Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I am feeling a sense of deja vu this morning. In March, Democrats used reconciliation to pass a massive, partisan bill that served as a cover for a collection of payoffs to Democratic interest groups in Democratic States.

Now, just over a month later, we are facing the prospect of round 2. Democrats are once again looking at reconciliation to pass a massive, partisan piece of legislation that serves to cover a long wish list of liberal priorities. The subject this time, of course, is infrastructure--like COVID relief, a subject that Republicans are very ready to tackle, but, just like with their COVID bill, Democrats aren't showing a lot of interest in bipartisan cooperation. Once again, their message seems to be ``Go along with everything we want or be completely excluded from any part of this bill.''

As I said, Republicans would be happy to take up infrastructure legislation. Our Nation is overdue for additional infrastructure investment. But an infrastructure bill should be focused on actual infrastructure: roads, bridges, airports, waterways, and digital infrastructure like broadband.

Democrats have some of that in their bill, but they also have been very busy expanding the definition of ``infrastructure'' to include a whole host of Democratic priorities. One Democratic Senator tweeted:

Paid leave is infrastructure. Childcare is infrastructure.

Caregiving is infrastructure.

Well, actually, no, they are not. Neither is the Civilian Climate Corps or community colleges or support for Big Labor. None of those things are infrastructure.

Now, it may be that some--and I say ``some''--of Democrats' noninfrastructure proposals are things that we should have a discussion about here in Congress, a bipartisan discussion, but they are not infrastructure, and they

don't belong in an infrastructure bill. Democrats should stop rewriting the definition of ``infrastructure'' to suit their purposes. The word ``infrastructure'' is not, in fact, anything that Democrats say it is. ``Infrastructure'' has an actual meaning, and it is not childcare or assistance for unions.

Even Democrats' actual infrastructure spending is frequently problematic. Democrats' infrastructure proposals would cost $2.2 trillion. Less than 6 percent of that--less than 6 percent--would be spent on roads and bridges. Under the Democrats' plan, spending on electric vehicle promotion would exceed investments in roads, bridges, ports, and waterways combined. That includes tax credits and rebates for electric vehicles, measures that will primarily benefit wealthier car buyers and leave rural States like South Dakota, where electric vehicles remain impractical, behind.

The bill also includes a massive sum for transit and high-speed rail--substantially more than the bill spends on highways, roads, and bridges--despite Americans' limited interest in rail travel.

On the tax front, Speaker Pelosi has expressed her interest in including a lifting of the current cap on State and local tax deductions. Now, this one is really interesting. It is a very interesting priority for Democrats, considering that repealing the SALT deduction would mostly benefit wealthy taxpayers, including that evil 1 percent whom Democrats are always talking about. But I guess sometimes principle has to take a back seat to keeping Democratic donors happy.

While we are talking about taxes, let's talk about how Democrats plan to at least partially--and I say ``partially'' because a lot of this could go on to debt--pay for this bill. Democrats would like to partially pay for this legislation with the largest corporate tax increase in a generation. They would sharply increase the corporate tax rate, once again putting American companies at a disadvantage next to their foreign competitors and threatening American jobs and wages. It is pretty hard to think of any worse proposal right now, with our economy still trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

What, in effect, you are doing when you are raising taxes dramatically--when I say ``raising taxes dramatically,'' I am talking the largest or highest tax rate in the developed world. We will be leading the OECD when it comes to taxation of businesses if the Democrats get their way and raise the tax rate on businesses from 21 percent to 28 percent. What you are doing when you do that is not punishing some corporation; it is punishing workers who work for those companies. This is about jobs. It is fundamentally about jobs. When you raise taxes on businesses, it hurts jobs.

Now, there is a history of bipartisan collaboration on infrastructure legislation. Our last major transportation infrastructure bill, the FAST Act, was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and it was a remarkably successful bill. Last Congress, the Environment and Public Works Committee here in the Senate developed bipartisan transportation infrastructure legislation. There is absolutely no reason--no reason-- why we couldn't replicate past bipartisan success in this Congress.

The word is that next week the Democratic leader is going to bring up a bipartisan water infrastructure bill that recently passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously. I hope he will. That should be a model for a larger infrastructure bill, not the partisan process that Democrats embraced with their COVID legislation and not the partisan, wasteful proposal full of noninfrastructure- related measures that Democrats have put forward.

I saw an op-ed the other day that pointed out that ``President Biden promised to usher in a golden age of bipartisan cooperation, but instead he is showing a reverse Midas touch--taking issues that once united Republicans and Democrats and making them partisan and divisive.'' Sad but true. But the President has a chance to turn that around with infrastructure.

It is not too late for Democrats and the President to sit down at the table with Republicans and develop a substantial, bipartisan proposal that would address our country's infrastructure needs without spending taxpayer dollars on wasteful or extraneous proposals.

I am encouraged that President Biden is meeting with Republicans on infrastructure legislation, but I hope these meetings are not just for show. The President, as we all recall, met with Republicans on COVID legislation, too, before rejecting bipartisan cooperation. Let's hope he will choose a different path this time.

It is not too late for the President to start fulfilling his inauguration promise of unity and bipartisanship. He should start with this infrastructure bill.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) would have voted ``no.''

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, shortly before Easter, I joined a number of my colleagues on a visit to the border to get a firsthand look at the crisis that we are facing. And make no mistake, this is a crisis. Customs and Border Protection apprehensions at our southern border last month were at their highest level in nearly 20 years--20 years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 172,000 encounters with individuals attempting to cross our southern border in March alone. And that is just the individuals they encountered. We don't know how many individuals came across without being identified and are currently residing illegally in our country.

Nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children crossed our southern border in March alone, the largest number ever recorded in a single month. That is 19,000 children making an incredibly dangerous journey without their parents, at the mercy of smugglers, human traffickers, or any other dangerous individual that they might encounter.

Needless to say, the surge at our border is having very serious effects. Border Patrol agents have been pulled off the border to deal with the influx of migrants and unaccompanied children, leaving the borders undermanned. And the government is straining to deal with processing the massive number of people who have come across the border. One facility that we visited was at 16 times its allotted capacity.

The administration has had to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency--that is right, our government's disaster recovery Agency--to help deal with the influx of unaccompanied children. And the Department of Health and Human Services has been forced to open emergency shelters and ask the Department of Defense for temporary housing on bases.

Despite the pandemic, adequate COVID safety measures have been unable to be maintained because the numbers needing to be housed have been so great.

While the administration would like to attribute this crisis to the previous administration or anything but the current President's policies, the truth is, President Biden bears a lot of the responsibility for the situation. His Presidential campaign made it clear that border security was not going to be one of his priorities.

And since taking office, what signals have he and his administration sent? On his very first day in office, President Biden rescinded the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border; he halted construction on the border wall; and he rescinded a Trump administration order that called for the government to faithfully execute our immigration laws, including removals for visa overstays and limiting funding to sanctuary cities--all on his first day.

And that is not all. The President's Department of Homeland Security also issued guidelines that same day pausing deportations, except under certain conditions. The effect of President Biden's actions was to declare to the world that the U.S. borders are effectively open.

That may or may not have been what President Biden and his administration intended, but it certainly has been the effect. The message received by prospective migrants has been, if you can make it to the U.S. border and claim asylum, whether legitimate or not, even if you illegally cross the border, you are in.

Trump administration policies like ``Remain in Mexico'' and the third country asylum rule relieved pressure on our overburdened immigration casework and enforcement efforts at the southern border. They allowed for asylum claims to be vetted long before individuals reached the U.S. border, removing the need for people to uproot themselves and attempt a dangerous border crossing only to be sent back home again.

But in his rush to distance himself from President Trump and appease the open borders wing of the Democratic Party, President Biden eliminated these policies, which has helped create the humanitarian crisis we are currently facing.

Under the Biden administration, there is little deterrent or fear of punishment for those who seek to enter the country illegally, knowing that they can claim asylum and join the backlog of roughly 1.3 million cases while they wait in the United States. And the humanitarian crisis that we are seeing at the border is the result.

President Biden and Democrats would like to present themselves as the compassionate alternative to the Trump administration, but there is nothing compassionate about policies that invite illegal immigration, that encourage people to attempt the dangerous border crossing, to run the risk of death or injury or exploitation or disease.

Inviting the surge at the border also shows a significant lack of compassion or consideration for Americans, particularly those in border communities.

While many of those trying to cross our borders illegally are simply looking for a better life, which is not an excuse for going outside our established legal pathways, there are also a lot of dangerous people-- dangerous people attempting illegal border crossings: drug traffickers, weapons traffickers, human traffickers, gang members. And when Border Patrol agents have been pulled off the border to help manage the immigration influx, it is not going to be too surprising if we discover that more of these dangerous individuals have made their way into our country. And that represents a real danger to Americans.

Americans living in towns and cities along our southern border are at the greatest risk of having their communities disrupted by border- related criminal activity, but the effects of drug trafficking and other criminal activity across our southern border are felt throughout our entire country.

President Biden helped cause this crisis. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And he could start ending this crisis today by making it clear that his administration will enforce immigration laws and that the way to come to this country is to come legally. He could also help by recommitting our country to serious border security along our southern border, including construction, continued construction of the border wall.

For the sake of the unaccompanied children and all those trying to cross our borders and for the sake of the Americans who have been endangered by his policies, I hope--I hope that President Biden will take action.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

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.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

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

Mr. President, on Good Friday, another Capitol Police officer lost his life defending this building and all those in it.

Officer Billy Evans was killed when an individual rammed Officer Evans with his car at the barricade Officer Evans was manning. Another Capitol Police officer, Officer Ken Shaver, was injured in the attack.

We talk about how police officers leave their homes each day not knowing what they will face. Good Friday's attack was a reminder of how true that is.

We can only be thankful that despite the ever-present risk that they will not make it back to their homes, men and women like Officer Evans and Officer Shaver still choose to serve--to put themselves on the frontlines facing evil and danger so that the rest of us don't have to.

I know the officers of the Capitol Police have had an unthinkably difficult few months. I hope they know how grateful we are for their service.

Today Officer Billy Evans lies in honor in the Rotunda, a fitting tribute to a man who lived and died to protect those who serve in this building.

My thoughts and prayers are with Officer Evans' two children, Logan and Abigail, with his mother Janice, and with all those who mourn this brave man. May his memory be eternal.