Floor Statements

Mr. President, my friend Senator Schumer, and some of my Democratic friends would like to change one of the enduring institutions of this institution. They want to get rid of the filibuster--and I call it the 60-vote threshold.

And a reasonable person might ask: Well, why not? Institutions change all the time. Change is the law of life. I will tell you why not. I want you to hear these words of wisdom:

We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional

crisis--

Getting rid of the filibuster.

the checks and balances which have been at the core of this

Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option--

Getting rid of the filibuster.

the checks and balances which say if you get 51 percent of

the vote you do not get your way 100 percent of the time--

If you get 51 percent of the vote, you do not get your way 100 percent of the time in the U.S. Senate--

that is what we call abuse of power. There is, unfortunately,

a whiff of extremism in the air.

Those are words of wisdom by Senator Chuck Schumer, May 18, 2005.

If we change the 60-vote threshold, if we change this institution which is part of the institution of the U.S. Senate, it will gut this body like a fish--like a fish. And everybody in this body knows that if that is accomplished, our institution will look like a scene out of ``Mad Max.''

America is a--God, what a wonderful place. It is a big, wide, open, diverse, sometimes dysfunctional, oftentimes imperfect, but good country with good people in it. And I want to emphasize the diversity part. What constitutes the good life in my State may not constitute the good life in Connecticut or in California or in Florida or in Maine.

And that is one of the reasons that we have and have had the institution of the 60-vote threshold. If you are going to make a law that is going to impact the entirety of this big, wide, open, diverse country, then you ought to have 60 votes because if you only have 51 votes, 51 percent of the vote does not get your way 100 percent of the time.

It has worked for a long time.

Now, I don't want to sound like I am lecturing, because I get it. I get it. I get that my Democratic friends and some of my Republican friends, who, frankly, are probably thinking about this--but I get that my Democratic friends want to--that they want to serve their President. We all want to serve our President. But you especially want to serve your President when the President is of your own party.

I remember when President Trump--now like President Biden--said: Change the filibuster. Get rid of it. I can't get my bills passed.

We said no. And by ``we,'' I mean Republicans and Democrats. Here is the letter right here. It was led by Senator Collins, a Republican, and Senator Chris Coons. I signed it. We said no.

Now President Biden wants to do the same thing. That is what Presidents do. They try to pass their bills. So I get it.

To my Democratic colleagues and any Republican colleagues who are thinking about voting for Senator Schumer's change of heart, I want to tell them: I get it too. I get it. I know the frustration. I have felt it. I have talked about it on this floor before.

You know, we all come up here for one reason: to make this country better. And we are ready to go to work, and we want to debate, and we want to decide. We didn't come up here for delay. We didn't come up here for stultification. So I get it. I get the frustration. But you don't satisfy those aims by not following these words of wisdom by Senator Schumer.

Now, once passions have cooled, I don't want my words to be construed as an assertion that everything about our body is perfect. There are changes, once passions have cooled and the filibuster is intact, the 60-vote threshold is intact--I use ``60-vote threshold'' because ``filibuster'' to some has negative connotations, and it is a positive rule, not a negative rule. But once passions have cooled, there are a lot of questions that we need to sit down and talk about, and if my Democratic friends want to talk about them, I will be there. Call the meeting. I will pounce on it like a ninja.

I mean, there are questions that we need to be asking ourselves about this body; how we can make it better. Do we give our majority leader too much authority? It is not personal. Do we give our minority leader too much authority? It is not personal, but that is a fair question.

Every Member of this body knows about the diminution of our committee system. Why do we even have committees anymore, for God's sake? I mean, you go work your committee, and you get a bill out, and it is a bipartisan bill, and you are feeling all toasty and ready to go, and you learn pretty quick around this place that doesn't matter. It is probably dead as fried chicken if the majority leader doesn't want to bring it up. And that is true whether the majority leader is Republican or Democrat. We need to have an honest conversation about the diminution of the committee process.

Our amendment rules. My God, there is not a single Member of this body who really understands those rules. I mean, if you ask--pick 10 Senators at random and say: Tell me the truth, now. Do you understand the rules of the Senate about how to offer an amendment? Nine out of ten will tell you no, and the tenth is lying. We ought to have an amendment process that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, and we don't. We ought to talk about that.

We ought to talk about the fact that this body--it didn't happen just yesterday--has ceded an enormous amount of our power, under a Madisonian system of separation of powers, to the executive branch and to the administrative staff.

After this is over, if any of my Democratic friends want to have that talk and see if we can't come up with a way to improve this body and ask some hard questions, I will be there happily, and I hope we can make progress. But to my colleagues, I say: Please, please, don't do this.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about two prominent Louisianans who are either transitioning or have transitioned into new ways to serve our State.

And I am not unbiased about these individuals, as you will shortly be able to tell. But I think most Louisianans who are fairminded will agree with what I am about to say.

The first person I want to talk about--and I have known both of these folks for a long time--is Rolfe McCollister.

Rolfe did own--he has sold a number of his companies. What did he do? Well, let me just say generally, first, Rolfe is a very astute and successful business person. He is one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, publisher in Louisiana.

He started from scratch a periodical called the Baton Rouge Business Report, and from that, Rolfe expanded. I mean, the list of his publications is very impressive. He started with the Baton Rouge Business Report. He publishes 10/12 Industry Report, 225 Magazine, inRegister, Daily Report, 225 Dine, Best of 225 This Week.

He also started a very important tradition, which is looked forward to in my State, called the Business Awards and Hall of Fame.

He started the influential Women in Business, and he started the Top 40 Under 40 list, to recognize some of our younger citizens.

Rolfe is retiring effective at the first of the year, and despite all of Rolfe's success in the business world--he is also a banker and he does other things, all self-made. Aside from his success in the world of publishing and journalism, the most important thing Rolfe McCollister has is his passion.

Now, he is smart. He is very intelligent, a graduate of LSU, extraordinary character, very dependable. If you need something done, you go to Rolfe. Trustworthy. But it is his passion that has most impressed me about Rolfe McCollister.

I first met Rolfe in 1987. I knew of him, but I met him. Louisiana had elected a brand-new reform Governor, a former Congressman by the name of Governor Buddy Roemer.

Like many of our reform Governors, Buddy was to serve one term. And when Governor Roemer took over, gosh, the State was a mess. We had, I think it was, a $7 or $8 billion budget. We had a $1.1 billion structural deficit. When Governor Roemer became Governor, we couldn't make payroll. Our schools were a mess. We had no charter schools in Louisiana. Our universities were floundering. And when you don't have adequate funding, universities tend to cannibalize each other. They were all competing for the dollars. It was like Lebanon; you didn't know which faction was going to be the winner today.

Our campaign finance in Louisiana was a mess. At that time, it was legal, and not out of the ordinary, for somebody to put $200,000 cash in a suitcase and take it to a political candidate, and it was perfectly legal for that candidate to take it and perfectly legal for that donor to give it.

Governor Roemer set out to try to fix some of these problems, and by his side was Rolfe McCollister, not in a paid position.

I was working for Governor Roemer then as his lawyer. Rolfe just spent all his time helping, and we needed him, because Governor Roemer would listen to him, and Rolfe was there every step of the way.

And after Governor Roemer got beat, Rolfe didn't stop. He has never stopped. He has been a leader in the charter school movement in Louisiana for as long as I can remember. He believes that competition makes all of us better, and it will make our public schools better.

He did a stint on the LSU board of supervisors, which runs our flagship university, LSU. Rolfe didn't ever hold back. I mean, he said exactly what he thought about what was working at LSU and what wasn't working, and Rolfe made a lot of people mad.

But Rolfe always believed, as did Governor Roemer, and, frankly, as do I--I learned a lot from both of them--that if you make the right people mad, you are doing your job. And this was all because of his passion, because he cared so much about Louisiana, to make it better. He didn't make any money off of it; it cost him money. And I am sure his family said: Hey, Rolfe, you know, can you come home a little earlier tonight, you know?

But Rolfe is just a fine person, and I am very proud to have him in Louisiana. When I count my blessings, I count Rolfe twice, and he is transitioning to a new role. He sold his company to his partner, who is another great guy, Julio Melara. But Rolfe is going to still be involved in my State, and I just want to thank him.

Tribute to Melinda Deslatte

Mr. President, the second person I want to mention briefly--totally different in terms of the way she contributes to our State--her name is Melinda Deslatte.

Melinda is the new--I want to get her title right--research director, which is the No. 2 position at the Public Affairs Research Council.

The Public Affairs Research Council is a big deal in Louisiana. I think it is our oldest think tank. It is one of the premier think tanks. They are not Republicans; they are not Democrats. I don't know what they are, except smart and straightforward.

They periodically publish white papers, exhaustively researched, about issues like the environment, fiscal policy, education. Every year when we amend our constitution--and, unfortunately, we amend our State constitution just about every year--PAR puts out a publication explaining--not advocating for or against, but explaining--the amendments. I read their white papers and their writings like clockwork.

The No. 2 position there is research director. So it is important. Melinda Deslatte is the new research director. I think Melinda has taken over the Public Affairs Research Council, and I am bittersweet about it. I am very happy for PAR because they got one of our best and our brightest, but I am really sad for journalism.

Melinda ran the Associated Press in Baton Rouge for 22 years--22 years. And, for me, the three things that you have to have to be a respected journalist are, first, you have got to have

brains. Melinda has brains aplenty. I am not saying she is the smartest person I have ever met, but to paraphrase Coach Bum Phillips, the list she is on, it doesn't take long to call the roll.

You have got to be willing to work very hard to be a successful journalist, and, boy, Melinda has a work ethic. But you have also got to be fair, and Melinda Deslatte was--she is now at PAR--the fairest journalist I have ever dealt with.

I don't know what her politics are. I never asked her. I don't even know if she is in a party. And I have been on the long end and the short end of some of her pieces.

She was unspinnable. By that, I mean it is not that she wouldn't listen. You could call Melinda. She was a great listener. You could sit there and talk to her and give her your speech for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and if she wasn't on deadline, she would listen to you. But I always got the impression it didn't do any good because she was so smart and so hard-working and so dedicated to her profession that she was just going to call it like she saw it, and she did. She did.

She was not an agenda journalist. She was a real journalist. And I know, you know, that Melinda is probably not going to like me saying this. Melinda is the kind of journalist that if a politician praised her, you know, it is like: I must be doing something wrong here. You know, you don't want too much praise from politicians.

But she has left her job. So I feel like I can do it. And she has gone on to another way of helping our State.

I wish all of our journalists were Melinda Deslatte. I wish all of them were Melinda Deslatte.

But, anyway, thank you, Rolfe. Thank you, Melinda. Thank you both for giving so much to Louisiana.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, had there been a rollcall vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 323, Marcela Escobari, of Massachusetts, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, I would have voted no.

Had there been a rollcall vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 519, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, of New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Spain, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Principality of Andorra, I would have voted no.

Madam President, I want to talk about the American Taxpayer and Medicare Act, of which I am a sponsor. Cosponsoring this legislation with me are Senator Graham, Senator Hagerty, Senator Tim Scott, Senator Rick Scott, Senator Blackburn, Senator Hawley, Senator Cotton, Senator Boozman, and others who are likely to join.

I am going to make a few remarks about the bill, and a number of my colleagues would also like to comment about my bill, so I will be yielding to them. At the end of my colleagues' remarks, I will have a motion to make.

As a result of the American Rescue Plan, working in conjunction with the Budget Control Act of 2011, there are cuts scheduled to take effect in 2022 with respect to Medicare and with respect to our farmers.

Medicare specifically, unless my bill passes and unless this body takes action, will be cut $36 billion. Those Medicare cuts will include--but they are not limited to--they will include cuts to cancer treatments for our elderly. Those cuts would reduce laboratory fees and analyses that our seniors depend on every single day.

For the reasons I just referenced, our farmers are also going to get cut unless we take action--specifically, the crop insurance programs on which our farmers rely.

We are recovering from a pandemic, as we all know. Now is not the time, in my judgment, to put this burden on our seniors and on our farmers. Our seniors, part of the ``greatest generation,'' don't deserve them, and our farmers, the backbone of America, don't deserve these cuts either. In fact, America was born on the farm, and I think we ought to keep that in mind.

At this time, I would yield to the senior Senator from Arkansas, Senator Boozman.

Madam President, Americans may be poor since President Biden took office, but they are not stupid.

They look around Washington, DC, and they see liars and they see frauds in every direction. Now, I don't think a single member of this body supports cutting Medicare or hurting our farmers, especially not at this moment. I don't. I don't.

And I don't think any of my Republican colleagues or any of my Democratic colleagues do as well. But a deal has been made. A deal has been made to give us--some of us see it this way anyway--a choice between voting for a heart attack or cancer.

You either have to give up your principles on the debt limit or you have to vote to cut Medicare and hurt our farmers, and no one wants to do that. I understand that people disagree over the debt limit, but there is no disagreement in this body over not cutting Medicare and not hurting our farmers.

Now, I am labor. I am not part of management. I don't want to be part of management. I wouldn't be good at management because I don't always fit in. It is not one of my best qualities. In fact, it is my best quality, and that is why I brought this bill.

As Senator Hawley said, much more eloquently than I could, the disagreement that reasonable people are having over the debt limit has been conflated in a cynical attempt to fool the American people by putting them both in a bill that we are going to shortly be asked to vote on. And we are going to be asked to give the American people either a heart attack or cancer. You have to choose. And I don't want to make that choice, and I am not going to make that choice. And that is why I brought this bill.

I do not agree with my Democratic friends about the debt limit. I don't support Build Back Better. I understand many of my Democratic friends do. I understand President Biden does. I understand Senator Schumer does. I understand Speaker Pelosi does. And I respect that, but I don't support it.

Now, they are going to try to pass Build Back Better, and they are going to try to implement it. But they can't do it without raising the debt ceiling. Now, if I don't support the Build Back Better bill, why would I want to allow them to borrow the money to implement the Build Back Better bill? I don't, and I am not going to break my word and vote to do that.

If my colleagues want to do that, that is their business. I don't tell people how to vote. If I am ever asked how to vote, I rarely--I almost always say, follow your heart, but just take your brain with you. And that is why I brought this bill. And I want to make it very clear, and you can write this down and take it home to mama, I do not support cutting Medicare, and I do not support cutting farmers.

I do support keeping my word to the American people. When I tell them I am going to do something, by God, I am going to stick. And I am not going to be scared away by some cynical deal that was made in Washington, DC.

Now, Madam President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3344--the bill about which I have been speaking, and my colleagues, Protecting the American Taxpayer and Medicare Act--at this time, it is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I really appreciate my colleague's remarks, I do. I don't agree with his objection, but I appreciate it.

I just want to say a couple more words. I didn't make a deal. Now, let me say it again. Let me say it a different way.

I don't hate anybody. Lord knows I look for grace wherever I can find it. I like every one of my colleagues; I really do. The Senate is the most interesting group of people I have ever been around.

I am not part of management. I am labor, and I meant what I said. I belong in labor because I don't always fit in, and I do believe it is one of my best qualities.

The truth of the matter is--and this is what we are disagreeing over--President Biden, Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, my other Democratic friends have proposed the Build Back Better bill.

Now, any economist with a pulse will tell you that it is going to cost about $5 trillion without the gimmicks. It is going to raise taxes a couple of trillion. We will probably end up having to borrow another 3 trillion to pay for it. We will have to borrow the money. We don't have the 3 trillion. We don't even have 5 percent of it.

Now, I think that the bill represents a spending taxation and borrowing orgy that we don't need, but I understand my Democratic colleagues disagree. I get that.

My Democratic friends can't pass and implement the bill without raising the debt limit. That is just a fact, because they won't be able to borrow the money.

Now, if I don't support the bill, why do I want to support allowing them to borrow the money, especially when Senator Schumer--my friend Senator Schumer--can do it on his own?

He can do it before the weekend is out. All he has got to do is do a simple amendment to the budget resolution.

What am I missing here?

And I know a deal has been made and some people are going to vote for it. You are not looking at one of them. And I respect their right to make a deal, but I didn't make a deal. But I have been put in the position of saying: OK, Kennedy, we are going to show you. You have got to choose between keeping your word to your people or cutting Medicare.

And we wonder why Congress polls right up there with skim milk. That is why they look around, they see frauds and liars in every direction.

I really regret that my bill didn't pass because it would have protected our elderly, and I do support protecting our elderly. And it would have protected our farmers, and I do support protecting our farmers. And this so-called deal puts them both at risk.

Mr. President, we talk a lot in this Chamber, as well we should, about the least among us, about how we can protect and lift up the powers. And that is a good thing. I can't think of any person who has less power than a potential human life, than an unborn baby. Now, Roe v. Wade is, of course, about abortion. We know that. But it is also about something

else. Roe v. Wade is also about--it is about federalism.

Roe v. Wade is also about the American people. Roe v. Wade is about whether a finite group of the managerial elite--and by the ``managerial elite'' I mean the entrenched politicians, the bureaucracy, the media, the academics, the corporate phonies, all of whom think they are smarter and more virtuous than the American people--should have the right to make moral decisions for the American people, instead of the American people making those decisions for themselves.

That is really what Roe v. Wade is about.

Now, I am pro-life and I am anti-Roe v. Wade. So I want to say up front: I do have an opinion.

But even pro-choice legal scholars who believe in legalized abortion on demand understand, as does every fairminded person who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog, that Roe v. Wade is one of the most arbitrary, it is one of the most ad hoc, and it is one of the most poorly reasoned decisions in the history of the United States.

In Roe v. Wade, as you know, Mr. President, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a generalized right to privacy, not explicit in the Constitution, means that a woman has the virtually unfettered discretion to terminate a human life--some, to be fair, would say a potential human life--before viability.

What is viability? As my colleagues talked about, that is a really, really good question.

But I digress.

Anyone who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog also knows that there is absolutely no foundation--not in the text, not in the structure, not in the history, not in the tradition of the Constitution--for a constitutional right to abortion, and certainly not on the basis of some unmoored general right to privacy that is not enunciated in the Constitution.

And don't even get me started on Roe v. Wade's trimester analysis and the ruling. Try to find ``trimester'' in the U.S. Constitution. You won't. You can't.

The truth is--and people on both sides of this issue who are fairminded and reasonably objective--and by that, I mean can see the other point of view. The truth is that Roe v. Wade's constitutional right to an abortion is a 48-year-old, judge-invented rule that represents the U.S. Supreme Court winging it.

Now, I know what we were told. We were told back in the 1970s: Look, we have got to have a national rule to settle this issue. Only Washington, DC, can settle this issue. We have to have a rational rule. We need some peace in the land. We need consensus.

How is that working out for us?

Roe v. Wade didn't settle anything.

Now, in the Dobbs case, which the U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear, the U.S. Supreme Court has a really rare opportunity to say, as Justice Scalia wrote in one of his opinions, that value judgments made on behalf of people should be voted on by those people and not dictated from Washington, DC.

In the Dobbs case, the United States Supreme Court has the rare opportunity to say what we all know, and that is that America is this big, wide-open, diverse, sometimes messy, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes imperfect, but always trying-to-get-better group of good people. That is what America is.

And we don't always agree--especially not on value judgments, especially not on the ultimate value judgment--like when it is appropriate to take a human life. That is why we get to vote. That is why we get to vote, and that is why we have elected representatives who oftentimes vote on our behalf--elected representatives who also can be unelected if we don't like how they vote.

And, finally, in Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court has the rare opportunity to defederalize and deconstitutionalize abortion and return the issue to the States, where it was before Roe v. Wade.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Dobbs, does not have the opportunity--and this is important--to say ``no right to an abortion in America.'' Let me say that again because some of the proponents of Roe v. Wade, I think, have shaded the truth on this. At issue before the Supreme Court in Dobbs is not the right to have an abortion. It is the right--the issue before the Supreme Court in Dobbs is, What is the appropriate political form to make these value judgments? Is it the government or is it the people?

And I hope that the U.S. Supreme Court takes advantage of this rare opportunity before it.

I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

Gosh, Mr. President, I wish I didn't have to give this talk.

I think it is a bipartisan observation that, unfortunately, Americans are paying a lot more for just about everything. I asked my staff to put together some inflation numbers, and they are just breathtaking: gasoline, up 50 percent; rental cars, up 42.9 percent; you need a used car or truck, they are up 26 percent; a turkey, 20.2 percent; bacon, 20.2 percent; beef, 20.1 percent; pork chops, 15.9 percent; bedroom furniture, 12 percent higher than last year; eggs, up 11.6 percent; televisions, up 10 percent; frozen fruits and vegetables, up 7\1/2\ percent; chicken, up 8.8 percent; shoes, up 8 percent; baby food, up 8 percent; children's clothes, up 7.6 percent. And I could keep going. Unbelievable.

Now, I believe in calling them like I see them. I think most fairminded Americans know that President Biden is responsible for this inflation. You don't have to be Einstein's cousin to figure that out. But put the politics aside. The shame of all this is that the burden of these price increases is falling on the backs of the American people, and while Washington is obsessed with the politics of it, the American people and the people in my State have to bear the cost.

A lot of people, Mr. President, as you well know, just can't afford to pay 50 percent more to fill up their gas tanks. They can't afford to have to stop and go arrange a bank loan to go to the gas station or to the grocery store.

Unfortunately, for Americans in my State and your State and across the country, here with winter coming on, the cost of heating homes is also going up just in time for temperatures to fall. So the cost of heating is going up, and the temperatures are going down. A lot of families are going to have to shell out up to 30 percent more for natural gas than they did this past year. Ask them if their income went up 30 percent.

As our days grow shorter, the economic landscape, unfortunately, is getting darker.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It is a cherished American holiday.

But even the holiday that Americans observe in order to count our blessings is coming with new hardships. According to the New York Times, Thanksgiving 2021, and I quote, ``could be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday.''

As I just mentioned a few seconds ago, frozen turkey is going to set you back 20 percent more than it did last year. If you like gravy with your turkey, get ready to pay 7 percent more for gravy. Maybe you don't eat meat. Maybe you are a vegan. Unfortunately, frozen vegetables are also going to cost you 7 to 7\1/2\ percent more, and the high prices only apply if you can find food in the supermarkets. Some of these food products, you can't even find with Google. There is no guarantee that the cranberry sauce and the sweet potatoes will be in stock come dinnertime.

Now, this is America. This is 2021. This isn't the Soviet Union, 30, 40, 50 years ago. My God, Washington ought to hide its head in a bag.

The official general inflation rate is 6.2 percent higher than it was last October, and that happens to be the largest increase in over 30 years. But we all know, and I can tell you, real people in the real world who go to the grocery store and the clothing store and pay their insurance bill and go try to buy an automobile know that it is not 6.2 percent. It is a lot higher.

I need to ask a question, though. Are you really surprised? Are you really surprised that prices are rising when the Biden administration is printing money, when the Biden administration is exploding our debt, when the Biden administration is forfeiting America's energy independence, when the Biden administration is paying people to watch Netflix instead of producing the goods we need, when the Biden administration is ignoring gridlock in our supply chain? The American people aren't surprised.

For months--for months--the White House has turned gaslighting Americans about the inflation crisis into an art form. White House officials pretend inflation--if you ask them--oh, it is just temporary--a temporary problem. Temporary, a rat's rear end. It is actually a soul-crushing, job-killing tax on working Americans. That is what inflation is.

Every time you go to the grocery store, your taxes go up. And inflation hits lower-income and middle-income families the hardest. And anyone who doesn't believe that should ask Secretary Kerry whether fuel prices have grounded his private jet. Of course not. He is rich. He has got a private jet. He doesn't feel it.

You know who feels it? The moms and dads in this country who get up every day, who go to work and obey the law and pay their taxes and try to do the right thing by their kids and try to save a little money for retirement. That is who pays this tax that the economists call inflation.

This inflation didn't just appear out of nowhere. I mean, any economist with a pulse knows where this inflation came from. Inflation comes from too much money chasing too few goods. And when you have an administration, as we do with the Biden administration, that spends money like it was gully dirt, whose mantra is, ``We can't possibly spend enough taxpayer money, there is not enough hours in the day''--of course, you don't have inflation. Of course, you don't have inflation.

Now, what is President Biden doing tonight? Well, I have noticed that the Biden administration, when it comes to economics and other areas as well, they never make the same mistake twice. They make it five or six times, just to be sure.

So how's the Biden administration going to deal with this economic cancer of inflation which is killing the American people? Their idea is: Let's go pass a spending orgy bill--they call

it reconciliation--of epic, epic proportions, chockful of welfare blowouts when we can't afford the social programs we have now.

Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?

And one White House official claimed earlier this week that the President's--he calls it a $1.75 trillion bill. It is going to end up, we all know, being a lot more than that. He says it will actually reduce inflation. Right--and those aren't hogs in the hog lot.

Just wait. The fact is, unless you were in the quad playing Frisbee during Econ 101, you know this is truth. The fact is that massive government spending has kept workers on the sidelines and has fueled inflation. But the only comfort the permanent Washington types are sending to folks gathered around a historically expensive Thanksgiving table is that more--not less--more of the same insane policies are coming down the pipeline through what the President calls the Build Back Better bill. And I think most Americans call it the Build Back Broker bill.

Have you looked at the bill?

I looked at the House bill a bit. I started reading it. I am probably going to go broke just reading the thing.

Neosocialists love this bill. They love it like the devil loves sin, but the American people aren't going to love it. Louisianans are not going to love it. Louisianans love their families, and they just want to provide for them, especially at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. And they can't do it with inflation raging.

This Thanksgiving, what most Americans need the most is relief--not just relief from inflation, but relief from bad leadership.

Now, I want my friends in the Biden White House to know that I am genuinely interested in working with them to solve America's inflation problem, but you are not going to do it by spending more money. You are not going to do it by throwing gasoline on the fire.

The first rule is to do no harm. Do no harm, and by that, I mean that my Democratic friends should stop trying to ram this multitrillion dollar tax-and-spend bill through Congress. And they should stop for two reasons: Americans don't want it, and Americans can't afford it.

So this Thanksgiving, Madam President--and I hope you have a good one--I hope my Democratic friends will give up on tying millstones around the neck of the American economy. I hope they will give up fueling inflation with another extremist spending orgy bill.

And if they would do that, if they would just do that, Americans could sit down to eat next Thursday and give thanks that compassion and common sense have finally prevailed in Washington, DC, where, frankly, on most issues, common sense is illegal.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I wanted to say a couple of words about a couple of friends.

I really miss Mike Enzi. I am referring, of course, to Senator Mike Enzi, our colleague who served the people of Wyoming and the people of America for 24 years in this body. We lost him a couple of months ago. I tried to get out to his beautiful State to say good-bye, and I couldn't. I couldn't rearrange things. I just--I miss him.

I was thinking about Mike this morning. I had a meeting over here early--not too early, about 8 o'clock. I walked from my little, overpriced Capitol Hill apartment, through the park, to the Capitol. The park I am talking about is just east of the Capitol. Mike would always walk through the park when he would come to vote. Not always, but many times he would leave his office and get his exercise and enjoy God's beautiful day by walking through the park. I walked with him a couple of times.

Mike was so many things, but if I had to describe him in three words, it would be ``decent,'' ``smart,'' and ``one of the best fishermen I have ever known.''

I want to talk about the decent part and what Mike Enzi meant to me. I mean, I can talk about his background and the fact that he was a giant among Senators and how everybody respected him, but everybody knows that.

When I first got here--I think all new Senators feel this way. The Members of this body are very, very smart, and they are very, very driven. And at least for me, when I first got here, it was a very intimidating place. I think that is true for most Senators. I think if you ask all 100 Senators what it was like their first month here, 99 of them would tell you that they were intimidated. The 100th would be lying because this is an intimidating place.

But, you know, Mike went out of his way, I remember--I guess he could tell I was insecure--to reassure me. You know, every few weeks I would see him in the cloakroom or I would see him in committee, and he would say: Kennedy, you know, you are making a real contribution to this group.

Well, of course, I wasn't, but it made me feel so good and so more sure of myself. And it also made me realize, when I reflect back on it, what a decent thing it was for Mike to do. I mean, he had been here 24 years. He had his pick of chairmanship. I mean, he really was a giant in this body. I was green as a gourd, brandnew; and he didn't have to do that, but he did. I never told him how much that meant to me, and I really regret not telling him that now.

I feel so bad for Diana--just the most wonderful person in the world. I don't know Mike's children--Amy, Emily, and Brad--but I have a feeling, knowing that they are the children of Mike Enzi and Diana, that they are three wonderful Americans.

I just wanted to say that. I was thinking about Mike today. I miss him.

Madam President, No. 2, we have an organization in Louisiana called the Public Affairs Research Council. It is one of our premiere think tanks. It is an independent group. They are not political. They do serious research, and they offer very serious suggestions about how we, in Louisiana, can solve some of our social and economic problems. We call it PAR, Public Affairs Research Council.

I don't know how long PAR has been around. As long as I have been in government, which is the late 1980s, it was there way before I came. I didn't have time to look up when it was founded, but I think it is pretty much 2 years older than dirt. It has been there. It is an institution in Louisiana.

It is privately funded. People who care about our State contribute money to do PAR's work. I religiously read all of PAR's white papers and research papers. Everybody I know who cares about my State takes their suggestions seriously.

To be the director or the president of PAR, it is quite an honor. It is a lot of work and it is a big deal. Our president of PAR is retiring. He is a friend of mine. His name is Robert Travis Scott, and I want to say a word about Robert.

Robert is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with high honors, a graduate of Johns Hopkins. He has done it all. Robert has been the president of PAR since 2011. But before that, he was the capital bureau chief for our Times-Picayune newspaper in

New Orleans, and that is how I got to know him. Robert was never an agenda journalist. And we know that those journalists, particularly in the print media, exist, and they exist in the electronic media.

I couldn't tell you today what Robert's politics are. I don't even know what party he is in. I don't know if he is in a party. He was always, when he was a reporter, a straight shooter. He called it like he saw it. He played it straight down the middle. And if he thought he ought to bust you upside the head because you did something dumb in public service, he would do it, but he didn't do it just in a gratuitous way.

So it was no surprise to me when PAR asked Robert to take over running the Public Affairs Research Council. And he did that. He has done it since 2011, 10 years. Robert and PAR have contributed so much to my State.

His replacement is going to be a gentleman by the name of Dr. Steve Procopio, who I know as well. Steve is going to do a great job. But we are going to miss Robert. I hope he doesn't go far.

I just wanted to come say a word about my good friend Robert Travis Scott.

Madam President, I rise in support of Senator McConnell's legislation.

On August 27, 2020, just 13 months ago, Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana. Forty-five days later, Hurricane Delta hit Louisiana. Nineteen days after that, Hurricane Zeta hit Louisiana. We got a little bit of a break. Four months after that, we were part of the historic winter storm, about which we have all read. And then 3 months after that, we had a historic rainfall event in Louisiana, up to 12 inches, unrelated to a hurricane. Three months after that, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana. And 2 weeks later, Hurricane Nicholas hit Louisiana.

Every one of these storms was over 100 miles per hour sustained winds. The

wind for Hurricane Ida was clocked at its highest at 185 miles per hour. If you add up all the damages, it is about $150 billion in 13 months.

Now, other States were impacted by these storms, but Louisiana took it full in the face. This was as brutal a blow as nature has inflicted on an American State in modern history. We will be coughing up bones for years, and this legislation is going to help us recover.

In fact, this legislation does every single thing that my colleagues Senator Cassidy and Senator McConnell talked about that my Democratic friends want to do, everything: keeps government open, maintains flood insurance, gives disaster relief not just to Louisiana but to my friends in the Northeast part of our country, to my friends on the west coast. It does help my State, Southwest, Southeast, North Louisiana, but we are not the only ones.

Senator McConnell's legislation does everything except one thing, one thing: increasing the debt ceiling that Senator Schumer can do in a matter of days on his own.

Why are we fighting over this? You know, nature abhors a moron. It is moronic for us to be having this fight when it can be so easily solved.

Everything in Senator McConnell's legislation can easily pass this body with 70 votes, and we know it. And then Senator Schumer can come right behind by simply amending the budget resolution, and our problems are solved. Nature abhors a moron. Let's don't be moronic.

I yield back to Senator McConnell.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment 3758 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, after 20 weeks of gestation, medical science has determined that children in their mother's womb feel pain. To channel my good friend and the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, you can go to the appropriate professor at any of the universities in your State, and they will tell you that is so.

This amendment will allow for penalties for those who perform elective--elective--abortions on unborn children who are at least 20 weeks in gestation. This amendment would not apply to abortions in the case of rape, of incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Mr. President.

Vote on Amendment No. 3758

Do I have additional time, Mr. President?

I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 3753 and ask that it be reported by number and, while they are doing that, for someone to check on Senator Tillis.

(Laughter.)

Madam President, this amendment will prohibit any changes to the tax treatment of like-kind exchanges.

Madam President, with respect to my amendment, I offer it on behalf of myself and Senator Cassidy.

The last 18 months have been challenging for Louisiana. First, there was Hurricane Laura. Then there was Hurricane Delta. Then there was Hurricane Zeta. The hurricanes alone did about $25 billion of damage. Then we had the historic freezes. Then we had historic flooding. The total amount of damage was $47.1 billion.

My people are tough, but they are tired. This amendment would appropriate $1.1 billion in community development block grants to help my people recover.

I bring you a problem but also a solution. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Cantwell and Senator Schatz and myself, 3 years ago, we convinced the FCC not to give away the spectrum auction, which belongs to the American people, and instead to auction it off. There is now $80 billion sitting in Treasury. The money for these block grants would come from that $80 billion in cash.

Thank you.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

This is one of those days that we often have, at least for me, that is both happy and sad.

A couple of weeks ago, I was back home in Louisiana. I was sitting at my dining room table, minding my own business, drinking a cup of coffee, petting my two dogs--dogs are the best people--and I got a phone call from one Mr. John R. Steitz, who is my deputy chief of staff for policy and my legislative director. I knew this phone call was coming someday. I knew it. I

didn't know it was coming so soon, but I knew someday I would get this call.

John said: Senator, they made me an offer I can't refuse. I am going to take it.

I have to be honest. I thought to myself: Damn, you know, Steitz is leaving. Another part of me was saying: God, I am so happy for him. I am really pleased with his new position in the private sector.

I wanted to suggest to him that if he needed any help picking out a new Mercedes, I could come help him. If he gets it down to this color or that color, he could just buy two.

I have known some folks in public service. The Presiding Officer has too. I have known some people in business--to each his own--who are often afraid to hire people more capable than them or smarter than them, and that is human nature, you know. I get it. I will have a lot to answer for on judgment day, but doing that is not one of the things. I have always tried to hire people who were smarter than me or more capable than me or had talents that I don't have. But there is a price you pay when you do that. You are going to lose them at some point because you can't keep a good person down. And that is John Steitz. So I knew this day was coming. That is why it really is bittersweet.

John is--most of you know him--John is a graduate of SMU.

When we are joking around, I like to say that the closest John ever got to a 4.0 at SMU was his blood-alcohol level, but that is not accurate. John, as we all know--and we are kidding--is whip-smart. He finished SMU in public policy and business administration. I think he had a minor in cheerleaders, but he never neglected his studies. He is a very smart guy. He is whip-smart. Don't ever let him try to kid you.

Brooks, his better half, who is here with us today, is an accomplished professional in her own right; and they are a team, I can assure you. When you work the hours that John Steitz works, you had better do it as part of a team.

They have two children. Eleanor is their oldest. I am told that Eleanor's very first words were ``vote-arama.'' She said ``vote-arama'' before she said ``Mama'' or ``Daddy.'' That is an exaggeration, but probably not by much. They have a young son, John, Jr., whom they call Jack.

If I taught a class or if the Presiding Officer taught a class, and if we told the truth about how a bill becomes a law, I think a lot of Americans would be surprised. This is not ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' It is hard to pass a bill in the U.S. Senate. It is supposed to be, because that is our job, to not act on the basis of feelings but to act on the basis of logic. It is a lot of work to get a bill passed. I have been able to pass a couple, and I wouldn't have passed one single, solitary one of them without John Steitz.

I made a list here--and I am not going to read all of it--of stuff, like the National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act, the Justice Against Corruption on K Street Act, the RBIC Advisers Relief Act, the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, and the Rebuilding Small Businesses After Disasters Act.

You know, this isn't all my doing. This has John Steitz's fingerprints all over it--on every one of these bills.

John has a rare combination, and he is going to do really well in the private sector. I mentioned that he is whip-smart, and he is, but it takes more than that to succeed around here. First, you have got to have a work ethic. You have got to be willing to put in the hours. I can't tell you the number of times I looked around when I was working late and I would see Steitz there.

I would say: Steitz, go home for God's sake. Brooks is going to change the locks on you. She may already have.

He was there constantly. I don't know when he found the time to father Eleanor and Jack. I mean, he was always in the office.

So you have got to have a work ethic, but it is more than that. You have got to like people; you have got to understand people; and you have got to respect people. You have got to know which bridge to burn and which bridge to cross. You have got to understand when to go forward and say, ``To hell with it. We are going full speed ahead,'' and when to back off a little bit.

It is a lot more art than science, and everybody in this Chamber knows what I am talking about. That is not something you pick up in a week.

When I asked John to be my legislative director before he became deputy chief of staff, he didn't have all of this. I mean, he was as green as a gourd. I was too. He learned it. He learned it on the job, and, boy, did he do an incredible job.

There is one other quality you have got to have to succeed around this place aside from smarts, work ethic, respect for other people, and integrity, all of which John Steitz has. You have got to care. You have really got to care. You can't fake it, you know. You can't be motivated by moving up another rung on the ladder, though some people are. I get it. We are all human. Sometimes that may be a part of it, but if that is your sole motivation, you are not going to make it. People up here on Capitol Hill are smart. They can smell it. So you can't be guided by ambition. You have got to be guided by knowledge, yes; by wisdom, yes; but also by empathy.

John knows what he believes. He believes what he believes, and he is willing to fight for it. But he is also willing to listen to another point of view. There were many times he would come to my office and say: You know, here is what is going on. Look at it this way, but listen to it from this perspective.

He is also sneaky. Now, I don't mean that in a bad way. By sneaky, I mean he is a great strategist in terms of he can figure out how to go from point A to point B to point C, do a half gainer, get to point D, and circle back to point A.

There are some times when John has come to my office and said: Here is how we are going to get this amendment done, or here is how we are going to get this passed.

Then he will lay out the plan. I wish I could use examples, but I would tip my hand. He would lay out the plan, and I would say: John, this isn't college. Have you been smoking dope around here? This isn't college. We can't do that. It will never ever work. It won't work.

It usually did. But I always said: Well, heck. Let's try it. If you want to try it, I am willing to try. It is legal; it is honest; but it is just such a long shot.

But it worked, and I was appreciative of that. That didn't just happen. That came from smarts, hard work, and caring.

I guess I will end.

Thank you, Brooks, for sharing your time and for sharing John with us. I know it wasn't easy for you. We are going to--I started to say that we are going to miss you, but we expect you to come back around and bring Eleanor and bring Jack and bring Chili. John has a great dog. Chili became the mascot in the office. Chili is the best beggar you have ever seen. I am going to miss him.

I want to thank John here today for giving so much. He could have made a lot more money in the time he has been here in the private sector because he is that talented, but he is moving to the private sector. It is their gain and our loss. He is welcome back any time.

Thank you, John. Thank you, thank you, thank you not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the people of Louisiana and on behalf of the American people for giving so much to your country.

God bless you. Godspeed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today on my own behalf and on behalf of my colleague Senator Bill Cassidy.

I know this has been true for States besides Louisiana, but for the last 18 months, from a weather perspective, Louisiana has been a fantastic impression of hell. We have had three hurricanes. We have had, depending upon how you define them, probably 10 different heavy rain events. And when I say ``heavy rain events,'' I mean, that doesn't sound very serious. I can assure you, it was. When you get 6, 8, 10, 12 inches of rain in a short period of time, you are going to flood. I don't care if you are living on Pikes Peak. You are going to flood. The water has to go somewhere. And, of course, we were part of the bad, debilitating freeze, as well, that also hit Texas very hard.

My people are very resilient, and they are tough, but they are tired.

Most Americans, when they think of a natural disaster, at least in connection with Louisiana, think of Hurricane Katrina, and, certainly, it was a bad one. I was there. We never would have recovered without the help of the American people, and I will never be able to thank the American people enough for putting forth their hard-earned tax dollars to help us recover.

These new hurricanes and rain events and freezes impacted probably close to one-third, maybe 40 percent of my people. The worst part of it, but not the only part that was hit hard, was Southwest Louisiana. At last count, about 100,000 homes were damaged, flooded, or blown over.

They are still running the numbers. The damages are in the billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars, and my people need help.

The purpose of my bill today is to offer us help for them. My bill today and Senator Cassidy's bill today--as I said, I am here on behalf of Senator Cassidy, as well--would authorize $1.1 billion to help my people recover.

Now, I want to emphasize, some people, when they think of flooding and hurricanes, think of wealthy people with second homes, with multimillion-dollar dwellings on the beach. That is not what I am talking about. I am not putting down anybody who has a nice, expensive beach house, but that is not what we are talking about in Louisiana.

The people who were hit by these weather events, through no fault of their own, are just good, honest middle Americans who get up every day and go to work and obey the law. They pay their taxes. They try to do the right thing by their kids. Their biggest investment is their home, and many completely lost their home. Many of them had flood insurance, and many of them had homeowner's insurance--and both. But it just didn't cover their losses completely. So we are talking about middle America here, and I want to make that clear.

Now, Mr. President, I am sure you are thinking, because I know you well and you are a smart man: OK, if we are spending $1.1 billion here, where are we going to get it?

Well, I come to you today with a problem, but I also come to you today with a solution.

I don't want to digress too much, but, as you know, we are trying to build out 5G in America, and 5G operates through radio waves through the air called spectrum. And the FCC is in charge of those radio waves. A couple of years ago, the FCC--and those radio waves, by the way, belong to the American people. The FCC licenses them out to companies to use in wireless communications. A few years ago, the FCC was about to give away what is called the C-band spectrum, these particular radio waves that would allow for 5G to become reality in America. And a number of us objected. We said: You know, you don't own these radio waves. The American people own these radio waves. Why are you giving them away?

And after some lively discussions, we finally turned the FCC around, and they decided to auction those radio waves to the highest bidder. They brought in $80 billion--$80 billion--and I am very proud of that. That money is sitting in an account in the Department of the Treasury.

Senator Cassidy's bill and my bill would authorize the use of $1.1 billion of that $80 billion in cash to be used through community development block grants to help my people recover.

I can assure you that I wouldn't be here today asking for this if my people didn't desperately need it. They are hanging on. They are hanging on with every ounce of strength they have, but they are human. And, as I said, they are tough, but they are tired.

For that reason, on behalf of Senator Cassidy and myself, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2359, which is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I think we are all aware President Biden has decided to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in September. Now, some agree with his decision; some disagree with his decision. The bill that I am about to talk about has nothing to do with the merits of his decision.

There are about 18,000--not 1,800, 18,000--interpreters and members of their immediate families who helped our troops fight the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and against ISIS. They are at risk.

There was an article in a leading newspaper yesterday. I will read you the headline. It says: ``Afghan government could collapse 6 months after US withdrawal.''

These 18,000 interpreters and their immediate families, who have helped American troops, would like to get out. We have a visa process, which is going very, very slowly. We will not be able to get all of those 18,000 human beings out before the withdrawal in September. That much is clear.

Again, my bill has nothing to do with the merits or lack thereof of the war. My bill would direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State to develop a plan to relocate the Afghan interpreters and their immediate families who want to get out and bring them to America.

Now, obviously, before we bring them to America, those who want to come, we have to vet them. That is part of the problem. The vetting process right now is very slow. Rather than try to put together a bill that would set forth a specific plan to address this--I consider it a crisis if you are 1 of those 18,000 human beings--my bill will just direct the Defense Department and the State Department to come up with a plan to present to us within 30 days.

Now, my guess, and it is only a guess, is that State and Defense are going to come up with some plan to move those of the 18,000 who want to leave Afghanistan to a safe third place other than America so that we can continue to properly vet folks before they come into America. And I suggest we do need to properly vet them, but I also suggest that, No. 1, this is about right and wrong. These people helped Americans, and they helped American troops. And we owe them. And we don't want to see them massacred. And, No. 2, if we allow them to be massacred, I think it is going to send a message to many people throughout the world that loyalty to America means nothing, absolutely nothing.

So, in a nutshell, this bill would ask our Defense Department and our State Department, in the next 30 days, to give a plan to Congress to properly vet and allow any of these 18,000 interpreters and their families who helped American troops come to America.

With that, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2216, which was introduced earlier today; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon table the table.

Mr. President, I respect my colleague, and I certainly respect his right to object. I disagree.

We are all aware of what is going on in Afghanistan. The Afghan Government is in a bitter fight to the end with the Taliban. And the Taliban is winning. And the Taliban is ruthless. And they are going to murder these people. They are going to murder them. And the blood is going to be on American hands if we don't do something to help.

My proposal would not have required any of these 18,000 Afghans who stood with American troops to beat back the Taliban and to beat back ISIS--they stood with us at their own risk, at the risk of their own kids, and their own spouses.

Now, we decided to leave. I am not saying that is right or wrong. I have my own opinion, but that is not what this bill is about. And we owe it to these 18,000 people to offer them a chance to live. And if we don't do something, they are going to be butchered. They are going to be gutted like

a deer--like a deer--and the blood is going to on American hands. And the whole world is going to take notice.

There is right and wrong in this world. There is politics. There is a time for it. But there is a time to do the right thing, and the right thing is to help save these human lives who fought for America and their families and their children.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.