Floor Statements

Madam President, reserving the right to object, anybody who follows the Finance Committee knows that I very much enjoy working with our colleague from North Carolina. We have worked together on a variety of issues here. However, we have got a big disagreement, and I hope we can work it out.

More than 90 percent of North Carolina's Members of Congress voted in favor of our bipartisan bill to improve the lives of 16 million kids and assist scores of small businesses trying to better compete with China. This carefully crafted bipartisan bill will significantly also increase the supply of affordable housing, which is badly needed from one end of our Nation to another. If the Senate approves the request of our colleague from North Carolina, it would essentially kick out one of the legs of this carefully crafted bipartisan tax agreement. The entire bill topples.

Here is a little background.

After 4 months of negotiations, including many meetings over several months and in working with our colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo; our colleague from Massachusetts, Congressman Neal; Chairman Smith, of the Ways and Means Committee, and I agreed on a bill that brings together Republican and Democratic priorities. Republicans wanted a set of tax cuts for business. Democrats were willing to accept those because many of those tax cuts will help small businesses and help our country compete with China by promoting research and development. So Democrats said we will work with the Republicans on those proposals in exchange for an equal investment in kids and families. We fought for the largest expansion of the child tax credit we could get. Our bill immediately helps 16 million kids from low-income families.

The laws on the books--I think the Presiding Officer and I talked about this when she came to the Senate to join us. The laws on the books today discriminate--they discriminate--against so many of our large families of modest means. This bipartisan bill changes that. They will get to claim the child tax credit for each of the kids just like middle- and high-income families get to do.

The analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows what a transformational change this would be for so many families of modest means. For example, a parent of two young kids who works as a home health aide or a food server could see their child tax credit nearly double. They could get close to an additional $2,000 to help those families--to help them pay for diapers, baby food, and schools supplies--you name it. For families with three or more kids, the benefits are even greater, and in both cases, they will do even better next year.

These are families who walk the economic tightrope every day. They need the help. They are going to keep working hard regardless because raising a child in America is expensive for everybody--working class, middle class, even those who are more fortunate.

Our bill also includes other bipartisan priorities. I particularly want to thank colleagues on both sides. Senator Maria Cantwell, my colleague from the Pacific Northwest; our colleague from Indiana, Senator Todd Young; and a number of Senators came together to support the low-income housing tax credit, which will help to build more than 200,000 affordable housing units across the country. All of these priorities are paid for by sunsetting a pandemic-era tax program called the employee retention tax credit.

The program, which technically expired in 2021, has become overrun with fraud. I think my colleague remembers because we were there together, and all of us were kind of slack-jawed. We had the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Werfel, whom Senator Tillis and I both enjoy working with--a straight shooter.

I said: I got a tip from a whistleblower. What is the story on this employee retention tax credit? I hear that 95 percent of the current claims are fraudulent. Let me repeat that: 95 percent of the current claims are fraudulent.

He looked at his shoes and said: Yes, that is the case, Senators.

So that is what we are looking at for our pay-for.

The Joint Committee on Taxation are the people--you know, I know they are not exactly a household word, but they are the official nonpartisan experts. As my friend from North Carolina and I know, we kind of use them as the gospel before everybody starts running around and twisting the politics. The Joint Committee on Taxation tells us that cutting off the ERTC claims pays for nearly the entire tax bill that Chairman Smith and I introduced. So it makes a lot of sense to cut off an out-of-date program that is overrun with fraud and redirect those dollars to low- income families and priorities like research and development and small business.

Now, I know that my colleague from North Carolina is raising objections to this as being an offset, and he certainly has a right to do that. But I want to take a minute to kind of walk through the implications.

First, my colleague's request from the Senate right now would shut down these employee retention claims, but it doesn't include the rest of the bill that Chairman Smith and I introduced. So there would be no help for low-income kids and families, no boost for R&D, no boost for small business.

I know my colleague thinks that this is some kind of gimmick, and he would like to wait and pass the business pieces of the tax package without any offset. Now, I am not sure--because he and I have not really talked about it--but there is this old saw that corporate tax cuts pay for themselves--essentially, that the tax breaks favored by

Republicans never need to be offset, regardless of the proof they will add to the deficit, and that is wrong. That was shown in 2017 when Republicans added trillions of dollars to the deficit to pass the Trump tax law, which overwhelmingly benefited large corporations and the wealthy. The pricetag on that deficit buster was growing even higher with the increase in interest rates.

So my colleague, as I indicated, hasn't had to get involved in those kinds of issues in the past, but I just think that, if we are unwinding deficit finance tax laws, we ought to go back a little further and repeal the deficit-financed handouts to corporations and the wealthy that Donald Trump and the Republicans passed in 2017.

The fact is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, from Missouri, who I think would call himself a strong conservative--he and I negotiated a bipartisan proposal. Nearly the entire bill is paid for, and it came after months and months and months of discussions with Democrats and Republicans. If the Joint Committee on Taxation tells the Finance Committee that that is an offset--the one we have that works-- that, to me, is always the end of the debate.

So I would just hope that we not do something--and I know my colleague well enough at this point that this is not his intent, but this is essentially a poison pill to a bipartisan effort on the child tax credit, research and development, and low-income housing, and we shouldn't do it this way.

I will just say publicly what I said to my colleague from North Carolina: I am very interested in working with him and with the ranking member, Senator Crapo, because we have always done it that way. We have always found common ground. My goodness, there is a lot to work with here. It got 357 votes in the other body. I have been here long enough to know you can't get 357 votes to go order a Dr Pepper. That is a big, big effort at bipartisanship.

So I close by way of saying that I am going to object here in a minute officially so that is clear, but I want to again extend an olive branch to my colleague from North Carolina and to the ranking member, Senator Crapo. Let's do something good for low-income kids, particularly the big families, the small businesses, research and development. Let's get that low-income housing tax credit that Senator Cantwell and Senator Young and a whole group of us on the Finance Committee have been for. Let's get going on that so we can work on it together and get it up in short order after we come back.

So, with that, I object.

Madam President, just very briefly, my sense is that, after we are done voting on the piece of legislation that is in front of us, we will have, I would say to my friend from North Carolina, a crucial period where we can come together and start looking at ways to find common ground and get this passed.

The reality is it has been weeks now since the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and I brought forward our proposal--the one that got 357 votes. I have been saying to folks on the Republican side of the aisle: My door is open. Tell me what you want in terms of a couple of these provisions I have heard mentioned, but we haven't heard anything.

So I want, as chairman of the Finance Committee, to again extend an olive branch to say: The door is open. Have you got ideas on pay-fors that both sides can go along with that we can get passed in the other body? Have you got issues--I mean, we have had a discussion about the work requirement, for example, and I have looked at all of these experts and this fellow from the tax organization, Grover Norquist, who is certainly one of the more conservative people in this town, who says this doesn't discourage work. But he doesn't have an election certificate, and Republicans do. So we are going to all sit down and work this through, but we have to get it done quickly because people are filing their returns now. We want those small businesses and we want those families to get a fair shake.

So to all Senators who are listening to this: My door is open. Let's move quickly after we get through this bill and be ready to go when we get back and move this legislation to do something significant, which, by the way, also has an added benefit because it will set the table in a responsible way for the bigger tax debate come 2025.

I thank my colleague.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I very much share the stated goals of the STOP CSAM Act. Child sexual abuse material is a toxic plague on the internet. There are real victims who need real support and criminals who must be hunted down and locked up.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to helping kids and punishing predators. However, this bill would weaken the single strongest technology that now protects children and families--that's strong encryption. It will make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices. While STOP CSAM's sponsors have argued that the bill does not target encryption, the bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. It also would encourage scanning of content on user's phones or computers before information is sent over the internet, which has the same consequences as breaking encryption.

Weakening encryption is probably the single biggest gift that you can give to the predators and the monsters who want to stalk and spy on kids. Sexual predators will have a far easier time stealing and extorting photographs of children, tracking their phones, and spying on their private messages once encryption is breached.

Doing so threatens the privacy and security of every single law- abiding American.

I also think it is surprising that the Senator is asking to pass this bill at the very same time its sponsor is reportedly circulating an updated version of the bill with a number of changes. Although that new version of the legislation has not been made public, it certainly would be a mistake to pass legislation that apparently is still in the process of being revised.

Mr. President, what this is all about is talking about doing something effective or actually taking effective action. I have proposed doing just that. We ought to focus on giving law enforcement officials the tools they need to find and prosecute criminals responsible for exploiting kids and spreading these vile materials online. That way, we can help keep kids from becoming victims in the first place.

Let me also say that we can do this if Members support my bipartisan Invest in Child Safety Act. The bill directs $5 billion in mandatory funding to do three things which would ensure that we have an effective response for families and parents: one, give law enforcement agencies the tools and personnel they need to catch the predators who are creating and spreading CSAM; two, fund community-based programs to prevent at-risk kids from becoming victims in the first place; three, invest in programs to support survivors of abuse.

Any legislation that doesn't include these pieces is missing the point; therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to briefly respond to what my colleague has just repeated.

And then I would ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes to speak in favor of a very talented jurist in Oregon, who will be voted on shortly.

Mr. President, first, with respect to my response to our colleague from Missouri, let me be clear on a point that technologists are clear on. This bill would weaken the strongest technology that protects children and families online: strong encryption. And this bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. That is right at the center of my objection.

Mr. President, I am going to move now to my brief remarks with respect to our judge from Oregon. I come to the floor today to reiterate my strong support for Judge Amy Baggio's nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

Judge Baggio has a proven track record as both a jurist and a litigator. She spent a decade as a public defender; and in her career on the bench, she has presided over hundreds of civil and criminal matters and handled 42 trials, half of which were jury trials.

And I note, because Members have been asking with respect to her values in terms of prosecuting and dealing with cases and her attitude towards criminals, in one case the judge sentenced a man to many more years for first-degree sexual abuse than anyone had thought was even being discussed, certainly longer than was sought by defense counsel. So it is a testament to Judge Baggio's fairness and professionalism that during her career as a judge, she has never once had a party file a request for a different judge.

In addition to being fair, she has consistently demonstrated an ability to make thoughtful decisions that protect communities and their values.

I urge my colleagues--and I gather that we will be going to the vote now--to support a very dedicated public servant--and I emphasize that-- a public servant who has got a real track record as a public defender and in her career on the bench.

I urge my colleagues to support Judge Amy Baggio.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about something every American wants from their public officials: transparency and accountability.

Unfortunately, after repeated attempts, Congress has not received that transparency or accountability from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and it is feeding the perception of corruption. For the past 6 months, the Senate Finance Committee has been trying to get straight answers from the Justice and his wealthy friends about the growing list of handouts they have lavished on the Justice.

Most recently, we sought to figure out whether Justice Thomas secretly had over $250,000 in debt written off--simply wiped away--by a wealthy benefactor. If so, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am working to learn whether he paid the taxes he was supposed to-- taxes that any American is legally required to pay.

The Justice has refused to respond. Justice Thomas acts as if the freebies and the special favors Americans are reading about--the flights on private jets, comped; trips on luxury yachts; megawealthy individuals paying for school tuitions; quarter-million-dollar debts wiped away--is totally normal stuff.

The reality is, it is not. It isn't normal for anyone, and when the person receiving all of these extravagant handouts is one of the nine most powerful jurists in the country, with unchecked power to rewrite laws from the bench, it looks worse.

With respect to this disappearing debt, here is what we know. In 1999, one of Justice Thomas's friends loaned him $267,230 to buy a luxury RV. That is some kind of friend.

Justice Thomas wants to believe the story is simple, like the couple hundred bucks you would loan somebody to get their car fixed in an emergency. This is the story that the Justice has, in effect, apparently subscribed to obscures the truth.

The simple fact here is that loans have to be repaid, and it sure looks like this one was not. According to the terms of the loan agreement--which, by the way, was written down on Supreme Court stationary from the chamber of Clarence Thomas--Thomas's friend supplied the money to buy Thomas the luxury RV. In return, the Justice was supposed to pay 7.5 percent interest for 5 years. Then the loan would come due, and then Justice Thomas would be responsible for having to repay the full principal. But from what I have seen, the payment never happened.

Through my investigation, I have uncovered that Justice Thomas only paid interest on the transaction. When the deadline hit after 5 years, his friend extended the maturity date on the loan for another decade. But just 4 years later, Thomas' friend simply decided to stop collecting payments from the Justice, even though the Justice still owed him more than $\1/4\ million.

Justice Thomas's friend wrote a note telling him that the interest he paid was good enough and that he wouldn't accept further payments. That means that the debt--likely the entire $260,000 in principal--was considered forgiven. Again, that is quite a friend.

So the documents we have seen indicate Justice Thomas received a $267,000 loan to buy a luxury RV and never repaid most--and, likely, not even a dollar--of the money that his friend originally loaned him. This has legal consequences.

The Tax Code makes clear that in instances where a debt is canceled, forgiven, or discharged for less than the amount owed, the borrower must report the amount canceled or forgiven as income for tax purposes. Furthermore, the forgiven debt is income that Justice Thomas is required by law to report on his financial disclosure report.

But Justice Thomas never reported the $\1/4\ million in forgiven debt on his financial disclosure report in 2008, the year his debt was forgiven. He won't give the Finance Committee a direct answer on whether he reported it on his taxes, raising serious legal questions.

After I publicly revealed these findings, Justice Thomas, through his lawyer, said the documents that I reviewed were untrue. The Justice said:

The loan was never forgiven. Any suggestion to the contrary

is false.

And--

The terms of the agreement were satisfied in full.

This contradicts the documents I reviewed. So, along with Senator Whitehouse, our colleague from Rhode Island, we wrote to Justice Thomas's lawyer and gave him a chance to prove his claim. Personally, I believe that a sitting Supreme Court Justice would jump at the opportunity to correct the record and prove that he repaid his debt and did not cheat on taxes. I wish I could report to the American people that was the case and that this whole mess was just a misunderstanding. But that did not happen.

Justice Thomas did not give us any documentation about his so-called loan. Senator Whitehouse and I gave him a month to respond and received nothing--no loan agreement, no payment schedule, no evidence of principal payments, and no explanation for why he and his lawyer said the documents and information I uncovered were untrue. If what Justice Thomas and his lawyer are saying about the loan is accurate, the question is, What is behind all the stonewalling?

Does the Justice believe he shouldn't ever have to answer the questions about all these major windfalls and luxury travel, not even to prove that everything was on the level? Justice Thomas and his lawyers could put this whole affair to rest by providing copies of checks repaying the $\1/4\ million loan.

My personal guess is they can't because those payments never happened.

If a wealthy friend forgave a $\1/4\ million loan to Justice Thomas, the law requires that he declare it.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, it is essential that Justice Thomas list that income on his taxes. He is also required to disclose the money on his financial disclosure report. Based on what we have seen, it

seems like he did neither. Our laws, including our tax laws, have to apply to everyone. The law applies to everyone, especially one of the nine most powerful jurists in America. Congress must ensure that they do.

It is time for Justice Thomas to respond with the facts about this $\1/4\ million loan and any similar money and gifts he has received as a Supreme Court Justice.

Now, Madam President, I am going to yield to my colleague on the Finance Committee. He is also the chairman of the Budget Committee and chairman of the important Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, our colleague Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of our team be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress: Steven Mapes, Jordan Harrington, and Janelle Conrad.

Madam President, ensuring Americans' right to access, read, and understand the law is critical to the functioning of our democracy. Whether text with the force of law is found in statute or regulation or whether it has been incorporated by reference, it is essential that all members of the public have fair and equitable access to the legal standards by which they must abide.

Unfortunately, I have concerns that the Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes (Pro Codes) Act would hinder, rather than enhance, the public's access to technical or voluntary consensus standards that have been incorporated into law by reference. This bill explicitly allows standards-setting organizations to require that a member of the public create an account or agree to terms of service as a condition of access. Requiring that an interested party surrender personal information to, or enter into a binding contract with, a private entity in order to read the law raises concerns of privacy and fairness.

I am also troubled that the bill lacks robust standards for public accessibility. It does not require standards to be made available in print or in person, and it does not require standards to be searchable, machine-readable, or accessible to persons with disabilities. In this way, the Pro Codes Act risks creating barriers to access for many Americans, including researchers and reporters, those without reliable internet service, and individuals with visual impairments.

For these reasons, I will object to any unanimous consent agreement regarding the Pro Codes Act.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 118th Congress: Tiffany Chenneville and Eoghan Stafford.

Madam President, I rise today with my colleagues to pay tribute to a special friend and our former colleague, Senator Kohl of Wisconsin.

I was fortunate enough to be able to serve with Herb Kohl during his service in the Senate and have been equally fortunate to know his wonderful family.

I have been listening to my colleagues describe Senator Kohl, and I thought that I would describe him in a way that Herb Kohl would never describe himself as being. That is because he was too modest.

The fact is, Herb Kohl was really the embodiment of what we Jews know as tikkun olam, which is a belief that all of us have a responsibility to leave our world and our communities better off than we found them. Herb did that day in and day out, living his life always trying to boost the well-being of those less fortunate.

As my colleagues have been saying, Herb Kohl didn't need to go into public service, but what we are all saying today is that public service desperately needs people like Herb Kohl: a successful businessperson, passionate about improving his home State of Wisconsin and his country through public service.

When most people think of a U.S. Senator, my guess is they have an image of somebody who loves to hear themselves talk, puts out a blizzard of news releases, tweets every day, and aims to take credit for lots of stuff. Herb Kohl was just the opposite of all that.

For example, at home in Oregon, I always make a point of going to Boys & Girls Clubs to shoot baskets with the kids in the summer. Again and again, I would encounter young people around lunchtime who came to camp ravenous and got two lunches right away. They weren't just hungry; they had had nothing to eat but a candy bar since the day before.

Local Boys & Girls Clubs helped kids get substantial, nourishing meals, and they are always trying to find ways to get extra food to kids in need, particularly as the week comes to a close and many kids are facing a weekend in the summer not knowing where their next meal would come from.

I assume my colleagues know this. It wasn't until years after I had been going to shoot hoops in the summer

with the Boys & Girls Clubs--it wasn't until years later that I found out that Herb Kohl, our Herb Kohl, was giving generous support to those Boys & Girls Clubs for years. But did he say a word about it to my colleagues, to me? We talked basketball all the time, but he never talked about how he stepped in to help all those future hoopsters. And that was Herb Kohl in a nutshell. He would see a need for his community, and without any fanfare, without any notice, without any press releases, Herb Kohl didn't act like a Senator; he just acted in the spirit of tikkun olam. He stepped up. He wanted to help. He never asked for an award, never saw himself with a picture of himself in a blue suit and a red tie getting some kind of award.

A number of Senators over the years--and I think this echoes what my colleagues have said--they said that Herb was very nice to them and very polite. I heard Senator Klobuchar talk about work on antitrust stuff. But a lot of colleagues would come up to you and they would say our first name and they would say: But I haven't really had a lot of extended conversations with Senator Kohl. Now, we know it was not because he was unpleasant or wished somebody ill but because he was very private, putting in the work each day to make good on his pledges to Wisconsin families and so many others.

All of us read the really wonderful, gracious obituary for Senator Kohl in the New York Times. One of the reasons I wanted to come to the floor today was to mention a couple of things that they didn't even manage to get into that wonderful obituary. It was terrific. But let me give some examples.

My background is working with the Gray Panthers, working with the elderly. I was thrilled to be able to work under him when he was chair of the Aging Committee. When it came to seniors, no issue for Senator Kohl was too small or too insignificant for him to tackle. He tackled end-of-life issues and long-term care, addressing unemployment among older workers, protecting seniors from financial abuse, tried to help them save for retirement. All of us could go through this laundry list of accomplishments. Not all of those ideas might have been on the front page of the paper, but they represented the quiet and thoughtful workhorse that Herb Kohl was.

Older Americans had no better ally than they did in Senator Kohl. Through all the partisan infighting, he always worked on those senior issues because he saw that as ground that was exempt from all the pettiness that drives so much of politics.

I will close with this: I was especially appreciative that Senator Kohl, in his quiet way, had the vision to look down the road at big challenges. For example, he talked to me often--and I am sure my colleagues as well--about how the guarantee of Medicare had evolved over the years. In other words, Senator Kohl knew that Medicare was not a voucher, that it wasn't some piece of paper, some snippet of paper; it was a guarantee of Medicare. He also knew that it had evolved over the years. It is still continuing with the prescription drug benefit. He knew the program inside out, and Senator Kohl would always say to me: Let's just keep figuring out how to update the Medicare guarantee, protect the elderly, and promote choice and alternatives without compromising the protections that older people deserve.

Let me just say to my colleagues, as chair of the Finance Committee, if you walk into the Senate Finance Committee room today and you talk about the issues relating to Medicare and Medicare Advantage and them spending $6 billion on garbage advertising, Herb Kohl was telling us years ago there were supposed to be guardrails for that, there were supposed to be protections for that. That was Herb Kohl--thinking down the road as well as helping people today.

So I am really pleased to be here with my good friends, and I will just close with one last point. I think one of my colleagues talked about it. Senator Klobuchar knew that the Senate was kind of a community, and I suspect that there are a few people in the House today who understand that as well. But when staff was working late at night-- they might have a bill or an amendment or something or maybe they would be working on a project where staff was helping the bigger campus community--and it would get to be 8 or 9 o'clock at night and people were kind of hoping that somehow, out of the sky, a pizza would arrive--not with Herb Kohl. When it got to be 9 o'clock, we got ourselves a real dinner, and nobody knew where it came from, but a handful of us did.

Until his last days, Herb Kohl practiced tikkun olam. That is why you have some of my most thoughtful colleagues--the Senate is made up of a lot of people, but I have just been here a few minutes, and I heard Senator Baldwin, Senator Klobuchar, and my partner from Oregon, Senator Merkley. These are the kind of people who also represent the best of public service. That is why all of us are here--because our hearts are heavy today because we so admired him, we so appreciated him.

I send my love tonight to Sid and Dorothy and Lisa and the whole family because they continue to represent the ideals Herb Kohl stood for.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I lift my intent to object to Executive Calendar No. 262, the promotion of Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh to the grade of general and, consequently, to be the Director of the National Security Agency--NSA--and commander of U.S. Cyber Command. I have received the information I sought from the Department of Defense and NSA in connection with the nomination.

Madam President, I don't want to make this a bouquet- tossing contest. The fact is, the four Senators on the floor have together put in decades and decades and decades prosecuting the cause of clean energy. And the fact of the matter is, we had tried a lot of things over the years. We tried cap and trade.

I was a strong supporter of Senator Markey's efforts. We tried carbon taxes. We tried border adjustment. And particularly three of the four Members over here are from the Finance Committee--they were willing to take the risk of saying we ought to basically, if not throw the Tax Code in the garbage can as it relates to energy, get pretty darned close in terms of creating a whole new set of incentives.

I am going to speak about Martin O'Malley's candidacy here for a few minutes. But I just wanted to say to these four, we would not have even gotten a major climate bill out of the Senate Finance Committee to break 50 years of gridlock. That is how the New York Times described it: 50 years of trying. And the Finance Committee broke that gridlock. It wouldn't have happened without these four Senators. I want them to know that.

Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, we hear often about this matter of taxing college endowments, that somehow this is going to address college affordability and make the Tax Code, you know, more fair.

I am the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and I gather that my colleague has just introduced this legislation--maybe as recently as today. I think it is appropriate that before we start making tax policy on the floor of the U.S. Senate, we have a chance to actually have the Senate look at some of the details.

For example, if we are going to talk about tax fairness, I will just say to the Senator from Ohio that I welcome that. I am the author of the bill to say that billionaires, who now, under the current Tax Code, can go for years and years paying little or no taxes--I am the author of the proposal that would change it. All you have to do is change three words: buy, borrow, and die. That is how they do it--buy, borrow, die, and pay little or nothing for years on end.

So what we ought to do is take the Senator's ideas and anybody else's, you know, ideas and bring them to the Senate Finance Committee. I will tell you I have not seen any evidence in the past about how, somehow, the kind of tax my colleague wants to levy is going to somehow make things better for students, which is what I want to do.

This tax legislation has not been considered by the Senate Finance Committee. That is the correct place to hold a robust discussion about fairness and affordability. For that reason, I object.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I just heard about this legislative idea a few minutes ago. So I really have very little information about it.

But what I can tell you is, we already know what the bottom line is. The amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana will hurt honest taxpayers and will help wealthy tax cheats. That is the bottom line.

Now, I am all for seafood inspections. We have got loads of seafood in our part of the world. But I want to take just a minute to talk about the reasons that Members of this body ought to oppose the legislation.

First--and the Congressional Budget Office has made this point--this amendment uses the fake offset of cutting IRS funding. The cut in IRS funding included in this amendment doesn't pay for an increase in seafood inspections; it increases the deficit. And the reason I say that is because that is what the Congressional Budget Office says about these ideas.

The Congressional Budget Office are the folks that we put in place to give us objective, nonpolitical analyses of various important ideas. The Congressional Budget Office are the people that we use on the Finance Committee regularly, and the Congressional Budget Office has said that every dollar cut from the IRS budget reduces revenue by $2. And that increases the deficit.

Second, this has given a big pass to wealthy tax cheats. People need to know that the reason there is a focus on IRS enforcement is because the wealthy tax cheats have the lawyers and accountants, and they have all kinds of ways to get around the rules. The working families that we represent--the folks in Michigan, the automobile workers--pay taxes with every single paycheck. We know what kind of financing they have because they pay with every check. It is the wealthy tax cheats that we have to deal with.

And I just say to my friend, the kind of person that he has given a pass to is--we recently found almost a thousand millionaires who didn't even file a tax return. Not one of the scams--they didn't even file a tax return, almost a thousand millionaires. The Federal Government lost more than $30 billion just on that.

So the Senate ought to be focusing on making sure that we have tough IRS enforcement, that we have the funding to improve services for all taxpayers--all of them--and, particularly, ending the free ride, once and for all, for wealthy tax cheats.

And the service has gone up. We have seen reduction in waiting times for calls from 28 minutes to 3 minutes.

I wish I had time to have a more extended exchange with my colleague. We are, right now, in our caucus meeting having debates on important issues.

But I would just say, in the future, if my colleague could even give us 15- or 20-minutes' notice, we could maybe have a more extended discussion.

The people who get help here are wealthy tax cheats. The people who are hurt here are honest taxpayers. And for that reason, I object.

Mr. President, I expect that the Senate will soon pass by unanimous consent the Blackburn-Ossoff REPORT Act. This bill will strengthen the Nation's centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children, operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to better protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation. Senators Blackburn and Ossoff worked closely with me to make important changes to this bill to require that the upgraded CyberTipline be secured consistent with Federal cybersecurity best practices, so that hackers are not able to steal and then distribute the extremely sensitive images and videos documenting abuse that are stored in this system. I sincerely appreciate their partnership on this important issue.

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