Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 1.7 million people, that is the record- shattering number of illegal immigrants detained along our southern border in just the last 12 months. In 1 year, 1.7 million people tried to take advantage of the Biden administration's intentionally unsecure border and come here illegally. This is the most ever recorded.

There are 11 States whose populations are smaller than 1.7 million. Of the 1.7 million, more than 1 million were single adults. That is nearly two-thirds--not family units, not unaccompanied children, but adults on their own.

In many cases, this is not about escaping disaster or persecution; this is about wanting a better job in America. It is less about emergency refugees and more about economics. Legal immigration in pursuit of a better future is a core part of our country. It reflects our values, and it makes us stronger.

We are a generous country that wants to welcome ambitious new Americans who come here the right way. But it is beyond disingenuous for the Biden administration to pretend that huge numbers of people who simply want better jobs are emergency refugees. Those are two entirely different things.

In this 12-month span, authorities arrested people from 160 different countries. In this 12-month span, authorities arrested people from 160 different countries.

Think about that. The U.S. recognizes 195 countries in the entire world. Customs and Border Protection ran into people from all but 35 of the entire number of countries in the world.

On numerous occasions, these people have told reporters they are coming specifically--specifically--because of President Biden. His campaign rhetoric and his policy decisions have directly--directly-- created this crisis.

Late last December, about a month before the President took office, he literally said ``the last thing we need'' would be if his administration pursued policy changes that caused us to ``end up with 2 million people on our border.''

That was the President last December. That is how President-elect Biden himself defined failure on our border last December: 2 million people showing up.

Well, that is exactly what he has brought about, all because of the liberal misapprehension that a weak and porous border is a compassionate border. It is not.

Even now, even as President Biden faces the exact definition of failure, which he himself laid out, the administration won't change course. A few weeks ago, Secretary Mayorkas released radical new guidance that essentially tries to create amnesty by executive fiat.

This Mayorkas memo told ICE that, now, being in the country illegally ``should not alone be the basis'' for making arrests--a baseline policy of no enforcement, with exceptions for certain extenuating circumstances.

Last week, before the Judiciary Committee, under questioning from Senator Cornyn, even the President's own nominee to CBP had to admit that nonenforcement policies are a magnet that make the problem worse.

Even before the new Mayorkas memo, over the whole last 12 months, immigration arrests in the interior of the country fell--fell--to their lowest level in more than a decade. ICE arrested half as many people this past year as they did on average in previous years.

Put two and two together: CBP encounters at the border are at historic highs, but ICE enforcement is down to a decade low--encounters at the border at a historic high, but enforcement down to a decade low.

This doesn't make any sense, unless we are looking at functional amnesty through nonenforcement.

But even now, Democrats keep pushing more new policies to incentivize illegal immigration. Their next reckless taxing-and-spending spree proposes to double down on Democrats' new monthly welfare deposits that can flow directly to people who are here illegally. This is a Democrat- created crisis from top to bottom.

Mr. President, now, on another matter. On the whole, the taxing-and-spending spree the Democrats want to ram through will hurt families and help China. But when you take a close look, there are some special groups of people here at home who would make out like bandits. There are specific special interests that Democrats take great pains to look after.

Let me give you an example. A whole chunk of money the Democrats' proposal supposedly sets aside for patient healthcare would actually finance ultragenerous benefits for members of the powerful leftwing union, the SEIU.

The Big Labor bonanza doesn't stop there. Democrats' tax plans would allow the expiration of Americans' above-the-line deduction for charitable and nonprofit donations. But in its place, they want to create a brandnew subsidy for--listen to this--union dues. Tough luck for the Red Cross and your church collection plate; Washington Democrats say Big Labor bosses come first.

Democrats also propose lavishing billions of dollars on something they call environmental and climate justice block grants--environmental and climate justice block grants. That sounds like a gift-wrapped giveaway to the universe of nonprofits and activist groups that seemingly exist to grift off of government grants.

They would spend billions more on tax credits to subsidize luxury purchases that are overwhelmingly made

by wealthy people, like electric cars and $8,000 electric bicycles.

Then there are billions more in special subsidies and loans for the next generation of Solyndras.

The gravy train doesn't stop there. When the Biden administration proposed spending $40 billion on public housing renovations, the senior Senator from New York urged them to double down and spend $40 billion exclusively on his hometown--exclusively on his hometown. That is $40 billion to a housing authority that is apparently well known for bribery and mismanagement simply because the Democratic leader requested it.

Meanwhile, in Speaker Pelosi's backyard of San Francisco, the elite trustees of a massive park and development project--oh, boy, they are licking their chops. The Speaker plans to set aside $200 million of the spending spree for this park that is specifically not meant to receive taxpayer money, so they can focus on ``environmental and social justice.''

The Democrats' spree would also tear down longstanding, bipartisan Hyde amendment protections so they can directly fund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood with taxpayer dollars. Today's left cannot miss an opportunity to send Planned Parenthood a new slush fund.

Then there is the Democrats' obsession with the so-called SALT cap. Even as our colleagues draft the biggest tax hikes in half a century, they cannot resist the concept of special tax cuts for high earners in blue States. They want to reintroduce the Federal tax subsidy for living in high-tax States. One outside analysis found that a 2-year repeal of the SALT cap would send more than--listen to this--more than $300,000 to the average household in the top 0.1 percent of our country. The average household in the bottom 60 percent would get $15. This isn't a joke; this is literally the SALT policy that Democrats want--300 grand for the richest folks on the coast and 15 bucks for normal families.

It is the same setup everywhere you look. Special interests who are connected to the Democratic Party would make out like bandits, and middle-class families, they will get the bill.

Madam President, last week, more than 76 years after he was killed in the Second World War, Army Private First Class Berton J. McQueen was returned home to Jackson County, KY. His family reburied him with full military honors outside the Wind Cave Baptist Church in McKee, ending a seven-decade journey from Kentucky, to Italy, to France, and finally back home again. Today, I

recognize Private First Class McQueen as a Kentucky hero who fought and died defending our sacred freedoms and honor the steadfast family members and public servants who brought him home.

McQueen was only 20 years old when, as part of Operation Dragoon, he and his platoon landed in the Rhone Valley to liberate France from its German occupiers. Facing stiff resistance and heavy fire, his unit scattered across the countryside. By the time the smoke cleared and the enemy retreated, McQueen was lost.

Two years later, the American Graves Registration Command recovered a soldier's body from a farmyard in the area where McQueen had gone missing. Local authorities could not verify the soldier's identity, so he was reburied in an anonymous grave in Normandy. Back home in Jackson County, the McQueen family prayed their lost son would be found.

Last week, those prayers were finally answered. With the help of new DNA technology, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the body as Berton McQueen's. They sent him home to Jackson County, where he is now buried next to the church where he was baptized, nearly a century earlier. With bagpipes and bugles playing, an honor guard marching, and the extended McQueen family gathered together again, Private First Class Berton McQueen was finally given the hero's return he deserved.

Our Nation's military is diligent in finding and honoring its missing servicemembers. All over Kentucky and across the country, the POW/MIA Accounting Agency has reunited lost sons and daughters with their loved ones. This program offers important help to grieving families and honors our country's most sacred obligation to those who serve. The Agency's motto is ``fulfilling our nation's promise,'' and, as the McQueen family's story demonstrates, they go to extraordinary lengths to carry out that creed.

The Lexington Herald-Leader published a comprehensive account of Private First Class Berton McQueen's life and journey in a recent article. I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in the Record.

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

Madam President, the biggest tax hikes in 50 years; the biggest peacetime tax hikes ever recorded in American history--that is what Washington Democrats are cooking up. Our Democratic colleagues and President Biden are behind closed doors, dreaming up creative new ways to grab literally historic amounts of the American people's money.

Remember, the same socialist spending plans that Democrats claim cost zero dollars somehow also need staggering new tax hikes to pay for them. So, even with significant inflation, runaway gas prices, and runaway energy costs already hitting American families in their pocketbooks, Washington Democrats have spent months dreaming up new cash grabs for the IRS.

Democrats have talked about massively hiking business taxes, to a level that would leave industries paying more than their competitors in communist China. They have talked about jacking up marginal income tax rates in ways that would hammer small businesses and family businesses that file as passthroughs. They have talked about adding a second death tax to give the IRS an even bigger bite out of family farms. They have even promised something that our country has never seen before: a new IRS surveillance dragnet where the IRS would get to track ordinary citizens' inflows and outflows. Banks and credit unions would be forced to hand over Americans' private information to the IRS. The Democrats are so desperate to shake down the American people for money that they are proposing to essentially treat everybody--everybody--like they are under audit.

For months now, our Democratic colleagues have been toying with one staggering tax increase after another. We have seen one disappointing jobs report after another, one historic inflation report after another, but Democrats are still convinced that the biggest peacetime tax hikes on record in American history are just what the doctor ordered.

As one news report explained, ``the scramble has opened the door to potential tax proposals [that] progressives could only have dreamed of''--just dreamed of--``just a few months ago.''

The far left is officially calling the shots, and that is where the latest new craziness comes into the picture. If public reporting has it right, the Democrats are so desperate to raise taxes that they are now proposing to tax money the American people haven't even made yet. Let me say that again. They are now proposing to tax money the American people haven't even made yet. Yes, you heard me right. So much for the quaint idea that you had to actually make money first before the IRS could tax it. Now Democrats want to tax money you haven't made yet.

There are already capital gains taxes that Americans pay when they cash out an investment, when they sell what they have been holding and realize actual gains. Now Democrats want to go much further and tax certain citizens just because their holdings have gone up in value, regardless of whether they have actually sold them and made any money.

Get this: In parallel with taxing people on hypothetical gains they haven't realized, they apparently also want to hand out tax breaks for hypothetical losses--losses--that people haven't realized. So they want to tax gains they haven't realized and hand out tax breaks for losses people haven't realized.

This harebrained scheme would have the IRS penalizing people who have invested wisely and compensating people who have invested poorly, all independent of whether they have actually made or lost any money. Let's just think of the unintended consequences, like the fact that, in the event of a market crash or financial crisis, the government would be on the hook for massive automatic tax cuts for billionaires or the fact that some experts suggest this new scheme would drive the wealthiest Americans away from stocks and bonds, push them into other tax shelters, and thereby reduce the growth in ordinary Americans' investments that households rely on for college funds and 401(k)s.

Or the fact that new, innovative entrepreneurs whose startups begin to grow in value could now get hit with a crushing tax bill long before their company is actually cash-flow positive. The next visionary startup founder could have to sell away ownership prematurely just to pay Uncle Sam.

Our Democratic colleagues have become so tax hike happy that they are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Now they are talking about rewiring the entire economy

after a couple of days' discussions on the back of an envelope. It is a massive and untested change that has not received any--any--meaningful study or scrutiny.

Even the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is complaining:

It hasn't been marked up, and there's been no vetting of

it.

Our Democratic colleague, the senior Senator from Montana, says:

Anytime you get into stuff that's not proven in the tax

code, it becomes a bit dangerous.

The senior Senator from Virginia says:

My fear is that we're going to try some innovative new

ideas and if we don't have time to develop them . . . we

could mess some of this up.

No kidding, Madam President.

This is just the latest saga in this long parade of Democratic tax hikes. Nonpartisan analysts have shown that various aspects of the Democrats' plans would shatter President Biden's promise to leave the middle class alone. I guarantee you, the middle class will get hit.

When Republicans had power, we prioritized giving Americans a big tax cut. We wanted families to keep more of their own money and make American businesses more competitive all around the world.

Democrats want the opposite--historic tax hikes. So families keep less, Washington gets more, and our competitors, like China, can pop the champagne.

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

Madam President, yesterday, it was my privilege to welcome a distinguished group of Kentucky veterans from all across the Commonwealth to our Nation's Capital. Representing every branch of the military, more than 60 Kentuckians who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam traveled to Washington to visit the memorials built in their honor.

The Honor Flight program, which coordinates these trips, is finally back up and running after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down their operations last year. I couldn't be more thankful for this organization's seamless planning and execution, especially in light of this year's added complications.

The Honor Flight Bluegrass chapter has brought hundreds of veterans to Washington over the years, mirroring the important work of their peer organizations all across the country. Despite the significant logistical and financial hurdles, the Honor Flight program ensures every veteran can travel at no cost to themselves.

I had the opportunity to meet with some of these Kentucky heroes and listen to their incredible stories. Their service spanned generations, continents, and conflicts. But one thread unites them all: a complete dedication to the cause of freedom and a deep love for our great Nation.

As the son of a World War II veteran, I have a special appreciation for these men and women. It was a great honor to stand by their side as they visited the solemn monuments constructed to commemorate their sacrifice. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to those brave servicemembers and to the hard-working Honor Flight organizers and volunteers who made their visit possible.

Madam President, yesterday also brought a sobering reminder of the dangers a new generation of American servicemembers continue to encounter as they follow in the footsteps of these heroes. U.S. personnel operating in Syria became the latest targets of a drone attack perpetrated by terrorists. Whether the perpetrators turn out to be ISIS or, more likely, loyal Iranian proxies, it is clear that serious threats are growing all across that region.

The terrorists who seek to harm us and the regimes that support them were emboldened--considerably emboldened--by our retreat from Afghanistan. Just this week, the U.S.-designated terrorist and Taliban Interior Minister, Haqqani, praised suicide-bombing Taliban terrorists with American and Afghan blood on their hands and provided--listen to this--cash rewards to their families. They are getting a cash reward for killing Americans. The Taliban also continues to hamper the evacuation of American citizens, Afghans who worked with America, and other vulnerable Afghans who are continuing to be under threat.

Our allies and adversaries alike are wondering whether the Biden administration intends to stand up to those who dare to challenge us or our allies. They are watching--watching closely--to see if America will blink in the face of the Taliban's defiance or Iran's aggression. I hope the President is prepared to settle this question and deliver on our commitments.

Madam President, now on an entirely different matter, there is little confusion about the devastating economic impact Democrats would bring about by ramming through their reckless taxing-and-spending spree: more taxes, more debt, and more painful inflation.

But this isn't some collection of well-intentioned policies whose pricetag has just gotten dangerously out of control; the policies themselves would mean real pain for American families--case in point: the heavyhanded mandates that would restrict choice and access to affordable, lifesaving healthcare.

Democrats want to ax the private insurance plans that millions of Americans have chosen and prefer. They want to build new Federal health programs and expand the ones that exist today, heaping more than $550 billion in new expenses on taxpayers to insure less than 4 million more people. Let me say that again. They want to build new Federal health programs and expand the ones that exist today, heaping more than $550 billion in new expenses--new expenses--on taxpayers. The result: to insure less than 4 million more people.

Here is the truth: The overwhelming majority of Americans today have access to healthcare. Democrats just don't like the private plans that most Americans choose.

Then, there is the plan to heap hundreds of billions of dollars in new programs and huge pools of additional people into a Medicare system that experts say is already--already, right now--dangerously close to insolvency. This is a huge, risky leap toward Medicare for All at the expense of the stability and the security of the actual Medicare system that millions of seniors rely on right now.

Democrats want to pour cold water on America's world-leading medical innovation sector by imposing socialist price caps on prescription medicines. In another example of Democrats' magic math--magic math--the rationale here is apparently that calling something cheaper actually makes it so. Calling something cheaper, they think, actually makes it so.

In reality, research tells us this would mean fewer new treatments and new cures. By one analysis, these price controls would cause up to 20 times--20 times--as much lost life over a decade as the once-in-a- century COVID pandemic already has. I want to say that again. By one analysis, these socialist price controls could cause up to 20 times as much lost life over a decade as the once-in-a-century COVID pandemic already has. Suppressing innovation through drug socialism would literally cost American lives.

Of course, they are planning to leave behind commonsense protections

against taxpayer-funded abortion that had enjoyed consistent bipartisan support for decades.

So, Madam President, this isn't just a runaway pricetag; these policies themselves are terrible--terrible policies--destructive things that would make America's families' lives actually worse. And the end goal, as one liberal House Member said just yesterday, is a Medicare for All system from before you are born until you die--from before you are born until you die.

More government between families and affordable care. More government between sick patients and lifesaving cures. More reckless ideas from Washington Democrats.

Madam President, now on one final matter, earlier this week during a trip to South America, Secretary of State Blinken said that ``undermining the independence of the courts'' and ``packing courts'' were among ``the ways that democracies can come undone.'' This is the Secretary of State during a trip to South America. His warning was apparently directed to neighbors in our hemisphere, but ironically-- ironically--his own fellow Democrats here in Washington, DC, apparently need the same lecture.

Last week, President Biden's much-ballyhooed Commission tasked with studying potential changes to the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first findings. In some corners of the radical left, there was predictable disappointment that it had not more explicitly fed the flames.

But let's be clear: The mere creation of this Commission was itself a clumsy act of political thuggery against judicial independence, and what it did seem to support--slapping term limits on Supreme Court Justices--is no less of a radical affront to the principles on which the Court was established.

So, Madam President, curtailing the tenure of our Nation's senior- most judges is such an obvious threat to judicial independence, it has literally been warned about since our Nation's founding. Here is what Alexander Hamilton had to say about it--and he didn't mince any words-- in Federalist 78. He warned that the judiciary is ``in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed or influenced by its coordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence, as permanency in office''--permanency in office-- ``this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution.''

This is Alexander Hamilton, Madam President--``an indispensable ingredient''--Alexander Hamilton on life tenure for judges. Our Founders insisted on it because they knew that the branches of government with the powers to write and execute laws would be tempted to undermine the branch that could exercise nothing but its judgment.

To an alarming degree in recent years, we have seen Democrats in both the executive and the legislative succumb to exactly the temptation that Alexander Hamilton warned us about, from the brazen amicus brief from a group of our Senate colleagues warning the Court to ``heal itself'' lest it be ``restructured,'' to the bizarre verbal threats issued by the Democratic leader on the steps of the Court, naming Justices who would ``pay the price'' for failing to rule the way he wanted, to the pseudoacademic Commission the President created to consider reanimating the ugly cadaver of court packing that his party last tried 80 years ago.

So, Madam President, these are nonsense responses to a nonexistent problem. The real problem is the shameful depths to which Democrats are apparently willing to stoop in pursuit of brute power. As I have said before, sensible people of all political stripes have an obligation to condemn this behavior. But the most embarrassing condemnation of these tired tactics? Our Founders saw it coming centuries in advance.

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

Mr. President, the Federal Government's own analysts of the energy sector are predicting that this winter American families could face home heating bills that are 54 percent higher than last year--54 percent higher than just last year. On average, the price for our households running on natural gas is expected to jump 30 percent. For homes that use propane, a different assessment says the forecast looks like ``propane-market Armageddon.''

As the head of one aid organization put it, ``After the beating that people have taken in the pandemic, it's like: What's next?'' What is next? Well, astonishingly, what is next is yet another reckless taxing- and-spending spree from Washington Democrats, including more inflationary spending to push costs even higher and more anti-domestic- energy taxes and regulations that would only compound these problems.

That includes new, crushing taxes aimed at domestic natural gas production. They want to reprise the Obama administration's War on Coal. But this time the target is also--in addition to coal, the target is also the natural gas that provides electricity for our communities and heats families' homes. And then there are the new mandates and new penalties that are essentially designed to make 49 States' electrical grids move more in the direction of California's--paying higher costs for less reliable power.

Now, unfortunately, this has been the Biden administration's playbook going back to the very beginning. Remember, killing the Keystone XL Pipeline and thousands of American jobs was a day one--a day one-- priority. Then it was the ban on new development of domestic energy reserves and the hasty mission to rejoin the toothless Paris climate accords, where virtually nobody--nobody--but America seems to be remotely interested in achieving their nonbinding ``commitments.''

So for all the leftwing's apparent urgency to pass radical climate policy, they seem not to care much about tackling the biggest sources of the world's carbon emissions. The so-called international community that had scraped together the failed Paris deal could only get the world's most prolific polluter, that is, China, to agree--now, listen to this--to curb its increase in emissions 9 years from now. That is all they got out of China: an agreement to curb their emissions 9 years from now.

That is what this administration calls a good deal? America signs up for self-inflicted pain today, and China maybe--maybe--thinks about beginning to follow suit in another decade.

So, listen, China continues to produce more than one-fourth--one- fourth--of the world's carbon output, roughly 2\1/2\ times as much as the United States.

Instead of fighting back against our adversaries, Democrats' reckless taxing-and-spending spree would just hand-deliver them one big gift right after another, like the big new tax hikes on American businesses that would leave our industries paying higher tax rates than businesses in communist China; like doubling down on the anti-energy policies that already have the Biden administration going hat in hand to Russia and OPEC and begging them to up their own production for us.

As our colleague Senator Barrasso pointed out yesterday, before the Biden administration took over, America was enjoying energy independence for the first time in seven decades. Before the Biden administration took over, America was enjoying energy independence for the first time in seven decades, but now, we are heading the other way. America has doubled our oil purchases from Russia on President Biden's watch. We are twice as dependent on Russian oil today as we were before this administration took power. And President Biden green-lighted Putin's new gas pipeline that will give Moscow even more leverage over the European continent.

So Democrats want our Nation on a path toward less energy independence and higher costs for working families. Their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would make it all dramatically worse.

Mr. President, now on another matter, our country would be much better off if our Democratic colleagues shelved their radical wish list and focused on their fundamental responsibilities as a one-party government. But while they continue to spin their wheels negotiating this reckless taxing-and-spending spree, their most basic jobs are being neglected.

This week, already months behind the usual pace, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee released partisan drafts of spending bills that are dead on arrival. They spend too much. They cut our longstanding taxpayer protections like the Hyde amendment. They shortchange our national defense even as we face serious and growing threats from terrorism and from major competitors like China and Russia. Most of these bills can't earn 50 votes, much less 60.

When Republicans ran the Senate, by this time of year, we had had bipartisan frameworks in hand for months, and we were hammering out the fine details across the aisle. Our Democratic colleagues are way, way behind schedule, with no solution in sight.

It is also looking increasingly likely that we will reach Veterans Day before the Senate takes up the National Defense Authorization Act-- now, never mind that this year's bill earned overwhelming, bipartisan support in committee; never mind that it represents this body's single most important opportunity to influence national security. Our troops are being put in the back seat so the socialists can drive the car.

At the end of the month, because House liberals still cannot get their act together and pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which the Senate passed months ago, major highway projects and American workers are scheduled to be thrown into limbo.

Our Democratic colleagues have unified control of the government-- unified control of the government. The country needs them to stop arguing among themselves over how to waste trillions of dollars and get about executing their most basic jobs.

Mr. President, now on one final matter, later today, the Democratic leader will have the Senate vote on the latest iteration of his party's election takeover scheme.

Frankly, I have just about lost count of how many times our Democratic colleagues have tried to truss up the same takeover with new trappings. For multiple years running, Washington Democrats have offered a rotating merry-go-round of rationale to explain why they need to federalize voting laws and take over all of America's elections themselves, but every time they try this shtick in the Senate, it falls flat. Today will be no exception.

This latest umpteenth iteration is only a compromise in the sense that the left and the far left argued among themselves about exactly how much power to grab and in which areas. This latest bill still subjects popular, commonsense election integrity protections like voter ID to the whims of

Federal bureaucrats. It still sends government money to political campaigns--government money, taxpayers' money, to political campaigns, for goodness' sake. It still puts Washington in the middle of the States' redistricting decisions and on and on. The same rotten core is all still there.

The Senate knows how to make a law in a productive, bipartisan way. We have done it this year on multiple subjects. We have done it on election issues themselves in recent memory--the Help America Vote Act 20 years ago that Chris Dodd and I put together. We did that when there was an actual problem that needed solving and an actual bipartisan process. But as long as Senate Democrats remain fixated on their radical agenda, this body will continue to do the job the Framers assigned it and stop terrible ideas in their tracks.