eviction or foreclosure greater than ever.

Some know my early years were spent working around issues of housing and homelessness. I served with the National Coalition for the Homeless in New York and in five other States around the country, staying in homeless shelters in the late eighties, when homelessness was an explosion, a crisis across this country that impacted families and communities of all types and backgrounds.

People experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Homeless individuals infected are twice as likely to be hospitalized, four times as likely to need critical care, and three times as likely to die.

In Delaware, on Martin Luther King Day, as part of a service project, I got a chance to visit the Hope Center. The Hope Center used to be known as the Sheraton. It was a hotel in foreclosure, and an innovative county executive used some of the CARES Act money that we provided federally to the State and local governments to buy it at auction and to reopen it as a source of 192 emergency housing rooms that can have up to 400 people in it. It was great to tour that center on Martin Luther King Day, to be part of those delivering personal items and material for those who are now resident at the Hope Center. But it is just one of many examples of how Federal resources we provided last year have been used creatively to help keep people in rental housing, in emergency housing, or in their homes.

The CDC Federal eviction moratorium was extended in the bill we passed in December, but it runs out in March; thus, the urgency of our acting. And President Biden's American Rescue Plan includes $30 billion in emergency rental assistance and $5 billion to prevent further outbreaks of COVID-19 among America's homeless population. We need to make this a key piece of this provision, an important part of this bill, and it is my hope we can find support on both sides, but if we don't, we must move forward.

Let me speak to two other topics before I yield the floor, if I might.

Those of us on the East Coast, and my colleague from Maryland and my colleague from New Jersey are certainly among them, travel by Amtrak frequently. Before this pandemic, Amtrak carried a record 32 million passengers just 2 years ago. But just like the airlines when the pandemic hit, it lost the vast majority of their passengers. So, too, did Amtrak and commuter rail all over our country. It has been a key piece of our society, our competitiveness, our interconnectedness for over a century, and there are millions who depend on it as their way to commute up and down the East Coast corridor in particular.

My office recently heard from Ken Potts, the Delaware representative for the Rail Passengers Association, about the urgent need for funding; and, frankly, this is a warning notice for those of us who don't realize that I-95, right as it goes through Wilmington, DE, is about to be shut down for most of the next 2 years on a generational repair project. There is going to be 100,000 people deterred off of the highway, and hopefully onto rail, but only if it can keep running.

There are 1,200 furloughed Amtrak employees on the east coast and other places around the country. Those are the folks I interact with on the days when I commute from Wilmington to Washington. I get a chance to talk to the staff, the conductors, the people who work at Union Station or in Wilmington's Joe Biden Station. Twelve hundred furloughed employees and families struggling, just like the airlines, every bit as deserving of relief, and the budget resolution would allow for the $2 billion over the course of this pandemic that they need. We have provided relief before. We need to provide relief in this bill and going forward.

As I mentioned in my opening, getting the vaccine distributed as quickly as possible is the most urgent thing before us. Last Saturday, I had the chance to volunteer for several hours at a vaccination site with Drs. Coker and Hockstein, put together at ENT & Allergy of Delaware. They vaccinated over 150 people, and they had connected to and reached out to some churches that I am familiar with and fond of-- Seeds of Greatness, Bethel AME.

But we are under pressure because there are new variants of this virus emerging around the world. What viruses do is they mutate. Some of you know there are new variants from South Africa, from Brazil, from the UK that are more transmissive and, potentially, more deadly. So one of the things we have to keep an eye on is that we cannot close ourselves off from the world. Something that is missing from the Republican proposal and that is urgently needed that is in the Biden American Rescue Plan is $11 billion to help with global vaccination relief.

I recently spoke with Strive Masiyiwa, a dear friend from Africa who is leading the African Union's plans for how to vaccinate the 54 countries on the Continent of Africa Sure, the Russians have offered their Sputnik vaccine, which was not fully and transparently developed and tested. The Chinese are offering their vaccine. But what I believe the developing world would welcome with open arms, if we would just fund it and provide it, is the rapid scale-up, production, and manufacturing in countries like South Africa, India, and elsewhere of the tried, true, tested, scientifically sound vaccines made available by Pfizer, by Johnson & Johnson, by Moderna, by the Western companies like AstraZeneca and others that have shown that their vaccines are safe.

The United States has long been a leader in world health. We have inspired the world in the way in which we have brought our medical advances, our scientific capability, and our humanitarian commitment to the world. This should be another chapter in that long and great history.

And we must remember that no one in this world is safe from this pandemic until the entire world has been successfully vaccinated. If we do not contribute to the global vaccine campaign of COVAX, if we do not participate in the World Health Organization in meeting the needs of the developing world, it will simply come back to the people of the United States.

Of course, we must prioritize vaccinating our Nation, our people, Delawareans. But just as Joe Biden in the Oval Office earlier this week asked me to keep in my mind's eye that family sitting around a kitchen table, worried, struggling with finances, with their

health, with their future, we have to keep our eye on the horizon, on having passenger rail available to recover when our country recovers, on having housing and affordable housing options for families who are struggling with homelessness, and our eye on the horizon of the potential threat from the rest of the world of more dangerous variants, which is why we need to contribute to a global campaign to ensure that all of the world's people are safe from this pandemic.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to these three connected concerns, all of which touch on Delaware's families and our Nation.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first, I want to offer congratulations to longtime Senate staffer Ann Berry, who will soon be taking over the responsibilities of a very important job as Secretary of the Senate. This is a position that dates all the way back to April 8, 1789, 2 days after the Senate achieved its first quorum for business.

Ann's nomination was approved by the Senate yesterday afternoon, making her the first African American and only the eighth woman to ever serve in that position. It would be an understatement to say Ann knows the Senate well. She brings four decades of experience in the Senate to her new office, having worked with Senator Leahy for many years, and, more recently, with Senator Jones from her home State of Alabama.

She is going to do a fantastic job helping the Senate through its day-to-day responsibilities, and I look forward to seeing her up here on the dais when she assumes her new title in a few weeks.

Once again, another ceiling has been broken, and we welcome Ann Berry as Secretary of the Senate.

Coronavirus

Madam President, next, COVID. One year ago, the United States reported 11 confirmed cases of COVID-19. A few days later, a woman from California became the first American to die from this disease.

Today, those numbers stand at over 26 million Americans infected and over 450,000 Americans dead. Along the way, COVID-19 has turned life as we know it

upside down. It triggered the greatest economic emergency since the Great Depression, tens of millions of lost jobs, shuttered schools, collapsed businesses, and the greatest healthcare crisis since the Spanish pandemic flu.

Congress has come together on several occasions to pass important relief measures--measures that did a lot of good. They saved jobs and lives and businesses. But it has not yet been enough. The crisis is still with us. The economy has weakened. Everyday Americans are struggling with the basic costs of living, of necessities.

So today the Senate is going to take the next strong step forward in passing a rescue plan to lift the country out of a crisis and set it back on the path to normal. Starting this afternoon, we begin the process of debating amendments to the budget resolution. When that process is complete at whatever hour, we will vote on final passage and pave the way for Senate committees to begin crafting the rescue plan itself, in coordination with House committees as well.

The amendment process here today will be bipartisan, it will be open, and it will be vigorous. Democrats and Republicans alike will have the opportunity to share their ideas. We welcome that. Of course, what amendments our friends in the minority propose is entirely up to them.

Now, the Republican leader hinted yesterday that his conference is preparing several messaging amendments that they hope might score political points. That is fine. That is their right. But I sincerely hope our Republican colleagues approach our work today with the intention of having serious ideas considered, not using the debate over pandemic relief to sharpen ephemeral, partisan talking points. This should be a very serious debate, a very much needed debate. We are in one of the greatest crises America has ever faced. If there are good- faith amendments from the other side, we look forward to them.

What we can't do, however, is think small in the face of big problems. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot do too little. We cannot lock our country into a long and slow recovery. We must instead respond to the urgent needs in our country and chart a bold path back to normal.

We must make sure that our country and its citizens have the resources to survive the remaining months of challenge; that struggling businesses can access loans and grants; that State and local governments and, yes, Tribal governments are not forced to cut essential services and millions of essential employees; and that our doctors and medical workers can administer the vaccine as quickly and as widely as possible. That is how we get back to normal. That is how we survive the months in between until we get back to normal. And that is what this budget resolution and the rescue plan are all about.

Impeachment

Madam President, now on impeachment, a few weeks ago, I laid out the agenda for the Senate's opening few weeks: first, nominations; second, major legislation to rescue the American people from the continued effects of COVID-19; and third, an impeachment trial for Donald J. Trump.

The Senate has made steady progress on the first two agenda items, confirming several historic and exceptionally qualified nominees to President Biden's Cabinet.

Tonight, we will be voting on the budget resolution--the first step in giving the Congress the tools to pass a major relief bill.

On Tuesday, the Senate will begin to fulfill the third responsibility that I outlined: the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump for inciting a violent mob against the Capitol on January 6. They were right near all of us--right near all of us.

It has been nearly a month since the attacks on the 6th. Time will do its part to heal the scars left by that day, but we cannot allow it to dull our sense of responsibility for holding to account those who perpetrated and motivated the attack.

We were all witnesses to the events that day when a group of insurrectionists, White supremacists, and domestic terrorists fed a cavalcade of lies about the legitimacy of the American elections by the former President, told to come to Washington by the former President, whipped into a frenzy and directed toward the Capitol by the former President, invaded and desecrated this sacred temple of democracy with the intention of denying the counting of the electoral college vote-- the final act in certifying the former President's defeat.

The horrors of that day may have faded for some, not for others. Many in this Chamber, staff, Senators, House Members, and House staff alike, still live through this every single day--every single day. So it has not faded for a lot of us. But as country, even for those for whom it has faded, we cannot simply move on.

The U.S. Capitol Complex has been militarized, patrolled by the National Guard, surrounded by a fence to safeguard the people's house from the people themselves. Five people are dead. Just yesterday, we held a memorial service in the Rotunda of this building for a Capitol Police officer who was tragically killed during the attack.

There cannot be any healing without truth, without accountability. The idea that we should sweep this under the rug and move on--one of the greatest acts of perfidy against this government, against the American people in our grand 200-some-odd-year history--no sweeping under the rug.

So the trial will commence on Tuesday. Senators have already been sworn in as judges and jurors. The House managers have filed their brief. The former President's counsel have filed their answer. The constitutional objection raised by some of my Republican colleagues has been completely debunked by more than 150 scholars representing the entire breadth of the political spectrum, including very prominent conservatives like Steven Calabresi, the cofounder of the Federalist Society.

We will move forward with a fair and speedy trial. The House managers will present their case. The former President's counsel will mount a defense. Senators will have to look deep into their consciences and determine if Donald Trump is guilty and if so, ever qualified again to enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

We will pass judgment, as our solemn duty under the Constitution demands, and in turn, history will judge how the Senate and each Senator responds.

Student Loans

Madam President, now on student loans, finally, later this morning, I will join several of my Democratic colleagues from the House and Senate to reintroduce our proposal to cancel up to $50,000 in Federal student loan debt, a life-changing measure--life-changing--for Americans struggling to stay afloat during this pandemic and secure financial independence.

For tens of millions, especially people of color, college education has represented the surest path to the middle class, but now that often means taking on a mountain of debt that can take decades to pay off. It makes it harder to own a home, save for retirement, and provide a better life for loved ones. In the midst of a once-in-a-century crisis, these Americans need relief fast. College has always been the ladder up. For too many, it is now an anchor weighed down by huge amounts of debt they almost can never see repaid in full.

I look forward to joining Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as Representatives Adams, Omar, and Jones, this morning to present our plan for student loan debt cancellation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak for 1 minute.

Madam President, as the Senate proceeds today on its long string of rollcall votes, I rise at this moment to note that this vote is different than the rest.

One of our most beloved, effective Members has just cast her 9,000th rollcall vote in the course of her career.

Senator Murray, congratulations.

(Applause, Senators rising.)

It is a history-making accomplishment from a truly history-making public servant

Madam President, as the Senate proceeds today on its long string of rollcall votes, I rise at this moment to note that this one is different from the rest--because, with this vote, our

friend Senator Murray has now reached 9,000 rollcall votes over the course of her career, a history-making accomplishment from a truly history-making public servant.

Senator Murray was elected to this Chamber in 1992, the, ``Year of the Woman.'' She began her tenure alongside Senator Feinstein, who will also hit this significant milestone later today, and two other women in a year that tripled the number of women who served in this chamber, from two to six.

Over the course of her career, she was the first woman to serve in a number of positions of Senate leadership, including chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

In her time, she has been a leading voice on the biggest issues, from healthcare, to the environment, to labor rights, pensions, standing up for families and workers everywhere, possessing the rare gift of explaining and presenting complex policy with extraordinary clarity.

As a close member of my leadership team, she has been a valued and trusted partner and a dear friend.

So let us take this moment to recognize Senator Murray, a public servant of extraordinary skill, and a Member we have all been honored to serve alongside for all these years.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, on January 20, I joined my colleagues on the front steps of the Capitol for the inauguration of our 46th President, Joe Biden. At a time when divisions run deep within our country, I thought President Biden's call for unity, where he pledged to be a President for all Americans, struck just the right tone.

As my Democratic colleagues in this body can attest to, I am always willing to work with anyone--Republicans, Democrats and Independents-- on issues that will improve the lives of my fellow Iowans and all Americans. Sadly, the actions we have seen in the first few days of this administration do not seem to honor the promise President Biden made to Americans throughout his campaign and again on Inauguration Day.

In just 2 weeks, the President has already signed over 25 Executive orders, that is a significantly more amount than any President in recent history in a short amount of time. Let's be clear, folks. He is not just breaking norms, he is obliterating them. Even the New York Times editorial board called on him to ``Ease up on the Executive Actions.'' And they are not wrong, folks. That is something that I don't say very often.

Now, I fully understand that the power of Executive order is often unpopular when your party does not control the White House, but when you set out to be a ``unifier-in-chief,'' which is something we hoped President Biden would be, one would hope that the actions you take would unify or at least be a little more mainstream.

The reality is, that has just not been the case. What the new President has done in just 2 weeks on the job is show us his true colors and his desire to appease the more radical wing of his party. It is disheartening for someone who believes that the way we should be working together is a bipartisan path.

We have already seen disastrous decisions harmful to American businesses and workers--decisions that resemble the likes of the radical Green New Deal.

Keeping our air and water clean and protecting our environment for generations to come are shared concerns of every Iowan and all Americans. But on day one, as many predicted he would do at some point during his tenure, President Biden issued a harsh punishment for American businesses by rejoining the Paris climate agreement. This agreement saddles hard-working folks with overburdensome government regulations, all while letting one of the world's biggest polluters, Communist China, completely off the hook. Instead of inhibiting economic growth, we should be focused on reducing our emissions and meeting our energy needs through market-driven, innovative solutions.

Iowa actually leads the way in creating renewable energy sources, from wind and solar to biodiesel and ethanol, but we haven't done it through heavyhanded government mandates.

The President has also raised concerns for folks in my home State of Iowa who work hard to grow and produce clean ethanol and biodiesel with his recent action to begin transitioning Federal Government vehicles to electric vehicles.

Ethanol and biodiesel are actually cleaner choices of fuel for folks at the pump. A recent study found that greenhouse gas emissions from corn ethanol are 46 percent lower than gasoline. At the same time, renewable fuels provide for the livelihoods of folks across the heartland.

It is critical we continue to invest in our biofuel industry, not move away from it. That is why I urge President Biden not to give in to the misguided political demands of the left. Change course and, instead, promote the adoption of higher biofuel blends and invest in expanding biofuel infrastructure.

On the same day he got us back into the Paris climate accord, President Biden unilaterally canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, destroying thousands of jobs during a pandemic when millions of hard- working Americans are already struggling to make ends meet. Even Canada's Prime Minister, one of our top allies and closest trade partners, expressed his disappointment in the decision.

Unfortunately, the Green New Deal lite is not the only policy of the liberal left the Biden administration has already chosen to implement. As many Iowans know, I have long been working to pass Sarah's Law, my bill in honor of Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Iowan who was tragically struck and killed by Edwin Mejia, who entered the country illegally and was driving drunk--three times the legal limit.

While Mejia was initially detained by local law enforcement and faced State charges of motor vehicle homicide, a loophole in immigration policy under the Obama-Biden administration allowed him to post bond, disappear, and escape justice.

Sarah's Law would close that loophole and require U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement to take custody of an illegal immigrant who is charged with a crime resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of another person. It is common sense, folks, and it would prevent tragedies like what happened to the Root family from ever happening again.

The Trump administration was successful in implementing parts of this important legislation. But as many expected, the Biden administration is already working to roll back immigration enforcement. That is why, last week, I reintroduced Sarah's Law with the support of 19 of my colleagues--more than ever before--and I am going to keep fighting to get this bill across the finish line.

If the November elections taught us anything, it is that the American people want us to work together. They elected a 50-50 Senate and a slim majority in the House of Representatives.

So, Mr. President, it is time the Biden administration follows its own advice.

I am an eternal optimist, and I believe we can come together and truly deliver for all Americans, but I need my colleagues across the aisle and our new President to do the same so that his calls for unity don't fall on deaf ears

March for Life and Abortion

Madam President, on another topic, we did have the March for Life this past week. So I want to begin today by recognizing the grassroots advocates of our pro-life movement.

Last Friday, thousands of Americans and many Iowans joined in this year's virtual March for Life. These folks are the ones who actively serve our vulnerable women and families who need support in order to choose life. These hard-working Americans are the ones who are on the ground, changing hearts and minds all year long.

Even though things looked a lot of different for this year's event, I have no doubt that our grassroots pro-life movement will continue to grow in communities all across the country, thanks to these inspiring folks who understand that protecting life is not just a political issue for debate.

In DC, lawmakers and executive branch bureaucrats get easily trapped into looking at abortion as just another issue. But that mindset, even from the pro-life perspective, is a dehumanized approach. I challenge my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to instead approach the sanctity of human life as more than just a policy issue.

Surely, the challenges of 2020 reminded us how very precious life is, taking to heart that we must cherish life--all life at all stages. If we devalue life in the womb, then we are only setting the groundwork for diminishing human worth and value at every other stage of life.

This mindset is why I approach the duty to protect life with steadfast determination. And it is why I know preserving life is a cause that can and should bring us together.

President Biden and his administration have clearly stated their goal is to unify our country, but the recent policy changes and Executive actions surrounding the abortion issue have certainly signaled a different message to many Americans.

There was a time when the most basic policy stance was that taxpayer dollars should not support the abortion industry. It was a bipartisan, noncontroversial stance--one that many of my Democratic colleagues used to hold. But the abortion lobby has moved the goalpost so far down the field by making commonsense safety regulations on abortion absolutely untouchable; whereas, my pro-life colleagues and I have always been willing to meet in the middle. Think about it.

I believe life begins long before 5 months in the womb, but we know many colleagues feel differently. So Senator Graham has repeatedly brought the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act forward each Congress in the hopes that protecting our most vulnerable from painful death at the 5-month mark of pregnancy would be a unifying and humanitarian cause.

Sadly, that has not been the case. We had an estimated 143 babies who died between 2003 and 2014 after surviving abortion attempts. This shows the current law obviously needs to be strengthened there, which is why Senator Sasse brought forward the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act--but, no, even that bar was too high.

Last year, Senator Cotton and I first introduced a bill that would ensure we have complete and accurate abortion-related data from every State. Wouldn't a full picture of the abortion landscape in our country be knowledge that any lawmaker would want in order to make informed and responsible decisions? And when it comes to ensuring women are treated with dignity and respect as patients, I will be introducing the Informed Consent Act to solidify this commonsense cause.

My colleagues may recall a whistleblower report from September 2020, claiming that hysterectomies and other sterilization procedures were being performed on immigrant women held at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia without their consent.

As it turns out, a sterilization or abortion procedure that occurs without informed consent from the patient is not already established as a crime in our Federal Code. My House colleague, Congressman Chris Smith, and I are introducing this legislation to strengthen the law here. Surely, this is another baseline that we can find common ground on. I welcome my pro-choice colleagues to join us in this effort and take a step toward unity.

I believe once you focus the heart and mind to approach life as more than just a policy issue, you will find that preserving life promotes unity.

If you really look at how our culture is shifting, life is winning. At the State level, nearly 60 life-affirming laws were enacted across the country in 2019. The vast majority of Americans agree that Federal tax dollars should not be used to support the abortion industry.

So, folks, we do have common ground to stand on going into this new Congress. Protecting life brings us together, so we must stand up for the most vulnerable. We will be a stronger nation for it.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am really honored to follow my colleague from Massachusetts, Ed Markey, one of the premier founders-- the father--of E-rate, who knows better than anyone how investment in online learning and connectivity can make a crucial difference in all of our lives--in the lives of seniors, in the lives of people who live in communities of color, and in other underserved areas of our country. Most importantly, it can make a crucial difference in the lives of schoolchildren. Most crucially, right now, the simple, stark fact about this pandemic is that it has locked out of classrooms millions of students around the country. We need to get those students back into the classroom, and it has to be done safely.

In the meantime, online learning is going to be critical for them. Yet substantial numbers--most especially in communities of color--lack the connectivity and the devices they need to open classroom doors. In many of those households, working parents simply can't be around to supervise their children. It is more than just the nuts and bolts of devices; it is learning about how to learn online, but at the very least, the nuts and bolts have to be there, and that is why this American rescue program is so critical to the lives and learning of these millions of students.

The simple fact is that this homework gap is no longer a gap--it is a chasm. The homework gap has turned into a homework chasm and a homework crisis that threatens to set back students by months and even more. The fact is, right now, students are estimated across the country to have lost 3 to 5 years. In communities of color, that loss may be even worse, and once students have suffered that loss in learning, catching up, overcoming it, and bridging that gap is very difficult and sometimes impossible to do, which is a lifelong potential setback for them.

We are, in effect, disadvantaging American education by allowing this homework chasm to continue.

The American rescue program provides a model--it provides money but also a model in how the homework gap can be bridged and the chasm avoided.

We have made a promise. America makes a promise to its students that the basics of education will be provided so they can have an equal chance at the American dream. We are failing to keep that promise.

Now, there is really nothing mysterious about how to bridge this gap. In fact, I am proud to say that my State of Connecticut has done it very significantly--I am tempted to say ``has done it,'' but nobody is perfect.

Connecticut has built a program called Everybody Learns at the initiative of our Governor, Ned Lamont, who has used Federal money from the CARES Act. We have used significant private philanthropy--for example, from Ray and Barbara Dalio, great citizens of the State of Connecticut, and their foundation, which has contributed mightily, particularly in the Hartford area, where the leadership of Mayor Luke Bronin has been absolutely critical. What they have done, very simply, is provide tens of thousands of tablets, the kind of devices that are necessary for students to connect, and they have provided hot spots so that students have that way of reaching the internet. No mystery-- simply hard work and money. Most important, commitment.

I am asking my colleagues today for that same commitment to our Nation and to Connecticut, which needs to finish the job of connecting.

The Secretary of Education--or the nominee for that position--Miguel Cardona, knows very well the importance of online learning. He has championed it in Connecticut. Yesterday, he testified about it to the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and he is going to be a very steadfast advocate, a trusted champion for online learning. But he, too, needs the tools and the resources.

Think of it not as a spending item, not as a funding measure; it is an investment. It is an investment in the basics of devices and connectivity. It is an investment in our young people.

Connecticut has made that investment, and we should not be skimping or cutting corners on our young people. We should not be, in effect, shortchanging them at this critical time when connectivity, broadband, online learning are really the lifeline for them.

Let's put them online with this lifeline and give them the ability to continue their education, even as the pandemic locks them out of classrooms. They may be physically no longer in person, but online, they can connect. If they are denied that online access, they will be truly locked out of learning, not just locked out of their classroom, and that would be a disgrace for this Nation.

I thank my colleagues for what I hope will be their commitment to continuing American teaching and education online during this unparalleled, uniquely painful and difficult time in our Nation's history. We can make it is easier for students. We can save them the homework chasm and the homework crisis.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Secretary of the Senate be authorized, in relation to the pending impeachment trial of former President Trump, to print as Senate documents those documents filed by the parties to be immediately made available to all parties, and that at the conclusion of the trial, those douments be printed together as a Senate document.

Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague Senator Brown on an issue that should be close to all of our hearts, which is strengthening our VA so that it can provide more assistance, more help, and more support for our Nation's heroes.

I had the great opportunity last Sunday to spend time at the West Haven VA Hospital, where literally thousands of vaccines are being administered hour by hour to our veterans. Around 25 percent of the veterans of Connecticut eligible to receive it have had vaccinations administered to them. That 25 percent is way above the 10 percent of the entire population of our State, and it is a great beginning. Under the leadership of Al Montoya at the West Haven VA and his remarkable team, our Nation's heroes are receiving the vaccinations they need and deserve. More than 8,000 already--and the staff of the VA, 2,500--have received vaccinations. Not all want it, but the VA is reaching out to them--literally, person by person--to ask them to come and ensure them that this vaccine is safe and effective. Most assuredly, it is.

So the VA is moving forward, but much more needs to be done. A lot of that VA target population is among the most vulnerable by virtue of age, by virtue of preexisting conditions, by virtue of their service and exposure and comorbidity. That is why this plan, the American Rescue Plan, in its distributing COVID-19 vaccines to veterans, is so critically important. There are 9,000 VA patients who have died of coronavirus. Although 1 million nationwide of our veterans have received vaccinations, there are many, many more who have not. These vaccines are reaching the arms of veterans, but the VA system needs support and the investment to do its job.

Likewise, this pandemic has imposed mental health burdens on our veterans. The veterans who are shut in--likewise, the veterans who have no homes and veterans in all parts of the country--have been stressed and strained just like everyone else--in fact, maybe more so. Medical health services available through telemedicine are more important than ever, but they alone are not going to accomplish this purpose. Again, what we have seen in Connecticut through the CBOCs, what is accomplished from telemedicine, and what is provided through counseling all show additional investment will produce even better care for our veterans.

A lot of our veterans have debts. Some of them are medical debts. They need help. This American Rescue Plan provides assistance for them. I have been a longtime advocate of extending VA healthcare to more veterans. I am proud this plan would allow struggling veterans to get more healthcare at the VA, but relieving veterans from the burden of medical costs is not enough. We need to deliver stimulus payments, unemployment insurance, and aid to small businesses so that we can lift the broader economic pain brought on by COVID-19. Veterans are part of our general population, and those general programs are part of what we owe them.

All of these programs need more oversight and more vigorous scrutiny as we go forward in order to prevent the kind of waste or delay that we have seen sometimes in veterans' programs. That is why the funds for the VA would be directed, in part, to oversight by the VA Office of the Inspector General. Through oversight by the inspector general, in combination with rigorous congressional oversight, we can ensure that these dollars are being spent effectively and in accordance with congressional priorities in a way that best supports our veterans.

A broader plan is also necessary, a broader infrastructure plan that will, for example, reconstruct and rehabilitate the West Haven hospital. It dates from the 1950s. It has a new shell, but its structure is aging and aged, degrading and sometimes, in some ways, decrepit. The VA has done a great job of sustaining and maintaining it, but this reconstruction is absolutely necessary. A capital investment must be made as our VA facilities, our ports and airports, roads and bridges all are in need of vital repair and reconstruction. That is part of the broader plan that must be undertaken. Priority must be given to those VA facilities.

Just a few months ago, we suffered in Connecticut a tragic accident when two workers at that VA hospital were killed while they were doing maintenance. It was unnecessary, avoidable, preventable, but it demonstrated the weaknesses and defects in the construction that remains in that hospital. It must be remediated and improved. The best way to do it is through a new building, not just a new exterior, not just cosmetic work but, truly, an infrastructure program that keeps faith with our veterans.

There is no excuse for delaying this COVID-19 rescue plan. Delay is unconscionable. Time is not on our side. We need decisive, bold, and big action to meet the needs that our veterans have and that all of the American people have in this time of unique, painful, and continuing crisis.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it is an honor to speak after Senator Leahy, who has served his country and his State for over four decades.

This debate is really about one simple question: Are we going to do whatever it takes--whatever it takes--to get our country through a once-in-a-generation crisis?

We did that in March, a year ago. We haven't done it since. Now is our opportunity.

I joined some of my colleagues today at the White House to talk with President Biden about the urgency--the urgency--to get this done, to go big, and his plan that will finally start to make real progress against the pandemic and make a real difference in people's lives.

The American people made it clear in this election: They want a government that is on their side. It is our chance to deliver for them.

We know we can. As I said, we did it last spring. We came together across the aisle. We passed the CARES Act. We expanded employment insurance, and we provided direct stimulus checks. We kept--and this is remarkable in the midst of a pandemic--13 million people in this country out of poverty. It gave tens of millions more peace of mind with a bit of a cushion to weather this crisis.

Think about that. Congress came together. Government did the right thing, and 13 million people were prevented from falling into poverty.

But then, as you know, what happened is, because we didn't act in May and June, in July and August, that help started to fall away, and thousands of people every single day in Milwaukee and in Cleveland and around this country, in Racine and in Dayton--thousands of people a day fell into poverty.

So my colleagues now say we have done enough. Well, tell that to the 92 percent of Americans who haven't gotten a vaccine yet. Tell that to the parents who wonder when it will finally be safe for their kids to go back to school. Tell that to the laid-off restaurant worker in Madison, wondering if she will be able to pay rent and pay the electric bill. Tell that to the busdriver in Columbus, wondering if she is going to lose her job.

We are the wealthiest country on Earth. Doing the bare minimum simply isn't good enough.

Slowly vaccinating people--when we know we are facing a new, more contagious virus variant--isn't good enough.

Letting our economic recovery limp along instead of roaring back isn't good enough.

Luckily, we have real leaders who aren't willing to settle for less. President Biden is already doing everything possible to ramp up vaccine production, to get new COVID tests on the market. He promised 1 million vaccines a day for the first hundred days of his Presidency. We are exceeding that number. It will help keep people in their homes. It will help keep workers from losing their jobs.

We need to give the President and our leaders in States all over the country every tool we can. Our plan puts money directly into people's pockets with the expanded stimulus checks, with tax cuts for workers and families, and through the expanded earned income tax credit and child tax credit.

As chair of the Banking and Housing Committee beginning tomorrow, I am committed to keeping a roof over people's heads, giving a lifeline to small businesses, keeping our buses and subways running, keeping workers on the job, and giving President Biden every tool possible through the Defense Production Act to get more vaccines to more people.

Our plan will help us dramatically expand American manufacturing. The

Presiding Officer has led the Senate on ``Buy American.'' We will do more of that through the Defense Production Act. We will produce vaccines and PPE and more and better tests. We will help State and local communities and prevent layoffs and service cuts.

Essential workers--and a grocery store worker in Southwest Ohio told me several months ago: You know, they call me an essential worker, but I feel expendable because they don't pay me enough and they don't protect us on the job.

That has to change. Essential workers need help. They need buses and subways to get to work, to hospitals and grocery stores. We need those transit systems running and running safely. We need to keep busdrivers and construction workers on the job and on the job safely.

Our plan will give more support to small and minority-owned businesses. We know the biggest corporations have done better than ever during this pandemic. Amazon, Walmart, Comcast--all the big guys are doing just fine. They pretty much always do no matter what is happening with the rest of the country. They have paid their shareholders. They have done stock buybacks. But we have seen restaurants close in our neighborhood, some that have been operating for decades. We watched corner stores and drycleaners shut their doors. Small businesses are hurting. Our plan will not only keep PPP going, it will expand access to capital for the small entrepreneurs fighting for their dreams now.

Our plan will keep families from losing their homes. It will help them pay their bills and keep the heat on and the lights turned on. In December, 1 in 10 homeowners reported being behind on their mortgage. For Black, Latino, and Asian homeowners, that number is one in six. One out of every five renters in this country is behind in their rent. For Latino renters, it is one in four. For African-American renters, it is one in three.

Think about the daily stress that puts on people. They go to work every day. They are not paid enough. They are not sure they are safe at work. They come home, anxious about passing on this virus. They have to worry about paying their rent. They have to worry about food for their kids. They have to worry about whether the schools are open so kids can go there while they are trying to balance their workload. We have to do everything we can to alleviate that stress.

A moratorium on evictions and on foreclosures helps keep people safe in the short-run, but there is simply not enough for all the people who are behind with no way to catch up. Thankfully, we have had moratoriums on evictions. They haven't always worked. They work most of the time. But every month that moratorium stops you from being evicted is another month that you owe rent when the time comes. We know that.

Economists estimated that renters already owed $57 billion in back rent by the end of January. That is twice the aid we provided for renters in December. So the package that most of us voted for helped a lot in December, but it is clearly not enough. That is why President Biden, the Senate, and the House have to go big. How could we let millions of families lose the homes they love or get trapped in a downward spiral of debt, all because of a virus far beyond any one person's control

So I ask my colleagues of both parties--I just ask this: What do we do? Let's get this done. There is no time for quibbling over Senate procedure. Working families don't care about Senate rules. They care about when they get a vaccine. They care about when their kids get back to school. They care about keeping their jobs. They don't care how we get it done. They care about results.

The Senate has used these fast-track budget measures over and over in times far less dire than the ones we face now. Minority Leader McConnell had no problem using these fast-track procedures that they now oppose to pour money into corporations' coffers with their tax cuts.

In fact, the last time--I was at the White House today with President Biden. The last time I was invited to the White House was President Trump inviting a group of us on the tax-writing committee to try to sell his big tax giveaway to corporate America and to the richest people in the country. We sat around the table in the President's Cabinet Room with two, I believe, of his billionaire Cabinet members who benefited handsomely, as did his family, from this tax cut. It was a big, big giveaway to the largest corporations in this country and a big, big giveaway to billionaires and the richest people in the country but so little for the economy and so little for workers.

So Senator McConnell, whose office, we know, is just down the hall-- you often see lobbyists lining up. Back in the tax-cutting days, you saw lobbyists lined up out there outside his office waiting to get in to find out what tax break they could get. That was then. We used this fast-track procedure to get it done as if it were an emergency. Now it actually is an emergency. We just can't wait and negotiate and negotiate and negotiate and take forever to get this help.

You know, someone came to our Banking and Housing Committee and said: You know, before D-day, they didn't have a meeting at the White House and with the Congress saying: Can we afford this? Can we afford this war? Can we afford equipping our troops in Normandy?

Of course we could because we had to win the war. We are in a global crisis now. It is a war. We marshaled all of our vast resources and talents to rise to beat the global crisis in World War II. Then we grew the economy from the middle class out. We paid down the debt with rising wages.

Americans elected new leaders now--last November--because they were tired of a President and a majority leader who refused to treat this war against COVID with the same urgency. People are really sick and tired all over this country. They are sick and tired in Dayton and Akron and Canton and Mansfield of a President--of people or a President saying or then-Majority Leader McConnell saying: We can't do it. We can't afford it. We have done enough.

Let's aim higher. Let's deliver for the people we serve. Let's raise the stimulus checks to $2,000--money that will make a difference for so many families. Let's cut taxes for working families. Let's keep people in their homes. Let's keep small businesses open. Let's give every American a vaccine--a vaccine that will save their lives. That is the decision before this Senate.

Do we just say ``We can't do very much. We ought to wait a while. Let's see if the last thing worked''? Let's come together. Let's pass this. Let's make a real difference in the American people's lives.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we are just weeks into a new administration, and all hopes and promise of bipartisanship have been rejected.

The Biden administration and my Democratic colleagues in the Senate lasted 10 days before they ditched any attempt at real compromise. Now, instead of working together to provide targeted relief to those who are hurting from the coronavirus pandemic, the Democrats are moving forward with a reconciliation process to pass a nearly $2 trillion spending bill.

Reconciliation is a process that was created to make quick changes related to budget and spending that were assumed to have gotten bipartisan support. It was never meant to be a tool to pass major legislation, but the Democrats know they can't pass their harmful policies through legislation, so they are looking for any tool they can find to ram them through the process

Senators Schumer and Sanders keep pushing forward, without Republican support, to get the changes they need no matter what--no matter that the spending package includes a number of liberal policies that have nothing to do with the coronavirus; no matter that the spending package has a bailout of wasteful liberal States for their decades of mismanagement even though the latest data show that States across the country are reporting positive income growth; no matter that the $2 trillion would throw our Nation even deeper into unsustainable debt, hurting American families.

We need to be very clear about this: America is in a debt crisis, and we need to start talking about it and taking decisive action to reverse course.

In 2020 alone, the Federal Government increased its debt by more than $4 trillion. To date, it sits at a massive--an unsustainable--$27 trillion. That is why, every time I am faced with a question of spending taxpayer dollars, I ask myself some simple yet important questions: What is the plan to pay for it? What is the return on investment for American families? Does the proposal include measures to prevent waste and fraud and ensure accountability?

Asking these questions isn't a novel idea. It is the same process I went through every day when I was the Governor of Florida, and it is what most Americans go through when making financial decisions at home or for their businesses. No family would needlessly spend money without a plan, and no business can afford to not get a return on its investment.

Spending without consequence isn't how things work in the real world, and it is not how things should work in government. Congress's decades of failure to think and act responsibly has led to enormous deficits-- insurmountable debt--and out-of-control spending, but instead of getting serious about this debt and its inevitable consequences, the Democrats are focused on more government, more spending, higher taxes, and no accountability. Biden's nominees are no different.

In 2018, Janet Yellen, Biden's new Treasury Secretary, was quoted as speaking about the unsustainable U.S. debt and said: ``If I had a magic wand, I would raise taxes.'' How is that good for an American family?

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the new Transportation Secretary, said he is open to raising the gas tax on American families. How is that good for an American family?

Neera Tanden, tapped to run the Office of Management and Budget, has been a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal--a $93 trillion disaster that would devastate our economy and kill jobs. How is that good for an American family?

These are the people who are going to get our economy on track and provide opportunities for American families? I don't think so.

My concern about the future of our country cannot be understated. In August, Congress will have to deal with the expiration of the debt ceiling. This is a critically important issue, but, for years, Congress has ignored it. The debt ceiling has been suspended for more than 2 years, allowing the Federal Government to spend out of control and rack up insane debt on the Federal credit card, and we have to pay interest on this debt. Right now, interest rates are at historic lows--less than 1.5 percent--and we are still paying nearly $350 billion in interest on our debt each year. Think about it. We get no return on any of these dollars.

Here is a chart. Look at this.

This is the $345 billion we are going to spend in interest for 2020. Look at these programs: Medicare, 862; Medicaid; defense; Social Security. Look at the deficit we are running of $3.3 trillion. If this interest rate goes up--and we were already running a big deficit even before COVID, and we are going to have a deficit this year of over $1 trillion--what program does somebody anticipate cutting, and what taxes do people believe we ought to increase?

Of the $350 billion we are going to spend on interest, we will get no return. There is no family that gets any benefit out of this interest expense unless you are holding treasuries. It is insane, but it is not the scariest part. If interest rates increase to the 50-year average of 6.2 percent--that is the 50-year average--we will be obligated to pay $1 trillion more in interest every year. So look at this. If the interest rates go to the 50-year average, we are going to go from a little less than $350 billion to over $1 trillion in interest expense.

So if we have $1 trillion in interest expense, how are we going to fund all these programs when we are already running deficits? And that is if the debt stops growing.

Every additional dollar in debt we hold increases the dollars in interest we owe. It is an awful cycle that has disastrous consequences for American families.

That is why we cannot allow the debt ceiling to simply be suspended again.

We cannot allow a radical liberal agenda to destroy America's chance to ever get out of this hole.

As we recover from the pandemic, inflation will rise from its 2020 low of 1.4 percent to nearly 2.3 percent or more. That is a 60-percent increase in inflation.

But if Congress continues to recklessly spend and do nothing about our growing debt, inflation will increase higher. There is a direct link between the Federal Government's unsustainable spending and the rising cost of goods and services.

Here is what that means for American families: The price of everyday goods will rise; gas prices will rise; and rental housing costs will increase.

Increases in inflation hit America's hourly workers and fixed-income families the hardest. And these hits are exacerbated when liberal politicians, like Pete Buttigieg, get their way and raise the gas tax and other costs on families.

So while politicians in Washington keep spending money like it is a game, American families suffer. Radical spending and reckless proposals directly hurt families.

Every dollar we allocate is borrowed from taxpayers, and if Congress is irresponsible, it is the taxpayers that suffer.

Adding insult to injury, a rise in the debt will also either cause or be accompanied by a rise in interest rates. That is bad for everyone.

When interest rates increase, everything from car loans, to student loans, to mortgages become more expensive for the American people.

And the interest on our debt, which is already the fourth largest expenditure in the Federal budget, will become our largest expenditure. For every 1-percent increase in interest rate, we are going to spend another $2 trillion over 10 years. That is more taxpayer money getting no return. There is nothing. There are no services. There are no products. There is nothing for the American consumer.

For people on fixed incomes, their incomes are going to stay the same, while the prices of the items they buy will go up month after month. For hourly workers, wages will never go up fast enough to cover the ever-increasing cost of goods and services.

I know all of this sounds scary. That is because it is.

Politicians in Washington are afraid to tell you the truth, so here it is: If you want our country to survive and thrive and continue to be a beacon for freedom, prosperity, and hope around the world, we will need to make tough choices after this crisis is over. We will need to do way more with less. We will need to reassert the fundamental principle of conservatism that the private sector and individuals--not government--should be the driving forces behind our economic stability and success.

We have to stand up for these values, and when Democrats try to spend $2 trillion on their priorities that have no bipartisan support, we have to say no. We have to make sure that every dollar is spent strategically on things that actually help struggling families and businesses.

When Democrats want to raise taxes to pay for government's wastefulness, we have to say no.

Short-term solutions aren't going to work anymore. We are in a battle for the future of our Nation, and we cannot relent.

As I stated after Congress passed the CARES Act, once this crisis is over, we must make a plan to cut Federal spending by at least the amount we spent during this crisis. There is no other option.

In August, Congress will once again confront the expiration of the debt ceiling. It is time to take action. It is time to wake up.

We can fix this and put our Nation on a fiscally responsible path. We fix this by doing what I did in Florida. We need to focus on growing the economy, cutting taxes and burdensome regulations, and streamlining permitting. We fix this by helping every American get a good job. And we fix this by getting a return on every taxpayer dollar we spend.

I am going to keep talking about this issue and proposing solutions because this is one of the most severe and most ignored crises facing our Nation. It is not going away, and the harder the Democrats push their wasteful, harmful proposal, the harder I am going to push back. This problem is only getting worse.

As long as I am a Member of the U.S. Senate, I will fight to rein in the out-of-control spending that is putting our children and our grandchildren's future at risk.

I will be back on this floor again and again until something gets done.

I yield the floor.