Floor Statements

Mr. President, few Kentucky creations have had as much impact on American culture as Bluegrass music. It is the spring from which all other country music flows and one of our State's most world- renowned exports. Owensboro, KY, has played an important role in maintaining and promoting Bluegrass history, style, and heritage and, in recognition of that work, was recently named the Bluegrass Capital of the World. Today, I honor Owensboro for earning this title and helping preserve Kentucky's proud Bluegrass culture.

Owensboro's deep connection to Bluegrass music dates back to the genre's earliest days. Bill Monroe, widely recognized as the ``Father of Bluegrass'', was born just outside Owensboro in Ohio County, KY. His musical group, the Blue Grass Boys, adapted the unique style of music they found in Scotch-Irish communities in Kentucky's Appalachian foothills and popularized it for a mainstream audience. Listeners, entranced by Blue Grass Boys' soaring melodies, jaunty rhythm, and homespun style, started a craze for Bluegrass music that brought national fame to generations of Kentucky artists.

Owensboro's leaders have recognized their unique role in Bluegrass history and sought to capitalize on that connection. City officials ushered in the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in downtown Owensboro in 1991, inviting both tourists and locals to learn about and enjoy Bluegrass history. The city's annual ``River of Music Party'', or ROMP, welcomes more than 20,000 visitors to the banks of the Ohio River to celebrate Bluegrass artists and help sustain this proud Kentucky tradition. And just recently, Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson signed the official proclamation naming his city the Bluegrass Capital of the World, cementing Owensboro's important place in Bluegrass history.

Owensboro's leaders have also initiated a strong campaign to educate and popularize Bluegrass among the next generation of Kentuckians. The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum features rotating exhibits highlighting key parts of Bluegrass history and hosts artists that promote the genre. The museum offers lessons in musical instruments like the mandolin, banjo, and fiddle, helping ensure the survival of their unique sounds and style. The museum's Bluegrass in the Schools program has introduced Bluegrass music to nearly 10,000 elementary students, including in 24 Owensboro-area schools, connecting young Kentuckians with their State's culture and history.

Bluegrass music is the soundtrack of Kentucky. From the first pluck of the banjo, strum of the guitar, or drone of the fiddle, the genre is immediately recognizable. Owensboro's leaders have done incredible, extensive work to preserve and promote this unique Kentucky music and are incredibly deserving of their city's recent designation as Bluegrass Capital of the World.

Mr. President, the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer highlighted the city's new title in a recent article. I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in the Record.

Madam President, Western Kentucky is still reeling from last weekend's devastating storm, but support is rolling in from around the Commonwealth, our region, and the country as well.

Yesterday, I spoke with the CEO of LifePoint Health. They operate 10 hospitals in Kentucky, including one in hard-hit Mayfield. Miraculously, their Jackson Purchase Medical Center survived the tornado mostly intact. Now it is offering much needed medical services right there in Mayfield.

Nurses and doctors have worked literally day and night. LifePoint Health shipped water tankers to their facility to bolster local supply, and the company has pledged a million dollars to help Kentucky rebuild.

Across our region, individuals and companies are opening their hearts, homes, and wallets to help.

We have received important assistance from here in Washington as well. Yesterday, the President announced the Federal Government will fund the entire cost of debris removal and emergency protective measures in the eight counties hardest hit by the storm for the next month. Local officials won't need to worry about overstretching budgets. They can just focus on rebuilding.

My team and I are working hard to continue connecting Kentuckians with the resources they need. I have set up a portal on my Senate office website to help my constituents access government assistance. It has a full list of services provided by our disaster response Agencies.

Because of the Federal Government's swift action in the past week, victims of these tornadoes can access housing assistance, legal aid, crisis counseling, and more.

I recommend every impacted Kentuckian take advantage of these resources, and my office is here to help you navigate.

I will travel back to Kentucky tomorrow to visit several of the communities that were hit hardest and meet with local leaders who are spearheading recovery efforts. I will listen to their concerns and bring their stories back to Washington to ensure that they get the help they desperately need.

The scene on the ground in Western Kentucky is still devastating and quite discouraging. For far too many families, this Christmas will be tragically abnormal. But we will continue to work together to provide Kentucky with the resources it needs to recover, bigger and better than before.

Build Back Better Act

Now, Madam President, on an entirely different matter, two in three Americans want the Federal Government to ``cut back on spending and printing money.'' That is two out of three Americans want the Federal Government to cut back on spending and printing money. But our Democratic colleagues spent the last several months trying as hard as possible to do exactly--exactly--the opposite.

Washington Democrats have spent months trying to borrow, print, and spend trillions more dollars, right into the teeth of the worst inflation in almost 40 years.

They have sought to turn their monthly welfare entitlement with no work requirements from a temporary COVID measure into a permanent policy--cash welfare with no work requirements, literally forever.

Seventy-six percent of Americans say these handouts haven't helped their families at all. Yet Democrats want to dump many billions more.

Just step back and look at all the ways their leftwing wish list could hurt a young family in middle America.

First, they would need to cross their fingers that the private or employer-sponsored insurance they chose to

meet their family's specific needs isn't shoved off a cliff in Democrats' latest lurch toward more socialized medicine. And they will have to hope their war on the medical innovation sector doesn't prevent the development of lifesaving cures their family might have relied on some years down the road.

Say the family has one or two young kids. Maybe their ideal arrangement is a church-based daycare. They would need to say a prayer their faith-based center isn't sued and chased out of business thanks to Washington Democrats' toddler takeover.

Their plan would give nothing to full-time parents, grandparent caregivers, nanny shares, or neighborhood co-ops. It would push faith- based providers out of the public square by design, and it could inflate daycare costs--listen to this--by up to $12,000 or $13,000 per child per year.

If Democrats get their way, let's hope neither parent is one of the many Americans who work in our domestic energy sector. Our colleagues' bill has a huge pile of new redtape aimed at putting their industry literally out of business.

But no matter where they work, they will face inflated prices to heat their homes and fill up at the gas pump.

For all of these bad ideas and many more, our colleagues wanted to spend trillions upon trillions more dollars right into the teeth--into the teeth--of runaway inflation that they have already caused.

Yesterday, we got indications the far left's slapdash sprint may be hitting the pause button. Well, that would certainly be great news for the American people. The best Christmas gift Washington could give working families would be putting this bad bill on ice.

Senate Rules

Madam President, now, on another matter, as cracks keep forming in the Democrats' reckless taxing-and-spending spree, some of our colleagues seemed to channel their frustration into even more radical attempts to attack our government institutions.

In the span of a few hours, one Senate Democrat had renewed calls to ``nuke'' the Senate and break the rules, and another published a national op-ed arguing that Democrats should attack the rule of law and pack the Supreme Court--two frontal assaults on two branches of government proposed in the space of about 2 hours. Entire generations of statesmen would have seen either one of these unhinged proposals as Armageddon for our institutions. Ah, but apparently today's Democrats try both at once and just call it Wednesday.

We have heard false claims that the Senate obeying our rules to address the debt limit somehow paves the way for radicals to break the rules.

Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent that an additional statement on that subject be printed in a different place in the Record.

Elections

Madam President, so, look, we have discussed over and over again why Democrats will not be allowed to federalize our elections and lord over all 50 States like a self-appointed board of elections on steroids. My colleagues across the aisle have pushed absurd bills that would do things like neuter voter ID laws; make every State legalize ballot harvesting; turn the Federal Election Commission into a biased, partisan body; and even send taxpayer money to political campaigns.

It isn't about ``voting rights''; it is a naked power grab. Democrats have been pushing the same kinds of bills literally for years, even as their stated justifications have changed wildly. When Republicans win elections or start polling well, Democrats and the media say our democracy is badly broken, on death's door, and needs a radical overhaul. The answers presented are these policies. When Democrats win elections, Democrats and the media say our democracy is sterling, beyond reproach, and just needs modest safeguards to protect the status quo, but, again, the answers presented are the very same policies.

Lately, their pretext has been demagogic attacks on State voting laws and proposals. If any State scraps any of the temporary pandemic procedures that Democratic operatives favor, the radical left says the sky is falling. But outside of the liberal bubble, nobody buys this nonsense. The country is not buying the hysteria.

On election day last month--listen to this--even in deep-blue New York, voters rejected liberal ballot measures that would have liberalized no-excuse absentee voting and loosened up the rules on voter registration. Both those were voted down in New York. Not even blue New York wants these policies to weaken their elections. But some Democrats want to break the Senate and trash its rules to force these sorts of things on all 50 States? It is beyond absurd.

I understand my colleagues are frustrated they may not get to spend $4.9 trillion on the way out the door for Christmas, but, believe me, lashing out at our democracy, at the Supreme Court, and at the Senate itself is not going to solve anything.

Senate Rules

Madam President, last week, bipartisan majorities in the Senate and House passed S. 610 and the President signed the bill into law.

This law prevented painful Medicare cuts and established a one-time, expedited, simple-majority process to make Senate Democrats raise the nation's debt limit with only Democratic votes.

This week, some far-left activists and Senate Democrats who have spent months agitating to ``nuke'' the Senate are pretending that S. 610 represented some novel watershed for the Senate that gives them license to attack the institution.

These are factual claims, and they are false.

First, S. 610 needed to clear and did clear a 60-vote threshold. Sixty-four Senators voted to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment. The Senate's consideration and passage of the bill fully obeyed the Standing Rules of the Senate.

By contrast, ramming through a different fast-track procedure--or any other piece of legislation--with 50 votes over the objections of Senators requesting the 60-vote threshold would mean ``going nuclear,'' shredding the rules, and destroying the filibuster.

Last week, the Senate followed the rules. The far left wants Democrats to break the rules. There is no comparison.

Second, there was nothing novel about S. 610 establishing a new, limited, expedited, simple-majority Senate procedure via statute.

The Senate has passed many such laws creating many such procedures. Examples date back at least to the 1930s.

The much-used budget reconciliation process--with its limited, expedited, simple-majority Senate procedure--is a statutory creation of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and its amendments.

Other examples include the Trade Act of 1974, the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990, the Congressional Review Act of 1996, the Budget Control Act of 2011, and the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015. In all these instances, the Senate passed laws that set up new, limited, expedited, simple-majority Senate procedures for considering specific issues within specific parameters.

In this historical context, the one-time Senate process that S. 610 created was notably limited and minimalistic. It could only be accessed once, during a narrow stretch of time, for one specific purpose, with no other provisions or amendments permitted.

In sum, the Senate's recent action on the debt limit did not change the filibuster any more than BRAC, TPA, or the Budget ``Super- Committee'' changed the filibuster--which is to say, not at all.

As the widely admired and acclaimed expert on Senate procedure Marty Gold summarized last week, ``this expedited procedure will be created in accordance with the Standing Rules of the Senate, through passage of a regular order bill. The entire process must begin with 60 votes. [And] if it becomes law, it will be the narrowest expedited procedure ever passed.''

Last week's episode did not give radicals any pretext to wreck the Senate. Just the opposite. The Senate's functioning confirmed again that the current Senate rules generate bipartisan compromise when the country needs it.

Tribute to Sara Schwartzman

Madam President, now on one final matter, when the Senate does adjourn

for the holidays, we will also bid farewell to a talented Senate staff leader who has kept our institution running.

Sara Schwartzman is one of the Senate's finest. Sara has been a familiar face around the Senate and on the dais for more than a decade, and the most visible parts of her work as the Senate's bill clerk have certainly made her ``C-SPAN famous.''

For years, she was among the foremost experts on the pronunciation of ``Mr. Alexander.'' More recently, she has become well practiced in the delivery of ``Ms. Baldwin.'' But Sara's speaking role barely scratches the surface of her crucial responsibilities as the bill clerk. Day in and day out, she and her team are the traffic cops for mountains of legislative text and amendments. Sara tracks the paper and the records. Before the Senate can formally pass anything, it has to make a stop at her desk.

As if these core duties weren't enough to keep even the most meticulous multitasker busy, Sara has generously made herself available to folks throughout the institution as an informal resource. Bill status? Procedural hurdles? Sara's encyclopedic expertise has been just a phone call away. It is safe to say her colleagues will miss this other sort of Senate hotline.

As for Sara, one might worry that someone whose job is a part of every late-night vote and weekend session would struggle to fill her newfound free time, but I understand that, in this case, the Senate's loss is another storied institution's gain. Sara is leaving Washington but staying in public service, working in an exciting role with NASA.

So, Sara, thank you for your years of service, and good luck in the exciting chapters ahead.

(Applause.)

Mr. President, in the aftermath of Western Kentucky's devastating tornado outbreak, I have maintained close contact with State and local officials. My staff has been on the ground since the outset of the crisis, helping residents access Federal resources and keeping me up-to-date with any developments. Toward the end of the week, I will travel back to Kentucky to meet with my constituents and visit the areas affected.

The stories coming out of Kentucky are harrowing. But in recent days, we also heard about the generosity, the hard work, and the hope that are helping our State recover.

Kentuckians desperately need help to rebuild, so our universities, normally bitter rivals on the court, are rallying together to raise money and gather supplies for relief efforts.

This Christmas is shaping up to be exceptionally difficult for children all across Western Kentucky, so churches

are organizing toy drives to help make the holidays a little bit brighter. Western Kentucky community organizations are stretched to the limit, so businesses based in the Commonwealth, from distilleries to car manufacturers, to insurance companies, have stepped up and donated literally millions. Remarkable stories of survival and resiliency have trickled out of the disaster zone.

Last weekend's storm destroyed much of the First Christian Church in Mayfield, but the congregation discovered their communion table and altar cross fully intact while picking through the rubble. A symbol of hope and rebirth survived amid so much pain.

Across town, the Mayfield Health and Rehabilitation nursing home was physically devastated when it took a direct hit from the tornado on Friday night, but all 74 of the facility's elderly residents survived with only minor injuries. As one staff member said, this was ``truly a miracle.''

And in Bremen, KY, when a man visited the wreckage of his home on Saturday, he discovered his grand piano mostly undamaged--undamaged-- despite the storm. Amid the surrounding devastation, he sat down to play and to sing hymns. His songs, shared on social media, warmed the hearts of thousands.

These stories of hope have ricocheted across the Commonwealth, bringing smiles and strength to communities that need them most. And they give me faith that Kentucky will recover from this crisis stronger than ever.

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

Mr. President, Kentucky is working to recover from the deadly storms and tornadoes. Each day brings entirely new challenges. Tens of thousands are still dealing with water, gas, or power outages. Families are in shock and grief over the loss of loved ones. Rebuilding the areas in Kentucky leveled by this storm will take months, if not years, to complete.

Amid this pain, though, bright lights of hope shine through. In the face of tragedy, Kentuckians are still as strong and as generous as we have always been.

Yesterday, I spoke with the Taylor County judge-executive. He told me that 70 families in his county had lost their homes in the storm. Emergency responders made shelters available, but folks were completely taken in by family, friends, or neighbors--just the kind of people we have in Kentucky.

In Mayfield, residents are already beginning to rebuild only days after the storm leveled full city blocks. Churches hosted Sunday services this past weekend. Locals brought their chain saws and cleared debris from the city's roads. People from nearby counties and States have flooded--literally flooded--in to help.

One man, Jimmy Finch, has struck a chord with America's hearts all across the country. He had no connections to Mayfield whatsoever. He is from Clarksville, TN. But after the disaster, he borrowed a big meat smoker, got into his car, made the hour-and-a-half journey in the dead of night and started serving up food the next morning. This fellow from Tennessee came up to Kentucky and brought a whole bunch of food. On Sunday morning, for hours, he fed chicken, hot links, and burgers to hungry residents who had been without heat or power for days.

Western Kentucky's radio and TV stations have kept operating throughout this crisis, delivering vital information, even amid roving power outages. State parks opened their doors to residents who lost their homes. Businesses, individuals, and charities have been generous with food, water, and shelter.

Kentucky's first responders are working hand in hand with FEMA to provide coordinated relief. Doctors, nurses, firefighters, and law enforcement officers are working literally through the night. Utility workers are making a Herculean effort to restore power and water.

Hundreds of Kentucky National Guardsmen have deployed to Western Kentucky to offer their assistance. And in Fort Campbell, the Federal Government has provided a critical lifeline of support: 61 generators, 74,000 meals, 135,000 liters of water, thousands of cots and blankets, all supplied by Fort Campbell.

I am in close contact with Governor Beshear, our Federal Agencies, and local leaders. My staff and I have been in frequent touch with the White House.

Kentucky will come back from this bigger and better than ever before. I will make sure the Senate provides all the assistance we can to make sure that is a reality.

Now, Mr. President, on a totally different matter, Washington Democrats' printing, borrowing, and spending addiction is directly hurting American families.

Two-thirds of the American people, a supermajority, are worried about inflation. About half the middle class and 70 percent of low-income families say soaring prices have personally hurt their household. And it isn't getting better, like the Biden administration promised it would. It is actually getting worse.

Last Friday, the Labor Department released a jaw-dropping report: The consumer price index has shot up 6.8 percent over the past year; 6.8 percent inflation, the worst inflation--listen to this--the worst inflation in 40 years.

Now, it is true that the average American worker has gotten a pay increase since 2020, but rising prices have more--more--than wiped that totally out.

We have a remarkable situation where American workers are earning raises, but their bigger paychecks buy their families even less than what their smaller paychecks bought before the Democrats took power. The net effect is a nearly 2-percent pay cut for the average American.

Now, our citizens do know what is happening. Sixty-seven percent of the country says Washington needs to ``cut back on spending and printing money.'' Let me say that again. Sixty-seven percent of the country says Washington needs to ``cut back on spending and printing money.''

But here in Washington, leading Democrats want to plow ahead and double down on the reckless taxing-and-spending spree that got us here. They want to respond to this stunning inflation report by printing, borrowing, and spending trillions upon trillions more on new entitlements and far-left programs.

If that weren't bad enough, on Friday, a new report showed their socialist shopping spree could cost the country trillions more than Democrats are willing to admit.

You see, as one of our Democratic colleagues explained last month, his party's bill is packed full of ``shell games'' and ``budget gimmicks''--``shell games'' and ``budget gimmicks.'' For example, their bill pretends that major new entitlements would simply expire after a few years.

Of course, that never happens. As a wise man once said, ``Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.'' And Democrats aren't even pretending they think the spending would stop. They are boasting about a permanent transformation. The fake expiration dates are just an accounting trick so the pricetag looks artificially low.

And last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office announced that if we acknowledge the permanent entitlements would be permanent--in other words, tell the truth--their bill would actually cost $4.9 trillion in the first decade alone. That is the truth of the situation. It would explode the deficit by $3 trillion in that same 10-year period.

Democrats are trying to reassure their alarmed Members that they would find new ways to offset future extensions. But let's think about it. They have just spent months shoveling every possible pay-for into this existing bill. They already burned through huge permanent tax hikes just to partially offset the bill with the gimmicks. Extending these programs further would either explode our national debt or it would take even further trillions and even further gigantic tax hikes that Democrats are simply unwilling to specify.

So which is it, historic deficits or trillions more in secret tax hikes? The right answer for the country is neither.

Later today, every Senate Democrat is going to vote along party lines to raise our Nation's debt limit by trillions of dollars. If they jam through another reckless taxing-and-spending spree, this massive debt increase will just be the beginning: more printing and borrowing to set up more reckless spending, to cause more inflation, to hurt working families even more.

What the American people need is a break.

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

Madam President, the tornadoes that hit Kentucky this past weekend were some of the most widespread, severe, and devastating in our State's history.

It is still difficult to comprehend the vast scope of the storm. Nearly 40 tornadoes touched down across 6 States. One tornado in Kentucky stayed on the ground for over 200 miles--200 miles. This was potentially the longest continuous path of any tornado in U.S. history.

Towns have been reduced to rubble. Families are picking up pieces of their shattered lives. Most tragically, our Governor announced today that more than 60 Kentuckians are confirmed to have lost their lives. Many more remain unaccounted for.

This is the worst storm to hit Kentucky in my lifetime. The tornadoes have caused considerable damage in 15 counties all across the Commonwealth. Thousands lost their homes. Tens of thousands are still without power. This was, in the words of one meteorologist, ``the worst-case scenario'' for destruction. And it came during the Christmas season. Families are supposed to be gathering soon for rest, relaxation, and reunion. Now, so many Kentuckians are facing exactly the opposite.

The whole country is becoming acquainted with Mayfield, KY, likely our hardest hit city. Mayfield is a town of 10,000 in the Jackson Purchase. It has been known for the beautiful Greek Revival facade of the Mayfield First United Methodist Church. Now, First United is completely gone, and the town is literally leveled to the ground.

Mayfield's candle factory was operating in full swing this weekend to keep up with the Christmas demand. It was once a mainstay of the community, employing hundreds. On Friday night, the factory was turned into a scene of absolute horror. Many of the employees who were working that evening are feared dead. Rescue operations are ongoing. At least 40 employees were rescued initially. One was saved after being trapped under 5 feet of rubble for hours. The devastation there is absolute.

The tornado was so powerful that it ripped 27 train cars off their tracks in Earlington and scattered them across a field. A family photograph that was picked up by the storm in Dawson Springs, KY, was carried nearly 130 miles by the wind and discovered over in Indiana.

All across Western Kentucky, residents spent their Saturday and Sunday clearing debris and collecting clothes and possessions that had been scattered. Families were left to inspect the cinderblocks where their houses once stood. The cheery lights of Christmastime have been replaced by absolute destruction.

Kentucky has been devastated, but we have not been defeated. Kentuckians are resilient people who will stay strong and united through the crisis.

I am incredibly grateful to the first responders who have been on the

ground since the outset: Kentucky National Guard, Kentucky State Police, sheriff's departments, city and local law enforcement, EMS responders, firefighters, doctors, and nurses. Quick thinking and selfless action saved lives.

Hard-hit communities are receiving an outpouring of support from across the Commonwealth as well as around the country. Americans near and far are coming together to donate food, blood, resources, and shelter to those in need. Businesses and individuals have helped fund relief efforts and donated to assist the storm's victims.

Like many of my fellow Kentuckians, I was incredibly touched by the support offered by the University of Kentucky basketball team this past weekend. While visiting the University of Notre Dame, they led a deeply emotional moment of silence before their game on Saturday night. The team visited the school's grotto to light candles for storm victims and to pray for recovery. We are all praying alongside them.

Kentucky's State motto is ``United we stand, divided we fall.'' In this time of crisis, Kentuckians are standing shoulder to shoulder, and we will not fail. At every level of local, State, and Federal Government across both political parties, Kentucky's leaders have come together to coordinate and to provide aid.

Toward the end of the week, I will travel back to Kentucky to meet with my constituents and visit the areas affected by the storm. My team has been working nonstop to ensure Kentuckians receive the help that they need.

I have worked closely with President Biden and Governor Beshear to ensure every Federal resource possible is deployed to our State. Kentucky's congressional delegation has come together to send multiple letters to the President in support of disaster relief. In response, President Biden cut through the redtape to approve our requests at an accelerated pace, providing the rapid support we need to recover.

I am especially grateful for the work of DHS Secretary Mayorkas and FEMA Administrator Criswell, who visited Kentucky yesterday to survey damage and to help relief efforts. FEMA has already sent two incident management teams, an urban search and rescue team, and an Army Corps temporary power team. They have turned Kentucky's Fort Campbell into a staging ground for vital relief and supplies. I could not be more grateful for their swift and decisive response to this crisis.

Even in the face of such tragedy, we can be confident that Kentucky will bounce back. We are strong; we are united; and we will come back bigger and better than ever before.

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

Mr. President, today, the Capitol is once again hosting a hallowed tradition. The U.S. Congress just solemnly welcomed our

late friend and colleague, Leader Robert J. Dole, one final time. This most distinguished soldier-statesman now lies in state at the epicenter of our democracy. Our Nation has bestowed this honor only 33 times in its history--to Presidents, to Senators and Representatives, to heroes of war.

With today's ceremony, Bob's path aligned one last time with his Army hospital buddy's, turned longtime fellow Senator, Danny Inouye. It was amazing enough that Bob's and Danny's paths converged all the way from bedside bridge games in the 1940s to votes on this floor into the 1990s, but now they have both rested on the exact same catafalque that has held up our great statesmen, dating back to President Lincoln.

Bob Dole earned these honors many, many times over--through a heroic fight that began on Hill 913 and left lifelong scars, through accomplished service at both ends of this building, and in a bid for even higher office, conducted with integrity and grace.

Bob Dole left this Chamber a quarter of a century ago, but service to his beloved Kansas and his fellow Americans remained the focus of his life until the moment he was called home on Sunday.

The sting of losing our friend is still fresh, but we are proud to celebrate this extraordinary American--now draped in the colors to which his entire life was dedicated and already at home in eternal rest.

Build Back Better Act

Now, Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, on Tuesday, I shined a spotlight on Washington Democrats' proposed toddler takeover. They want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in order to upend families' arrangements, create massive inflation in daycare costs, and attack faith-based providers.

Now, Democrats say their plan would not hurt faith-based providers because it wouldn't explicitly block them up front. Ah, but that is only a small part of the story. The reckless taxing-and-spending spree might not ban faith-based providers on day 1, but their scheme of mandates and subsidies would slowly and quietly push them out.

The Democrats' bill would deny religious providers an extra funding stream for upgrading their facilities, which their secular competitors would actually get, and their proposal would let woke bureaucrats persecute faith-based groups unless they leave their values at the door. If a Jewish daycare wants to prioritize Jewish families, they could get thrown out of the Democrats' scheme for engaging in discrimination. A Catholic facility could be kicked out if families who are registered parishioners get first dibs. If a faith-based provider decides not to hire somebody who fundamentally rejects their teachings, leftwing bureaucrats and lawyers would come after them as well. The woke mob that stalks cake bakers and florists is now coming for church daycare.

Twenty-one organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of faith-based daycares and preschools, signed an open letter to the Senate. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims all wrote to Chairwoman Murray and Senator Burr.

Here is what they said:

The Build Back Better Act will suppress, if not exclude,

the participation of many faith-based providers. . . .

[P]rovisions in the bill text make it virtually impossible

for many religious providers to participate.

Let me say that again:

[P]rovisions in the bill text make it virtually impossible

for many religious providers to participate.

Now, the far left says that if you don't support the toddler takeover, you are somehow out of touch, but they are projecting, as it is their Big Government scheme that is out of touch with the diverse aspirations of different families.

Last year, a nonpartisan survey asked families what childcare arrangements they would ideally like. Apart from the pandemic, if finances were no obstacle, what would American parents want? The share who said ``center-based childcare'' was 27 percent. This is the only route that Democrats want to subsidize--center-based childcare. Just 27 percent of parents say that is their ideal world, and of that 27 percent, a majority prefer the faith-based options that Democrats would push out.

Now, a larger group, nearly 40 percent, said their ideal arrangement would involve full-time parenting in some form, either one parent stays home or the two trade off. Another 9 percent said they would ideally like an extended relative like a grandparent to be the caregiver. Other families would ideally want a nanny share or a neighborhood co-op.

The Democrats' daycare scheme would give all these people nothing-- nothing. A family that has sacrificed so much so that a mom or dad can stay home will not get one penny for books or supplies or make up for lost wages. A grandparent who leaves a part-time job to spend weekdays with their grandkids will not get a dime under the Democrats' plan. A neighborhood nanny share gets zero help.

Forget about diversity. Forget about choice and fairness. Families would either enroll in a specific pathway that Big Labor and Big Government like best or they get nothing. Meanwhile, even in the centers that Democrats do want to subsidize, parents would get a very mixed bag.

Analysts agree the new regulations would send costs skyrocketing. The District of Columbia's local government estimates that these sorts of policies would increase the cost of daycare by roughly $12,000 per child per year. Their plan would supposedly use government subsidies to make up this new inflation, but that assistance would be confusing and uneven.

So this bill manages to be wildly inflationary and wildly unfair at the same time. That is pretty hard to pull off--wildly unfair and wildly inflationary at the same time. It insults the diversity of American families and their aspirations. It simply hands money and power to the same woke bureaucrats who are letting far-left propaganda into K-12 schools and then sending the Department of Justice after parents who speak up.

This bill would give HHS Secretary Becerra, a hard-core culture warrior, a giant slush fund to start shaping the care of babies and toddlers. And facilities and families who make different choices would be left facing a massively inflated market with zero help.

This would be an awful--awful--proposal for American families, even if it were free. But, of course, it isn't.

Washington Democrats don't just have to explain to parents why they want to make childcare more expensive, more inflexible, and more unfair; they also get to explain why they want to print and borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to do it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, for Washington Democrats, 2021 will have one major theme: ramming through inflationary spending on a partisan basis that hurts American families and actually helps China. That is how this all-Democratic Government began the year, jamming through a wasteful excuse for a stimulus bill that drove up prices and made supply chain problems even worse. Not a single Republican supported it, and Democrats now want to end the year with another massive spree that would make it even worse.

The whole country understands that Democrats own this mess. They have seized one-party control of the economy. So you better believe that they will have one-party accountability for the resulting nightmare.

The President and his allies are badly upside down in overall approval ratings, upside down on the generic ballot, upside down on the economy. And the more the men and women of this country learn about the reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats are planning next, the less they want it or anything close to it.

Democrats have wanted to transform the country alone. They want to print and borrow trillion after trillion on their own. They want to create even more inflation on their own. So, as the Republicans have made clear for months, they will have to own a debt ceiling increase as well. This week, the House and Senate have reached a bipartisan agreement to make that happen. As the Democratic leader said yesterday, the Democrats are ``willing to carry the burden.'' And so they will.

We have reached an agreement on a one-time, one-shot statutory process that will enable Democrats to raise the debt limit at a fixed dollar amount, which they will specify. Much like the vote on an arms sales resolution that occurred yesterday and the Congressional Review Act vote that will occur today, this will be a standard expedited process, at a simple majority threshold, established by law. Democrats will get one shot at this. They won't be able to add any other amendments. And every single Senate Democrat will have to put their name to the gigantic dollar amount of debt they are prepared to pile on the American people.

Now, Mr. President, on another matter, for the past 2 years, as the country has battled COVID-19, I have been a strong and consistent advocate of following the science and taking precautions. That has included strong support for the safe and effective vaccines that have helped millions of Americans substantially lower their risk of death or serious illness. I took advantage of these modern medical miracles as soon as I could. I have received a booster. I have encouraged Kentuckians and all Americans to take full advantage as well. I have recorded public service announcements.

I am a survivor of childhood polio. I have watched vaccines obliterate polio in our entire country in my lifetime. Trust me, there is no bigger proponent of vaccination than I am. But here is the thing: The United States of America is a free country. The Federal Government, elites in Washington, cannot micromanage citizens' personal choices without a legitimate basis in law and the Constitution. And that goes double for Presidents going far beyond the bounds of their office and their authority.

President Biden's absurd private-sector vaccine mandate is blatant overreach. It is illegal. The administration has already lost in Federal court and had it blocked.

Washington Democrats have lashed themselves to a mast that is very simple: Unvaccinated people should be fired. That is what they want. They don't trust individuals, families, doctors, employers, and customers to sort things out for themselves. They want every worker at a medium-sized business and up to either get the shot or get fired by President Biden. And buried in the illegal mandate is a call to explore whether it should expand to all businesses.

This is not how things work in our country, period. Workers are not happy. Medium-sized businesses are not happy, especially not in the middle of this worker shortage. And, frankly, nobody who understands our system of government is happy.

I have heard from so many Kentuckians who are affected by the administration's suite of several unwise vaccine mandates. Here is one quote:

My wife . . . was notified that if she doesn't get fully

vaccinated by January 4 then she would be terminated and lose

her job without severance or unemployment. . . . She has been

[there] for 17 years and has nothing but exemplary reviews.

Here is another:

I will lose my job at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

I very much enjoyed my work there and had every intention of

retiring from the plant. However, due to Joe Biden's forced

vaccine mandate, I will be terminated. . . . Please let a man

who wants to work, go to work.

Here is another:

My firm [of] 103 employees will [either] lose about 25 to

the mandate, or lay off 4 to get to 99. Which one should we

do?

Remember, personally, I would encourage each of these Kentuckians to get the vaccine, but for the purposes of this conversation, that really isn't the point. You better believe I am going to stand up and fight for their freedom.

I want to thank the junior Senator from Indiana for spearheading this resolution to overturn the Biden administration's illegal mandate. I am a proud cosponsor. I will proudly vote for it and urge every Senator to do the same.

Mr. President, now on one final matter, the national murder rate just recorded its biggest jump in more than a century. In some cities, homicides have set alltime records. From Albuquerque to Milwaukee, Memphis to Des Moines, city officials reported more murders last year than in any prior year. In my hometown of Louisville, homicides this year have now broken last year's alltime record.

All last year, liberal politicians and activists made absurd and false claims about law enforcement. Here are some of them: ``We need to completely dismantle'' local police. Here is another one: ``Policing in our country is inherently and intentionally racist.''

A leftwing messaging campaign has spent a year and a half trying to chill law enforcement and policing. A network of liberal district attorneys around the country is matching their rhetoric with incredibly soft-on-crime practices behind the scenes, and the predictable result of all this has been a collapse--a collapse--in public safety.

For example, last month a man killed six people and injured dozens more at a Christmas market in Wisconsin--listen to this--just weeks after he was released on bail for another set of violent charges. This criminal had already been arrested and locked up in neighboring Milwaukee County, but he was let out by a liberal DA who remarked several years ago:

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

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.

Stunning. There are now a whole bunch of grieving families in this Wisconsin city who have strong feelings about that ``approach.''

Here is a headline from New York City just this week:

Man busted for assault set free, allegedly beats two random

[New York City] women--then cut loose again.

Smash-and-grabs, flash mob thefts, and carjackings are increasingly facts of life in multiple major cities, but against this backdrop, Democrats just want to keep getting weaker on crime and softer on public safety.

We expect a vote today on the nomination of Rachael Rollins to be U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. Ms. Rollins has spent years in her current job as a DA pushing the idea that the State should wipe entire categories of crimes off the list of things worth prosecuting. She would rather her office not go after trespassers, shoplifters, or even those found possessing drugs with intent to distribute. This soft-on- crime advocacy should have earned the nominee a pink slip. Instead, President Biden is giving her a promotion.

I would urge all Senators to vote no. Law-abiding Americans don't want prosecutors who refuse to prosecute. They don't want city jails equipped with revolving doors. And they need leaders who will defend the rule of law.

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

Mr. President, the last time Washington Democrats pushed through a huge change that disrupted families' arrangements, it earned President Obama the ``Lie of the Year'' award.

Democrats insisted that if you liked your healthcare plan, you could keep your healthcare plan. It turned out that was totally false. Their reckless government takeover threw many families into chaos.

This year, many of the same Democrats want to write a sequel. They want to ram through a radical, reckless, multitrillion-dollar taxing- and-spending spree between now and Christmas. And a huge part of their bill would completely upend childcare and pre-K as they exist for families all across our country.

If you like your childcare, you can keep your childcare. Well, buckle up, parents. What could possibly go wrong?

The Democrats have written their toddler takeover in ways that would turn families' finances literally upside down and make already expensive childcare even costlier. So let's walk through how they did it.

First, their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would make childcare dramatically more expensive through an avalanche of new mandates, regulations, and micromanagement--the usual Washington, DC, routine.

State and local governments are panicking about the childcare inflation this would cause. Here in the District, as one liberal analyst uncovered, local officials have formally estimated--listen to this--that the per-child daycare cost for a toddler or an infant would jump up $12,000 a year--increase the cost of childcare $12,000 a year; $12,000 more per child per year. President Biden's inflation is coming for daycare.

That is why the other half of their clumsy scheme is to dump subsidies onto some families. They want to borrow and print even more so they can

throw money at the same thing they have just made more expensive.

But here is where the bad idea turns literally into a terrible one. The Democrats wouldn't help families directly. This isn't some simple voucher that families can use as they please. My colleagues have produced an insanely tangled scheme where the truckloads of money go from Washington to State governments, to the childcare centers, one leaky bucket after another.

The problems run deeper than that. Democrats want States to sign up for badly underfunded mandates. That is the effect, because the retirement programs would surely last forever; but, for accounting purposes, Democrats are pretending the money stops after a decade. Many States will not be keen to be socialist guinea pigs.

Then there is the fact that the assistance is doled out in incredibly confusing and uneven ways. The subsidies start and stop with no rhyme or reason.

Listen to what a left-leaning organization, the People's Policy Project, has uncovered. They have found that, in year one, a family that earns $1 over their State median income ``will be eligible for zero subsidies, meaning that they will be on the hook for the entire unsubsidized price,'' which they estimate will now cost ``at least $13,000 per year higher than'' it does right now.

The researcher repeats himself because it is so unbelievable. Here is the quote:

Having a family income just $1 higher than [your State's

median income] would result in you being ineligible for child

care subsidies in 2022 even as the unsubsidized price of

child care skyrockets due to the wage and other mandates in

the Democratic proposal.

This is obviously a perverse outcome and it's not clear

whether lawmakers even realize what they are about to do.

This isn't just one technical glitch. It is emblematic of how ill- conceived their whole experiment is. There are 10 problems like this on every single page.

I should add, the families who even get to participate in the mess I've just laid out, they are actually the lucky ones because Democrats want Big Government to pick winners and losers among different families who make different choices.

Many American families make one set of sacrifices so that both parents can work full time. These are the people the Democrats are trying to reward, although their plan fails in practice.

But Americans are allowed to have different aspirations. Some families make different sacrifices to have a parent at home full time. Others prefer flexible middle grounds that involve part-time work plus in-home childcare. The Democrats' toddler takeover wouldn't give any of them a dime--no diversity, no flexibility. Institutional daycare or nothing. In fact, it is worse than nothing, because a family who wants a provider to come to their house part time or wants to participate in a neighborhood nanny share will now be stuck in an inflated market. They will have to bid against the employers the Democrats have blessed and subsidized.

This is the essence of what the Democratic plan would do: Big Government and Big Labor work together to reward some family arrangements and punish others.

Our all-Democrat government is already botching the things that actually are government's job--projecting strength abroad, maintaining energy independence--but they can't even do that right. Just look at the poll numbers. The last thing families need are for Democrats to appoint themselves national daycare czars and then botch that, too.

I haven't even touched on one of the most sinister parts of this whole proposal.

For parents who do use childcare outside the home, faith-based options are incredibly popular. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that 53 percent of parents who use center-based care use ones that are linked to faith-based organizations, but the same Democrats who are letting far-left propaganda trickle down from the universities into K- 12 schools are now declaring war on faith-based childcare. Washington Democrats want to unleash the woke mob on church daycare. There are at least two parts of their bill that are direct attacks.

First, liberals are trying to chase faith-based providers out of the daycare industry by denying funds to any facility they deem discriminatory. Of course, today's radical left tosses around these kinds of accusations at any remotely traditional institution. Faith- based childcare centers could potentially get their subsidies ripped away if they don't hire who secular bureaucrats want them to hire, set up their facilities the way secular bureaucrats want them set up, or even--listen to this--if they give preference to kids of their own faith. Orthodox Jewish daycare centers could get kicked out if they say Orthodox Jewish families get first dibs. Evangelical centers could get punished by bureaucrats if the families who belong to the church are accommodated first.

This is a joke. The left is trying to weaponize the word ``discrimination'' to push faith-based childcare out of business.

Another part of their bill goes out of its way to deny money for facility upgrades to buildings that are used for ``sectarian instruction or religious worship.'' If a faith-based center leads kids in prayer or teaches them their families' faiths, they don't get the funding that everybody else gets? We see this over and over from the culture warriors. They pretend they are happy to have religious groups in the public square but only if they check their beliefs at the door.

Now, a few years ago, the Supreme Court had to strike down a similar policy that penalized faith-based organizations. A State had tried to deny a church a widely available grant to fix up its playground. The Court took a look at it and struck down the law 7 to 2.

But the political left is right back at it. Just look at which Federal bureaucrat would oversee this giant mess. Well, of course, it is none other than Secretary Becerra, the hard-left culture warrior who got famous by suing the Little Sisters of the Poor for being too Catholic and by suing crisis pregnancy centers for being pro-life. This is the person whom Democrats want to give sweeping new powers over families' private choices? Secretary Becerra gets a giant slush fund to bring President Biden's inflation into childcare and discriminate against people of faith--just one more way Democrats' reckless taxing- and-spending spree would hurt working families.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, earlier this year, a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan gave our allies and partners reason to doubt that the United States could be counted on. Today, some of our colleagues want to double down on that mistake by blocking defensive support to yet another important partner.

Saudi Arabia is literally surrounded by violent threats conceived, funded, and orchestrated by Iran. To the north, they have got Iran- backed terrorists sowing violence in Iraq and Syria. To the east, they have a gulf filled with the flags of Iran's own increasingly belligerent navy. To the south, the Saudis have Iran-backed Houthi terrorists strangling Yemen and lobbying rockets, missiles, and armed drones over their border.

To be sure, this violence and the plight of the Yemeni people have only worsened since the Biden administration removed the Houthis from the terrorist list and imposed new restrictions on our support to the Saudi-led coalition.

Around the world, from time to time, we all have legitimate concerns about the behavior of our partners, but we are in a better position to influence their conduct if they trust in our partnership. So our colleagues don't get to vent their moral outrage in a vacuum without accounting for what comes next.

A vote to block the sale of defensive military systems to Saudi Arabia would undermine one of our most important regional partners, but there is even more at stake. Whether we help or not, our Arab partners will still be under siege tomorrow. They still need military capabilities to defend themselves. And we know that Russia and China will happily sell them advanced weapons systems. The importance of so- called great power competition is a matter of general consensus. So we should be wary of turning our backs on longtime partners and of pushing them into the arms of our adversaries.

So here is what our colleagues' resolution would actually do. It would give the world yet another reason to doubt the resolve of the United States, and it would give our biggest adversaries a new foothold to exert their influence over a rapidly changing and important region.