Floor Statements

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the crisis at our southern border. We have the humanitarian crisis there. We have a healthcare crisis there. And we also have a national security crisis there.

Over the last 2 weeks, as I traveled the State of Wyoming, I heard from people all across the State about the condition of the southern border, and not surprisingly, the people of Wyoming recognize that there is actually a crisis at the southern border, and there is chaos at our border.

People across the State of Wyoming are shocked--shocked--at the way the Biden administration has been acting deliberately to weaken our national security and security at our border. We need to strengthen our southern border. Leaving the border open is like leaving the door to your home open; maybe some good friends will come through the door, but sooner or later, the wrong people will enter your home.

An open border is an open invitation, and it is an invitation to the whole world. Now, this includes drug dealers, sex traffickers, and it includes gang members, and it even includes terrorists. When President Biden took office, he flipped on the green light, and he rolled out the welcome mat. He sent a message to the world. The message was received: The border is open.

Since President Biden took office, 600,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested crossing the border. This is more than the entire population of my home State of Wyoming. Border arrests have gone up every month since President Biden has been in the White House.

Last month, a deputy Commissioner of the Border Patrol retired after 27 years in that office. His name is Robert Perez. Since leaving office, he has had a few things to say. He said: ``What [Border Patrol is] seeing since February . . . is absolutely unprecedented.'' He said, ``It's a crisis unlike anything I've ever seen. . . .''

Right now, we are on the pace to 2 million illegal immigrants. That is what we are looking at, 2 million illegal immigrants crossing the southern border into the United States this year alone. That is the most in two decades, and those are just the illegal immigrants that we know about. In addition, tens of thousands of additional illegal immigrants are coming across the border and are not being stopped.

At the same time, we are seizing more fentanyl at our border than ever before. The numbers are astonishing. This drug is so powerful that a fatal dose is the equivalent to just a pinch of salt. In the last 6 months, Border Patrol has seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in America. Some experts will say that the amount they have captured, in terms of the synthetic drug fentanyl, is a small fraction of the amount that is actually getting across the border every day. This would mean a quarter-million pounds of fentanyl is likely to flow into the United States this year alone, and it is not just staying at our southern border. It is in every State of the Union.

Look, this just didn't happen. Six months ago, the border was nearly secure. Then Joe Biden was sworn into office, and he undid the successful policies of the previous administration. He stopped building the wall even though it has already been paid for.

Under the previous administration, asylum seekers had to remain in Mexico until their day in court. President Biden stopped that. He ended that policy, basically saying to everyone: Come in.

It does seem that anything the previous administration did that was done successfully, President Biden has chosen to do the opposite. This isn't policymaking; this is knee-jerk partisanship.

President Biden has had 6 months to fix the crisis that we are living with today. He is only making it worse, and he is doubling down on the mistakes he has already made. It wasn't enough to end the Remain in Mexico policy, which was successful and which Border Patrol agents tell me needs to be put back in place if the goal is actually to secure the border.

Now, the Biden administration seems to be actively looking for people who had to wait in Mexico under President Trump and let them into the United States. He is inviting them into our country, and he is not stopping there. He is going further.

Now, it seems like President Biden is going to open the door even wider. Last year, at the start of the pandemic, the previous administration closed our borders to people from coronavirus-impacted areas. This was a decision made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They did this under title 42 of our laws. This is a section of our laws related to public health.

Well, it is likely to have saved thousands of American lives and protected our public health. It has also helped our Border Patrol. They will tell you that. They will tell you that this has helped them to stem the flow of illegal immigration over the past year.

But now, President Biden, I understand, wants to end that policy--at least that is what the White House is telling the press. That means the crisis at the border is going to get even worse.

You don't have to take my word for it, listen to what Democratic Congressman from San Antonio, Congressman Henry Cuellar, had to say. He represents a district in Texas right on the border--lives there, goes home every weekend, talks to the people, and knows the situation on the border. He recently said ending the title 42 order is ``going to provide another incentive.'' He said, ``The drug cartels are going to start saying you can come in.'' That is Congressman Cuellar, of Texas, and I believe he is right.

President Biden has removed almost all of the policies protecting our border. Title 42 is the last one standing. Now, he is going to take this one down as well. Well, if he does, it will open the floodgates. I would expect tens of thousands more illegal immigrants coming into the country. It would create even more chaos from criminals all across the land--not just from Mexico, but from all across the world, coming across our southern border.

As a physician, I am concerned about this decision from the fentanyl standpoint and also from the standpoint of the disease, the coronavirus and the new variants we are all dealing with. We know that people are coming from all over the world.

When I was at the border this spring, at the Donna facility near McAllen, TX, the border agents said they had arrested people from more than 50 different countries coming across that southern border from Mexico into the United States.

Now, this includes lots of places where the vaccination rates are much, much lower than they are in the United States and in some places where vaccines aren't even available.

At the same time, we are seeing new variants of coronavirus rapidly spreading across the world; variants that are coming from other places; variants that are deadly; variants for which the vaccines that we have here in the United States may not be as effective as we had thought or as we would hope.

So the country's threat for all of us is real. Since the pandemic began, more than 8,000 Border Patrol agents and officers have tested positive for coronavirus, and 32 of these agents have died of coronavirus.

When I visited the border, I saw firsthand how unaccompanied children were routinely exposed to coronavirus. When I visited, roughly 1 in 10 of these young people who had tested, tested positive for coronavirus. And they were all together in these holding pens, crammed in like sardines, one exposing the other and the other after that. These holding facilities packed 7,000 young people into one facility the day we were there, and they have exposed everyone in the facility.

And, of course, after their time in the holding facility, they are released--many of them released while positive. So as new variants spread around the world, this puts our Nation in serious danger.

That is why Republican Senators are sending a letter to President Biden. Our message to President Biden is this: Leave the CDC protection under title 42 in place. The American people need it. We need it from a public health standpoint. It protects our public health. It protects our border agents. It strengthens our border security.

There is enough chaos at the border already--too many drugs, too many criminals, and they are already crossing the border. We need to stop this knee-jerk partisanship. And we need to get back to the policies that we know work; the policies that the Border Patrol tells us work; the policies that the Border Patrol advised the Biden transition team, prior to Joe Biden's getting sworn in and inaugurated as President of the United States, to keep in place.

We need to finish the wall that has already been paid for. We need to bring back the Remain in Mexico policy. We need to enforce the law. We need to close the loopholes. We need to slam the door shut on the drug cartels. It is time to secure our border once and for all.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise today to submit for the record a column written by Mr. Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, entitled ``Magagna: The Real Challenges of Ranching.'' The article was published on June 2 of this year.

I recently spoke at the 2021 Wyoming Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show, ``Positioning Wyoming's Beef Industry for Success,'' hosted by the 149-year-old Wyoming Stock Growers Association in Sheridan. This convention focused on both the challenges and the opportunities that producers have before them. Jim says it best: Some of these are just simply challenging opportunities.

I urge my colleagues to stand with ranchers like Jim Magagna and the ranchers that he represents. Stand with those who understand the land best and not with extremists who do not know how to run a farm, a ranch, or a small business.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune.)

Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Nadia for her hard work as an intern in the Senate Republican Conference. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Nadia is a native of Maryland. She is a student at American University, where she studies psychology and communication: film and media arts. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Nadia for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her next journey.

Madam President, the Senate will be voting tomorrow on the nomination of Tommy Beaudreau to serve as the Deputy Secretary of the Interior. If confirmed, he will play a critical role in managing our Nation's public lands, our natural resources, our national parks, our wildlife areas, and the Outer Continental Shelf. He will oversee the management of the largest water supply in the West, and he will also oversee our Nation's trust responsibilities to American Indian Tribes and Alaska Natives. He will be responsible for the multiple uses of our public lands.

One of the most important roles that he will fulfill is overseeing the development of traditional and renewable energy supplies on public lands and waters.

Energy production on public lands is the engine of Wyoming's economy. It creates good-paying jobs. It provides tremendous revenue for the State, and we use the essential services of the State funded by this, like public education.

Mr. Beaudreau has extensive experience at the Department of the Interior. He served in a leadership position during the Obama administration. As an attorney in the private sector, he regularly handled matters relating to the Department. He is an expert in his field. His qualifications are clear. It is also clear from his nomination hearing

that he understands America's needs for an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. That strategy must include coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and renewables.

I appreciated his commitment to working with members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Department needs to listen and collaborate with the people of Wyoming and the West. These are the States that rely heavily on energy production on our public lands. We are the States that power America. We are the ones that will be hit the hardest by President Biden's punishing Executive orders. This administration has unleashed a barrage of Executive actions that threaten to destroy the livelihoods of oil, natural gas, and coal workers in the West. It is critical that Mr. Beaudreau keep those Americans at the forefront of his mind as he works at the Department. He can serve as a voice of reason in an administration that is waging a war on American energy workers.

My goal is to hold Mr. Beaudreau and the Biden administration accountable to the commitments that Mr. Beaudreau has made to our committee, and I will support his nomination

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the need for integrity in our elections.

As I stand here, you know, prices are rising at the pump, and prices are rising at the grocery store. Inflation is the highest it has been basically since the financial crisis 13 years ago.

The number of unfilled jobs is at a record high for our Nation. Small businesses, certainly in my home State in Wyoming and all across the country, have ``help wanted'' signs up; they can't find workers. Some are worried they may have to shut down forever.

We also have a crisis at the southern border. There is a lot happening in America today. Half a million illegal immigrants have crossed our border since Joe Biden took the oath of office to become President of the United States. Now, these are just the illegal immigrants whom we know about.

Since Joe Biden became President, we have seized over 3,200 pounds of fentanyl at our southern border. That is enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child living in America today. That is just one category of drugs, and these are the drugs that we know about. Just imagine what has come into the country that we don't know about.

Yet, despite the critics and the crisis--President Biden has created a crisis, and Democrats, certainly in this body, refuse to raise a finger to bring the crisis to an end. Instead, it seems that the Democrats are focused on only one thing and one thing alone, and that is seizing more power.

We are told Democrats are going to bring a bill to the floor next week on election takeover in America. Now, the majority leader already knows that this bill cannot pass the U.S. Senate. It will not pass because he doesn't even have the support for the votes in his own caucus, and that is because the bill is radical, it is extreme, it is dangerous, and it is scary. It is actually a Federal takeover of elections in America.

Under the Constitution, the times, places, and manner of holding elections is generally up to the States. This bill would flip the constitutional order and flip it upside down and put Congress and Washington in charge of elections, not each of our individual States. It would effectively repeal the election laws in all 50 States.

This Democratic takeover attempt is over 800 pages in length, over 800 pages of mandates. Every page of the bill has one thing in common: makes it easier to cheat. Makes it easier to cheat in elections.

For example, the bill would register people to vote automatically, whether they wanted to be registered or not. Automatic registration. Take everyone they have in databases throughout a State and sign them up.

Now, under this bill, anyone who interacted with a State government would then be registered to vote. Well, this includes a lot of people who aren't legally entitled to vote because they are not U.S. citizens. So these are obviously people who would not be eligible to vote. Doesn't matter to Democrats--register them anyway. Maybe it is just a coincidence that Democrats opened our border before pushing this election takeover, where everybody in a database in a State is registered to vote. Maybe it is not a coincidence.

The bill also endorses something called ballot harvesting. That is where paid political operatives can go door to door and collect hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of ballots--other people's ballots--and then they get to decide which ballots they are going to turn in. No supervision. No accountability. None. These activists could destroy, tamper, or lose ballots. These activists could do just that. No one would ever know.

Additionally, the bill would force taxpayers to pay for political campaigns. For every small political donation, taxpayers would pay and kick in an additional $6--$6 kicked in by the taxpayers for every $1 of small-dollar donations raised. Much of it is raised online. This is an invitation to money laundering. Activists could spread out donations to get free taxpayer money.

One of my colleagues in the Senate on the Republican side of the aisle looked at this and said: ``Gee.'' Based on fundraising that he has done online, he would be entitled to a check from the government for $30 million. Taxpayers don't want to put that kind of taxpayer dollar behind any candidate, whether they are Republican or Democrat.

Democrats sit here and they claim they want less money in politics. Yet every several years--every 2 years, they outspend the Republicans. Now they want taxpayers to add to the money they are spending. Well, political activists have plenty of money already. They don't need additional taxpayer dollars.

Finally, this bill would ban voter ID. That means when you go to vote and you ask for a ballot--this is what voter ID is. You go to vote, you ask for a ballot, and you have to show an identification card that proves you are who you say you are. Democrats have been trying to eliminate that one for a long, long time. Democrats claim that asking for identification is racist.

The idea that people can't get an ID is absurd. It is condescending. ID is required to check into a hotel. It is required to order a beer at a bar. It is required to buy a pack of cigarettes. It is required to get on an airplane--any airline in America. Voting is a lot more important than any of these things. It is the foundation of our entire system of government. We ought to make it safe, and we ought to make it secure.

During the committee process, Democrats had a chance to fix the bill. Senator Hyde-Smith from Mississippi said that she would like to take a look at this bill and use the campaign funding instead to help rural hospitals, instead of this matching money of 6 to 1 to candidates. Oh, no. Democrats didn't want any part of that. They want the money.

Senator Fischer and Senator Hagerty said that we should delay the date the bill would go into effect. That would prevent a conflict of interest for the Democrats who vote for it, because, in a sense, the Democrats who vote for it would be getting the money themselves. Democrats said: No. No. We want the money.

Senator Hyde-Smith and Senator Cruz also tried to remove this ban on voter ID from the bill. Democrats said: Nope. People can show up, say whoever they want to say they are, and get a ballot.

Democrats deny the existence of voter fraud. They claim no irregularities ever happen--not in their elections. So then why are they trying to repeal or eliminate or take over every State voting law in the country?

Truth is, there is a problem with our elections today. Yet the Democratic

bill would make these problems even worse.

A majority of the public says they don't want future elections to look like the last one--special situation, a pandemic. They don't want future elections to look like the last one. The American people want security, and they want integrity. We want to trust that our elections are fair.

That is why I have joined Senator Scott of Florida, Senator Hyde- Smith, and Senator Lummis to introduce a bill specifically to give people more confidence in our elections. It is called the Save Democracy Act. Our bill bans vote harvesting. It bans automatic registration. It requires at least a Social Security number to register to vote.

Under our bill, States can't just send out ballots in the mail based on old information. People could still vote by mail, as they do in my home State of Wyoming; they would just need to request a ballot. They wouldn't get a ballot automatically in the mail; they would have to request a ballot so that we know their information is up-to-date. These are the kind of commonsense protections that our elections need. Our bill makes it actually harder to cheat, not easier. The Democrat's bill makes it easier to cheat.

At a time like this, when prices are too high, hiring is too low, the U.S. Senate has important work to do, the things that we hear about when we go home on weekends: What does it cost for gas? What does it cost for groceries? What does it cost to fill up your car?

The American people want us to work on these bread-and-butter issues that affect their daily lives. They don't want this partisan power grab that is going to be voted on in the Senate next week. They also don't want the Senate wasting time on bills that cannot pass.

It is time for the Democrats and the Democratic leader to focus on what the American people are asking us to focus on: bring down inflation, stop paying people more to not work than they would make if they were working, secure our southern border, and leave our elections alone. That is what I hear at home, and I know that many of the Members are hearing the exact same thing as we work here to focus on what should be the future of a better, more prosperous America, not a one- sided America, with a domination of elections based on a law to make it easier to cheat.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to talk about the crisis that is occurring at our southern border.

Joe Biden has been President now for about 4 months. In this time, illegal immigration at the southern border has more than doubled. We are now on a pace this year--this year alone--for the most illegal immigration in two decades. The numbers that we see, based on last month, we are talking about 2 million people coming to America this year illegally.

It seems to me that, on the first day in office, President Biden signed Executive orders that flipped on the green light that said: Come to America. He rolled out the welcome mat, and he sent a clear message that our borders are open. He shut down construction of the border wall, a wall that we have actually paid to have done, to be constructed. I have been there. The parts are lying on the ground and the workers stopped, on inauguration day, from putting up portions of the wall to close down the gaps.

He stopped all deportations for 100 days. He brought back the program known as catch-and-release. And since he took these actions--and I have talked to the Border Patrol on the ground, and they say the border has been overwhelmed.

Now, illegal immigrants are coming from all over the world. People say: Well, it is an issue between Mexico and the United States. The people coming here are coming from all over the world. At the time I was there, we heard that over 50 countries have been represented in the people who have been captured, including Romania, Armenia, Bangladesh. People are flying to Mexico who can't come to the United States because of paperwork, who they are, what their intentions may be. They aren't allowed to get tickets to come to the United States so they fly to Mexico to come into the United States illegally.

The entire world knows that the border is open because that is the message sent out by this administration. And that, of course, includes criminals. Border agents have already arrested 95 convicted sex offenders. Border agents have arrested 95 convicted sex offenders coming into the country illegally, and this includes the last number of months.

And I will tell you, the sex offenders include a man from El Salvador who was convicted of raping a child in Washington State. We are talking about people who have been convicted in the United States, who are now out of the country, coming back in--conviction in Washington State. It also included a man from El Salvador who was convicted of sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl. This abuse took place in New York City, which is a sanctuary city.

This is what happens when our borders are open and the message is sent out around the world. And for the open borders crowd who like this sort of thing, some of whom are Members of the Congress of the United States, this is just collateral damage. It is all part of a political agenda.

It has been more than 2 months since President Biden put Vice President Harris in charge of the border. She has found time to make it to the Canadian border but not time to make it to the border between the United States and Mexico.

This week, and right now, the Vice President has been on her first overseas trip in the role as Vice President. She is going to Central America and to Mexico but not to the border. She has announced new gifts of American taxpayer dollars given to people from other countries.

When reporters asked her--and she did; I saw the sitdown interview and the video of it--if she was going to the border, she actually laughed. She thought it was a joke. It was very disappointing to see the Vice President acting in that way. She said: ``I haven't been to Europe either,'' like it didn't matter. She hadn't been to Europe; there are a lot of places she hadn't been. The place the American people know she hasn't been is to the border between Mexico and the United States.

In reality, she knows. She knows that if she goes to the border--she knows that if she goes to the border between the United States and Mexico,

she knows that the news cameras will go with her. She knows that the media would broadcast the crisis that they see at the border to the whole world. She knows that, then, more and more Americans will see firsthand the truth for themselves. That is why the Vice President is not going to the border between Mexico and the United States.

The White House refuses to say it is a crisis. They refuse to say those words. They just want to use the word ``challenge'' instead of the reality of the crisis that I saw when I was there at the border with a group of Republican Senators. That is why they are doubling down on policies that caused the crisis.

Two weeks ago, the President released his budget for the coming year. It is the biggest budget proposal by any President in American history. It would nearly double Federal spending over the next decade. Yet the President's budget for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department that is supposed to keep our Nation safe, is flatlined. The President likes to say--and he has said it time and time again. He said it when he was in the Senate; he said it as Vice President of the United States; and now he says it as the President. He said: If you want to know somebody's values, just look at their budget.

Well, we have seen Joe Biden's budget, and we know his values. And his values are not those of supporting and promoting the security of our Nation through border security. The President's budget includes $800 million in aid for Central America. I don't know if Joe Biden thinks you can bribe people with our own tax dollars to not cross the border. It is an absolute surrender, and it leaves our borders wide open.

Our southern border is in crisis, but the crisis isn't limited to the border itself. President Biden has also tied the hands of our immigration officials all across America. The Washington Post came out with a story, and they put it this way. I want to make sure I have it absolutely accurate so I am going to read it to you.

It says: Under President Biden, ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--``is an agency on probation.'' This is the Washington Post. It says:

Biden has placed ICE deportation officers on a leash so

tight that some say their work is being functionally

abolished.

That is the Washington Post on the President of the United States and what he has done with regard to our borders and our immigration authorities with his very flatlined budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

The article goes on, and it says:

ICE carried out fewer than 3,000 deportations last month.

The agency's 6,000 officers currently average one arrest

every two months.

One arrest every 2 months.

Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have court orders for deportation. Yet, despite these enormous numbers, deportations have never been lower, never been lower. No wonder the crisis is getting worse.

I heard about it all last week over Memorial Day as I traveled around the State of Wyoming. People are very concerned about this disregard for our borders and for the support that our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers need. So it is no wonder to me that the people of Wyoming are concerned, and I imagine that people all around the country are concerned. My colleagues heard it as well, as they traveled their home States just in the last week.

The border really is one of the top issues that I am asked about every weekend in Wyoming. I will be heading home again tomorrow night for the weekend, traveling the State, and I expect to hear more and more about it this coming weekend. The American people want to keep the borders secure, and they want to be safe at home.

We know what to do. We know what works. The border agents told President Biden's transition team before he was inaugurated what we needed to do to keep the border secure, what works, what wouldn't work. They say enforce the law, close the loopholes, the loopholes that encourage illegal immigration. They say finish the wall, the wall that we have already paid for. And they say bring back the policy known as ``Remain in Mexico.''

Until we take these basic steps, the crisis is going to continue, the border is going to remain open, and the American people will continue to come to us to say there is more that can be done and should be done and must be done because the American people know that when the border is not secure, that people of America continue to be at heightened risk.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about our economy and link that to the budget that the President has introduced for our Nation going forward.

On Friday, the Department of Labor published its monthly jobs report. Just like the April jobs report, the May report is a cause for concern. There really wasn't any cause for celebration. Yet President Biden did exactly the same thing that he did in the previous month after that disappointing jobs report--he declared victory. He gave a speech in Delaware, and he called it ``historic progress.'' Even the President of the United States is stretching the language of our Nation right here.

Let's look at the facts.

What is Joe Biden calling ``historic progress''?

Over the last 2 months, about 850,000 fewer people were hired than the economists had predicted. In the month of May alone, 160,000 people left the labor force. The percentage of Americans in the labor force actually went down. Another month, another weak jobs report. It is disappointing but not surprising. We know why it has slowed down. President Biden and the Democrats have committed to paying millions of people more to stay home from work than to go to work. If you pay people more to not work than to work, that is what you are going to get. That is what they are being encouraged to do. In fact, I would say that these people are not being lazy; they are being logical with the incentives that the Democrats have put in front of them, which is money in their pockets to stay home from work.

There are 9.3 million jobs that are unfilled right now in the United States, a record high. As a result, small businesses--and I heard about it this weekend in Wyoming--are struggling to find people to work there. They are having a hard time finding people to take jobs. They have signs up: ``Help Wanted.'' ``We Need You.'' ``Offering Incentives.'' If people are getting paid more to not work than to work, that is what they are going to do.

At the same time, prices continue to rise. That is what I heard about as I was sitting, waiting to have my oil changed. It was a longer line than usual in Casper, not because we didn't have good workers but because we didn't have enough of them in a place that changed oil that had two bays set up but was down to one. They have to do that several days a week because they don't have the workforce. They can't find the people to change the oil. So it was a good townhall meeting as we sat around there, waiting for our oil to be changed, talking to people about their concerns. That is what we heard about: trouble finding workers, inflation.

Last week, the White House Press Secretary was asked about high gas prices--and I had heard about that in Wyoming as we were sitting around, waiting to get the oil changed: You know, it costs about $15 or $20 more to fill a tank than it did a year ago. People not only pay attention to how many dollars and cents it costs for a gallon of gas but how much it costs to fill the tank and how much less they have to spend for other things.

The White House Press Secretary said that gas prices aren't very high if you account for inflation.

If you account for inflation? It is inflation. Gas prices are high because it

is what happens when prices go up. That is inflation.

This should be a news flash for America. Inflation is the problem. The White House Press Secretary didn't seem to see the connection. It is caused by this administration. Gas prices have gone up about 70 cents a gallon in the last 4 months--since Joe Biden took the oath of office. It is no surprise when the President, on the day he takes the oath of office, paints a target on the back of American energy and pulls the trigger, which makes us more dependent on foreign sources of energy.

As the senior Senator from Alaska said in an Energy Committee hearing, we are, at this time in the United States, using more energy from Russia than we are from her home State of Alaska. That is a comment on the policies of this administration.

Summer is almost here, and the pandemic is almost over. What is going to happen with regard to the demand for gasoline? It is going to continue to go up.

There is a moratorium on the exploration of oil and gas in the United States, and we are making ourselves more dependent on foreign sources. What is the President doing? Imposing more taxes on American energy. Last week, he put more restrictions on the production of energy from Alaska. Now what does he want to do? Well, we have seen it in the Finance Committee right here. He wants to impose the increase of taxes on oil and gas producers. That is going to hurt the people who work in that industry, and it is going to make all of us pay more at the tank. This is basic economics. If you restrict the production of American oil and gas and if you raise the taxes on oil and gas, the prices people have to pay at the pump--the prices they pay to fill up their vehicles--are going to go up.

President Biden keeps declaring victory and keeps doubling down on policies that are slowing down the economy. Two weeks ago, he introduced his budget request for next year. To me, it is a blueprint for bankruptcy. He is proposing $6 trillion in Federal spending for next year. During the pandemic, the country hit about $4 trillion in annual Federal spending for the first time ever. This was during a national emergency, and we passed it in a bipartisan way with over 90 votes in the Senate. In five different coronavirus relief bills, we were able to deal with what needed to be done for our Nation at the time. The pandemic is behind us, and the President now wants to spend $2 trillion more than that every year even after the pandemic is over. This is only the beginning.

The Biden budget doesn't even include some of the most expensive campaign promises he made when he was running for President. According to one estimate, the Biden budget is missing about $1.5 trillion that he had promised to spend. It is not even included in the budget. What happens with all of this additional spending? Of course, it is going to cause inflation because more money will be out there to chase the goods and services that are available.

President Biden also wants to bring back the death tax. This would be devastating for farmers and ranchers who want to keep their farms in their families. I heard about it this past weekend in Sheridan, WY, with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. As for the families who have had the ranches or the farms in their families for over 100 years, we call them centennial families in Wyoming, and we celebrate them every year. They have all said, if this happens--if the Biden administration does this with what it wants to do with the death tax-- when Grandma or Grandpa passes, every one of them is going to have to sell the farm just to pay the taxes. They have been able to keep them within the families for 100 years. Joe Biden is going to take the ax to them.

Get this. He wants to hire 87,000 more bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service. The Internal Revenue Service is the least accountable and most powerful Agency in the Federal Government. The Biden goal is to collect $700 billion more from taxpayers. What does he want to do with the money? Use it for additional socialist spending. We have seen the list. Under the Biden agenda, working families are going to be paying more at the pump, more at the grocery store, and they are going to end up paying more as well through taxes. They are seeing it now. Our jobs reports, our inflation reports, our gas prices have all been disappointing to all Americans.

This is a direct result of the policies that are coming out of this administration and out of this White House. It is time for the President to stop the attacks on American energy, to stop paying people more to not work than to work, and to stop this irresponsible spending spree as outlined in the budget.

We know what works. Let's return to the policies that work, to the policies that have been giving us the best economy in a half a century. Just 16 months ago, we had low taxes, reasonable regulations, and more American energy. The economy was booming until the coronavirus hit. We need to get back to that again

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to recognize a significant anniversary for the Natrona County Meals on Wheels Program. On Saturday, June 19, 2021, this wonderful organization will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Meals on Wheels is dedicated to providing healthy meals, a friendly smile, and a watchful eye to seniors across the Nation. As a doctor, I understand the importance of balanced nutrition but also companionship and care. The hard-working employees and volunteers deliver all three by offering tailored meals and home visits.

In 1971 Casper resident Mabel Marvel founded the Casper branch of Meals on Wheels. Mabel was on a trip to Colorado to visit family when she ran across a similar service. The volunteers for the Colorado organization were delivering hot meals to elderly residents from a church kitchen. Mrs. Marvel realized that Casper did not have such a program. Soon after, she formed an office in a Salvation Army coat closet and requested that the Natrona County Memorial Hospital, now Wyoming Medical Center, aid in providing meals. This was the beginning of the Natrona County Meals on Wheels Program.

When Natrona County Meals on Wheels began initial operations, they were preparing 20 meals a day. By 2001, the number of meals delivered increased to over 500 per day. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the need for home-delivered meals exploded. This Casper-based organization rose to the challenge and served clients who were forced to quarantine and unable to leave their homes. In Natrona County, they delivered over 650 meals each Monday through Thursday and an average of 1,550 meals on Fridays to cover the weekends. Their hard work resulted in senior citizens in Natrona County receiving nearly 207,000 meals in 2020.

Serving so many people at once is challenging, especially when many of these meals are prepared with special dietary needs in mind. Meals on Wheels prepares healthy food for community members requiring specific diets including diabetic, celiac, and vegetarian. The volunteers with Meals on Wheels also make home visits to check in with members of the community who may not have enough social interaction or are not as mobile. The giving nature of this organization presents its members with a balanced meal and quality time spent with others. Ensuring the needs of community members allows seniors to preserve their independence at home.

Meals on Wheels continues to find new ways to enrich our community. Jamie Loveall has been leading the charge as the Executive Director of Natrona County Meals on Wheels for more than 17 years. She has written grants, planned community events, and helped prepare meals in order to keep clients fed, staff members engaged, and the community aware. A favorite community event is their Bubbles, Baubles 'n Beans fundraiser. It is a chili and soup tasting experience to raise money for annual operating costs.

The strength of an organization is determined by the dedication of its leadership, staff, and volunteers. The full-time staff are responsible for preparing the meals, managing the financial aspects, and writing the delivery routes. In addition to Executive Director Jamie Loveall, staff members are Katrina Lorenzen, Foundation Development Director, Andrea Trout, Route Coordinator/Administrative Assistant, Debbie Cardinal, Receptionist/Volunteer Coordinator, Ashley Woodward, Client Services Coordinator, Mariah Bokhari, Bookkeeper, and Shelley Blake, Kitchen Manager.

Current board members are Jim Browlee, President, Joe Moss, Vice President, Vickie Ujvary, Treasurer, Don Smith, Secretary, and members Wendy Elmer, Bob Thunselle, Ed Chase, Jennifer Deurloo, Peggy Porter, Kelli Carmichael, Paul Rhodes, CJ Lovato, Dane Grace, and Stacia Hill.

The volunteers deliver the meals, partake in home visits, and spend quality time with clients. Eighty-five percent of the volunteers with the Natrona County service are seniors themselves, using their time to help friends and neighbors. About the volunteers, Jamie Loveall says, ``Without these individuals, our program would not exist.''

It is my great honor to celebrate the incredible work of this organization. Every day, the staff and volunteers of Natrona County Meals on Wheels work to make our community a better place

to live. My wife Bobbi joins me in wishing the Natrona County Meals on Wheels another 50 years of success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both Senator Sullivan and I be allowed to complete our remarks--me for up to 12 minutes and Senator Sullivan for up to 5 minutes--before the vote.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the ongoing crisis at our southern border.

Over the past few weeks, the Biden border crisis has been overshadowed by several other crises facing our country under this administration. Inflation has surged. The price of gasoline across Wyoming and likely in the home State of the Presiding Officer as well is now over $3 a gallon. Democrats have been on another spending spree. It is a trillion-dollar spending spree. Hiring has plummeted across the country. Terrorists have attacked our closest ally. The response from the Biden administration actually on that attack has been to treat both our closest ally Israel and the attackers of Hamas as equals. I could go on and on.

The most serious challenges facing our Nation have escalated ever since President Biden has taken office, but you can't forget the border crisis that we have now under President Biden. Over the last several months, basically since President Biden took office on January 20 and he changed our border policies, the crisis has only gotten worse.

President Biden flipped on a big green light and said: Come to America. That is the message that people heard all across the world. He sent a clear message that the border is open.

On his first day in office, President Biden shut down construction of the southern border wall. He stopped all deportations for 100 days. He brought back a program basically known as catch-and-release. Now those policy changes have led to a dramatic increase in illegal immigration.

In March, our border agents caught 170,000 immigrants crossing our southern border illegally. In April, they caught even more: 178,000 illegal immigrants in just 30 days. The numbers have gone up and up. I heard a report yesterday that we are now at half a million people coming in illegally ever since President Biden has taken office. Half a million--that is the population of the entire State of Wyoming coming into the country illegally since January 20. This year we are on a pace for illegal immigration to hit a 20-year high.

Our border agents are overwhelmed. Two-thirds of the Border Patrol are too busy to actually be out there enforcing the law. They are too busy either taking care of kids, unaccompanied minors, or adults who have come across with families and have done so illegally. So only about one-third are out there trying to stop the bad guys who are coming into this country--human traffickers, drug traffickers--some even, we know, on the terrorist watch list.

In fact, they are so overwhelmed that they are doing something now they have never done before: They are releasing illegal immigrants directly into the country without even giving them court dates. Instead, they are telling them to report to ICE facilities, oh, sometime in the next couple of months. This is unprecedented. This is worse than catch-and-release. This is an absolute, total surrender by the Biden administration to people coming into the country illegally.

This is in addition to the tens of thousands of immigrants who simply escape. Border Patrol calls them getaways. They got away. They got into the country without being stopped. We saw these folks doing this when a number of us went to the border a month or so ago, chanting across the Rio Grande River: ``You cannot stop us now.''

The top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Portman, revealed last week that there were 40,000 of these ``got- aways'' just last month. Well, how many of them were drug smugglers? How many of them are human traffickers? How many are on the terrorist watch list? We will never know. Over the same month, deportation hit a record low.

The crisis might have disappeared from the headlines, but it hasn't gone away. And the people living near the border are being impacted dramatically. It is only getting worse

Fifty thousand unaccompanied children have crossed the border since Joe Biden became President. Unprecedented. At a time of a global pandemic, these children are not social distancing, let me tell you. That is what we saw when we saw them crammed in like sardines into the Donna facility at the southern tip of Texas.

The media reports that the Department of Health and Human Services has left some kids on buses overnight. This is a humanitarian crisis: nowhere for them to sleep, nowhere to bathe. One teenager named Joel said he was left on a bus for 3 days. That is how President Biden and his administration are handling the situation.

I know Democrats love to lecture Republicans about humane immigration policy. This is not humane. This is not humane.

The White House is now boasting that they are transferring the kids out of Border Patrol facilities. Nothing to brag about there. That is what the law mandates. They are just sending them from one overcrowded government facility to another overcrowded government facility. It seems like they are playing a shell game with these kids so they can play with the numbers.

But the problem hasn't been solved; no, sir, it has not. Thousands and thousands of children keep showing up, and the crisis keeps getting worse. The Biden White House has told the world: Anyone under 18 can cross our border; we will let them in. And they are coming in record numbers. So it is not a surprise that tens of thousands of families are taking President Biden up on the offer. Not just families--criminals are taking advantage of these children. Criminals know that Border Patrol is overwhelmed. Criminals know, if they use kids to distract our agents, they will be able to make an end run via got-away, get-around, and bring drugs into the country.

Border Patrol has come to the Congress and has told the Appropriations Committee in the House that they are seizing four times as much fentanyl this year as they seized last year. They are not sure how much they are missing, but we do know that this is a drug that killed more than 30,000 Americans in 2019.

Border Patrol has already seized more fentanyl over the last 7 months than they did over the previous year. They have seized enough fentanyl at the border--people trying to move it into the country illegally--the volume that has been seized at the border is enough to kill more than a million people. That is just the drugs that we know about. Imagine the drugs we don't know about.

Well, how are Democrats going to deal with this border crisis? Many are ignoring it. Neither the President nor the Vice President has been to the border since taking office 4 months ago--neither one of them. Many Democrats are trying to distract people from the issue. So why are the President and Vice President not going? Because they know, if they go, TV cameras will go with them, and it will attract more attention to the crisis--the humanitarian crisis, the national security crisis--that they have created.

Now some Democrats are actually proposing that we make the crisis worse. Last week, the Senate had an opportunity to finish the border wall. Remember, the border wall has already been paid for. Only one Democrat voted to complete the wall. Every other Democrat voted to block it. They voted against finishing the wall even though we have already paid for it.

I have been there. I have seen areas of the wall. The materials are there lying on the ground, just needing to be lifted up and connected to other portions of the wall, and that construction stopped the day President Biden took the oath of office.

The Border Patrol officers say it would make a huge difference in their lives, in their jobs of protecting our Nation, if they could just put up and place that final spot of the wall.

Some Democrats are actually encouraging even more illegal immigration. Democrats in Washington just sent $26 billion in taxpayer money to the Governor of California. Now, what does he want to do with the $26 billion that was sent to the Governor of California? He wants to give some of that money to illegal immigrants.

Eight Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to give free healthcare to children who are here illegally. They introduced a bill this month, knowing full well about the child migration crisis at our border. This bill would only make the crisis worse. The Democrat promises of government benefits are a magnet to illegal immigrants.

Democrats talk a lot about compassion. This is not compassion. The compassionate thing to do is to stop the crisis. We know how to do that. We know what works. Democrats don't like to admit it, but President Trump was historically successful in controlling our border.

Democrats say that the system was dismantled. This is the exact opposite of the truth. Democrats are dismantling it today. Democrats need to stop giving our taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants. Democrats need to turn off this magnet that is drawing 50,000 children to risk their lives and take a very dangerous journey, many paying those to traffic them, to bring them up to the border and carry them across.

We need to go back to the policies that make our borders secure: Enforce the law, close the loopholes that encourage our illegal immigration, finish the wall that we paid for, bring back the Remain in Mexico policy.

This crisis might be overshadowed by the other crises that are hitting us now in this Nation, ones for which Joe Biden is responsible; yet the crisis at our Southern border will not go away until we take action.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on the way over to the floor, I received a CNN news alert, and the headline is: ``Biden dramatically scales up the pressure on Netanyahu.''

So I come to the floor to tell you and to tell the Nation that I stand with Israel. Like millions of Americans, I have been disturbed to see the Biden administration make a false equivalence between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. There is no equivalence here.

Hamas is a terrorist group funded by Iran. These terrorists have fired over 3,000 missiles into population centers in Israel. Israel has every right to defend itself. If Hamas stopped fighting, there would be peace. If Israel stopped fighting, there would be no peace. Hamas would continue to attack Israel.

President Biden's readout of his call this morning with Prime Minister Netanyahu stated:

The president conveyed to the prime minister that he

expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a

ceasefire.

President Biden doesn't get to tell Israel what to do. We all want peace. We all want a cease-fire. A cease-fire happens when Hamas stops its terrorist campaign. Until then, Israel has every right to the proportional response it is making right now. Israel has every right to take out the terrorist leaders that are directing the attacks on its citizens

Economic Recovery

Mr. President, I would like to move now to a separate topic, and the one for which I originally came to the floor, and I came to the floor to talk about our economy.

In April, the unemployment rate went up. Surprisingly, it went up. It was supposed to go down. It went up, and so are prices all around the country. The experts in the White House actually thought that we were going to add 1 million new workers in America last month. In reality, only about 266,000 Americans went back to work. So the so-called experts at the White House were wrong, and they were wrong by three- quarters of a million workers.

Now, 40,000 of those people who went back to work went to government jobs, which means the cost of government continues to grow. The private sector was able to only hire 220,000 people rather than 1 million. It was the most disappointing jobs report in over 20 years.

There has also been a slowdown in the middle of a recovery, which is surprising to many. You know, before Joe Biden took office, we saw a fantastic economic recovery, and it was the fastest one in American history. We were bouncing back from the coronavirus shutdown. It is a very different story now. It is no coincidence that this is a direct result of President Biden's policies.

And the policies--the Democrats all voted for this, and the Republicans all voted against it. The Democrats and President Biden, party-line vote, voted to extend a bonus payment for workers to stay home, paying people more to stay at home than they could make at work, in many cases. People aren't lazy. They are logical, and it is a perfectly logical thing to do; that they took up the President on his offer to stay home when they were paid more to stay home than they could make at work.

So, as a result, job openings right now are at an alltime high. Businesses can't find workers. Everywhere I go in Wyoming, I see ``Help Wanted'' signs. The president of Delta Airlines reported they canceled 100 flights last month because they couldn't find enough people to work. They had people ready to fly. They didn't have people who were ready to work.

People want to work. People want to hire others. The incentives coming from government are absolutely wrong. Joe Biden and Big Government are getting in the way of people returning to work.

There is another big problem I heard about. I heard about it this past weekend in Wyoming. The business owners I heard can't find workers because of incentives coming out of this administration--``Help Wanted'' signs up--and from other people asking me: Why are prices going up? Why is inflation back?

You know, under the Obama-Biden administration, we saw the same thing. It is called the middle-class squeeze, where prices are going up faster than wages are going up. April was the worst month for inflation since the great recession 13 years ago.

In effect, inflation means that the money in your wallet buys less. So, in a sense, you have a pay cut. Inflation is a regressive tax. It means the poorer you are, the more it hurts and the fewer things you can buy for the money you have. The big donors in the Democratic league, they are going to be just fine. They won't even notice rising prices. They don't notice when gas prices go up. The Silicon Valley hotshots and the masters of the universe in Manhattan, they are going to be just fine.

It is families--working families in Wyoming and New Mexico and across the country who are struggling to get by. They are the ones who are going to get hurt the most. Just look at the cost of a trip to the grocery store. First, you have to go to the grocery store, and to you get there, you have to drive. Well, the price of gasoline is going up. Across the Nation now, the price of a gallon of gasoline is over $3 a gallon. A year ago, it was about $2 a gallon.

Since Joe Biden took office, it has gone up nearly 70 cents a gallon. That hits people when they fill up because they have to drive getting back to work. In Wyoming and New Mexico, people drive long distances, and we use more gas than most. So people in our States are paying more than many other places.

And I don't think it is a coincidence that the price of gas has gone up. Joe Biden's first action in office was to draw a target on the back of American energy and pull the trigger. He shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline. He banned new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. He has restricted the production of American energy. We need energy. We need it now.

Gas prices affect the price of everything else. It costs more and more to transport things across the country, and that is why we are seeing prices go up at the grocery store. Working families are getting squeezed. And this is a direct result of the policies of the Biden administration.

One reason this is happening is because President Biden is flooding the country with so-called easy money. We are finding out it is not too easy. In the month of March, President Biden signed into law a $2 trillion slush fund for basically liberal spending. It was described as a coronavirus relief package but, in fact, when you take a look at it, less than 9 percent of the money, a very small percentage of the money, actually went for medical care.

He crammed it through Congress--party-line vote, absolutely no Republican support--put the bill on the Nation's credit card, and the Federal Reserve started to print more money. Now, money doesn't grow on trees, doesn't come from a printer, and you

cannot print your way to prosperity. The money has to come from somewhere.

History shows that this is a strategy that eventually backfires. Nations try to print free money, and they end up poorer than ever. Get- rich schemes don't work, never have, and they aren't going to this time either. Inflation is going up every single month since the election.

Now, the White House experts tell us not to worry. These are the same experts that predicted there would be 1 million new jobs and people working last month and that the unemployment rate would drop. But much of the $2 trillion that President Biden signed into law hasn't even gone out the door yet, and the President is asking for trillions and trillions more.

The House of Representatives, the other night, put out a proposal related to the infrastructure bill, one that I am trying to work with the administration on. They are requesting $7.1 trillion, an astonishingly high amount of money. If the President gets his way and we keep spending like this at the request from the House, inflation is only beginning.

You don't have to take my word for it. Listen to the liberal economist Larry Summers. He was in the Clinton administration as well as the Obama administration. He was Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury and played an economic role in the Obama administration.

He warned against President Biden's spending spree. He called that $2 trillion slush fund the least responsible spending bill he has seen in four decades--the least responsible spending bill in four decades. That is before all this additional spending may be coming.

Well, this is what he said after April's inflation numbers came out. He said:

I was . . . worried . . . about inflation . . . [yet] it's

. . . moved much faster, much sooner than [even] I . . .

predicted.

That is Larry Summers--Clinton administration and Obama administration--commenting on the Biden policies.

People who save money their whole lives for retirement are now watching their hard-earned savings go down with a stroke of Joe Biden's pen. Their buying ability is shrinking. People who did the right thing, who worked hard, and saved their money are now being punished by Biden policies.

Under President Biden, we are seeing more government, more taxes, more spending, and, as a result, the American people are suffering. They are seeing flat wages, higher prices, and disappointing job creation. We see gas lines. We see people hoarding gasoline. It sounds like it was in the 1970s. And President Biden should remember those times because he was still a Member of the Senate back then.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to continue and finish my remarks with an additional 60 seconds.

Thank you, Mr. President.

President Biden should remember that by 1980, the American people had had enough. We changed course. We thought it was enough of Jimmy Carter, and we elected Ronald Reagan President.

It is time to change course again. Let's create more American energy. Let's set down the taxpayer's credit card. Put it away. Cut up the credit card. Stop the reckless spending.

American families have been paying the price. The people in the middle are being squeezed. The American people expect and deserve better.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Vote on S.J. Res. 13

Madam President, first, I would like to associate myself with the fine remarks of the Senator from Mississippi, who sees every day, when he is home traveling in his State, the same things I am seeing in Wyoming--``Help Wanted'' signs all around our home States, as businesses are looking for people to hire, and the government's incentives are making it that much harder to find workers.

Job openings right now are at a record high in America. There were 8 million jobs available going into April. Yet in that month, only about one-quarter of a million people actually were hired. The unemployment rate actually went up.

We lost manufacturing. We lost retail. We lost healthcare jobs last month. Construction jobs were flat. Ten million people are unemployed right now, even though there are 8 million job openings.

Every Senator I talk to says that there are ``Help Wanted'' signs all around their home State. Nearly every American who wants a job should be able to find one. Yet it is really not happening.

The question has been asked and answered on this floor by various Members of the Republican Party: Why can't small businesses find workers? Why are so many of these jobs unfilled? Because something like this doesn't just happen on its own. Oh, no. This happens as a direct result of the President's policies.

President Biden and Democrats are paying people to stay home. That is why so many people are staying home. They are being paid more to not work than to work. According to one analysis, nearly half of all people on unemployment benefits with the unemployment benefit bonus payment-- the extra check--are making more money by staying at home than they would make if they go to work.

These people aren't lazy. Oh, no. When the President and Democrats offer people free money to stay home, it is perfectly logical--people take them up on the offer.

I believe the American people want to work. That is what I see at home in Wyoming. That is who we are. That is the fiber of the American people. We are the hardest working people in the world. American businesses want to hire. Yet Joe Biden and Big Government are getting in the way.

President Biden has actually extended bonus payments until September. We are now in May. May, June, July, August, September--month after month, after month, after month of more of this. This is a grave danger to small businesses across America. If they can't find workers, they might have to close again. Then those job openings will no longer be there, and they will be gone forever.

President Biden appears to be, in my opinion, in denial on this. He held a press conference recently, and this is what he said: It is all ``loose talk.''

This is not loose talk. This is basic arithmetic. Job openings are going up; hiring is slowing down; and nearly half of workers make more money by staying at home.

``Loose talk'' is when the President of the United States tells us everything is just fine when it is not. April was the most disappointing jobs report in more than 20 years--two decades. Yet President Biden says the jobs report ``shows we're on the right track.''

No, it doesn't. Hiring has slowed down. Some say people aren't returning to work because of coronavirus.

Madam President, let me tell you, it is very unlikely. We are vaccinating 2 million people a day. One in three Americans is now-- these are adults--fully vaccinated already. We are getting the virus behind us. We have been very successful with Operation Warp Speed.

We should be filling the 8 million jobs available right now. Yet what are President Biden and the Democrats doing to fix the problem? Nothing, nothing at all. I believe they are making it worse by extending these bonus payments. It is time the President and Democrats worked for a solution.

You know, I am proud that the people of Wyoming and the Governor of Wyoming have done just that. Wyoming has taken a leadership role, along with approximately 20 other States, in ending these bonus payments. It is going to give our economy a boost. It is going to lead to more hiring.

It is time for President Biden and the Democrats to follow the successful lead of the people of Wyoming. Stop paying people a bonus to stay home. Reward the hard work that is a part of America and Americans' DNA.

I yield the floor

Mr. President, I stand today to recognize the 75th anniversary of Casper College, a community, regional, and State pillar of education. Casper College is one of Wyoming's great educational institutions, with the mission of ``Education for a Lifetime.''

Casper College was the first community college in Wyoming. The idea for the college began following World War I. After 19 years of study and debate, a measure to establish the college was passed by the Wyoming Legislature. It was signed into law in February 1945 by then- Governor Lester C. Hunt. Casper Junior College opened in 1945 on the third floor of the Natrona County High School building. Timing was ripe for Casper College to meet the demands of the ``greatest generation'' of service men and women who were eligible for the newly offered GI bill. Since that time, Casper College has continued that same spirited mission. The college is an incredible success story, growing into one of the largest and most comprehensive community colleges in the Rocky Mountain West.

In 1955, the rapidly expanding 2-year school moved to its present location on the hills below Casper Mountain. Today, the campus comprises 28 buildings on more than 200 acres. Casper College offers more than 140 academic transfer and technical and career programs. Eleven universities offer advanced degrees through university partnership programs. There are 40 University of Wyoming programs through the Casper College 2+2 Degree plan.

Casper College has received numerous awards and national recognition. In 2020, the College Consensus named Casper College one of the Fifty Best Community Colleges in the United States. The school was also named the ninth-best community college in the Nation in a recent study conducted by the personal finance outlet WalletHub. This study recognizes where students can receive the best education at the lowest price. In 2021, Great Value Colleges named Casper College as one of America's most beautiful community college campuses.

Casper College's core values are integrity, people, diversity, forward-thinking, and community. Alumni leaders include former Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, the late country singer and rodeo cowboy Chris LeDoux, artist Chris Navarro, renowned entomoligist Wayne Hunter, and Marlan Scully, American physicist best known for his work in theoretical quantum optics. The alumni list also includes former professional athletes Earle Higgins, Bob Lackey, and Flynn Robinson. With over 4,000 students each semester, Casper college will continue to produce outstanding artists, athletes, academics, and professionals.

Under the direction and guidance of President Darren Divine, staff, and faculty, Casper College continues a tradition of excellence started by the founders 75 years ago. They are educating, teaching, and training the next generation of leaders and professionals. The college board of trustees are Chair Steve Degenfelder, Vice Chair Tim Kugle, Secretary Sue Schilling, and Trustees Kathy Dolan, Liz Batton, Scott Bennion, and Susan D. Miller.

Student Senate leaders for this anniversary year are President Anastacia Slack, School of Business & Industry; Bre Long and Dylan Cornelius, School of Fine Arts & Humanities; Tierra Price and Jakob Duncan, School of Health Science; Madelyn Polys and Morgan Bundy, School of Science; Emma Mercer and Abby Hudman, School of Social & Behavioral Science; Logan MacKearney and Charissa Parker, Freshman Representatives; and members Paige Noble and Dani Warner.

Casper College is supported by the Casper College Foundation and Alumni Assocation. These organizations work with the community, donors, faculty, and staff to assist the college in fulfilling its mission. Together they invest in the legacy of Casper College.

In honor of the 75th-anniversary, the Casper College Alumni Association named 25 former students and graduates as exemplary alumni. Congratulations to each one for their recognition at this special event.

Asher Albertson MD (AS, '03), Neurologist

Dale Anderson (AB, 93) (AAS, '89), Fire Science Instructor

Jim Anderson (AB, '74), Wyoming State Senator

Father Kevin Burke ('72), Vice President for Mission, Regis University

Derrel Carruth (AS, '65), Retired USDA, State Director for Rural Development

Rachelle Carnesale (AA, '87), Superior Court Judge

Brenda Creel (AS, '82), Principal, Educator

Kee Dunning (AA, '79), Youth Counselor

Joshua Hamilton (AS, '99) (AS, '95), Professor, Owner Hamilton Psychiatric and Behavioral Health

Lawrence Heim (AA, '85), IT Leadership, US State Department professional fellow

Neal Jacquot (AA, '62), Former advisor to the Secretary of the Interior

Tyler Lesher (AS, '11), Assistant Athletic Trainer for Florida Atlantic University

David Long ('72), Retired Colorado State Patrolman

Erin (Marrow) Hawley (AS, '00), Faculty University of Missouri, former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Roberts

Reza ``Ciah'' Arabian Maleki (AS, '79), Faculty at University of North Dakota, Senior Business Advisor for Impact Dakota

Patricia McInroy (AA, '89) (AA, '89) (AA, '89), Faculty at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Documentary film maker

Frank Neville (AA, '66), Founder of Willimas, Porter, Day, and Neville

Jennifer Rodi (AS, '96) (AA, '96), NTSB Deputy Chief for Central Region and Adjunct Faculty

Celestina Rossi (AB, '95), Senior Crime Investigator with Montgomery County Sheriff's Office

Melissa Salee (AS, '97), OB/GYN Casper Practice

Colton Sasser (AS, '16), Co-Owner Caspar Building, Co-Founder Hunting with Heroes

Jerry Spicer ('68), Organizational Leadership Expert

Richard Sullins (AS, '73), Retired faculty University of Texas, Development team leader at Texas Instruments

Mike Stepp (AAS, '80), Owner Donelle's Chocolates, Community Volunteer

Guy Worthey (AS, '95), Associate Professor of Physics at Washington State University

Casper College provides education for a lifetime. Students gain the advantage of a college experience that stretches from the learning environment to student clubs and activities. These include championship athletics teams, vibrant culture in the arts and humanities, STEM, and trade/vocational career programs.

It is a great privilege to recognize this remarkable institution advancing Wyoming education. Bobbi joins me in extending our congratulations to Casper College, the Alumni Association, and the Casper College Foundation on their 75th anniversary celebration.

First, I would like to associate myself with the remarks from the Senator from Iowa, who very clearly stated the problems that people all across the country are facing. I love the line about we can't even claim the government as a dependent because the government truly is dependent upon the people of this great country.

Tax day is just a few days away so I come to the floor to oppose the tax hikes proposed by President Biden. Today, tax revenues in America are at a near-record high of all times. We don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. Yet President Biden wants to take more money out of the wallets of America's hard-working men and women.

How much is he calling for? Astonishingly, $3 trillion in additional taxes. This is on top of the taxes that are already being paid. It is the biggest tax increase in over half a century.

It is supposed to pay for a lot of liberal spending ideas. It is a big liberal agenda that this President is promoting. Yet even with these historic tax increases being proposed, our Nation will still need to continue to borrow money from China.

In just over 100 days, President Biden has already put $1.99 trillion on our Nation's credit card. Now he wants more. In total, President Biden's agenda would cost more than America's total commitment to World War II. Are these liberal spending proposals as important to our Nation as was our victory in World War II? Of course not.

As I have said before, our economy was already on track to be back to normal this summer. That was before President Biden passed his spending bill on a party-line vote crammed through the Senate after a middle-of- the-night debate, crammed through on a direct party-line vote using budget reconciliation.

President Biden has said--it is interesting, astonishing, and amusing to listen to the President when he says only the rich will have to pay these taxes. The American people have seen this movie before. We know as Americans that when we hear politicians say only the rich will pay, it is time to hold on to your wallet because they are coming for you.

Working families are going to pay in the form of higher prices, lower wages, and fewer job opportunities.

We are already seeing higher prices. We are seeing significant inflation since the day President Biden has taken office. We see it again today with the newest economic statistics that have come out. We hear about it at home on the weekends as we talk to folks at home about what is happening with their day-to-day life and their expenses.

Experts tell us that President Biden's tax hikes could destroy a million jobs--a million jobs. When Republicans cut taxes in 2017--and it is good to be here on the floor with my friend and colleague from Ohio who is one of the four horsemen who put that proposal together on behalf of the Republicans--revenue at the Federal Government actually went up. It is the same thing that happened when taxes were cut under President Coolidge and Kennedy and Reagan and George W. Bush.

If you cut taxes, there is more money in people's hands. They can do what they want to do with that money and make better decisions than the government. I think it is very important to let people keep more of their hard-earned money. They make better decisions than Washington, DC, does.

People can decide what they want to spend, what they want to save, what they want to invest, how much they want to donate. And all four of these are very good for our Nation. That means more jobs, more growth, and, ultimately, more tax revenue with more people working, even though each is paying less in taxes individually.

I have much more confidence when money is in the hands of the American people than I do when it is in the hands of the politicians in Washington, DC.

I would urge all of my colleagues to say: Stop these tax hikes. Stop this reckless spending. Let people keep more of their hard-earned money and make decisions for themselves.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Mills, WY.

On Saturday, June 12, 2021, the town of Mills will honor this milestone with a 100th Anniversary Summer Fest Celebration. The event will host a parade, concerts, and other festivities throughout the day. It is an excellent opportunity for the people of Natrona County and Wyoming to gather and commend the strong, lasting character of this community.

Mills was established in May of 1921 at a location near the Fort Caspar site along the northern banks of the North Platte River. Many pioneers traversed this area along the Oregon Trail before oil was discovered in the Salt Creek Field. In 1919, with the growth of the oil and gas industry, brothers James, William, and Thomas Mills and their Mills Construction Company purchased a homestead owned by Charles M. Hawks. Company employees and their families began to settle in the surrounding land. By 1921, over 500 people lived in the quickly developing area. A need for local organization resulted in Mills' incorporation as a town, becoming the third in Natrona County.

The story of Mills is a microcosm of the story of Natrona County and Central Wyoming. The town has navigated through the booms and busts of the oil industry throughout its century and continues to navigate its unique place across the river from Casper. Industry has always played a large role in the development of the community. From its beginnings with the Mills Construction Company, Mills now hosts a wide range of manufacturing, fabrication, heavy machinery, and oil and gas businesses. Yet, Mills still maintains its

quaint charm with Oregon Trail historic sites, river recreational opportunities, and local watering holes.

Mills held its first election on May 10, 1921. The first mayor was George E. Boyle, who was elected alongside new Councilmen Fred Hunter, Fred Shackleford, G.W. Lindsley, and Michael Kennedy. A century later, Mills is served by Mayor Seth Coleman with Councilmembers James Hollander, Darla Ives, Sara McCarthy, and Brad Neumiller. They continue their tradition of public service and stewardship.

From its incorporation as a town with a population of 500, Mills entered 1990 with over 1,500 residents. Today it boasts a population of over 4,000 people and is one of the fastest growing communities in Wyoming. On August 4, 2020, Governor Mark Gordon signed a proclamation declaring Mills a ``First-Class City.'' This is another milestone to add to the summer celebration.

It is my honor to commemorate this historic milestone for the city of Mills. Their centennial celebration is a tribute to generations of determination and community. Bobbi joins me and everyone in Wyoming in our appreciation of everything the people of Mills have contributed to our great State and Nation. We extend our congratulations as we look forward to the next 100 years.