A resolution honoring the dedication of the Ball family to providing college educations and celebrating their 100-year legacy at Ball State University.

Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the partisan reconciliation legislation that is before us tonight. It is named the Inflation Reduction Act, but that is misnamed because, unfortunately, it does not reduce inflation; it actually makes things worse.

When you are at the gas pump or at the grocery store or buying something anywhere today, you are feeling the sticker shock. Yet this legislation is going to make it even worse. It adds $700 billion more in spending and over $300 billion more in new taxes at the worst possible time, increasing costs to consumers and actually making inflation worse.

The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model that a lot of us have used over the years to look at various legislation predicts that it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years.

While over time it says that may even out, it won't decrease inflation as the name suggests and the bill sponsors claim. Why? Well, primarily because when you put $300 billion-plus of new taxes in the economy, it actually hurts workers and it hurts consumers.

Yes, they are saying it is going to go to companies, but what happens then? Companies pass it along. And at a time when we have the worst inflation in over 40 years, that is bad for the economy.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on here in Congress--not a partisan group but nonpartisan--says this bill will hurt Americans in nearly every tax bracket. They say that more than half of the burden of the over $300 billion in new taxes is going to fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year.

Well, that directly contradicts promises made not to increase taxes on Americans at that level.

While I am glad the blow to manufacturers has been somewhat softened in the last 24 hours, with the latest version of the bill, what the Democrats did was essentially exchange one bad tax--the book tax on manufacturers--for another bad tax, a tax that will tax stock buybacks, that is going to hurt particularly Americans who are trying to save for retirement.

Let me start with the book tax. This is a proposed tax that is very different from the existing corporate income tax which is based on income that business report to the IRS when they file their taxes. That IRS income, by the way, is defined by the U.S. Congress. Here in the Senate, we debate that all the time: Is it good to have a particular tax incentive or another tax incentive, that is not in the book tax? The book tax, instead, looks at a company's financial statement. And that is what this new bill does.

In fact, it comes up with a whole other definition of tax and, therefore, another tax system called the adjusted financial statement income. This is broader than the IRS income. It is not fair. It is way too complicated, and it is going to hurt employees and consumers.

Taxable income owed the IRS is meant to raise revenue, and, again, it includes these incentives or disincentives for certain activity like being able to immediately deduct the cost of new equipment, if you are a manufacturer. We want to encourage that, particularly in periods of high inflation, so we allow them to do that.

The financial statement income is not determined by us. It is not determined by elected representatives at all. In fact, Congress does not have anything to do with it. It is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setting for private companies.

That may work fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected to anything. That doesn't make sense. Let's not set up a whole new tax system for some companies. Let's learn from the past.

Back in 1986, when we passed a big tax reform bill, they put a book tax in place, and it was repealed less than 3 years later. Why? Because it was viewed as unfair, way too complicated, and, actually, they thought that you shouldn't have these nonelected officials deciding what the taxes ought to be.

They said it was bad for the economy, too, because companies were managing to the book tax rather than the IRS tax. So let's learn from the past. Why would we want to do that again, set up a whole other tax system, tax the American economy, tax consumers, tax workers, and do so through something that in 1986, we looked at and decided this is not working?

So Democrats will say tonight, Well, this new complicated tax system is just going to affect big companies.

That is true. But you know what, big companies employ a lot of people, and a lot of people are going to be hurt. They also sell to a lot of consumers, all of us who will be hurt. Last year, there were over 200 companies listed on the Fortune 500 as meeting the criteria that is set out in this legislation. They employ over 18 million Americans. It is those employees and those who are customers who are going to bear the brunt of these tax increases as it is passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan group, just last year said they expected 25 percent of these corporate taxes to fall on workers; again, this means lower wages. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent of the burden of income taxes, so there is a long list of analyses in- between.

Let's say between 25 percent and 70 percent of these taxes are going to fall on workers in the form of lower pay and lower benefits at a time when wages are not keeping up with inflation that is getting higher and higher.

And, by the way, it is not just wages I am talking about; families will now face even higher prices as the cost of corporate taxes get passed along to them. In a study last year performed by the business schools at the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices. Aren't prices high enough?

Dems have just added another new tax in the past 24 hours. Democrats now say we are going to have this complicated tax called an excise tax on stock buybacks. Again, this is instead of some of the tax they had in the other new tax that they put forward called the book tax.

Now, Democrats tonight will talk about how taxing buybacks is good because it somehow hurts Wall Street fat cats. Here is the truth: It increases the price of stocks to allow buybacks, and by taking away that incentive by putting a tax on it, there will be less of it. So the reality is this is a tax on working families, including those trying to save for retirement when they are already dealing with the struggling portfolios due to the recent economic contraction and the record inflation we are experiencing.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans own stock, and 60 million investors invest in an IRA or a 401(k). We want people to save for retirement; it is a good thing. We want them to have healthy retirement. So when Democrats say they worry about stock prices going up, I have to ask: Are they worried about people having a healthy retirement account?

Again, when companies buy back stock, it generally causes that stock to go up, which means it makes Americans' retirement accounts that much larger. Why is that a problem? The Tax Foundation says retirement accounts own 37 percent of all corporate stock. That is about $8\1/2\ trillion in retirement funds, $8\1/2\ trillion of retirement funds own corporate stock. Americans lost about $2 trillion in their IRAs during the COVID crisis. Let's not encourage them to lose anymore.

Some will say, this is just 1 percent. Well, we know that once a tax is initiated, it tends to increase. This is the camel's nose under the tent. The first income tax in 1913, by the way, was 1 percent and just on top earners. I think a lot of middle-income earners right now would be happy to have a tax rate that low.

This type of proposal will impact families and their retirement, and for that reason, we should not even go down this path. Democrats will also tax employee stock ownership programs, or ESOPS, in this package. I think some of my colleagues might be surprised to hear that. ESOPS are plans to give employees ownership of their own companies, with tax incentives for the dividends to go to their retirement savings. They are really popular.

ESOPS work; they are great. They enjoy wide bipartisan support here in the Congress. Employees have this ownership stake, and because of that, those companies tend to do better. Employees are happier. They are more profitable. They are more productive. The companies benefit from it. I don't understand why Democrats want to punish this ownership structure. Doing so will, once again, discourage investment and hard work, and it could not come at a worse time.

That is why I want to introduce an amendment tonight that will exempt ESOPS from the minimum book tax. This is a commonsense amendment-- nothing complicated about it. It will encourage savings and investment; it is good for the country; and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who support ESOPS to support the amendment.

I also plan to offer an amendment that will increase funding for Customs and Border Patrol by $500 million that will be used for new technology to detect fentanyl and other dangerous drugs that are, unfortunately, flooding across our southern border.

Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, the worst year on record. Unfortunately, more and more people are dying of overdoses, and they are dying from this synthetic opioid called fentanyl. About two-thirds of those overdose deaths were due to fentanyl.

At a time when deadly fentanyl is flooding across the border, only 2 percent of cars and only 16 percent of commercial vehicles are being screened. Now, these drugs come across the ports of entry where only 2 percent of cars and 16 percent of trucks are being screened.

They also come between the ports of entry, but at a minimum, we should be able to do screening of these vehicles and trucks. It is a gaping hole in our border security, and it has got to be fixed.

This amendment will simply assure that the new funds in this bill for the Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy, for an office called Readiness, $500 million will be assigned to a higher priority, to have Customs and Border Protection be able to detect and stop deadly fentanyl that is being smuggled into this country at record levels.

So this money would stay at the Department of Homeland Security. It will instead be used for a more urgent priority. Let's be serious about our national security and this drug crisis we face, and let's give the Border Patrol what they need to counter the drug cartels and the traffickers.

Tonight, I also plan to offer an amendment to ensure the new postal electric vehicles are actually made in the United States of America. In this bill, there is a $3 billion appropriation to the Postal Service. We just went through postal reform, as some of you know, we provided them additional funding that they needed. This is an additional $3 billion appropriation to buy electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. However, there is no requirement that these vehicles be made in America, with U.S. batteries and other components.

In other words, the bill uses taxpayer funds to buy electric vehicles that can be made with Chinese batteries and Chinese critical minerals. We know that this is counter to everything we are trying to do around here. We just passed legislation to make us more competitive with China. Again, we just passed legislation to provide the Postal Service with funds for new vehicles, including electric vehicles. The Postmaster General just made a decision to go from 10 percent electric to 20 percent to 50 percent. That is already happening. But in that case, there are requirements; in this case, there are not.

We know that Democrats believe that when we are expanding electric vehicles, that we ought to ensure that these vehicles are being made in America. How do we know that? Because in another part of the bill, which is the expansion of the electric vehicle tax credit, Democrats included new requirements that the tax credit award EVs made in the United States with American components.

My amendment would simply apply these identical requirements to these new electric postal delivery vehicles. Both involve taxpayer subsidies. What is good for the American driver should be good for the Postal Service.

My hope is this misnamed ``Inflation Reduction Act'' can be stopped before it makes things worse, but at least I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look at these commonsense amendments and accept some of these amendments. Some, I have laid out, and some others, I have talked about tonight to improve a flawed bill.

I yield the floor.

Yes.

I thank the Senator for his inquiry and can clarify that the Senator is correct that the current-law limitations that generally apply to tax credits under section 38 would not reduce the amount of credits eligible for transfer by the transferor of transferable tax credits under the bill and that the Treasury Department should issue technical guidance that reflects this intent.

I thank the Senator for her inquiry. That is correct. The credit is intended to incentivize production of biofuels of a certain quality, usable as fuel for highway vehicles or aircrafts, but not limited only to fuels which are actually used in highway vehicles or aircrafts.

Yes, regulations such as these would be in line with the legislative text and our intent for companies to be able to appropriately utilize foreign tax credits in the corporate alternative minimum tax.

I thank the Senator for his inquiry and can clarify that, for purposes of the corporate alternative minimum tax, Other Comprehensive Income is not included in financial statement income.

I thank the Senator for his inquiry. That is correct. The credit is intended for any eligible components produced and sold after December 31, 2022, regardless of the portion of the component that was produced before January 1, 2023.

Yes, we believe that Treasury will have authority to issue regulations dealing with potential issues with the ordering of the calculation of the credit under section 53 and the tax under section 59A. Regulations such as these would be in line with our intent in drafting the BEAT interaction provisions in the corporate alternative minimum tax.

A commercial lawn mower could qualify as mobile machinery, since it performs a similar operation to the purposes listed in the statute. Therefore, if such a vehicle met the other criteria for the qualified commercial clean vehicle credit, it would be eligible.

Mr. President, this amendment would strike a four-tenths- of-a-cent-per-gallon fee on Big Oil refiners that helps pay for the cleanup of toxic waste spills, especially important to our low-income, historically disadvantaged communities.

One expert analysis found that our bill is going to decrease the average household's energy costs by $500 per year. So, for many consumers, the Superfund fee would be less than $10 a year, a fraction of the savings from our bill.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 5301

Madam President, I rise in opposition to my friend's amendment. We all agree here that taxpayers with less than $400,000 in taxable income should not face a tax increase. And there is language already--and I would like to note this--in the enforcement section of the bill that says just that.

But the Crapo amendment goes much further than that. It applies--and I quote here--``to taxpayers with taxable income.''

And as Americans have learned recently, billionaires often have little or no taxable income for years on end.

So under this amendment, the billionaires who live off their borrowings would be immune from audit, and that would invite further tax avoidance.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 5404

Madam President, I gather that this is the first of the motions to commit this legislation back to committee.

I want my colleagues to understand what this is really all about. These motions to commit are motions to kill this bill, period. And what that means is: Let's try to do everything we can to delay Democrats from being able to deliver for the American people lower prescription drug costs for the elderly, lower healthcare premiums, lower carbon emissions, lower energy costs, less tax cheating by the wealthy.

The Senate ought to be moving this legislation forward instead of trying to kill the bill through these motions to commit.

One last point, I gather we are going to have a bit more of this discussion.

I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds of additional time.

I urge opposition to the Scott proposal.

Vote on Motion to Commit

Mr. President, I oppose this amendment for two reasons. The first is, it would water down the new negotiations program, so it would be harder to negotiate over the most expensive drugs in Medicare today, including cancer drugs, which are at the top of our list. Second, it would water down the efforts at the Internal Revenue Service to beef up tax enforcement against wealthy tax cheats.

I would urge opposition to the Marshall amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 5389

Mr. President, unfortunately, this amendment is just bad news. This amendment lowers capital gains taxes, and it is more tax giveaways to the most fortunate.

And if you are a wealthy tax cheat, you can rest easy because Republican budget cuts at the IRS mean you can get away with breaking the law scot-free. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. President, once again, this sends the bill back to committee and kills Democratic efforts to reduce the cost of prescription medicine, reduce health insurance premiums, reduce carbon emissions, and crack down on wealthy tax cheats. And if you are a wealthy tax cheat, you can rest easily because Republican budget cuts at the IRS mean that you can get away with breaking the law scot-free.

I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Madam President, what Americans don't want is wealthy tax cheats to be able to rest easy because Republican budget cuts to the IRS mean that they can get away with breaking the law scot-free.

And I want everybody in this body to understand that, on our watch at the Finance Committee, we are watchdogging this Agency every single day because there is no evidence of what the Senator from Texas has said is going on with respect to the privacy of innocent Americans, and on our watch it is never going to.

I urge opposition.

Vote on Amendment No. 5263

Madam President, the Senator from Georgia is absolutely right in his description of this moral abomination where the citizens he represents have no healthcare decency. And he is right that it stems from the decisions of Republican Governors. He is talking about individuals with too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to get ACA subsidies.

Tragically--and I have talked with my colleague about this--to preserve the rest of this bill's health, climate, and tax policy, it is just not possible--as much as I want it--to get this fixed today.

I will just close by saying to my colleague that I will work with him every day, day in and day out, until his citizens get the healthcare decency he so correctly calls for this morning.

Reluctantly, I oppose the amendment.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

This, again, is about delay, about postponing, about putting off the job that needs to be done. What the focus of this bill is all about is cutting costs.

What I have said to colleagues--and my friend, the Presiding Officer of the Senate, knows this--is that our bill on prescription drugs kicks in this fall. We really kick in on the efforts to hold down price gouging when medicine is going up faster than the rate of inflation.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this. We can't afford any further delay in priorities like saving senior citizens from their medicine costs.

Madam President, the American people are sick and tired of being ripped off by the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which makes tens of billions of dollars per year in profit, charging us by far the highest prices in the world for our medicine.

This bill as currently written allows Medicare to negotiate prices with the drug companies but not until 4 years from now and then for only 10 drugs--a tiny fraction of the total. That is a very weak proposal and not what the American people want. They want us to lower prescription drug costs now, not in 4 years, and they want all drugs covered. The VA has been negotiating drug prices for 30 years and pays half--half--as much as Medicare pays.

My amendment is simple. It says that Medicare should not pay any more than the VA for prescription drugs. If we do that, we will cut the cost of Medicare prescription drugs in half and save $900 billion.

Please support this amendment.

Madam President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 313 of that act for purposes of this amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 313 for purpose of this amendment--

Wrong point of order. Let me try again.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 4106 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018, H. Con. Res. 71 of the 115th Congress, the Senate pay-as-you-go point of order.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5211, as modified, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, in the richest country on Earth, millions of seniors should not have teeth rotting in their mouths or be unable to afford hearing aids or eyeglasses.

In America today, the reality is that a quarter of Americans 65 and older are missing all of their natural teeth, and 20 percent have untreated dental cavities.

Further, one in three seniors suffers from hearing loss, while 75 percent who need a hearing aid cannot afford one.

And further, it can cost seniors up to $300 for a routine eye exam and over $200 for a pair of glasses, which many seniors simply are unable to afford and do without.

This amendment is simple. It expands Medicare to provide dental, vision, and hearing benefits to our seniors.

This should not be a particularly tough vote, given the fact that the last poll I saw had 84 percent of the American people in support of this concept.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5209, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, the driving force behind the fight against climate change has been young people here in the United States and abroad.

They have marched. They have demonstrated. They demanded institutional disinvestment in fossil fuel companies. In short, they have fought for a world in which they and their kids and grandchildren could live in a healthy and habitable planet.

This legislation invests some $300 billion in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, and that is a good thing. But it invests very little in giving our younger generation the opportunities to roll up their sleeves and get to work in moving our energy system away from the fossil fuel which is destroying our planet.

This amendment invests $30 billion in a Civilian Conservation Corps, which would create 400,000 jobs for young people. They will be paid a living wage, given benefits toward higher education, and be trained for good union, clean-energy jobs.

Let us stand with the young people who have led the fight against climate change. I urge a ``yes'' vote for the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 5208, as modified, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, pathetically, the United States has the highest child poverty rate of almost any major country on Earth, and it is especially high among young people of color. This is the wealthiest Nation on Earth; we should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any country.

The American Rescue Plan included a $300-a-month child tax credit, which ended up lowering the child poverty rate in America by over 40 percent--over 40 percent reduction in childhood poverty, which, in my view, was an extraordinary achievement. Unfortunately for the millions of working parents who benefited from this program, it expired in December.

This amendment would restore the expanded child tax credit for 4 years and give millions of working families the opportunity to raise their children in dignity and security, and it would be fully paid for by restoring the top corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

Let us reduce child poverty in America. Let us demand that the largest corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

Madam President.

If I could ask my friend from Ohio, why would passage of this amendment or getting 48 votes on this amendment bring the overall bill down?

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 5281 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, let me quote from a July 29 letter from over 350 environmental organizations, including Friends of the Earth, Food and Water Watch, and the Climate Justice Alliance, sent to President Biden and Senator Schumer, expressing concerns about this bill.

Any approval of new fossil fuel projects or fast-tracking

of fossil fuel permitting is incompatible with climate

leadership. Oil, gas, and coal production are the core

drivers of the climate and extinction crisis. There can be no

new fossil fuel leases, exports or infrastructure if we have

any hope of preventing ever-worsening climate crises,

catastrophic floods, deadly wildfires, and more--all of which

are ripping across the country as we speak. Therefore, we're

calling on you to fulfill your promise to lead on climate,

starting with denying approvals for the Mountain Valley

Pipeline, rejecting all new federal fossil fuel leases

onshore, in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska and everywhere

else, and preventing any fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel

projects.

This was from 350 environmental organizations, and I agree with those organizations.

My amendment would eliminate all of the provisions in this bill that would benefit the fossil fuel industry, including opening up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling.

There is a reason why BP and Shell--some of the largest oil companies in this country--are supporting this bill, and it is not for a good reason.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Mr. President, this body has a long record of coming together to improve healthcare for Americans. In 2003, we worked in a bipartisan manner to establish the Medicare Part D benefit. More recently, I have worked with my Finance Committee colleagues on oversight investigations to hold: EpiPen manufacturers accountable who were misusing taxpayer dollars, insulin manufacturers and PBMs accountable who were unfairly increasing the list price of insulin, and our organ donation system accountable and investigate its troubling underperformance.

We can work together and meaningfully improve healthcare. This Congress, I have worked with my Democrat colleagues to introduce eight bills to lower drug costs. In the past year alone, we have passed five of my bills out of committee on a bipartisan basis. They will lower drug prices and create more competition while holding Big Pharma and PBMs accountable. Unfortunately, the leader hasn't brought any of these bills up for a vote, even though they would easily pass the Senate. But this hasn't stopped me from trying to find other ways to help bring down the cost of medications.

In 2019, as Finance Committee chairman, I began a bipartisan committee process with the ranking member from Oregon to lower the cost of prescription drugs. The bill is called the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act. We held three committee hearings to learn from policymakers and advocates while also holding Big Pharma and PBMs accountable. We held a committee mark-up where the bill passed 19 to 9, on a bipartisan basis. We continued to hold additional negotiations to make improvements to the bill. It contained stuff I liked and didn't like. But that is bipartisan legislation. Today, it is still the only comprehensive prescription drug bill that can garner more than 60 votes on the Senate floor.

I recently outlined on the floor the bill's details in case the majority party has forgotten. I won't restate every part of my July 20 speech, but here are some of my bill's key measures: No. 1, it lowers costs for seniors by $72 billion and saves taxpayers $95 billion. No. 2, it establishes an out-of-pocket cap, eliminates the donut hole, and redesigns Medicare Part D. No. 3, it ends taxpayer subsidies to Big Pharma by capping price increases of Medicare Part B and D drugs at inflation. No. 4, it establishes accountability and transparency in the pharmaceutical industry. No. 5, and the bill is bipartisan. Believe it or not, a bipartisan bill limiting pharmaceutical increases is possible. Compare this to what the majority has offered: Their partisan bill includes more reckless spending and tax increases. Their partisan bill reduces the number of new cures and treatments. Their partisan bill fails to enact any bipartisan accountability for Big Pharma and PBMs.

Even while the majority party has decided to pursue a purely partisan bill in secret over the past 20 months, I have continued to meet with Democrats and Republicans to advance my bipartisan and negotiated bill. I have met or spoken with: President Biden and White House staff, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, HHS Secretary Becerra, House Democrats who wanted a bipartisan bill, Problem Solvers Caucus Health Care Working Group, Congressman Welch, Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers, Democrat Senators Sinema and Carper, and others.

I wanted a bipartisan bill to pass this Senate. We could still pass the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act. My colleagues know it. Several of them have thanked me publicly on my bipartisan work to lower prescription drug prices. Sadly, they have chosen a different route. They have chosen a bill that contains zero PBM accountability. It gives middlemen a pass. They have chosen a bill that contains none of the 25 accountability and transparency provisions that had bipartisan consensus in my bill. This includes ending DIR clawbacks that are hurting patients pocketbooks and small/independent pharmacies; ending ``spread pricing'' in Medicaid that is drive up taxpayer costs; requiring sunshine on PBMs through financial audits, so we knows the true net cost of a drug; requiring sunshine on excessive drug

price increases and launch price of new high-cost drugs. None of these bipartisan accountability and transparency provisions--and more--are included in their bill.

Finally, one last thing I would like to address about my colleagues' reckless tax and spending bill: I have heard some of my colleagues on the other side say this bill's prescription drug provision is Grassley- Wyden. That is untrue. This is a reckless tax and spending bill. It is not bipartisan, and no reporter should accept or repeat that notion. I oppose the partisan bill because it is a long list of reckless tax increases and spending. This is not the bipartisan prescription drug bill that passed out of the Finance Committee 19 to 9.

I have filed the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act as an amendment today. We could strike and replace this reckless tax and spending spree with comprehensive drug pricing reform that could garner more than 60 votes and lower drug prices while holding Big Pharma and PBMs accountable. We could actually enact meaningful accountability and transparency in the pharmaceutical industry. I have filed that amendment, too. We could pursue PBM transparency and accountability. I have filed that amendment, too.

I have said throughout this Congress, I will work with anyone who wants to pass the bipartisan and negotiated Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act.

I ask to call up amendment No. 5421, and I ask that it be reported by number.

It is 4:50 a.m., and I want all the people who thought that inflation was going to be transitory to understand that it is persistent, and that persistence of inflation has hurt the Tax Code that tries to help middle-class America.

So my amendment fixes this by providing inflation relief to the middle class by increasing family and education tax provisions to account for Biden inflation.

Moreover, the bill includes important savings incentives that will enable middle-class Americans to save tax-free, ensuring that they aren't taxed on phantom income resulting from inflation.

So I urge my Members to support this. Particularly when you have in this Tax Code things that benefit the rich who can afford Teslas for $80,000, you can surely do something for middle-class America.

Do I have some time left?

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, we have just heard a discussion of the issue of tax reform, and my colleague across the aisle has said there should be no corporate minimum tax on corporations, and yet Americans know that billionaire companies one after the other--some of the most profitable companies in our entire country, companies like Amazon-- don't pay a single cent in tax.

They use our legal system. They use our road system. They use our education system. They use it all in vast quantities and don't contribute a single dime. One single ordinary worker does more to pay for all of the infrastructure these massive companies utilize than the company does.

It is about time corporations that make massive profits pay something, and 15 percent isn't even their fair share. And it is part of a global agreement to hold corporations accountable, so they don't skip from one country to another, to another, to another, evading everyone everywhere.

My colleague also said a lot about why we should not put a 1 percent tax on stock buybacks. Let's understand what stock buybacks are. First of all, a president of a company works to get a board, and that board is compensated, and then that board makes lots of decisions about, well, the welfare of the top executives. They set the salaries for the top executives, and then they give them stock options.

Now, if you have a stock option and then your company buys back stock, every share gets more valuable; you make a massive amount of money. This is a corrupt system. It does nothing to further the investment of the company and the productivity of America. It does nothing to increase the R&D--research and development--that goes into new products. It does nothing to make their product more price competitive.

It is ``enrich the rich'' scheme, and putting a 1 percent fee on that to help pay for all of the infrastructure the companies use is certainly more than appropriate. In fact, we should simply ban the stock buybacks. This is a very, very modest reform in the right direction.

It is the case that in this Chamber, under the Republican stock provisions,

1 year after another under their tax provisions, they have basically enabled the billionaires and corporations to escape any contribution to the welfare of our country. That is wrong. These tax reforms are right, and the healthcare provisions will help.

They are not nearly as powerful as I would like to see, certainly. I want to negotiate every single drug, the way the Veterans' Administration does, the way every foreign country does, every developed country does. We should get the best prices, not the worst in the developed world.

And in climate, while this, again, doesn't do everything I want, the investments in solar and wind will drive a bold, determined transition from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy.

We have to electrify everything with renewable energy. If we do that, set that example for the world and work with the world, we have some chance of humanity tackling this massive problem of climate chaos that is causing so much trouble across our land--from the massive floods in Kentucky to the forest fires of the Pacific Northwest, town after town being burned down. It is really America that has to lead the way.

There is a lot more I would like to see in this bill, just as my colleague from Ohio has a whole series of ideas.

I filed a lot of amendments, but I can't pull them up tonight. I can't ask for a vote on them because under the structure that we are dealing with now, anything that changes may result in this bill never passing, and so this is why, when we come back in the next session of Congress, we have to reform this Senate so we can do legitimate amendments like my colleague from Ohio suggested in a process where they get due consideration and don't torpedo the bill under which we are discussing them.

Those reforms are so essential because the arc of this Chamber has been one in which individual amendments have been incredibly suppressed. It is unacceptable. We are all so frustrated with the fact that deals are made by basically four individuals leading the two Chambers off this floor rather than determined and responsible debate-- public, transparent debate--on the floor of this Chamber.

So the right answer is to come back and make this place work so that all ideas--as my colleague from Ohio listed his, I have my list. I want to add in affordable housing. I want to stop all the drilling. I want to fund the community colleges. I want preschool to be counted. I want to fix so that we can take the electric vehicle tax credits and do even better with them. I want to include the two-wheel and the three-wheel vehicles. I want to put in the summer benefit for food that has been so effective in helping so many children make it through the summer. But I can't do these things.

Let's fix this Senate. Let's have the types of debates we should have, and tonight, let's pass this bill for the right steps in the right direction on tax reform, on healthcare, and on climate.

Mr. President, this amendment does require that the Secretary of the Interior grant leases for coal mining, but granting more leases for coal mining is going to do nothing for our coal miners today because we are in the situation where the existing coal mines are looking for more customers. That is the challenge; not more leases.

So I know that if this was something that would help the coal miners, that it would already be in this bill, given the knowledge and understanding of my colleague from West Virginia.

So jeopardizing the employment of existing coal miners is certainly not in the interest of any of us, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 5418