[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 73 (Wednesday, April 28, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2271-S2275]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Biden Administration
Ms. ERNST. Madam President, it has been nearly 100 days since
President Biden delivered his inaugural address, promising our Nation
``unity, not division.'' He called on all of us to ``listen to one
another,'' noting that unity ``requires more than words.''
I was there, and I was listening. I was hopeful that he actually
meant what he said. But that very same day, as soon as he reached the
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Biden seemed to forget his
own words as he began signing a record number of Executive orders.
With the stroke of a pen, he unilaterally created a new migrant
crisis by reversing the previous administration's successful policies
and ceasing construction of the wall.
He also killed thousands of jobs for American workers by canceling
the XL Pipeline. And that was just his first day on the job.
Since then, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress have
used a partisan process to fast-track trillions of dollars of new
spending for their pricey pet projects.
Despite the President's call for us to listen to one another, the
Democrats are planning to, once again, fast-track another $2.2 trillion
package being sold as an ``infrastructure'' bill, even though it spends
less on roads and bridges than it does on parts of the Socialist Green
New Deal and other progressive priorities.
And then right after that, they want to ram through another $1
trillion for so-called human infrastructure.
The Democrats are threatening to end the right of Senators to debate
by abolishing the filibuster so they can shove through their extreme
agenda. This would fundamentally change the Senate, which has long been
known as the world's--not just America's but the world's greatest
deliberative body, in which every State has equal representation and
every Senator is given a voice in our national conversations.
It is an interesting twist for the party that just a year ago proudly
resisted nearly every effort put forth to address the problems facing
our Nation.
For purely partisan political reasons, Democrats even filibustered--
yes, they filibustered--the JUSTICE Act that would have provided police
reform following the deaths of George Floyd and others.
This week, the Nation will have the opportunity to hear from the
author of that bill, my dear friend Senator Tim Scott of South
Carolina, who is delivering the Republican response to the President's
address this evening. No one better represents the type of positive
leadership we need to unify our Nation than Tim. He truly is the
perfect voice for the American dream.
Growing up in a poor, single-parent household, Tim's mother worked
hard
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to make ends meet. Despite some early challenges and setbacks, Tim
successfully started his own business and was chosen, time and again,
to serve in public office.
As a Senator, Tim is focused on creating opportunities for others by
tapping into the potential of individuals and communities. Tim listens,
and he works hard to bring people together.
Folks, that is what President Biden promised to do, but he is not
living up to that promise. Frankly, the President only seems to be
listening to the far-left progressives within the Democratic Party who
live on their own liberal ``Fantasy Island.''
He and his liberal allies on the left are pushing tax hikes on
working Americans, while giving tax breaks to wealthy coastal elites.
They are bringing back corrupt and costly earmarks.
Democrats want to defund our police and abolish ICE. They want to
remake nearly every aspect of our economy with their radical Green New
Deal. The Democrats are plotting to pack the Supreme Court with
ultraliberal Justices and destroy that institution. And to pad their
numbers in Congress, Democrats are attempting to make Washington, DC, a
State.
Does that sound like the unity and bipartisanship we were promised on
day one? It sure doesn't, folks.
If President Biden actually listened to the voices of Americans who
live outside of the DC swamp, he wouldn't be hearing a demand for any
of those radical proposals.
The Senate is split 50-50, while Democrats hold a razor-slim majority
in the House of Representatives. And according to a recent Gallup poll,
an overwhelming two-thirds of Americans say they are dissatisfied with
the way things are going in the United States. Based upon those
responses, it sounds like the Democrats' radical agenda is dividing,
not unifying, our country.
Iowans want Democrats and Republicans to set aside partisan
differences and work together on our national interests. They want
students to be able to safely return to their classroom and for folks
to go back to work.
Iowans want us to fix our roads and bridges and expand broadband to
rural areas. They worry about the growing global influence of Communist
China and the humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern
border. They want us to protect the American dream for future
generations.
Folks, we can do this.
President Biden, if you are listening, please hear me out. Giving
into the deafening demands of the loudest on the left and attempting to
silence half of the country will not solve our problems. It will only
divide us more.
To succeed, we need to consider the voices of all Americans and speak
to what unites us so we can overcome our challenges. And we can
overcome these challenges together.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. First, Madam President, I would like to associate
myself with the remarks of the Senator from Iowa, who did a magnificent
job of pointing out what we are facing as a nation. And I admire her
fortitude, her hard work, and her dedication as the vice chairman of
the Republican conference
Madam President, 99 days ago, Joe Biden took office. He took the oath
of office. We were there. He gave an inaugural address. He said that
``with unity, we can do great things.'' He said that ``unity is the
path forward.'' Well, that was the last example of unity and
bipartisanship that we have seen from President Biden. He has lost all
credibility when it comes to bipartisanship or unity.
In just 99 days, President Biden has already shown himself to be one
of the most radical Presidents in American history.
When I am in Wyoming, as I am every weekend and have been over
Easter, as well, traveling the State and talking to people, they ask
about two specific issues; one is energy, and the second is the
southern border. On these two specific issues, President Biden has
already done tremendous damage--damage to our country, damage to our
people, damage to our economy.
Right after his inaugural address about unity, President Biden drove
to the White House, sat there, went in, and threw the unity speech out
the window, and he drew a big target on the back of American energy,
and he pulled the trigger. He shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline; he
ended new fossil fuel projects on Federal lands; and he cut off
traditional energy loans to developing nations that need our help and
look to us for help.
Well, these steps aren't going to reduce carbon emission, but they
will most certainly reduce jobs and wages for American energy workers.
Also, on his first day, President Biden flipped on the big green
light switch on our southern border. He sent out the word, laid out the
welcome mat, and people from around the world came illegally to the
United States. He stopped construction on the border wall, and he ended
a policy that was successful. The policy was that known as the ``Remain
in Mexico'' policy.
Now, the result wasn't just one crisis; it was two. It was a
humanitarian crisis, and it was also a national security crisis.
It is a national security crisis because two-thirds of the Border
Patrol agents--and I went to the border and went with a number of
Republican Senators and went on a midnight patrol with our border
agents, and they told us that two-thirds of the Border Patrol agents
are unable to do their jobs and keep us safe, unable to be there to
enforce the law. And they said that, so far, people have come into the
country illegally from 56 different nations.
The whole world knows the border is open. Our friends know it; our
enemies know it; and this will make us less safe as a nation.
There is also a humanitarian crisis at the border caused by President
Biden. Just a month ago, a 9-year-old from Mexico died trying to cross
the Rio Grande River. It is heartbreaking. That is what happens,
though. This is what happens when more and more people try to come
illegally to cross our border.
Children who cross the border unaccompanied are sent to a facility
that is prepared and appropriate for about 250 children. The day we
were there, there were 7,000 crammed in like sardines. That is Joe
Biden's plan for immigration.
Ten percent of these children are testing positive for coronavirus.
And we saw the testing process. We know that every child there was
exposed to coronavirus based on the high percentage of those who were
testing positive.
Now, as these young people are released, those who have tested
negative but who have just been exposed in the days before, they are
being sent all across America, and they are spreading the virus and
unknown variants of the virus to this country.
Joe Biden is the superspreader of coronavirus today. Democrats think
this is just fine.
The Vice President of the United States is going to be up here
tonight on Capitol Hill. She says: ``We're making progress.''
Nancy Pelosi says: ``We're on a good path on the border.''
Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas says: ``The border is secure and
closed,'' even though he has also said this is the worst case in 20
years for young people and we are on a path for up to 2 million illegal
immigrants coming across the border this year.
The White House refuses to use the word ``crisis.'' In fact, when the
President and his Press Secretary have accidentally called it a
crisis--and they both have done that--the White House issued a
correction. They said: No, no, not a crisis; only a challenge.
Who do they think they are fooling? Two million illegal immigrants
this year is not a challenge. It is a crisis. It is chaos at the
border. It is catastrophic.
Ninety-nine days ago, none of this was happening. For 99 days,
Republicans in the U.S. Senate have repeatedly looked for common ground
with President Biden and the Democrats. We have stood for American
energy. We worked to secure the border. Yet for 99 days those efforts
have been blocked by President Biden and a Democratic majority--which
is hardly a big majority when it is 50-50, which you would think would
be a mandate to move to the middle.
Well, President Biden still has a thousand days or so left in his
term. Tonight's speech might sound a lot like his inaugural address
with lots of promises. The American people know talk is cheap. It is
time for President
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Biden to start to practice what he is preaching.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I would like to start by thanking my
colleague from Wyoming and my colleague from Iowa for their comments
about where we are as a country 100 days into the Biden administration.
It has been discouraging that we haven't seen more bipartisan work
and with regard to the border, having been down there a couple of weeks
ago, particularly discouraging that we can't come up with a bipartisan
solution that deals with the obvious crisis on the border.
Of course it is a crisis. Everybody knows that, including the Biden
administration. The question is, What are we going to do about it? Some
of us have laid out some proposals that we think would be very
sensible, that could be done on a bipartisan basis. Yet we are not
getting the kind of cooperation from the White House or the other side
of the aisle, frankly, with regard to dealing with a clear crisis.
In my time here in Congress, I have tried to work to bring
Republicans and Democrats together on issues. I think that is the best
thing for our country. I think you get, actually, better legislation if
you have input from both sides, and I think you also have more
sustainable legislation.
If you don't work in a bipartisan way, what happens when there is a
50-50 Senate, as there is now, and where the Vice President can supply
the tie-breaking vote, and if you do things on the basis of
reconciliation or getting rid of the filibuster, which is what the
Democratic majority currently would like to do, you end up lurching
back and forth, don't you? So you pass Democratic legislation and then,
when Republicans take over, Republican legislation.
We should be focusing on American legislation. In my office, we have
had some success with this bipartisan approach. Sixty-eight of my bills
were signed into law by President Obama, and 82 of my bills were signed
into law by President Trump--on important issues like the eviction
crisis, job creation, and natural resource protection. So it can be
done, and President Biden knows that. He served here in the Senate. In
fact, he took pride in coming together with Republicans and Democrats
to actually have agreements on some of these tough issues.
Although I didn't vote for him because I thought that President Trump
had better policy ideas, coming into this new administration, I was
hopeful that President Biden would govern as he had campaigned. He
promised, you remember, in his campaign to reach out to Republicans and
Democrats alike. He talked about the need for unity. In fact, he gave
that same speech in the primary and in the general election, which I
thought took some courage, frankly, to do so in the primary because
most of his opponents did not take that position. Yet, now having
gotten elected, he seems to have forgotten the pledges that he made.
I listened to his inaugural address intently, as I hope a lot of
Americans did--and certainly my colleagues did--and he talked again
about reaching out, going back to the days when we could work together,
and he focused on unity. I was very hopeful with the tone he set that
day, and I said so at the time. Yet that rhetoric has not been matched
by action. It hasn't been matched by action when it comes to key policy
initiatives they have already put forward, including the latest COVID-
19 spending bill that passed in March.
Remember, despite a 50-50 Senate and very tight majority in the House
of Representatives, there was no outreach to Republicans for the COVID-
19 legislation. Not a single Republican was consulted before unveiling
the plan, and once it was out there, Democrats chose to work only among
themselves and do it under what is called reconciliation, where they
don't need a single Republican vote--this despite some of us having an
alternative, which we actually presented to the White House. The next
day, we were told: Thank you, but we are going to take the
reconciliation approach, and we don't need any Republican input.
That is too bad because the COVID-19 issue, obviously, is one where
there has been not just bipartisanship but nonpartisanship. Five times
last year, we passed major COVID-19 legislative initiatives with huge
majorities. In one case, the biggest bill, the CARES package, passed
with a 97-to-0 vote here. So this is one where we had always been able
to work together.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration chose the partisan path.
Right now, the Biden administration is repeating this same mistake, as
far as I can tell, because they have introduced their $2.3 trillion
infrastructure package without consulting, again, any Republicans.
We now hear that the White House and some Democratic leaders may want
to pass this latest partisan proposal by reconciliation as well. I hope
that is not true because, again, this is an area--infrastructure--where
we have been able to work together on a bipartisan basis and get things
done. In fact, typically that is how it happens with infrastructure
Last Congress, we passed a bill out of committee on highways and
bridges with a unanimous vote--not just a majority vote, a unanimous
vote--by Republicans and Democrats. But the proposal they put forward,
first, is not really about infrastructure because it dramatically
expands the definition of ``infrastructure'' so that it is not at all
what traditionally you would think or I would think of as the kind of
hard assets--roads, bridges, ports, airports, transit, even broadband.
Even the most generous description of ``infrastructure'' applied to
this bill means that less than 20 percent of it, 20 percent of $2.3
trillion, is about infrastructure. It is about other things. And we can
have a debate on those other things, whether it is nursing home
subsidies or whether it is subsidies to electric car companies or
whether it is more childcare. Those are all issues we can discuss, but
they are not, obviously, infrastructure issues.
Proposing to pay for this huge plan with taxes on American workers
makes it even worse. So the $2.3 trillion plan is not mostly
infrastructure--80 percent is not--but then the taxes that would apply
to America and to American workers would be devastating, making us
noncompetitive in the global economy again after finally we were
getting our act together.
In 2018 and 2019, we saw a big increase in our economy, large
increases in terms of employment. Also, wages were going up. We had the
lowest poverty rate in the history of our country, going back to the
1950s, partly because we were putting in place policies that made sense
in terms of tax reform to create more incentives to invest and bring
jobs here to this country. That would all be changed under these tax
increases that are being proposed to pay for this big, new Biden
infrastructure package.
Making us less competitive in global markets and putting American
workers at a disadvantage again is not the right way to go. The
American people don't want that. The American people think we should be
doing all we can to get businesses back on their feet right now so that
people can get employment and so we can ensure that the economy
continues to improve as we come out of the coronavirus pandemic.
Infrastructure, again, has always been so bipartisan. Why would, in
this case, we want to take it down the partisan road?
Past Presidents, by the way, have shown that they can get big things
done early in their administration. So during this first hundred days,
there was an opportunity to reach out. I hope in the second hundred
days, it will be different.
Let me give a couple of examples. When President Bill Clinton got
elected, he worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass what was
called the North American Free Trade Agreement. He got a lot of support
from the Republican side of the aisle--in fact, even more than he got
from the Democratic side of the aisle--and he pushed that through.
Ronald Reagan's economic reforms of 1981 passed the Senate with an
overwhelming margin of 89 to 11.
Last night, C-SPAN allowed us to look back in history at some of the
speeches Presidents gave after their first hundred days. One was Ronald
Reagan's speech to the joint session that I saw last night. It was
amazing. Republicans and Democrats alike were
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standing because President Reagan said: ``I want to work with all of
you.'' And he showed he would work with all of them by passing those
economic reforms in 1981.
We should all want the Biden administration to succeed in putting in
place bipartisan policies that help our constituents and help our
country, but that can only happen if they agree to reverse course and
engage with Republicans in a genuine way. That is clearly what the
American people want. In a recent poll, a Washington Post and ABC poll,
60 percent of respondents, including two-thirds of Independents, said
they wanted the Biden administration to work with Republicans to make
these proposals bipartisan--twice the number that wanted him to pursue
the partisan path chosen so far.
I suggest to my constituents in Ohio and all Americans who will be
listening tonight: Don't just listen to the rhetoric; look at the
action because the rhetoric thus far has not been matched by actions.
We were promised bipartisanship as a path toward unity. For the sake
of our country, it is time to keep that promise.
I yield the floor
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise today to talk about how Congress
can work together in a bipartisan way to pass infrastructure
legislation, following my colleagues from Ohio, from Wyoming, from
Iowa--and my colleague from North Carolina is here as well--with a real
desire to come up with an infrastructure package, but we want it to be
bipartisan.
Republicans and Democrats agree that investing in our national
infrastructure is necessary to increase economic growth, ensure global
competitiveness of American businesses, and create new, high-paying
jobs. In fact, just last Congress, the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee unanimously approved a 5-year surface transportation
reauthorization bill, which included about $300 billion for roads and
bridges. That actually represents a 27-percent increase over the FAST
Act. We really feel that bill, with its bipartisan support, creates a
starting point--a starting point on a bipartisan basis--for the
negotiations that we should have in developing the infrastructure
package.
Tonight we expect the President will outline his American Jobs Plan,
but unfortunately it is not focused on infrastructure. It is a massive,
$2.25 trillion tax-and-spend bill that dedicates less than one-third,
just over $600 billion, toward actual traditional infrastructure.
The administration's plan would increase the corporate tax from 21
percent to 28 percent, resulting in reduced wages, increased costs for
consumers, and a reduction in economic growth.
The Biden plan would revert the U.S. tax system to a worldwide tax
system, increasing taxes on U.S. multinational corporations, reducing
the competitiveness of American businesses, and driving U.S. jobs and
profits to other countries. The 2017 tax bill brought the United States
into a territorial tax system for the taxation of multinational
companies. It has worked. From 1985 to 2017, 85 U.S.-based
multinational corporations took advantage of corporate inversions,
resulting in a $19.5 billion tax revenue loss to the U.S. Government.
Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, there have been no corporate
inversions. The Biden plan would abandon this successful approach.
Further, the administration has proposed a $35 billion tax increase
on U.S. energy producers, endangering U.S. energy independence, costing
U.S. jobs, and empowering foreign energy production. A recent study
from the National Association of Manufacturers shows that nearly 1
million jobs would be lost in the first 2 years alone if this tax
increase goes through.
Tonight we expect to hear from President Biden on additional
proposals to increase taxes on American workers as well as increase our
debt and deficit. For instance, we have seen reports today that the
President is going to seek to repeal stepped-up basis. Now, while the
administration indicates there may be some exceptions, repealing
stepped-up basis would place a significant and complex tax burden on
small businesses and particularly family farms and ranches, not only in
my State of North Dakota but across the country.
Right now, the average age of our farmers in America is about 60
years old, and we need to get the next generation into farming, but
they can't do it if they have to sell the farm to pay the tax.
A repeal of stepped-up basis would increase the cost of capital,
discourage investment, reduce the wages of workers, and stunt economic
growth in both the immediate and long term. A recent analysis from
Ernst & Young shows that eliminating stepped-up basis will result in
the loss of 80,000 jobs a year for the next 10 years and a loss of
nearly $10 billion in GDP growth per year.
While we continue to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we should not
be constraining economic growth by increasing taxes and regulation.
Instead, we should maintain the pro-growth, low-tax regime put in place
in 2017 by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and make targeted investments in
traditional infrastructure, while reducing regulatory barriers to
provide long-term certainty to Americans.
Last week, I met with President Biden at the White House to share
this very message--that Republicans stand ready to work with the
administration and our Democrat colleagues on the infrastructure
package, in a bipartisan and targeted manner, focusing on updating our
roads, bridges, railways, airports, broadband, and other traditional
infrastructure.
We also support investing in energy infrastructure, including
enhancing the 45Q tax credit to accelerate the deployment of carbon
capture and sequestration technology, as well as pipelines to provide
the safe and efficient transportation of our natural resources.
We should be working together for the American people to enact
policies that will improve our national infrastructure. To this end, I
want to highlight a number of bipartisan proposals that I have been
working on with my colleagues across the aisle.
I have introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Smith, Senator
Capito, Senator Whitehouse, and others to enhance the 45Q tax credit
for carbon capture and sequestration.
Also, Senator Smith and I have legislation that would empower rural
electric and telecom cooperatives to refinance existing debt, reinvest
in improved energy efficiency, and expand broadband delivery to more of
their rural customers.
Likewise, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Wyden and I have
introduced a bill that would encourage private investment in
infrastructure by expanding private activity bonds and creating a new
infrastructure tax credit.
Additionally, I have introduced legislation with Senator Bennet that
ensures that our farmers, ranchers, and producers have the regulatory
flexibility needed to safely and efficiently move their products--
livestock, in particular--to market while ensuring the safety of all
road users.
We don't need to burden hard-working Americans with increased taxes
in order to pay for this. There are a number of potential options to
provide the necessary revenue for a targeted infrastructure package.
For example, we can make modest changes to our user-fee-based highway
trust fund system, ensuring that electric vehicles pay into the fund.
We can repurpose unused Federal spending, including using funds from
the recent American Rescue Plan Act. We could also use revenue
generated from energy production on Federal lands. These are just a few
of the ideas we put forward.
Last week, Ranking Member Capito of the Environment and Public Works
Committee, along with the ranking members of the Banking, Commerce,
Energy, and Finance Committees, unveiled the framework of an almost
$600 billion infrastructure package, which focuses investment in
traditional infrastructure.
We should use this framework and begin working through regular order
in a committee-driven process to produce a bipartisan, targeted
infrastructure bill that does not increase taxes on American workers.
That way, we truly upgrade our infrastructure, create jobs, and keep
our economy growing.
That is the right approach. We need to work in a bipartisan manner to
get it done.
And with that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina
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Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I want to thank my colleagues from North
Dakota, Ohio, Wyoming, and Iowa, who have spoken before me, and my
colleague from Kansas, after me.
I think Senator Portman ended his statement by saying that we have
heard the rhetoric, but we haven't seen the actions. Well, in North
Carolina, our State motto, in Latin, is ``Esse quam videri.'' It means:
To be, rather than to seem.
I think our State motto does a good job of summarizing the first 100
days of the Biden administration. As a Presidential candidate, Joe
Biden made it seem that he would govern as a moderate, pragmatic deal
maker, and he set the bar high in his inaugural address. He said:
My whole soul is in this: bringing America together,
uniting our people, [and] uniting our nation. I ask every
American to join me in this cause.
I was actually inspired by that statement, and I am one of the
Americans who was willing to work for him on that cause. In fact, I was
1 of the 10 Republicans who had the first official meeting with the
President to see if we could come to common ground on the COVID relief
package, after having successfully passed five bipartisan COVID relief
packages in the last Congress.
Unfortunately, the President's actions have not corresponded with his
promises to date. Instead of leading on his instincts to bring America
together, President Biden has followed his advisers' recommendations to
go it alone. He has pushed a highly partisan, ideologically driven
agenda.
And you don't need to take my word for it. New York Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently declared that President Biden has
exceeded the expectations of progressives.
Indeed, there has been a lot in Biden's agenda for the left to like.
It is an agenda designed to pass with no need for moderation and not a
single Republican vote--no consensus whatsoever--proposing tax hikes on
American families and businesses at a time that they are trying to
rebound from the pandemic.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the middle of a national emergency.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. We have spent and appropriated
billions of dollars to healthcare, to businesses to recover. And now,
long before the national emergency has been declared done, we are
talking about taking those same dollars away.
Offering mixed messaging and failed policies that have caused a
humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border is another
issue. When I went down to the border about a month ago, the Press
Secretary said: It is not a crisis; it is a situation. Now, a month
later, the Press Secretary and the administration say it is a crisis,
but now it is a catastrophe.
I saw a dead body floating in the Rio Grande River. Other people
died. We heard the report of a 9-year-old. That doesn't even count the
number of people who died along the way.
It also doesn't count the 300 or 400 people who are called the ``got-
aways''--not the thousands who are coming in and going to the border
agents but the hundreds every night who are crossing. They are bad
actors. Many of them are gang members or they are smuggling drugs or
are human traffickers, who are evading arrest. It is creating a
dangerous situation. It is a catastrophe. The President hasn't spoken
on it. To my knowledge, the Vice President has never gone down there to
get a bird's eye view.
The President has embraced the Green New Deal policies, like
canceling the Keystone Pipeline. That one stroke of a pen ended
thousands of labor union jobs, good-paying jobs. But even more
heartbreaking are the communities that would have benefited from all of
that commerce occurring in some of the most rural areas and most
economically challenged areas in our country.
They rammed through an entirely partisan $2 trillion spending
package. They called it COVID relief. But only about 9 percent of it
actually had anything to do with continuing to recover from the damage
that COVID has caused this country.
I am sure the President will talk about it tonight, a $2.3 trillion--
air quotes--infrastructure bill that isn't actually an infrastructure
bill. In fact, they have been a little bit more intellectually honest.
Now they are calling it human infrastructure.
I think most Americans, when you think about infrastructure, you
think about roads, you think about bridges, you think about broadband.
You don't think about human infrastructure. But that is what is being
pitched today, and it is being pitched on a partisan basis, without
even attempting to get a single Republican vote.
Americans did not elect President Biden to enact any of these
partisan policies. They trusted him to come in and make deals--to
settle for something less than 100 percent but something that was going
to be embraced by more of the American people versus half, which is
about where the President is today.
And he has pursued this for 100 days. I hope he changes his mind, but
here is one reason why I am not optimistic. His most audacious action,
in my opinion, is placating the far left and entertaining the idea of
nuking the Senate legislative filibuster. In this very Chamber, 21
years ago, then-Senator Biden declared that defending the filibuster
was about defending compromise and moderation. The promises he made on
the campaign trail, the promise he made on the day of his
inauguration--he noted that his speech was one of the most important he
would ever give as a Senator, defending the filibuster. It is a shame
that President Biden isn't demonstrating the same political courage
that Senator Biden did two decades earlier--the kind of courage that we
are seeing today demonstrated by Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema.
Instead, the President has entertained the far left's push to eliminate
the filibuster and destroy this institution, to end bipartisanship and
compromise--they really are no longer a necessity--so that any piece of
fringe legislation can pass with a simple majority.
The President, a 30-plus year defender of the filibuster, should know
better than anyone. He knows that the left is demanding a Faustian
bargain--trading 2 years for the far left to have free reign in
exchange for permanent destabilization of our Republic, emboldening
future demagogues on both ends of the spectrum.
Our country doesn't need more partisan pandering or political
brinksmanship from this administration or from either party. That is
why I stood against nuking the filibuster about 3 years ago, and I will
as long as I am a U.S. Senator.
There are plenty of Republicans like me who are willing to work with
President Biden and even put some of our supporters out of their
comfort zone for the good of this Nation.
In fact, when I was sworn in, I said I would work to find common
ground in areas where we may agree, and I would vigorously oppose
policies where we do not. Unfortunately, to this point, I have only had
the opportunity to do the latter.
The willingness to negotiate has only been a one-way street on the
part of Republicans. I went to the White House to try to find common
ground on another bipartisan COVID package, but it is ultimately up to
the President whether he leads on bipartisanship instincts or follows
his advisers who are pushing him to keep governing from the left.
Quite frankly, it doesn't matter what the President says about
bipartisanship and uniting the country; it is what he does. And,
tonight, I hope we will see it for the good of our great Nation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.