Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the achievements of a friend of mine and a great Ohioan, John Payiavlas, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday.

John was born in 1931 to Greek immigrants Anthony and Paraskevi Payiavlas in Warren, Oh. At the age of 20, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and underwent basic training at Fort Riley in Kansas. In 1952, he was deployed to South Korea, where he joined U.N. forces in supporting South Korea as part of Fox Company, 7th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. He later transferred to the Greek Expeditionary Force Batallion--one of four Greek Americans to serve in this batallion--and was awarded the Commander's Silver Cross of Valour for his exemplary service. He was honorably discharged in 1953 as sergeant first class.

John and his wife Marisa, who this year will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary, were married 3 years after John returned home to Ohio from the service. In 1960, John purchased a small company called Automatic Vendors, which later became a multimillion-dollar corporation known as AVI Foodsystems. Since its inception, AVI has served customers in more than 6,500 locations across the United States and has become the largest independently owned and operated contract food service company in the Nation. Currently, the company provides vending, institutional dining, and coffee service operations to companies across America.

Today, John Payiavlas runs the company alongside his children, Anthony and Patrice Kouvas. The Payiavlas family has made tremendous contributions to their community, including a generous gift of $500,000 to Youngstown State University for their new sports media center. In 2006, John and his wife were honored with the Cleveland Clinic's Distinguished Fellow Award for their support of the clinic's initiatives, such as the Heart and Vascular Institute, the Taussig Cancer Center, and the Glickman Urological Institute.

John Payiavlas has received numerous accolades for his accomplishments. In 2000, John was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame of Northeast Ohio's Inside Business Magazine. In 2016, he was honored for his service in the Korean war with the Washington Oxi Day Foundation's Jaharis Service Award. In addition, John holds the highest honor in all Christendom for a lay person as an Archon Depoutatos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which dates back to the fourth century in the Greek Orthodox Church. The service and achievements of John Payiavlas extend well beyond the State of Ohio, and I applaud the lasting impact his success will have on our future generations.

Madam President, I am here to join my colleague from Iowa who just spoke and others to talk about the President's budget.

The budget is comprised of a couple of things. One is what the spending is going to be for the country. The spending, which is unbelievably high and at unprecedented levels of spending at a time of unprecedented deficits and a long-term debt that is at the highest level ever, is concerning.

The second is that the budget is about revenue. So on the spending side, we all expected it to be a very high number--over $6 trillion in new spending--but on the tax side, we also have huge new tax increases. The Senator from Iowa just said it is the largest tax increase in the history of the country. He is the former chairman of the tax-writing committee, chairman of the Budget Committee here, and he has been through a lot of tax increases over the years. This is the largest one in the history of the country. It is coming at a time when you don't want to raise taxes because we are coming out of this pandemic, trying to get the economy back on track.

One reason that we were in good shape before COVID-19 is because we actually put in place some tax reforms and some tax cuts that really worked. Let's be very specific about that. In the months just before COVID-19 hit, we had an economy that was hitting on all cylinders in every respect.

In February of that year--so February before the COVID-19 crisis hit--we had the 19th straight month of wage growth of over 3 percent. That was great news in my home State of Ohio, I will tell you, because we had years of flat-rate growth, even declining growth, when you take into account the effects of inflation. So we had really nice wage growth.

And guess who was made the beneficiary of that wage growth. It was lower and middle-income workers, which is also something you would all think people would hope for in this Chamber. That was partly because the tax cuts the government put in place in 2018 from the 2017 Republican bill provided tax relief to middle-class families, doubled the standard deduction, doubled the child tax credit, lowered the tax rates, and put more money into people's pockets. And the 2017 reforms also spurred needed investment in our communities, growing economic opportunities, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.

And the reforms on the corporate side--on the international side and on the corporate side--generally meant that more companies were investing in America, creating more jobs and investments here rather than overseas.

At the time, the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of the lower corporate rate, as an example, and said that 70 percent of that benefit was going to go to workers in terms of their wages and salaries. That is exactly what we saw. So, again, there were 19 straight months of wage growth of over 3 percent in February before COVID hit.

By the way, also in that time period--the year before COVID hit--we had the lowest poverty rate in the history of the country. Let me repeat that because I think it would be a surprise for a lot of people to hear this who are so critical of the tax reforms in 2017 on the other side of the aisle, saying this is not going to help ordinary people. Of course, it did.

We talked about the wage growth, but also the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country. We also saw a 50-year low in unemployment. We saw record low unemployment among certain groups of Americans, including Hispanics, Blacks, and Asian Americans.

We also saw a situation where there were a lot of jobs being created that were higher wage jobs because wages were going up, and we had the kind of opportunity economy that everybody in this Chamber should hope for.

What is this budget saying? This is the budget, again, that President Biden has just put out. He has said: Let's get rid of all that tax reform and those tax cuts. Virtually, every one of the 2017 tax cuts expires under his budget or is ended now before it would normally expire. Let me repeat that: The budget that they put out wants to increase taxes, and that includes taxes on everybody, including the middle class. In only a few months in office, the Biden Administration is committed to spending about $6 trillion.

Again, just put this in context. That is bigger than the annual budget of the United States. When you add up all the plans the President has put out there, it is $6 trillion in new spending. One of the problems with that has been that it has primed the pump. In other words, it put so much stimulus into the economy that it has created inflation. That was something that was warned by Republicans, including me and others, but also Democrats, like Larry Summers, who is a Democrat, an economist, and former Secretary of the Treasury.

Unfortunately, it looks like that prediction was correct because inflation is up. If you ask folks back home about it, they will say: Yeah, I went to the gas pump, and it was $3.50 a gallon

That is what I heard last weekend. That is what I experienced myself. Also, it is the price of food.

Certainly, it is the price of materials. If you are trying to build something today and you want to buy some plywood, good luck. The costs have skyrocketed.

This inflation is real and it is happening, and people are feeling it. In a way, that is a hidden tax, isn't it? If everything costs more, it is sort of a regressive tax that is built into the system. That is what is happening when we have inflation. We are also seeing pressure on interest rates, of course, which is going to make it harder on people to buy a home, buy a car, to be able to get by.

This $6 trillion has made a difference in the sense of sending a message out from the Democrats that we would like to spend much more, but they already did spend quite a bit that has primed the pump--$1.4 trillion in a COVID package, as an example.

By the way, that $6 trillion, when you add it up, is about six times more than the government spent in response to the Great Depression. That is adjusted for inflation. I am talking about inflation-adjusted terms. It is about six times more than the government spent in the 1930s in the Great Depression.

It is a very radical budget, really, both on the spending side and on the tax side. The philosophy of more and more spending at a time of record debt and record deficits isn't going to help our economy recover. I think it is simply going to drive inflation, as we talked about, put pressure on interest rates, keep people out of jobs, and put more financial pressure on everyday Americans.

Instead, what we ought to do is help people get back to work. COVID- 19, thank God, is finally passing. In my own State of Ohio, we are finally opening up again because our COVID-19 rates are so low. The vaccines are working. I encourage people who haven't been vaccinated to step forward and do it because it helps you and your family and also our communities to be able to recover more quickly--get people back to work and back to school, get our children back to school and get back to our churches and our synagogues, and get back to our normal life. It is starting to happen, and it is exciting.

One of the problems is, again, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and also that there just aren't adequate workers out there, in part, because the government is paying more and more for unemployment insurance--$300 in Federal supplement on top of the normal unemployment in the States. There are still 25 States that have that, and this means that people often are making more on unemployment than they would be making at work. On average, about 42 percent of people, with the additional $300, are making more on unemployment than they were at work. That creates a little disincentive.

There are other disincentives, too, out there to go back to work. As a result, there are 9.3 million jobs open in America. That is the latest figure from the Department of Labor based on the April numbers. We don't have the May numbers yet, but 9.3 million is a record number of job openings in America. We never had this many jobs open.

This is a problem because if you don't get people back to work and filling these jobs, some of these companies are going to downsize. Some will leave our shores for elsewhere, where they can find workers. Others, frankly, are automating. You could argue that may be a more efficient, economic decision, but I don't like to see that. I don't like to see that. I think the technology and the automation, where appropriate, are great, but I want to see people get jobs where they get the dignity and self-respect that comes from working, and they get the opportunity to have a fulfilling life with work.

So 9.3 million jobs are open. Let's fill those jobs. Let's not do this incredibly high spending level talked about in this budget. Let's not raise these taxes at a time when we are finally seeing economies start to rebound after COVID-19. Let's get back on track. We had a great economy--an opportunity economy--before COVID-19. That is what we want to return to.

I yield back.

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

Madam President, I am here on the floor of the Senate this evening to commemorate the 77th anniversary of D-day. This was a huge turning point in World War II, of course. The invasion of Normandy occurred 77 years ago yesterday.

Historian Douglas Brinkley wrote that D-day was the single most important moment in the 20th century and one of the most tragic, too, in terms of loss of life. I think he was right. There were 160,000 soldiers who crossed the Channel that day to begin the campaign to recapture Europe from Hitler's rule. On their backs were rucksacks with 80 pounds of gear, but so too was the fate of all of us--our allies in Europe and, really, the fate of the free world.

Many of our best and brightest young Americans did fall that day. We lost more than 10,000 men in 1 day. The Nazis had spent 2 years fortifying the coast to prepare for this moment. It was Hitler's so- called Atlantic Wall. The beautiful coastline of Northern France was covered in barbed wire, land mines, and bunkers, but at the end of the largest amphibious invasion in history, we stood victorious, battered but not broken. On we marched through France, through Belgium, and, finally, into Germany itself.

But even today, amid the flowers and fields of Normandy--I have been there, and many of you have been there who are listening tonight--you can feel, even today, the lingering presence of those who died that day in the service of liberating Europe, and you can see it in the stark, orderly U.S. military cemeteries, where row after row of white crosses and Stars of David commemorate those brave souls who were lost-- representing lives lost in a noble cause. Though much has happened in the following 77 years, we can never lose sight of the valor and the sacrifice by our Armed Forces on that 1 day.

On Memorial Day, about a week ago, I spoke at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, OH. It was a hopeful day for me not just to have so many people together as we emerged from COVID-19-- really the first big public event they have had--but also to see the generations of veterans and family members there to honor the fallen: World War II veterans, Gulf war veterans, Korean war veterans, Vietnam veterans, and veterans, of course, from Afghanistan and Iraq. They represented the living embodiment of the stories we ought to be remembering from a war that recedes further into the past with every passing year.

They are the stories of valor like that displayed by Jim ``Pee Wee'' Martin from Dayton, OH. On that day, he and the rest of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment parachuted behind German lines in the dark of pre-dawn. Jim was wounded but fought bravely, earning both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his efforts.

They are the stories of sacrifice like that of the Napier brothers of Warren County in southwest Ohio, the county my mom is from. All five of the brothers served in the war, and two of the five brothers landed at D-day. One died there on the beaches, never to return to his Ohio home.

These are stories to be preserved for generations to come. The memory of D-day and, indeed, of all of World War II must never be lost.

Since I have been here in the U.S. Senate, I have often come to the floor on D-day to recite the special prayer that was given that day by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was expected, of course, that FDR would give a speech when the invasion took place--one of his fireside chats from the White House--but for some reason, FDR was moved to prayer. The famous prayer that he gave that day has become known as the D-day Prayer. It is a powerful statement, my favorite Presidential statement and one that deserves to be remembered for generations to come.

In 2013, I introduced legislation, called the World War II Memorial Prayer Act, which directs the Secretary of the Interior to install a plaque to be placed at the World War II Memorial, on the National Mall, with the words of the D-day Prayer. It is a beautiful memorial, but, frankly, some more interpretation wouldn't be a bad thing, and having that prayer there, as you will see in a moment when we recite it, would be an appropriate way to pay tribute to those who lost their lives that day.

It was the Ohio Christian Alliance President, Chris Long, who first came to me with the idea of a plaque to display this historic prayer. That legislation was actually signed into law with the help of Senator Joe Lieberman. On a bipartisan basis, we got it passed in 2014.

The friends of the National World War II Memorial and the National Park Service, since that time, have worked with us to develop and refine the final permanent plaque design. Most recently, they received design approvals from the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission.

It takes a while to get things done on the National Mall, I found. There is quite a process. It has now been 7 years, longer than World War II itself. Despite the hurdles, we have yet to see the final plaque installed, but it will be done, by the way, not at any cost to

the taxpayers, meaning private fundraising, not taxpayer dollars, will be used. We had hoped to have the final plaque in place for the 75th anniversary. In the meantime, in 2019, we were able to have a temporary plaque in place with the words of the prayer at the permanent location for the permanent plaque, which is at the Circle of Remembrance, next to the World War II Memorial.

If you are on The Mall and you are coming from the Capitol, it will be on your right. It is north of the World War II Memorial but right next to it. In this very beautiful place, the Circle of Remembrance--a good place to sit and reflect--you will see, right now, the plaque is there, and you can read the prayer. The permanent plaque will be even bigger and will allow even more people to have access to it. I encourage people to go see that plaque. By the way, I think it is the only prayer on display on our National Mall.

The temporary plaque, by the way, was generously donated by the Friends of the National World War II Memorial. We are very hopeful that the permanent plaque will be placed at the circle next year. I want to thank the Lilly Endowment for its generous support of this project, by the way. Last October, it provided a $2 million grant for the construction and installation of the permanent plaque. This committed financial support will be critical to finally bringing the project across the line.

The fact that a prayer was offered that day by our Commander in Chief is historic in and of itself, but it is the content of the prayer that makes it so worthy of remembrance. I would now like to read this World War II D-day Prayer, if I may.

My fellow Americans [FDR began]: Last night, when I spoke

with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that

troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the

Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass

with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in

prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have

set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our

Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free

a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms,

stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and

hard, for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces.

Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return

again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the

righteousness of our cause, our sons will [prevail].

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without

rest--until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by

noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the

violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They

fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end

conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice

arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They

yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the

haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive

them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home--fathers, mothers, children, wives,

sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas--whose thoughts

and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to

rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of

great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single

day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the

desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a

continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again

when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips,

invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too--strength in our daily tasks, to

redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the

material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail,

to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our

sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in

our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade.

Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not

the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but

fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable

purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces

of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and

racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and

with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a

sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy

men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom,

reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

A powerful prayer. I love the part about they come not to conquer; they come to liberate. The same can be said for our Armed Forces throughout the ages.

I look forward to seeing these words of prayer permanently displayed on the National Mall to help us memorialize such a noble day we must never forget.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today in strong support of the Safeguarding American Innovation Act. This is legislation that has been included in the substitute amendment to the bill we are working on this week, called the Endless Frontier Act, or as it has now been called, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.

Well, if our goal is to increase U.S. competitiveness and encourage more U.S. innovation, we have to not only invest in research and innovation, we have to be sure that we are keeping our investment in research and intellectual property from being taken by our competitors and used against us. That is what this legislation does.

By the way, that is just common sense, or so you would think, but that is not what we found during a bipartisan investigation during the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Instead, during a yearlong inquiry, we uncovered that our government and our research institutions over the last couple of decades have permitted China to take advantage of a lax U.S. approach to safeguarding our taxpayer-funded innovation, be it in our college campuses or in our research labs, nor was law enforcement, principally the FBI, doing anything significant to combat this threat. In fact, at our hearing on the report about 18 months ago, the FBI admitted in sworn testimony that they have been asleep at the switch, essentially.

Our PSI investigation detailed the rampant theft of U.S. taxpayer- funded research and intellectual property by China by way of their so- called China recruitment programs, mainly the Thousand Talents Plan. China uses these plans to systematically find promising researchers and promising research that China is interested in, and they recruit those researchers.

These programs have not been subtle. The Thousand Talents Plan is perhaps the best understood of these programs, although there are actually a couple hundred of them. Our PSI investigation documented how the Thousand Talents Plan was used to target and steal taxpayer-funded research and IP for at least two decades in this country, and much of that research and innovation was taken from our labs to China and went directly into fueling the rise of the Chinese economy and the Chinese military.

While this is what China has done and continues to do, this is really about us. We have to get our own house in order. Specifically, we found that the Chinese Government has targeted promising U.S.-based research and researchers. Often, this research is funded by U.S. taxpayers. We spend about $150 billion a year on taxpayer-funded research in places like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy for basic science research. And with this legislation we are talking about tonight on the floor, the Endless Frontier Act, we are talking about a huge increase in the amount of Federal spending for this kind of research.

The annual $150 billion that has gone out over the years has been a good investment of taxpayer dollars, I believe. Why? Because it has led to some amazing things, from cures for everything from viruses to particular kinds of cancer, to technologies that support our defense base, to manufacturing technology that has made us more efficient as a country. But it is not good if the U.S. taxpayer is paying for this good research, and then China is taking it to fuel their own economic and military rise.

China has not just stolen some of the research funded by U.S. taxpayers; China has actually paid these grant recipients to take their research over to China at Chinese universities--again, universities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. They have been very clever about it. They want to be sure that China is a stronger competitor against us, and they take the research delivered from the United States to what is referred to as shadow

labs in China, where they replicate the research.

Rather than pointing the finger at China, we ought to be looking at our own government and our own institutions and doing a better job with the things we can control. Again, let's get our own house in order. We have made some progress in doing that.

Following our November 2019 PSI investigation I talked about and the report we issued, in December of 2020, John Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security and head of the Justice Department's China Initiative, announced that more than 1,000 researchers affiliated with China's military left the United States following a crackdown on recipients of taxpayer-funded Federal grants concealing their affiliation with China's Thousand Talents Program. One thousand researchers left the United States.

That news followed multiple guilty pleas and a string of arrests of academics affiliated with American universities for alleged crimes related to concealing their participation in China's talent recruitment programs while accepting American taxpayer funds and taking research to China.

After two decades of allowing this activity to go on, over the past 18 months, we have finally begun to crack down. In my own State of Ohio, in my home State, there have been some researchers who have been arrested. However, as our investigation found and law enforcement told us, the Federal Government is limited in the actions they can take under current law. It is our responsibility in Congress to change that.

All of the arrests in connection with the Thousand Talents Plan have been related to peripheral financial crimes, like wire fraud and tax evasion, not the core issue of the conflict of commitment, conflict of interest, the taking of American taxpayer research, and also taking money from China. Why? Because it is not currently a crime to knowingly hide foreign research funding on a Federal grant application, as an example. In other words, if you are performing research funded by the U.S. taxpayer and also being paid by China to do the same research, there is no law that states you have to disclose that funding from China. That is just wrong.

Since our report, the National Institutes of Health has started to require that that information be disclosed. The NIH is alone so far in requiring that. But even there, there is still no law requiring disclosure.

The arrests made since our PSI report have not been about that core issue of researchers hiding foreign funding from China and stealing our research. So we need to change the laws so we can give our law enforcement community the tools they need to go do the job that all of us expect is being done.

The Safeguarding American Innovation Act goes directly to the root of this problem and makes it punishable by law to knowingly fail to disclose foreign funding on Federal grant applications. While this is a criminal statute, it is really about transparency, which is a core tenet of the U.S. research enterprise.

Our bill also makes other important changes informed by our investigation. It requires the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, in the executive branch to streamline and coordinate grant-making between the Federal Agencies so there is more continuity, accountability, and coordination when it comes to tracking the billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded grant money that is being distributed.

Again, the underlying legislation here in the Chamber tonight is about more money going into research. Let's be sure that there is transparency and that we know how it is being distributed. We found in our investigation that this kind of coordination and transparency was sorely lacking and long overdue.

Our legislation also allows the Department of State to deny visas to foreign researchers coming to the United States who they know are going to exploit the openness of our research enterprise to acquire sensitive and emerging technologies against the national security interests of the United States and to benefit an adversarial foreign government.

This may surprise you, but the State Department can't do that now. It is a loophole in the law. In finalizing our language for the substitute, we worked very closely with career State Department employees, who were desperate to get this authority to keep, say, members from the People's Liberation Army, who are definitely connected with the Chinese military, from coming over here and attending conferences where sensitive, export controlled technology is being talked about and distributed.

Our bill also requires foreign institutions and universities to tell the State Department whether a foreign researcher will have access to export controlled technologies and also to demonstrate to the State Department that they have a plan to prevent unauthorized access to any export controlled technologies at the research institution

That is really important. It seems like basic information that the State Department would get here, that would have been provided all along, but it hasn't been. Providing this information as part of the visa process should also help streamline the process for the State Department and for these research institutions. I think it is good for both to make sure that this is clear and we know what the rules are.

We also require increased transparency in reporting foreign gifts and contracts at our colleges and our universities. Those schools are now going to need to report any foreign gift or contract worth $50,000 or more. The current threshold is $250,000. More transparency is a good thing.

We also empower the Department of Education to work with these universities and research institutions to ensure that this can be complied with in a way that doesn't create undue redtape and expenditures. That is not the idea. The idea is to have transparency but have it be something that is efficient. But we also allow the Department of Education for the first time to fine universities that repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts. We have actually found that about 70 percent of universities weren't following the current law, partly because there was no fine. There was really no accountability.

All of the changes that I have outlined are necessary to help keep America on the cutting edge. In order to be globally competitive, we have to be more effective at pushing back against the specific threat from China and from other nations, like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, looking to steal our research and our intellectual property.

Until we start to clean up our own house and take a firmer stance against foreign influences here in this country trying to take our research, we are going to keep losing the innovations that we create here, and we will be less competitive. That is why the Safeguarding American Innovation Act is so important to be included in this bill.

I will finish by noting that this has been truly a nonpartisan effort--not just bipartisan but nonpartisan--from the start. We wanted to ensure that, in a thoughtful, smart, and effective way, we were responding to the very real threat that we identified from China and other foreign adversaries.

I want to commend my partner in our PSI investigation and cosponsor of our legislation, Senator Tom Carper. I also want to thank the Presiding Officer tonight for her role in this, for her contributions and her support. I also want to say that I appreciate Senators Peters and Schumer and their staff for working with us to finalize the language, as well as the State Department and other officials from the Trump administration and the Biden administration who provided important assistance.

Safeguarding American innovation is always a good idea, but it is particularly important in the context of the legislation before us that provides exceptionally large amounts of Federal money for research to make us more competitive. I support that research, but I don't want the taxpayer funds to go in the front door and then to have the research go out the back door to China or other adversaries. That is not what this should be about, and thanks to this legislation being included in this law, I feel confident that it will not be about that.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, let me say that I agree with my colleague from Oklahoma who just talked about the impact of the Federal supplement on unemployment that was passed here in this Chamber and signed into law by the President. It is time to end it because the situation has changed dramatically, hasn't it?

Back when the unemployment additional benefit from the Federal Government was put in place, we had people who couldn't go to work. Thanks to COVID, businesses actually were shut down, many by government edict.

There were people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Therefore, this Chamber stood up and said: OK, for those people, we ought to provide a Federal supplement on top of the State unemployment insurance in order to make them whole, essentially. Initially it was $600. Now it is $300. That is on top of the State unemployment.

Now you have an exact opposite situation. You have all these jobs that are open. I just learned that in Oklahoma, it is a record number. Guess what. It is a record number nationally as well: 8.1 million jobs are being offered right now. That is more jobs than we have ever had open in the United States of America, and it is happening right now.

At the same time, you have people on unemployment insurance who are getting the additional $300 on top of the State benefit. In Ohio, the average is $360 plus $300, so 660 bucks a week. Plus, the first $10,000 is not taxed. So if you are a truckdriver making 40,000 bucks a year, you are being taxed, but if you are on unemployment insurance, your first $10,000 of UI is not being taxed. How is that fair?

Well, it creates an additional disincentive to go to work. I am not saying it is the only reason people aren't going back to work, but if you talk to the small business folks in your State, you will find it is one of the big reasons. I think it is the biggest one.

Another one is that people are having tough time finding childcare. I get that. Childcare is expensive. Part of the solution to that, of course, is to get the kids back to school. Fifty-four percent of K-8 schools are back in business, but the rest aren't. Schools being closed makes it really tough for parents to go back to work because one parent has to be there to take care of the kids. That is true.

Then, finally, there is an issue of the skills gap. I get that. The jobs that are available, some of them are skilled jobs. There are 720,000 manufacturing jobs in America open right now--right now. Yet a lot of them do require a skill level that, unfortunately, our system of education and training has not prepared people for. This is why our young people need to be given more opportunities to get those industry- recognized certificates to become a welder or become a technician or become a coder in the IT world or become a truckdriver, because we need those skills badly.

But the biggest reason, again, that I am hearing all over my State of Ohio is the fact that people are saying: You know what, I am making what I can make on UI, and that is more than I can make at work. For 42 percent of Americans, on average, that is true. Forty-two percent are making more on UI. That is not even including the fact that the first $10,000 is tax-free. In Ohio, it is more than double the minimum wage. That is what people are making.

So this is a problem right now, and we should face it. By the way, it is in the interest of everybody to resolve this issue. It is in the interest of the small businesses that can't find people. Some of these businesses are literally shutting down. Geordie's, a restaurant in Columbus, OH, is closed. They literally closed because they can't find workers. Other restaurants all over the State of Ohio are going 5 days a week instead of 6 or 7 days a week or cutting a shift because they can't find workers. So it is definitely helpful for those small businesses and for all businesses, but, second, it is great for the taxpayer to not have to pay that extra 300 bucks a week. It is billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, even hundreds of billions of dollars when it is all added together, compared to what it would be under current law, where the $300 supplement goes until Labor Day-- Labor Day--with 8.1 million jobs open right now.

Finally, I would argue it is particularly good for workers to get back to work, to get back to their careers, to get back to the training they need to keep up with what is going on at work.

It is not in anybody's interest to have folks not back in the workforce. We should all want people to be back at work getting the fulfillment you get from work and the dignity and self-respect that come from work, but getting a paycheck and getting healthcare insurance again and getting back into their 401(k) plans and, again, closing that resume gap so they are up to speed on the training.

I will tell you what is happening, and this is what concerns me and I think should concern every Member of this Chamber. Businesses are adjusting. Do you know what they are doing? They are not just shutting down. They are not just closed 2 days a week. They are not just cutting out a shift. Some of them are changing the way they operate in order to be more efficient. What does that mean? That means, when you can't find workers, you turn to technology, you turn to automation. And it is happening.

I know there are Members of this Chamber who think that by giving more money to people, this is a very smart thing to do and it is helping everybody. It is not helping because those jobs are not going to be there in the future.

There was a story in the Washington Post today about Huntington Bancshares. It is a bank in Columbus, OH. They are fielding literally dozens of calls from business owners who are trying to get financing to buy more equipment that will offset their loss in workers; in other words, more automation, more technology that they would not have otherwise gone to, but because they can't find any workers, they are using their money they would have paid workers to go to more technology. Those jobs are gone.

I know, again, some people, maybe on my side of the aisle, think that might be a good thing, a more efficient economy. I want people at work. I want companies to be hiring more people.

A good friend of mine is a manufacturer. She has about 200 people. She makes a great product--windows--in Ohio, southwest Ohio, Hamilton, OH. She is looking for 60 people right now. Sixty people. She is offering a signing bonus of a thousand bucks and offering other benefits. People aren't showing up. But when the $300 ends and when the additional $10,000 of unemployment insurance not being taxed ends, people will go back to work.

The first State to decide ``You know what, we are going to unilaterally just say we are not going to take the $300`` was the State of Montana. My colleague from Montana told me recently that he has a friend who is a hotel owner, and he was having a job fair every week trying to get people to come in to apply for jobs. He was getting about one applicant per week. The week after the Governor said no more $600 or no more $300 benefit on unemployment insurance in addition to the State benefit, 60 people showed up. That may be an extreme example, but I have to tell you, it is going to make a big difference.

Let's help get this economy going again. We are turning the corner on COVID. We have a situation now where we can actually get started again, get the businesses reopened.

I talked about the business owner in Columbus, OH, who was closed down. Do you know what his comment was? He said: I used the PPP program.

That is the Paycheck Protection Program, which we all passed here.

I got through COVID. We struggled, but we made it through COVID. We could make it through COVID, but now we can't make it because of our own government paying people more not to work on unemployment insurance than we can pay them to work.

He feels like his own government has turned on him.

That is not helping anybody. It is not helping the small businesses, it is certainly not helping the taxpayer, and it is not helping those individuals who are not getting back to work, back to their routines, back to the training, back to the 401(k) plan, back to their healthcare plan, and having the opportunity to achieve their American dream.

I hope that we change our minds here and don't continue this until September 6 and decide, instead, let's get people back to work.

I would also be for a $100-a-week signing bonus if people were to go back to work. I think that would be a good use of funding. Let's, say, do that for 6 weeks and at the same time stop the $300 Federal supplement. By doing that, those 8-million-plus jobs that are available right now would start to get filled, and we could really get our economy back on track.

I yield back my time

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

Mr. President, I am here on the floor this afternoon to talk about the economy, how to get it on the right track and particularly how to deal with the jobs crisis we face right now. It is a different kind of crisis than we normally talk about. There are a lot of jobs open, and the workers who are needed are not coming forward. Washington needs to change direction to get the economy on the right track.

Current law provides that at least until Labor Day--that is in September of this year--there will be a Federal supplemental payment of $300 per week added to the State unemployment benefit. So if somebody is on unemployment insurance, they will get their normal State benefit, which in Ohio is about half of whatever your income was, but on top of that, now there is a $300 Federal supplement. It was put in place during COVID-19, but it continues until at least September.

By doing so, adding that $300, it nearly doubles the unemployment insurance benefit, on average. It also results in about 42 percent of those people who are on unemployment insurance making more on UI than they were making at work. It has the effect of, in most States, more than doubling the amount of unemployment insurance, and it also doubles the minimum wage. So you can imagine why this is a disincentive for some people to go back to work, if they can make more not working.

On top of that, Democrats here in Congress, during the COVID legislation, added another benefit to people on unemployment insurance compared to people who are working, and that is to say that your first $10,000 of unemployment insurance is tax-free. So if you are a truckdriver making 35,000, 40,000 bucks a year, you don't get that tax benefit, but if you are on unemployment insurance, you do get that benefit--again, another disincentive to go back to work.

People are logical. If the government is going to pay you more not to work than to work, it creates a problem. And you can see that problem. We have a record number of job openings right now; 8.1 million jobs are open in America today.

The economic recovery we all are looking forward to is being hampered by what? A lack of workers. If you go down your Main Street wherever you live, you will see the ``help wanted'' signs up. If you go by your restaurants, you will see, instead of the marquees saying ``Come and check out our great apple pie or our hamburgers,'' they say ``We are paying signing bonuses''--$500, $250. I went by a Frisch's Big Boy on the way to the airport on Monday, and that is what I saw--McDonald's offering a $500 bonus.

There are manufacturers I know in the State of Ohio I represent offering much more in terms of signing bonuses. I talked to a woman last week, who is a friend of mine, who runs a manufacturing company, a great little company, which has about 200, 250 employees. She is looking for 60 people right now. She is offering a $1,000 signing bonus plus other incentives, benefits, to be able to come to work, and she can't get people to show up to apply for work. So this is a real problem in terms of our interest in getting this economic recovery going.

It is time to stop this extraordinary Federal unemployment supplement. By keeping in place this $300 per week on top of this UI benefit and not taxing that benefit, President Biden and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are putting us in a tough position and, I think, on the verge of a real jobs crisis because some of these jobs will end up going away, some permanently, if we don't do something about it.

I believe the Federal unemployment insurance was necessary, the Federal supplement, when we were at the heat of the COVID-19 crisis-- let's say a year ago now. People were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Their businesses were shutting down, in part because the government was putting in place social distancing guidelines or otherwise saying that businesses had to temporarily close. A lot of people lost their jobs.

In my view, Congress rightly put in place expanded unemployment benefits to help those families get by when the economy was largely shut down, but we are in an entirely different place now, entirely different place. Again, 8.1 million jobs are open right now. It is a historic time. We have never had this many jobs open in America.

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of our researchers and scientists, this vaccine has gotten out there at record pace. We now have had vaccinations at levels that we had all hoped for earlier. As a result, with more than half of Americans already having had one vaccination--in my State of Ohio, it is even better than that--restrictions are easing, and businesses are opening up, fully open again. In my home State of Ohio, there is no longer a mask mandate. Here in the U.S. Senate is an example. Things are opening up. With that reopening, again, comes all these job openings that can't be filled.

The economic recovery you would expect right now is not happening because people are not getting back to work.

We just had the jobs numbers from last month. The country added 266,000 jobs in April. This was alarming because it was only one- quarter of what the economists predicted, only 25 percent of what people predicted. It is an early warning sign that should not be ignored.

These disappointing monthly job reports typically tell bad news on two fronts. One is that there haven't been as many new jobs added as you would want, and that is certainly true.

But second, it says there are not enough available jobs out there. There

aren't enough open jobs out there. That is not the problem now. Adequate number of jobs is not the problem. The jobs are available. But if the President and Congress don't change course, that could become a problem. If steps aren't taken to dismantle some of the disincentives to work, some of these record number of available jobs we talked about are going to go away.

Let me give an example. There is a restaurant called Geordie's in Columbus, OH. They have closed down. Geordie's is closed down. They can't find workers. That is the reason. The owner was quoted as saying something like: You know, COVID-19 didn't take me down. He got the PPP loan. He kept going, and he struggled through, and he was staying open. He said: My own government has taken me down, because he can't compete with unemployment insurance at that level.

We have lots of other businesses in Ohio. Here are some. Your Pizza Shop, Muddy's, Donatos--all in Wooster, OH--have told me that they are closing down 1 day a week or more because they are understaffed. Facing no alternative, other businesses are figuring out ways to permanently move forward with fewer employees.

This concerns me. In some cases, they tell me they are just downsizing their business. If you can't find those 60 employees and you are the manufacturer right now, what do you do? You are restricting your business. You are not opening new markets, and you are closing down maybe even some existing customers because you can't serve them. So these jobs are going. Others are figuring out ways to do it with fewer people. Again, some might say that is a good thing--using technology and using automation to displace workers. I don't think it is a good thing. I would rather have more people working. That is what they want, too, but they can't afford it, so they are going to more automation, they tell me, going to anything they can do to do it with fewer workers.

This is a problem, and again, Washington is creating this problem. Why would we do that? Again, I understood it and supported it when we had the COVID-19 crisis. People were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. But the opposite is happening now.

We have to change gears. We are at a crossroads. We can continue to have this economy stagnate, continue to hurt working families, or we can get people back to work and create robust and sustained economic growth.

I would take the $300 a week, by the way, and shift it to a 6-week temporary bonus of $100 a week to go to work, a work bonus. You could do that immediately even while keeping the $300 in place for a short period of time because, right away, you could help people to get back to work. It would happen.

By the way, some States have decided on their own just to get rid of the $300 because they know it is not working for the small businesses; it is not working for the economy; it is not working for individuals who are not getting back to their career track, who are losing training and losing the ability to keep up with what is going on at work because they are, again, given this disincentive to go back.

It is working. There was a hotel, I am told, in the first State that decided to do this, which was Montana--did it about 2 weeks ago--a hotel where they were offering every week to hire more employees. They were looking for more employees. They were getting 1 person a week to show up; last week, 60 people--60 people--because they are not offering the $300 anymore. They are giving the money back.

The Biden administration, as you know, would like to spend a lot more money on a lot of different things--that totals about $6 trillion when you add it all up--to prime the pump, more stimulus, get the country back to work, as they say.

What has happened is, a lot of this stimulus money, particularly in the $1.9 trillion COVID package, has overheated the economy--and you can see it in the higher inflation numbers--which is what a lot of people predicted, including Democratic economists and former Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers. A lot of us on the Republican side were concerned about this. Well, it is happening. And we are seeing more and more proposals for more and more stimulus. Inflation is not what we need.

By the way, that spending of $6 trillion is about six times what the government spent during the New Deal in the 1930s, and that is inflation-adjusted. I mean, this is a lot of money.

Instead, what we ought to do is help get people back to work and encourage them and let this economy grow on its own, which it is going to do. During the COVID-19 discussion, the Congressional Budget Office--a nonpartisan group here in Washington and Congress--told us that the economy is going to recover to its pre-COVID level by midyear if we do nothing, no more stimulus. Yet people insisted on more and more stimulus, and we can see what is happening.

Part of that stimulus, part of that spending, was this $300 until Labor Day, $300 week per week in expanded unemployment benefits from the Federal Government, on top of the fact that you don't get taxed on your first $10,000. Again, that $300 is on top of whatever the State benefit is.

Are there other factors that are leading to this labor problem we have now in our country? I think there are. I think there are. One is that we have a situation now where some people just can't afford childcare. So they are not only getting more money on unemployment, perhaps, than they are getting at work; if they go to work, they have to pay for childcare. And childcare is too expensive, and I would like to work on that.

One of the reasons, we are hearing, is that schools are not open, so they have to use childcare because their kids are not in school. With only 54 percent of K-8 schools actually being open today--that is the latest number we have--that is a real problem. Again, that is one we can solve. The CDC is playing a role in that by saying: Get the kids back to school. They can do so safely. There certainly should not be any reason for this now, given the fact that so many people have been vaccinated and, thank goodness, the infection levels are going down so much.

So I know that is an issue. Childcare is an issue.

The other issue, I think, that we have to know is that some people are concerned about still getting infected at work and what the virus might, you know, lead to in terms of an unsafe workplace. But I will tell you, that concern is a lot less now. Again, so many people have been vaccinated, and the CDC again has responded to that and said: You can have a safe workplace. You can have a safe school. It is not hard to do.

So let's get back to work, and particularly, let's deal with this unemployment insurance issue because that is the main reason people are not returning to work, I am told by the employers out there With more than 40 percent of workers making more with unemployment insurance and that supplement than they would in their jobs, businesses just can't compete.

Think how tragic this is. A small business owner works tirelessly to keep the lights on through COVID-19--again, maybe uses the PPP or otherwise and stays in business--and finally, after more than a year, reaches a point where the virus is in retreat--we are doing all the things we should be doing to make our workplaces safe--and now they might have to close because they just can't find people to work.

The same story is being told all over the country and certainly all over my State. Again, this is why 21 States now, as of this afternoon, including my home State of Ohio, have decided to give the $300 back. But we shouldn't, here in Washington, continue to provide that $300 to everybody else.

Governors in these States understand that encouraging workers to return to the job market is essential to the economy, but it is also good for the workforce to get back to work, get back to what happens when you go to work, which is you have that sense of fulfillment, that dignity and self-respect that come with work, and you are keeping up with whatever the technological changes at work are and getting back on your career track.

Guidance from the Biden administration, the CDC, says we can move forward with getting back to normal. It is time for President Biden to follow that advice and to end the disincentive to work that is holding back the economic recovery.

These are simple steps we can take. Again, I would do a $100 bonus to go

back to work for 6 weeks. But the most important thing is to end the $300 and to let people once again have the opportunity to pursue their American dream, which is not unemployment; it is getting a job. With 8.1 million jobs being offered--a historic number, the most ever--it is time to make that change.

I urge my colleagues and I urge the administration to change course.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I am here on the floor to talk about the economy, what is going on, on the jobs front, and where we go from here.

Last week, the Department of Labor issued its most recent jobs report. It showed that we added 266,000 jobs in April. That was about one quarter of what was predicted. It was disappointing. It shows that the job growth coming out of the pandemic has now slowed. There is a question as to why, since there are so many jobs out there. How is it that there can be so many jobs available, and yet we have such a disappointing April jobs report? The demand for workers is certainly high.

The other thing going on out there is that we have creeping inflation. We learned this past week that the Consumer Price Index rose 4.2 percent between April 2020 and April 2021. So the year, April to April, is the highest 12-month increase going back to the summer of 2008.

There is this whole debate going on about whether there is inflation or not. Well, I would ask you to talk to your constituents because they will tell you there is inflation. There is inflation at the gas pump; there is inflation at the grocery store; there is inflation if you are trying to build something. There is inflation throughout the economy right now, and that should concern every American. It is because of policy choices, but it doesn't have to be this way.

What this argument boils down to with regard to jobs and with regard to inflation are really two very different approaches and philosophies of government and how to create jobs, how to increase wages, and how to help working families.

The Biden administration believes the government needs to spend more to prime the pump. This is despite our being told by every economic analysis, including our own nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, that without any new stimulus at the beginning of this year, we were going to see the economy come back strongly. In fact, all of the studies showed that the rate of growth this year was going to be 4 percent or more without any stimulus, without any new spending, and that, by

midyear, according to the Congressional Budget Office, we would be back to the prepandemic economy and economic growth. Yet the Biden administration is insisting on priming the pump, putting more money out there. The $1.9 trillion spending package was all about that.

Some of us raised concerns about it and warned people about this. By the way, one of us who did this was Larry Summers, who was the Secretary of the Treasury under a Democratic administration and who is a prominent economist on the other side of the aisle. He said this--and he was right--that this risked overheating an economy that was already growing and would result in inflation. Unfortunately, the massive stimulus seems to have exactly done that.

Unfortunately, now there is another wave of spending that is being projected. Over $4 trillion is being proposed in new spending in addition to the $1.9 trillion, two new packages the President talked about in his address to Congress last month. It is interesting because, even though inflation is going up and even though the jobs market is disappointing, it seems like the administration isn't changing course.

One thing the administration is not changing course on is that it wants to continue to pay people a substantial amount not to work. Now, in my view, during the COVID-19 crisis--at the heat of it--we needed to do something to help people who had lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and the States' unemployment systems were the places to do that. So we added a Federal supplement on top of the State unemployment benefit.

In Ohio, the State pays about $360 a week, on average, which is about half of whatever your salary was or your income was, and we added $300 on top of that. Think about that. Instead of $360, it is $660 per week, on average. That means that, for 42 percent of the people who are on unemployment insurance--this is a national figure--they are making more on unemployment than they were at work. So a lot of people have made the logical decision and say: Why should I be going back to work?

Unfortunately, when the President has been asked about this, he has said:

I know there's been a lot of discussion . . . that people

are being paid to stay home rather than going to work. Well,

we don't see much evidence of that.

With all due respect, I hope the President will talk to some of the business owners who I am talking to, particularly small businesses. The numbers tell a different story.

According to the most recent Labor Department data released just this week, at the end of March, we had 8.1 million job openings in America. That was 8.1 million jobs open. We all know that because we are back in our States, as we will be later today or tomorrow, and we will see the ``help wanted'' signs. By the way, that is the highest number in history. We have never had 8 million jobs open in America.

Based on this Labor Department study, the job increases were broadly distributed, 185,000 new job openings in restaurants and hospitality-- as they are getting going, many of these restaurants are saying: This is great. We have the people coming back, but we can't find workers. There are 155,000 in State and local education and 81,000 in entertainment.

With that demand for workers and the coronavirus pandemic substantially improving, the employment numbers should be skyrocketing. We should be seeing so many people going back to work. This is an opportunity for people to go back, to get into their careers, and get back to the dignity and self-respect that comes from work and the fulfillment that comes from work, but it is not happening. If you ask business owners in my home State of Ohio and across the country, they will all tell you the same story: Business is booming, but we can't find workers.

One Ohio restaurant manager said in an interview, ``It's crazy. Honestly, we are busier than we were before COVID,'' but they can't find staff to keep up with the demand. The Dayton, OH, area chamber of commerce did a study very recently, and 78 percent of its members said they can't find the workers they need to fill the job openings they have--78 percent.

So why is this happening? I think there are a few reasons.

One is that it is true that we still have a skills gap in our country, and that is something I have been working on, along with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. It is the reason I authored what is called the JOBS Act. It was to make sure that we have this connection--not have a skills gap but, instead, have the right skills being taught to match the work needs that we have.

Honestly, with regard to those numbers that I just talked about with regard to entertainment jobs and restaurant jobs and State and local education jobs, most of those jobs do not require a specialized skill. So the skills gap needs to be addressed, particularly in manufacturing, where I was told today, by the National Association of Manufacturers, that there are 700,000 manufacturing jobs open right now. Again, many of the jobs that are open do not require advanced skills. They just require you to show up and to be willing to do the work.

It is also understandable to me that some people may be hesitant to go back to work because of COVID, but we now have these three effective vaccines that are doing the hard work to try to get us back to a more normal lifestyle, where we can get back to school and back to church and back to synagogue and back to work. Our Nation's researchers and scientists have helped us to get to this point, and as we saw from the CDC recommendation today regarding masks, we are turning the corner.

I also realize, for some people, childcare is an issue--there is no question about that--the cost of childcare. If you look at the numbers in terms of people going back to work, it is true that it is disproportionately women. I agree that this is an issue, but I will tell you that one of the issues we hear about, as you dig deeper into this, is that it is because, in many places, the kids are not back to school. So that is a solvable problem. It is time for our children to go back to school again. Follow the CDC. Follow the science. There were 54 percent of K-8 public schools that were offering full-time classroom teaching in March. The rest were not.

I have to tell you that none of these are the main causes of the current problem from everything I am hearing. There are jobs, and there are folks qualified to do them. They just aren't looking for work, and it is because of the way the government has chosen to pay people not to work.

Wages are up, by the way. So, for those who say, ``Well, employers need to raise wages,'' they are up. By the way, that is one reason we have inflation. It is because wages are going up. Wages going up, I think, is not a bad thing even though it will count for some of this inflation that we have, but the wages going up is not going to make the difference here. Even though wages have gone up on an average of 4, 5 percent, people are still not coming to work the way you would expect.

Jimmy John's is offering hiring bonuses. The McDonald's locally, where I live in Cincinnati, is offering a $500 signing bonus. Chipotle is offering free college tuition after 4 months on the job. One wholesale distributor in Ohio is offering a $9,000 sign-on bonus for certified truck drivers.

By the way, with regard to truck drivers, you know about the Colonial Pipeline and cutting off the gas supply to the east coast of the United States and people who are concerned about going to the gas station and getting gas in many gas stations and not having any fuel available, including in States all over the East and the Southeast.

The answer that some people came up with--and it makes sense--is to have trucks actually deliver that fuel to those gas stations. The trucks could go to the places where the fuel is and where the pipeline would normally take it and move that fuel to the gas stations. The problem? No truck drivers. They literally cannot find truck drivers to move this fuel from the depots to the gas stations. This is a real problem.

I have a constituent back home who contacted me yesterday. She is offering a $1,000 signing bonus, and she can get nobody to step forward. She has 60 jobs in Ohio, and she has 30 jobs in New York--a small business with only about 250 jobs total. She can't find anybody. When she talks to her people, they tell her: Well, as soon as the UI

ends, I will be back. As soon as the unemployment insurance ends--the Federal supplement, the $300 supplement--I will be back. Businesses simply can't compete in an environment where more than 40 percent of the workers are making more on the unemployment supplement than they would be at their jobs.

It is a problem, by the way, that States themselves are now starting to deal with because they realize this is a huge problem for their economies, for their small businesses, and for their workforces. As of this afternoon, just in the last week, 15 States have said: Do you know what? I am not going to accept the $300 supplement because I want to get people back to work.

It is already making a difference. Someone just told me from the State of Montana--one of our colleagues from there--and Montana was the first State to do this--that, about a week ago, a hotel owner told him that he was in desperate need of people, and when he would put the ``help wanted'' sign out and ask people to come, he could get one person to show up per week. This week, 60 people showed up. Why? Because the unemployment insurance is running out, and people are now looking for work. So these States I think are going to continue to do this. I think it will be more than 15 by the time we are finished speaking here this afternoon. It is because the States realize, well, this is a competitive advantage. If New York doesn't do it and Ohio does--and by the way, Ohio is one of the States that just made the decision to do it this afternoon. If New York doesn't do it, that businessperson I talked about is going to do more manufacturing in Ohio because that is where she has the workforce. That will help Ohio relative to States that wouldn't choose to move on beyond the $300 supplement.

Unemployment insurance is important, and it is still going to be there, but it will be the State benefit that it has always been.

The other thing is the work requirement. In unemployment insurance, again, in Ohio, it is about 50 percent of whatever your wages are. And then there is a requirement that you look for work, and if you get an offer, you can't stay on unemployment insurance. That has always been the tradition.

Under COVID, States accepted waivers not to have to require people to look for work. About 30 States now just in the last few weeks have decided to get rid of that waiver, including Ohio. Why? Because again, it is not helping anybody. It is not helping the workers; it is not helping the small businesses, certainly; and it is really not helping the taxpayers who are paying tens of billions of dollars for these supplements.

I will say, when I debated this on the Senate floor, when we had an amendment that actually passed during the COVID-19 legislation--later, that amendment was amended, but we tried to end the unemployment insurance sooner given the economic numbers that were out there.

One of the Democratic colleagues on the other side said that--do I think the Ohio workers somehow don't have a work ethic, that they are lazy? That is not what I think at all. I don't think they are lazy at all. I think they are logical. Common sense dictates that when you are offering to pay somebody more not to work than to work, you are likely to get a bad result. Again, it was needed when people were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. COVID-19 devastated--ravaged--so many sectors of our economy.

A lot of those sectors are coming back and are coming back strong, but they need workers, and they need them desperately. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Let me illustrate why. If workers don't go back to work, some businesses will actually close, and these jobs will go away permanently. That, to me, is a reality.

Take Geordie's Restaurant in Columbus, OH. Geordie's shut down a couple of weeks ago because they couldn't find enough job applicants to keep the lights on, period. They shut down. This is a restaurant that made it through the worst of the pandemic, when our restaurant and hospitality industry was in really tough shape. But as owner Geordie Hull-Jones said himself, ``We fought hard to get through COVID, but COVID didn't kill us, the stimulus did.''

``[B]ut COVID didn't kill us, the stimulus did.'' That is a quote from a business owner.

That is the difference, again, between the philosophy that the Biden administration seems to be taking and, frankly, the reality and the philosophy that we are encouraging, which is let's get people back to work; let's get this economy moving again.

The President is committed to spending an unprecedented amount of tax dollars to try and get what it takes to get the economy back on track. But spending more tax dollars isn't a prescription for what ails our economy today. Getting people back to work certainly is. If we don't, again, businesses will close; careers cannot be continued. People won't get the fulfillment that they get from going to work, and many of these jobs will not return.

Instead of following this path, let's change course. Let's follow common sense and get our country back to work so we can all enjoy the goods and services we work to provide for each other. Let's help our Nation's small businesses, which are the lifeblood of so many in our economy. Let's help people currently on unemployment get started building lasting careers that they enjoy, make a living, find long-term stability, so they can realize their American dream. That is what this country is all about.

So, today, I am urging the Biden administration to take two simple steps to encourage people to move past the pandemic and to get back to work. First, we need to reimplement the Federal requirement that people must be actively searching for work if they are going to receive unemployment. Again, Ohio has made that decision, as have about 30 other States, but let's make this the national standard that it was prior to the pandemic. Long-term unemployment doesn't benefit anyone, and it will ensure that people are able to get off unemployment insurance more quickly. Second, we need to draw down the Federal unemployment supplement funded by COVID-19 that passed in March. It is time to look at ending this not on September 6, as it is currently slated to end, but now, while the economy is strong and growing and we are trying to get people back to work. As I said, it is a rational economic decision for many people right now who collect an unemployment check that effectively pays upward of $15 an hour to stay at home and not work, but it makes no sense to keep the supplement in place as we are reopening, and the focus is on shifting toward getting the economy back up and running.

My own preference is that some of this might be used to pay people a bonus to go back to work. I know that is controversial on my side of the aisle, but, I tell you, I think it works. Montana is doing it, and it is working for them. How about 100 bucks a week? Instead of the $300 supplement, 100 bucks a week for 6 weeks as a return-to-work bonus? To me, that makes a lot of sense. That would be something I think we could get some bipartisan support for around here, and that would help the workers, the small businesses, and our economy.

Through these two steps, we can create the disincentive to work that was a byproduct of our response to an unprecedented pandemic--we can stop that disincentive to work. Now that we are beating COVID-19, we should focus on getting back to normal. I urge the Biden administration to focus on getting the economy back up and running and getting folks off the sidelines and back to work

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Wyoming for his thoughtful remarks. I mean, he is absolutely right. This is not the time for us to be raising taxes.

It is tax day coming up next week, and Senator Ernst of Iowa put together this colloquy to focus us all on that issue and the fact that here we are coming onto tax day, yet there are proposals out there saying you are not paying enough tax. So all of you who think you are paying too much tax, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the administration would like to increase those taxes substantially.

It is going to really hurt our economy and hurt workers. That is my big concern about this proposal in this so-called infrastructure package. Our economy is kind of limping along still, in part, because we have spent so much in stimulus that it has overheated the economy, and you can see the inflation that is hitting us. You can see it in the gas prices when you go to the pump or food costs or, if you are trying to buy lumber these days, check out the cost.

On the one hand, Democrats are encouraging more inflation through stimulation that really wasn't needed based on what we had learned from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office--and that has overheated the economy--and, by the way, as former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers predicted. This was in a Democratic administration, two of them.

I am concerned about the spending, but then to pay for the spending, these tax cuts are really a mistake. What I would like to do is go back to the economy we had before COVID. That economy was really helping everyone. It was an inclusive economy.

Two years ago, just before COVID, we had significant economic growth, which most people know about. What folks might not know about February a year ago, just before COVID hit, it was the 19th straight month of wage growth of 3 percent or more on an annual

basis. Think about that, 3 percent or more wage growth. We haven't had that in Ohio, my home State, in a long time, perhaps a decade and a half.

That kind of wage growth was primarily focused on lower income and middle-income workers, so the benefit wasn't just to the companies and the people at the high end. The benefit was primarily to those who were at the lower end of the economic scale.

We had a study by the Congressional Budget Office, as we looked to these corporate tax cuts that were made in 2017, and they said that 70 percent of the benefit was going to go to workers in terms of higher wages and better benefits. That is exactly what happened. I think they were right. We tied the 50-year low in unemployment at 3.5 percent. We also had historically low unemployment for some groups--Hispanics, Blacks, Asian Americans.

In fact, before the pandemic, we reached the lowest poverty rate we ever had in this country. We started keeping track of it back in the 1950s, the late fifties. We had the lowest poverty rate going into the pandemic than we had ever had. You probably haven't heard that much because it wasn't reported much. Again, it was not just a growth economy; it was an inclusive economy.

Importantly, the tax reform that was put in place in 2017 didn't just help stimulate this kind of inclusive growth but also stopped these companies in America from going overseas. I remember this word ``inversion.'' The companies were literally inverting, meaning they were switching and becoming foreign companies to get out from under our Tax Code. We have two big companies in Ohio that did this. Probably some companies in your State did too.

We were losing jobs and losing investments because they went overseas and took the investments with them. This was not a good situation for American workers.

In addition, there was a lockout effect while companies were saying: I am not going to bring my cash home because it costs me too much. I will keep it overseas and invest it over there.

So $1.6 trillion from overseas earnings came back to our company after the 2017 tax reforms because we changed the way we taxed internationally, and companies no longer had this incentive to keep their money overseas--$1.6 trillion.

As a result of the 2017 changes, the largest U.S. companies increased their domestic research and development spending by 25 percent to $707 billion. They increased their capital expenditures by 20 percent to $1.4 trillion. Before the pandemic, we had a good economy, but, importantly to me, it was an opportunity economy, creating jobs and increasing wages right here at home. All that progress could be thrown away through the tax increases that are being proposed.

The centerpiece of the Biden plan is corporate tax increases that would raise the combined Federal and State corporate rate from an average of 25.8 percent. That is the 21-percent Federal rate plus the average of the State income tax for corporations. Twenty-one percent, by the way, is above the average of the OECD, the developed countries in the world. When we put it in place back in 2017, we did it at 21 percent, specifically, to get right at the average so we wouldn't be noncompetitive. We would be able to compete and win.

Since then, other countries have come below us, so we are actually above the average now. Yet the Biden administration would like to take this rate from 21 up to 28, but when you add the State and local, you know, the State taxes, it is to 32.8 percent. Again, it would put America, of course, as having the highest corporate tax rate in the entire world. It gives us a much higher tax rate than many of our competitors like China. Why would we want to do that?

Based on analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, these combined corporate tax hikes are actually five times as big as the corresponding tax cuts were in 2017. Let me repeat that because it is fascinating. Democrats are proposing, they say, to get rid of the 2017 tax cuts, but that is not what they are doing. They are actually proposing going back and adding five times more tax increases than were cut

The Joint Committee on Taxation--again, a nonpartisan group--says the tax cuts were about $300 billion over 10 years, and the proposed tax increases are about $1.5 trillion. That just makes no sense for our workers. Again, CBO has said 70 percent of the benefit went to workers. Who is going to get hurt by doing this? The workers.

The Biden plan also eliminates what is called the FDII, or the foreign-derived intangible income provision. That is the one that incentivized U.S. companies to bring their intellectual property back here. We wanted that. We did it on purpose. The companies that did that brought all their IP back here, including Google, Cisco, Qualcomm, Synopsys, and Facebook--some pretty big companies and a lot of others. We wanted them to bring that valuable IP back here, and they did because it creates high-paying, high-skilled jobs here at home. Why would we want to stop that? That was the carrot to bring it back.

It also makes it more costly for U.S. companies to operate outside the United States, again, punishing American workers who have jobs here that support international sales. Studies by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office have shown, again, it is workers who will bear the brunt of that. This is what many seem to miss. When we talk about how this proposal makes us less competitive, we are really saying that it makes American workers less competitive. It ties their hands behind their backs.

In Ohio--this is one example--we have Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble makes a lot of diapers and a lot of other products. It is not cost-effective for them to make diapers here and ship them overseas so they have diaper plants overseas. That is the only way they can be competitive. These tax increases would punish companies like that if they are to do business overseas, even though they are creating jobs here in America by doing that. There are about 13,000 people who work for Procter and Gamble in Southwest Ohio, where I live. Forty percent of them have their jobs because of international sales. You are talking about losing thousands of jobs in America if they can't be competitive globally.

We want our American companies to be competitive globally, at least we should. These tax hikes are going to hurt our competitiveness and put domestic jobs at risk.

By the way, the Biden administration knows all this is going to happen. They know that increasing the corporate rate is going to make us noncompetitive. Taxing international overseas earnings, taxing companies more that want to bring their IP back will make us less competitive. We know this because when Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen announced these proposals, she said: Help us, other countries in the world. Raise your taxes, too, to make it a ``more level playing field.'' It is a plea by America to other countries, saying: Please raise your taxes, too, so we can all be in this together. Other countries aren't going to do that. Again, they actually lowered their taxes since 2017, on average.

By the way, it is interesting. The Irish Finance Minister said right after that, when he was asked at a press conference ``Are you going to raise your taxes?'' he said ``No, we want to be competitive. We want to bring jobs.'' Of course, they want to bring jobs to their countries. Other countries are looking at us and saying: Wow. America is just going to show the white flag and allow us to now beat them in terms of this global competition that is out there.

That is the real world. It may sound good to raise taxes on business, but it is going to hurt workers, and it is going to make us noncompetitive. I really hope the Biden administration is not successful in this effort. I don't want to see the workers hurt whom I represent in Ohio. I want to see us get back to that economy wherein we had not just low employment but rising wages and low poverty rates--the kind of inclusive economy we should all want.

There are all sorts of other issues here, and I know my colleague from Iowa is probably going to talk about some of those, like the estate tax and the capital gains tax. I mean, there are all sorts of things that are being talked about. Yet, in this first package of infrastructure, just the corporate taxes

alone are going to be so damaging to our economy. Instead of pursuing these kinds of partisan tax hikes, let's focus on getting back to where we were pre-COVID--back to that strong job and wage growth and back to that competitive opportunity economy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is National Police Week. It is a time every year when we stop to pay tribute to our law enforcement officers around the country, the men and women in blue who serve us every day in my State of Ohio and every State represented in this Chamber.

We also remember the brave law enforcement officers who tragically died in the line of duty. We can never forget this is a dangerous profession. The National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum reported that 2020 was the deadliest year for law enforcement in decades. In Ohio alone, we sadly lost six brave law enforcement officers over the past year. Here in the Capitol, of course, we lost three officers over the past year, including on January 6. In the course of our Nation's history, more than 24,000 officers have died in the line of duty.

I was proud to join colleagues in March in sponsoring legislation called the Protect and Serve Act, which would create Federal penalties on those who would attempt to harm or kill a police officer. I believe Protect and Serve would send a strong message to help deter these crimes. Ultimately, I think it would make our men and women in blue safer and help save lives.

This week, I urge my colleagues to join me in standing with the families of our fallen police officers and thanking them and thanking law enforcement for what they do every day to protect us. One way to express our gratitude is passing laws that will assist them in their critical work to keep us safe.

Opioid Epidemic

With that in mind, I am also on the floor today to call on my colleagues to support our law enforcement by taking decisive action to help them to keep some of the deadliest drugs in the world from coming into our communities. It is not an overstatement to say that this is a matter of life or death.

Overdose deaths in the United States have sadly reached a record high during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control, 87,000 Americans died during the 12-month period between September 2019 and September 2020, the most recent data we have. This can be directly attributed to the circumstances surrounding the pandemic. So many families are feeling the pain of these losses. Sadly, based on the current trends, we expect calendar year 2020 in full to be even worse.

What is the main driver of these overdoses and overdose deaths? Synthetic opioids, most notably fentanyl. Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin, relatively inexpensive, deadly, and incredibly addictive. For years, this has been coming to our shores from China, first predominantly

through our mail system, and with our new legislation in place to prevent that from happening, much of it is now coming in through Mexico. In 2019, there were 70,630 deaths from opioids and other drugs, and more than half of those--36,359--involved fentanyl, sometimes mixed with other drugs like cocaine and crystal meth or heroin.

Again, of all the poisons, fentanyl is the most deadly. It does have a medical purpose and can be used to treat patients in severe pain the same way morphine is used.

Both fentanyl and morphine are classified under schedule II by the drug enforcement authorities. In order to avoid prosecution under that scheduling order, drug traffickers started making slight modifications to fentanyl, creating what we call fentanyl analogs or fentanyl-related substances, essentially copycat fentanyl.

Evil scientists in places like China, Mexico, and India, working in unregulated pharmaceutical plants, will make a slight modification to fentanyl, sometimes adjusting a single molecule, to create what are, essentially, these fentanyl copycats.

While these copycats may have the same narcotic properties as fentanyl, these tiny variations allow these traffickers to evade prosecution.

Oftentimes, by the way, these fentanyl-related substitutes, these copycats, are even more powerful than fentanyl itself. Take, for example, carfentanil.

These fentanyl-related substances are the reason I am on the floor today. In 2018--2018--in recognition of the growing threat these copycats posed to our public health, the DEA temporarily scheduled fentanyl-related substances as schedule I, the highest designation they can give.

Since then, we have passed two temporary extensions of that designation. Most recently, Congress passed a 5-month extension just ahead of the previous deadline of May 6, just a couple weeks ago, and President Biden signed that legislation into law last week.

I supported that temporary extension because the alternative was worse. The only alternative was to let these substances become legal. But I don't think kicking the can down the road for another 5 months is nearly enough to safeguard against the threat of copycat fentanyl. We need to do much more between now and when this temporary scheduling extension expires in October.

Law enforcement needs certainty, and the drug cartels and those evil scientists need to know we are serious in addressing this problem, that there will be consequences.

We need a permanent solution. Specifically, let's pass bipartisan legislation I introduced with my colleague Senator Manchin called FIGHT Fentanyl, which simply says: Let's not allow these illicitly manufactured and deadly synthetic opioids to suddenly become legal again. That is what law enforcement wants. That is what our communities demand. That is what we deserve to give them. It is long overdue that we make this designation permanent.

I know some of my colleagues oppose permanent scheduling of these fentanyl drugs because they are concerned about mandatory minimum sentences, and also that it could hinder research into future medications to treat addiction. Let me address both of those quickly.

First, there is this concern about the harsh punishments that don't fit the nature of the crime. I share that concern. That is why our legislation ensures that mandatory minimum sentences are not automatically imposed in any criminal case. We want the judge to look at the severity of the crime and consider all relevant factors in sentencing. So that issue has been addressed in our bipartisan legislation.

There has been a great deal of conversation about the impact of prosecutions and incarcerations on specific populations, including minority communities. What is often lost in this debate, I will say, is the growing impact of fatal overdoses in those same communities. Since 2016, while White fatalities have decreased through the period of 2019, the data we have shows that overdoses from opioids among Black Americans, particularly Black men, have actually gotten worse, not better.

From 2011 to 2016, that same time period, when White overdoses and deaths were reduced, Black Americans had the highest increase in synthetic opioid-involved overdose deaths, compared to all populations.

And while in 2017 to 2018 overall opioid-involved overdose fatalities decreased by just over 4 percent, rates among Black and Hispanic Americans actually increased. This is an issue we must address here.

Another issue my colleagues have raised, again, is concern that permanently scheduling fentanyl and its analogues somehow hinders research into treating addiction. First of all, I agree we need this research. We need it badly. One example of this is coming up with naloxone, a miracle drug based on heroin that actually reverses the effects of an overdose.

I spoke to the scientist, Roger Crystal, just last week, who developed the nasal version of this naloxone. It is a miracle. I have seen it work, and it saves lives.

Researchers have told me there are barriers to being approved to legally research schedule I substances. There is also a stigma to conducting this kind of research, even though we know that it could lead to the development of new treatments. But this is something we can easily address by allowing qualified researchers the ability to study fentanyl analogues under schedule II as opposed to schedule I. So we can address that issue.

I am open to working with my colleagues to address these barriers, and I believe that we can do that through the legislation creating flexibility in the registration system for scientists.

But I would urge my colleagues that we need to use the next 5 months to do the hard work of finding a permanent solution to this crisis before we have to once again run the risk of letting these drugs become legal and the message that that sends and the deaths that would occur as a result. The U.S. Senate can take the lead and permanently classify these dangerous narcotics that are literally killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens every year. Instead of kicking the can down the road again for 5 months from now, let's make it permanent. The House and the Biden administration should support this effort. Lives are at stake.

It is important that we continue to focus this body, as we have, on the demand side of this equation--prevention, treatment, longer term recovery for fentanyl and for other substances.

But it is also important that we not allow these substances to come on the streets at lower and lower costs and at greater and greater volumes. That is what would happen if we do not move as a Congress to ensure that these fentanyl copycats and fentanyl itself remain illicit drugs, as they are.

Let's do the right thing for our community. Let's do the right thing for law enforcement. Let's be sure they have the predictability and certainty in law enforcement to know that these criminals can be prosecuted, these traffickers.

We need to act now to address the threat of these deadly fentanyl drugs coming into our communities. I urge the Senate to pass the FIGHT Fentanyl bill. Join us in this effort so we can better work to reverse the tragic rise in overdose deaths around the United States of America.

I yield the floor

S.J. Res. 15

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize my friend, Father Michael J. Graham, on his retirement as the 34th president of Xavier University in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, and to thank him for his more than 34 years of service at Xavier helping to cultivate young leaders and developing Musketeer students with the Jesuit values of becoming ``men and women for others.''

Father Graham started at Xavier in 1984 as an assistant history professor. After pursuing his master of divinity from the Weston School of Theology, he returned to Xavier in 1989. He was appointed vice president for university relations in 1994 and was inaugurated president of Xavier University on September 8, 2001.

Father Graham is the longest serving president in Xavier University's history, and over the past 20 years, he has had an incredible impact on the university, the Cincinnati community, and the more than 30,000 students who have

graduated from Xavier University during his tenure. He has helped raise over $500 million to fund scholarships, advance the academic experience, support community projects, and advance the development of the university.

In the community, Father Graham's passion to connect and collaborate with local and regional communities inspired him to establish the Community Building Institute as well as the Eigel Center for Community Engagement at Xavier. In 2017, Father Graham was asked to chair the Cincinnati Preschool Promise Board of Directors, a voter-approved initiative to ensure that quality preschool is available and affordable to all children living within the Cincinnati school district. It is one of many ways he has extended his and Xavier's reach into critical issues that impact the Cincinnati community.

Since Father Graham began his presidency, U.S. News & World Report has consistently listed Xavier among the Nation's top 10 Midwest universities. Under his leadership, the university has expanded to offer master's programs in coaching education and athlete development, health economic and clinical outcomes research, customer analytics, and others. The impact of President Graham's academic and community-based vision for Xavier is far reaching. Father Mike will be missed, but his legacy will be felt for generations to come.

Thank you. I am committed to advancing our committee's competitiveness legislation in the manner laid out by my colleague from Michigan. I appreciate the work we have put into this package to date. As we prepare to dramatically increase investment in our research institutions and emerging technologies, the Safeguarding American Innovation Act must be a part of any competitiveness legislation. We must protect the intellectual property behind the revolutionary discoveries and advances being made across our Nation. This whole-of- government approach to get the Federal Government's house in order addresses a far-ranging problem and implicates the jurisdiction of other committees including the HELP Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. I appreciate that the chairs and ranking members of those committees want to continue negotiations on this bill. I understand some changes to this legislation will be needed before it passes the Senate floor. That said, this legislation is the result of several years of bipartisan investigatory work by Senator Carper and myself during our time as chair and ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

I am committed to working with committees of jurisdiction, the majority leader, Chairman Peters, and the administration to reach an agreement on this text in the coming weeks before it will be added to the Endless Frontier Act. I am also committed to continuing to engage with key stakeholders including our institutions of higher education. I am ready to put in the work and find a path forward here. The threat is real, and we need to address it now. I look forward to working with my colleague from Michigan to pass this legislation, along with other important measures before our committee, as soon as possible.

While I am a cosponsor of Endless Frontier Act and believe it provides an important increase in funding to the National Science Foundation, if we don't take the basic steps outlined in the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, these funds may contribute to China's rise instead of improving the competitiveness of the United States, as intended.

Madam President, I would like to start by thanking my colleague from Wyoming and my colleague from Iowa for their comments about where we are as a country 100 days into the Biden administration.

It has been discouraging that we haven't seen more bipartisan work and with regard to the border, having been down there a couple of weeks ago, particularly discouraging that we can't come up with a bipartisan solution that deals with the obvious crisis on the border.

Of course it is a crisis. Everybody knows that, including the Biden administration. The question is, What are we going to do about it? Some of us have laid out some proposals that we think would be very sensible, that could be done on a bipartisan basis. Yet we are not getting the kind of cooperation from the White House or the other side of the aisle, frankly, with regard to dealing with a clear crisis.

In my time here in Congress, I have tried to work to bring Republicans and Democrats together on issues. I think that is the best thing for our country. I think you get, actually, better legislation if you have input from both sides, and I think you also have more sustainable legislation.

If you don't work in a bipartisan way, what happens when there is a 50-50 Senate, as there is now, and where the Vice President can supply the tie-breaking vote, and if you do things on the basis of reconciliation or getting rid of the filibuster, which is what the Democratic majority currently would like to do, you end up lurching back and forth, don't you? So you pass Democratic legislation and then, when Republicans take over, Republican legislation.

We should be focusing on American legislation. In my office, we have had some success with this bipartisan approach. Sixty-eight of my bills were signed into law by President Obama, and 82 of my bills were signed into law by President Trump--on important issues like the eviction crisis, job creation, and natural resource protection. So it can be done, and President Biden knows that. He served here in the Senate. In fact, he took pride in coming together with Republicans and Democrats to actually have agreements on some of these tough issues.

Although I didn't vote for him because I thought that President Trump had better policy ideas, coming into this new administration, I was hopeful that President Biden would govern as he had campaigned. He promised, you remember, in his campaign to reach out to Republicans and Democrats alike. He talked about the need for unity. In fact, he gave that same speech in the primary and in the general election, which I thought took some courage, frankly, to do so in the primary because most of his opponents did not take that position. Yet, now having gotten elected, he seems to have forgotten the pledges that he made.

I listened to his inaugural address intently, as I hope a lot of Americans did--and certainly my colleagues did--and he talked again about reaching out, going back to the days when we could work together, and he focused on unity. I was very hopeful with the tone he set that day, and I said so at the time. Yet that rhetoric has not been matched by action. It hasn't been matched by action when it comes to key policy initiatives they have already put forward, including the latest COVID- 19 spending bill that passed in March.

Remember, despite a 50-50 Senate and very tight majority in the House of Representatives, there was no outreach to Republicans for the COVID- 19 legislation. Not a single Republican was consulted before unveiling the plan, and once it was out there, Democrats chose to work only among themselves and do it under what is called reconciliation, where they don't need a single Republican vote--this despite some of us having an alternative, which we actually presented to the White House. The next day, we were told: Thank you, but we are going to take the reconciliation approach, and we don't need any Republican input.

That is too bad because the COVID-19 issue, obviously, is one where there has been not just bipartisanship but nonpartisanship. Five times last year, we passed major COVID-19 legislative initiatives with huge majorities. In one case, the biggest bill, the CARES package, passed with a 97-to-0 vote here. So this is one where we had always been able to work together.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration chose the partisan path. Right now, the Biden administration is repeating this same mistake, as far as I can tell, because they have introduced their $2.3 trillion infrastructure package without consulting, again, any Republicans.

We now hear that the White House and some Democratic leaders may want to pass this latest partisan proposal by reconciliation as well. I hope that is not true because, again, this is an area--infrastructure--where we have been able to work together on a bipartisan basis and get things done. In fact, typically that is how it happens with infrastructure

Last Congress, we passed a bill out of committee on highways and bridges with a unanimous vote--not just a majority vote, a unanimous vote--by Republicans and Democrats. But the proposal they put forward, first, is not really about infrastructure because it dramatically expands the definition of ``infrastructure'' so that it is not at all what traditionally you would think or I would think of as the kind of hard assets--roads, bridges, ports, airports, transit, even broadband.

Even the most generous description of ``infrastructure'' applied to this bill means that less than 20 percent of it, 20 percent of $2.3 trillion, is about infrastructure. It is about other things. And we can have a debate on those other things, whether it is nursing home subsidies or whether it is subsidies to electric car companies or whether it is more childcare. Those are all issues we can discuss, but they are not, obviously, infrastructure issues.

Proposing to pay for this huge plan with taxes on American workers makes it even worse. So the $2.3 trillion plan is not mostly infrastructure--80 percent is not--but then the taxes that would apply to America and to American workers would be devastating, making us noncompetitive in the global economy again after finally we were getting our act together.

In 2018 and 2019, we saw a big increase in our economy, large increases in terms of employment. Also, wages were going up. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country, going back to the 1950s, partly because we were putting in place policies that made sense in terms of tax reform to create more incentives to invest and bring jobs here to this country. That would all be changed under these tax increases that are being proposed to pay for this big, new Biden infrastructure package.

Making us less competitive in global markets and putting American workers at a disadvantage again is not the right way to go. The American people don't want that. The American people think we should be doing all we can to get businesses back on their feet right now so that people can get employment and so we can ensure that the economy continues to improve as we come out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Infrastructure, again, has always been so bipartisan. Why would, in this case, we want to take it down the partisan road?

Past Presidents, by the way, have shown that they can get big things done early in their administration. So during this first hundred days, there was an opportunity to reach out. I hope in the second hundred days, it will be different.

Let me give a couple of examples. When President Bill Clinton got elected, he worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass what was called the North American Free Trade Agreement. He got a lot of support from the Republican side of the aisle--in fact, even more than he got from the Democratic side of the aisle--and he pushed that through. Ronald Reagan's economic reforms of 1981 passed the Senate with an overwhelming margin of 89 to 11.

Last night, C-SPAN allowed us to look back in history at some of the speeches Presidents gave after their first hundred days. One was Ronald Reagan's speech to the joint session that I saw last night. It was amazing. Republicans and Democrats alike were

standing because President Reagan said: ``I want to work with all of you.'' And he showed he would work with all of them by passing those economic reforms in 1981.

We should all want the Biden administration to succeed in putting in place bipartisan policies that help our constituents and help our country, but that can only happen if they agree to reverse course and engage with Republicans in a genuine way. That is clearly what the American people want. In a recent poll, a Washington Post and ABC poll, 60 percent of respondents, including two-thirds of Independents, said they wanted the Biden administration to work with Republicans to make these proposals bipartisan--twice the number that wanted him to pursue the partisan path chosen so far.

I suggest to my constituents in Ohio and all Americans who will be listening tonight: Don't just listen to the rhetoric; look at the action because the rhetoric thus far has not been matched by actions.

We were promised bipartisanship as a path toward unity. For the sake of our country, it is time to keep that promise.

I yield the floor

Madam President, I appreciate the thoughtful comments from my colleague from Oklahoma of the need for us to have an independent judiciary.

I am on the floor to talk about a different issue, and it is the latest, very troubling information that we are receiving regarding the addiction epidemic and specifically drug overdose deaths in the United States. I am also going to talk about some of the steps we can take right now to address that reality.

One of the top priorities I have had in this body and in the House has been this drug addiction issue. Frankly, this is a moment of frustration because we were making progress, and then COVID-19 hit. Unfortunately, the drug epidemic has hit my State of Ohio particularly hard. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, show that it is a pretty grim picture right now, and it should be a wake-up call to all of us. Overdose deaths rose nearly 30 percent nationwide from September 2019 to September 2020. During this time period, you can see the overdose deaths numbers going up dramatically.

This is heartbreaking for me because we were making progress. After literally decades of increases in drug overdose deaths every single year--decades--going back to the 1990s, we finally here in the 2017, 2018, 2019 periods began to make progress in reducing overdose deaths. In fact, in Ohio, we had a 24-percent decrease in overdose deaths during 1 year, 2018, but, right now, the numbers are getting higher and higher, and it is everywhere.

As you can see from this chart, if something is in any of these colors, this means that there is an increase in overdose deaths. If it is in blue, it means there is a decrease, and this was just during this period of September

2019 to September 2020, the latest data for which we have good information. It doesn't even include all of 2020, and as we know, the pandemic, unfortunately, went all the way through 2020 and into 2021. All of the data show that, as you got further into the pandemic, we had higher rates, so we expect, when the final data come out for 2020, it will be even higher.

Here is where we are now. Look at this. Other than the State of South Dakota, every single State has seen an increase--and a substantial increase in many cases--in overdose deaths. This is in 49 of 50 States. In my own State of Ohio, there has been about a 25-percent increase in overdose deaths during this period.

Only a few years ago, again, we were making progress. One reason that we had begun to turn the tide was because of work that had been done here in the U.S. Congress. Right around this time period, we passed legislation called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We also passed legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act. Both were signed into law in 2016. So it would have been in this period. It became effective in this period and actually helped to reduce overdose deaths for the first time in decades.

I commend my colleagues for that legislation. It was the first time we had ever funded recovery, as an example. We also funded prevention and treatment and provided our law enforcement with more naloxone, this miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose. Many of my colleagues have had the opportunity to speak with their local addiction boards or have been with law enforcement or other first responders-- firefighters--who have used this naloxone effectively to save lives.

So things were getting better until we saw this big increase in connection with the coronavirus pandemic. The stresses of this unprecedented time, clearly, have contributed to the spike in drug abuse. People have felt lonelier. People have felt more isolated. Specifically, people have not been able to get access to recovery programs. Being in person with a recovery coach is a whole lot different than being on a Zoom call. That is what I hear from recovering addicts, and it makes sense.

I will say that people have turned to drugs to cope during this tough period, but also, many of those who are in recovery have been stalled in their progress because of their inability to be with other recovering addicts. So part of the best practices and best scientific evidence we have is that an effective way to help people overcome their addictions is to be with other people who also have those addictions. We have known this for years in terms of alcohol treatment programs--AA and so on--but this has been one of the problems.

Another issue I am going to raise, which apparently is somewhat controversial, but I hear it from the experts--and those are the people on the ground, in the field, who are dealing with this issue--is that, when we here in Congress provided lump sums to all Americans under a certain income--and you will remember the individual payments--they didn't go out right away because our State offices couldn't process them quickly enough, particularly with regard to unemployment insurance, wherein our workers' comp and our unemployment offices could not get the money out the door on a weekly basis but could retroactively provide those funds.

We had individuals getting--instead of $300 a week or $600 a week-- $10,000 a week because it was an accumulation of many weeks. People were owed that, but getting these big lump sums was not helpful in the context of many people who were in recovery because it led to their purchasing drugs and it led to what we are finding out--again, back home--in talking to the experts, were some of the reasons you had this spike. So there are a lot of reasons here.

I guess what we need to focus on now is, How do we get beyond this?

These deaths are happening away from the national headlines because the coronavirus is taking the national headlines, understandably. A story just last week, from a news station in Dayton, OH, summed it up perfectly with a quote from Lori Erion, who is the founding president of Families of Addicts.

She said:

During the pandemic, addiction and families struggling with

it haven't gone anywhere. We have been here the whole time.

But they have not gotten much notice. There were 87,000 people who died from overdoses in the September 2019 to the September 2020 period we talked about. There were 87,000 Americans who died. If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, I don't think we would have seen this increase--from everything we are hearing if the correlation is almost precise--but also we would be hearing a lot more about the addiction crisis and doing more about it here.

We did put some funding into the CARES Act and into the two most recent COVID-19 packages to help with behavioral health, people's mental health, and also with addiction. That has been helpful, but we need to go much broader and do something much more comprehensive to take this moment to recommit ourselves to fighting addiction and ensuring that more Americans don't continue to lose their lives to overdoses. We have bipartisan legislation that has been introduced that we have been working on with a lot of people on the outside to try to come up with some new ideas, some ways to address this problem.

In the 5 years since this Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery legislation has become law, which was in part the reason we saw this reduction--also, a lot of great work was done at the local level and the State level--the substantial, several billion-dollar commitment we made here in this Chamber for more prevention, treatment, and longer term recovery with naloxone and so on, made a difference, but it has been 5 years.

During that time, I have visited with literally hundreds of different organizations in my home State. I have also just talked to a lot of experts about this. I have been to a lot of nonprofits, from Cleveland to Cincinnati and from Portsmouth to Toledo. I have talked to literally hundreds of recovering addicts about what works and what doesn't work for them.

There is legislation that we are introducing now, which we call CARA 3.0. We had the first Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, and we had a second one back in 2018, a smaller one. Now we have this new, bipartisan CARA 3.0 legislation. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is my coauthor, but we have a number of Members who have joined up to help, and it addresses three major areas.

One is research and education. We still need to find out more, and we still need to get better research and better alternatives to opioids to deal with pain because much of this is being driven, as you know, from opioids--both heroin and prescription drugs but also these new synthetic opioids, which are the deadliest of all.

Second, we focus on education. Getting the prevention message out there is incredibly important to keep people from coming into the funnel of addiction in the first place, which is incredibly powerful and effective.

Third, of course, are treatment programs.

The fourth is recovery. Again, Congress had never funded recovery before; yet all of the best science shows that these recovery programs, when done properly, can be incredibly helpful, and longer term recovery, unfortunately, is needed, which is costly, but the alternative is worse.

Finally, there is criminal justice reform, which I will talk about in a moment.

It will bolster our work to prevent drug abuse before it happens through funding for research and education. A new national drug awareness campaign is part of this legislation, and the research and development of alternative pain treatment methods that don't lead to addiction is part of it.

CARA 3.0 will also take the important step of addressing the disproportionate effect the addiction crisis has had on people in poverty and communities of color. Unfortunately, during this increase, we have seen a higher percentage of overdoses in communities of color. A national commission has been formed to look at this issue to better develop treatments and best practices to avoid overdoses.

Second, our bill will build on what works and how we treat addiction. It will double down on proven, evidence-based addiction treatment methods

while expanding treatment options for groups that are particularly vulnerable to addiction, including young people, new and expecting mothers, rural community residents, and communities of color-- individuals who live in those communities. One of the things that we have learned through, again, evidence-based research into what works and what doesn't work is that medication-assisted treatment, when done properly, can be very effective.

It will also make permanent the current expanded telehealth options for addiction treatment that were created temporarily in response to the social distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is really important. Telehealth is one of the few silver linings in an otherwise very dark cloud of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, for many individuals, telehealth was effective, particularly with regard to behavioral health and addiction services. So we want to be sure that the temporary ability to pay for those telehealth visits, as an example, through Medicaid as an example or Medicare, can continue past the pandemic.

CARA 3.0 will also bolster the recovery options for individuals who are working to put addiction behind them through funding to support recovery support services and networks. It will enable physicians to provide medication-assisted addiction treatments, like methadone, to a greater number of patients and change the law to allow these drugs to be prescribed via telehealth for a greater ease of access. This will require a change in legislation to allow people to provide these kinds of treatments.

Our bill will also destigmatize addiction recovery in the workplace by ensuring that taking one of these medications--again, medications to get people over their addictions--will not count as a drug-free workplace violation. This may seem like an obvious change, but, unfortunately, it will take a change of law to be able to make that happen.

Finally, CARA 3.0 reforms our criminal justice system to ensure that those who are struggling with addiction, including our veterans, are treated with fairness and compassion by the law, putting them on a path to recovery instead of into a downward spiral of drug abuse.

Importantly, CARA 3.0 funds a Department of Justice grant program to help incarcerated individuals who are struggling with addiction to receive medication-assisted treatment while they are still in the criminal justice system. Again, that may seem like a pretty obvious solution, but there are people who go into the system addicted, and they come out addicted. They are not given the treatment options when they are incarcerated, and they simply go back to lives of addiction. Those people have high rates of recidivism, clearly. Most are rearrested and are back in the system within a relatively short period of time.

So this will reduce recidivism, repeat offenses. It makes sense for the person addicted, and it certainly makes sense for the community, with fewer crimes being committed. It also makes a lot of sense for the taxpayer because that treatment, although there is an additional expense while in the criminal justice system, will have a much better chance of getting those people back to lives wherein they can go back to work, back to their families, be in recovery, and not be back in the expensive criminal justice system. So it is a win-win-win.

CARA and CARA 2.0 gave States and local communities new resources and authorities to make a real difference in my State and others. CARA 3.0 renews and strengthens those programs, and given the recent spike in addiction we see here, it provides a significant boost in funding as well. When added with the existing CARA programs that were authorized through 2023, we will be investing well over $1 billion per year to address this longstanding epidemic, putting us on the path toward a brighter future free from addiction.

Another important part of CARA 3.0 is our bipartisan legislation to build on this expanded telehealth option for addiction services.

It was necessary during the pandemic to have it because of social distancing. We found out that, although there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction, telehealth has kept patients in touch with their doctors and allowed physicians to prescribe medication-assisted treatment remotely.

It doesn't make sense to get rid of these options once the pandemic goes away, so again, CARA 3.0 included legislation we had previously introduced separately called the Telehealth Response for E-Prescribing Addiction Therapy, or the TREATS Act, to make permanent a number of temporary waivers for telehealth services and bolster telehealth options for addiction treatment services.

Specifically, it does a couple things. First, it allows for a patient to be prescribed these lower scheduled drugs, like SUBOXONE, through telehealth on their first visit. You can't do that now. Current law requires you to go in person for a visit when needing an initial prescription for controlled substances, but this has been a deterrent to patients in crisis and in urgent need of treatments from schedule III or schedule IV drugs, like SUBOXONE or certain other drugs for a co-occurring mental health condition.

It also limits abusive practices by both audio and visual capabilities to be able to interact with the treatment providers to reduce fraud and abuse when it is your first visit, and it would also keep the existing requirements for in-person visits when prescribing schedule II drugs--these are the harder drugs, like opioids and stimulants--which are much more prone to being abused through these telehealth visits.

So we have a provision in there to avoid abuse, but it is also important to continue this telehealth when other options aren't there. I think it is a balanced approach that makes sense.

Second, our bill will allow for Medicare to bill for audio only or telephone telehealth visits for mental health and substance abuse if it is not the patient's first visit. Due to access to the broadband or distance, in-person or even video appointments aren't always possible, particularly for our seniors.

We need to focus on safety and robust treatment options, but in order to balance the needs of patients, we have proposed to allow our Nation's seniors under Medicare to use phones for subsequent mental health or behavioral health visits when they don't have access to the internet and where fact-to-face interaction isn't possible and isn't as necessary.

I believe the TREATS Act will make a difference in the addiction treatment space and will help us prevent more untimely overdoses.

So the legislation I have laid out so far--CARA 3.0 and the TREATS Act--cover an important aspect of the addiction crisis: the addiction treatment efforts that help lessen the demand for drugs, which is the single most important thing, reducing that demand.

But there is also more we have to do on the supply side because as drugs are pouring into our country, they are at a lower price on the streets of Cincinnati or Columbus or Cleveland or Dayton or Toledo. So we do need to do more to curb the supply of these dangerous substances. This is especially true right now because there is such a critical crisis ongoing, and there is a looming deadline to keep one class of very dangerous drugs illegal and off the streets.

I am talking about the kinds of opioids that are--like fentanyl, that are synthetic opioids but have a slight molecular change. So unless we act here in Congress, they will no longer be scheduled, no longer be illegal.

Data from the CDC, again, shows that the biggest driver to this surge in overdose deaths that we see here comes from fentanyl, comes from these synthetic opioids. They are often far more deadly than traditional opioids, like heroin. In fact, fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin. A pound of fentanyl is lethal enough to kill a half a million people. And fentanyl, as you will find out talking to your law enforcement folks and others in the treatment space, it is often now being laced with other drugs, like cocaine, like crystal meth or heroin.

Most of this synthetic opioid is being illegally manufactured in China and then smuggled across our borders, either coming in through the mail system or going to Mexico and then being smuggled across.

There is also evidence now that it is also being produced in Mexico, which is a change and a major concern.

In order to avoid prosecution, prior to 2018, scientists in China-- evil scientists in China--and drug traffickers started making slight modifications to fentanyl, sometimes adjusting a single

molecule and creating what are essentially fentanyl copycats.

While these fentanyl-related substances have the same narcotic properties as fentanyl, their tiny variations allowed them to evade prosecution. But oftentimes, these similar substances, like carfentanil, which some of you are aware of, are even deadlier than fentanyl itself.

To address this, the Drug Enforcement Agency in 2018 used its authority to temporarily classify all fentanyl-related drugs as schedule I substances, which allows law enforcement to aggressively intercept and destroy these substances. Unfortunately, this designation was only temporary. That is all DEA could do.

So, in 2019, Congress extended that designation until May 6, 2021, so a 2-year extension until 14 days from now.

If that deadline lapses 14 days from now, criminals who run labs in China and Mexico will be able to avoid law enforcement as they flood the United States with unlimited slight variants of fentanyl that are just as deadly. We can't let that happen.

Let me say that again. At a time when we are experiencing an alarming rise in overdose deaths that we see here, and fentanyl is the major culprit, the No. 1 killer, we may face a situation where law enforcement will lose the ability to aggressively stop these fentanyl copycats in the United States unless Congress acts in the next 14 days.

Fortunately, we have legislation to do that. Our bipartisan FIGHT Fentanyl Act, which I introduced with Senator Joe Manchin, will fix this problem by permanently classifying fentanyl-related drugs as schedule I drugs. It would give our law enforcement certainty to go after synthetic opioids in all their forms and show we are committed to addressing the threat posed by this dangerous class of drugs.

Our proposal is the one bipartisan approach to this in the Senate. We structured it to address concerns from the criminal justice community and made sure it does not impose mandatory minimum sentencing under criminal charges brought under our bill. That has been one of the concerns expressed, particularly by some on the other side of the aisle. So we took that out.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come to the table and support this urgent legislation.

The House just passed a 5-month extension this week. That is, to me, very sad. Let's make this permanent. There is no reason to do a short- term extension and to create the uncertainty with law enforcement, and, frankly, to tell these evil scientists in places like China, in 5 months, you are going to be able, potentially--to be able to sell this substance again without worrying about the law. This makes no sense. Let's make it permanent. Let's give the DEA the authority to do what they need to do. And by doing so, let's reduce the amount coming in, which increases the cost on the street, which is an important step toward rededicating our efforts to stop these drugs from stealing thousands of lives and causing so much pain.

In conclusion, I urge my colleagues--our Nation faces a crisis. It is the coronavirus pandemic that is finally winding down, but it is also the addiction crisis. It has been happening underneath the coronavirus. As was said by my constituent--this woman who unfortunately has faced addiction in her own family--we have been here the whole time, and it hasn't gotten better; it has gotten worse.

Many of its victims are suffering in silence. We know a lot about what is going on with COVID. We don't know a lot about what is going on with this pandemic, this epidemic of drugs.

So let's act now, without delay. We have 14 days until DEA loses the authority to go after dangerous fentanyl copycats, but we can do something about it. We can pass legislation right now that will help people at their point of pain, as well as provide law enforcement the tools to cut off the source of their suffering--both the CARA 3.0 legislation to deal with the demand side and the legislation to be sure this poison can't come into our communities freely.

As the CDC data shows, this is an issue that affects every single one of us. Forty-nine States have seen a big increase. We know we need to do it. Let's not wait any longer to get to work once again turning the tide on our addiction crisis.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, my friend and colleague Senator Manchin from West Virginia and I are on the floor today to talk about this issue of fentanyl.

This is a deadly synthetic opioid that is killing more people in our States than any other single drug. Unbelievably, Congress has only 15 days to act, and if we don't, some of these illegal fentanyl products are going to be legal again. This is exactly the wrong thing for us to do right now as, sadly, we are seeing a big increase in overdoses and overdose deaths because of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

We want to have bipartisan legislation that we have introduced, passed, that simply says: Let's not allow these illicitly manufactured and deadly synthetic opioids to suddenly become legal again.

If we don't act within 15 days, that will happen. Our bill would ensure that these deadly drugs continued to be scheduled--that is the technical term--scheduled by the Drug Enforcement Agency, meaning they would continue to be illegal.

Here is why we have to act. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is more than 15 times more powerful than heroin, and it is incredibly addictive. For years, this has been coming to our shores from China, almost all of it through the mail until recently because we, frankly, passed legislation to cut down on mail deliveries, and instead, now much is coming through Mexico, across our southwest border.

It is a big reason overdose deaths in the United States surged to record highs during this COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 87,000 Americans--think about that--87,000 Americans died during the 12-month period between September 2019 and September 2020. That is a record. It is a terrible record.

When we have the actual numbers from 2020, it is going to be even worse. We just got these numbers from September 2019 until September 2020. When we have the numbers from January 2020 through December 2020, it will be even worse. That is what everybody says, and it makes sense. When you look at this data, the worst months are the months during the pandemic in 2020.

Again, we are very sadly, after several years of progress, looking at once again an increase in these overdose deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, synthetic opioids like fentanyl are the biggest drivers of this tragic surge. We can project that more than half of these deaths are from this class of drug based on what we know from the 2019 data. That is the latest information we have. In 2019, there were 70,630 deaths, and more than half of those-- 36,359--involved fentanyl. Experts believe that fentanyl, sometimes mixed with other drugs like cocaine or crystal meth or sometimes heroin, continues to be the No. 1 killer.

It is such an enormous crisis because these drugs are so incredibly dangerous. It takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl to kill an adult, which is why the DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration, permanently classified fentanyl as a schedule II drug.

In order to avoid prosecution, drug traffickers started making slight modifications to fentanyl. You have some evil scientist in China or in Mexico who makes a slight modification to fentanyl, sometimes adjusting a single molecule and creating what are called fentanyl analogs. In other words, it is not precisely pure fentanyl, and so unfortunately, although it has the same narcotic properties as fentanyl, these tiny variations allow these traffickers and these scientists to evade prosecution. Oftentimes, by the way, these analogs, like carfentanil, are even more deadly, believe it or not, than fentanyl itself.

In response, in 2018, the DEA temporarily scheduled fentanyl analogs, but under law, that designation expires after May 6--again, only 15 days from now. If that deadline lapses, evil scientists and criminals who run labs in China and Mexico will be able to avoid law enforcement as they flood the United States with unlimited slight variations of this deadly drug.

That is why Senator Manchin and I are calling on Congress to do the sensible thing: Pass the FIGHT Fentanyl Act to make these dangerous substances permanently illegal. That is what law enforcement wants, that is what our communities demand, and that is what we deserve to give them. It is long overdue that we make this designation permanent.

China, by the way, implemented classwide controls over fentanyl analogs in 2019. China's law defines fentanyl-related substances more broadly than the U.S. Government defines fentanyl-related substances. How ironic. Here is China, a country sending us this poison and actually making these drugs illegal in China, and they are not illegal here. How could that be?

I know some colleagues oppose permanent scheduling of these fentanyl drugs because they are concerned about mandatory minimum sentences and also that it could hinder research into future medications to treat addiction. Let me address both of those.

First, I share this concern about the harsh punishments that don't fit the nature of the crime. That is why our legislation ensures that mandatory minimum sentences are not automatically imposed. In any criminal case, we want the judge to look at the severity of the crime and consider all relevant factors in sentencing. So that issue is addressed.

There has been a great deal of conversation about the impact of prosecutions and incarcerations on specific populations, including minority communities, but what is often lost in this debate is the growing impact of fatal overdoses in these same communities.

Since 2016, while White fatalities decreased through 2019--the data we have--overdoses from opioids among Black Americans, particularly Black men, have actually accelerated. From 2011 to 2016, Black Americans had the highest increase in synthetic opioid-involved overdose death rates compared to all populations. So it is getting worse, not better, in these same minority communities.

While from 2017 to 2018, overall opioid-involved overdose fatalities decreased--remember we were making progress for the last several years. Overall, it decreased by just over 4 percent. Rates among Black and Hispanic Americans actually increased.

Another issue my colleagues have raised, again, is concern that permanently scheduled fentanyl and its analogs somehow hinders research in treating addiction. First of all, I agree that we need this research and need it badly. One example of this is coming up with naloxone, a miracle drug based on heroin that actually reverses the effects of overdose. It is a miracle. I have seen it work, and it saves lives.

Researchers have told me there are barriers to being approved to legally research schedule I substances. There is also a stigma to conducting this kind of research even though we know that it could lead to development of new treatments. I am open to working with colleagues to address these barriers, and I believe we can do that through legislation creating flexibility in the registration system for scientists. But we cannot let these deadly fentanyl drugs become legal in the meantime, and certainly we can't allow this to happen in the next 15 days.

Just before we came to the floor this afternoon, the House of Representatives passed a temporary measure. It is a 5-month extension of the ability to schedule these deadly drugs. Why would we do it for just 5 months? Let's do it permanently.

Now I am told: Well, we have a take-it-or-leave-it from the House. I hope that is not the case. If so, of course I will be for extending it rather than having it expire in 15 days. But let's act. Let's act responsibly. Let's act now.

The U.S. Senate should be taking the lead here in saying let's permanently classify these drugs, as everybody agrees they should be classified in the sense that they are dangerous narcotics that are killing literally tens of thousands of our fellow citizens every year.

Let's do the right thing for those communities. Let's do the right thing for law enforcement. Let's be sure they have the predictability and certainty in law enforcement to know that they can prosecute these criminals--these traffickers. We need to act now to address the threat of these deadly fentanyl drugs coming into our communities, and I urge the Senate to pass the FIGHT Fentanyl Act this week.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I welcome the Vice President, the President of the Senate, to our Chamber this evening.

I am here this evening to discuss the infrastructure plan that has been proposed by President Biden and the plan along with it for massive tax increases.

The Biden infrastructure plan totals a massive $2.3 trillion, but only about 20 percent of it actually goes towards funding anything that Members of either party have ever considered infrastructure. I support more infrastructure investment, as do, I believe, most if not all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

The question is, What is infrastructure, and how do you pay for it? Roads and bridges, as an example in this proposal, are only about 5 percent of the plan. In fact, it provides more money for long-term care than it does for roads and bridges, more money for electric cars than it does for roads and bridges, and more money for schools and daycare than it does for roads and bridges. Many of these noninfrastructure ideas are worthy ones, and they should be debated and they should be considered but not as part of a self-described infrastructure bill, in part because the funding sources should be very different.

The price tag, $2.3 trillion--soon to be $2.7 trillion, we are told-- and also the scope of the bill are bad enough, but what I want to talk about tonight is the equally concerning way the Biden administration plans to pay for this massive new legislation. They want to pay for the bulk of it by completely reversing the progress we made

over the past few years in making America competitive again and making our workers competitive again.

In the 2 years before COVID-19, we saw record growth in jobs and wages, in large part thanks to the pro-growth policies we put in place through the 2017 tax cuts and reforms. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that 70 percent of the savings from the 2017 corporate tax cuts went into workers' wages. Seventy percent, they say, went into workers' pockets. It is one reason that, leading up to the pandemic in February, a year and a couple of months ago, we had the 19th straight month--19th straight month--of wage growth of 3 percent or more annually. That was great news in my home State of Ohio. We hadn't had wage growth like that in over a decade, maybe two decades. Most of that benefit, by the way, went to middle and lower income workers--exactly what you want.

During that time period a couple of years before the pandemic hit, we tied the 50-year low in unemployment at 3.5 percent and had the lowest unemployment ever for Blacks and Hispanics. In fact, before the pandemic, we had reached the lowest poverty rate--10.5 percent--since we started recording this data back in 1959. It was the lowest poverty rate on record.

Importantly, tax reform also stopped these corporate inversions. You will remember this. Companies were actually becoming foreign companies so they could get from under our Tax Code. This made no sense. It was happening during the Obama administration and during the first year of the Trump administration. We also ended the so-called lockout effect, caused by a Tax Code that made it too expensive to bring foreign earnings back home. So people kept their earnings overseas. In fact, during those couple of years, the $1.6 trillion in overseas earnings has now come back home to invest and create jobs here--$1.6 trillion. We want that money here.

As a result of those changes, the largest U.S. companies increased domestic research and development spending by 25 percent to $707 billion, and capital expenditures went up by 20 percent to $1.4 trillion. The Biden plan would throw all of that positive progress out. It would change our competitiveness to put us back where we were before or worse.

The administration's corporate tax increase raises the combined Federal and State corporate rates from an average of 25.8 percent to 32.8 percent. It would put us, again, as having the highest rate in the developed world. These tax hikes, by the way, when you include the international tax hikes, are actually five times as large as the corresponding cuts in 2017, based on the analysis that has been done. By the way, this would also, of course, give us not just the highest tax rate among the developed countries but also a far higher tax rate than countries like China with whom we are trying to compete.

It also changes the international tax code to make it much more costly for U.S. companies to operate outside of the United States, punishing American workers who have jobs here supporting international sales. I use the example of Procter & Gamble in my hometown of Cincinnati. They are headquartered in Ohio, but they do business all over the world. They have told me that it will be far more expensive for them to do that, even uncompetitive for them to be working globally, because we will be the only developed country in the world that will charge them a tax to do that, and that will hurt the jobs in Cincinnati, OH, that support international sales.

It just doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to go back to that and have that lockout effect where profits are kept overseas and where companies actually become foreign companies?

In the Biden plan, it also eliminates the so-called foreign-derived intangible income provision. This was a carrot that we put in the law very deliberately, a carrot for companies to bring their intellectual property back here. By the way, that is what Google did. So did Cisco. So did Qualcomm. So did Synopsys. So did Facebook. They actually brought valuable intellectual property back home, creating high-paying high-tech jobs here in the United States of America. Why would we want to change that?

The bottom line is that this tax plan that has been proposed would make us uncompetitive again in the global economy, and the Biden administration knows it.

That is why, when Treasury Secretary Yellen announced the proposal to increase these taxes, she actually asked other countries around the world to raise their own corporate taxes. She pleaded with them: We are going to raise ours. You need to now raise your taxes.

Of course, when she said we need to do that to create a more level playing field, other countries in the world said: This is great. We are going to get more American investment and more business for our companies. In fact, right after she made that announcement, the Minister for Finance in Ireland was asked the question. He said he had no interest in joining America in raising taxes--nor do others. China is not going to raise its taxes. In fact, these countries are continuing to do what they have been doing, which is to knock down barriers to jobs and investment in their economies, and that makes sense from their points of view. It makes sense from our point of view to continue to be competitive also.

The tax increases would leave America standing alone atop the corporate tax rate chart. Studies by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others have shown that, again, it is American workers who will bear the brunt of these corporate tax hikes in the form of lost jobs and lower wages.

Because of the tax hikes, the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton model, in analyzing this Biden plan, actually projects that we will see a nearly 1-percent decrease in the GDP and a 0.7-percent decrease in wages by 2031 over current projections. Now, this is extraordinary to me because that is despite the economic benefit--the obvious benefit--we are going to get from this infrastructure spending. So, despite all of that benefit, we are still going to see a reduction in our economy, or economic growth, and a reduction in wages. This harms American workers, particularly those toward the bottom of the economic ladder.

The bottom line is that the $2.1 trillion tax hike used to pay for this infrastructure bill will harm middle-class families and our businesses, and I believe the American people get that. They recognize that this is not the way forward for our economy or for our infrastructure.

Instead, let's follow the proven bipartisan model on infrastructure. Let's keep the plan to real infrastructure. Let's agree to what it is. Let's do it generously. Let's include broadband. Let's include water projects. Let's make it real infrastructure, though. Then let's come up with sensible pay-fors, including user fees. That is what the American people want, and that is what they deserve.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am here on the floor of the Senate this evening to talk about our shared national priorities for addressing the Nation's infrastructure needs and my concerns--really deep concerns--about the plan the Biden administration has outlined and specifically the way they intend to pay for it.

I don't think there is a single Member in this Chamber who does not recognize the need for us to invest in upgrading America's aging infrastructure. Our network of roads, bridges,

ports, railroads, and more has played an integral role over the decades in growing our world-class economy. Yet, according to a 2019 report, the most recent one we have from the World Economic Forum, the United States now ranks only 13th in the world in infrastructure based on factors like the quality of our roads, how efficient our trains are, and access to electricity and water.

So we can and should do more to improve our infrastructure, particularly as competitors like China make substantial investments in their own infrastructure every year. We can do so in a bipartisan way, just as we have always done. In fact, last Congress, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved bipartisan infrastructure legislation by a unanimous vote of 21 to 0. That was just last Congress, 21 to 0. This bipartisan approach last Congress totaled $287 billion--a substantial amount and one we have yet to figure out how to pay for.

The current Transportation bill that is in play, the so-called infrastructure bill from a few years ago, is about $310 billion. Yet, even as we have to figure out how to fund the bipartisan $287 billion package for roads and bridges from last year--a substantial amount in its own right--the Biden administration recently introduced its own infrastructure plan that totals $2.7 trillion, almost 10 times as much.

At the core of this Biden administration proposal is $620 billion in infrastructure broadly defined. It has a generous definition of the roads, bridges, and other physical transportation and water components that have traditionally been considered infrastructure. So a generous definition would be that out of the $2.7 trillion, $620 billion could be called infrastructure based on the way Republicans and Democrats alike have always looked at it, and again, that would include water, electricity, and other forms of transportation, not just roads and bridges. So about 20 percent of the Biden administration infrastructure bill actually fits the bill.

The reason the overall package costs $2.7 trillion is because they have included a broad set of liberal priorities that are a far cry from what has ever been defined as infrastructure by either Democrats or Republicans. So, I guess, knowing the popularity of infrastructure--and it is popular; people want to see their roads and bridges repaired--the Biden administration has simply redefined the word to include hundreds of billions of dollars of spending on priorities like healthcare, Federal office buildings and other facilities, research and development, electric vehicle manufacturing, and more.

According to the Biden administration, paid leave is now infrastructure, childcare is now infrastructure, and caregiving is now infrastructure. While many are worthy causes and should be debated and voted on separately, they don't belong in infrastructure bills.

This approach is troubling to me and, I know, to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle because it is a continuation of the raw partisanship that defined the latest COVID-19 spending package back in March. Rather than work to find good-faith negotiations with Republicans to craft a package that can gain bipartisan support, the Biden administration and Senate Democrats apparently are once again looking into potentially using reconciliation to jam Republicans--to pass another trillion-dollar-plus spending bill with a simple 50-vote majority. And, like COVID-19, infrastructure has always been bipartisan. So if you can't be bipartisan on COVID-19 and you can't be bipartisan on infrastructure, what can you be bipartisan about?

This partisan approach, by the way, is the opposite of what President Biden pledged on the campaign trail and in his inauguration address. In his inaugural address, he talked about the need to get back to more bipartisanship and urged unity. I agreed with that assessment and said so at the time.

Unfortunately, he has apparently listened to the more strident voices in his party and has gone down the partisan path. As with the $1.9 trillion COVID spending package last March, the end result could be another spending bill that is far higher than it needs to be at a time of record debt and deficits and another partisan bill that further divides us at a time when we are already too divided. In fact, about a quarter of the Biden plan is not paid for at all, taking us further into debt.

But even more troubling to me is that the Democrats plan to pay for roughly $2 trillion of this plan with massive tax increases on American workers and consumers and by making us less competitive in the global economy. This would completely reverse the progress we have made over the past few years in making America competitive again. Thanks to the 2017 tax reforms that the Biden proposal would largely dismantle, in the couple of years before COVID-19, we saw record growth in jobs and wages, with the lowest poverty rate since the Federal Government started keeping track of it 60 years ago.

In promoting the Biden tax increases, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claims we need to reverse the 2017 tax reforms because they encourage businesses to move jobs out of the country. The reality is just the opposite. The 2017 tax reforms stopped the so-called corporate tax inversions, which caused American companies to become foreign companies and move jobs and investment out of America because of our uncompetitive tax laws. This happened to a number of companies in Ohio and in every State, practically, represented in this Chamber.

The 2017 reforms also stopped the lockout effect that kept foreign profits of U.S. companies overseas. They weren't bringing the profits back. Instead, $1.6 trillion in overseas earnings has come back to the United States and was invested right here at home.

Most importantly for working families, 70 percent of the savings from the corporate tax cuts went into workers' wages, contributing to 19 straight months of wage growth of over 3 percent annually that we enjoyed before the pandemic. This wage growth was really welcome in my home State Ohio. We had lower wages, or flat wages, for more than a decade.

And, by the way, who benefited most from this wage increase--19 straight months of wage increases? Lower and middle-income workers-- exactly what should have been happening.

Thanks to the 2017 reforms, the largest U.S. companies also increased their domestic research and development expenditures by 25 percent, which amounts to $707 billion more R&D. And they further increased capital expenditures by 20 percent, aided by this return of foreign profits.

All of this U.S. investment, job creation, and new R&D would be put at risk by these proposed tax hikes. Under the Biden plan, which we have heard is raising the corporate rate from 21 to 28 percent, in actuality, the combined Federal and State corporate rate would go from 25.8 percent, where it is now when you include the State and Federal-- other countries like China don't have any State income tax on their corporations. They just have the Federal rate. So we would be going from 25.8 percent--by the way, which is already above the average of 23.4 percent for other developed countries, so-called OECD countries-- it would go from 25.8 percent up to a staggering 32.8 percent, the highest rate in the developed world.

Our tax rate would once again be higher than China's and higher than any country in the developed world--Japan, Europeans. This is exactly what we got away from in 2017, and it was on a bipartisan basis. There was a consensus for us to do that--maybe not the exact rate, but the idea was to make America competitive again.

I cochaired a task force with a fellow Senator, a Democrat from the across the aisle, Chuck Schumer, on the Finance Committee, and we came up with this idea of saying: Let's go to a territorial-type tax system, and let's lower the rate so that we can be competitive around the world. That is what happened, and it is working.

Now, for some reason, the Biden administration says: We want to reverse all that. These abrupt tax hikes, which actually would be five times as large as the corresponding corporate tax cuts in 2017, would make our workers and our businesses less competitive globally at a time when our economy is just starting to recover.

The Biden plan goes well beyond just making our tax rates uncompetitive again. It also doubles the tax on so-called global intangible low-taxed income, or GILTI, making it more costly for U.S. companies to operate outside the United States, more costly than any other country's companies of any

developed country in the world. Again, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. It unfairly punishes American workers who have their jobs here in America, supporting international operations.

In Ohio, for example, we have Procter & Gamble. It is headquartered in my hometown. They rely on overseas production to serve foreign markets in an affordable manner. They are not going to ship diapers from here overseas because it is not cost-competitive. So, for the foreign markets, they will make diapers in those foreign countries. However, by doing so, they employ thousands of Ohioans and others around this country who support those international sales. So all the back-office work, the sales work, the research and development, and so on is done here. The proposed Biden tax increases would make such companies uncompetitive overseas, resulting in our losing markets there and losing U.S. jobs. Remember, no other developed country in the world does this except us. No other country taxes these companies on their foreign profits. We got away from that on purpose, and we essentially established a minimum tax, which, again, hardly any country in the world has, but we wanted to have some balance here.

Now, under this proposal from the Biden administration, that tax would be more than double. It is going to hurt us. The Biden administration also proposes to eliminate a provision regarding what is called foreign-derived intangible income, FDII. In 2017, we put FDII in place for a very simple reason, and there seemed to be a consensus about that, which is to provide a carrot to U.S. companies to do their research and development here in America. It incentivized companies to bring that research back and to keep that research here. It worked to create high-skilled and high-wage jobs.

For example, Google, Cisco, and Facebook brought all of their intellectual property home--brought all of their IP home. And we heard from other U.S. companies like Intel and Disney, which said they kept their IP in the United States due to this tax law change. Why would we want that to go overseas?

The Biden administration claims that it wants the United States to be more competitive, yet these proposed tax increases do just the opposite. It makes no sense that while China and other countries are increasing subsidies to businesses that innovate, the United States would be punishing our workers and global companies, making them less competitive

In what amounts to an astounding admission of how deeply flawed these proposals are, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the proposal to increase taxes we just talked about, she actually went out of her way to make a plea to other countries around the world. She asked them to raise their own corporate tax rates and to increase their own taxes to ensure, as she said, a more level playing field.

Understanding the nature of the intense global competition, our competitors are doing just the opposite. It is naive to think that because we are going to raise our taxes and ask them to do the same that they would do that. They want more of the jobs and investment in their country.

In fact, just this past week, the Finance Minister of Ireland, when asked about this, said they have no interest in raising taxes. Ireland is one of those countries that has made themselves competitive and resulted in our tax law changes because they were taking jobs away from us, and now we were bringing this IP and these jobs back. Ireland, China, and these other countries are going to continue to lower barriers to attract capital and jobs. It is wishful thinking, at best, to think that because we are going to raise our taxes, they are going to raise theirs.

The Biden plan would mean America standing alone atop the corporate tax rate chart among all developed countries--standing alone, leaving our businesses and workers to suffer the cost, a fact borne out from multiple studies, including from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that shows it is workers who bear most of the burden of higher taxes in the form of lower wages and lost jobs. It is not the corporations; it is the workers.

As I said before, there is a clear need for us to reinvest in American infrastructure. I think we can all agree with that. Republicans and Democrats alike want to do it, and, right now, in the key committee of jurisdiction, by the way, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, bipartisan negotiations are ongoing. This is the same committee that had a unanimous vote last Congress on the transportation legislation.

They are talking right now about how to put together a bipartisan package. That is the right way to do it: Go through regular order and allow Democrats and Republicans alike to offer their ideas.

There is also a group of Republicans and Democrats outside of the committee who have met and are looking for a more sensible way forward. I am among that group. There are others as well.

The partisan approach by the Biden administration looks to be taking us down the road of another trillion-dollar-plus spending package jammed through Congress with no support from the other side of the aisle. That is not good for this institution. It is not good for this country. It is not the way to get things done.

Instead of a $2.7 trillion plan that goes beyond any reasonable definition of infrastructure and is mostly paid for with a devastating tax hike on U.S. workers and our economy, let's do what we know works: a bipartisan approach focused on what we have all agreed is infrastructure--roads, bridges, ports, rail, broadband, and other true infrastructure.

I believe if we take that more targeted approach, we can build on the bipartisan framework this Congress has achieved in recent years and work together to find commonsense ways to fund infrastructure legislation, including user fees, which is what we have always used in the past, without resorting to partisan tax hikes, which reduce the competitiveness of U.S. workers, U.S. companies, and undermine investment in our country. I hope we take that better approach.

I yield the floor.