vote:

vote:

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the presidingthe vice presidents are 50, the nays are 50. the senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider -- under the previous order the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 125, s. 2747, a bill to expand americans' access to the ballot box and reduce the

influence of big money in politics and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators. the vice president: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed on s. 2747, a bill to expand americans' access to the ballot box and reduce the influence of big money in politics and forefor other purposes, shall be brought to a close? the acquaintance are mandatory under the -- the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

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the vice president: on this vote, the yeas are 49. the nays 51. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.

mr. schumer: madam president, i enter a motion to reconsider that the failed cloture vote. the vice president: the motion is entered. mr. schumer: now, madam president, i want to be clear what just -- i want to be clear about what just happened on the floor of the senate. every single republican senator just blocked this chamber from having a debate simply a debate on protecting americans' right to vote in free and fair elections. a little over a year ago, our country held the safest, most accessible, most on-the-level elections in modern history. our former president could not accept defeat with grace. he refused to show fidelity to the democratic process. instead he told a big lie, a big lie that has now poisoned, poisoned the root, of our democracy. capitalizing on this malicious

lie, his acolytes and conservative-controlled legislatures are now passing laws across the country making it harder for younger, poorer, urban and non-white americans to participate in our elections. the laws are a direct attack on our fundamental liberties as american citizens. if there's anything, anything worthy of the senate's attention, it's unquestionably this. and yet given the chance to respond to an obvious problem, given the chance to merely debate these latest threats against the franchise, senate republicans voted unanimously, unanimously to block any opportunity for action. let there be no mistake. senate republicans blocking debate today is an implicit endorsement of the horrid new voter suppression and election subversion laws pushed in

conservative states across the country. by preventing the senate from functioning as it was intended, republicans in this body are permitting states to criminalize giving food and water to voters at the polls. republicans are saying it's okay to limit polling places and voting hours and shut the door to more expansive vote by mail. i mean, my god, why aren't all of my colleagues outraged by these laws? frankly, we haven't heard a clear explanation from republicans at all because they refused for this chamber to even hold a debate. it's ludicrous, ludicrous for them to simply state that the federal government has no role to play here. they should read the constitution, the constitution of these united states of america. it precisely empowers congress to regulate the, quote, times,

places, and manners, unquote, of holding elections. the congress, us. sometimes the federal government has been the only recourse when states conspire to shut voters out. madam president, the fight to protect our democracy is far from over in the united states senate. senate democrats have made clear that voting rights is not like other issues we deal with in this chamber. this isn't about regular old politics. it's not even just about regular policy. it's about protecting the very soul of this nation. about preserving our identity as a free people who are masters of our own destiny. republican obstruction is not a cause for throwing in the towel. as soon as next week i'm prepared to bring the john lewis voting rights advancement act here to the floor. what we saw from republicans

today is not how the senate is supposed to work. this is supposed the greatest -- the world's greatest deliberative body where we debate, forge compromise, amend, and pass legislation to help the american people. that is the legacy of this great chamber. the senate needs to be restored to its rightful status as the world's greatest deliberative body. now, in the aftermath of the civil war and as the nation began the colossal work of reconstruction, america was more divided than at any point in history. it was hard to imagine that a single nation could endure after the bloody conflict of the four previous years. at the time the republican congress set to work on granting

newly freed slaves the basic freedoms that had long been denied to them. these freedoms were eventually enshrined in the 14th and 15th amendments granting due process and the right to vote to all citizens, regardless of color or race. today these amendments rank as some of the greatest and most revered accomplishments in congressional history. they are proof that our country is capable of living up to its founding promise if we are willing to put in the work. but at the time the minority party in both chambers refused to offer a single vote for any of the civil rights legislation put forward during reconstruction. not one vote. not one vote. they argued these bills represented nothing more than the partisan interest of the

majority, a power grab they said from vejful northeastern -- vengeful northeasterners but that didn't stop the majority. if expanding basic freedoms meant going it alone, that was something they were willing to do. today we feel the same way. to the patriots after the civil war, this wasn't partisan. it was patriotic. and american democracy is better off today because the patriots in this chamber at that time were undeterred by minority obstruction. again today we feel the same way. today the question before the senate is how we will find a path forward on protecting our freedoms in the 21st century. members of this body now face a choice. they can follow in the footsteps of our patriotic predecessors in this chamber or they can sit by

as the fabric of our democracy unravels before our very eyes. i yield the floor. i ask the senate resume the lin nomination. the vice president: any objection? without objection. the clerk: the judiciary, tana lin of washington to be united states district judge for the western district.

mr. lankford: madam president? the presiding officer: the junior senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: thank you. i do have to make just a quick comment before i jump into a unanimous consent request. i did appreciate hearing the majority leader talk about how the minority and the majority stood up around reconstruction. i found it interesting he continued to talk about the majority and the minority standing up for the rights of slaves and the rights of individuals conveniently leaving out it was the republicans at that time that were the majority that were actually standing up for the rights of all individuals of all races to be able to vote and to be able to be engaged.

and it was the democrats at that time that were working very hard to be able to block the rights of individuals to be able to vote. so i did have to just find it personally humorous when he seems to not be very shy about saying republican-democrat on the floor. at that moment he used majority and minority but i digress into other issues. the reason i came to the floor today was because on september 9, the president of the united states took to the microphone and told the american people his patience was wearing thin was the comment he made to the american people. my patience is wearing thin. therefore, i'm going to start mandating that individuals across the country have to receive a vaccine to which he then put out an executive order across to federal workers in particular and told federal workers they would have to have a vaccine by the end of this year, to be fully vaccinated, complete. the deadlines he put in place for the moderna vaccine, they

would have had to have the first shot last week and the pfizer, they would have had to have the first vaccine this week. and the j&j in a couple of weeks to be fully complete. he laid down the statement to say everybody needs to get vaccinated. and then walked away. office of personal management, office of budget, and then start catching up on this because there was no rule that was in place. it was an executive action. i quickly started getting phone calls from individuals in my state that were exceptionally concerned about that. that federal workers that had worked for the federal government for decades that had questions about religious accommodation or medical exceptions or, quite frankly, they had already had covid and recovered from it and they were concerned about the vaccine coming in, that they would have some kind of relapse at some point. it's exceptionally rare, but if it's them and they walk back through it, it's their

prerogative. so i started asking questions immediately. i went to the c.d.c. to ask if they studied the 44 million americans that already had covid and recovered, would their recommendation be those individuals don't have to have the vaccine if they can show they already have the antibodies in their system and the answer i got back from the c.d.c. is we have not studied it yet. a year and a half in we have not studied it yet. ience with to the office of management and budget to be able to visit with them. i heard one set of issues from them. 24 hours later i met with the office of personnel management. i heard a different set of issues that came from them, literally in conflict with each other 24 hours apart. they put out guidance. they put out a second set of guidance. but each set of guidance they put out becomes more chaotic in the process. people that work repoetly throughout this entire time of covid and continue to work remotely are a little confused

why they're being mandated to have a vaccine. individuals that have already had covid and have recovered are confused why they are be mandated to do this. individuals with medical accommodations that have asked for those that literally are showing up with paperwork from their physician saying, this person is currently under cancer treatments, they do not need to have the vaccine at this point during their moment of treatments, are being told by some people, no, that doesn't count. the c.d.c. has said it's okay. your doctor's note doesn't count and by others they're being told, no, that does count. you can delay it. one set of rules from one session. one set of rules from another. in fact, even within the same agency, department to department it's even a different set of rules. some agencies have said that the volunteer advisory boards are also included. other agencies are saying, no, volunteer advisory boards are not included into this mandate.

some are receiving word in state agencies in my state that because your agency takes federal funds, everyone in your state agency also has to be vaccinated or we will cut off the federal funds to your state. some agencies are not calling with that same request. the contractors that work with the federal government were told they were also included in this executive order and that everyone in their -- executive order mandate and that everyone in their company needs to be mandate except the contractors are asking simple questions. is is it everyone in our company or everyone that works on the contract for the federal government? they can't get a straight answer on that. and as simple as it is, even for those contractors that have asked, they've said, wait a minute. we have a contract already. are you as the president trying to write in an additional stipulation into our contract that we didn't agree to based on an executive action you don't have legal authority to be able to do? this about the current contract?

or is this about future contracting? and they've not been able to get an answer on that. quite frankly, we as a body -- i'm still fighting to make sure contractors don't have human trafficking in their contracting and get suspension for this. but apparently with this executive order, companies can still have human trafficking and not get suspended, but if they are not 100% vaccinated, they will be. this is a bizarre world we're living in now. this mandate came out for federal contractors, maybe state agencies a six weeks ago and everybody is still asking questions. in the meantime, real families in real-life situations with dealing with the consequences of the debris field behind this. one of my social security agencies in my state, folks that take care of those folks at the

social security office to get their card to them, to get questions to them about social security, one of them there are eight employees in that little spot. four of the folks are talking about leaving because they're concerned about the vaccine mandate and they're not getting their answers -- their questions answered. if that happens, the folks in that part of my state will not be able to get their social security card, will not be able to get their answers. so, what's happening? people are struggling with a long-term career, deciding whether they're going to leave, literally if they're going to follow their doctor's orders or if they're going to follow somebody from the c.d.c. they've never met before and their orders that are coming down. federal contractors are trying to figure out how they can complete a contract because the president of the united states inserted a new element into

their contract and, oh, by the way, many federal union workers are contacting my office saying, what in the world? this was not part of our collective bargaining agreement. literally, the president is sadding a new element to our collecting bargaining agreement after the fact and saying, i know you're a union member, but your local unions are not going to represent you, and they haven't, and they're going to their stewards, they're going to others and saying, hey, i need somebody to represent me here in this and they're telling them, no. the president just inserted something into our collective bargaining agreement and you can do nothing about it. and federal union employees are ticked because they thought their union represented them, not the president of the united states. now, to be clear, i took the vaccine as soon as it was eligible for me. my wife did the same. my daughters did the same.

i am incredibly grateful for the vaccine. i encourage people all over my state and have from the beginning to take the vaccine. it has gone through a rigorous scientific process. but people in my state, like the 49 other states in this great country, all know this fact to be true. there are side effects for some people in the vaccine. it's a small group, but no one knows if they're in that group until they take the vaccine. there are also dramatic effects for people that get covid. some people are asymptomatic. literally get it, recover, never knew they had it. some people die from it in a horrible death in the hospital. you never know until you get it. that's why each individual american has to be able to evaluate their risk of whether they're going to risk it to get covid or risk it to get the vaccine. i think the risk is much lower in getting the vaccine. science has proved that number to be accurate.

but, you know what? i don't get to decide thor them. they -- i don't get to decide for them. they have to decide for them. i can bring information to them and let them make the decision, but instead the president of the united states has stood up and said, my patience is wearing thin. you have to do what i say, regardless if you're under cancer treatments, regardless if you're under any other process. i even asked the office of personnel management, what are you going to do for religious aqomations? the answer came, we cannot decide. the talked to the office of personnel management and they gave me a seven-point decision-making process to help people decide if someone's religious beliefs are sincere or not. this is a mess, and there are lots of people that are caught

up in this that just want their government to help them not fire them -- to help them, not fire them from -- for making a decision that affects their personal life and their family. that is why i have been after this for six weeks, since the famous i'm losing patience speech. for six weeks i have talked about this. for six weeks i have made phone calls to every entity that i can make phone calls. written letters, brought legislation. for six weeks i've brought these issues up and said, this is the real problem that's out there. for six weeks i'm not being heard on this, and there are americans in my great state that are now having to decide if they're going to leave a career they love, serving their neighbors or if they're going to be compelled to take a vaccine risk just because the president

has said, my patience is wearing thin. just to reinforce a simple statement about people making decisions on risks, it's interesting to me -- the 1st of october, another executive order came out and said, if individuals take the vaccine and they're a federal worker because of this new mandate and they do have severe side effects from it, we'll cover them medically. that was a little reminder to some people that were hesitating of why they had hesitate. listen, why don't we go back to doing what we do as americans -- respect each other, encourage people to do the right thing, incentivize. but this chaotic mandate where you don't know if you are a federal contractor, you don't know the rules if you are a federal employee, you don't know

if you are in a state agency. and by the way, the deadlines for moderna and pfizer have already passed and you don't know the rules. no one has the details yet. please ... why don't you listen to the people in your own state asking very straightforward questions. this is not about whether you should take the vaccine. this is, are you going to fire a 25-year federal employee because they disagree with you? that's what this is all about. so as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on homeland security and governmental affairs be discharged from further consideration of my bill that sets aside this executive order from the president, s. 2879, and that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. i further ask that at bill be considered read a third time, passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the junior senator from michigan. mr. peters: madam president, i reserve the right to object. my friend from oklahoma serves as the ranking member of the government operations subcommittee on the homeland security and governmental affairs committee. and i sincerely appreciate that he brings a thoughtful approach to federal workforce issues and that we frankly have the opportunity to work together to make government work more efficiently and more effective. unfortunately, i strongly disagree with the legislation being put forward today. this proposal would roll back policies put in place to make sure that federal workers and federal contractors who are paid with taxpayer dollars are vaccinated against covid-19. these executive orders protect not just the federal workforce all across our country, but they

help protect their families and their communities. there are also commonsense exceptions for people with disabilities or medical conditions or sincerely held religious beliefs. these policies were put in place both carefully and fairly. madam president, the american people are literally sick and tired of this pandemic. a pandemic that has already claimed over 725,000 lives, including the lives of our friends, our neighbors, and our family members. and they want this pandemic to end, and vaccines is how we get there. from the beginning of this pandemic, i and many of my colleagues have been dedicated to bringing safe and effective vaccines to people that live in our states by investing in science and research and by

strengthening our domestic spleuchans. -- spleuchans. -- supply chains. we know from trusted scientists and public health experts that we need higher rates of vaccination to get this pandemic under control. the politicization of safe, effective public health measures is making it harder to end this horrible pandemic. the legislation before us today would, without question, move us in the wrong direction. madam president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is is heard. mr. lankford: madam president, i understand my friend's statement from michigan. i have to tell you, though, i wish this was rolled out in an orderly fashion. it's been six weeks of chaos and unanswered questions, and this federal government is about to fire thousands of federal employees because they did not

bend to their will. many federal employees that asked for medical exemption and were told no, literally that brought a letter from their doctor and were told no. individuals that asked for religious accommodation and were told no, they will not get it. it's one thing to say it's offered. it's another thing to say it was actually extended. i would tell you from talking to people in my state in the federal workforce, they are not getting those orderly religious accommodations, those orderly medical exemptions. they're not getting it. they're being told, no, it's a mandate. and then they're being told, you're about to lose your career. is it worth it? these are individuals literally choosing between their health and their job. by this january, i don't know how many thousands of federal employees we're going to have out of our system and how much wisdom we're going to lose out of all these agencies, but this

horrible game of chicken that the president is right now playing with not only federal employees but with people all over the country is a terrible thing to do to our economy and to individuals that are seeking the best service. it is amazing to me how many individuals served through the entire pandemic faithfully and took great risk to be able to serve their neighbors, that literally the president is about to fire as their thank you. that is wrong. that is wrong. i stood last week and talked to individuals that worked for american airlines. who are really concerned and frustrated, who loved working with american airlines, but are now receiving a mandate coming down on them that they are digging in and saying i'm not going to do it. i've already had covid.

i've recovered. i have natural immunity. why am i being asked to do this as well. and they're getting only that the president is mandating it. and we do federal work and so it's going to be required. it's the same thing happening to packing companies, to manufacturers, to small businesses around the country. let me just read you a story. one employee that called our office last week is currently in cancer treatment for the fourth time and is receiving an experimental treatment. she's being told she will be terminated from her job november 24 if she doesn't get vaccinated because the president is requiring it on everyone. that does not sound like an accommodation that's occurring because of medical accommodations. it's nice to say in d.c. talk to the people in your state what's actually happening on the ground. all this that's happening around

health care workers all around the country, what does that really look like? we talked to administrationors of one -- administrators of one of our nursing homes. most of the individuals in our nursing homes, thankfully residents and staff have been vaccinated but some have had covid and they're concerned about getting the vaccine. whether that's rational or not, that's where they are but they have natural immunity. this particular nursing home that we talked to, 20% of her employees have said that they will not take the vaccine. this particular nursing home in a rural area will close and expose all of those residents and their families to chaos because biden said i'm losing patience. it is one thing to say we need to be able to push back on this pandemic. i absolutely agree. it is another thing to

irrationally close down nursing homes that are taking care of patients that, by the way, were filled with people, frontline workers that put their life at risk last year to serve people and now to push those people out and fire them this year? you're welcome, apparently, is what the president should be saying to them. all i'm asking for is reason. all i'm asking for is to consider those 44 million americans that have natural im-- immunity and to accept what we all know scientifically to be true. all i'm asking is for real medical exemptions. that's not irrational. all i'm asking for is real religious accommodations. those are things that should be straightforward, common sense, and doable. but for whatever reason, the train is barreling down the

tracks and the debris field are our federal workers, individuals that work in private companies, health care workers across the board. i just this weekend received an e-mail that was a long e-mail from a very shy physician in one of our major hospitals in tulsa. she told me flat out i don't seek personal attention. i don't do media stuff. in fact, she said, i don't even have social media at all. but she detailed out her health care decisions and what was going on in her own lifend said i do not want to receive this vaccine. and as a physician at a major hospital in tulsa, she's about to lose her job because president biden's patience is running thin. what do her patients do next? mr. president, don't play

chicken with our families. this is real to them. they do not need to lose their job because they have medical conditions, religious accommodations, or they have natural immunity. they've suffered through covid once and now you're going to fire them? for that? let's have a real dialogue, not a rushed my patience is wearing thin. with that i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the junior senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, madam president. i want to say a couple of words about a couple of friends. i -- i really miss mike enzi.

i'm referring, of course, to senator mike enzi, our colleague who served the people of wyoming and the people of america for 24 years in this body. we lost him a couple of months ago. i tried to get out to his beautiful state to say goodbye and i couldn't -- just couldn't rearrange things. i just -- i miss him. i was thinking about mike this morning. i had a meeting over here early -- not too early. about 8:00. i walked from my little overpriced capitol hill apartment through the park to the capitol. the park i'm talking about is just east of the capitol. and mike would always walk

through the park. when he would come to vote. not always but many times he'd leave his office and get his exercise and enjoy god's beautiful day by walking through the park. i walked with him a couple of times. mike was so many things. if i had to describe him in three words, it would be decent, smart, and one of the best fisherman i've ever known. i want to talk about the decent part and what mike enzi meant to me. i mean, i could talk about his background and the fact that he was a giant among senators, how everybody respected him. but everybody knows that. when i first got here, i think all new senators feel this way.

this is -- the members of this body are very, very smart and they're very, very driven. and at least for me, when i first got here it was a very intimidating place. and i think that's true for most senators. i think if you ask all hundred senators what it was like their first month here, 99 of them would tell you they were intimidated. the 100th would be lying because this is an intimidating place. but, you know, mike went out of his way, i remember -- i guess he could tell i was insecure -- to reassure me. you know, every few weeks i'd see him in the cloakroom or see him in committee. he'd say, kennedy, you know, you're making a real contribution to this group. of course i wasn't. but it made me feel so good and

so more sure of myself, and it also made me realize, when i reflect back on it, what a decent thing it was for mike to do. he'd been here 24 years. he had his pick of chairmanship. i mean, he really was a giant in this body. and i was green as a gourd, brand new. he didn't have to do that. but he did. and i -- i never told him how much that meant to me. and i really regret not telling him that now. and i feel so bad for diana, just the most wonderful person in the world. i don't know mike's children, amy, emily, and brad, but i have a feeling, knowing that they're the children of mike enzi and

diana, that they're three wonderful americans. i just wanted to say that. i was thinking about mike today. i miss him. number two, we have an organization in louisiana called the public affairs research council. it is one of our premier think tanks. it's an independent group. they're not political. they do serious research and they offer very serious suggestions about how we in louisiana can solve some of our social and economic problems. i don't know how long -- we call it par, public affairs research council. i don't know how long p.a.r. has been around. as long as i've been in government which is the late 1980's. and it was there way before i came. i didn't have time to look up when it was founded, but i think it's pretty much two years older

than dirt. it's just been there. it's an institution in louisiana. it's privately funded. people who care about our state contribute money to do p.a.r.'s work. i religious read all p.a.r.'s white papers and research papers. everybody i know who cares about my state takes their suggestions seriously. and to be the director or the president of p.a.r., it's quite an honor. it's a lot of work and it's a big deal. and our president of p.a.r. is retiring. he's a friend of mine. his name is robert travis scott. and i want to say a word about robert. robert's a graduate of the university of south carolina with honors, graduate of johns hopkins. he's done it all. i first met -- and robert has been president of p.a.r. since

2011. but before that he was the capital bureau chief for our newspaper, new orleans. that's how i got to know him. robert is -- was never an agenda journalist. and we know that those journalists, particularly in the print media, exist. they exist in electronic media. i couldn't tell you today what robert's politics are. i don't even know what party he's in. i don't know if he's in a party. he was always, when he was a reporter, a straight shooter. called it like he saw it. played it straight down the middle. if he thought he ought to bust you up side the head because you did something dumb in public service, he would do it. but he didn't do it just in a gratuitous way. and so it was no surprise to me when p.a.r. asked robert to take over running the public affairs research council. and he did that. he's done it since 2011, ten

years. and they have -- robert and p.a.r. have contributed so much to my state. his replacement is going to be a gentleman by the name of dr. steve perkopia who i know as well. steve is going to do a great job but we're going to miss robert. i hope he doesn't go far. i just wanted to come and say a word about in i good friend robert travis scott. now, let me say one final word on a timely topic here. as you know, our body is going to soon be considering, i think, some changes to our tax code. we don't know exactly what they are. i just want to strongly encourage my colleagues and my friends -- because i like everybody in this body -- if we're going to make changes to

our tax code, to make those changes on the basis of sound, economic principles. don't make them on the basis of class warfare. some of the proponents of some of the changes that i have seen discussed in the media in my opinion don't understand the complexity of the american economy. they just don't. they think of our economy as it was in primitive times when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. in those days, in primitive times when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers, the only value that was created in the economy that we had was labor. it was all labor. and then in those days, when

somebody became rich, they became rich by exploiting the capital of others. in fact, that's what marks talked about. marx's concept of the economy is the only value in an economy is work, and if you become wealthy in an economy, you become wealthy as a result of exploiting the labor of others. so marx agreed with this description of the, i won't say medieval, but it was way before medieval times when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. that's not the american economy today. the american economy today is the greatest economy in all of human history because it's a marriage of capital and labor, and capital and labor are not

antagonistic. they work together. it's not without friction, i understand that. but that's why we have become the greatest economy in all of human history. and when capital joins labor and the two contribute and play their own role, we are able to all work and save and invest and fund the research and development and do the innovative things that have given all of us the greatest quality of life in all of human history. so capital is not a bad thing. it's a good thing. and there's been a lot of talk around here about billionaires, bad, bad billionaires. they're not paying their fair share. i've never completely understood how you determine what the fair share is of somebody.

let me put it another way. i don't understand what the fair share is. i don't know what my fair share is of what the president, madam president, what she's worked for. it's yours. you worked for it. but that aside, this talk about the bad, bad billionaires, and they don't pay their fair share, and they're hurting our economy, and they only got rich based on exploiting other people's labor, i think shows a gross misunderstanding of the complexity of the united states economy and a gross misunderstanding of free enterprise. and i hope we don't lose sight of that as we go about the process of making changes to our tax code. let me say it again. if we make changes to our tax code, let's don't make them on the basis of class warfare.

let's make them on the basis of sound economic principles. so congratulations to robert travis scott. robert, i hope you have a wonderful retirement. don't be moving back to south carolina or baltimore or other places. stay in louisiana. mike, i miss you. mike enzi, i miss you. you know, i've heard it said before that i -- i didn't say this now. i'm just repeating it, that most senators believe in god and the rest of them think they are god. mike enzi was in the former category, just a great man. smart, good fisherman. most of all, he was decent. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, madam president. i rise today to discuss president biden's nominee to serve as one of our nation's chief banking regulators. about a month ago president biden announced his intention to nominate cornell university law professor sole amarova to serve

as comptroller of the currency. i was on the floor recently and spoke about her nomination, and i noted at the time that she had been celebrated on the far left for promoting ideas that she herself as described as, and i quote, radical. it's one of the few things on which i agree p with her. these are radical ideas. in fact, they are very radical ideas. and most disturbing about this, madam president, is they demonstrate -- these ideas of her -- a very clear aversion to america's free enterprise system at a very fundamental level, despite the fact that our free enterprise system has produced an incredible level of prosperity and standard of living. i have to say i don't think i've ever seen a more radical choice for any regulatory spot in our federal government that i can think of than professor amarova. let me be clear that assessment

is based on the things that professor amarova has written and said in her own words often quite recently. today i want to focus on one of the radical ideas that she presented in great detail in a paper that she wrote in 2016, not exactly ancient history. this is her plan to have the federal government set wages and prices for large sectors of the u.s. economy. in fact, for the most important goods and services in our country. under her plan, the federal government would designate -- and i quote, these are her words, quote, systemically important prices and indexes, end quote. or cipias, for the federal reserve to regulate. so she details five different approaches, different ways that the government could regulate and take control over these prices of these systemically

important goods. and it's all a terrible idea based on the completely erroneous premise that somehow the government knows what the price of these things should be. but among all of them, one that's maybe the most troubling is one that she describes here -- and this is what professor amarova argues. she says, and i quote, the final regulatory option we think worth considering is price maintenance. typically within some band through o.m.o.'s, end quote. now o.m.o.'s stands for open market operations, and that is an operation that the federal reserve engages in. but the fed uses open market operations, or o.m.o.'s in professor amarova's lexicon, to just buy themselves securities

for one purpose, and that is to manage the amount of money of supply in the economy. to manage monetary policy, to do it by managing the supply of money. that's it. what the professor is advocating for is a radical departure from this very, very narrow and limited activity. what her plan would do is to empower the fed, and i quote, -- these are her words -- quote, to buy and sell in markets with a view to keeping particular systemically important prices within particular bands thought necessary for the purposes of maintaining systemic stability. wow. now, what kind of prices does professor omarova have in mind for the fed to control by buying and selling these commodities? well, she tells us. she says, and i quote, various candidates sipias come to mind,

certain commodity prices, those for widely used fuels, fuel stuff, raw materials comes to mind as another class of candidates. finally wage or salary indexes constitute another class of candidates, end quote. here are some of the other candidates for price controls that she has in mind. i quote, home prices, productive inputs such as energy, certain metals and other natural resources. in other words, like all the most important commodities in america, under professor omarova's radical plan, it would be the government that would set these prices rather than a free market determining how these prices should be set. the government would control everything from the size of your paycheck to the amount you pay at the grocery store for a gallon of milk or a gallon of

gasoline. there's no more allocation of scarce goods based on who values them the most. the brilliance of the way that a spontaneous market allocates resources automatically to their best and highest use and enables us to have the lowest possible cost for the most possible goods. none of that. no more. we'll have a committee. it's called the fed open market committee and they will dictate how they will be paid and how the resources of america will be allocated. now, if that radical idea, if her radical idea sounds familiar, that's because it is familiar. it's been tried. it's been tried several times repeatedly and every single time it has failed spectacularly time and again in all of the centrally planned economies in the world, especially the soviet union. in fact, soviet efforts to

control prices in their economy were so abysmal, they failed so badly that they spawned countless jokes within the soviet union that illustrate the folly of central planning, the inherent impossibility of central planning. one of my favorites is a guy who walks up to a shop keeper and he says, you don't have any meat, do you? no, we don't have any fish, it's the store next store that doesn't have any meat. we can talk about the people living under the misery of the soviet union, they had a humor about the misery of their circumstances. but the fact is that a really smart committee at the center of the government could dictate the prices and the allocation of all resources. that idea is what caused the

misery. ultimately, of course, caused the collapse of the society soviet. -- soviet union. this is what happens anywhere when governments try to control what should be left to the free men and women in terms of allocating resources, government-run economies like the very one that professor omarova is proposing, they don't work. and let me express a point that i made before about professor omarova. the point that she was born and raised in the soviet union has nothing to do with whether the government should confirm her to run a major financial part of the government. there are many who had the misfortune of growing up behind the iron curtain. that has nothing to do with whether she's qualified for the job. it's her advocacy for the

policies that in a disturbing way that resemble those of the soviet union, that should form our judgment about whether this person should be the chief regulator of the nation's federally chartered banks. professor omarova would like to argue that her central planned economy will be different. that is always the case, this time we'll get socialism right. as her paper notes, there are already using open market policies so why not let the fed set stable prices for all kinds of important assets. well, the answer is simple. making decisions about individuals -- maybe dozens, maybe hundreds of individual assets across an economy, what they should cost and how they should be allocated, that is complex. there is no technocrat, no

bureau or agency or entity that can figure that out. it's the organic decisions, individual decisions of millions of free people that spontaneously create this and maximizes the well-being of a people of a freet society. there's a pretty strong case that the government doesn't do such a great job on monetary policy either. people who have serious doubts about how they set the price of a single thing, namely the u.s. dollar, do we want them directly controlling the prices of everything, or at least everything that's important? i think not. so the more i read the radical ideas that professor omarova has advocated for and the more i think of the damage this will do to our society and economy, the more troubled i am about her

nomination. madam president, i strongly urge president biden to reconsider his decision to nominate her. i have one other topic i'd like to address this afternoon, madam president. and it has to do with this extraordinary and reckless tax and spending spree that our democratic colleagues seem determined to attempt to pass. now, there's a lot of focus understandably on the size of this, it's going to be $3.5 trillion of the budget resolution that passed here and is that a compromise from $6 trillion that some of our democratic colleagues preferred. okay. i would just say there's no doubt in my mind wherever this ends up, if it ends up anywhere, it's going to do a lot of damage -- it's going to do a lot of damage to our economy. i think that's probably why

there's significant reservations among democrats and there's not any support among any republicans for various i had rations of this bill -- iterations of this bill. at the heart of it what this does is to attempt to redefine the role of the federal government in our society. and what i'm referring to is the attempt to have the federal government provide the needs, like all kinds of basic needs -- so basically anyone in the middle class from cradle to grave. it's free pre-k, free child care, free paid leave, free community college. many of them aren't means tested. they are not meant to be means tested. if they are, you can have many families qualified. it's all about making the middle class dependent on the government. what a terrible idea. i'll have more to say on another

occasion about putting the entire middle class on the dole. instead, i want to focus for a minute on a particularly ill conceived provision on the tax side of this. there's massive tax increases as part of the proposal. one of them is the huge increase in the u.s. global minimum tax. when we did the tax reform of 2017 and brought about the end of corporate inversions, among other things, we established a global minimum tax at a low rate of 10%. now, what the biden administration is proposing is -- is going to completely upend the tax reform of 2017. we probably all remember the big announcements about this international agreement on multinational taxation. it consists of two pillars, as

you may recall. pillar one is this unprecedented change that would allow foreign companies to tax american companies based on the sales of the american companies into the foreign country. we have never had a tax policy based on that. you could tax the income of a company that is based in your country. you don't get to reach into the income of a company -- income of a company based in some other country. many of our allies and friends around the world have long wanted to grab some income tax from american companies and american administrations have fought it. this administration has embraced it. it's a big revenue transfer from u.s. treasury to the treasuries of other countries. unsurprisingly this feature, this pillar one, this has been a high priority for these other countries. as i say, they've long sought this source of money. so that's pillar one. pillar two is an agreement by

oedc countries to impose a 15% minimum tax on the foreign income of their multinational companies. why is this important? it is very important for the biden administration because they want to raise the foreign income on -- they acknowledge if foreign countries don't do likewise, if they don't have a burdensome tax regime like we're going to create under the biden plan, we would be at a huge competitive disadvantage and multinationals would have no choice but to flee the united states and many, many jobs going with them. so that's pillar two. now, here's one of the big problems with this whole arrangement, this whole negotiation. the -- as i said before, the administration has implicitly acknowledged if the rest of the world doesn't impose this

minimum tax on multinationals, we would be at a huge competitive disadvantage. that's why they noarktd with us -- negotiated with us. there is a possibility that many of them may not negotiate a minimum tax despite the tentative agreement. a few countries agreed to pill a two. they agreed to it in return for pillar one that they would grab some of the tax revenue that we normally collect. here's the problem with that. implementing pillar one requires changing the treaties, the multilateral or bilateral treaties that the u.s. has with other countries, changing the treaty requires a two-thirds vote in the senate. well, guess what? i don't think there's two-thirds of the united states senate prepared to vote for this tax giveaway to these other countries. so if i'm right, then pillar one

never gets implemented. if pillar one never gets implemented, then the sole motivation for these countries to raise their corporate global minimum tax goes away. so i'm not sure how they square this circle. and at a minimum, i would think they ought to sort this out, the administration, that is, before they just go ahead and put american companies at a huge competitive disadvantage. by the way, even if they get their way exactly, we're going to be at a huge competitive disadvantage. the best they could negotiate from oedc countries is a tax of 15%. their own has an effective tax rate of 26% that we would be imposing on our own companies. that's pa pretty big -- that's a pretty big difference, and it

creates incentive to have your multinational company somewhere other than the united states of america. i think there is a substantial risk when the administration gets wrapped around the axle when they find they can't get the two-thirds majority in the senate to inflict this wound on ourselves, others will rethink raising their minimum tax. our democratic colleagues seem ready to move ahead with the huge tax increase and all of this spending and who knows, maybe it passes any day now. let me be clear, this is a destructive tax increase. it will hurt american workers, make the u.s. a less competitive place to do business whether or not the rest of the world follows suit. let's not do damage. i don't know what people think they are fixing. in 2019, just one year after the

full implementation of tax reform, we had the best economy of my lifetime. there was an economic boon. we had record low unemployment rate -- all-time record unemployment for african americans, asian americans, women, workforce participation rate was at multidecade highs, wages were growing and wages were growing fastest for the lowest-income workers. under our regulatory reforms, we were n.r.a.oing the -- narrowing the income gap and achieving a higher standard of living. i asked my colleagues, what is so bad about that? what is so bad about the best economy of my lifetime, raising wages, narrowing the income gap, what was so bad about that? i don't get that. i don't get that at all.

it's not too late. maybe we'll be fortunate enough to be able to dodge this. but if we don't, madam president, a lot of families, workers, americans of all walks of life will have a lower standard of living as a result of this very ill-conceived tax policy from the biden administration. with that, i yield the floor. ms. baldwin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: thank you. i rise to speak in support of legislation that i have recently joined senator warren in introducing. it's called the stop wall street looting act. and it concerns some of the practices and the business model of what i would describe as predatory private equity firms. now, before i dive into the

details, i want to say that there are very good private equity companies that invest in the businesses they purchase and the communities and the workers, but unfortunately this is something that i have firsthand knowledge of is the impact of predatory private equity businesses on workers and communities in my home state of wisconsin. several historic wisconsin companies have been driven into bankruptcy or had their facilities moved overseas by the private equity funds and companies that acquired them. the first company that i want to talk about is shopko. for those who worked in the shopko -- weren't in the shopko

footprint in the united states, shopko is a retailer that was founded in 1961 in ashwabanon, wisconsin. shopko was bought by a private equity firm after many profitable years of existence back in 2005. the firm was sun capital partners. now, sun capital immediately executed what's known as a sale leaseback, a sale leaseback, a textbook private equity maneuver in which the fund accepts the company's real estate right out from under it. now, real estate and the facilities were the most major asset that shopko had. certainly they also had inventory and workers, but the real estate, they owned it, and

this private equity firm basically sold shopko's 351 locations with hundreds of millions of dollars. and they were sold to a company that would lease the land and buildings back to shopko. sun capital promised to reinvest the proceeds of the sale back into the company, but instead it paid out cash to itself in the form of dividends and management fees. not only was shopko prevented from using its cash to reinvest, it was also loaded up with $200 million more in additional debt to fund even more payouts to sun capital executives. after years of being starved of

investment, shopko was forced into bankruptcy and liquidation in 2019. 3,000 wisconsin workers were promised severance pay in exchange for working through the company's final days. i mean, if you could think about that, to have a retail store, you don't want everybody to the day they find out that that store is ultimately going to close, to go out and find other jobs, or you don't have the way to wind down your business. so they were promised severance pay in exchange for working through the company's final days. but when the time came to pay the workers, sun capital said it didn't have any money. when i met with these shopko workers, i remember meeting christie van beckham, and she

said to me i always felt proud to work at shopko because it was a wisconsin-based company, and it invested a lot in the community. but i saw how sun capital sold off shopko's properties and literally destroyed the company, all for their own benefit. they made millions while i didn't even get the severance i was promised, she told me. sun capital ran a company we loved into the ground. more recently, i visited with workers at puffcorp, a company that has operated in janesville, wisconsin, for over 120 years. in 2017, the manufacturer was acquired by a private equity firm called open gate capital. wisconsinites are sadly already familiar with open gate. this is an l.a.-based private

equity fund that bankrupted another wisconsin firm, golden guernsey dairy back in 2013, only two years after acquiring it, laying off hundreds of workers in wakasha, wisconsin. dairy workers showed up one day to find the doors locked. they were given no notice of their layoff, and they had to fight open gate for eight years just to get their back pay. this past summer, open gate notified the 166 workers of puff corp that their jobs would be terminated and the workers soon learned that the manufacturing operations would be moved to monterey, mexico. when i visited with the workers last summer -- this summer, i learned from michelle who had worked for puffcorp for 23

years. she told me she is anxious about what training she might need to get another job that will pay what she earned at huffcorp. then i also heard from jesse. he was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. he depends upon the benefit provided by huffcorp for his treatment. these workers had great benefit because of their representation by the communication workers of america union and because of their employment at hufcor, but they were left with an uncertain future because open gate has decided to move their jobs to mexico. these stories illustrate the devastation that the predatory private equity business model has wrought on my state. these workers deserve better. we need to rip up private equity's predatory playbook that

enriches looters but leaves workers with nothing but pink slips. i was proud to work with senator warren to introduce the aptly named stop wall street looting act. this legislation will prevent private equity firms from enriching themselves by starving businesses of investment and running them into bankruptcy or shipping their jobs overseas. this bold reform will help rewrite the rules of our economy and protect workers from the predatory practices so that we can start rewarding hard work, not just wealth. thank you for the opportunity to share the stories from my state, and i look forward to working to pass this important legislation. and with that, i yield back. mr. barrasso: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming.

mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor today to talk about america's education system. as a result of the pandemic, parents have had a front-row seat to their kids' education. parents are now engaged with their kids' schools much more than ever before. many parents have had to make tough decisions about a number of things during the pandemic, but especially about their children's education. yet parental involvement, i believe, is a good thing for kids in our schools. more parental involvement, the better. parents deserve a say in what their kids learn and in how best to learn it. all across america, school boards and teachers' unions and city councils have been outraged to see parents as involved as they have been. now, many parents are furious right now. in many cases, they found out that their kids were spending more time on liberal ideology

than they were on science or on math. earlier this year, the state of california proposed teaching math -- hard to believe, but this is what they said -- from a social justice perspective. math. from a social justice perspective. well, parents appropriately were furious, and the proposal was not rejected completely but just postponed until next year. oregon now allows students to graduate without proving -- graduate without proving they are proficient in reading, in writing, or in math. san francisco schools spent the entire last year closed, yet the san francisco school board had spare time to propose changing the name of abraham lincoln high school.

this is not -- kids not in school. the school board present plenty of time to propose changing the name of abraham lincoln high school. parents were again enraged, and this proposal was dropped. it's very obvious why so many parents all across the country are so angry right now. they work hard, they pay their taxes, and what they see day in and day out are democrat politicians hurting their kids' future, getting in the way of the education that parents believe their children need. last week, we saw even more proof. the department of education published the national assessment of educational progress. it comes out every five years. it was time. the nation's report card. this year's report card shows test scores in math and in reading have plummeted. now, this was the first time these scores have dropped in 50

years. the lesson's obvious. we're spending much too much time away from the things that students ought to be spending their time on. we need to spend less time on ideology and more time on education of the basics. real knowledge, real skills. many school boards across the country refuse to listen. in fact, the national school board association recently complained to the biden administration about angry parents. now the attorney general is treating angry parents like criminals. the attorney general of the united states deciding that angry parents are to be treated like criminals. attorney general garland has ordered federal prosecutors to work with local police to form, quote, strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff. the department of justice says it will form a task force on

these alleged threats against school boards. the task force is going to include representatives from the department's criminal division, from the national security division, the civil rights division, and federal prosecutors as well as the f.b.i. joe biden is sending in the calvary to school board meetings to focus on parents rather than focusing on the education that children need and deserve. he is sending the national security division after moms and dads because they are concerned about their children's education. after the attorney general's order, i joined with ten of my republican colleagues in demanding a legal justification from attorney general garland. i still haven't received a response, madam president. we have also found out that attorney general garland has a family member who helps schools

develop left-wing curricula. attorney general, family member, helping schools developing left-wing curricula. the attorney general's son-in-law owns a company with millions and millions of dollars in government contracts, contractsaway the -- by the attorney general's son-in-law, contracts with schools all across america. well, maybe it's a coincidence and maybe it's not. attorney general garland needs to tell the american people whether this played a role in his decision to treat parents like criminals. yet the problem is much bigger than the attorney general of the united states. the problem is how democrats treat and think about parents and working families. a former governor of the state of virginia said recently i

don't think parents should be telling schools what they can teach. this is the former governor of virginia? i don't think parents should be telling schools what they can teach. last month, senator mike braun asked the secretary of education about the role of parents in education. he asked if parents were, quote, the primary stakeholder in their kids' education. secretary cardona said this. he said they are an important stakeholder. in other words, they're not the primary stakeholder. parents not the primary stakeholder? is it any surprise that so many parents are deciding to educate their children at home? so who does the secretary of education think is the primary educator of our children? the union bosses? are they the primary educators of our children?

democrats act like children are the property of the schools and schools, of course, are the property in the minds of the democrats of the teachers' unions. parents have every right to be upset with what's happening in the public schools all across this nation. parents have every right to demand real improvements. it's time for the democrats to stop taking orders from the teachers' union and start listening to parents and to the students. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, over the last couple of years, our democratic colleagues have suggested a range of unrealistic

and downright harmful policies in our shared goal -- and i emphasize the word shared goal -- to reduce carbon emissions. but it's not just a question of what you're doing; it's a question of how you are going about doing it. and the wait they're going about doing it is going to raise the prices of electricity, gasoline, and all forms of energy on people on fixed incomes, people who are seniors living on social security, and others. they've proposed everything from the socialist agenda that is the green new deal to more targeted but no more realistic zero-net emission mandates. now, we all know that energy transition occurs at all times. i've traveled to india, as perhaps the presiding officer and -- as perhaps the presiding

officer, and other countries. and i remember prime minister modi coming to houston texas during an event we called howdy modi. and we heralded the use of cooking mass. that represents progress or not having these wood chips anymore. and the transition was to coal, then to natural gas, nuclear, other forms of energy. so energy transition occurs at all times. the only question is how it comes about, whether it's as a result of higher taxes and forced government mandates or whether it's which form of energy competes favorably for

consumers because of its cost and availability. well, i think of all the dangerous policy proposals, i think the reckless tax-and-spending spree bill takes the cake. this is the so-called reconciliation bill that's how pending over in the house, or being negotiated -- nobody has actually seen it yet, but we keep hearing what's in it, and we keep hearing that the left is negotiating with the far left, and this is what happens when our democratic colleagues don't include people in the opposing political party to tray to build consensus. it's -- to try to build consensus. it's particularly hard particularly when you only have 50 votes. this isn't like f.d.r.'s new deal after the great depression. so i think what our democratic colleagues are finding out, it's really, really hard to do because you have no room for error.

but it reminds me of the yellowjacket's protest in france starting back in 2018. what's happening now with some simplify these mandates and these higher taxes. this is, as you may recall, a social movement, of french social-class families who felt disenfranchised from the urban elite, who can focus on the end of the world while we're worrying about the end of the month. i think it's pretty apt to where we are today. this reckless tax-and-spending spree not only compiles the most irresponsible policies into one massive bill. as i said, our democratic colleagues, along with the white house, are trying to pass it in a 50-50 senate on a party-line vote. well, talk about bad timing. this comes at a time when texans

and other americans are already being pummeled by rising costs, especially at the gatt pump. -- at the gas pump. inflation is rearing its ugly head everywhere in terms of energy costs, groceries, commodities, things like a washing machine or a new refrigerator. try buying a new house and you see the cost is just -- has just jumped dramatically. but it's a demonstrable fact that in the last year, gasoline costs have gone up 55%. now, the average price today is about $3.33 a gallon. a year ago it was $2.16 a gallon. for somebody who drives a pickup truck -- and we have a lot of

pickup trucks in texas -- today it is a $31 increase. unfortunately, sky-high gasoline prices aren't the only thing growing -- only growing drain on family budgets, as i mentioned. electricity, groceries, clothing, eating out occasionally at a restaurant and countless other expenses are on the rise. prices are so high that inflation is outpacing wage growth, essentially giving workers a pay cut. let me say that again. if you are earning, let's say, $10,000 a year -- just to pick a number -- and inflation rises, like it does with gasoline costs, you're effectively getting a pay cut because of the rising cost of goods and services. but that doesn't seem to deter our democratic colleagues from

moving full steam ahead on legislation that would drive these costs even higher. after spending nearly $2 billion earlier in year on a party-line vote, our colleagues are back for round two, and this time they're prepared to take a wrecking ball to one of our crown jewels in this country, which is our energy sector. by drowning the energy sector in tax hikes or increased regulation and cost, our democratic colleagues think that they can achieve their green energy dreams with no consequences. but, of course, that's just a dangerous fantasy. it sort of reminds me of what i saw reported today by npr. npr reports that despite climate change promises, government's

plan to ramp up fossil fuel production -- governments plan to ramp up fossil fuel production. and indeed the president and members of this body are going to be heading to a climate conference in glasgow, scotland, starting on october 31. and, as you know, usually what happens at those conferences, just like the paris climate conference in 2015, governments make extravagant promises to reduce emissions and to eliminate fossil fuels, including coal and oil and gas, in favor of clean energy. now, i'm not deprecating clean energy. in texas we believe in an all-of-the-above energy policy -- wind. we produce more electricity from wind turbines than any other state in the nation, so i'm not -- certainly not bad-mouthing clean energy. but it has to play a role and

not dominate or to the exclusion of other forms of energy. but as the npr article points out, detain spite lofty efforts, they're still planning, according to this u.n. report that was just issued to extract huge amounts of energy from fossil fuels in the coming years. this report was published wednesday, today, and it details how the world's largest fossil fuel producers plan to carry on using coal, gas, and oil despite promises made in paris in 2015. so it really makes you wonder what's going on when these political leaders go to places like glasgow or paris and make extravagant promises and then come back home and break those promises. well, i think i know what's happening here because, just

like in france in 2018 when the government tried to impose a new fuel tax on consumers, the yellowjackets protested. they said, you're worried about the end of the world. we're worried about how do we pay our bills through the end of the month. i think a similar phenomenon is occurring now because none of these green energy fantasies come cheap. that's another reason why energy costs are going higher. well, whether you're talking about energy or agriculture or any other sector of the economy, higher taxes, which are what our colleagues are attempting to assess against the energy sector, it always means higher prices for consumers. companies don't absorb those costs. they pass them right along to consumers. -- in the form of increased costs. in fact, many businesses can't

absorb increased taxes and keep their prices stable because they simply can't operate in the black and they'll go bankrupt. so businesses just don't take the hits that keep on coming. they will raise prices. they'll lay off employees. or implement any combination of cost-cutting measures. and that's exactly what this pie-in-the-sky green energy fantasy bill contained in the reconciliation legislation would spur. this year, as i pointed out, has already given us the highest daft go agas pricings since 20 -- highest gas prices since 2014. and i have no doubt that president biden's tax hikes will send those prices at the pump even higher. just at a time when we're

beginning to sound the alarm bells over inflation, including democratic-leaning economists like layer are summers, who sounded the -- larry summers who sounded the alarm over inflation. i'm old enough to remember when inflation was ranked about 20%. interest rates were up almost at 20%. people had to pay huge amounts of money -- or borrow huge amounts of money and pay exorbitant interest rates of inflation -- because of inflation. we're at risk of getting back to those bad ol' days. the democrats' plans would increase taxes on companies for income earned not in utah the united states but globally. it also adds a new tax, the superfund excise tax which was eliminated 25 years ago. they want to add that back on top.

democrats want to resurrect this tax and force energy companies to pay more an every barrel of crude oil that's used in the united states. once again, the burden won't be ultimately on the energy and chemical companies. it'll fall on consumers who are already struggling post-covid to get back on the job and to pay the bills and provide for their family, only to be met with a kick in the teeth known as bidenflation. the middle class won't just be footing the bill for tax hikes on companies. this is really sort of an elitist irony. the biden reconciliation bill would force middle-class families to subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles for wealthy americans. not only are we going to raise

prices on you through tax increases, we're going to take money from you out of your pocket and give to to rich people who can afford to buy these expensive electric vehicles. this bill provides a tax credit for electric vehicle purchases even if the vehicle is made completely or substantially in china. won't they love that. on top of that, you get a bigger tax credit for electric cars built in union shops. some of the greatest political friends of the democratic party. our colleagues haven't provided a very good explanation for this, but i, for one, find it hard to believe union-built electric vehicles are any greener or cleaner or emit less than nonunion-built vehicles.

this is just a big, wet kiss for a political constituency. unlike gas-powered vehicle drivers, e.v. drivers don't pay any money into the highway trust fund. now, if you buy a gallon of gasoline, i think it's 18 cents on the gallon, goes into the highway trust fund that's used to build and maintain our bridges and rotedways. because of more use of electric vehicles that don't pay any money into the highway trust fund, that trust fund is going broke. so the tax breaks for the rich just keep on coming. take money from middle-class families, give it to rich folks so they can buy fancy electric vehicles, courtesy of the american taxpayer. i also have concerns how the proposal that is being considered by the white house and our democratic colleagues, how it would impact our energy security. over the last several decades,

we've made incredible strides, thanks to great investment innovation, and expertise in the energy sector, we've made great strides to reduce our dependency on other countries to keep the lights on in the united states. after all, we don't want a repeat of the 1970's energy crisis. now i know a lot of these young folks who are here serving as pages, they may not have been around in the 1970's, but they can look it up on line. here's what happened -- when the u.s. supported israel in the yom kippur war in 1973, the arab members of opec, the organization of petroleum exporting countries, they weren't happy. what did they do? they banned the sale of crude oil to the united states, cut us off, and it sent shock waves throughout our country, as you might imagine, such was our

dependency on imported oil from the middle east. despite some strong domestic oil production, we were still relying at that time heavily on imports, and once the supply was cut off, prices quadrupled. many gas stations simply couldn't serve the demand. and when they could, they basically made you get an appointment to come fill up your gas tank. some states banned neon signs to cut down on energy use, and a number of towns asked their citizens not to put up christmas lights because of the drain on the grid. it was a slap across the face, a hard dose of reality that brought america's energy dependence to light and underscored the need to increase our domestic production and resources and wean ourselves off this dependency, this dangerous dependency on imports.

and that's what we did. thanks to incredible investment and innovation in the energy sector and something that has come to be known as the shale revolution, named for a way to basically get oil and gas out of a rock, the tide of the energy landscape geopolitically turned in our favor. these efforts were so successful that in 2015, the u.s. lifted the crude oil export ban that was put in place in the 1970's. back when we were dependent on imports, we said you can't export it because we need not only what we can produce, but what we can import. we lifted that in 2015 because american energy producers were producing so much oil and gas. and in fact, rather than import energy, including natural gas, we turned around what were built

originally as l.n.g., liquefied natural comport term nals -- export terminals and created export terminals so we could send low-cost energy to our friends and allies around the world. but our democratic colleagues seem to have a short-term memory problem. they seem to have forgotten about our history. after years of building our energy independence and strengthening our energy security, they want to turn back the clock. the tax hikes they're trying to impose on energy producers would ensure that the united states once again is reliant on other countries like russia, iran, saudi arabia, venezuela, for our energy needs. the dangers ought to be obvious. we should never, ever put

ourselves in a position where we're reliant on any other country for us to keep our lights on. to operate our vehicles, for small businesses to be able to operate, for us to be able to get electricity from the wall socket when we plug in an appliance. we shouldn't be dependent on our adversaries or any other country for our energy needs when we can produce it here in america. and by exorgt -- exporting it to friends and allies around the world, we can actually liberate them. recently i was on a trip with some senate colleagues to the balkans and a number of countries that used to be part of the old soviet union, but which are now independent countries, many of which are part of nato and the old soviet

union. and one of the things they brought up time and time again is their desire to have a diverse source of energy because they know, they know that if they depend on russian gas and mr. putin could turn off the spigot and put them in mortal jeopardy. that's why it's important for us to be able to continue to export and not be dependent on imported energy ourselves. president biden unintentionally demonstrated the hypocrisy of some of the his policies earlier this year when he literally begged opec to increase production to bring down these prices. an american president basically shutting down american energy production and begging russia and saudi arabia to please sell us the oil and gas we need so we can bring down prices at the

pump. it's unbelievable. if the president is worried about affordable energy, he needs to stop pushing policies that would drive up these prices. and it's not just gasoline. it's electricity, you name it. texans are already facing high gas prices. household energy bills, your utility bill is on the rise. this is not a time to make it more expensive for families to pay for the energy they need. as i mentioned, texas has always been a proud supporter of an all-of-the-above energy strategy. we're recognized for the might of our oil and gas sector, sure, but many folks don't realize we're a leader in renewable energy as well. in fact, we produce one-quarter of all of the wind energy in the united states. if we were a country -- and we

were once -- we would be the fifth-largest wind energy producer in the world. and we have no plans of stopping there. we're also making serious strides in energy innovation through cutting-edge carbon-capture and storage projects. that's the answer. it's called innovation. not more taxes, not more regulation that raise prices, but innovation, things that literally suck carbon out of the environment, deposit it in the ground in some of these injection sites so we can actually produce more oil and gas and keep the carbon sequestered in the ground permanently. so we need to find a balance, something that's too often missing here in washington, d.c., between conservation,

production, and economic power. that balance will not be found by imposing heavy-handed regulations or taxes that drive up the costs for consumers and that benefit our adversaries. like the rest of the reckless tax-and-spending spree, the cost of this energy proposal far, far exceeds its benefits. there's a better way to do this. the biden administration has managed to compound the already unprecedented challenges facing our energy sector here in america. american energy keeps america and much of the rest of the world running, and the administration and congress need to take action to support a strong postpandemic recovery, and not get in the way. madam president, i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. a senator: i come to the floor to introduce the interior, environment and related agencies for fiscal year 2022. mr. merkley: that's the fiscal year that began on october 1. like my colleagues on the appropriations committee, i'm thrilled about the great work that's been done over many months to craft spending bills that lift up the ideals of our country and put the needs of workers and families ahead of the desires of special interests.

as chair of the interior environment subcommittee, i can say that this is certainly true for the interior bill that senator murkowski and i, along with members of the subcommittee, have worked so hard to create. i want to especially thank senator murkowski and our fellow subcommittee members for their contributions to this bill. the interior bill raises some of the more complex and challenging issues facing america. so we're delighted it has been filed today. together we crafted a bill that recognizes not only the danger that hotter, more devastating fires, but the dangers of smoke from them, that smoke making a bigger, bigger impact back home on our crops and on our entertainment because of outdoor venues being shut down, and certainly upon people's health. the bill makes critical investments to lessen the peril. it doubles the funding for

hazardous fuels reduction. when you hear that term, you may not be sure what it means. what we're talking about is the build-up of fuels in the forests that make the wildfires so much worse. so it doubles the funding to take out those fuels to $360 million so the forest service can treat more of the highest-risk makers of forest lands. we particularly want to see a concentration of the wild land urban interface, so the fires are slowed down and can be attacked more aggressively when they're close to our towns. i'll never forget the labor day fires of a year ago where i drove 600 miles up and down our state and never got out of the smoke. and town after town after town was burned to the ground. this is why we have to invest in reducing the fuels in our forests and making them more fire resilient. the bill doubles the funding for the collaborative forest

landscapes restoration program, $80 million from $40 million to help fund critical projects that will help fund forest landscapes and add to their resiliency but also remove limitations on how many projects can be in each region each year. the thing about these landscape restoration programs, it brings together the stakeholders from the entire spectrum, from the timber companies, environmental groups, local elected officials, the indian tribes to work out a prescription on how to treat the forests, and then that treatment stays out of the courts. so it brings an end to the timber wars that have so often frustrated so many on all sides while thereby being successful in treating the forests, producing more saw logs for the mill, producing more jobs in the forest, more jobs in the log trucks. so it's a win for fire resiliency, it's a win for jobs, it's a win for our timber industry. funding this bill goes a long way to transitioning to larger

permanent forest-fighting, fire-fighting forests where firefighters risking their lives now get a minimum pay of at least $15 per hour. and that doesn't sound like very much, but it's an elevation from the minimum wages of the past. and it provides $10 million to create a new e.p.a. grant program to help states, tribes, local governments and others prepare for and protect against the hazards of wildfire smoke. in recent years, whether it's the impact of air quality on those with breathing and health issues or the tourism industry or industries like our wineries and our vineyards, the smoke that can blanket oregon from fires during fire season has been nearly as devastating as the fires themselves. our subcommittee has also crafted a bill that takes climate crisis with the seriousness it deserves while also striving to preserve our lands and our natural wonders. there's no question the planet

is getting warmer. our oceans are getting more acidic as carbon dioxide is transformed into carbonic acid. that's having a big impact on our ecosystems on the oregon coast. we're facing more extreme weather, droughts, storms, flooding, heat waves, but for too long we haven't come anywhere close to doing enough to confront this crisis. we're starting to make changes through the interior appropriations bill. the bill makes major investments in e.p.a.'s climate and enforcement programs, including a 46% increase in the clean air and climate program to tackle the crisis, restore clean air capacity, expand and modernize air quality monitoring. it provides an extra $56 million for the compliance efforts and over $40 million for the climate conservation corps. it will create jobs while

jump-starting efforts to address the impacts of climate change, concern and restore public lands and public waters, increase refor he'sation and improve access to recreation. there's also $73 million in new funding to start the new process of transitioning the interior department from fossil fuel vehicles to zero-emission vehicles. it's something that has to happen across our entire government. finely we worked together to craft a bill to make investments in tribal communities in their health care systems, in education, in water infrastructure, in law enforcement. for far too long our tribal communities haven't received the help or investments that they

deserve. and this bill, we're starting to right that wrong. the bureau of indian affairs is getting a 15% in funding, and for the first time the indian health service is getting an advanced appropriation status. what that means is if the government shuts down, we don't shut down the health services for native americans. when that happened in the past, that was an egregious failure. you can't let that happen. this bill puts an end to that creating peace of mind for everyone that the health service will be there when needed. the naif american alaska native housing program by 18%. certainly can't make up for century's worth of underfunding when it comes to indian country overnight. but i leave this bill and

unprecedented investments should make a stride through the treaty and trust responsibilities showing tribal communities that their needs are a priority. madam president, there is a lot more in this bill, the interior appropriations bill covers a lot of territory, but i wanted to come to the floor and share some of these highlights. it is important that we get our funding bills for fiscal year 2022 to the floor and to the president's desk and take all of the expertise that has gone into these bills into action by bills that have been passed and implemented. i want to provide a sense for all of my colleagues that these bills are making for our nation, the kind of investments that we need to make sure strong foundations for our communities and for our nations to thrive in

the years ahead. i'm grateful for the countless hours of hard work from the members and very importantly from the staff who put these bills together, raising the issues, helping to communicate between the republican side and the democratic side and the expertise from the executive branch, the staff work that goes into a bill like this is enormous. so thank you to the staff teams on both the majority and minority side without whom this bill would not exist. on my team we have melissa zimmerman, ryan hunt, anthony zido and on ranking member murkowski team, amy, and noma and to each of you thank you for your tireless efforts and i must say that the republican and

democratic team members worked so well together on the complex and difficult issues involved in interior bills. so i salute them for forging that effort to have a very professional analysis and attitude as we work to solve the challenges facing america. i look forward to joining with all of my colleagues in the chamber in passing this bill and the other appropriation bills that will put america on path to a much better future. thank you, madam president. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, madam president. i rise today to take a step back and evaluate the real-life impacts of president biden's policies. as every incoming administration

does, promises were made to the american people. that's not surprising. but one of president biden's first promises was to unite the american people, but as we've seen too often here, he has chosen a path that follows the lead of the democrat leadership of the house and senate which is really a solitary path instead of a path of unity. so it's fair to ask, has that agenda resulted in a better life for working families? has it made us more prosperous, more secure? has it made us safer? well, let's take a look. we can start with what is top of mind of all our folks across the country and that is the rising price of every day goods and services. every day men and women go to work, take kids to go to school, expecting that filling up their car will cost a certain amount

or the trip to the grocery store will be in the same range. what do they find? well, thanks to inflation, fueled in part by excessive government spending to the tune of trillions of dollars, and i'm afraid we haven't seen the end of it, americans are paying higher prices for many of the things they just can't do without. over the past year, consumer prices have risen 5.4%, the largest one-year jump in 13 years. so if you're saving up to buy a new or used car or truck, keep saving because it costs more under president biden. headed out to the grocery store in prepare to see larger numbers at the bottom of your -- receipt, thanks to president biden. making monthly rent payments, if it seems higher than last year, that's because it is. the national median rent went up 17% since president biden took

office. well, those numbers don't lie. people see them every day in their bank accounts and in their checkbooks and in the strain of trying to make those things work. these are the real-life consequences of misguided economic policies from the left and unfortunately for working-class americans, it means the only thing we've built back better is the return to soaring inflation and economic misery that many of us remember from the jimmy carter years. those years also remind us of another problem facing every family, as i mentioned before, that is the rising cost of gas. the digits on the gas pump, they tick up faster and faster every time you fill up. and it isn't because our tanks have gotten bigger, that's for sure. in west virginia, the average cost of gas compared to this time last year is more than a dollar a gallon. so not only are those trips to

the grocery store more expensive, it costs more to get to the grocery store. the white house has insisted that they are working on it, and on behalf of everyone in my state who drives to work, drops their kids off at school and hops in the car to visit their families, i sure hope they are. at the same time, it's important to note that on president biden's first day of office, he told us that all we needed to know about his energy policy, and that would be america last. one of his first acts as president was to cancel the keystone xl pipeline, costing thousands of american jobs, union jobs, claiming that it had to be done to combat climate change. compare that to just a few months later when president biden lifted sanctions, yes, he lifted the sanctions on a russian gas pipeline allowing the nord stream 2 project to

continue. further empowering vladimir putin and threatening the national security of america and our allies in america. these are just a few of the backwards move by this white house that has left us really scratching our heads and it's only been compounded by executive action and regulations aimed at stifling the production of energy here in this country. we remember the effects -- i certainly do in west virginia -- the effects of this playbook as it was originally created during the obama years. it's just a shame that this administration doesn't remember that. and, again, all of this is hitting the american consumer hard right as we're approaching our winter months. it's expected that households will see their home heating bills rise 54% compared to last winter, and for homes that use natural gas for heat, which i do in my home, and i highly recommend it, they'll pay about

30% more than they did last year. families are having to cut back basic necessities just to heat their homes and make ends meet. another pledge president biden made was to build a fair and humane immigration system. he gutted many of the deterrent policies that effectively kept illegal immigration numbers down, such as, eliminating the effective remain in mexico policy, stopping construction of the border wall, and signaling to the whole hemisphere that if you make it to the u.s.-mexicoian border, you will be allowed in. this was reported today and this has resulted in the highest numbers per fiscal year that have ever been recorded of border arrests, 1.7 million border arrests, the most ever on record. and, again, these policies were all done in the name of creating a moral and humane system.

well, let me tell you, the senator from missouri and i took a visit to the border just over the last year and there was nothing humane about the conditions we saw with overcrowded migrant children facilities in texas. there was nothing humane about the haitian immigrants living under a bridge in del rio. there was nothing humane about women giving birth, and i believe at last count 11 children were born under those conditions. this all happened because they made that dangerous journey to the border believing if they made it, they would be welcomed in. they were right. because about 12,000 of the haitian refugees that were under the bridge are in this country right now. i will take it a step further. there is nothing humane about fueling the addiction as deadly

drugs pour across our country. not addressing an overdose crisis that took 93,000 fathers, mothers, daughters, sons. you would say how is this happening? the border patrol has got to focus on the human element while more and more drugs can pass through. as someone representing a state hit hardest by the drug epidemic, i am pleading with president biden and vice president harris or whoever is in charge of creating the border crisis to do something different or at least do something. so this is what the first year of what biden's america looks like, failed policies, broken promises. americans were promised prosperity and ■we've gotten sampling of socialism. we were promised a secure

nation. instead our borders are open and a humanitarian crisis rages on our southern border. we were promised a repaired reputation on the world stage, instead we have left behind and abandoned our own people in afghanistan. we were promised unity, but instead we heard divisive rhetoric that divides half of our country. what president biden was selling was as some of us feared, too good to be true. thank you and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri.

mr. blunt: in just a few short months this year, we have seen a long list of problems develop in the country. some of them my good friend the senator from west virginia just talked about. they range from inflation and debt, the hiring crisis, to major disruptions in the supply chain. when i was home in missouri last week meeting with all kinds of employers and all kinds of businesses big and small, everybody, we can't find workers, we can't get the supplies we need, and we can't keep up with inflation. what's astonishing to me is that democrats continue to move forward with their $3.5 trillion reckless tax and spending spree, and it's easy to take that number and just reduce the length of time you are going to try out all these new policies. we are going to have to talk about that because that's going to be a big mistake. in fact, the $3.5 trillion

reckless tax and spending spree i think easily if you extend all of the policies through the whole ten years becomes a $5 trillion reckless tax and spending spree. if you reduce the policies, it's pretty easy to get it to $2 trillion. but if you reduce the policies by just saying instead of ten years we're going to have this policy for three years, instead of five years, we're going to have this policy for one year, all you have done is put future congresses in a place where frankly democrats would hope they can't say no. after a year of the program, they can't say no to the second year of the program, or after three years of the program, they can't say no. i wouldn't take a whole lot of solace in the idea that we're going to reduce the number unless we look at the policies behind the number. now, some of my colleagues and some of our colleagues, madam president, on the other side of the aisle, the side of

the aisle that the presiding officer would be setting on now, the majority side of the aisle, have jumped into -- headlong into this, but some of our colleagues have really raised some important questions. for instance, one senator said recently that expanding social programs while ignoring the millions of open jobs -- this is that senator's quote -- will only be the dysfunction that would weaken our economic recovery, and of course that's exactly right. businesses across the country are trying to hire workers for the more than 10 million job openings. half the small businesses say they have jobs that they struggle to fill. one half of all small businesses. in farmington, missouri, one day last week, somebody at that roundtable said i used to say we need to do whatever it takes to get skilled labor. and then occasionally i would say we need to do whatever it

takes to get part-time labor. now i'm saying we need to do whatever it takes to get labor because they can't fill the jobs they have. what i was hearing all over our state -- and i think every senator in this body is hearing the same thing, which is that people can't find the people they need to do the work. part of the reason that there are empty store shelves, can't get people to keep those shelves stocked, but part of the reason is that they can't get things to the stores to put on the shelves. everything from shipyards to trucking routes to supply chains aren't working the way they should right now, and largely it's because they don't have the help they need to have. now, i'm all for looking at our long-term supply chain needs, bringing things closer to our shores when we could do that, but that's not the problem right now. the problem right now is we can't get the things that come to our country to the places

that they need to go nor the things that are made in our country to the places they need to go. businesses are trying to keep up with worker demand, but worker shortage is making that impossible. expanding and creating government pay -- government handouts, as i think one of our colleagues on the democrat side has referred to them, if they are not connected to need or to work, doesn't make sense. we all want to help people who are in need, but we all want to do that in a rational way. another democratic senator pointed out the danger of all this extra work spending -- extra government spending the president wants is going to really drive up inflation, and that's also correct. you can't put hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy and not have that drive up inflation. if people have money that they wouldn't have otherwise,

particularly money we had to borrow to get there or money we had to take out of the functioning economy to get there, that money gets spent but not in the way that you would want it to be spent to grow an economy and do the best things for individuals and families. the big spending spree really began in march with a partisan, a totally partisan, one side of the aisle only, $2 trillion so-called covid-19 relief law, but frankly it was a recovery plan when a recovery was well under way. i think the recovery plan slowed down the recovery, made it less likely that people would get back to work. it made it more likely that people would have money to spend that they wouldn't have otherwise, and drive inflation. the expert opinion of economists on both sides of the aisle who said that what was done in march of this year would -- it would assure inflation would rise.

it's exactly the same thing they are saying about the bill that's being debated right now. it's already happened, and it is happening. americans are paying more for everything from groceries to gasoline to a big purpose like a new car or even a used car is selling at a new sudden premium. consumer prices have jumped 5.4% from one year ago. that's not the kind of thing that does anything to help families. in fact, according to moody's analytics, a family earning an average income of about $70,000 is spending an extra $175 a month on food, fuel, and housing because of what that article referred to as president biden's inflation. white house chief of staff the other day when asked about inflation said inflation was

really a, quote, high class, end quote, problem. i'm not sure what a high-class problem means, if it means it's a big problem, that's right. if it means as i think it means, it's a problem that only wealthy americans have to deal with, that couldn't be right. it's not an upper class problem or a high-income problem. it's a problem that hits low-income households the hardest. the university of michigan's latest survey, consumers said that only 70% of people in that survey, that consumer survey, only 30% of people expect to be financially better off next year than they are right now. 70% thought they would either be worse off or not make any gains at all. that's not what we were seeing in 2018 and 2019 under the other tax policies where for the first time in a couple of decades, the

distribution of new income was strong at the lowest levels of working families. the democrat response is let's raise taxes, let's spend trillions of dollars, let's pile up more debt, or that one theory, no, it won't cost anything because we're paying for it. well, obviously if you're paying for it, it had to cost something, and how are you paying for it? you're paying for it by taking things out of the economy in one hand and shoving them back into the economy with another. at one point, one of our friends on the other side of the aisle expressed his opinion, as he put it, the, quote, any expansion of social programs must be targeted to those in need and not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible. that's, of course, the right position. all of us want to help people in need, but we don't want to expand that group beyond what

you can fiscally deal with and not harm their own opportunities in the economy. this reckless tax and spending spree includes a number of ways, how to expand social welfare programs and to cover people with high incomes. trying to create permanent expanded subsidies for obamacare insurance plans. we clearly have subsidies. they are clearly permanent. they are clearly substantial. but the bill wants to not only make the subsidies higher, but it wants them to be higher for more people who have higher incomes to start with. also talking about tuition-free community college. well, there is no -- there is almost no community college in america today that's not already tuition free for those people that we have decided are in the greatest need. that's what pell grants are all about. there is no community college in

missouri, and few community colleges anywhere in the country where the full pell grant doesn't pay all tuition, all books, all fees, with a little money left over to travel back and forth to the campus. i'm a big supporter of pell grants. i worked a few years ago to go back to where we have year-round pell grants. so if you're going to school and something's working for you, you can stay in school. you don't have to take a summer off and get a different job and then think you're coming back in the fall to find out that that just didn't work out. we have solved this problem. if we haven't solved it adequately, let's increase the pell grant amount, and if that doesn't do the job, why don't we increase the amount of family income you could have and still qualify for the maximum pell grant or some other portion of the pell grant? there is an obvious solution here. as a matter of fact, in the markup of the labor-h.h.s. bill,

i think we added $400 to the annual pell grant this year, which is a pretty substantial increase in that grant. the government already spends more than $28 billion every year for pell grants. if you really want to make higher education expensive, make it free. go to every higher education institution in america, starting with community colleges, and say we're going to make this free. i was a university president for four years, and we have all seen what happens as we have increased the government support for higher education. the first person in my family to graduate from college. i'm a big advocate for higher education. but everybody needs to have a stake in the game. you value what you pay for. you value what you have a commitment to. free usually doesn't get you where you want to get. we don't want to duplicate what

we're already doing, and we don't want to create free programs for people that don't need free programs. finally, vusm, a lot of emphasis and unease on these tax increases. one of my colleagues on the other side said our tax code, quote, should not weaken our global competitiveness or the ability of millions of small businesses to compete. that's undeniably true. the 2017 republican-led tax law followed a consensus that we need to bring the u.s. in line with our global competitors. let's not get out of line and make it harder for us to compete. we were on an incredible trajectory of job creation and pay for all of the working class families who have been left out of the system too long.

we could easily wipe out all of those gains with a corporate tax increase that loses us our competitive advantage to people that we don't want to lose it to. democrats are also aiming several of their tax hikes at small businesses and family farms. they plan to hike we hear those taxes by 57% at the top marginal rate from 29.6% to 46.4%. there are a lot of concerns with the legislation that president biden and his allies in congress are trying to push through. the american economy is struggling against the headwinds that frankly the administration has done so much to create on its own. this terrible legislation would just make everything worse. let's not work on one side only to make everything worse. let's see what we can do to work together to make everything better. and with that, madam president, i would yield back.

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. i so appreciate the remarks of my colleague from missouri, and it sounds as if he is hearing from his constituents in missouri the same thing that i am hearing in tennessee. as a matter of fact, i held a telephone town hall last night. 30,000 of our citizens from upper east tennessee were on this call. and to say that they are unhappy would be to put it mildly. that really is an understatement. they are angry. they are frustrated. they are exhausted with what this administration is doing. they are angry with how the federal government is responding to a host of issues. they really took president biden at his word for his build back better. they expected that. but that's not what they have gotten. he has made a mess of it, and

indeed what you have is a build back broke agenda. and my colleague from missouri really laid that out. it is build back broke. that is what they are bringing forward. and that has -- that agenda of president biden's and the democratic party is really -- has really destroyed a lot of the hopes and the dreams and some of the new renewed prosperity of tennesseans whose job isn't to study the economy but to move it forward. they do the heavy lift every single day. last night i spoke with business owners who feel like they're under attack by this administration and their economic policy. the cost of doing business has gone up. customers, they're bleeding customers because they have less