Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, yesterday, I voted to advance the nominations of Congresswoman Marcia Fudge to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Judge Merrick Garland to be Attorney General.

These aren't the nominees whom any Republican would have picked for these jobs, but the Nation needs Presidents to be able to stand up a team so long as their nominees are qualified and mainstream. I have voted to confirm people like Secretaries Austin, Blinken, Yellen, Vilsack, and Buttigieg. We certainly disagree on plenty of issues, but I spent 4 years watching many of our Democratic colleagues do everything possible to obstruct and delay President Trump's nominees right from the start.

Now we hear of many of the same Democrats insisting that, as a matter of principle, a new President needs his team and any delay is an outrage. It is funny how some things change. My position has not.

I am voting to confirm Judge Garland because of his long reputation as a straight shooter and a legal expert. His left-of-center perspective has been within the legal mainstream.

For the country's sake, let's hope our incoming Attorney General applies that no-nonsense approach to the serious challenges facing the Department of Justice and our Nation. Let's hope that he controls the bureaucrats and leftist subordinates that the President proposes to place under him, rather than the other way around.

When I spoke to Judge Garland, we discussed his commitment to the ongoing investigation of the events of January 6. Federal law enforcement needs to continue the work of identifying, arresting, and prosecuting those who broke the law in order to disrupt the constitutional business of Congress. He assured me that will remain a priority.

At the same time, it is essential that DOJ treat political violence with equal seriousness no matter which political fringe it may come from. Last summer, riots, vandalism, and even a so-called ``autonomous zone'' consumed parts of American cities. In some instances, thugs directly attacked Federal property. But amazingly, some local leaders seemed more willing to tolerate the chaos than tolerate the angry tweets that leftwing activists might have sent if they had stepped in to actually do their jobs.

We were fortunate to have Attorney General Barr, who took seriously the Federal Government's role to protect Federal property and enforce Federal law. Judge Garland must be prepared to do the same.

Of course, the riots haven't been the only area where we have seen liberal governance give short shrift to the rule of law. The Obama administration was famous for its willingness to let ideology dictate the enforcement of Federal laws or the lack thereof.

Take the DACA Program, for example. When the Obama administration realized their preferred immigration policies couldn't get through Congress the right way, they stretched prosecutorial discretion and law enforcement discretion to breathtaking unconstitutional extremes. When confirmed, Judge Garland must not back other constitutionally corrosive efforts to effectively repeal laws just by ignoring them.

That brings me to the issue of immigration more broadly. Just a few weeks into the job, the Biden administration and Secretary Mayorkas are flailing and failing on our southern border. The number of unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody has tripled in just 2 weeks and now dwarfs anything seen during the last 4 years.

Like I mentioned last week, this is not an isolated question of border policy alone. The backdrop behind this entire crisis is the giant push toward amnesty and insecurity that the administration advertised throughout the campaign and every time they step to the podium now. That is what has enticed people to flood in.

Even now, administration staff keeps parroting strange lines like ``Now is not the time to come.'' ``Now is not the time to come''? Well, when is the right time to break Federal law? Is there going to be a good time to break into the country illegally, and people need to just be patient and wait for their signal? What on Earth are they talking about?

A lot of blame for this mess rests on Secretary Mayorkas himself. He spent the first weeks of his tenure downplaying and denying the crisis instead of solving it. But, again, the Biden administration's far-left approach to this issue is not limited to DHS or to the border. Interior enforcement is a key component.

On Secretary Mayorkas' watch, we have seen what the Washington Post calls ``a sharp drop'' in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement--a collapse of more than 60 percent from just the prior few months--a political choice, in effect, not to enforce the law.

Judge Garland must ensure the Department of Justice takes its duty to uphold the law more seriously

Mr. President, on a related matter, after we confirm Congresswoman Fudge and Judge Garland, the Senate will consider two nominees I will not be supporting. They both report straight to the frontlines of the new administration's leftwing war on American energy. They would work to unbalance the balancing act between conservation and the economic comeback we badly need.

To head the Environmental Protection Agency, the President has nominated Michael Regan, a longtime regulator and activist. Mr. Regan has plenty of experience. The problem is what he is poised to do with it. He and the administration are plainly prepared to put that experience behind the same far-left policies that crushed jobs and prosperity in States like Kentucky throughout the Obama administration.

The Clean Power Plan? Back on the table. The absurd waters of the United States rule? Back on the table.

Kentuckians know that when bad policies like those are on the table, it means their jobs, their livelihoods, and their communities are on the menu.

Congresswoman Haaland, the President's pick to lead the Department of the Interior, was literally an original cosponsor of the Green New Deal. She has vowed to ``keep fossil fuels in the ground'' and once pledged ``to vote against all new fossil fuel infrastructure.''

Her record and her views ignore the fact that American energy independence fueled prosperity for the working class and middle class over the last 4 years. Yet in multiple of those years, our carbon emissions actually went down--went down. The supposed choice between a clean environment and domestic energy independence is a false choice. It only exists as a zero-sum tradeoff in the minds of Democrats.

We have every reason to believe that voting for Mr. Regan and Representative Haaland would be voting to raise gas prices for families who are already struggling, voting to raise fuel and heating bills for seniors on a fixed income, voting to take the tough times we have been going through and making them even tougher.

I will be voting for American families and against both of their nominations.

Mr. President, it was one decade ago that my friend Brad Richardson saw an opportunity in Hardin County. The community was ready to step on the gas pedal and start a new era of growth. It had the raw materials: a dynamic workforce, a premium location, and a strong ally in Fort Knox. All it needed was the right person to lead the way. Today, I would like to pay tribute to Brad, a visionary leader who helped realize the area's potential. At the end of this month, he will begin a well-deserved retirement with our sincere thanks.

The first step was bringing everyone together. Brad is a natural team builder. He oversaw the consolidation of four local business advocacy groups into the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce. The new organization would help attract investment to one of Kentucky's most populous counties. As the chamber's inaugural president, Brad spent the next decade doing just that.

One of Brad's first moves at the new Hardin Chamber was to restart the annual Small Business Expo. The event gives local entrepreneurs the opportunities to connect with customers and local leaders as they expand their operations. Brad also launched a Buy Local campaign to keep Hardin County's dollars in the community. In 2014, he was named the Chamber Executive of the Year by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executives.

Hardin County is more than a great place to live and work. It is also the proud home to Fort Knox, one of Kentucky's premier military installations and the location of the U.S. bullion depository. The installation supports over 20,000 local jobs and makes a multibillion dollar annual economic impact. In 2016, Brad was a driving force in the establishment of the Knox Regional Development Alliance. The group is tasked with promoting the relationship between the community and our Armed Forces. For his work to encourage the partnership, Brad was given the Fort Knox Gold Neighbor Award.

I've worked closely with Brad and KRDA to invest in Fort Knox's infrastructure and capabilities. Last year,

that hard work paid off. The Pentagon selected Fort Knox to host the reactivated V Corps headquarters. Kentucky is one of the most military- friendly States in the country, and Hardin County was eager to welcome more than 600 additional soldiers. I am grateful to KRDA, Brad and his team, and our many other partners who made the stationing of the V Corps at Fort Knox a reality.

Over the years, Brad increased chamber membership and made substantial innovations for his community and our Commonwealth. That record of accomplishment would be enough for anyone. But Brad was determined to bring his good humor and enthusiasm to every project. He made it a real pleasure to be part of his team. When Brad took this job, he set an ambitious goal to enhance the quality of life in Hardin County. By any objective standard, I think he succeeded.

So we are all going to miss working with Brad at the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce. Along with his colleagues and friends, I extend my best wishes for a fulfilling retirement. On behalf of the Senate, I would like to congratulate Brad on all of his success and to thank him for many years of leadership in Kentucky.

Madam President, when Senators were last in this Chamber, our Democratic colleagues were shooting down amendment after amendment to ensure their largely non-COVID-related spending plan remained very liberal and purely partisan.

Republicans proposed amendments to cap extra government help for wealthier Americans, to ensure that direct checks would only go to citizens and legal residents and not to people in prison, and to rein in runaway State and local bailouts and refocus the bill on urgent COVID-related actual needs. But Democrats banded together to defeat every one of these commonsense changes. As the Democratic leader happily explained to reporters later on Saturday, his whole conference put lockstep party unity ahead of substance and ahead of bipartisan compromise.

So the nearly $2 trillion partisan spending spree that President Biden's Chief of Staff brags is ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation'' is on its way over to the House. Already, we hear reporting that this giveaway will simply wipe out the budget deficit of New York State and eliminate a big part of the deficit in San Francisco, courtesy of the taxpayers in Kentucky and Middle America. Already, we hear the administration saying they want some of these sweeping new welfare policies to become permanent, like a no- strings-attached benefit that disregards all the pro-work lessons of bipartisan welfare reform. Meanwhile, it only manages to spend about 1 percent on vaccinations and less than 9 percent on the entire health fight.

Democrats inherited a turning tide. The vaccine trends and economic trends were in place before the bill was ever voted on, before this President was sworn in, but they are determined to push to the front of the parade with an effort to push America to the left.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are wasting no time pursuing even more purely partisan legislation. Last Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 1, their effort to rewrite the ground rules of American elections and seize power from States and localities. Just like the spending plan, in both Chambers, once again the only thing bipartisan about the bill was the opposition.

This is House Democrats' bid to put Federal bureaucrats in charge of local election rules; to undermine voter ID requirements with massive loopholes that undermine them; to require every State to permit ballot harvesting, which lets paid political operatives produce stacks of ballots with other people's names on them; to overturn or change hundreds of State election laws; and to turn our highest election authority, the equally balanced FEC, into a partisan majority body to crack down on speech and ideas they don't like.

It is quite the recipe for rebuilding public faith in our democracy on all sides--a purely partisan effort to seize unprecedented power for Washington, DC, on a razor-thin majority. It is a hugely harmful idea at the worst possible time.

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

Madam President, today or tonight or tomorrow, Democrats say they will break the bipartisan streak that has defined the pandemic response up until now. They are dead set on ramming through an ideological spending spree packed with non-COVID-related policies.

This is just what a leading House Democrat admitted they would do back at the start of the crisis: Exploit the pandemic as ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.'' To give them credit, they never hid the ball. That is how you get a 628-page bill that costs nearly $2 trillion, but only 9 percent addresses the fight against the virus itself and only 1 percent--1 percent--for the lifesaving vaccines that are ending this nightmare as we speak.

That is how you craft a bill that does nothing to immediately get kids back to classrooms. In fact, that spends only 5 percent of the K- 12 school money this fiscal year.

This isn't a pandemic rescue package; it is a parade of leftwing pet projects they are ramming through during a pandemic.

There is a costly ObamaCare bailout that will disproportionately benefit wealthier people; payments to farmers and ranchers based solely on the demographics of the recipient without any regard to actual need; and a massive cash bailout for mismanaged State and local governments, multiple times the size of COVID needs.

Instead of pushing back on the anti-science bullying from Big Labor that is locking kids out of the classrooms, they buy into it.

They want to create generous new benefits for parents who are dealing

with school closures but only if they are Federal employees. To all the parents without government jobs, no such luck.

There are provisions to let abortion providers raid the small business rescue funds that were meant for Main Street businesses.

They want to pay people a bonus not to go back to work when we are trying to rebuild our economy.

There is an effort to create a brandnew, sprawling cash welfare program--not the one-time checks but constant payments--that ignores the pro-work lessons of bipartisan welfare reform and which the White House has already stated they want to make permanent.

The unrelated liberal policies are simply endless. It is like they have forgotten we have a pandemic to fight.

Larry Summers, a top economist in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, says this plan piles way more debt on our kids and grandkids than we need to spend right now. That is Larry Summers, Bill Clinton's Secretary Treasury. Jason Furman, who chaired President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the State and local bailouts are ``overkill.'' These are liberal economists, Madam President.

By one analysis, the Democrats' extra cash bonuses for laid-off workers who stay home will result in almost 60 percent of workers earning more money staying home than they would earn from returning to work--more money by staying home than they would earn from returning to work. What a great idea. This isn't State unemployment insurance; it is borrowing from our kids and grandkids to pay yet an additional cash bonus for not working.

This would extend deep into 2021, when we anticipate serious job growth. Just this morning, we had a jobs report that shattered expectations, nearly doubling the job growth experts had expected to see.

This is what the Washington Post says about this mess. This is the Washington Post about this mess that is before us:

For policy experts and even members of Biden's own party,

the improving picture is raising questions about whether the

stimulus bill is mismatched to the needs of the current

moment.

That is from the Washington Post editorial.

It is mismatched all right because it was never designed to meet Americans' needs. The goal was to ``restructure things to fit'' their ``vision.'' That is why there was no bipartisan process after a year of completely bipartisan COVID bills that we worked on together. That is why the Senate Republicans who went to the White House to propose working together were told: No thanks; take it or leave it.

This is such a poorly targeted rush job that Democrats can't even settle on one set of political spin. The White House Chief of Staff is going around town admitting that they have written ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation.'' That is the White House Chief of Staff. Meanwhile, here in the Senate, Democrats are still pretending this is some down-the-middle proposal and lecturing us for not supporting it. They can't even get their stories straight.

The administration campaigned on ushering in a new day of unity and bipartisanship, but in 2020, under Republican leadership, the Senate negotiated five rescue bills totaling $4 trillion, and none of them got fewer than 90 votes. That is how this Senate was run last year in a time of divided government, and now, in this supposed new era of healing leadership, we are about to watch one party ram through a partisan package on the thinnest margins. Go figure.

Republicans have many ideas to improve the bill, many ideas, and we are about to vote on all kinds of amendments in the hopes that some of these ideas make it into the final product. We are going to try to improve the bill. The millions who elected 50 Republican Senators will have their voices heard loud and clear.

Our country is already set for a roaring recovery. We are already on track to bounce back from this crisis. That is not because of this bill; it is because of our work last year. This is a trend this new Democratic government inherited. We are going to come roaring back and mostly not because of this bill--in fact, in some ways, in spite of this bill. It will be because of the bipartisan foundation we laid last year and the strength and resilience of our people. Democrats inherited a tide that was already turning.

We could have worked together to do something smart to finish this fight as fast as possible. Democrats decided to do something else.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: At what time did the previous vote on the Senator's amendment begin?

How much total time elapsed during the floor vote on the Senator's amendment?

Well, my goodness, this has been quite a start, quite a start to this fast-track process. They were in a big hurry. We started voting

on the first amendment, as the Parliamentarian said, right after 11 a.m. The Democratic leader held the vote open all day so they could try to figure out what was going on with their own legislation that they want to pass only with their votes.

Now, the last time we had a long string of amendment votes was just a couple weeks ago. We considered about 40 amendments. So if you multiply 11 hours of scrambling times 40 amendments, you would land at about 440 hours. That is about 18 days with zero breaks.

So, look, the whole idea behind this, I gathered from listening to them over the last few weeks, was to use the crisis to jam through what the White House Chief of Staff called ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation.'' A little tougher than they thought it was going to be, isn't it? It turned out to be a little bit tougher.

Well, what this proves is there are benefits to bipartisanship when you are dealing with an issue of this magnitude. We all remember that we did this five times last year. We did it together. I think there were no more than eight votes against any of these proposals. We spent about $4 trillion on pandemic relief. Every one passed, as I said, with 90 or more votes. Not a single spectacle like today--not one.

Exactly 1 year ago, instead of partisan scrambling, we were humming with bipartisan work, working on it together. We had a bipartisan task force building the CARES Act from the bottom up. We passed the bill 96 to 0.

We were prepared to do yet another bill on a bipartisan basis. Several of our Members went down to the White House, sat down with the President, laid out a proposal we thought made sense given where we were now. But, no, they wanted to do it the hard way. Wanted to do it the hard way.

So now they want to begin the vote-arama that could have been done in daylight because of their own confusion and the challenges of getting together 50 people to agree on something when they could have been doing it quicker on a bipartisan basis.

Motion to Adjourn

Mr. President, so rather than start the voting at 5 minutes to 11, I move to adjourn until 10 a.m. tomorrow, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way or through a less rigorous process.

Voters gave Senate Democrats the slimmest possible majority. Voters picked a President who promised unity and bipartisanship.

Democrats' response is to ram through what they call ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation'' on a razor-thin majority in both Houses.

The right path was obvious. We followed it five times last year--five rescue packages totaling $4 trillion, and none of them got fewer than 90 votes.

The Senate wrote the CARES Act, Republicans and Democrats, shoulder to shoulder. That was the road to real pandemic relief, but Democrats actually wanted something else. They explained their intent very clearly: to exploit this crisis as ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.''

That is how you get this massive bill with only 1 percent--1 percent for vaccinations, that ignores the science on reopening schools, that is stuffed with non-COVID-related spending that even top liberal economists say is wrong for the recovery.

Democrats inherited a tide that is already turning--2021 was already set to be our comeback year--because of the American people's resilience and the bipartisan foundation that we laid last year.

We could have worked together to speed up victory, but our Democratic colleagues made a decision. Their top priority wasn't pandemic relief. It was their Washington wish list.

So, Mr. President, colleagues, I strongly recommend a ``no'' vote.

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

Mr. President, earlier this week, I described the terrible flooding across my home State of Kentucky. Rivers reached historic levels. Whole communities are still underwater.

Yesterday, my staff and I spoke with leaders in some of our hardest hit counties. The Estill County judge executive told me that he personally joined crews to help families escape danger. Small business owners in Lee County, who survived one COVID obstacle after another, now saw their life's work literally washed away. The situation in Powell County is so dire that at least one city can only be accessed by boat. Road crews, first responders, and the Kentucky National Guard are doing their best to help out, but they can't get a handle on the full scope of the damage until the water recedes.

Once the assessment is complete, the Governor will formally request an emergency disaster declaration from the Biden administration. As soon as he does, my team and I will do our part to get Federal assistance to these communities as soon as possible.

Mr. President, on a completely different matter, yesterday, our Democratic colleagues had planned to begin ramming through their partisan spending spree, but it seems they have had some difficulty getting to the starting line. After all, Senate Democrats, including committee chairs, are essentially being jammed with text from over in the House. Their own Members have barely been able to read this thing, let alone shape it.

So let's think back to where we were 1 year ago. Eleven-and-a-half months

ago, the Senate was also discussing a major spending package. In fact, it was the same size as what is being proposed right now--about $2 trillion--an appropriate pricetag back at the start of the crisis, but that is where the similarity actually ends.

Last March, the Senate was working overtime, in a bipartisan fashion, to craft good policy from the bottom up. I assembled bipartisan task forces. We had Republicans and Democrats and staff working around the clock to build the policies that would save our health system and our economy.

The CARES Act sustained us for almost a year of shutdowns. It funded the healthcare fight, saved small businesses, and funded Operation Warp Speed, which helped pave the way for these pioneering vaccines and preordered hundreds of millions of doses for Americans. The law sent so much relief to households that, even as the GDP declined, personal incomes and savings actually went up. Even liberal economists say President Biden has inherited an economy that was already primed for a swift recovery. It was the largest American rescue package ever. Yet it passed the Senate without one single dissenting vote because it was built the right way.

That was last March. So what about today?

Instead of heading into a dark tunnel, we are accelerating out of it: incredible vaccines, a rebounding economy. That is what the Biden administration inherited thanks to what we did last year.

Yet Washington Democrats are trying to exploit the last chapters of this crisis to pass what President Biden's Chief of Staff calls ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation,'' and they have told Republicans: Take it or leave it. No openness to meaningful bipartisan input. Ten Republican Senators approached President Biden and proposed cooperation on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. They were refused. All that interested the Democrats was a partisan hodgepodge of, largely, non-COVID-related items.

Last year, the Democratic leader said:

Sitting in your own office, writing a bill, and then

demanding the other side support it is not anyone's idea of

bipartisanship.

As recently as last November, he said:

We need a true bipartisan bill--not ``this is our bill,

take it or leave it.''

Another time, our friend from New York told everyone to ``go look up in the dictionary what `bipartisanship' is. It's both parties working together, not your party doing a bill and then saying it's bipartisan.''

In less than 4 months, we have had two completely different versions of the Democratic leader. The two of them could have a fascinating debate with each other.

But look, the real tragedy here is not Senate process; it is how ill- suited this bill is to what Americans need right now. There are no policies to get schools reopened right away and no smart solutions to directly spur rehiring. Less than 1 percent of the money goes to the vaccines that will end this nightmare--only 9 percent to the entire healthcare fight altogether.

I guess it has become a rite of passage for a new Democratic President to begin with a poorly targeted spending spree that doesn't give Americans what they need.

We already laid the foundation for a roaring comeback. The Biden administration inherited a tide that was already turning, but they have chosen to ignore the approach that got us this far

Mr. President, now, on one final matter, yesterday evening, House Democrats repassed their plan to give Washington unprecedented power over the way our Nation conducts elections. Just like their partisan spending spree from last week, the only thing bipartisan about the vote was the opposition.

The same party that wants to change Senate rules when they lose a vote, pack the Supreme Court when they lose a case, and throw out the electoral college every time they lose the White House now wants to forcibly rewrite 50 States' election laws from Washington. It is unprincipled. It is unwarranted. Large portions of it may well be unconstitutional. One of the key principles of American elections is that Federal officeholders cannot personally micromanage the way in which voters can hire and fire us.

Different States and localities settle questions around early voting or absentee voting or voter registration in very different ways. Washington Democrats want every county in America to have to answer all of those questions the way they want. For example, no State would be able to have a simple voter ID requirement unless they neutered it with a massive loophole, but every State would be forced to allow ballot harvesting, where paid political operatives can show up, carrying a stack of ballots with other people's names on them.

Imagine looking at this national landscape, where we have seen the losing side doubt the legitimacy of two consecutive Presidential elections, and thinking: This is the time for a sweeping, one-party rewrite of election law.

Democrats are also coming after Americans' free speech. The Federal Election Commission was set up after Watergate to be a bipartisan panel by design. The FEC intentionally needs bipartisan consensus to throw a penalty flag. Washington Democrats want to scrap that as well.

Their bill would convert the FEC into an odd-numbered, partisan body, and this partisan FEC would get even greater scope to nose around in even more of Americans' speech and Americans' activities. The bill also tramples on citizens' privacy with new mandates that would intensify ``cancel culture'' and help mobs harass people for their private views. Even the leftwing ACLU condemns this part of H.R. 1.

This is what the ACLU had to say:

It could directly interfere with the ability of many to

engage in political speech about causes that they care about

and that impact their lives.

That was from the ACLU.

That is right. House Democrats have swung so far to the anti-free speech left that they have even lost the ACLU.

Speaking of political swings, Democrats who want Washington to take over elections should remember that majorities in Congress actually come and go. It would be absurd for election regulations in every precinct in America to go boomeranging back and forth every time Congress changes hands. Millions of American voters elected 50 Republican Senators and a whole lot of House Republicans to make sure that Democrats play by the rules, not rewrite the rules. For one party to seize unilateral control over elections nationwide would be a civic catastrophe.

It is worth asking: Why are Washington Democrats so desperate to forcibly rewrite election law before the next time voters decide their fates?

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

Mr. President, last year, Congress rallied five times around historic bipartisan legislation to meet urgent and unprecedented needs. Our COVID-19 packages reinforced the healthcare frontlines, fueled the sprint for vaccines, and cast lifelines for the workers and small businesses hit hardest by shutdowns.

Together, those bills cost about $4 trillion, but none of those measures passed the House of Representatives with less than a bipartisan supermajority of about 80 percent--completely overwhelming support.

Then, last week, House Democrats rammed through the American Rescue Plan Act on a razor-thin margin of 50.7 percent. The only thing bipartisan about their bill was the opposition to it. Their bill costs about $2 trillion. That is roughly the same size as the entire CARES Act that saved our health system and economy through months of shutdowns last year. Even liberal experts admit this is far out of proportion to what is needed now, with vaccines going into arms and the economy already primed to literally roar back.

Amazingly, Democrats managed to allocate less than 9 percent--9 percent--of their massive bill to the entire healthcare response; 9 percent of the $1.9 trillion related to the healthcare response, and-- listen to this--even less than 1 percent of the $1.9 trillion to the vaccines that will actually finish the fight.

They needed to save the other 91 percent of the borrowed money for a vast catalog of liberal spending with basically no relationship whatsoever to beating COVID-19. For example, they want to send wheelbarrows of cash to State and local bureaucrats to bail out mismanagement from before the pandemic. They are changing the previous bipartisan funding formula in ways that will especially bias the money toward big blue States. This outraged a bipartisan group of Governors, largely from middle America, who went on record this week. There are generous new benefit packages for government employees. There are provisions to let abortion providers drain money from rescue programs that were built to save Main Street small businesses. There is a strange new Acela corridor kickback where they will make Medicare send more money to just New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Delaware.

Just looking at the timeframe for all of their spending belies any notion that this is an urgent rescue plan.

Take the K-12 funding which, contrary to science, Democrats say is a prerequisite for opening schools. Ninety-five percent of that supposedly urgent money would not be spent this fiscal year but, instead, over the next 7 years. Let me say that again. Ninety-five percent of the money for K-12 is not going to be spent this year, but over the next 7 years. That is not my definition of an emergency.

Grants for rural healthcare would be on a slow drip out through fiscal 2024. Agriculture-related funds would trickle out over the next--listen to this--over the next decade. It doesn't sound very urgent to me.

What the American people need are fast-acting plans to get schools reopened now, get laid-off workers back into jobs, and finish the fight against this virus right now. The Democrats have, instead, drawn up a liberal omnibus to fund miscellaneous government spending over the next decade.

We are adding all this money to the national debt, and they have a rescue package with most of the money being spent out far in the future. That is why there was bipartisan opposition over in the House. That is why aspects of the House bill are already dropping like flies before this thing even hits the Senate floor.

A pet project for the San Francisco Bay area is gone. Special upgrades for a bridge connecting New York to Canada, gone. Even CNN had to admit these were ``controversial.'' Senator Sanders' far-left minimum wage policy that would have killed 1.4 million jobs just as we try to recover appears to be gone, too--at least for now.

According to public reports, right now, as we speak, several of our Democratic colleagues are frantically trying to trim back other crazy provisions: the runaway government bailouts, the policies that will keep workers at home when we should be focusing on rehiring.

Just a few days ago, President Biden's Chief of Staff bragged that this smorgasbord of borrowed money will add up to ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation.''

So that is what you get when the Democratic leader persuades all of my distinguished friends across the aisle that their first undertaking as Senate committee chairmen should be to outsource all their gavels to the House.

The Senate wrote the CARES Act. In the earliest days of the crisis, this Chamber took the bull by the horns. I personally assembled bipartisan task forces that crafted urgent solutions to help America weather the storm.

This time around, on the substance, the Senate has been largely missing in action. House Democrats are bristling and publicly pushing back if our Senate Democratic colleagues even try to make their mark on this partisan bill in small ways.

So these two radically different processes have generated two radically different pieces of legislation.

The Democrats had a choice. They chose to go it alone, tack to the left, leave families' top priorities on the cutting-room floor

Mr. President, on a completely different matter, just 6 weeks into unified Democratic government, we already have another crisis brewing on our southern border. In January, Customs and Border Protection logged more than 78,000 encounters on our southwest border, more than double the figure from January of 2020.

Last week, HHS sources told reporters we just logged the busiest February in the history of the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program. The number of kids turning up on our border with no parents is soaring, and everyone expects the numbers to keep climbing.

Now the Biden administration is reportedly planning to reopen the same kinds of emergency shelters over which Democrats vilified the Trump administration a couple of years back. Both President Biden and his Secretary of Homeland Security have said this week they don't think this is a crisis. Not a crisis, they say? Well, if this isn't a crisis, with unaccompanied kids pouring in and exceeding the capacity in a pandemic, I would hate to see what one looks like.

The cause of this emergency is not some mystery. It is not mysterious at all. Everybody knows exactly what happened. The new administration explicitly campaigned on weakening border security, and 6 weeks in, they have reversed the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, begun letting more people in in a haphazard way, and broadcast confusing mixed messages.

The L.A. Times says: ``Biden immigration policy stirs confusion at Mexico border.'' They interviewed one woman who crossed the Rio Grande ``on a smuggler's raft'' and was only briefly detained before being released into our country. She explained she had specifically come because of the new Biden administration: ``That gave us the opportunity to come.''

Another reporter put it this way: ``The message received in Tijuana and other Mexican border cities was

simpl[e]: Joe Biden was now letting people in.''

We are not just talking about the fine details of border policy. The big backdrop behind this whole discussion is the sweeping leftwing amnesty plan that the Biden administration unveiled before they were even sworn in. They want to fast-track 11 million illegal immigrants into temporary legal status, then green cards, and then full citizenship.

The far left loves this approach, but so does a certain cross section of Big Business. There is a whole lot of cultural power and economic power pushing the liberal vision. As for the best interest of American workers, well, that is not as trendy a cause in certain circles.

The truth is that it is not helpful or compassionate to just open up our borders. It is not fair to American citizens and workers, but neither is it fair to the people who are being lured into a humanitarian crisis in the middle of a pandemic because they believe this Democratic administration just conspicuously turned on a neon ``Vacancies'' sign.

Republicans just spent 4 years making major headway on the security and humanitarian crisis at our border. It took serious policy changes. It took international diplomacy with multiple countries, and it took border enforcement.

The American people would be better served if the Biden administration had chosen to build on this progress instead of rapidly trying to tear it down.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, earlier this year, my home State of Kentucky said goodbye to Bill Nighbert, a longtime public servant and a kindhearted friend. Both as a local mayor and a statewide official, Bill was instrumental to the achievements of communities across our Commonwealth. Today, I would like to recognize his lifetime of contributions to Kentucky.

As the Gateway to the Cumberlands, the city of Williamsburg holds a special significance not just in Southeastern Kentucky but for the entire Commonwealth. Bill worked several jobs for the city he loved before being elected mayor in 1993. For the next decade, the people of Williamsburg put their trust in him. In return, Bill worked around the clock to deliver for his community. Even in the city's top job, Bill could still be found helping plow snow, deliver goods, or any other job that needed doing. A beloved local splash park is just one tangible example of Bill's leadership and vision for his city.

As a successful mayor, Bill's reputation grew across the Commonwealth. He was elected president of the Kentucky League of Cities in 2002, using his talents to improve communities throughout the Bluegrass. Bill left city hall when Governor Ernie Fletcher tapped him to be deputy commissioner of the Department of Local Government and later the secretary of the Transportation Cabinet. Even as Bill served the entire Commonwealth in Frankfort, he still took care of Whitley County. For instance, he was a driving force in the construction of a new interchange over I-75 near Williamsburg.

Apart from his professional work, Bill was legendary for his ability to make a friend in any situation. I guess you don't become the president of the Optimists Club without a sunny disposition. He was a role model and a little league coach, lending whatever free time he could find to a variety of local organizations.

Of course, Bill's greatest achievement was the love he shared with his wife of 34 years, Susan, as well as his children and their spouses, Brad and Monica, Renee and Chris, and Benton. Anyone who was lucky enough to know Bill could see the immense pride he had in his children and grandchildren. He said they were the reasons he dedicated so much of his life to public service. On behalf of the Senate, I send sincere condolences to Bill's friends and loved ones. We are grateful they shared him with us for so many years. Kentucky was made better as a result.