Floor Statements

Mr. President, I was absent for Senate vote No. 447, the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 471, Beth Robinson, of Vermont, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. I would like the record to reflect that had I been present, I would have voted yes.

I would ask unanimous consent that, at the end of my remarks, the scheduled vote take place.

Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I want to say a few words about some of the important budgetary issues that Congress is now facing. I want to focus on the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, but before I do that, I want to comment on the looming debt crisis that we face.

The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, this morning once again reiterated that the Republican Party will not vote to lift the debt ceiling; and in an extraordinarily irresponsible manner, Republicans have indicated that they will not pay the debts incurred under the Trump administration.

In his statement, as he has done time and time again, Senator McConnell implies that this debt ceiling has something to do with future spending. It does not.

In his statement, as he has done time and time again, Senator McConnell implies that this debt ceiling has something to do with future spending. It does not. Like anyone who owns a credit card, the payments that are made are for past spending--in this case, spending incurred under the Trump administration.

Let us be clear. If the United States, the largest economy in the world, defaults on its debt, it will plunge not only our country but the entire global economy into what could become a severe economic depression. That means massive unemployment, higher interest rates, severe reduction in government services, and possible cuts in such programs as Social Security and Medicare.

The irresponsibility of the Republican leadership is not just something that I worry about. According to press reports, former Republican Secretaries of Treasury Hank Paulson, who worked under George W. Bush, and Steven Mnuchin, who worked under Donald Trump-- Republican Secretaries of the Treasury--both of them visited with Senator McConnell to make the case about the need to extend the debt ceiling. They understand, as I think all of

us do, how important it is that the United States of America does not default on its debt, and it is about time that my Republican colleagues listen to them.

Now, let me say a word about the $3\1/2\ trillion reconciliation bill. There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to compromise. Well, let me be clear. To a very significant degree, that has already taken place. Of the 11 Democratic members of the Senate Budget Committee, 9 understood the need for a $6 trillion bill, which would finally address the unmet needs--the long-ignored needs--of the working families of our country, as well as begin the process of tackling the existential threat of climate change. My guess is that at least 40 out of the 50 Members of the Democratic caucus supported the $6 trillion proposal. We compromised big time. We cut that proposal--agreed to cut that proposal--almost in half, down to $3\1/2\ trillion. That, to my mind, is a major, major compromise.

As we go forward in this debate, let me be as clear as I can be as to why every penny of that $3\1/2\ trillion is absolutely needed, and let me also make clear that this bill, despite some of the rhetoric coming from my Republican colleagues, will not add--should not add and will not add one nickel to the deficit.

It will be paid for. It will be paid for by finally demanding that some of the wealthiest people in this country, who in any given year-- we are talking about multibillionaires who in a given year do not pay a nickel in Federal income tax or dozens of large, profitable corporations that in a given year do not pay a nickel in Federal income tax. Well, we are going to demand that these people start paying their fair share of taxes, and that is more than enough money to cover the $3\1/2\ trillion that is in this proposal. So anyone who suggests to you that this bill is not going to be paid for and that it is going to add to the deficit is simply not telling the truth. It should and will be fully paid for.

Now, the media is very worried about process. When are we going to do this? What about that person? What about that Senator? But they have forgotten to a large degree to talk about what is in the bill. I am not quite sure that the average American is staying up nights, worrying about whether it is completed on a Wednesday or a Friday or what this Senator thinks or what that Senator thinks; they would like to know what is in the bill.

The reality is that for many, many decades, while Congress has paid rapt attention to the needs of the wealthy and large campaign contributors, it has significantly ignored the needs of working families, the middle-class, and low-income people. I think the reason that many of my Republican colleagues are so upset about this legislation is that we are changing the dynamic. We are now beginning to pay attention to the needs of working families and not just the wealthy and the powerful.

So what is in this bill? First, as a result of the extraordinarily successful American Rescue Plan, which went a long way to pull this country out of the severe economic decline that we experienced as a result of the COVID pandemic, as a result of the American Rescue Plan, we cut childhood poverty in the United States of America by over 50 percent, and for Black and Brown families, that cut was even higher.

Year after year, the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. We took a major step forward in cutting childhood poverty. Now it is clear to me and I think to people all across this country that we must extend the $300-a-month-per-child direct payment that working-class and middle-class families now receive.

Let me be very clear. If we do not pass the reconciliation bill and not continue those payments, we would once again plunge the children of this country, millions of them, back into poverty, and that is morally unacceptable.

Furthermore, in the United States of America, every person should be outraged by the dysfunctionality of our childcare system. I don't think there is anybody who disagrees with that. We have millions of people who cannot find childcare. We have families in Vermont and Maine paying 20, 30, 40 percent of their limited incomes for childcare, which is pretty crazy. We have childcare workers who are employed at starvation wages. The system is not working. It is broken. It is dysfunctional.

It is not a radical idea to say that every family in America, when mom goes to work and dad goes to work, should be entitled to high- quality and affordable childcare. There are a lot of studies out there that say that the best investment we can make of Federal dollars is to our children, and that is why we have got to expand what we are doing in childcare. Under this legislation, no working family in this country will be paying more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. So if you are paying 20 percent now or you are paying 30 percent, we will reduce that to no more than 7 percent.

On top of that and of extraordinary significance, we are going to make pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds universal and free, and we are going to do, bottom line, what almost every other industrialized country on Earth does and understand that the most important investment we can make is in our children.

By the way, importantly, when we do that, we are going to allow well over a million women to go back into the workforce because they no longer will have to stay home because of a lack of affordable childcare. So if you are worried about labor shortages all over this country, you must support significantly expanding our childcare capabilities.

Further, what is in this legislation is, at a time when the pharmaceutical industry charges us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, we are going to demand that Medicare start negotiating prescription drugs with the pharmaceutical industry.

I know that Americans now have seen a lot of the ads--the completely dishonest ads from the pharmaceutical industry, and let's be clear. Over the last 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry has spent well over $4 billion on lobbying and hundreds and hundreds of millions more on campaign contributions. Guess what. They own the U.S. Congress. And that is why--when you walk into a pharmacy and you find that the price of your medicine has doubled, it is because they can do anything they want to do. They write the laws. They, right now, have 1,400 lobbyists running all over Capitol Hill, trying to make sure that we do not lower the cost of prescription drugs. And that is what this struggle is about.

These guys, year after year, make outrageous profits. Their CEOs get extraordinary compensation benefits, and they do that by charging us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Well, those days are coming to an end if Members of the Congress finally have the guts to stand up to them.

Now, I understand that the pharmaceutical industry owns the Republican Party. I got that. And I understand that there will not be one Republican in the Senate who has the guts to stand up for his or her constituents and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Well, there should not be any Democrat who is in that position. There should be no Democrats who are not prepared to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry.

When we have Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices, we can save over $500 billion. One of the things we are going to do with that $500 billion is do what the American people desperately want us to do, and that is to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing aids. This is the United States. Elderly people should not walk around without any teeth in their mouths. They should be able to afford to go to a dentist. It is not a very radical idea. Grandparents should be able to communicate with their grandchildren because they have a hearing aid that they need in their ears that today they cannot afford. Older people should be able to read their daily newspaper because they can get a pair of glasses that works for them.

The need to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids, and eyeglasses is absolutely critical. Nobody in the year 2021 denies that oral health, hearing, and vision are essential parts of healthcare. Medicare is supposed to cover the healthcare needs of seniors. Well, oral health, hearing, and vision are parts of healthcare.

Not surprisingly, out of all of the provisions in President Biden's Build Back Better plan, expanding Medicare to provide dental, vision, and hearing

aids is by far the most popular. According to a June 30 Morning Consult poll, adding dental, vision, and hearing benefits to Medicare is supported by 84 percent of the American people. It is not often you get 84 percent of the American people supporting anything. And yet that includes 89 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of Republicans. This is what the American people want, and this is what we must deliver for them.

Given that, it is just hard for me to imagine that any Member of the House or Senate would oppose this very popular and important provision.

It is a bit embarrassing that our Nation, the richest on Earth, is the only major country not to guarantee paid family and medical leave. I have been all over this country, and I have met with women--low- income women--who are forced to go back to work 1 week after having their baby because they need the income. We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave, not to make sure that a mom can stay home with her sick kid or a dad can spend time with his dying father or mother.

This legislation finally does what should have been done a long, long time ago and guarantees paid family and medical leave.

And what this legislation does is address the reality that many of our younger people are unable to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there because they lack the ability to get a higher education.

Now, my own view is we should make public colleges and universities tuition free. My own view is we should cancel all student debt in this country. That is not in this bill. But what is in this bill is the reality that every American will have the right to get at least 2 years of community college tuition free. And they can use that to get the training they need for jobs. They can use that to accumulate credits that can be transferred to a 4-year college, if that is what they desire.

A few blocks away from here and in every major city in America, there are Americans sleeping out on the streets. They are veterans. They are people with all kinds of issues. They are working people who simply cannot afford the housing in their community. Two blocks away from the U.S. Capitol there is an encampment of homeless people. Six hundred thousand Americans are homeless today, and on top of that, we have some 18 million households that spend 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing.

In other words, we have a major housing crisis. This legislation addresses that, and, in an unprecedented manner, invests in low-income and affordable housing. And when we do that, by the way, we create a whole lot of good-paying jobs.

We are an aging society. And whether people have severe disabilities or whether they are just getting old, people would rather stay at home in many cases rather than be forced into nursing homes. What our legislation will do is to significantly improve home healthcare in this country and make sure that those people who provide that important service, that difficult service, are adequately compensated, because today they are not. We need more of those workers, and we need to pay them decent wages.

I am sadly aware that many of my Republican colleagues do not believe that climate change is real or, at the very least, don't believe that we should do anything about it. But they are dead wrong. In my view, we cannot go home and look our children and grandchildren in the eye knowing what we know and knowing that the scientists are telling us that we have a very, very few years to address the climate crisis or else there will be irreparable harm done in our country and around the world.

We have turned on the TV this past summer, and we saw the unbelievable fires in Oregon and California and learned that in Siberia their fires were larger than all the other fires combined; smoke went thousands of miles. We learned that July was the hottest month ever and that climate is exacerbating extreme weather disturbances like Hurricane Ida, which brought havoc to Louisiana.

This legislation that we are proposing does not go as far as I think it should on climate. But make no mistake about it. It is a major, major step forward in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

So that is where we are right now. We are at a moment where millions and millions of Americans have lost faith in their government. They think that we are incapable of addressing their needs, that all we do is listen to wealthy campaign contributors and the lobbyists and the billionaire class.

The question we face right now is, At this moment, do we have the courage to keep faith with the American people and show them that their democracy in fact can work for them and not just powerful special interests?

So let us go forward. Let us do the right thing. Let us pass this $3\1/2\ trillion reconciliation package.

With that, I yield the floor.

I would ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, included an instruction to the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget to file enforceable levels in the Senate in the event the budget was agreed to without the need to appoint a committee of conference on the measure. On Wednesday, August 11, 2021, the Senate passed the budget resolution, and the House of Representatives passed it without changes on August 24. As such, today, I submit the required filing.

Specifically, section 4006 of the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution allows the chairman to file an allocation for fiscal year 2022 for the Committee on Appropriations and an allocation for fiscal years 2022, 2022 through 2026, and 2022 through 2031 for committees other than the Committee on Appropriations. The figures included in this filing are consistent with the levels included in S. Con. Res. 14.

For purposes of enforcing the Senate's pay-as-you-go rule, which is found in section 4106 of the fiscal year 2018 congressional budget resolution, I am resetting the Senate's scorecard to zero for all fiscal years.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables be printed in the Record.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vote on Amendment No. 3055

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

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

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

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

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

Vote on Amendment No. 3105

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that, following the Braun amendment, the following amendments be in order, that the amendments be reported by number, with no amendments in order, prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Fischer 3128, Ernst 3115, Scott of Florida 3383, Young 3444, and Lankford 3792.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Lankford amendment, the following amendments be in order; that the amendments be reported by number, with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Sullivan, No. 3627; Paul, No. 3150.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Sullivan amendment, the following amendments be in order; that the amendments be reported by number, with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendments: Wyden, No. 3805; Paul, No. 3150.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Paul amendment, the following amendments be in order, the amendments be reported by number with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Baldwin 3648, Romney 3652, Moran 3795.

Mr. President, Senator Paul's amendment would slash Federal spending by trillions of dollars. It would mean massive cuts to Medicare, to Medicaid, to food stamps, to virtually every Federal program that impacts working people and low-income people. It would cause massive suffering.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Vote on Amendment No. 3150

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be in order; that the amendments be reported by number, with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Cotton, No. 3680; Blackburn, No. 3062; Cruz, No. 3781.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Cruz amendment, the following amendments be in order, that the amendments be reported by number with no amendments in order prior to a vote in relation to the amendment: Hawley 2734; Booker 3823; Hoeven 3243; Marshall 3797; Kennedy 3758.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment that makes it more difficult for Congress to respond to an emergency when one occurs.

Let us be clear. There is no reason to hold up Federal dollars to help people recover from a natural disaster while Congress searches for revenue or spending cuts to pay for emergency assistance.

This amendment would create a supermajority hurdle for the Senate to declare something an emergency. When people are suffering after a hurricane or a wildfire, we should not be creating additional barriers to them getting the help they need.

Congress has provided exemptions for emergency spending ever since the budget process started a pay-as-you-go system. This helps Federal dollars respond to emergencies in a more timely manner.

Importantly, the 60-vote threshold still exists for emergency legislation, meaning any bill that includes emergency spending will still face a 60-vote hurdle. There is simply no need to make getting urgently needed money out of the door one step harder. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Madam President, this amendment is a poison pill that would defeat everything that many of us are trying to accomplish tonight in this historic budget: no reduction in childhood poverty; no expansion in childcare, pre-K, or Medicare; no investment in affordable housing or home healthcare; no paid family and medical leave; no effort to combat the existential threat of climate change; no creation of millions of good-paying jobs. Using an arbitrary inflation number, it would end all of that. This amendment must be defeated.

Vote on Amendment No. 3815

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 consideration of the resolution: majority staff, Michael Jones, Joshua Smith, Melissa Kaplan-Pistiner, Billy Gendell, and Liam Fagan; Republican staff, Nick Myers, Matthew Giroux, Matthew Joe Keeley, Becky Cole, and Krisann Pearce.

Madam President, let me thank Senator Durbin for his leadership in so many areas, including the understanding, as he just indicated, that the time is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for millions of undocumented workers and families in this country. Thank you very much, Senator Durbin.

As a former mayor, I do understand how important physical infrastructure is--roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants-- and I am delighted that finally we are beginning to address our long neglected physical infrastructure. Frankly, it is rather incredible that, year after year, we ignore crumbling bridges and roads. And as we address our physical infrastructure, we can create a whole lot of good- paying jobs.

So that bill that we are discussing right now is enormously important. I will tell you what is even more important, and that is to address the long neglected needs of the working families of our country, of the children, of the elderly, of the sick, of the poor, whether they are Black or White or Latino, Native American, Asian American. These are needs that Congress has ignored for much, much too long.

Now, I understand that Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, and others are really shocked by this bill. They cannot believe it. Imagine--just imagine--that the U.S. Senate is addressing the needs of working families and is going to stand up for ordinary Americans rather than just the wealthy and powerful? What is this world coming to? Don't we understand that here in the Senate we are supposed to take campaign contributions from the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry and from the 1 percent and do their bidding? Isn't that the way it has always been done here in the U.S. Senate?

Well, Senator McConnell, things are changing. For once in a very long time, the U.S. Congress is going to stand with working families and not just the rich and the powerful.

Further, above and beyond the economic crisis facing working families, Congress has ignored the great existential threat of our time, and that is climate change. You don't have to believe me. Maybe some of my Republican colleagues might want to take a look at the IPCC report, which came out today, which said that if we do not act boldly and immediately all over this planet, the world that we will be leaving our children and grandchildren will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.

But you don't have to just read the IPCC report. Open up your eyes. Look at what is going on in California, the fires in Oregon, the fires in Greece, and the drought that is impacting countries all over the world, which will mean a decrease in food production and water supply.

We have to act now in order to save the planet. There is no choice. We cannot go home and look our children and grandchildren in the eye if we do not act now and lead the world. We can't

do it alone. We are going to have to work with China and India and Europe, but we cannot continue to ignore this existential threat.

The gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is wider today than it has been in 100 years. People on top are doing phenomenally well. In fact, we have two people in America today who own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and since 2009--the Wall Street collapse--45 percent of all new income has gone to the top 1 percent.

And, incredibly, during the pandemic that we are experiencing now, billionaires in America have seen their wealth increase by $1.8 trillion during this pandemic, while at the same time, thousands of essential workers died providing the goods and services we needed.

Billionaires become richer. Ordinary people have to go to work-- public transit, grocery stores, hospitals--and thousands die. While some of our multi-multibillionaires are spending some of their enormous amounts of money flying off into outer space, today and in the coming days we are going to address the crises facing working families right here on the ground, on planet Earth.

And that is why, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I am proud to introduce a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that we will soon be considering--I expect tomorrow.

This is a budget resolution that will allow the Senate to move forward on a reconciliation bill that, in my view, will be the most consequential and comprehensive piece of legislation for working people, for the elderly, for the children, for the sick, and for the poor, that this body has addressed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New Deal, in the 1930s.

This is a budget resolution that will address the needs of working families because we understand, if our Republican colleagues do not, that there is something fundamentally wrong when real inflation accounted-for wages for working people has not gone up for almost 50 years.

We have seen in recent years, as everybody knows, an explosion in technology, an explosion in worker productivity. And yet, in real inflation accounted-for dollars, where the very, very rich become much richer, real inflation accounted-for wages for workers has not gone up in almost 50 years.

What does that mean?

It means the cost of healthcare has soared. The cost of education has soared. The cost of housing has soared. And yet real workers, real working families of this country are earning in real dollars the same wages that they did decades ago, which means that many of them are struggling right now to keep their heads above water economically.

In the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people should not be living paycheck to paycheck, worried about how they are going to pay their rent or provide food for their kids.

This legislation, in so many ways, begins to address the working families of our country. But one important way--maybe the most important--is, as we address the needs of our people in healthcare, in education, in climate, we are going to create many millions of good- paying--good-paying--jobs that the American people desperately need.

I want to say a few words today about the budget resolution that we are introducing and what is going to be in the reconciliation package that we will soon be undertaking.

For a start, one of the questions that everybody is going to ask is: Well, how is this going to be paid for? Expensive bill, $3\1/2\ trillion. You know, that is a lot of money.

It is.

Well, I happen to think, and I know that you do as well--I say to the Presiding Officer that maybe, just maybe, the time is now for the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations who are doing phenomenally well, but in a given year, many of them have not paid a nickel in Federal income tax--ah, the average Joe, the average Mary out there, they are working. They are paying their fair share of taxes. But if you are an Amazon, if you are a Jeff Bezos, if you are one of these multibillionaires, you have lobbyists, you have accountants, you have lawyers, and you can avoid paying your fair share of taxes.

So what some of us are saying is that maybe, just maybe, even if you are a billionaire, even if you are a large, profitable corporation with all kinds of lobbyists and accountants, maybe you should start paying your fair share of taxes.

My Republican friends say we are going to be raising taxes. Well, you are right, we are. But we are going to be raising taxes on the wealthiest people in this country--something which is long overdue--and yet nobody in America earning less than $400,000 a year will pay a nickel in taxes, and many, many, will actually be paying less in taxes.

So my Republican friends can complain all that they want, but I do believe, and the American people do believe, that the time is now for the wealthy, the powerful, the large, profitable corporations to start paying their fair share so that, in fact, we can lower taxes for working families in this country.

I think the American people have already begun to see what good public policy for working families can mean. In Vermont, in Massachusetts, and all over this country, working families--the vast majority of our families--are now receiving a $300-per-month check per child, and this is long, long overdue.

Some say this is a radical idea. It is not. It is exactly what countries all over the world do because they understand, and we understand, how difficult it is today for working families to raise children.

And I am enormously proud of the fact--and everybody in this Chamber should be proud of the fact--that at a time when the United States has one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, as a result of the work in the American Rescue Plan, which must be extended in the reconciliation bill, we have reduced childhood poverty in America by 61 percent--61 percent--because we are now getting the resources out to moms and dads that they need in order to adequately and decently raise their kids.

You know, I hear a lot of talk about how we love our kids or the future of our country. Well, if we love our kids, we have to love their parents as well, and we have to make it easier for parents to raise their kids.

But it is not just the child tax credit. I suspect that there are very few people in this country who do not understand how dysfunctional our childcare system is. We are not living in the 1950s, where dad goes out to work and mom stays home with the kids. That is not the case anymore. It has not been the case for a very long time. Dad is out working and mom is out working because families all across this country need two breadwinners in order to pay the bills.

While mom is working and dad is working, who is taking care of the kids?

And that is, in fact, a major, major crisis in this country, and the current system just is not working.

In my State, the State of Vermont, it costs $15,000 a year, which is about the national average, to send your child into childcare.

What does that mean?

It means that if you are making $60,000 a year, you are spending a quarter of your income just to make sure that your child is well taken care of while you go to work. If you have two kids, forget about it. It doesn't pay to go to work because you are spending so much on childcare. Everybody understands that. That is not a debate.

So the time is long overdue not only to protect the needs of working families, but also to provide well for our children.

Psychologists after psychologists have told us that the most important years of human development are 0 through 4. And yet so many of our kids all over this country--little kids--are sitting in front of TV sets, not getting the kind of nurturing, emotionally and intellectually, that they need. This legislation begins to change that.

Under our proposal, no working family in this country should be paying more than 7 percent of their income for childcare.

Working parents, do you hear what I just said? No more than 7 percent--not 30 percent, not 25 percent.

That is what we should be doing.

And we have so much work to do in childcare. I know the Presiding Officer understands that. We got to build new facilities for kids because once we open the door for affordable childcare, the truth is we don't have enough space to accommodate the children.

And we have got to start paying childcare workers the wages they are due for the enormously important work they are providing. We got childcare workers in America today making less than McDonald's workers. What an insult. How wrong is that?

So this legislation is going to provide increased subsidies for working families to afford childcare. We are going to pay workers in childcare living wages and benefits, and we are going to build the new facilities that we need to accommodate the families who will now have the opportunity to take advantage of childcare.

But in terms of our children, who we have ignored for so, so long, we are going to do even more than that. We are going to make pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds free. God didn't create an education system that begins in kindergarten. It is created by human beings, and the world has changed. And what we have got to understand now, with so many of our parents working, that we have got to make pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds free, and that is what we do in this legislation.

And, by the way, not widely reported, but when we revolutionize childcare and pre-K so that moms and dads know that their kids are in quality and affordable facilities, we are going to see more than a million women able to go into the workforce because they no longer have to stay home to take care of the kids. If they want to work, we will give them the opportunity to pursue their careers.

The Presiding Officer knows, and I know, that there is something a little bit absurd that the United States of America is literally one of two nations in the entire world--and I am talking about poor nations-- that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave.

What does that mean?

What it means: That there are workers today who are at work when they are sick. Maybe they are spreading the virus or some other illness. There are working families who have to make a choice: Does mom go to work and leave her sick child at home alone, or does she stay home and maybe lose her job?

I have talked--and I am sure the Presiding Officer has spoken--to women who gave birth to a baby and a week later--a week later--was forced to go back to work because they had no income coming in.

I know this may shock some of my Republican colleagues, but there are countries all over this world that understand that it is enormously important that parents be able to bond with their babies. And in countries around the world, women get 4 months, 5 months, 8 months off with full pay or with a significant part of their paycheck in order to stay home with their newborn babies.

So, finally, finally, we are beginning--beginning; more to do; beginning--to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave.

I know the Presiding Officer has been involved in this issue--I have and a number of my colleagues have--in the understanding that in the contemporary global economy, if our young people are going to go out and get decent-paying jobs, a shock of all shocks, they actually need to have the skills and the education in order to perform those jobs.

So you have a situation now where there are jobs all over this country that are lying vacant, not being taken, because people don't have the skills.

Now, I personally believe we should do what other countries are doing and we should make all public colleges and universities tuition-free and should forgive all student debt. That is not in this bill.

But what is in this bill is a beginning--a beginning--and that says that we will make community colleges in this country tuition-free.

Now, what does that mean?

It means a couple of things. It means that if I go to community college, I can learn a skill--whether it is nursing, whether it is construction trades, whatever it may be. I can learn the skills that I need to go out and get a job that pays me a living wage.

And that is enormously important because--especially as we rebuild this country--as we begin to pay attention to healthcare and to childcare and to taking care of our parents and the disabled people, we need skilled workers, and making community colleges tuition-free for 2 years is an important step forward in allowing people to gain those skills.

But, also, for those people who want to go to a 4-year college, those 2 years of community college credits are transferrable. So your tuition is paid for the first 2 years. My hope is that we will soon be able to pay for the next 2 years as well, but this is a real start in allowing millions of young people to get an education today that previously they could not afford.

Two blocks away from where we are in the Nation's capital there is an encampment of homeless people. All over this city, you can't drive down the Nation's capital and not see people sleeping out on the street, and that is true in virtually every major city in America. Once again, the richest country in the history of the world, and some 600,000 Americans are homeless.

Then, on top of that, you have got about 18 million households where people are spending 50 percent or more of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads.

Now, how do you survive economically if you are spending 50 percent of your income on housing?

This legislation will create a huge number of good-paying jobs by the largest investment in American history in low-income and affordable housing. And I see the chairman of the Banking Committee here, and I want to thank Senator Brown for his important work in that area.

Just a few days ago, I had a chat with a gentleman whose wife is seriously ill. He works and he pays for the home healthcare that she needs, and it is an expensive proposition.

What we understand is that, in an aging society and at a time when we have so many people with disabilities whose needs are not being met, it makes eminent sense to bring skilled home-healthcare workers into the home rather than to force people to go into a nursing home, which, by the way, is more expensive. And this legislation, the reconciliation bill that we will soon be working on, will make historic investments in home healthcare and make sure that those workers--like childcare workers, who do such important work--are adequately compensated.

IPCC today reported what all of us know, and that is, if we do not begin in an extremely aggressive way transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, the planet that we will be leaving our children will be increasingly unhealthy.

It really does take your breath away to look at those photos--whether it is Oregon, whether it is California, whether it is Greece right now--and see flames consuming entire communities.

And if anybody out there thinks that, gee, isn't this too bad that it is happening this year, you have got it wrong. It is only going to get worse if we do not act and act boldly, which is why this legislation will pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the fight to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, including a civilian Climate Corps, which will give the young people of this country the opportunity to roll up their sleeves, get decent pay, and get educational benefits in order to do what is so much in their hearts, and that is to combat climate change.

I wish that I could tell you that my Republican colleagues understand the crises facing working families and that they understand the moral imperative of us having to address climate change and that we are working together to do, in fact, what the American people want: create millions of good-paying jobs, addressing the needs of working families and climate change.

I wish I could tell you that, but I can't. As we go forward, in all likelihood, we will not get one Republican vote. We are going to have to do it on our own with 50 Democratic votes here in the Senate, plus the Vice President of the United States.

Now, some of my Republican friends will say: Well, that is such a bad idea.

Why aren't you more bipartisan in terms of reconciliation?

Well, I would remind my Republican colleagues that they didn't have a problem with reconciliation when they gave almost $2 trillion in tax breaks to the very richest people in this country and the largest corporations. No problem doing that. They didn't have a problem with reconciliation when they tried to throw 30 million people off of the healthcare they had by abolishing the Affordable Care Act.

So that is where we are. We are facing a crisis facing working families. We need to create millions of good-paying jobs. We need to tackle the existential threat of climate change. We need to expand healthcare and Medicare so that elderly people have dental care, eyeglasses, and hearing aids. We need to lower the cost of prescription drugs and have Medicare negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry. We need to make sure that we get doctors and nurses and dentists into underserved areas.

So, Madam President, tomorrow begins one of the very important debates that we have ever had. And the question is not complicated. Do we have the courage to stand up to powerful special interests and tell the corporate world and the 1 percent: Yeah, you are finally going to have to pay your fair share of taxes so that we can create millions of good-paying jobs for working families, so we can protect our children, protect the elderly, and address the threat of climate change?

That is the issue. And I have absolute confidence that we will, in fact, rise to the occasion and do what the American people want and that we will pass the budget resolution tomorrow

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, as I understand it, the Senator from Alabama is interested in increasing military spending by some $50 billion.

You know, there is a headline in the New York Times today. It doesn't talk about the fact that the United States now spends more than the next 10 nations on the military. It doesn't talk about the fact that the Pentagon is the only major Agency of government that has not submitted successfully to an independent audit. It doesn't talk about the fact of huge profits among defense contractors.

What it does talk about is that a hotter future is now inevitable, a U.N. report says. Scientists urge immediate switch from fossil fuels to avert greater peril.

So I would say to my friend from Alabama, if we are going to invest $50 billion, let us, in fact, invest in transforming our energy system so that we can save this planet for future generations and prevent the kind of unhealthy deterioration that we will inevitably see if we do not act.

So, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, as a former mayor, I have a sense as to how important physical infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants--are, and I am delighted that we are finally beginning to address our long-neglected physical infrastructure. That is enormously important.

But I will tell you what is even more important, and that is to address the human infrastructure, the needs of the

working class of this country, the middle class of this country, the low-income people of our country, whether they are Black or White or Latino or Native American, Asian American--needs that have been neglected for decades.

It is no secret to the American people that, for a very long time, the U.S. Congress has paid keen attention to the needs of the people on top. Yet we have turned our backs on millions of people who are struggling to put food on the table, to take care of their kids, to take care of their parents. And on top of that, obviously, we have ignored the great existential crisis of our time, and that is climate change.

And the result of all of that is that, today, the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is wider than it has been in 100 years. Today, you have two people--two people--who have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. And for many of our billionaire friends, apparently they are increasingly unconcerned about what happens here on Earth because they are off in outer space. But some of us who go home every weekend to our States and our districts, we kind of are worried about what is going on down on Earth and the needs of working families.

So, Mr. President, as you know, as soon as we address this bipartisan physical infrastructure bill, we are going to move toward what I consider to be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation for working families since FDR, the New Deal, and the Great Depression. And we are going there and addressing the needs of working families because we understand that real wages for workers have not gone up in 50 years. An explosion of technology, an explosion of worker productivity, and yet, in real inflation accounted-for dollars, many workers today are not making a nickel more than they did 50 years ago.

We are going forward on the reconciliation bill to address the needs of the working class because, in the richest country in the history of the world, it is unacceptable that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. They go to work, and at the end of the week they have got nothing in the bank, and maybe they are even further behind because they can't afford their healthcare needs, the rent, and the educational costs of their children.

We are going to go forward and pass this legislation because the time is long overdue for the U.S. Congress to begin to make sure the American people understand that our job is not just to represent the corporate elites and wealthy campaign contributors but to address the needs of the struggling men and women of our country.

On top of all of that, it would be incomprehensible to the people of our country who turn on the TV and they see the west coast burning; they see the drought in the Midwest; they see the floods all over Europe; Australia on fire--it would be incomprehensible and a real crime against future generations if we did not finally address, in a significant way, the existential threat not only to our country but to the world in terms of climate.

And I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the work that the Budget Committee has done and what is going to be in that reconciliation package because my friends here in the media are very concerned about process, which is fine, but the American people want to know: Hey, what is the Congress going to do for me? What is it going to do to improve my life, my children's lives, my parents' lives? What are we going to do to save the planet?

For a start, we understand that it is absolutely imperative to end the obscenity of some of the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations, in a given year, not paying a nickel in Federal income taxes.

So what we have seen in the pandemic, what we have seen in recent years is the very, very wealthiest people becoming phenomenally richer. And then there are studies that are coming out that show that, in a given year, some of the very wealthiest people in this country--multi, multibillionaires--are not paying a nickel in Federal income tax.

At a time when corporate profits are soaring, we are seeing many major corporations, making billions a year, also not paying a nickel in Federal income tax. And we are also seeing the pharmaceutical industry, which is enormously profitable, which charges our people the highest prices in the world for the prescription drugs that we desperately need--we are seeing a situation where they can charge us anything they want because of the power of their lobbyists and their campaign contributions. And we are going to put an end to that as well because we are going to demand that Medicare start negotiating prescription drug costs with the pharmaceutical industry.

So my Republican colleagues say: Well, they are going to be raising taxes.

Yes, we are going to be raising taxes on billionaires and on large, profitable corporations, and we are going to demand that the pharmaceutical industry stop ripping us off. But we are adhering to President Biden's belief, which I share, that nobody earning less than $400,000 a year should pay a nickel more in taxes. We are going to do exactly what the American people want us to do and tell the billionaire class that they are going to have to start paying their fair share of taxes.

What else are we going to do, and what are we going to use that money for? We are going to use that money to start protecting the needs of our children, working families, and the elderly.

I think many Americans now see what public policy can mean in their lives because we are providing a $300-a-month check per child. The United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. That is a disgrace, and it should be unacceptable to every Member of the Senate. Well, we are going to end that.

I am very proud to say, Mr. President, as I know you know, that as a result of the 1-year child tax credit extension, $300 per child, we have reduced childhood poverty in America by 61 percent. Parents all over--in Vermont, California--now have the ability to start taking care of their children. Our job in reconciliation is either to make that $300 a month permanent, which I would like to see, or at the very least extend it for a number of years.

Furthermore, in the United States of America, every person in this Chamber should be disgusted by the dysfunctionality of our childcare system. This is not 1950. Mom is going out to work. Dad is going out to work. And they demand quality, affordable childcare, which does not exist today.

What we say and what our goal is, is that no working family in this country should be paying more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. On top of that, we are going to make pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds free. Yes, that is right--free. We are going to do what other industrialized countries do and understand that the most important investment we can make is in the little children.

By the way, when we do that, we are going to allow well over a million women to go back to work because they no longer have to stay home because of lack of affordable childcare.

It is a bit embarrassing that our great country is the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave. Imagine that. Every other country in the world, virtually, does that. In America, I have met with women, low-income women, who give birth, and then they have to go back to work in a week or two because they don't have the money to stay home. We are going to end that. We are going to have, as a nation, guaranteed paid family and medical leave.

We are going to address the reality that many of our younger people are unable to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there because they lack the higher education.

Now, I myself will go further than this bill is going to go. I think time is long overdue to make public colleges and universities tuition- free and cancel all student debt. That is not what is in this bill. But what is in this bill says that, at the very least, every American will have the right to get 2 years of community college, and they can use that to get the training they need, to get the good jobs. Maybe it is nursing. Maybe it is something else. But they will also get the credits they need so they can transfer into a 4-year school, making a big step forward in getting young people the ability to get the training they need and the education they need to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there.

Mr. President, I know that you are aware that right here in this country, right here on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, you have people sleeping out on the street, and they are sleeping out on the street in every State in this country. In fact, we have almost 600,000 people sleeping out on the streets of the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Well, this legislation will create millions of jobs in housing and in other areas because we are going to build the lower income and affordable housing that we need.

It is not only homelessness. You have 18 million households spending 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing. We need to build low- income and affordable housing, and when we do that, we will create a heck of a lot of good-paying jobs.

Just today, I talked to a gentleman whose wife is very, very ill and who is having a hard time affording the home healthcare that he is paying for.

We are an aging society, and whether people have severe disabilities or whether they are just getting old, people would rather stay at home in many cases rather than be forced into nursing homes. What our legislation will do is significantly improve home healthcare in this country and make sure that those people who provide that important service, difficult service, are adequately compensated.

I know that many of my Republican colleagues don't believe that climate change is real, don't believe that we should do anything about it, but they are dead wrong. And we cannot go home and look our children and grandchildren in the eye knowing what we know, knowing that in many ways, the climate crisis turns out to be worse than what scientists predicted it would be.

Climate ordinarily changes over thousands of years, hundreds of years. We are seeing the change in climate with our own eyes year by year. It is frightening. And if people think that the forest fires in Oregon, California, Montana, and elsewhere are an aberration, that they are once-in-a-lifetime, you are wrong. Everything being equal, we will see worse in years to come.

The truth is, what makes this crisis so difficult, we can't solve it alone. We are going to have to work with China and India and Europe. We have to bring the world together to save this planet for our kids and future generations.

This legislation takes an important step forward. It doesn't go as far as it should, but it is a major step forward in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

I know we will be hearing from my Republican colleagues who are very upset that this will be a partisan bill, which it will be, but let me remind them that they use the so-called reconciliation process recently in two areas--two areas.

No. 1, they thought it important to go forward in a partisan way, without Democratic support, for the enormously important goal of giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations. That is how they used the reconciliation process.

Well, we have a little different idea. We are going to use the reconciliation process and the 50 votes we have with the Vice President to protect the working families of this country, not the billionaire class.

The other effort that they made in terms of reconciliation was to try--and they came within one vote of doing it; the late John McCain-- they would have thrown up to 30 million Americans off of healthcare by ending the Affordable Care Act.

So they have used reconciliation, and we will use it, except we are going to use it to protect ordinary Americans--the children, the elderly, the sick, and the poor--rather than just the very wealthy or the pharmaceutical industry.

We are now in the midst of a debate over the physical infrastructure, the bipartisan bill--very important. We need to rebuild our roads and bridges, but more important is the need to address the crises facing working families all over this country. When we go forward and do that, when we protect our children and the elderly and the environment, we are going to create millions of good-paying jobs, put people to work rebuilding this country in a way that is long, long overdue.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I want to rise to say a few words about the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which we are debating today. I think that the thrust of that act and what we are trying to accomplish is enormously important.

Right now, as I think most people know, we have a crisis in terms of microchip production here in the United States, and we are becoming increasingly dependent upon countries all over the world. For our own manufacturing sector--the automobile sector, the electronics sector-- that is a very bad position to be in, and also, obviously, being dependent on other countries for microchips is a dangerous place to be in terms of national security.

I especially like provisions in this legislation which will increase funding for research and development, increase funding for science and technology, and invest in more Ph.D.s. We need more Ph.D.s in our country in science, technology, engineering, and math. I think those are very important steps in the right direction.

But I do have some very serious concerns about two provisions in this bill. No. 1, I am deeply concerned about the provisions which will provide $52 billion in emergency appropriations for the microchip industry, with no strings attached. Let me repeat that. We are talking about $52 billion in Federal funds--and, by the way, I suspect there will be more taxpayer money coming to these corporations from State and local government--with no strings attached. And, second of all, there is a provision in this bill, not an appropriation but an authorization, to provide some $10 billion to the Blue Origin space company, which is owned by the wealthiest person in the world, Mr. Bezos.

When we talk about the microchip industry, we are talking about an industry that is not a poor, struggling industry. In fact, it is an extremely successful and wealthy industry that is worth now more than half a trillion dollars--more than $500 billion. We are talking about an industry, interestingly enough, that, at the same time we are now trying to provide corporate welfare to them, is an industry that has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States over the past several decades and laid off 150,000 American workers. So what you have is a situation that, over the last two decades, these very large corporations said: Why do I want to stay in the United States of America, pay workers here a living wage, protect environmental standards? I can go to companies in Asia and elsewhere and buy my products from them. The result, again, is 780 manufacturing plants in the last several decades have shut down in America, and 150,000 American workers were laid off.

Now, let's talk about how we don't know exactly--nobody does--where this $52 billion in corporate welfare is going to go. But, obviously, it will go to some of the larger microchip companies, and one of the very largest is Intel.

Let me say a word about Intel. Last year, Intel made nearly $21 billion in profits. So we are proposing to provide many billions of dollars to a company that, last year, made $21 billion in profits. They spent $14.2 billion on stock buybacks--$14.2 billion on stock buybacks. And, by the way, this company which is in line for a major infusion of U.S. taxpayer money, provided $110 million signing bonus to its CEO, Patrick Gelsinger.

Since 2015, this very same company, Intel, has shipped over 1,000 jobs overseas. Now, interestingly enough, Intel's CEO has admitted recently that it does not need corporate welfare. Let's give them credit for that. The CEO recently said his investment in America ``does not depend on a penny of government support or state support or any other investments to make it successful and never will.'' They are prepared to do it on their own, which is what we hope most private corporations would do.

Now, among the other very large, leading microchip companies is the well-known Texas Instruments. They may well be in line to receive billions of dollars in corporate welfare as well under this piece of legislation.

Last year, Texas Instruments made $5.6 billion in profits and spent $2.5 billion buying back its own stock, while it has outsourced thousands of jobs to low-wage countries. The CEO of Texas Instruments made over $30 million in total compensation last year--more than 400 times what the median worker at that company made. And this is also another company in line to receive billions and billions of dollars in Federal corporate welfare.

Who else might receive corporate welfare under this bill? Well, how about the major semiconductor company from Taiwan called the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or what is often referred to as ``TSMC,'' which is a very, very, very large microchip company. It is interesting to note who is the largest shareholder in that company. Well, it should not surprise anybody because this is how countries around the world do industrial policy, but the largest shareholder in TSMC is the Government of Taiwan. So when you give TSMC money, you are giving that money directly to the Government of Taiwan.

Samsung, another very large corporate entity, South Korean, it owns several plants in Texas. So what we are looking at here is a reality where taxpayer money from working people in this country will be going to large, profitable corporations, and several of them are owned literally by other entities.

In total, the top five semiconductor companies that may well receive grants under this legislation made nearly $35 billion in profits and spent more than $18 billion buying back its own stock last year.

So here is the bottom line. I believe that we do want to grow the microchip industry here in the United States of America for reasons that everybody is familiar with. That is the industry that we need if we are going to grow the automobile industry, the electronics industry, and every other industry in this country. And we need to not be dependent upon China and other countries for the microchips that are used in these products.

So I am sympathetic to the goal of this bill, but I am not sympathetic with the idea of simply laying out $52 billion of taxpayers' money with no strings attached.

That is why I have introduced Senate amendment No. 2016. This amendment would prevent microchip companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants to the Federal Government.

If private companies are going to benefit from over $52 billion in taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders. In other words, all this amendment says is that if these companies want taxpayer assistance, we are not going to socialize all of the risks and privatize all of the profits.

And let me be very clear; this is not a radical idea. This is not something that I made up or any other Senator made up. These exact conditions were imposed on corporations that received taxpayer assistance in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed the Senate 96 to 0. In other words, every Member of the U.S. Senate has already voted for the conditions that are in the amendment that I cosponsored by Senator Warren, by the way. They are in the amendment that we are offering.

Further, this amendment will also require companies--again, all of this was in the CARES Act. Every Member or at least 96 Members of the Senate voted for these conditions--not a new idea. So in addition to making sure that companies allow for warrants, it would be demanded that they could not buy back their own stock, not outsource American jobs overseas, not repeal existing collective bargaining agreements, and remain neutral in any union organizing effort.

Again, these are not new ideas, not radical ideas. All of these conditions are identical to the conditions that were placed in the CARES Act, which passed 96 to nothing.

I also want to say a word about the provision in there that authorizes $10 billion for Blue Origin, a company owned by Mr. Bezos.

You know, when we were younger and Neil Armstrong made it to the Moon, there was incredible joy and pride in this country that the United States of America did something that people forever had thought was impossible. We sent a man to the Moon, an extraordinary accomplishment. And the entire world watched that event with bated breath. It was just an extraordinary accomplishment for all of humanity, not just the United States, but we have a special pride because that was our project.

I worry very much that what we are seeing now are two of the wealthiest people in this country--Mr. Musk, Elon Musk, and Mr. Bezos-- deciding that they are going to take control over our space efforts to get to the Moon and maybe even the extraordinary accomplishment of getting to Mars. What an accomplishment that would be.

But I have to tell you that I have a real problem that, to a significant degree, we are privatizing that effort. So that as a nation, we will not sit with pride in saying we did it but instead saying, well, maybe Mr. Bezos or maybe Mr. Musk sent somebody to the Moon or maybe even to Mars. This is something that should be an American effort, that all of us should be part of and not simply be a private corporation undertaking. So I have a real problem with the authorization of $10 billion going to somebody who, among other things, is the wealthiest person in this country.

So what I hope very much is that my amendment will be a part of the managers' amendments. I suspect there are Republicans who often tell us about wanting to save taxpayer dollars and not just throw them about who would be sympathetic to this effort, and I know there are a number of Democrats who are as well. So I would hope very much that my amendment No. 2016, which will be modified to just include provisions that were in the CARES bill, that it will be included in the managers' amendments that we will be voting on shortly.

With that, I leave the microphone.

I did know that.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will object to the unanimous consent request by Senator Scott and offer my own resolution. Unlike Senator Scott's resolution, mine is short and to the point, and I think it expresses the feelings of the overwhelming majority of people in our country and, in fact, throughout the world.

This is what our resolution says:

Whereas every Palestinian life matters; and

Whereas every Israeli life matters:

Now, therefore be it resolved that the Senate urges an

immediate cease-fire to prevent any further loss of life; and

further escalation of conflict in Israel and the Palestinian

territories, and supports diplomatic efforts to resolve the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to uphold international law and

to protect the human rights of Israelis and Palestinians.

I would like to thank my colleagues Senator Warren, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Kaine, Senator Carper, Senator Heinrich, Senator Murphy, Senator Merkley, Senator Ossoff, Senator Leahy, and Senator Markey for cosponsoring this resolution.

I would also like to point out that those of us who are supporting an immediate cease-fire are certainly not alone. We join with nearly unanimous calls from the European Union, with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, with Pope Francis, and with many others. In other words, all over the world people are seeing the terrible tragedy that is taking place in the region, and they want an end to it as quickly as possible through a cease-fire.

Now, I happened to have read Senator Scott's resolution, and I was particularly struck by one sentence in it on page 2. What it says:

The Senate mourns the loss of innocent life caused by

Hamas' rocket attacks.

That is on page 2. Now, I certainly agree with that, and I think every Member of Congress agrees with that. The loss of 12 innocent Israeli lives is, in fact, a tragedy.

But what about the loss of 227 Palestinian lives, including 64 children and 38 women? Does Senator Scott not believe that the loss of those Palestinian lives, 64 children and 38 women, among others, is not a tragedy?

I believe that we should be mourning the loss of Israeli life, but we should also be mourning the loss of Palestinian lives or perhaps some people think that Palestinian lives don't matter. I would hope not.

And let us be very clear that when we talk about the tragedy that is now taking place in Gaza, what we are talking about is not only the terrible loss of life. As I hope most people know, Gaza, before this war, was an extremely poor and desperate community, and the latest Israeli bombardment has only made a bad situation much, much worse.

Let us remember, Gaza has been under a blockade since 2007, imposed by Israel and Egypt. Most people are unable to leave. Basic necessities are extremely hard to obtain.

Gaza is the home to about 2 million inhabitants. Its population density is among the highest in the world--just a

huge amount of people squeezed into a very small area. More than half of the population of Gaza, some 56 percent, live below the poverty line. Seventy percent of the population is receiving aid, according to estimates by the United Nations. Food rations constitute most of that aid. Unemployment in Gaza is around 45 percent; 48 percent of the population is under the age of 18; and 70 percent--let me repeat--70 percent of the young people in Gaza are unemployed, with no hope for the future.

And because of this war, the bombardment from Israeli planes, the situation has gotten even worse.

Today's New York Times reports that the Israeli bombardment has--this is from the New York Times--``damaged 17 hospitals and clinics in Gaza.'' Got that? Seventeen hospitals and clinics have been damaged.

The bombardment has ``wrecked its only coronavirus test laboratory, sent fetid wastewater into its streets and broken water pipes serving at least 800,000 people. Sewage systems inside Gaza have been destroyed. A desalination plant that helped provide fresh water to [a quarter of a million] people in the territory is offline. Dozens of schools have been damaged or closed, forcing some 600,000 students to miss classes. Some 72,000 Gazans have been forced to flee their homes.''

That is from the New York Times this morning. Perhaps the situation has gotten even worse. I don't know. I want everybody to think for a moment what it means to be living in a very small territory, with dozens and dozens of planes attacking and bombing. What does it mean, in particular, to the children of Gaza?

Jess Ghannam, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco who specializes in the psychological effects of armed conflict on children, told USA Today:

[What] children in Gaza are exposed to on a regular basis

exceeds anything, anything that any children anywhere else in

the world experience. There's basically no place to go for

these children. They are unable to escape.

When you put people under this sort of continued, intense pressure, with no hope for a better future, you cannot be surprised when violence erupts. Indeed, 3 years ago, in May of 2018, I wrote a letter, with 12 of my colleagues, urging the Trump administration to do more to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In that letter, we cited Israeli defense officials--Israeli defense officials--who were warning that if the crisis was not addressed, it could lead to yet another eruption of violence.

Why didn't we take notice then? And when this latest war ends, will the United States once again turn away? Will we consign those children, once again, to the horrible conditions they are forced to live under today? And I would hope that my colleagues appreciate that we must not do that.

Senator Scott's resolution says a lot about Hamas terrorists in Gaza. And let us be clear, Hamas is a terrorist organization. It is a corrupt organization, and it is a repressive organization. But here is the irony: It is resolutions like Senator Scott's that help Hamas. Hamas would be overjoyed if Senator Scott's resolution were to pass.

Now, why is that? Let us understand that one of Hamas's goals is to show Palestinians that they represent the real resistance to the occupation. Senator Scott's resolution would help them do just that. By making this all about Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, Senator Scott is effectively echoing Hamas's own argument that Hamas is the true face of Palestinians' struggle, and I reject that, because, my friends, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, nonviolent Palestinian activists struggle against the daily violence and harassment of occupation--violence and harassment subsidized, by the way, with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Let us be very clear. No one is arguing that Israel or any government does not have the right to self-defense and the responsibility to protect its people. We should understand that, while Hamas's firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable, today's conflict did not begin with those rockets. It goes much, much deeper.

For years we have seen a deepening Israeli occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and a perpetual blockade on Gaza, all of which makes life increasingly unbearable for the Palestinian people. The truth is that these policies, like this current war, will continue to strengthen--to strengthen--extremists on both sides, including Hamas. If you want to strengthen Hamas, support this war.

We, Congress, must understand that in more than a decade of his rightwing rule in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian-type of racist nationalism. In his frantic effort to stay in power and avoid prosecution for corruption, Netanyahu has legitimized extremist forces, such as the Jewish Power party, by bringing them into the government.

Moreover, we should understand that these dangerous trends are not unique to Israel. What was going on and what is going on in Israel, in my view, is a political tragedy, but it is part of a trend that is going on around the world, including here in the United States, where we are seeing the rise of authoritarian nationalist movements.

These movements exploit ethnic and racial hatreds in order to build power for a corrupt few, rather than prosperity, justice, and peace for the many. For the last 4 years, these movements have had a friend in the Trump White House, and on January 6, those forces attacked this very Chamber.

It is no accident that the only European Union country that did not join the nearly unanimous statement yesterday calling for a cease-fire was Hungary. Hungary did not join the rest of the European Union, and Hungary, of course, is led by the ethno-nationalist authoritarian Viktor Orban, a strong ally of both Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

Now, some may choose to be on that side, but that is not the side I choose to be on. We must be on the side of those who want to build a society based on real security and political equality and based upon the principles of economic justice, racial justice, political justice, social justice, and environmental justice. I believe we must stand in solidarity with those Palestinians and Israelis working to build a future of equality and peaceful coexistence and not with the intolerant extremists on either side, who wish to destroy that future.

In this moment of crisis, the United States should be urging an immediate cease-fire. My colleagues, I strongly believe that the United States has a major role to play in helping the world build a more peaceful and prosperous future, one in which human rights are upheld and the life of every human being is valued.

We should be leading the world in combating the existential threat of climate change. We should be leading the world in making sure that every person on Earth, no matter what country he or she lives in, receives a vaccine to protect them from the COVID-19 virus, and, yes, we should lead the world in attempting to bring the Israeli people and the Palestinian people together.

If the United States is going to be a credible voice on human rights on the global stage, we must recognize that Palestinian rights matter. Palestinian lives matter.

Madam President, I object to the Scott resolution.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 225, submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I find this resolution somewhat odd, if I may say so. There are enormous crises facing our country and the world. The fact that we are spending time on the floor of the Senate to condemn a proposition or a theory does not seem to me to be the best way to be spending our time.

And the implication--and I think the Senator from Indiana made this implication--that the President of the United States is objecting to raising taxes is simply not factual.

The President has come forward with some very specific tax proposals, but his proposals are not meeting much support on the other side of the aisle because he is saying that he doesn't want to raise taxes on anybody in this country earning less than $400,000 a year, but he does want to raise taxes on some of the wealthiest people in America and some of the largest corporations that today may be paying zero in Federal income tax. And he shares a concern that many of us share and that Warren Buffet reminds us of, that the effective tax rate for the billionaire class is actually lower than it is for working families.

The President's view, which I share, is that this Congress must address the enormous crises facing working families, and that is rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, making sure that our kids have quality childcare and pre-K, that we have to address the existential threat of climate change, and we have to address many of the other problems facing working families, and one way we do that is demanding that

the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.

When we talk about resolutions condemning something--I am not, again, sure why we are condemning a particular theory--we might be today thinking about condemning the actions of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives today. They got rid of a Member of their leadership for the crime of suggesting that that party should not maintain a big lie implying that Donald Trump won the election. Shall we condemn that? I think that is worth condemning.

I think we might want to condemn the fact that we have more income and wealth inequality today in America than at any time since the 1920s. Let's condemn that. Maybe we want to condemn the fact that every scientist who has studied the issue tells us that climate change is a threat to our Nation and the world, and we have done virtually nothing to lead the world in addressing climate change. Let's condemn that inaction.

Let's condemn the fact that in the richest country in the history of the world, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. How about condemning that?

Let's condemn the fact, maybe, that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Let's condemn the fact that we live in a country which has institutional racism.

We can go on and on. There are a lot of things to condemn, but I don't know that it is in the best interest of the U.S. Senate to be condemning a particular economic theory.

You don't like it, argue against it. That is fine. But I don't know that we have to spend our time condemning it.

So with that, I object.

Madam President, if I could respond?

I am not sure--the Senator from Indiana suggested a moment ago that the President was not interested in raising taxes, and, of course, he has a very specific proposal to raise taxes.

And I would suggest to my colleague from Indiana that if we want to talk about the burden on our kids and on our grandchildren as a result of the national debt, maybe we should also be discussing the fact that, under the last administration, a massive tax break was given to the very wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. We were told that that tax plan would pay for itself, but, in fact, it will result in almost $2 trillion in additional national debt, and virtually all of those benefits went to the people on top.

So all that I am saying is, we can argue taxation; we can argue economic policy; we can argue why we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people; we can argue why we are paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; we can argue why we have a political system that allows billionaires to buy elections--a lot of things that we could be talking about, but I am not sure that it is in the best interest of the Senate to be condemning a particular economic idea that some economists have brought up.

Madam President.

I know of no further debate on the Stroman nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize the extraordinary work of Vermont's Meals on Wheels Programs.

Each March, we celebrate March for Meals to draw attention to the incredible work of Meals on Wheel throughout the country, including in my home State of Vermont. All across our State, hundreds of volunteers regularly deliver freshly cooked, nutritious meals to thousands of older people in their homes, many of whom otherwise might not have enough to eat. These volunteers play a critically important role in helping ensure that older Vermonters have access to adequate nutrition. In and of itself, that is no small matter.

In a typical year, Meals on Wheels volunteers do so much more than delivering meals. These volunteers provide critical social interaction for the people they visit, which goes a long way to combat the effects of isolation that many Vermonters face, especially in rural areas. Without this social interaction, seniors are more likely to have feelings of loneliness and depression, which puts them at higher risk for dementia, chronic disease, falls, and hospitalization. Their regular visits serve another purpose as well. The volunteers know each person they visit and recognize immediately if something does not seem right. It is no exaggeration to say that volunteers have literally saved Vermonters' lives by following up when no one answers the door, taking the time to discover that someone had fallen and been injured.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers--both new and existing-- stepped up to deliver over 1 million meals to over 7,500 Vermonters. This represents a 30-percent increase in the number of meals and almost a 20-percent increase in the number of people receiving meals through this vital Federal program. At a time when so many Vermonters struggled with the dual hardship of loneliness and hunger cause by the COVID-19 pandemic, Meals on Wheels served as a critical lifeline.

In addition to the many Meals on Wheels volunteers throughout Vermont, I also want to recognize and thank the caring and dedicated professionals who run Vermont's Meals on Wheel Programs. From the chefs who prepare the nutritious meals with skill and care, to the program staff who ensure that everything runs smoothly, these Vermonters are the backbone of what makes Meals on Wheels the success that it is. In March, when so much of our State shut down due to the pandemic, these dedicated people immediately pivoted to expand Meals on Wheels and ensure that any older Vermonter who wanted a meal could get one. This was particularly important for all those who had previously relied on congregate meal programs, which were unsafe during the pandemic.

Together, every single Meals on Wheels volunteer and staff person forms an indispensable link in our social safety net and has my sincere appreciation for their remarkable work. As more and more Vermonters are now vaccinated and the State begins a careful reopening, following the science and ensuring the safety of all our people, I look forward to a day when I and

my Vermont staff can once again visit the Meals on Wheels Program and meet the volunteers and recipients in person.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.