Floor Statements

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding. I appreciate his kindness. I know he has got a lot to say on the subject, and hopefully he will be able to get back to it.

Energy

Madam President, I want to speak just a minute about the issue of high energy prices and high grocery prices that have become a distinguishing feature of the Biden economy.

Electricity prices increased 15.8 percent in August, the largest year-over-year increase since 1981--1981. I wasn't even married the last time we saw electricity increases like this, and now I have grandkids.

Utility gas service was up 33 percent from a year ago in August--33 percent increase year over year from August.

The price of home heating oil, which many households in places like New Hampshire rely on to keep their homes warm in the winter, has soared. All told, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association estimates that home heating costs for the winter heating season will average $1,202--a 17.2-percent increase from last season.

I haven't even mentioned gas prices. Gas prices may have decreased from their $5 high this summer--partly as a result of President Biden's problematic decision to draw down our Nation's emergency petroleum reserves to their lowest point since 1985, with no plan to refill them--but customers are still paying $1.30 more per gallon than they were when President Biden took office. The average price for a gallon of gas has increased this week, ending a streak of diminishing, although still high, gas prices.

Madam President, if there is one thing we should be doing about high energy prices, it is increasing our domestic energy supply, including our supply of conventional energy--namely, oil and natural gas. I am a longtime supporter of alternative energy, and I come from a State that derives a substantial portion of its electricity generation from wind. In fact, in 2021, over 50 percent of our State's power generation came from wind and 30 percent came from hydroelectric on the Missouri River. But if it weren't for traditional fossil fuels backing up that generation, especially on days when the wind is still, we would be left in the dark.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how much Democrats might wish it were otherwise, alternative energy technology has simply not advanced to the point where our country can rely exclusively on alternative energy. Attempting to pretend we have advanced further than we have or have solved all the requisite supply chain hurdles will lead to nothing but economic pain for American families.

Just look at California, whose overreliance on alternative energy technology has resulted in an electricity grid that cannot sustain the demands being placed on it. Californians were recently asked to ration their energy usage and refrain from charging electric cars during certain hours to reduce strain on the grid. Yet the State has issued a final regulation that will require all new cars sold in the State to be electric or otherwise zero emission by 2035. I don't see this ending well for Californians. This is the kind of unrealistic thinking that has permeated pretty much the entire Democratic Party.

I am all for advancing clean energy technologies. I have done a lot of work here in Congress to advance clean energy, from renewable fuels to wind energy. But until clean energy technology has advanced to the point where it can truly, reliably, and affordably supply America's energy needs, we need to continue to invest in responsible conventional energy production as part of the ``all of the above'' energy strategy that we need for this country. Otherwise, the high energy prices Americans are struggling with right now could get even worse and persist long into the future.

President Biden, of course, has been discouraging conventional energy production since day one, which is one reason why high energy prices have become a defining feature of the Biden administration. From canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, to discouraging investment in conventional energy with a targeted ESG agenda, to making it more difficult for oil and gas companies to develop leases, President Biden has shown a distinct hostility to conventional energy.

Last month, the President signed into law the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the partisan tax-and-spending spree the Democrats jammed through Congress in August. Now, I have mentioned the high energy prices Americans have been experiencing. Well, apparently, Democrats think that the best solution is to pass a bunch of new fees and tax hikes that will drive up energy prices further.

Their so-called Inflation Reduction Act includes a slate of taxes on conventional energy production at the worst possible time. The methane fee in their bill alone has the potential to drive Americans' natural gas bills by 17 percent--17 percent--just what Americans need while they are paying 15.8 percent more for electricity and 33 percent more for utility gas service and $1.30 more for every gallon of gasoline.

But at least Americans can feel good about the fact that their tax dollars will be going to fund Democrats' Green New Deal fantasies, like tax credits for wealthy Americans to purchase electric vehicles. That is right. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act--which, by the way, even the Democrat chairman of the Senate Budget Committee admits will do nothing to fix inflation--pours hundreds of billions of dollars-- taxpayer dollars--into Green New Deal priorities.

In addition to tax credits for wealthy Americans, the Inflation Reduction Act also includes funding for things like expensive electric vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service, mitigating urban heat island hotspots and monitoring gaps in tree canopy coverage, and climate- related political activity. That is right--climate-related political activity.

Democrats succeeded in pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act-- and its tax hikes on conventional energy--by promising one of their Members a vote on permitting reform legislation.

Real permitting reform is something I heartily endorse. Too many energy permits spend years mired in bureaucracy, leading to completely needless delays in energy development. Cleaning up the permitting process would help advance both conventional and renewable energy production.

Unfortunately, it is not clear that the permitting reform deal that was released last night will do anything to meaningfully address permitting delays and, in some cases, could make things worse.

For one, it would expand FERC's authority to override State jurisdiction for projects the President designates as ``national interest facilities,'' which is why the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission is opposed to it. And it would give States wide latitude to kill the very infrastructure projects the bill purports to expedite by expanding the State Clean Water Act jurisdiction.

In other sections where this proposal seeks to shorten deadlines for various stages of permitting, which is a goal I support, the consequences for not meeting a deadline are merely notifying the Office of Management and Budget and the lead Department Secretary. It is hard to see this actually moving the chains.

On top of that, it is starting to seem extremely doubtful that Democrats actually have the votes in their conference to pass permitting reform legislation.

Republicans, thanks to the efforts of Senator Capito, have a meaningful, substantive permitting reform bill ready to go. It is supported by every Member of our conference. It would need the support of just 10 Democrat Senators to pass. It would be nice to think that there are 10 moderate Democrat Senators--if the words ``Democrat'' and ``moderate'' can still go together in this time of the Democratic Party's rapid push to the extreme

left--who would be willing to join Republicans to pass our legislation and finally take a real step to ease the burden of high energy prices on American families.

But given the President's and the Democratic Party's hostility to any measure that would genuinely start addressing high energy prices, I am not holding my breath.

High prices--for energy and just about everything else--have become the distinguishing feature of the Biden economy, and if Democrats continue to take steps to discourage conventional energy production, high energy prices will be a Democrat legacy that lasts long into the future.

I yield the floor.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, on Sunday, the President appeared on ``60 minutes,'' where he was asked what he was going to do to help alleviate inflation in light of August's continued grim inflation news and the resulting stock market nosedive.

The President's response?

Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective.

Inflation rate month to month was just--just an inch, hardly

at all.

``Let's put this in perspective''? That might be something to say if the inflation rate had ticked up from, say, 2 percent--the target inflation rate--to 2.1 percent, but I am pretty sure that that is not the appropriate thing to say when you are talking about the sixth straight month of inflation above 8 percent and the ninth straight month of inflation at or above 7 percent and the 11th straight month of inflation above 6 percent.

Even more concerning than August's consumer price index rising 8.3 percent from the same month a year ago was the increase in core inflation--a measure of inflation minus the volatile categories of food and energy. This measure increased to 6.3 percent in August, up from 5.9 percent in both June and July, suggesting that inflation is sinking its roots even deeper into various sectors of our economy--or in the words of a CNBC headline from last week:

Inflation isn't just about fuel costs anymore, as price

increases broaden across the economy.

But, of course, you don't have to take my word for it about the mess that we are in. Here is what one of President Obama's top economic advisers had to say last week after August's inflation numbers came out:

Today's CPI report confirms that the US has a serious

inflation problem. Core inflation is higher this month than

for the quarter, higher this quarter than last quarter,

higher this half of the year than the previous one, and

higher last year than the previous one.

``Let's put this in perspective.'' That is what President Biden had to say? Here is the American people's perspective: Fifty-seven percent of Americans disapprove of President Biden's handling of the economy, and 37 percent of voters say that President Biden's policies have hurt them personally, versus just 15 percent of voters who say his policies have helped them.

These numbers are no surprise. The President may somehow still believe that he is creating an economy that will ``work for working families,'' but the reality is that, in the Biden economy, working Americans are suffering. Americans' utility bills are soaring; their grocery bills have ballooned; and they are paying $1.30 more per gallon every time they fill up their car than they were when President Biden was elected. Real wages have dropped every single month since Democrats passed their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan spending spree--the bill, I would add, that helped plunged our economy into our current crisis. And 40 percent of Americans report having difficulty paying for their normal household expenses. Americans are dipping into their savings or working side jobs to make ends meet. They are charging more day-to-day expenses on their credit cards. In too many cases, they are having to visit food banks, which are seeing huge lines thanks to continued high inflation. What are Democrats and the President doing about this? Nothing.

Of course, last month, Democrats did pass a bill they called the Inflation Reduction Act. The problem? The bill will do nothing to reduce inflation--nothing. Again, you don't have to take my word for it. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model said this about the bill's impact on inflation:

The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable

from zero.

``[S]tatistically indistinguishable from zero.''

Or you could take the word of the Democrat chairman of the Budget Committee, who admitted right here on the Senate floor that the so- called Inflation Reduction Act would not reduce inflation.

But it is not just that Democrats have done nothing to help solve our inflation crisis; they are also on track to make Americans' economic situation significantly worse.

In August, President Biden announced a massive student loan giveaway that could cost anywhere from an estimated $500 billion to more than $1 trillion and that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes would ``meaningfully boost inflation.'' This is a statement from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget talking about the President's massive student loan giveaway, and they say it will ``meaningfully boost inflation'' or, as the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently put it, ``Amid 40-year-high inflation and despite the administration constantly touting its `fiscal responsibility,' these changes will recklessly add to the debt and make the Federal Reserve's job in fighting inflation even harder, which will amplify our risk of entering a recession.''

Many of us would argue we are already in a recession--two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

Inflation has spent 8 straight months at 40-year highs, and the President has decided that now is a good time to implement a policy that will ``meaningfully boost inflation.''

The economy continues to show signs of weakening, driven in large part by the inflation crisis Democrats helped create. Major companies have recently announced job cuts. Sixty-three percent of small businesses are putting a hold on hiring, and 10 percent of those are cutting jobs. We have had negative economic growth, as I mentioned, for the past two quarters. So naturally--naturally--Democrats decided this was

a good time to raise taxes on businesses. Yes, Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act imposes new taxes on businesses to help pay for their Green New Deal spending.

I say ``taxes on businesses,'' but, of course, taxes on businesses largely fall on workers and consumers in the form of fewer jobs and opportunities, lower wages, and higher prices--in other words, pretty much the exact opposite of what we need right now, with prices soaring and wages failing to keep pace with inflation.

The Inflation Reduction Act also imposes new taxes on energy that will drive up energy prices for both American families and American businesses, imposing further pain on family budgets and likely prolonging our inflation crisis even further.

The President may have wanted to build an economy ``from the bottom up and the middle out,'' as he has described it; instead, he and his fellow Democrats have helped create an economy in which working families are struggling to make it from one paycheck to the next. And thanks to the additional tax-and-spend policies the Democrats have recently implemented, working families are likely to be struggling for some time to come.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

Mr. President, last Friday, President Biden said the following during his speech:

And we have a process in place to manage migrants at the

border. We're working to make sure it's safe and orderly and

humane.

``[S]afe and orderly and humane.''

I have to ask, has the President visited the border lately? Oh, that is right, he hasn't. In fact, other than a driveby by the border when he was a candidate for Vice President--and by ``driveby,'' I mean his motorcade literally drove by--the President has never visited the border. Never. Although I have to say that even reading the news should be enough to make it clear to the President the situation at the border is neither safe, nor orderly, nor humane.

In case the President isn't clear about what is happening at the border, let me just read from one news story from last week. This one was from NBC News:

A new surge of migrants . . . is overwhelming the Border

Patrol and shelters in El Paso, Texas, where nearly 1,000

have been released near bus stations over the past week in

hope that they will find their own way to their next

destinations in the U.S.

Here is the title of another grim news article from last week: ``Texas border town requests refrigerators to store migrant bodies after drownings overwhelm mortuaries.''

``Texas border town requests refrigerators to store migrant bodies after drownings overwhelm mortuaries.''

Yet another news outlet reported:

El Paso County Sheriff sounds alarm over Border Patrol

overwhelmed due to migrants.

That article goes on to say:

Sheriff Richard Wiles stated Thursday, ``This incident

raises a law enforcement concern because Border Patrol is so

overwhelmed, undocumented immigrants may be released into

communities with minimal or no screening.''

Does any of this--any of this--make the situation at the border sound safe or orderly or humane? I don't think so.

The Biden administration has been characterized by recordbreaking waves of illegal immigration across our southern border, and I mean ``recordbreaking'' quite literally.

In fiscal year 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 1.7 million individuals attempting to cross our southern border illegally--the highest number of apprehensions ever recorded. As for fiscal year 2022, well, we exceeded last year's recordbreaking number of apprehensions in June. The final count of apprehensions for fiscal year 2022 will be well over 2 million. Those numbers only count migrants who were actually apprehended. CBS News reports that there were ``an estimated 660,000 successful unlawful border entries that did not end in an arrest in fiscal year 2021, according to unpublished [Department of Homeland Security] figures''--660,000.

I don't have to tell anyone except maybe congressional Democrats and the White House that these kinds of numbers have resulted in scenes of near chaos at the southern border. Shelters have been overwhelmed. Border facilities have been overwhelmed. The Border Patrol has been overwhelmed. Who can forget the scene of 10,000 migrants camped under the bridge in Del Rio, TX, last September?

Just in case anyone is thinking things at the border have substantially calmed down, here is yet another headline from this month, this one from the Dallas Morning News: ``Overcrowded processing center has Border Patrol releasing more migrants on El Paso streets: Migrants are being released from facility filled at 3 times its capacity.''

That is from the Dallas Morning News--``3 times its capacity.''

Over the past few months, the Governors of Texas and Arizona have been sending some illegal immigrants to places like New York City and Washington, DC, and there has been a predictable outcry. But what is so striking about this situation is how upset these places seem to have become when dealing with just a tiny fraction of the situation that border communities and border States have to deal with on a daily basis. Washington, DC, declared a state of emergency. The New York City mayor was outraged.

While I am in no way dismissing the challenges of dealing with thousands of illegal immigrants, let me just put this situation in perspective for a minute. Washington, DC, a city of around 700,000 people, has received somewhere around 9,400 migrants over a span of 5 months. New York City, a city of around 8.4 million people, hasn't even received as many as Washington, DC. Compare that with the situation in Eagle Pass, TX, a town with a population of just 29,000, which sees 10,000 migrants a week--a week.

For a party that likes to pride itself on compassion, the lack of compassion Democrats and the White House display on this issue is really astounding. Even after catching a tiny glimpse of what it is like to deal with an influx of illegal immigration, Democrats have apparently zero compassion for the border communities in States that have to somehow manage the arrival of thousands of illegal immigrants on a daily basis, along with all the logistical and security challenges that involves.

There are real security challenges. Certainly, many of the migrants crossing our southern border illegally are simply looking for a better life--even if they are trying to circumvent legal pathways to enter-- but there are also a lot of potentially dangerous individuals coming across our border and passing through border communities: gang members, drug traffickers, human smugglers, and other criminals. In 1 recent week, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector along the southern border arrested 21 gang members, 2 sex offenders, and 3 migrants with prior convictions for various crimes.

The White House and Democrats don't just display a lack of compassion for border communities; they also display a real lack of compassion for the individuals attempting to enter our country illegally. There is nothing compassionate about an immigration policy that encourages individuals to come here illegally, with all of the risks that entails.

Earlier, I mentioned a border town that was seeking increased morgue facilities because it was dealing with the bodies of so many individuals who had drowned while attempting to enter this country. Deaths at the southern border have surged under the Biden administration, undoubtedly because the administration's lax immigration policies and obvious lack of concern about securing the border have encouraged individuals to attempt to come here illegally.

According to Department of Homeland Security numbers that have been reported, 748 migrants have died at our southern border so far this fiscal year. That is a lot of lives lost, Mr. President--a lot of lives. Mr. President, one illegal immigrant speaking to a news outlet this month said of the border:

It's open, not closed. The border is open. . . . Everybody

believes that the border is open. It's open because we enter,

we come in, free. No problem.

That is the message that President Biden's immigration policies have conveyed, and the longer that he continues with his de facto open- border policies, the more individuals who are going to be encouraged to attempt the dangerous journey across our southern border.

Mr. President, the massive spending package, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats shoved through the Senate last month contained hundreds of billions for Democrats' Green New Deal priorities, like tax credits for wealthy Americans to buy electric cars and more than $80 billion for environmental justice priorities. There was also, of course, an $80 billion funding infusion for the IRS, a majority of it allocated for more IRS audits and increased enforcement, including the hiring of additional IRS agents. Nowhere in that bill were there any resources for addressing the crisis that has been raging for more than a year now at our southern border.

During debate on the bill, Republicans gave Democrats five opportunities to vote for amendments aimed at providing resources to secure the border. Democrats rejected all of them. Apparently, Democrats are willing to spend a lot of time and effort and government money on their Green New Deal and finding new ways to collect taxpayer dollars to help fund their Big Government spending plans, but when it comes to protecting Americans and ensuring a humane situation at our southern border, Democrats just can't be bothered.

I heard the Democratic whip down here, just now, talking about that there just needs to be a comprehensive immigration bipartisan approach to this and blaming Republicans for them not being able to do anything to address this issue. And I just have to say that, one, the Democrats control all of government in Washington. They have

the House, the Senate, and the White House, and, to my knowledge, they have not attempted to bring an immigration reform bill to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Furthermore, the President reversed all of the policies from the previous administration that affected the border when he took office.

Now we have got a situation at our southern border that is just nothing short of appalling, and if the President really had any interest in making the process at the border ``safe, orderly, and humane,'' as he said the other day, he would make securing our southern border a priority, and it is not. Unfortunately, given his record so far, I think it is more likely that we will see the scenes of chaos and human suffering continue.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

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

Madam President, the August inflation numbers came out

this week, and they weren't good. Inflation was even higher than expected. It was very clear that soaring prices are likely to continue for quite a while, but as usual, it doesn't seem to concern the Democrats one bit.

The President was asked Tuesday if he was concerned about August's even-worse-than-expected inflation report.

His answer? ``No, I'm not.''

It was just one more tone-deaf moment for the President and the Democrats.

On Tuesday, the President and the Democrats gathered at the White House to congratulate themselves for having passed their so-called Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that will do nothing--nothing--to reduce inflation. That is not just my opinion. That was the conclusion of the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model and of the Democrat chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who referred to the bill as the ``so-called Inflation Reduction Act'' on the Senate floor while admitting it would do nothing to solve our Nation's inflation crisis.

But that didn't stop the Democrats from celebrating yesterday. For most of us, of course, it is difficult to understand what there was to celebrate. Leaving aside the issue of the 40-year-high inflation, we already know that the bill will also fall short in another respect--on deficit reduction.

The Democrats' claims that the bill would provide meaningful deficit reduction were always somewhat dubious, but even granting the Democrats' rosiest assumptions, President Biden wiped out any deficit reduction when he announced his massive student loan giveaway 8 days--8 days--after the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law.

So no inflation reduction, no deficit reduction. Oh, one other thing: The Inflation Reduction Act will drive up energy bills for Americans.

So the question is: What was there to celebrate?

Well, for the Democrats, the Inflation Reduction Act marked a chance to finally push through some of their far-left, Green New Deal fantasies, things like electric vehicle tax credits to help wealthy Americans buy electric cars, more than $60 billion--$60 billion--for ``environmental justice priorities,'' including $1.9 billion for things like identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage, and the list goes on. So I think the Democrats are pretty satisfied with themselves over finally jamming through elements of their Green New Deal agenda.

Then, of course, they succeeded in extending increased ObamaCare subsidies that will push Americans off of private healthcare plans and into government-run care.

Then--then--there are the tax hikes. The current Democratic leader once said, ``You don't want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking,'' like it has in the previous two quarters. But those days are gone. For the Democrats, raising taxes has become an article of faith.

And it goes far beyond raising money to help pay for their Big Government spending. The Democrats believe raising taxes on corporations and well-off Americans is good in and of itself, even if those tax hikes have a negative effect on less well-off Americans and the economy. The tax hikes that the Democrats have included in their so-called Inflation Reduction Act will, indeed, have a negative effect on our economy and on the hard-working Americans who help support it. The Democrats' tax hikes on businesses will result in slower growth, lower wages, and thousands of fewer jobs, and the Democrats' tax hikes on conventional energy will result in higher energy prices for working families.

In addition to raising taxes, the other main way the Inflation Reduction Act raises revenue is by increasing IRS audits and placing new burdens on taxpayers.

The Democrats' bill contains a whopping $80 billion in increased funding for the IRS. That is an increase in funding which represents six times the annual budget of the IRS today. More than half of those funds, or $46 billion, are earmarked for increased IRS enforcement. Just 4 percent is for improving customer service, which should tell you all you need to know about where the Democrats' real priorities lie.

The bill would provide for the hiring of as many as 87,000 new employees, which would more than double the current size of the Agency and make the IRS--make the IRS, if you can believe this--larger than Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard put together, combined.

In the lead-up to the passage of the Democrats' bill, the Biden administration put out a statement declaring that the money for IRS enforcement would not go to the increased audits of households making less than $400,000. Because we had reason to doubt that that would be the case, the Republicans put forward an amendment to the bill to prevent the IRS from using its new money to audit those Americans. Every Democrat--every single Democrat--voted against the amendment. So, I guess, the Democrats are happy to oppose more IRS audits of middle- class Americans in theory, but they don't want to cut off the possibility of those audits in practice if they end up needing them to help fund their Green New Deal spending.

I don't need to tell anyone that the IRS is notorious for mishandling sensitive taxpayer data. As recently as this month, we learned that the IRS had inadvertently posted confidential taxpayer data of around 120,000 individuals on its website--private taxpayer information that was available to the general public.

Then, of course, there was last year's leak, or hack, of confidential taxpayer information that was shared with the left-leaning ProPublica and was used to advance a partisan agenda for which, I might add, neither the IRS nor the Biden administration has provided any accountability.

Then there was the infamous targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny under the Obama IRS, and the list goes on.

I haven't even discussed the IRS's record of grossly underperforming--some would say nonexistent--customer service. During the 2022 tax season, just 10 percent of taxpayers' calls--10 percent of taxpayers' calls--to the IRS were answered by an IRS employee. What we need to be doing is holding the IRS accountable, not setting tens of thousands of new IRS agents loose on taxpayers' accounts.

Earlier this week, I joined my Republican colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee to introduce legislation to prevent the IRS from using its new funding to audit American workers or small business owners earning less than $400,000 per year.

I also introduced a bill this week, along with Senator Collins, to improve taxpayer service at the IRS. Our legislation, called the Increase Reliable Services Now Act, would prevent the IRS from hiring new employees for enforcement until customer service at the IRS had reached a more acceptable level. It is unacceptable--unacceptable--that taxpayers have a 1 in 10 chance of receiving assistance when calling the IRS, and the Agency should not be allowed to increase enforcement hires until it has achieved at least a basic level of customer service.

So we have 87,000 new employees, which is double--double--the size of the current IRS workforce, and we have $80 billion, which is six times the current annual budget of the IRS, with a specific focus: going after taxpayers in this country to try and get, raise--whatever--more revenue to fund the Democrats' Big Government fantasies. At the same time, 1 in 10 taxpayers is getting his calls returned at the IRS.

I will continue to work to increase IRS accountability and prevent hard-working Americans from being squeezed to fund Democrats' Green New Deal spending.

Like the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan spending spree that came before it--which, I would add, helped plunge our country into our current inflation crisis--the Inflation Reduction Act is a bad deal for the American people, and all of the self-congratulatory White House parties in the world aren't going to change that basic fundamental fact.

Americans are experiencing serious economic hardship, and Democrats are doing nothing to help.

I yield the floor.