Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it is 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and it looks like we are going to grind through this bipartisan infrastructure bill this weekend, as Senator Schumer has ordained, but we have now had a couple of votes--actually, three votes now--to proceed to a bill that hasn't even been written yet in totality, and indeed the reason we were delayed this morning was because some of the text that was written did not comport with the agreement between the negotiating parties.

I have said this from the beginning; that Senator Schumer should not rush a bill to the floor before it is ready. It is simply not a good practice. And we are talking about more than $1 trillion in spending that will affect every man, woman, and child in America. It is more important to get things right than to get it done fast.

For weeks now, the bipartisan group of Senators who have been negotiating this bipartisan infrastructure package have been engaged in intense negotiations with the White House to find common ground. Over the last several days, in particular, colleagues have logged countless hours to nail down specific provisions and how it would be paid for.

I want to commend all of them for their efforts on both sides of the aisle. It has been a long road, but we still have a long road ahead, and I appreciate both sides working in good faith to try to reach an agreement.

Like all my colleagues, I am eager to see the text in the bill to understand the specifics and how it impacts my State, what is included and what is not included. To gain my support, this legislation must accomplish two things: First, it must send sufficient resources to Texas to build and maintain our vast network of infrastructure projects. We are the fastest growing State in the Nation, with 29 million people, and we need to make sure our infrastructure is up to the need. We have the largest network of roadways of any State in the country, with more than 680,000 lane miles. We are also home to more than 55,000 bridges, far more than any other State.

We have water ports along the gulf coast, as the Presiding Officer knows, having lived in Houston, and ports of entry along the border with Mexico and Canada, all of which are critical to our economy, as well as airports, levees, waterways, and countless other infrastructure projects that are vital to our communities across the State.

The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of broadband, including the need to expand access in unserved parts of the State. It is figured that we have about a third of our State without adequate access to broadband, and, of course, that became critical when our children were studying remotely from home or when people attempted to see their doctor using telehealth. Broadband has gone from a convenience to a necessity.

It is going to take a little while to comb through the specifics of this massive bill--I think at last count it was 2,600 pages long--to see if it meets my two criteria. But that is my priority No. 1.

But my second criterion is this bill must include a real plan to pay for these infrastructure investments in a responsible way. We have had to spend a lot of money in the last 18 months. A lot of this money was borrowed money because we were engaged in an emergency, a pandemic. But now our debt to gross domestic product is really roughly to what it was after World War II, and I agree that most of that was necessary, at least the bipartisan bills that we passed. I think there were a total of five last year.

But now is not an emergency when it comes to infrastructure. Now, this is the bread and butter of legislating, and we have got to come up with a responsible way to pay for the money that we intend to spend.

The current draft of the bill, I think, is lacking in adequate pay- fors. Senator Portman, the Senator from Ohio, said that the Congressional Budget Office would not give the writers of the bill credit for some of the money that is in fact real, some of the repurposed money from COVID-19 that was not used for Federal bonuses to State unemployment, which was, at one point, rejected by the Governors because people were being paid more money not to work than to work. So there wasn't a pot of money to offset some of the spending.

But I think there are additional pay-fors that have been overlooked. So I am in the process of drafting amendments to this bill, including new pay-fors, and I hope these amendments will come to a vote on the Senate floor.

I support the efforts of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to negotiate the current package. I think they have done us a great favor. But the fact of the matter is, the rest of us, the 80 of us who did not participate in those negotiations, have a right and a duty to participate in writing this legislation too. So it would be a terrible mistake for the majority leader to refuse to

allow Members on both sides to offer amendments which could pass and could improve the underlying bill.

It goes without saying that this bill did not go through regular order, which is nothing more than saying it didn't go through the normal committee process. But the benefit of going through the normal committee process is that both majority and minority Members get a chance to participate in writing a bill in the committee even before it comes to the floor.

So now that we have a bill that was negotiated and which, I suppose, at some point we will see in the light of day, but one that was negotiated by only a small fraction of Senators, it is even more critical that we have an open amendment process.

As I said earlier, a transportation infrastructure bill ordinarily would go through an arduous process, through, I think, at least three standing committees--through the Banking Committee, through the Commerce Committee, and through the Environment and Public Works Committee. But that did not happen here.

The bipartisan group of Senators did find common ground among themselves, and now it is time for the full Senate to have the opportunity to offer changes that will improve this legislation and allow all Senators a chance to participate in shaping them.

Our friend, Senator Portman, the Senator from Ohio, said the bipartisan group is committed to having a fair process that allows both sides an opportunity to amend the bill. Senator McConnell has also called for a robust, bipartisan floor process. So I would encourage Senator Schumer, the floor leader, to accept amendments from Members of both sides of the aisle to strengthen the legislation and ensure that it meets the needs of our constituents.

There is no question that the roads and bridges across the country are in need of repair. Every year, the American Society of Civil Engineers evaluates the state of our infrastructure and issues a report card to let us know how we are doing.

Well, America is barely passing with a C-minus. Texas is faring slightly better than the rest of the class, with a C. But it is time, as you can tell, for us to invest in our roads and bridges and the ports and waterways that fuel our economy and the broadband that keeps us connected.

I have been disappointed that Senator Schumer has seen fit to try to force us to vote on a bill that does not yet exist in its entirety, but I hope we can now pump the brakes a little bit and take the time and care to evaluate the benefits and the costs of this legislation, and I hope that there will be an amendment process available to both sides of the aisle to ensure that our infrastructure investments are made fairly and they are paid for responsibly.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, let me state the obvious: There is a big and growing problem in our country, and the American people are becoming more and more alarmed.

A recent poll found that 60 percent of Americans are worried about crime. The percentage of those who say they are extremely concerned is at the highest point in more than two decades.

And it is easy to see why. Even our former colleague from California, Senator Barbara Boxer, was recently assaulted and robbed in California. But cities across our country have experienced an alarming spike in violent crime and murder rates.

New York City has seen nearly double the number of shootings from 2019 to 2020. Nationwide, homicides are up 25 percent during that same period. That is the largest single-year increase since 1960.

Not only are the American people noticing these increases with growing alarm, they are eager to see solutions that help make things better by improving public safety.

A recent poll found that 90 percent of Detroit residents said they would feel safer with more cops on the street, not fewer. That seems intuitive. It seems obvious but apparently not to everybody because this is the antithesis of the rhetoric we have heard over the past year, as many on the left have called to defund the police and reduce the role that law enforcement officers play in our lives.

A number of major cities took the recommendation of these activists and eliminated funding for their police departments.

New York City, Oakland, Baltimore, are among the many cities to cut police funding. Today, they are among those increasing police budgets to address rising crime rates that I think are directly related to the ``defund the police'' effort.

It is important to note that not all the leaders of our major cities are on board with this trend. Last summer, when I was in Dallas visiting my friend, Mayor Eric Johnson, it was on its way to recording the highest number of murders in 16 years. The city council cut the police department's overtime budget by $7 million. Mayor Johnson pushed back against these irresponsible cuts at the time when crime and domestic violence were already on the rise, and now he is pushing the city to hire 275 new police officers and increase officers' salaries.

The truth of the matter is, Texans, like other folks across the country, are concerned about the increasing crime in their communities. Leaders should want to focus on the needs of their constituents, but a small but loud group of liberal activists who want to reimagine law enforcement--whatever that means--apparently have prevailed on those who would like to see our communities safer.

Well, we are starting to see a response, really a boomerang, from these ``defund the police'' efforts. For example, take a look at the new Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. At this point last year, protesters marched in the streets of New York chanting ``defund the police.'' One year later, the presumed winner is a former NYPD captain who ran on a tough-on-crime platform.

As it turns out, practical solutions to real problems carry more weight than ideological warfare.

Here in the Senate, we are in the process of finding solutions to deliver

tangible results. Our friend, Senator Tim Scott, is leading negotiations with our Democratic colleagues. And I know I am not alone in hoping we can take bipartisan action to restore trust and accountability in our police while at the same time having their back. But we have to remember that this crime surge is tied to far more than police departments.

Make no mistake, law enforcement plays a key role in stopping crime, but there is a lot more that can and should be done to prevent crime from happening in the first place. One factor we can't ignore is the crisis on our southern border. Despite the fact that we reached migration levels not seen in the previous two decades, the Biden administration has simply failed to provide law enforcement with the resources they need in order to secure our borders.

Border Patrol agents, who should be on the front lines of this crisis, are caring for children instead of stopping criminals and illegal drugs from coming across our border. They are changing diapers and supervising playtime.

Meanwhile, the drug cartels, that are very sophisticated, understand that when you take 40 percent of the Border Patrol off the border and have them processing unaccompanied children, that that is a prime opportunity to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States, which, unfortunately, contributed to the deaths of 93,000 Americans last year alone just in drug overdoses.

So when our Border Patrol is not adequately funded and resourced, or because of bad policy decisions diverted from their primary tasks, we don't know who is crossing the border and we are creating more risk for our communities across the country. The lack of personnel creates huge gaps; and make no mistake, the criminals and cartels know how to exploit those gaps.

In 2019, a 33-year-old Honduran national was arrested in North Carolina on rape and child sex offense charges. This man had been previously deported, but he illegally reentered the United States. After his arrest, the county jail refused to honor the detainer from ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--and so the man was released. It took 2 months before ICE was finally able to arrest him.

But this type of story is not unique. We all remember the tragic murder of Kate Steinle in 2015. She and her father were walking along a pier in San Francisco when she was shot and killed. The man who killed her was an illegal immigrant who had been deported not once, not twice, but five times, and he had seven felony convictions.

Now, I want to be clear about one point. The actions of these criminals do not and should not reflect on the tens of millions of law- abiding immigrants, period. Any attempt to frame immigrants in general as a threat to our country is completely devoid of facts and detached from reality. But my point in sharing these stories is to show that there are devastating and dangerous consequences to an unfettered flow of people and drugs and other contraband across the southern border. We need to know exactly who and what is crossing our border, and this applies both to people and contraband.

Cartels and criminal organizations are paying very close attention to the state of our border security. They see when gaps are created by fewer officers on the front lines, and they are simply exploiting those gaps.

Fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana are pouring across our border at a growing rate. As I mentioned, there are consequences, with 93,000 Americans dying of drug overdoses last year alone. That is up 30 percent over the previous year.

And the experts tell us there is an association between substance abuse and crime. There are crimes involving the drug users themselves, both who steal to buy drugs as well as those who are under the influence of drugs when they commit their crimes. And we can't ignore the dangers drug dealers and traffickers create for our communities.

Last week, the police chief of the District of Columbia held a press conference to discuss crime increases in this city. He talked about the dangers of marijuana use, saying, ``I can tell you that marijuana is undoubtedly connected to violent crimes that we are seeing in our communities.'

He went on to say this creates a very dangerous ``situation, because those individuals get robbed, those individuals get shot, those individuals get involved in disputes all across our city.''

Those are his words, those are not mine.

But those dangers apply to any type of drug being moved and distributed by illegal channels, whether it is marijuana, heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, or anything else. We have a fundamental responsibility to stop criminals, stop the cartels, stop gang members, stop the drug dealers, and the host of unknown dangers from quietly slipping across our border and infiltrating our communities.

The Biden-Harris administration needs to take these responsibilities seriously. The Biden-Harris administration needs to take their responsibilities for public safety seriously. The only thing worse than the increase in crime and the growing concern among the public is the prospect of things actually getting worse.

If we are not stopping dangerous people and drugs at the border, or handicapping local police departments by defunding them, what do we expect to happen? Do we think there will actually be a positive outcome?

That is detached from reality, of course. The American people are overwhelmingly concerned about the increasing crime in America, and they deserve to have a government that prioritizes the safety of them and their families.

Concerns about crime are shared by both Republicans and Democrats. My friend, the mayor of Dallas, Eric Johnson, who I mentioned a moment ago, had to fight with his own city council to get the police adequately funded. He is a proud Texas Democrat. So these are not partisan matters.

This is not the time to pull critical funding from our police or villainize officers or paint such a broad brush that the actions of one taint the reputation and our support for the rest of law-abiding and patriotic law enforcement officers.

This is not the time to relax our enforcement at the border or create even more opportunities for crime, cartels, and gangs to exploit our laws.

So crime in America is a very real problem, and the Biden administration needs to wake up and address this full range of contributing factors before the situation becomes even more dangerous in all of our communities across the States.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it was 1 week ago that the Senate held a procedural vote on a bill that hadn't even been written. And to no one's surprise, it failed.

Republicans, for our part, said it made no sense to advance to a more than $1 trillion infrastructure plan before knowing what was in the plan and how it would be paid for.

Our Democratic colleagues argued that the big text was imminent, coming any moment, any second, and it was critical to get the process started.

Well, here we are, 1 week later. I guess the bill text wasn't imminent because we still haven't seen it yet.

Earlier today, we heard that there was an agreement, I assume in principle, on the major portions of the proposed plan, which I concede is a major sign of progress. I want to commend all of our colleagues, including Senators Portman, Collins, Romney, and Cassidy, who have been working hard on our side of the aisle to achieve consensus, and on the Democratic side, Senators like Senator Manchin and Sinema and others.

But this infrastructure plan that we haven't seen yet is no more ready for action today on the floor than it was last week. We made clear last week that we wanted to see the details before voting on a trillion-dollar bill that will impact every community across this country.

Until this bill is actually written and we have a chance to review it, including all the details, the costs, the pay-fors, and the impact it will have on our States, I will not support it. And I imagine the majority of my Republican colleagues feel the same way.

Now, I say that also believing that it is important for us to get a bipartisan infrastructure bill. I actually want us to. But part of the challenge is these groups of gangs that operate outside of what we would call regular order here; that is, the committees of jurisdiction, where all Senators get to participate in the final product, including on the floor of the Senate, that is really not possible when you have a group--a small group, a subset of the Senate negotiating a deal among themselves, and then they present it to us as a fait accompli and say: You have to accept it.

Well, it doesn't work very well, ordinarily, but I am willing to give them a chance because I know they have committed a lot of time and effort into this. But it is going to depend on a couple of things. My vote, ultimately, is going to depend on a couple of things.

First of all, we fund our highways, our roads, and bridges mainly through the gas tax. That is the amount of money that goes into the gallon of gas that is dedicated for the highway trust fund. Well, because our cars are getting more mileage now and because we are seeing alternatives, like electric vehicles, the highway trust fund is simply inadequate to fund the demand of our infrastructure: roads and bridges and the like.

But that is no excuse for us to get away from what has heretofore been a pay-for model or a user-fee model. In other words, infrastructure should be paid for by the people who use it, not people who don't use it. And that is why the gas tax, at least as originally conceived, made a lot of sense.

But we made a couple of mistakes. One, we didn't index it to inflation. And, secondly, we just couldn't account, back when the gas tax was adopted, for the innovation we have seen in transportation-- natural gas-driven vehicles, electric vehicles, and the like--that pay nothing for our roads and infrastructure.

And I think it is a very serious problem for us from a fiscal point of view to get away from the user-fee model. First of all, we know that we have had to spend a lot of money to fight the COVID-19 virus, to deal with the public health and the economic consequences associated with it.

That is why we passed, I believe it was, a total of five bills last year alone on a bipartisan basis to defeat this virus. And you could tell from some of the face masks being worn here in the Chamber right now, we have not yet been able to defeat it finally, notwithstanding the discovery and broad use of vaccines and other treatments.

But an infrastructure bill is different than a pandemic because we actually should be in the position of paying for our spending rather than borrowing from future generations.

I appreciate the good work that has been done by the bipartisan negotiating group to try to come up with some credible pay-fors, but they haven't been able to use the traditional user-fee model because President Biden and his administration took it off the bargaining table, which means you have to use other pay-fors outside of a user-fee model in order to pay for it or else you just merely add to our debt and pass on the responsibility to pay those bills back to future generations.

Well, I don't think any of this is news to the majority leader, who, once again, has scheduled a vote before we have a bill that we can actually read, discuss with our constituents.

I, for example, would like to be able to discuss the contents of the bill with my friends at the Texas Department of Transportation and the Governor and other people who are very much engaged in what the infrastructure in my State looks like, what it should be, and what we need in terms of investments in the future. But I can't do that if the bill text hasn't even been released yet, and the majority leader knows that.

So the question I have is: Why in the world would the majority leader schedule another vote before the bill is even released, before we can read it and consult with our staff and outside experts, like my friends at the Texas Department of Transportation?

We have seen contradictory signs about what our Democratic colleagues really hope to do. When asked about the fate of the bipartisan infrastructure plan, the Democratic majority whip said talks have gone on long enough, and he would support rolling it into the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill that Nancy Pelosi said she would not pass in the House a bipartisan infrastructure bill unless, at the same time, she was able to pass what has nominally been called a $3.5 trillion spending bill, but we know it is actually spending a whole lot more money than that.

President Biden spilled the beans when this bipartisan group was at the White House a few weeks ago, where he said he would not sign the bipartisan bill into law unless, at the same time, he could sign the partisan, reckless tax-and-spending bill that is passed purely on a partisan basis. In other words, they are linked both by Speaker Pelosi and by President Biden.

Now, President Biden did walk that back, or at least he tried to, but Speaker Pelosi has remained adamant that she will not pass any bipartisan infrastructure bill in the House unless she can get the votes in the House and, presumably, in the Senate in order to put pressure on some of the Democrats who are resistant to seeing us continue to add to our national debt and fuel inflation by more reckless spending, as well as the huge tax increases that would necessarily go along with it.

So I am beginning to wonder if there was actually a sincere desire on the part of our Democratic leaders here in the Senate whether they actually wanted to pass a bipartisan bill or whether their goal was really to pass the reckless tax-and-spending-spree bill that Speaker Pelosi said had to pass if we were going to pass a bipartisan bill.

We also need to know whether Senator Schumer will honor requests for people who were not part of the negotiating group, the gang--I guess they call themselves G-10 or G-20 or G-21--whatever they are called. But it is a subset of Senators who have been negotiating the bill. The question is whether the majority will permit other Senators who are not part of that negotiating group to offer amendments to the bill and whether they will permit us to have debate and votes on those amendments because I didn't delegate the responsibilities I have as a Senator, representing 29 million Americans, to them to negotiate a bill for my State. That is my responsibility, and I insist on having a chance to read the bill, to consult with them, and to see what the impact is going to be on my State and to consult with my Governor and the head of the Texas Department of Transportation and others to see whether this is something they believe that earns my support and that Texas should support.

None of this is mysterious. This is the normal way of doing business around here. Moving bills through committee, Democrats and Republicans get a chance to shape those bills in committee, and then the majority leader brings it to the floor, and then everybody else gets to participate in the process.

I hope in his rush to get this bill out the door, that the majority leader will allow a reasonable amendment process. This isn't like the early days of the pandemic, when we were experiencing a global emergency. We need to deal with our infrastructure needs, but this isn't emergency spending. This is part of the daily or annual bread and butter of what the legislative process should be about, and that is another reason why we shouldn't pass a bill without responsible pay- fors.

Well, we have seen this kind of political maneuvering before. In fact, Senator Schumer's designed-to-fail agenda practically dominated the work of this Chamber last month. He scheduled votes on some of the most controversial bills out there in order to orchestrate Republican opposition: legislation that exploits the cause of pay fairness to line the pockets of trial lawyers, a bill to seize States' power to regulate their own elections, as provided for in the Constitution, and to cement the Democratic majorities in the Congress for the foreseeable future.

And now the majority leader is threatening to tank an infrastructure bill so he can go on to another partisan tax-and-spending-spree bill, which makes me think that is really what they care the most about. Rather than give the negotiators time to succeed and the rest of us time to understand what is in the bill and to consult appropriately with our constituents, Senator Schumer turned what should be a unifying process to build consensus into a divisive one, all in order to tee up his desire to see us pass a multitrillion-dollar tax-and-spending bill. That is on top of all the spending that we have done on a bipartisan basis for COVID-19, at least until the first part of this year, when our Democratic colleagues insisted on pushing through another $1.9 trillion of unpaid-for spending, all in the name of COVID-19, when we all know that only about 10 percent of it was addressed at the pandemic, which causes all of us to recall Rahm Emanuel's famous statement that ``an emergency is a terrible thing to waste.'' And in the name of COVID-19 relief, another $1.9 trillion was added to our children and grandchildren's debt burden.

Well, for the reckless tax-and-spending bill that Speaker Pelosi so desperately wants, the pricetag has been put on that legislation at another $3.5 trillion, and I don't think most of us can really get our head around what a trillion is. It is more than a billion, we know. It is a whole lot more than a million. But this kind of reckless spending is really unprecedented, except in a national emergency, like COVID-19 relief.

Some budget experts have estimated that the reckless tax-and- spending-spree bill that Speaker Pelosi so desperately wants could actually cost $5.5 trillion, and if our Democratic colleagues insist on rolling the bipartisan infrastructure bill into that plan, it will cost taxpayers even more.

Well, as a reminder, our Democratic colleagues spent more than $2 trillion earlier this year alone, as I mentioned, and the result of this reckless spending spree speaks for itself.

Democrats have sent big incentives to workers to remain at home, not back at work, through September of this year by enhancing their unemployment benefits with an additional Federal Government bonus, which provided that in my State about 80 percent of

the people collecting unemployment insurance were making more on unemployment insurance than they were going back to work. So it is no wonder that we had trouble getting people back to work, and businesses had to cut back on their open hours. Restaurants had to close down because they simply couldn't find the workers, or the businesses couldn't compete with the Federal Government for these essential workers.

We are a long way from reaching prepandemic unemployment rates. And, surprisingly, job openings are at record highs.

But here is one of the biggest concerns that is borne out by polling that people are beginning to have, and that is inflation. We are seeing inflation at a 13-year high. Consumers are feeling the sting of rising prices for virtually everything they buy. That is what happens when too much money chases too few goods and services. Prices go up. And we are seeing the cause of that inflation, its impact on gasoline, on groceries, and on appliances. Folks are shelling out more money for these products today than they have been as recently as a year ago.

And if you have gone to the used car lot recently, you are bound for some serious sticker shock. And you can't even get a new car because of the semiconductor shortage caused by the pandemic. But over the last year alone, used car prices have gone up an eye-popping 45 percent.

As I said, there is another reason why new cars aren't available, and that is because the semiconductors that make these computers on wheels actually run have not been available because 90 percent of them are made overseas, in Asia.

Now, we have taken an important step to try to deal with this vulnerable supply chain of semiconductors, which affects both our economy and our national security, when we passed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act last month here in the Senate. So we are capable of doing things on a bipartisan basis if given the opportunity.

The Wall Street Journal recently called this bill, the Innovation and Competition Act, the ``third infrastructure initiative'' and noted that while smaller, it is ``freighted with just as much long-term economic and strategic importance.''

So as Congress debates infrastructure investments, we can't let the one that passed the Senate last month slip through the cracks. There is a lot on the line for our economy and national security, and we need the CHIPS program up and running, which is a $52 billion investment in domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors--something that we rely on Asia for, and principally Taiwan, which produces 63 percent of advanced semiconductors. And we can only imagine if that supply chain from Taiwan or Asia was disrupted by another pandemic, a natural disaster, or, Heaven forbid, a military conflict.

I want to make sure that our colleagues know that I appreciate the work they have put into this bill, but I know they also appreciate the individual responsibility that we have as Senators to participate in the process, particularly when it comes to spending $1 trillion on infrastructure.

We need to have the text of the bill, not just a summary. I appreciate our colleagues giving some of us a notebook. It is a bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs act summary. That is helpful, but that is not legislative text. And then we need an open amendment process so that those of us who weren't party to the bipartisan negotiations can participate in the process. Hopefully, it will make the bill better. I would like to see us actually substitute some of the spending pay-fors with a user-fee model that has been traditional, using the gas tax. As I said earlier, the gas tax has become a little outmoded and insufficient to pay for the infrastructure that we all want and need.

There is a real need to invest in America's infrastructure, and it has never been more important for us to actually pay for those investments in a responsible way.

As it stands today, our debt-to-GDP ratio--gross domestic product--is at the highest level since World War II. This is not the time to continue spending and spending and spending until our grandkids are left sitting in a pit of debt so deep they will never climb out of it.

I am encouraged that our colleagues have gotten us this far, but the bill is not ready, and we need to see the text and be given adequate time to read it and consult with our constituents about it and to satisfy ourselves that the summaries they provided us and the pay-fors are real.

Senator Schumer would be wise to postpone today's vote until Members on both sides have had a chance to evaluate the details of this legislation.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 5 minutes and, following me, the Senator from Wyoming be able to speak for 8 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the life and legacy of our friend, Mike Enzi, and his sudden loss.

I saw Mike via Zoom just last week at the Senate prayer breakfast. Mike got up a little earlier than the rest of us to be able to join us over the internet from Wyoming. But he liked participating in the prayer breakfast. And as we were reminded by some of our colleagues--I think Senator Lankford may have mentioned it--Mike could always be depended on if somebody was a last-minute cancellation, which happened from time to time.

Of course, it had only been a matter of a few months since Mike had retired, marking the conclusion of a storied career in public service. Mike literally did it all. He served in the military and at every level of government, from the mayor's office in Gillette to the State legislature, to here in the U.S. Senate. And he always put the people of Wyoming first.

Mike was pretty unique in this place because he never sought the spotlight. In many ways, it seemed like he was allergic to getting any sort of attention from the press or otherwise. Whether he was in the midst of a high-pressure negotiation or celebrating a big legislative victory, Mike did not run to the TV cameras or reporters in the hallways. He preferred to work quietly behind the scenes, effectively resolving differences in a quiet, thoughtful way. And once he succeeded, he didn't claim the credit for himself. He claimed credit for others.

During Mike's 24 years in the Senate, he certainly had a lot of successes to celebrate, and he let me in on his winning formula not long after I got here. At the time, he and the liberal lion of the Senate, Teddy Kennedy, were chairman and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I think they may have swapped out as majorities changed; one became chairman, and the other became ranking member.

But I asked him how Mike, the staunch Western conservative that he was, could work so productively with somebody who shared very different views. And he told me it is easy. It is the 80-20 rule. You are not going to agree or disagree with 100 percent of what someone has to say, but if you focus on the 20 percent or that that you will never agree on, you overlook the 80 percent that you can agree on.

Well, as simple as it may sound, it is a winning formula for success here in the Senate, and more of us should practice the 80-20 rule. At a time when more attention is paid to what divides us than what unites us, I hope the legacy of Mike Enzi and the 80-20 rule will remain a constant in the Senate.

As we honor the life and legacy of our good friend, Mike Enzi, there is another favorite saying of his that has been on my mind. He used to say: You have to have an attitude of gratitude.

Well, Mike was always grateful--grateful to God, grateful to live in this great country, grateful to the people of Wyoming for the opportunity to serve them, and, of course, grateful for his

wonderful family and their endless love and support.

Sandy and I send our condolences to Mike's wife Diana, their children, grandchildren, and the entire Enzi clan. We are grateful to them that they shared their beloved patriarch with us for so many years.

Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate Albert Trevino on his retirement from the U.S. Border Patrol, after 26 years of faithful service to the American people.

Albert started his law enforcement career right out of college in 1987, with the police force in his hometown of Harlingen, TX. In Harlingen, he served as patrol officer for the police department for 5 years before being promoted to an instructor and background investigator.

In 1995, he joined the U.S. Border Patrol, ready to face greater challenges. He first served in El Paso, before securing a transfer back to Harlingen several years later to patrol and protect his hometown community.

During his career, Albert has had the opportunity to serve on the prosecutions detail working with the U.S. Attorney's Office on prosecuting criminal aliens, has been a post academy instructor in both immigration law and Spanish for his fellow agents, and has assisted the inspector general's office on background investigations. In the course of his career, Albert has helped apprehend literally thousands of illegal border-crossers and dozens of narcotics smugglers.

Many of us in the Senate know Albert through his work as an elected official with the National Border Patrol Council. He was first elected to office in the Rio Grande Valley Sector Local in 1999 and then as a national vice president in 2011. As national vice president, he has chaired the legislative committee for 10 years, and for many of us here in Washington, Albert has been the face of our Nation's Border Patrol agents. He has represented them faithfully and, in doing so, has helped support the agents who keep Americans safe. It is no overstatement to say every Senate office engaged on border security issues over the last decade has likely worked with Albert on an issue. His efforts on Capitol Hill were instrumental in the passage of the Border Patrol Pay Reform Act in 2014, that gave Border Patrol agents a stable pay system for the first time in 40 years.

I have had the pleasure of working with Albert on legislation to give Border Patrol agents wage parity with other Federal law enforcement agencies by restoring Fair Labor Standards Act overtime. I had hoped we could pass this legislation before Albert retired, but will keep working to bring this to fruition.

I would also like to recognize Albert's incredible family who have supported him throughout his career. A successful career in law enforcement is a team effort that involves the entire family. Border Patrol agents work long hours under extremely harsh conditions. It is a 24/7 operation, and agents must work nights, weekends, and holidays. Family holidays and celebrations often get missed when you have to work; yet Albert's family has been unwavering in their support for him. I am grateful for the commitment shown by Albert's wife of 30 years, Edna, and their children Alisa and Danny.

In closing, I would like to thank Albert for his 26 years of Federal service to this country, to the people of the great State of Texas, and to his community of Harlingen. We wish you and your family well in your retirement, and we hope you see continued success in future endeavors.

Mr. President, yesterday, the majority leader teed up the first procedural vote on an infrastructure bill that no one has seen yet.

Our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been hard at work for weeks negotiating in good faith to get a balanced agreement on an issue that virtually everyone supports. Infrastructure is not a partisan issue.

But at this time, we have no details about how this deal would achieve our common goals. There is no bill text. We don't know what is in and what is out, no information about how it will be paid for and no score from the Congressional Budget Office to tell us whether the proposed pay-fors are credible.

Now, we have been through an extraordinary pandemic, during which we have done some pretty extraordinary things when it comes to spending at the Federal level.

I think the closest equivalent to the pandemic is World War II. Of course, this was a domestic war or battle against the virus, trying to deal with the public health consequences and the economic consequences as well.

I voted for trillions of dollars of Federal spending, something I never thought I would do in the face of an emergency, a global emergency.

But there is no emergency that exists for an infrastructure bill. This is part of the bread and butter of what governments do at the local level, the State level, and at the Federal level, and it is simply irresponsible and reckless to borrow more money from future generations and to throw gasoline on the fire that is already burning when it comes to inflation in pursuit of a bill

that everybody will probably, ultimately, if given enough and opportunity, will ultimately come up with a negotiated bipartisan outcome.

I also am not going to vote to proceed to a bill that my constituents, the 29 million people I represent--they don't know what is in the bill either.

Well, all this doesn't sound like a recipe for success. These are the types of things that typically would be ironed out before you bring a bill to the floor. It is obvious this legislation is not ready for prime time, not even close.

As I said, the specifics of the bill are still being negotiated by our colleagues, of course, with the White House. We are days away from having the opportunity to read a bill, let alone provide the Congressional Budget Office the opportunity to calculate the cost.

Republicans and Democrats may disagree on a lot these days, but I hope we could all agree that it is not wise to advance legislation before you know what is in it.

That is why it is so baffling to me that the majority leader, the Senator from New York, is forcing a vote on this bill before it is even ready.

Of course, that raises a very significant question. Why in the world would he do that? Why is he rushing through with the final stage of what has been a productive bipartisan process?

The only logical conclusion I can come up with is he wants this bill and this bipartisan effort to fail.

Why else would he push forward with a vote when he knows it is doomed from the start?

I believe the Senator from New York wants this vote to fail because he really wants to go the partisan route; namely, the big, ugly, multitrillion dollar spending spree that Bernie Sanders and others have been advocating.

He doesn't need Republican votes to do that, and he can implement some of the most radical policies on the far left's wish list, things like the Green New Deal, massive tax hikes, crippling new economic regulations.

It is pretty obvious that has been the goal all along. Why else would the President himself say, once he negotiated a bipartisan deal: Well, I am not going to sign this bipartisan deal until we pass our partisan wish list. There is now $3 trillion proposed. It is for the same reason Nancy Pelosi said she is not going to let the bipartisan bill, even were we to pass it, see the light of day until she knows that the $3 trillion tax-and-spending spree is successful, which will require all 50 Democratic Senators plus the Vice President.

It is just strange to me to see a designed-to-fail strategy, unless it is for some political purpose.

So, Senator Schumer, if you are listening, please don't do it. Call off the vote. Let the bipartisan group finish their work. Don't set up a vote that will fail just because you want to appease the far left of your party, because if the vote happens and we don't have bill text or a cost estimate by the time it rolls around, it will necessarily fail.

Mr. President, for everything from emergency room visits to mental health care, Medicaid funding is vital to the health of our most

vulnerable citizens. More than 4 million of my constituents, including half of all the children in the State, depend on the stability of the State's Medicaid Program.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration has put the healthcare of these individuals in jeopardy by rescinding a previous approval of Texas's 1115 waiver extension. Basically, that waiver would allow the State to manage the program in a way that maximizes the benefit and save money where possible, mainly through managed care.

Now, those are some pretty bureaucratic terms, the 1115 waiver, but here is the short of it: Texas stands to lose $11 billion to provide healthcare for underserved patients as a result of this unilateral and unjustified rescission by the Biden administration. All of this was done for an unconstitutional purpose: to force Texas to accept the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion--something the Supreme Court of the United States has said they cannot constitutionally force. Two anonymous Federal officials, in a Washington Post story, reported as much in a recent story.

I said earlier, when this happened to Texas, that if the administration can do it to Texas, they can do it to anyone, any State in this Chamber. My friend Senator Braun's home State of Indiana and Senator Young's State of Indiana now is the latest victim, and I appreciate their commitment to ending this game of political chicken.

These actions not only unjustifiably jeopardize the health of millions of vulnerable people, they also erode the trust States have when they negotiate with the Federal Government, where apparently a deal is not a deal. States will never view their Federal partners as working in good faith if these agreements are invalidated by a successor administration.

If we don't stand up against these reckless actions now, which State will be next? It may not be a Medicaid 1115 extension. It may be some other policy by the Biden administration. But how far in this case will this administration go to commandeer State resources in forcing a Medicaid expansion?

I am proud to stand alongside of Senator Braun and Senator Young in the fight to protect the healthcare of the most vulnerable Americans in my State and across the country.

I yield to the junior Senator from Indiana. I beg your pardon, Mr. President; maybe the senior Senator or--never mind.

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

Madam President, over the last 16 months, no community has been spared from the devastation of COVID-19. The virus itself has claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans, including more than 50,000 Texans, and we are still gaining a fuller picture of the far- reaching consequences of this pandemic.

We know that the mitigation efforts led to the closure of countless small businesses and upended the livelihoods of millions of workers. The transition to virtual learning robbed children of valuable time alongside their peers in the classroom. And the emotional and financial stresses of the pandemic led to devastating consequences for our friends and neighbors who were already in a vulnerable situations.

As families spent more time isolating at home last year, we saw an increase in domestic violence. Individuals who were already experiencing anxiety and depression faced even greater challenges during this difficult period. And those battling substance-use disorders faced an even steeper uphill climb. On top of the stress and isolation of the pandemic, many lost access to treatment facilities and outreach programs.

No community has been spared from the wrath of the opioid epidemic. In 2019, there were more than 70,000 overdose deaths in America, a devastating number. Now we have a much clearer picture of how this crisis worsened in 2020.

Last year, more than 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. That is more than a 30-percent increase over the previous year. It marks the largest annual increase in at least three decades.

Following years of fighting to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, this is a stunning blow and a deep disappointment. Here in the Senate, this issue is about as bipartisan as they come. As I said, every State, every community has been hit by the scourge of opioids, and every person in this Chamber, I believe, wants to turn the tide on this crisis.

In 2016, thanks to the leadership of our friend Senator Portman of Ohio, and the hard work of a bipartisan group of Senators, we passed what became known as CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, to help end this devastating cycle of drug abuse and death. Just a couple of years ago, we celebrated some incremental progress. In 2018, drug overdoses were down, or deaths from drug overdoses were down 4 percent from the previous year, the first decrease in nearly three decades.

But, unfortunately, that trend was short-lived. Overdose deaths increased in 2019, and they skyrocketed in 2020. Now is the time for the Senate to take further action and help the American people fight back.

Tomorrow, the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control will hold a hearing on the Federal Government's response to the drug overdose crisis. We will hear from experts, including the acting directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, as well as Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. I hope we will learn more about what additional steps we can take to reverse this concerning trend, as well as what more needs to be done.

One of the most effective ways to avoid drug overdose deaths, though, is to prevent those drugs from ever reaching our communities in the first place.

And, of course, Customs and Border Protection plays a vital role in stopping illicit drugs from entering our country. And it has seen an alarming amount of drugs coming across our southern border, as I speak--one of the most concerning, of course, being fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

Depending on your body weight, 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal; a kilogram, which is 2.2 pounds, could kill 500,000 people; 2.2 pounds of fentanyl, something you could put a couple of kilograms in a backpack and walk it over to the southwestern border.

In fiscal year 2021, so far, Customs and Border Protection has seized more than 8,500 pounds of fentanyl. For context, that is a 78-percent increase over the previous year, and we still have 3 months to go. The amount of fentanyl that we have interdicted in the past 9 months is just shy of the total weight from fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. That is a dramatic increase.

And it has deadly consequences. Nearly three-quarters of fatal overdoses last year were attributed to opioids--some synthetic, like fentanyl; others like heroin--manufactured primarily in Mexico, 90 percent of which is imported in the United States comes from Mexico.

The alarming increase in the supply coming across our southwestern border foreshadows even more devastating overdose statistics in the months and years to come. And fentanyl isn't the only dangerous drug moving across our southern border. Methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin, as I said, are coming into our country at alarming rates.

If people don't care about the humanitarian crisis at the border that has seen a million encounters with Border Patrol the last year alone, if they don't care about the fact that we are not stopping illegal immigration into the country and what consequences that will have on our country for many years to come, hopefully they care a little bit about the drug overdose deaths that are caused by the importation-- illegal importation of these drugs across the southern border.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration's National Drug Threat Assessment, the vast majority of heroin, as I said, comes from Mexico--a staggering 92 percent, to be precise.

As we have discussed the border on the crisis, I have talked about the cascading consequences of this migration surge. When Border Patrol agents are pulled off the front lines to care for migrant children, as many of them are, it creates a huge gap in our border controls and creates huge security vulnerabilities. It, of course, makes it more difficult for the Border Patrol to do the job that they signed on for, which is to interdict dangerous people and substances, including these dangerous drugs.

So until we can get this current humanitarian crisis under control, we are making it nearly impossible for the Border Patrol to catch or deter the cartels from moving their poison across the border, and we are creating even more risk for Americans already struggling with addiction and drug abuse.

Getting the border under control should be a top priority for the Biden administration, but they seem completely oblivious to what is happening, and they don't really seem to understand the dynamics. We know the traditional push factors--poverty and violence in your home country--but it takes a lot for people to want to leave their home country and take the dangerous trek to the United States.

But, of course, they are having the coyotes, the human smugglers, whisper in their ears and say: For $5,000 or for $7,000, we will get you to America.

But it is also the pull factors. It is the perception that if you come to the border, that you will successfully make your way into the interior and you will be allowed to stay. Of course, that is not what our laws call for, but that is exactly what these smugglers, the coyotes, are planning on and what is attracting, like a huge magnet, hundreds of thousands, even a million people this year alone, across our southern border. And it is the same chaos and confusion caused by this flooding of the border and the diversion of law enforcement that is allowing these drugs to come across the border, which, as I said, have killed 93,000 Americans in the last year alone.

In addition to stopping these drugs from making their way into our country, we also need to identify more effective ways to break the cycle of addiction, and that is especially true for those individuals who have been incarcerated. It is difficult to know the exact numbers, but research shows that an estimated 65 percent of the U.S. prison population has an active substance use disorder. Without access to treatment while incarcerated, these men and women face a steep, maybe an impossible, uphill climb after they are released. In order to give an incarcerated individual the strongest possible opportunity after serving their time in our criminal justice system, we need to invest more in effective treatment options once they leave prison.

The good news is there is already a bipartisan bill out there that does exactly that. Earlier this year, Senator Whitehouse--the Senator from Rhode Island--and I introduced the Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act to help incarcerated individuals break this cycle of addiction.

Now, we know we are not going to be able to save everybody, but for those who are willing to put in the hard work and effort and to seek the counseling and treatment that is necessary, we believe we can save some lives. This legislation updates the residential substance abuse treatment program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons across the country. The program, as it currently exists, already provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. That treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry into civil society and provide community-based treatment once they are released.

Because of these men and women who have struggled hard while they have been in prison and in jail to overcome their addiction, many are returning to the same conditions and the same friends and the company and communities that they came from. Without this kind of help, we know what the results are likely to be.

Our legislation opens up even more opportunities for successful rehabilitation and continued recovery. It provides providers with more options to treat substance use disorders. It requires program staff to be trained in the science of addiction, evidence-based therapies and strategies for continuity of care, and it ensures programs are affiliated with providers who can continue treatment after incarceration. In short, these changes will give the formerly incarcerated men and women the best possible shot at living healthier, longer, and more productive lives.

I am sure it is no surprise that this kind of legislation has strong bipartisan support, both here in the Senate and among the various organizations that work in this field. Twenty-seven groups wrote a letter to Senator Whitehouse and me endorsing this legislation. This includes a broad range of criminal justice and behavioral groups, such as the Addiction Policy Forum, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.

I haven't heard from a single Senator, Republican or Democrat, who has expressed oppositions or even concern about the bill. This is an example of the bipartisan, commonsense actions that we need to be taking more often and, in this case, to address a very serious and clearly growing problem. These commonsense policy changes can help people struggling with drug abuse to finally escape the cycle and build a better life when they return to their communities.

I hope that the Senate will soon pass this bill and move it one step closer to President Biden's desk. The dramatic

spike in drug overdose deaths last year should serve as a call to action for all of us. To secure our border, to help those struggling to overcome addiction, the tools and the training to do so, there is an urgent action that we can take and should take to address both.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, our Democratic colleagues have begun to lay out the groundwork for a partisan reconciliation bill totaling $3.5 trillion--what used to be an absolutely astonishing amount of money.

We don't have many details about how that money could be spent, but based on everything we have heard from President Biden and our Democratic colleagues over recent months, there are some safe assumptions: Medicare expansion, Green New Deal-era climate initiatives, and a range of free programs that we know aren't free at all--college, childcare; you name it.

To pay for these runaway spending habits, our Democratic colleagues will lean on job-killing tax increases and excessive borrowing from future generations. As a reminder, this is only one-half of the dual- track strategy they are pushing this month. The other half is more than $1 trillion worth of infrastructure.

And I would note that while there is strong bipartisan support for an infrastructure bill, that the Democratic leader is apparently intending to file for cloture on a motion to proceed to a bill that hasn't even been written yet, much less had a Congressional Budget Office score to see whether the pay-fors are meaningful or phony.

As I see it, our friends on the other side have made it even more difficult to convince our colleagues, let alone the American people, that this type of spending is necessary. After all, they have already developed a spotty record this year. At a time when our debts were piling up, they added up even more unnecessary spending.

Back in March, Democrats spent nearly $2 trillion without the support of a single Republican. They claimed this was all in the name of COVID- 19 relief, even though less than 10 percent directly supported our pandemic response. The rest was a grab bag of irresponsible spending.

One case in point is the blue State bailout. Democrats spent $350 billion more in aid to State and local governments, many of which were not even facing any sort of budget shortfalls. Democrats said the jobs of everybody from police officers to teachers would be in jeopardy without this funding.

Republicans offered that this huge sum of funding wasn't needed since many States were not operating in the red. Even liberal economists and nonpartisan groups, like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, agreed.

But as the old saying goes, time tells all. And it didn't take much time for us to see how completely unnecessary this $350 billion payout was. Take California as an example. California has more than $100 billion budget surplus. That is with a capital ``B.'' Governor Newsom is using that money to dole out stimulus checks and provide medical coverage for undocumented immigrants.

New Jersey has had so much extra cash lying around that it has made its first full payment into the State's pension system in more than 25 years. But they didn't stop there. It exceeded that payment by more than half a billion dollars.

This was exactly the kind of reckless spending of supposed COVID-19 dollars borrowed against future generations that we advocated against because we saw a tidal wave of funding going to States that were not even operating in the red.

One recent POLITICO article read:

State Faced Financial Ruin. Now they're swimming in cash.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board asked: ``Didn't States Say They Were Broke?''

At a time when our spending already mirrored wartime expenses, Democrats handed States piles of cash to erase debts and add to rainy- day funds, not to provide for COVID-19 relief.

This money could have been used to invest in our roads and bridges, to have credible pay-fors for the bipartisan infrastructure bill that is currently being considered, or to increase broadband access in rural communities, or to support the response to the immigrant crisis occurring on our southern border, or a number of other priorities.

But rather than repurposing the surplus funds from the first spending bonanza, our Democratic colleagues are trying to double down on reckless spending, more irresponsible borrowing, more unnecessary spending, and more burdensome taxes. This multitrillion-dollar spending spree comes at a time that is already an unstable one for our economy.

Last month, inflation hit a 13-year high. And average prices are up 5.4 percent over the last year. Now, this is what happens when so much money starts chasing limited goods and services. The price of those goods and services goes up. That is what helps to cause inflation. And consumers are the ones feeling the sting of rising prices for virtually everything they buy.

Fruits and vegetables are up 3.2 percent; electricity is up 3.8 percent; and dining-out costs are up 4.2 percent over a year ago. For families operating on a budget, unlike the Federal Government that can simply print money and borrow more money and impose that burden on future generations--for families operating on a budget, especially those who battled job losses and other tough financial circumstances during the pandemic, those dollars and those expenses add up awfully quick.

And those account for only a few of the price increases that families are facing. For example, if you want to purchase a washer or dryer for your home, you are going to be met with some pretty serious sticker shock. Prices are up 26 percent over last year.

For folks hitting the road for maybe a little time off during the summertime or maybe even just commuting back and forth to work will have to budget quite a bit more for the gasoline necessary to get them there. They are paying 45 percent more at the pump than they did just 1 year ago

And anyone heading to the used-car lot is bound for a big surprise. Over the last 12 months, used-car prices are up an eye-popping 45.2 percent. We know one contributing factor is the shortage of semiconductors necessary to run these computers on wheels that we now call cars. Without a steady supply of these chips, automakers haven't been able to manufacture the normal number of new vehicles, making used ones a particular hot commodity.

This is another reason why the House needs to take up the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed the Senate last month. It can take literally years to get new semiconductor foundries or manufacturing facilities up and running. And time is of the essence. Getting this bill signed into law will help bolster domestic chip production and safeguard against similar shortages in the future.

But getting back to these rising costs depicted here on this chart, these kinds of across-the-board cost increases are simply unmanageable for many families. I know it is easy sitting here in Washington, DC, getting a government salary, to think that, well, people can manage. But if you are a working family, particularly one coming off of layoffs or reduced hours as a result of the COVID-19 mitigation efforts, these are real. And they bite into the economics of these families.

As bad as inflation is, it is only one part of our economic woes. We are also seeing trouble getting people to go back to work. In February last year, before the pandemic hit, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent. The economy was hitting on all cylinders. But within 2 months, unemployment went from 3.5 percent to 15 percent.

Since then, thanks to our investments and bipartisan cooperation and our great scientists, we have made steady progress in getting workers back on the job. But, unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues have seen fit to incentivize men and women to remain on the sidelines of the labor market.

The partisan bill they passed earlier this year extended, bolstered unemployment benefits through the end of September, long after we expected our economy to reopen.

It was literally true with the $300 Federal supplement to State unemployment benefits. People receiving unemployment benefits in my State, 80 percent of them got more from unemployment than they did from their former jobs.

That is simply the wrong kind of incentives to try to incentivize people not to work. We need to incentivize and facilitate people getting back to work so they can support their families.

So it is no wonder our economy is still struggling to rebound. A partisan go-it-alone strategy has not led to positive results for our country. It has driven up debt, deficits, borrowing, and spending. And for what?

The American people are spending more of their hard-earned money on everyday items. Workers are sitting on the sidelines of the labor markets. And our national debt is at a higher level than it was following World War II.

In the last election--contrary to, perhaps, the belief among some circles here in Washington--the voters did not give our Democratic colleagues a mandate. They didn't sign off on the far-left agenda or give a green light to spend trillions and trillions of dollars on unnecessary liberal programs.

If they wanted Bernie Sanders' multitrillion-dollar budget, they would have elected him President of the United States. But we know that did not happen.

Voters elected a 50-50 Senate, lessened the Democratic majority in the House, and took President Biden at his word that he promised to work across the aisle. This far left--hard left turn is not what the American people voted for.

Republicans will continue to fight this irresponsible spending bonanza once again. And I hope, I hope some of our Democratic colleagues will stand with us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my remarks, roughly 10 minutes.

Well, just when you think you have seen it all, Mr. President, something new happens here in Washington, DC. All eyes are now on DC's newest asylum seekers, the members of the Texas House of Representatives, the Democratic Representatives.

But the only oppressive force that these men and women are facing is the expectation that they would actually do their jobs in the Texas Legislature, the job they campaigned for and were elected to do.

Following unsuccessful attempts to pass an election integrity bill during the regular legislative session earlier this year, Governor Abbott has now called a special session for the Texas Legislature to consider that and other matters. That special session kicked off last Thursday, but the chamber is already being held hostage by a minority of house members who are unwilling to do their job. The Democrats raised concerns about the current draft of the bill. Make no mistake. That is why the legislative process actually exists. That is why it is important that they be there and debate the issues and actually vote on the bill. The purpose, of course, is for all sides to be able to debate, potentially amend, and vote on legislation.

Yet, rather than do their jobs in Texas, yesterday, house Democrats abandoned both our State and the millions of Texans whom they represent and decamped to Washington, DC, when they were faced with the prospect of defeat. For better or for worse, the legislative process is all about arithmetic. You are not always going to win every debate you are involved in. That doesn't mean you leave the State and refuse to do your job, but that is exactly what they did. They got on two chartered jets--maskless and with at least one case of light beer--to come to Washington, DC.

The problem--and, really, what is so sad--is I don't think these legislators realize the irony of the situation. They are using their collective power as the minority party to stop a bill they oppose from becoming law. While doing so, they have come to Washington to try to convince the President and Senate Democrats to nuke the very Senate rule that protects the rights of the minority--in other words, you might say, a filibuster for me but not for thee. As a reminder, this is the second time they have denied the legislature a quorum this year.

I think it is pretty obvious that this was nothing more than a political stunt when these lawmakers skipped town with no plan as to when they would return to their jobs in Texas. Frankly, the Governor, under the Texas Constitution, can continue to call as many special sessions as he wishes and without limitation. So we all know how this will end. They will eventually go home. After the cameras leave and after the press loses interest in this political stunt, they will go home, and they will participate in the process.

It is telling that these Democrats in this house of representatives chose to race toward TV cameras in Washington rather than present their arguments in the legislature, and it is not without some risk to them. I am advised that they were on Federal property and referred to a website, which was actually a fundraising site, for their efforts. We all know there are limits--in fact, strict limits--on any fundraising on Federal property. So they may have crossed a line, unwittingly or not.

This is simply an embarrassing dereliction of their duty and a shameful political stunt, as I said. They can't win. So they are doing the equivalent of ``I will take my ball and go home'' or, in this case, ``I am simply running away.'' Texans standing up to a fight is part of who we are, even if you know, in the end, you may not prevail. Instead, they turned their backs, hopped on a private jet, and ran from this fight.

Like our Democratic colleagues in Congress, Texas State lawmakers have tried to create a false choice between voter access and election security. I think it boils down to this: We should be making it easier to vote and tougher to cheat, plain and simple. It is disingenuous and downright false to claim any effort to prevent fraud is a veiled attempt at voter suppression. We know that minority voters, voters of color, voted at unprecedented levels in the 2020 election.

In my State, we had 66 percent of registered voters vote and the highest levels in history of African-American and Hispanic voters--so much for this idea that, somehow, the people who want to be able to vote can't vote even though we ordinarily have 2 weeks of early voting before the general election. We have mail-in ballots for people who are disabled, who are over 65, or who cannot--or otherwise will not--be in town on election day. Of course, we have election day voting as well. In 2020, we had 11.3 million Texans who cast their ballots--as I said, 66 percent of registered voters. The last time I was on the ballot, in 2014, we had 4.8 million voters--4.8 to 11.3 in 6 years alone. So believe me--there is robust voter participation, and nothing the Texas Legislature is considering will deny people their legitimate right to vote and ability to cast their votes, and that is appropriate that they should do so.

There are other additional items in the Governor's call for this special session, including things like bail reform and family violence prevention. Of course, by fleeing town and coming to Washington in this political stunt, the Democratic house members are abdicating their responsibility to deal with these other issues as well. It is not just about election law reform; it is about these other issues like bail reform and family violence prevention.

I believe firmly and am confident I am in the majority of my constituents, of my 29 million constituents, that they actually expect us, when we run for office and when we get elected, to show up for our jobs and not take part in a highly orchestrated and ethically dubious act of political theater.

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, ahead of the last work period, Senator Schumer, the majority leader, outlined his designed-to-fail agenda. He forecasted a series of votes on legislation that stood zero chance of actually passing--legislation to exploit the cause of pay fairness to line the pockets of trial lawyers, to erode Americans' Second Amendment rights, to force schools and hospitals to comply with ``woke'' social norms, and, of course, the marquee bill, a partisan takeover of our elections.

It was obvious from the outset that this agenda wasn't designed to achieve results. It takes bipartisanship. It takes rolling up your sleeves and working to build bipartisan consensus to get things done in the Senate--especially so in an equally divided Senate as we have now.

Rather than put forward a number of bills that would earn that sort of bipartisan support and actually pass, Senator Schumer chose to spend most of the Senate's time last month putting on a show for the so- called progressive base of his party, and I expect even more political theater this month.

So in the next few weeks, we are told, our Democratic colleagues will put their dual-track legislative approach to the test. One of those tracks will include a heavy dose of bipartisanship, and that is something I applaud.

Contrary to public opinion, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate spend a lot of time working together. So far this year, we have worked together to counter threats from China, support small businesses impacted by the pandemic, and combat the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans. We have done all of that together in a bipartisan way. Bipartisan solutions are also being crafted to address other major issues, from the border crisis, to drug pricing, to police reform.

In the coming weeks, the Senate is expected to vote on one of those bipartisan agreements; that is, to rebuild and maintain our Nation's infrastructure. The process that brought us to this point certainly has been a roller coaster. After weeks of back-and-forth negotiations, a group of more than 20 Senators reached an agreement with the White House just last month. But here is when things got very strange. Within minutes of the announcement, the President himself put the fate of that agreement into question. He said he wouldn't sign the bill unless Democrats paired it with a multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill that would include a smorgasbord of leftist spending priorities and trillions in higher taxes and more debt for Americans. Talk about whiplash. Both Republicans and Democrats were caught off guard. That hadn't been part of the discussions or negotiation. That isn't what they said they agreed to.

Well, the reversal and unexpected announcement from the President that, even though they were announcing a deal, they didn't have a deal, prompted a weekend press cleanup, and the President issued a lengthy statement clarifying that it was not a veto threat. But we have no reason to suspect that the larger sentiment has changed.

In a letter to his Democratic colleagues last Friday, the majority leader, Senator Schumer, said the Senate will consider both the bipartisan deal on infrastructure and the partisan budget resolution with reconciliation instructions. The bipartisan deal is very much tied to the fate of a completely partisan reconciliation bill, notwithstanding President Biden's cleanup after his unexpected announcement at the White House.

Our Democratic colleagues don't have to listen to me, but I do believe they would be wise to avoid this path. They already went on a nearly $2 trillion spending binge earlier this year and sidelined every single Republican in the Congress during the process.

They tried to bill this ultrapartisan legislation as COVID-19 relief, but we all know that only about 10 percent of the bill was directly related to the pandemic and only 1 percent was tied to vaccinating the American people. The rest, 90 percent, was exactly the type of thing you would expect to see in a bill that has only the support of our Democratic colleagues--funding for climate justice, backdoor money for Planned Parenthood, and more funding for State and local governments than they know what to do with. Blue States are using that money to pay down old debts with the funding. Our Democratic colleagues claim that money was necessary for pandemic relief, but that is not what it is being used for.

So how are we faring after Democrats passed this bill? Did the American Rescue Plan truly rescue America? Well, when it comes to the virus, the answer is clearly no. As I said, only a small portion of this massive spending supported our fight against COVID-19.

When this bill was signed into law, the majority of frontline workers had already been vaccinated, and vaccine makers were working as quickly as possible to supply the rest of the American people who wanted them with shots. Today, two-thirds of adults in America have received at least one dose of the vaccine--two-thirds. That progress came because of the bipartisan work that happened last year, not this year.

This legislation certainly didn't rescue our already sluggish economy. In fact, it has created more hurdles for our economy. Democrats created an incentive for workers to remain on the sidelines of the labor market through the end of September by offering enhanced Federal bonuses to State unemployment.

In Texas, for example, businesses of all types have struggled to find willing workers. For every industry, from hospitality, to retail, to manufacturing, to energy, ``Help Wanted'' signs can be found everywhere across my State, and we are not alone. One restaurant owner said the government has been its biggest competitor when it comes to finding workers.

The labor squeeze has become so tight that half of the States, including Texas, ended the supplemental unemployment benefits early because they were not compensating people who couldn't work or couldn't find work but paying people more than they would earn if they did work when jobs were readily available.

Those are just the problems that have been created with the labor market. Families across the country have felt the sting of inflation as they have paid higher prices on everything from gasoline to groceries. This is exactly the scenario outlined by economists across the country, including those who call themselves Democrats, people like Larry Summers, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama. He was among the first to warn about inflation or rising costs for consumers, and, boy, you must have thought he was a skunk at the garden party.

You would think this might serve as a lesson to our Democratic colleagues about shoveling money out the door as fast as they can, even when it creates massive debt and the threat of more inflation, but here we are once again. Our Democratic colleagues are preparing to spend trillions more dollars on top of the trillions of dollars we have already spent on a bipartisan basis to combat the virus but then afterwards to spend

more money on their chosen political priorities and not on the pandemic. They want to now add additional trillions of dollars to that debt and to that spending, risking even more dangerous and volatile inflation.

The details of what this round of spending might look like are still coming together, but we know that if the chairman of the Budget Committee, Bernie Sanders, has his wish, the price tag could come out as high as $6 trillion more. Six trillion dollars is a quarter of our gross domestic product. If you convert our country's World War II spending to today's dollars, it only comes out to $4.4 trillion. So the Democratic chairman of the Budget Committee wants to spend more money than we spent to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during World War II.

But I want to be clear about another thing. This so-called human infrastructure plan, which is just made-up words indicating that they are trying to mask the reality of what they want to spend money on--it is not about bridges and roads. It is not about broadband, things that we all understand are truly infrastructure. It is about a long list of political spending preferences, and it certainly can't be compared to spending the money we needed in order to win World War II.

For example, they want to spend trillions and trillions of dollars more on Medicare expansion, electric vehicle chargers, home-based care, free college, and a long list of liberal priorities. We are happy to debate those but not to jam them in a $6 trillion spending package.

All of this spending would be in addition to the more than $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that apparently is currently being drafted. I know we have been talking for weeks about a bipartisan infrastructure bill, but I have learned as recently as today that there is no bill text, and the Congressional Budget Office that scores these bills has not done so yet so we can determine whether the so-called pay-fors are, indeed, legitimate and stand up to scrutiny.

Our national debt is at the highest level since World War II. This is not the time to spend and spend and spend until our grandkids are left sitting in a pile of debt so deep that they will have no hope of climbing out of it. And we certainly can't tax and spend our way to prosperity. We need to take a hard look at our spending habits and make some tough choices, like most American families. They have to decide: What are my priorities, and what are the resources I have to spend to fund those priorities? And that is exactly what we need to do here in Congress.

Folks on both sides of the aisle want to rebuild our Nation's infrastructure. Rebuilding resilient roads, bridges, and broadband are top of mind for Republicans and Democrats. I know our colleagues are still working on text, as I said, for the bipartisan infrastructure deal, and I am eager to see the details on how this massive investment is paid for. But, again, this is only one-half of the so-called dual- track process announced by Senator Schumer.

The exorbitant pricetags being floated for the second track have raised serious concerns not just among folks on this side of the aisle but on both sides of the aisle.

I sincerely hope that some of our colleagues on the other side will stand up against irresponsible spending. As we know, it takes just one Democratic Senator to stand in the way of this abuse of the reconciliation process, and I hope one or more of them will have the courage to do so.

I yield the floor.