the national instant criminal background check system is one of the most effective tools we have to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who suffer from severe mental illness. but it's not a perfect system. it's only as good as the information contained in the system. for example, 2017, the shooting at sutherland springs, a little town outside of san antonio, texas, my hometown, what happened there highlighted the gaping hole in the background check system. despite the fact that the shooter had a long and disturbing history of violence that should have been -- should have prohibited him from purchasing a gun, he was able to do so, because the air force, in this instance, had not uploaded his felony convictions, his domestic violence conviction, nor his mental health commitment. in response to sutherland springs, senator murphy and i

introduced the fix nix ni -- the fix nics act to ensure all federal agencies accurately and entirely upload the conviction records on a timely basis. yes, this is the same senator chris murphy i'm working with now to try to achieve a success here. we've done it before, and i believe we can do it again. our bill was signed into law in march of 2018, and in the first three years 11 1/2 million more records were uploaded into the three national databases that the f.b.i. checks. the number of records in one of those databases increased by more than 30% alone. so i think i can say with assurance that what we did together in 2018 has saved

lives, because if it kept a gun out of the hands of somebody who was already prohibited from getting a gun under current law, we will have saved a life, maybe even the life of the shooter. 60% of the gun deaths in america are suicides. but i know we've saved at least those lives, and i think many others as well. but as the uvalde shooting demonstrated, there's another hole in the background check system, and that is juvenile records. salvador ramos showed up at the age of 18 and had a clean record, as far as the background check system was concerned, because it couldn't look back at his troubled history, struggling with mental health and law enforcement problems. so he showed up as if he had been born the day before, and nothing else previously

mattered. because it wasn't in the background check system. there were disqualifying criminal or mental health information, that should show up in the nics system. in other words, if there are things in your life that would disqualify you if you were an adult, but that happened before you turned 18, i think that's the information we need and would want to have for purposes of determining who should be able to purchase or possess a firearm. so that wall that prevents the look back into pre-18-year-old records, is obviously a problem. four years ago, the uvalde police department received information about two male juveniles, 13 and 14 years old, who were plotting a school shooting for their senior year. that's four years ago, and they were plotting a school shooting when they graduated in, you

guessed it, 2022. now, there's no way for you to know where sure whether one of those individuals was salvador ramos, because those juvenile records are not available to us. but i'm here to say that if it's not salvador ramos, then we have even a bigger problem, if they're two additional young 13 and 14-year-old boys out there saying they're going to shoot up a school when they become seniors, we have even a bigger problems. -- even a bigger problem. one of the provisions we're discussing would encourage the states to upload similar relevant juvenile records into the nics. this is standard practice in some, but not all, states, and it's easy to see why it's important. if an 18-year-old is convicted of aggravated assault, a felony, the record will show up in his background check and prohibit

him from purchasing a gun. but if a 17-year-old is convicted of the same crime, the record will not necessarily be uploaded into the national instant criminal background check system. if he tries to purchase a gun at 18, the background check's likely to come back clean. again, because the system is only as good as the information in it. but let me give you another example. an individual could be adjudicated, mentally ill on his 17th birthday, and actually civilly committed for multiple months in a mental institution. but that same person could likely purchase a gun at the age of 18 without anything showing up on his record. existing law prohibits that purchase, but not all the states are sending us that information to the national instant criminal background check system. that's why, or those are examples why, it's so important to get that look back in their

pre 18-year-old history for mental health or criminal justice encounters. this is not actually an expansion of the background check system, because it doesn't add any new restrictions to gun ownership, but it does permit, it would permit, the background check system to actually have access to relevant and material information. it's a commonsense step to ensure that the data in the nics system is accurate. that's easy enough to say, but we need to ensure this idea would work in practice, and that's exactly what we're examining now. number one, we need to ensure this provision would protect due process of law. that's a constitutional right. that's fundamental. under current law, anyone who receives a denial has the right to appeal that decision or challenge the arcsy of the --

the accuracy of the record of those same protections should exist for juvenile records as well. secondly, we need to establish an interim plan while these records are being uploaded into the background check system, a process that will take some time. now, my colleagues across the aisle suggested a mandatory waiting period for all purchasers under the age of 21, but we didn't agree to that. there's no reason why somebody who passes a background check, with all relevant information in the database, should be denied the ability to purchase a gun. in fact, we're talking again about a constitutional right. so, no mandatory waiting periods. but we are looking at extending the investigatory period for juvenile records that are unclear or ambiguous. let me explain what i'm talking

about. under current law, a person who wants to purchase a gun from their local retailer must complete a background check. we talked about that. in nearly 90% of the cases, the background check is resolved almost immediately, because these are computerized records. the average processing time is, in fact, less than two minutes. in those cases, the seller receives an immediate answer, either the sale can proceed or it cannot. in the remaining roughly 10% of background checks, the system doesn't return a green light or a red light. in short, this happens where there are question marks or other things that need to be inquired about. this could be caused by a number of factors. if the buyer has a common name, the system could pull records for the wrong individual, with the same name. it could also be caused by incomplete criminal history records. for example, if somebody was convicted of an assault, but the

record doesn't say whether it was a felony or misdemeanor, or in some cases whether the assault was a domestic violence incident, that would have consequences in terms of their ability to purchase a firearm. so, further review, further investigation sometimes is necessary to see whether the light should be green or the light should be red. under current law, the f.b.i. has up to three business days to complete a book ground check and give the seller a clean answer on whether the sale can proceed. that's currents law. up to three days. in many cases, this review that we're talking about adding for persons between 18 and 21, this review can clarify that a sale can proceed, and that's a great thing. that's how we safeguard second amendment rights for law-abiding gun owners. we've discussed the idea of extending that investigatory period when there's a question

mark surrounding juvenile records. again, this is the exception to the rule, where more information is required because the answer that you get is ambiguous or unclear. but under this enhanced review, an 18-year-old with a clean record would be able to expeditiously purchase a firearm the extended investigation period would only apply to those rare cases, and again for only those 18 to 20, in which the system does not return a clear answer, yes or no, green or red, but rather a yellow light. we believe that this is a commonsense and straightforward way to improve the existing background check system without adding new restrictions. as i said, mr. president, negotiations are ongoing, but time is of the essence, because we need to get to agreement so we can get text to our

colleagues so that the majority leader can bring this bill up on the floor next week, after giving everyone a chance to read it and understand it and have their questions answered. mr. president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: we're not in a quorum call. mr. casey: mr. president, i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. casey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 the senate proceed to xm executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc, calendar numbers 732, 735, that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate, the motions to reconsider be

considered made and laid upon the table, and that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and that senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. braun: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: research be -- reserving the right to object. mr. president, it's come to my attention recently on a couple of the nominees that the federal mine safety and health review commission is entertaining, this body has been rife with allegations of abuse of power and a hostile work environment, resulting in several whistle-blower complaints. several of these allegations

would have occurred during both mary lou jarredon and timothy baker's previous tenures at the agency. the federal mine safety and health review commission was created under the mine act, which declares that the industry must be the health and safety, consider it its most precious resource, the miner. the agency does not have its own office of inspector general to review these considerations. i think it probably needs one. this has led to ongoing efforts by both the house oversight and senate republicans. it is important to shine a light on agencies like this, the federal mine safety and health review commission, that have little to no oversight currently. so, until i'm satisfied, i think others as well, that we look

into that, that we vet those concerns, have some type of interim oversight, i do object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: let me take some remarks on the nominations. as the senator from indiana noted, the two individuals is we're talking about are timothy t.j. baker and marie lou jordan to serve on the federal mine safety and health review commission. ms. -- mr. baker and ms. jordan are highly qualified nominees. they were nominated last year. mr. baker currently serves as associate general counsel of the united mine workers of america, previously worked for the federal mine safety and health review commission, first as an attorney advisor in the office of administrative law judges in pittsburgh and then as attorney advisor in the office of the commissioners in washington, d.c.

mr. bakerrer is is also the son of a coal miner. ms. jordan was appointed as a commissioner on the federal mine safety and health review commission in 1994 and has served in that capacity almost continuously since then. her most recent term senior senator commissioner ended in 2020 and she has since served as senior attorney advisor at the commission. given their expertise and commitment to public service, both mr. baker and ms. jordan would be an enormous -- both would be asset as to the federal mine safety and health review commission. it's past due to the senate confirm their nominations. confirming both would give democrats a majority on the commission. mr. baker and ms. jordan are among the excellent nominees that have been put forward by the biden-harris nomination. nominees like mr. baker and ms. jordan will help us represent our nation's coal miners and help -- and i hope we can advance their nominations today. with that, i will yield the

floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

us agency for international development and was in international affairs fellow here in 2000, 2001 working for then little-known senator named barack obama. her careerreally in many ways captures the essence of the imf program. she's gone back and forth among government, academia and journalism . samantha was the 28th us premier to the united nations, taught at harvard

and is a founding member of the car center and she's authored several books at least one of which i believe has won a pulitzer. so it's a real pleasure for us to welcome her. samantha and i go back decades, we used to be colleagues. presiding is margaret, editor for politics at axios, political analyst for cnn. she was senior white house correspondent for bloomberg news and is the past president of the white house correspondents association so you are in extraordinarily good hands with the administrator and margaret and i want to thank them both and welcome you all to this symposium at the council on foreign relations . [applause]

>> thank you richard. don't know if you can see us but thank you ambassador. well, welcome everyone and thank you so much for joining us. i'll skip the introductions since i can't do better than the doctor did. our audience today consists of councilmembers joining us in washington and also online virtually. in the interest of time i will give you a quick preview of how we're going to do this . we will have a conversation and i want tomake sure we have enough time for your questions and your questions out in the ether and we will go from there . sam, we're gathered here to talk about two different pressing issues. and one is a power struggle

between democracies and autocracies. and the other is a massive global food crisis had been made worse by russia's invasion of ukraine . begin our discussion by asking you these two different things you say are connected. >> first of all thank you for having me thanks to richard. he's said we were once colleagues.that's a little bit generous. i was an intern when he was a fancy senior associate at the carnegie endowment along with the progressive council and i will just say a word, if i say a word. i think you know, to give young people the chance to dip their toe in. a lot of people are outside thinking could i, will live, what would it be like and it gives you almost like what jobs are during the summer of college. our internships, if before

real life begins and it creates an opportunity for people coming in and feel it's a very prestigious program obviously for those of us who are lucky enough to get it so it gives you a permission structure to lead believe what you're doing and go and have that experience and figure out if what you think what might be a taste for public service is an enduring one and that's what happened to me in getting to work with barack obama. having this kind of ability to go to him as afirst-term senator on the foreign relations committee .he's the most second-most junior member in the senate so we didn't have a lot of staffing so to go to him and say i'm free. somebody else was paying for it and i can come work in your office so it was a great opportunity that wouldn't exist otherwise and as it happens, i was very fortunate where i landed with senator obama given his interest in foreign affairs and then of course to run for president

despite having promised me when i went that it would be the opposite. way too soon. i couldn'tconceive of doing something like that . but the rest is history and i wouldn't have had any of the professional opportunities i've had in governmentworking at the nsc and getting to be an ambassador .love the program, congrats to those of you who've been part of it and i hope to have similar catalytic affects in repudiating and that's knowledge to, toknow where you feel you can make a difference . sometimes there are 1000 ways to do so and i hope we will talk about some of the collaborations between the public and private sector . look, there late in so many ways. for starters just any government right now including here at home that is enduring high fuel prices, higher fuel prices. writ large sort of texts of

inflation that is inherently very very challenging in our government. we are a developed nation and president biden and his domestic team today are thinking through what are the new tools that we should bring to bear but imagine if your toolkit was a little more barren than ours is. imagine if you had no physical space, imagine if you were alreadyhighly indebted to china . imagine if you had been elected as is the case in a few examples. zambia, malawi,moldova, dominican republic .if you're elected on the democratic conformist rule of law anticorruption platform and but part of what you have said is democracy delivers which is the key message and we need to make it such. so democracy delivers and then you find yourself with

again, fertilizer prices skyrocketing and inevitably even you say this is a global phenomenon. putin invaded ukraine. the climate is the china debt isn't doing us any favors because we're having to pay off that debt instead of expanding the social safety net. whatever you say inevitably if you're a citizen you're looking at your leader saying was my life better off a year ago when i had the corrupt leader who may have been hostile to the rule of law and not at all interested in fighting corruption so is it for those cases that are really trying to buck the anti-democratic trend globally, it's just a very very challenging time and we are doing everything in our powerto meet .

>> by three-quarters of a percentage point and anticipates that ongoing increases in that rate will be appropriate. in addition, we are continuing the process of significantly reducing the size of our balance sheet. i'll have more to say about today's monetary policy actions after briefly reviewing economic developments. overall economic activity edged down in the first quarter as unusually sharp swings in inventories and then exports

more than offset continued strong underlying demand. recent indicators suggest that real gdp growth has picked up this quarter with consumption spending remaining strong. in contrast, growth in business fixed investment appears to be slowing, and activity in the housing sector looks to be softening, in part reflecting higher mortgage rates. tightening financial conditions that we've seen in recent months should continue to temper growth and help bring demand into better brans with supply. -- balance with supply. fomc participants have marked down their projections for economic activity with the median projection for real gdp growth running below 2 percent through 2024. the labor market has remained extremely tight with the unemployment rate near a 50 #-year low, job vacancies at historical highs and wage growth elevated. over the past three months,

employment rose by an average of 408,000 jobs per month, down from the average pay seen earlier in the year but still robust. pace seen earlier in the year. improvements in labor market conditions have been widespread is including for workers at lower end of the wage distribution as well as for african-americans and hispanics. labor demand is very strong. while labor supply remains subdued with the participation rate little changed since january. fomc participants expect supply and demand conditions in the labor market to come into better balance, easing upward pressures on wages and prices. the median projection in the sep for the unemployment rate rises somewhat over the next few years moving from 3.7% at end of year to 4.1% in 2024, levels noticeably above the march projections. inflation remains well above our longer-run goal of 2%.

over the 12 months ending in april, total pce prices rose 6.3% excluding the volatile good and energy categories. core prices rose 4.9%. in may the 12-month change in the consumer price index came in above expectations at 8.6%, and the change in the core cpi was 6%. aggregate demand is strong, supply constraints have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, and price pressures have spread to a broad range of goods and services. the surge in prices of crude oil and other commodities that resulted from russia's invasion of ukraine is boosting prices for gasoline and food and is creating additional upward pressure on inflation. and covid-related lockdowns in china are likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions. fomc participants have revised up their projections for inflation this year, particularly for total pce inflation given bottoms in food and energy prices --

developments in food and energy prices. the median projection is 5.2% this year and falled to 2.2% in 2024. participants continue to see risks to inflation as weighted to the upside. the fed's monetary policy actions are guided by our mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the american people. my colleagues and i are acutely aware that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation. we are highly attentive to the risks high inflation poses to both sides of our mandate, and we're strongly committed to returning inflation to our 2 percent objective. against the backdrop of the rapidly-evolving economic environment, our policy has been adapting, and it will continue to do so. at today's meeting, the committee raised the target range for the federal funds rate by three-quarters of a

percentage point resulting in a 1.5 percentage rate increase in the target range so far this year. the committee reiterated that it anticipates ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate. and we are continuing the process of significantly reducing the size of our balance sheet which plays an important role in firming the stance of monetary policy. coming out of our last meeting in may, there was a broad sense on the committee that a half percentage point increase in the target range should be considered at this meeting if economic and financial conditions evolved in line with expectations. we also stated that we were highly attentive to inflation risks and and that we would be nimble in responding to incoming data and the evolving outlook. since then inflation has again surprised to the upside. some indicators have risen, and projections for inflation this year have been revised up notably. in response to these developments, the committee decided that a larger increase

in the target range was warranted at today's meeting. this continues our approach of expeditiously moving our policy rate up to to more normal levels, and it will help insure that longer term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2%. as shown in the sep, the median projection for the appropriate level of the federal funds rate is 3.6% at the end of this year, a percentage point and a half higher than projected in march, and .9 percentage point above the median estimate of its longer run value. the median projection rises further to 3.8% at the end of next year and declines to 3.4% in 2024, still above the median longer run value. of course, these projections do not represent a committee plan or decision, and no one knows with any certainty where the economy will be a year or more from now. over coming months, we'll be looking for compelling evidence

that innation is moving down, consistent with 2%. we anticipate ongoing rate increases will be appropriate. the pace of those changes will continue to depend on the incoming data and the evolving outlook for the economy. clearly, today's 75 basis point increase is an unusually large one, and i do not expect moves of this size to be common. from the perspective of today, either a 50 # basis point or 75 point increase seems most likely at our next meeting. we will, however, make our decisions meeting by meeting and will continue to communicate our thinking as clearly as we can. our overarching focus is using our tools to bring inflation back down to our 2% goal and to keep longer term inflation expectations well anchored. making appropriate monetary policy in this uncertain environment requires a recognition that the economy often evolveses in unexpected ways. inflation, has obviously surprised to the upside over the

last year, and further surprises could be in store. we will need to be nimble many responding to incoming data, and we will strive to avoid adding uncentito a challenging and uncertain time. we were highly attentive to inflation risks and determined to take the measures necessary to restore price stability. the american economy is very strong and well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy. to credit card -- to conclude, we understand that our actions affect communities, families and businesses across the country. everything we do is in service to our public mission. we at the fed will do everything we can to achieve our maximum employment and price stability goals. thank you, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. howard schneider with reuters. two related questions, chair powell. did you feel your box yourself in with the language that you

used at the last press conference on 50 # basis point hikes in uniand july, and would you please give us as detailed a sense you can of what role you played in reshaping market expectations on mondaysome -- monday? >> so as you know, we always aim to provide as much clarity as we can about our policy intentions subject to the inherent uncertainty in the economic outlook, because we think monetary policy's more effective when market participants understand how policy he involve, when they understand our objective function -- our reaction function. and in the current, highly unusual circumstances with inflation well above our goal, we think it's helpful to provide even more clarity than usual. again, subject to uncertainty in the outlook. so, and i think over course of, over course of this year financial markets have responded and have generally shown that

they understand the path we're laying out. of course, it remains data-dependent. and so that's what we generally think of that guidance, and that's why we offer it. and, of course, when we offer, when i offered that guidance at the last meeting, i did say it was subject to the economy performing about in line with expectations. i also said that if the economy, if data came in worse than expected, then we would consider moving even more aggressive l. -- aggressively. so we got the cpi data -- vitia. mr. ossoff: madam president, i rise today to urge my colleagues, democrats, independents, republicans, to seize this opportunity that we have to pass bipartisan

legislation to look out for the veterans of wars in iraq and afghanistan who are suffering the terrible consequences is of exposure to burn pits, toxic fumes, and toxic waste. madam president, when we send americans to war, caring for them when they return is not a favor. it's not a good deed. it's not a choice. it's a sacred obligation of the u.s. government. and i would observe, madam president, that many of the same senators who voted to send our forces into harm's way in iraq and afghanistan are still serving in this body today

we have a sacred obligation to pass this legislation to ensure that those who served in those conflicts and anywhere around the world in service to the united states suffering from the effects of exposure to toxins gets the care they need through the v.a. this is about folks like colonel david mccracken of tyrone, georgia, an army reservist deployed in defense of our country after 9/11. colonel mccracken made it home from those deployments. he served his country, he did his duty with valor and bravery. but at the age of 45, when otherwise healthy, colonel

mccracken was diagnosed with brain cancer, a rare occurrence at his age, and 11 months later he was dead, taken from a wife and three children. this is about folks like army sergeant jeff danovitch, who fought in mosul in 2004, where he lived just 100 yards from a burn pit. like colonel mccracken, sergeant danovitch did his duty, he served in combat, he came home to his family. but just two years ago, sergeant dan sp ovitch was diagnosed with leukemia. and when he filed for disability with the v.a. because of his exposure to burn pits, his claim was denied. let me just state again that

when this government p sends its forces into harm's way, caring for them when they return is not a good deed. we don't get extra credit for doing this. it's not a favor. it's our job. and let -- me remind my colleagues that many of you voted to send these men and women into combat. so senator tester and senator moran have presented us with a bipartisan bill to do what's right and look after the veterans who did their jobs for us when we sent them to do those jobs. let's do our jobs for them and pass this legislation, and i yield the floor.

>> you can also hook at yield curve and ask where is the policy rate.

for much of the real rates now, real rates are positive. that's not true now. you have negative rates still. so that really is one data point, it's one part of financial conditions. is so i think, i have to look at it way: we move the policy rate, that affects financial conditions, and that affects the economy. we have, of course, ways, rigorous ways to think about it, but ultimately, it comes down to do we think financial conditions are in a places where they're having the desired effect on the economy. and that desired effect is we'd like to see, you know, demand moderating. demand is very hot still in the economy. we'd like to see the labor market getting better in balance between supply and demand. and that can happen both from supply and demand. right now there's -- demand is substantially higher than available supply though. so we feel that there's a role for us in moderating demand. those are the things we can

affect with our policy tools. there are many things we can't affect, and those would be things, the commodity price issues that we're having around the world due to the war in ukraine expect fallout from that and also just all of the supply-side things that are still, you know, pushing upward on inflation. so that's really how i would think about it. >> -- 3.8% getting done -- [inaudible] >> i think think it's certainly in the range of plausible numbers. i think we'll know when we get there. honestly, that would be -- all have positive real rates, and i think inflation coming down by then, i think you'd have positive real rates across the curve. i think, you know, neutral rate is pretty low these days, so i would think cold -- until, but we're going to find that out empirically. we're not going to be completely mono-driven.

we're going to be reacting to incoming data both on financial conditions and on what's happening in the economy. >> thanks. nick -- with "the wall street journal." chair powell, you've said you with like your policy to work through expectations and now, obviously, this decision was something quite different from if how you and almost all of your colleagues had set those expectations during the intervening period. and i know what you said what changed was data, the inflation expectations data, but i'm wondering on the data was there something you saw that was unsettling enough to risking eroding the credibility of your verbal guidance by doing something so different than what you had socialized before? >> so if you look at -- we look at a broad range of inflation expectations. so you've got public, you've got surveys of the public and of experts, and you've also got market-based. and i think if you look across that broad range of data, what

you see is that expectations are still in the place, very much in the place where where short term inflation is going to be high but comes down sharply over the next couple of years. that's really where inflation expectations are. and also as you get away from this episode, hay get back down close to 2%. so this is really very important to us, that that remain the case. and i think if you look for most measures most of the time, that's what you see. we even see a couple of indicators that bring that into we, concern into question, we take that very seriously. we do not take this for granted. the preliminary michigan reading it's a preliminary reading, it might be revised, never less, it was quite eye-catching, and we noticed that. we also noticed the index of common inflation expectations at the board has moved up after being pretty flat for a long time. so we're watching that and is we're thinking, this is something we need to take

seriously. that is one of the factors, as i mentioned, in deciding to move ahead with 75 basis points today was what we saw in inflation expectations. we're absolutely determined to keep them anchored at 2%. that was one of reasons. the other was just cpi rating. >> so if you saw a movement like that again, another tick up in inflation expectations, would that put a 75 or even 100 #-basis point increase in play at your next meeting in. >> you know, we're going to -- i'll just say we're going to react to the incoming data and appropriately, i think. i wouldn't want to put a number on what that might be. the main thing is to get rates up, and then pretty soon we'll be in an area where we're, i think, as you get closer to the end of year, you're in a range where you've got restrictive policy, which is appropriate. 40-year highs in inflation, we think that policy's going to need to be restrictive, and we don't know how restrictive.

i think that's how we'll take it. >> hi, chair powell. neil irwin from axios. thanks for taking our questions. the late-breaking decision to do go 75 basis points, do you worry that will pick moil -- make policy guidance lessfective in the future, and if we start to get soft readings on inflation or the labor market starts to roll over? >> to take your second question first, yes. i mean, i think we're, again, we're going -- we're resolved to take this on, but we're going to be flexible in the implementation of it. sorry, and your question was guidance. so again, the overall exercise is we try to provide as much clarity about policy intentions as we can, because we think that makes monetary policy work better. there's always a trade-off because you have to live with that guidance. and so you do it, and it helps a lot of the time.

i frankly think this year this year -- has been a demonstration of how well it can work with us having done very little in the way of raising interest rates. financial conditions have tightened quite significantly through the expectations channel as we've made it clear what our plans are. so i think that's been a very healthy thing to be happening. so, and i would hope that our -- it's always going to be, any guidance that we give is always going to be subject to things working out about as we expect. and in this particular situation, you know, we're looking for something specific, and that is progress on inflation. we want to see progress. we want to see -- inflation can't go down until it flattens out, and that's what we're looking to see. and if we don't see that, then that's the kind of thing -- if we we don't see progress for a longer period, that could cause us to react. but we will, soon enough we will be seeing some progress at some point, and we'll react

appropriate to it. but i would like to think though that our guidance is still credible, but it's always going to be conditional on what happens. this is an unusual situation, to get, you know, some data late during blackout, pretty close, very chose to our meeting. very unusual one that would actually change the outcome. so i've only seen in my ten years here plus at the fed, i've only seen something like that, even close to that one or two times. so i don't think it's something that'll come up a great deal. >> [inaudible] >> thank you so much for taking our questions, colby smith with the financial times. on the clear and convincing threshold for the inflation trajectory, what is the level of realized inflation that meets that criteria? and how is the committee thinking about the potential trade-off of much higher unemployment than even forecast, than even what's forecasted in the sep if inflation is not

moderating at this accessible pace? >> the second part i didn't get. >> what potential trade-off with higher unemployment than even what's forecasted in the sep if inflation is not moderating at an accessible pace. >> right. so what we want to see is, you know, a series of declining monthly readings for inflation. and we'd like to see inflation headed down. so, but, you know, and right now our policy rate is well below neutral, right? soon enough we'll have our policy rate, let's assume the world works about like the sep says the policy rate will be up where we think it should be, and then the question would be do you slow down, does it make you -- you'll be making these judgments about is it appropriate now to slow down from 50 to 25, let's say, or speed up. so that's the kind of thing

we'll -- thinking we'll be doing, and ultimately we're not going to declare victory until we see a series of these, really see convincing evidence, compelling evidence that inflation is coming down. and that's what i mean by -- that's what it would take for us to say, okay, we think this is, this job is done. because we -- frankly, we saw last year inflation came down last year over the course of the summer and then turned right around and went back up. so i think we're going to be careful about declaring victory. but our, again, the implementation of our policy is going to be flexible and sensitive to incoming data. >> are you more concerned now that, to bring down inflation it's going to require more than just some pain at this point? >> again, i think that, i do think that our objective, and this is what's reflected in the sep, but our objective really is

to bring inflation down to 2% while the labor market remains strong. finish i think that -- i think that what's becoming more clear is that many factors that we don't control are going to play a very significant role in deciding whether that's possible or not. and there i'm thinking, of course, of commodity prices, the war in ukraine with, supply chain, things like that where we really can't, monetary policy, you know, stance doesn't affect those things. so, but having said that, there is a, you know, there is a path, there's a path for us to get there. it's not getting easier. it's getting more challenging because of these external forces. and that path is to move demand down, and you have a lot of surplus demand. take, for example, in the labor market. so you have two job vacancies,

essentially, for every person actively seeking a job, and that has led to a real imbalance in wage negotiation. you could get to a place where that ratio was at a more normal level, and you would expect to see those wage pressures move back down to level where people are still getting healthy wage increases, real wage increases, but at a level that that's consistent with 2% inflation. so that's a possibility, and you could say the same thing about some of the product markets where there's just excess capacity and really where the strong demand has gone to -- sorry, they're capacity constraint strained -- constrained. a vertical supply curve or close to it. so demand comes in and is very strong, and it shows up in higher quantities, not more cars because they don't have the semiconductors. in principle, that could work in reverse. when demand comes down, you could see -- it's not guaranteee prices coming down more than the

typical economic relationships that you see in the textbooks would suggest because of the unusual situation we're in on the supply side. so there's a pathway there. it is not going to be easy, and, you know, again, it's our objective, but as i mentioned,st going to fend to some extent on factors we don't control. >> hi, chair powell. thank you for taking our questions. rachel siegel from the washington post. so the new projections show unemployment rate ticking up through 2024. is a higher unemployment rate necessary in order to combat inflation, and what is lost if the unemployment rate has to go up and people lose their jobs in order to control inflation? thank you. >> so, you're right, in the sep we have unemployment going up t. there are, of course, a range of actual forecasts. and i would characterize that,

if you were to get inflation down to, you know, on its way down to 2% and the unemployment rate went up to 4.1%, that's still a historically low level. you know, we hadn't seen rates i, unemployment rates below 4% until a couple years ago. we'd seen it for, like, one year in the last fifty. so the idea that 3.6% is historically low in the last century. so a 4.1% unemployment rate with inflation well on its way to 2%, i think that would be -- i think that would be a successful outcome. so we're not looking to have a higher unemployment rate, but you would say that, i would certainly look at that as a successful outcome. >> [inaudible] >> you know, we're not, again with, we're not -- we don't seek to put people out of work, of course. we never think too many people

are working and fewer people need to have jobs. but we also think that you really cannot have the kind of labor market we want without price stability. and we have to, we have to go back and establish price stability so we can have that kind of labor market. and that's a labor market where, you know, where workers are getting wage increases. maybe workers at lower end of spectrum are getting the biggest wage increases as they were before the pandemic, where participation is high, where there's lots of job opportunities, where it's just a really -- i mean, the labor market weed that before the pandemic, that's what we want to get back to. and you see, you know, disparities between various groups at historic lows. we'd love to get back to that place. but to get there, it's not going to happen with the levels of inflation that we have. so we have to restore that. and it really is in service in the medium and longer term of the kind of labor market we want and hope to achieve.

>> hi, chair powell. matthew boso at bloomberg. so as you just mentioned, committee is now projecting a half percentage rise in the unemployment rate in the seps over next couple years, and it removed a line from its policy statement about thinking that the labor market can remain strong while it tightens policy. you just mentioned that that is still your objective though, so i'm wondering if you could explain why that line was removemented from the -- removed from the statement and whether this means the fomc is trying to induce a recession now to bring inflation down. >> i'm not trying dog induce -- trying to induce a recession now. let's be clear about that. so let me talk about that sentence. clearly, it's our goal to bring 2% inflation while keeping the labor market strong, right in and that's kind of what the s persian p -- sep says. the sep has inflation getting

down to a little above 2% by 2024, and this is a strong labor market, a good labor market. and if as i mentioned, there are pathways to do it. but those pathways have become much more challenging due to factors, the fallout from the war in ukraine which has brought a spike in prices of energy, food, fertilizer, industrial chemicals and also just the supply chains more broadly which have been larger and longer lasting hand anticipated. to the sentence that we deleted said we believe appropriate monetary policies effectively alone can bring about the result of 2% inflation with a strong labor market and so much of it is really not down to monetary policy. it just -- the sentence, it kind of says on its face that monetary policy alone can do this, ask that's not -- that just didn't seem appropriate. >> given the new projections for the unemployment rate, could you

talk a little bit about what accounts for such reduced confidence against, say, a month or three months ago that inflation will largely normalize on its own and see supply-sidish issues get -- side issues get worked out? thanks. >> again, we've been expecting progress, ask and we didn't get that. we got sort of the opposite. so i also think the situation really since the, you know, the consequences of the ukraine war become more more clear -- more and more clear, what you're seeing is the situation getting more difficult. look around the world, i mean, lots of countries, lots of countries are looking at inflation of 10%. and it's largely due to mod is prices. but all over the world you are seeing these effects. and we're seeing them here. gas price, you know, all-time highs and things like that. that's not something we can do something about. so that's, that is really -- and, by the way, headline inflation is important for

expectations. people, the public's expectations, why would they be distinguishing between core inflation and headline inflation? core inflation is something we think about because it is a better predicter of future inflation. but headline is what people experience. they wouldn't know what core is. why would they? they have no reason to. it's very much at risk due to high headline -- the environment has become more difficult, clearly, in the last four or five months. and, hence, the need for the policy actions that we took today. hence, our resolution to, you know, to get rates up and ultimately get them to where we think they need to be. in coming months. >> thanks, chair powell. edward lawrence with fox business. you talk about cpi going to 8.6%. retail sales surprised market by falling and revisions the previous months were down. are you hearing from contacts

about consumers slowing spending or changing their habits? >> we're, of course, watching very, very careful for that -- carefully for that. looking at retail sales, the big store numbers and all that kind of thing. and so, but i think fair summary of what we see is you see continuing shifts in consumption, you see some things, sales going down, but overall spending is very strong. the consumer's in really good shape financially. they're spending. there's no sign of a broader slowdown that i can see in the economy. people are talking about it a lot, consumer confidence is very low. that's probably related to gas prices. and also just stock prices for other people. but that's, that's what we're seeing. we're not seeing a broad with slowdown. we see job growth slowing, but it's still at quite robust levels. we see the economy slowing a bit, but still growth levels --

healthy growth levels -- >> and raising rates in this economy, how closely are you watching consumer spending, or is there something, another indicator that you're watching more closely? >> it would be hard to watch anything more closely than we watch consumer spending, but we watch everything. we watch business fixed investment which actually has softened a bit. and, you know, we watch -- we're responsible for watching everything: but core, you know, consumption is 60 some percent of the economy, two-thirds of the economy. so, naturally, we spend a lot of time on that. and again, there's a lot going on, there are a lot of flows back and forth. but ultimately, it does appear that the u.s. economy is in a strong position and well positioned to deal with higher interest rates. >> thank you, mr. chairman. michael -- from bloomberg radio and television. are you targeting headline inflation now or core inflation? in other words, how far would

you chase oil prices if they keep going up if that's going to be the component to that component that drives expectations? would you risk recession if the headline rate is holding steady or starting to go down? >> so we're responsible for inflation in the law, and inflation means headline inflation. so that's our ultimate goal. we, of course, like all central banks do, look very, very carefully at core inflation because it's a much better predicter, and it's much, it's a much better pricker of where -- predicter or where inflation is going and also much more relative to our -- the parts that don't are mostly outside scope of our tools. so we look at that. the current situation is particularly difficult because of what i mentioned about expectations. we can't affect, really, the energy prices are set by global commodity prices. and most of food -- not all of it, but most food prices are

pretty heavily influenced by global commodity prices too, also other things. but we have to be mindful of the potential effect on inflation expectations from headline. so it's a very difficult situation to be in. and we, again, we can't do much about the difference between the elements of headline that are not in core. >> could i just, as a follow-up, get a clarification on the sep? when the members gave their forecasts, when were they inserted into the record? were they revised after the cpi or michigan numbers came out? in other words, does the sep as we have it now reflect the same factors that led you to go to a 75 basis point move? >> the sep is one piece. it, you know, it reflects all of the economic readings. it also reflects the 75 basis point increase. this is important. so people had that in hand when

their seps were submitted. so it's -- in other words, it's not in addition to what's in the sep. everyone's sep reflects their think about this rate increase and what's going forward. >> [inaudible] >> hi. victoria guida from pretty coe. i wanted to ask about how you'r. i wanted to ask about how you're measuring progress. you've talked about how you want to see inflation coming down over a series of reports, and i guess i'm curious whether you think inflation data itself is a really good indicator or whether, you know, you might be concerned that it's a lagging indicator or that it might send confusing signals given that, as you talked about, there are sort of supply and demand aspects. i guess my question is, you know, do you think that inflation will tell you, inflation data will tell you

when you've gone to where you need to go, or do you just feel like maybe it's better to overshoot than to undershoot? >> so, no, i think the role that we can play -- maybe the way to get at it is to say the role that we can play is around demand. and we'll be able to see the areas that we can affect are those that are associated with excess demand. and we'll be able to see our effect on, for example, job openings in realtime. and that would tell us what's, that would tell us about wages. wages are not principally responsible for the inflation we're seeing, but going forward they would be very important particularly in the service sector. so, sorry, i'm not sure i'm getting to your question. >> my question is, is inflation data itself the best indicator for when you're getting to where you need to go, or might it lead you to go too far? >> there's always a risk of going too far or going not far enough. and it's going to be a very

difficult judgment to make or maybe not. maybe it'll be really clear. but we're -- and we're quite mindful of the, of the dangers. but i will say the worst mistake we could make would be to fail, which it's not an option, you know? we have ore store -- to restore price stability, we really do. it's the bedrock of the economy, if you don't have price stability, economy's not going to work for people, their wages will be eaten up. we want to get the job done. this inflation happened relatively recently. we don't think it's affecting expectations in any kind of fundamental way. we don't think that we're seeing a wage price spiral. we think that the public generally sees us as very likely to be successful in getting inflation down to 2%, and that's critical. it's absolutely key to the whole thing that we sustain that confidence. so that's how we're thinking about.

>> hi, brian -- with yahoo! finance. i just want to expand, i guess, on what you just said now, about general public feeling like you can get this done. you talk about consumer sentiment being down, recession just broadly being dinner table talk. does the general feel among american households and also businesses square with your explanation of the economy given that the description of inflation in the statement didn't change? thanks. >> so clearly, people don't like inflation a lot. and many people are experiencing it really for the first time, because we haven't had anything like this kind of inflation in 40 years. it's, it's really something people don't like, and they're experiencing that, and that's showing up in surveys and in all kinds of ways. and we understand that, and we understand the hardship that people are experiencing from

high inflation, and is we're determine to do what we can to get inflation back down. so that's really what we're saying. we're not -- i'm not -- clearly, it's an incredibly unpopular thing, and it's very painful for people. so, but i guess what i'm saying is the question, really critical question from the perspective of doing our job is making sure that the public does have confidence that we have the tools and will use them and they do work to bring inflation back down over time. it will take some time, we think, to get inflation back down, but we will do that. >> chris. >> hi, thank you. chris -- associated press. you have talked about inflation a few times, mentioned oil prices, china lockdowns. but aside from rises in commodity prices such as gas prices, we're also, we're also

seeing stickier measures of inflation increasing such as the cleveland ped's median cpi -- fed's median. how persistent do you see those underlying measures of inflation, and how do you expect to -- where do you see those going in the near future? >> as i mentioned, i think, in my opening statement, the inflation has started off quite narrow, very directly pandemic-related areas, and it spread now broadly across the economy and into the services sector as well. it was really in the goods sector at beginning. particularly you're seeing in travel now if you've flown on a a plane lately, planes are very full, and plane tickets are very expensive. some of that will be passed through with energy prices. so you're experiencing services inflation. shelter inflation is high. so the question, and you see the cleveland measure going up, many other measures are gown up. so it's a time when we're not seeing progress, and we want to

see progress x. that's really another part of why we did what we did today and why the sep looks like it does, is that we see it as appropriate to get the policy rate up to restrictive levels which would be in the thinking of the committee somewhere in the range of 3-3.5% by year end and then after that we see what the rest of the sep says. i hope that's responsive to your question. >> [inaudible] >> hi, chair powell. nancy marshall again, sir, with marketplace. do you still think a softish landing is possible, and how would you define that at this point considering the revised projections for unemployment, gdp, inflation? >> so i think, i think what's in the sep would certainly meet that test. you know, if you see -- you're looking at getting back down to almost a 2% inflation by 2024 and the up employment rate still as low as 4.1%, that would be, i

would call that as meeting that test. do i still think that we can do that? i do. i think there's, i think -- i don't want to be the handicapper here. that is our objective. i do think it's possible. like i said though, i think that events over the last few months have raised the degree of difficulty, created great challenges and, again, the answer to the question can we still do it, there's a much bigger chance now that it'll depend on factors that we don't control which is, you know, fluctuations and spikes in commodity prices could, could wind up taking that option out of our hands. so we just don't know. but we're, you know, we're focused on, very, very focused on getting inflation back down to 2% which we think is essential for the benefit of the public and also to put us on a path back to a sustainably strong labor market like the one we had before the pandemic.

>> [inaudible] >> thank you. greg robb from market watch. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit more, economists are worried that you're kind of i hitting the economy with a sledgehammer and now there's even more risk of a recession than a 50 #-50 # path of rates, so could you talk a bit more about that, and what evidence would get you to stop rate hikes and maybe even reverse themsome. >> sure. so as i mentioned, financial conditions have tightened over last seven months, and that's a good thing, we think. but the federal funds rate even after of this increase is at 1.6%. so it's hard to see how that is too high of a rate. and even if we did another, you know, we're -- so we're going to get here by end of the summer somewhere in the 2s probably.

still that's still a low rate. that's not a rate that is calculated to bring a recession on. and by then we'll have seen a whole lott more data. as -- lot more data. as i mentioned a couple times, the committee's views are around a modestly restrictive stance which would be in the 3-3.5% range by end of this year. but that's, you know, can bed on that -- can conditioned on that being the appropriate thing to do. if we see data going in a different direction, it'll be reflect in our policy as you see today. you know, we'll be watching if things go in a direction we don't expect, then we're going to adapt. and i would say this is a highly uncertain environment. extraordinarily uncertain environment. so, again, we'll be, we'll be determined and resolved but flexible. >> [inaudible] >> evan riser, market news international. thank you, chair powell. i was wondering if the fed has

initiated a are review in the conduct of monetary policy over the last two years or so given inflation, and will that be share with the public? and then secondly, given the illiquidity, extraordinary volatility in the financial markets, are you concerned that qt will make that worse? >> sorry, what was your question on qt? >> just given the illiquidity and extraordinary volatility in financial markets whether qt will make things worse. >> ah. so of course we've been looking, you know, very carefully and hard at why inflation picked up so much more than expected last year and why it proves toker is point. so persistent. it's hard to overstate the extent of interest we have in that question morning, noon and night. so, but you have to put, you have to understand context9. really context is this: for, you know, decades before the

pandemic and the reopening, you had a world where inflation was dominated birdies inflationary forces such as declining population or aging demographics, let's call it that, globalization enabled by technology, other factors, low productivity. so, and, you know, that's how all the models work is, you know, decades and decades of data. they look at that as a very flat phillips curve work, and the supply shocks tend to be transient. we have now experienced an extraordinary series of shocks if you think about it; the pandemic, the ponce -- the response, the reopening, inflation followed by war in ukraine, followed by shutdowns in china, the war in ukraine potentially having effects for years here. so we're aware that a different set of forces have been driving the economy, have been, obviously, for quite a while. these forces are different.

inflation's behaving differently. and in our thinking, it really is a question of very strong demand, but you couldn't get this kind of inflation without a change on supply side which is there for anybody to see which is these blockages and shortages and people dropping out of the labor force and things like that. so that's how we're looking at it. and, you know, we've done a lot of work internally on, and thinking about what all that means. the thing is you don't know whether those forces are, to what extent are they going to be sustained. in other words, will we go back to a world where it looks a little more like the old world, or are we really going to be in a world where major supply shocks go on and on. the history is you see these waves of supply shocks as you did in the '70s, and then they go away. there there's a new normal, things settle down. but honestly, we don't know what that's going to be.

in the meantime, we have to find price stability in this new world and maximum employment in this new world where, cleary, inflationary forces are, you're seeing them everywhere. again, if you look around the world where inflation levels are. it's absolutely extraordinary. it's not just here. in fact, we're sort of in the middle of pack, although we have, of course, a different kind of inflation than other people have. and partly because our economy is stronger and more highly recovered. so that's what we're doing. we've done a lot of introspection and work on that. sorry, on qt, you know, we've communicated really clearly to the markets about what we're going to do there. markets seem to be okay with it. we're phasing in treasury issuance down quite a lot, quite a lot from where it's been. so i have no reason to think -- markets are forward-look, and they see this coming. i have no reason to think it will lead to illiquidity and problems.

it seems to be kind of understood and accepted at this point. >> and the -- [inaudible] >> mr. chairman, mark ma'am rick with bankrate -- ham rick. wonder what your assessment is about outlook for the housing market given the years-long increase in home prices and now sharp rise in mortgage rates, and all that, of course, given the heightened seasonstivity around the housing market -- sensitivity given the fact that it was a trigger for the great financial crisis over a decade ago. thank you. >> sure. so rates were very low. a good place to start is that rates were very, very low for quite a while because of the pandemic and, you know, the need to do everything we could to support the economy when unemployment was 14%, true unemployment rate was well higher hand that. and, you know, that was -- rates are low, and now they're coming back up to normal or above levels.

so in the meantime, while rates were low and while demand was really high, obviously demand for housing changed from wanting to live in urban areas to some extent to living in single-family homes in the suburbs famously. and so the demand was just suddenly much higher. and so we saw prices moving up very, very strongly for the last couple of years. so that changes now, and and rates have moved up. we're well aware that mortgage rates are have moved up a lot, and you're seeing a changing housing market. we're watching it to see what will happen, how much will it really affect residential investment? not really sure. what will -- how much will it affect housing prices? you know, not really sure. i mean, obviously, we're watching that quite carefully. you would think over time, i mean, sort of -- there's a tremendous amount of supply in the housing market of unfinished homes. and as those come online whereas the supply of finished homes, inventory of finished homes that

are for sale is incredibly low, historically low. so that is still a very tight market. is so prices may keep going up for a while even in a world where rates are up. so it's a complicated is situation. we watch it very carefully. you know, i would say if you're a home buyer, somebody -- or a young person looking to buy a home, you need a bit of a reset. we need to get back to a place where supply and demand are back together and where inflation is down low again and mortgage rates are low again. so this will be a process wrap we, ideally, we do our work in a way where the housing market sells -- settles in a new place and housing availability and credit availability are at appropriate levels. so thank you very much. if --

>> on sunday a bipartisan group of senators announced principles for addressing the concerns over shootings like occurred in you valley -- uvalde, texas, three weeks ago and other places as well. and i would say we've been making good progress, but we've run into a couple of bumps in the road that have slowed things down a little bit. one of them is over a crisis intervention program, something we agree is very important. i'm believe that we ought to put every state in the position of seeking and receiving funds for crisis intervention programs

that they have in place already even if they don't have a red flag law. are red flag has been what's been discussed, discussed many times. 19 states have red flag laws, but that means 31 states have other rye coo sis intervention -- crisis intervention initiatives that are designed to address the same problem, which is people who are a danger to themselves and others because of they are mental health. of their mental health. it includes things like assisted outpatient treatment programs, drug courts, mental health courts and veterans courts. the other issue that we are, are wrestling with are weights to the domestic violence provision and the way nontraditional relationships are handled. we need to define this in a very crystal clear way. it can't be overly are broad or

open to interpretation. it needs to be something that can actually be applied, because we're talking about very serious consequences here. of course, with both of these provisions we must include rigorous due process protections. that's a red line for folks on my side of the aisle. i know senator schumer, the majority leader, wants to put bill on floor next week. but unless we can resolve these differences over these two provisions and do it soon -- hopefully today -- then we won't have time to prepare the text so senators can read the bill for themselves which we would expect them to do, and so that's going to require some continued work and and good faith negotiations on all sides. the details of these provisions are critical for support for my colleagues on this side of the aisle, and i hope that our colleagues across aisle will

understand. if we continue down this path without resolution, we're jeopardizing the timetable that the majority leader has set out for us, or we're jeopardizing the likelihood we can get to 60 votes for anything. and we know how hard this is. i'm eager to wrap up our negotiations, but we're not going to cut corners or capitulate for the sole purpose of passing something. i'm not willing to compromise on some of my basic principles or throw the constitution out the window so we can have something we can hold up and say look what we did. there's a bipartisan appetite to get things, get this done. that's good, and i'm optimistic about how far we've come -- call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. durbin: thank you, madam president. madam president, it was ten years ago today president obama

walked into the white house rose garden and said he had an announcement to make. he made an announcement which changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in america. he announced the deferred action for childhood arrivals, now we call it daca. and with that announcement, i joined with, i guess, thousands of young leaders across this country and breathed add sigh of relief -- breathed a sigh of relief. over the past decade, daca has allowed more than 800,000 dreamers to remain in the only home they've ever known -- america. these young people we call dreamers came to this country as children, some as young as a few months old. they grew up studying in our classrooms, they grew up befriending our children and grandchildren, they went to church with us, and when they were kids every morning they stood up in their classroom and

pledged allegiance to that flag. the reason they did it of course, is they believed it was their flag. in the years since daca was announce odd, a lot has changed in the world. presidents have come and gone. wars have ended. and a once-in-a-century pandemic has rocked the world. but in the face of all these changes and upheavals, one thing remains steady, constant and predictable -- the devotion of dreamers to america. these young people have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to america. they served as our schoolteachers, first responders, members of the military, essential workers in the pandemic. more than 200,000 daca recipients were classified by our government as essential critical infrastructure workers during the pandemic. 200,000 of them.

and, remember, they don't enjoy the benefit of a citizenship yet. among them, 40,000 health care industry workers, doctors, nurses, paramedics. i have come to the floor to tell the stories of the dreamers. these stories show what is at stake when we consider the fate of daca and the dream act. today i want to tell you the story of yasmin ruiz. she is the 130th dreamer story that i've told on the senate floor. this is a photograph of yasmin. she arrived in this country at the age of three along with her twin sister and her mom. even though her extended family remained in mexico, she said she never felt alone growing up in arizona because we were surrounded by community.

but when yasmin was 16, the family suffered a tragedy that ignited her passion for medicine. her mother had a stroke. and when the family arrived at the hospital, they were shocked to discover that none of the health care providers spoke spanish. at a young age, yasmin, who was grappling with the trauma and fear that her mother might die, was forced with the role of interpreter to save her mother's life. it was at that moment, even as a terrified 16-year-old, that yasmin resolved to become a health care hero if her mom needed her. she studied hard in high school. she graduated with honors. she made her way to the university of new mexico where she earned a bachelor's of science and biology in spanish. yasmin then matriculated to otouniversity of arizona school of medicine.

but then she hit a speed bump. she discovered that her immigration status was going to stop her from receiving her professional license to practice medicine. her dream was interrupted. what did she do? she said no way. she wouldn't accept no for an answer. she joined a coalition of students and rallied support in the new mexico legislature to change the state law on license sure. now she is fulfilling her dream every day she delivers care and support to families like her own and offers the guidance she once sought sasse a teenager and lost in other health care system. yssmin is in the third year at the university of new mexico and in the heart of the pandemic she was deep in the trenches of our health care system. back in the summer of 20 when covid was new and basically unknown, yasmin was working 80

hours a week providing care to covid-positive patients, providing c.p.r., wearing protective gear from head to toe. like so many dreamers, yasmin's commitment to serve her community was unshakable. even when her own family members came down with covid, she didn't stay home and take care of them. she went to work. day after day, she put her life on the line to save the lives of others. and she's continued that journey as a health care professional against improbable odds. yasmin considers it, quote, a privilege and an honor to serve america in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis. i want to thank yasmin ruiz for her service on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. she is an immigrant health hero. she is a daca health hero. she's put herself and her family at risk to protect american lives. she shouldn't also have to worry about whether she's going to be deported tomorrow. and whether her family will be deported as well.

think about that for one moment. this young woman against all the odds is pursuing her residency in surgery. she's determined to serve this nation and to make people's lives better. and what is our response, our official government response? sorry, you're not a citizen. and under the current law, you never will be. so you ask yourself, what are we thinking, if a quality, contributing person like jasmin ruiz is willing to defy the odds and to risk everything to be a doctor, why aren't we applauding that, rewarding that, giving her an incentive and others like her to be a generation of service to america? basic question we have to ask -- would we be a better nation, a better country if we deported jasmin ruiz? i hope, madam president, the answer is pretty obvious.

it is to me. over the past 20 years or more, i've had the privilege of sharing more nan is should stories like -- i've had the privilege of sharing more nan 100 stories like jazmin's on the floor of the senate. they have more than earned their place in america's story. yet these brilliant young people are still waiting on us, on congress, to finish the job that president obama started with daca. this program was always supposed tobacco temporary solution -- supposed to be a temporary solution. the permanent solution was enacting a piece of legislation that i introduced 20 years ago called the dream act. it provides a path to citizenship for dreamers. including young immigrants eligible for daca. congress has been on the cusp of passing the dream act for years. in 12013 we included it in a larger immigration package that passed the senate with 68 votes. it was a glorious day.

can you imagine that, 68 votes in the senate for anything? and that broad bipartisan support reflected america's public opinion that the dream act was the right thing to do. in fact, over the years dreamers have become a household word. when we came up with the name for this legislation over 20 years ago and you said the word dreamers, people would say, oh, i know that. that's a rock group, a british rock group. and it might have been -- freddie and the dreamers. but that wasn't the group we were describing at all. these dreamers have touched the hearts of america because in the dreamers we see our own history has a nation of immigrants. we know that they deserve permanent status in this country, their home. they've earned it. but time and again the senate has failed daca recipients. instead of making these protections permanent, we have left them in doubt. the former president of the

united states, donald trump, even attempted to terminate the daca program, to turn people like jazmin ruiz away from this country. can you imagine what that would have meant to her, to her family, to new mexico, to america? for all the americans whose lives have been saved by dreamers like jazmin or for the nations classrooms or businesses that count on these idealistic, hardworking people who want to be part of our future? and our failure to protect dreamers is not only a human disaster, it's an economic disaster. it doesn't add up. daca recipients and their households pay more than $5 billion in federal taxes, more than $3 billion in state and local taxes every single year. that's money that funds the construction of roads and bridges, pays social security, medicare, and medicaid. and the economic upside of enacting the dream act is even bigger. last year the house passed the

bipartisan dream and promise act. if the senate just followed their lead and passed that legislation today, we could increase america's g.d.p. by nearly $800 billion over the next decade. and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. our broken immigration system is embarrassing. it's failing america, and it's failing our families. it's also failing our economy. and beyond the dream act, economists on both sides of the political spectrum agree, comprehensive immigration reform would help boost economic growth. the united states chamber of commerce has called for doubling the number of immigrants in america to help with the help shortage. with the dream act will allow young people who have grown up

in america to continue contributing to our future. for decades now dreamers have been stuck in legislative purgatory. only a subset have been able to secure daca protections. even for those who do, they have to renew their status every two years, which means they can only plan their lives in uncertain two-year increments. in the coming weeks a federal court could strike down daca and deport these young people to countries that barely remember, if they remember at all. just last year, a federal judge in texas limited the program to only renewing applications. that ruling was wrong. it secluded a whole generation of dreamers from stepping out of the shadows of our broken immigration system. if there's one lesson we can learn from the bipartisan gun

safety framework that's been debated this week in washington, is that the american senate is not as divided as the american people think. we can come together to support commonsense policies that will lead to a brighter future for america and that's the opportunity we have with the dream act. i can think of no better way to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of daca than passing this legislation, offering every one of our dreamers the path to american citizenship which they deserve and have earned. an overwhelming number of americans want congress to pass the dream act. they know it will strengthen our economy and the nation. most importantly, it's the right thing to do. it's time for congress to step up and meet our responsibility. democrats, republicans, and independents alike, let's get this done. madam president, i yield the floor.

>> on sunday a bipartisan group of senators announced principles for addressing the concerns over shootings like occurred in uvalde, texas, three weeks ago and other places as well. and i would say we've been making good progress, but with we've run into a couple of bumps in the road that have slow ared things down a little bit. one of them is over a crises

intervention programs, something we agree is very important. i believe that we ought to put every state in the position of seeking and receiving funds for crisis intervention programs that they have in place already even if they don't have a red flag law. red flag has been what's been discussed and discussed many times, but 19 states have red flag laws. but that means 31 states have other crisis intervention initiatives that are designed to address the same problem, which is people who are a danger to themselves and others because of their mental health. it includes things like assisted outpatient treatment programs, court -- drug courts or, mental health courts and veterans courts. the other issue that we are, are

wrestling with relates to the domestic violence provision and the way nontraditional relationships are handled. we need to define this in a very crystal clear way. it can't be overly broad or open to interpretation. it needs to be something that can actually be applied, because we're talking about very serious consequences here. from of course, with both of these provisions, we must include rigorous due process protections. that's a red line for folks on my side of the aisle. i know senator schumer, the majority leader, wants to put this bill on the floor next week. but unless we can resolve these differences over these two provisions and do it soon -- hopefully today -- then we won't have time to prepare the text so senators can read the bill for themselves, which we would expect them to do. so that's going to require some

continued work and good faith negotiations on all sides. the details of these provisions are critical for support from my colleague osen -- can colleagues on this side of the aisle, and i hope that our colleagues on other side will understand if we continue down this path of non-resolution, we're jeopardizing the timetable, or we're jeopardizing the likelihood we can get to 60 votes for anything. and we know how hard this is. i'm eager to wrap up our negotiations, but we're not going to cut corners or capitulate for the sole purpose of passing something. i'm not willing to compromise on some of my basic principles or throw the constitution out the window so we can have something we can hold up and say look what we did. there's a bipartisan appetite to get things, get this done. that's good. and i'm optimistic about how far

we've come. but we're not there yet. and we need to continue and do so quickly to to reach an agreement on language so we can then write the text and and have the vote. from the outset, i said i wanted to identify targeted reforms that could have prevented the recent tragedies in uvalde and elsewhere. that includes stronger mental health resources which could have helped salvadore ramos before he became so sick that he killed innocent children, and he committed suicide essentially in the process. that includes school safety measures which could have prevented the shooter from actually getting inside robb elementary school. and it includes z reforms to prevent violence by criminals and other dangerous individuals.

the national instant criminal background check system is one of the most effective tools we have to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who suffer from severe mental illness. but it's not a perfect system. it's only as good as the investigate if contained in the -- the information contained in the system. for example, 2017 the shooting at sutherland springs, a little town outside of san antonio, texas, my hometown, what happened there highlighted a gaping hole in the background check system. despite the fact that the shooter had a long and disturbing history of violence that should have been, should have prohibited him from purchasing a gun, he was able to do so because the air force in this instance had not uploaded his felony convictions, his domestic violence conviction nor his mental health commitment. in response to sutherland

springs, senator murphy and i introduced the fix-mix act to insure that all federal agencies accurately and correctly upload the required conviction records on a timely basis. yes, this is the same senator chris murphy who i'm working with now to try to achieve a success here. we've done it before, and i believe we can do it again. our bill was signed into haw in march -- law in march of 2018, and in the first three years 11.5 million more records were uploaded into the three national databases that the fbi checks. ..

we showed up as if he had been

born the day before and nothing else previously matter because it wasn't in the background check system. they were disqualifying mental health record and the information should show up in the system. if there things in your life that would disqualify you if you were an adult but it happened before you turned 18, i think that's the information we need and would want to have her purpose of determining of who should be able to purchase or possess a firearm. that wall that prevents the look back pre-18-year-old records is a problem. four years ago the uvalde police department received information about to mail juveniles, 13 and 14 years old plotting school shooting for their senior year, it's four years ago they were

graduated you guessed it, 2022. no way to know for sure whether one of those cells off reynolds because of the juvenile records not available to us but i'm here to say if it's not salvador ramos and we have a bigger problem, two additional young 13 and 14-year-old boys out there saying they're going to shoot up the school when they become seniors. we have a bigger problem. one of the provisions we are discussing would encourage states to upload similar relevant juvenile records in two the mix. it is standard practice for some but not all states and it's easy to see why it is important. 18-year-old convicted of aggravated assault, felony, the

record will show up in the background check and prohibited from purchasing a gun but if a 17-year-old is convicted of the same crime, the record will not necessarily be uploaded in the national criminal background check system. if he tries to purchase a gun at 18, background checks likely to come back clean again because the system is only as good as the information but let me give you another example. an individual could be adjudicated, mentally ill on his 17th birthday and civilly committed for multiple months in a mental institution but the same person could likely purchased the gun the age of 18 without anything showing up on his record. it is existing law prohibits the purchase but not all states are sending us that information to the national criminal background check system and that's why,

those are campuswide is important to get that back in the pre-18-year-old history for mental health for criminal justice encounters. it's not an expansion background check system because it doesn't add new restrictions to gun ownership but it does permit, it would permit the background check system to have access to relevant and material information. common sense steps to ensure the data the system is accurate. it's easy enough to say that we need to ensure the idea would work in practice and that is what we are examining now. number one, we need to ensure the provision would protect due process of law, the constitutional right that is fundamental. under current law anyone who

receives a denial has the right to appeal the decision or challenge the accuracy of the record. the same protections should exist for juvenile records as well. establish a plan while the records are being uploaded into the background check system, a process that will take time. my colleagues across the aisle suggested mandatory waiting period for purchases under the age of 21 but we didn't agree to it. there's no reason why somebody who passes a background check with all relevant information in the database should be denied the ability to purchase a gun. we are talking about unconstitutional right so no mandatory waiting period but we are looking at extending the investigatory. for juvenile records that are

unclear or ambiguous. let me explain what i'm talking about, under criminal law, a person wants to purchase under the retailer, they need to complete a background check. nearly 90% of the cases the background check is result almost immediately because they are computerized records. the average processing time is less than two minutes. the cases, the seller receives immediate answer, the sale can proceed or it cannot. in the remaining roughly 10% of background checks, the system doesn't return a green or red light. in short, this happens but the? or other things that need to be inquired about, it could be caused by a number of factors, the buyer has a common name, the system could pull records for the wrong individual with the same name, it can also be caused by incomplete criminal history records.

for example if somebody was convicted of assault but the record doesn't say whether it was felony or misdemeanor or in some cases whether the assault was domestic violence incident, that would have consequences in terms of their ability to purchase a firearm so further investigation sometimes necessary to see whether the light should be green or red. under current law the fbi has up to three business days to complete a background check and give the seller a clean answer on whether the sale can proceed. that is current law of 23 days. in many cases the review talked about adding for persons between 18 and 21, this review can clarify the sale can proceed and it's a great thing, how we safeguard second amendment rights for law-abiding gun

owners. we've discussed the idea of extending the investigatory. the? around juvenile records. again, this is the exception to the rule where more information is required because the answer you get is ambiguous or unclear but under enhanced review, an 18-year-old with a clean record would be able to expeditiously purchase a firearm. an extended investigation. would only apply to those rare cases and again for only those 18 to 20 in which the system is not returned a clear answer, yes or no, green or red but rather a yellow light. we believe this is a commonsense straightforward way to improve existing background check systems without adding new restrictions. as i said, negotiations are ongoing, the time is of the

essence because we need to get to an agreement to get text to our colleagues so majority leader can bring the bill up on the floor next week after giving everyone a chance to read and understand and have their questions answered. i yield the floor. >> on monday these chambers will be empty but our hearts will be full because we will be joining the american people in commemorating historic moment in our nation's story, juneteenth, formal end of slavery in the united states. one year ago today we stood together across party lines to pass legislation to memorialize this important day as a federal holiday. though we celebrate this anniversary today, on monday communities across our nation have been marking juneteenth for more than 1150 days.

it dates back to june 19, 1865 when union soldiers led by major general ranger travel to galveston texas the announcement the civil war had ended and the enslaved were now free. this was two and a half years after the date of president blinken's emancipation proclamation, either the news of blinken's order had not yet many including those in texas, local officials refused to enforce the emancipation proclamation. decades later i introduced along with my partners and service, senators cory booker and tina smith and representative sheila jackson lee, the juneteenth national independence day act to honor the davies americans took their first steps into freedom and finally made juneteenth a

federal holiday. june 17, 2021 i was honored at the stand with vice president kamala harris, senator smith, president of jackson lee, senator cornyn, seven under warnick and ms. opal read while president biden signed the national juneteenth independence day act into law. why do i mention ms. opal we? she's a grandmother of the juneteenth movement who fought for years to make juneteenth a federal holiday from fort worth texas, activist, and educator who walked two and a half miles every day fighting the united states to finally have juneteenth a federal holiday and at the age of 94 she saw it become a reality in the white house.

in doing so, juneteenth finally took its rightful place among other federal holidays so all americans and all states can celebrate juneteenth just like they celebrate memorial day, the same way they celebrate martin luther king day. they now celebrate juneteenth, it's a holiday that requires us to remember, reflect and recommit the principles that undergird our nation, liberty and justice for all but was never fully embodied. we continue to strive to live up to these principles today, systemic discrimination and mistreatment of black and brown americans still permeate our society from criminal justice system, schools to healthcare systems, that's why it is so important we learn from our past and honor heroes and our history to bend the moral mark of our nation to justice.

we have had a long road to justice and equality in the united states and for us to move forward, the path must have the recognition of our nation's history. juneteenth is our nation's history, disparities and injustices reflect unfulfilled promise of a nation built upon the notion that all people are created equal. slavery, crime against humanity we have far too long failed to fully acknowledge or to address. commemorating juneteenth was a federal holiday we will not fulfill the obligation to right these wrongs were fixed what remains broken but it is the truth of our history. we must read these missing chapter understand our national story of freedom of independence and right now in red states across the country, extremists don't want us to learn from our

own history. they are burning books and threatening schoolteachers in an attempt to stop our young people from understanding our nation's past and how it sheds light on our present. they are afraid learning about our nation's history including many dark chapters as well as many triumphs is a threat. instead of empowering our children to learn from our example, they wish to silence the stories of the brave women and men who have fought for racial equality. critics say the discourse will divide us but it couldn't be less true. across the rows on the path to gracious and equality. we must recognize our wrongs, acknowledge the pain,

acknowledge the suffering of generations of slaves and their defendants and understand the structures of inequity that continue to oppress communities of color and importantly learn how freedom fighters of yesterday and today and body the truest values of our nation. we have them to think for our march toward a more perfect union but there is more work to be done. as ms. opal the said when talking about juneteenth as a unifier, i truly believed we can do so much more together rather than apart. together, thanks to the work of this chamber and so many americans across our nation who fought to tell the full story of our past, americans will commemorate juneteenth on monday. we will join with one another and honoring our past and

recommitting to the work which lies ahead. thank you, mr. president and i yield the floor.

mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, at 5:15 this afternoon, we will be voting on a budget resolution written by my colleague, senator rand paul from kentucky. as chairman of the budget committee, i urge a very strong no vote. mr. president, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time when two people in our country own more wealth than the bottom 42% of our population, at a time when the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 92%, at a time when we are looking at more income

and wealth inequality than at any time in american history, this budget resolution offered by senator paul would move us in exactly the wrong direction and make a bad situation worse. senator paul's resolution would make the very wealthiest people in this country even wealthier while at the same time it would make tens of middle-class americans -- people in the middle class, people in the working class, lower-income americans -- even poorer. mr. president, we remain, sadly, the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. we pay the highest prices by far in the world for prescription drugs. half of our people are living

paycheck to paycheck, and millions are working at $8, $9, $10 an hour because we still have a disastrous minimum wage of $7.10 an hour. millions of americans today, as housing prices soar, are spending half or more of their limited incomes on housing. 45 million people in our country are struggling with student debt. and at a time when half of older americans have no savings -- people have worked their entire lives, they have no savings to prepare them for real estate tirement -- the social security -- for retirement, the social security benefits that they will receive are inadequate to allow them to live out their remaining years in dignity.

so what this budget resolution brought forth by senator paul does is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. instead of expanding medicare to make sure that every man, woman, and child in this country has health care as a human right, this is a budget that would lead to devastating cuttings to medicare, cuts to medicaid, cuts to other public health programs. senator paul's budget resolution would cut nutrition assistance at a time when there are children in america today who are going hungry. it would cut federal aid to education at a time when schools are looking for funding to pay

to teachers they need adequate wages. but in the midst of this budget that cuts health care, that cuts education, that cuts social security, that cuts every benefit needed by ordinary americans, this is a budget that would give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country. so you have a situation where right now we have a tax system which is broken, which is corrupt, which allows some billionaires in a given year to pay zero in federal income tax, zero. some of the richest people in this country in a given year do not pay a nickel in federal income tax. we have a tax system which

allows dozens of major profitable corporations making billions of dollars a year in corporate profit to pay in a given year zero in federal income tax. and we have an effective tax rate today in which billionaires pay a lower effective rate than nurses and firefighters. that's what we have today. and senator paul's budget -- well, you guess it, you're right. he would give even more tax breaks to the 1% and to the billionaire class. unfortunately, the vision of america that senator paul's budget puts forward, balancing the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor in order to make the richest people in america even

richer, is not just the vision of senator paul. i wish it was just his vision. and i got to applaud his honesty for coming forward and putting his vision on paper. unfortunately, it is the vision of many, many people in the republican party. and this is what they want. senator paul and many in the republican party do not believe that it was good enough to provide over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1% and large corporations, as they did when trump was president. not good enough. the budget that we are debating today, senator paul's proposal, would make those tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful permanent -- permanent -- at a cost of more than $2 trillion over the next decade.

cutting nutrition programs forking this up degree children -- for hungry children, throwing millions of people off of medicare and medicaid, while providing $2 trillion in tax breaks for the very wealthy. under trump, republicans came within one vote of passing a bill that would have thrown up to 32 million americans off of health insurance and eliminate vital protections for people with preexisting conditions like cancer or diabetes and substantially increase premiums for older workers. that was the bill that the trump administration tried to get passed, failed by one vote, the late-senator mccain. senator paul and many republicans who support this

budget resolution believe that what they tried to do a few years ago in decimating the affordable care act -- hey, that didn't go far enough. so the budget that we are talking about right now, senator paul's proposal, would throw up to 35 million americans off of medicaid. so what do you do in the middle of a pandemic when you have no health insurance? well, right now as a nation today there are estimates that about 60,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor on time. throw 35 million people off of medicaid. that number will escalate. we're talking about tens and tens of thousands of people who would die because they wouldn't have medicaid, wouldn't be able to go to a doctor when they are sick. when donald trump was in office, he proposed a budget that would

have cut medicare by nearly $845 billion. senator paul and the republicans who will support this budget do not believe that those cuts went far enough, $only 845 million in medicare. 1kwr50eubgsz c the bue are debating today would cut medicare by $3.9 trillion over the next decade and throw some 29 million senior citizens and persons with disabilities off of medicare. at a time when tens of millions of americans struggle with hunger, senator paul and the republicans who support this budget want to cut the snap program by $300 billion, throwing some 13 million people off of that program. p i don't i don't know what a nn stands for if we cannot feed the hungry and if we cannot provide

health care to people who need it. but that is what this budget does. overall, senator paul's budget would make $15 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, slashing the federal budget by nearly 40% by the end of this decade. so that is where we are today, mr. president . and again i would reiterate that this is not just senator paul's budget, and i applaud him for his honesty. he's an honest guy, he's a straightforward guy, and he comes forward and says this is what i believe. it would be bad enough if this was just the views of one united

states senator. unfortunately, it is not. these are the views of many in the republican party. so, mr. president, it is absolutely imperative that this budget proposal of senator paul be defeated and that we move this country forward in a very different direction. it is a direction which says that the united states government should be representing the needs of all of the people, not just the wealthy and the powerful and big-money campaign contributors. it is a vision in our position to senator paul that says that health care is a human right, that we have to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry and cut prescription drug costs in this country.

and it is a vision which says that, no, we should not be cutting social security. weesht be -- we should be lifting the cap on the income which today is $147,000. we should be lifting that cap so that we can increase social security benefits for all seniors. so, mr. president, this is not just a budget resolution on the part of the senator from kentucky, senator paul. this really is a contrasting vision of where we want this country to go. do we want to move into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of people on top have enormous wealth and enormous political power, while at the same time the middle class continues to become small, and

we have more and more people living in poverty. these are contrasting visions of the future of america, and i hope very much that senator paul's resolution will be soundly defeated. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

i will begin with one overarching message. we understand the heart of high inflation is causing. we are strongly committed to bringing inflation back down and moving expeditiously to do so. we have both the tools we need and resolve it would take to restore price stability on behalf of american families and businesses. the economy and the country have been through a lot the past two and half years and proved resilient. it's essential we bring inflation down if we have a sustained period of strong labor market conditions that benefit all. from our congressional mandate

to promote maximum employment and price stability, the current pictures plain to see. the labor market is extremely tight and inflation is much too high. against this backdrop, today market committee raised policy interest rates by three quarters of a percentage points. in anticipates ongoing increases will be appropriate. we are continuing the process of significantly reducing the size of our balance sheet. i'll have more to say about today's policy actions after briefly reviewing economic development. overall economic activity down in the first quarter as unusually sharp swings in inventory and that exports more than offset continued strong underlying demand. recent indicators suggest gdp growth has picked up this quarter with consumption spending remaining strong. in contrast, gross and business investment appears to be slowing and activity in the housing

sector looks tor. be softening reflecting higher mortgages rates. t. are we currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we're not. mrs. blackburn: we are not. thank you, mr. president. i wanted to talk for just a few minutes if i could about a bill that is coming to the floor. it's called the pact act. and this is something that those of us at judiciary committee have worked on for quite a period of time. and we had worked diligently through what we thought was a prescribed and agreed to process, and we are finding out that the majority leader is pretty much forcing this issue to the floor this week for a vote, and he is calling it -- and i'm going to quote here -- the most ambitious and important expansion of veteran health care benefits that we have seen in a decade. end quote.

now, senators schumer and tester have indeed put forth a bill that when you look at it, when you hear the intent, a first glance at it, you say, oh, this is exactly what we need to help our servicemembers. and indeed, we all are just so grateful for the men and women that have served in this country, that have worn that uniform. but there is a lot to be said for bringing measures to the floor for passage when they're ready. when there has been agreement on critical importance. as the majority leader said, the biggest expansion of benefits that we've seen in decades. now, many of us have worked for

quite a period of time on the issue of toxic exposure and have worked on how best to make certain that when we address this, that, mr. president, you're going to get care to the veteran in a timely manner. they're not going to have to wait. they're going to receive the care that they need. so it is frustrating to me, as it is to many of my colleagues, to think about what could have been accomplished had the majority leader just done what he had promised to do and had allowed a thorough amendment process. we should all share the goal of making certain that legislation we pass that deals with our veterans, that deals with our

men and women in uniform is going to be a promise fulfilled and not a false promise, or not a frustration. yesterday at veterans' affairs committee, we had a hearing with our v.a. secretary. we've had a p terrible problem with case backloads on benefits and health services. currently the case backload is about 188,000. that's the backlog. that's what needs to be worked through. and in passing this bill that is before us today, the estimate is that we're going to add about a million cases to that. now i want you to put yourself in the shoes of a veteran who has suffered and is suffering

with toxic exposure and has a rare cancer, has a respiratory disease, a cardiovascular disease, and is needing access to care. what you want is to be able to get that care. what you don't want to do is have to wait for that care. and that is why we needed to go through this amendment process to address this issue of how a veteran is going to be able to access that care in a timely manner when they need the care. because with some of these rare diseases, days and weeks and months become a life-or-death issue. so the access is important. the amendments that we proposed

were as noncontroversial as you can get in these days. now, the amendment that i had which was one of the two amendments that we were to have on the republican side -- by the way, i said that, two amendments. that's what we were going to be allowed. it wasn't an open amendment process. to amendments. two things that would have improved the bill. i proposed an amendment that would have eliminated arbitrary bureaucratic hurdles for to toxic-exposed veterans, would have eliminated this from the long wait times at their local v.a. hospitals and clinics. basically it would have been that express pass that they need because it would have allowed them to seek care in the community if they could get it there faster than they could through the v.a.

now, mr. president, the reason for this is because i spent a lot of time talking with veterans in tennessee. i have veterans who are a part of our team. they talked to me about the issues that many of their friends and their neighbors are experiencing or people that served in their unit or their battalion, and thousand they need this care. right now if you are in the nashville area which is where many of our retirees from fort campbell and the 101st go for their care, if you're there and you're going to go to the v.a. over at vanderbilt there in nashville and request an appointment, your wait is 72 days. what if you're a veteran and you have a rare respiratory condition that is caused from a

burn pit or from toxic exposure or you've developed a cancer, and you are needing care, do you really want to have to wait two and a half months to be able to see a general practitioner for an appointment that will refer you to a specialist? do we think that is fair to our veterans? is that the way to treat them? to say pick up the phone and call and then we'll get you an appointment. by the way, it's going to be 72 days on a wait time, and then we'll start the clock to try to get you into community care to get you to a specialist. my amendment would basically have said veterans can take that card out of their wallet, their v.a. card. they can show it at a care

facility in their community, and they can get the care they need then. you're eliminating wait times for them. you're eliminating the long lines. you're eliminating the frustration and the fear and the anxiety that comes as every day you think this cancer is growing and i'm being denied care because of a bureaucratic process. our veterans ought not to have to deal with that bureaucratic process. they've waited a long time. so this amendment would have improved the bill. and i have it right here in my hands. it is really very simple, mr. president.

section 121, subtitle c, other health care matters. that's what is underneath. requirement to provide care under veterans community care program for toxic exposed veterans. then it goes through. it strikes an or, inserts a semicolon. strikes the period at the end of the sentence, and inserting or and adds the covered veteran is a toxic-exposed veteran. pretty specific. it elevates the care that they need so that they do not have to wait because they have waited long enough. and they don't want to have to wait until the v.a. hires enough people to do this.

right now if the v.a. is going to hire new nurses or doctors, you know how long it takes them to get them hired? 97 days. do they have what they need to meet this load? no. they do not. now, in the private sector, they can make these hires in about 16 days. and they do. and we've discussed these hiring process changes that need to be made in order to facilitate this care. now, some have said well, you know, if we allow community care, in essence that is privatizing, privatizing the v.a. no, it is not. it is not privatizing. what it is doing is saying the v.a. is seeking a better way to deliver a service in a timely manner to the people who have been promised the service.

that is what the amendment would do. too would allow them -- it would allow them to avoid that bureaucratic process, to take that v.a. card, to go get the care they need that day. but, no, because we have some who are so fearful that the v.a. or the federal government might lose some of their power, some of their control over your life, they will not agree to that. now, the fiscal year 2021 ndaa included the toxic exposure accountability act requiring an 180-day study on toxic exposures

k2 to demonstrate more clearly the association it toxic substances and negative health consequences experienced by k2 veterans. that is something that had a tremendous effect on many of our military men and women at fort campbell and they're with the 160th and the 101st. and i worked with senator tillis on the toxic exposure and the military act, the team act, which was largely included in the pact act. and i've worked with senator sullivan on the veterans burn pit exposure recognition act which would concede exposure to a list of toxic substances, hazards, and chemicals common to burn pits for veterans who deployed to certain covered locations within certain corresponding periods. so i thank my colleagues who have put the effort in on this. i will say that i'm very

disappointed that my colleagues from new york and montana decided no amendments. senator moran's amendment would have adjusted how that wait time is calculated to be more fair to our veterans. my amendment would have allowed them to immediately get the care they need, lifesaving care, lifesaving care. it would have allowed that immediate access. but we have chosen, it appears, or the majority leader and the chairman have chosen to move forward without an amendment process that would be more fair and more responsive to our veterans and at the same time they're daring us to vote no on this bill.

i would challenge them. take a moment and let's return to the agreed to amendment process and improve this for the sake, for the sake and the livelihood of many of our veterans who are experiencing the effects of toxic exposure. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

fueled in large part by huge mistakes after months families pick up the newspaper, look on the television and here the

craft inflation is setting new 40 year records -- kentucky. mr. paul: united states has the largest -- the presiding officer: a quorum call. mr. paul: i ask unanimous consent we vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: the united states has the largest economy in the world. we also have the largest government apparatus in the world. this year we'll bring in $4.8 trillion and we'll spend about $5.8 trillion and yet we'll have no budget this year. how inexcusable, how embarrassing it is for a country, the largest country in the world, the largest government in the world, the largest bureaucracy in the world to have no budget. is it any wonder that we're $30 trillion in debt? most small businesses have a budget. most businesses in our country have a budget and a prediction for what will come in and what will go out for the year, and this year there will be no budget. not only will there be no

democratic -- there will be no republican presentation as a party. so do i will introduce my budget. this is a budget that balances in five years. the reason we chose five years is that the constitutional amendment to the budget amendment, the constitutional amendment that would balance the budget balances in five years. we voted on that amendment previously in this body, and the democrats in unison opposed it. they were opposed to a balanced amendment to the constitution but the republicans were unanimous in voting for the balanced budget amendment constitutional amendment. in that amendment the text of it would balance the budget in five years. you would think if all 50 republicans are on record as being for a balanced budget amendment that balances in five years, that all 50 republicans would be for a balanced budget, a budget that actually balances in five years. now why is it important to have a budget?

well, you ought to have a blueprint or a plan for what your government is going to do so it's inexcusable not to have any budget at all. but also we have another problem that we're facing in our country. we've -- we're facing the problem of inflation. every american is seeing it. you're seeing your gas prices go through the roof. you're seeing your prices at the grocery store go through the roof. and why do we have inflation? well, inflation comes from debt. when the united states runs up a debt, it is sold. foreign countries buy the debt. americans buy the debt. but the biggest purchaser of our debt is the federal reserve. so when the federal reserve buys the debt, do they buy it with money they have sort of laying around? do you go to the federal reserve and some guy opens a big safe and here's the known bite debt? no the federal reserve doesn't have any money. so the federal reserve simply prints up the money, buys the american debt? what does that mean? when the federal reserve prints the money to buy the debt, this floods the system with money. so we're flooded with money

right now. in the last two years we've borrowed $6 trillion. so $6 trillion is entered into the system. when you look at the amount of money that's being created, there's a measurement of money supply called the m-2. if you look at it on an annualized basis, it's been going up at 15% a year. so inflation is an increase in the money supply. it's an increase in the money supply because they're buying the debt. so it's all related to spending. it's inexcusable that we'll have no budget this year. it's inexcusable that the projection is for a trillion-dollar deficit in one year and yet there won't even be a budget plan. there will be no plan to try to make the deficit less or to try to manage our money. but with this debt comes inflation. we're suffering from the worst inflation we've had in 40 years. how suffers the most from inflation? the working class, those who are on fixed income, those who are retired. they're getting creamed by this. people are spending over $100

filling up their gas tank now. this is a real problem. so a balanced budget is is not n academic exercise. it's not something that's theoretical. our deficit has real impacts. our deficit is leading to inflation. so what i've proposed for the last several years is a balanced budget, a budget that balances gradually over five years by having across-the-board cuts. when i started introducing this several years ago, you could simply freeze spend. if you froze spend, we would grow out of the deficit and by five years by not increasing spending you would have a balanced budget. that was rejected by all the democrats and about half of the republicans. so then we went another year or two and spending increased. and as spending increased and got worse, a freeze would no longer balance the budget in five years. so would introduced the penny plan. the penny plan was to cut 1% a

year for five years and it would balance. but still the congress ignored my admonition on this, and the spending got worse. in the last couple of years it's had to have been increased to a two penny plan, meaning a 2% reduction in spending,each for five years, would still lead to balance in five years. but congress once again has ignored that. so last year when we introduced the five-year plan to balance the budget, it was called the five penny plan. you had to reduce spending by 5% each year for five years. this year it's gotten even worse. the $6 trillioning spree of the last two years when we locked down the economy and basically bankrupt almost every business in the country, when that occurred, there was massey spending, massive debt -- massive spending, massive debt, and this year in order to balance the budget, it would take a% cut. but i would like to put this in perspective. when you ask meme in washington because their heads explode

because they could never conceive of reducing spending. spending has gone down in recent history because the government grows and grows and grows. your economy may shrink, your income may shrink, you may be unemployed, but the government gets bigger and bigger and bigger. see if -- so if we wanted to tame government, we want government to balance its budget, it be would take some work. people in washington seem to think, oh, it could never happen. but if you talk to a businessman or woman who's ever been through a recession or ever been through tough times, they'll tell you that sometimes a business has to reduce by 10%, 20%, 30% to live within their means. so what we're calling for here is not no government. we're not even calling for a minimal government. with a we're calling for is a government that lives within its means. right now living within its means would be a government that brings in $4.8 trillion, which

is how much tax revenue comes in would spend $4.8 trillion. so still the vast majority of things that government does it could still continue to do. but it would have to spend less. we would have to have real restraint in spending. the best way to perceive is it this -- imagine the thing that you want from government that you think is so popular nobody could touch. late take, for example, research for cancer or research for alzheimer's disease, something that so many people advocate, so many people are emotionally charged with. when people come to washington and they ask me about, i have this and my parents have this and i want research money to go to this, what i typically will say to them is, you know we're out of money. you know that we have this massive deficit and it's led to this great inflation that's across the land. what if we told everybody that they had to have a little bit less and they look at me and they say, well, what would that mean? and i say, well, let's say that

your research project, the cancer research or the alzheimer's research got $100 million last year. in order for all of us to tighten our belt, in order for all of us to balance the budget, so we could be stronger, in order to tame the inflation that is eating us alive, you would get $94 million next year. so we're not talking about sort of eliminating whole facets of government. what we're talking about is everybody would have to deal with less. there's so much waste throughout government. you look at the national science foundation. the national science foundation is one of the most wasteful agencies in government. you go back 50 years and you look at william proxmire in the early 1970's and william proxmire began giving an award called the goaden fleece award. what he would give an award for is wasteful spending and almost always it came to the national science foundation. one of the first he gave an award for was $50,000 to find

out what makes people fall in love. but it got worse. the national science foundation has never had a reduction in its money. it always gets more money. this year -- and this is why this is a bipartisan problem. republicans and democrats got together and we nearly doubled the income or nearly doubled the appropriations for the national science foundation. what's some other great of great research coming out of this organization? they did a study to see whether or not selfies make you happy. so if you take a selfie of yourself smiling and then look at it later in the day, designation that make you feel better about yourself? that one costs a little over a million dollars. they did a study also on the mating call of male panamanian frogs. and they said, well, we want to know whether the country frogs have a different mating call than the city frogs? and as someone who comes from

the country, i can tell you there's a different mating call in the country than there is in the city. but that cost us a million dollars. another study was $2 million to find out if the person in front of you sneezes on the food in the cafeteria, are you more or less likely to take that food? another study was three-quarters of a million dollars studying whether or not japanese quail on convey cane, whether they are more sexually pro miss could you us when they use cocaine. what did congress do? instead of telling them, why don't we give them 99% of their budget, instead we gave them 200% of their bucket. do you think the national science foundation is going to be more frugal now that we've nearly doubled their budget? this is the kind of great ideas that are coming out of congress and this one turned out to be a bipartisan idea.

all of the democrats and nearly half of the republicans voted to nearly double the size of the national science foundation. the thing is we bring in a lot of money. we bring in $4.8 trillion. could we not simply spend what comes in? part of the problem also is most of the bills are not read. most of the appropriations bills come in here at the last moment, are 2,000 pams and no one gets to -- 2,000 pages and no one gets to read them until hours before they come in. there is a process up here where we authorize spending. one committee is supposed to say, is the spending working and then the other committee appropriates the money. we don't even bother to reauthorize these things. we just keep reappropriating the money year after year. someone will have this great idea and say, we need to do something about homelessness. nobody looks up the fact that we already very 80 other programs doing the same thing. nobody looks whether the program

is working. nobody ever figures out whether anything we spend money on is doing us any good. so it just adds up. people come and say, this is something we have to do. we have to send $40 billion to ukraine. where does it come from? if you really this think it is such a great idea, requests don't we have a ukraine war tax? why don't we do $500 per taxpayer. no, they want to add it on the tab. it's so irresponsible that the party in charge will produce no budget. know we have nearly $5 trillion coming in, nearly'd trillion going out the already a -- nearly $6 trillion going out the door and there will be no budget. it is inexcusable. we have the largest economy in the world. we have the largest government in the world, and we will have no budget thisser i do not. -- this year. so what i have done and will continue to do is to produce a budget that balances in five years. this is consistent with the balanced budget amendment to the

constitution, and the other reason we do five years is that system some people have come forward in the past and said, we'll balance it in ten. it becomes so long and unbelievable, with the cuts in years nine and ten, this they never happen, that it really hasn't become a good document even when budgets are put forward. i think if we were to balance our budget, i think we'd be a stronger nation. it's the way we would combat inflation. if you see the people representing the party in power, the democrats, you see them on tv, they are scratching their heads, they have no idea -- like, we've tried everything. but they don't even understand the problem. they have no idea where inflation is coming from t inflation comes from debt. when the federal reserve buys the debt, that creates the inflation. because the federal reserve has no money, the money is printed up and the money floods the system. but it's also part of a bait-and-switch. these are people who run for office and say, we will bring you free things.

we will bring you bobbles. we will bring you man in -- we l bring you manna. but nothing in life is really free. so the free stuff that they're going to bring to you is paid for through inflation. so we have to get away from this. we have to get to the point where we say, we're smarter than this. when a politician challenges you up and says, give me your social security number and i will a he send you a thousand dollars, that's what this is. this is an internet scam. it is a phone scam. they're asking for your vote by saying we're going to give you free stuff. there is no free lunch. ness nothing -- there is nothing for life -- in life that you will get without working. but what we've done is political parties and politicians, sometimes in both parties, offer free stuff to people. but right now we're paying the penalty. we're paying the piper. we're paying the inflation tax, and the inflation tax is a tax

because we've overspent. inflation will continue to get worse until we begin to reduce the debt. you got to quit digging the hole. we've got this massive hole of debt and we have to quit i.g. didding the hole deeper. -- quit digging the hole deeper. so this budget will be a budget that balances in five years, and you recommend a yes vote. with that, a i move to proceed to calendar 397, s. con. res. 41. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 397, senate concurrent resolution 41, set something forth the congressional budget for the united states government for fiscal year 2023 and so forth. mr. paul: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

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