Floor Statements

Mr. President, as we speak, for the second time this year, a fallen officer of the U.S. Capitol Police lies in honor under the Capitol dome.

This morning, Officer Billy Evans was welcomed here for a final time by grieving comrades and a Senate family that is immensely grateful for his life, his friendship, and his ultimate sacrifice.

Officer Evans died defending the Capitol, its institutions, and the thousands of people who come here to do the people's business. The circumstances of his killing remind us of the dangers that USCP officers swear, train, and prepare to meet whenever they might arise.

Yet, to that serious task, to his intense responsibilities, Officer Evans brought a spirit and strength of character that leaves us all at the Capitol with memories of kindness and friendship.

Today, I know our colleagues are holding Officer Evans and his family he leaves behind close in our thoughts and our prayers. His sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Mr. President, now on a completely different matter, just moments ago, new reporting suggests the Biden administration plans to turn tail and abandon the fight in Afghanistan.

Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake. It is a retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership.

Leaders in both parties, including me, offered criticism when the prior administration floated the concept of a reckless withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan. Those same voices in both parties should be equally concerned about the Biden administration's announcement today. A reckless pullback like this would abandon our Afghan, regional, and our NATO partners in a shared fight against terrorists that we have not yet won. It will also specifically abandon the women of Afghanistan, whose individual freedoms and human rights will be imperiled.

It did not have to unfold like this. Today in Afghanistan the fighting is borne almost exclusively by our local partners. We have successfully solicited more buy-in and more support from foreign partners as well. Our NATO allies have particularly been begging-- begging--the United States to stay by their side. As a result, there was broad political support for a sustainable and residual presence to backstop the progress we have made.

In 2019, Republicans and Democrats joined hands to support an amendment I authored that cautioned against precipitous retreats from Afghanistan and Syria. A supermajority of Senators voted for it. A supermajority of Senators voted for it.

That amendment called upon the administration--the previous one--``to certify whether conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS before initiating any further significant withdrawal of United States forces from [Syria or Afghanistan].''

Can President Biden certify that right now? We have seen this movie before, multiple times. Ten years ago, when President Obama let politics dictate the terms of our involvement in Iraq, those failed decisions invited the rise of ISIS.

It was our hasty abandonment of Afghanistan in the 1990s that allowed the Taliban to grab power in a bloody civil war and create the safe haven for terrorism that led to September the 11th, 2001.

Conflicts do not simply end. They are won or they are lost. America and American administrations must be in the business of winning. Al- Qaida and other radical Islamist terrorists have not yet been defeated.

There is no reason to believe the Taliban will abandon al-Qaida if we leave. We know we cannot conduct effective counterterrorism operations without presence and partners on the ground.

Foreign terrorists will not leave the United States alone simply because our politicians have grown tired of taking the fight to them. The President needs

to explain to the American people why he thinks abandoning our partners and retreating in the face of the Taliban will make America safer.

Mr. President, on one final matter, $865,000 dollars-- $865,000. That is roughly the cost of every new job the White House claims their so-called American Jobs Plan would create, $865,000.

This is how the math shakes out if you use the most favorable estimates that the Biden administration itself prefers. Figures reported by Bloomberg News come out to about $865,000 per job. Other analyses have found numbers actually north of $860,000.

Here is where the number comes from. The White House has tried to claim their spending plan would create 19 million jobs over the next decade. That is completely false. The Washington Post Fact Checker gave Democrats multiple Pinocchios for this false claim.

Nineteen million jobs is one estimate of the total number of jobs the entire country would add over the next decade, from all sources--all sources. The same estimate says we are on track to add more than 16 million of those same jobs without the bill.

So this proposal to tax, borrow, and spend $2.25 trillion would only create 2.6 million new jobs. And remember, these are the rosiest-- rosiest--best-case estimates that the White House itself has been pushing.

Now, I know a whole lot of Kentucky entrepreneurs and business owners who create more than one job if we gave them $865,000 to invest and expand.

Mr. President, I am sure you represent a lot of smart people who could turn an $865,000 investment into more than just one job.

The awful arithmetic just underscores how disappointing the proposal is. When the American people think of infrastructure, they think of honest-to-goodness public works projects that truly invest in the public good--things that build our Nation's backbone. And when Congress tackles real, tangible infrastructure issues in a smart fashion, there is big, broad bipartisan support.

The 2015 highway bill, the FAST Act, was a huge bipartisan lift that Senator Inhofe and former Senator Boxer hammered out together. I was proud to play a major role in that accomplishment myself. It was the first full 5-year highway bill that Congress had passed in 20 years. And it won 83 votes in the Senate and about the same percentage over in the House.

Even more recently, in 2018, the Senate passed America's Water Infrastructure Act, 99 to 1--the new investments in water infrastructure across the country to create jobs, grow the economy, and ensure that American families get the safe drinking water they deserve, 99 to 1.

Just last year, another water infrastructure package came out of the EPW Committee unanimously and cleared the Senate in a package that passed 92 to 6.

So there is bipartisan appetite for smart infrastructure bills that are built the right way. The Senate has proven that over and over again. There isn't much appetite for using the word ``infrastructure'' to justify a colossal--colossal--multitrillion-dollar slush fund for unrelated bad ideas.

A Harvard economist and infrastructure expert says, and listen to this, ``It does a bit of violence to the English language'' to call this an infrastructure proposal. That is a Harvard economist.

An expert at Columbia says big chunks of the proposal are ``really social spending, not productivity-enhancing infrastructure of any kind.''

One political analyst wrote:

[T]he plan . . . reads like a liberal wish list for

everything the left has wanted.

Less than 6--6 percent of the proposal goes to roads and bridges, less than 6 percent. It would send more money to just electric cars than it would spend on our Nation's roads, bridges, ports, airports, and waterways combined.

And while this proposal chases every green fad, it would also slam our economy with the largest tax hikes in a generation.

Experts at the Wharton School of Business have projected the plan would decrease GDP, decrease capital stock, and reduce workers' hourly wages 10, 20, and 30 years down the road.

Economists at Rice University recently looked at a similar package of Democratic tax hikes and found it would lead to a loss of a million jobs here in our country over just 2 years. Exactly when American workers are counting on an economic recovery, Democrats want to slap the economy with a massive set of tax increases.

So look, this noninfrastructure ``infrastructure'' plan is cut from the same cloth as the Democrats' nonvoting rights ``voting rights'' bill.

Both these subjects are ripe for bipartisan work. Both are subjects the Senate has addressed in the past with thoughtful compromises that have earned broad support. And both are issues where the American people will reject a far-left approach that makes their lives worse.

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.

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

Madam President, on Good Friday, the U.S. Capitol Police were subjected to another violent attack. Once again, our uniformed heroes wound up in harm's way, and Officer Billy Evans, a friend and favorite of many here on the Senate side and a faithful protector of the Capitol, was killed.

Investigators are still assessing what drove the perpetrator to attempt this attack on the Capitol and whether domestic, violent extremism played a role. He appears to have been captivated by the Nation of Islam--a racist, anti-Semitic, extreme group under the openly hateful leader, Louis Farrakhan.

His attack injured Officer Ken Shaver, and it stole away the life of Officer Evans from his children Logan and Abigail, his mother Janice, his entire family, and all of his friends and colleagues decades too soon.

Officer Evans was famous within the Senate for his friendly spirit and easy manner. He was the first face that many would see on the way to work here in the Capitol every day. His particular post often meant he was literally the first line of defense of the Congress--the interface between these grounds and the outside world. We could not have had a kinder and more likeable ambassador at this juncture or a more faithful protector to keep us safe.

It will be with tremendous grief, but tremendous gratitude, that we will welcome Officer Evans to the Capitol for a final time tomorrow where he will lie in honor in the Rotunda.

I think I speak for the entire Senate when I salute all of our U.S. Capitol Police officers for the heroism, courage, and resilience they displayed the Friday before last and which they display every single day. The Senate and the Nation are profoundly grateful for your selfless service.

Madam President, now, on a completely different matter, the Senate returns today from its State work period. We got to meet with constituents in our home States and hear firsthand about their most pressing concerns.

Unfortunately, back here in Washington, Democrats continue to roll out new reasons for the American people to worry. The week before last, the Biden administration unveiled their latest misleadingly titled legislation. This time, under the supposed veil of ``infrastructure,'' the White House has lumped together a motley assortment of the left's priciest priorities.

This plan would impose one of the biggest tax hikes in a generation when workers need an economic recovery. It would gut right-to-work protections for blue-collar workers. It would throw hundreds of billions at the far left's green fads. They even want to include a special State and local tax provision designed to overwhelmingly benefit wealthy residents of blue States. Less than 6 percent of this proposal goes to roads and bridges. It is not remotely targeted toward what Americans think they are getting when politicians campaign on infrastructure.

But instead of coming up with a better bill, Democrats have decided it is the English language that has to change. They are embarking on an Orwellian campaign to convince everybody that any government policy whatsoever can be labeled ``infrastructure.'' Liberals just have to believe in it hard enough.

These Trojan horse tactics have become a pattern. Many of our Democratic colleagues are trying to rewrite 50 States' election laws from here in Washington and mount a partisan takeover of the Federal Election Commission but call the whole mess a ``voting rights bill.''

The White House's claims about State election regulations keep getting disproven by fact checkers. But even so, some of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in our country have bowed down to the fake narratives and decided to amplify the misstatements themselves.

So, look, I am as strong a supporter of the First Amendment and free speech as anyone in this body. I have been for many years. If people want to participate in debates through political speech, that is certainly their constitutional right, even if they fall for disinformation. But it is one thing to act like free speakers within a debate; it is very different to try to short-circuit the debate, to shut down the debate through economic bullying of American citizens.

Madam President, the last 2 weeks also brought more troubling signs from our southern border. Last month closed with Customs and Border Patrol reporting the highest total for migrant apprehensions in nearly two decades. But while Republican Senators traveled to the border, met with officials, and learned about the reality on the ground, the administration has preferred to inaccurately blame this recent spike on their predecessors.

Madam President, the crisis on our southern border continues to escalate. CBP is tracking the largest surge in migrant apprehensions in 20 years. Unaccompanied children are literally piling up in close quarters. It turns out when politicians spend a 2-year campaign advertising amnesty, people actually listen. As one senior CBP official said, there is ``no end in sight.'' No end in sight.

The administration still refuses to even admit there is a crisis, much less address it. We keep hearing strange mixed messaging from the White House

podium like ``now is not the time to come,'' as if there will be a good time to break the law and come illegally, and the White House will let us all know when that time is, I assume.

The Washington Post put it gently: ``Administration officials have been plagued by muddled messaging.'' Boy, that is an understatement. But actually, when you look at Democrats' actions, the message isn't mixed at all. That is the problem. For months on the campaign trail, President Biden spoke directly to potential migrants. At one point, he said, ``You want to flee . . . you should come.'' That was President Biden.

President Lopez Obrador of Mexico himself stated this week that President Biden's campaign created expectations that ``caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border, thinking that it is easier to do so.'' That was the President of Mexico.

On Inauguration Day, the President followed through--five Executive orders to roll back immigration enforcement and open up the border. The administration wasted no time rolling back the policies from the prior administration that had guarded against this exact outcome. South of the border, message received. Some migrants are arriving with Biden campaign flags and T-shirts. One arriving person said, ``Biden promised us that everything was going to change.''

So what about the Democrats here in Congress? Are the House Democrats rising to the occasion with solutions? Well, not exactly. They prioritized passing another amnesty bill. They doubled down on the wrong direction and the wrong incentives.

The situation is raising eyebrows among Democrats' own rank and file. As one Texas Democrat put it, ``When you create a system that incentivizes people to come across . . . that immediately sends a message.''

Here, in the Senate, our Democratic colleagues decided to go the route of obstruction. Yesterday, Republicans tried to pass serious proposals to help address parts of the immigration system. Democrats rejected every single one of them.

Senator Ernst had a proposal to require detention for migrants charged with violent crimes. It is not exactly a radical idea. Democrats blocked it.

Senator Cruz had legislation to raise the stakes for repeated illegal entry. It is not exactly rocket science. Democrats blocked that one too.

Senator Blackburn and Senator Lee tried to combat child trafficking within the asylum process, and Democrats even blocked that.

The furthest left ideology on these issues is keeping Washington Democrats from upholding the basic responsibility of government: ensuring the integrity of our borders and protecting our national security.

Election Security

Madam President, now, on another matter. Yesterday, the Rules Committee held a hearing on the Democrats' proposal to tilt our entire political system on a partisan basis. It would forcibly rewrite every State's election laws in ways that defy common sense and are deeply unpopular with American voters.

It would mandate nearly unrestricted same-day registration. It would mandate big loopholes that would render voter ID almost meaningless. It would make every State legalize ballot harvesting, where paid operatives can turn up carrying big piles of ballots with other people's names on them, zero chain of custody.

Democrats want to hide behind the mantle of voting rights. What they are really proposing is less security, less integrity, and a grab bag of changes that are deeply, deeply unpopular. Just look at the other changes with zero relationship to voting rights that Democrats want to smuggle in behind that smokescreen.

This bill would take the Federal Election Commission from an evenly split, bipartisan panel to a partisan body so that Democrats could rule unilaterally over politics as well as citizens' speech, turn the neutral judge into a partisan prosecutor, and it would send taxpayers' money to fund political campaigns.

It contains a massive attack on the privacy of citizens who engage in free speech, a massive and intentional gift to cancel culture. That led even the leftwing ACLU to oppose this bill 2 years ago and lead senior ACLU lawyers to torch it again in the Washington Post just recently.

Democrats are desperate to avoid talking about any of these things. They are desperate to convince the media that a partisan takeover at the FEC, socialism for political ad makers, and an assault on free speech and Americans' privacy are just ``voting rights,'' a shameless, shameless bait and switch.

I noticed something funny yesterday. Remember, this is the same bill Democrats were shopping around 2 years ago in response to the 2016 election, which they said was a disaster. Now, 2 years ago, Democrats were marketing this bill as a massive shakeup that our broken elections badly needed.

Our democracy was in shambles after they lost in 2016. It was broken, they said. It was insecure, they said, and only this sweeping transformation could possibly repair it. Of course, it didn't pass, and the 2020 election came and went without the liberal takeover, and yet Democrats say it was a huge success.

Democrats said the 2020 election was beyond reproach. They said the integrity and security were beyond question. They have said only conspiracy theorists would complain about the last election.

Oh, but curiously enough, they are now still pushing this very same bill. Now, instead of a sweeping transformation, they are trying to say it would just preserve our smoothly functioning system so State legislatures can't mess it up.

So let's get this straight. Two years ago, in 2019, Democrats suggested this bill was a bold, radical overhaul for a broken system. In the meantime, what happened was, they got an election they liked, and now they claim the exact same legislation just does a few modest things to protect our system just the way it is.

What utter nonsense--utter nonsense. This legislation has but one goal, just one. It has only ever had one goal, just one. That goal was the same in 2019 as it is today. And that goal is to let Washington Democrats rig the rules of democracy from top down to hide that partisan project behind the smokescreen, the smokescreen of voting rights.

Business Before the Senate

Madam President, now one final matter. Senators will soon head home for the State work period. We will be seeing an Easter recess of optimism and hope as the tide of the pandemic continues to turn. Thanks to science and fueled by five bipartisan bills we passed last year, vaccines were developed, approved, and preordered in record time. America was delivering more than a million doses per day before the current administration even took office.

And because of last year's bipartisan work, our economy was already poised for a historic comeback. I am also going to be talking with Kentuckians about their confusion and concern surrounding the multitrillion-dollar partisan spending plan that Democrats just rushed through Congress recently, like why teachers unions got huge sums for schools, much of which won't be spent until years, years into the future, without any meaningful requirement to reopen, even though science says it is safe. There are concerns like why Kentucky and other States whose budgets have come through the crisis intact will actually be subsidizing massive bailouts to other States for mismanagement that predates the pandemic, and confusion and concern about the radical, last-minute provision that tries to prevent States from implementing any policy, any policy that might be interpreted as a tax cut.

That one could wreak havoc on the plans of local officials in my State and entire industries as they try to get the Bluegrass growing again. This provision has the potential to shoot down a State law designed to help the Commonwealth's small businesses deduct PPP expenses from their State taxes and unwind planned waivers of hikes on their unemployment taxes.

Secretary Yellen was asked about this huge uncertainty in a hearing yesterday, about how this will be defined or enforced. She essentially had no answers.

So I will be joining Kentuckians to celebrate what has gone well, thanks to our bipartisan work just last year; to hear their concerns about all the

consequences of the Democrats' go-it-alone effort; and to hear what they think about the multimillion-dollar cousin of the Green New Deal that Democrats are reportedly planning for a sequel.

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

Mr. President, while House Democrats try to overturn a certified election result from last November, some Senate Democrats are agitating to break Senate rules to ram through a partisan rewrite of all 50 States' election laws--all 50 States' election laws.

The 60-vote threshold is the reason huge pillars of domestic policy don't oscillate back and forth every time a different party wins the majority. So let's think of something like the Mexico City policy, the executive branch policy about funding overseas abortions. It has flipped back and forth every single time the White House has changed parties since the 1980s. Republican Presidents issue the memo; the Democratic Presidents retract it.

The legislative filibuster is what keeps the entirety of Federal law from working that way. For a long time, Senators on both sides have recognized the Senate and the country are better off with some actual stability. Both sides have understood there are no permanent majorities in American politics, so a system that gives both sides a voice benefits, actually, everyone in the long term.

That is what 33 of our Democratic colleagues said just a few years ago, when they all signed a joint letter insisting that rules protecting debate on legislation be preserved.

That is what President Biden believed consistently throughout his long Senate tenure. About 15 years ago, then-Senator Biden said killing the filibuster would be, ``an example of the arrogance of power.'' That was President Biden. He restated his long-held position during the campaign just last year.

Here is what my colleague the Democratic leader said in 2017. Senator Schumer said:

The legislative filibuster . . . is the most important

distinction between the Senate and the House. . . . [L]et's

find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for

legislation.

That was the Democratic leader in 2017.

And Democrats didn't just spend the last 4 years supporting the filibuster; they spent 4 years using it. Senate Democrats used the filibuster to kill Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

We could have had Federal legislation on the books since last summer, putting more body cameras on police officers, requiring fuller incident reporting to the FBI, and finally making lynching a Federal crime, among other things. Democrats stopped it. They stopped it using the filibuster.

A few months before, they used the filibuster to briefly turn the bipartisan sprint toward the CARES Act into a partisan standoff. The press marveled that Senate Democrats had the gall to block relief--a tactic that helped tank the markets--in order to demand further changes.

Back in early 2018, Senate Democrats used the filibuster to block government funding and force a brief governmen shutdown over, of all things, immigration. One of the Democratic leader's first major acts as the leader of his conference was to wield the filibuster to shut down the entire Federal Government.

So, look, the Democratic side just spent 4 years defending and, of course, happily using the same Senate rule that many of our colleagues now attack. So this reversal is not about principle. It has nothing whatsoever to do with principle. It is just raw power--raw power.

Three years ago, the assistant Democratic leader was asked about the Senate majority going ``nuclear'' and killing the legislative filibuster. Here's what Senator Durbin had to say:

I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it

was originally devised and created going back to our Founding

Fathers.

That was Senator Durbin in 2018, just a few years ago. Now he argues the opposite.

Now I understand our colleague has rotated through several different explanations for his reversal in just the last few days.

First, our colleague from Illinois indicated he changed his mind-- changed his mind--because Republicans, and I specifically, had used the filibuster so much in the intervening years. But, Mr. President, Republicans were in the majority the whole time. We were in the majority the whole time. It was the Democrats who used the filibuster in the minority in 2018, 2019, and 2020--not Republicans. That argument makes no sense whatsoever.

A few days later, there was a new made-up rationale: It is just that the Senate hasn't been getting anything done, so the institution needs an overhaul. Except we have just had a uniquely terrible year to make that argument.

Last year was not a good year to make that argument. We passed five-- five--bipartisan COVID bills with big bipartisan majorities that spent the most money in American history and helped save the country. Don't see any obstruction in that. We passed a historic bipartisan bill for national parks and public lands. Didn't see any outrageous use of the filibuster on that.

So there is fake history swirling all around the discussion--fake history.

About a year ago, former President Obama launched a new, coordinated, and very obvious campaign to get liberals repeating the claim that the Senate rules are somehow a relic of racism and bigotry. That came just a month after Democrats had used the filibuster to kill Senator Tim Scott's police reform and anti-lynching bill.

So these talking points are an effort to use the terrible history of racism to justify a partisan power grab in the present. It is not unlike what we saw last summer, when some protest mobs ended up defacing statues of people who actually crusaded for justice--like Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and the abolitionist Matthias Baldwin--mistakenly damaging good institutions because of our troubled past.

Multiple fact checkers have torn into this simplistic notion that the rules of the Senate are rooted in racism: ``Historians told PolitiFact that the filibuster did not emerge from debates over slavery or segregation.'' One scholar's account was that ``the very first Senate filibuster was over a bridge across the Potomac River.''

The very first filibuster was over a bridge over the Potomac River.

The junior Senator from Massachusetts just got three Pinocchios from the Washington Post for these arguments.

Their look--the Washington Post's look--at history found ``the first recorded filibusters in the Senate concerned issues such as where to locate Congress, what to do about Andrew Jackson's censure over withdrawn federal deposits, who would be appointed to a publication called the Congressional Globe and whether to create a national bank''--nothing to do with racism.

But I am curious. If my Democratic colleagues really believe what they are saying, did they themselves use a racist tool against Senator Scott's police reform bill just last year?

Did they use a racist relic when they delayed the CARES Act or blocked legislation to protect unborn babies who can feel pain?

Were Senators Schumer and Durbin and their 33 colleagues who signed that letter all endorsing a racist relic?

Or is our colleagues' story that the filibuster was not an offensive relic as recently as last summer but magically--imagine this--just magically, within a year, magically became an offensive relic the instant the Democrats came to power? All of a sudden, it is an offensive, racist relic when the Democrats came to power. Jaw-dropping hypocrisy. These backflips insult the intelligence of the American people.

The far left is desperate to change the subject to the 1960s because they want people to forget how Senate Democrats behaved just last year. This is not about the 1960s. It is not a racist relic.

Look, if some of my Democratic colleagues want to keep lobbying two of their colleagues to go back on their word, they should at least have the courage to be honest.

The far left wants Democrats to break the Senate rules for no other reason--no other reason--than they want more power. They want more power. The same people who are trying to overturn a certified election result over at the House want to break Senate rules so they can override the election laws of all 50 States from right here in Washington. It is that simple. And it is not going to be hidden by a coordinated campaign to change the subject.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on Thursday, the Biden administration officials had their first person-to-person meeting with representatives from the People's Republic of China. By diplomatic standards, the opening public exchange was tense. The belligerent grandstanding by PRC diplomats was, unfortunately, no surprise. It is what we have come to expect.

As China's military and economic might have grown, Beijing has found that the bullying tactics that people call their ``wolf warrior'' diplomatic strategy have often worked out for them. So I was glad the U.S. team used the opportunity to cut through the CCP's spin and tell some plain truths about China's regional bullying and disrespect for the rule of law, whether in Hong Kong or Tibet.

I am also glad the administration has sent U.S. personnel to join other diplomats in Beijing to protest the secret trial of Canadian citizen Michael Kovrig.

But like I said last week, calling out China rhetorically is just the first step. An effective U.S. strategy will require more than just tough talk and symbolism.

The PRC poses all matter of threats to the United States and to the free world. They want to control crucial sea lanes in the South China Sea. They want to expand their capabilities to menace other countries' forces, including ours, with increasingly accurate long-range weapons. They want to rewrite the rules of the international system to suit their interests instead of ours and our friends.

These are hard and real challenges. Facing them down will require strength and resolve from the United States and from our partners. So like I said last week, if the administration is serious about staying tough on China and strengthening our hand, they will have support among Senate Republicans.

But any such serious strategy will need to start with maintaining and building up the backbone of our hard power--the competitive edge of the U.S. military. To defend America, defend America's interests, and deter adversaries, we need to sustain our military edge. And to sustain our edge, we need to modernize our forces and maintain our capability to project power.

Defense spending is the single most important policy lever available to us in our competition with China. The President's budget submission will tell Beijing a lot about whether the Biden administration intends to back up tough talk with actual strength.

Finally, whatever Congress may do to step up our game on China, it will be essential that it be bipartisan. The legislative components of national security should not swing wildly every time the gavels change hands.

It is a perfect demonstration of why scrapping the 60-vote threshold for legislation would be catastrophic. For important bills to have a stable and lasting impact, they need broad bipartisan buy-in.

Mr. President, now, on a completely different matter, this afternoon the Senate will vote on the President's nominee to head the Department of Labor.

I will be voting against confirming Mr. Walsh. The Biden administration has already signaled they will ask him to implement a variety of policies that do not serve the long-term interests of American workers.

Unfortunately, it appears that won't just be the case at the Department of Labor but throughout the Democratic agenda.

One of the President's first acts in office was to kill thousands of American jobs, including union jobs, by canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline. Both, working Americans and domestic energy security, took a back seat to a leftwing signaling.

We are hearing that the next few months might bring a so-called ``infrastructure'' proposal that may actually be a Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing, leftwing policies.

Remember, the House Democrats tipped their hand last year. They published a sprawling proposal that pretended to be a highway bill but was really just a multithousand-page cousin of the Green New Deal. It would have plowed unbelievable sums of money not into the kinds of big, practical projects that Americans even think of as ``infrastructure'' but also into their obsessive focus on climate policies to the exclusion of everything else.

Look, we know what kinds of policies are actually pro-job and pro- worker. We know what kind of agenda helps American workers build all- American prosperity up and down the income scale.

We know that because, just over a year ago, before the pandemic, 4 years of Republican policies had built one of the most inclusive and optimistic economies in modern history. Wages were growing faster at the bottom than at the top. Unemployment was at historic lows. American workers were a hot commodity and were getting compensated accordingly.

Pro-worker prosperity does not entail having Big Government politicians or Big Labor bosses micromanage every aspect of the economy to suit liberal fads. It means remembering what kind of pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-opportunity policies built the best job market in recent history right before this pandemic.

Those are the ideas and the solutions that were unlocking more money and more opportunities for American workers before COVID-19 took the world by storm. And those are the ideas and solutions the American people elected 50 Republican Senators to fight for.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.