Floor Statements

Madam President, after more than six decades as a staple of Logan County radio, Don Neagle is retiring this year. As the host of the WRUS morning show and the ``Feedback'' program, Don brings high-quality news to his community, interviewing everyone from politicians, to writers, to theologians. As one local leader put it so aptly, Don is Logan County's ``bulletin board,'' relaying all of his community's most important news in one place. Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Don in his retirement.

For decades, Don arrived at his office every weekday at 4:15 am, preparing the day's news while most listeners were still fast asleep. By the time Logan County residents were on their morning commute, he was already halfway through his workday. Through his incredible work ethic and scrappy style, Don stayed ahead of breaking news and at the pinnacle of Kentucky journalism.

Don is a legendary interviewer, and his ``Feedback'' show is the highlight of WRUS's entire programming lineup. Any leader in Kentucky government, myself included, knows that it's basically a requirement to be interviewed

by Don when visiting Logan County. I have had the pleasure of speaking to him many times, and it is always an enlightening conversation full of informed, probing questions.

Don's calm, constant voice has earned him many fans across the Commonwealth. He joined the Kentucky Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2006, demonstrating that his influence reaches far beyond Logan County's borders. While his skill brought him acclaim from around Kentucky, he never strayed in his commitment to his Logan County home. Don's career was more than just a job; he formed a deep bond with Logan County, and even after six decades, he seems loath to give it up.

Though Don is taking a step back from his expansive role at WRUS, he will remain at the station for the time being as host of ``Feedback'' and an occasional guest interviewer. In the meantime, he will have more time to spend with his two daughters, six grandchildren, and six great- grandchildren. He will also be able to pursue his favorite lifelong pastime, reading, with new gusto.

In honor of Don's retirement, I would like to thank him for his service to the Commonwealth and unflagging loyalty to strong local journalism. He has delivered an invaluable service to Logan County residents for more than 60 years, and we will all miss his ever-present voice.

Mr. President, Bowling Green Daily News paid tribute to Don's career in a recent article. I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in the Record.

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

While Washington Democrats spent 2021 distracted by their reckless taxing-and-spending spree, violent criminals were preying on the American people. Millions of Americans' neighborhoods descended into chaos and violence around them.

After the nationwide murder rate saw its biggest jump in more than 100 years in 2020, at least 12 major cities set their own alltime homicide records in 2021. Rates of carjackings have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in major metro areas.

My hometown of Louisville set a new alltime murder record last year of 188 homicides. Twenty-four of the victims were children. At one point last year, a staggering 65 percent of our homicides were going unsolved. Louisville is now averaging one carjacking every 42 hours. Yesterday, I hosted the FBI special agent in charge of the Louisville field office for a meeting here in the Capitol. We discussed these issues at length.

One survey last year found that Americans believe violent crime is the No. 1 major crisis facing our country. More citizens called violent crime a major crisis than COVID. When Americans were asked about President Biden's handling of law enforcement and criminal justice, the President polls almost 20 points underwater.

The American people know this crime wave is not some spontaneous event. It has been fed and fueled in multiple ways by the Democratic Party's far-left turn. For example, liberal activists and many elected Democrats have spent almost 2 years trying to smear--smear--the entire profession of policing with the actions of a few bad actors.

We know that anti-police culture wars invite more crime. It is a fact. A prominent scholar--who, incidentally, was the youngest African- American professor to ever get tenure at Harvard--has proven that anti- police outcry directly results in more crime, including homicides.

Many jurisdictions have entertained financial attacks on police departments to match the rhetorical attacks. Literally just yesterday, a prominent House Democrat insisted to the press that the far left will not be dropping or diluting their message of ``defund the police.''

Meanwhile, our brave men and women in law enforcement are literally-- literally--under attack. While too many politicians take aim at our brave police officers in a political sense, violent criminals are taking aim at them in a literal sense. The number of cop killings shot up nearly 60 percent last year to a two-decade high.

In Louisville, Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Brandon Shirley was shot and killed last summer. It is believed he was ambushed while wearing his uniform.

The streets of New York City were packed full with heroes a few days ago as fellow officers mourned two of their colleagues who had been shot and killed.

It is not just regular citizens going about their normal days who need this violent crime epidemic to stop; our brave men and women in blue also need very badly for it to stop. But, within the justice system, leftwing activists have insinuated themselves into prosecutorial roles throughout America and are making ``soft on crime'' actually their official policy.

The State's attorney in Baltimore announced last year she intended to stop prosecuting minor drug and prostitution cases.

New York City's new district attorney said last month he would not pursue charges for marijuana misdemeanors, trespassing, and resisting arrest, among others. After a huge backlash, he tried to walk some of this back.

Chain stores like Walgreens have had to close locations in San Francisco because constant, unpunished theft and shoplifting have become a fact of life in that city.

Another example is almost too sad and ironic for words. In Wisconsin last November, a repeat offender who was out on bond drove his car into a Christmas parade and murdered six people. His victims included an 8- year-old child and a group of grandmothers.

Well, one jurisdiction over in Milwaukee County has one of the most prominent soft-on-crime liberal prosecutors in the entire country. He has spent years waging a national campaign urging prosecutors to actually go easy on repeat criminals like this killer. A few years back, he even admitted soft-on-crime policies would cost innocent lives but said he was willing to make the trade.

Here is what he had to say:

Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into

[a] treatment program, who's going to go out and kill

somebody? You bet. Guaranteed. It's guaranteed to happen. It

does not invalidate the overall approach.

These backward, pro-crime attitudes aren't just infecting local DAs' offices; they also seem to be largely defining the Biden Department of Justice. Rachael Rollins is the former Massachusetts DA who spent her last job trying to wipe entire categories of crimes off the enforcement rolls. This earned her a promotion to U.S. attorney from President Biden, which every Senate Democrat supported. There is Vanita Gupta, now an Associate Attorney General, who had previously advocated for sweeping drug decriminalization and expressed her support for efforts to ``decrease police budgets.'' There is Kristen Clarke, also confirmed by Senate Democrats to work at DOJ, who echoed calls to ``invest less in police.'' These are President Biden's picks to top jobs at Main Justice.

I just had to place a hold on the nominee to be U.S. attorney for Minnesota because the person recently acting in that job recommended an unusually soft sentence below the minimum guideline to a convicted fatal arsonist because the arsonist was taking part in a far-left political riot at the time. I will need written assurance the nominee to succeed this person will not continue this jaw-dropping practice and lessen criminals' sentences so long as the political violence they commit happens to be leftwing.

The modern Democratic Party has convinced itself that order--order-- is actually oppression and anarchy is actually compassion. This is totally wrong. Tolerating lawlessness and anarchy is not compassionate. It doesn't help vulnerable communities for politicians to passively watch them devolve into literal war zones. The actual residents of these communities know this best of all.

Last summer, even after months of anti-police rhetoric from the left, when a poll asked the residents of Detroit about their concerns, almost five times more people said public safety than police reform. It was even more lopsided among African-American residents. They named public safety eight times more than police reform.

Last summer, NPR interviewed a man who had committed terrible crimes as a young adult, served time, turned his life around, and now works with young men in prison. The reporter asked how he had gotten caught up in criminal violence. Where did his childhood veer off course?

Here was the man's explanation--a direct quote. Here is what he said:

It was my environment. . . . When I go outside every day,

as soon as I walk out my front door, I'm entering a war zone

. . . from sun-up to sundown, robberies and murders and

carjacking and extortion . . . [I] became a product of my

environment.

So this man's problem was not an evil justice system that was out to get him; it wasn't that his neighborhood had an excess of law and order; the problem was a lack of--a lack of--law and order.

It is not compassionate to let vulnerable kids grow up in war zones because Democrats feel bad putting violent criminals in prison, where they belong.

Let me say that again. It is not compassionate to let vulnerable kids grow up in war zones because Democrats feel guilty putting violent criminals behind bars, where they belong.

Neither is it compassionate to make innocent, law-abiding citizens across America live in fear because liberal public servants won't do their jobs.

The answer to this crimewave isn't slashing law enforcement budgets, it isn't replacing cops with social workers, and it isn't far-left gun grabbers coming after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. Here is the answer: Elected officials need to drop the

soft-on-crime nonsense and give innocent American families the protection they deserve.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Biden administration spent the end of last week boasting that our economy added back more jobs in January than some economists had predicted, but American families aren't buying their spin.

The working men and women of this country know painfully well that the Biden administration's economy is failing them. One typical recent survey showed a majority of Americans disapprove of the President's job performance, and Democrats' poor handling of the economy is a major factor.

So let's be clear. The country was always--always--guaranteed to add back jobs following the 2020 COVID recession. The Biden administration did not create the vaccines, it did not create this milder variant, and it is not owed particular credit for the fact that our economy is continuing to climb out of the crater caused by the 2020 lockdowns.

Our trajectory of adding back jobs has stayed remarkably consistent from late 2020 up through today. Job growth under President Biden has just kept bumping along the trajectory that he inherited-- notwithstanding that Democrats blew trillions of dollars on supposedly job-creating policies in the meantime.

There has been no noticeable acceleration in job growth relative to the baseline that was forecast before Democrats took power, but inflation, on the other hand, has absolutely soared relative to those forecasts. Consumer prices exploded by 7 percent in 2021--the worst inflation in 40 years. More than 80 percent of Americans say the cost of everyday goods have shot up, and two-thirds disapprove of the job President Biden is doing to help their wallets.

Even though American workers have been earning pay raises, inflation is leaving them with less purchasing power than they had in the first place. Once you factor in inflation, the average American has gotten a 2-percent

real pay cut--cut--under Democratic policies. According to one calculation, only in one single sector across the entire economy did wage growth outpace inflation last year. That was leisure and hospitality, as those incredibly hard-hit sectors rebounded from their especially nightmarish 2020. Everyone else, on average, got a pay cut.

The average retail worker got an inflation pay cut; same with miners and loggers--inflation pay cuts. Construction workers, manufacturing workers, and transportation workers got inflation pay cuts, and on and on. Americans know that Democrats' failed policies are the reason.

Mr. President, now, on another matter, last week, the U.S. military took another top terrorist leader off the battlefield. This particular leader had been ISIS's top militant since 2019, when American special operators introduced his predecessor to a similar fate.

I am proud of our special operations personnel who took on this dangerous mission. President Biden deserves credit for making the tough call to send U.S. servicemembers into harm's way.

Until this terrorist chose to kill himself and take innocent citizens with him, their mission had been to capture him alive for interrogation. That is an encouraging sign. If the past 20 years of counterterrorism have taught us anything, it is that just taking out top leaders does little to uproot their networks. This terrorist could have been a source of valuable information for destroying ISIS.

But this aspect of last week's mission also raises a question for our Commander in Chief. If President Biden recognizes the value of detaining top terrorists, then why are his staff still caught up in the longstanding liberal obsession with shutting down our detention center at Guantanamo Bay?

The White House said last year that closing Gitmo was ``certainly our goal and our intention,'' but last week, U.S. forces undertook this mission that was designed to take this terrorist murderer alive for detention and questioning. So how exactly was the Biden administration planning to square their political quest to close Guantanamo with their stated intention to capture this terrorist alive? Where were they planning to house this killer--a Holiday Inn? Did they intend to turn this guy over to a nonstate, third-party partner like the Syrian defense forces? That would have created new risks of another major ISIS prison break. And would his jailers have obeyed the Geneva Conventions? What if the Syrian regime--itself a state sponsor of terror--retakes that part of Syria? Or was the administration planning on bringing him before U.S. courts, under article III of our Constitution? Did the FBI come along on the raid to read this foreign terrorist his Miranda rights? Was their plan to eventually give this sworn killer the same rights as U.S. citizens and risking the possibility of a jailbreak attack on our own American soil? Or perhaps the correct answer-- Guantanamo Bay--was their plan all along. Maybe the Democrats' virtue signaling about closing this important facility has finally given way to reality.

Guantanamo is a highly secure, humane, and entirely legal place to detain terrorists. It would have been the safest place to interrogate this terrorist, well within the bounds of the laws of war.

Any Democrats who want to shutter it should look closely at the reality of the Syrian defense forces' makeshift prisons, like the major jailbreak by hardcore ISIS figures that just happened in Hasakah. They should remember the massive ISIS prison break when the Taliban overran Bagram in Afghanistan.

So if President Biden is pumping the brakes on his own plans to close Gitmo, he should say so, and I will be the first to applaud him. If he isn't, he owes the country some answers about his intentions with last week's raid and our national security going forward.

September 11 taught us definitively that we cannot treat terrorism as merely a law enforcement challenge. I hope and pray it does not come to pass that this administration is forced to relearn that lesson the hard way.

This war against terrorists will not end simply because we hope it ends. It will require sustained pressure to keep our enemies off balance.

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

Madam President, this year's Winter Olympics are officially underway on the home turf of the Chinese Communist Party. Of course, Americans are rooting hard for our outstanding Team USA athletes, but this year's setting has also trained spotlights worldwide on the abuse and repression the CCP inflicts on its own people and aspires to inflict on much of the world. Unfortunately, this has also occasioned some instances of jaw-dropping tone-deafness and gullibility from American voices.

I noted on this floor several years ago that as China has modernized its economy, too many wealthy and powerful American actors have seemed willing to help whitewash the CCP's many abuses or at least turn a blind eye. Hollywood self-censoring our own American films to satisfy President Xi and his cronies is just one example.

Well, last week, one American broadcaster seemed to uncritically amplify the CCP's propaganda goal when they included a member of the oppressed Uighur minority in the opening ceremonies.

This broadcaster called the CCP's obvious propaganda stunt ``an in- your-face response to those Western nations, including the U.S., who have called this Chinese treatment of that group `genocide.' '' President Xi couldn't have scripted it better.

Also, last week, a faculty member at a Big Ten university went on TV and compared China's secret police to American police officers and China's tyranny to America's voting laws. Here was the quote:

Who are we to criticize China's human rights record when we

have ongoing attacks by the agents of the State against

unarmed citizens, and we've got assaults on the voting rights

of people of color in various States in this country?

Really? Beyond absurd.

The truth is, the CCP has turned Xinjiang Province into a giant oppression factory, where they enslave, sterilize, and commit genocide against the Muslim minority.

The truth is, the CCP has systematically worn down human rights and democracy in Hong Kong and jailed Hongkongers for speaking up.

The truth is, the CCP is an aggressive, irresponsible presence in the Pacific region and well beyond.

America's national security and economic competition with the CCP is a defining challenge for our country--and not just us but for all our friends and partners around the world, anyone who values an international order built on freedom and self-determination instead of their opposites.

Last year, the Senate took some bipartisan steps to strengthen America's hand in that competition. The bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act was not any Senator's or any committee's or either party's idea of a perfect bill, but this delicate compromise product made headway on issues from critical supply chains to counterespionage, to intellectual property. And the Senate passed the bill last June, and the House has done nothing for 8 months--nothing from House Democrats from last June until just last week.

So a few days ago, instead of passing the Senate's careful compromise, House Democrats slapped together a partisan bill stuffed with poison pills and the kinds of things they tried to put in their reckless tax-and-spending spree that failed at the end of last year. They didn't even bother to try working with House Republicans. The whole exercise was completely unserious.

House Democrats' version mentions the word ``climate'' nearly as many times as it mentions the word ``China.'' It pours billions into the U.N. Green Climate Fund so the United States can borrow money from China to give it to an international body, which can then give it to China.

Their bill even goes out of its way to include provisions on--listen to this--marijuana banking.

China has been steadily building up its military and economic might, and the Democrats' answer is to help Americans get high?

Drug overdoses on fentanyl just became the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45 across our entire country. Much of this poison pours into our country from, of course, China. And Democrats' plan to combat this is some more marijuana on the side?

Needless to say, this is not a winning strategy for a global competition between great powers.

So here is the bottom line. The bipartisan Senate USICA bill was itself a delicate compromise product. Any Democrats hoping to yank the bill to the far left or insert poison pills are badly, badly mistaken.

Madam President, on another matter, today President Biden will welcome Olaf Scholz, the new German Chancellor, to his first visit to Washington since taking office.

Germany is a crucial ally of the United States. Tens of thousands of U.S. servicemembers reside in Germany, contributing to the collective security of the NATO alliance. According to the State Department, bilateral trade between our countries totaled more than $260 billion in 2019.

Many in Washington on both sides of the aisle appreciated the increasing leadership role that Chancellor Scholz's predecessor, Angela Merkel, played in international affairs. Germany's overseas contributions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa demonstrated a growing willingness to contribute to international missions that advance our collective security interests.

The German people have built the largest economy in Europe and the fourth largest in the entire world. They are indeed a major player, but there is no question Germany could do more given its influential role, including within the EU and NATO, to advance our shared foreign policy and security interests.

Back during the Cold War, the West German military was truly a capable fighting force, but Germany's military has been allowed to atrophy in the decades since. Today, it lags behind the state of the art and suffers from shortfalls in readiness and regular maintenance.

Germany endorsed the 2014 NATO pledge to commit 2 percent of its GDP to defense and 20 percent of that defense spending toward modernization by 2024. But it has taken very few credible steps to meet that pledge.

Meanwhile, threats to the alliance have only grown since 2014. Russia's and China's decades-long modernization efforts made it clear that 2 percent will not suffice for NATO to meet these growing challenges.

Here in Congress, we have demonstrated our commitment to NATO and to Europe's security. We hosted Jens Stoltenberg for a joint address to Congress 3 years ago. We have included measures supporting America's presence in Europe in our annual Defense bills, including significant investments in our European Deterrence Initiative.

So I hope that Chancellor Scholz will reciprocate and take this opportunity to reassure us about Germany's commitment to NATO and our collective defense. Our friends are too powerful and too prosperous not to contribute more militarily to our alliance.

Of course, building military capabilities takes time. But the urgent issue of Russian aggression in Europe also demands courage and firmness, and it demands it right now. We know how such resolve works. The United States and our allies displayed such firmness again and again in standing up to Soviet pressure, and West Berlin remained a free city because of it.

Chancellor Scholz has plenty of tools at his disposal to join his allies in sending a strong signal to Putin that aggression against Ukraine would carry a tremendous--tremendous--cost.

So let's take one example. A bipartisan chorus in Congress has opposed the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline for years. We have viewed it as a new geopolitical tool for Putin to undermine Ukraine and divide Europe. Germany acknowledges the international community's concerns, hence German delays in moving the project forward.

It would be a powerful demonstration of German leadership for Chancellor Scholz to declare firmly and simply that Russian escalation in Europe will result in the termination--the termination--of Nord Stream 2--not another pause, the end of the pipeline, period.

Likewise, it would send an important message if Chancellor Scholz commits, like other NATO allies have done and like his own predecessor's national security advisor just recommended, that Germany will help Ukraine with legitimate military capabilities so that it can better defend itself against aggression.

So, in conclusion, Germany has been an important pillar in NATO and a strong ally of the United States literally for decades. We welcome the new Chancellor to American soil. The time is now--now--for Germany to stand up and protect the peace and defend the stable Europe that modern Germany itself has helped construct and from which it has greatly benefited.

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

Madam President, this morning, the Banking Committee

is examining three of President Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

The Fed is one of the most consequential institutions in America. Its decisions have massive ramifications for our citizens and for the world economy.

At the same time, since its independence is paramount, the Fed's structure insulates the Governors from short-term influence and political pressure. When an institution this important is this independent, the guardrails that confine its power are extremely important.

Now, Congress has given the Fed a statutory mandate that is really very clear and very limited. The Fed's dual mandate is maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. That is it. That is what the Fed exists to do.

The Fed is meant to serve as our central bank. It is not meant to act as an unelected superlegislature that dabbles in broader economic policymaking should it strike its fancy.

Its current leader, Chairman Powell, understands this keenly. But, unfortunately, President Biden's nominee for the powerful No. 2 slot wants to destroy this crucial distinction.

Less than 2 years ago, Sarah Bloom Raskin launched a PR campaign saying the unelected Fed Governors should pursue liberal environmental goals that elected Democrats cannot get through Congress through the banking system.

That bears repeating. President Biden's nominee for Fed Vice Chair wants unelected bureaucrats to financially bully the private sector into policy changes which lack enough support to become law the honest way.

So let's get more specific. Ms. Raskin has argued repeatedly in print that the Fed should ideologically pick winners and losers in the energy sector.

In 2020, she said unelected bureaucrats should have excluded companies that employ Americans and produce American energy from widely available rescue loans because oil and gas are not green enough for liberals' liking.

Now, this is the same old Democratic war on fossil fuels and middle America being smuggled into a dangerous new forum.

Washington Democrats want to raise Americans' gas prices. They want to make electricity even less affordable. They want it to cost more to keep your family warm in the dead of winter. And now they want to do all this in a radical new fashion where voters could never hold them accountable.

The stated justification for this power grab is that climate change may impact the future of our economy; so therefore, it is the Fed's business--what nonsense with no limiting principle. Every major policy could affect our economy. Opening this Pandora's box would transform the Fed from an apolitical central bank into a hyperpolitical superlegislature. It would turn the venerable institution that is supposed to safeguard the American dollar into enforcers for a radical agenda that can't make it through Congress.

So you had better believe liberal activists are already acknowledging this would not stop with climate issues. They have got a whole list of ideological goals they would like the Fed to literally force on our country.

A year and a half ago, Democrats introduced legislation that would assign the Fed the mission of racial redistribution. They want to hardwire a kind of financial affirmative action plan into our banking system.

Look, the American people don't want these wild ideas. So their elected Representatives actually don't support them. Now the far left wants to transplant these radical campaigns out of Congress and into our central bank, where American voters don't get a say. This is just another example of today's Democratic Party's refusing to work within the basic rules and institutions and, instead, trying to steamroll the guardrails to get their way.

Ms. Raskin's crusade would hurt working families, kill American jobs, make our Nation less independent, and cripple the Fed's independence in the process. She wouldn't even need her colleagues' votes to do this damage. The Vice Chair for Supervision has significant unilateral powers. She might be able to do this all by herself.

Here is the bottom line: Working families can't afford a nominee who is dying to jack up their bills and gas prices. Kentuckians and middle Americans can't afford a central banker who wants to bankrupt our industries and kill our jobs.

The global economy can't afford for the Fed to become a partisan battlefield, and the American people will not accept their central bank acting like some woke--woke--superlegislature where citizens get no say.

Madam President, first, the entire Senate is praying for and pulling for our colleague Senator Lujan. We learned yesterday that our colleague suffered a stroke late last week and has been hospitalized in New Mexico as he recovers. It is certainly encouraging to read that our friend and colleague is expected to make a full recovery.

I know that all 99 of his colleagues are thinking of him every day, rooting for a swift and smooth recovery, and already looking forward to the next time we see him.

Madam President, this week marks 2 years since the Federal Government first declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency. I don't need to recount the staggering number of lives lost or the terrible upheaval throughout our society that our citizens have had to endure.

Two years in, it is time for leaders at all levels of our society to take a deep breath, clear the decks, and review where we stand today.

Here is what we know in February of 2022: Thanks to the prior Senate's work with the prior administration, our country is flooded with safe and effective vaccines for all who want them.

We know the vaccines do not prevent us from catching the current variant of the virus or transmitting it to others, so there is no moral justification for vaccine mandates. But it is absolutely clear that vaccines slash the odds of hospitalization and death. They are a powerful personal shield that lowers the fatal risk of COVID beneath other normal background risks that we face regularly in our daily lives.

As the New York Times explained this week, ``With a booster shot, COVID resembles other respiratory illnesses that have been around for years,'' and ``[t]he chance that an average American will die in a car crash this week is significantly higher.'' That is from the New York Times.

The good news goes on. As we have known for months, children are even better off still. Unvaccinated kids seem to face the same extremely low risk as vaccinated people on the younger side of middle age.

In February 2022, we know we are currently facing an Omicron variant that seems both significantly more contagious than its predecessors but also significantly less severe.

Even in hard-hit States like my own, where hospitalizations remain too high, the curve of cases and hospitalizations appears to be starting to bend back down.

I continue to encourage Kentuckians and all Americans to discuss the vaccines with their doctors and take this safe and effective step. It can be the difference literally between life and death.

But from a society-wide perspective, after 2 years on this hellish highway, it appears our country is finally arriving at the off-ramp. The virus appears to be heading endemic. Seventy percent of Americans agree with the statement ``It's time we accept that COVID is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.'' It is time for the state of emergency to wind down.

But, disturbingly, whether or not we should trust the science and reclaim normalcy is somehow becoming a partisan question. As a New York Times writer observed this week, ``[M]illions of Democrats have decided that organizing their lives around COVID is core to their identity as progressives, even as pandemic isolation and disruption are fueling mental health problems, drug overdoses, violent crime, rising blood pressure and growing educational inequality.'' Those are not my words; that is the New York Times.

For goodness' sake, nearing 60 percent of partisan Democrats told one survey they would support placing unvaccinated people under a form of house arrest.

Let me say that again. Nearly 60 percent of partisan Democrats told one survey they would support placing unvaccinated people under a form of house arrest. A supermajority of Americans oppose that absurd idea, but most Democrats say they would support it.

A majority of Americans oppose the heavyhanded vaccine mandates where mayors and local politicians are trying to substitute their own judgment for the decisions of free citizens and their doctors. A majority of Americans oppose these vaccine passports, but nearly 80 percent of Democrats want them.

In communities across the country, bureaucrats are still forcing young children to wear a mask to participate in society, when neither kids nor vaccinated adults are remotely--remotely--likely to get gravely ill.

So what exactly are we doing here? Where are the goalposts? What is the end game?

Consider if this variant were its own separate virus that we were just meeting for the very first time, without the scar tissue from the prior 2 years. Nobody would accept anywhere near this much disruption to fight the virus that we are actually facing right now.

Here in Washington, multiple Congresses have spent a staggering $6 trillion on this crisis. Of the most recent $2 trillion that our Democratic colleagues rammed through last year, only 9 percent went to healthcare in any form; less than 1 percent went to vaccines. Even within that 9 percent, the Biden administration then diverted important COVID funding to other unrelated crises, like their border crisis.

Now we hear Democrats may request yet another--yet another--huge chunk

of emergency spending. But experts say as much as $800 billion or $900 billion of the money that we have already set aside has not even been spent yet. Eight or nine hundred billion of the money that we have already set aside has not been spent yet. What about a full accounting of the $6 trillion that has already been approved?

If there are urgent needs for true, medical COVID needs, let's discuss it, and let's start the discussion by talking about repurposing the hundreds of billions that are already sitting in the pipeline.

As one report put it, ``[T]he vast majority of almost $200 billion allocated to K-12 schools has not been spent.'' That is $200 billion. ``The same goes for half of the $195 billion sent out to state governments. And most city and county governments have not spent much of the $130 billion they . . . received, either.'' Many States are swimming in cash and running surpluses. They have had to dream up creative non-COVID-related uses for these windfalls.

So, look, 2 years in, if Democrats call for more giant sums of emergency spending, the burden of proof lies with them to demonstrate that the hundreds of billions of dollars of unspent money already in the system are not sufficient. And unless something changes, so long as COVID continues retreating to the level of risk that we all regularly face in other aspects of daily life, then our leaders' duty to the American people is perfectly clear: Trust the vaccines, follow the data, forget the tribalism, work to assuage people's fears and neuroses with facts instead of feeding into them, and articulate your clear game plan to give the American people back their normalcy in the very near future.

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

Working Americans and their families are being hammered by the worst inflation in 40 years, and Washington Democrats own it. Sometimes it can be difficult to directly connect Washington policies to the downstream effects on our families. Sometimes it can be tricky to identify cause and effect. But not this time--not in this case.

The pain that families are feeling today was not just foreseeable, it was

actually foreseen by experts all across the political spectrum.

Economists said this inflation is exactly--exactly--what would happen if Democrats pushed ahead with their reckless spending sprees that the economy simply did not need.

Larry Summers, who was Treasury Secretary for President Clinton and ran the National Economic Council for President Obama, warned Democrats a year ago this week that Democrats far-left plans could trigger ``inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.''

Jason Furman, who chaired President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the very same thing. He said the Democrat's spending binge was ``definitely too big for the moment. I don't know any economist that was recommending something the size of what was done.'' That is Jason Furman, President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

But our Democratic colleagues did not let families' actual needs restrain their radical daydreaming. They had already made up their minds. This temporary pandemic was to serve as a Trojan horse for permanent socialism.

Remember, right from the start, in March of 2020, with Americans dying from this new, mysterious virus, a top House Democrat called it ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.''

So the new Democratic Party government's first major act was to start printing, borrowing, and spending money like there was no tomorrow. They managed to blow through roughly $2 trillion on a so-called COVID bill that utterly failed to crush the virus. Less than 9 percent of the money went to the healthcare fight at all. Even the liberal expert, Steve Rattner, a former Obama official, said the spending spree was Democrats' ``original sin'' when it comes to inflation.

And working Americans are paying dearly for it every single day. Just look at the headlines:

2021 went down as the worst year for inflation since 1982.

Higher prices seeped into just about everything households

and businesses buy.

There's no telling when prices will fall to more

sustainable levels.

Further quotes:

[R]ising costs for food . . . rent and other necessities

are heightening the financial pressures on America's

households.

Rising prices have wiped out the healthy pay increases that

many Americans have been receiving, making it harder for

households, especially lower-income families, to afford basic

expenses.

Yes, it is true that inflation is up all around the world. This is partially a global phenomenon. But the United States has it worse-- worse--than almost everyone else.

Data from Pew show that America's inflationary spike has been the third worst among all countries they measure. We have it worse than any other country in the G12--much worse inflation than the UK or France or Australia or Japan. That is what this agenda has bought us.

And Americans are afraid this may still just be the beginning. Seventy-nine percent of Americans now expect inflation will get even worse over the next 6 months. Now the Democratic-caused inflation has the Federal Reserve signaling they may need to raise interest rates higher and faster than they had expected.

This brings its own set of risks upon the American people, and, again, it is exactly--exactly--what experts predicted.

A full year ago this week, the economist, Michael Strain, testified that Democrats' spending could corner the Fed and force them to clamp down on the recovery sooner than necessary. Democrats had mainstream economic experts warning against their reckless spending plans and still decided to drive right over the cliff.

Working families are paying the price every day--at the checkout counter, at the gas pump, at the used car lot, when they pay their bills, when they look for housing. And now Washington Democrats are trying again to revive talk of yet another--another--reckless bout of spending this year.

American families are already hurting enough. They need that bad idea to stay buried.

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