Floor Statements

Mr. President, new data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that the crisis at the border isn't going away even if that may be the wish of the Biden administration. In the last year, Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 2.3 million migrants at the southern border, which is an all-time high.

I know some people think, well, these are economic migrants or people fleeing violence and persecution. Some of them are asylum seekers who might potentially qualify, although the data indicates that, if in fact they end up showing up for their immigration court hearing years after they claim asylum, because of the backlogs, only about 10 percent qualify for asylum. Then you have the economic migrants. You have criminals. You have drug smugglers. It is a hodgepodge. And while many people turn themselves in in order to invoke our asylum system, which is broken and results in many people being given a notice to appear for a future court hearing that they never show up for, the situation at the border remains a public safety threat and a humanitarian crisis.

Customs and Border Protection is the first line of defense against dangerous threats to the country. Over the last 11 months, the hard- working men and women of CBP have arrested nearly 700 criminal gang members and have stopped more than 140 people on the terrorist watch list from crossing the southern border. They have interdicted more than 645 pounds of illegal drugs, including 13,600 pounds of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. I think it takes roughly the point of a pencil lead, a couple of milliliters, of fentanyl to kill a person. So you can imagine what 13,600 pounds would do, and these are only the drugs that we have caught. Nobody believes that we catch even the majority of the drugs coming across.

CBP seized illegal currency, weapons, ammunition, counterfeit goods, and other products that could hurt the American people or our economy.

I want to just take a moment to thank the Border Patrol agents and Customs officers who take on this challenging and important work every day. Sometimes they are met with nothing more than derision or ridicule or a lack of support for their important work. These men and women put their own health and safety at risk to keep our borders and keep the American people safe, and they don't receive nearly the level of thanks that they deserve.

Coming from a border State, as you might imagine, I have visited the border many, many times. I always enjoy talking to these men and women because they are, frankly, the experts about what we need to do in order to fix what is wrong about the borders. They are true professionals, and they know more than just about anybody else I have talked to about what the problem is and what the solutions are.

Many of these officers and agents have worked for Customs and Border Protection for years, some even since its founding in 2003. They have seen migration surges over the years, but as they have told me many times, they have never seen anything quite like we are seeing today.

An average of 6,600 migrants are coming across the southern border every

day. They will tell you: We simply don't have the capacity to manage that sort of tsunami of humanity. We don't have the facilities or the resources, and we certainly don't have the personnel. The only way we are able to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs is to divert law enforcement officers from their other important mission.

Frankly, that is part of these transnational criminal organizations' plans: They overwhelm the Border Patrol, divert their attention, and then, in the hole that is created in border security, here come the drugs.

Agents who would normally be on the frontlines, stopping cartels from smuggling drugs, are now serving meals and changing diapers.

When you consider all of those stats that I mentioned--hundreds of thousands of pounds of illegal drugs, 700 criminal gang members, 141 people on the terrorist watch list--there is an important qualifier to remember: Those are just the ones we know about. With law enforcement being shifted from patrol to caretaking duties, we are leaving major security gaps that are being exploited by the cartels and criminal organizations.

There is a whole category of migrant that comes across the border known as the got-aways. The asylum seekers will typically show up and turn themselves in, but, frankly, I think it is the got-aways--hundreds of thousands of people--that you have to worry about because they don't want to encounter law enforcement because they either don't have any legal basis to enter the United States or they happen to be transporting illegal drugs or have a criminal record on their own right.

There is no question that our security mission is taking a hit. Every day, cartel and gang members are trafficking and moving guns, drugs, illegal currency, and just about any other commodity that you can think about. And when they succeed, border communities aren't the only ones that see the impact.

As you can see, cartels and transnational criminal organizations have a presence in cities across the United States. Once cartels make it across the border, they head to places as diverse as Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, New York, San Diego, or just about any other city where they can do business, including Bangor, ME, and other places in Maine.

These aren't the only people who are coming to the United States. These are not people coming to build a better life. They are coming here to prey on innocent Americans for their own gain.

Last year, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Chicago Field Division spoke about what happens once these drugs and criminals reach his backyard.

He said:

Cartels use every possible means to get drugs from Mexico

into the United States and then into the local markets. And

in Chicago--

For example--

that means predominantly to the gangs that control the drug

markets in Chicago.

If you are concerned, as most Americans are, about the spike in crime that we have seen recently, well, a whole lot of that crime is caused by criminal street gangs committing various crimes, including selling illegal drugs and using guns to kill one another as part of their way to protect their market share and their territory. Those are the same gangs that fuel the overdose epidemic, the same gangs that perpetuate crime and gun violence, the same gangs that engage in deadly conflicts over territory. That is the cruel reality here.

It is a self-perpetuating cycle, and it starts at the border. So even though you may not be a border State, at least a southern border State, you are affected because, as you can see, the network of distribution of illicit drugs coming across the border affects almost every major American city. And it is not just cities. A lot of our rural areas in Texas and elsewhere are affected as well.

And we are reading increasingly about young people, unknown to them, consuming fentanyl in a fatal dose and dying, and it is happening every day, in every community around the United States. And 71,000 Americans died of fentanyl overdoses last year alone. This is where it comes from; this is how it is distributed; and those are the consequences. So no community in America has been spared the pain and suffering from this pandemic of drugs. In 2021, as I mentioned, 108,000 Americans died from drug overdoses; 71,000 of those 108,000 died from fentanyl.

You know, I remember on September 11, 2001, when terrorists diverted aircraft and killed about 3,000 Americans. We declared a war against terrorism when 3,000 Americans were killed here in the homeland. Yet 108,000 Americans died last year as a result of these open borders and our broken policy, and it doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves.

Of course, being a border State, communities in Texas are dealing with the consequences of this humanitarian crisis and these drugs on a daily basis. Last weekend, three people in Wichita Falls died from suspected fentanyl overdoses. The oldest victim was 21; the youngest was 13. In the last couple of months, four students from the Hays County Consolidated Independent School District, right outside of Austin, died from a fentanyl overdose. All four were between the ages of 15 and 17.

Across the State--indeed, across the Nation--families are mourning the loss of loved ones who have died from an overdose of these drugs, many of whom had no idea what they were consuming; they thought they were taking something else and ended up finding that it was laced with fentanyl--because the amount of fentanyl it takes to kill you is microscopic. The alarming increase in supply across our borders foreshadows even more devastation in the months and years to come.

Here is my point. The Biden administration needs to start taking this problem seriously. Cartels and criminal organizations are exploiting the security gaps at the border and sending these drugs and the criminals along with them to communities not just in Texas, not just in Arizona, not just in California or New Mexico, but all across the United States.

Addressing this security breakdown at our border has got to be a priority. We can't ignore it because it is not going to get any better. This is not just about migrants and immigration. It is about that, but it is not just about that. It is about security. It is about public safety. It is about knowing who is crossing our border and reaching into our local communities.

Cartels are sociopaths. They don't really care about people, including the migrants that they smuggle into the United States. If you go to Falfurrias, TX, which is in South Texas at a border checkpoint about 70 miles from the border--which is where, once migrants are stuffed into a car or a van or some other vehicle, they are then driven up the highway to these Border Patrol checkpoints; then they are told by the coyotes, which is the colloquial name for these human smugglers: Get out of the car and walk around the checkpoint because we can't risk going through the checkpoint with you there where we might be discovered. And so they do.

And so you go to Brooks County, TX, which is where the Falfurrias checkpoint is located, and they have asked the Federal Government for help to bury the bodies of migrants who die from exposure walking around that checkpoint in Falfurrias, TX, because it gets hot in Texas, particularly during the summer, and many of these migrants have come from far, far away and are suffering already from dehydration and other exposure.

But my point is the cartels don't care anything about them. They will leave them to die. They are just another way to make a buck. But the cartels terrorize more than just the migrants themselves; they terrorize communities across our country. And they seized on the Biden administration's weak policies to grow their foothold in the United States.

These transnational criminal organizations are getting rich smuggling migrants and smuggling drugs into the United States and killing Americans in the process. It is past time to do something. The Biden administration is being outmaneuvered by the cartels, and until we see leadership from the President, communities all across this country will continue to pay the price.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the crisis at our southern border continues to break records. For the first time ever, the United States has encountered more than 2 million migrants at our southern border in a single fiscal year, and that doesn't even include data for the month of September.

Now, my State, the State of Texas, has a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico where most of these migrants show up, although some go to Arizona, some to New Mexico, and some to California. But the vast majority of these 2 million migrants have showed up on our backdoor step. This includes a hodgepodge of people, from asylum seekers to economic migrants, to criminals, to drug smugglers.

In each of the last 6 months, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has logged more than 200,000 migrant encounters--for each of the past 6 months, 200,000 a month. The media used to lose its collective mind when 100,000 immigrants arrived in a single month, but I guess the public has become desensitize to these numbers because they are so huge, and we have now been operating at twice that level for 6 consecutive months.

Communities in my State of Texas have struggled to carry the weight of President Biden's border crisis, and nobody seemed to care. But the moment the burden reached the liberal enclaves of Manhattan and Martha's Vineyard, the outrage machine fired up.

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott began transporting migrants to other States and cities to ease the burden on communities in Texas. After all, what are we supposed to do? Two million migrants show up at the border. Are they supposed to stay there? Well, most of them have been in contact with relatives and other people in other cities around the country, and so they eventually make their way to their destination. And, if they are asylum seekers, they are given a notice to appear for a future court hearing, which probably will never occur because of the huge backlog in our immigration courts.

So Governor Abbott did what any reasonable person would do and began

sending these migrants to other places where they eventually will end up at their final destination, wherever that may be. You can imagine 2 million migrants showing up on your border and what the strain on local health systems is like, what the strain is on emergency response services. The more migrants that show up on our backdoor step, the lower the capacity to care for taxpayers who pay taxes to make sure those services are available.

At the same time, nongovernmental organizations--we call them NGOs-- along the border are expected to pick up the Federal Government's slack and care for the migrants, which harms those charities' ability to support more Texans and other Americans who rely on them.

To state the obvious, the burden of this crisis should not fall on our border communities. The Federal Government, after all, is charged with the responsibility of managing our international borders, and that includes migration.

Simply stated, the Biden administration has refused to deal with this crisis or, frankly, even to really acknowledge it. But that doesn't change the fact that my State--or any other State, for that matter-- should not be left to manage the fallout alone.

Now, since April, more than 11,000 migrants have voluntarily boarded buses from Texas to Washington, DC; New York; and Chicago. In the past, the leaders of these cities have made it clear that they would welcome migrants with open arms. They self-designate as a sanctuary city. Well, now this is their opportunity to provide that sanctuary and those services and relieve some of the burden on the border States that have borne the disproportionate burden for all this time. But you would have thought that something nefarious was going on or a genuine public emergency had occurred. They don't care a whit about 2 million people showing up on the Texas border. But when they show up on a bus in Washington, DC, or Chicago or New York, they howl like a dog that has been hit with a rock.

After ignoring the border crisis during the entirety of the Biden administration, the arrival of a few thousands migrants in these sanctuary cities has put them into an absolute panic. The Democratic Mayor of Washington, DC, for example, declared a public health emergency after her city received only a few thousand migrants. Two million migrants at the border in my State, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and they didn't raise a peep. But a few thousand migrants to show up here in Washington, DC--roughly the same number that arrive on the southern border every single day--you would have thought there was an emergency.

The Democratic mayor of New York said that his city is ``nearly to the breaking point.'' This is a city of 8\1/2\ million people. Yet the mayor said his city is near the breaking point even though it has welcomed only a few thousand migrants. Give me a break.

Our colleague from Illinois, the majority whip, called the transportation of these migrants ``cruel and inhumane.'' Giving people a bus ride to their ultimate destination strikes me as not cruel and not inhumane. The White House Press Secretary had the temerity to say it was ``shameful and reckless.'' Well, what is shameful and reckless is the Biden administration's border crisis that it simply ignored for the last 2 years.

Vice President Kamala Harris even went so far as to call this ``the height of irresponsibility'' and a ``dereliction of duty.'' I doubt Vice President Harris recognizes the many layers of irony in that statement. After all, last March, she was designated as the border czar for the Biden administration, but she wouldn't visit the border. She was charged, by the President of the United States, with finding solutions to address this ongoing crisis. If she wants to talk about dereliction of duty, her refusal to acknowledge, much less address, the border crisis is a prime example of irresponsibility and dereliction of duty.

But what is even more misleading about her statement is the fact that transporting migrants to cities far from the southern border is nothing new. In fact, the Biden administration has been doing it all along. Here is a chart. It shows the cities that have been receiving migrants from the Biden administration since the President became President of the United States in January of 2021: In Washington State, Yakima, if I am pronouncing that correctly; Minneapolis; Denver; Phoenix; Yuma; even Atlanta; White Plains; Scranton; Baltimore; Harrisburg; Allentown; Jacksonville, FL; Birmingham, AL; Houston, TX; Brownsville; San Antonio; Dallas--all of these cities have been the recipients of migrants transported by the Biden administration.

In April of last year, the Associated Press published a story with the headline ``Unaccompanied children from border arrive in Pennsylvania.'' The following month, the local news station in Chattanooga, TN, posted a story with the headline ``Late-night flights carrying migrant children arrive in Chattanooga.'' Here is another headline from October of last year: ``Biden administration quietly flies illegal immigrants to New York in the middle of the night.'' We didn't hear the howls of protest from Mayor Adams or the Governor when the Biden administration was doing what they are now complaining about. Though they don't talk about it very often, the Biden administration has a history of transporting migrants to cities far from the U.S.- Mexico border, and they didn't call it shameful or reckless then.

Just to be clear, when somebody claims asylum at the border and passes an initial test of a credible fear of persecution, they are then given a notice to appear for a future court hearing that may be years off, with millions of cases in the backlog. That is called a notice to appear, and it shouldn't surprise anybody that, over the years, after people have already made their way into the interior of the United States, that many of them don't show up for their court hearing. This is part of what the Border Patrol said is a lack of consequences associated with entering the United States in an irregular fashion. Oh, by the way, 90 percent of the people who do show up for their court hearing are not granted asylum. They don't qualify.

As I have stressed on many occasions, Mr. President, communities in my State do not have the capacity, the infrastructure, or the resources to handle this crisis alone. As New York City, the largest city in America, raises alarms over a few thousand migrants, I can't help but think about what happened when 15,000 Haitian migrants showed up under a bridge in Del Rio, TX, a town of 35,000 people. The group of migrants who showed up under that bridge in Del Rio equated to more than 40 percent of the city's population. Can you imagine what a challenge that was just to feed people, provide them humane treatment, sanitation. But if you extrapolate that 15,000 in a city of 35,000, that would be the equivalent of more than 3 million people showing up in New York City or 280,000 arriving in Washington, DC, in the course of just 1 week.

So whether they intended to do so or not, the mayors of Washington, DC and New York City--and Chicago, for that matter--have shown that the weight of this crisis is extraordinarily heavy, and they are only experiencing a tiny fraction of what Texas communities have faced every day for the last year and a half. And do you know what? Apparently the Biden administration simply doesn't care. As these mayors now know, caring for these migrants who cross our border is a herculean task because of the sheer volume of people coming across.

Legal immigration is part of the secret to our success as a country. We naturalize a million people a year. But these are people who have chosen to jump ahead of those waiting in line to enter the country lawfully, and we simply don't have the resources in place at the border or other places to deal with this vast tsunami of humanity--food, clothing, shelter, medical care, translation services, legal services, sanitation. Communities in Texas apparently have been expected to bear the entire brunt and the entire burden. It is time consuming, it is labor intensive, it is extraordinarily expensive, and it is dangerous.

The criminal organizations that are getting rich moving these migrants into the country for $5-, $10-, $15,000 a person are flooding the Border Patrol with these migrants, diverting necessary resources from the Border Patrol from interdicting the drugs that

are entering our country that killed 108,000 Americans last year alone. Seventy-one thousand of those 108,000 died of fentanyl overdose, a synthetic opioid. Precursors come from China, get to Mexico, are manufactured there, and are smuggled into the United States. And fentanyl has taken far too many lives in every State and in every city in this Nation, and yet the Biden administration has not awakened to the fact that they are being played; that part of this business model, if you want to call it that, of flooding the border with migrants is to divert the Border Patrol and law enforcement officials from stopping these drugs, this poison, from coming into the country.

Then, yes, in every city in the Nation, we have seen a spike in crime. Do you know who the distribution network is in the United States for the drugs that the cartels smuggle across the border? It is gangs in every city and in every State in the country. And who is responsible for most of the gun violence and crime in our cities? It is these gangs that are the principal distribution network for the drugs that come across the border. Yet the Biden administration has not connected the dots. I don't know why. The DEA, or the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI Director--there are a lot of people in the administration who could inform the President and the Vice President of what the facts are, but they apparently are not even curious, or, if they know, they don't seem to care.

From El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley, as I said, Texas shares a 1,200-mile border with Mexico out of our total border of 2,000 miles. The communities situated along that border simply cannot handle the monumental job of dealing with this flow of migrants and the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its responsibilities. But this isn't a partisan matter.

My friend Oscar Leeser, who is the mayor of El Paso, TX--he is a proud Democrat--he has been busing migrants to get them off the streets of El Paso to the cities where they want to go.

He said a few days ago:

People are not coming to El Paso, they're coming to

America.

It is only fair for other parts of the country to bear the burden that we have borne alone in my State and in other border States, as long as the Federal Government is simply advocating its responsibility to deal with illegal immigration and to fix this crisis. They know what to do. They simply are refusing to do it, presumably because some of their political supporters don't believe in anything except open borders.

The Biden administration has completely abdicated its duty to secure the border, and it has failed to supply border communities with the resources they need to try to manage this fallout. The truth is, no matter what the resources were, the numbers are just overwhelming. And that is the point. The cartels get rich; they smuggle drugs and additional migrants; and that is the point. So it is not going to stop until the Biden administration wakes up out of its deep sleep and deals with the reality of what is happening at the border.

In the last 12 months, Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 2.3 million migrants at the southern border, and that total grows every single day. All you have to do is turn on your TV set and see people streaming across the border, many of them turning themselves in, getting into this asylum system where they ultimately melt into the great American heartland, never to be heard from again, successfully making their way into the country.

Our amazing men and women at the Border Patrol are grappling with staffing shortages and poor morale. How would you like to be a police officer where the mayor and city council say: Well, we had to hire a police force, but we are really not going to fund that police force or we are not going to do anything to recruit more people to serve in that police force. And do you know what? We really don't care whether they enforce the law or not.

That is the message that the Border Patrol is receiving from the Biden administration. So, of course, morale is bad. Of course, it is hard to recruit. The agents are outnumbered, they are overwhelmed, and, frankly, disgusted with the lack of leadership.

Border communities are buckling under the weight of vast humanitarian needs, and now even the self-proclaimed sanctuary cities don't seem to want to help. Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears to have no intention of fixing the problem. And it sure seems like they don't think anybody else should have to help either.

It is leaving Texas and other border States to buckle under the weight of a crisis that we had no hand in creating. It is forcing Texas taxpayers to make up for the failure of the Federal Government to perform its responsibilities. And what is worse, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Members of this body are trying to paint my State as the enemy for trying to deal with the hand that it has been dealt while they continue to refuse to lend a helping hand.

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

Madam President, for each of the past 61 years straight, the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act. I still remember the Presiding Officer's predecessor, John McCain, who used to rail on the Senate to get this done and making the very correct point that this should be the No. 1 priority of the U.S. Congress--making sure that our men and women in uniform received the training, the support, and the weapons they need in order to keep America safe.

The annual Defense bill is part of Congress's commitment to give our men and women in uniform the resources they need to surmount the growing threats of today and prepare for the ones that inevitably will come tomorrow.

As we know here in the Senate, the global threat landscape is not getting easier. It is getting more and more dangerous. Some of the changes happen quickly and can be traced to a single moment in time.

For example, September 11, 2001, changed everything in our conversation and our acts to fight terrorism across the world. That single day and that single act forced us to reexamine our longstanding military paradigm

and change course as rapidly as we could.

But other threats grow over time. Just look at the rise of the People's Republic of China. Over the course of roughly four decades, China has transformed itself from a poor, isolated country to the world's second largest economy. Its wealth is used to finance a powerful military, with increasingly aggressive and hostile acts.

Looking back over the last year or so, it is remarkable to consider how much has happened and how quickly the global threat picture has shifted.

Last year at this time, American troops were still on the ground in Afghanistan, but President Biden made the decision to retreat ahead of the 20th anniversary of September 11, and our servicemembers and diplomats were preparing for what we assumed would be an orderly withdrawal. There wasn't much optimism about the long-term fate of the Afghan Government, but it was expected to hold out for at least 6 months following our withdrawal.

At the same time, tensions between Russia and Ukraine were high, but nothing really much new. The countries have had a long, tense relationship since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there didn't seem to be any reason for immediate alarm. Ukrainian cities were as vibrant, lively, and free as ever.

In a little over a year's time, though, all of that has changed. The Taliban took control of Afghanistan before our troops even exited, leading to a chaotic exit and the loss of 13 heroic servicemembers and other Americans left behind.

In this period of time, Russia has launched an unprovoked war on Ukraine, bringing death and destruction to the Ukrainian people. Over the past several months, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died and more than 13 million have been displaced. Europe is now experiencing the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

To finance its ongoing war machine, Russia is developing even closer ties to communist China. Meanwhile, North Korea has declared itself a nuclear weapons state. Iran appears to be inching even closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and China's threats against Taiwan have only grown more dangerous in this period of time.

It is striking to consider how much has changed in such a short period. Last summer, it would have been nearly impossible for us to predict that this is where we would be some 14 months later.

I am reminded of former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' words in 2011. He said:

When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our

next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been

perfect. We haven't gotten it right once.

Of course, he is absolutely correct. It is impossible to anticipate the challenges that face us and that are on the horizon, but that doesn't mean we should sit idly by and hope that we are ready for what is coming. There is simply no security in that sort of fantasy. We need to start taking actions today to ensure that we are prepared for whatever comes knocking at our door.

Everybody knows that in order to secure our defense and be prepared to deter aggression from aggressive actors we need money. We need to make sure that we have the weapons that are needed not only to supply countries like Ukraine, not only to replenish the supply from our NATO allies that have been, in turn, supplying weapons to Ukraine, but we need to be ready for whatever comes knocking at our door.

Our military leaders need to plan and train every single day for the unknown, and that is exactly why a strong, on-time National Defense Authorization Act is absolutely critical. Now more than ever, we need to take stock of evolving threats and start preparing.

One of the problems that Britain faced in World War II is they did not heed Winston Churchill's warning about the growing military strength and ambitions of Nazi Germany. Britain, in the end, as a result, was hanging on by a thread, and that is where the United States got involved in becoming the arsenal of democracy in the Lend-Lease Program, which provided the Brits the military equipment they needed, the aviation platforms, and the weapons in order to defend themselves and to survive until the United States got involved in World War II, following the attack at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

Over the last 20 years, we have developed a military that is used to fighting unconventional, asymmetrical threats, like insurgent groups in the Middle East. We have been focused on the war on terrorism since 9/ 11, but things have changed in the interim. Now, a conflict with China or Russia seems more likely.

To prevent or to prevail in such a conflict, we need a more conventional, highly technological modern military.

In addition to determining what capabilities we need, we also have to ask ourselves whether our defense industrial base--that arsenal of democracy, as Franklin Roosevelt called it in World War II--whether our defense industrial base can even support the production of what our military will need to prepare for in the future.

There is clearly a lot of work that needs to be done, but, like a lot of things, it can't happen overnight. That is why it is so important that we get started today. In order for the military to invest in these new programs and capabilities to deter Chinese and Russian aggression against American interests and American allies and in order to send the demand signal to our industrial base for new and emerging defense requirements, we have to pass the National Defense Authorization Act.

It is not just the long-term threats that we need to address. We need to close the near-term security gaps too. If another conflict came knocking at our door today, we would be at a tremendous disadvantage; and that is, as I said, because the United States has been supplying weapons to Ukraine to defend its own sovereignty. But when we do that, that means those weapons are not available to us should President Xi decide to invade Taiwan or some other military conflict pops up around the world.

We provided Ukraine with unprecedented defense aid, including Javelins, Stingers, grenade launchers, small arms, ammunition, and much more. This assistance, to be sure, is not a handout. This is not a charity project. Like our allies, the United States has made a strategic decision to invest in the outcome. It is not just that we want Ukraine to win this war; we also need Russia to lose. We cannot risk a Russian victory that will embolden the Kremlin to push its fight even farther West.

There is no question that this is the right thing to do, both strategically and morally, but we must remain clear-eyed about the risks that our assistance carries. Every piece of equipment or weapon that we send is one less that we have ourselves in our arsenal. We need to ensure that the assistance that we provide does not end up weakening our own military readiness. The cards are already stacked against us, and we certainly don't need to weaken our own hand.

That is why Senator Shaheen and I have introduced the Securing American ARMS Act, which will help us replenish our defense stockpiles more quickly. The Pentagon is already working toward this goal, but there are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles and just redtape that stand in the way.

The Defense Department can't place an order for more Javelins and have them show up at the Pentagon 5 to 7 business days later. It doesn't work like that. The process of purchasing, manufacturing, and deploying lethal aid takes a lot of time which, frankly, we don't have.

That is where the Securing American ARMS Act comes in. This bill will remove some of those time-consuming hurdles to allow the Defense Department to fast-track the procurement process. It will allow us to provide critical support for our partners and allies now and in the future without compromising our own national defense.

I appreciate Senator Shaheen working with me on this bill, which now has more than a dozen bipartisan cosponsors. I am offering this legislation as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting its inclusion in the final bill.

Now more than ever, a well-prepared and well-funded military is an imperative. The rapid changes in the threat landscape should serve as a wake-up

call for anyone who thinks we can carry on with the status quo.

For our forces to continue fighting and defeating evil in every corner of the world, we need to provide that funding. They need the stability, and they need the unwavering support of the U.S. Congress.

As new powers rise and old powers fall, our country must be prepared for whatever changes are on the horizon. Congress has a critical role in that preparation, and we can't ignore our responsibility. We need to pass a strong National Defense Authorization Act as soon as possible, and I would urge Senator Schumer, the Senate majority leader, to bring that bill to the floor as soon as possible.

I yield the floor

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill amends the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to modify requirements under that act relating to exemptions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill amends the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to modify requirements under that act relating to exemptions.

Madam President, when Attorney General Garland went through the confirmation process for his current job as Attorney General of the United States, he made a solemn pledge to keep politics out of the Justice Department. I, for one, was encouraged by his statement, having seen the disastrous politicization of the Justice Department under former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

Attorney General Garland said this. He said:

I will never make a decision in the Department based on

politics or partisanship.

I took him at his word. I hoped we wouldn't see a return to the days when people saw double standards play out in the Justice Department based on who happened to be in office, who happened to be investigated. But, clearly, under Attorney General Garland's leadership, the Department of Justice has pointed its arrows toward concerned parents, for example, who are exercising their First Amendment rights to

speak up about their children's education. Attorney General Garland has sued the State of Georgia and the State of Texas, for example, claiming that ballot integrity measures that are within the prerogative of the States to pass were somehow suppressing the public's right to vote.

We are going to start voting in about 50 days from now. That is the main election date. In Texas, we will start voting a full 2 weeks before that date, where, without any reason whatsoever, you can show up and vote in person, 2 full weeks before the general election. Yet Attorney General Garland spins the false narrative that somehow the State of Texas is suppressing people's right to vote.

And then Attorney General Garland I think shocked everybody by authorizing an unprecedented search warrant on a former President and a current political rival when less intrusive means and methods would have produced the same documents that they claimed to be after.

Time and time again, the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland has taken aggressive actions that are viewed by the Biden administration as politically advantageous. For everybody else, though, it is a different story, that double standard. When Supreme Court Justices are receiving death threats, including the interdiction of a deranged man who was out to kill Justice Kavanaugh here in the Nation's Capital, the Attorney General did not respond by taking appropriate steps to prevent that violence. In fact, he fanned the flames. Instead of protecting the Justices, he chose to criticize them and encouraged what amounts to irresponsible conduct on the part of people on the left.

And now I am concerned about the Department's double standard in the handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. The public reports are that the President's son has been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware for a long time now. There is a lot, of course, we don't know, but reported leaks and evidence seem to show that Hunter Biden may have committed various felonies, including tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign lobbying violations. Despite the severity of these concerns, recent news reports have painted an alarming picture of the Department of Justice's handling of this investigation: silencing whistleblowers, downplaying or discrediting inculpatory information, prohibiting the Department of Justice and FBI employees from communicating with Members of Congress. This does not look, sound, or smell like an impartial investigation guided only by the facts and the rule of law.

Just across the street from here sits the Supreme Court of the United States. On the front of that Court is the inscription ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' There is no footnote. There is no asterisk. There is no exception for relatives of the President of the United States. Every American is entitled to fair and equal treatment and equal justice under the laws. The Attorney General must guarantee that Hunter Biden receives the same treatment as any other American who is under criminal investigation--not better, not worse, but the same.

Today, 32 of my colleagues and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Garland urging him to provide special counsel authorities and protections to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is leading the investigation into Hunter Biden. This is a critical step that the Attorney General can and should take to restore faith in this investigation and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. So I hope he will honor our request, do what he pledged to do when he was confirmed, and keep politics out of this investigation and, in the process, restore public confidence in our Nation's most revered institutions.

Mr. President, the 117th Congress is drawing to a close, and there is a lot we need to do before the end of the year when the 117th Congress is no more.

At the top of that list, of course, are must-pass bills. In the next couple of weeks, the Senate is expected to pass a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown. Later this year, we will either have to pass another short-term extension or a full government funding package, otherwise known around here as an omnibus.

On top of that, Congress needs to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which it has done 61 years in a row. The majority leader has, so far, declined to put that bill on the floor. This is a piece of legislation that provides our men and women in uniform the training they need and the equipment they need to fight and win America's wars and, hopefully, to prevent a war. It also supports our military families, and with an all-volunteer military like we have, it is critical that Congress step up and not only provide for those who wear the uniform but for those who also serve as members of that military member's family.

Even though these major pieces of legislation garner most of the attention, there are countless other bills that need to reach the President's desk before the end of this Congress. As the Presiding Officer knows, if a bill passes one Chamber but doesn't pass both and isn't signed into law, it literally expires. Many of these bills pass the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support but continue to collect dust on the House calendar.

One of those bills is the Jenna Quinn Law, which I have spoken about many times here on the Senate floor.

This legislation carries the name of a brave young woman from Texas who was a survivor of child sexual assault. Jenna, as a result of her own terrible experience, has made it her mission to end the cycle of abuse that harms children and communities across the country. Her work is having a big impact. She was the inspiration behind the 2009 Texas law that requires training for teachers, caregivers, and other adults who work with children on how to prevent, recognize, and report child sexual abuse. Since then, a number of other States have passed similar laws, but this training lacks a source of funding in many instances, and that is where the Jenna Quinn Law comes into play.

I introduced this bill with Senator Hassan of New Hampshire to finally back those training sessions with Federal funding through grants from the Department of Health and Human Services. We initially introduced the bill last Congress, and it passed the Senate unanimously. Unfortunately, it became a political hostage and was used to try to exert leverage to advance a partisan bill that stood no chance of passage. So here we are, 2 years later, and the bill is, once again, stuck in House purgatory. It has now passed the Senate twice-- both times with unanimous support--but for some inexplicable reason, the House refuses to even hold a vote.

This is an issue that is way too important for politics. The children who suffer as a result of child abuse and neglect continue to suffer. As for the caregivers who might be able, as a result of the training they receive, to identify a child who is suffering from the abuse, that training is not occurring as a result of the intransigence of the House of Representatives.

So I would implore of Speaker Pelosi, Leader Hoyer, and other Democratic leaders in the House who control the majority to please pass this critical legislation.

Here is another great example of a bill that passed the Senate but which is stuck in the House.

Last year, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill I introduced with Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, called the Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act, to help incarcerated individuals who are struggling with drug abuse.

There is a well-established link between drug abuse and crime. In order for these individuals who have the requisite desire to try to turn their lives around to have the best shot at living healthy and productive lives, they need to break the cycle of addiction. The Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for their substance use disorders. This treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women to reenter society, and it provides them with community-based treatment once they are released.

We learned, from experience in Texas, that it is not enough just to give people who commit nonviolent crimes an opportunity to improve themselves while they are in prison. There also needs to be follow-on services to support them, particularly if they are trying to recover from their addictions.

Our bill updates the program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons around the country so we can reduce recidivism and build safer and healthier communities. More than two dozen organizations have endorsed this bill, including law enforcement, criminal justice, and behavioral health groups. It passed the Senate with unanimous support last year, but for some unknown reason, it still is lingering on the House calendar.

This is a commonsense, nonpolitical bill that will help get folks the critical assistance they need in order to break the cycle of addiction and to live healthier, productive lives. So why won't the House pass a bill that will help fund law enforcement and bolster our fight against drug abuse? Well, we are not receiving any sort of answers.

The third bill I would like to mention is one I introduced with Senator Padilla, the Senator from California, to support infrastructure projects and disaster relief across the country.

Last year, State and local governments received huge sums of money for COVID-19 relief, but as more people have gotten vaccinated and we have learned, somehow, to live with this virus, many of these governments at the State and local levels have found themselves with huge amounts of cash that they can't use for the agreed-upon purpose and that they don't need anymore for that purpose.

So the idea behind the bill is pretty simple: Give the State and local leaders the flexibility they need to invest in the most critical projects in their communities. In some places, that may mean pandemic relief-related expenses still, eliminating hospital staffing shortages, and supporting more vaccinations. But in places where the need is simply not there, our bill gives these leaders the option to invest in things that are actually needed and that will have a lasting impact. That includes infrastructure projects like constructing bridges, extending railways, modernizing ports, and expanding access to broadband. It also includes disaster relief, which is a major need in many States across the country.

Both Texas and Kentucky, for example, have experienced devastating flooding in the last couple of months. Jackson, MS, is in the midst of a water crisis that has dragged on for weeks, with no end in sight. The Speaker's home State of California continues to battle destructive wildfires.

If this bill becomes law--again, it passed the Senate 100 to 0--State and local leaders will be able to put a portion of the COVID-19 relief dollars toward disaster relief. This is voluntary on their part. There is no requirement that they do so, but if they need it and they don't need it for COVID-19 purposes, then, we ought to give them the authority to use it. Again, these funds are already appropriated. So there is no worry about an inflationary appropriation of additional funds. Local leaders know their communities best, and they should be able to use this funding in a way that makes the most sense for them.

Senator Padilla and I worked with our Senate colleagues and the White House to craft language that everyone could live with. We built broad bipartisan support for the bill, and it passed the Senate, as I said, 100 to 0. Once again, 8 months later, the House has done nothing. Speaker Pelosi, so far, has declined to let this bill pass even though it would support disaster relief in her own State and even though it passed by huge bipartisan majorities.

Those are just three of the bills that are stuck in the House that have passed the Senate.

The Senate has unanimously advanced legislation to support programs for those experiencing mental health crises, to provide tax relief to survivors of human trafficking, to equip law enforcement officials with the tools they

need to help people in mental health crises, to increase cross-border trade with Canada and Mexico, and to beef up security for cargo at ports of entry. There are bills to cut redtape, to increase payments to the child support program, and to ensure noncustodial parents have the opportunity to spend more time with their children.

Our colleagues have even refused to pass a bill naming the post office in Arlington, TX, after their late colleague and my friend Congressman Ron Wright. There is no particular reason for it. They just haven't done it, with no explanation.

All of these bills I have named are just a handful of the ones I have introduced that are waiting in House purgatory. Add in the long list of bills led by our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and you have got a major legislative pileup in the House.

Unlike the Senate, the House has not been in continuous session, and the House is only scheduled to be in for 6 more weeks this year. Unless Speaker Pelosi allows movement on these commonsense bipartisan bills, we are going to have to start all over again come January. It is time to get these bills moving.

I know our colleagues in the House don't necessarily embrace all the legislation that is passed by the Senate, but when commonsense legislation passes with unanimity or broad bipartisan support, there just doesn't seem to be any excuse for not acting.

These aren't controversial bills. We are talking about preventing child sexual abuse, breaking the cycle of drug abuse, strengthening disaster relief, supporting people in crisis, and so much more.

As I said, these bills are just one step away from heading to the President's desk for his signature. So I implore Speaker Pelosi to please take up these Senate-passed bills and allow the House to vote on them, pass them, and send them to the President for his signature.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, yesterday, new data showed what Texans have known and felt for months: that inflation simply is not letting up. Last month, prices were up 8.3 percent from a year ago.

Economist Larry Summers, a well-known former president of Harvard University and member of Presidential Cabinets, said that this CPI report, Consumer Price Index report, confirms that the United States has a serious inflation problem.

Rent is up 6.7 percent. If you go to the grocery store to feed your family, groceries are 13.5 percent over what they were last year. If you are a senior citizen suffering through the hot Texas summer and need your air-conditioner to work overtime, electricity to make that air-conditioner run is up 16 percent. Of course, that is just since last August, just a year ago, when we were already battling runaway inflation.

But here is an even more shocking figure: Since President Biden took office on January 20, 2021, prices have risen 13 percent. So 13 cents out of every dollar that you earn--poof--has gone away. You are that much poorer. Your standard of living has been decreased by 13 percent.

Inflation, of course, far outpaces wage growth, meaning the average American has effectively been handed a pay cut. A single paycheck doesn't go nearly as far today as it did a year ago.

This is exactly what was predicted by leading economists when our Democratic colleagues ran off with the taxpayer credit card at the end of last year. They abused the rules of the Senate to spend an additional $2 trillion in the name of COVID relief even though less than 10 percent of the money was directly related to the pandemic.

I want to differentiate between what we did together on a bipartisan basis to deal with COVID when we spent nearly $5 trillion on a bipartisan basis. There is no doubt this was a grave emergency, a public health emergency, economic emergency. We did what we had to do, and we got through it. But even after that, our Democratic colleagues couldn't seem to kick the spending habits and unilaterally spent an extra $2 trillion. As I said, even though 10 percent of that money was related to the pandemic, 90 percent, then, was unrelated.

Then the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which the President was celebrating yesterday when the stock market fell 1,200 points--this partisan bill amounts to another $240 billion in unnecessary spending, while raising taxes at the same time.

As I said, our colleagues ironically call this bill the Inflation Reduction Act, and the White House chose yesterday--the day that the latest disappointing inflation figures were released--to celebrate its passage.

Inflation Reduction Act is false advertising. The Penn Wharton economic review of the Inflation Reduction Act said there is no reduction of inflation for at least 2 full years, and, indeed, it may actually get worse. But we all knew this intuitively, that if you keep spending this much money, you are basically pouring gasoline on the inflation fire. It is going to get worse and worse and worse, and middle-class working families all across this country have gotten hurt as a result.

Since our Democratic colleagues took control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, Texans' lives have gotten harder, not easier. Inflation I have spoken to has skyrocketed, real wages have fallen, and our economy has fallen into a recession.

Now, this is one of the other curious things about defining terms. Our Democratic colleagues want to argue about whether two consecutive quarters of negative GDP are actually a recession or not. Well, they were when Republicans were in charge, but apparently when Democrats are in charge, that definition doesn't apply.

Much as they tried but failed to convince the American people that the Inflation Reduction Act would actually reduce inflation, it didn't, and it won't anytime soon.

Well, we know that the response to inflation by the Federal Reserve has been to raise interest rates, and they are projected to raise them at least three-quarters of 1 percent or 75 basis points, which will also slow down the economy and hurt job creation. So it looks like even more pain is coming.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill requires a study of the programs, acquisitions, and budget of the Department of Defense.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill requires a study of the programs, acquisitions, and budget of the Department of Defense.

Madam President, there are a lot of important things that we do here in the U.S. Senate, hopefully, every day; certainly, every week, month, and over the year. But there are a couple of pieces of legislation which are literally must-pass pieces of legislation. They deserve an even higher priority than our day-to-day work here. These must-pass pieces of legislation are critical to the function of our government.

First, for example, government funding is critical so we can keep the lights on and keep the government working on behalf of the American people. If Congress fails to pass an appropriations bill, the government will literally shut down and millions of government workers will be left without a paycheck and the American people will be left without the services that those government employees would otherwise provide.

The good news is, at this moment, there appears to be little appetite for a funding fiasco at the end of this fiscal year at the end of this month. In a couple of weeks, I expect we will vote on a stopgap funding bill to keep the lights on and the trains moving until the end of the year.

Continuing resolutions like this, leading up to an end-of-the-year omnibus appropriations bill, are never my first choice. My hope would be that we would take up and pass each of the individual appropriations bills on a timely basis and then bring them across the floor of the U.S. Senate, pass them, and get them to the President for his signature. But, unfortunately, that hasn't happened under the current management.

There are other bills that receive the ``must-pass'' label. These could be anything from farm bills to disaster relief. Each of these are important. But, in my view, the ultimate must-pass piece of legislation is the National Defense Authorization Act.

Each year, this is how we make sure that our men and women in uniform have the support and the tools and the training they need and the pay to compensate them for their service as well as the support their families deserve, which is particularly important in an All-Volunteer military. This is how we maintain our military bases, modernize our weapons systems, and invest in the next generation of weapons.

It is how we take stock of the global threat landscape, which always seems

like it is getting more and more ominous, and we make sure that our country is prepared to counter even our most aggressive adversaries.

That is why Congress has passed a consolidated defense authorization bill for each of the past 61 years. For 61 years in a row, we passed a national defense authorization bill. But, apparently, the majority leader, Senator Schumer, is contemplating not doing that this year.

A strong and ontime defense authorization act has always been crucial, but this particular moment in history demands even greater attention.

As we know, on February 24--nearly 7 months ago--Russia launched an unprovoked war against Ukraine. Thankfully, the civilized world has rallied around Ukraine, supplying it with the tools and weapons they need not only to fight but to win this war.

At the same time, we know thousands of miles away, the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China have become increasingly hostile to the West and desperate to project its military power. It continues, at the same time, to commit genocide against the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities, and it is likely preparing an invasion of Taiwan.

North Korea has declared itself to be a nuclear weapons state. Iran is pursuing its own nuclear ambitions and a breakout for those nuclear weapons, which is the point when they actually acquire one. It is getting closer every day.

We know after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that the Taliban, which once gave nurture to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

And, of course, the political instability from the disastrous means or method by which we withdrew from Afghanistan, literally turning over billions of dollars to the Taliban and weapons that they never would have otherwise been able to acquire, has created a tremendous amount of instability in the region, where already Pakistan and India warily eye each other, both of whom are nuclear powers.

So given the walk around the globe and the identification of these multitude of threats, you would think that passing a defense authorization act would be the highest priority for the U.S. Congress and particularly the Senate.

If you think about it, all of the freedoms and the standard of living, the quality of life we enjoy in this country, our prosperity, are all directly related to our ability to keep our country safe and keep the American people safe. That should be our No. 1 priority.

But the truth is, we can't match these stakes. We can't rise to this demand and this need with continuing resolutions and past-due authorizations.

Our men and women in uniform need to prepare and train every day, 365 days a year. And if we don't pass a defense authorization act now, we will be stealing time that we already don't have.

General MacArthur, who became famous in the Korean war, said the history of failure in war can be summed up in two words: ``too late''-- too late.

Now, our colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on a bipartisan basis, under the leadership of Senator Reed, a Democrat, and Senator Inhofe, a Republican, have compiled a strong bill that would strengthen and modernize our national defense. But the Senate Armed Services Committee completed its work on July 18. Here we are, September 13.

Senator Schumer, the one who sets the agenda for the U.S. Senate, has yet to bring that bill to the floor. Of all of the must-pass bills that I hear discussed in the media and among our colleagues, rarely are people talking about the Defense authorization bill.

The Presiding Officer succeeded John McCain in the U.S. Senate. John McCain was, of course, not only a war hero; he was a proud patriot. And he was a bear of a man to deal with. But I dare say, if John McCain were alive today, we would be on a defense authorization bill before we break for the midterm elections because he would not let anyone rest if we broke or threatened to break that 61-year consistent threat of meeting that No. 1 priority obligation.

I was hoping that the Senate would consider the Defense authorization bill this month and give our planners at the Pentagon and our commanders the predictability they need, as well as our military families the support that they deserve and need, not to mention our men and women who are on the frontlines fighting to protect our country, the tools and the training they need in order to do their job. I was optimistic that given the clear and present danger of the situation we are living through now, the threat landscape, and the desire to show our bipartisan support for our military, that we would, naturally, make this the 62nd year consecutively to pass the Defense authorization bill.

The only other must-pass item on the Senate's to-do list this month is to keep the government funded, and the Democratic majority has already committed to the short-term extension until the middle of December. So there is just no excuse for putting off the annual Defense bill. But for some reason, to this point, Senator Schumer, the Senate majority leader who sets the agenda in the Senate, does not seem to agree that is an urgent, must-pass piece of legislation.

I know there is bipartisan support to encourage him to bring this bill up, but so far he hasn't been swayed. The Defense authorization bill seems to be at the bottom of his priority list, below judicial nominations and a bill to codify a right to marry that is not even in jeopardy.

Given everything that is going on in the world, there is simply no reason to delay consideration of the Defense authorization bill. In fact, there is every reason to do it on time and for the 62nd consecutive year.

We all know that American strength and leadership are vital to global security and equally vital to protecting our homeland. The Senate simply should not ignore its responsibility when it comes to our readiness.

Now, one of the things that concerns me the most, because he is not talking about this being a priority, is that he will try to stick this Defense authorization bill on an appropriations bill at the end of the year, sort of as a cleanup, but if he does that, he will effectively deny Senators floor time to offer debate and to actually have votes on the bill and how to improve it.

One amendment I intend to offer if given the opportunity is a bill I introduced with Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire which would help replenish our defense stockpiles.

As we all know by now, the United States has provided Ukraine unprecedented defense aid--Stingers, Javelins, grenade launchers, small arms, ammunition, and so much more. This assistance is not a handout. This is not a charity project. As much as we want to see Ukraine prevail, our material support for Ukraine is not entirely altruistic. The United States isn't just investing in a Ukrainian victory; we are also putting our resources toward a Russian defeat. We are trying to help snuff out the fire before it spreads even further west. We know what Mr. Putin's aspirations are; it is to restore the great Russian Empire that existed when the Soviet Union existed.

We know that there is a delicate balance to strike here. Our support for Ukraine cannot come, should not come at the cost of our own military readiness. And we have requirements way beyond just Ukraine, as I mentioned earlier--the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran.

The United States is a global power, and we have to be ready whenever and wherever the threat arises. We have to be able to replenish our weapons stockpiles quickly so we are ready whatever may come our way. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles in the way.

I was shocked when I saw that the Pentagon is not in a position to replace the Javelins and Stinger missiles that we provided Ukraine because they don't have an operating production line, and they said it may take a couple of years. I know that our friends and allies in Europe that are providing weapons to the Ukrainians have every expectation that the United States will replenish those stockpiles of weapons so that they can defend their country and meet their NATO obligations.

So the level of unreadiness at the Pentagon to meet the current need is shocking. The Defense Department can't place an order for more Javelins and then have them show up at the Pentagon 5 to 7 business days later. It

simply doesn't work like that. The process of purchasing, manufacturing, and deploying this lethal aid takes a lot of time, which, to be frank, we do not have.

Senator Shaheen and I have recently introduced a bipartisan bill called the Securing American ARMS Act to remove some of the hurdles and the bureaucratic delay in replenishing those stockpiles. It will give the Department of Defense the ability to fast-track the procurement process. That includes times like these when the United States is providing defense articles to an ally or a partner that is under armed attack by a U.S. adversary.

Our bill would also give the Defense Department the ability to expedite the delivery of defense articles to our allies and partners in need. This will allow us to continue to provide critical support to Ukraine--but not just limited to Ukraine--all without compromising our national defense or our ability to meet other obligations around the world.

I appreciate Senator Shaheen working with me on this bill, which now has more than a dozen bipartisan cosponsors.

When the Senate finally begins consideration of the Defense Authorization Act, I hope this legislation will be a part of it. At the same time, as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I am hopeful we can also reauthorize the U.S. intelligence community, which usually takes a ride on the Defense Authorization Act.

The hard-working men and women of the intelligence community carry out missions day in and day out that inform key policy decisions and the work of the U.S. military. Of course, being intelligence operators, their work is not acknowledged necessarily like a member of our uniformed services, but their service is vital to our missions and our interests around the world.

One great example of the role the intelligence community played in the runup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine was that our intelligence community was able to provide skeptical allies with irrefutable proof of Russia's intentions and showed exactly what Russia was planning before February 24. I have no doubt that this intelligence contributed to the unified response in the days and weeks following. And we engaged in enhanced information and intelligence sharing on a real-time basis that I think has helped facilitate Ukraine's strong national defense and now counteroffensive that they are currently engaged in, trying to recapture some of their territory that Russia has previously occupied.

I want to particularly recognize the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee--Senator Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Senator Rubio, a Republican from Florida--for their leadership in helping us pass the Intelligence Authorization Act unanimously in July. Like other authorization bills, this outlines funding levels for the intelligence community, but it also contains legislative oversight of America's intelligence apparatus.

Strong oversight is crucial to ensuring accountability, while enabling our intelligence professionals to accomplish the complex and difficult missions the American people demand of them. With the ongoing war in Ukraine and threats from China continuing to grow, we need intelligence at the speed of relevance. This is how we help assure everyone, from our policymakers to our warfighters, that we will have the tools to maintain America's preeminent global position and ensure the defense of our homeland.

I appreciate the hard work of Senator Rubio and Senator Warner to advance this reauthorization, and again, I hope, when we take up the Defense Authorization Act at some point, that it will be included.

So, Madam President, let me just conclude where I started. The National Defense Authorization Act is a must-pass piece of legislation. We have passed it for 61 years in a row. Yet, when I hear Senator Schumer, the majority leader, talk about things we need to do before the midterm elections, I don't hear a peep out of him on his intention to move that Defense Authorization Act.

Providing for the common defense is one of Congress's most basic responsibilities. If we can't keep the American people and our democracy safe, we will have failed in our first and most urgent duty. There is far too much at stake to let the NDAA linger on the Senate calendar for more months. So my hope is that the majority leader will bring this bill to the floor this month and provide Senators who are not on the Armed Services Committee an opportunity to participate in the process by debating and offering amendments like the one I described earlier so we can strengthen our national defense at this critical moment in our Nation's history.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am a firm believer in the American dream. People come to this country, perhaps as legal immigrants, start with little, invest themselves in a lot of hard work because they don't have anything else to invest, provide for their families, maybe even eventually start a small business of their own, create jobs and a means to earn a livelihood for their employees. That is what I think most people think of when they think about the American dream.

And it is built on an economic system known as capitalism, as distinguished from socialism. And capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system known to humankind.

There are those who have a different point of view. They call themselves democratic socialists.

I actually have here before me the Democratic Socialists of America web page that asks the question: ``What is democratic socialism.''

They start first with the criticism of capitalism. They say:

Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to

exploit the rest of us for their own profit.

That is an incredibly cynical and, I think, misguided view, but that is their opinion.

And they go on to say:

We must replace it with democratic socialism.

And there are a number of Members of Congress, notably the junior Senator from Vermont here who is an advocate for democratic socialism. I have read where he gave a speech explaining why he thinks that is a better way to go.

And then there are a number of Members of the House known colloquially as the Squad, who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America and advocate their particular point of view.

Even though Joe Biden was elected President of the United States in 2020, he essentially has embraced the democratic socialist agenda--the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, free childcare, free everything.

Well, to no one's surprise, once people called it what it was and what it is, it didn't make it very far. The American people experienced a severe sticker shock when they heard the cost of these proposals.

One estimate pegged the cost of the Green New Deal at a whopping $93 trillion, an absolutely unfathomable amount of money.

And much to our Democratic colleagues' surprise, families do not want the Federal Government managing every little detail of their lives, from making their childcare arrangements to determining which doctors they can see or, rather, which doctors they can't see.

Our Democratic friends found that socialism wasn't as popular as they hoped, but they weren't ready to give up on the bigger government dreams so they made a few marketing changes.

They switched branding. They adopted a new strategy, and now what we are seeing, I believe, is the new socialism.

Now, it is not as in your face, not as startling as what we saw a couple of years ago when people openly advocated democratic socialism, but the new socialism, I believe, is just as bad and even more dangerous because this time it is actually coming to fruition.

You don't need to look very far. Just look at President Biden's claimed authority to ``forgive'' student loans. The President announced that he would cancel student loans for millions of borrowers. Any family with a mortgage or car payment or credit card debt knows there is no such thing as canceling debt. Every dollar that was borrowed will have to be paid back by somebody. Traditionally, and legally, that responsibility lies with the borrower--the person who took out the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans without a thought about how they might eventually pay it back.

But the President decided to throw tradition, personal responsibility, and, I would argue, the law, out the window in favor of a socialist approach where everybody chips in.

To state the obvious, not every taxpayer has outstanding student debt. Many of our fellow Americans never went to college. Many have very good-paying jobs because they have pursued a trade--carpentry, plumbing or the like or they may decide they want to be a teacher or perform some other work that doesn't pay perhaps as well as a Wall Street job.

Many people who did get a degree decided they needed to work at least part time to help pay for their bills. And then many, perhaps most, decided they had to pay the loans back after they graduated, just as they had agreed to do.

Still, every person without a college debt will be expected to shoulder the cost, under President Biden's proposal, for someone else's degree, regardless of their ability to pay it back.

College degrees are not a public good that should be covered by tax dollars. We provide a lot of generous support for higher education, and we should--Pell grants. Many colleges and universities have huge endowments that they use to give scholarships and financial aid to students.

But this is not something that ought to be placed at the foot of the American taxpayer, in this form certainly. Once somebody has agreed to pay back their student debt, to be able to just walk away from it, to me, encourages all sorts of irresponsible conduct and expectations.

These aren't shared expenses like commonly used roads, hospitals, or police departments. The individual who decides to borrow the money so they can attend college alone reaps the benefits of that degree. And, in fact, if you do go to college, your chances of earning more income tend to go up.

But the real kicker here is that student loan socialism will cost the American taxpayer roughly half a trillion dollars--all to pay off the debt that the individuals involved knowingly and willingly took on.

Of course, President Biden isn't the only one forcing more socialism on the American people. Our Democratic colleagues have gotten into the action too.

Last month, they passed a reckless tax-and-spending spree that included enough handouts to make Fidel Castro proud.

First are the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies. Originally, the subsidies were provided, back when ObamaCare passed, to provide subsidies for people earning less than 400 percent of the Federal poverty level.

But our Democratic colleagues last month not only increased the amount of assistance people can receive, they also expanded eligibility; in short, giving more people more money, regardless of their ability to pay for their own expenses, shifting that, again, out of the pockets of middle-class taxpayers into the pockets of those who don't need the subsidies and especially those who can pay for their expenses themselves.

Our colleagues said this was a temporary provision that was critical to the pandemic response, but here we are, a year and a half later, and they have already extended it.

The people who gained insurance coverage because of this proposal aren't low-income families. Those individuals have already been eligible for ObamaCare. Assistance now extends to people earning 750 percent of the Federal poverty level--six-figure earners.

So, here again, our Democratic colleagues are taking money out of the pocket of middle-class taxpayers, who are struggling with inflation and trying to make ends meet, and providing enhanced, generous subsidies to people making 750 percent of the Federal poverty level.

So even as this started out as a temporary fix, I don't have any reason to believe that our Democratic colleagues will ever allow these subsidies to expire.

In the words of Ronald Reagan, ``The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a [temporary] Government Program.'' Our Democratic colleagues seem to be intent on proving the accuracy of that statement.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the cost of permanent expansion, and it is pretty jarring for a number of reasons.

First is the financial cost. By expanding the ObamaCare premium tax credits and making them permanent, our Democratic colleagues would add $248 billion to the Federal debt over the next decade. Of course, this will have an adverse effect on people with private insurance. Under permanent expansion, some 2.3 million people will lose their current employer-provided coverage. So our country would end up basically paying wealthy people to lose their employer-sponsored healthcare so they can end up on a taxpayer-funded plan.

This isn't about helping the uninsured; it is just a backdoor way to implement Medicare for All--another Democratic socialist objective. Our Democratic colleagues couldn't get enough support for this radical plan by trying to build consensus, so they passed it with 50 votes, plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Harris. So, bit by bit, our colleagues are pushing Americans closer to a single-payer healthcare system that they do not want.

Then there is electric vehicle socialism--taxpayer handouts for wealthy car owners who buy fancy, state-of-the-art electric vehicles. A couple earning up to $300,000 a year can now count on taxpayers to chip in for their big-ticket purchase--$7,500 for a new electric vehicle or $4,000 for a used one.

Families are already being crushed by inflation--high grocery costs, up 13 percent over the last year alone; high gasoline prices; housing prices that are going up dramatically. These families are now being burdened with the expense of helping wealthy car owners buy fancy, new electric vehicles when they can't even afford to buy one on their own. Someone who can only afford a quarter of a tank of gas because they can't afford to fill up the whole tank doesn't have $80,000 to spend on a fancy, new electric vehicle. Still, thanks to our colleagues' electric vehicle socialism, middle- and low-income families are getting stuck with the bill, which always seems to be the punch line.

Well, in order to finance this new socialist redistribution, our Democratic colleagues need more money on top of the debt that they are adding to. They needed a cash cow, so what they did is they turned to everybody's favorite: the Internal Revenue Service.

Our colleagues voted and passed a bill that will double the size of the IRS by adding 87,000 new agents to ensure that those IRS agents can squeeze every last penny out of hard-working American families. This isn't going to have an impact on the top 1 percent; it will unleash a tidal wave of audits on middle-class families and small businesses. Families earning less than $225,000 a year are already five times as likely to be audited already, and this will just make it even worse.

The independent Congressional Budget Office confirmed that lower and middle-income taxpayers will see more IRS audits as a result of this move. The government is about to squeeze, once again, working families like a piece of coal, while our Democratic friends say: Well, we are just making diamonds.

I must add, I live in a border State, Texas, where we have seen 2.3 million migrants come to the border in this last year and a half during President

Biden's administration. We have seen 108,000 Americans die of drug overdoses, with most of those drugs coming across the southwestern border because the criminal organizations that move people and drugs across the border understand that if they flood the border with people, with migrants, it will divert the Border Patrol's attention, so the drugs can come flowing into our country, distributed by criminal networks and street gangs who are responsible for most of the crime and gun violence in our local communities.

Don't you think some of the money that our colleagues have spent to try to build an army of IRS agents over the next 10 years--that some of that could have been spent to help secure the border, to stop some of those drugs? Well, unfortunately, the Biden administration has an open borders policy. They don't actually believe in enforcing our immigration laws, and what we have seen as a consequence is a result of that.

Thanks to our Democratic colleagues' new socialist policies, Texans who are trying to save money to go to college or buy a home or prepare for retirement are about to get stuck with the bill for massive government expansion. And what is this going to do to inflation, which is already at a 40-year high? It is going to make it worse. As the Federal Reserve ratchets up the discount rate or interest rates in order to slow inflation, it is going to slow our entire economy and make it harder on middle-class families just trying to get by.

Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of England, once wisely said:

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out

of other people's money.

Again, that is true. We have seen approaches of socialism fail over and over and over again, and we have seen its leaders oppress their people and send their country into ruin.

Well, right now, we are seeing the new socialism rooted in American soil gaining ground in Congress and the White House every day. This new socialism may look a little bit different, but the goal is the same: to grow the role of government in the lives of everyday Americans and to burden them with additional taxes to pay for this bigger and bigger government and to take money from people who, by virtue of their hard work, were pursuing the American dream and transfer that money to someone who is well-off in order to advance misguided policies like $7,500 taxpayer subsidies for rich people for electric vehicles.

Part of it is an attitude or perspective that our Democratic colleagues seem to have. They seem to think, We know better; we know better what is good for people than they do themselves.

That is why they want to choose what kind of healthcare plan they get or what kind of childcare facilities families get to use.

They want to take money out of your pocket and redistribute it to the chosen wealthy few.

They want to denigrate the concept of hard work and personal responsibility that has made America the economic success that it is because of our capitalist system and because of the American dream, again, where people can come here, let's say as a legal immigrant, with very little, but by virtue of hard work and commitment and determination, they can achieve their dream and help others achieve their dream at the same time--but not if you eliminate the concept of hard work, accountability, and personal responsibility and just continue to dole out government handouts.

So it doesn't really make any difference what our colleagues try to call it. They call it the Inflation Reduction Act--the bill they just passed, the reckless tax-and-spending bill--when virtually all of the outside experts said: No, it won't reduce inflation, certainly not in the near term. So it doesn't make any difference how they try to brand it; socialism is socialism, and it is leading our country down the road to a dangerous destination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill provides for emergency acquisition authority in the event of armed attack against a U.S. ally or partner by a foreign adversary of the United States.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill authorizes the Secretary of Defense to use amounts available to the Department of Defense for operation and maintenance to remove munitions and explosives of concern in Guam.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill provides for emergency acquisition authority in the event of armed attack against a U.S. ally or partner by a foreign adversary of the United States.