Floor Statements

Madam President, section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation considered under the resolution's reconciliation instructions.

I find that amendment No. 5211, as modified, fulfills the conditions found in section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14. Accordingly, I am further revising the allocations for the Committee on Finance and other enforceable budgetary levels to account for the budgetary effects of the amendment.

This adjustment applies while this amendment is under consideration. Should the amendment be withdrawn or fail, this adjustment will be null and void and the adjustment for amendment No. 5194 shall remain active.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustments, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation considered under the resolution's reconciliation instructions.

I find that amendment No. 5209, fulfills the conditions found in section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14. Accordingly, I am further revising the allocations for five reconciled committees and other enforceable budgetary levels to account for the budgetary effects of the amendment.

This adjustment applies while this amendment is under consideration. Should the amendment be withdrawn or fail, this adjustment will be null and void and the adjustment for amendment No. 5194 shall remain active.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustments, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation considered under the resolution's reconciliation instructions.

I find that amendment No. 5208, as modified, fulfills the conditions found in section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14. Accordingly, I am further revising the allocations for the Committee on Finance and other enforceable budgetary levels to account for the budgetary effects of the amendment.

This adjustment applies while this amendment is under consideration. Should the amendment be withdrawn or fail, this adjustment will be null and void and the adjustment for amendment No. 5194 shall remain active.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustments, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation considered under the resolution's reconciliation instructions.

I find that amendment No. 5472 passed earlier today fulfills the conditions found in section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14. Accordingly, I am further revising the allocations for the Committee on Finance and other enforceable budgetary levels to account for the budgetary effects of the amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustments, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation considered under the resolution's reconciliation instructions.

I find that amendment No. 5488 fulfills the conditions found in section 3002 of S. Con. Res. 14 and was adopted. Accordingly, I am further revising the revenue aggregates and pay-as-you-go ledger to account for the budgetary effects of the amendment.

This adjustment applies while this amendment is under consideration or after it succeeds. Should the amendment be withdrawn or fail, this adjustment will be null and void and the adjustment for amendment No. 5472 shall remain active.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustments, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff members from my staff and from Senator Graham's staff be given all-access floor passes for the consideration of the bill: majority staff: Michael Jones, Joshua Smith, Tyler Evilsizer, Melissa Kaplan-Pistiner, and Billy Gendell; Republican staff: Nick Myers, Matthew Giroux, Matthew Joe Keeley, Becky Cole, and Craig Abele.

Mr. President, my understanding is that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act may be coming to the floor in the coming days, and there are some people who think it is still worth supporting. There are others who think that it is not. But whatever your views on this bill may be, let us be clear. As currently written, this is an extremely modest piece of legislation that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises that working families all across this country are facing today.

This reconciliation bill falls far short of what the American people want, what they need, and what they are begging us to do. Given that this is the last reconciliation bill that we will be considering this year, it is the only opportunity that we have to do something significant for the American people that requires only 50 votes and that cannot be filibustered. In other words, this is the opportunity, because on anything significant, we are not going to get 60 votes. So this, in my view, is a moment that should not be squandered.

Let us do what we too rarely do here in the Congress or in the corporate media, and that is to take a hard look at the reality of what is going on in our country today. Very often, we sit here, and we argue about this, we argue about that, but we don't take a look at what is going on in America today, especially among working people and low- income people who do not have paid lobbyists here trying to get us to pass legislation to benefit them.

People back home are just too busy working 50, 60 hours a week, trying to make it on Social Security, trying to deal with their student debt. They don't have the lobbyists here that the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry has.

What is going on in America today?

For a start, in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, and because of inflation, a bad situation has been made worse. Millions of people today are wondering how they are going to pay their rent, how they are going to buy the food to feed their kids, how they are going to pay off their debt. That is what is going on for half of the people in our country. I know we don't talk about it. They have no representation here, no lobbyists, no nothing. But that is the reality.

Does this reconciliation bill address their needs? Does it raise the minimum wage to a living wage or do we continue to allow so many workers to try to get by on 10, 12, 13 bucks an hour?

Does this bill make it easier for workers who want to join a union to be able to do so or they continue to be attacked by their employers, making it hard to form a union? No, this bill does nothing to address that reality.

At a time when, tragically, this country has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, does this bill extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that was so important to millions of families last year? Does it address that issue? Does it say that, maybe, there is something wrong when millions of children in this country are dealing with hunger and with other basic human needs? No, not a word in this bill addresses that.

In my State of Vermont and around this country, families are paying on average about $15,000 a year for childcare, if they are lucky enough to find a slot. And $15,000 a year is one-third of the salary of a family making $45,000. I don't know how people can afford childcare. And, meanwhile, childcare workers earn horrifically low wages and have poor benefits.

At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, does this bill address the dysfunctionality of our childcare system? No, not a word. And, again, this is a reconciliation bill, where we only need 50 votes to make these changes.

At a time when over 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when we spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of almost any other major country while insurance companies make tens and tens of billions of dollars a year in profit, when 60 million people a year die because they can't afford to get to a doctor when they are sick because they are uninsured or underinsured, does this bill do anything to help us create a rational, cost-effective healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for all as a human right, something that every other major country on Earth does? No, the bill does nothing to address the extraordinary healthcare crisis that we face.

At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright young people every year are unable to fulfill their dreams, unable to get a higher education because they cannot afford the high cost of higher education in this country, does this bill do anything to make it easier for young people to get a higher education? No, it does not. It doesn't do a thing. It doesn't do a thing on student debt.

Fifty-five percent of senior citizens in our country are trying to survive on incomes of $25,000 a year or less. It is just something hard for me to understand. It really is. Think about being 80, 90 years of age, trying to make it on $25,000 a year. Maybe your spouse has died. I don't know how you do it, but more than half of our people in our country who are seniors are trying to do that.

Many of these seniors cannot afford to go to a dentist, and in Vermont--and, I suspect, in Arizona, as well--there are senior citizens walking around without teeth in their mouth or with teeth that are rotting. There are seniors all over this country who cannot communicate with their kids or grandchildren because they can't afford a hearing aid. They can't watch TV because they can't afford a decent pair of glasses.

Is there anything in the currently written bill to expand Medicare to do what some 75 or 80 percent of the American people think we should do, and that is expand Medicare to cover dental care for seniors, hearing aids, and eyeglasses? No, the bill doesn't touch that at all.

When we talk about our seniors and disabled Americans, does this legislation do anything to help the millions who would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes? It is an issue I hear quite

frequently in Vermont: We cannot find help for someone to come to my house to help my mother or my disabled father. Does this bill address the crisis of home healthcare, a very serious crisis? No, not a word.

I think there is no disagreement that we have a major housing crisis in America. Some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and nearly 18 million households are spending an incredible 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing. Everybody acknowledges that we have a major housing crisis and that rents are soaring. Does this bill that supposedly represents the needs of the American people even deal with housing? In one word, no, it doesn't.

I understand that in our politics today, super PACs and billionaires play an enormous role in what we do here and what we don't do. Just yesterday, we saw the power of billionaire super PACs selecting corporate candidates who represent their interests and defeating candidates who represent working families. That is the way the political system is, and it has been made worse since Citizens United.

But right now, in our country--and I know we don't talk about it very much; I hear almost no discussion on the floor--we have more income wealth inequality than at any time in 100 years. How do the American people feel knowing that three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society? Does that sound like the America we believe in, the America we think we should be?

We talk about Russia and Putin and the oligarchy over there. It is true. An oligarchy robs the country blind.

We have an oligarchy here as well. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and 45 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. And what we have seen during the pandemic is billionaires becoming much richer while working people by the thousands die because they have to go to work to make a living.

Today, CEOs of large corporations make 350 times more than their average workers. That is what is going on in America. I know we don't want to talk about it because we don't want to offend the people who fund our campaigns. It makes them uncomfortable to talk about how much inequality we have in this country, but that is the reality.

Not only do we have income and wealth inequality, but we have another issue we don't talk about much--or maybe a little bit. We have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the modern history of this country. In sector after sector after sector, we have a handful of giant multinational corporations, often engaging in price-fixing, that control what is produced and how much we pay for it.

I think many Americans now notice that, at a time when we are paying increased costs at the gas pump, increased costs at grocery stores for food, surprise, surprise, surprise, these large corporations are making recordbreaking profits. Paying five bucks for a gallon of gas? Well, the good news is that ExxonMobil and these other corporations are making huge profits.

Unbelievably, three Wall Street firms now control assets of over $20 trillion. That is the GDP of the United States of America being controlled by three Wall Street firms. Is that of concern to anybody? Think it might be something we might want to talk about in a reconciliation bill? Nah, can't do that. These are very powerful guys, and we are not supposed to offend the wealthy and the powerful.

These three Wall Street firms are the major stockholders in 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. Check out the companies of the products that you buy. Find out who owns them. Find out who owns the companies that you are familiar with. Time and time and time again, you will find that the major stockholders are these three Wall Street firms: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.

Does this bill do anything to even begin addressing the enormous concentration of ownership in our country and make our economy more competitive? Not a word.

So my point is that we are living in a moment of unprecedented crises. This bill does virtually nothing to address any of them, and this is the opportunity because, theoretically, it could be done with 50 votes here in the Senate. If all of the Democrats voted for it--if any Republicans voted for it, it would be great--plus the Vice President, we could do it. We could do it, but as currently written, it is not being done.

Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which has some good features. There are some good things in it, but it also has some very bad features.

The good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to address the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. As you know, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for our prescription drugs, and for those under Medicare, this begins to address that issue.

Under this legislation, Medicare, for the first time, would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices. That is the good news.

The bad news is that we will not see the impact of these negotiated prices until 2026--4 years from now. Why? Got me. I don't know, but it will not go into effect until 4 years from now.

By the way, the pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful entity here in DC, and if you think, during those 4 years, that whatever modest provisions are in this bill they will not attack and get out, you would be mistaken. They will certainly work hard to do that, and they have 4 years to do that--4 years to come up with an entire pricing structure--because if you are not covering all of the drugs, they can come up with me-too drugs that look alike, that sound alike, and that can evade these price controls.

Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin--and that is not clear yet--this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare.

Under this bill, at a time when pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

Now, if we had the courage to seriously address this issue, we would know exactly what to do. It is very, very simple. For over 30 years, the Veterans Health Administration has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. Moreover, for decades, virtually every major country on Earth has done exactly the same thing. That is why, in Canada, drug prices and, in Mexico, drug prices and, in Europe, drug prices are much lower than in the United States.

The result of Medicare not negotiating prices has been that, today, Medicare pays twice as much for the same exact prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, pay 10 times more for a particular drug than the people in Canada or in other countries.

How insane is it that you have one Federal Agency, called the VA, that pays 50 percent of what Medicare pays? I mean, how crazy is that?

So, when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA pays--end of discussion. It is a rather simple solution. If we did that, we could save Medicare some $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provision in this bill--nine times more. They get $100 billion. We would save $900 billion.

By the way, that money could be used to add comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America; it could be used to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60; and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare.

That is why I will be introducing an amendment to do just that and to make sure that Medicare pays no more for prescription drugs than the VA. It is not a very radical idea, and I would hope that that amendment gets widespread support.

In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans, as a result of the ACA, over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums

skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their health insurance altogether.

This is a good provision, and I support it, but let us not kid ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profit last year and paid their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages.

It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and it would do nothing to reform a dysfunctional healthcare system that is not designed to make people well but is designed to make the stockholders of private health insurance companies even richer.

Let me talk about the issue of climate change for a moment as it is dealt with in this bill.

This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs.

The good news is that, if this legislation, as written, is signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested before. Given the existential crisis that we face--given the fact that we are fighting to make sure that this planet remains habitable and healthy for younger generations--this, clearly, is not enough of an investment, but it is a step forward.

It provides serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news.

However, the bad news is that this legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry--the people who are causing the climate crisis.

Now, it might seem a bit incongruous to people as to why we are rewarding the people whose emissions are driving the temperature of the Earth up and causing massive destruction, but that is, in fact, what this bill does.

Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare that they already receive every year. This is above and beyond what they currently get.

In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, which I would hope that every sane human being believes we should, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies that are destroying the planet. On the contrary, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys.

Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters--60 million acres of public waters--must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put this in perspective, 60 million acres is the size of Michigan.

Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg called: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.''

According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill a ``step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with the ``comprehensive set of solutions'' included in the reconciliation bill.

Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that would benefit the most under this bill.

Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that, perhaps, has done more than any other entity on Earth to cause climate change--is ``pleased'' with this bill, I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation.

Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any renewable energy development on public lands.

In total, this bill will offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use.

That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in this reconciliation bill. A deal has also been reached to make it easier for the industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects.

This deal would approve a $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to that released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. Well, to my mind, that is a heck of a way to address the climate crisis.

Let me quote from a July 29 letter from over 350 environmental organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Watch, 350.org, and the Climate Justice Alliance, addressed to the President and the Senate majority leader, expressing concerns about this bill.

This is what they say:

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 crises. 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. We are out of

time. Therefore, we're calling on you--

the President and majority leader--

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.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter by these 360 environmental groups written on July 29.

Mr. President, here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill:

This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to

handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and

gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will

fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country,

and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to

protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels.

In my view, we have got to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry that has been actively destroying our planet. And I will be introducing an amendment to do just that.

Finally, this bill has a tax provision in it. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is good news because we have many, many large, profitable corporations in this country, including companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike, which, in a given year, make billions in profit and don't pay a nickel in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise $313 billion over the next decade.

Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying more than $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources or staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill will begin to change that.

This bill would also make very modest changes to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, a teacher, or a firefighter, and that is a good thing.

But the bad news is that this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations, and this bill does nothing to repeal that.

Let's not forget, it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so- called tax extenders bill at the end of this year that could provide corporations up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill.

So that is where we are today. This legislation virtually ignores every major crisis facing working families who are struggling so very hard to stay alive today. It ignores childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, raising the minimum wage, and more. It ignores all of those issues.

This is legislation, which at a time of massive profits in the pharmaceutical industry, takes a very modest step, which goes into effect 4 years from now, to lower or control the price of medicine.

So this bill has, as I have indicated, some good and important provisions. At the same time, it has some pretty bad provisions, including massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry.

This is a bill of more than 700 pages, which was made public after a number of months of secret negotiations. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and ideas as to how we can improve it, and I intend to play an active role in that process.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week.

But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be.

According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government.

Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system.

And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred.

All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism.

And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent.

The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living.

We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years.

Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers.

In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests.

And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor.

Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed.

Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically.

So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want.

At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill.

If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you.

And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K.

So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you.

At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people.

The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen.

If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered.

As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve.

Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely.

I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol.

In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing.

Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well.

One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because it

would increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all.

Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features.

One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare.

According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable.

But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die.

Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history-- would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news.

The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years.

Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare.

Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry.

If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea.

Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth.

So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years.

In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill.

By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill.

What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021.

Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices.

Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases.

The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago.

Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most.

So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face.

In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether.

So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured.

So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that.

Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do.

This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive.

But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday.

Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving.

In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys.

Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory.

Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation.

Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill.

Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation.

Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use.

That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change.

Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say:

This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax

credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to

ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry;

providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles;

and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more

widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil

fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all

the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point.

That is from 350.org.

Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill:

This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to

handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and

gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will

fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country,

and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to

protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels.

That is from the Center for Biological Diversity.

In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future.

In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that.

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code.

Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade.

Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that.

This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter.

But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence.

Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill.

So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing.

This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine.

This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,

provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet.

This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations.

This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen.

With that, I yield the floor.

I have heard, time and again, my Republican colleagues and a number of Democrats voice their serious concern about the deficit and our national debt. We are told that because of the deficit that at a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, we cannot extend the child tax credit to help working parents and substantially reduce childhood poverty.

At a time when over 600,000 Americans are homeless and some 18 million families are spending half of their incomes on the high cost of housing, we are told over and over again that because of the deficit we cannot build the low-income, affordable housing we desperately need.

At a time when millions of senior citizens in this country desperately need help to go to a dentist because their teeth are rotting in their mouths, they can't afford hearing aids, they can't afford eyeglasses, we are told that we cannot afford to expand Medicare because of the deficit.

At a time when the average family in this country is spending $15,000 a year on childcare--an unimaginable amount of money for a working family--we are told that we cannot reform a dysfunctional childcare system because of the deficit.

At a time when some 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, we are told that we cannot guarantee healthcare to all Americans as a human right--like virtually every other major country does--because of the deficit.

In other words, despite the fact that half of the people in our country today are living paycheck to paycheck, despite the fact that half of our seniors live on incomes of $25,000 or less, despite the fact that we have more income and wealth inequality today than we have had in 100 years, where three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of America, despite all of that, whenever it comes to protecting the needs of low-income or working families, I hear, over and over again, we just cannot afford to do that because of the deficit.

Well, guess what? All of that profound and serious concern about the deficit fades away when it comes to providing a $76 billion blank check to the highly profitable microchip industry with no protections at all for the American taxpayer.

Somehow the deficit is of great concern when it comes to providing help to working families, to low-income Americans, to children, to seniors, but it is not a concern when you provide massive corporate welfare for enormously profitable multinational corporations.

I guess when the semiconductor industry spends $19 million on lobbying this year alone and when Intel spends $100 million on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past 20 years, when that industry says: Jump, the response from Congress is: How high?

That is what a political system dominated by Big Money looks like. The people in this country who desperately need help can't get it. The corporations that are making huge profits and the CEOs who are making exorbitant compensation packages get everything they need--and more.

In other words, it appears that the deep concerns about the deficit are rather selective.

Now, after I finish my remarks, I will give my colleagues a chance to prove me wrong. I will be raising a budget point of order against this bill because it increases the deficit by over $79 billion, with $76 billion of that money going to the microchip industry with no strings attached.

Let me be very clear. There is no doubt that there is a global shortage of microchips and semiconductors, which is making it harder for manufacturers to produce the cars, cell phones, household appliances, and electronic equipment that we need. And that is why I fully support efforts to expand U.S. microchip production.

But the question we should be asking is this: Should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check of over $76 billion at a time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profit right now and paying the head of Intel some $170 million a year in compensation? And I think the answer to that question is a resounding no.

That is why, at the conclusion of my remarks, I will be asking unanimous consent to attach an amendment to this legislation.

This amendment is simple and straightforward. It would prevent microchip companies from receiving grants under this legislation unless they agreed not to buy back their own stock--not complicated.

Now, this is rather amazing. This is really quite incredible and tells you where we are as a nation politically. Over the past decade, semiconductor companies have spent nearly $250 billion--70 percent of their profits--not on research and development, not on building new microchip plants in America--what this bill is presumably about--but on buying back their own stock to enrich their wealthy shareholders.

Let me repeat: The industry that is asking for $76 billion of corporate welfare today, over the past decade spent $250 billion--70 percent of their profits--not on research and development, not on building new microchip plants in America but on buying back their own stock to enrich their wealthy stockholders.

Apparently, they just couldn't find $76 billion of their own money to invest in new plants in America. They need the taxpayers of this country to do it for them.

Do any of my colleagues really believe we should allow microchip companies to receive $76 billion in taxpayer assistance without a ban on stock buybacks?

Under my amendment, microchip companies would not be allowed to receive taxpayer assistance unless they agreed they would not repeal existing collective bargaining agreements and would remain neutral in any union organizing effort.

Do any of my colleagues believe that we should be handing out corporate welfare to profitable corporations who are engaged in busting unions?

Under my agreement, microchip companies would not be able to receive $76 billion in taxpayer assistance unless they agreed not to outsource jobs overseas.

Now, I heard my colleague from Indiana speak a moment ago about the crisis in the microchip industry, how we are producing a smaller and smaller amount, but he forgot to mention--somehow forgot to mention-- that over the last 20 years, the microchip industry has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants and other establishments in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs while moving most of its production overseas.

In other words, what taxpayers are doing are rebuilding an industry that was destroyed by the industry itself by going abroad in search of more profit.

Under my amendment, microchip companies would be prevented from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants or equity stakes to the Federal Government.

Now, I happen to believe in industrial policy. I think it makes sense for the government and private sector to be working together when it is mutually beneficial. If private companies, however, are going to benefit from generous taxpayer subsidies--$76 billion--

the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders. Does that sound really unreasonable?

If these guys are going to make huge profits based on this investment, don't you think maybe the taxpayers of this country who gave them the money might be able to get some of those benefits back?

The microchip industry today is worth about $680 billion. By 2030, that market, the market for microchips, is expected to grow to a trillion dollars. Do any of my colleagues really believe that if microchip companies make a profit as a direct result of these Federal grants--which is extremely likely--the taxpayers in this country, taxpayers do not have a right to get a reasonable return on that investment?

And let us be clear, none of this is a radical idea. All of those provisions that I just articulated were included in the CARES Act that passed the Senate by a vote of 96 to 0. In other words, every Senator here has already voted for these provisions.

Now, I have heard recently some of my colleagues who are saying: Don't worry. We have imposed ``strong guardrails'' to this bill.

Well, let me respectfully disagree. These so-called guardrails would do nothing to prevent microchip companies from outsourcing a single job abroad. In fact, these so-called guardrails would not even force Intel to divest all of the money they have put into semiconductor companies in China. These so-called guardrails would do nothing to protect taxpayers or to stop microchip companies from union busting.

Yes, I understand some language has been inserted in this bill that would prohibit microchip companies from using Federal grants to buy back their own stock, but let's be clear, this language is totally meaningless. Under this legislation, companies will still be able to use the enormous profits that they are making to buy back their own stocks.

Bottom line, let us rebuild the U.S. microchip industry. I believe that. But let us do it in a way that benefits all of our society, not just a handful of wealthy, profitable, and powerful corporations.

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the

rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor.

I am afraid that what Dr. King said 54 years ago was accurate back then. And as we can see by this legislation today--massive subsidies for the rich and the powerful, while we continue to turn our backs on working families--what King said then is even more accurate now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up amendment No. 5145, that the amendment be considered and agreed to, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending measure 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.

No.

Mr. President, I previously revised the allocations, aggregates, and pay-as-you-go ledger for S. 2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, pursuant to section 3003 of S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution.

As the legislation has now been signed into law and directs that its budgetary effects are not to be entered on the PAYGO scorecard, I am reversing the PAYGO adjustment I made in June.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying table, which provides details about the adjustment, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, like the Senator from Texas, I wish to speak about the so-called chips bill, but my perspective is, to say the least, a little bit different.

To my mind, what the chips bill represents is the question of whether or not we will have priorities in this country that represent the needs of working families and the middle class or whether this institution, the entire Congress, is totally beholden to wealthy and powerful corporate interests.

I do not argue with anyone who makes the point that there is a global shortage in microchips and semiconductors, which is making it harder for manufacturers to produce the cars, the cell phones, the household appliances, and the electronic equipment that we need. This shortage is, in fact, costing American workers good-paying jobs and raising prices for families. And that is why I personally strongly support the need to expand U.S. microchip production.

But the question that we should be asking is this: Should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check--blank check--of over $76 billion at the same exact time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages?

That really is one of the questions that we should be asking, and I think the answer to that is a resounding no. This is an enormously profitable industry.

According to an Associated Press article that I read today, Senator Romney, reflecting the views, I think, of many--I think Senator Cornyn made the same point--but Senator Romney was quoted as saying that when other countries subsidize the manufacturing of high technology chips, the United States must join the club--must join the club.

``If you don't play like they play, then you are not going to be manufacturing high technology chips, and they are essential for our national defense as well as our economy,'' Senator Romney said.

Now, I find the position of Senator Romney and others to be really quite interesting because I personally have been on this floor many, many times urging the Senate to look to other countries around the world and learn from those countries. And what I have said is that it is a bit absurd that here in the United States we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all of their people. And Senator Romney says ``join the club,'' and I agree. Let's join the club and not spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the Canadians, as the British, as the French. Let's join that club and guarantee healthcare to all people, rather than making the insurance companies billions in profits every single year.

Senator Romney says ``join the club,'' and I agree. We should join the club in terms of higher education. Germany today, and other countries around the world, make sure that their young people can go to their colleges and universities tuition-free so that they don't have to leave school 40, 50, or $100,000 in debt. Let's join the club. Let's do what Germany and other countries are doing, which makes eminent sense in every sense of the word. Let's guarantee the right of all of our kids, regardless of their income, to get a higher education. Let's join the club.

And there is another club that I think we might want to join, among many others. We are the only major country--virtually the only country on Earth--that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave. There are women today in the United States of America having a baby, and they will be back at work in a week because they need the income--no guaranteed paid family medical leave. There are people getting fired today because their kids are sick. They have to make the choice whether they hang on to their jobs or take care of their sick kids.

Let's join the club. Let's do what not only every major country on Earth does in terms of guaranteed paid family and medical, but what virtually all countries, including some of the poorest, in the world do.

But I gather the problem is that to join those clubs in terms of universal healthcare, in terms of paid family and medical leave, in terms of free tuition and public colleges and universities, we are going to have to take on powerful special interests, and they make campaign contributions. And that is not what the Senate does.

When it comes to joining the club with other countries giving blank checks to large corporations, that is a club that, unfortunately, many of my colleagues here feel comfortable in joining.

So, apparently, when corporate America needs a blank check of $76 billion, we do what other countries are doing.

There is a lot of talk about the microchip crisis facing this country but, amazingly enough, very little discussion about how we got to where we are today. One might ask: OK, if there is a crisis, how did it happen? Well, let's review some recent history. This is really quite amazing.

Over the last 20 years, the microchip industry has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants and other establishments in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs while moving most of its production overseas. And, by the way, they did that after they received a Federal grant and loans much smaller than what we are talking about today.

So here is the absurd situation that we are in. The crisis is caused by the industry shutting down in America and moving abroad. And today, what we are doing is saying: We are going to give you a blank check to undo the damage that you did.

Let me just give you a few examples. We don't have a whole lot of information on this. Between 2010 and 2014, Intel laid off approximately 1,400 workers from the Rio Rancho, NM, chip facility and offshored 1,000 jobs to Israel. According to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry, Intel laid off more than 1,000 workers in Oregon between 2015 and 2016. Texas Instruments outsourced 400 jobs from their Houston manufacturing facility to the Philippines in 2013. Micron Technology has repeatedly cut jobs in Boise, ID, including 1,100 in 2003 and another 1,100 in

2007; 1,500 in 2008; and in 2009, the company stopped manufacturing some types of chips entirely and laid off 2,000 workers.

In other words, in order to make more profits, these companies took government money and used it to ship good-paying jobs abroad. Now as their reward for causing the crisis that we are in, these same companies are in line to receive a massive taxpayer handout to undo the damage they did.

Wow, that is a heck of a policy. You bribe companies to undo the damage that they caused.

It is estimated in total that five major semiconductor companies will receive the lion's share of this taxpayer handout: Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, Global Boundaries, and Samsung. These five companies alone made $70 billion in profits.

You know, I find it interesting. I have heard Senators here on the floor talk about entitlements. When we help working people, when we help poor people, there are all kinds of requirements--work requirements, reporting requirements, drug testing requirements, you name the requirements when the Federal Government helps working people or low-income people.

Well, what are the requirements attached to this handout for large profitable corporations? The answer is zero.

The company that will likely benefit the most from this taxpayer assistance is Intel. In 2021, last year, Intel made nearly $20 billion in profits.

You know, it just does astound me. You have heard people come to the floor and say: We can't help working parents with their kids. We don't believe in those entitlement programs. We can't guarantee healthcare to all people. We are not an ``entitlement society.'' But a company that, last year, made $20 billion in profits, they are entitled to what we estimate will be between $20 and $30 billion in Federal funding. During the pandemic and during the last several years, Intel had enough money to spend $16.6 billion not on research and development, not on building new plants in America but on buying back its own stock to reward its executives and wealthy shareholders. So here is the absurd moment that we are in. As I mentioned a moment ago, it is estimated that Intel will receive between $20 and $30 billion in Federal funding. Yet, within the last several years, the same company spent over $16 billion on stock buybacks, and there is no guarantee in this bill that they and other companies that receive these grants will not continue to do stock buybacks.

This is the way a corrupt political system works, and I hope everybody understands it.

Over the past 20 years, Intel has spent over $100 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. That is a lot of money, $100 million, but this is what a corrupt political system is about. For $100 million in lobbying and campaign contributions, they are going to get at least $20 billion in corporate welfare. That, I would argue, is a pretty good investment. That is what goes on here not only with the microchip industry but with the pharmaceutical industry, the fossil fuel industry, the insurance industry--huge amounts of money in lobbying and campaign contributions. The pharmaceutical industry has 1,500 paid lobbyists right now, right here in Washington, DC, which is why we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

I find this extraordinary. Maybe I am the only person here who does, but, to me, it is rather amazing.

A little over a week ago, the CEO of Intel, a gentleman named Pat Gelsinger, who earns something like $179 million a year in compensation--not a bad salary--did an interview on CNBC's ``Squawk Box'' program. I think to listen to that interview tells us everything we need to know about oligarchy and arrogance and the state of American politics.

This is what Mr. Gelsinger said on TV. I love this.

My message--

Mr. Gelsinger's message--

to congressional leaders is ``Hey, if I'm not done with the

job, I don't get to go home. Neither should you. Do not go

home for August recess until you have passed the CHIPS Act.

Because--

Now listen to this--

``I and others in the industry will make investment

decisions. And do you want those investments in the U.S. or

are we simply not competitive enough to do them here and

we''--

The industry--

``need to go to Europe or Asia for those? Get the job done.

Do not go home for August recess without getting these bills

passed.''

In other words, what he is telling you is, point blank, who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer. Don't go home this August until you give us $76 billion because, if you don't do that, we are going to go to Asia, and we are going to go to Europe.

That is the state of American politics--and not only of American politics, I would say. It is equally true in other countries that are also held hostage by large, multinational corporations.

Let us be clear. The CEO of Intel is saying, if you don't give his industry a $76 billion blank check and his particular company up to $30 billion, that despite, no doubt, their profound love for America--I am sure they have got big American flags all over the place and their patriotism and their concern for the needs of the military and the healthcare industry, which, in fact, need these sophisticated chips. If we do not give them this bribe despite their love of America and their concern about our national defense--you heard Senator Cornyn talking about national defense, and he is right in that this is a national defense issue. Despite all of that and all of their love for America, they are willing to go to Asia and go to Europe in order to make even more money.

As I said last week, I am, thankfully, not a lawyer, but that sure sounds like extortion to me. Mr. Gelsinger's words sure sound like extortion. What he is saying is, if you don't give his industry $76 billion, they are out. They are not going to build in the United States, and they are going to go abroad.

So I have a few questions for Mr. Gelsinger and the other microchip CEOs.

If Intel and the others receive a corporate welfare check from the taxpayers of America, are they willing to commit today that they will not outsource American jobs overseas? Yes or no?

If this legislation passes, will Intel and the others commit today that they will not spend another penny on stock buybacks to enrich wealthy shareholders but will, instead, spend that money to create jobs in the United States?

If this legislation goes into effect, will Intel and the others commit today that they will stay neutral in any union organizing campaign, like the one being waged at Intel's microchip plant in Hillsboro, OR?

If this legislation goes into effect, will Intel and the others commit today that they are prepared to issue warrants for the Federal Government so that the taxpayers of America get a reasonable return on their investments?

These grants are going to provide a whole lot of profit for these companies. It seems to me the taxpayers should benefit as well.

If Intel and the others were prepared to say yes to any of these questions, I don't think that they would be lobbying against my amendment to impose these very same conditions to this legislation.

Let me simply conclude by saying this: I worry not only about this bill; I worry about the precedent that it states, that it allows. What the precedent is, is that any company that is prepared to go abroad and that has ignored the needs of the American people will then say to the Congress: Hey, if you want us to stay here, you had better give us a handout.

We manufacture virtually all of our laptop computers in China. We manufacture virtually all of our cell phones in China. Pass this legislation, and I expect all of these guys and others will be back here, saying: We want for our industry what you did for the microchip industry.

So the bottom line is here: Yes, we need to rebuild the microchip industry in the United States but not as a handout. Let us sit down and work on intelligent industrial policy. Let us work on a series of agreements that protect the American taxpayer and American workers and not just wealthy stockholders.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 267, Executive Calendar No. 902, confirmation of Shereef Elnahal as Under Secretary for Health of the Department of Veterans Affairs. If I was present, I would have voted in support.

I object.

Mr. President.

Senator Lee raises important issues about the deficit. I hope very much that he will be able to convince his Republican colleagues and Democratic colleagues as well that, among many other reasons, we should vote against this major corporate welfare bill that is coming down the pike, which will add at least $76 billion to the deficit. So if we are concerned about the deficit, as Senator Lee is and many others are, I hope that will be one of the reasons we vote against this massive corporate welfare bill that we will be considering later this afternoon.

I hear a lot of concern about the deficit here in the Senate, and I hear people say: We can't afford to feed hungry children. We can't afford to deal with climate change. We can't afford to guarantee healthcare to all. The deficit is very, very large.

Well, we are talking about $76 billion--at least that; maybe more-- which will add to the deficit. So when you consider the deficit, you might want to also take into account tax breaks and corporate welfare for large, profitable corporations.

I want to say a few words about this so-called chips bill and what it says about our national priorities, what it says about our tax policies, and basically what it says as to whether or not the U.S. Congress is capable of representing the needs of working families or whether we are totally beholden to wealthy and powerful corporate interests and their campaign contributions.

Last week, when I spoke about this issue, I expressed deep concern that Congress would provide $52 billion to a handful of profitable corporations in the microchip industry with no strings attached. Here it is, guys, $52 billion. Well, I stand corrected. As a result of some new tax-reduction language, the corporate welfare total for the microchip industry has gone up; it is now at $76 billion. And the corporate lobbyists working on this bill, like pigs at the trough, are not yet finished. They want more and more and more. Their needs are insatiable.

Needless to say, I do not usually quote approvingly from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. They are not my best friends. In fact, I think I get attacked on that page more than any other Member of the Congress. But, as you know, a broken clock is right twice a day, and even the Wall Street Journal got this one right.

Among the many reasons they urged Congress to vote against this bill is one that I think is very relevant. Let me quote. This is from the Wall Street Journal editorial page today:

The chip bill isn't needed to compete with China, and it

will set a precedent that other industries will follow.

Anybody who can

throw up a China competition angle will ask for money. Why

Republicans want to sign up for this is a mystery.

The Wall Street Journal. The point they make is a good one. We should be clear that over 90 percent of the cell phones used in this country and over 90 percent of the laptops used in this country are made in China.

So you pass this bill, and tomorrow we will hear, no doubt, from the cell phone industry, from the computer laptop industry about how they need their welfare checks as well. So I think the Wall Street Journal every once in a while makes a good point, and today they did.

Mr. President, I recently came across a very, very interesting interview that the CEO of Intel, Mr. Pat Gelsinger, did last Friday on CNBC's ``Squawk Box,'' and I think in that interview he did tell us everything we want to know about the American oligarchy, about corporate arrogance, and the state of American politics. This is what Mr. Gelsinger said last Friday--Mr. Gelsinger, head of Intel:

My message to congressional leaders is, hey, if I'm not

done with the job, I don't get to go home. Neither should

you.

He is talking to Congress.

Do not go home for August recess until you have passed the

CHIPS Act because I and others in the industry will make

investment decisions, and do you want those investments in

the U.S., or are we simply not competitive enough to do them

here and we need to go to Europe or Asia for those? Get the

job done. Do not go home for August recess without getting

these bills passed.

That is Pat Gelsinger, head of Intel, last Friday.

In other words, Mr. President, the CEO of a major corporation which made nearly $20 billion in profits last year and a CEO who received a $179 million compensation package is saying to Congress that if you don't give my industry, the microchip industry, $76 billion and my company, it is estimated, some $20- or $30 billion, that despite their profound love for our country and their respect for American workers and their understanding of the needs of the U.S. military and the healthcare industry--despite all of that, in order to make more profits, they are prepared to go to Europe and Asia.

Now, Mr. President, I am, thankfully, not a lawyer, but that sure sounds like extortion to me. What Mr. Gelsinger is saying is that if you don't give the industry a blank check--here is $76 billion--and they want more, by the way--despite the needs of the military for advanced microchips--and we hear that from the military--despite the needs of the medical industry for advanced microchips, despite the entire needs of the American economy for advanced microchips, the industry is threatening to abandon this country and move abroad. Patriotic people, no doubt. Clearly, lovers of America.

Mr. Gelsinger says we should stay in session, if necessary, through August in order to pass his legislation. Well, I think we might want to stay in session through August but not necessarily to pass his legislation, because what I hear from the people in Vermont and people all across this country is that the job they want done is not a massive handout to large, profitable corporations; the job they want Congress to do is, for a change, to protect the American working class, our middle class, and the needs of the most vulnerable people in this country.

What I hear is that the American people want us to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child, as every other major country on Earth does.

What I hear is that the American people think it is absurd that some of the wealthiest people in this country and largest corporations don't pay a nickel in Federal taxes and that we should demand that those loopholes be ended.

What I hear is that the American people want us to deal with the existential threat of climate change so that the young people of this country can actually have a planet they can grow up with in a healthy way.

What I hear from the elderly people in this country, in my State, is they can't make it on the Social Security benefits they are receiving now; they want to raise those benefits.

What I hear from the people back home is they want Congress to do the job and protect a woman's right to control her own body, they want to see us pass serious gun safety legislation, and they want to protect the rights of all Americans to be able to vote.

That, among many other things, is what I hear from the American people in terms of getting the job done. Not too many people that I can recall--I have been all over this country--say: Bernie, you go back there and you get the job done, and you give enormously profitable corporations, which pay outrageous compensation packages to their CEOs, billions and billions of dollars in corporate welfare.

Now, maybe, Mr. President, you hear that. I don't hear that from the people in my State.

By the way, when we talk about an expenditure of $76 billion, yeah, we can give it to some large, profitable corporation with no strings attached or we can use it--$76 billion--to expand Medicare, to provide senior citizens with the high-quality hearing aids and eyeglasses they desperately need, and for a bit more, we can provide dental care as well.

For $76 billion, we could eliminate homelessness in America and create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs from Maine to California, building all of the affordable rental units that this country desperately needs. We can end homelessness or give a corporate welfare check to profitable corporations.

Mr. President, for $76 billion, we could make every community college in America tuition-free for the next 7 years. Go home and ask the people whether they think they would rather spend money on allowing our young people to be able to go to community college tuition-free or a welfare check to large, profitable corporations.

And on and on it goes. Seventy-six billion is a lot of money. I know Senator Lee would probably prefer to see that go into deficit reduction. Fair enough. And I am concerned about deficit reduction, but I am making the point that we can invest this in a way that really improves lives for millions and millions of working families.

Mr. President, there is no doubt that there is a serious global shortage in microchips and semiconductors, which is making it harder for manufacturers to produce the cars, the cell phones, and the electronic equipment we need. This shortage is costing American workers good jobs and raising prices for families, and that is why I strongly support efforts to expand U.S. microchip production. But the question we should be asking is this: Should the American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check of $76 billion at a time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars a year in profits and paying their CEOs very high salaries and compensation packages? I think the answer to that is a resounding no.

It is important, in light of Mr. Gelsinger's remarks and his threat to go to Asia or to Europe, to have a little bit of history about this issue. Over the last 20 years, the microchip industry has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs while moving most of its production overseas. They did that, by the way, after receiving $9.5 billion in government subsidies and loans.

In other words, we have the absurd situation where we have a crisis that is caused precisely by the people we are now attempting to bail out. So as a reward for their bad behavior, for shutting down 780 manufacturing establishments in America, they come back and say: Oh, we have a crisis in America. We need your help.

So they want us to pay to undo the damage they caused. Well, that may make sense to someone but not to me.

In total, Mr. President, it has been estimated that five major semiconductor companies will receive the lion's share of this technology handout. Those companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung. These five companies made $70 billion in profits last year.

The company that will likely benefit the most from this taxpayer assistance is Mr. Gelsinger's company, Intel. Now, I have nothing against Intel, and I wish them the best, but Intel is not a poor company. Last year, Intel made nearly $20 billion in profits. During the pandemic, Intel had enough money to spend $16.6 billion not on research and development, not on building new

plants, but on buying back its own stock to reward its executives and wealthy shareholders.

Over the past 20 years, Intel has spent over $100 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. So $100 million may seem like a lot of money, but if you are about to get $20 billion from the taxpayers of America, that is a very modest investment. Meanwhile, while they spent $100 million on lobbying and campaign contributions, they were shipping thousands of jobs to China and other low-income countries. Does this really sound like a company that needs a taxpayer handout?

Another company that would receive taxpayer assistance under this legislation is Texas Instruments. Last year, Texas Instruments made $7.8 billion in profits. In 2020, the company spent $2.5 billion buying back its own stock.

Meanwhile, other companies that will receive taxpayer support are the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company--and by the way, you would be shocked to know that the largest shareholder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is--well, you guessed it; it is the Government of Taiwan. So we would be giving money, I guess, directly to the Government of Taiwan. And on and on it goes.

Mr. President, I should be clear in stating that I do believe in industrial policy. I think that at times it is absolutely appropriate for the government to sit down with the private sector and say: Look, we have needs, and we want to work with you to solve those needs. You have a right to make a fair profit. We have the need--the right to see the needs of the American people addressed. We need a partnership.

To me, industrial policy means cooperation between the government and the private sector--cooperation. It does not mean the government providing massive amounts of corporate welfare to profitable corporations without getting anything in return.

So the question is, Will the U.S. Government develop an industrial policy that benefits all of our society or will we continue to have an industrial policy that benefits the wealthy, the powerful, their lobbyists, and the campaign contributors?

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the

rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor.

I am afraid that what Dr. King said 54 years ago was accurate back then and is even more accurate today.

So, Mr. President, the Senate has an important decision to make, and that is, do we simply provide a blank check or do we put some restrictions on that money? That is why I will be offering an amendment which does that.

It seems to me that if private companies are going to benefit from generous taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders. In other words, if microchip companies make a profit as a direct result of these Federal grants, the taxpayers of this country have a right to get a reasonable turn on that investment.

Further, if microchip companies receive taxpayer assistance, they must agree that they will not buy back their own stock, outsource American jobs overseas, repeal existing collective bargaining agreements, and must remain neutral in any union-organizing effort.

This is not a radical idea. All of these conditions were imposed on companies that received taxpayer assistance during the pandemic and passed the Senate in the CARES Act by a vote of 96 to 0. That is why I will be filing an amendment to impose these conditions to this legislation.

I understand that some language has been inserted into this bill that would prohibit microchip companies from using these grants to buy back their own stock. Let us be clear: This language is totally meaningless. Under this legislation, companies will still be able to use the enormous profits that they are making on stock buybacks.

Bottom line: Let us rebuild the U.S. microchip industry, but let us do it in a way that benefits all of our people, not just a handful of wealthy profitable and powerful corporations.

Let me suggest to my friend from Utah that I agree with a lot of what he said about this legislation that we are going to be voting on within the hour.

I would simply add that while this bill has had many names--lately, they call it the chips bill; it has also been called the China bill and so forth--but theoretically, it is supposed to be competing against China.

But I would point out that since 2005, Intel has invested at least $700 million in Chinese technology companies, including at least four microchip startups. In 2020, 2 years ago, Intel invested in two Chinese semiconductor startups, ProPlus and Spectrum Materials, as part of a $132 million investment in 11 startups, including 3 in China. So we are investing, ostensibly to protect us from China, in a company that, in fact, invests in China.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the American people are sick and tired of the unprecedented level of corporate greed that we are seeing right now. The American people are sick and tired of paying outrageously high prices at the gas pump and at the grocery store while at the same time oil companies and food companies are making recordbreaking profits.

The American people are sick and tired of struggling to pay for the basic necessities of life while at the same time 700 billionaires in this country became $2 trillion richer during the pandemic. And income and wealth inequality today is worse than it has been for 100 years-- people on top doing phenomenally well, middle class working families fall further and further behind.

The American people are sick and tired of seeing multibillionaires, like Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos and Mr. Branson, taking joyrides to outer space in their spaceships, buying $500 million superyachts, and living in mansions all over the world while some 600,000 people in our country are homeless. In other words, we are looking at two worlds. People on top never did better, middle class is continuing to decline, and the poor are living in abysmal conditions.

And in the midst of all of this, the American people want Congress, want their elected officials, to address corporate greed, to address income and wealth inequality, and end a tax system in which some of the wealthiest people in this country in a given year do not pay a nickel in Federal taxes, where large, profitable corporations do not pay a nickel in Federal taxes. And they want a tax system which is fair, where the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share.

The last poll that I saw had Congress--the U.S. Congress--with a 16- percent approval rating--16 percent. And to me, this was shocking, really quite shocking, because I suspect that the 16 percent who believe that Congress was doing something meaningful really don't know what is going on.

So what is Congress doing right now at a time in which we face so many massive problems, not to mention climate change, not to mention a massive housing crisis where 18 million families are paying half of their income in housing, not to mention the student debt that 45 million Americans are carrying? What is Congress about? What are we working on right this minute? And the answer is that for 2 months, a 107-member conference committee has been meeting behind closed doors to provide over $50 billion in corporate welfare, with no strings attached, to the highly profitable microchip industry.

No, we are not talking about healthcare for all. No, we are not talking about making higher education affordable. No, we are not talking about making sure that young people can earn decent salaries when they become teachers. No, we are not talking about leading the world in combating climate change. We are talking about giving $50 billion in corporate welfare, with no strings attached, a blank check, to the highly profitable microchip industry.

And, yes, if you can believe it--and I am talking to the 16 percent of Americans who have a favorable opinion of Congress--if you can believe it, this legislation may also provide a $10 billion bailout to Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in America, so that his company Blue Origin can launch a rocket ship to the Moon.

For all of my colleagues who tell us how deeply, deeply concerned they are about the deficit--oh, my goodness, we cannot help working families with a child tax credit; we cannot expand Medicare to cover dental and hearing aids and eyeglasses; we can't build the affordable housing; Bernie, we don't have the money to do that; we have a big deficit--well, what about the deficit when it comes to giving $52 billion in corporate welfare to some of the most profitable corporations in America? I guess, when you are giving corporate welfare to big and powerful interests, the deficit no longer matters.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is a global shortage in microchips and semiconductors, which is making

it harder for manufacturers to produce the automobiles and cell phones and the electronic equipment that we need. This shortage is costing American workers good jobs and raising prices for families. I don't think there is a debate about that reality, which is why I--and I think many other others here in the Senate--fully support efforts to expand U.S. microchip production.

But the question that we should be asking is this. Should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check of over $50 billion at a time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their executives exorbitant compensation packages? My answer to that question, and I think the American people's answer to that question, is a resounding no.

Let's review some recent history about the microchip industry, which I do not hear discussed very often here on the floor. Over the last 20 years, the microchip industry has shut down--has shut down--over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States. It shut down over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs while moving most of their production overseas after receiving some $91.5 billion in government subsidies and loans. Got that? They have shut down over 780 plants, thrown 150,000 American workers out on the street as they have gone abroad. In other words, in order to make more profits, these companies took government money and used that money to ship good-paying jobs abroad.

And what are we doing about that? You shut down plants in America; you jeopardize the production of microchips here in America; you throw 150,000 workers out on the street; and what is our response? Hey, here is $52 billion. Thank you very much for your patriotism and your respect for American workers.

Now, that approach may make sense to some people, maybe people who got a lot of money from the microchip industry in campaign contributions. I don't know. But it sure as hell does not make sense to me. In total, it has been estimated that five major semiconductor companies will receive the lion's share of this taxpayer handout. Those companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung.

These five companies, my friends, made $70 billion in profits last year. So if you are a worker in America trying to get by on $12, $13 an hour, nothing we can do for you. If you can't afford the outrageous cost of healthcare in America, can't do anything for you. Can't buy the prescription drugs that your doctor prescribes because they are too expensive? Can't do anything for you. But if you are an industry where the top five companies made $70 billion in profits last year, well, we have some good news for you. Keep the campaign contributions coming. We are there for you, and we are going to give you a $52 billion handout.

The company that will likely benefit the most from this taxpayer assistance is Intel. I have nothing against Intel. I wish them the best. But let's be clear. Intel is not a poor, struggling company. It is not a company which is going broke. In 2021, last year, Intel made nearly $20 billion in profits. That is not a bad year, $20 billion in profits. During the pandemic, Intel had enough money to spend $16.6 billion not on research and development, not on starting new plants in America but on buying back its own stock to reward its executives and wealthy shareholders. That is what Intel did with its $20 billion in profits.

Last year, Intel could afford to give its CEO, Pat Gelsinger, a $179 million compensation package--$179 million compensation package. Does that sound like a company that needs a corporate bailout, that needs taxpayer money to survive?

Over the past 20 years, Intel has spent over $100 million on lobbying and campaign contributions--that is the definition of the corrupt political system under which we live--while at the same time shipping thousands of jobs to China and other low-income countries. And that is a company that the American people should be bailing out, really?

Another company that would receive taxpayer assistance under this legislation is Texas Instruments. Last year, Texas Instruments made $7.8 billion in profits. In 2020, that company spent $2.5 billion buying back its own stock while it also, like Intel, has outsourced thousands of good-paying American jobs to low-wage countries.

Who else is in line to receive corporate welfare under this bill? Well, how about the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC? It is in line to potentially receive billions of dollars in Federal grants under this bill. It might be interesting to note who the largest shareholder of TSMC is. Well, if you guessed the Government of Taiwan, you would be correct, which should come as no surprise to anybody who studies how other countries throughout the world conduct industrial policy. Let us be clear. When we provide TSMC money, we are giving that taxpayer money directly to the Government of Taiwan.

Samsung, another very large corporate entity from South Korea, is also in line to receive Federal funding under this bill. In other words, not only would this bill be providing corporate welfare to profitable American corporations, but we would literally be handing over U.S. taxpayer dollars to corporations that are owned or controlled by other nations. And on and on it goes.

Let me be very clear. I believe in industrial policy. I do. I believe that it makes sense, on certain occasions, for the Federal Government and the private sector to work together to address a pressing need in America, to sit down and say: OK. You want to make some money. We have national needs that have to be addressed. How do we work well together so that you as a corporation do OK and so that taxpayers of this country do OK? That is called sensible industrial policy.

Industrial policy means cooperation between the government and private sector--cooperation. It does not mean the government providing massive amounts of corporate welfare to profitable corporations without getting anything in return. That is not industrial policy. That is just giving the money to large, profitable corporations that make a lot of campaign contributions.

The question is, Will the U.S. Government develop an industrial policy that benefits all of our people or will we continue to have an industrial policy that benefits the wealthy and the powerful?

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the

rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor.

I am afraid that what Dr. King said 54 years ago was accurate back then, and it is even more accurate today.

We hear a lot of talk in the Halls of Congress about the need to create public-private partnerships, and that all sounds very nice. But when the government adopts an industrial policy that socializes all of the risk and privatizes all of the profits, that is not a partnership; that is crony capitalism.

Some of my colleagues make a point that the microchip industry is enormously important for our economy and that we must become less dependent on foreign nations for microchips. I agree. There is no argument about that. But we can and must accomplish that goal without simply throwing money at these companies while the taxpayer gets nothing in return. In my view, we must prevent microchip companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants or equity stakes to the Federal Government.

If private companies are going to benefit from generous taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders. That is what a real partnership--private-public partnership--is about. In other words, if microchip companies make a profit as a direct result of these Federal grants, the taxpayers of this country have a right to get a reasonable return on that investment.

Further, if microchip companies receive taxpayer assistance, they must agree that they will not buy back their own stock, outsource American jobs, repeal existing collective bargaining agreements, and must remain neutral in any union organizing effort. This is not a radical idea. In fact, all of these conditions were imposed on companies that received taxpayer assistance during the pandemic and passed the Senate by a vote of 96 to 0. These are not radical demands.

Moreover, I know this may be a radical idea in the Halls of Congress, but, no, I do not believe that this legislation should approve a $10 billion bailout for Jeff Bezos to fly to the Moon. I know that is a very radical idea, but maybe, just maybe, a middle class which is struggling, which is falling behind, should not see their taxpayer dollars go to the second wealthiest person in America. Radical idea, I know, but that is my view. Mr. Bezos is worth some $138 billion. He became $33 billion richer during the pandemic, and in a given year, Mr. Bezos has paid nothing in Federal income taxes because he and his friends write a tax system that benefits the wealthy.

I say to Mr. Bezos, if he wants to go to the Moon, let him go to the Moon. That is OK. But he should do it on his own dime, not that of the U.S. taxpayers.

This is where we are. This country faces enormous issues. We are not dealing with those issues. Instead, we are talking about a massive bailout for profitable corporations and a $10 billion check for the second wealthiest guy in this country. I would hope that Members of Congress listen to the American people, stand up for the working class and the middle class of this country and not give a massive amount of corporate welfare to people who don't need it.

I yield the floor.