the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, whose plans stand firm forever, you test the motives of our hearts. today, give our lawmakers

such ethical consistency that their motives will remain pure. may love for you become the dominant motivation for all they think, say, and do. as they strive to live according to your precepts, fill their hearts with songs of gratitude. lord, remind them that this day is a gift from you, so they should rejoice because of the blessing of another sunrise. we pray in your generous name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance

to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., september 22, 2021. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable ben ray lujan, a senator from the state of new mexico, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. the senate is in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each.

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: yesterday evening, the house of representatives approved a continuing resolution that will keep the government open through december, provide emergency funding for afghan refugees and americans affected by natural disasters, and suspend the debt ceiling through the end of 2022. the bill now comes to the senate where both parties must pass it together to steer the united

states away from a number of fast-approaching crises. absent congressional action, the government will shut down in just over a week. the united states could face a first-ever default soon thereafter. and it will be american families who suffer most. now, our republican colleagues say they don't want a shutdown. they say they don't want a credit default. they say they want hurricane aid. then they should vote yes on this bill. you want to avoid a default? republican colleagues, vote yes. you want to avoid a government shutdown? vote yes. you want to provide hurricane aid? vote yes. you want to help the afghan refugees? vote yes. that's the bill that will be on the floor. those who will vote yes will vote to avoid default, to avoid a government shutdown. those who vote no will be saying we're okay with default and

we're okay with the government shutdown. to say do it another way, that doesn't cut it. this is what's on the floor. this is what the house passed. and the kind again of sophistry that we have heard from the republican leader doesn't make any sense either through past history or through practicality and what we need today. at the end of the day, it's how we vote that matters most. our constituents sent us here to vote. plain and simple. so republicans face a choice. vote yes to pay our bills and keep the government open, or vote no, which means you're okay with default and the government shutdown. every single democrat will support this bill. whether or not we avoid default is simply and entirely up to the republican senators. it's up to them, plain and simple. the president has a proposal.

the house has passed a proposal. i will put that proposal on the senate floor. and remember, this is not just a political fight. the last time republicans played with the debt ceiling in 2011, the credit of the united states was downgraded for the first time ever, and all indications are that if republicans succeed in causing a default this time around, the consequences would be catastrophic. according to a sobering new analysis by mark zandi and moody's analytics, the default would create up to -- would erase up to six million jobs in the economy. it would cause unemployment which we have worked so hard to bring down during this covid season, to spike up again to as high as 9%. and as much as $15 trillion of household wealth would be wiped out of existence. every american family will suffer from the republican

desire to play political games and send our nation into default. let me say that again. $15 trillion of household wealth. and that means thousands of dollars for each family or for many families, thousands. that's not fair, all for the sake, leader mcconnell, of a political game, political game. it's an incomprehensible number. i can't think of a worse gut punch to the american people who spent the last 19 months fighting against covid-19 pandemic than to see their life savings disappear because republicans won't pay political bills and are simply trying to gain near political advantage. there is no scenario on god's green earth where it's worth risking six million jobs, 9% unemployment and $15 trillion in household worth just to stick it to your political opponents, but that seems to be the m.o. these days of the republican leader,

not caring at all about the american people and what matters to them and playing political games in an effort, i believe a futile effort, to gain political advantage. it won't succeed. everyone knows who's doing what around here. so over the past few weeks, republicans have advanced a number of dishonest and duplicitous arguments to rationalize their opposition to the debt ceiling to play the political games that the minority leader is involved in. i'll expect weal be hearing these -- we will be hearing these arguments over and over again, so let's set the record straight on two of their main points. first our republican colleagues have argued that raising the debt ceiling should clue civil be the domain of one party when it controls all three branches of government. of course this is nonsense. since 1960, the debt ceiling has been raised about 80 times under both unified and divided government. as recently as 2017, leader

mcconnell, as majority leader, put forward a bill to raise the debt ceiling when there was a republican president, a republican senate, a republican house, urged democrats to join him, and of course we did because it's the right thing to do. we don't want to hurt the american people. we don't want to play games with the livelihood of americans the way the republican leader seems to revel in doing. and rather than play political games, rather than engageing in considered games of chicken, democrats worked with the other side. second and even far more dishonest, republicans say they don't want to raise the debt ceiling because they don't want to clear the way for more domestic spending. this statement is false, pure and simple. our proposal to suspend the debt ceiling is not about future spending. raising the debt ceiling is about paying the bills that have already been racked up.

the proposal the house sent over is designed to help pay for the $908 billion that we approved last year in the depths of the covid crisis. that legislation was drafted by republicans, voted for by republicans, put on the floor by leader mcconnell, and signed by a republican president. it's the trump debt, the trump debt that we now must pay. republicans after voting for it, after going back to their districts and claiming credit for some of the things in that bill, to now decide they have changed their minds and they don't want to pay the debt that they willingly took on and drag about the spending that incurred that debt is the height of irresponsibility and the height of hypocrisy. it's a dine and dash of unprecedented proportions, and if they have their way, it's going to be the american people who will foot the bill. the full faith and credit isn't a game. it's the bedrock upon which our economy stands. no lawmaker can vote to refuse to pay the bills and then say they have the best interests of

the american people in mind. so again, here is what's on the line with this vote. the well-being of tens of millions of americans, everyone from small business owners, homeowners, veterans, active duty military, social security beneficiaries, and american consumers everywhere. and senator warner has made a very good point. if we default or even if the risk of coming close to default raises interest rates by 1%, that will cost the government more, more than some of the spending programs, many of the spending programs that the republicans say they don't like, even though they voted for. a very simple answer to avoiding this entire problem. when the c.r. comes to the floor, republicans vote yes and put this needless crisis to an end. but if they choose to vote in favor of the default by a cynical political blame game, it will ultimate in thely be the american people who will pay the

price, and the american people will know who did this. the republican senate, because there will be a proposal by the democratic president, the bill will have passed the floor, and democrats and republicans will each have to vote yes or no simply put on whether we want to default. now, on nominations. last night, i filed cloture on seven nominations that have to date been tied up by republican obstructionists. these individuals will play a critical role in advancing u.s. diplomacy across the globe, from europe to east asia to africa. one will be tasked with international narcotics law enforcement. another will advise on military affairs. and these are not controversial nominees. quite the contrary, they were all reported out of committee with overwhelming bipartisan support and would normally be confirmed by this chamber without much fuss. now a few on the other side have decided they are going to hold these critical nominations hostage for the sake of scoring

political points with the far right. it's sort of a manic dash. who can be the most irresponsible to please the far right of people who seem to be interested in running for president in 2024? they want to drag out what should be an easy process, wasting the chamber's time and energy and hindering the government's ability to protect american interests. the republicans who are delaying the confirmation of these nominees are deliberately making the american people less safe, just so they can try to enhance their political fortunes, which in my judgment will be -- if there is any gain, it will be short term and the loss of doing this will be much greater to them. everyone here knows what's really going on, but despite republican obstruction this week, we're going to make sure these important nominees are confirmed by the senate. i hope we can come to an agreement to ultimately move them quickly through this chamber, but either way, we're going to say here until these nominees have been confirmed. i yield the floor and note the

absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: this morning i had the honor to meet with prime minister johnson of the united kingdom and later today i'll

meet with prime minister morrison of australia as well. any day congress has the opportunity to strengthen working relationships with our allies is a good day indeed. our meetings today come at a time when our most important trans-atlantic and transpacific alliances are facing growing threats to collective security and prosperity. china's ex-expansionism, a reinflamed war on terror and further threats to democracy and human rights around the world, the steady leadership of committed partners is more crucial than ever. so i specifically wanted to thank our friends in australia and the united kingdom for their years of loyal friendship that have underpinned coalition operations in afghanistan and our joint efforts elsewhere to check the most pressing threats

to our nation and to the kind of world that will help us thrive. and i'll be reaffirming my own commitment that america must be a reliable, a committed, and globally engaged ally that our closest friends deserve. now it on another matter, over the past several months, american families have had to contend with an historic amount of painful -- painful -- inflation. this summer we saw the prices of core personal consumption soar at the fastest pace in nearly to years. -- 340 -- 30 years. last month the consumer price index jumped. all across the country, across the economy, families and businesses are being hit hard.

one measure of construction materials is reporting that homebuilders are facing materials cost that are 22% higher than just last year. 22% higher than just last year. homeowners and renters are approaching a fall and winter in which heating costs are projected to reach a 13-year high. 86% of respondents told one recent poll they were either extremely or very worried about inflation. now, this is exactly what republicans, independent experts, and even liberal economists warned would happen if democrats started ramming through massive, massive inflationary spending. back in the springtime, larry summer, the top economic advisor to both president clinton and president obama, warned at the time that runaway spending could, quote, set off

inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation. and of course that's exactly what's happened. just ask any working family in this country about their last trip to the gas station, the grocery store, or the car dealership. inflation has gotten so bad on democrats' watch that it has wiped out every ounce of the average american worker's pay growth during this economic recovery. and then some. annual real wage growth is negative, even though employers have been handing out raises because, mr. president -- because of inflation. remember at the start of the year working americans had an economy that was teed for a

roaring economy. even "the washington post" cautioned the improving picture is raising questions about whether the stimulus bill is mismatched to the needs of the current moment. that was "the washington post" on the so-called rescue package that passed back in march. you might think the disastrous consequences of democrats' last spending binge for working americans might give our colleagues some pause about the next one, but, alas, no such luck. behind closed doors, they're putting together another even more reckless taxing-and-spending spree. they want to take the last bill, which democrats call the most left-wing law in american history, and actually dwarf even that. massive tax hikes on americans that will hurt families and help china. let me say that again. massive tax hikes on americans that will hurt families and help

china. a socialist transformation that nobody voted for last year. another invitation for even more painful inflation that will hit working americans right where it hurts. the american people don't want it, and senate republicans won't support it. now, on a related matter, yesterday evening senator shelby and i introduced a continuing resolution that would pass the senate -- that could pass the senate and prevent a government shutdown. our legislation would fund the government through december. it would restore the defensive assistance for our ally, israel, that house democrats stripped out to appease some of their worst elements of the far left. as one frustrated democrat congressman stated yesterday, quote, a missile defense system

like iron dome defends civilians from missiles. hence, the name. only in a morally inverted universe would this be considered a controversy. end quote. that's a house democrat describing the action yesterday of house democrats. and our bill also removes the debt limit language that democrats have known since july -- since july -- will not receive bipartisan support from senate republicans. as one of my colleagues put it succinctly, if washington democrats want to jam through trillions of dollars in reckless spending all by themselves, they can raise the debt limit all by themselves. if they want to do one, they'll need to do the other. to do one, they need -- they need to do one, they need to do

the other. it's that simple. now on one final matter, the american people are watching a terrible sight unfold down on our southern border. many thousands of people, largely from haiti, are literally huddled together underneath a bridge in del rio, texas, just across the rio grande. teaches have been in the triple -- temperatures have been in the triple digits. the conditions are unsanitary and uninhumane. this is the direct result of the left-ring policies and messages pushed by the biden administration. they say their approach to immigration is the compass national path, the -- the compassionate path, the one that reflects the soul of america. they are wrong. in no way does it honor america's soul or uphold american values to tolerate a major border security crisis and unending -- unending --

humanitarian disaster that appear to be permanent features of life under the biden administration. this false choice is the constant refrain from the left. either we adopt democratic policies that lure people into literal squalor and effectively open our borders in the middle of a pandemic or else we're somehow betraying the spirit of the statue of liberty? that is simply nonsense. legal, orderly immigration has been a proud strength of our country and a core pillar of the american way of life literally for generations. that is completely different than washington democrats sabotaging our border while publicly advertising a catalog -- a catalog -- of socialist benefits they say they'll

provide for illegal immigrants who manage to make it in. when president biden was sworn in, thousands and thousands of people took his far-left campaign rhetoric seriously and began streaming toward our borders. one person at the border directly told "the washington post" they came because they heard, quote, president was letting people in. first, in the spring time, his administration called this a season all surge -- seasonal surge. well, so much for that. we've had more than 150,000 border apprehensions every single month for the past six months. encounters usually fall off during the hot summer month oz, but under president biden's watch, the opposite has happened. listen to one recent example of the chaos. a few days ago the biden administration filled a big bus

with illegal immigrants from this encampment. the bus set out for somewhere else in texas. but according to news reporting, part way through the journey, the illegal immigrants revoted, took control of the bus and broke out. but, more broadly, it sounds like catch and release may be the de facto biden policy. just this morning the associated press reports that according to government officials, quote, haitian migrants camped in a texas border town are being released in the united states on a very, very large scale. undercutting the biden administration's public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion. end quote. nobody believes democrats that

this lawless chaos and human suffering is the fair and compassionate way to govern our country. nobody buys that. an average recent survey shows that only 36% -- 36% -- of the country approves of president biden's handling of immigration while 56% disapprove. look, americans know a train wreck when they see one. our citizens deserve better than this failure, utter failure of leadership. and so do the people democrats are luring here with a mirage.

i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended from ever without objection. mr. durbin: i ask consent that senator thune and i be allowed to complete our remarks, unanimous consent, allowed to complete our remarks before the vote is taken. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. this week the senate will vote on florencefirmed she would be e first asian american woman to serve on that court. she graduated summa cum laude from the university of pennsylvania and received her law degree with distinction from stanford. after clerking on the southern district of new york and the second circuit, she decided to pursue a legal career in public service. in 1995 was elected -- pardon me

-- selected for the prestigious brings you to fellowship in the -- bristow to fell fellowship -e served in the criminal division of the justice department and senior adviser to the department of the treasury. beginning in 1999, judge pan worked as an assistant u.s. attorney for the district of columbia for ten years. in this role she litigated local and federal courts at the trial and appellate level. 2009 president obama nominated her to serve on the d.c. superior court. she was confirmed with unanimous support by the senate. years later president obama nominated her to serve on the d.c. district court and her nomination was reported out of the republican-controlled judiciary committee by a voice vote. unfortunately she didn't receive a floor vote in time. though lawmakers on both sides of the aisle recognized that she was imminently qualified. since 2009 judge pan has presided over more than 650

trials, criminal cases, family court cases, civil cases. she was unanimously rated quell qualified by the american bar association. she has the strong support of congresswoman eleanor holmes norton who submitted a statement for the record and described her as an exceptional nominee. last month she was voted out of the senate judiciary committee on a bipartisan vote of 18-4. the historic nature of judge pan's nomination will help build a federal bench that reflects full diversity. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting her. mr. president, less than two miles from this capitol, there are 666,000 small white flags stretching across the national mall like a sea of suffering and loss. each of these flags represents an american life lost to covid. 666,000. let me tell you about one of them. her name was candace airs. she lived in my hometown of

springfield, illinois. early last march as soon as they could, candace and their husband terry received their second coronavirus vaccinations. that was the day of joy and relief for the family because candace lived with roim toyed arthritis -- rheumatoid arthritis weakening her immune system. in july she traveled to mississippi, a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates to console a friend who had lost her husband. at the time covid infections were at a low point and the delta vir yants was just start -- variant was just starting. so cane das -- candace thought she would have been safe having been vaccinated. soon after the trip she tested positive for covid. hospitalized and mo move to an irchts c.u., she spent the last few weeks of her life on a ventilator. she died at the age of 66 leaving behind their husband, son and daughter and a 5-year-old triplet grand children. in her obituary it states -- my

hometown paper, her family wrote and i quote, she was evacuated but was infected by others who chose not to be. the cost was her life. i read that to my wife the morning it was printed and said i've never seen a sentence or two like that in any obituary. experts who took candice aiers life -- pardon me -- claimed it was the result of a breakthrough covid infection, meaning an infection that occurs after an individual has been vac fated. breakthrough infections are typically mild but can be devastating for immune know compromised people like candice. with the rise of the delta variant, it's not just the el elderly or immunocompromised who are at risk. children made up only 3% of covid cases at the start. today children account for 27% of covid infections and the

school year is just starting. we're in the midst of yet another wave of this pandemic. covid is once again overwhelming america's health system and the rate of covid infections and deaths are dramatically higher in areas of lower vaccination. an article in last friday's "chicago tribune" tells the story in illinois. last thursday was the fourth day in a row that every i.c.u. bed in southern illinois was filled. in a 20-county area, home to 400,000 people, there were no i.c.u. beds available. doctors, nurses, and first responders working around the clock to care for sick patients, but after 18 grueling months, they are reaching a breaking point. and with our health care system pushed to the brink, everyone is feeling it. if you live in southern illinois and you have a heart attack, a stroke, a serious accident, or a life-threatening condition, bad news. there are no i.c.u. beds available for you.

hospital staffs in those areas have to call hospitals sometimes hundreds of miles away in nashville, tennessee, st. louis, missouri, kansas city, missouri, to try to find a bed. compare this situation to chicago, some 300 miles away but a world of difference. covid infection rates are starting to decrease. public health officials are hopeful they are finally turning a corner. why the great disparity between the chicago regional area and southern illinois? one reason -- vaccinations. in chicago, two in three adults are fully vaccinated against covid. in southern illinois, the figure is only one in three. so much of this suffering and expense could be avoided if we take the politics out of the covid debate and stop the spread of misinformation that is literally killing people. as candace ayers' family would tell you, the most important

thing is that more people get vaccinated. vaccines are safe, effective, and free and widely available to anyone over the age of 12. here is a statistic that should trouble everyone. "the new york times" tracks covid-19 vaccinations around the world using figures supplied by national governments. where do you suppose the united states of america ranks globally compared to other countries on vaccination rates? well, you would guess the top three, right? top ten for sure. how about top 20? you would be wrong. the united states ranks 5th globally for the percentage of people vaccinated. we are just behind cambodia. in the wealthiest nation on earth and in the country that led the research and development in finding these vaccines, that is sad, it is inexcusable, and it's deadly. now, listen. all americans respect individual rights, but the only way to end

the pandemic is for everyone to accept their personal responsibility for our shared well-being. that is why i support president biden's recent action to strengthen america's defense against covid and bring this pandemic finally to an end. many responsible employers large and small have already decided on their own to require that their workers get vaccinated. i encourage more to do it. a strong majority of americans support this policy. president biden's decision to extend that policy to much of the federal workforce and to private employers with 100 or more workers means that two out of three american workers will be required to get vaccinated. mr. president, we even had a situation in the federal bureau of prisons where the infection rate of federal prisoners is six times the national average, and yet fewer than half of federal prison guards have been vaccinated. fewer than half. that is inexcusable. other nation haves already

instituted policies which encourage vaccinations. it's time for us to do the same. if we're ever going to see this pandemic come to an end, kids get back in school and life return to normal, more americans have to roll up their sleeves and face the reality that vaccination is the pathway to that result. now, sadly, while this debate is going on nationally, politicians in two dozen states, all with vaccination rates below the national average, are threatening to sue the biden administration over its new covid policy. in other words, these governors are saying to the president stop any requirement for masks. stop any requirement for vaccinations. in the war against covid, these lawmakers in these two dozen states are siding with the virus. their actions if they follow through on these threats will result in more illness, more death, and more harm to the economy. now, how can i say that? well, i'll tell you how.

by taking a look at the numbers. take a look at the numbers of the average -- of the 24 states threatening lawsuits. the infection rate, 3,471 for every 100,000 people. how about the other states that are not filing a doubt against president biden? coincidentally, almost half of the situation that we find in those 24 states where these attorney generals are standing up against president biden. the death rate in the 24 states who are threatening lawsuits against biden, 31 for 100,000. the rest of the country 11 per 100,000. vaccination rate 49% in those states. 57% in the states that are not suing the president. that tells a story. they are exalting liberty over life. this notion that we don't have a responsibility to ourselves and our family and innocent people to step forward is exactly the point that was being made by candace ayers' family.

we do. we bear that responsibility, and we should accept it. mr. president, since june, the average rates of covid infections in the 24 states threatening to sue biden have been double the rates of covid infection in other 26 states. covid death rates in those states have been nearly three times worse than the rest of the country. these reckless political actions have deadly real-world consequences. president biden's actions are reasonable, they are necessary, and a majority of the american people believe it. politicians hoping to gin up their base by suing the president should stop and start fighting the virus instead of the president's ambitions to bring this pandemic to an end. the sooner we do that, the sooner we could end this pandemic once and for all. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. thune: i would ask unanimous consent the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. thune: mr. president, federal takeovers are being discussed in both the house and the senate this week. the democrat leaders announced that the senate will once again be taking up legislation to put the federal government, instead of the states, in charge of elections in this country. meanwhile, over in the house of representatives, they are expected to vote on legislation to eliminate essentially all state restrictions on abortion, no matter how modest or how widely supported. so what's up with all these federal takeovers? well, democrats have been pushing election legislation, what they call h.r. 1 or the for the people act, for multiple years now. this radical legislation would provide for a massive federal takeover of our electric electoral stm, chill free -- system, chill free speech and turn the election commission into a partisan body, among

other dangerous measures. and the reason, the reason for this radical legislation? well, even as some democrats have implicitly admitted, this legislation is designed to make it easier for democrats to win elections. fast forward to last week. with h.r. 1 unable to pass the senate, some democrats produced a modified version of this legislation. it's called for the people act lite. while i appreciate their efforts, unfortunately as the republican leader said yesterday morning, this latest version is only a compromise in the sense that the senate compromised with the far left. or as "the wall street journal" editorial board put it this morning, and i quote, calling this bill slimmed down is like touting your healthy choices after you order a diet coke with four big macs, end quote. the for the people act lite would still impose troubling new burdens on free speech. it would still undermine state voter i'd laws.

it would still -- voter i.d. laws. it would still spend tax dollars for illegal campaigns. it would make it easier for those had here illegally to vote. most of all, it would put washington, not state governments, in charge of elections for no reason at all. mr. president, let's be clear. there is absolutely zero reason to have the federal government start dictating states' election policies, zero reason. there is no systemic problem with state election laws, and state election officials do not need washington bureaucrats dictating how many days of early voting they should offer or how they should manage mail-in ballots. this bill, like its parent, h.r. 1, is a solution in search of a crisis. states have been doing a fine job running elections. even democrats have sort of had to admit that given the huge voter turnout in the last election and the fact that democrats won, albeit by the

slimmest of margins, even democrats have had to admit that states are doing a pretty good job running elections. so now that they can no longer tell us that our electoral system is broken, democrats are telling us that we need electoral legislation like this because states are passing legislation that will, democrats claim, threaten election access. baloney. it's just another attempt to manufacture a crisis that will justify passing h.r. 1 or some variant. democrats are pushing election legislation for one simple reason -- because they think it will improve their chances in future elections. that is not a good reason, mr. president, to bring up election legislation. and i will continue to oppose any federal takeover of elections. south dakota election officials are doing just fine without having their every move dictated by washington bureaucrats. meanwhile, mr. president, over in the house, members are

expected to consider legislation that would, as i said, preempt virtually all state restrictions on abortion. democrats are calling the bill the women's health protection act. a more accurate name might be the abortion on demand act, or we could simply refer to it as what it is. probably the most anti-life legislation ever to be considered in the united states congress. this bill would eliminate pretty much any and every abortion restriction in every state across the country. parental notification laws. informed consent laws. measures adopted by states and upheld by the supreme court would disappear under democrats' legislation. the bill would also prevent states from restricting any particular method of abortion, no matter how barbaric the method. and the bill would make it essentially impossible to impose any meaningful restrictions at all on abortion in any stage of

pregnancy, including after the point of fetal viability when the baby can survive outside its mother. the bill would also jeopardize doctors and nurses' right to refuse to participate in abortions and specifically prevent them from having recourse under the religious freedom restoration act to protect their conscience rights. and it would put measures in state to ensure any pro-life law would be upheld in the courtroom. in short this would make abortion on demand at any time for essentially any reason the law of the land in the united states. mr. president, i hope, i really do hope that during debate on this measure, the democrats are not going to pretend that their proposed abortion law somehow represents the prevailing sentiment of the country, because it doesn't. a vast majority of americans believe that there should be at least some restrictions on

abortion. gatt up has been polling on abortion for decades, and in all that time, the percentage of americans who believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances has always remained under 35%. in fact, for most of the past several decades, that number has remained squarely under 30%. a strong majority of americans support at least some restrictions on abortion. furthermore, the associated press poll from this june found that 65% of americans believe that abortion should generally be illegal in the second trimester or from about 13 weeks of pregnancy, while a whopping 80%, 80% of americans believe that abortion should generally be illegal in the third trimester. and it's not surprising. americans aren't dumb, mr. president. and thanks to ultrasounds and scientific advances and plain old common sense, they know just how ridiculous it is to claim that unborn children are just

blobs of tissue. most people are well aware that an unborn baby with its own heartbeat and fingers and toes and d.n.a. is, in fact, not a blob of tissue but a human being. and most people believe that human beings deserve to be protected. even had when they're small and weak and vulnerable. especially when they're small and weak and vulnerable. and so it doesn't surprise me in least that 80% of the american people think that abortion should be illegal in the third trimester. i can't believe anybody being comfortable with killing a baby, that is not only like any other human being, able toll survive outside of his or her mother. i really, really hope that democrats are not going to

pretend that they're representing the american people with this appalling legislation. they are not representing the american people. they're representing the radical abortion lobby, and the radical abortion lobby is terrified that as it well knows it does not have a majority of the american people on its side. so it is relying on its democrat allies to push for the most rod cal pro-abortion legislation ever considered. mr. president, the american people are better than this. and i would hope that the democrat party would be better than this. the democrat party has historically portrayed itself as a defender of the little guy. it is thought of that doesn't extend to the littlest guys and girls among us, the unborn babies in danger of dying from abortion. there are hundreds of thousands of abortions in the united states every year. that's hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives lost. do we really need to remove even

the most modest restrictions on abortion? mr. president, while unfortunately the vast majority of the democrat party is in the pocket of the radical abortion lobby, i hope that there are at least some -- some house democrats -- out there who aren't comfortable with this bill and the democrat party's extreme abortion politics. and i hope that these democrats will stand up and oppose their party's abortion-on-demand legislation. this anti-life legislation is an abomination, and it should never, never, mr. president, make it out of the house of representatives. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the motion is invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 169, lily lawrence batchelder of massachusetts to be an assistant secretary of the treasury, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of lily lawrence batchelder of massachusetts to be an assistant secretary of the treasury shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 63, the nays are 35. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of the treasury, lily lawrence batchelder of mass to be an assistant secretary -- of massachusetts to be an assistant secretary. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 245, jayme ray white of washington to be a

deputy united states trade representative with the rank of ambassador signed by 16 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of jayme ray white of washington to be a deputy united states trade representative, western hemisphere, europe, the middle east, labor, and environment, with the rank of ambassador, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 78, the nays are 20. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, executive office of the president, jayme ray white of washington to be a deputy united states trade representative. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, the vote in relation to the white and pan nominations occur at 6:30 p.m. tonight. the presiding officer: is there objection?

without objection. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, for the information of the senate, there will be one roll call vote at 2:45 p.m. today. that vote will be on the confirmation of the batchelder nomination. there will be two roll call votes at 6:30 p.m. tonight. those will be on the confirmation of the white nomination and cloture on the pan nomination. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor, and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: paraphrasing a philosopher of his era, winston churchill once said, those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. and i doubt that churchill was the only one that said that a i think we quote other people saying similar things. now, churchill was himself a

devoted student to history. his research for his multivolume biography of his ancestors, john churchill, first duke, likely confirmed his military thinking as prime minister during world war ii. churchill was also a fierce critic of socialism in his time. and that's the main point of my remarks today -- talking about socialism. socialism, as we know it today, is based upon a different view of history than what churchill had. a history that says we're headed in a particular direction, and you just need to see where it is heading to, quote-unquote, be on the right side of history.

socialism was thought to be the wave of the future in churchill's time, just as it was the wave of the future when karl marx was writing about it in the mid1800's. in fact, a wave is an apt analogy for socialism. enthusiasm for socialism has crested and then crashed down many, many times in the last couple of centuries. today some enthusiasts are again riding high on this socialism wave. some of them are too young to know better, while others simply refuse to learn the lessons from the previous crashes that socialism has shown

us. given previous spectacular failures of full-fledged socialism in eastern europe, latin america, asia and africa, usually as we learn resulting in violence, in poverty, and most importantly, suppression of individual rights that we value here in the united states. but also advocates of socialism find themselves on the defensive once again. when asked why we should try a system that has repeatedly and spectacularly failed, a common fallback is to cite sweden and other nordic countries as examples that we should learn from. it may surprise some of my

colleagues here in the senate that this one point where i agree with the socialists -- we should examine and learn from sweden's experience. in fact, an excellent summary of sweden's experience from the 1950's to this very day has been compiled by the swedish economist johan norberg. his video which goes by the title "sweden: lessons for america" is available on youtube as part of the free to choose network. a short paper similarly titled, quote, sweden's lesson for america, end of quote, has been published by the cato

institute. so i would recommend to all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle paying attention to either that video or that publication by cato, because we can learn a lot from sweden, and it's not what people will be espousing here in the united states senate based upon a lot of political speeches from those on the left. as norberg points out, by about 1950, sweden was the fourth-richest country in the world and had the fifth-freest economy. in other words, sweden became wealthy through economic freedom like we have here in america. and then you know what? sweden started to adopt socialist policies.

at first it was just a few welfare programs. but between 1960 and 1980, government spending in sweden doubled from 31% of gross domestic product to 60% of gross domestic product. and of course that meant for all the people in sweden to pay high , sky-high taxes. this is the time period that older socialists remember so fondly and we see espoused here on the senate floor. sweden was surfacing, was surfing on top of the socialist wave and seemed to have it all all -- prosperity, massive

government spending, and a highly regulated economy. however, even the best surfers cannot ride a wave forever. all waves eventually come crashing down. sweden's socialist policies started to kill off the wealth creation that had made its economy the fourth-richest in the world. that wealth economy was needed to fund all that government spending. norberg points out that sweden was 10% richer than the g-7 countries on a per capita basis in 1970, but 25 years later -- 1995 -- it was more than 10% poorer than those same g-7

countries. during that time not a single net job was created in sweden's private sector. and more importantly, inflation took away almost all the value of any wage increases during that period of time in sweden, just as we see since the first of the year inflation eating away so the workers today in america do not have a real wage increase. as margaret thatcher famously said, quote, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money, end of quote. one of the most iconic swedish companies is ikea. its stores all around the world are painted the color of the swedish flag. during sweden's experiment with socialism, ikea moved to the

netherlands and is still headquartered there today. things in sweden had to change. and you know what? by the 1990's sweden realized its mistakes, going the big-government direction that they went, and they reversed course. yes, it did elect a center right government in the 1990's. but even more importantly, the left-wing swedish socialist democrats also recognized their mistake. norberg quotes a social democrat minister of finance. quote, that whole thing with democratic socialism was absolutely impossible. it just didn't work. there was no way to go than

market reform, end of quote. so, yes, let us learn from sweden. here in the united states senate as we're considering a $4.2 trillion reconciliation package that builds more government programs and entitlement programs, that once you start them they never end because we don't have to go down the socialism road. that road is a dead end. yes, sweden still has much higher government spending and a more extensive welfare state than we have in the united states, but in order to generate the wealth to pay for it, sweden now has very pro-growth economic policies. sweden doesn't pretend that they can finance all that spending by

taxing the rich, like you have constantly heard from the democrat majority in both houses of this congress. in fact, sweden's tax code is much less progressive than the federal government's tax code here in the united states. most swedish tax revenue comes from an income tax system flatter than ours and also from a consumption tax. norberg points out that the top 10% in sweden pay less than 27% of the taxes, whereas in the united states the top 10% pay 45% of all the income in the federal government, and we're still hearing that they aren't paying enough. and yet from the other side, i never hear how much more than that 45%, that segment of our economy should pay. because maybe there's some

people who believe it ought to be 100%. moreover, taxes on employers and capital are modest in sweden to attract investment and remain competitive on a global stage. the trump tax cuts finally made our corporate income tax competitive with sweden. now they want to make the american corporate tax rate yet the highest in the world, where it was for a long period of time until four years ago. that's right, the trump tax cuts made corporate tax more like sweden, but now the democrats want to make it less competitive once again. that's right, i'm talking about today's democrats and the biden proposals. by doing so, they're making the mistake that sweden made decades

ago, that they are now attempting to correct, and has done so by restoring pro-growth policies. as norberg says, quote, you can have a big government and you can make the rich pay for it all. you can't have both, end of quote. everybody in sweden -- rich, middle class, and even lower income -- pay high taxes. that's the deal swedes have made. if that's the deal democrats are offering americans, they should be honest instead of pretending it's possible to fund swedish-style government here in the united states by spending through soaking the rich, they

should explain that hardworking americans will have to fork over some of their income for welfare state benefits. but i think they know that would be very, very unpopular here if that's where it ends up like it did in sweden between 1970's and 1995. now, the united states is not sweden. americans who declared independence and fought a revolutionary war over taxes are on the whole much less tolerant of giving over their hard-earned dollars to the government to spend. i would urge my colleagues across the aisle to learn the lessons from sweden, including their counterparts on the center left in sweden. do not kill job creation.

do not kill wealth creation. do not let soaring inflation steal the wages of american workers. and if you want to look to sweden, look to the sweden of today, not the sweden of 1980. better yet, if you want a model in the region, look to sweden's dynamic neighbor across the black sea, estonia. its history has led it to be even more resistant to the failed, outdated ideology of socialism. estonia has the most competitive tax code in the oecd and a fast-growing economy. no wonder it's pushing back on biden's administrative proposal for a global minimum tax.

our actions now will determine what kind of life our kids and grandkids will have in the future. we ought to learn from history so we can shape a brighter future. history -- history is clear economic freedom. that economic freedom being the ticket to broad prosperity and not socialism. now i would turn to one other point. if anybody's waiting to speak, it's a little shorter than what i've just stated. i want to make it a priority -- or i do make it a priority to keep in touch with my iowa constituents, 2.3 million of

them. i listen to their thoughts and concerns. now, that could be on my 99-county tour meetings that i've held for 44 years in a row now that i've been a senator for iowa or it could be a matchup of my iowa and northern iowa football. in either case i meet with iowans, where they are and what is on their mind. during this past state work period, i had multiple conversations with farmers about what is on their minds. at the u.n.i. iowa state game, i had a conversation with a friend but also a fellow farmer, ron hack. he farms near perry, iowa, where

he talked to me at this football game about concerns about president biden's tax plan. ron followed up with an e-mail to me which i want to share with my colleagues on the floor since this is a thing that i've consistently heard across the state. at the end of my speech, mr. president, i'd like to put this e-mail in the record. i'm going to refer to parts of that e-mail, but i think you ought to hear it directly from ron hack, so that will be at the end, just read it, but here's my summation of it. ron started the e-mail by saying, quote, iowa farmers have a problem with exploding land prices coupled with biden's increasing death and transfer taxes. end of quote. but to quote further, a tax at

death or transfer can't be paid back by younger working farm families. young iowa farmers would become futile servants to banks and landlords from outside the state. there are many cliches and articles written about this. i have seen some that don't seem to grasp the problem. end of quote. for those that didn't grasp the problem that these taxes might cause, ron highlighted some key statistics on the lack of available iowa farmland. you understand god only made so much farmland. quoting again, in iowa, from the third quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021, the center for agricultural world

development at iowa state university says 148,146 acres of iowa farmland has been available on the market out of 30 million crop acres, this is .1% of 1% -- .6% of 1% in a year. you don't know when parcel will be available again, so you need to buy it now is always said by the auctioneer. a des moines register article on june 28, 2018, by don eller, said that only 10% of iowa farmers plan to sell to a nonfamily member. ron made this point to show that

public auction prices are high because of the scarcity of available farmland for sale. these prices should not be used for family transfer -- tax transfer valuations for taxation, but, of course, they would be under some of these ideas coming out of the white house. ron continued with facts on the price of this farmland. quote, outsiders believe the value is there but, in fact, farm families don't want to sell so the auction price goes up. ron said, quote, in august there were 40 iowa farmland auctions with most of the sales between 10,000 to -- $10,000 to $16,000 an acre. assuming a taxable gain of

$10,000 per acre, biden's tax plan could be $4,400 per acre. ron told me that, quote, that a minimum -- at a minimum this would be a $200 cash rent for 22 years to the u.s. government all payable in advance. end of quote. he added, quote, this is con physical scaition, not -- confiscation, not taxation. ron said that since $4,400 must be paid for with after-tax dollars, it would take double this amount to pay it back. interest charges could make the payback period more than 50 years just to pay the u.s.

government. end of quote. ron finished his e-mail by saying, it doesn't take much outside money to raise havoc with iowa farmland auction. quote, the state or transfer taxes will ultimately destroy iowa's farm culture. end of quote. ron, thanks for taking time to write to me so i can tell my -- could tell my story to colleagues in the united states senate. it's my job to respond to comments and do something about it. i want to urge my colleagues to join together and oppose changes that will impact family farmers and small businesses generally. most importantly, those families, of which we're just told ron's statistics, 9 3-r% of

the -- 93% of the farmers want to pass it on to the next generation. that might be true of small businesses as well. and these iowa farmers, just like farmers around the country, feed and fuel our country and the world. only 2% of the people in this country provide food for the other 98%, ensuring that the next generation of farmers are able to keep the land in their family is in our national interest. if you want to preserve the family farm, then you can't let it be taken away by these biden tax proposals. these tax and spend proposals will be bad for small business, for farmers, and for all iowans. and i'll insert at this point the entire e-mail from ron hack. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

ms. ernst: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ms. ernst: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. ms. ernst: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ernst: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, democrats in washington are playing a high-stakes game with our nation's finances. congress just keeps passing bill after bill that adds trillions of dollars in spending to

washington's credit card. first, there was the $1.9 trillion bideno nics that paid people not to work and then there was the $1.2 trillion so-called infrastructure bill that was supposed to be entirely paid for but wasn't. and now the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that paves the way for passing a wish list of progressive priorities, like the green new deal and other pricey partisan pet projects. you might think the reckless spending spree would have come to a stop after reaching the nation's debt limit in july.

wrong. democrats are now plotting to suspend the debt limit in order to pass what would be the most expensive bill ever passed by congress. this reckless borrowing and spending is driving up the prices of everyday goods as well as our national debt. and if democrats have their way, the taxes of hardworking americans, too. and with the federal fiscal year ending in mere days, another trillion dollar spending bill will probably be rushed through at the last minute to avoid a government shutdown because congress put off doing its work on time yet again. the democrats have their hands full before ■multiplefinancia crises, all of their own making.

and their solution to each of these is the same. spend more money we don't have which only confounds the underlying problems. more spending results in higher taxes, increased prices, and even more debt. the scenario reminds me of that popular meme of a guy playing uno in which the whole aim of the game is to rid your hand of all of your cards. i love this game. i played it as a little girl at my grandma's house. played uno with all of my cousins. okay. so in the meme, he is seen holding a wild card that

presents him with a choice. perform an action in this version to cut unnecessary spending or draw another 25 cards from the deck and most certainly lose the game. in the next frame the man who represents the democrats here is holding a handful of cards because he would rather do anything but what the card actually suggests. unfortunately the consequences of dealing with washington's budget are much more dire than losing a game of uno. instead of drawing cards the democrats are selecting to borrow more to finance totally

unnecessary and completely indefensible and often bizarre expenditures rather than simply cutting waste out of the budget. just like you can't win uno without getting rid of the cards in your hand, we will never get control of our debt until we discard the waste in washington's bloated budget. it may sound a bit oversimplified but it isn't. to demonstrate the point, i brought my own deck of cards with me today. okay. so these are uno cards. every one of these cards lists a current government expenditure and its cost to the taxpayers. each represents a real choice congress will make in the coming

days. and each scenario, the democrats are likely to choose taxing and borrowing to pay for the spending rather than to trim the unneeded expenditure. so let's pick a card, any card and see if that is a good deal for the taxpayers. so let's see. uno card number one. cut the pork or draw 25. after a decade-long moratorium on congressional earmarks, the house of representatives has re-- has revived the corrupt practice of earmarking tax dollars for politicians' pet projects. more than 3,300 earmarks consisting of $9.3 billion have

been proposed by members of congress just this year which includes purchasing santa gifts in indiana and building fish markets in the virgin islands. we could save billions by pulling pork off the menu, but democrats are going to go with drawing 24 more cards instead. let's try another one. end welfare for politicians or draw 25. every year millions of taxpayer dollars are diverted into a special account that exists solely to subsidize the campaigns of politicians running for president.

the program has dolled -- doled out dwdz 1.6 billion for politicians to date and there is currently $400 million sitting in the account. we could save the $400 million by pulling the plug on this welfare program for politicians, but once again, democrats will choose to draw 25 more cards. okay. next card. put the brakes on boondoggles or draw 25. washington continues to bail out transit boondoggles across the country that are billions of dollars overbudget and decades behind schedule like, of course,

folk, san francisco bay area subway extension to silicon valley, california's high speed rail project and honolulu's elevated rail line. democrats are proposing $10 billion more to support the high-speed rail projects alone. we can save tens of billions of dollars by canceling these gravy trains that are taking taxpayers for a ride, but you can probably guess what the democrats' play will ultimately be. draw 25. so, folks, let's lay the cards on the table. the democrats' borrowing, base budgeting is a real house of cards because you simply can't

borrow your way out of debt. the bills will eventually come due in the form of higher taxes and drastic cuts to government services, and it will be the taxpayers who get lost in the shuffle. because the democrats control both chambers of congress and the white house, it may seem that the deck is stacked against our taxpayers, but i have a card up my sleeve. folks, let's put it in reverse and go in a different direction. instead of just throwing in the cards and going along with the democrats' demand to borrow another penny, let's first go through the budget line by line and determine what is a priority and what isn't.

it's time to make washington start living within a realistic budget, just like every other family in america is expected to do. and that may be a wild idea to the big spenders in d.c., but taxpayers know that is how to play your cards right. so instead of picking up more debt, let's skip -- let's skip the spending that isn't needed until we are sure washington isn't wasting a single dollar. uno. and with that, madam president, i yield the floor. mr. scott: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, currently america's debt is barreling towards $30 trillion. $30 trillion is hard to imagine. so think about it this way. that's more than $233,000 in debt for every american family. on july 31, the suspension on the federal debt limit expired, and now democrats in congress who continue to pursue a purely partisan reckless tax and spending spree are pushing this as a decision point with only two options. vote to suspend the debt limit or increase it. with no reforms to control excess federal spending. they want us to write the government a blank check to spend more money that we don't have. republicans have been clear. we will not do it.

now, my democrat colleagues will say that the debt ceiling shouldn't be a partisan issue, and i completely agree. but we've seen from the democrats this year has been purely partisan, even by washington's broken standards. first, they passed a nearly $2 trillion so-called covid bill that spent less than 10% of its funding on actually fighting covid without any republican votes. and now they are pushing forward a $5.5 trillion reckless tax and spending spree again without a single republican vote. this insane democrat spending means we're on a dangerous path of reaching $45 trillion in federal debt by 2031. that's not my number. that's what the democrats' own bill says. the democrats' own projections have their reckless spending taking the u.s. debt to $45 trillion in the next ten years.

there are major consequences to this financial irresponsibility. like any borrower, the federal government pays interest on its debt. when you rack up nearly $30 trillion in debt, that means runs of billions of dollars in interest. who pays for it? the taxpayers. right now even with interest rates at historic lows, the u.s. government is already spending nearly $345 billion yearly on interest. instead of funding important infrastructure, defense of the environment, nearly $45 billion in hard-earned tax dollars are just paying interest which provides zero return to american families. just imagine how much that will grow to when the u.s. reaches $4r5 trillion in -- $45 trillion in debt. and when interest rates return to normal levels, things will get even worse. let's look at this. right now about 11% of what

we're going to collect this year will go to pay the interest. there's no return for taxpayers on this interest. but let's look at what's going to happen by 2031. this is the democrats' budget. 23% of total federal receipts will go towards paying the interest. now that's assuming that the interest rates stay low. why would we believe that interest rates are going to stay low? let's just look at -- we're having unbelievable inflation right notice. when inflation goes up, interest rates typically follow. assuming low interest rates like the democrats do, we could be spending over a trillion dollars on just interest by 2031. imagine if interest rates return to historic averages, our payments will be astronomical. the federal government brings in less than $4 trillion in revenues so we'll be spending roughly a quarter of all tax revenue on interest that has

nothing for taxpayers, nothing for taxpayers. how can congress justify that? it's clear. democrat spending has caused this massive democrat debt. it's time for liberals in washington to own the debt crisis they have created. republicans have been clear. we responsibility stand for it -- we won't stand for it. we won't vote to bail out democrats out of control spending. we won't have more blank checks to bury the country in more debt, drive up america's interest expense, and fuel an already raging inflation crisis hurting families across my state and across this country. just last week the bureau of labor statistics reported the consumer price index was up 5.3% in one year from august to august. 5.3%. year over year comparisons show inflation has gone up each month

of biden's presidency. government doesn't feel the bite of inflation but everyday americans do. i'm hearing from families all across my state. a father of three in jacksonville, a mother, small businesses in miami. another family in kissimmee told us about how hard it is to keep food on the table because everything is getting so expensive. they're having trouble keeping their car because the cost of maintenance and cost. without a car, they won't have a way to get to work and provide for their family. it is heartbreaking to hear these stories. i can relate to this. i grew up in a poor family. my mom would take in ironing for extra money, give us exact change to go to the grocery store. and if the price of something went up, we just simply couldn't get it. in the face of this hardship felt by so many families in florida and across in great nation, president biden and democrats in congress have zero

interest in reducing the national debt and cutting their insane spending. democrats have shown a heartless disregard for the circumstances families are dealing with right now. it is time we bring accountability to federal spending. unlike our democrat colleagues, republicans have a solution-focused approach to fixing america's debt crisis. we know that the federal government can and must pursue practically measures that make it relatively easy and painless to cut spending. earlier, i introduced the federal debt and emergency control act which prevents the federal government from mindlessly spending by requiring a two-thirds vote terminating any unobligated funding from the stimulus bills, send it back to the treasury general fund for deficit reduction and fast-tracking any bill reducing the debt by the at least 5% over ten years.

and today i am joining my friend, senator pat toomey, to reintroduce the full faith and credit act. this bill ensures that the u.s. government does not default on its debt while also prioritizing certain payments to our seniors, military, and veterans. it is commonsense policy like this that will move the u.s. forward and out of the massive debt crisis we're in. i welcome all fiscally responsible colleagues to join me in saying we don't accept the status quo. we won't watch in silence as democrats try to spend us into oblivion. we can get spending under control. while i was governor of florida, we paid down one-third of state debt by living within our means, all while cutting taxes. we can do it here. we have to start acting responsibly. the time to do that is now. politicians in washington want you to think this is so complicated. they want you to think that dysfunction is inevitable. that is a lie.

it's a lie that a broken system and failed politicians up here have been telling you for decades. it's time for that to end. getting america back on track is simple. it starts with passing commonsense reforms that rein in reckless spending, stop congress frommest going paid when it shuts -- from getting paid when it shuts is down the federal government. we keep on the right financial path by making sure congress is held accountable for spending of taxpayer money. it is taxpayer money -- every dollar of it. it's time to stand up for those on fixed incomes and our poorest families whose income can't keep up with inflation. it's time to stand up for our grandkids whose futures are being mortgaged by out-of-control washington spending. this isn't political. it's good government, and it's common sense. the longer we ignore the debt problem, the worse it will become, not just for us but for future generations.

the debt crisis is here today. it will be american families that feel the effects of their government's lack of fiscal responsibility through inflation, higher costs, and rising taxes. that's not the america anyone wants. american families deserve better through smart legislation and responsible choices. we can be truly accountable to the american people and bring some stability back to the federal government's bank account. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: well, madam president, obviously when you look at what needs to be done in the fall and frankly if you look at what needs to be done in the next few weeks, there are important items ahead of us. one of them that my colleague from florida just did a good job talking about is setting the debt limit or how much federal government debt should the country be able to tolerate. one way to do this to set a

limit. another way that some of my colleagues appear to really prefer is just to set a date and say we're going to postpone any limit until that date and we'll just see what happens, we'll see how deep the debt gets between now and then. but we really don't want to talk about a limit. and when you look at what that limit is likely to be, you'd understand why you wouldn't want to talk about that. we've really seen this coming for some time. it shouldn't be a crisis except frankly our friends on the other side seem intent on making it a crisis and seeing if they can include all of us suddenly in a spending discussion that we haven't been in up until now. how much debt can we have, how much can we forward. but what we've seen this year is how much money can one side spend without involving the other side in any way.

we have never approached the debt limit in at least the last 25 years that it i'm aware of -- that i'm aware of that didn't involve talking about spending. i'd argue, madam president, that there's no real reason to have the debt limit if it doesn't force a discussion on spending. other countries don't have it. we have it. one reason i've always thought it actually served a purpose is it always generated a discussion on spending, not just a discussion on full faith and credit but how much money are we going to spend? in fact, when president obama was president and the debt ceiling had to be extended, we had a discussion about what are our spending caps going to be? we had a decade because of that of spending caps. we didn't always stick with them, but not to stick with them, you had to change the law. so that forced another discussion. we've all heard for a decade about the caps deal, the spending caps deal. well, that was a discussion that

was had so there'd b. be a bipartisan -- so there'd be a bipartisan agreement on the debt limit. in june of 2019, we saw the debt limit coming again and by that time speaker pelosi, who was the speaker of the house in charge of a majority in the house, said she wouldn't cooperate in doing anything on the debt limit unless the administration agreed to spend more money. so there you have a spending discussion, but you also have one body of the congress where the leader of the entire majority is saying, we're not going to be part of the debt limit unless we have an agreement on spending. and we want to spend more. and from that moment on, secretary mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury, was up here over and over again negotiating with the speaker of the house on just how much more it was going to take for her to be part of the debt limit. now, here we are in almost

october, nine months through the year. republicans really haven't been able asked in any serious way up until now this year how to set parameters for government spending. we'd like to spend less. the other side would like to spend more. but no republicans -- zero republicans -- were involved -- have been involved in plan to eliminate important parts of the 2017 tax bill that clearly were producing the kind of economic rums read hoped for at the beginning -- results we'd hoped for at the beginning. pandemic. no republicans were part of the plan to spend right at $2 trillion in the march covid relief bill, even though we really saw our economy already coming back. and, by the way, no surprise, when you spend $2 trillion, inflation is one of the things you're going to get when you put that much money into the economy

on top of what we'd put in in 2020 in a bipartisan way to try to stabilize the economy. well, the economy was clearly stabilized by the first of last year, and no republican -- again, let me say -- was part of how to spend that $2 trillion. no republican has been part of the discussion of how to spend what our friends on the other side say would be a $3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spending amount. others estimate that $3.5 trillion really would be $5 trillion. but, again, the point is not how big it would be. the point is, no republican has been part of that. and if you look at what's actually in that legislation as it comes out of the house, some of the things are pretty amaze ago. there are $3 billion on a

project called tree equity. i don't think that's to make all the trees the same size. i think assume that's a project to be sure that everybody had their fair percentage of the trees, whatever that would mean, and how you describe that. there's $200 million for the presidio, the park in speaker pelosi's district -- $2 i million. they're talking about $8 billion in that bill for a new civilian climate quorum. and $7 billion to buy electric vehicles for the postal service. their plan comes to us with $105 million for entrepreneurial training for people who are currently or have just been incarcerated. there's even $5 million in that bill for electronic voting systems for union elections. not opposed to union elections, not opposed to unions having them. it would seem to me that they

have up until now figured out how to provide their own equipment for their own elections, or rent it or lease it. it's certainly a new sort of government involvement in that activity. frankly, the list goes on and on. at $3 trillion you're likely to have a lot of ideas. it seems to me that a lot of the ideas are you come up with a number, which is what it takes to eliminate the 2017 tax cuts and then start talking about how many new things do we need to do to support that number. well, this shouldn't be an emergency. september is pretty late to reach out to the other side and not even now say, well, let's talk about our spending priorities. but say, well, you need to help us with this because, at some point, there's some money that had to be spent that was your responsibility, too. guess we could have said that to speaker pelosi in 2019 when she

said, not going to do it unless we get more spending. and we wouldn't have had an agreement in the obama years if we hadn't set a cap on spending. the truth is, this isn't speaker pelosi's money, and it's not senator schumer's money, and it's not my money. we're talking about the mo enthat belongs to the american people. -- we're talking about the money that belongs to the american people. they need to have a say in this in a 50-50 senate, one side deciding we're going to make all the decisions about spending money means that that one side is likely to wind up making all the decisions about how to reach the debt limit. and i would yield back.

the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: madam president, with the democrat president in the white house, democrats controlling the house of representatives, and democrats controlling the senate, those on the left have every arrow in the quiver to raise the debtly. it's their sole responsibility. they own this. and it's also their responsibility, having control of all the levers of government, to ensure that government does not shut down next thursday at midnight. as you've already heard from my colleagues today, we republicans are united in the fact that we will not assist in passing another reckless big-government socialism package designed to reshape the nation and make

americans more dependent on the government from the moment they are born to the moment they die. f.d.r. once warned of a government dependents when he said, and i quote here, continued dependence upon relief induces a moral and spiritual disintegration destructive to the national fiber. to dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. i end quote. as equity willed officials, we're supposed to be -- as elected officials we're supposed to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. we're supposed to leave the country in better shape for our children and grants children. but the democrats' tax-and-spending spree promulgates the dependency. in just one generation, the national debt has soared from $12 trillion to more than $28 trillion. think about that for a

secondary. in the first 225 years of our nation's history, the national debt was approximately $5 trillion. in the last 20 years we've increased it by nearly another $25 trillion, including accumulating more than $7 trillion in just the past two years. i've said this before, but folks grab your wallets. grab your wallets because the bill they want to pass by reconciliation is going to include massive spending that will put heavy debt on our country. it's going to raise your taxes. it's going to cause medicare to run out in two years. and it's going to continue to drive up the cost of living. the inflation we're seeing now is a double whammy. you have less money to spend and the things you're able to buy costs more. it's hurting every hardworking american but none more than our seniors and young families living paycheck to paycheck. this looming government shutdown is just another crisis created by this administration.

they created a crisis at our southern border, in afghanistan, with the labor shortage, and now in the pocketbooks of americans with a multitrillion-dollar socialistic spending package. while it's true america has seen a number of horrendous financial crises before, none have so quickly developed as the pending fiscal crisis president biden created with the trillions of dollars worth of reckless spending and reckless taxing in just the first nine months of control. and democrats are now pointing fingers at republicans claiming that by refusing to go along with their out-of-control spending and joining them to increase the debt limit that we're the ones who are being financially irresponsible. give me a break. if they were serious about getting our fiscal house in order they wouldn't be trying to force through another partisan spending bill that's going to bankrupt our country and instead would be pursuing budget reforms and debt reduction proposals in exchange for increasing the debt. this is not a serious political

party, and america needs to recognize we have a choice between free enterprise capitalism and a socialist economy. trust me, madam president, i've heard loud and clear this past weekend during my town hall meetings in the kansas city area about what kansans wants and it's not the socialism that has borne out trillions of dollars worth of spending and taxing that led to inflation and killed our jobs. if you want strong roads, bridges, high-speed internet, good schools and a strong military, we need a stronger economy. that should be our focus right now, not continuing down this administration's socialist economic policy. pre-covid we had the greatest economy in my lifetime. that came about because we lowered people's taxes, we lowered regulations and we lowered energy prices. we need smart, targeted investments, not radical spending that leaves the cupt at

a dis -- the country at a disadvantage. i yield back. mrs. blackburn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, madam president. since day one of this administration, president biden has made it abundantly clear that he's not interested in the opinion of anyone who poses a threat to his so-called transformative political agenda. during his first three days in office, he signed 30 executive orders and actions that embraced radical environmental policies, destroyed thousands of jobs associated with the keystone pipeline and transformed our southern border into a war zone. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle jumped on board with the reckless plan to borrow and spend our way into economic oblivion. they've made it clear that despite having no mandate from the american people and no meaningful buy-in from republicans, they're willing to do whatever it takes to

transform this country into a waste land defined by debt, dependency and total government control. they're alone in this, and for the past nienl -- nine months that's the way the democrats have really wanted it to be, at least until recently when it became, oh, yes, politically inconvenient. lately my democratic colleagues have burned a lot of political capital insisting that republicans must come back to the table to help them raise the debt limit and avoid a doomsday scenario. that's right, they are the party of party-line votes. and they can't find it within themselves to finance the cost of their very own reckless spending plans. why this sudden shift in sentiment? the answer is simple. it's because they know that what

they're doing is indefensible. they don't want to own this. they don't want to have to explain to their children and their grandchildren who are now stuck with the tab. what are they going to say when their grandchild says, why does the federal government take most of my money? well, it's because of their spending. i don't blame them. if the democrats have it their way, the national debt will hit more than $40 trillion by the end of the decade. that is correct, $40 trillion. the american people can already feel the effects of this inflationary spending. every time they go to the grocery store, every time they go to the gas pump. it looks like that inflation is going to be with us until the end of the biden presidency. they have also noticed that our supply chains are running thin.

as we speak democrats are negotiating the largest package of tax increases in decades. and contrary to the spin from the white house, those tax increases will hit small businesses and hardworking taxpayers. now let's be clear, this all happened according to plan. it is intentional. but here's the problem. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are realizing that all those persuadable voters they won in 2020 are having buyer's remorse. they will realize this is intentional by the democrats. they may have voted for president biden, but as they tell me, they did not vote for this. the democrats have made a mess, and i'll tell you what, they did it in record time. the only option that they have left is to find a friend to try to share the blame.

i will play no part in facilitating this radical socialist agenda. i would say to my democratic colleagues, you've known for a long time that this day was coming, and yet you were content to squander your power on a unilateral multitrillion-dollar agenda for which you have no mandate and you can't pay for. leader mcconnell did not do this to you. donald trump did not do this to you. this is indeed an emergency of your own creation. elections have consequences. as such, you control the entire government, and there is no one standing in your way. you chose to govern alone, and fortunately you have all the tools you need to do your duty and address the debt limit right by yourself.

the time for manipulation and spin is over. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. young: madam president, when i served in the house of representatives, i walked into a lot of meetings back in indiana full of angry conservatives. you know what they were angry about? they were angry about the debt limit. 2011, 2013, 2014, and more. and in each of those meetings, madam president, i made the argument that raising the debt limit was a necessary thing to do, a responsible thing to do,

a conservative thing to do. i still believe that. defaulting on our nation's debts will start a dangerous spiral of economic turmoil that will redowned to the disadvantage of the least among us. interest rates would rise, the value of the dollar would fall, essential government workers might not get paid, and so on and so forth. back in those days, as a republican in the house majority, we never failed to raise the debt limit. not once. and we also never failed to have a say in the spending that necessitated raising the debt limit. in 2019, we again raised the debt limit, this time through july 13 of this year. now it is democrats. it is my democrat friends who

control the majority in both chambers of congress. and with that control, the hard left has embarked on an unprecedented reckless spending spree designed to remake america in their image in fairly short order. before year's end, $1.9 trillion in march, a $4.2 trillion budget authored by senator bernie sanders, now $3.5 trillion on a partisan human infrastructure grab bag, the largest spending bill in american history. and so i say to my democratic friends, you've decided to do all of that on your own, and now you want our help. it's unclear to me why you need it. you've done so much on your own.

you have a number of options at your disposal to rate the debt limit all by yourself, just as you've gone it alone on this spending spree. a farmer back home over the august recess came up to me as i was traveling the highways and byways of the hoosier state. i like to think that the people i represent are blessed with a whole lot of commonsense, which for whatever reason oftentimes doesn't permeate this town. and the farmer told me that it seems like in this instance the butcher wants to build a new slaughter house, and he's asking the cows to cosign on the construction loan. it seems like a pretty good metaphor for what the democrats are asking of republican members. if democrats had treated republicans as a governing partner in an equally divided united states senate these past nine months, i might feel

differently about this debt limit vote. instead they've treated us as an annoyance, an obstacle. adverse to every common interest we might have. now i know we can count on my democratic friends to ensure that america never defaults on its debt. i know we can count on every single democratic united states senator to vote to raise that debt ceiling, to own all of this spending. they and they alone are responsible for. i sure hope we can count on them to vote on a specific dollar figure in conjunction with the reconciliation bill. i know there's been apprehension made public by the budget chairman over in the house of representatives. i suspect that's shared by many of my colleagues.

but show some college. do what republicans have done, do what i have done. walk the plank. own this spending that you're responsible for. i will let you know a vote by republicans to raise the debt limit at this point in time is a vote to cosign the democrats' partisan, irresponsible, and unprecedented spending spree. and we're going to have none of it. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor to join my colleague from indiana and to congratulate him on those remarks which would be most certainly well received in wyoming and reflect the feeling

of the people of my state in terms of the reckless tax and spending process in which the democrats are engaged. and i come today to the floor to oppose what the democrats are trying to do in terms of adding money to the debt, additional spending, a bill that has been described in so many ways. i read it, and to me it is reckless, it's extreme, it's scary to talk about the sort of things that the democrats are trying to impose on the american people. and when we take a look at what happens with this national debt, folks on medicare and on social security are concerned are going to get undermined, those wonderful programs that work for so many people, because of the debt, the growing debt. how are we going to address it? the suspension of the debt ceiling expired a month and a half ago. less than two weeks later democrats passed a blueprint for the largest spending bill in the

history of the united states. over $3 5 trillion. people looked at it and said how much it is, oh, democrats may say $3.5 trillion. it's a lot more than that. more than america spent in world war ii to win the war? this is in addition to the $2 trillion already spent and added to the debt in a party-line vote earlier this year. we are in debt $28 trillion, on our way to $30 trillion, it approaches $100,000 per individual. it's going to have to be paid back ultimately to wall street to japan to china to those who hold our debt. and the problem when you look at a debt that large and say, how do you put that into

perspective? how do you put that in on a loan. people who buy a car or home know how much they pay on a loan. for the united states it is $100 billion interest a year on loan. this is at record-low interest rates. well, where is that money coming from? you get nothing in return for it. but democrats seem to think we need to just keep spending money and borrowing money to pay for the reckless spending. they don't want voters to know about it, they don't want voters to know how much they are asking for an unlimited ability to spend until after the 2022 election. that's what's coming from the house. they said, don't ask us. we're not going to tell you. we're going to spend like there is no more tomorrow until after the date of the 2022 election. they want to cover all of this spending by suspending what they

call the debt ceiling so they can borrow as much as they want. it's not going to happen. you can't have it both ways. they are going to spend trillions of dollars, they are going to be responsible for the consequences of that spending. republicans are not going to give chuck schumer and nancy pelosi a blank check, period. we are not going to give them a rubber-stamp p to their -- stamp to their reckless spending, if democrats want to raise the debt ceiling, they need to do it on their own and they will, republicans will not participate. democrats have been in charge eight full months. they have complete control, the house, the senate, the white house. during all that time, haven't raised a finger to lift the debt ceiling. instead they had the secretary of the treasury send a letter. she said the treasury will run out of money in october.

it's now september 22, the clock is ticking, democrats chose not to raise the debt ceiling when they passed their $2 trillion addition to the debt earlier this year. they called it covid relief, less than 9% of the money went for medical care and chose not to raise it as part of the $3.5 trillion or $4 trillion spending bill that is being proposed as a result of bernie sanders socialist budget. and democrats think that the american people can keep spending money in such a reckless way. they are playing chicken with our economy. think they can fool the american people. it's not going to work. republicans are not going to be held hostage by the democrats and the american people should not be either or be put on the hook. democrats have enough votes to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars, then they have enough votes to raise the debt limit. this is democrat debt, it is

biden-schumer pelosi debt. senate republicans will not vote to burden future generations or to undermine social security and medicare today with this kind of reckless spending. we're not going to vote for the spending bill, not one of us, not going to vote to raise the debt limit on democrat terms. if they want to go it alone on spending, the democrats can go it alone on raising the debt ceiling. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president, today the senate is debating

professor lily lawrence batchelder's nomination by president biden to serve as assistant treasury secretary for tax policy. i'm going to be brief, but i just want the senate to know ms. batchelder is an extraordinary individual and i think she will serve in an extraordinary way when she is confirmed. she's not a stranger to the senate, particularly for those of us who serve on the finance committee. from 2010 until 2014, she was chief tax counsel to then-chairman max baucus. members were working hard looking at ways to drive a broader economic recovery following a recession. it was also a time when members were interested in trying to drive a little bit of commonsense and i'll talk about this more in a minute -- to

america's broken tax code. lily excelled in working with democrats and republicans to try to find common ground. she understood from the time she arrived at the finance committee that if you really want to tackle big challenges, if you want to come up with big solutions and make them sustainable, you have to find common ground. after her service on the finance committee, lily became the deputy director of the economic national counsel under president obama. she now serves as the head of taxation at n.y.u. school of law and one of the aspects of her scholarship that i particularly admire is her efforts to craft tax policies that bring more american workers into the

economic winner's circle. she understands the tax code in and out, she knows the congress, she knows how the congress and the administration work. and that's the reason why the finance committee approved her nomination with such a strong bipartisan margin, 22-6 margin. members of both sides thought that she would be a great addition to treasury. the senate ought to vote the same way. second, lily's nomination has waited long enough for consideration on the senate floor. secretary yellen needs a full team in place at treasury. the country is going to be dealing with the after effects of the pandemic, economic crash for years to come. there's a long way to go -- a long way to go before full recovery and when we confirm

her, she is going to have a chance to really bring real insight into some big areas like dealing with the climate crisis, the nationwide lack of affordable housing and an increasingly unfair tax code. and i just want to give you an example of the kind of issue she's going to have to take on. my colleagues here in the senate have heard me talk about how it is that they are reading news stories about how billionaires all across america end up paying little or no income tax for years on end. well, there's a little secret to how this happens and it's because these billionaires are advised in many instances don't

take a wage, don't have taxable income. put your money into stocks and that was what we did see during the pandemic and they ended up with even more financial resources than anyone imagined while we read the news articles describing how they paid little or no income tax for years on end. as the chairman of the senate finance committee, a top priority of mine -- and i don't see how anybody can oppose this idea -- is to say when nurses and firefighters pay taxes with every paycheck every year that we shouldn't say the billionaires, we're glad they are so successful, should pay their fair share every year.

and so i i have proposed a billionaires tax to close this loophole of unfairness. it just seems to me to be a basic question of fairness for people in nevada or oregon or anywhere else that we all pay our fair share -- we all pay our fair share. and that's just one example of what ms. batchelder is going to be dealing with. for example, on clean energy, again, the finance committee wants to break some new ground. we said, take the 44 energy tax breaks that are on the books, most of them are relics from yester-year, put them in the dustbin of history and in the future have one for energy, one for clean transportation fuel and one for energy efficiency and then going forward we'll

have tech neutrality -- we'll have tech neutrality and we'll say to every company, everybody involved in the energy area, the most you reduce carbon emissions, the bigger your savings. the senate finance committee never did anything like this in 100 years, madam president. but to really carry this out, you're going to have to have really talented people like lily batchelder there. so she's going to understand what it means to make sure that everybody pays their fair share and that means billionaires are no longer exempt from paying their fair share and she's going to be a huge asset as we deal with climate change and, my god, if people think about the last six weeks, the boot leg fire in oregon, i know my colleague in nevada has been clobbered by these fires, the storms in the south, what we saw in the east

coast of the united states, climate change has hit this country like a wrecking ball. we're going to have lily batchelder confirmed, i hope here, very shortly. those are the kinds of policy ideas she's going to be able to pursue. the treasury department needs a tax policy point guard, somebody who, in effect -- and everybody knows i went to school on a basketball scholarship. you always admired the people who ran the floor, who was the pointguard and make sure the work got done and didn't worry about who got the credit. madam president, that is lily batchelder. if there is any person who could chip away at the polarization between democrats and republicans, it is lily

batchelder. i support her nomination fully and urge my colleagues to vote for her and, madam president, i have one more nomination to discuss and i ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks and i will be complete on this nomination before we vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: madam president, next the senate is considering the nomination of jayme white for position of deputy united states trade representative. now senators know that jayme has been a long time member of my finance committee staff, so i won't bury that lead today. we feel that all of us who had a chance to work with him in the finance committee, and he has been supported by business and labor and senators who have worked together with him repeatedly over the years on complicated trade issues, we all come together to make the case

that jayme will be an exemplary deputy u.s. t.r. representative, a top-notch advocate for our workers, businesses, farmers, and ranchers, his confirmation will be a loss for the senate finance committee, i can tell you that, but it's going to be the american people's gain. a little bit on jayme's background. he's from our part of the world, pacific northwest near seattle. he's worked on trade policy for more than 20 years on capitol hill. we kind of lured him away from his old job working for his old town representative congressman jim mcdermott and since 2016, he's been the top trade and competitiveness advisor for the finance committee. i've had a front-row seat watching jayme for over a decade. what he has always tried to do is reach across the aisle and say, look, we know that to

create more high-skill, high-wage jobs in the private sector, and in our part of the world that is crucial, one out of four jobs depend on trade, trade jobs pay better than often the nontrade jobs, you've got to think about workers and the environment and good governance and jayme brings members from both sides of the aisle to make sure our trade policies in those areas are durable for the long term. he has been way ahead of the pack on the need for more aggressive trade enforcement. years ago when i was chairman of the trade subcommittee, our colleague max baucus was chairman of the full committee. jail me set up -- jayme set up a sting operation, an actual sting operation with a dummy website to show how the tax cheats, the rip-off artists were able to launder merchandise and avoid