delivering him the border security or the immigration reform that he wanted, he used his pen, and he did what i certainly did not believe was constitutional. as a matter of fact, a couple years before that he said he didn't have the constitutional authority to do this, but he did it anyway. it's bee -- been challenged in the courts ever since. but the most significant thing about the deferred action childhood arrivals, other than its unconstitutionality, is what it sparked, what it was a catalyst for. it was passed in june of 2012. lo and behold, -- and it's not a coincidence -- in 2012, all of a sudden that less than 4,000 annual average became 10,000. the following year, 2013, 20,805 unaccompanied children entered the country illegally and were

apprehended. 2014, that was the crisis year. that's when president obama even admitted that this is a humanitarian crisis. we had 51, 726 unaccompanied children exploiting our immigration laws, our asylum laws all because of daca. by the way, what happened in central america with the passage of daca is the coyotes, the human traffickers, some of the most evil people on the planet. i'll talk about that later. they talked about the fact that america changed their policy. as an unaccompanied child, you can get into america, you will be given a piece of paper. it's called a permiso. permission to enter the country. that's not what it was at all. it was a notice to appear. but you know what? the coyotes lie, and they lied to central americans. so vulnerable children put their

hands -- themselves in the hands of again some of the most evil people on the planet. and that sparked that crisis. now, the obama administration reacted. i remember going down when i became chairman of the committee on a bipartisan trip to the border, down to mcallen, texas. at that point in time, customs and board patrol were overwhelmed, but they did what customs and border patrol often do. they rose to the challenge. and they dealt with this humanitarian crisis as humanely as they possibly can. they built a facility. now, they put up chainlink fences so they could keep the children safe, the young ones from the older ones or from the adults. on a bipartisan basis, we sung customs and border patrol's

praises. fax forward to the crisis of 2018-2019, and all of a sudden that exact same facility that was actually upgraded, it was better than it was, it was more humane, all of a sudden my democrat colleagues started calling that facility one that housed children in cages. what hypocrisy. you can see through 2019, once the obama administration started detaining families together, they stemmed the tide, but that didn't last for long, as i will demonstrate on my next chart. a quick explanation of this chart. the gold bars are single adults. it's been an ongoing problem. we're always going to have -- in some way, shape, or form, we're

going to have single adults coming into this country illegally through the southwestern border. what we never had in the past was this surge, this crisis level of illegal immigration by children and families. by the way, some are real families. many are not. many are families of one adult and one child. sometimes they are a child that has been sold to them. moo my community, we heard testimony of a child being sold for $84. we have heard of children being recycled to be used by multiple adults so they can come as a family and exploit our laws. let me explain how they exploit them. this chart starts in 2012 with the passage of daca. again, single adults are gold. red are unaccompanied children. blue are family units. so you can see the humanitarian crisis in 2014.

it doesn't look like much of a crisis in comparison to 2018 and our current crisis which this administration is completely denying. completely denying. we had secretary mayorkas in front of our committee two weeks ago. i can't tell you how surreal it was as he blamed the previous administration for the crisis he created. and he talked about how it's getting better. it's improving because we're getting more efficient. yeah, we're getting more efficient at processing the disbursing. that's not solving the problem. but let me go back, because what this chart does, it has the cause and effect. daca, the catalyst of all of this, sparked it all. made citizens of central america realize their immigration system

was broken and easily exploitable. you can see where president obama declares the 2014 crisis a humanitarian crisis. then president obama instituted a family detention policy, a consequence. he couldn't just cross into america and get dispersed throughout the country, never to show up for your immigration hearing, move into the shadows, potentially be exploited by human traffickers and their agents here in america, and that actually helps stem the problem. pretty well solved the problem. until a court reinterpreted the flores decision. now, the flores decision dates back many years, but one little girl who came to this country, established standards, humanitarian standards, which i don't disagree with.

america is a humane nation. we're a nation of immigrants. but it has to be a legal process. the flores decision dealt with unaccompanied minors. it makes sure that they can always stay in c.b.p.'s, isis custody for only so long before they had to be turned over to health and human services to then find sponsors or parents. there was a time limit on it. but what the flores interpretation did, i think incorrectly as did president obama's d.h.s. secretary jeh johnson completely disagree with the decision, that that court, that unelected court, pretty much out of plain cloth or whole cloth said oh, no, the flores decision or agreement applies to accompanied children as well.

it didn't, but all of a sudden it did by court order. that created some real problems for the obama administration. they had to choose do they continue to detain families as a deterrent, as a consequence, to fix this problem or do they separate them so they could detain the -- the adult while they complied with the law under the court decision. well, what they decided to do -- and i can't fault them for this -- is they kept the families together and they dispersed them all. that really instituted the process, the policy, the horrible policy of catch and release. almost open borders. now, it took a while for people to understand what was happening. it took a couple of years.

but by the summer of 2019, the citizens of central america were well aware of how exploitable our laws were, and guess what? they exploited them. now, i certainly learned from the experience of michael chertoff -- back i believe in 2008, it might have been an earlier year, when we had a surge of resilience coming into mexico and then coming illegally in this country to the southern border. i don't have the exact numbers, but i think it's something like 30,000 in a short period of time. what secretary chertoff did at that point in time is he instituted a program called texas hold em. basically what it was was a consequence. apprehended brazilians and sent them right back to brazil. within a month, the flow of

illegal brazilians was cut by about 90%. problem solved. there was a consequence. we didn't have catch and release of brazilians like we now had and we have again catch and release of central americans coming into this country. based on that experience working with the senior senator of arizona, who is on my committee, we proposed something called operation safe return. the basic premise of that program would be once apprehended, we would quickly adjudicate that initial asylum claim to see whether there really was a valid, credible fear. understand, if adjudicated, most of the people coming into this country do not have a valid asylum claim. as generous as our asylum system is, coming here for economic

reasons is not a valid asylum claim, and that's the majority of why people come here. what became of operation safe return to a certain extent is the trump administration's policy of migrant protection program, also known as return to mexico. a consequence. now, again, i call my program operation safe return. quickly adjudicate those who don't have a valid asylum claim, we safely return them to central america. and i would have been happy to expend funds to make sure that there were centers to accept people so they could be accepted safely. the trump administration instead instituted the migrant protection program and turned to mexico, and i realize that there are people that don't particularly like that program, but it worked.

it's undeniable that it worked. they institute it right here. mexico wasn't particularly cooperating, so president trump threatened them with tariffs. all of a sudden it got mexico's attention. mexico started cooperating. you can see how the numbers dropped precipitously. we basically stopped the flow of children and children being used to create family units, and we have the problem solved before covid hit. so this is how you solve the problem. unfortunately, during the 2020 election, every democrat presidential candidate vowed to stop deportations, and also vowed to provide free health care. now, i don't deny the push factor out of central america. i don't deny the violence, the corruption. when i went down there on a

codel, bipartisan codel, i was surprised, talking to the presence of guatemala and honduras, they talked about corruption and impunity. i understand corruption. what do you mean by impunity? well, impunity is pervasive in their society because of the drug cartels. now, why do we have drug cartels down in central america? it's because of america's insatiable demand for drugs. that's the root cause. the root cause of this problem, the push factor isn't the violence. the root cause is our insatiable demand for drugs, which puts billions of dollars in the pockets of the other most evil people on the planet, the drug cartels, the drug traffickers. by the way, what we did in our drug interdiction relatively successfully is we shut down the drug flow from colombia up to

the caribbean into florida, and we just redirected it into central america and destroyed those nations. but because those drug cartels are untouchable, they're untouchable. one story i heard a new police chief, first day on the job he gets a d.v.d. the d.v.d. is off his wife and children going to church, going into school. a pretty powerful message -- don't mess with us, and they don't. and so that level of impunity for the drug cartels because pervasive through society. then you have the extortionists, that if you're a cab driver, you better pay the fee or they will shoot you and burn you in your cab. that's what impunity means. that level of violence is facilitated by our insatiable demand for drugs. so if you're going to fix that root cause, if you're going to

solve the problem of violence in central america, you've got to actually fix the root cause, which is our insatiable demand for drugs. i wish we could. i wish it was easy to do. it's not. so if you want to stop illegal immigration so that we can fix the problem of the daca kids, so we can establish a legal immigration system that works for all of us. i mentioned my codel down to central america, the presidents of central america tell me, they begged me please fix your laws. this isn't good for our countries. we are losing our future. we need these people who the vast majority i would argue are hard-working, are coming here to improve their lot in life. i can't blame them for that, but it has to be a legal process. but that's not working for central america. it's going to further impoverish

central america. it's not an economic model that work and is not good for migrants that get in this country, live in the shadows, are still under the control of the drug cartels or human traffickers, especially the young men, the 15, 16, 17 -year-olds are used by the drug traffickers to traffic drugs. the sex trade, the other involuntary servitude. this is not a good process. we need to solve the problem of illegal immigration, control our borders so we can have a functioning legal immigration system. what happened? what caused this? isn't it obvious? you can see the increase of adults coming into this country illegally during the presidential debates. when democratic presidential candidates are going hey, if i get elected president, no more

deportations. i'm going to give you free health care. we'll take care of you. that's a huge incentive, and they came. and then i think it was the first day, maybe the second day, maybe waited that long, president biden dismantled the successful migrant protection program, remain in mexico. and the rest is a very, very, very sad history. i mentioned, i mentioned two weeks ago we had secretary mayorkas come before our committee. it was surreal. the way they denied that they had anything to do with this, that this was an inherited problem. i mean if it was inherited, it

was inherited by the obama administration and daca and an incorrect court decision. i'll admit it was inherited there. it wasn't inherited here. the problem had been solved. it had been fixed. what's so tragic about this is we have pretty well taken the first step to solving the problem, to having immigration reform, controlling the border, keep these successful policies in place and build a fence, then you can address daca. then you can set up a functioning legal immigration system. unfortunately i only had one round of questions, only seven minutes with secretary mayorkas. again, as he was dodging responsibility, i didn't get to ask a lot of questions. here's a list of questions that i wanted to ask secretary mayorkas in his second round that i didn't get. i wanted to ask secretary

mayorkas whether or not he was aware that human traffickers sell children to adults so they can exploit our asylum laws as posing for a family unit. i wanted to know whether he was aware of that. i'm quite sure the vice president is because the vice president was on my committee. she heard this testimony. she should be aware of it. she should go down to the border. i wanted to ask him are you aware that we heard testimony under my chairmanship that a child was sold for $84. i wanted to ask secretary mayorkas are you aware that children are recycled, that they're sent back over the border to be used by another adult to pose as a family unit and exploit our asylum laws? i wanted to ask him how are they verifying that a child belongs to an adult. in one of my trips down to the border, having heard that

children are being sold, that they're being recycled that many of these family units aren't real family units, i saw about a 50-year-old man. he was holding probably about a two-year-old little girl. i can't be sure, i don't speak spanish, i don't think he would have admitted it. but my assessment was that was not his little girl. obltions same trip we -- on that same trip we heard about a three-year-old boy abandoned in a hot cornfield with a telephone number written on his shoe because the adult that he was posing as that person's child didn't need him anymore, and just abandoned him. i wanted to ask the secretary are they doing d.n.a. tests. and if so, what percentage of family units are being tested. i wanted to ask the secretary is he aware that human traffickers throw children out of their

rafts when they are interdicted by law enforcement. when we were down at the border with 18 of my colleagues, we saw a floating body in the rio grande. the next day a nine-year-old girl drowned in the rio grande. during one of my hearings, i showed a picture, and it wasn't a fun picture to show but i thought it was something we should see of oscar alberto martinez ram mercy and his two two-year-old daughter valeria face down, drowned in the rio grande. i wanted to ask secretary mayorkas is he aware of the fact that migrant girls are given birth control because they know such a large percentage are going to be raped during their dangerous journey. that president biden's policies are incentivizing. i wanted to know whether secretary mayorkas was aware of

the kidnappings, the beatings, the abuse and the additional ransoms demanded by the human traffickers. i wanted to know whether or not he knows how much the human traffickers charge for their human prey and if he's knowledgeable about how they pay off their debt. some pay in advance, some don't have the money, some pay later. how do you think a pretty young girl pays off her human trafficking debt? how do you think a young minor, a 15, 16, 17-year-old boy who can traffic drugs, how do you think he pays off his debt? i think it's pretty obvious. i wanted to know does he know how many young girls are forced into sex trade or young men are forced into involuntary servitude or used to traffic drugs or are gang members. i wanted to know. i wanted to know if he is fully

aware how president biden's policies created this crisis and how those policies are facilitating the multibillion-dollar business model of some of the most evil people on the planet. i wanted to know. i still want to know. i think this administration, i think secretary mayorkas needs to be held accountable for this human tragedy. apparently these policies are meant to be more humane. they are the exact opposite. the inhumanity is untold and only growing and they're continuing. so again, what's so tragic about all this in addition to the human tragedy is the fact that we're so close. we had pretty well taken that first step in any immigration

reform. we stopped the flow or dramatically reduced it and we were building the fence. and there's only 250 miles yet to build that we had already paid for. what a waste of the american taxpayer money that we don't even complete that fence and a waste of an opportunity that we can't take that first step, complete that first step for true immigration reform. so again, this amendment, it was voted on, defeated largely party-line vote. only the senior senator from west virginia joined us. and it's just such a shame. america hungers for comity. america hungers for bipartisanship. this is the kind of bipartisanship they would

appreciate, that doesn't mortgage our future, that actually fixes the problem as opposed to the bill we're considering right now, the bipartisanship that always concerns me, a mad spending spree, deficit spending where over the last 18 months we've already spent about $7 trillion that we don't have. i am shocked, by the way, of the reports that the president's budget is going to be $6 trillion announced tomorrow, another $7 trillion in other types of -- it boggles your mind. that's not the right kind of bipartisanship. that's the type of bipartisanship that mortgages our children's future and bankrupts this nation. so, mr. president, i think i've probably had enough time here. i see a number of my colleagues would also like to make a few

points. i'll yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. i wanted to make two points. first, i want to associate myself with the remarks of some of my colleagues earlier about the fact that we don't know what's in this bill. and that's not a criticism of anyone or any party. you can only absorb so much. if you define our job,

mr. president, at least in part as representing our people and knowing what we're voting on when we vote, i would respectfully suggest we'd be better off having our staff vote. now i doubt there are more than one or two, maybe three staff members that really know nova nova -- know have a global macro picture of what's in the bill, but at least our staffs know more about it than we do. and that's not a criticism of anybody or any party. that's just a fact. and i think if you just pick ten senators at random and ask them off the record, do you know what's in this bill. not every word, but do you have a general, general idea of everything in this bill?

nine out of ten will tell you that they don't, and the tenth is probably lying. now i've said before, i've said before, mr. president -- and i really think that's a shame. i've said before, and i meant it, i know some of my colleagues better than others, but i think i know all of my colleagues. in the the senate, these are the most interesting, complex -- that's in part why they're interesting people -- i've ever been around. there are some enormously talented people in this body. and when a, when a particular senator -- let me just pick one at random. when senator scott doesn't have time to understand, or senator durbin doesn't have time to

figure out everything that's in a bill because things are moving so fast, that shortchanges all of us. they're talented people. they may be able to say something, what about this provision? this doesn't make sense. what do you think, kennedy? what do you think, senator murphy? so that really bothers me. and that's not a criticism of my democratic friends, and that's not a criticism of the majority leader, senator schumer. it wasn't any better when the republicans were in control. and i just, i just think that'so sad, so unfortunate, and it's so avoidable. i understand that floor time is limited, so we want to do things quickly around here. but there's no law that says we can't start earlier and work

later. there's no law that says we can't cooperate in terms of allowing the majority to have more floor time so that all of us have a greater opportunity to understand what we're voting on. i mean, excuse me, senator scott, look at that. i think that's only a portion of the bill. honestly, now, the second point i wanted to make, i learned real quickly when i got here, mr. president, that senators are like cats. they do what they want. why is that? because we have minority rights. our rules pretty much are written to protect the minority.

so a fair question is how do we ever get anything done. well, we do it by consent. we couldn't run this place without consent. and we give our consent automatically to a lot of relatively trivial matters. the day-to-day functioning of the senate. but yet we don't readily give our consent -- or at least not readily as we should -- when we're dealing with more important matters, like the endless frontier act. now, i voted to get on this bill because i was told that we were going to have an open amendment process.

in my judgment, we didn't have an open amendment process. that's not a criticism of the democratic majority and it's not a criticism of senator schumer. it wasn't a damn bit better when the republicans had the majority. it just wasn't. an open amendment process, to me, means that any senator should be able to come to this floor, respecting each other so that we allot ourselves time, and offer an amendment for all of us to hear. now obviously you can't spend 20 hours on one amendment, but if someone wants to present an amendment, i think five minutes would be sufficient. we do that all the time in a vote-a-rama. and when people -- some people

say when i raised this issue, they say, vote-a-ramas are terrible because we're here all night. we don't have to be here all night. you can start a vote-a-rama at 8:00 in the morning and stop at 5:30 or 6:00. that's an open amendment process. an open amendment process -- i was told we'd have an open amendment process. i wouldn't have gotten on this bill otherwise. now, i don't know how it works on the democratic side. i suspect it works very similar the way it works on our side. you have an amendment, but you have to get permission of other senators to even offer your amendment. you got to go see the bill manager. you got to see the majority leader. you got to see the committee chairman. you got to see the ranking member. and anybody can say no, i just don't like your amendment. and i think it works the same way on the democratic side.

that's not an open amendment process. not even close. and you say, a well, why does it matter? you know, we have seniority and we elect our leaders, and i get all of that. but nobody is infallible. i'll give you a specific example. we're giving in this bill -- i'm told; it could have changed overnight -- but about $56 billion to the semiconductor industry. and we're told we need to do that because the semiconductor industry, private semiconductor industry, is essential to our ability to compete with china. so far so good. there are a lot of companies that are essential to competing in the global economy. the finance industry, the energy

industry, the banking industry. we have to eat -- farmers. you could marshal a pretty persuasive argument that they're essential, too but this bill singles out the semiconductor industry for $56 billion. and i believe -- i'm not sure because it could have changed -- that we're giving president biden the authority to give up to $3 billion to each private company. so we're picking winners and losers. some people like that, some people don't. i get it. that's why god made votes. we'll have a vote on it. but the fact is that we're doing it. senator sanders had a very interesting idea. in fact, it's an idea that i had on my side as well. he said, look, if we're taking taxpayer money and we're giving

it to private companies, why don't we let the taxpayers participate in the up side? why don't we give taxpayers -- you can't give individual taxpayers, but you can certainly give, say, the department of treasury on behalf of taxpayers warrants or stock options. so if president biden -- if this bill passes and president biden exercises his authority to give $3 billion to x, y, z semiconductor company and the semiconductor company uses that capital wisely and triples its profits and its stock goes up 233%, the american taxpayer has warrants or stock options. now, i'm not speaking for senator sanders. i hadn't really had a chance to

talk about bernie about his idea, i'm just intrigued about t i had a similar idea. i wanted to use stock options on my side. by my side, i mean the republican side. i offered it up, and it's still floating around. its probably in a black hole somewhere. none of the powers that be on my side -- they said, we're not going toilet you do that -- going to let you do that. that's not an open amendment process. it's honestly not. and i hear this business about regular order, and i'm not arguing that we're not following regular order. it's just that regular order is irregular. i mean, this is incredibly talented group of people and we ought to be able to design a parliamentary procedure that looks like somebody designed it

on purpose, so that every single member in this body has a chance to offer input and to have his or her ideas seriously considered. and it won't be an unwieldy process. we do it all the time with the vote-a-rama. now, vote-a-rama, i'm going to come back to a point i made earlier, but i want to emphasize it. vote-a-ramas can be painful. nobody likes to stay up all night. but we don't have to stay up all night. we can start at a reasonable hour and end at a reasonable hour. and i dare say, mr. president, that if you took all the time that we have spent collectively over the last week or so in the back rooms making deals, making

side deals, saying you can't have your amendment, yeah, i like your amendment, no, that's a dumb idea -- none of which is transparent until we come up finally with some kind of package that makes probably 75% of the folks mad and mostly 100% don't know what's in it. if we took all the time that we spent on that and instead spent it by saying, okay, here's the bill. you have a reasonable amount of time to understand what's in it. and now we're going to start the amendment process. and there's going to be five minutes to present your amendment and there'll be five minutes to argue by an opponent. we're going to really have 20-minute votes. we're going to start at a reasonable hour and we're going to end at a reasonable hour and then we'll come back and do it the incomes day. and, yes, we'll burn maybe five,

six days of floor time but the minority party is is going to cooperate with the majority party in terms of helping it preserve floor time that it has to have to do other things. i'm not criticizing senator schumer. the republicans did the same thing when we had the majority. but i just think we're wasting an enormous amount of talent in this body by, a, not giving them a voice -- witness senator sanders' warrant idea. i don't know what happened on his side of the aisle. on my side of the aisle when i brought it it up, they killed it deader than a doornail. and that's not an open amendment process. we also are wasting an enormous amount of talent because we're

not -- in offering these ideas to each other, we're not getting the benefit of the wisdom of our colleagues. and so i wanted to get that off my chest, mr. president, and that's about all i have to say. and i appreciate your attention. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: i thank my colleagues for the concerns about this bill. i've been up here a little over two years. i originally ran for office because i had the same concerns about where the state of florida was going as i have concerns about where our federal government is going. i ran for governor in 2010, and in the four years ending at the end of the 2010, the state of florida lost 832,000 jobs.

home prices dropped in half. we had i think close to a million people on unemployment, and we had i think a little over 1.1 million homes in foreclosure. if you looked at all the articles, they said that opportunity for the sunshine state was over. and i didn't believe it. i believe that if you run government in a responsible manner, you have unbelievable opportunities for individuals. and the reason i believe this is i.t. the life that -- it's the life that i've had the opportunity to lead -- or live in this country. i grew up in the -- i was born in the great state of illinois. we lived in public housing. i had a single mom. and she told me that i could be anything. she said, if you'll study hard and if you'll go to church all the time, if you are an eagle

scout and you go figure out how to work, there is a no limitation. you can build a company. you can do whatever you want. i actually believed her. i had built companies, employed a lot of people, had a lot of opportunity. so i ran for governor in 2010 with the belief that you could turn around the state of florida. at the time i believe there was, you know, the way the country and the state of florida was going, it was not a great place for families like mine growing up. so i ran on a campaign of 700,000 jobs over seven years. and all the economists said, we couldn't get 700,000 jobs in seven years. it was not doable. most of them said we could even get single-digit unemployment in seven or eight years. people wouldn't move to the state. so i shocked everybody and i won a primary and general election. i set about to do exactly what i said we could do.

we added -- we reduced taxes. every year we watched how we spent the money. we allocated dollars where we could get more jobs. and we added 1.7 million jobs, not 700,000 jobs. when you do that, what happened was the revenues grow. and we were able to have record funding for education, for the environment, for transportation. we ended up becoming number one in higher education. i guess generally about the top five in k-12 education. and record funding for things like the everglades. so i believe you can do the same thing up here and that's why i came up here. i came up here with the belief that if you start looking at how you spend the money, the way we did it in florida was there's about 4,000 lines of the budget.

we went through every line every year and we said, do we get a return? what do we get for that? and if we didn't get a return, then we didn't -- we didn't do it the next year. so my goal is to do the exact same thing up here. let's look at where our country is right now. we have almost $30 trillion in debt. we're running a trillion -- multi-trillion-dollar deficits. that's not sustainable. and by the way, who are we going to hurt long term? it's not going to be the rich. it's going to be the poor, people on fixed income. look at the inflation numbers right now. inflation is caused by reckless spending. that's what it's caused by. the spending we have done this year is unbelievable. $1.9 trillion. supposedly for covid. very little to do with covid. less than 10%. 1% for vaccines. let's look at what's happened to inflation.

in the 12 months ended in april, the consumer price index is up 4.2%. the consumer price index is up over 6%. milk in 12 months, up over 5%. bread over 7%. gas over 51%. now, if you have a lot of money, that's not going to change your life, but if you're struggling for food or you're struggling to put food on the table, a 5% or 10% increase, that's a pretty big impact. and you see when the cost to fill up your gas tank to go to work dramatically increases, it's a big impact. all this is caused by government spending, reckless government spending, excessive government spending. you can't run trillion-dollar deficits, you can't have a federal reserve that continues to buy treasuries every month without ending up with inflation. that's exactly where we are. the only way out of this is to

watch -- start watching how we spend our money. and this bill, there might be some good things in this bill, but we're spending money recklessly. so i have a real concern. why are we rushing through this? why don't we take the time, take the time so all americans have a chance to read it, know what's in it, tell us what they like and don't like. why rush through it where nobody in this chamber knows everything that's in this bill? it's impossible. it's gone way too fast, with all these amendments. there is no way that it can happen. the other thing i want to talk about is china. communist china is an adversary. they are not -- they are not a competitor. they have become an adversary. and we have got to learn how to stand up. just putting more money in a

government program is not what's going to -- how we're going to compete in china. how we're going to compete with china is build up american companies. the government doesn't do that. this year marks the 75th anniversary of winston churchill's speech at westminster college where he famously declared from sitting in the baltic to the adrianic, the iron curtain has descended across the continent. for many these are some of the first announcing the start of the cold war. today the start of -- the threat of communism is once again spread across eastern europe. a malicious and oppressive government communist china has shown it is eager to assert its power across the globe, undermine democracy and human rights, vooment u.s. sanctions and prop up dictators. we have to do something to figure out how to compete better against communist china. the united states has to recognize that a new cold war is

upon us, and with our allies confront this threat and defeat the spread of tyranny, using every diplomatic and military option at our disposal. communist china's intentions for world domination are clear. in its recent $400 billion, 25-year deal with iran provide the ayatollah with a steady military partner, investment source, and oil customer. communist china has now secured a pathway to further extend the reach of its belt and road initiative into the middle east while strengthening its relationship with the world's greatest state sponsor of terror. this dangerous development comes as communist china continues its assault to destroy the democracy in hong kong, it has increased military aggression toward taiwan and furthers its embrace of cuban's oppressive communist regime. not to speak of what they are doing down in venezuela. the position we find ourselves

in today is due to decades of appeasement by washington politicians and corporate america. an attitude that is carried on by many of president biden's cabinet members. throughout the confirmation process, nominee after nominee failed to show a true comprehension of communist china's threat to american security. meanwhile, we continue to see american corporations put profits over people, ignoring communist china's great, horrible human rights abuse and the genocide it is committing to preserve their forced labor-driven supply chains. while i have no faith that biden will be tough on china, i have welcomed and my colleagues have acknowledged the need to comprehensively combat the influence and power of communist china through legislation. sadly, we are squandering this opportunity. i want to be very clear. any plan that tries to broker a compromise on issues over and above the needs of national

security, american jobs or human rights will do nothing more than perpetuate the status quo. since being elected to the u.s. senate, i have sponsored and supported more than 40 pieces of legislation focused on addressing the security of our supply chains, holding communist china fully responsible for disgusting human rights abuses, and genocide against uighur muslims, enhancing our ability to innovate and build up new technology, encountering -- and countering beijing's unfair trade practices. this is where our legislative efforts must begin. we need to cut communist china off for the american economy that relies so heavily upon defeat its communist oppression regime. there is no point in sacrificing our interests for the hope of compromise with a country that will never live up to the end -- never live up to its end of any agreement. it is openly committing genocide and continuously threatens not only america's security but that of our allies in the asian

pacific region. communist china's focused on one thing -- world domination, through oppression and communist rule. we must not be naive in thinking that communist china wants to operate in the modern world and cooperate with other world powers. general secretary xi wants to reshape the world order and to his image is willing to strong-arm anyone that refuses to give into his interests and those of the chinese communist party. if communist china wants to plan an act of world domination, the u.s. must respond appropriately. the u.s. must demonstrate america's strength and resolve and our commitment to our allies. in this new cold war, we have the chance to prove once again that the american style of government, free enterprise, and civil society remains the best system in the world. as the world's greatest beacon of freedom and democracy, the u.s. must do everything we could.

in conjunction with our allies to curb communist china's breach, counter their policies, and punish those who are guilty of the ongoing genocide against the uighurs. whether we like it or not, we are in a new cold war with communist china. i urge my colleagues to join me in actions that display the true resolve of the united states in addressing communist china's destabilizing actions. here is what i am talking about. for too long, the united states has foolishly enabled communist china's oppressive communist dictatorship which is now our greatest international economic security threat. today communist china's belt and road initiative undermines america's standing around the world with the strategy to dominate militarily, economically, and technologically. it has become clear that strategic decoupling from communist china is the most effective way to eliminate general secretary xi's power, protect american jobs, and security. however, politicians in washington and business groups like the u.s. chamber of commerce still argue that decoupling from communist china

hurts american businesses. they are wrong. blind to the plans of general xi and the pain of its citizens, and more concerned with short-term profits than the future of our country. as we chart a new course to advance american trade and interest, i believe we must adopt a bipartisan freedom-first strategy which protects freedom around the world from communist china's growing power and aggression, restores our country's global leadership, an keeps american interests first. what i am proposing is straightforward and achievable. first, we must acknowledge that what has worked in our efforts to ensure free trade and keep policies in place that hold communist china accountable. next, the u.s. has to take decisive steps to strategically remove communist china from our supply chain while supporting the return of critical industries to our shores. and supporting buy-american policies. third, we must engage the

international community and ensure the full support of our allies to create a maximum pressure campaign on communist china until it comes into compliance with all u.s. and international trade laws. finally, the u.s. must lead the world and take bold action to show light on and demand an end to communist china's horrible human rights abuses and the horrific genocide it is committing on its own people. the trump administration took unprecedented action to thoroughly investigate communist china's trade practices and force technology transfers, intellectual property theft, and espionage. the u.s. took action over the past four years to prohibit americans from investing in chinese companies that support communist china's military, adding those companies to a trade blacklist. banned imports of cotton from china's coppin jing region and protecting american research

labs from china government spying and i.p. theft. in congress, i have fought for more than a year to prevent the u.s. government from purchasing technology like drones with american tax dollars from chinese companies backed by their government. we must keep these and other proven policies in place. it's time we acknowledged the fact that when american families buy products made in china, they are supporting this communist regime. we must get communist china out of our supply chain. we can do this through simultaneously separating ties from companies backed by the chinese communist party and rebuilding america's supply chain with american-made products. by properly labeling products with country of origin information, encouraging businesses to return home. we could end our trade inequity with communist china and create countless american jobs to support families and communities across the nation. while decoupling must begin now, we know it's not a process that will be completed overnight. and supply chains must readjust

and remove themselves from the grasp of the chinese communist party. knowing communist party must live up to its agreement, the u.s. must demand the full enforcement of all u.s. and international trade laws. organizations like the world trade organization could no longer sit in the pocket of communist china and the biden administration must insist that the w.t.o. enforce trade practices fairly. this will require a coolish approach and use us -- leaves us well positioned for increased accountability and real consequences for the abusive trade practices communist china has relied on for too long. finally, the freedom-loving nations of the world must band together and say that communist china's horrible human rights violations won't be accepted. general secretary xi has taken away the basic human rights of the people of hong kong. imr&b prisoning more than a million in concentration camps. the state department cannot back down from officially designating this as a genocide, and other

countries must follow this example. that's why i have led a bipartisan effort to demand that the international olympic committee move its 2022 winter olympics out of beijing unless communist china addresses these human rights abuses. the world is counting on the united states to stand firm against the use of slave labor and manufacturing and trade. with regard to the -- the olympics, there is 180 human rights organizations around the world that have asked for the olympics to be moved. the parliament in canada has asked for the olympics to be moved. the international olympics committee has done nothing. it's despicable that the international olympics hasn't already asked the olympics to be moved or moved the olympics, and i have asked for all the sponsors of international olympics to work to try to make sure the olympics get moved. american companies have to do their part to rid their supply chains of abuses. the united states and so many countries around the globe stand for freedom and democracy for

all people. now we must unify and lead the important effort to accomplish this common goal. put american jobs and workers first and counter the harm and unfair trade practices of communist china that have been ilgd nor decades. but surrendering america's strategic position to communist china isn't the only failure of the legislation we are considering today. the other equally significant dangerous issue is the additional deficit spending this bill includes, driving americans even deeper into debt. since first being elected to represent florida, i fought hard to call out wasteful spending and look for solutions to make our government more efficient and accountable to the taxpayers. this should be the foundation of our work and service to our constituents. we can't forget that every dollar the federal government spends is borrowed for the american people. sadly, over the past two years that i have been in washington, i realize that while many politicians make promises to uphold these values, few put their words into practice. it's no wonder then that the national debt continues to grow and grow and grow.

in 2020 alone, the federal government increased its debt by more than $4 trillion. today, as we know, it's headed to $30 trillion. america is clearly in a debt crisis. we need to start talking about it and take decisive action to reverse course. that's why every time i'm faced with the question of taxpayer dollars on government programs, i ask myself simple questions. what is the plan to pay for it? what is the return investment for american families? are there other programs or are we doing the same thing? when was the last time this program was reviewed for its effectiveness? does the proposal include measures to prevent waste and fraud and ensure accountability? are there unnecessary regulations making this more expensive than it needs to be? asking these questions isn't a novel idea. it's the same process i went through every day when i was governor of florida. it's what most americans go through when making financial decisions at home or for their businesses. families do it every night at

their kitchen table. no family would needlessly spend money without a plan. no business can afford to not get a return on their investments. but here, there's no focus on return on investments. the bill we're talking about, we have no idea how much money we're going to spend. spending without consequence isn't how things work in the real world and is not how things should work in government. congress has decades of failure to think and act responsible has led to enormous deficits and out-of-control spending. right now our country is spending out of control, and even before the pandemic when the economy was booming, the federal government was running trillion-dollar annual deficits. this has got to stop. we need real reforms. that's why i proposed amendments to the u.s. constitution requiring a supermajority vote in each house of congress to impose or raise any tax or fee and provide line-item veto authority for the president of the united states. i also led the charge to set no budget, no pay policy in federal law so if congress

doesn't fas a budget on time the most important constitutional responsibility members don't get paid. it's simple. if you don't do your job, you don't get paid. during our vote-a-rama, we voted on this and unfortunately my colleagues on the other side of the aisle all voted against it. with america in such desperate need of leadership to fix our spending and debt problem, you'd think the first thing president biden would do is set a plan to work hard and set things right. think again. four weeks after congress spent $9 billion to address the economic impacts of covid, biden began his presidency with a call for congress to spend another $1.9 trillion. then the democrats passed it by themselves despite the fact that we didn't know how much of the $4.9 trillion stimulus funding already allocated has been spent. today president biden has -- soon president biden is going to propose, sounds like a $7

trillion budget that will take the united states to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since world war ii. this is on top of the $7.1 trillion new spending biden has proposed in his first four months in office. $7.1 trillion. you can't make this stuff up. i think we're only going to collect about $3.5 trillion or so in revenues. how can we keep spending money like this? no family can do it, no person can do it. i've been warning about the danger of reckless spending for years and now we're seeing it play out in real life. president biden's liberal dreams of big government, big debt and high taxes are no longer speculation of. now he's rolling out plans for systemic socialism for all to see. he's already proposed $7.1 trillion in spending in just four months. now another $6 trillion or $7 trillion of american taxpayer dollars on top of that all while holding back needed funding for our military. by the way, as we enter those

1.7 million jobs when i was governor of florida, we were able to pay off a third of the state debt, over $10 billion and cut over $10 billion in taxes. everybody we should be doing up here we did in florida and we can do it here if we start looking at how we spend our money. biden wants to redistribute wealth, make everyone dependent on government, asking our brave men and women in uniform to go without. it's systemic socialism and it's already hurting american families. america is in nearly $30 trillion debt crisis but that won't stop biden's tone-deaf march towards socialism. as the president plans to spend the nation towards oblivion, 87% of americans already believe that we have significantly overspent money and that they know that the federal government spending is causing their inflation. i grew up poor and i know what it's like to watch my family

struggle with inflation because of failed government policies and reckless spending. i watched my mom struggle to put food on the table and watched her as food prices went up, struggled to put food on the table and that's what we're doing to families now all across this country. washington can't spend like this anymore. debt has consequences. massive spending has consequences. tax increases have consequences. all hurt america's poorest families the most. and something else to think about, this summer congress and president biden will face a critical choice of raising or suspending the debt ceiling. congress has made a habit of making that, maxing out america's credit card with no plan to pay for it for decades. failure to rein in deficit spending will inevitably cause high inflation. devastating the purchasing power of all americans and disproportionately impacting low and fixed income families. since the biden administration doesn't have a plan to address this crisis i hope they'll join

me in fiscal restraint, sustainable and responsible debt reduction measures like we did in florida, produce concrete and be affordable limitations of deficit spending. americans understand they can't spend without consequences. it's time for government to embrace this mentality. i saw a poll, 80% of americans are worried about the federal debt and are concerned it's going to lead to financial problems for our country. we have to scrutinize every bill we have, including this bill. are we spending this money well? no one has had the time to read this bill. too often lawmakers in washington pass bills without having time to read them before they vote. these are new laws that impact american families and businesses and sometime are off billions and trillions in tax dollar spending and we don't have time to read these things. it's complete washington dysfunction. it needs to end. this bill is thousands of pages.

it spends hundreds of billions of dollars. in florida my family lived paycheck to paycheck. my mom and adoptive dad struggled but my mom showed me the value of counting pennies, a value i utilized as a businessman for four decades. i had to make payroll, make sure there was money in the bank to make sure everybody got paid. i had to make sure we never ran out of money. first ten rules of business, don't run out of money. my employees count on me every time to make sure we never run out of money. and you look at what this federal government is doing, people are scared to death, what's going to happen to their social security, what's going to happen to medicare. unbelievable deficits and unbelievable debt. when i ran for governor, i said we're not going to do this. we're going to figure out how we can live within our means, and we did it. we watched the pennies, as

governor i had line-item veto and we went through every line every year. if we didn't get a return, we didn't do it. when i took over florida, it was like a failing business. and i was worried about what it was going to be like for my children and grandchildren. the state that i enjoyed living in, i wanted to make sure everybody had the same opportunity i had. but we did it in florida. we turned around the state. we can do the same thing here. i was the first governor in 20 years to actually pay down debt. actually for 20 straight years the state of florida increased debt over $1 billion a year and we paid off over $10 billion in eight years. we can do it here but we've got to start taking with this bill, taking our time and looking at it line by line. do we need to spend this money? do we get a return on our money? is this good for taxpayers and families of this country? i want the next generation to have the same opportunity i had to live the dreams of this country. if we continue down this path,

that opportunity is going to be lost. at some point the bill is going to come due. a famous plea, try and leave this world a little better than you found it. unquote. we are not leaving this country in better shape. you would never do this to your kids and grandkids, leave the debt that we're leaving our kids and our grandkids. the federal government takes in a little over $3 trillion, i think this year $3.5 trillion and is spending trillions more. you can't keep doing that. right now the interest alone are nearly $30 trillion national debt is over half a trillion dollars a year. that's just interest. what are we getting for that? we get nothing for that. it doesn't do anything to help a family. it doesn't help us build our military. it doesn't pay for social security. it doesn't pay for medicare. we know medicare is running out of money. what happens when medicare runs out of money?

doctors and hospitals are going to have to be paid significantly less or medicare recipients are going to have to get less care. i don't want any medicare recipient to get less care. social security is going out of cash reserves by 2034. there is an automatic cut in social security. that's not fair. people are paying into their social security plan. they're not being told there's not going to be enough money there. in this country medicaid costs are increasing about 5% a year. 5%. of the our revenues are not growing 5% a year. and these are called, these programs are called mandatory programs, so we don't have any control over them. i was shocked when i came here that we don't look at the cost of those programs. we don't pass a budget with regard to those programs. it makes it convenient we don't have to vote on it but it's not fair to the american taxpayer. we see what's happening with debt rises. if you look at what happens with a company.

a company when the debt rises and they can't pay their debt, what happens? they go bankrupt. who gets hurt? all the employees that work there, they get work. customers get hurt, suppliers get hurt. that's what happens. we've got to think the same way here. how do we reduce the debt? not how do we increase the debt? this week i held a press conference showing how the democrats reckless spending is increasing the cost of groceries and gasoline. inflation also hits rent not to mention it makes it hard to get a student lone or loan to start base when the interest rate goes up. 83% of americans already tightened their belt. they are worried and know it's caused by what we're doing up here. i've been shocked that president biden has been completely silent about inflation. he hasn't said a word about it. if you listen to secretary yellen, all she says we need to spend more money. they're not looking at what's happening with inflation. next week we get the c.p.i. numbers and p.p.i. numbers and we'll see what they are.

you watch what's happening in families, the poor families and those on fixed income are getting hurt while these prices go up. we've got to stop this. the april consumer price index rose by .8%. that's almost 10% on analyzed basis. annualized basis inflation rate for the past four months has been 7.2% and 6.2% for the first four months. the core inflation rate excluding food and energy on an annual basis rose in april by 11%. a rate not exceeded since june of 1982. these price increases are significant. we don't know if it's temporary. some people say it's temporary but who knows. are they going to go back down? inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. where does that money come from? from reckless federal spending. while it might seem

old-fashioned to ask in this brave new world a modern monetary theory while joe biden declared last year milton friedman isn't running the show anymore. is there reason to be concern that the broad money supply grew by 22% over last year, never in the history of this country have you seen money supply grow like that without having seen significant inflation. if you go back to what happened, the only way they stopped the significant inflation in the past is significantly higher interest rates which hurts every family but especially the family on fixed income and the poor families because the wages are not going to go up like that. so 24.6%, that's more than twice the rate it grew, it's more than twice the rate grew before inflation reached 13.4% in 1979 and three times the rate it grew amid the guns and burt spending surge during the vietnam war.

whard restore -- what about the stimulus spending in the past year? larry summers, economic advisor, warned the biden stimulus would create purchasing power three times the size of the output shortfall and would be the least responsible macroeconomic policies we've had in the past 40 years. when you look at the bureau of economic analysis comparison of the first quarter of twunt to a year -- twunt -- 2021 to confirm the concerns. transfer of payments have almost doubled and personal savings is surged an extraordinary $4.1 trillion from $1.6 trillion a year a year ago. the end of the pandemic isn't only unleashing the pentup demand of the pre-shut down economy. it's opening the floodgate to a torrent of spending fueled by fiscal and monetary stimulus not seen since the civil war.

when inflation happens, first off, you end up with a mind set of inflation. somebody stopped me the other day and said i know car prices are up, should i buy now because car prices are going to be up higher in a year? with that mentality that's what causes inflation to continue to go up. when america -- when americans start believing it is going to keep going up. but once they get in the mind-set, it is difficult to stop is it. the u.s. economy has the power to iran out the national problems of restarting production but the very nature of the subsidies and the $6 trillion stimulus relief can strain production. you look at what's happening with trying to get jobs -- there's been eight million job openings in the state. a year ago i was here speak something on the senate floor that you can't pay people not to work than to work. people are going to make a logical economic decision. they're going to do the right things for their families.

so now what we're seeing is we have job openings all across the country. we've got -- in my state we've got restaurants, a lot of small businesses that can't find workers. i talked to an individual that has a cement company today. he couldn't get truck drivers. i mean, and -- i mean, what we've done to ourselves, it makes no sense. government incentives have anything to do with people's incentive to work. these supplemental payments have just caused -- it's caused a catastrophe for our small businesses. the congressional budget office found that the affordable care act will cut the number of hours worked by at much as two percent so how can expanding obamacare not affect employment? it does. the same applies to the monthly child credit and other income supports. in america the best housing,

health care, transportation, and child care program, it was always a job. that's what our parents always told us, not some government program. if you give people things, they typically get from a job, don't be surprised when they don't take it. the biden administration claims they've seen evidence that -- hasn't seen evidence that's unemployment bonus keeping people from work. we know that's true. i have a talk to people that work in the biden administration. joe biden will say that. they acknowledge it is not true. but the labor department reporting record job openings and the national federation of independent businesses detailing a number of small businesses offering jobs but finding no takers. since the war on poverty began, government payments have risen to provide 90% of the income-earning household h.holds and the labor force participation rate among work-age households has collapsed to 38% from 68%.

how is is that good for a those families? you get a lot of satisfaction out of having a job. we need to have safety nets but don't want to put ourselves in the position that people become dependent on government payments. the biden administration also asks americans to believe that it can raise income, corporate and death taxes, smother the private sector with regulations, kill the fossil fuel industry and kill regulatory industries with actions hostile to the nation's economic system sand it is not going to have any effect. weigh know that's not true. much of what the president is doing is will impede the recovery. who does it hurt? it always hurts the poorest family, the person having you releasing to work, the person on a fixed income. that's who gets hurt. if congress sees inflation as a real threat, it should stop spending. unfortunately, right now congress doesn't think that way. we can see what's happening in the real world.

any unobligated balance of the biden stimulus cannot be justified using current economic circumstances and should somebody rescinded or if we're going to spend new money with a way to get a return on it, we should still spend it with unspent stimulus money. we're sending the stimulus authority and the biden stimulus on september 30 will save over $ 00 billion according to the -- $700 billion according to the c.b.o. rescinding the stimulus earlier would save us $1 trillion. congress should repeal the enhanced unemployment benefits and reinstate the clinton era work requirements. work requirements should be applied to all unearned benefits to everyone except the elderly, disabled, and students. congress should adopt a real enforceable budget that funds infrastructure and the other functions of government without further expanding the deficit and debt. the debt ceiling which expires

on august 1 should be used to set into place a long-term bidening program to stop the federal debt from growing beyond 100er for of gross domestic product. if the inflation of the 1970's and 1980's has returned, it is the gods have returned to teach us that fire will burn, water will wet us and the government can't give us something for nothing. it also has an impact on interest rates a. as interest goes up, the interest on the national debt will increase faster and faster. it will be a death spiral and very hard to deal with. if you go back and look at -- we have low interest rates now. if you look at the 50-year average of ten-year treasury, it is significantly is higher than it is now. if that happens, it'll be very difficult to fund any program we care about, whether it is medicare, social security or fund the military. when interest rates go up and interest rates historically have always gone up when you have

significant deficit spending, when you have significant inflation, we're going to have a very difficult time funding the programs we care about in this budget. this could -- i hope we don't have a debt crisis. we're staring at it right now. none of this is to say i don't have hope for our future. i have clear hope -- we can do t we did it in florida. every time our country is faced with a challenge, we've shown our ability to rise above it. but if we don't acknowledge it, it doesn't happen. so as long as i'm a member of the senate, i'm going to fight to rein in the out-of-control spending that is putting our country's future at risk. i have to. i've got seven great kids. i'm going to do my best to leave this country in a better position than when i start. if you look at the last 20 years at the unbelievable increase in debt, i think when ronald reagan got elected, the national debt was under $1 trillion. and now it's close to $30

trillion. so we've got to get focused on this. we can't just rush through a bill that nobody has had the idea to really understand, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, not knowing whether we're going to get a return. so, i mean, look ... i want to figure out how to do good things. we invested -- when i was governor, we invested $85 billion in roads, bridges, airports and seaports. we invested in our universities. but we can't -- we can't just keep spending money like this. so with that i think i'll yield to my colleague. a senator: mr. president? i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i want to commend my colleagues for the important work that everyone's doing down here on the senate floor, bipartisan

work addressing one of the most important challenges we have as a nation, not just today but for years this challenge is going to be with us, and that's the challenge of dealing with the rise of the communist party of china. that is going to be more and more of a challenge and focus of the efforts of all elements of america's economy, military, society. and here's the good news. as you're seeing here, there is a lot of focus, a lot of effort, and a lot of bipartisan work. it's a democracy, a republic, right, messy. it's not going to be perfect, but for the chinese, i think the worst nightmare of the chinese communist party is to see americans coming together and recognizing that this is

something we all need to work on together. china's economy is growing. their high-tech capability is growing. their military capability is growing. their aggressiveness throughout the region is growing. just look, mr. president, in the last year, hong kong, the disputes along the china-india border with india, the aggressiveness towards taiwan, the economic embargo in many ways against our ally australia. the xinjiang province and the full discrimination against the uighurs. and of course china is now fully focused on exporting its authoritarian model abroad. not just at home, but abroad.

again, as i mentioned, the good news is we as a nation, we as a senate, we as a congress, republicans and democrats are starting to awaken to this challenge. this is an issue i've been focused on, mr. president, since i came to this senate over six years ago. i think the previous administration, the trump administration, with their national security strategy, national defense strategy which said, hey, we know we have challenges with violent extremist organizations, but we need to start shifting our focus to great power competition with china as the pacing threat. that's where we should be focused. those strategy documents, the national defense strategy, the national security strategy, these were actually quite bipartisan documents, quite bipartisan strategies.

the national defense authorization act that we'll be taking up here in a couple of months, in the last few years has been built around this national defense strategy, focusing on great power competition -- china, russia. and so that's continuing, mr. president. it's actually continuing on the floor here in the united states senate as we speak. what i've been trying to do is work with members on both sides of the aisle, certainly with the trump administration, but also with the biden administration as they address this challenge. i had some good meetings with a number of the senior officials in the administration. one take-away i got from discussing these issues with the national security advisor, jake sullivan, was a comment he had made how when we are looking at our challenges with china, we

need to think about these and the way in which dean atchison, who was a very famous secretary of state, talked about the beginning of the cold war with the soviet union in the late 1940's, how america needs to be dealing with the soviet union nbltions -- and that cold war with situations of strength, positions of strength. i thought that was a really insightful comment by the current national security advisor. so i want to mention a few of these, because we have a lot of them relative to china. our comparative advantages, in my view, are much greater than theirs. and this competition that's going to, in my view, last for decades. let me name a few of these situations of strength,

mr. president. first, our allies. the united states is a ally-rich nation. china is an ally-poor nation. and getting poorer by the day, by the way. maybe north korea is one ally, maybe russia sometimes, but i don't really buy it. so that is a huge comparative advantage that we have as a nation, and we need to look at our system, our network of allies, deepen them, and expand them. one area that that's happened with regard to our allies really is a cornerstone of our alliance system in asia is the continued

focus on what's called the quad. the quad is three of the biggest economies and democracies in the whole world. the united states, japan, india, and australia. the quad actually began in terms of a focus of strategy in the george w. bush administration. the trump administration highlighted it even more. and to the biden administration's credit, they took the minister-level meetings that were the focus of the trump administration's efforts with the quad, and took it to the leader level. president biden met with the leaders of india, japan, australia, and the united states recently. it's a very important

development, a very important development. the quad can help anchor our alliances in the asia-pacific and beyond in a very significant way. and the chinese are constantly talking about it because they don't like it, because they know what it signifies. so that's one area of strength, a situation of strength, mr. president, that i think all of us can agree on. and i think members of this body can certainly help play a role as we look to move into a work session, i'm going to head to the asia-pacific with some of my senate colleagues here -- senator duckworth, senator coons, maybe a few others -- and we're going to help build on this important comparative advantage that we have as a

nation, allies. we're an ally-rich nation. china is ally poor. and the more aggressive they are acting in the region, the more this situation of strength is going to play to our advantage. let me give you another situation of strength, mr. president, for the united states, particularly as it relates to china. it's a huge position of strength. it's our energy sector, the all-above energy sector for america. i mean, renewables, oil, natural gas, this is an area that for decades we have tried to become energy independent.

we have tried to return thought status we had during world war ii, which was the world's energy super power in terms of the production of energy. the good news on that, mr. president, is we have returned to that. prior to the pandemic, the united states had once again become the world's energy super power. a lot of people thought we could never achieve that again. but we have. largest producer of natural gas in the world, bigger than russia. largest producer of oil in the world, bigger than saudi arabia. largest producer of renewables in the world. this is really good for our economy, it's really good for jobs, it's really good for our

national security and foreign policy. and, yes, it's really good for our environment. why is that? i know some people don't like the production of energy in america, but here's a fact. we need energy, all of the above energy. my state has it all. all the things i just mentioned -- oil, gas, renewables, we have an enormous amount that's in alaska. but here's the other fact. we produce these energy opportunities. we produce this energy in america with the higher environmental standard than any other place on the planet. that is a fact. that is a fact. so if we need energy -- which we do -- all of the above energy, which we do, we need to make sure we're producing it in the place with the highest

standards, with the place that will employ american workers. by the way, energy jobs are great jobs. here's one other thing. look at the intel, you talk to people who know the region, the communist party, china, recognizes this comparative advantage and it scares the living daylights out of them because they are very energy dependent. and we have literally become through the hard work and ingenuity of so many in our great nation, energy independent. and, by the way, mr. president, not only has this helped our environment, it's helped with regard to greenhouse gas emissions. from 2005 to 2017, the united states reduced global, its greenhouse glass emissions by almost 15%.

15%. you don't hear that often, but it's a fact. more than any other industrialized nation in the world. china was going like this. still is. by the way, right now the latest numbers on greenhouse gas emissions, china is producing more than the united states, e.u., and india combined. that's also a fact. we have reduced global greenhouse gas emissions dramatically. why? we all know why. it was the revolution and the production of american natural gas. that's a fact. that's a fact. so if we want to grow our economy, have an enormous comparative day, relative to china and adversaries like russia, produce more good-paying jobs, protect our

environment and enhance our national security and foreign policy, continuing the production of all of the above energy which we're going to need for decades is something that we should be doing. no -- any, some in the biden administration understand this. others don't. and want to restrict production of american energy. and when those people speak -- guys like john kerry -- the leaders in china and russia are smiling. they are smiling. fortunately, mr. president, this legislation here, the endless frontier act, is focused on outcompeting the chinese. all of us coming together, outcompeting them in many different areas -- artificial

intelligence, quantum computing, and, yes, energy as well. specifically, what's in the bill called advanced energy and industrial efficiency technologies. advanced energy technologies. that's in the legislation. and, again, i think it's here because we recognize what a critical comparative advantage we have relative to china in this sector. so we want to take advantage of it. so it's in the legislation. now, mr. president, advanced energy technology is not defined in this bill, but that's because the congress has been abundantly clear on what this means. and in my discussions with senators -- and more importantly what the congress has passed a

number of times -- advanced energy technology means what it states in the definition of a law unanimously passed in the senate, in the house just two congresses ago. 42u.s.c.18632. it actually has the definition of advanced energy technology, which is what is the focus of this bill in the endless frontier act. and, mr. president, i'd like to submit that for the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: thank you, mr. president. now, the definition, again, of advanced energy technology, which is in the bill, in the endless frontier bill, and is defined in 42 u.s.c. 18632, is

along the following lines. it says, definitions -- advanced energy technology means an innovative technology that produces energy from solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, ocean, tidal wave or other renewable energy. that's important for our country. it goes on to say that produces nuclear energy. that's important fora country. for carbon capture and sequestration. again, critical comparative advantage. that enables advanced vehicles, vehicle components and related technologies that will result in significant energy savings. again, important, and it also says, quote, that enhances the energy independence and security of the united states by enabling improved or expanded supply and production of domestic energy resources, including oil and

natural gas. that's in the definition, mr. president, of advanced energy technologies, and that's the definition that was passed last congress -- two congresses ago unanimously, and that's why it's not been defined here because it's already been defined in this and i think congress is very clear on what advantaged energy technology means in the endless frontier act. so that's positive. that's a huge comparative advantage, as i mentioned -- oil, gas, renewables. and that's an important element of this legislation in our competition with china, and i'm glad that's recognized. one final area, mr. president,

of what, again, the current administration's national security advisor called a situation of strength relative to china, and that of course is our military. to be honest, this is where i'm worried. the second term of the obama-biden administration cut defense spending by 25%. that's actually one of the reasons i ran for the senate. i had never run for anything. but what i saw what was happening to the united states military, an institution that i love and have served in for over 25 years, that was enough motivation for me to say, i need to help do something. the readiness of our forces during that era, second term of the obama-biden administration, the readiness of our forces plummeted -- plummeted. and our adversaries in moscow

and beijing watched this and were gleeful. because we can talk about a.i. and everything else that we're talking about in this bill, but if we're gutting our military, that's one of the worst things we could do with regard to sending a message to china about our seriousness. and i worry, mr. president -- last year on this floor, last summer, we had a big debate in the ndaa over defense spending. the majority leader, who was then the minority leader, and the senator from vermont, senator sanders, put forward an amendment. they literally called it, no kidding, the defund the pentagon amendment. defund the pentagon. that was the name of their amendment. 14% across-the-board cuts. my response was, there they go

again. there they go again. well now that they've regained power, it looks like this movie is coming to a theater near us again and it's not going to be nice. tomorrow the biden administration's budget is going to be coming out. the numbers that we're anticipating, about a 16% increase in domestic spending and a real decrease in military spending. inflation-adjusted decrease in military spending. again, beijing will be watching this and will be gleeful. mr. president, when republicans were in the white house and senate majority just recently, we were respectful of our colleagues in the minority, and there was an agreement essentially is about a one for

one. domestic programs increasing, the military budget is going to increase by about the same amount. that's what we all agreed on here. that's what we worked on here. now it looks like it's going to be 16 for one or maybe even worse. so this is something we really need to focus on. make no mistake, we can talk about supply chains, intellectual property, competitiveness, which is what we're talking about here with this legislation. these are all important topics. but all the policy changes that we're debating here right now are not going to amount to much in our overall competition with respect to china if we lose our military edge with respect to china. and, unfortunately you some of

my colleagues -- and, unfortunately, some of my colleagues just don't recognize that or don't want to recognize that. soft power isn't much power without hard power to back it it up. we've learned that lesson before. it's been a painful lesson, if you look at our history. but the chinese communist party certainly appears to understand this. according to one watchdog, it has increased its military investments by 76% over the last decade. we're going to put out a budget tomorrow with an inflation-adjusted decrease in our military spending, despite the runaway domestic spending proposed by this administration. that's worrisome, and that is

not operating from a position of strength with regard to the chinese communist party. so, mr. president, we need to watch out for that one. i'm very concerned. yes, there's a lot of bipartisan work going on in the senate, but if the leadership on the senate floor and the house leadership as well and the biden administration work together to cut defense spending, that's going to be one of the worst things we can do for our long-term competition with regard to china. so as we're focused on these challenges with the rise of china, let me conclude by predicting not only is this

challenge going to be with us for decades but how we need to address it. and i've talked about some of these situations of strength. we must face this challenge with confidence and strategic resolve. as i've noted -- and i have just talked about a few -- america has extraordinary advantages relative to china. our global network of alliances, our military power and economic leadership, our innovative society, our abundant and innovative energy supplies, advanced energy technology, as defined in this bill and other bills, the world's most productive workforce, and a democrat value system -- yes, it

can be messy -- but that makes countries around the world and particularly in the indo-pacom region far more comfortable as american partners and allies than as subservient members of a new middle kingdom led by china. and, mr. president, as a result of the long twilight struggle with the soviet union, we also know what works. maintaining peace through strength, promoting free markets and free people at home, and having the confidence in george keynesians insights when he set forth the strategy of containment in the late 1940's to deal with the soviet union that the chinese communist party, like the soviet communist party, likely bears within it

the seeds of its own decay. while democracies are resilient, adaptive and self-renewing, there are many vulnerabilities embedded in china's perceived strength. one-man rule creates acute political risks. historical grievance can breed violent nationalism. state-directed economic growth can produce massive overcapacity and mountains of debt. and the gradual snuffing out of freedom that we are literally seeing daily in places like hong kong sends fear throughout the entire region. china's budding military power and historical view of itself as a nature and culture superior to many others is beginning to alarm neighboring states, inspiring them to want to step

up security cooperation with the united states, not with china. nearly half of wealthy chinese want to emigrate. and, mr. president, remember, these are the winners from china's four decades of heady economic growth. as we have in the past, we can prevail in this geopolitical and ideological contest, but doing so will require a new level of strategic initiative, organization, and confidence in who we are as a people and what we stand for. this also means that we must redouble our efforts in making this strategic case to others around the world, particularly our allies. this kind of work here, although it can be messy, although it can

be difficult, although it can be challenging, is part of the process we need to put together to compete. so with that, mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it recess until 9:00 a.m. friday, may 28. that following the prayer and pledge, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. finally, that all time in recess count postcloture on the schumer substitute amendment numbered 1502. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered.

mr. durbin: if there is no objection, i ask that then c-sp.