stateline to stateline and if there's still a prohibition on what they can carry? >> great questions. i know there are four issues and i'm hopeful for port authorities will be of a more lenient in regards to the truck drivers who come. the problem is scheduling so that's what i've been hearing from the truck drivers for that particular schedule a time, fair told to leave so i think we have to be a little more lenient, we are focused getting trucks loaded and getting them out so i would suggest that if they could do that to make that change to allow for convenient when people show up further time. the second time, you can do that because every state --

>> you can see the rest of us on our website, c-span.org. right now, will take you lift to the u.s. senate which is fighting and confirmation of the nominee for the u.s. district court in new jersey. live senate coverage here on c-span2. senate will come to order. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: madam president. today i rise in support of the confirmation of ms. christine o'hearn to the united states district court for the district of new jersey. i was proud to recommend ms. o'hearn for this nomination. she has the qualifications, intellect to make an impartial federal judge and i'm confident she will serve the u.s. district of new jersey as well. she was born in camden,

graduated from the university of delaware, earned his doctorate from beasley school of law in philadelphia. she has worked on behalf of both employers and workers during his impressive career. she's currently a partner at the firm of brown and connery in west mountain, new jersey, where she is highly regarded by her colleagues for her keen insight in every case she takes on. twice she was named one of the top 40 attorneys in new jersey and featured in women's law journal. ms. o'hearn previously served as an adjunct professor. she was appointed to the u.s. magistrate judge selection committee and served in various distinguished board, including the college of trial lawyers and the new jersey court district

for ethics committee. and this year, this gives you an insight of the person that she is beyond her competence and capability and intellect. she volunteered as a pro bono attorney for newly arriving afghan refugees in fort dix, new jersey, informing them of their rights and navigating our complicated immigration laws. she described this as immensely fulfilling and i hope it will help others to lend a hand. her professional credentials, combined with her compassion and commitment to the fair and impartial administration of justice will make her an outstanding judge. finally, madam president, i'd like to remind my colleagues that the u.s. district of new jersey is one of the busiest courts in all of america. as of last year, more than 46,000 cases were pending before it. many of them among the most complex and challenging cases in

the nation. yet, multiple vaccinated on the court -- vacancies have left it with some of the highest cases in the country, prompting them to have judicial emergencies. the people of new jersey deserve nothing less than a fully staffed district court not to mention all of the parties with business pending before it. i'm confident that ms. oh, herb's experience and inter -- o'hearn's experience and intellectual rigor will be an asset to the district court of new jersey and i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in support of her swift confirmation of her nomination. madam president, i have nine requests for committees to meet today during the stion of the senate. they -- session of the senate, they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. with that, madam president, i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i ask that the vote that was scheduled for 2:30 occur immediately. is there objection? without objection. the question is on the nomination. mr. menendez: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: d)

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 52, the nays are 44. the nomination is confirmed.

under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions. mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: pursuant to senate res. 27, the committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs being tied on the question of reporting, i move to discharge the senate committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs from further consideration of brian eddie nelson of california to be under secretary for terrorism and financial crimes. the presiding officer: under the provisions of s. res. 27 there will be up to four hours of debate on the motion equally divided between the designees. mr. schumer: i ask for the yns. -- for the yeas and nays. mr. schumer: we expect a vote to discharge the nomination to occur about 5:30 p.m. today.

i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. i rise today in defense of the most sacred right we have in this country, and that is the right to vote. this right is fundamental to our democracy. it's the right to make your voice heard in our government. but this right is under attack by ultraconservative state lawmakers who are restricting access to our ballot boxes, the same people who continue to cast unserious, baseless, and dangerous doubts on the results

of the 2020 election. i'm not being hyperbolic when i say if these attacks succeed, there will be grave consequences for our democratic system not just in those states, but throughout our country. so as i've said time and again, we must pass strong federal voting rights protections into law because doing so is essential to making sure that our democracy stays a democracy. democrats are rightfully exploring every potential avenue to ensure americans' fundamental right to vote is not restricted. we are voting on legislation this week, the freedom to vote act, that has been the result of extended negotiations and discussions. and i appreciate all my colleagues who are working to craft a bill all of us can agree to, one that ensures that voters have equal access to the ballot box, that promotes best practices for voter registration and administration, and protects our elections from the very real threat of interference

both foreign and domestic. this is a reasonable bill by any stretch of the imagination, and i challenge anyone to tell me what could be more controversial about making election day a public holiday or ensuring everyone has the opportunity to vote early, making sure everyone can request a vote by mail ballot. these are simple measures to ensure that every americans' voice can be heard, and i'm glad this bill includes protections that will help give power back to the people in our government, making sure people pick their representatives rather than representatives picking their voters. by stopping special interest money from drowning out americans' voices and votes, and by protecting and securing each american citizen's right to cast their ballot. nothing in this bill should be controversial if you care about the health of our democracy. so i hope our republican colleagues will join us in supporting it because i strongly believe protecting every american's right to vote should

not be a partisan issue. and my republican colleagues will have a chance this week to inspire confidence in our elections and make sure they are secure by voting for this commonsense legislation. but if there are some who want to stand between voters and their due right to the ballot box, we cannot as public servants simply throw up our hands and say oh well, we tried. so republicans choose to look the other way on implementing federal voting right protections because voter suppression tactics might benefit them politically. democrats must use every tool needed to get the freedom to vote act to president biden's desk. of all the critical things we'll vote on this congress, and many are so important to our workers and families, this is the most important. it is about the future of our democracy. and if our republican colleagues are not willing to stand up for

our democracy, we can't let them hide behind senate rules and block democrats from doing so on our own. the stakes are really simply too high to fail. one way or another this senate has to pass the freedom to vote act. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and i suggest the absence -- i withhold that request. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor today to talk about what americans are talking about all across the country, and that is the fact that energy prices are rising and doing it dramatically. energy is called a master resource for a reason. it powers our communities, our homes, our military, and our economy. it fuels the trucks that bring goods and groceries to market. it keeps the lights on. small businesses all acr country, and it heats our homes. this is the reason why higher

energy prices mean higher prices in every other part of our life. over the last nine months people have been seeing this all across the country. energy prices have gone up and not just by a little. they've gone up a lot. it's contributed to higher prices for just about everything we do and everywhere we go. the cost of a tank of gas is about $1 higher than it was when joe biden came into the white house. as a result, if you go to fill up at a local gas station, it's about $25 more to fill your than january on the 20th when joe biden took the oath of office. now it's not just gasoline that's gone up. it's the gas we use to heat our homes. natural gas powers over half of the homes that are heated across

america. and the price is now at a seven-year high. so as a rul lot more not just to drive, but also to heat their homes this winter. and it's interesting because here in america, we have the energy resources we need. we're just not able to use them because of this administration. under the last administration, america became the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. in the world -- america. america's energy dominance worked to help us reduce our trade deficit, brought home more jobs, brought industries home to america. it fueled the best economy in my lifetime here at home in america and as a nation, we became energy independent for the first time in 70 years. these were historic achievements by?a america's energy workers.

in my home state, the state of wyoming was proud to play a major role these achievements. wyoming is america's number-one per capita exporter of energy. we produce it in wyoming and we send it around the country and around the world. we power america and we power the world. yet, ever since joe biden became president it's become a lot harder. i talk to energy workers at home all of the time in wyoming all across the state, and what they continue to tell me is it has never been more difficult than it is right now. in just nine months joe biden has already become the most anti-american energy president in our nation's history. on his first day in office, he drew a target on the back of american petroleum energy, and he pulled the trigger. he killed the key stone x.l. pipeline, and that ended thousands of good-paying jobs at

a height of a pandemic. president biden also shut down oil and gas exploration near the arctic. he banned oil and gas leasing on federal lands. this has been devastating to western states -- wyoming, colorado, nevada, new mexico. nearly half of wyoming is federal land, and now joe biden says that land is off limits to wyoming energy workers. because of joe biden's radical anti-energy agenda, people in every corner of this country are paying higher prices for energy, paying more at the pump, paying more at the grocery store, paying all around. even one of the democrats' favorite economists, mark zandi, says the american people are now paying $175 more every month -- $175 every month more than they were a year ago.

that includes gas, groceries, rent. joe biden inflation, it's equivalent to $2,100 a week. that's a heck of a paycheck cut for american workers. so who gets hurt by this? well, it's struggling families, it's seniors, it's people living on a fixed income. polls show that about half of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. 40% of the country says they couldn't afford to cover an emergency if the costs were above $400. well, in the joe biden economy, people are paying five times that amount, the amount they can't handle for an emergency, just in the cost of annual inflation. the biden white house doesn't seem to care very much about it, doesn't understand it, clueless. last week the white house chief of staff retweeted a message

which says inflation is, quote, a high-class problem. madam president, he couldn't be more wrong. if the white house believes this, they are woefully, woefully at a loss for understanding what's happening in this country, because what's happening is exactly the opposite of what the white house thinks. the white house chief of staff clearly doesn't understand the struggles of working families all across this country. the big democrat donors in chuck schumer's brooklyn, new yor or nancy pelosi's san francisco, they're going to be just fine. it's the working families in rural america who are getting hurt the most. and as winter is coming, energy costs are going to go up significantly. the u.s. energy information administration, branch of the government, says energy bills will be up dramatically this winter compared to last. this inflation nightmare is absolutely at a point where

there is still no end in sight. the american people believe it is going to continue and it is going to get worse. democrats have finally been hit with the reality that people are worried about the high cost of energy. what have they decided to do about it? what did the administration do about it? in august, the president's national security advisor begged russia and opec and the oil cartel to pump more oil. hard to believe that really happened. it's also hard to believe as my friend and colleague, the senior senator from alaska, told me that the unitedtatess using more oil from russia than from alaska right now. the administration is asking opec and russia to help lower the cost in the united states, just go to the white house website. they put it on the white house

website. joe biden would rather buy energy from our enemies and send american dollars overseas than produce it here at home. he would rather send american dollars overseas to our enemies than explor for american -- explore for american energy and the resources that we have where we have the capacity to lead the world. last week the biden administration made an off the record call to u.s. energy-producing companies. the administration nerve to ask them to lower their prices at the same time that this administration has forced them to lower their production. it's economic 101, supply and demand, basic arithmetics and now the energy secretary has said we might have to use the strategic petroleum reserve to

try to bring more energy it on the market to help deal with the costs that have gone up as a result of the biden policies. you know, we went to the strategic petroleum reserve during the first iraq war and after hurricane katrina and during the arab spring. in other words, this is something we do in a crisis. the biden administration won't say it out loud, yet, let's admit it, there is a crisis and it is one that joe biden and this administration has created. it's a crisis of joe biden's own making and it's a crisis that joe biden could end tomorrow because we have the capacity at home to do it. instead, what are the democrats doing? well, they are threatening to make it even worse. democrats in the senate are pushing a $3.5 trillion reckless tax tax and spending spree. one commissioner of the ferc,

the federal energy regulatory commission, told us at the energy committee, that to pass this $3.5 trillion bill would, -- would be, quote, like an h bomb on america's energy markets. that's because the bill contains huge portions of what has become to be known as the disastrous green bad deal. here are a few of the examples included in this $3.5 trillion bill in the house right now. $8 billion for a so-called civilian climate corps. this is taxpayer-funded climate police. they'll get free housing, free clothing, free college tuition, free child care to go out and police the environment based on the climate. the democrat spending spree also includes $10 billion for what the democrats call environmental justice and higher education. the bill includes $105 billion

for what the democrats call climate justice and then green energy subsidies. well, let's take a look at the subsidies. these subsidies include huge subsidies for people who buy and drive electric vehicles. who drives electric vehicles, people who have lots of money, billions of dollars are given to manufacturing owners. 30% of the tax credit goes to households making $100,000 a year. that's who this administration is beholden to. the spending spree would give up to 12,500 to married couples, a single person up to $400,000 a year could get a subsidy, a married couple making up to $80000,000 a year -- $800,000 a

year could get a subsidy. how is america going to pay for this? they want to put more taxes on natural gas. what will thato to the people trying to heat their homes this winter? it will eliminate 90,000 american energy jobs. it will cost people all across the country. what the administration's answer is the last thing that we need in this country right now. we in this country have the best energy resources in the world. we also have the best energy workers in the world. it's time we let these good men and women do their jobs. the american people don't need trillions of dollars more in taxes and spending and debt. we need more american energy. it's time for joe biden and the democrats to get out of the way of affordable american energy

the people -- energy. the people of this country need it badly. thank you, madam president. and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. tuberville: madam president, i want to begin today by recognizing the service and sacrifice of our law enforcement officers. this past weekend americans here in our nation's capital and around the country participated in national police weekend. being a law enforcement officer is one of the toughest and most dangerous jobs that there is. i think people on both sides of the aisle in this chamber would agree with that. law enforcement officers serve as a boundary between a functioning society and a lawless one and, sadly, during the course of their vital duty to serve and protect our

communities, some pay the ultimate price. alabama has lost four individuals in the line of duty to date this year. deputy sheriff william h. smith of baldwin county sheriffs office. deputy keys, corrections officer maurice reese jackson of the robertsville police department, sergeant nick risener of the sheffield police department. our state lost five individuals this year from covid. lieutenant jeff baine, police officer juan manuel gomez lopez of the pellon police department, harry buddy hutchison of the

blunt county sheriff's office, investigator richard wendall humphrey of the baldwin county district attorney's office. these nine individuals deserve our honor. they got out of bed each morning, put their uniform on and went to work for our communities across this country. to their friends and families, thank you for your sacrifice. it's a tough task loving and supporting someone who goes to work each day putting their life on the line to protect people they don't -- they don't even know. they know only that they are fellow americans. and to every alabaman who wears a badge and a uniform, thank you for all you do for our communities. you know, it's an unfortunate truth that many officers are

being driven out of their profession by a wave of antipolice rhetoric on the heels of bad actors who operated outside their training. the biden administration has jumped at every opportunity to demonize and demean the entire law enforcement profession. the president has shown that if the optics are bad enough, law enforcement will pay. this was a case with border patrol agents on horseback in the del rio sector in texas just a few weeks ago. reports of the agents whipping people turned out to be completely and utterly false. we shouldn't be surprised when their policies have failed and creative chaos, the biden administration has had a choice between doing what's right and making our government work better or shaming those expected to do more with less.

the biden administration has always chosen the latter. the administration chooses to hide behind latitudes and brokeg the crises of their own making. the biden administration, and because of that, the consequences of this administration illogical and inconsistent policies will be felt by americans for decades. if we didn't think it could get even worse, this administration's weak border policies impact every aspect of our nation's immigration system. but the problems go far beyond the crisis we've seen unfold over the last nine months at the southwest border. just last week, department of homeland security secretary mayorkas, issued guidance ending

workforce -- work site enforcement, operations which in the authority the u.s. immigration customs enforcement, better known as i.c.e. use on businesses to employ illegal immigrants the process the illegal immigration workers for removal. without the threat of removing illegal workers, this new guidance creates a new pull factor or a magnet, attracting more people to the u.s. through illegal means. illegal immigrants come with the knowledge with the consequences that breaking our laws under president biden is a minimal or nonexistent act. but this is a departure from what democrats used to think. in 2005, then-senator barak obama said, quote, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the united states undetected,

undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants of this country. in 2009, senator chuck schumer said, quote, illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple. people who enter the united states without permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the u.s. legally. and then in 2006, then-senator joe biden said, let me tell you something, folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts to drugs to cocaine to heroin and

it's all coming up through corrupt mexico. so why the change? it's politics. they are bending to the pressure from the far left to abandon enforcement laws in this country and just look where it's gotten us. how about the allegations of poor living conditions, rampant covid-19 infection and misconduct between unaccompanied alien children and federal contractors at department of health and human services. nearly two weeks ago i sent a letter to the secretary of the department of health and human services regarding the communication of mistreatment of unaccompanied minors while in health and human service until released to a parent or legal

garden, until they can address the problems brought on with covid-19, president biden kept this in place except for one piece of legislation. he made a huge politically driven exception. unaccompanied children could be admitted regardless of public health emergency. this decision led to an onslaught of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border. this administration has been so consumed by ensuring that the president receives contant good president -- constant good press, they rush tens of thousands of children through processing facilities and into the hands of adults that haven't undergone background checks. health and human services failed to conduct health checks where

unaccompanied minors stayed before being released to parents. the administration repeatedly cut corners and endangered the lives of children just so they could provide pictures of empty custom bored protection processing facilities to the press at every turn, it's been about headlines over sound policy, and it's backfired. that is absolutely no way to govern. oh, and by the way, i have yet to receive a response from the health and human services secretary becerra on my questions. it has been weeks. now there are reports of yet another memo coming out of d.h.s., one that would protect those who acquired u.s. citizenship by fraud. u.s. citizenship is the most

valuable status that we have in this country, and it's coveted all around the world. it is the reason millions of people emigrate to the u.s. every year and have done so for many, many generations. they come here with a hope to capitalize on the opportunities that this country provides the freedoms and liberties afforded to its citizens. allowing people to be naturalized through fraudulent methods devalues our sacred privilege, it cheapens the inherent principles of our great country. i sincerely hope the administration will not actually consider such a drastic change in policy, but based on what we have seen so far, i wouldn't be surprised. by the end of 2021, customs and

border patrol protection will have apprehended nearly two million people attempting to illegally cross into the united states. july and august each saw apprehensions of up to 200,000 per month. folks, that's astounding. that's two million people who decided the dangerous journey through south and central america was worth the risk to illegally enter the united states through our southwest border rather than to adhere to the laws and regulations we instituted for legal means of immigration. these numbers negatively impact the u.s. job market and our economy. they put a burden on the taxpayer through increased spending of federal benefits. these numbers overwhelm -- and

i'm talking about overwhelm our public schools and our hospitals who are already maxed out. also, wide-open borders is also an issue+t of national security, and you can bet that the longer the border remains open, the more drugs make their way into the u.s.. customs and border patrol protections has seized over 3,000 pounds of fentanyl this year, more than the last three years combined. imagine the number of illicit drugs president biden's open border policy have added to our opioid epidemic. and while the u.s. economy continues to suffer due to the actions taken by the biden administration in response to covid, the cartel economy is booming. earlier this year, c.b.p. estimated the cartels make an

average of $14 million per day smuggling people and drugs into the united states. the cartels are running a multibillion-dollar business along our border, and the president is just letting it happen. never before have we experienced illegal immigration on this scale, and it can all be tracked back to the bad policy decisions of this president. u.s. law allows for legal immigration as well as pathways to work within the u.s. economy. when we allow people to continuously break our laws, we should not be surprised when more people join in. we should not be surprised when our laws no longer carry weight or authority in our country. the fact that this administration is not only disregarding current law and

regulation but actively advertising ways around, it is incredible. it is lawless. president biden or whoever in the white house is making these decisions should be ashamed themselves. putting people's lives at danger. the president could stop this today if he wanted to, but reverting to the policies put in place by the trump administration would be an admission that those policies actually worked. we should all pray that when the consequences of these bad policies trickle down to our communities across this country, that our law enforcement officers are still there to clean up president biden's senseless mess. madam president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. scott: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate 2997, which is at the desk. further, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? ms. stabenow: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: reserving the right to object. madam president, the senator will speak further about what he is attempting to do, but i want to make it clear, first of all, that this bill isn't about protecting access to food assistance for moms and babies or ensuring children continue to receive healthy school meals. it■ actually is unfortunately a bill that is in search of a

problem. if my colleague, senator scott, wants to work with me on eliminateing barriers to access in the snap or w.i.c. program or school meals, i would be more than happy to work with him one. this bill again is in search of a problem because there is no rule requiring vaccinations for families to receive food assistance and no one in the administration is proposing that. so let me just say that again. there is no rule requiring vaccinations for families to receive food assistance and no one in the administration is proposing that. so we want to work together on how to support families in our country to help make sure children have the healthy food that they need in schools. that's terrific. but rather than spending time on bills like this, we should be

encouraging people to get vaccinated, to protect their families, protect themselves, protect their community, but this bill addresses something that is just not it be real. and so i would object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. scott: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, this time last year, we still didn't know how much longer this pandemic would last. we didn't know when the vaccine trials would be completed. thankfully, by december, the vaccine had been approved and brought normalcy back to the lives of many americans. the trump administration worked with public and private partners, doctors and scientists across our country to develop a safe and effective vaccine in record time. it was a feat of science and it was an example of what americans can do when working together. i had covid and i am grateful that i was able to get vaccinated. i hope that all americans talk with their doctors and consider

making the same decision. it's a personal decision every individual gets to make. that's not what president biden -- how president biden sees it. lately the biden administration that is decided to try and take this decision out of the hands of the american people. with this recently announced unconstitutional vaccine mandate for private businesses, king biden is saying government knows best, has taken choice away from families in florida and across the country. that's not what the american people expect government to do. the government's role is to give americans all the information and data it has so they can make the right decision for their individual family. that's exactly what i did when i was governor of florida. in the face of life-threatening hurricanes, i made sure florida families were informed. i went out and made sure everyone knew exactly what to expect and how dangerous the storm could be. but i didn't issue mandates because that's not what government should do. when i was governor of florida, we had the zika health care crisis which impacted newborns. rather than placing mandates on

pregnant women or restricting their travel to areas with local transition of zika, we simply informed floridians, worked to be as transparent as possible and offered free zika testing to all pregnant women in florida. but again that's not the approach joe biden has decided to take. president biden has decided that threatening corporations and businesses and misleading the american people is a better option. it's dishonest and authoritarian, and it's no way to lead a nation. americans should be free to make choices they feel are in the best interests of their own health and the health of their loved ones. in december, president biden promised he would not require americans to be vaccinated or require that they carry vaccine passports, but here he is, less than ten months into his presidency breaking promise after promise and going back on his word. how can the american people believe anything he says? americans are sick and tired of the government telling them what to do, and they are more than capable of making the right choices to protect themselves, their family, and their neighbors. but even as there are some of us

in this chamber that disagree about national vaccine mandates for private businesses, i want to try to find some common ground. food stamps, supplemental assistance for women, infants and children, and fee and reduced lunch programs are programs run through the u.s. department of agriculture and provide food to hungry families and are some of the most basic of programs our government provides to those ind.t school d who come from families who are struggling, i'm saying you shouldn't have to be vaccinated in order to eat. for families that are struggling to put enough food on the table, i'm saying you shouldn't have to be vaccinated to get groceries. i'm saying i wish i hope my colleague would agree. i offered a simple bill to say that families who need food stamps and additional support for women, infants, and children shouldn't have to be vaccinated in order to have a full stomach. i was a poor kid growing up. my parents struggled to put food on the table. but my colleague is telling families like mine growing up they don't care about their personal choices. if you want to be able to eat, you have to get a shot. this is ridiculous, this is

un-american, and this is an attempt by president biden to take over every aspect of your life. i'm not going to stand for it. the american people are not going to stand for it. i hope every household inthe fl. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. scott: i would like the quorum call to be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: madam president, i want to talk about two things as we're waiting for senator wyden. people are really concerned about this democrat proposal to basically look at everybody's bank account. the latest is the -- the proposal is taking it from looking at every $600 transaction or account to $10,000. if you look at it, almost everybody has a $10,000 cap. what they're talking about is accumulative dollars. why does the i.r.s. want to look at everybody's account? one reason. to take more dollars out of somebody's pocket. we can't let this happen. you know, we have a right to privacy in this country. we should be able to not have to tell the government every -- everything we buy. if you want to buy a sofa or anything, you shouldn't have to

tell the federal government.i cs significant overreach by the democrats trying to look into everybody's bank account because that's exactly what it would do. the second thing i want to talk about is the supply chain. we have a significant problem with the supply chain. not only do problem, but if you look at what's going to happen with regard to the vaccine mandate, it's going to cause even more problems. my dad was a truck driver. you know, if he had -- he'd have a tough choice. if he wasn't comfortable for whatever reason getting the vaccine -- i took the vaccine. i had covid. -- then he' -- then he's going to lose his job and cause more inflation. with president biden's unconstitutional mandates for private businesses, the president is saying government knows best and is taking choice away from families all across our country including my state of florida. the government's role is to give

people information. let them make good choices. my parents didn't have much of an education but they could make good choices. they figured out what is good for their families. these decisions should be up to the individual, not government. also senate bill 2997, unfortunately the senate democrat, objected. i hope we can find some common ground. i hope everyone here believes you should not have to receive a vaccine in order to obtain a social security check or social security disability check. forcing families to choose between receiving social security and choosing to get vaccinated, it's a terrible choice. that's why i've introduced legislation to protect social security recipients and ensure that biden won't be able to strong arm them into compliance with his unconstitutional mandate. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate 2998 which is at the desk. i further ask for the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection?

mr. wyden: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: parliamentary inq inquiry, madam president, because i was trying to juggle two things at once. we're talking about the social security u.c. is that correct? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. wyden: madam president, i reserve my right to object. as chairman of the senate finance committee and as a former director of the oregon great panthers, i take a back seat to no one when it comes to protecting americans' earned social security benefits. now, we know halloween sm right around the corner -- is right around the corner and families are getting ready for festivities, decorating their houses, picking out costumes and watching scary movies. my colleague from florida seems to be getting into the spirit of all this by telling the american

people scary stories about vaccines threatening their social security benefits. i don't believe the american people are so easily tricked. this idea is fan t.s.a. cal -- fantastical and ridiculous as a vampire living under your bed. the fact that republicans are trying to scare folks for political gain i think is just very, very disappointing. these bills are rooted in political messaging, aren't going to help to end this pandemic or take concrete steps to address actual challenges facing many of our constituents. with that, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. scott: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: well, i'm pretty shocked. by objecting to this billing, my colleague is suggesting that it is acceptable for the government to deny social security check

to american seniors and checks to those who are philly disabled because they made a -- physically disabled because they made a personal medical choice to not receive the vaccine. the social security system is meant to help those who have spent their lives working in this country and disability checks are designed to help those who cannot work. these checks are not a tool for government to impose its will on the people. just as it shouldn't be the will -- it shouldn't be the position of the biden administration to require companies to enforce a vaccine mandate. but if you're on social security or if your parent is receiving social security checks, this is what my colleague is suggesting by blocking this legislation. get the vaccine or go broke. as we all know, prices are going up and the social security administration just announced a record cost-of-living increase and benefits to keep up with biden's inflation crisis. individuals dependent on social security still need to get gas and groceries. by objecting, my colleague is comfortable offering an

ultimatum. perhaps my colleague may agree with me on a different point, thatci mandates shoop be tied to -- shouldn't be tied to participation in the government programs. there are more than 80 million americans receiving medicaid or chip assistance. these programs are important for ensuring that our families, our seniors, and our kids can stay healthy and have access to a doctor. no one should be deprived of health care because they have chosen no the to receive the vaccine. -- not to receive the vaccine. it would be unethical to do so. seems pretty common sense. my amendment would protect individuals on social security, medicare, and chip and ensure that a personal medical decision does not strip them of the access to health care they need. as if in legislative section i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate 2999, which is at the desk, i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. wyden: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, again this deals with an area that is in the province of the senate finance committee. there i've made a special priority ensuring that americans who count on federal health care programs can actually get the care they need. the notion that medicare, medicaid and chip coverage could be subject to vaccination status is just nonsense. contrary to republican views that federal coverage should be contingent on filing■+■s extense paperwork, as conservative governors have pushed in states from sea to shining sea, democrats believe health care is a basic human right and should be available to all. millions of americans have received the covid-19 vaccine

through the medicare and medicaid programs. that ought to be celebrated, mr. president, as a success rather than scaring people about their earned benefits being taken away. these bills -- now two of them -- are thoroughly about political messaging and aren't going to help to end this pandemic or do anything to address challenges facing so many of our constituents. with that, again, mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. scott: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: first let's remember the president is requiring a vaccine mandate if you have a job and so there are people there that are going to lose their job because they, for whatever reason, are uncomfortable getting the vaccine. so this is not far-fetched. i thought my colleagues had gone too far by suggesting it would be acceptable for the government

to tie vaccines to social security checks, but this is another level of insanity. my colleague is comfortable denying health care to someone because of their vaccine status. it is quite ironic because for the past ten years we have had democrats falsely claim republicans want insurance companies to be able to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. but here we have it right here on the senate floor. democrats are doing exactly what they have falsely accuse add republicans of. they want to be able to deny health care to americans who have not received the vaccine. does anyone think that denying health care to people who don't want to be get the vaccine for whatever reason is truly in the best interest of public health? what do you do when someone is a we have all met someone like that -- to my colleague, the answer is simple. take away their health care. the democrats want to makes chae unless you get the shot. when you're on medicaid, a you have two options -- either get the shot or go home because the democrats don't want you to get

your ears checked or blood work completed unless you've met their standard of getting the shot. some people are not comfortable, whether we like it or not. they're willing to strip you of your health care and take away your ability to get your prescriptions unless you get the vaccine. the american people know these choices are wrong. the if a being that my colleague stands by the decision, i think it is outrageous. now hopefully we can get to some common ground. so i think our colleagues -- i've disagreed on some of these things but let's see if there is another one they can agree on. the department of housing and urban development provides a variety of programs to those struggling and down on their luck. they help with loans to first-time home buyers to loan assistance. i can't imagine anyone who would

think the government should mandate vaccines for americans in need to have access to housing or to be able to limit if you d't want to get the vaccine your access to housing. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate 3000 which is at the desk. i further ask that at bill be considered and read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. brown: mr. president, reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i don't want to laugh. this is too serious. but we have the chairman of the republican senate campaign committee that comes down to the floor. he knows better. i mean, he just knows better. he knows this is a political stunt. it's what he does. i don't think the chair of the senate republican campaign committee gets paid extra to do this kind of stuff, but it's just clearly a political stunt. he knows -- he doesn't really know -- i don't know what he knows. but i do know that i haven't

seen his interest in housing since he's been in the senate -- i'm the chair of the housing committee. when i was ranking member with senator crapo, for whom i have great respect, i didn't see any. but all of a sudden, he has this interest in low-income people's housing. he should know -- i don't know how he would not know -- that h.u.d. is not requiring proof of vaccination for people to use their senior senators. i do more in housing than perhaps anybody in this body. at least one of the three or four that do the most. and i don't know nobody that's saying we're going to require proof of vaccine. so it is just a political stunt. i don't know if the senator from -- i think it's florida; i'm not sure -- that the senator from florida is going to as soon as

this over take down these debates and show how he's standing up for people's access to housing, especially low-income. but he's proposing the senate take up and pass a bill to address a problem that just isn't happening. the sad part is we know how real housing issues are in this country. it isn't a stunt for people trying to figure out how they are going to pay their rent. we know before the pandemic, 25% of renters in this country were paying more than half their income for rent. that means the car breaks down, if means their child gets i can is, they have a minor workplace injure and they miss a week of work. then their lives turn yap side down because they are a victim. i wish i saw my colleague in the other offices of the senate campaign committee out on this floor fighting for those renters, fighting for the low-income people paying $50 or $00 a month in rent in hartford, in cleveland, and could pay less

if they owned a home. it would be great for the to come out on the floor and work with us, the senator from connecticut and me and others to help other low-income people come up with the down payment. 27,000 florida january floridiae experiencing -- floridians are experiencing homelessness even before the pandemic. housing is a foundation for opportunity. it is the biggest cost most families face. the cost is way too high. we can't build an economy that works for everyone when housing prices eat up more of a family's budget year after year. we can work to fix that. i encourage the senator from florida 10 join us to fix the real problems in rural areas, in big coastal cities and small towns, on lake erie, on the atlantic ocean. it is a national problem that needs a national response and a national significant investment. let's take housing problems seriously. let's stop the political stunts.

let's work together for the people whom we serve. therefore, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. scott: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: well, first off, the senator might not know, i grew up in punish public -- in public housing. i watched what my parents struggled to do. let all remember that president biden promised us that he would not require anybody get the vaccine or require vaccine mandates. that's clearly change add. so my parents didn't have much of a formal education but they worked hard understand did the best choices they had with the information they had. they had focused on the well-being of our family. it is baffling to me that my colleague might be willing to tell a family like mine that a vaccine was a precondition to having a roof over their head. i'm surprised that democrats are willing to look in the eyes of struggling families and say, we can't hispanic you unless you've been vaccinated first, which is going on right now when you're telling people in this country

that if you don't get vaccinated, you will lose your job. you will lose your job so you will not be able to pay for the rent, afford your house, afford food on the table, and that's exactly what's going on. this is not far-fetched. these h.u.d. programs were not meant to be used to force somebody to get a vaccine. i'm shocked that my colleague would object. my colleagues say they object to several proposals -- all my proposals designed to make sure that there was no governmental overreach. why is this important? because, let's remember. joe biden promised he would not require anybody to get a vaccine. and he went back on that promise. i don't believe anybody sitting on this floor should ever be in a position to say they're okay with somebody not getting a government program because they haven't had a vaccine. food assistance, social security, health care, our housing -- any of them. now, look, i want to be clear, i would covid. i got the vaccine. i hope every american will consider getting the vaccine but it is a decision that every american gets to make. they should talk to their doctor

and make a decision for their family. and our government should never be in a position to tell somebody to get a vaccine. if we -- we can't tell d. -- it is going on all across this country right now. it is a gross overreach by the federal government at a time about we need more information and more compassion, not mandates from an administration focused on advancing a socialist agenda and looking out for every american. so unlike joe biden and the democrats in washington, i don't believe the government knows better. my parents didn't have much of an education but they did the best they could. they worked hard, made choices to make sure we all stayed safe. they didn't rely on a government program other than to get information. they were trying to get good information from the government to make their own choices. with that, i am very disappointed that my colleagues would disagree. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no, it's not. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i have a message for ohio voters , my great state of 12 million people, to ohio voters, to parents i say check your bank account. on friday most ohio parents, the parents of more than two million children, 92% of

children in our state, the parents of most ohio parents once again saw $250 or $300 or $600 in tax cuts directly, directly deposited in their bank accounts. or maybe they got the check in their mailbox. to parents, i say we know how hard you work at your jobs, at raising your children. any parent, any parent knows how much work it is to take care of children, especially young children. i'm the lucky, proud grandparent, grandfather of eight grandchildren. i watch my children, five of our grandchildren live in ohio, three of them live out of state, not too far away. i watch them, i watch how hard they work, how difficult it is to take care of young children, and it's only gotten harder because of course we know over the last year and a half. so often i say to these parents your hard work doesn't pay off like it should. we've seen what happened over the past few decades. productivity goes up, stock

prices have soared, executive compensation is off the charts. yet wages have barely budged. meanwhile, you know how expensive it is to raise children. health care, in-school lunches, diapers, clothes, school supplies, braces, sports fees, the list never seems to end. one of the biggest expenses of course for so many families is child care. parents feel like they're stuck. the more they work, the more expensive child care is. you feel like you can't keep up no matter how hard you work. it's why we passed the child tax credit, the largest tax cut for working families ever. it's about finally, finally making your, ohio parents, your hard work pay off so you can keep up with those extra expenses that keep coming when you're raising a family. stories pour into our office from parents from sandusky to portsmouth to ashtabula, from middle town from toledo to gallo

police. stories we hear over and over about tax cuts, stories about how expensive child care is, how parents are using their money to afford child care so they can go back to work, or in some cases work overtime. christen of columbus said she's using this to pay for day care for two kids at $600 a week. brittany said day care, ellie said day care. four kids in day care, $800 a week. these tax cuts mean more parents are in the workplace, they can afford to go to work. it's that simple. let's be clear, getting $300, getting $600 a month per child in tax cuts doesn't discourage anyone from getting a job or doesn't cause any of them to quit. i'm going to leave my job that pays $30,000 a year because i'm getting $3,000 said no one ever to us. there's no way you can afford to raise a family on that. you still need a job.

these tax cuts help parents afford that job. it's all about dignity of work. i can't count of number of families that said, you know, know, -- i said on this floor a few minutes ago that 25% of renters in this country spend half their income on rent. so we know how anxious those families are the last week of the month. one of the things i've heard perhaps more than anything else about this child tax credit, the last week of the month, we don't have to deny our kids dessert or we don't have to cut something else because some of that anxiety has been lifted off our shoulders because we're getting $250 per child in the child tax credit. it makes a huge difference in just the, just their lives. as i said, it's about the dignity of work. all work has dignity, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work for tips, whether you are on salary, whether you are caring for children or a sick parent. raising kids is work.

raising kids is a hell of a lot more work than moving money from one overseas account to another or checking your balance in your stock portfolio. that didn't stop mitch mcconnell from rewarding swiss bank holders. we looked down the hall in senator mcconnell's office 100 or feet down there. particularly a few years ago you saw lobbyists lining up there as he was doling out to the c.e.o. and hedge fund managers in the swiss bank accounts and politicians doing their bidding. pass that tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations that outsource jobs. don't think a lot of those c.e.o.'s didn't outsource jobs, take the tax cut, outsource jobs, set up manufacturing in those countries, sell back into the united states. then they took part of the tax cut and did stock buybacks to make themselves even richer. all -- senator mcconnell and

the leaders in this body all knew that's what that was all about. but when it comes time for a tax break for families making $10,000 or $20,000, or $50,000 a year they're absent. we know it was a the partisan vote. every democrat voted for the biggest tax cut in american history. every republican voted against. fortunately there are more than us than there are of them. 51-50. they promised their tax cuts for the rich would trickle down. they never do. they keep the money for themselves, use that money in stock buybacks. without a single vote from republicans -- i don't like to be partisan. i represent a state that leans republicans. a lot of republicans vote for me because i work with them and want them to succeed as i want everybody to succeed. but we also know this tax cut shows whose side are you on. it's a pretty simple contrast. are you on the side of workers or on the side of big corporations that outsource jobs? do you want tax cuts for billionaires and deca

millionaires? or do you want tax cuts for working families? as overwhelmingly americans from all over the country, from all kinds of backgrounds agree with that. everyone is lining up behind extending the child tax credit expansion -- the faith community, civil rights community, children's advocacy community, catholic charities, bread for the world, leadership council on civil and human rights, children's defense fund, so many others are writing us in the last week in support of keeping these checks going, in support of extending the child tax credit one year, two years, three years, five years, ten years, making it permanent because, because, mr. president, every singling month we show parents and workers we're on your side. so count on it. it started in july, july 15 first check. a month later mid-august, second check. a month later mid-september, third check. last week the fourth check. $250 if your child is between the ages of 6 and 17.

$300 per child if your child is under 6. it's been like clockwork. it's made a difference. we haven't quite reached everybody in my state. 2.5 million children are eligible. we've reached 2 -- 2.4 million. we've reached about 2.3 million of them, so we're still working to find those other parents that don't know about this for their children. think of what that's done. 92% of my state's children, 92% of the kids in this state, in my state, their parents are benefiting from this. one man said to me, you know, for the first time ever i can buy my child, i can buy my daughter fast-pitch softball equipment. the same meeting, a man, a woman, a mother told me, you know, for the first time ever my son can go to summer camp now, first time ever. other parents were talking about child care. one family said, you know, we can put aside $100 a month so my daughter can go to sinclair

state community college, or maybe university of dayton or maybe ohio university. other families talked, as i said, mr. president, about rent, that the anxiety they feel at the end of every month to come up with that rent check so they don't get evicted, every single month we're showing parents, we're showing workers we're on your side. i hope more republicans will join us, and we can do this bipartisan. either way we won't stop fighting to make sure that parents' hard work pays off for years to come.

mr. crapo: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: thank you, mr. president. we're not in the quorum call, are we? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. crapo: thank you, mr. president. in the past few weeks, i've been working with my colleagues in the senate to draw attention to the privacy concerns of requiring all financial institutions to report on -- to the i.r.s. on the in flows or out flows of every checking account under a certain threshold, under the guise of the tax gap, democrats will turn banks and credit unions into private investigators for law-abiding americans. the greenbook that came out from

the white house required that every single financial account, not just bank accounts, not just credit union accounts, but all financial accounts that have more than $600 worth of inflow or $600 worth of outflow in a given year would have to have that reported to the i.r.s. we've been pointing this out to people across america now for several weeks and the uproar is loud. the message has been getting heard obviously because now the administration and the i.r.s. are saying, well, we didn't really mean just everybody who has a $600 inflow or outflow of their account, we're willing to raise that to $10,000 so that you don't have to have the i.r.s. snooping on your financial data in your financial accounts unless you have more than $10,000 worth of income and

more than -- or more than $10,000 worth of outflow in your account. and they said we're not even going to count wages or interest or government benefits in that. let's see what that really means. does that really reduce the scope of this spying on americans' financial accounts, this dragnet, letting the i.r.s. have access to everybody's account? how many people don't have $10,000 worth of income or outflow in their account? let me give you a few data points. from the bureau of labor statistics, the average household in america, the average taxpayer in america spends about $61,000 a year. what do they spend that on? the average is housing, $20,000,

transportation $9,700, personal insurance, $2,960, groceries, $4,464, restaurants and meals, $3,59, entertainment, $236, cash contributions, $888, education, $1,407 and personal care, with it running $61,224 through their personal accounts in a year. so does raising the total to $10,000 really stop the i.r.s. from accessing very many people's accounts?

no. and the i.r.s. says, well, we've -- the i.r.s. today, because of the pressure that we've been putting on they'll, said today, well, you know, we already have data from everybody's account on their paychecks and we already have data on their interest that they get on their various accounts, which has to be reported to us. and we already have data on federal benefits like the covid payments that have been made to people. and so we don't need to have those data points collected in this new massive privacy violation. we can leave those out. but we need -- and this is what the i.r.s. said today trying to defend this. but we need to have access to the other sources of income that people have. now, in that very same document the i.r.s. said, well, we are not going to audit anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year.

well, that wasn't what the green book said. they didn't say, we will change our proposal to forbid us from auditing anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year. all they said was, take our word for it, we promise, we will only audit rich, rich people who are billionaires. well, if that's really the position they are taking, then why don't they put it in the bill? why don't they put it in the proposal? why don't they put right in the proposal that they cannot secretly or publicly access the data of private individuals in their private accounts if they make less than $400,000 per year? it would be really simple, wouldn't it? but the i.r.s. didn't say that. and the reason they didn't say that is because that's not what they intend to do. remember, they started out at

$600. that tells you what they wanted. now they said, well, we think we can get away with $10,000 because they know that still covers everybody. think of a family that doesn't spend more than $10,000 -- yeah, doesn't -- that spends less than $10,000 in a year in their financial accounts. think of a small business in america that doesn't run more than $10,000 a year of income and expense through their accounts. it will pick up every small business in america. it will pick up, i think, every family in america, and nothing will be changed. the i.r.s. will have data on every american's account. and then they say, well, okay, but it's only two numbers. it's just the total of your income and the total of your outflow. well, everybody can kind of

intuitive i will tell that doesn't make -- what will they do with those two numbers, they will figure out which taxpayers to audit or which taxpayers they don't even need to audit, they will send them a notice of deficiency and say we think you should owe more taxes and this is what we think you should owe us and if the taxpayers don't comply, then the i.r.s. can audit them and guess what happens when they audit them? they get access to every single transaction in their account. i asked the i.r.s. commissioner whether this was actual data or just totals. and he said, well, we already have access to their transactional data if they want it. that's not a direct quote but that's the essence of what they said. it's true, if they want to audit you, they can get access to your bank accounts already. so the question is, who are they going to audit? now, today those who are trying

to defend this say, well, we are only going to audit people who have, as they said, $10,000 worth of in flow or outflow and we will exclude wages which are already reported and we'll exclude benefits, which are already reported and we'll exclude interest, which is already reported, and we won't account for anyone over $400,000. that's not true. they said they wouldn't audit those accounts? how will they make the money they are trying to make out of this proposal if they don't? let's look at this in another perspective. we asked the joint tax to tell us what they think what the distribution of audits and tax collections would be from americans in all income brackets of this proposal.

and the joint tax committee said, well, you know, we can't tell you that because they haven't given enough detail on their proposal. so we can't tell you what their proposal is going to do because they haven't told us the detail of it. joint tax said, what we can do is look at the tax gap, which is this is supposedly aimed at addressing and we can tell you where that tax gap falls among the various income cohorts. so we asked them to do that. they indicated that the tax gap falls mostly in less than accurate reporting on schedules c and schedule e. so they went through and looked at this. and so if you look at the joint tax committee's report and the tax gap that is available for the i.r.s. to go get, here's

what would happen. 40% to 57% of the tax gap collections would come from taxpayers making $50,000 or less. if you add in up to $100,000, 65% to 78% of those making less than $100,000 would have to be -- would be part of the tax gap that they would be going after. 78% to 90% from those making less than $200,000. and only 4% to 9% would come from those making $500,000 or more. so if you want to know what the i.r.s. wanted, you can look at this data on the tax gap. you can look at the data on where the tax gap lies and you can look at their very first proposal that was down as low as $600 and you can look at what the i.r.s. was seeking to get.

americans should be outraged that the i.r.s. is seeking to make banks, credit unions, i don't know, venmo, paypal, credit card companies, everyone who handles financial transactions, report to them. if you hit some level, whether it be $600 or $10,000 of either income or expenditure, and then the door's open. then the i.r.s. can use its algorithm and decide whether to do a deeper dive on you and if they use the data from the internal revenue code or what has already gone on, 97% would come from people making $200,000 or less. or the i.r.s. will have to forego that and collect on 4% to

5%, which is the people making over $500,000. either way you look at it, either they are going to collect billions and billions of dollars from people who make less than $400,000 and mostly less than $200,000 or $100,000 or they won't make the tax collectionsing -- collections this they -- that they claim they are making. in this this big tax and spending spree they are trying to cram down through congress. let's look at it another way. does treasury envision gathering -- let's take a teacher. so if you have a teacher, does treasury envision gathering all the information on all of the teacher's apple pay and venmo accounts and expect financial institutions to cross check these transfers and at which

point must additional reporting be done? it's very important to point out here when i said earlier the white house and treasury haven't really said what their plan is, it's because they don't want people to know what the real plan is. there is a telling sentence in the green book put out by the white house about this plan. it says that broad powers will be given to the treasury department to issue by rule and regulation the details of how they are going to utilize and access this data. so if you have got a treasury department which has already proven it can't even keep the data it has safe and that its data will be hacked, if you've got a treasury department that has already proven that it will not avoid utilizing the data it has for political purposes, that it will not weaponize the data it collects to punish or try to

diminish the effect and influence of people with different political points of view, if you have already got an i.r.s. that has proven that it will take those kinds of action and that it's available to the access for -- to be accessed for its private data to be hacked, what can americans expect from that? again, those today who have tawshed about it said they have got fixes that as i see it don't really fix the proposal because it has fundamental flaws. the i.r.s. does not need to have access to the accounts of every american who spends more than $10,000. or every american who has income of over $10,000. industry has already spoken up about these changes that were proposed today. the american bankers association says that even with the modifications announced today, this proposal goes too far by forcing financial institutions to share with the i.r.s. private

financial data from millions of customers not suspected of cheating on their taxes. the exclusion of payroll and federal program beneficiaries does not address millions of other taxpayers who will be impacted by this proposal. not every nonwage worker is a millionaire. how about self-employed hair stylists, convenience store owners, and farmers, just to name a few? if enacted, this new proposal would still raise some of the same privacy concerns, increase tax preparation costs for individuals and small businesses, and create significant operational challenges, particularly for community banks. the list goes on. mr. president, americans must speak up loudly and say no. when asked if she was going to put this in the next bill, nancy pelosi said yes, yes, yes, yes.

americans should say no, no, no, no. thank you, mr. president. and i yield to senator grassley. mr. grassley: thank you, senator crapo, for leading this effort to point out what's wrong with this $4.2 trillion reckless tax and spending spree. it's a massive government intrusion into the daily lives of american families. under their vision for america, there isn't any aspect of life in which the government shouldn't perform a leading role. from cradle to the grave, child care to health care, college to career, the federal government will be there in your lives shaping your every decision. their plans go well beyond

shoring up the social safety net to prevent those in need from falling through the cracks, and everybody agrees that people that have need, there is a role for government, but that doesn't include 320 million americans. no longer then will the federal government's primary role be about lending a helping hand so individuals can get back on their own feet. instead, government would be the ultimate helicopter parent constantly hovering, regardless of need. even wealthy households would be in line for generous handouts to procure federal government-approved child care, send their kids to a federal government structured preschool, purchase federal

government-approved health insurance on the individual market, and obtain federal government-provided paid family leave. isn't that a staggering list of things that the democrats are proposing in this $4.2 trillion tax and spending spree project that they are pushing. on the one hand, my democrat colleagues rail against the wealthy paying too little tax. on the other hand, they want to shower the wealthy with government benefits. not to mention -- not to mention hand the wealthy. for instance, $12,500 to purchase a luxury electric car and make federal taxpayers substitute -- subsidize the

state tax bills of millionaires. can you believe the inconsistency of their arguments? tax the wealthy, give to the wealthy. at the same time, democrats have decided that the best way to crack down on billionaires evading taxes is to snoop on the middle class. you just heard senator crapo speak at length about that. under their proposal, every american's bank account with $600 or even if it's $10,000 of annual taxation would be subject to the peering eyes of the i.r.s. democrats are betting the promise of this will be too enticing for americans to resist.

however, americans understand anything advertised as free comes with strings, particularly if it's free from the federal government, there is going to be strings attached. those strings include higher taxes today and in the future. any loss of control over intimate family -- and a loss of control over intimate family decisions. liberal democrats in their progressive bubble are under the mistaken impression the general public is clamoring for evermore government programs. now, in reality, americans have long held a healthy skepticism of big government. a recent gallup poll shows this continues to be true to this very day. according to gallup -- i think

it was a weekend poll -- nearly 80% of the americans say that they prefer lower taxes and less government or would like to see no change in either. only 19% said they wanted more taxes and more government. president clinton up until 21 years ago, the president of the united states understood this well when in 1996 he declared in a state of the union message, quote-unquote, the year of big government is over -- the era of big government is over. and then worked with republicans on comprehensive welfare reform. why can't those things go on today? hopefully, president biden and senate democrats come to their senses and realize this before taking our nation down the path of fiscal reunion -- fiscal

ruin. and i would define fiscal ruin by a democrat by the name of larry summers, former secretary of treasury in the clinton administration and i think also had some post in the obama administration. anyway, he told us in january, he told us in april, he told us in august, and he told -- i saw it again on television just last week. spending all this money is feeding the fires of inflation like gasoline on that fire, and we ought to learn not to go through what we did in the 1970's and 1980's with inflation out of control. listen to that democrat fellow democrats today. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. mr. young: mr. president, hoosiers have heard me talk about the size of the democrats' reckless tax-and-spend bill. $3.5 trillion and possibly growing in the house of representatives. they have heard me talk about how this reckless proposal will raise tax on the american people. i'm talking about this legislation back home, i don't have to go much past the $3.5 trillion figure. people are against it. all told, democrats have proposed $7 trillion in spending this year alone. $7 trillion. let me try and put that in perspective. $7 trillion is roughly the mathematical equivalent of

putting $1 million of credit card debt on every man, woman, and child in the state of indiana. now, hoosiers know this is something we simply cannot afford. beyond the massive multitrillion-dollar price tag, we should examine exactly what the democrats are proposing, because this bill isn't just a number on one side of a ledger sheet. this spending package, the largest in american history, represents a massive left ward shift in the way our country operates. and hoosiers and i think all americans need to know what's in it. well, thankfully i sit on the senate finance committee. in the senate finance committee, we are charged with overseeing matters related to taxation and entitlement programs. so if anyone has insight into the particulars of this

legislation, it would be a member of the senate committee on finance. if any legislation this large and this consequential were to pass, it would surely go through the senate finance committee. the full finance committee hasn't held a policy hearing in months. tomorrow, we will hold our first full committee hearing since july. that hearing will be on a topic only remotely connected to the democrats' reckless tax-and-spend proposal. and to my knowledge, no senate committee has held any hearing whatsoever on this bill at all. you see, this reckless tax-and-spend bill has all been done largely in secret, behind closed doors. i read about it in the newspapers. i'll hear rumors about it from my colleagues. so it's worth asking what is the

other side trying to hide? what have democrats put in this mother of all bills? let's start with what "the wall street journal" recently called entitlements for the affluent. this is "the wall street journal"'s way of saying handouts for the rich, which is accurate because so few of the new and expanded government giveaways in this bill are targeted in ways that i might support to actually help americans of modest means. now, for a reference, the u.s. median income for a family of four in this country is about $90,000. but under this bill, a family can make $400,000 a year and get an $8,000 child tax credit from washington.

how about obamacare subsidies? the original eligibility limit for obamacare subsidies is 400% of the federal poverty level or about $106,000 for a household of four. their bill completely removes the eligibility limit. this means much wealthier americans would be eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance. if speaker nancy pelosi gets her way, wealthy elites on the coast will get a massive tax write-off for their mansions in high-tax cities like san francisco or high-tax states like new york. now, what else is in the bill? how about $80 billion more for the i.r.s.? yes, democrats want to adamant that banks turn over to the i.r.s. personal confidential bank information from rank-and-file americans. you see, if you make or spend

more than $600 in a year, they want your private information. they want to know what you're spending money on, how you earned your money. i have called on leader schumer to abandon this unprecedented proposal. if you thought the i.r.s. was a political weapon before, you ain't seen nothing yet. would else is in this bill? how about $3 billion for tree equity, tree equity, whatever that means. you can't make this stuff up. some of the provisions take are supposed to be about climate change are really handouts to democratic constituencies. spending bill raises the electrical vehicle tax credit by up to $5,000 among other expansions with a price tag of $42 billion.

did you know you only get part of this credit, this electric vehicle tax credit, of up to $5,000, if your electric vehicle comes from a unionized plant. i represent a lot of quality union members, great americans. they're patriots. but under this proposal, plants like the toyota or honda or subaru factories in my state of indiana are told to take a hike because they're located in largely red states with nonunion employees by choice. i haven't even talked about the tax increases supported by the other side that will raise taxes on lower and middle-income households. some of these households make under 30 grand a year. this is a clear violation of president biden's tax pledge, a

pledge that 49 out of 50 of my democratic colleagues formally voted to uphold just two months ago when we considered the budget. ladies and gentlemen, this reckless tax and spend spree is full of giveaways to the healthy and handouts to democrat constituency. i stand for the working men and women of this country. the republican party stands for the working men and women of this country. we will stand against, united against these giveaways to the rich. it's offensive. it's too much money. and it must be stopped. i'll yield back the remainder of

my time. the presiding officer: are there senators seeking recognition? a senator: mr. chairman? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. a senator: mr. chairman, that concludes the finance committee members today. i would like to thank senator grassley and senator young for joining me and continuing to help make the american people aware of what is going on here in washington with the reckless tax spree and this massive dragnet of i.r.s. access into people's individual bank accounts and other financial account,. mr. crapo: i hope americans across the country will speak out loudly in opposition to these terrible ideas that are now being crammed down in both the house and the senate. with that i yield back our time. i believe senator grassley is here to speak on other matters. mr. grassley: thank you. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: i hear about rising costs of prescription drugs that nearly -- at nearly every one of my town hall meetings. three years ago i began a bipartisan effort to lower prescription drug costs following our finance committee hearings at that time. we had a markup and we had bipartisan negotiations. senator wyden, now chairman of the finance committee, and i introduced at that time the prescription drug price reduction act. the bill caps yearly out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors at $3,100. it prevents drug costs growing faster than the consumer price index on a yearly basis. it ends uncapped taxpayer-funded

subsidies to big pharma. it creates more sunshine, more competition, and it even has oversight into the world of drug pricing. it brings meaningful reform while driving down costs. $72 billion in savings for seniors. that's out-of-pocket costs to them. and $95 billion savings of taxpayers money through medicare. an important goal that we accomplish in our bill, lowering drug costs without hurting innovation. we did this by keeping the government out of the business of setting prices and indirectly keep the government out of your medicine cabinet.

democrats have proposed the irresponsible idea of governing -- the government dictating drug prices. they would do this by getting rid of the noninterference clause in the part d part of medicare. it's better known as so-called drug price negotiations, but it's not negotiation. it is dictating prices. 18 years ago i was the principal architect of the medicare part d program, adding a prescription drug benefit for seniors was the right thing to do then and it's still the right thing to do. but it needed to be done in the right way, and that right way is for the patients. in creating part d, we enacted a

very key policy keeping the government out of the business of dictating drug prices. governments don't negotiate. they dictate. competition is the only thing that drives innovation, curbs costs, expands coverage, and improves outcomes. the congressional budget has consistently stated that government negotiations of drug prices would not achieve greater savings than the current market base system unless you restrict the formulary or dictate the price through reference pricing based upon what socialist health care systems pay in other countries. that's the outcome. the government gets between you and your doctor's prescribing.

democrats propose so-called drug pricing negotiations. in their reckless tax and spending spree to save hundreds of billions of dollars. who is hurt by this policy? well, of course patients are. the democrats would have government dictate drug pricing based upon international reference pricing index. study after study has shown so-called drug pricing negotiations will reduce the number of new drugs produced. what your doctor wants to prescribe for you might not be on that formulary. this policy would be devastating if one of those drugs was a cure for alzheimer's or diabetes or

cancer. i don't believe that's what the americans want. while democrats attempt to advance their partisan drug pricing scheme, i hope common sense will prevail, and we pass a bipartisan prescription drug bill. i have engaged with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both a -- and in a bicameral way. i did this so common sense would prevail if we ever get to the point of democrats realizing that the government dictating prices on an international basis of what the prices are in other countries will never get 60 votes here in the united states senate. all of the republican and democrats i've contacted have expressed eagerness to find a

solution to meaningful lower prescription drug costs. holding big pharma accountable has historically been a bipartisan effort. delivering new reforms to fight price hikes should be no different. democrats should stop pursuing their reckless tax and spending spree that will hurt innovation and produce less cures. instead we should act by passing my bipartisan prescription drug bill. i think maybe there's an inkling of good news coming from the speaker of the house and i've had after chance to visit with her at least three times in the last two years on this very subject about my bill. when she said that she didn't think -- i don't know whether she referred to the number h.r. 3, but that's the main -- that's the bill that has their main

effort on reducing prescription drugs. when she said that they didn't think that that would have the votes to get passed. so i hope that there's some awakening to the fact that we need to do something and that this bipartisan approach is the answer. on another matter, mr. president, today i'd like to discuss the media's complete misrepresentation of the republican report on senator durbin's trump investigation in which my staff participated according to committee rules. now, i gave an october 7 speech on this subject, and you wouldn't know that anybody read my speech based upon what has been reported on tv.

but as i noted in that october 7 speech, senator durbin publicly released a democratic staff report on his investigation. we republicans did the same thing that very same day. i came to the floor that same day to describe the republican report. in so doing i laid out what the available facts and evidence showed within the scope of the inquiry. that scope was from december 14, 2020, to january 3, 2021. but tv seemed to think we were talking about what happened on capitol hill on january 6. the durbin investigation ended on january 3, or events leading

up to january 3. i say that date yet again because many reporters have wrongly conflated this investigation with the january 6, 2021, events here on capitol hill. we know all the damage that was done to the capitol that day. so i want to repeat. the scope of the investigation stopped on january 3, not january 6. but you wouldn't know it from the tv reports. i'm not going to rehash my entire speech. i've incorporated it here by reference. however, i will note yet again for the media several key facts. this is not analysis as i think tv was trying to do.

just the facts. so fact one, records indicate that president trump focused -- president's focus was on, quote, unquote, legitimate complaints and reports of crimes. and those words come from the transcript. fact two, witnesses testified that president trump's main focus was making the justice department aware of the potential criminal allegations and to ensure the department did its job. trump's focus then wasn't to direct or order specific investigative steps. and to that point witnesses said that trump's focus was on the

american people, not himself or his campaign being harmed by what he believed to be widespread election fraud. fact three, these witnesses testified under oath that it was not unreasonable for president trump to question what the justice department was doing to investigate election fraud and crime allegations. in fact, one witness testified under oath that trump had, quote-unquote, no impact -- those two words -- on the department's actions to investigate election allegations. i'd be remiss if i didn't also note that one witness testified under oath that the justice department was, quote, dragging

their feet and maybe more to keep these investigations from going forward, end of quote. fact four -- my staff read former u.s. attorney for the northern district of georgia, b.j. peck, a press release from the biden administration where biden set policy for the justice department by prohibiting it from using subpoenas for records of reporters in criminal leak investigations. my staff then asked if any president has similar authority to set the department's policy with respect to investigating and reviewing voter fraud in election crime allegations. this witness stated, quote, i would agree that the president has that duty, end of quote.

fact -- and the last fact, five. president trump twice rejected firing acting attorney general rosen and twice rejected the notion of sending what's called, quote-unquote, the draft clark letter. now, after giving you those facts, accordingly, on the basis of this foundational evidence with respect to the scope of this investigation from december 14, 2020, to january 3, 2021, president trump sought and followed the advice and also the recommendations of his senior advisors. i note with specific emphasis the fact that he followed their advice and recommendations. this is a crucial fact.

the report is entitled "in their own words." it's based on actual witness evidence, not cnn-style partisan analysis. i encourage everyone to read the report and the transcripts and draw your own conclusions. that's how i always approach my investigations in the year that i've -- in the years that if i've been in the united states senate -- in the years that i've been in the united states senate. now let's go to how my speech was reported on tv. some on cnn have said that i showed fealty to trump by stating the facts. they called these facts that i just recited delusional. i've never had a problem following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who is in power.

so i'm going to refer to an investigation i did in the trump administration, and it involved some people in the trump and close to trump -- the president trump. i ran a transcribed interview on donald trump, jr. during the trump administration. that was done as part of my trump-russia investigation when i was chairman of the judiciary committee, which focused on the june 9, 2016, trump tower meeting. i also subpoenaed paul manafort to appear at a hearing and provide testimony. instead of publicly testifying, manafort voluntarily agreed to an interview with my and then-ranking member feinstein's staff. but then as the ranking member's staff then refused to interview him and objected to my staff

doing so without them there, that didn't move forward. notably, the committee never received any -- the committee when i was chairman during this investigation i'm talking about. the committee never received any e-mails from the democratic national committee or the clinton campaign, even though we repeatedly asked for them. of course, the democrats wouldn't support subpoenaing them, and you didn't hear a lot about that from the media. the double-standard media. the trump campaign produced records, just like there's a coverage vacuum particularly by cnn of hunter biden and james biden and their connection with the communist chinese government

my and senator johnson's september 20 report on those financial connections and their potential criminality was attacked as russian disinformation. later on hunter biden publicly admitted that he was under criminal investigation for financial matters. i don't hear much about that on cnn. in my and johnson's report, we made clear that based upon deep financial connections between the biden family and foreign governments, hunter biden is a counterintelligence and extortion concern. on that note, recently released e-mails have opened up the possibility that joe biden mixed

bank accounts and funds with hunter biden. other e-mails show that joe biden shared office space with individuals connected to the communist chinese regime. of course, my and senator johnson's report was the first to prove that hunter biden, james biden, and other family members had extensive financial and business relationships with individuals not just connected to the communist chinese regime but intelligence and military services. about that grassley and johnson report, "politico" ran the off-base headline -- and i quote -- "g.o.p. senators, anti-biden report -- g.o.p. senators' anti-biden report reopens old claim." end of quote. one of their own reports just recently confirmed the

authenticity of some of hunter biden's e-mails for a book that he was writing. one "washington post" columnist said, quote, even after accepting disinformation from russian agents, johnson and grassley couldn't come up with anything new or interesting on hunter biden. and npr said about the "new york post" hunter biden stories, quote, we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions. now, compare what i've said, how different democrat and republicans are treated, how investigations are done different by republicans and by

democrats and then look at the state of journalism today. what i just said is so much for investigating journalism. investigative journalism died without so much as a whimper. the media attack against the republican trump report is essentially an attack on witness testimony received by the committee. time and again many in the media have failed to meet the facts head-on in order to fit their own biased storyline. so i say to everybody, including journalists that don't want to do hard work, read the testimony of those people that were taken on what went on between december 14 and january 3. read what i say about it. read what senator durbin says about it.

but at least read the testimony if you're going to make comments distorting what i said on october 7. in other words, stop screwing up. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that all remaining time -- the senate is still in a quorum call. mr. crapo: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that all remaining time be yielded back. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the question is on the motion to discharge. the yeas and nays have been previously ordered. the clerk will call the roll. quorum -- vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 50, the nays are 49. the motion is agreed to. pursuant to senate resolution 27 and the motion to discharge having been agreed to, the nomination will be placed on the executive calendar. mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i'll be speaking in a moment. i plan to deliver my remarks prior to making a unanimous consent request. but in temperatures to my friend and colleague from washington -- but in deference to my friend and colleague from washington, i will be making the consent request first and then proceed to my prepared remarks. mr. president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on health, education, labor, and pensions be discharged from further consideration of s. 29 and that the senate proceed to its meet consideration. further, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that

the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. murray: first before i object, i would like to thank the senator for his consideration. i do appreciate that. reserving the right to object, here we go again. even after 700,000 deaths and rising, republicans are coming up with new ideas to undermine our vaccination efforts and make it harder for us toss safely reopen our country. and in this case, even make it harder for us to respond to future pandemics, requiring basic precautions to keep people safe when traveling is nothing new in this country, nor are immunization requirements for that matter. and let's be clear -- and, remember, the vaccine requirements president biden has acted so far include tailored exemptions for legitimate religious and medical considerations that have long been standard and the emergency temporary standard he has envisioned would allow testing as an alternative. therefore, mr. president, i

would call on my republican colleagues to remember this is a pandemic. it's not a political football. we need to treat it as a public health crisis and, therefore, i do object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i've come here to the senate floor six times now to oppose president biden's unconstitutional actions, using the federal government and using the oval office in particular in order to force americans to get the covid-19 vaccine. now, as i have said before, as i've said each and every time on this issue, i am not opposed to the covid-19 vaccine. i have been fully vaccined as has every member of my family. i've encouraged family, friends, everyone i know to get

vaccinated. i think the vaccine is a blessing, and it's one that's helped a lot of people, and i think it's one for which society as a whole has benefited. i've had and recovered from covid-19 before i got vaccinated, and i can tell you that contracting covid is not an experience that i'd like to repeat. and it's not an experience that i want others to have. that's why i've had the vaccine and why i've encouraged others to do the same. i nonetheless raise my hand in this very chamber each time i've been sworn into office. pursuant to the constitution -- pursuant to the constitution, i stood there on those steps and swore an oath to defend and protect the constitution of the united states. that document limits the powers of government. it does so because government

power is sacred. government power is dangerous. government power always involves the actual or threatened use of coercive force. its what government is. the ability and the authority to use coercive force and to do so on an official basis through law. it's for that reason that the constitution carefully contains the power of government and does so in a way that reflects its immense capacities for harm. there are lots of other things that are useful that we have to be careful when handling. you know, fire, electricity, oxygen, water -- these are all things that are necessary that we depend upon, that we need, and things that if left uncontrolled can inflict all sorts of harm, can hurt people, can kill people, can destroy life and property.

and so that's why the constitution goes to great lengths to draw boundaries and assign authority not only to different branches of government but also different levels of government. in fact, every single provision of the u.s. constitution is itself a form of limitation on government power. these protections were designed to prevent government from excessively burdening the american people because we've seen over time the tendency of governments to abuse that power. and, in particular, the tendency of governments to become abusive when there is a dangerous accumulation of power in the hands of a few. tragically and under the direction of senates and houses of representatives and white houses of every conceivable partisan combination, we've strayed far from the design of

our government, the design put in place by the constitution, the very same constitution to which we've all sworn an oath. and as a result of that, americans are now forced to work many months out of every year just to pay their federal tax obligations, only to be told after the fact, by the way, that that's not nearly enough because we're now nearly $30 trillion in debt and closing. the monetary printing presses are pumping out tsunamis of currency that eat at way at americans' savings and earnings. government regulations cost trillions of dollars a year as a hidden backdoor invisible and highly regressive tax on american productivity and on american development, and this

is a tax that is borne disproportionately by poor and middle-class americans who find that everything they buy -- goods and services alike -- become more expensive and who find that they also pay for it with diminished wages, unemployment, and underemployment. almost every aspect of american life is now inappropriately restricted, directed, or taxed by the federal government. president biden's recent mandate adds yet another roadblock to millions of americans just trying to get by, forcing them to choose between getting vaccinated on the one hand and having a job on the other hand. what it's doing is it's saying, look, you don't agree with the government position on this? fine, you're going to lose your job. you're going to pay a you're going to lose your job. you're going to be rendered unemployed and effectively

unemployable. not only that, but we're going to do it in a way that in many instances will render it basically impossible for you to recover unemployment benefits. one of the things that's particularly devious about this one is that the mandate itself hasn't been issued and yet it's been now a month and a half or so since president biden gave the speech announcing his intention to create it. had he created it, we would at least know what we were dealing with. we would know the precise source of authority in the law that he was claiming. we would know the contours of how it would be enforced. we would know the contours of any exceptions to the mandate. and because we would have an order, there would be something that people could challenge in court, where necessary, but as

of right now, we have none of those things. we have only this damocles sword over the american people. in the meantime, we've got corporate america. we've got employers with more than 99 workers understandably scrambling in an effort to get ahead this thing because they know that the penalties for noncompliance with this are likely to be significant. so many of them are trying to get ahead of it so they're not caught flatfooted and unable to comply. as a result, many of these have just tried to guess at what the mandate will say and adopted those policies, sometimes knowing that their policies might be more aggressive than what the federal government will require. but, in the meantime, this leaves no one accountable. corporations have the federal government to blame and the federal government responds by saying, well, there is no policy

yet. there's nothing to sue on yet. there's nothing for the federal courts to enjoin as unlawful, as unconstitutional, as an improper exercise of federal power generally, keeping in mind that the federal government is one of few and defined powers, as is described in federalist 45. the powers enshrined to the united states are deaf in my judgment there's nothing that gives the federal government this power. my friend and colleague from washington moments ago made the argument that vaccines are nothing new and that vaccine requirements are nothing new. well, you know they are new when it comes to a general mandate issued by the federal government to do this. yes, there have been mandates in the past. but insofar as they deal with the general population as opposed to military personnel or certain government workers, these are not federal law

issues. these have been state law issues. the federal government has no general police powers. even if there were power within the federal government to do this, which i assure you there is not, we know for certain that one person acting alone, even if that person is the president of the united states, has not the power to do this. this, mr. president, is, i believe, perhaps the most egregious example of presidential overreach, the most shameless executive branch power grab since president harry truman seized all steel mills in the united states in the 1950's in order to support the korean war effort. now, president truman didn't get away with that. the supreme court appropriately struck that down as well outside

presidential powers. you see nothing in the constitution and nothing in federal statute gave president truman the power to seize steel mills simply because he deemed them an important part of the war effort. here that hasn't happened. here that can't happen, at least not yet because we don't have an order. the president, after making this announcement about six weeks ago, hasn't had the decency to even tell us what the source of his authority is. and i'll let you in on a secret. he has none. he has not a single scintilla, not a shred of authority, not statutorily, to do this. let's not be deceived into think this is some he esoteric libert. it is not. let's be honest about what we are doing here. we're telling hardworking american moms and dads, if you do not succumb, if you do not

heel, if you do not obey the presidential dictate at issue here, you're going to lose your job. we're making them decide between getting a vaccine to which they may have a medical or a religious or some other legitimate exemption on the one hand and on the other hand becoming unemployed and unemployable, and in many instances unable to even attain unemployment benefits because you know what a lot of these companies are doing? again, in order to get ahead of the mandate, they're adopting their own draconian aggressive policies. they're already firing people and in some cases they're not firing them. they're putting them on unpaid administrative leave. making it impossible for them to get unemployment. is that really what we want to do? i understand the covid-19 vaccine is a good thing. i consider it a medical miracle of sorts. what do you say to somebody

whose religious beliefs make this an unacceptable choice for them? what do you say to someone with a genuinely serious medical condition, someone who has been told by his or her board certified medical doctor don't get this vaccine. in your case you shouldn't get it because of medical condition x, y, or z. what do you say to that person? do you really want to tell that person that them being brought to heel with a federal directive issued by one person without statutory or constitutional authority to do that? that that's more important, that that's so compelling that they have to be rendered renderedunemployed or ineligible in order to collect unemployment? is that what we've sunk to? i hope not. i don't believe we have.

the american people know better. they know that's not how we resolve disputes in this country, certainly not how we treat religious minorities or people with medical conditions that make them have a different set of concerns than other people. that's not how we act. by the way, it's also a good reason why we don't make law in this country through one person, because of course, mr. president, a law like that would never pass, would never pass here in the senate or in the house of representatives. it couldn't withstand that kind of scrutiny, not the way it's been laid out. not a chance. deep down the president of the united states perhaps knows this. i can only assume, of course. i can't read another human being's subjective mind-set. i can only assume that he would have brought it to congress and given us the opportunity to consider it and adopt it.

but he cut out the people's elected representatives, the people's elected lawmakers whose constitutional obligation and authority it is to make the law. so we can only make assumptions from that. it's not as though he didn't have time to do it. six weeks have elapsed since he made the announcement. meanwhile, i'm hearing from countless people across america, including 300 or so people from the state of utah, who are themselves being put in impossible positions. now look, mind you, for most people this isn't a big deal. most people in america have chosen to get the vaccine, and i'm glad they have. but there are a lot of people whose stories are heart wrenching. just this week i heard from a flight attendant who works with a major u.s. airline. she has religious beliefs that

make her opposed to getting this vaccine or any vaccine. she's a hardworking employee. she's been a faithful flight attendant, and it's a job she has loved, she's enjoyed throughout her entire professional career. it's a job that has benefited her and her family, allowed her to make a living and put food on the table. she's now being faced with this awful choice between, on the one hand, betraying her religious beliefs, which she is unwilling to do. and on the other hand, losing a job, which is her only means of earning a living, of feeding her family. how is this fair? how is this just? how is this constitutional? it's not. troublingly, there are now

signs that the white house isn't satisfied with just making americans who haven't received the vaccine unemployed and unemployable. the administration is reportedly also considering a medical mandate for interstate travel. such a move would be deeply constitutionally concerning, but it would also revoke yet another freedom and make yet another group of american citizens solidly second class. the privileges and immunities clause in the 14th amendment of course protects the right to interstate travel. there's no precedent in our nation's history of a requirement of this nature for interstate travel.

even if those considerations were somehow untrue -- they're not, but even if they were, congress has certainly not granted such authority to the president of the united states to act unilaterally, nor would we ever. a mandate requiring people to get the covid-19 vaccine in order to have the privilege, the benefit, which is actually just a right, one that the american people ought to be able to rely on to travel interstate within the united states, is truly unthinkable. but many of the federal government's actions over the last year have shown americans the real threat it poses to freedom and simply to common sense. remember, this is the

administration that has forced our two-year olds to wear masks for hours at a time on airplanes, buses, trains, and in bus depots, train stations, and airports. two-year olds. for any parent out there, or for anyone who has ever actually interacted with a two-year-old human, you can certainly understand how absurd this is, especially when our peer nations have recognized there is no need to mask a two-year-old. but back to the mandate for a minute, if we think through this disturbing possibility of forced medical treatment as a condition precedent for visiting family in another state or traveling for business reasons or traveling for any reason at all from one state to another, the impacts are clear and they're devastating.

businesses already hard hit by the pandemic in the hospitality and travel sectors would be further strained, collateral damage on the part of those who would push such an oppressive move. individuals could be march -- marooned in states where they couldn't work, couldn't go to restaurants and couldn't leave. the social capital built from face-to-face interactions would be further setback. i believe the vaccines are generally safe and they help protect people from the harms of contracting covid-19. i have in the past and i still now continue to encourage people to get the vaccine. but we must ask what ends this administration's willing to go to to cudgel americans into succombing to this state-sponsored health edict. i'm personally uncomfortable with such sweeping mandates. but more importantly, i'm

required by my oath to protect the constitution of the united states, to oppose this action. that's why i brought forward my latest iteration of my efforts against this unlawful, unconstitutional, and still in incohate mandate. my let me travel america act would prohibit the federal government from mandating that americans receive shots against covid-19 as a prerequisite for interstat travel. i'm grateful my colleagues tuberville and braun have joined me. it is a bill that would provide assurance and protection to millions of americans whose rights are under attack. and so moments ago i came here

and i asked unanimous consent that we pass this bill today with the understanding i'm going to continue to come back day after day as long as it takes to address what the president is doing. the the senate had a chance to protect the american people from yet another unconstitutional overreach. it's disappointing to me really that my friend and colleague, the senator from washington, chose to object to its adoption. but this shouldn't be controversial. it's really not controversial among the american people. i guarantee, you take a poll asking people should the federal government ever be able to tell you that you can't travel interstate unless you receive a particular medical treatment, there's no way the american people would think that's a good idea, because it's not,

because it's absurd, and because it violates everything that we believe in. now, my friend and colleague, the distinguished senator from washington, made the point that such measures can't be enacted because according to her, they would supposedly undermine vaccination efforts. you know what undermines the vaccination effort? what undermines the vaccination effort is when we try to use the overpowering cudgel of coercive force and a level of coercive force that no other entity on planet earth can wield more strongly than the federal government. and you use that cudgel to tell peel who haven't got -- people who haven't gotten it yet, you must get this. a lot of people have been

getting the vaccine, and, yes, there is some holdout, and they have their reasons for being holdouts. there are a lot of ways you can convince someone to do something that they don't currently want to do. one of the things that is going to make it far less likely that they get the vaccine is for them to be told that they're being threatened with their jobs. it's not how you win. even if it were how we could somehow chalk this up as a win, that's not who we are. that's not how we play. and this is unprecedented, make no mistake. the federal government has yield the floor -- the federal government has never taken anything like this. cities, towns, counties and so forth, states and their

subdivisions have general police powers, meaning broad power to protect health, safety, and welfare, to protect life, liberty, and property in whatever manner they deem appropriate, subject of course to such limitations as may be placed on them either by their state constitution or by the u.s. constitution. states and their subdivisions have the ability to enact legislation like this. health, safety, welfare legislation, in a way that the federal government doesn't. we've got to act pursuant to one of the enumerated powers in the constitution. i challenge anyone to identify what source of authority can fairly be said to give the federal government this kind of power. it doesn't exist. we have never exercised this power with respect to the u.s. population at large. it is a different thing entirely to point to vaccine requirements that we've had for certain federal personnel, including

our military service members. we've never done anything like this. and if we were to ever consider something like this at a federal level, i'd have grave concerns with it because i don't think it's the prerogative of the federal government. but i can tell you one thing that's darned certain -- we would never give one person the authority to impose such a mandate. no, that's not how our constitutional system works. there are a lot of reasons why we no longer fly the union jacket. a lot of them had to do with what happens when you have a dangerous accumulation of power in the hands of a few. it's one of the reasons why we put in place a rigid set of requirements saying that before you change the legal status quo, before you pass a law, you've got to run it through congress. any federal law, assuming it's acting in an area within the federal government's power and

authority and jurisdiction, can't become law, federal law until you run it through the house, you run the same language through the senate, and then you present it to the president. for an opportunity for veto, signature or acquiescence. without going through that process, you have not made a federal law. look, harry truman's effort to seize the entire steel industry in the united states was unlawful, it was unconstitutional, and mercifully the courts were able to dispense with that in a relatively short period of time. we don't even have the luxury of going to court in this instance because the presidency -- the president hasn't had the decency to show us his work, to tell us what he's actually doing. meanwhile, he's bullying corporate america to do his

dirty work for him. corporate america is dutifully complying. in some cases, perhaps out of allegiance or a desire to appear compliant with the president's wishes. in other instances, just for more practical reasons, they don't want to be stuck with the heavy fines that maybe levied against them if they are caught flatfooted and unprepared for what may be coming. so they're doing the president's dirty work for him. they're doing the firing. rendering people unemployed, unemployable, and in some cases ineligible even to receive unemployment. shame on him and shame on us. if we don't call this out for what it is, which is an aggressive, unconstitutional, baseless power grab. my friend and distinguished

colleague, the senator from washington, also pointed to what she referred to as tailored exemptions to the vaccine mandate. what exemptions? there is no mandate. there are no exemptions. yeah, he has spoken in aspirational terms about certain exemptions that would be available, but corporate america doesn't know what they are, and so corporate america acting on the advice of counsel is understandably being very aggressive, erring on the side of firing more people and rendering more people unemployed and unemployable. and in many cases, rendering them incapable of receiving unemployment. so no, no, don't tell me these are tailored exemptions when there aren't even exemptions. in order for it to be an exemption, you have to have a mandate. there is no mandate. there is just the threatened use of the mandate that is making

corporate america decide that it's in its best interests to do the president's dirty work for him and in a way that protects him from being questioned on legal meritorious grounds in court. and if we can't muster the legislative will to defend that power which is rightfully ours -- not ours in the sense that we personally own it, but it's been given to the people, the power to make sure that laws are passed only by their elected representatives and senators. we can't stand up for this, shame on us. and if we can't stand up for even a further encroachment on the power and on the corps responding right that the american people have long come to depend upon to be able to travel interstate without undue

hindrance or interference from their government. it's a sad outcome, one that i can't countenance. that's why i'm going to be back day after day as long as it takes. the american people expect more. the american people deserve better. thank you, madam president. mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar 254. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, tana lin of washington to be united states

district judge for the western district of washington. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. 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 254, tana lin of washington to be united states district judge for the western district of washington, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 187. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of labor, douglas l.

parker of west virginia to be an assistant secretary. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. 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 187, douglas l. parker of west virginia to be an assistant secretary of labor, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question's on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar 338. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, myrna perez of new

york to be united states circuit judge of the second circuit. 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 338, myrna perez of new york to be united states circuit judge for the second circuit, signed by 17 senators as follow- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: finally, i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, october 19, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session, be in a period of morning business, with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 267. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 267, designating june 12, 2021, as women veterans appreciation

day. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the booker amendment at the desk to the preamble be considered and agreed to, the preamble as amended be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the committee on agriculture, nutrition, and forestry be discharged from further consideration, the senate now proceed to s. res. 418. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 418, expressing support for the designation of october 3 through october 9, twupt, as national 4- h -- 2021, as national 4-h week. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the motion. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of senate

resolution 422, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 422, authorizing the use of the atrium in the phillip a. hart senate building for a bipartisan halloween dog parade on october 27, 2021. mr. schumer: thank god we got this one through. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 3011 which was introduced earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 3011, a bill to amend title 6 of the social security act, and forth -- and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure.

mr. schumer: i ask further -- i ask further -- i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i understand there are six bills at the desk, and i ask for their reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the bills for the first time. the clerk: s. 3005, a bill establishing appropriate thresholds for certain budgets points of order in the senate and for other purposes. s. 3006, a bill to amend the balanced budget and emergency deficit control act of 1985 to extend the discretionary spending limits for fiscal years 2022 through 2031. s. 3007, a bill to amend the balanced budget and emergency deficit control act of 1985 to extend the discretionary spending limits. s. 3008, a bill to establish the

federal rainy day fund to control emergency spending. s. 3009, a bill to amend title 6 of the social security act to renew the prohibition on states and territories against lowering taxes. s. 3010, a bill to cap noninterest federal spending as a percentage of potential g.d.p. to right size the government, grow the economy, and balance the budget. mr. schumer: i now ask for a second reading, and i object to my own request, all en bloc. the presiding officer: objection being heard, the bills will receive their second reading on the neck legislative day. mr. schumer: and now finally, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. wednesday, october 20, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate

proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the lhamon nomination. further, if cloture is invoked on the nomination, all postcloture time expire at 1:45 p.m., and that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: for the information of senators, the first roll call of the day will begin approximately at 11:00 a.m. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of senators king and portman. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: madam president, the united states of america is an anomaly in world history. we are a 245-year experiment in

self-government, which is based upon an idea that was radical in 1776. it was tested at gettysburg, antietam, shilo, and the wilderness. it was defended at anzio, iwo jima and normandy, and was reaffirmed in 1965. it's an idea that the people, all the people are the ultimate source of power and can govern themselves through their elected representatives. that was a radical notion in 1776. the historical norm is just the opposite. kings, pharaohs, dictators, czars, warlords, emperors, and more recently presidents for life. throughout most of human history and right up to the present day in most countries, the people have little or no say in the decisions that determine their

fate. and these rulers are rarely, if ever, beneficent. in fact, again the historical norm is just the opposite. pervasive corruption, the pursuit of power for its own sake, the crushing of dissent, sham elections, and the abuse or even elimination of anyone not sufficiently loyal or useful to the leader. that's the historical norm. there's nothing surprising about this because it reflects human nature. history fairly shouts at us that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. given the consistent history of this experience, of warlords, dictators, czars, and the abuse of their authority, it's clear that what we are doing, this experiment is fragile.

it's not the norm. it's an anomaly. what we have and take for granted is in no way guaranteed, as has been the case for democratic experiments throughout history, it can fail. rarely can it fail from external attack. almost always democratic experiments fail from erosion from within. on the surface, our democratic system protects us by resting upon our ingenius constitution, the primary purpose of which is to establish an effective government while at the same time dividing and dispersing power and in madison $evocative phrase, eblithing the government to control itself -- obliging the government to control itself. and of all the safeguards built in the constitution -- and there are many, it would houses of congress, vetoes. division of the war power,

advise and consent, federalism, the bill of rights. of all of those protections, the most fundamental and essential is regular elections. the clearest expression of the people's will. for most of my life i've not really thought much about how elections actually work. you go to the town office or the school gym. they cross your name off on a list, hand you a ballot, and you go into a booth and make your choice. you then put the marked ballot into a box or hand it to a clerk -- usually it a volunteer doing their civic duty in my hometown -- and then they run it through the counter. or you can get a mail-in ballot from your town clerk, mark it at home, send it in or in my town you can drop in a dropbox any time of the night or day that's outside of the town office. that's it. h. -- until later that night when the results are announced. precinct by precinct, town by

town, city by city, and state by state. then you go to bed, happy or unhappy, energized or discouraged, either reveling in the victory of your preferred cans or determined to work -- cans or determined to work harder -- cans or determined to work harder next time. the next day you go about your business trusting that the system was operating according to the rules and that the announced vote count accurately reflect the presence of you and your fellow citizens. the key word, madam president, is trust. beaver -- the miraculous result is something we completely take for granted but is exceedingly rare, exceeding isly rare in human history -- the peaceful transfer of power. whether it's the city council,

the congress, or the presidency itself. but two interrelated things are happening right now with regard to this system that are unprecedented in my lifetime and have caused me to worry as i never have before about the future of my country. these two things are profoundly dangerous to our fragile republic. one is the breakdown of trust in the system itself and the other is an overtly partisan attempt to use this loss of trust as a pretext to change the results of future elections by limiting the participation of voters deemed unworthy, although that's rarely said out loud, or unlikely to vote for your particular political party. this discussion is usually

framed in terms of election integrity, the prevention of widespread voter fraud, which it is argued is tainting the outcome of our elections. unfortunately, these so-called election integrity measures almost invariably end up limiting the participation of a substantial number of voters, many of whom have historically been denied the right to vote by one device or another for over 100 years. it's limiting that participation either as inadvertent collateral damage or, more likely, as stone-cold partisan voter suppression. when i used to interact with the maine legislature either as a private citizen for many years or as governor, the inevitable first question from the chair of the committee was, what's the problem we're trying to solve here?

you with aens to change the law? -- you want to change the law? what's the problem we're trying to solve. in this case, is the problem really voter fraud or is it election results the party in power in a particular state don't like? the implicit burden that this question puts upon those who would change a law is to demonstrate by some reasonable and credible evidence that there's a problem in the first place. and simply saying or endlessly repeating that there's a problem doesn't make it so. to put it another way, repeating a lie doesn't make it true. every objective study to try to detect widespread voter fraud in this country has failed to produce credible evidence of anything but scattered and vanishingly rare cases. i'm not saying it doesn't exist,

but they're scattered and vanishingly rare casesment even the remotely flawed audits in maricopa county, arizona, failed to find what they were so desperately looking for. failed to find what they were so desperately looking for. the key question is whether -- not whether such fraud exists at all but whether it's so widespread as to change the results of an election involving a substantial number of voters. in the wake of 2016 election, the president convened a commission to assess this very question, but the commission was disbanded within eight months with no published finding of significant election fraud whatsoever. that was their mission to find fraud, and they couldn't find it. further, as is mentioned, i know of no objective study that has ever concluded that such

widespread fraud exists anywhere in our country. even more compelling is that in spite of herculean efforts by the former president and his supporters over the course of the months following the 2020 election, no credible evidence has yet been produced to support his allegations. and all of the allegations have been rejected by every court, more than 60. they've been rejected bid every court that has considered them. the only fraud here, madam president, is the allegations themselves. in other words, not only is there no evidence of substantial fraud. what evidence there is reaches the opposite conclusion. but here's the problem. here's what's chilling. fully one-third of americans and two-thirds of members of the

republican party now believe that the 2020 presidential election was not legitimate, that there was widespread fraud, and that at election was somehow stolen. not based upon evidence, because there isn't any, but based upon the repeated assertions of the former president and his supporters. the problem with this, madam president, goes well beyond the wave of voter suppression legislation that's sweeping the country. the deeper problem is the massive and unprecedented erosion of trust in the electoral system itself, the beating heart of our democracy. of all the depredations of the former president, this is by far the worst. in relentlessly pursuing his narrow self-interest, he has grievously wounded democracy itself and, by the way, i mean

narrow self-interest quite literally. he doesn't give the slightest damn about any of us, any of us in this body. he will cast any or all of us aside whenever it suits his needs of the moment. everyone in this room knows this to be true. the reason this is so destructive is that if you can't trust elections, what are your options? what are your options for making the transcendent decisions upon which our society is based? one is to change the rules, to discourage your perceived enemies from voting. check. that's in the works. another is to change the rules to give partisan legislatures the power to override election results they don't like. check. that's also in the works.

another is to contrive pseudo legal arguments to justify the corruption of the counting of electoral votes. and then to pressure the vice president who presides over the counting of the electoral votes to join until scheme. check. we know now this was very much in the works in the days leading up to january 6. we're finally, or tragically try to change the results if you don't trust elections through violence or threats of violence. check, january 6. and death threats to election officials of both parties across the country. january 6 was not a rangdom -- a random day on the calendar. it was the day appointed by law to finalize the results of the election. many of those who came to washington that day were not there to protest but there there with the explicit purpose of

disrupting and stopping this crucial final step in our democratic process. the rallying cry that day was not protest the steal. it was stop the steal. and that's exactly what was attempted in this room on january 6. it's important to remember that most failures of democracy, as we look at history, started with legitimate elections. but once in office, the leader manipulated the electoral process to consolidate their hold on power, just as was attempted last winter. and once power is seized, the control and reach of the modern surveillance state is truly hairifying. -- terrifying. truly terrifying.

ask the uighurs in china or members of the opposition if you can find any alive. turkey, venezuela, and hungary are all examples of the slide from democracy into authoritarianism that's happened just in our living memory, just in our lifetimes. this is not a theoretical threat. we've seen it already happen in our lifetimes. those countries still have elections, but they don't mean much. and what if the current wave of voter suppression legislation succeeds and keeps tens or hundreds of thousands of people from voting in 2022 or 2024, or what if in 2024 a partisan legislature in a swing state -- and they are giving themselves this power right now -- a partisan legislature in a swing state votes to override the election results in their state and send they are own preferred -- their own preferred set of

electors to washington? then it won't just be republicans who distrust elections. and we will be left with a downward spiral toward a hollow shell of democracy where only raw power prevails and as peaceful transfer becomes a distant memory. there's been a great deal of talk in recent weeks and months of a possible constitutional crisis in 2022 or 224. -- or 2024. we are in midst of such a crisis right now. one of our great political parties has embraced the idea that our last election was fraudulent, that our current president is illegitimate. that they must move legislatures across the country to fix the results, to fix the results of future elections. here's the part that i think is the most tragic. a substantial portion of our

population has lost faith in our democratic system because they've been repeatedly told that something important was stolen from them. even though that is untrue. and that portion of our population seems prepared to accept some version of authoritarianism. all but the most extreme sources of information have been devalued and violence bubbles just below the surface. but it doesn't have to be this way. we in this body, perhaps more than anyone else in the country, have the power to change the direction, to pull our country back from the brink and to begin the work of restoring our democracy, as we did in the revolution, as we did in the civil war, and as we did in the civil rights struggles. first, by simply telling the truth and then by enacting a set of basic protections of the

sacred right to vote. it won't be easy. and it will involve risk. i am aware of that. and i that. -- i understand that. it will be particularly difficult when we're asked to speak hard truths that many of our most ardent supporters don't want to hear. but the alternative is worse, worse even than losing your job in this body. the alternative is the loss of our identity as a people, the loss of the miracle of self-government, the loss of the idea of america. i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we are at a hinge of history, that circumstances have thrust us -- those of us in this body -- into a moment when the fate of the american experiment hangs in the balance. we are the heirs and

trustees -- i emphasize trust trustees of a tradition that goes back to lincoln, madison, and, yes, our friend john mccain. all of them were partisans in one way or another, but all shared an overriding commitment to the idea that animates the american experiment, the idea that our government is of, by, and for the people. all the people. lincoln thought that the most important word in the declaration of independence was all -- all men are created equal. all. all the people. now is the moment that we're called upon to reach beyond our region, our state, our party, ourselves to save and reinvigorate the sputtering

flame of the american idea. yeah, yes, democracy is an anomaly in world history. we have to remember that. what we have is unusual, it's rare, and it's fragile. it rests upon the constitution and laws to be sure, but it also rests even more on the trust our people place in our democratic system and in us. deliberately undermining that trust for short-term political advantage, which is exactly what's happening right now, undermining that trust for political advantage in the short term is exactly what's happening right now, is a tragic, a tragic and dangerous game. no election, no endorsement, no senate seat, no presidency is worth it. nothing is worth destroying what

our forebearers fought and died for. nothing. several weeks ago a bipartisan group of us went to gettysburg and walked the battlefield with two leaders from the army war college. i had been there before, but had never been so moved by the experience as i was on this trip. the stories of valor and supreme sacrifice, the 20th man on little round top -- you know that i would mention that. the first minnesota at the exposed center of the union line, the iron brigade on the first day, the colossal losses on both sides, unimaginable losses on both sides in a matter of three days were a sobering reminder of what it took to preserve this country. but we learned something else that day, that it was a near thin. if a union officer named strom vincent hesitated in moving those three regiments to the top

of little round top or if an officer from minnesota named william coville hesitated in leading the first minnesota on a swiel charge -- suicidal charge into the teeth of the advance our country would have been lost. it never struck me so hard as it did at gettysburg several weeks ago. and so it is today a near thing. only the test is not only battlefield and no one here is being asked to give up their lives. we're simply being asked to tell the truth, to recommit to the ideal of democracy, to keep faith with our history and our inheritance. and if we hesitate, all could be lost. this is not speculation. all could be lost. and we now know from the events of january 6 and the relentless

attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election in the last days of the prior administration, it was and still is a near thing. that's what's so chilling and frightening. as it is in the old protestant hymn i remember from my youth, so it is today. once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. i believe that this is that moment for each of us. the concluding works of lincoln in his message to congress in the dark winter of 1862 have never been more apt. they're eerily applicable to us today. here is what abraham lincoln said -- fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. we of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. no personal significance or

insignificance can spare one or another of us. the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. indeed, destiny has placed us here at one of history's fateful moments. our response to it will be our most important legacy. all the other things that we've done, this moment will be our most important legacy. i believe we all know our responsibility, and whether we like it or not, history will record whether we, each of us, meets that responsibility. madam president, may god working through each of us save

the united states of america. i yield the floor. mr. portman: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: madam president, we're here on the floor this evening to talk about the troubling state of our economy today and what needs to be done to get it back on track. the labor department reported last week that the consumer price index, c.p.i., rose by 5.4% on an analyzed basis. that accounts for the largest year-to-year inflationary entries in 13 years. and we're feeling it, there is no question inflation is on the rise. we're paying more for everything from groceries to buying furniture to cars, even pumpkins for halloween. yes, the u.s. department of

agriculture just told us that pumpkins year to year are going to see an average 15.7% increase in prices. so you might have to get a smaller pumpkin this year. of course we're paying more at the pump. on average a staggering 42% increase this year. 42% increase. this is both because of increased demand, but also because there's less supply as the new administration, the biden administration has put more regulations or handcuffs on american energy production. and don't forget the higher heating bills, about 25% higher this year as compared to last year. just as this cooler weather begins to come in, we're all going to be paying more on our utility bills, particularly for natural gas. if all this isn't bad enough, workers' wages are not keeping up with these price spikes. i love to see wages going up, but honestly, if you look at the data, it says that since president biden took office,

wages after inflation, adjusted for inflation are down almost 2. remember before the pandemic started, in february of 2020, we had the 19th straight month of wage increases of 3% or more of an annualized basis. well above inflation. now we're seeing the opposite. this means a pay cut for the middle class. the damaging effect of this hidden inflation is in part the result of actions that were taken by the biden administration and by democrats here in congress to overheat the economy through unprecedented levels of government spending. what do i mean by that? well, you'll recall that economists and former secretary of the treasury in the clinton and obama administrations larry

summers said with this huge bill that they ended up with a a single republican input or vote in march, he said if you do this it's going to cause inflation. he warned about it because he had seen this movie before. when you've got an economy that's already improving and you overheat it with massive amounts of stimulus -- remember, the $1.9 trillion spent in march was the highest level spent, the biggest program passed by either house of congress. $1.9 trillion, you forget how much money that is. he recognized that this bill contained billions in stimulus funding, social service spending, the stimulus checks. and those were going to fuel the demand side of the economy. and they did. not just the stimulus checks but other things as well. covid funds, all kinds of institutions, continuing generous deployment supplement that -- undeployment supplement

that paid 32 percent of american workers more to go on unemployment than to go back to work. all of this added up to a huge influx of social spending, government spending, borrowed money but government spending into the economy that everyone who was looking at it objectively, i believe, knew was going to be a problem. early this year before the democrats passed this $1.9 trillion spending bill, the nonpartisan congressional budget office here on capitol hill told us that the economy was already recovering, and that's what outside economists were saying as well. everybody was looking at the economy and saying in january, february, going into march the economy was improving nicely. in fact, the congressional budget office, again, nonpartisan group up here, said the economy is going to get back to its prepandemic level by midyear, by june 30. and it did. the stimulus was really poorly

timed. instead of allowing the recovery to continue steadily, it effectively poured fuel on an already hot economy which led to the surging inflation we're seeing now. the white house likes to say the inflation we're experiencing is transitory. that's the word this have been using. in other words, it will pass as congress passes more legislation to fix the economy, i suppose. unfortunately, it has not been transitory. and i haven't seen anybody who is looking at this objectively say that it will be transitory. in fact, i saw an analysis today from an outside group, nonpartisan group that said they're unfortunately convinced this high inflation is going to continue next year as well. i hope it's not true, but that seems to be the consensus. economists across the spectrum, even the international monetary fund are now saying rising inflation is dampening future economic growth. you would think all of this

would cause a policy shift by the administration, pulling back on the stimulus, doing things to actually help on the supply side of the economy. but rather than changing course on the policies that contribute to this high inflation and this demand side stlis, democrats want to double down with a $3.5 trillion-plus massive tax-and-spending spree that would spend trillions to fund social programs, expand government entitlements and encourage more consumer demand, fueling more inflation. what makes this proposal even more concerning is democrats want to pay for it by hurting the economy more with big tax increases. some say it's the biggest tax increase in 50 years. some say it's the largest tax increase in history. it depends where they end up but we know it will increase taxes on pretty much everybody. the joint committee on tax has done an analysis add said it's going to increase taxes on middle-income workers. why? because it increases taxes on businesses, and they say that about 70% of that tax increase

will be borne by workers. that's, again, the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation. so it's taxes not just on businesses large and small, but it's also on workers, on farmers, on manufacturers. this increased spending combined with job-killing tax increases could lead to the kind of stagflation, low growth, high interest rates, high inflation we had in the 1970's. we hope never to see that again. and yet, if we don't change course, we can be heading toward that direction. it's the last thing our economy needs right now. but surging consumer demand is not the only factor driving our current inflation crisis. the other main culprit is that we're facing a shortage of goods due to a global supply chain crisis. almost anyone you talk to will tell you they have had some kind of shipping delay due to supply chain issues. there are contractors who can't

get lumber, can't get steel to be able to finish a building, a home. there are plenty of parents out there right now waiting to get their kid a gift for their birthday only to find out that no matter how much they pay it's going to arrive not for the birthday but two or three months later. these issues are clearly visible if you look at our seaports which are often the main connector between our country and the main global supply chain, consisting of manufacturers, often in asia, sometimes in china. just last week, there were about 60 or 70 ships in a holding pattern near the ports of long beach in los angeles, california. think about that. 60 or 70 huge container ships just in a holding pattern not being able to get in. and even when the shipping containers are taken on shore, by the way, there aren't enough trucks to pick them up. so the containers are staying at

the port. there aren't enough truck drivers because of the labor shortage. by the way, that's driven in part by this increased demand but in part by some of the rules and regulations around those transportation logistics and truckers. between bottlenecks and backlogs at our ports and challenges in transporting freight, there is real trouble for our supply chains just as we come into the holiday season, which is typically, of course, when people do most of their shopping. one reason for this global supply chain crisis is the ripple effects of covid-19. no question about that. when factories shut down their operations to stem the flow of covid among their workers, assembly lines sometimes stop working altogether and created this shortage of goods and materials. companies that work in the shipping industry also were hit hard by the pandemic and had some of their operations negatively impacted. but then the pentup demand for goods and services kicked in, and again much more demand was created by the $1.9 trillion

spending bill in march of this year than would have been normal. so yeah, you had some of these factories shutting down and essential workers still working, but you had less production and then all of a sudden this big surge. and therefore the bottleneck. some in the biden administration have said that this inflation and supply chain bottleneck is a problem for the rich. i don't see it that way. if they think that, they ought to talk to the factory workers i talked to in ohio whose wages are being eaten up by inflation. i think they should say that to the mother or father who has asked their kid what they want for christmas two or three months ahead of time. in fact it's too late already we're told to get some gifts for christmas even now. the recent college graduate who is trying to fill her car up with gas to get to work, tell it to her that this is a problem for the rich. 42% increase in gas prices this year. the supply chain is like any other chain. if you have world cup weak link,

it's -- if you have one weak link, it's enough to cause the whole thing to fall apart. that's what's happening. part of the near-term solution is to stop any new stimulus spending. that's not what's needed right now in the economy. it's just terrible timing. it's not the new tax increases, because that's also what we don't need in our economy right now. we don't want to make america and american workers less competitive. we are just the opposite. part of the long-term solution to prevent a similar crisis from happening in the future is to shore up our supply chains. instead of being so reliant on manufacturers in places like china, bring the manufacturing home. reshore it. invest for in production here in the united states, and in the process create more domestic manufacturing and transport jobs and greater supply chain security. i think that's going to start happening. if you look at the costs to bring a product from asia to the united states now, it's skyrocketing. that gives us a competitive advantage.

the markets here. we ought to -- the market's here. we ought to bring the manufacturing here as well. another solution is to improve our nation's infrastructure. targeted investments in increasing the capacity and operability of our ports, our waterways, fixing our roads and bridges, improving our railways, that all makes sense. for decades, we have neglected our infrastructure needs. every president, by the way, in modern times has said that. you know, the society of engineers who look at our infrastructure and says that we have a grade of somewhere between d-plus and c-minus in this country. we are falling behind other countries. other countries spend a lot more as a per september of their g.d.p. on infrastructure. and it's been recognized. really, every president since -- from bill clinton to donald trump has said let's make a significant investment in infrastructure. and yet we didn't do it. we neglected our infrastructure. we've neglected our ports. that's why they are so inefficient today in part, and one reason we're having to pay the price.

the good news is that right now there is a bipartisan infrastructure package awaiting passage in the house of representatives. to address this and other problems. it's called the infrastructure investment and jobs act. this is a bill that passed the united states senate here in august with a 69-vote majority. that doesn't happen very often around here with big, important legislation like that. it was bipartisan from the start. it was passed with the support of republicans here in this chamber, democrats in this chamber, and most importantly the american people. we think it's a really good idea. economists think it's a good idea, too, because it improves the efficiency of our economy. think about it. the bridge that's holding up traffic right now in my hometown of cincinnati, ohio, every day. a massive bridge where i-71 and 75 come together. it's a huge hit to our economy. it's also a huge safety problem. fixing that bridge has been something people have talked

about for 30 years. it's time to do it, and we'll do it if we can get this infrastructure bill passed. it will also create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs in industries ranging from construction and plumbing to electrical engineering and software development. one recent study from the association of equipment manufacturers finding that the legislation will create about a half a million jobs. it will also help address issues at our ports by providing increased funding for the port infrastructure development program. investments in our freight system through rail and waterway and highway and air freight investments. so it actually addresses a real problem we've got right now. and by the way, these investments are long-term investments. it won't be a lot of money spent in the next year or so. it will be a lot of money spent over the next five, ten, 15 years to improve this infrastructure. it will be a long-term asset for the last decade. so it's a different kind of spending than the stimulus spending.

all this will help improve movement of goods throughout our country. that's why every business group in america is supporting this legislation. not just the chamber of commerce, but every group out there. by the way, as well as all the agricultural groups. over 30 ag groups including the american farm bureau are supporting this legislation. it's why a lot of the union members are supporting it, too. in fact, the afl-cio voting trades council is strongly in support of this legislation because they know it's going to create good-paying jobs, good benefits. allowing people to get out there and build things. even more importantly to me, given the recent economic news we've seen, this proposal will not cause inflation to increase. why? because it's spending on the supply-side rather than the demand side of the economy, as the economists would say. conservative economist doug holtz-eakin is the former director of the congressional budget office and michael strain, who is the director of

economic policies studies at the american enterprise institute, also a conservative scholar, has said that our bipartisan infrastructure package will slow down inflation. they said, and i quote, improving roads, bridges, ports, will make it less costly for businesses to operate, allowing them to increase their output per hour and putting downward pressure on consumer prices. again, this is long-term spending capital assets, it makes the economy more efficient, therefore more productive. that's counterinflationary. so this is the right time to do this kind of a project. to me, this bill makes all the sense in the world given the troubling and uncertain state of our economy. it gets relief to our supply chains. it makes long-term investments in hard assets. it, too, boosts our productivity in this country. why hasn't it passed? what's the problem? it got 69 votes here in the united states senate. well, unfortunately, the answer is politics.

democrats in the house of representatives want to do everything they can to tie their big $3.5 trillion-plus tax-and-spend bill we talked about earlier to the infrastructure investment because they know that's the only way their partisan bill is going to get the votes needed to pass. so they held it hostage. progressives don't like the bipartisan infrastructure bill because it doesn't have the tack increases, it doesn't have the green new deal policies, it doesn't have all the new social spending programs that's in this reconciliation bill that they really want. but holding this investment in infrastructure hostage to this larger tax-and-spend bill is just wrong. it's playing politics. it's playing politics with the american people. it's also counter to the pledge that president biden made to the bipartisan group that negotiated this agreement and made to the american people. president biden supports this infrastructure legislation. he said he didn't get everything

he wanted. nobody did. but he supports it. he wants it to move forward. and he pledged to keep it separate, separate from the $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill. and yet, what you see in the house is just the opposite. it's not fair to the american people. they deserve to have the opportunity to have the infrastructure bill be voted on its own merits. let it rise or fall on its own merits. don't tie it to something else. house speaker nancy pelosi promised it would come to the house floor about six weeks ago. she promised that to the so-called democrat moderates in the house. it didn't come to the floor. then she promised it would happen about three weeks ago. it didn't come to the floor for a vote. now she has said on october 2 that october 31 is the date. that's halloween. that's a sunday. but that's fine. we can vote on sundays.

even on halloween. it's so important, we ought to do it and do it. it's past time to take this bill to the floor of the house. and let it be judged on its own merits. if passed, it will strengthen our economy over the long term and have a positive impact on the lives of every single american. it's counterinflationary. it makes our economy more efficient. it adds to, again, the supply-side, allowing us to see notust a short-term boost but a longer term boost to our economy. and wouldn't it be nice to pass something that makes sense around here that's bipartisan? instead of jamming republicans in the country with another reckless spending bill and raising taxes on this uncertain economy, let's focus on the infrastructure bill that addresses real problems we face today. we could use a sensible

bipartisan success right now, all of us. i yield back my time. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. is always a live coverage of the u.s. senate when they return on cspan2. ♪ ♪ cspan2 is your unfiltered view of government. provided by the television companies and more including media.

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texas democratic congressman castor house of the 41st supplement talks but u.s. global engagement and event hosted by the atlantic council. it is 45 minutes. >> good afternoon thank you for joining us today. i'm a senior fellow new american engagement initiative part of the center for strategy and security in the atlantic. it is part of the future foreign policy theories which is about sustainable nonpartisan strategy to address the most and sort of important securities challenges facing the united states and the world. to discuss china and diplomacy and public engagement and u.s. foreign policies