Floor Statements

Now, Mr. President, on one final matter, when you have served in the Senate as long as I have, you get to hire and work with a lot of talented people, and when you find rock stars, you try to hang onto them. As a result, when a key staff member moves on, it often means reflecting on an extended Senate career of many years, including shared memories of old war stories going back ages.

Andrew Ferguson is a different case.

It was only 2 years ago that I hired Andrew to be my chief counsel. He has only been in the Senate about 3 years. By the standards of this place, he is a spring chicken. But it has only taken Andrew this short time to leave a stunningly outsized imprint on my work, on our conference, on the judiciary, and on everyone who has gotten to work alongside of him as well.

So, a few days before Andrew concludes his Senate service, I am both happy for the opportunity to share how this happened and really, really sorry that I have to do it.

The chief counsel in my leadership office handles a portfolio that is almost comically large: judicial confirmations, law enforcement and crime, immigration and border security, some constitutional questions that intersect with the separation of powers, others that intersect with national security, sometimes arcane Senate history. It takes a lawyer's lawyer with expertise in our laws and Constitution and someone who can feel out the politics, the personalities, and the shades of gray that drive a political body.

One look at Andrew's resume told me that qualification No. 1 was, clearly, no problem--UVA Law; clerked on the DC Circuit; clerked for Justice Thomas; experience in the private sector--a lawyer anybody would be glad to hire.

Oh, but what about the second qualification?

Like I said, Andrew wasn't a long-serving Senate hand. He arrived at Judiciary in time to help Chairman Grassley notch a win for the country and the sanity of the Senate with the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh. He had only just been promoted to Chairman Graham's top nominations counsel when I poached him.

Well, Andrew stepped into this complex role, and, boy, did he flourish.

He became a go-to leader for committees and offices across the Republican side, a key Senate liaison to both the executive and judicial branches. He added to his lawyerly chops and grew into a strategic adviser of the first-rate. Our Republican conference is a big tent with a range of visions, but Senators from across the conference have come not just to trust Andrew's judgment, but they seek it out.

Andrew's impact has been truly dramatic. I do not believe any other Senate staffer played a more crucial role in the last two Supreme Court confirmations combined. He was our side's field general in confirming Justice Barrett. Our majority spent 4 years rebuilding the kind of Federal judiciary that our constitutional order requires. Andrew played an indispensable part.

The last couple of years have brought all sorts of unusual national challenges. The 2 years that Andrew has spent with us feel more like 10. We faced scenarios that would have sounded like wild law school hypotheticals. Who would have guessed we would be fighting to protect Americans' religious freedom while the government battled an airborne virus? But our chief counsel invariably brought us up to speed on whatever the day would bring with a good head, a big heart, and great humor. And if the topic was new to him, a big stack of library books were on his desk.

It might sound like Andrew was just very dedicated to his job. That is not totally unusual. But that doesn't fully capture it. See, I have come to believe he is simply this intense about absolutely everything. Andrew takes work very seriously, but he also takes his faith seriously, and he takes family seriously. He treasures the upbringing that his parents, Roy and Susan, provided for him and his two brothers. He takes his interests seriously, his hobbies. There is an intense, infectious enthusiasm for all of it, a kind of good-natured aggression.

Now, as his colleagues will attest, all this intensity can yield, actually, entertaining results. If, for example, you took a stroll by Andrew's desk, you would often hear him shouting--shouting--excitedly at a colleague, but you would generally genuinely have no clue whether he is strongly disagreeing with the person or just agreeing with them with great gusto. He could be discussing the law, but it might also be Roman history or the Protestant Reformation or the merits of some TV comedy or his weekend plans involving the lawful exercise of his Second Amendment rights. Whatever the subject, you would get maximum enthusiasm, maximum force of nature, and everybody in earshot usually learns some new fact and shares a big laugh.

Different people enjoy this line of work for different reasons, but for Andrew, I think politics and policy matter so much because ideas and principles matter so much. That is why one of the most darkly funny and cynical people on our team has also been one of the most earnest and idealistic. Everything is worth thinking through. Everything is worth taking seriously because principles matter, the rule of law matters, and our country matters. That is why we come to work every day.

A lot of people first come to Washington with a warrior mentality, but the rhythms of this city sometimes lull folks into a somewhat calmer mixture. But, believe me, as I suspect the entire Senate can attest by now, we need not worry that Andrew Ferguson will be lulled into a calmer anything.

So, my friend, you may be leaving the trenches for now, but we both know there is no chance you will be able to stay away forever. You are going to miss the good fight, and I can say with personal certainty that the fight is going to miss you as well. Thank you for the law lectures. Thank you for the laughs. Thank you for an outstanding job for our country. Job well done.

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

Mr. President, this morning, the Appropriations Committee considered a first partial batch of government funding bills for next year.

I want the Senate to secure bipartisan appropriations through the regular process. I want us to fund the government in an orderly fashion just like the successful Appropriations Committee work we saw throughout Republicans' recent years in the majority.

We accomplished that because we built a truly bipartisan process. Importantly, it began at the beginning. Early in the calendar year, we convened bipartisan talks to produce top-line numbers so the appropriators would have actual targets. That let good-faith bipartisan conversations happen at the subcommittee and committee levels throughout the spring and summer, and we got results on a bipartisan basis.

Unfortunately, this year, our Democratic colleagues haven't done anything like that. Either our colleagues don't have any big-picture plan or they are privately working off the President's partisan budget request. There has been no big-picture, bipartisan conversation. The Democrats didn't even let the committee vote on top-line allocations, which normally happens at the start of a markup.

Our colleagues' fixation on far-left shiny objects is distracting them from basic governance. They are more focused on ramming through another reckless, inflationary taxing-and-spending spree than ensuring we avoid a stalemate over government funding.

Now, look, I understand and I appreciate that Senators on both sides have worked hard to develop appropriations titles with a lot of good content. The problem is bigger picture. When it comes to floor consideration, we cannot and will not start planting individual trees before we have bipartisan consensus on the shape of the forest.

Here is what it will take to get a Senate appropriations process back on track, two--two--simple things.

No. 1, Democrats will need to honor the longstanding bipartisan truce that provides parity for defense and nondefense spending growth--parity for defense and nondefense spending growth--and at a responsible overall number that we can all accept. Our men and women in uniform and the Nation they defend deserve better than a budget that cuts our national defense after inflation and allows adversaries to get an edge.

No. 2, we must have agreement that we are going to keep longstanding bipartisan policy riders in and new poison pill riders out. We need to keep foundational mainstays, like the Hyde amendment, right where they are, and neither side should throw new wrenches into the process.

Parity for national and border security and a bipartisan deal on policy riders--this is not rocket science; it is a roadmap. We all know it very, very well. That is what it will take to move bipartisan appropriations bills across this floor, but the majority is behind on the homework.

Afghanistan

Now, Mr. President, on a totally different matter, in April, when President Biden announced his intention to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, he said it was ``time to end the forever wars''--``time to end the forever wars,'' said President Biden, but at every stage of the rushed and rudderless retreat that has followed, the Biden administration's wishful thinking hasn't come within a country mile of reality. By any account, the situation in Afghanistan has become worse as we have headed to the exits, and we will live with the security, humanitarian, and moral consequences for years to come.

This whole debacle was not only foreseeable; it was, in fact, foreseen. Remember what top national security experts were saying around the time the President announced his decisions:

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 support.

Administration officials shrugged it off. They downplayed the chances that Afghanistan's pro-American government would fall to the pro- terrorist Taliban, but now that outcome appears all but inevitable.

The administration literally glossed over the risk of an al-Qaida resurgence, but now Secretary Austin is acknowledging al-Qaida could reestablish a safe haven and threaten the homeland in less than 2 years--that is the Secretary of Defense--and even that could be optimistic.

They insisted that over-the-horizon operations would be enough to keep terrorists in check, but now, just as the CIA Director warned from the start, intelligence gathering is already suffering.

The administration claimed that resources tied up in the fight against terrorists were more urgently needed to counter Chinese aggression, but now the manpower demands of this over-the-horizon approach have required redeployment of forces to the Middle East and pulled an entire carrier group away--away--from China's backyard so it can conduct costlier, less-efficient, long-range missions over Afghanistan from the Gulf.

Much of the rhetoric from the President's team has sounded almost laughingly--laughingly--naive. The Secretary of State publically suggested he thinks he can bribe the Taliban into being a responsible, peaceful regime with diplomatic carrots. So that is where we are.

In 6 months, this administration has taken us from helping local partners fight the Taliban to abandoning our partners and pretending that a future Taliban government will care about foreign assistance and being accepted by the so-called international community.

The Taliban have already begun paving their way to Kabul with innocent blood. Al-Qaida is already rebuilding capabilities to strike at our homeland.

So what on Earth are we doing here? What are we doing?

Surely, the administration would not consider the fall of Kabul a success. Surely, it will not look at the fate awaiting Afghan women and girls and say: Mission accomplished. Surely, a terrorist resurgence or the assassination of our Afghan partners cannot look to President Biden's team like a ``deliberate'' or ``responsible'' exit from Afghanistan.

But these are the predictable results of these terrible decisions: the consequences of making enormous changes with no real plan to mitigate the risk; the failure to learn from similar mistakes, like the disastrous withdrawal from Iraq back in 2011.

Here in the Senate, it is curious to see that some of our colleagues who are the most exercised--the most exercised--about trying to undo authorizations for the use of military force are somehow also among the quietest--the quietest--when it comes to the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan and oversight of ongoing conflicts.

Make no mistake, whether America is on the ground or over the horizon, the war in Afghanistan will continue, and Americans will not be safer with the Taliban ruling from Kabul.

We will not be safer when al-Qaida regains a safe haven and inspires a new generation of global jihadists. And we won't be safer when coalition partners doubt they can trust our word.

A strategic disaster is what we are witnessing from top to bottom, and a growing risk that this war will end in a victory--a victory--for the Taliban and al-Qaida and become a greater threat to the United States.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it has been a little more than 6 months since the Biden administration and our Democratic-led Congress were sworn in. So let's zoom out from the daily political drama and ask the simplest possible question: How is it going? How is the leadership working out for middle-class families? Or put more directly: What big aspects of our national life could Democrats even claim are headed in the right direction on their watch?

In January, our Democratic friends inherited the most favorable trend lines that any incoming administration could possibly ask for. Three safe and effective vaccines had been discovered, developed, and were already spreading across our country. Our economy was packed with dry powder and ready for a historic comeback. It was already morning in America when this Democratic government showed up. Mostly what they had to do was not get in the way.

So where are we 6 months in? The U.S. economy has broken some recent records, mostly the wrong ones. Inflation just clocked its steepest 12- month increase in more than a decade. The month before, a separate measure of core inflation rose at its fastest rate since 1992--higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, soaring costs for everything from household purchases, to automobiles, to housing itself.

Inflation is painful enough, but it isn't the only problem. Employment growth has not been fast enough. Last quarter, GDP grew much more slowly than anticipated. Six months and trillions of dollars of government spending into the Democrats' efforts at a recovery, and Gallup says America's economic confidence is still only neutral. We are not--we are not--where we need to be.

What about the rule of law? There is still a historic surge in people trying to come across our southern border, but administration officials have spent far more energy denying responsibility for the problem than trying to fix it. Catch and release is still the name of the game.

According to news reports, out of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have simply been released into the interior of our country without a court date--now listen to this--just 13 percent--13 percent have shown up at their mandatory meeting with ICE afterward.

So the border is functionally open--especially absurd at a time when many leaders are asking American citizens to step up various COVID precautions. Not much testing, social distancing, or mask wearing is happening in the Rio Grande Valley.

Meanwhile, a surge in violent crime, including recordbreaking murders in many places, has too many citizens afraid of their own city streets.

Perhaps our Democratic friends think foreign policy is going well. I sure wish it were. The President's rushed pullback from Afghanistan has left our friends and partners in the lurch and rolled out a red carpet for a Taliban takeover that is already underway. Its approach to Iran appears to be promising big concessions to our adversary for no reason even as their terrorist proxies continue to attack U.S., Israeli, and Arab interests all across the region.

While I appreciate the administration's tough talk on Russia and China, those words ring hollow when they fail to impose real consequences on cyber attacks and propose to cut our defense spending after inflation.

So what about COVID-19 itself? Certainly, the pandemic is not the fault of any administration or any political party, but this administration boasted with great confidence they had a playbook that was guaranteed to crush the virus. They have continued to roll out the vaccines the prior administration developed, and for that, they certainly deserve some credit. But, especially recently, Americans have received far too many mixed messages and muddied communications about masks, vaccines, and what risks remain and for whom.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' allies in the teachers unions continue to speculate publicly that perhaps schools may not remain open this fall after all. They are flirting with another lost year for our kids even when there are safe and effective vaccines that can reduce adults' risk of grave illness to almost nil and when we know that, mercifully, this virus has mostly spared children from serious illness the whole time.

So, look, everyone is rooting for America; everyone is rooting for the recovery that middle-class families deserve; but that is not what the Democrats' decisions and policies are delivering. No wonder America's optimism has been in free fall the last few months. One survey found that a majority--55 percent--are pessimistic about where the country is headed in the coming year. That pessimism has increased almost 20 percentage points since just this spring.

The soul of America has not been restored. It is anxious, it is uneasy, and in too many cases, the more the Democrats' policies have taken effect, the more problems American families have faced.

Now, certainly, the 6-month mark still provides plenty of time for my Democratic colleagues to recalibrate. We have already notched some bipartisan wins here in the Senate. Our colleagues could put away the partisan approach that has already supercharged inflation, slowed rehiring, and is setting back our national security. But, alas, our Democratic colleagues are signaling they are still addicted to going it alone.

My friends on the other side are signaling that a few days from now, just a few days from now, they will begin the process of ramming through a reckless, multitrillion-dollar taxing-and-spending spree that will stick middle-class families with higher costs, more inflation, fewer jobs, and lower wages.

It is not the strategy that will turn around Democrats' lackluster report card; it will do just the opposite. It almost seems designed to make every problem that families are facing considerably worse. It would meet significant inflation with another massive avalanche of printing and borrowing. It would hammer a tenuous economic recovery with historic tax hikes and job-killing Green New Deal regulations. It would, for some reason, respond to a live border crisis with a big amnesty to lure even more people here illegally.

No working American in Kentucky or anywhere else would look at a plan like this and get on board, and neither will a single Republican. If Washington Democrats really want to take the remarkable head start they inherited at the dawn of this recovery year and squander it through bad policy, they will need to do it all alone.

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

Mr. President, a number of our colleagues in both parties worked through the weekend to finalize their draft agreement on a major bill for our Nation's infrastructure. I want to thank the Senators who worked hard and long to get this effort this far already.

I am confident that out of the 100 of us who serve in this body, 100 will be able to find parts of the legislation that we wish were different. But I believe our colleagues' draft text provides a good and important jumping-off point for what needs to be a robust and bipartisan process out here on the floor.

Infrastructure is exactly the kind of subject that Congress should be able to address across the aisle. Roads, bridges, waterways, airports-- these things are not luxuries for the greatest Nation in world history. They are necessities.

Necessarily, legislation like this will be big and complex. It will necessarily affect all 50 States. That is why, while I salute the hard work of our colleagues who produced the base text that is now before us, their conversations can't be the Senate's last word. Senators on both sides expect and deserve opportunities to have a say and to put their own State's imprints on this major bill.

Just as infrastructure itself is not a luxury but a necessity, the same goes for the Senate having a robust and bipartisan amendment process on legislation of this magnitude.

Our full consideration of this bill must not be choked off by any artificial timetable that our Democratic colleagues may have penciled out for political purposes. Our bipartisan negotiators have already been taking this task very seriously. The American people need the Senate to continue taking it seriously, as well.

On another matter, this bipartisan work on infrastructure just reinforces the recklessness of the purely partisan taxing-and-spending spree the Democrats want to ram through next.

Even before we get to this week, there is ample evidence the Senate is fully capable of passing policies that are actually smart, that actually make things better for American families, and to do so with bipartisan majorities. A year and a half ago, the Senate turned a blank sheet of paper into the CARES Act that saved our healthcare system, saved our economy, and poured money into Operation Warp Speed to help unlock vaccines in record time--overwhelming bipartisan support.

A year ago, we passed the Great American Outdoors Act, a historic investment in our Nation's national parks and national treasures-- another very large bipartisan vote. Last December, there was yet another bipartisan COVID rescue package, and just a few months ago, Senators once again compromised and passed a big bipartisan bill addressing American competitiveness versus China.

There is nothing stopping policies from earning bipartisan support here in the Senate, when they deserve it. Bills that deserve to pass the Chamber are not having a hard time passing.

So the fact that our Democratic colleagues will immediately pivot to a staggering, reckless, tax-and-spend spree that will not earn a single Republican vote, well, that tells Americans everything they need to know.

This 50-50 Senate, a very narrowly divided House, and a President who promised unity and togetherness have decided they want to respond to an environment of uncertainty and inflation with a sprawling $3.5 trillion socialist shopping list and a huge set of painful tax hikes. That is their plan. Our friend and colleague, the junior Senator from Vermont, may not have won the Democratic Presidential nomination, but his ideology sure has won the war.

So, in the next few days, the Democratic leader says they will start the process of ramming through this awful, awful package. They want to respond to a border crisis with amnesty. They want to respond to runaway inflation and soaring costs for families with even more reckless spending, printing, and borrowing. They want to respond to a growing worker shortage by turning a tax credit for working parents into permanent welfare with no work requirement. They want to respond to an uneasy economic recovery with massive tax hikes and a whole catalog of Green New Deal mandates and regulations so Washington bureaucrats can run the country.

So, if what Senate Democrats are planning to do next were a good idea, it would read like one; and it would smell like one; and it wouldn't require a hyperpartisan high-wire act from Senate Democrats to pull it off.

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

Mr. President, I am sorry to begin my remarks today with a third Senate eulogy for this week alone.

Last evening, we received word that our former colleague from Michigan, Senator Carl Levin, passed away at the age of 87. Carl's fellow Michiganders elected and reelected him six times. He was the longest serving Senator from Michigan ever. His home State liked what they had in this passionate activist turned attorney, turned public servant. His dutiful, diligent, and detail-oriented approach led Senator Levin to build expertise and win respect across a huge range of issues.

The pinnacle of our colleague's career was his years atop the Senate Armed Services Committee. I certainly did not always reach the same conclusions that Carl did, but his independence, his genuine humble curiosity, and his affection for the men and women who wear the uniform were impossible to dispute.

He was earnest. He was solid, forthright, and devoted to the defense of our Nation in ways that he thought best.

I especially admired Carl's courageous, consistent defense of the Senate filibuster and the unique structures that define this institution. He never let short-term political facts cloud his long- term judgment in that crucial area.

I know all of our condolences go out to Barbara and the entire Levin family today and to all Senators, staff, and friends who will miss our colleague.

Now, Mr. President, on a completely different matter, we learned yesterday that last quarter, our GDP finally regained its prepandemic level. It has taken about a year of economic growth just to recover back to where we started.

Obviously, we are still far below where our pre-COVID trajectory would have had us today. Before this 100-year pandemic, Republican policies had helped build the best economic moment for American workers in recent memory. Unemployment was at remarkable lows. Wages were on the rise. Pay was growing faster for workers toward the bottom of the income scale--actually faster than those at the top.

That was then. This is now. For the last several months, a different philosophy has guided our recovery. Our Democratic friends believe in borrowing, spending, and taxing at dizzying rates. They want to engineer some kind of socialist recovery from the top down. So how is it going? Well, that GDP report that came out yesterday was actually a substantial miss. Our economy grew almost 25 percent slower than the experts had predicted--another economic disappointment.

Now, remember, this new administration and this Democratic Congress were set up for success unlike any other transition we had seen in our lifetimes. They inherited not one, not two, but three safe and effective vaccines that were spreading around the country. They inherited an economy that was raring to come back, thanks to five bipartisan rescue packages we passed last year.

But instead of helping the American people get back to normal, Democrats decided they wanted to build back bloated--build back bloated. They jammed through a massive $2 trillion so-called COVID package that only spent about 1 percent on vaccinations and less than 10 percent on public health. The rest went to a litany--a literal litany--of inflationary liberal spending.

Now American families are paying the price: slower hiring than expected, slower growth than expected, a weaker comeback than expected. Their policies are sticking it to the middle-class families through higher prices at the grocery store, at the gas pump, at the hardware store, at the car dealership, in the housing market, and practically everywhere else that matters to families.

Employers large and small, down to Main Street shops and construction sites, are struggling to hire and turning down work because Democrats decided taxpayers should keep directly paying people to stay home. Our country is flooded with safe, effective, and free vaccines for anyone who wants one, but Democrats are still making small businesses bid against a special government handout that rewards, believe it or not, not working.

Our bipartisan work last year left our country primed and ready for a comeback summer, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that Democrats in the Capitol and down Pennsylvania Avenue pursued economic policies that have fumbled the handoff.

Now, in the days ahead, Democrats want to steamroll ahead with yet another reckless tax-and-spending spree: more unhinged borrowing, printing, and spending; more welfare spending with no--listen to this-- no work requirements; everything from amnesty to big chunks of the Green New Deal and historic tax hikes poured on top for good measure. This kind of reckless taxing-and-spending spree would make their last failed package look like a walk in the park, and the pain that families are already feeling would just be beginning.

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

Madam President, yesterday, I joined a number of my Republican and Democratic colleagues

and voted to begin floor consideration of bipartisan compromise legislation for our Nation's infrastructure.

Our country would benefit a whole lot from some targeted investment in the kinds of real, tangible projects that fit a commonsense definition of actual infrastructure--roads, bridges, ports, waterways, airports, broadband.

A bipartisan compromise to responsibly finance these kinds of investments is guaranteed to be big and complex. It is guaranteed to be the kind of legislation that no Member on either side of the aisle will think is perfect. But it is an important basic duty of government.

I am glad to see these discussions making progress. I was happy to vote to begin moving the Senate toward what ought to be a robust, bipartisan floor process for legislation of this magnitude.

This kind of focused compromise that our colleagues have been hashing out could not contrast more sharply with the multitrillion-dollar reckless taxing-and-spending spree the Democrats hope to ram through on a party-line vote later this year.

As I have said before, the Democrats' spree is reckless on multiple levels. We are all familiar with the staggering $3.5 trillion bottom line. We all know it would only amp up the painful inflation that is already hammering middle-class families, in large part because of the last partisan deluge of spending Democrats rammed through just a few months ago.

But just as alarming is the parade of leftwing ideas that comprise this mess: turning temporary pandemic welfare payments with no work requirements into a permanent dole, shoving through big chunks of the Green New Deal, government price-fixing that would leave us with fewer new medicines and new cures.

And then there is an effort to further inflame the Biden administration's border crisis with a far-left amnesty. We have now seen the highest unaccompanied child arrivals on record, the biggest month for immigrant encounters in 21 years. This month, total CBP apprehensions for the calendar year are expected to top a million--a million--for the first time in 15 years, and we still have 5 months to go.

So one might think my friends across the aisle would try to avoid repeating the missteps that created the crisis; that they would be careful to avoid doubling down on the perverse incentives generating so much suffering down at the southern border.

But, apparently, Washington Democrats intend to do the opposite. Their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would include an even bigger green light for this crisis at the worst possible time. Under the Biden administration's unenforceable catch-and-release policy, just 13 percent of the 50,000 individuals who have been released into the United States since March have actually reported to assigned ICE checkups. So in a sense, either intentionally or through incompetence, the administration is already practicing a policy that amounts to functional amnesty in many cases. What Democrats want now is to make that explicit and, believe it or not, permanent.

They would effectively like our southern border to be even more open than it is now, even during an ongoing public health emergency that has Federal, State, and local officials contemplating new batches of rules for American citizens. The message to Americans appears to be: Put your guard back up, even if you are vaccinated.

But to a jaw-dropping degree, the message to people arriving at the southern border seems to be: Come on in. Even if you are COVID positive, come on in.

CBP data are reportedly showing a huge uptick in positive COVID tests in the Rio Grande Valley sector. That is just one sector, and that is just among whatever fraction of the individuals are actually being tested. And among individuals in ICE custody, apparently one in three-- one in three--are declining to receive a vaccine. Yet it seems the Biden administration doesn't consider a COVID diagnosis any reason to make an exception to its catch-and-release policy. Alarming reports of COVID-positive detainees being turned out into Texas communities even have border-State Democrats sounding the alarm.

I hope President Biden is listening. Maybe Members of his own party will have better luck conveying what the American people have known for months: The situation at our southern border is a crisis. It deserves real attention and real solutions, not a reckless taxing-and-spending spree with amnesty policies that would make things considerably worse

Madam President, on a completely different matter, for the second time this week the U.S. Senate family must bid a sad farewell to a member of its alumni society.

Only six different individuals have served as Senate Parliamentarian since the position was formally established back in 1935. It is a unique and remarkable position that seems to require unique and remarkable people.

Bob Dove served two stints as Parliamentarian from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. He passed away yesterday at the age of 82 after a long illness.

I was just a rank-and-file Senator during Bob's stints on the dais, but everyone in the entire Senate knew all about Bob's brilliance and his incredible spirit. Bob Dove knew this body's history and its rules to the tenth decibel place.

He was also a constantly jovial person, as approachable as he was smart. His love for the Senate was tangible. It was palpable, and it was not only a love for the institution, itself, as an abstraction, it was also a love for the human beings who comprised it.

I understand that back in the day, Bob had a go-to one-liner to help himself and his fellow professionals here on the floor through the tougher days. Here is what he said: ``You may love the Senate,'' he would dryly declare, ``but the Senate may not love you back.''

But a little gruff sarcasm couldn't conceal Bob's true affection. In fact, his enthusiasm for this place was so contagious that it swept up multiple generations of his family. About a year and a half ago, we said goodbye to Bob's daughter, Laura Dove, herself a long-serving, well-loved and widely respected Senate staff leader as she left the post of Secretary for the Majority.

Even now, two of Bob's grandchildren are spending their summers right here in the Senate, helping out in different positions.

Either Bob Dove's brood just cannot quit this multigenerational addiction to public service or perhaps it is the Senate that cannot quit them.

So our condolences and our prayers go out to Bob's wife Linda, to Laura and her brother and sister, and to Bob's grandchildren and extended family.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday, our colleagues Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Shelby announced a bipartisan agreement on emergency funding for several pressing security matters.

The Appropriations Committee set out to address three key priorities:

First, reimbursing the costs incurred by the Capitol Police, the National Guard, and other law enforcement for their assistance during and after the January 6 attack on the Capitol; and providing for necessary repairs and security updates to the Capitol Complex.

Second, addressing a shortfall from the efforts to keep Congress a safe and functional workplace during the pandemic this past year and a half. This is everything from PPE to overtime pay for staff.

And, third, some urgent support for our Afghan partners who have assisted in the fight against terrorism and now seek to flee the deteriorating situation brought about by the administration's literally disastrous decision to abandon that country.

We owe a real debt to the men and women of the Capitol Police, DC Metro Police, National Guard, and other agencies who helped secure and protect our workplace. We are grateful to support staff, from the Architect of the Capitol's team to the Attending Physician's office, to the Sergeant at Arms, who have worked day and night keeping us functioning safely throughout the pandemic.

And we intend to keep our Nation's promises to brave Afghans who have taken great risks to help Americans and our partners fight the terrorists.

So I applaud the bipartisan work of our colleagues. I am sure neither side finds the compromise perfect, but I believe that both sides should and will agree it is absolutely necessary.

Mr. President, now on a different matter, the massive, massive taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats want to ram through this summer has problems that go even beyond inflation, rising costs, and massive tax hikes.

The problem is not just Democrats' jaw-dropping $3.5 trillion pricetag. It is also the long list of bad liberal policies that this reckless taxing-and-spending spree is supposed to purchase.

I spoke yesterday about just a few of those bad ideas. They are talking about amnesty for illegal immigrants, socialist price-fixing that would leave us with fewer new prescription drugs, fewer new treatments, and fewer new cures.

They want to permanently change the child tax credit into welfare with no--no--work requirements; smuggle in big chunks of the Green New Deal.

And in case all of this were not enough, some Senate Democrats want to use this taxing-and-spending spree to grab control over all 50 States' election laws. I thought we just had that debate a couple of weeks ago.

Remember, for several years now, our Democratic friends have claimed that every successive election proved they needed to grab partisan control over our democracy. In 2016, 2018, and 2020, win or lose--win or lose--when foreign

interference occurred and when it did not occur, every possible result has been claimed as proof that Washington Democrats should rip up our democracy's rule book and write a new one that benefits them.

The latest phony justification has been the false notion that a few States' mainstream voting laws equal some kind of assault on democracy as we know it. Of course, that is absolutely utter nonsense. Americans want it to be easy to vote and hard to cheat. Voter ID protections are hugely popular. Basic voter roll maintenance is common sense.

The new law in Georgia, for example, provides for more flexible early voting and absentee voting than many blue States, including New York. But the facts weren't about to stop the Democrats' big lie. The absurd comparison to Jim Crow segregation and all kinds of other horrors have continued apace.

To provide a little more context about this fake hysteria, we can also look internationally. As one columnist recently observed in the Washington Post, the balance struck by the State of Georgia amounts to ``one of the most expansive voting access laws in the world. Most other countries do not allow no-excuse absentee voting, and dropboxes are also virtually unknown elsewhere,'' other democracies around the world. ``If Georgia's elections are undemocratic, then almost all of our democratic allies are also undemocratic.''

If liberal activists and woke corporations believed their own rhetoric, they wouldn't stop at boycotting and threatening the State of Georgia. They couldn't possibly. They would be busy trying to divest from most of our NATO allies and essentially the rest of the entire developed world.

Some European countries allow mail-in voting, but most do not. We constantly hear from our socialist friends how we should be emulating Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Well, none of them allow in- country postal voting--not a one. Bring on the boycotts, I guess.

And you don't even want to hear about early voting. Goodness gracious. But France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the UK, Ireland--not a day of in-person early voting in any of those countries, none of them. That is according to an international NGO that studies democracy.

So, remember, the Texas and Georgia laws codify a whole lot of early voting, mail-in voting, and lots of election-day voting.

And this is supposed to be the death of democracy? Some outrage on a global and historic scale?

Give me a break. What nonsense.

Even going by Texas's new proposals, there will be voting by mail in Paris, TX, but not in Paris, France. There would be almost 2 weeks of in-person early voting in New Berlin, TX, but zero days in Berlin, Germany. I am sure Democrats will be yelling at the Fortune 500 to boycott Europe any day now--any day now.

Of course, the reality is that these moving goalposts are absolutely fake. The frantic outrage is phony. It is all meant to justify a political power grab that Democrats have had written and waiting since years before any of these new State laws, which are supposedly prompting it--yet another awful plank that my colleagues across the aisle want to hide in the reckless taxing-and-spending spree they hope to ram through Congress.

Mr. President, now on one final matter, last week, some of our colleagues expressed disapproval of U.S. strikes against al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia. I find their views difficult to understand.

Al-Shabaab poses a significant threat to U.S. interests. But you don't have to take my word for it. Late in 2019, the leader of al- Shabaab, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group based in Somalia, said:

Our biggest target today is the Americans . . . The only

reason we have exerted all this effort and undertaken all

this preparation today is to attack the American troops.

In the assessment of the commander of U.S. Africa Command, U.S. General Stephen Townsend, that is coming from ``the largest, wealthiest, and most violent Al Qaeda-associated group in the world'' and ``the primary African violent extremist organization threat to American interests.''

This is not a new threat. Al-Shabaab was designated a foreign terrorist organization back in 2008. Its leaders declared allegiance to al-Qaida in 2012, a year before their attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67 people. The Obama administration designated the group as an al-Qaida-associated force in 2016. That made it subject to the 2001 AUMF.

At the time, it was a difficult but telling acknowledgement that the al-Qaida terrorist threat was growing. The raid that killed Bin Laden had clearly not ended the threat his terrorists posed to our country.

As a result of its declared and demonstrated allegiance to al-Qaida, al-Shabaab is clearly subject to the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, no question. President Obama knew it. General Townsend knows it. Al-Shabaab themselves tell us they want Americans dead. What more, what more do the skeptics need?

If our colleagues do not want the U.S. military to conduct strikes against the al-Qaida terrorists responsible for killing Americans and threatening our interests, I would be interested to hear how they propose we defend against these threats.

So, by the way, with the administration's rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are well-founded concerns that al-Qaida may be roaring back in that country.

So which al-Qaida affiliate should we stop pressuring--al-Shabaab, AQAP, ISIS? Should we stop hunting for al-Zawahiri, the leader of al- Qaida?

Administrations of both parties have identified and supported local partners who share an interest in combating terrorists. By and large, this approach has succeeded in keeping pressure on the terrorists while keeping more Americans out of harm's way.

But despite the best efforts of local partners to keep the terrorists at bay and the best efforts of U.S. diplomats to broker peace, some terrorists do require direct action by the U.S. military to be stopped. These hard-core extremists pose a serious threat to American national security. They seek to attack our interests all around the world, including our homeland, if we let them.

The threat they pose will not recede if we lose focus. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. So I hope the Commander in Chief will exercise the authorities the Congress has provided him and the tools Congress has funded to keep America safe against the terrorists who continue to target our homeland and our interests abroad.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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