A joint resolution relating to increasing the debt limit.

Mr. President, first, I want to offer my congratulations to Bryn Stewart.

That was a beautiful speech about the public service that he has contributed to Wyoming and to the U.S. Senate. I thank my colleague from Wyoming for that.

Kentucky

Mr. President, I also want to say that over the weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Kentucky.

I live in Ohio so Kentucky is our neighboring State. I went down to help some of our neighbors get back on their feet after these devastating tornadoes. It was very emotional, partly, obviously, seeing people's lives just be devastated--houses ruined and family heirlooms lost and, unfortunately, some loss of life--as the tornado hit some of the residential areas in Western Kentucky, but also another emotion, which is gratitude for the people who came forward as volunteers to help, neighbor helping neighbor.

As always happens when you have one of these natural disasters, the only silver lining is that people do come together in providing water and food and help getting people out of their homes through urban search and rescue teams, like Ohio Task Force One, that went down to Kentucky chain-sawing trees down so that people can get their cars out and try to repair some of the damage, get their lives back together.

It was a terrible thing to see the devastation but also a wonderful thing to see people coming together to help one another to get through a tough time.

Inflation

Mr. President, I am on the floor today primarily to talk about the legislation that has been proposed by the Biden administration and by the Democratic leadership.

This is the 11th consecutive week that I have come to the floor to talk about this because, every week since it was introduced 11 weeks ago, I have wanted to talk about what is actually in this legislation, how it would impact our communities, how it would impact our economy.

So, today, I am here to talk a little about some of the new numbers we have in terms of inflation and how this would impact inflation and some of the new numbers that just came out since last week from the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan group up here that analyzes these legislative efforts, and what they are saying about what the cost of this bill will be.

So I think it is worth having this conversation before Congress--the Senate and the House--votes on this massive tax bill, a massive spending bill that could fundamentally change the way our economy works and, I think, put us in a very difficult position as it relates to inflation and the economy and our debt and our deficit.

Democrats want to push this through under what is called reconciliation, which is a special procedure here in the Senate where, instead of getting the normal supermajority of 60 votes, they could do it with only 50 votes and then have a tie-breaker be the Vice President in her role as President of the Senate. So I have concerns about the substance of the legislation but also in terms of the process.

Wouldn't it be great if this could actually go through committees and the committees could vet some of these proposals? Last week, I talked about some of the tax proposals, for instance, which I think have inadvertent impacts on pensions--defined benefit plans, in particular-- inadvertent effects on businesses that aren't going to be able to write off expansions and plant equipment, which we want them to do.

Maybe some of these things are inadvertent, but it also has a change in the tax policy where it says that the State and local tax deduction would no longer be capped at $10,000. This is a Federal deduction people are able to take on their State and local taxes, but they would raise that to $80,000, that cap.

The impact of that and a couple other things in the legislation means that 70 percent of millionaires--people who make over $1 million in income a year--would get a significant tax cut under this legislation; whereas, if you only make 30,000 bucks a year, only 30 percent of those people get a tax cut.

And that is in the first year. In the second year, it goes down to about half that. And in the third year, it goes down to 10 percent and below. So it really is skewed toward providing tax relief for the wealthy at a time when, obviously, we are concerned about those people. Given the economic uncertainty, given the COVID issues, given the natural disasters, given the other issues that we face, you would want to help those who need the help the most. That is not what this legislation does.

Again, if it had gone through the process of the committees of jurisdiction--in this case, the Finance Committee, the Ways and Means Committee--I don't think we would be seeing this. All these issues are ones that could have been ironed out had it not been jammed through on this reconciliation process without any committee consideration.

So I am upset that Congress is being thwarted from doing its work, and I think, if we had, it would be a very different piece of legislation.

This plan is also going to hurt, in my view, with regard to inflation. We are looking at the highest inflation we have had in decades. I think everybody knows that now, not because they are looking at the numbers, which I will talk about in a second, but because when they go to the grocery store, they are paying a lot more for a hamburger or for milk or for bread; or when they go to fill up their car with gas, they are seeing the prices at the pump.

I filled up my pickup truck--I took it to Kentucky on the trip I just talked about--and it was almost a hundred bucks to fill it up. That is a lot for people who are on a fixed income or young people or someone who has to commute to work. That really takes a bite out of your budget. But that inflation is across our economy right now, and it is tough on people.

The work shortages that we see, the workforce shortages, the supply chain delays, the inflation--all of these things are problems in our economy right now. All of them get worse, in my view, if we do it the way the Democrats propose because, by adding more fuel to the fire, more stimulus spending--in this case, trillions of dollars--you are going to stimulate more demand in the economy. And inflation happens when demand outstrips supply. So you have a lot of demand for something, but you don't have the supply for it, and it raises inflation.

And that is exactly what many of us predicted would have happened back in March of this year when Congress did the same thing--$1.9 trillion. A lot of it was stimulus spending. And people said, ``This is going to cause inflation,'' and, sure enough, it did. It wasn't just me and other Republicans. It was some Democrats as well.

So that trend of rising inflation, which has made things so costly and expensive for so many people in my home State of Ohio, shows no sign of slowing down. Late last week, the Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index, or the CPI, rose by 6.8 percent over the last 12 months. That is the biggest year-to-year inflationary increase in 39 years--39 years.

And last month, the number for inflation--1 month alone--was 0.8 percent. So get on your calculator and do the math: 0.8 percent in 1 month. Do that times 12 months, and you end up with inflation of 10 percent on an annualized basis. That is just from last month, if we just extrapolate that out over the year.

Ten percent inflation? For those who lived through inflation in the late 1970s, early 1980s, you know what that does to your economy. So the notion that the Biden administration has that this is going to be temporary or transitory, that is just not true. And, by the way, the Federal Reserve has now said that is not true. It is going to be here for a while.

Although we are hearing a lot of stories these days about businesses paying higher wages to attract workers, average wages went up by 4.3 percent last year. So with all of the labor shortages and the increase in wages, wages went up 4.3 percent. Again, inflation went up 6.8 percent in the same 12-month period.

So this is why, if you are getting a raise at work and you feel pretty good about it--getting the raise--but then you go to the grocery store or go to the gas pump or buy some clothes and you don't feel so good about it, it is because your inflation is higher than your wage gain. So unless your wage gain is over 6.8 percent over the last year, on average, you are losing out. And that is a real problem.

By the way, in 2020, as we got into the COVID-19 crisis, we had a very different economy. In February of 2020, we had the 19th straight month of wage gains of 3 percent or more, and inflation was 1, 1.5 percent. So people were feeling: Hey, I am making more money, and it is not being eaten up by inflation.

That is not the case now, unfortunately. Wages are not keeping pace with these higher prices, and people are finding that their paychecks just don't go as far as they used to.

We can see by some data that just came out from a survey of consumer expectations from the New York Fed that an increasing number of people are reporting that they are struggling more financially than they did a year ago. That is from the Fed, the New York Fed. And fewer are expecting their financial situation to improve by this time next year. That is not a great feeling as we approach the holiday season. That is a real concern.

The other report we have had since I was on the floor last week is with regard to the Producer Price Index. We have talked about the Consumer Price Index. The Producer Price Index is about businesses: What are businesses seeing in terms of inflation on business-to- business purchases, for instance?

The new number out this week on that is the largest increase year over year since we started keeping track of this number, which was about 11 years ago, 12 years ago. So the Producer Price Index is also going up, and the Consumer Price Index is already up.

What this means is that that Producer Price Index number is eventually going to be reflected in higher consumer costs--right?-- because businesses are going to pass that along. So this is not a good week because we just got that data, and I was very sorry to see it because what you want to see is the Producer Price Index going down;

meaning that, in the future, the consumer prices are going to go down too. Instead, we are seeing a situation where it is likely that prices are going to keep going up.

Again, Republicans warned of this when the $1.9 trillion was spent, mostly to stimulate the economy, saying this is going to overheat the economy--more demand, less supply, partly because of COVID. In other words, COVID made it harder to get supply in. If demand goes up, you are going to have inflation. And sure enough, that is what happened.

Larry Summers is the former Secretary of the Treasury under President Obama, former Chair of the national Council of Economic Advisers. Actually, he was Treasury Secretary for President Clinton and Chair of the National Economic Council for President Obama, a respected economist. He, too, warned of this. So it is not just a partisan issue, not Republicans and Democrats. It is the reality of what is happening when you increase demand much more than supply can handle. You get inflation. So it is not a surprise that it happened. Unfortunately, his prediction came true: overheated economy, demand outstripping supply. We found ourselves in this spiral of rising prices.

That was 9 months ago. I think it is fair to say that the inflation that people said was transitory is going to stay here for a while. That is a real cause for concern.

So why are we doing this? Why are we, again, spending trillions of dollars? And what is the cost?

Something that happened since we talked last week is that the true cost of the Build Back Better plan is now being revealed by this group on the outside from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and by others, but now by the Congressional Budget Office itself.

So the Congressional Budget Office is the nonpartisan group up here in Congress that tells us what the fiscal impact is, what the spending impact is, what the taxing impact is, what the economic impact is of legislation.

And the number that has been cited for the cost of this Build Back Better legislation is $1.7 trillion over 10 years. That is a lot. That would make it the second most expensive bill ever passed by Congress, the first being the $1.9 trillion we talked about in March.

But it is worse than that because it turns out that even those staggeringly high costs we just talked about--$1.7 trillion--miss the mark based on the analysis that just came out. Just as prices for everyday goods and services are going up, the estimates we are seeing for the true cost of Build Back Better are increasing with every analysis we see.

These studies have shown us that because the legislation sunsets programs, if you actually assume those programs are not going to be stopped after--let's say with the child tax credit--1 year or 2 years or 3 years, but you continue it through the life of the legislation, it is going to be much more expensive.

So people tell me: Well, Rob, that is fine, but the child tax credit, as an example, only costs $185 billion--only.

And I say: Well, actually, if you take it out over time, that becomes trillions of dollars--like $1.6, $1.7 trillion.

They say: Well, we are just going to do it for 1 year.

Well, that is just not what happens here in Congress. The history of this is that once we put a program like that in place, it continues to live on year after year.

Let me give you the best example of that. You have probably heard a lot of Democrats saying over the past few weeks: We have to pass this Build Back Better legislation by the end of this year.

Why? Because the child tax credit--it is already in law based on the March legislation--is expiring. So there is a tremendous amount of pressure, right? They are saying you have to extend it.

Well, that makes our case. So you have to extend it this year? That means, I assume, you have to extend it next year and the next year and the next year and the next year.

And anybody who says that they don't want to extend it--on the other side of the aisle--I would like to hear from them because I don't think they are going to say that. And so, if you assume it is extended, then you have this huge cost. The spending is going to continue to increase, and the program is not going to sunset. The total cost of the bill goes from $1.7 trillion that we talked about to about $4.5 trillion based on the Penn Wharton study I talked about.

Under the Congressional Budget Office analysis, it actually goes even higher--even higher--to $4.9 trillion. And when you add interest on the debt, it goes actually over $5 trillion.

So it is difficult to understand these numbers we are talking about because they are so huge. You know, $4.5 trillion is $4,500 billion. We have never spent this kind of money before. I mean, if it is $5 trillion, that is the size of our budget, more or less--the whole budget for the entire country for a year, in one bill.

Now, people say: Well, it is paid for. Well, the 1.7 part, you could argue, is paid for--although we can talk about that, too, because some of the things in the pay-fors are not sustainable in my view, including, again, the impact on pension funds or the impact on being able to write off investments or the impact of the SALT issue. So there are lots of things that need to be worked out on the spending side but also on the revenue side.

So let's assume it is $1.7 trillion, but that is not going to cover it because you have these expenses--like the child tax credit--that will continue.

So I am glad that my colleague Senator Lindsey Graham, who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee, a top Republican, and Senator John Cornyn, another colleague, asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to do their analysis, because they showed that, without the sunset, the 10-year cost of the child tax credit goes from $185 billion to $1.6 trillion.

They also found that, in line with another study by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the revenue lost would be $1.6 trillion, either taking us further into debt by $1.6 trillion or requiring new tax hikes.

So that is just one part of the legislation. It would be the costliest expenditure by Congress in our history, but it is just one part of the legislation. The hundreds of billions in funding Democrats are proposing as an example for childcare under a new approach to childcare, which we can also talk about, the substance of that, but it is going to hurt a lot of our State the way they are doing it. But that will end up costing double the written amount over the next decade if they remain in place, for example.

So all in all, the Congressional Budget Office looked at 18 supposedly sunset social spending programs and found that they will end up costing the taxpayers nearly $3.5 trillion over the next decade when they get extended, if they do. Again, the history around here is that they would. So, you know, the price tag goes up and up and up.

When you add that spending to another program in Build Back Better, the CBO says the total spending in the legislation, again, goes to $4.9 trillion; $4.9 trillion is bigger than the economy of any country in the world, with the exception of the U.S., China, and Japan.

Again, these numbers are just astronomical. But think about that. It is bigger than the entire economy, the entire GDP of any country in the world except for the three of us: the United States, China, and Japan.

We are seeing record debts and record deficits right now, as you know. The Congressional Budget Office says that the American people can expect Build Back Better, if the sunsets don't hold, to add another $3 trillion to the Federal deficit.

So if we continue to debate this in Congress, which way should we go, we just ought to know these numbers. We ought to analyze them. And again, if people on the other side of the aisle are going to say we don't want to have the child tax credit be extended, we need to know that. But my sense is, just as they want to extend it right now, they will want to extend it next year and the next year and the next year.

So is this the right time to do that? Is this the right time to add that kind of stimulus to an economy that already is overstimulated, where you have more demand chasing not enough supply, do you want to add more to the demand side? That is what is going to happen if we pass this.

I hope that we will not make that mistake, and I hope that we will slow

down and look at these numbers and analyze where we are in terms of our spending. We just extended the debt limit. No Republican voted for it, but all the Democrats voted for it, and that is all they needed to be able to extend the debt limit because it was under a special 50-vote margin. That debt limit was just extended for basically 1 year. So after the elections next year, $2.5 trillion more debt. We had to make room for $2.5 trillion more debt, in 1 year.

It is clear that a lot of Americans are nervous about that. When you look at the polling data, it says that. But just talking to people-- over the weekend, I was also in southeast Ohio, part of our State that is very rural, a lot of people are hurting in terms of the economy because they don't have access to broadband and so on. So we are talking about how they feel about the economy, and there is a lot of nervousness. They feel the surging inflation. They are paying more for everything.

And, you know, common steps, people are saying, Let's just slow down and think about this. They may end up thinking at the end of the day they are for some of this, but they don't want to move forward precipitously and make a mistake and have this add more inflation and more problems for our debt and deficit for our kids and grandkids. They are saying, Let's do the right thing for the country and put the brakes on this.

And if we do put the brakes on this unprecedented spending and taxing, it will help us to avoid some of these economic challenges that we otherwise are going to be facing. If we go ahead with it, it is going to make the economic challenges like inflation even worse.

My hope is that we will put the brakes on, and these economic challenges will not worsen, and instead, we can get the country back on the right track.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, as we approach the Christmas break and the advent of the new year, I believe it is instructive to take an inventory of the year that was. So in honor of the holiday season, let's take stock of the first year of the reign of Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi. In fact, in the spirit of the season, I am going to call this recitation the ``Twelve Biden Blunders of Christmas.''

The first blunder that Joe Biden gave to us is a free Big Government socialist agenda, otherwise known as the Democrats' Build Back Better plan, designed to pass with no support from or, frankly, input from any of these pesky Republicans.

Time and time again, Joe Biden and his Democratic toymakers have parroted the claim that their Big Government socialist agenda costs zero--zero. Can you imagine a piece of legislation designed to give away trillions of dollars but doesn't cost anything? But perhaps they have some elf dust that makes it possible.

Obviously, this isn't true. Analysis by nongovernment, nonpartisan

groups, including the Penn Wharton model and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, did an analysis and concluded that the cost was much, much higher, like just under $5 trillion. A recent thorough analysis, based on the history and the traditions of Congress and spending, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agrees. The Washington Post's Fact Checker even gave Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen two Pinocchios when she repeated the same bogus claim that this bill would cost nothing.

The second blunder Joe Biden gave to us is hiding from media reporters and not taking questions. It is unbelievable to me--it is hard to imagine the leader of the freest country in the world, in fact, the leader of the free world, is afraid to take questions from the fourth estate or that his staffers are afraid of what might come out of his mouth.

Freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution on purpose. Yet on David Axelrod's podcast, the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted out loud that ``a lot of times we say, `Don't take questions.' ''

The media in the United States is not supposed to be the mouthpiece of the government or its leaders. Transparency is essential-- essential--in our exceptional self-governing system.

Now, I am not the President of the United States, but reporters who work in the halls of this temple of liberty and, of course, reporters back home in North Dakota know I am always willing to engage. I don't hide from my votes or explanations for them. I am not scripted to the point of resigning my own thoughts or opinions or even mistakes and decisions. North Dakotans elected me, not my staff. Americans elected Joe Biden, not his staff, not some buffer of bureaucracy. He has the responsibility to be accessible, and the media has the responsibility to demand it of him.

But the slippery slope doesn't end here. Another third blunder Joe Biden gave to us is the White House deciding what is ``misinformation.'' In a news conference, Jen Psaki said:

We're flagging--

Imagine this now, the White House spokesperson:

We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread

disinformation. We're working with doctors and medical

experts . . . who are popular with their audience with

accurate information. So, we're helping get trusted content

out there.

That is frightening language coming from a spokesperson for the President. It sounds an awful lot like the U.S. Government colluding with the media to decide what, in fact, counts as fact. In fact, reading between the lines on this one, it seems the White House is playing the ultimate arbiter of the truth. If this seems a little Orwellian, well, it is. It is.

While it is easy to see why Ms. Psaki might conclude--and, frankly, other Democrats--that they, in fact, control a ``state media,'' the fact is, they don't. Give the American people some credit here. They are smarter than being spoon-fed information from the West Wing through their ``elfin folk'' at Facebook.

The fourth blunder Joe Biden gave to us is raging inflation from pumping trillions of free dollars into the economy. We all saw the writing on the wall when Democrats and the Biden administration pushed for $2 trillion in ``COVID relief'' in March, just 3 months removed from the bipartisan $900 billion relief bill. This was a total partisan, reckless $2 trillion that came at a time when there was obvious economic recovery coming out of the pandemic.

And now, Democrats want to spend nearly $5 trillion on their ``Build Back Broke'' plan. To put these massive numbers in perspective, the sum of these two bills--just these two bills--is more than the U.S. Government spent fighting World War II. In 2019 dollars, the United States spent $4.69 trillion over the course of just under 4 years to fight and defeat Nazi Germany and the Axis powers.

Liberal and left-of-center economists, including Larry Summers and Jason Furman, sounded warning bells early this year, but Democrats forged ahead sending inflation to levels not seen in nearly 40 years. They continue to insist that inflation is ``transitory,'' but Americans know better. Americans paying more and more for everything with each passing month know that this is more than transitory inflation.

The fifth blunder Joe Biden's Cabinet gave to us is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas's assessment of the southern border crisis. Remember the hordes of illegal immigrants camping out on the bridge in Del Rio, TX? ``Don't worry,'' Secretary Mayorkas said as he low-balled the numbers, citing:

Approximately, I think it's about 10,000 or so, 12,000. It

could be even higher.

Actually, conservative estimates have the tally upward of 15,000 people.

While we are talking about the crisis at the southern border, it is important to note Joe Biden made multiple claims that he visited the border. But guess what. He hasn't. The Washington Post Fact Checker wrote: ``We cannot find evidence that Biden at one point made a visit to the southern border'' in his many decades of public office.

It is as though he thinks, if he says it, somehow that makes it true. The problem is lying doesn't make the lie true. I have been to the border, most recently, about 6 weeks ago. I can tell you, it is bad. I can tell you, it is a crisis. Our Customs and Border Patrol agents are completely overwhelmed. I went on a ride-along and aerial tour of the Rio Grande Valley and visited the Donna Processing Facility, where families and unaccompanied minors are processed. If there is any takeaway from seeing this firsthand, it is this: There is no way to adequately understand the magnitude of the problem or the severity of the crisis unless you see it with your own two eyes. So I implore the President, who has held elected office nearly uninterrupted since 1973, please visit the southern border and acknowledge what is obvious to everybody else. This is a national crisis.

The sixth blunder Joe Biden gave to us is a new kind of border wall, not the wall we need to secure the crisis on the southern border, which has seen record numbers as nearly 2 million people have attempted to enter the country illegally under Biden's watch.

By the way, this is just the number of illegal immigrants who have been apprehended by our CBP heroes. Now, that is more than twice the population of my home State.

But according to Secretary Mayorkas, a border wall is an affront to-- get this--an affront to humanitarian relief. Obviously, the ranchers and the innocent American citizens living and working near the border don't qualify for this humanitarian relief. Yet his Agency secured and awarded a contract for nearly half a million taxpayer dollars to build and install a fence around Joe Biden's home in Delaware. What kind of humanitarian relief does Joe Biden's beach mansion need?

The seventh blunder Joe Biden gave to us is $450,000 settlements for illegal immigrants, just for being illegal. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report this absurd plan. While North Dakota families and businesses are struggling with inflation and skyrocketing costs on everything because of Joe Biden's spending policies, his administration wants to hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars to illegal immigrants.

In comparison to the $450,000 proposed payout for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Government pays only $100,000 to the families of soldiers killed in service to our country, and people who are wrongly accused and incarcerated in Federal prison are eligible for just $50,000. That is right--$100,000 if you die defending our freedom but $450,000 if you violate our freedom.

Now, when confronted about this, President Biden said this is not going to happen, but he was quickly corrected by his own White House and the Justice Department. Negotiations are ongoing, so we don't know what any final number will be. I have helped sponsor legislation and amendments to prevent this policy from ever being implemented. The last thing we need is another incentive for people to come to our country illegally.

The eighth blunder Joe Biden gave to us is private jet-setting climate apologist John Kerry's comments on coal. Kerry stated:

By 2030 in the United States, we won't have coal. We will

not have coal plants.

While a State Department spokesperson walked back Kerry's statement, ``noting the administration's plan still

would allow coal,'' it is absurd on its face.

Cutting off coal would shut down American innovation, kill all the progress we have made on carbon capture technology, eliminate good- paying U.S. jobs, scrap grid reliability, and increase the cost of energy and everything that is produced that is dependent on the energy--like we need more inflation--and cede energy dominance to foreign adversaries who have a total lack of environmental concern and standards. Canceling coal is merely a transfer of emissions guilt to other countries with dirtier energy production than we have.

The ninth blunder Joe Biden gave to us is moral authority and other gaffes from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Most notably, Secretary Granholm--while in North Dakota, no less--said: ``We don't have much moral authority to call out China when it comes to energy production and emissions.''

This is not just wrong; it is embarrassing. It is not just an intellectual mistake; it is an embarrassing gaffe. The stringent environmental and, I might add, labor standards of the United States are far superior to the lack of any of them in China. And I rest my case on the facts of the situation here.

One, according to the BBC and several other agencies--but the BBC says China emits 27 percent of global emissions, and it is a rising percentage because it is a rising number, while the United States is around 10 percent and a declining percent.

Two, according to the EPA, total U.S. energy-related carbon emissions fell by 12 percent from 2005 to 2018 while the United States became the No. 1 energy producer in the world.

In contrast, global energy-related carbon emissions increased nearly 24 percent. So the United States reduces 12; the globe increases 24 percent. This is significant by any standard and certainly qualifies us to be able to say we have moral authority over China when it comes to polluting and greenhouse gas emissions.

In North Dakota, in fact, we are performing ground-breaking research and piloting innovative demonstration projects. We are in the process of adding carbon capture technology to facilities like the Milton R. Young and Coal Creek power generation stations.

Furthermore, the United States has invested more in clean energy, research, development, and deployment than the next two countries combined.

We are a global leader in climate mitigation measures for new energy sources, carbon management, and efficiency. The radical and backwards energy policy of this administration ignores American exceptionalism and the real progress that we have made as a nation.

The Chinese Communist Party, Russia, and other polluters have shown no real interest in doing so, yet Secretary Granholm and Joe Biden provide cover for them, along, of course, with John Kerry, even greenlighting their fossil fuel energy projects, while they kill America's.

The tenth blunder Joe Biden gave to us is a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. There is a lot to unpack here, and nothing about this topic is meant to be glib or sarcastic. This withdrawal was nothing short of a tragic disaster and an international embarrassment.

We will continue searching for answers and accountability from the administration on this, but let's focus on the failed commitments from Joe Biden. He said his administration would get all Americans and our allies out of the country ahead of his arbitrary August 31 withdrawal deadline.

He also said the United States would stay in Afghanistan until all Americans who want to leave can do so. This is obviously not what happened.

After the botched withdrawal, the administration listed numbers ranging from 85 people to 200 or maybe 400 Americans left in Afghanistan. The State Department, however, believes as many as 14,000 legal permanent U.S. residents remain in Afghanistan, according to a foreign policy press report. Whatever the number, the President went on national television and told the world this withdrawal was ``an extraordinary success.''

Can you imagine being one of the people left behind and seeing your President on TV calling what he did an extraordinary success, saying that we got out successfully? It is abundantly clear there are significant numbers of U.S. citizens, residents, and important Afghan allies still stranded in the country if, in fact, they are still alive at all.

The 11th blunder Joe Biden gave to us is welcoming stiff competition with China. In October, Jen Psaki was asked about the Chinese Communist Party's hypersonic missile test successfully circumventing the whole globe which, from reports, indicate they are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Her response, Oh, we welcome stiff competition.

Really? Really? Why would the White House welcome military competition from our peer adversary communist China?

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, it has been a priority to ensure the U.S. military maintains a secure and effective deterrent, a nuclear deterrent. In order to do so, we need to modernize our nuclear triad. America's nuclear triad of missiles, submarines, and aircraft are 60-plus years old in many cases, and they are not the same strong deterrent to our adversaries that they once were. It is clear and concerning that the Chinese Communist Party is prioritizing a nuclear buildup, and the White House seems comfortable with all of this.

The 12th blunder Joe Biden gave to us is the consistent confusion and alarm in regards to his own comments about Taiwan.

In October, Joe Biden told reporters, ``I have spoken with Xi Jinping about Taiwan. We agree, we will abide by the Taiwan agreement,'' he said. Of course, immediately, alarm bells rang out, causing confusion and a lot of head scratching. You have to remember, we have a backdrop of Beijing ramping up military pressure on Taiwan, and Joe Biden can't properly articulate our Nation's foreign policy posture.

The lack of understanding on something as critical as China is dumbfounding. Taiwan is a strategic ally and important trading partner to the United States, especially given the increased risk China poses, not only to the region but to the world. If this was an isolated incident, it would be one thing, but this isn't the only time his comments in Taiwan had to be clarified--no. In a CNN townhall, Anderson Cooper interrupted the President to ask if Joe Biden was ``saying that the U.S. would come to Taiwan's defense if China attacked?''

Joe Biden promptly responded with, Yes, we have a commitment.

The White House resorted once again to walking back these comments, in what seems to be a recurring occurrence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One Washington Post article wrote:

Most analysts believe simply that Biden misspoke.

Misspeaking is a kind way to dismiss the obvious lack of clear understanding of a critical foreign policy issue by our Commander in Chief. If there were to be an attack, I am not even sure the President would know what to do if he can't accurately express what our policy is.

I am not sure I can sum this up as succinctly as two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree, but I can conclude that Joe Biden and his leftwing extremist allies deserve a lump of carbon-intense coal in their White House stockings this Christmas.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, 9 years ago this morning, I was in Bridgeport, CT. I had just done an event with the city of Bridgeport, and I was meeting my wife and, at the time, my two very young children, ages 4 and 1, in 2012 at the Bridgeport train station. We were going to take the train down to New York City, and Cathy and I were going to show our two kids the splendor of New York City. We were going to go see the Christmas tree. We were going to go to the ice rink.

And as we were waiting for the train to arrive, I got news that there had been a shooting at a school in Newtown, CT. Newtown is a beautiful community, a quintessential small town, close-knit. The Labor Day parade every year attracts every civic and community group to it, the pride of the community.

And I wondered whether I could still continue on to this family trip or whether I needed to wait to find out more. I figured it was a disgruntled employee. A few moments passed as I waited for the train, and the news began to come in that this was much more grim, that there were children shot, perhaps many.

And I decided that I should get in a car and head to Sandy Hook. There are a lot of days when I wish I didn't see the things that I saw or hear the things that I heard in Newtown that day.

Senator Blumenthal, who is on the floor with me right now, he and I were there, and we were just witnesses. We were just interlopers. Neither of us lost a loved one that day, but it is a day that I will never, ever forget, etched into my brain.

And we come here likely every December 14 to memorialize another year having passed since Sandy Hook. And, of course, at some point, you come to a loss for words. You can't figure out what new to say to your colleagues to try to explain what has happened to these families, to this community, why there is such an aching for action, a disbelief that this country refuses to stand up and do something about the safety of our kids--because, well, Newtown caught the Nation's attention for good reason, twenty 6 and 7-year-olds vanishing from the Earth in an instant. Every single day, there are mothers and fathers who are losing children to gun violence--gun violence that is completely preventable.

A few weeks after Newtown, I was in a community center in the north end of Hartford with parents who were furious that the country was just waking up to this epidemic of gun violence after White children were shot in Newtown because it had been happening to their Black children for decades.

And so, today, I want to do something very simple for my colleagues and for the country, I want to just explain to you what the grief of these families feels like, what it looks like when you lose a child, whether that child is 6 or 7 or 16 or 17. When you outlive your child, when your child doesn't even make it to adulthood, there is an all- consuming grief that is inescapable.

One of the emotions that is connected to this grief that I have learned about is the tendency to deny the reality that has become your surrounding.

That is logical, to momentarily, either purposely or subconsciously, try to figure out a way out of this world that you are living in without your child or without your son or daughter whom you had planned to spend the rest of your life with.

And so I want to talk a little bit about that emotion today. I live now in the South End of Hartford. I live just two blocks from the intersection of South Prospect and Shelby Street. I think I live there intentionally, because I know this story so well, and when my family and I were looking for a house in Hartford and there was one available just two blocks from this intersection, I think there was probably something intentional about the choice we made.

On and at that intersection, just two months before the Sandy Hook shooting, Shane Oliver, a young African American, 20 years old, was meeting a couple of acquaintances. He was transferring a car that he had fixed up to this other group of individuals whom he knew in passing.

He was there with his girlfriend, and during the exchange of this vehicle, an argument broke out. It started because of something untoward that his sellers said about his girlfriend. It was essentially an argument over a girl that turned into a fistfight that then prompted Luis Rodriguez to go back to his car. Inside that car was an illegal gun. He walked out of the car with a gun. Shane Oliver tried to run, and he was shot in the back. He died that night at a Hartford hospital.

His mother, for a good deal afterward, would wake up in the middle of the night, awaken from a deep sleep, put her clothes on, get into her car, and start driving. She would do this night after night.

She would drive from her home to the corner of South Prospect and Shelby Street, where her son died. And when she got there, she would shift her transmission into park and she would turn on the high beams and just wait for hours--the car in park, the high beams on-- ostensibly, waiting for her son to come back. It is impossible. Shane Oliver had died months ago. He wasn't coming back. But his mother, consumed by this grief, consumed by this need to deny what had happened, sat there in her car.

Around the same time, one parent whom both Dick and I have gotten to know very well in Sandy Hook came up with her own trick. She would pretend that her son who had died that day at Sandy Hook wasn't dead. In fact, he was just visiting a friend for the afternoon.

She was trying to figure out ways to just get some housework done, to just tidy up the place, to make some phone calls that she needed to in order to get her family's business done, and the only way that she could do that was to imagine that her son was at a play date and that he would be coming home soon. And, of course, that dream would vanish, and she would once again come to grips with the reality that her son was never, ever coming home. But that need to deny that reality, even for a few hours, was what was necessary for her in order to get through the day.

I just tell those two stories because I want people to understand how desperate your life becomes when you lose a child. We lost 26 individuals--20 kids and 6 educators--9 years ago today in Sandy Hook, and the families of all 26 of these individuals--the parents, the brothers, the sisters, the children--their lives will never, ever be the same. Newtown will never, ever be the same. Many of these kids lived within a block or two of each other. Everyone in Newtown knew one of these families, two of these families. Half of these kids all went to the same church. The funerals that we went to over and over again were at the same place, with the same priest presiding over funeral after funeral, wake after wake.

And so sometimes those of us who work in and around this issue of gun violence get angry at our colleagues, because how can you listen to these stories of grief--and they happen in every State--and choose not to act?

Lastly, I want to do something that I have done several times on the floor, because I am running out of ways to express what happened in Sandy Hook and why our inaction is inexcusable. I am running out of turns of phrase to do it myself. So maybe the words of a parent will help you understand why we need to act. So I am going to read a few excerpts from testimony that our friend Neil Heslin gave before the U.S. Senate just 2 months after Sandy Hook occurred.

Neil is a complicated guy, a good friend who had hard times in his life. But his best friend was his son Jesse Lewis. And I will end by reading what he wrote to the U.S. Senate 9 years ago.

On December 14, Jesse got up and got ready for school. He

was always excited to go to school. I remember on that day we

stopped at Misty Vale Deli. It's funny the things you

remember. I remember Jesse got the sausage, egg and cheese he

always gets, with hot chocolate. And I remember the hug he

gave me when I dropped him off. He just held me, and he

rubbed my back. I can still feel that hug.

And Jesse said ``It's going to be alright.''

I mentioned that his father Neil had a rough life. He had a hard time, like a lot of folks.

And Jesse said ``It's going to be alright. Everything's

going to be okay, Dad.'' Looking back it makes me wonder.

What did he know? Did he have some idea about what was about

to happen? But at the time I didn't think much of it. I just

thought he was being sweet.

He was always being sweet like that. He was the kind of kid

who used to leave me voice messages where he'd sing me happy

birthday even when it wasn't my birthday. I'd ask him about

it, and he'd say ``I just wanted to make you feel happy.''

He had so much wisdom. He would know things, and I would

have no idea how he knew. But whatever he said, it was always

right. He would remember things we'd done and places we'd

been that I had completely forgotten about. I used to think

of him as a tiny adult.

Other people felt it, too. Teachers would tell me about his

laugh, how he made things at school more fun just by being

there.

Jesse had this idea that you never leave people hurt. If

you can help somebody, you do it.

That's what Jesse thought. If you can make somebody feel better, you do it.

They tell me that's how he died. I guess we still don't

know exactly what happened at that school. Maybe we'll never

know. But what people tell me is Jesse did something

different. When he heard the shooting, he didn't run and

hide. He started yelling. People disagree [about what he

said]. . . . [But] ten kids from my son's class made it to

safety. I hope to God something Jesse did [that day] helped

them survive. . . .

What I know is that Jesse wasn't shot in the back. He took

two bullets. The first one grazed the side of his head, but

that [probably] didn't stop him yelling. The other hit him in

the forehead. Both bullets were fired from the front. That

means the last thing my son did was look Adam Lanza straight

in the face. . . .

Jesse grew up with guns, just like I did. I started shooting . . . when I was eight years old. My dad was a vice president for years at a local gun club. He started taking me shooting when I was eight. . . . He taught me to respect guns, just like I taught Jesse.

Jesse . . . had an interest in guns. He had a bb gun. I

watched over him like a hawk with that. I taught him gun

safety. He knew it. He could recite it to you.

Some guns just don't have any place in the hands of

civilians. The assault weapons we're talking about today,

their sole purpose is to put a lot of lead out in a

battlefield quickly. That's what they do. That's what they

did at Sandy Hook Elementary.

I wish I wasn't here with you today.

Neil writes:

The best day of my life was the day my son was born. The

worst day was the day he died. I don't want to relive that

day by talking to you here about it. It would be easier for

me just to stay home.

But I know that's not what Jesse would do. Jesse died

screaming at a man with a gun. He died yelling at the top of

his lungs so maybe some of his classmates could get to

safety.

I'm not real political. Half the time I think it doesn't

matter which group of you guys runs things out here, no

offense. I've always thought it wasn't a real good idea for

people to be walking around the streets with military

weapons, but I probably wouldn't have said anything about it.

So the reason I say this isn't about politics is because

what I felt on that day, and what I've felt since, doesn't

have anything to do with politics. In politics, people like

to debate and say if we banned the weapon that Adam Lanza

used would he just find something else. Let me tell you, when

you're sitting at a firehouse and it is one in the morning

and you are hoping against hope that your son is still hiding

somewhere in that school, you want any change that makes it

one bit more likely you'll see your boy again.

Before he died, Jesse and I used to talk about maybe coming

to Washington someday. He wanted to go up the Washington

monument. When we talked about it last year Jesse asked if we

could come and meet the President.

I said earlier that I can be a little cynical about

politicians. But Jesse believed in you. He learned about you

in school and he believed in you. I want to believe in you,

too. I know you can't give me Jesse back. Believe me, if I

thought you could I'd be asking you for that. But I want to

believe that you will think about what I told you [here]

today. I want to believe that you'll think about it and then

you'll do something about it, whatever you can do to make

sure that no other father has to see what I've seen.

Dick and I were at that firehouse all day and all night, and I will never, ever forget that when all the parents had gone home, having told what happened, the first responders had almost all left. Sitting in the middle of the firehouse all by himself was this one man. And it was Neil Heslin. I left that firehouse--I can't remember--at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night. And Neal was the last person I talked to. And, as he tells you in his testimony, he didn't leave until 1:30. If there was any chance that Jesse was coming back, that he was running around in the woods, he was going to be sitting there at the firehouse.

It gets harder every year, and I have no personal stake in this. I went home that night to both of my kids, who were sleeping safely in their beds.

What the hell is going on in this country that we sit here and memorialize year after year since those 20 kids died and we don't do anything meaningful about it?

Next December will be 10 years, and I am just going to tell you how hard it will be for so many of these families to live through a 10-year mark of Sandy Hook with no action from this body.

We have a year to get our act together here to make sure that in some small way we can honor these children with action.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I come to the floor today after a long week of wrestling with my conscience. Before we left Washington last week, we in this Chamber made a change in the Senate's rules in order to push forward something that all of us think is important. We set the stage to raise the Nation's debt ceiling.

Yet as we cast that vote to begin addressing the debt ceiling, this same Chamber is allowing the ceiling of our democracy to crash in around us. The American people have been pushing for leaders in Washington to address voting rights.

Everywhere I turn, I have been hearing from my constituents in Georgia. They are deeply worried. I heard it all weekend. I have been hearing it over the last several months.

And I submit that they are worried for good reason. They know their history. They are witnessing what is happening to our democracy in real time, and they see the handwriting on the wall. They see the sweeping voter suppression proposals in 49 States and the dozens of new laws that have now popped up across the Nation, fueled by the Big Lie that seeks to delegitimize the voices of millions of Georgians and Americans who made their voices heard, made history, and, more importantly, made a difference last November and last January.

The American people see what is happening in Arizona and in Texas and in Florida and in Wisconsin and in Iowa. They see what is happening in Georgia, my home State, where a new law, SB 202--passed right after I won--will make it harder for some voters to access their ballots by making it more difficult to vote by mail, allowing far fewer drop boxes, and only allowing for the use of those boxes--listen--during business hours. You can use the drop boxes during business hours, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a drop box. In fact, back home, the second most senior Republican in the Georgia State Senate announced recently that he wants to do away with election drop boxes altogether-- literal boxes where registered, eligible voters simply can drop off their ballots on their way to the night shift or on their way back home. It seems to me that they want fewer voters and more dark money in our elections, and that is the sad place we are in right now.

But what is even more disconcerting is that these politicians in the State legislature have already laid the tracks to take over local boards of elections, for almost any frivolous reason, to undermine the voices of local voters and local election administrators, control the count, muddy the waters, question or determine the outcome.

In the face of this crisis, the question is this: Has this Chamber risen to the occasion to take on the issue of voting rights, which I submit is the central moral issue confronting this Congress in this moment? What have we done to strengthen access to the ballot as bedrock voting rights protections have been shredded by our courts or to protect the sacred right to vote as partisan State legislatures have passed laws to dilute that right for so many people?

Well, some of us have acted. Democrats in this body have tried not once, not twice, but we have tried this Congress on three occasions to consider legislation to protect and expand voting rights so that more eligible Americans can make their voices heard and help shape the direction of our country. Each time--whether it was the For the People Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act or the Freedom to Vote Act--with just one lone exception, all of our friends across the aisle have refused to engage with us in any way to address the growing barriers to what is basic to American democracy: the ballot box.

Here is what we have said. We have said to our Republican friends: If you don't like this provision or that provision, let's talk about it. Offer some amendments. Come, let us reason together. Let us have a debate out in the open so that the American people can hear it.

Everybody talks about the divisions in America right now. Here is what folks on the left and the right agree on: There is something awry in our democracy. In this moment in which there is this debate happening on the outside, how is it that we refuse to even have a debate in the Senate? They don't even want to have a debate.

So here we are. Months have passed. No, that is not true--years have passed. Democrats have tried again and again to engage our Republican friends in a discussion on this issue--one that lies at the foundation of our democracy--and time and time again, because of a lack of good- faith engagement, the rules of the Senate have prevented us from moving that conversation forward.

We could not imagine changing the rules--that is, until last week, because last week, we did exactly that. Be very clear. Last week, we changed the rules of the Senate to address another important issue: the economy. This is a step--a change in the Senate rules--we haven't been willing to take to save our broken democracy but one that a bipartisan majority of this Chamber thought was necessary in order to keep our economy strong. We changed the rules to protect the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. We have decided we must do it for the economy but not for the democracy.

I will be honest. This has been a difficult week for me as I pondered how am I going to vote on this debt ceiling question we are about to take. I feel like I am being asked to take a road that is a point of moral dissonance for me because while I deeply believe that both our democracy and our economy are important, I believe that it is misplaced to change the Senate rules only for the benefit of the economy when the warning lights on our democracy are flashing at the same time.

I happen to believe that our democracy is at least as important as the economy. Ours is a great nation built upon both free enterprise and free exercise of basic democratic rights. You cannot have good capitalism without freedom. Each is strengthened by the other, and together they make for a nation that is both prosperous and free, a nation where everybody can breathe and every child has a chance to live up to her highest potential.

So I stand here because of my children. I have two precious children, and I think every day what kind of country I want them to grow up in. I stand here today because we are in a place where we are dealing with the consequence of misaligned values and misplaced priorities, and that is, for me, a serious problem because I lead Ebenezer Baptist Church, where John Lewis worshipped and where Dr. King preached. I asked myself all weekend as I wrestled with how I would vote--I asked myself, what would Dr. King do?

I thought this week about Dr. King's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial--no, not the 1963 ``I Have a Dream'' speech but the one he gave the first time he spoke in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1957, where he addressed

what he called ``all types of conniving methods'' that were getting in the way of the free exercise of the constitutional right to vote. His rallying cry that day in 1957 was ``Give Us the Ballot.''

In light of the conniving methods of voter suppression we have seen enacted into law since the January 6 attack on the Capitol, I come to the floor today to share with the people of Georgia and the American people the message that I shared with my colleagues over the weekend and earlier today during our caucus meeting.

I said to my Democratic colleagues over the last several days--No. 1--unfortunately, the vast majority of our Republican friends have made it clear that they have no intention of trying to work with us to address voter suppression or to protect voting rights. They have embodied by their actions the sentiments of conservative strategist Paul Weyrich, who dared say in 1981: ``I don't want everybody to vote.'' That is what he said. ``Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact,'' he went on to say, ``our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.''

The second thing I said to my Democratic colleagues today is that while we cannot let our Republican friends off the hook for not being equitable governing partners, if we are serious about protecting the right to vote that is under assault right now, here is the truth: It will fall to Democrats to do it. If Democrats alone must raise the debt ceiling, then Democrats alone must raise and repair the ceiling of our democracy. How do we in good conscience justify doing one and not the other?

Some of my Democratic colleagues are saying: But what about bipartisanship? Isn't that important?

I say: Of course it is, but here is the thing we must remember. Slavery was bipartisan. Jim Crow's segregation was bipartisan. The refusal of women's suffrage was bipartisan. The denial of the basic dignity of members of the LGBTQ community has long been bipartisan. The Three-fifths Compromise was the creation of a putative national unity at the expense of Black people's basic humanity.

So when colleagues in this Chamber talk to me about bipartisanship, which I believe in, I just have to ask, at whose expense? Who is being asked to foot the bill for this bipartisanship, and is liberty itself the cost? I submit that is a price too high and a bridge too far.

So I struggled this weekend. I talked to folk I believe in. Among them, I spoke with Reverend Ambassador Andrew Young, who was with Dr. King until the very end, about this vote. I talked to Ambassador Young, and I asked him: What do you think?

He said: I try not to worry, but I am worried about our country.

Then this 89-year-old, battle-worn soldier in the nonviolent army of the Lord drew silent on the phone, and then he said to me: Tell your colleagues that among your constituent are people who literally laid their lives on the line for the basic right to vote. They lost friends. They lost so much.

And so this is a real moral quandary for me, and it makes it difficult for me to cast this vote today. But after many conversations with colleagues, with Georgians, with experts who know the economy, with voting rights advocates, and civil rights leaders, I will, indeed, vote today with anguish. I will vote to raise the debt ceiling.

I am voting yes because I am thinking about the kids in the Kayton Homes Housing Projects where I grew up in Savannah, GA. I am thinking about the hard-working families pushing to recover from the pressures of this pandemic, those on the margins and those who are least resilient, for whom a collapse of the economy would be catastrophic. Ironically, many of these are the same people who are also being targeted by the voter suppression efforts I mentioned earlier. I am thinking of them and the people of Georgia as I cast my vote today to raise the debt ceiling.

But I am also thinking about what we need to do to keep our democracy and our economy strong today and for the next generation. Once we handle the debt ceiling, the Senate needs to make voting rights the very next issue we take up. We must do voting rights, and we must deal with this issue now.

Let me be clear. I am so proud of what we did with the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the major economic investments we are putting the finishing touches on that will close the Medicaid coverage gap and deliver historic relief for Georgia farmers and expand broadband access and so much more.

I have to tell you that the most important thing that we can do in this Congress is to get voting rights done. Voting rights are preservative of all other rights. They lay the ground for all of the other debates.

So to my Democratic colleagues, I say, while it is deeply unfortunate, it is more than apparent that it has been left to us to handle alone the task of safeguarding our democracy. Sadly, many of our Republican friends have already cast their vote with voter suppression.

So the judgment of history is upon us. Future generations will ask when the democracy was in a 9-1-1 state of emergency, what did you do to put the fire out? Did we rise to the moment or did we hide behind procedural rules? I believe that we Democrats can figure out how to get this done, even if that requires a change in the rules, which we established just last week that we can do when the issue is important enough.

Well, the people of Georgia and across the country are saying that voting rights are important enough. I think that voting rights are important enough so we cannot delay. We must continue to urge the party of Lincoln not to give into the very forces of voter suppression that Dr. King described in that 1957 speech while standing in the shadow of Lincoln. But even as we do that, we cannot wait. We cannot wait on them. With uncanny and eerie relevance, Dr. King's words summon us to this very moment. He said:

The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We

must act now before it is too late.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for months now, American families have struggled with the growing burden of inflation. New data shows just how bad things have gotten.

Last month, consumer prices increased at the fastest pace in 40 years. Now, I would like to take a little walk down memory lane. The last time the American people endured price spikes like this, ``Eye of the Tiger'' was one of the top songs on the radio. I am sure the Senator from Delaware remembers that very well. The world had yet to be introduced to Nintendo and Mario. Consumers were anxiously awaiting the release of the first cell phone, which weighed in at a whopping 2 pounds. I remember those unwieldy telephones well.

Over the last four decades, of course, a lot has changed, and I am not just talking about technology--the attacks of September 11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the great recession.

Even during the first year of the pandemic, inflation didn't come close to hitting the heights that it has today. Between March 2020 and February 2021, the inflation rate never topped 2 percent.

There were countless reasons for us to be optimistic. We had three highly effective vaccines, with shots going into the arms of millions of people every day. Schools were reopening. Employees were returning to work. The American people began to discover a new semblance of normal post-COVID.

But the administration ignored all of this progress because they had another plan in mind. They seized on what one House Democrat described as a ``tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit [their] vision.'' They crafted a nearly $2 trillion piece of legislation that included their ideological priorities and tried to brand it as necessary pandemic relief. But we know that only about 10 percent of that $2 trillion expenditure went to COVID-19. Less than 1 percent went for vaccines. What it did include was backdoor funding for Planned Parenthood, a blank check for mismanaged union pension plans, and money for climate justice. It was easy to see through the COVID relief facade.

Well, as our colleagues pushed this bill forward, they ignored warning signs from leading economists that this kind of spending chasing limited goods and services could trigger inflation. Larry Summers, who served as Secretary of Treasury during the Obama administration, even predicted that this package could ``set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.''

Our colleagues couldn't be convinced to change course, and look where we are now as a result. We are experiencing inflation of a kind that we have not seen in a generation. Last month, prices jumped a whopping 6.8 percent from the previous year, marking the sixth consecutive month in which inflation has topped 5 percent.

When concerns were raised about this, the Federal Reserve claimed that this inflation was transitory--in other words, it was a passing moment--but the longer and longer inflation continues to rise and continues to be a problem, it is looking less and less transitory and more and more frightening. The reason it is frightening, of course, is because particularly people on fixed incomes are seeing less and less buying power for each dollar they spend. It is, some have said, a hidden tax on the American people, which describes its impact very well.

Well, month after month, the data has now demonstrated that this is not just transitory and it isn't just a blip on the radar of our economy. Inflation is running much hotter than expected, and things are not expected to cool down anytime soon.

As families prepare for the Christmas holiday season, they are bracing their wallets for higher than normal expenses, and one of the biggest hits is for grocery bills--hardly something optional. Breakfast on Christmas morning is sure to cost a lot more than it

did just a year ago. Egg prices are up 8 percent. Bacon costs a whopping 21 percent more than it did just a year ago. Dinner--it won't be any cheaper either. Prices are up for everything from ham to salad dressing to pie.

Cooking that meal will cost you a lot more too. Electricity prices are up 6.5 percent, and anyone cooking on a gas range will shell out 25 percent more than they did last year.

If you are traveling to see your extended family this year, you better start saving for it now. Gas prices are up a whopping 58 percent, the largest increase since 1980.

Of course, this ignores the rising cost of gifts sitting under the Christmas tree, if you can get them because of broken and delayed supply chains. So the new cars and the washing machines and sofas that countless families have purchased this year, all of those cost more.

You would think that our Democratic colleagues who are proposing another $5 trillion in spending under the so-called BBB--or Build Back Better bill--you would think they would view this with caution and back off of their plans or at least tap the brakes for a second round of unnecessary spending. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case. In fact, the Senate majority leader, Senator Schumer, is trying to double down on this next round of inflationary spending.

We know that every trick in the book has been employed to try to make the BBB, the Build Back Better--``Build Back Broke,'' ``Build Back Bad,'' ``Build Back Bankrupt,'' you call it what you will--our Democratic colleagues have used every gimmick in the book to make the price of this bill look as small as possible. Of course, they started with the chairman of the Budget Committee. Senator Sanders wanted to spend $6 trillion more. That was pared down to $3.5 trillion. Now, they claim it is only $1.75 trillion. In order to achieve that number, they have gamed the Tax Code to fund part of the bill while handing out tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires in relief for State and local taxes. They have strategically chosen start dates, sunsets, and expiration dates that make these programs appear deceptively to cost less.

One of our colleagues acknowledged that this is disingenuous advertising and even told Mr. Graham, the Senator from South Carolina, that he knew that this score they were promoting was full of gimmicks.

Of course, that is a lot different than the President himself, who said this bill will cost zero. Now, everybody knows that is not true.

But there had been some debate about what the honest score would be even with all the gimmicks. If the temporary provisions were extended, as we all know they would be--there is no such thing as a temporary government program around here or, as Ronald Reagan said, the closest thing to eternal life is a temporary government program--this legislation will cost a lot more than they admit, and we now know how much that will be.

Senator Graham, who serves as a ranking member on the Budget Committee, asked the Congressional Budget Office to provide a more accurate cost estimate for this legislation. Others like me asked the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation to give us an updated estimate. There have been a lot of requests made to come up with an accurate, truth-in-advertising score for this huge bill.

Last week, we got what we asked for. We finally received the true score for this legislation, and it is a whole lot more than the American people were told and much more than they have bargained for. Let's start with the cost provision of just one part of this bill, the expanded child tax credit. This expansion initially came on the scene as a temporary measure in the first partisan spending bill just 9 months ago. So this actually builds on the $2 trillion our colleagues passed at the beginning of this year. The very first payments had barely gone out the door when our friends on the other side of the aisle called for these temporary provisions to be made permanent. Our colleagues knew that a permanent expansion would have been far too expensive so they opted for a temporary extension.

Earlier drafts of this bill would have extended this policy through 2025. As time went on, the pricetag was still too high so Democrats scaled it back to a 1-year extension, but still nothing has changed. Calls to make this temporary provision permanent have not gone away, and I see no indication that our colleagues will ever be content to let this extension expire after just 1 year.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say this provision will cost taxpayers $185 billion, as if that were a bargain. The latest estimate from the CBO places the actual cost at roughly $1.6 trillion. You heard that right. Our colleagues across the aisle said it would just cost $185 billion, but the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office placed the actual cost during the 10-year budget window at roughly $1.6 trillion, nine times higher than what Democrats have been telling the American people. The true cost of this one provision is nearly as high as what our colleagues said the entire package would cost.

Then you add in the other higher-than-promised expenses. The true costs of payoffs and subsidies to organize labor, allowing dues to become tax deductible will cost taxpayers billions more than advertised.

But I will give them credit about one thing. They are transparent when it comes to subsidizing more frivolous lawsuits against small businesses by giving a permanent tax cut to trial lawyers. When you add up all the not-so-temporary provisions, the Congressional Budget Office says this bill will cost $4.9 trillion during the first 10 years--not $1.75 trillion, not zero, but $4.9 trillion. Deficits and debt would increase by a staggering $3 trillion; in other words, borrowed money that the next generation or maybe next two generations will have to repay, which makes President Biden's comment about ``zero'' even more bizarre.

When it comes to solving our country's biggest problems, our colleagues across the aisle have proven themselves to be a one-trick pony. Whether the American people are facing a pandemic, a sluggish economic recovery, red-hot inflation, or any combination of crises, President Biden and our Democratic colleagues here in Congress think trillions of dollars in new spending is the best path forward.

The first round of reckless spending hurt our economic recovery and sent the American people on a wild inflationary ride. Our colleagues continue to ignore clear signals from the economy, including warnings by Democratic economists about the consequences to unchecked spending.

And we are now experiencing the highest inflation in a generation. This second round of spending would usher in more inflation, higher deficits, and even greater financial trouble for the American people. The American people have clearly suffered enough, and it is time to simply put the ``Build Back Bankrupt'' bill out of its misery.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.