Floor Statements

Mr. President, we have a tendency in this Chamber to talk about hindsight being 20/20, and I think that this is what we will be doing in 10 or 20 years when we look back on the Biden administration. I really expect that we will highlight all of the big talk here in DC that has led to some really bad ideas the White House has tried to legitimize through legislation and budget requests.

If you remember, even before the 2020 election, Biden's big talk on amnesty welcomed the hundreds of thousands of migrants who are currently flooding the southern border. He said: We expect to see these migrants at the border.

So, yes, they heard him say, ``Y'all come,'' and they are coming.

His big talk on Green New Deal programs got us the boondoggle of an infrastructure package that all but ignores roads, bridges, and broadband. The people in Memphis, TN, have not appreciated some of this talk of other items as infrastructure. They want bridge repairs immediately. Then, just before Memorial Day, we got some more big talk in the form of his $6 trillion budget request that reads like an instruction manual on how to make our country less secure, less free, and less competitive.

Back home in Tennessee, people looked at this thing, and they didn't believe what they were seeing. At church last Sunday, I had some friends ask me if the budget proposal was supposed to be a joke or if this were serious because, when they look around, they see real need. They see communities without broadband, small businesses that are struggling to get back on their feet, and crumbling roads and bridges.

Yet what did the administration choose to do with their first budget? They turned away from those needs. They decided to throw billions of dollars at the environmental lobby to make it happy. They put in money to

abortionists and to an already bloated Federal bureaucracy.

Tennesseans are looking at their own budgets and thinking about all of the ways they have had to make tough choices over the past year, and they are wondering why the Biden administration cannot seem to bring itself to show some fiscal restraint. Why is it that they just say: Crank up the printing press. Let's print more dollars. Let's put more money in the system. Let's give everybody a check--and no worries about who is going to pay the bill?

They are used to seeing the Democrats act in a very cavalier manner about spending, and they are very much concerned about what they see happening in Washington, DC. They know, without a doubt, that this is really going to cost them and that it is going to cost their children and their grandchildren, and as someone said this weekend, it is the great-grandchildren who will bear the brunt of the Biden extravaganza. They know better than to nod along with the administration's promises that only the rich and the megacorporations will be responsible for offsetting this massive spending program

I will tell you that they know how this works. They have seen it before. They know that there are higher taxes at the top and that higher taxes at the top of this wish list and on the top earners will mean less investment in their communities, which will lead to stagnant economic development, which will land them in the exact same place that they were during the Obama-Biden years, except there will be the added expenses of having to comply with future mandates the administration is going to pile on them.

They know, when you take from the people who create the jobs and make the investments and provide the goods that drive our economy, that you are taking from the middle class, that you are taking from small businesses on every Main Street in this country. You are making opening that business too expensive to afford because you have taken those tax dollars and you are using those dollars to grow union membership, to show favoritism, and to pick winners and losers Washington, DC, style.

That is exactly how you destroy that competitiveness that makes companies want to do business here and to emigrate here, and that makes other countries a little nervous to stand toe to toe with us on the international stage. This international element is important, and I fear the Biden administration has lost that perspective.

If you look at the budget items related to immigration, it is clear that the White House still thinks they can make it out of this border crisis without having to admit that their policies have, indeed, caused this crisis at our Nation's southern border. Yes, indeed, this is the Biden border crisis. Instead of securing the border by investing in the technology, infrastructure, and manpower our Border Patrol agents have repeatedly asked for, the administration wants to focus on sending foreign aid to the Northern Triangle, foreign aid without accountability. This is a noble effort, but it will do nothing to mitigate the disaster on the border that has since bled into the communities that are now playing host to busloads of unaccompanied migrant children, like we see in Chattanooga.

At least they decided to invest in a few more immigration judges. Yet what we see them doing through this is making every town a border town and every State a border State. They are transferring the costs to our States and to our local communities--the costs for education, for healthcare, for children's services, for social services, for housing. The Federal Government doesn't want to admit they are incurring that cost.

So what are they doing? At taxpayer expense, they are putting these over a half-a-million illegal entrants onto airplanes, onto buses, and they are sending them to communities around this country. That is what they are doing, and that is what millions of Americans, including thousands of Tennesseans, are pushing back on.

I have to tell you, I had a telephone townhall last night. It was with some of the counties that are around Chattanooga, TN, in that area, and COVID-19 and the immigration policies of the Biden administration were the top questions that came up.

I will tell you that things don't look any better on the national security front. If you account for inflation, you find out that the topline request for the Department of Defense represents a $7 billion decrease compared to fiscal year 2021 funding levels. That is right, a $7 billion decrease for defense. Maybe they forgot that what we are responsible for, first and foremost, is providing for the common defense.

Talk about misplaced priorities. The Biden administration picked the absolute worst time to undercut the military and employ President Obama's demand to do more with less. We know from experience that it takes between 3 and 5 percent in annual growth to keep our military and national security programs competitive, and this budget doesn't even come close to hitting that mark. For reference, China increased their defense budget by 6.8 percent this year--oh, and who is our main competitor when it comes to great power competition? You are right. The answer is China, absolutely.

Biden's budget, on the other hand, asks for $112 billion in R&D spending, but it cuts procurement spending. Imagine that. This means, as of right now, the administration has no plan to put that R&D to good use. Keep doing the research and development, but by the way, we are not planning to purchase. Think about that. Think about the message that sends to our allies and the message it is sending to our adversaries.

They paid lip service to supporting our nuclear programs, but earlier this month, the Secretary of the Navy sent a strategic memo ordering the service to defund the development of the nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles that are essential for deterring China in regional waters. That is right. The Secretary of the Navy sent a strategic memo ordering the Navy to defund the development of the missiles that are essential for deterring China in regional waters.

The kicker? All of this is to be done before the Nuclear Posture Review is even completed. So don't wait for the report. We need an outcome, and the outcome is, Let's make ourselves less competitive.

This is astounding. Instead of following the directives that have clearly been laid out by last year's NDAA and investing in a combat- credible force, the budget guts and confuses the mission driving the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, and this has had bipartisan support. Keep in mind that this is the best set of tools we have against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, and the Biden administration has decided to use it like some sort of slush account for projects that, in a normal year, would be funded under other categories.

They are going for an outcome. The outcome is not ``America first'' or an America able to defend. Their budget is cutting defense. Their budget is cutting these cruise missiles. It makes no sense.

And I can assure you, as we begin the NDAA negotiations, that this is something that will deserve and will get a full review.

I have said it before and I will say it again: The American people understand that elections do have consequences. They knew that some priorities would change with President Biden. Even my friends back home who voted for President Biden will tell me they liked what they heard on the campaign trail from him. But they will also tell you they did not vote for this.

They did not vote for what is happening, for the Executive orders that are coming out of this administration, for the ridiculousness that they see in this budget. They did not vote for tax plans that will stand in the way of local investment with small businesses. They did not vote to make things more expensive and scarce at the grocery store. They did not vote to fund a bloated and power-hungry Federal bureaucracy. They didn't vote to leave our border in shambles, to wreck our Nation's sovereignty.

They certainly didn't vote for a defense strategy that will allow the Chinese Communist Party to expand their influence into underdeveloped countries and threaten our allies in the Indo-Pacific. No, they did not vote for that.

Our National Guard men and women, our men and women who every day are in service there at Fort Campbell--God

bless them. And we worry about the lack of attention to defense.

I would remind my Democratic colleagues that any action they take on this budget proposal won't exist in a vacuum, and I ask them to reconsider their justification for asking the American people, who just survived a global pandemic and a near total economic collapse--I think they should reconsider their justification for asking them to bankroll an activist-driven, radical, fantasy budget that nobody really asked for.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it appears the White House had good reason to wait until the Friday before Memorial Day to release their budget proposal. They couldn't afford a full week's news cycle any more than the American people can afford to fulfill the wish list items President Biden is asking them to pay for. It is a very long list.

I think it is safe to say my Democratic colleagues are trying to make the most of the next year and a half. They know that time is not on their side nor are the American people. There really is something for every faction of the left. Here are a few of the items that are contained in this Biden boondoggle of a budget.

The environmental lobby did a great job these past few months. They are more than taken care of with more electric car subsidies and a $936 million payout toward environmental justice initiatives.

We also have more funding to expand the Department of Education. If you think that more government is what your child's educational experience has been missing, well, this is the budget for you. Yet, if you are fed up with the way teachers unions have treated children in the classroom, if you are fed up with schools that have been in lockdown, you will want to pay close attention to what I am talking about today.

Apparently, the good people over at the Department of Health and Human Services have time on their hands. Bear in mind, it is your money that is paying them to do the job at which they have time on their hands. Now, they will be switching gears from pandemic response to a new focus on environmental extremism, reparations, and gutting the Second Amendment.

What is in this budget? Bigger government, a higher deficit, and runaway inflation.

What is out? According to this budget, national defense is no longer a priority for the Biden administration or for the Department of Defense. Border security is also on the back burner along with the family-friendly tax policies we implemented under President Trump.

President Biden and the Democrats are doubling down on every mistake they have made so far. Instead of doing their jobs, they are paying lip service to struggling businesses, to struggling stores on Main Street in your hometown, to crumbling bridges--like in Memphis, TN--and roadways, and to future generations of Americans who will come into this world owning their own, personal chunk of our skyrocketing national debt. That is right. If you have a child or a grandchild born this year, their share of the national debt is going to be about $80,000. Think about that.

Think about what has happened to this debt. From President Washington to President George Bush, it was about $10.6 trillion. During the Obama-Biden years, that debt doubled. Then it was added to through the pandemic. Now one would be led to believe that this administration had decided it was going to take the credit cards and swipe them so many times they would run the numbers off of them

Yes, this is the Biden surcharge at work--forcing the American people to pay a premium just to live. Cradle to grave, daylight to dark, they have got a list of tax hikes and increased fees for you. You hard- working Americans, you cannot escape it, and what a world they have decided they want to leave for future generations. I think it is awful.

I will tell you what--this budget is such a terrible representation of what America actually needs that, back home in Tennessee, as I was home last week, people would come up to me and ask me if this was really a serious budget. It is so extreme. It is so huge.

They would say: Surely, your Democratic colleagues are not serious about this. Surely, President Biden is not serious about this budget.

Still, my colleagues across the aisle are so eager to get this done that they are prepared to, once again, throw regular order out the window.

My Democratic colleagues are living in an alternate reality. It is the only explanation for why they continue to insist that this country will be better off under a government that strips away your freedoms rather than guarantees them and one that tries to tell you how to live your life every minute of every day--from the time your feet hit the floor in the morning until the time you brush your teeth and get in bed at night.

Madam President, in the 4 months since the Democrats took control of the U.S. Government, they have not once indicated they understand the severity of the crisis playing out along our southern border.

It is hard to believe they get the same reports from Customs and Border Protection as I do, so just in case they haven't seen this month's update yet, I am going to go ahead and run through the numbers.

In April, CBP apprehended more than 178,000 people trying to illegally cross our border.

Almost 14,000 of them were unaccompanied children or single minors.

Drug seizures were up 6 percent from March. We have already seized more fentanyl this year than we did all last year.

On top of all that we are still catching smugglers trying to pass off counterfeit face masks, prohibited COVID test kits, and banned pharmaceuticals.

It is important to understand that all of this, from the human trafficking to the drug smuggling to the bootleg PPE operations, are symptoms of a much bigger problem.

We are dealing with a systemic humanitarian, health and safety, and national security crisis that gets worse every time the Biden administration doubles down on open borders rhetoric.

What is worse, they are treating the chaos like a logistics issue. Instead of trying to reduce the flow of migrants coming to the southern border, the Biden administration is trying to speed the flow.

They are actively trying to move as many migrants into our country as possible.

Last week, we received reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is using Chattanooga, TN, as a rally point for unaccompanied minors on their way to meet up with their sponsors or move on to area shelters and homes.

We saw video of the children getting off of planes at Wilson Air Center and boarding buses to continue on their journey. At least four planes full of unaccompanied minors landed in Chattanooga last week.

It is important to realize that all this was happening in the dead of night, without the knowledge of any Tennessee elected officials or community leaders.

No transparency, no coordination, no notice whatsoever.

This is cause for concern not only because HHS circumvented State authorities but because this Agency has a history of operating under a veil of secrecy when it concerns their handling of migrant children.

Back in 2014, HHS blocked congressional oversight of their migrant housing facilities. Our attempts to tour one such facility, which at the time housed more than 1,000 children, were met with delays, denials and refusals.

Fast-forward to today, and HHS is being just as secretive about how they are managing care for these children. Fortunately, eyewitnesses have come forward to confirm the scope and secrecy of this operation.

One source said: ``They have intentionally not shared a lot of information with us. They don't want this to get out.''

He went on: ``They had, to my understanding, a field full of buses with more buses and more buses running all of these routes. Now, they're flying the kids because the buses were easier to videotape going down the highway. They've changed their strategy from buses to flying . . . In Chattanooga and other cities, motorcoach companies are waiting on planes to land and continuing their trek further north, dropping kids off along the way.''

Now, let's be clear about one thing: The children in those buses are victims--victims of irresponsible rhetoric, of bad policy, and of manipulation and abuse by traffickers.

I would implore my colleagues to listen to these stories and to accept that the tragedy is compounded by the knowledge that none of these children should have been on those buses in the first place.

Moving children through Border Patrol custody, into HHS custody, and then delivering them to sponsors throughout the country is not a solution to the problem. It only makes the problem worse.

If Democrats want to embrace a ``humane'' approach to immigration reform, they should stop worrying about those talking points and secure the border. Treat this like the crisis it is.

Restore the Migrant Protection Protocols. I have introduced a bill that would make that happen; all we need is a few votes and a signature.

Fully embrace our title 42 authority to turn away adults and children who attempt to enter the country illegally. Close the loophole that has tempted so many parents to send their children to the border alone.

Resume construction of the border wall, and invest in the infrastructure, technology, and manpower it will take to truly secure those points of entry.

But above all else, stop making promises you can't keep.

This is the most important piece of advice I can give to my colleagues on

the other side of the aisle and to the administration.

I know that you believe opening the border is compassionate policy, but the cartels are exploiting your version of compassion and using it to manipulate desperate families.

For some inexplicable reason, the Biden administration has made it official policy to finish the cartels' work for them and take these children to their new life, which could be as part of an MS-13 gang, or a labor work crew, or a sex trafficking ring. It could be with drug runners.

If you believe all these children are headed to their families, you're living in fantasyland.

Last week, Senator Hagerty, Congressman Fleischman, and I sent a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and OHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking for an explanation. We are still waiting for a satisfactory response.

But I will tell you, you cannot fix this crisis with a talking point. You cannot fix it by staying silent, as Secretaries Becerra and Mayorkas have chosen to be.

Parents are sending their children 1,000 miles across the continent in the custody of drug mules and sex traffickers because the administration has given them hope that if they take this one, unthinkable risk, the door will be open, and they will be able to follow their children into the country.

We have the power to stop this.

It is time to abandon talking points, address the root cause of the crisis, and secure our southern border before it is too late. Because if we have learned anything about how the cartels operate, the children who passed through Chattanooga last week, the ones who made it here, are the lucky ones.

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

Madam President, this month is Military Appreciation Month. It is a month when we let our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines know just how grateful we are for their service. Madam President, we are grateful for the service that you gave our Nation in uniform. We thank you for that.

Tennessee is home to three major military installations and numerous other Guard installations. For us, Military Appreciation Month actually lasts all year long.

I would like to start off by welcoming the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Squadron, 17th Calvary Regiment back stateside following a 9-month rotational deployment to Korea. We are so happy to have them back home.

In more exciting news out of Fort Campbell, this Thursday, SGM Veronica Knapp will become the first woman to serve as a command sergeant major of a U.S. Army division. She will assume responsibility as the senior enlisted adviser of the 101st Airborne Division.

On behalf of the entire Tennessee delegation, I offer my congratulations and wish her success in all that is yet to come.

The servicemembers stationed at Fort Campbell have really had a very busy past year. Starting last March, we began deploying soldiers to help with COVID-19 response operations across the Northeast, including members from the 501st Medical Company, the 531st Hospital Center, and the 101st Division Sustainment Brigade.

Boston and New York City were among the most severely affected areas in the country. And if you ask the healthcare workers and city officials in those areas if Tennessee servicemembers made a difference, they will tell you, yes, without a doubt.

Last year, many of our Tennessee National Guard members also joined the fight against COVID-19. The 164th Airlift Wing transported desperately needed PPE all the way from Italy to healthcare workers across the entire country. The 118th ISR Group, along with five other Air National Guard targeting units, produced over 70 percent of the U.S. Air Force's targeting materials, all while providing continuity to Activity-Duty units.

I want to keep bragging on our Guard members because they really have made an impact, especially when it comes to getting testing and vaccine centers up and running. They set up more static vaccine sites than any other State. As of March of this year, they have set up double the number of sites that were running in the next most successful State. Job well done.

They directly helped more than 1 million Tennesseans stay healthy through the pandemic. It was a great effort, and we thank them for that.

I am sorry to say that the pandemic wasn't the only natural disaster Tennesseans had to deal with over the past year. But when tornados destroyed multiple counties across West and Middle Tennessee, the National Guard was right there to help. And when blizzards shut down half the State, the Guard kept water flowing in Memphis, repaired communications infrastructure for first responders in Rutherford County, and found shelter for displaced families in Lynchburg and Manchester.

When you are on the outside looking in on a natural disaster, the last thing you want to hear is that local officials had to call in the National Guard. But I will tell you, when you are sitting in the aftermath, there is no more hopeful sight than a vehicle full of guardsmen pulling into town ready to help.

That peace of mind, of course, comes at a cost. Our servicemembers go where they are told to go and do the jobs they are told to do without hesitation. Why? Because they have accepted that the cost of freedom is more important than the freedom they sacrificed when they put on the uniform. Their families have accepted this too. And when you are a military family, the uniform comes first. This is why every year when we re-up defense funding, we put special focus on military families and their needs.

For example, 2 years ago, we established a pilot program to offer professional licensed reciprocity for military spouses who want to continue working

after moving across State lines. Last year, we increased funding for that program.

We also continued our support for the Preservation of the Force and Families Program, which helps special operators process the aftereffects of their missions.

Last month, the Presiding Officer and I introduced a bill called the Military Hunger Prevention Act. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation that would create a basic needs allowance for low-income military families.

The reason this is so important is that existing benefits programs like SNAP and free school lunches include housing allowances and other military benefits in revenue calculations. Although it is obvious that this only creates the appearance of higher income, the programs aren't designed to allow an exception. Once we pass this bill--and I am sure that we will--these families will be able to use their allowances to buy groceries instead of relying on food pantries to put dinner on the table.

This is what we should all be thinking about during Military Appreciation Month--renewing the commitment we have made to take care of our servicemembers both on and off the battlefield.

We need to ask ourselves: What are we doing to meet their practical needs? What are we doing to support their families? What are we doing to right unintended wrongs?

It is the most important way we can recognize their extraordinary service to our Nation.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, one of the benefits of vaccine rates going up is that school districts will no longer have an excuse to keep kids and teachers at home for virtual learning. But if I know kids--and as a mom and a grandmom, I can assure you, I understand the kiddos-- getting them back in the classroom won't get them away from the screens.

These big tech companies in China and the Silicon Valley have done their jobs well. For many American kids, devices are integrated into their everyday lives. There is no escaping that 4-inch plate of glass in their pockets. It has become a part of their culture.

Now, this addiction to tech doesn't sit well with many parents and watchdogs. We have all heard arguments that in order to break this addiction, we need to somehow change the culture and persuade young people to break their own ties with Big Tech. I have a different argument: It is Big Tech that needs to change its culture.

As we all know, many of these companies are little more than glorified ad agencies. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and TikTok have all been successful because of their advertising strategies. Their job is to get eyeballs on content and keep fingers scrolling up and down the screen. This means that with every shiny new update, their advertising algorithms have also gotten an update.

The more complex and pervasive these tracking figures become, the harder it is for users to understand what data these companies are collecting and how that data is going to be used. Not even tech-savvy adults can keep up with the legalese in those updated privacy policies.

I think if I went around this Chamber and asked ``When is the last time you read the terms of service on an app update?'' I am willing to bet the answer for most of us would be ``Well, it was a long time ago,'' or it could be maybe even never.

Big tech companies have taken advantage of that, and they have created

within their sphere a culture of pushing boundaries. It is do first, apologize later, and never ever respond to questions about their policies with a straight answer.

This Congress, I reintroduced the BROWSER Act as a way of pushing that culture toward a more consumer-friendly consent model. It would require tech companies to add opt-in and opt-out features to their data collection policies and inject some transparency into the relationship between the user and the service provider. It is a great place to start and a key element of my virtual new protection agenda.

Regulation hasn't kept up with innovation--that much is clear--but neither has demand for corporate responsibility and transparency. It is time to change that, and I encourage all of my colleagues on each side of the aisle to take a look at the BROWSER Act.

But what about those kids? Tech companies are increasingly catering to young demographics, which means the kids are exposed to more of the online world every day, which, depending on what corner you find yourself in, is a productive educational experience, or it could be a life-and-death situation

Now, the science tells us that, physically, children do not have the cognitive ability to understand the advertisements and data collection scenarios that they are being thrown into. Their brains are simply not developed enough. But the security moms out there are keeping an eye on all of this, and they will tell you they do not need an anatomy lesson to know when their child is in over their head. They see their children following trails left for them by predators, and they are bothered. They see their daughters falling apart over body image and self-esteem issues made worse by photoshopped images. They see the violence and the sexual content in music and movies that is created for adults, but children are being exposed to this.

They have a really bad feeling about the expanding role of technology in their child's life. The stats and the scandals we are seeing every day back up their concerns.

According to Common Sense Research, 98 percent of children in this country--98 percent of children in this country--under the age of 8 have access to a mobile device at home. In 2011, just over half of the children had that kind of access. This means that 98 percent of children under age 8 are subjected to unprecedented levels of surveillance, data collection, and advertising attacks, even in supposedly kid-friendly apps.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, got caught tracking children on their school-provided devices outside of school hours. Amazon got caught collecting recordings from children's Echo Dot Kids devices. Parents and regulators have raked Google, TikTok, and Facebook over the coals for pushing products to children that would increase social media addiction.

In 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a recordbreaking 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, and 21.4 million of those reports came from electronic service providers. If you are looking for the danger, there it is.

During yesterday's meeting of the Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Baroness Kidron had it right when she said that Facebook has not earned our trust, and I would encourage my colleagues working with me on this issue to apply this fact to Big Tech in general.

These companies are entangled in our daily lives and in the lives of our children, and they have no incentive to loosen their grip on our attention by making things easier to understand. Therefore, we have no incentive to assume they are acting with the interest of their customers in mind.

Remember that terms of service agreement we talked about earlier? Well, imagine standing by and asking a child to read, understand, and make an informed choice about whether to click the ``accept'' button. This is preposterous. We need to bring the parents back into the conversation and inject accountability and transparency into the process.

Last Congress, I introduced the SAFE DATA Act with my colleagues, Senators Wicker, Thune, and Fisher. This bill contained a requirement that companies not transfer data collected from children between the ages of 13 and 16 without the explicit consent of their parent or guardian. This Congress, I hope my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, will be willing to work with me on similar legislation that truly targets this problem of child exploitation online.

We will never change the culture of Big Tech--the culture Big Tech has created for itself--if we don't take steps right now to deincentivize the monetization of children's attention and browsing habits. This is a bipartisan issue.

The Zuckerbergs and the Dorseys and the Pichais of the world who have come to testify before the Commerce Committee--they understand this. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them, but I do believe they have gotten the point. They need to understand that when it comes to privacy and safety mistakes, there is no safe harbor to be found here in the U.S. Senate, especially when it concerns the exploitation of our precious children.

What we have going on is going to be even more unpleasant when these security moms start upping the ante and start cutting off the flow of all that valuable underage data that is produced by their children online that is being data-mined by these big tech companies and then sold to advertisers, sold to the highest bidder. That is the breaking point we are rapidly approaching.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in Music City, we have a saying: ``It all begins with a song.'' It is our universal truth and the foundation of hundreds of iconic moments in country music. This year, we have the privilege of celebrating the breakthrough of one of Nashville's most promising young artists. Her moment appropriately began with a very special song and a very special group of songwriters.

It is my pleasure to recognize for the Congressional Record the first song in country music written, performed, and produced by an all-female team to hit the No. 1 spot on the charts.

Congratulations to songwriter and performer Tenille Arts, songwriter Allison Cruz, and songwriter and producer Alex Kline on the historic success of ``Somebody Like That.'' On behalf of the entire Tennessee congressional delegation, I thank you for your stunning contribution to the beautifully female future of country music.

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

Madam President, over the past week, the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas has launched more than 3,000 rockets at civilian targets in Israel. Violent mobs have taken over the streets of Jerusalem, and even seasoned veterans of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have expressed shock at the intensity of the violence.

This isn't normal. This isn't the Middle East version of the Resistance. This is terrorism. Still, pro-Hamas activists have flooded the media with Instagram-friendly content condemning Israel for defending itself and questioning the legitimacy of Israel's very existence, which is an argument that in any other context would bring all hell down on the person foolish enough to say it out loud.

The level of denial and misinformation about what is happening in Israel and why it is happening is appalling. Nearly every single member of the United Nations Security Council embarrassed themselves this weekend by embracing a generic draft statement condemning the violence but refusing to acknowledge the hundreds of Hamas rockets that started it.

The U.N. has a shameful history of ignoring threats and violence against Israel, but rarely in recent memory has the Security Council so blatantly regurgitated anti-Israel propaganda while Israeli civilians cower in fear under persistent rocket fire.

Thankfully, the U.S. mission blocked the statement's release, but I think it is important--important--to inject a little reality into the ongoing discussion.

First, we must acknowledge that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself, no matter the state of their relations with the Palestinian Authority. There is a world of difference between a state- sponsored terrorist attack on a civilian population and action taken to stop that attack. We have a responsibility to counter the dangerous argument that because Hamas currently lacks the weapons capability to win this battle, Israel must stand by and allow terrorists to slaughter civilians.

Second, I would encourage all of my colleagues to join me in making it clear that the United States is and will remain Israel's closest friend and ally. We will continue to assist with the development and production of advanced missile defense systems like the Iron Dome. We will not step away from that obligation simply because celebrity influencers would rather witness a slaughter than a proportionate response to mass terror.

Last, it is important to acknowledge that this violence is a symptom of a much more serious disease. Hamas terrorists may be the ones launching rockets at civilians, but it is Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terror, that is paying for it. That is right, Madam President--it is Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, that is footing the bill for these attacks. When we provide assistance and support to Israel, we are not just

protecting an ally; we are containing the destructive influence of our most belligerent adversary in the Middle East.

This month, the Biden administration traveled to Vienna to negotiate sanctions relief with Iranian officials. Since then, President Biden has also spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu and reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself from these attacks.

However, I would take this opportunity to remind my Democratic colleagues that the United States designated Hamas as a terrorist organization more than 20 years ago. That is right. For the past two decades, we have recognized Hamas as a terrorist organization. As a rule, we do not provide them assistance of any kind. They are a terrorist organization. But by opening the door to sanctions relief for Iran, we cannot help but enrich a regime that will not stop until it destroys Israel. That is their goal. We know it because they have told us that is their goal. We must not provide sanctions relief to Iran or give quarter to any regime that allies itself with this evil.

It is my hope that all Americans will take some time this week to just unplug and think about this and reflect and then pray--pray that reason and wisdom will prevail as we seek an end to this outbreak of violence and the defeat of this terrorist group that wants to destroy the nation of Israel.

Tennessee

Madam President, this weekend, we had a positive development in the status of the I-40 bridge that connects West Memphis, AR, and Memphis, TN. Just as a reminder, last week, inspectors discovered a crack in one of the steel beams supporting the bridge. The crossing was immediately closed to all vehicle and barge traffic. On Friday morning, the Coast Guard reopened the stretch of Mississippi River that runs under the bridge, but the bridge itself remains closed indefinitely.

Now, a lot of armchair experts have decided to sound off with the argument that this closure won't affect local economies, but with all due respect, those making this argument really should spend a little bit more time out in the real world. This part of Middle America that we are talking about is an incredibly important part of our Nation's domestic supply chain. We have a 15-mile stretch along the Mississippi River, and that houses 68 waterfronted facilities. Thirty-seven of those facilities are terminal facilities moving products such as petroleum, tar, asphalt, cement, steel, coal, salt, fertilizers, rock and gravel, and grains.

Shipping companies and cross-country trucking companies depend on the I-40 crossing, and so do the local grocery stores, industrial facilities, restaurants, retail outlets that purchase the cargo, and, of course, our Nation's farmers.

Commercial trucking constitutes 25 percent of all traffic that crosses the I-40 bridge. The river traffic that flows beneath the bridge is just as important. When the Coast Guard reopened that stretch of the Mississippi, they had to juggle 60 vessels hauling more than 1,000 barges. Yes. We had a little traffic jam in the Mississippi River.

It is amazing to me how quickly a problem like this does turn into a bottleneck. Tennessee and Arkansas transportation officials are still working out a timeline for repairs, but as of now, the trucking industry is preparing for a downward spiral.

According to the Arkansas Trucking Association, this could cost operators and their customers more than $2 million a day, which is an amount that the industry actually cannot absorb. This means that the delay could end up costing consumers an additional $2 million a day. And depending on what they are buying, they could also see empty shelves due to a supply chain interruption.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is putting all their energy and focus into checking items off of a decades-old wish list of social programs. They put forward an infrastructure package worth more than $2 trillion that wastes about two-thirds of this total pricetag on projects that have nothing to do with infrastructure, nothing to do with making sure that major bridges and thoroughfares are safe and open or expanding broadband access or making sure that parents in rural Tennessee can get their kids to school without worrying that a rainstorm will flood the road on the way to town. This is making the American people feel so incredibly unsettled and very frustrated, and Tennesseans are pretty nervous about the future.

If I could give the President one piece of advice, it would be this: If you want to waste time peddling Green New Deal policies or expanding social safety nets, admit it--just admit it. Call it what it is. Don't call it infrastructure and then turn around and throw pocket change at actual infrastructure problems that need to be addressed right now. That mislabeling makes it look like you are trying to pull a fast one over the American people, and it makes the American people believe that you really don't care. And that is a dangerous message to send in the middle of a traumatic pandemic recovery, especially considering that prices are already on the rise. We see it in utilities. We see it at the gas pump. We see it in the packaged snacks we purchase for the children's Sunday school class. Even basics in the produce section at the grocery store are beginning to get out of reach. It is affecting basic nutrition.

This is the Biden surcharge. We are paying a premium just to live from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning to the time we brush our teeth and get into bed at night. The barebones cost of living is going up thanks to these reckless spending priorities.

My Democratic colleagues need to understand that a government subsidy cannot save a family from that kind of hit to their monthly budget, affecting everything from the moment their feet hit the floor in the morning to the time they brush their teeth and go to bed in the evening.

The Biden administration is creating a perfect storm of income insecurity, shortages, and the uneasiness that comes when Americans see more month at the end of their money than money at the end of the month.

They know how to manage their budget, and they know what they have to do when prices creep up 25 cents, $1 or $2 at a time. Their instinct isn't to reach out to the Federal Government for help; their instinct and their action is to cut back on the extras and to prepare for harder times ahead.

The only way to avoid this even now is to make prudent, targeted investments in economic recovery, supply chain security, cyber security, and, yes, actual real infrastructure projects.

The American people cannot afford all the extras that are on the Democratic Party's wish list. Their income can't keep up with the inflation that is hitting their pocketbook every single day of the week. And they really are concerned with what will happen when those trend lines cross and inflation heads north every single day.

I would, again, ask my Democratic colleagues to step back from the money printer and recognize the effect all this spending is having on American families.

I yield the floor

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I was on the floor earlier this week, and I made a point that I think is really relevant to the discussion that we are having today as we are now looking straight into these proposals coming from the administration that would end up totaling $6 trillion in new spending. Now, that is not the annual appropriations; that is new spending.

The point that I had made was that we have to go back pre-COVID and remember what was going on in this economy. Everything was thriving, really thriving, and people kept talking about how great the economy was. In Tennessee, I had so many people who would say: You know, I have more money at the end of the month, and before, during the Obama years, I had too much month left at the end of my money.

Do you know what? They liked having some money left over at the end of the month.

That economy we had pre-COVID came about because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It came about because of the work of President Trump and a Republican-led House and Senate and, indeed, because of the support from some of our Democratic friends. This gave us, our country, the most robust economy we have seen in decades. Unemployment had hit 3.5 percent--historic lows. Wage gains were at a record high.

Pro-growth policies, like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, had set a new standard. We proved we don't have to tax and spend ourselves into oblivion to make a difference in the lives of struggling families. It is a legacy that my Democratic colleagues wish the American people would forget because that memory is getting in the way of their work on behalf of big spending, big government, and big programs that take big bucks right out of the American taxpayers' pockets.

The Democratic agenda is not cheap. It is going to take a lot of taxpayer dollars. So how does President Biden intend to pay for this? It is called a $2 trillion tax hike that targets all of the usual, supposed villains but that in reality would harm the very people my colleagues across the aisle insist they are trying to help.

Let's look at the proposed corporate tax hike. Corporations are the left's favorite villain, and they would certainly suffer under this scheme, but it is not the CEOs and the high earners who would feel the pain. As it stands, the proposal would impose a combined corporate tax rate higher than any other developed nation. It would put us at the top of the heap in tax rates. The only way American corporations would maintain their competitiveness is if other countries were to set aside their advantages, which, of course, we know would never happen. Not only will the Amazons and the Apples bear the brunt of this decline, so will nearly a million small businesses. We call them the mom-and-pops, and they are organized as C-corps.

Workers won't escape the fallout either. When the cost of doing business goes up, growth and investment stagnate, wages fall, and the people driving the economy suffer. That is right. This is going to hit Main Street in local communities where you are going to see small businesses that cannot afford to keep up with inflation, that cannot afford these high taxes, and that cannot afford increased regulation. They are your friends and neighbors who have these small businesses. They are the ones who are going to suffer. And why will they suffer? Because the Democratic majority never ceases to have an outsized appetite for the taxpayers' dollar.

Even conservative estimates from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation show that workers will bear a quarter of that new cost of doing business. The workers, the laborers, are going to have this on their shoulders. Think about it. Think of what you are doing to families.

The view doesn't look any better from the owners' side. Anyone taking advantage of an IRA or a pension plan will see a bigger tax bill too.

Watching this White House make fiscal policy is like watching reruns of the Obama administration. The formula is the same: Pitch a big idea.

Sound compassionate. Make a big promise--you are going to help all of these people--and then send the bill to hard-working taxpayers. They do it every time.

Increasing taxes is bad enough, but now they are demanding bigger payouts from struggling families and small businesses on Main Street in your community, and they are doing this in the middle of a pandemic recovery. They locked you down, and now they are going to push you down. They are going to shut the doors of your small business, your version of the American dream. Do they give a ripping flip? Probably not. It is all about getting the money to pay for what they want to do. It is a power grab.

I would encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop the madness, because we know this will cause irreparable harm to our Nation's already fragile recovery.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I hope that you had a marvelous Mother's Day. I enjoyed so much being back in Tennessee, and over the past week, I really had the pleasure of hearing from so many Tennesseans who are just celebrating having reopened businesses and music venues and public spaces in our communities.

There was a lot of happiness across our State as I was there. Everywhere you looked, you could see evidence that people are ready to get back to work, and they want to get back to life as normal.

There is also a lot of evidence that local businesses are ready to get back to normal. You cannot walk 10 feet in Knoxville, TN, for example, without running into a ``help wanted'' sign. Normally, this would be an indicator of a successful economic comeback, but here is the problem: Those signs just are not working, not for retail or restaurants or even for the industrial sector with small business manufacturing. Some businesses are getting so desperate for help that they are offering signing bonuses worth hundreds of dollars to anyone willing and able to come back to work.

All year, we have used a particular catchphrase to encourage people to get their vaccinations. We have said that if we could only get shots in arms, then we could get back to normal. Well, as it turns out, that was step 1. We are getting the shots in arms. People are getting vaccinated. Now it is time for step 2, and that is getting people back to work, getting them to fill these jobs.

I have said time and again and I will say it again: The best economic stimulus there is, the very best economic stimulus there is, is a job. It is a job. This holds true not just for those pulling in a paycheck but for the businesses that are hiring.

My Democratic colleagues--many of them--disagree with me on this point, but I firmly believe the best economic stimulus is a job. For months, some have refused to discuss an end to the various emergency relief programs we all agreed were necessary to help workers and businesses survive the lockdowns. But they were never meant to be permanent programs; they were there for a time of specific need.

I think, if some of my colleagues took the time to speak to the owners whose businesses are short on labor, they would hear the same story over and over again. Their pool of potential employees was drained dry, at least in part by the unemployment insurance plus-up that we initiated last year. Because of the way that program was designed and because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected our offers to amend it, potential employees are drawing in more in unemployment than they would make at some jobs.

Now, some of my colleagues across the aisle dispute the notion that this imbalance has led to a labor shortage. They claim that if there are people staying home and collecting unemployment rather than taking their old job back, or maybe a new job, that those examples are anecdotal. But to that point, I would ask: How many anecdotes does it take to create a trend?

In Tennessee, there are at least a quarter of a million jobs available, but as of last week, we still have about 49,000 people receiving the $300 plus-up. This means that there are five jobs--five-- five jobs available for every single one of those 49,000 people.

I want to make it clear that these business owners have no reason to lie about the trouble they are having finding help. Their survival depends on their ability to hire a team of employees. They gain nothing by poisoning the well with false accusations. Anyone who has ever run a business knows that.

They also know it is a difficult call for these potential employees to make, even when signing bonuses and higher wages are on the table, but therein lies the disconnect. While businesses are incentivized to do all they can to attract workers, the Federal Government has incentivized workers to hold out as long as they can before taking the leap into a new job. It is not their fault, but it is the reality that Congress created.

What we are seeing now isn't economic stimulus. I would offer that it is an economic stalemate. And if we don't break the ties that bind recovery to the success or failure of a government program, we will suffer long-term economic consequences.

As I said, some of my Democratic colleagues fundamentally disagree with that approach. They have made that disagreement clear to the tune of $6 trillion worth of spending that would be like nothing else that we have ever seen and making it a permanent part of our economic landscape.

They gave us a COVID relief package that had almost nothing to do with fighting the pandemic, an infrastructure proposal that dedicates 60 percent--60 percent of its total pricetag to job-killing proposals like the Green New Deal fantasies and, most recently, a supposedly pro- family proposal that, if implemented, will in fact replace the stability of the nuclear family with a lifelong tether to the welfare state.

Talk about never letting a crisis go to waste. This isn't compassion, in my opinion, and it isn't recovery. This is a power grab. They took the majority, put pen to paper, and produced a wish list. They have wanted to check off items from that wish list since 2010. So their list is long.

This version of economic stimulus, which, in reality, is just a destructive cycle of spending and dependency and taxation and inflation, will require more than just a general buy-in from the American people. They are going to have to persuade people to cede authority, to cede authority over their lives, their families, their businesses, their jobs, their employment--cede that authority to the Federal Government.

Now, if this isn't true, if this isn't their goal, let the Democrats dispute it. Let them come to the table and listen to what these business owners are telling us. Let them help figure out a way to offer a light at the end of the tunnel to the unemployed and underemployed instead of keeping them tangled in a safety net that was neither designated nor intended to be permanent.

We still have a long way to go before we can declare victory over the COVID-19 pandemic. But what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge is that we will never make it across the finish line if we don't allow the American people to

hope for that victory. We need to allow them to hope that last month's terrible jobs report was just an anomaly. I certainly hope it was.

And most importantly, we need to allow them to remember that a little over a year ago, we didn't have to rely on emergency supplements and direct payments from the government to survive. We had the most robust economy we had in decades and decades. Unemployment numbers were at record lows. Wage gains were at record highs.

So we have been there before. We can and we will recover. But encouraging total reliance on the government is not going to be what gets us there, especially when so many businesses in this country are trying to hire workers, and workers are not taking the jobs.

I yield floor.

Madam President, as I begin my remarks today, I first want to express my appreciation to Senator Tim Scott for the address that he gave last night following the joint address to Congress by the President.

I so appreciated the remarks that he made, how he reminded us of the importance of common sense and using that common sense to find common ground as we look to address the issues that affect our Nation, the issues that affect Tennesseans. That is such a timely reminder. I likewise appreciated his comments about the importance of reconciliation, one to another, and the importance of redemption as we, each and every one, go about our work each day, as we seek to help our Nation become a more perfect Union. Timely reminders--well done and greatly appreciated by many Tennesseans and individuals who have reached out to say: I was so touched by listening to Tim Scott and his remarks.

Many of our Tennesseans have also expressed their concern with some of the provisions that were there in President Biden's address.

They felt as if this was something that kind of doubled down on decades of failed policies that were seeking to prioritize dependence on a welfare State overlooking at families and communities but pushing that dependence on a welfare state.

There really wasn't anything groundbreaking that was there in the remarks, apart from the pricetag, which is eye-popping, and really will take your breath away when you stop and think about it. And for a long time, my Democratic colleagues have championed programs that treat people like individual clients instead of families and communities.

So, here we are, and we are staring down the Biden doctrine, and it is a commitment to spending trillions and trillions of dollars-- trillions of dollars. We are talking about $6 trillion since January 20. This is astounding. And those dollars are being spent to incentivize dependence on the Federal Government to supplant the nuclear family with the Federal Government and to centralize control here in Washington, DC.

If you don't believe me, just take a little peek at what the Biden administration has done during their first 100 days. They started with a $1.9 trillion blue-State payday that bailed Democrat-run cities out of the fiscal holes that they had made for themselves.

Earlier this month, they introduced a $2.3 trillion--yes, trillion with a ``t''--trillion-dollar infrastructure boondoggle that would force families and businesses to rely on a government handout to comply with the mandates pulled directly from the Green New Deal.

They even rolled out a total election overhaul that blatantly violates the Constitution by removing all control from the States and placing it right here in Washington, DC--removing from your local election commission, removing from your State legislature, and sending the authority to handle these elections to Washington, DC.

And last night, during his address to a joint session of Congress, President Biden offered a few details on his American Families Plan, which, by all estimates--you got it, another big pricetag--$1.8 trillion.

The numbers really are staggering. Not counting the cost of S. 1, these efforts will cost the American people a combined $6 trillion. And we haven't even factored in annual appropriations, which will add over $1 trillion to that grand total.

Let's put these numbers in context. We saw the national debt jump from $10.6 trillion. Now, that is the number where it was when President George Bush left office, $10.6 trillion. That is all the debt--every penny of Federal debt--that had accumulated from George Washington to George Bush.

So $10.6 trillion, that is the debt total when President Obama took office. And then with the Obama-Biden administration, that debt nearly doubled. When President Obama left office--that is right, you are looking over that 8-year period of time of right at doubling that debt

In his first 2 years in office, deficits increased so much that Admiral Mullen--then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2010-- declared the national debt to be the Nation's top national security threat, our Nation's debt. President Biden is on track to smash those records.

Bear in mind these numbers: George Washington to George Bush, $10.6 trillion. It nearly doubles as you have the Obama-Biden administration, and now since January 20, we are talking about $6 trillion.

If your local city commission were spending money at this rate, you would be at city hall banging down the doors. But my Democratic colleagues are all on board, even though what they have actually put on paper is nothing but a series of wish lists they have wanted to start checking off since 2010.

But those lists have a very important purpose. They curated them with so-called free programs and big promises that will serve two purposes: first, to persuade people to cede authority over their lives, families, businesses; and, second, to totally centralize power here in Washington, DC.

It is truly stunning, truly stunning what my Democratic colleagues have

allowed themselves to propose. Last night, the President of the United States directly addressed the American people and said: Don't think, just give us control.

When he unveiled the American Families Plan, he spent a great deal of time on all of the wish list programs he hopes will eventually be sent to his desk for his signature but not a lot of time on how he plans to pay for these programs.

I think it is important to state for the record that every program President Biden asked us to endorse has a cost. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the American Families Plan alone--this one program--will result in a deficit impact of $300 billion over a decade--massive costs.

President Biden claimed he can pay for all of this with taxes. He said:

It's time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1% to

pay their fair share.

And then he said that 55 of the Nation's biggest corporations made $40 billion in profits that can and should be taxed.

But here is the problem: Even if they were taxed 100 percent of their $40 billion in profits, that would pay for less than 1 percent of this administration's proposed $7 trillion in total spending. And yet how did the President describe these programs? Universal pre-K, universal, free community college--free.

Look at this pricetag. Families won't have to spend a dime, won't have to spend a dime on childcare. The American Families Plan will put money in your pocket.

Now, as I said, universal, free--you won't have to spend a dime; it is going to put money in your pocket. It is taken care of. Don't think. Just take the deal. Do your part.

Where does this money come from? Every single penny that comes into the Federal Treasury comes from the pocket of a U.S. taxpayer. That is where this money comes from. And the debt, that is going to be there for our children and our grandchildren that have to sort it out long after these programs have outlived their usefulness, long after many of us are gone.

We used to talk about spending millions and billions, and now it is trillions. And, to me, I think about my grandkids, and I think about the fact that they haven't earned a paycheck yet. But you know what? With all of this spending this year, they now have $80,000 of U.S. Federal debt that is their responsibility.

And I think it is instructive for us to look at who is it that actually holds this debt. The biggest holder of our debt--someone goes to market and buys our debt, China. You also have OPEC, the cartel, in the top holders of our debt.

My colleagues, this is an issue--not millions, not billions. This is something--this needs our best efforts and our best attention.

Since his inauguration, President Biden spent a lot of time talking about unity. At the same time, he talks about eliminating the filibuster and passing legislation to entrench Democratic incumbents at the expense of voters. It is a power grab.

He supported using the budget reconciliation process to ram his $1.9 billion spending package through, and it appears he may do so again to pass the rest of the multitrillion-dollar agenda.

Last night's speech could have been an opportunity for him to seek common ground with congressional Republicans. Much of the success of our country has had with the COVID vaccination is due, in large part, to Operation Warp Speed and previous administrations, as well as bipartisan efforts in Congress. There was no mention of that.

When the country was thrown into the COVID pandemic, Congress and President Trump passed the CARES Act, bipartisan, and four other major bipartisan COVID relief bills--no mention of that.

If we are going to heal, the Biden administration must recognize the achievements of administrations past and the serious contributions that congressional Republicans are ready and willing to make.

For months now, I have come to the floor to ask my Democratic colleagues to take a breath, to take away the wish lists, and to focus on what the American people need--focus on their needs.

The American people--when I am talking to Tennesseans, you know what they would like? They would like a little bit more money left at the end of their month and not too much month left at the end of their money.

They want the hope that comes from opportunity, not the tangles of an eternal safety net. They are independent. They are independent. They want a system that will, indeed, help them build their lives back better, as our President would like to say, but all that the White House has to offer is a plan that will flatten and rebuild the country and the broken image of failed policies that people have tried, and they just didn't work.

What they did do: destroyed our healthcare system, pushed tuition at public colleges and universities out of reach for low-income students, and they currently levy massive tax penalties against working-class families who depend on each other and not the Federal Government.

The Biden administration has set some lofty goals for itself. And I have to admit, the end results look pretty tempting on paper; that is, if you don't look too close.

There is a reason why the President has offered so few details about how his ideas would work in practice, and it is because he knows, without a doubt, that if this shows the true cost of signing on the dotted line that the people would not be with him in this effort.

Throughout the pandemic, the American people kept each other safe and took care of their friends and neighbors. When I talk to Tennesseans about church, I can tell what they really have as their values: faith, family, freedom, hope, opportunity. They understand that defending one of those virtues means defending them all for everybody. But they also understand the danger in allowing the government to step in and replace family and community with a bloated welfare state. They know it is dangerous to replace potential with sameness and to supplant community with collectivism.

That is exactly what the Biden administration put on the table last night in very vague, poll-tested language that really said nothing but threatened unprecedented levels of government control. But I suppose from their perspective, you don't need details when all you are really asking your fellow countrymen to do is to submit; just take the deal.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, we are less than 100 days into the Biden administration, and already we can identify a pattern in how they are building their policy initiatives, interacting with Congress, and marketing their ideas to the American people. In every example, the governing rule can be boiled down to ``what you see isn't what you are going to get.''

So far, in this 117th Congress, every single major policy proposal that DC Democrats have forced into the spotlight has been based on a false premise. They have intentionally misled the American people and are now catering to the increasingly radical leftwing that gets further out of step with the rest of this country each and every passing day.

Consider last month's absurd $1.9 trillion spending package. The Democrats billed this as ``the American Rescue Plan'' and ``COVID relief,'' but only 9 percent--9 percent--of the total package pricetag went for testing, vaccinations, and healthcare jobs. The rest

they used on a massive blue State bailout and blatant redistribution of wealth.

It is the same story with this month's $2.25 trillion spending package. They have done their best to pass this off as an ``infrastructure plan,'' but even if you add up every single line item that is dedicated to roads, bridges, highways, interstates, ports, waterways, airports, broadband, and the power grid, only a little over one-third of that plan will pay for actual infrastructure projects. The rest--the rest--of that $2.25 trillion is just another slush fund for union activism, climate change auditors, and Green New Deal fantasies.

S. 1, the so-called ``voting rights'' bill that my colleagues across the aisle have spoken so passionately about, completes the trifecta of bait-and-switch bills, advertised as one thing but that would accomplish something completely different.

Now, S. 1 isn't as much a taxpayer-dollar grab as it is a nearly unprecedented policy power grab that offers solutions in search of problems. It ignores the promises of federalism. It disregards the constitutional directive affording States--affording the States--power over their own elections.

It requires the use of ballot casting technology and voter registration systems that don't even exist yet, but I think you can bet that some politically connected companies will make a whole bunch of money coming to the market with this technology.

It would dismantle voter ID laws and prevent local, meaningful cleanup of voter rolls. Your local election commission wouldn't be able to purge their rolls of individuals who have died or moved away. We know that this leads you to a recipe for fraud.

Speaking of fraud, it would force States to allow ballot harvesting. That is right; it would mandate that they allow ballot harvesting. Everyone has heard of the perils that exist with ballot harvesting. It would mandate donor disclosure, opening private citizens up to harassment and violent attacks. It would upend the mechanics of local elections for officials and voters alike and cause chaos and confusion in every precinct in this country.

So why in the world would Democrats even try to pitch this mess as something that would protect voting rights? By all accounts, it would increase the likelihood for fraud and confusion. Well, I think that they are doing it for the same reason they slapped a ``COVID'' label on a $1.9 trillion wish list and an ``infrastructure'' label on a $2.25 trillion wish list. They know that if the American people caught on to all that they are doing, they would never win another election.

Now, think about that--if you know your policies are so unpopular with the American people that you have to cloak them behind different words, different phrases, words that the meaning of the word is evolving because they don't stand up to scrutiny in the light of day. And that is what is happening.

You know, it isn't just false advertising. It is not a falsehood. It is not misrepresentation. It is not an inaccuracy. It is not an accidental lie. This is an intentional lie. They are perpetrating this lie on behalf of a radical leftist minority of Americans whose ideas are so destructive that they wouldn't withstand 10 minutes of good, solid, robust, respectful bipartisan debate on this Senate floor.

Nothing about S. 1 will serve the best interests of the American people, and my Republican colleagues and I aren't the only ones who see the problems with it. Tennesseeans are worried about this, too, because, in Tennessee, we did the work to clean up our voter rolls and implement fair voter ID laws. We cut down on fraud and increased faith in the electoral process.

This is how it is supposed to work. We do not need Federal intervention to protect the vote. So no wonder my Democratic colleagues chose to use the full weight of the Senate Judiciary Committee to scare the American people into believing they live in ``Jim Crow America.'' Throughout the course of last week's hearing, which they called ``Jim Crow 2021: The Latest Assault on the Right to Vote,'' they weaponized the pernicious lens of critical race theory against Georgia legislators and the thousands of election officials and volunteers who work year- round to bring as many eligible voters to the polls as possible.

Everyone should exercise their right to vote. We should protect one person, one vote. We should encourage people in our local communities to cast their ballot. But my friends across the aisle, they are desperate, and they are desperate to distract from what S. 1 would actually do, so desperate to distract from what it would actually do that they are willing to project the evil hatred behind slavery, segregation, and race-based violence, projecting that onto people whose only goal is to protect the vote from criminals who would seek to defraud it and make certain that individuals are registered to vote, that they vote, and that legal votes are counted and those improperly cast are not.

Now, my friends across the aisle have an invalid premise, and they should all pause and question their motives. The American people should be worried about what is happening in this Chamber when no one is looking. They should feel outrage at an administration that deliberately tries to manipulate them into supporting destructive, wasteful, and dangerous legislation.

I think these bait-and-switch tactics are going to backfire. I think the scare tactics are going to backfire because instead of being scared into submission, which is the agenda of the left, the American people are going to be scared into action.

Based on the contents of H.R. 1 and S. 1, I guess that they are more familiar with the ins and outs of their neighborhood polling places than DC Democrats could ever expect to be. And that doesn't bode well for the administration or the current congressional majority

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 1458, which I introduced. It will narrow the scope of the tangled web of regulatory guidance that the bill calls for and keep politics out of the process of reporting and addressing hate crimes against Asian Americans. It addresses crimes, not incidences.

I don't think it is out of line to introduce a little precision to the process and make sure the Agency officials who will be responsible for running this program know what they are supposed to be looking for and what they are supposed to be doing with all that information.

I can guarantee my colleagues that support of this change will result in a bill that will fulfill its purpose to protect victims and potential victims of hate crimes, and it will stop their attackers.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, here we are again, teeing up another discharge motion for another unqualified Biden administration nominee.

If there is one good thing I can say about Colin Kahl, the nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, it is that you never have to wonder where he stands on the issues. He is very consistent.

Unfortunately, he has been consistently wrong on some of the last decade's most important foreign policy questions.

In 2019, when disaster struck all along on our southern border, he labeled the situation ``Trump's fake border crisis'' and ``a phony terrorism threat.'' That is a take that aged well, to be sure.

His judgment calls on the actions and motivations of our most dangerous adversaries have also been particularly terrible.

When President Trump warned the Iranian regime not to resume their nuclear activities, Kahl declared that ``war drums'' were already sounding. We know that wasn't true.

When President Trump made the decision to eliminate terrorist leader Soleimani, Kahl was positive that the strike had started a war. It hadn't. When I questioned Kahl during his confirmation hearings, he equated Iranian proxies killing Americans with our subsequent, proportionate strike against Solemani, saying, ``There were provocations on both sides.'' Indeed.

Kahl was absolutely sure that given the chance, John Bolton, of all people, would twist available intelligence and singlehandedly start wars with Iran and North Korea. Another miss.

He also predicted that Trump would jump into Syria and start a war with Assad and the Russians, which also didn't happen.

Those hot takes earned him a lot of ink in Foreign Policy magazine but not a lot of respect. I don't know if he wrote those things because he wanted to put President Trump in the hot seat or because he honestly believed them, but I don't think the answer to that question matters.

If he believed them, then it is proof of his terrible judgment.

If he wrote them to inflame the progressive base, it is proof he is willing to trivialize the prospect of armed conflict for clicks.

How in the world can President Biden expect us to vote for that?

In addition to his poor judgment, Mr. Kahl has also attached himself to truly terrible policy decisions.

He opposed bipartisan legislation that would have imposed sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He staffed the effort to condemn Israel at the United Nations Security Council.

He is ``open'' to moving away from the nuclear triad.

Perhaps worst of all, when he served in the Obama administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, he dropped the ball on a status of forces agreement that would have allowed U.S. forces to remain in Iraq.

That failure led to the rise of ISIS.

I have examined Mr. Kahl's record and found nothing but a history of bad policy judgment, a volatile disposition, and a terrible temper that manifests in inflammatory rhetoric.

That might be a great resume for a pundit, but it is not the body of work I want to see from someone who will be responsible for developing national security and defense strategy.

I oppose this discharge motion, I oppose this nomination, and I urge my colleagues to spend a few minutes with Mr. Kahl's resume before placing him in such a powerful position at DOD.

Madam President, over the past few weeks, my Republican colleagues and I have spent quite a bit of time making sure the American people know just how little of President Biden's 2-plus trillion dollar infrastructure plan will fund actual infrastructure plans to fix roads and bridges that are so in need of repair.

These are things that the Tennesseans have repeatedly told me they want to see in a bill: Fix the roads. Fix the bridges.

What do they want to be taken out of that bill? They want to get rid of some of these provisions that have nothing to do with infrastructure--nothing.

So imagine their disappointment--people who are ready for a highway bill, who are ready for a transportation bill, who are ready for an infrastructure bill--imagine their disappointment when they discovered that all the funding that they had hoped was going to go to potholes and expanding lanes on the interstate and fixing flooded back roads would instead be spent on electric cars, union advocates, and climate change ambassadors.

I know pothole repair isn't flashy, but it is what Tennesseans need. An electric car does not do you one bit of good when you are going to have to have a four-by-four to go pull it out of the mud every single time it rains.

We are pretty practical people, and my wish would be that my colleagues across the aisle would join us in reviewing the needs of the American people--the needs of the American people--and in being practical.

The lack of practicality has been a recurring problem in the months since President Biden took office. It seems that the Democrats here in Washington, DC, can't resist the urge to throw money at social-media friendly causes that not even the most talented communicators have been able to tie to the pressing needs of the American people. They did it with COVID relief, and now they are doing it with this infrastructure boondoggle.

The wish list just doesn't match the PR campaign, and that is a shame because this country has its own wish list of urgently needed items that we really can no longer afford to ignore.

Just a few weeks ago, I took my own trip down to the southern border to get a sense of the situation on the ground, and it is a dire situation. We are facing an environmental crisis, a national security crisis, and a humanitarian crisis that is massive in scope. If we want to talk about infrastructure projects that matter, let's talk about all the infrastructure that President Biden abandoned back in January when he halted construction on the wall.

To paraphrase a famous saying, a 450-mile-long stretch of border wall serves the purpose right up until you hit mile 451, and here you can see that is the situation that ranchers and law enforcement officials in southern Arizona are dealing with. The construction just stopped.

President Biden's proclamation ordered contractors to stop work and abandon their progress--immediate, stop. So they walked away because they had to.

What did they leave? They left behind an unfinished wall, piles of supplies, and roads and other infrastructure built to support construction crews. Everything is sitting there--sitting there at the border. The equipment, the border wall--it is all there wasting away-- tax dollars right there.

All of that is now vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels and the traffickers because it is sitting there on the border. This is an absolute shame--an absolute shame. And what we know is that the cartels and the traffickers--whether they are drug traffickers or sex traffickers, or whether they are moving gangs--they are taking full advantage of this situation.

I got the chance to see where the coyotes and the drug smugglers are coming across, now that there is no activity on the border to deter them from using access points built into the wall for their own purposes.

In Cochise County alone, officials have seen a 200-percent increase in migrants this year--200 percent.

The holes in the wall have turned into walking paths for the Sinaloa cartel's drug runners. Law enforcement officials have set up an extensive network of cameras, but there are only so many leads that they can chase when the Border Patrol agents, who should be supporting these efforts, are busy implementing useless--useless and detrimental-- catch-and-release programs.

And see, you see where there is a gap in the wall. Why do you have these gaps? Because the doors that were to go into these gaps are sitting, not in place. Why do you have these gaps? You have them because the wall components are there in the dirt.

But what did President Biden say? As of today, no more. No more. Stop immediately. Halt. Do not build this wall.

And what is it that our Border Patrol tell us that they need? They need a wall, they need more technology, and they need more agents and officers on the ground. This has been their request for years--for years.

On private property along the border, you can see where migrants have ditched their old clothes in exchange for actual uniforms that identify them to a cartel because they are given them by the cartel. It is their cartel-issued clothing, much like a work uniform.

There are piles of discarded backpacks, water bottles, and medicine at regular intervals. There is no telling

if the people who abandoned these items made it out alive, because we know many do not make it out alive.

Many of them are left to die in the desert by their handlers, the coyotes, and the cartels. It is vital to note that you do not cross that border unless you are working with the cartel, which means you have paid the cartel a fee to come across that border or you have agreed to go into modern-day slavery and work out your fee. Whether it is with a labor gang, an MS-13 gang, sex trafficking gang, you have to work that fee out once you come across.

Now the ranchers who own these long stretches of property have seen evidence of this evil disregard for human life. They will tell you their lands are no longer safe, they do not feel free, and they are constantly on their guard for the safety of themselves and their property.

I understand that immigration enforcement is controversial--so much so that during his campaign, President Biden promised to avoid the issue entirely by halting construction of the border wall forever. But we are living in the real world now, and in the real world, the globe's most powerful and free Republic is being taken advantage of by the West's most terrifying drug lords and human rights abusers, and the Biden administration is letting it happen. Congressional Democrats are letting it happen. Even though they don't want to admit it, it is happening. Look at the reports. Look at the footage. Talk to Customs and Border Patrol, and talk to the sheriffs in these counties.

So I say to my Democratic colleagues: Do something. Do something. Work with us to find common ground and get this situation under control before it is too late. And realize that every town is a border town and every State is a border State until that border is secure.

If you care about human rights, if you care about infrastructure, please care about this issue--care about this issue--the environmental crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and the national security crisis.

You can spend the next 4 years sitting on your hands and blaming President Trump or Leader McConnell or me or any of my Republican colleagues and blame us and say: Well, there is death. There is destruction. There are drugs. And all of that is happening along this border. But that is the thing about winning elections--they do have consequences. And the consequence that is facing our Democratic colleagues right now is leading and leading on this issue. You own this crisis. You own this crisis. It is from President Biden's failed immigration and border strategy. If you fail to act, you will forever own the tragedy--the absolute tragedy that is unfolding along our southern border.

I yield the floor.