Floor Statements

Mr. President, now on a different matter. Last week, Senate Democrats announced what was marketed as a compromise on carving out a bigger role for Washington in elections all across our country.

It was hardly the first time our Democratic colleagues had given their takeover of 50 States' election laws a makeover. Over the years, it has sometimes been sold as an urgent overhaul of our democracy; other times as just a set of narrow tweaks. But for all of their attempts to change up the pitch, the unfortunate fact is that the bones of the Democrats' proposal are still the same.

The latest version is only a compromise in the sense that the center left compromised with the far left. Under the hood is the same Frankenstein's monster that has been there since 2019, years--years-- before the State-level actions which Democrats now claim have made it all necessary.

It still makes Washington bureaucrats the de facto board of elections for all 50 States, dictating the terms of things like automatic and same-day voter registration. It still insists on impeding State efforts to ensure integrity of voter rolls through popular, commonsense voter ID measures. It still has government dollars going directly to politicians' campaigns--that

is the public funds for bumper stickers and attack ads. It still empowers partisan regulators to circumvent the bipartisan FEC and engage in even more intimidation of private citizens who engage in political speech. And these, of course, are just to name a few.

Now, surely, as the Senate continues to do its job and strike down misguided ideas like these, we will hear plenty from folks who consider it evidence that this body is broken. But, of course, that simply is not true. The Senate is fully capable of taking landmark, bipartisan action that makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat.

Back in 2002, I was involved, along with my colleague Chris Dodd, in passing the Help America Vote Act. I was one of the leaders on that. We empowered State and local election systems to follow commonsense guideposts for integrity and accessibility. It provided basically a grant program to States to help them upgrade their voter systems after the Florida election in 2000. And the Senate passed it 92 to 2--92 to 2.

So if our Democratic colleagues really want to find common ground and act on common sense, the roadmap is right there. But, unfortunately, we know that has never been the case.

Unfortunately, this latest ``compromise'' is just a repackaging of what even reporters called a messaging bill that was headed nowhere. The substance is not really changing, so neither will the result.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, over the past year and a half, senior Democratic leaders decided the upheaval and hardship of a once-in-a- century pandemic was actually a chance to justify radical leftwing change.

This isn't just me conjecturing; it is what they keep saying. Right at the start of the crisis, March 2020, the House Democratic Whip said the pandemic offered ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.''

Just last week, President Biden said: ``This pandemic has been God- awful for so many reasons. . . . But''--``but,'' he said--``it does present us with an opportunity.'' So they get points for honesty, at least. The reckless taxing-and-spending spree the Democrats are writing behind closed doors is designed to leave Americans with a socialist country they never voted for and a country that working families, in many ways, would barely recognize.

Last night, one of those many efforts hit a stumbling block. Senate Democrats were reminded the rules of this institution will not permit them to shove a massive amnesty for illegal immigrants into a reckless taxing-and-spending spree they want to ram through on a party-line basis.

Our Democratic colleagues cannot pretend that massive transformational policy changes are mere budgetary tweaks. As no less an authority than our colleague now-Chairman Bernie Sanders said just a few years ago, ``the function of reconciliation is to adjust federal spending and revenue, not''--not--``to enact major changes in social policy.'' That is Chairman Sanders a few years ago. That is a lesson he and his caucus need to relearn.

Even with the border as insecure as it has ever been, the far left wanted sweeping amnesty, and Democratic leaders dutifully tried their very best. It just goes to show you how radical this legislation is going to be.

Democrats want to tamper with Americans' Medicare and stretch the program even thinner, while it already faces fiscal challenges. They want to interfere massively with the States that choose not to bow to Obamacare mandates on Medicaid; they want to use healthcare dollars to line the pockets of special interests with big union giveaways; and they want to impose socialist price controls on Americans' medicines that would leave us with fewer new treatments and new cures in the future.

It adds up to a massive leap toward socialized medicine. But somehow this still only scratches the surface.

Democrats are also trying to force through an unprecedented Federal takeover of American families' childcare options that may leave faith- based childcare providers high and dry. They want an all-out assault on affordable, reliable, homegrown American energy so the entire country could be marched toward California utility prices, California gas prices, and California electricity blackouts--just what families want.

Look, I could go on all day. The reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats are writing behind closed doors is shaping up to be exactly what they promised: an effort to exploit this terrible but temporary pandemic as a Trojan horse for permanent socialism.

Now, on a related matter, Democrats have united, unified control of the Senate, the House, and the White House. Their strategy for all this transformational borrowing, spending, and tax hikes was deliberately designed to include no Republican input and to receive no Republican votes.

Since Democrats decided to go it alone, they will not get Senate Republicans' help with raising the debt limit. I have explained this clearly and consistently for over 2 months. We do not have divided government. Democrats do not need our help. They have every tool to address the debt limit on their own--the same party-line process they used to ram through inflationary spending in March and already plan to use once again this fall.

Now, look, this might inconvenience Democrats. It might delay their next reckless taxing-and-spending spree, but Democrats cannot risk the full faith and credit of our Nation to serve their own partisan timelines. Democrats decided to govern alone. Their unified Democratic government must put basic governing duties ahead of partisan wish lists. If they don't, the consequences for our country would be catastrophic.

Senate Republicans would support a clean continuing resolution that includes appropriate disaster relief and targeted Afghan assistance. We will not support legislation that raises the debt limit.

Remember, when the debt suspension lapsed in August, the debt limit was automatically ratcheted up to account for all of the borrowing that had occurred up to that date. This isn't about the past. It is about the future. And Democrats want to build a partisan future without our input. So Democrats will not get bipartisan facilitators for their purely partisan spending binge.

Democrats are fully capable of owning this step themselves. The Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee admitted just yesterday: ``We can do it through reconciliation. [But] [l]eadership has said they don't want to do that.''

One party controls the entire government. They have the power to address this alone. And as I have warned since July, that is what they will need to do.

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

Mr. President, here is a quote to start the day:

I do think we're in very serious danger of repeating almost

all the mistakes of the 1960s and early 1970s.

That is Larry Summers, the senior advisor to two Democratic Presidents, about the risk of inflation we face today.

As one report explained:

The former Treasury secretary has been warning since

February that President Joe Biden's big-spending agenda was

creating the risk of an inflation spike this year,

potentially cutting into the economic recovery from the

COVID-19 pandemic.

Oh, but Washington Democrats have spent trillions--trillions--of dollars on pet liberal projects. They have been printing and wasting money like there is no tomorrow, and American families are hurting as a result.

Inflation has more than overtaken the average worker's wage growth since last year. Employers are raising wages higher and higher, but their workers' paychecks go less and less far. Families' incomes and savings are eroding right before their eyes.

Democrats have done this proudly--proudly--on a party-line basis. Back in 2020, during the teeth of the COVID emergency, Congress worked across party lines to pass massive rescue packages that Republicans and Democrats had written together. Virtually every serious expert agreed that after the last relief bill that we passed in December, the economy was primed and ready to go.

But our Democratic colleagues wanted more. Like they admitted from the start of the pandemic, they wanted to use the crisis to ``restructure things to fit [their] vision'' [from a temporary emergency to permanent socialism].

They bragged the bipartisan bill they passed in March was the most leftwing legislation in American history. Now they want to dwarf that bill with a reckless taxing-and-spending spree that would cost trillions more and bury the country in job-killing tax hikes.

When it comes to spending and the economy, President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and the Democratic leader have made a conscious decision: They don't want Republican-governing partners. They want to go it alone. Well, with one exception--just one exception.

No, Republicans won't have any input into the massive, reckless taxing-and-spending spree that will stick middle-class families with higher costs, lower wages, and a socialist country they didn't vote for.

But Democrats do want Republicans' help with just one thing. They want us to help raise the credit limit to make it happen. They want us to help clear the path for their partisan, job-killing agenda, which we oppose.

So let's make this perfectly clear, in case anybody is in doubt. The debt suspension that just expired in August automatically covered the borrowing that had been accumulated before that date. This is the discussion about the future. This isn't the last 4 years, when we were reaching bipartisan government funding agreements, bipartisan appropriations, and bipartisan COVID bills.

Democrats have made a different choice. They want to make policy all by themselves. So they can come up with the financing on their own as well. The Democratic leaders have every tool and procedure they need to handle the debt limit on a partisan basis, just like they are choosing to handle everything else.

Mr. President, now, on a completely different matter, providing for the common defense and protecting the American people is one of the fundamental responsibilities our Founders entrusted to the Federal Government. It is a core obligation of the Commander in Chief.

Yet, to a deadly degree, a parade of mistakes in Afghanistan tells us President Biden and his team have failed this most basic test of competence. For 20 years, the United States has successfully kept terrorists from staging another major attack on our homeland.

Over the years, we have reduced our own military presence in Afghanistan, secured greater assistance in foreign partners, and supported local Afghan forces who did the vast majority of the fighting. This strategy kept al-Qaida on the run. It kept the Taliban from taking control, and it kept Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terror.

In only a matter of months, President Biden and his team have squandered all of that--squandered it. The collapse we witnessed wasn't inevitable. It didn't happen on its own. It happened because President Biden pulled the plug on our Afghan partners and pulled the rug out from under our allies who were with us in this shared fight.

Everyone seemed to realize this is a historic disaster for the United States, except maybe the President and his loyal retainers.

Secretary Blinken points to the frantic evacuation of 100,000 desperate people as a huge success. Seriously? They initially didn't envision having to evacuate anyone. The number of people evacuated is not a metric of success for

this administration; it is a measure of their failure.

Back in April, my colleague the Democratic leader heaped praise on what he called President Biden's ``careful and thought-out plan with a real timetable and a firm end date.'' Does he stand by this lavish praise for a careful and thought-out plan? Crickets. Was it wise to conduct our retreat during the height of the fighting season? Was it sound strategy to preemptively abandon the strategic Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night without telling our partners? Was it careful and prudent to tie our departure to the 20th anniversary of September 11?

Our botched retreat from a so-called endless war cost more American lives than nearly the prior 2 years combined. And make no mistake, the war against terror hasn't ended--far, far from it. In a rare moment of candor, the Biden administration's own experts have admitted explicitly that we will face new terrorist threats from inside Afghanistan sooner rather than later. We will have to face a more entrenched and emboldened enemy with fewer resources, fewer friends, and more constraints.

So virtually every reason and advantage that President Biden said this policy would bring about has already proven absolutely false.

The administration said leaving Afghanistan would let us focus more resources on China, but its catastrophic retreat has tied up even more resources, including strategic naval assets from the Indo-Pacific. And while the administration's officials are consumed--consumed--with this catastrophe, China is cultivating deeper ties with the Taliban.

The administration told us our military and intelligence community could keep terrorists at bay with over-the-horizon capabilities, but longer distances, fewer assets, and less intelligence are already taking their toll, and innocent civilians appear to be paying the price.

Even still, the White House continues to peddle misleading comparisons with operations in other theaters, ignoring the unique challenges of keeping close eyes on a landlocked country with a hostile government thousands of miles from U.S. bases.

Administration officials like to say there is no imminent threat posed by al-Qaida emanating from Afghanistan. But their abandonment of Afghanistan has already allowed that threat to grow, and we will have fewer resources with which to confront the gathering threat. According to press reporting, just this very morning, the Deputy Director of the CIA has acknowledged they are seeing al-Qaida terrorists flowing back-- back--into Afghanistan, and our intelligence capabilities are already diminished.

But there is a larger pattern of broken promises. The President said that everyone who wanted to get out would be able to do so, that we would leave no one behind. Instead, we left Americans and vulnerable Afghans behind.

Secretary Blinken said the Taliban committed to allow Americans and vulnerable Afghans safe passage to the airport. Instead, we know Americans and Afghans were prevented from getting to the airport. Many still cannot leave.

The administration said that we would have tremendous leverage over the Taliban, that they would need international recognition and funding. Yet the Taliban doesn't seem to be terribly concerned with global PR.

The administration said they would hold the Taliban accountable. They haven't.

The administration seems to believe the Taliban would establish an inclusive and representational government. Look, we are talking about a government of medieval theocrats--medieval theocrats--the same killers, kidnappers, and hostage-takers who aided and abetted the terrorist architects of 9/11.

Well, their government is, however, inclusive in one way. It is inclusive in one way. Listen to this. It includes four--four--of the Guantanamo Bay terrorists released by President Obama in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl; four people who were at GTMO, exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl. And that is only part of the government. It also includes a senior Haqqani terrorist with a $5 million bounty on his head and American blood on his hands--another top official in the government. This is not a government that cares about staying in the good graces of the so-called international community.

Enough fluff. Enough spin. It is time for hard truths and accountability. The Biden administration's conduct over the past several months demands thorough instigation by the Senate. That will begin with Secretary Blinken's hearing at the Foreign Relations Committee today. I hope the Secretary and the administration he represents are prepared to answer some tough questions about past decisions, as well as future plans. The American people and the vulnerable partners we have left behind deserve nothing less.

Madam President, over the State work period, as Senators attended business back home, the Biden administration's reckless decision to retreat from Afghanistan was carried through to a damaging and deadly end.

The consequences of its hasty retreat were not just foreseeable; they were actually foreseen. And yet, against the advice of Members from both parties and even its own national security experts, the administration plowed right ahead.

Just weeks after abandoning our strategic airbase in the dead of night, the Biden administration told Americans and vulnerable Afghan partners they were largely on their own to make it to the commercial airport in Kabul if they wanted out of Afghanistan.

And by the White House's own admission, some of the Americans who wanted to come home were left behind. So let's let that sink in. President Biden left Americans who wanted to escape behind, in the clutches of the Taliban.

Of course, Americans aren't the only people we left behind. In order to meet an arbitrary political deadline, the Biden administration also pulled out before we helped all the brave Afghans who stuck their necks out to assist American servicemembers and build a better future for their country.

Our Nation made a promise of aid and safety in exchange for their service; and on this President's watch, we actually failed to keep the promise. We left Americans and vulnerable Afghans behind.

The administration naively expected the Taliban to behave like any law-abiding member of the so-called international community, supposedly subject to tremendous leverage for recognition and for funding.

Well, our adversaries are sending emissaries to the Taliban, and the terrorists in Kabul seem unconcerned with diplomacy. Trust in the Taliban to ensure safe passage to the airport for evacuees was fatally misplaced. Anyone who expected the group to become ``inclusive'' should now rightly expect to literally be laughed out of the room.

The administration confidently insisted it would own the consequences of its withdrawal efforts; but as soon as their lack of planning bore real, deadly consequences, it pointed the blame at everyone but the reflection in the mirror.

Now, in a bizarre twist of narcissism, the White House is now holding up its belated and frantic evacuations as worthy of praise and credit.

So where are we now?

A wall outside the compound that, until recently, housed the U.S. Embassy in Kabul now bears a mural of the Taliban flag. Four terrorists once detained at Guantanamo Bay now hold senior positions in the Taliban regime. And in the void left by our coalition's withdrawal, we are less able to collect intelligence and fight terrorists on their own soil.

This failure was entirely avoidable; the consequences were totally foreseeable; and the stain on our retreat has left America more endangered, less credible, and with fewer capabilities in the face of real and growing terrorist threats.

Madam President, on another matter, the international stage isn't the only area where the Biden administration's policies have caused damage that was both foreseeable and foreseen.

Back in the springtime, Washington Democrats dumped trillions of dollars in liberal borrowing and spending onto the American people. They pretended it was a COVID relief bill. What it was, was a recipe for rampant inflation, a silent tax hike on American families.

It was clear what would happen. Even liberal economists warned this was a bad idea that would cause inflation. But just like in Afghanistan, Democrats had made up their minds long ago and were certainly not going to be deterred.

Now working Americans are paying the price. Annual inflation is up 5.4 percent, tied for the worst inflation in over a decade. It has more than swamped American workers' wage gains over the last year. The Democrats' inflation is turning American workers' pay raises into effective pay cuts, essentially pick-pocketing American families.

You might think this would give our Democratic friends some pause and encourage them to deal in reality; but, alas, that is not what is happening. Instead, they are eager to jam through yet another massive multitrillion-dollar reckless taxing-and-spending spree in an effort to move our country to the left, literally, forever.

Massive new government intrusion into Americans' childcare arrangements, into Americans' medical prescriptions, into the power grid; new welfare spending that hands out cash with zero--zero--work requirements; socialist price setting that would leave our medical system with fewer new cures; and a thousand more awful, far-left policies just like these, all accompanied by a suite of staggering-- literally staggering--tax hikes that would kill jobs, hurt families, and crush our competitiveness with the Chinese.

Details are already emerging about the seismic tax hikes that Democrats are cooking up: more higher taxes on employers and job creators, targeted tax hikes to hit small businesses and family farms, pulling more Americans into the death tax.

This tax-hiking wish list would add up to one of the biggest tax hikes in American history at exactly the time their liberal policies already have our economy sputtering. So it is the very last thing American workers need. It is the last thing American families can afford, and Republicans are going to fight these terrible, painful policies tooth and nail.

Madam President, later today, Senate Democrats want to take their next big step toward playing Russian roulette with our country. They want to begin pushing through a reckless taxing-and- spending spree that was authored by our self-described socialist colleague, Chairman Sanders. Today, the American people will learn exactly where each of their Senators stand.

The American people elected a 50-50 Senate, an incredibly close House of Representatives, and a President who pledged to govern down the middle and unify the country. But as soon as President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Schumer got the keys, they handed them right over to the far left.

Remember, Democrats inherited three safe and effective vaccines that were already rolling out nationwide and an economy that was primed to come roaring back, but our colleagues pressed ahead with a massive springtime spending package that even liberal experts said would drive inflation, and, of course, it did.

Overall inflation has risen at the fastest rate in nearly 13 years. Core inflation hit its highest level in almost 30 years. Families are getting hit by higher prices everywhere, from the grocery store to the gas station, to their housing costs. Small businesses have had trouble reopening because would-be workers are getting a government bonus to actually stay home.

So the country is still working through the side effects of the borrowing and spending the Democrats forced through back in the spring, but Democrats don't want to just refill their socialist prescription; they want to double the dose--double the dose. According to what they just released, Democrats want to unite behind Chairman Sanders' resolution to spend a staggering $4.2 trillion more. Of course, outside experts estimate the real cost will be even higher still.

If it is even close to fully offset, as they claim it is, this seems almost certain to be the largest peacetime tax hike on record. So let that sink in--the largest peacetime tax hike on record.

Even though their rough sketch of these tax hikes would shatter President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on the middle class, families earning well under the President's stated threshold would get hit and hit hard. This new reckless taxing-and-spending spree will fall like a hammer blow on workers and middle-class families: fewer jobs, lower wages, more inflation pushing costs higher and higher.

What our colleagues are proposing and planning is absolutely jaw- dropping. People want to pretend this is just business as usual, just liberals doing liberal things using Senate procedure. Make no mistake, this reckless taxing-and-spending spree is nothing like we have seen-- nothing.

The basic math of their taxing and spending is toxic enough, but the radicalism that we will be debating on the floor goes well beyond dollars and cents. The policies they want to put behind this budget resolution read like somebody walked across the Rotunda to the House and handed the Squad a pen and piece of paper: sweeping--sweeping-- amnesty for illegal immigrants in the middle of a border crisis, regulations that are so radical that our colleague Senator Markey said:

The green new deal is in the DNA of this . . . budget

resolution. All of the things that are in [this], we talked

about in the green new deal.

Senator Markey.

They want to induce 49 other States to make their electric grids more like California's; make it more expensive to mine critical minerals we need to compete with China; they want to take

working families' child tax credit and turn it into a permanent welfare program--listen to this--with no work requirement; they want to tamper with the prescription drug industry in ways that would leave Americans with fewer new treatments and fewer new cures; they want to put government's thumb on the scale of families' childcare choices and selectively subsidize parents whose households work the way Washington wants; and they want to tax more money out of Americans' pockets while reviving a special tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy people in blue States.

So let's face it. The brute facts of the Senate's rules mean that, if 50 Democrats plus the Vice President stick together, Republicans will probably not be able to save our colleagues from themselves. If all 50 Democrats want to help Chairman Sanders hurt middle-class families, even if our colleagues who claim they are moderates want to follow the far left off this cliff, well, that is their prerogative, but we are going to argue it out right here on the floor at some length. Every single Senator will be going on record over and over and over.

Senate Republicans will be bringing forward commonsense amendments that represent what Americans actually want and actually need. Our colleagues can look forward to votes on national security and funding our Armed Forces; votes to remove backdoor tax cuts for wealthy liberals; votes to protect family-owned small businesses and family farms from crushing tax hikes; votes to encourage schools to finally reopen in person; to stop the catch and release of COVID-positive illegal immigrants coming into our country; to protect taxpayers from being forced to fund the horrors of abortion. And that is just a sampling. Because our Democratic colleagues missed some deadlines, it has been an all-out sprint to prepare amendments.

So I want to thank our nonpartisan Senate clerks and Parliamentarians. They have worked multiple weekends, straight through. They were kept up late last night processing hundreds of amendments, and they are going to be up late with all of us yet again.

If President Biden and 50 Senate Democrats want to outsource domestic policy to Chairman Sanders, if this historically reckless taxing-and- spending spree is how the modern Democratic Party wants to define itself, if they want inflation and tax hikes to be their legacy, then Republicans do not currently have the votes to spare the American families this nightmare, but we will debate and we will vote and we will stand up and we will be counted--and the people of this country will know exactly which Senators fought for them.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, well, here we go again, colleagues. We have seen this once before, and I think it is fitting that after passing this budget resolution full of reckless taxing and spending, we end the evening with an effort to Federalize--take over all elections all across America by the Federal Government.

Now, we are hearing it is going to be a substitute, but what is technically before us is as follows: After ramming through this reckless taxing-and-spending spree here in the dead of night, they also want to start tearing up the ground rules of our democracy and writing new ones, of course, on a purely partisan basis.

I suppose the timing actually makes sense, given the terrible votes that every Democratic Senator has just cast here tonight. I can understand why their thoughts have turned so quickly to their next elections and why they might be feeling especially anxious to tilt the playing field in their direction.

This ridiculous, go-nowhere bill that is stuck in the Rules Committee would let Washington Democrats take over 50 State election laws, completely Federalize how we handle elections in this country.

It would attack popular safeguards, like voter ID. It would turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan body. It would even spend public funds on our political companies. Four-plus trillion dollars in new spending actually wasn't enough tonight. It wasn't enough.

The preference of at least 49 out of 50 of them is to spend public money on our own elections; have public money finance the attack ads of people you disagree with.

So, look, my view is that maybe this is just concluding the night with a little comic relief. S. 1 is an absurd and clumsy effort by one political party to literally rewrite the ground rules of our democracy to try to advantage them and disadvantage the other side.

It is always a temptation when the majority wants to write the rules to make it more likely you can get the outcome you want.

This isn't going to work. It isn't going to work tonight, and it isn't going to work when we get back.

Vote on Motion

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

Mr. President, last election cycle, Americans elected a 50-50 Senate, a closely divided House, and a President who promised unity and moderation.

What have Washington Democrats done in response?

They have set out trying to tax and spend our country into oblivion. They have handed the keys to domestic policymaking to Chairman Sanders and some socialist House Members.

In the spring, they passed a massive, inflationary, liberal spending bill that Democrats bragged was the most liberal bill in American history.

Now, this week, just a few months later, they want to start ramming through trillions more that will make that disaster look like child's play.

They call it $3\1/2\ trillion in spending. Nonpartisan experts say those plans would more likely cost Americans about $5\1/2\ trillion-- trillions more borrowing and trillions more spending, when inflation is already sticking American families with higher costs; new permanent welfare, with no work requirements, when small businesses are already struggling to find workers; sweeping amnesty, when the southern border is already in crisis; Green New Deal regulations, when Americans' gas prices have already shot up; and crushing tax hikes for family businesses and farms, as they fight to recover from the recession.

So, apparently, tragedy and comedy really are two sides of the same coin. The tragedy is that Democrats want to inflict all this pain on middle-class families. Here is the comedy: They won't let Republicans have any say in this monstrosity, but they want our help raising their credit card to make it happen.

Democrats want Republicans to help them raise the debt limit so they can keep spending historic sums of money with zero Republican input and zero Republican votes.

So imagine a friend tells you he is flying off to Las Vegas to blow all of his money. He doesn't care that you think it is irresponsible. You aren't invited to come along, but he wants you to cosign a loan for him before he leaves.

Now, I understand the administration sent out the Treasury Secretary to argue that, historically, both parties have addressed the debt ceiling together. Of course, it is our Senate Democrat colleagues who have no interest in what is historically normal. Their borrowing and spending are historically abnormal. Democrats keep boasting about how wild and revolutionary their partisan vision is.

So our friends across the aisle should not expect traditional bipartisan borrowing to finance their nontraditional reckless taxing- and-spending spree. That is not how it is going to work.

Democrats have all the existing tools they need to raise the debt limit on a partisan basis. If they want 50 lockstep Democratic votes to spend trillions and trillions more, they can find 50 Democratic votes to finance it. If they don't want Republicans' input, they don't need our help. It couldn't really be simpler, and it really couldn't be more fair.

Besides, I thought my colleagues were literally thrilled to present another reckless taxing-and-spending spree to the American people. I thought middle-class families were supposed to be delighted with their socialist shopping list.

So shouldn't Democrats be proud to own all the debt it requires?

Our colleagues seem confident that Chairman Sanders' vision is worth sticking our kids and grandkids with a massive bill. They deserve to have total ownership of that decision

Afghanistan

Now, Mr. President, on a totally different matter, when the Biden administration announced its reckless retreat from Afghanistan in April, I made my opposition perfectly clear.

But I wasn't alone. One of the most prominent liberal editorial boards in the country responded to the President's move with this headline: ``Biden takes the easy way out of Afghanistan. The likely result is disaster.''

The administration's own top intelligence experts made a similar prediction:

The Taliban is likely to make gains on the battlefield, and

the Afghan Government will struggle to hold the Taliban at

bay if the coalition withdraws its support.

The Director of the CIA told Senators that withdrawal would make his Agency's job harder. And needless to say, the last time a Democratic administration tried a hasty retreat from the region offered a cautionary tale.

Reality was clear to everyone but the very top of the Biden administration. From their bizarre choice of a symbolic September 11 deadline, to the absence of any concrete plan, the administration's decision appears to have rested on wishful thinking and not much else.

The notion that Afghan Forces might be able to stop the Taliban's advance with only ``over-the-horizon'' support? That has proven to be wishful thinking.

That the Taliban might respond to the diplomatic plying of the international community? Wishful thinking as well.

As the administration's withdrawal proceeds at full speed, expert warnings have become deadly realities.

The Afghan people and their democratic institutions are literally being ripped apart by murderous theocrats. Nearly 1,000 Afghans have reportedly been killed already by Taliban death squads in the Province of Kandahar alone.

In the last 2 months, the militants have taken more territory--more territory in the last 2 months--than they have held since 2001. And in just the last 4 days, the Taliban have raised their flag over six-- six--provincial capitals, including northern cities far, far from the group's historic base of power.

Militants are engaged in a campaign to assassinate crucial members of the remaining resistance, from military pilots to top government ministers.

All across the country, women and children are already suffering, in particular. One recent report claimed Taliban militans beat a child to death because his father--listen to this: Beat a child to death because his father served in the Afghan Armed Forces.

What is more, the prospect of an emboldened al-Qaida--capable of threatening not only the region, but the American homeland--is now a near certainty, no matter what the Biden administration tells itself about the state of that threat today.

And yet the State Department still mouths unbelievably naive platitudes, like ``expectation'' is that the Taliban will work toward ``political settlement,'' even as the Taliban spokesman asserted that the most recent attacks are just ``the beginning of retaliatory operations.''

So does this sound like a group committed to peaceful means?

Goodness' sake, get a grip.

This willful denial isn't just costing Afghanistan; it is already costing the American people and our interests.

It has forced loyal coalition partners to second-guess whether we can be trusted to finish what we start. It has led brave Afghans, who earned promises of assistance, to fear they would be abandoned amid our incompetent--

completely incompetent--retreat. It has even left overwhelmed Embassy personnel to urge remaining Americans in Afghanistan to leave immediately by any means available.

This morning, I attended a classified briefing from administration officials about current conditions on the ground. Look, needless to say, the briefers faced some tough questions about an entirely avoidable--entirely avoidable--situation that is deteriorating faster every single day; and they will certainly face more as global terrorists feed from the rise of an extremist government in Afghanistan.

I, for one, have warned repeatedly that those who seek to harm us, our friends, and our interests simply do not abide by our political time tables. They do not care if our leaders get tired of the task at hand.

And this is not what victory looks like.

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

Mr. President, today, the Senate will decide whether to move the bipartisan infrastructure bill closer toward a final vote.

Like I said before, I am quite confident that, out of 100 U.S. Senators, there are 100 of us who believe the bill is imperfect. This isn't exactly the bill I would have written on my own in my office, and 99 of my colleagues would say the very same thing. This is a compromise product crafted by colleagues with big, principled differences in a Senate with the narrowest possible split.

But in my view, what our early statesmen called ``internal improvement'' is a core government responsibility. The American people need roads, bridges, ports, and airports to build their businesses, build their families, and build their lives. Republicans and Democrats have radically different visions these days, but both those visions include physical infrastructure that works for all of our citizens.

As the Kentucky Farm Bureau wrote to me recently, the investments this bill will make are not just necessary; in many cases they are overdue. Our country has real needs in this area.

There are many outstanding amendments that are important, that would improve this legislation, and that deserve votes before the Senate is asked to vote on the final passage of this bill. The full Senate deserves its full chance to shape this important legislation. I hope Senators can work together in a bipartisan way to get more amendments up and continue improving this important bill. Our colleagues on both sides deserve to be heard.

The Democratic leader is indicating, in a few days, he will thrust the Senate into an ultrapartisan showdown over the staggeringly reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats want to ram through later this year.

The size and the scope of Chairman Sanders' socialist shopping list will make every disagreement we had in landing the infrastructure compromise look like a rounding error--new permanent welfare with no work requirements, reams of Green New Deal mandates, massive tax hikes that shrink wages and kill jobs, government meddling in childcare that would privilege certain families' choices over others, amnesty for illegal immigrants in the middle of a border crisis.

At a time Democrats' spending already--already--has inflation hammering American families, Republicans could not be more eager to debate our colleagues on all of these subjects. We can't wait to get Democrats on record over many more trillions--trillions--of dollars and reckless borrowing to fund socialist spending on radical policies that families are not asking for.

Our philosophy is the polar opposite. Republican policies would create good jobs, strong wage growth, and stable prices for middle- class families, just like our country had just a year and a half ago-- the most pro-worker economy in a generation, just a year and a half ago.

Republicans want to give working families the tools and the opportunity to build the lives that they want. Democrats want to force them to live the lives the Democrats want.

The stakes in this debate could not be higher, and very soon the country will see it aired out here right on the Senate floor.

The Democratic leader will be putting the full radicalism of the far left right here on this floor. He is making every one of his Members vote on nothing less--nothing less--than Chairman Sanders' dream shopping list. Every American family will know exactly where their Senator stands

On one final matter, I have already discussed how the Biden administration has nominated a proud and proven opponent of American's constitutional rights to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

I don't think there could be any more evidence that David Chipman is the wrong choice to serve as the top Federal administrator of firearms policy. He has a long record of hostility to lawful gun owners, a variety of complaints from those who worked with him in the past.

How could it get worse?

Mr. Chipman has suggested radical and sweeping steps, like banning private sales that are lawful, overriding State laws, and imposing sweeping restrictions on a class of weapons he has yet to clearly define.

Among some current and former ATF agents, he has earned a concerning reputation as a ``bully'' and ``activist'' whose extreme views threaten to undermine the trust the Agency needs to conduct oversight. And sources within the ATF have also come forward describing alleged racially discriminatory comments the nominee made in the workplace regarding personnel decisions.

So even a few days ago, it was not difficult to realize this is an instance in which the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, should take a pass. But somehow, in just the last few days, it has actually gotten worse.

Earlier this week, news reports indicated that Mr. Chipman had failed to disclose to our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee a TV appearance he made several years ago. This wasn't just any TV appearance; Mr. Chipman had granted an interview to a propaganda network overseen by the Chinese Government.

A new letter to the Senate, signed by seven former career ATF agents, summed it up this way: Mr. Chipman's views and record would ``create serious and long-lasting problems for the Bureau and the effective execution of its law enforcement mission.''

The Senate has spent quite enough time flirting with this profoundly misguided nomination. The American people deserve a trustworthy steward leading the ATF, with a record of respecting their rights and respecting his or

her colleagues. It is long past time the Biden administration revisit this decision and send us somebody who fits that description.